by Nuril Basri
“Ah, let go! What the hell! Shameless! Gross!” I say, struggling, pulling myself out of his touch.
I am like a hissing cat.
I threaten him. I say: “Now you really need to go. Otherwise I’ll scream for help.” I don’t even have to scream, I think. If I need help, the other tenants watching would definitely come and teach Hans a lesson.
“Go!” I say, shoving him out. He is still looking at me. I shove him again, more roughly. He finally takes a step back. “Don’t come here. I’ve a boyfriend. I never want to see you again! You stink! You two-faced trash!” I push him. He lets himself be pushed down the stairs. “Go to that family of yours!” I yell.
“Fine!” he sobs, running the rest of the way, two, three steps at a time.
Then he is gone. And I never want to see him again.
When all that is over, I cannot hold it together any longer. I start weeping.
*
I sit, my knees are so weak. Some of the tenants move to catch me, but Lala is first. She gets a few of them to carry me back to my room. I’m like a sick, dumb cow. In my room I wail as Lala holds me. Then I laugh as I cry. I am so relieved. At last I’ve done what I needed to. I look at Lala, and guffaw. She doesn’t understand; she probably thinks I’ve gone insane or something. I am crying from heartbreak and I am crying from joy.
Ya, I’m heartbroken. I’ve lost Hans. I’m heartbroken because I had to lie to him, tell him that I was unhappy the whole time we were together, that our two years was nothing but misery. That was a lie. I loved him so much, all that time we spent together. He did so much for me. But he didn’t marry me and maybe that’s just our fate. I will always remember the times he brought dumplings to the office in the middle of the night because I was working late and I was hungry. I will remember our first meeting—it was so weird! His handsome face. And everything else. I am so thankful for what we shared. But he didn’t marry me, and maybe that’s just our fate. We’ve both changed without knowing it. I’m sad I have to let him go. Hans, who was my first love, and also my baby brother, whom I had to look after.
But I’m happy, too, because today I saw a different side of him, a different person. Not some shitty punk—but a father. The same thing I saw a week ago, when I saw him looking at his baby. He’s grown up, loving. Like my own father looks when I catch him gazing at me when he thinks I have fallen asleep on the living room sofa.
I envy Astrid. Hans is a changed man, more responsible. He wants to work hard. He doesn’t want to be a bum any more. And I think Hans has really fallen in love with Astrid. It hurts, for me. But, for him, I’m happy. And, honestly? I don’t really love him anymore. Sure, I care for him. But Hans is no longer my type, all because of Inu. I still long for Inu’s presence. I think about him day and night. I love him. He’s smart, romantic, he took me to the Kitchenette, he bought me a red rose, he came to rescue me in the rain. He didn’t care that I was fat, his body was very warm, his face is weird and sometimes funny-looking. I really, really miss him! Waaa.
But he never came after me, maybe he didn’t love me at all. Maybe that whispered “Wake up, love” that one time was just a dream. My imagination. Maybe he was really just somebody Mother hired. Thinking makes me cry and howl more until Lala suddenly squeezes my head.
“Hey, enough crying, you’ve been crying so long already.”
And all I can say is: “Hu, hu, hu.” Face wet, nose red and full.
I will miss Hans so much. Inu too. But I’m relieved. I’ve done the right thing, and I’m proud of it.
On my day off I go home to Bogor, to my parents. It’s been ages since I saw them or spoke to them. Since the wedding I haven’t seen my mother. So I worry: have they heard about my divorce, about my being driven out of the house?
When I arrive, Father isn’t in. Only Mother. And when she sees me her eyes fill with tears. She’s lost some weight. Without a word she grabs me. I hug her back.
“Where have you been, Ratu?” she asks, choked up.
“I’ve been around, Ma. At my rental,” I reply, trying not to cry, too.
“I was so worried. No news from you, for months.”
“What’s important is that I’m okay now, right?” I say, letting her go.
Mother cooks me up a feast and I don’t stop eating. To be honest, working at the Padang restaurant has made me put on weight, and it’s not like I care so much about my figure anymore. Mother asks me about all kinds of things, but I don’t really answer. She knows I’m in no mood to talk.
There are new photos up on one of the living room walls. I look at them one by one, and they upset me. Mother has hung up the photos from my wedding with Inu. It’s the first time I’m seeing them. Oh, these must have made Mother very pleased. Munching on a Beng-Beng wafer—nowadays I always have chocolates with me—I make a circuit around the living room. It’s like a museum.
“Oh, this was part of my dowry, ya?” I ask, pointing at prayer paraphernalia neatly tucked under one of the side tables.
After investigating all these changes—I also find some souvenirs from my parents’ holiday in Bali—at last I ask Mother, has Inu been in touch? At first she is quiet and looks nervous. Then she nods. Inu told her we weren’t living together anymore.
“And I tried calling you. But could never get through.”
“I sold my phone,” I say.
I’d been hoping Inu would come here, searching for me. But I guess not.
“Ma, why did you force me to marry Inu?”
And Mother sighs.
“Nobody forced you to marry him. I just wanted you to get married quickly, anybody would do. I was afraid I’d go to my deathbed and never see you happy and settled. You’re my only daughter, after all.”
Only daughter? Ya, whatever. If my sister hadn’t died, I’d never be put under this kind of pressure. I wasn’t the favourite daughter either. My sister was the darling. Mother still thinks of her as alive, I suspect. Look, the photo frames with her in them are always gleaming, as if Mother lovingly polishes them every day.
I’m still curious about Inu and where he came from.
“Be honest, Ma. How much did you pay him?”
“What do you mean?”
“How much did you pay Inu to marry me?”
“Don’t talk nonsense! There was no such thing,” she huffs.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter any more. I’m no longer his wife. Why do I bother? So I go to my room. I miss my old room. Happily, nothing has changed—except that, when I open my wardrobe, I see the pink wedding gown I wore. Ah, and the sight of it makes me cry.
I don’t stay at my parents’ house for long. I decide to leave for Jakarta before Father comes home. I give Mother the number to my Esia—the only thing I have left from Hans. I tell her she doesn’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’m a Jakarta girl. We’re strong.
“Ratu, why don’t you just stay here?” Mother asks, as I
get ready.
“Do you want to pay my salary, Ma?” I ask her. “Besides, if I stay here, all the aunties and uncles and cousins and everybody around will start talking about me. Oh, just got married, but already divorced.”
Mother just sighs, heavily.
As I turn away she takes my hand and says, softly: “Don’t work so hard. Think of your baby.”
I look at her for a moment and then I go.
*
Mother is scary. I don’t know how she knows. I only just realised it myself, after being two months late. I thought it was just stress. I once went three months without my period, but that was from overworking. This is different. Slowly, subtly, there were changes in my body, things new to me. Swollen breasts, strange sensations in my belly. When the cravings began it wasn’t like other girls’: I didn’t want rojak or sour things or stuff like that. I didn’t know they were cravings. All I knew was that I really loved chocolates.
This is Inu’s child. Has to be. I’ve never been with anybody else. Ya, I’m carrying his child. One of the re
asons I let Hans go was that I didn’t want his son to grow up without a father. Like mine will.
For a little while I dreamed about Hans being my child’s father, but I quashed that thought. Absurd. Hans should love and take care of his son, just like I wish Inu would love and take care of mine.
I now understand the way Astrid thinks. I hate her. But I pity her too. Funny how that happens, how we can hate and have sympathy at the same time.
*
Well. Two months later, my belly swells and I find that my clothes stop fitting me. I can’t put on any of my jeans. I wear out the elastic on my elasticated pants. That’s not really the problem. The problem is people getting suspicious, and saying all kinds of things. They don’t know anything about me, and suddenly I’m pregnant. With no husband.
The only one I can confide in is Lala. But I need to work at the restaurant and there, I have to face things alone. The other workers start treating me strangely—maybe they think I’m into free sex or something—and a few become very mean. They stay away. At the beginning they don’t notice that I’m expecting, they just think I’m putting on weight. But then I start slowing down, workwise, and my belly grows. And the gossip begins to flow.
I catch one of them whispering, “Maybe she sells her body part-time.” They stop talking when they see me—and that’s the moment when I give up and break down. I feel so very low.
Triandini talks to me. For a while now I’ve felt that she’s reluctant to be seen with me, they must’ve been talking about how I’m a prostitute. Today she talks to me. Maybe the boss lady asked her to.
“You’ve gotten in trouble?” she asks, wiping dishes.
I shrug.
“Are you back with your ex? You got married to him?”
I shake my head. She doesn’t respond to that. There is just the sound of plates clinking hollowly. And then I think, I should at least explain. How can I work with everybody looking down on me? I cannot keep living like this.
“Actually I had a husband.”
“Oh?” Triandini says. She doesn’t sound at all convinced.
“Ya. We got divorced, well, not really divorced. Separated. He asked me to leave.”
Her forehead furrows. Now she must really think I’m some kind of dirty animal, driven out by my own husband. Ah. Why did I even try? So stupid.
“So, ya. This is his baby,” I say, running a hand over
my belly.
At that, Triandini sniffs. “So you had a husband, but you still wanted to get together with your ex? Is that baby your ex’s baby?”
“No,” I say. “No, it’s not.”
“Then?” she says mockingly. “Every time you talk about it, the story changes. I don’t know what to believe.”
“I was married.”
“Where’s the proof?”
I point to my belly again.
“Anybody can get pregnant. You don’t need to be married for that to happen,” she points out.
Her casual scorn really hurts. I don’t have any proof. I don’t have anything to show that I was married. I want to show this Triandini that I’m not lying. I glance at my ring finger. And rage at myself because I sold my ring off. Damn it. Wait, what about the marriage certificate? Ya, the marriage certificate, that’ll show her. But I don’t know where that damn thing is! All these superficial symbols.
I don’t say anything. This is all in vain. I won’t be able to escape the stigma people stick on me. I don’t have the time or the energy. I’m too tired, too heartsick, too fatigued to explain. I should just go home. If I stay here they’ll keep gossiping about me, shunning me. The unfaithful pregnant girl, the whore.
I ask for my pay, and I quit. I stumble back to the rental. In one hand I swing a packet of rice, with some fish I grabbed from the kitchen. The others don’t even look at me when I go. I’m like a stain they cannot wait to be rid of. They pretend to be busy with work. Ah, whatever.
When I get to my rental, I climb the stairs carefully. I shuffle towards the balcony and lower myself flat onto the sofa. The house lights haven’t been turned on. I just leave them. I lie there in the dark. I curl up on the sofa and stare out at the dusky sky. It deepens and darkens and disappears. And then: rain. I stay there and watch the rain fall. It comes down in sheets, and lightning arcs across the night sky, crisscrossing, trying to pierce Jakarta’s tallest peaks.
I don’t even realise I’m crying again. Lately the tears have been flowing automatically, outside my control. Too many tears. I want to be free of this damn melancholy. I need to get up, rise and move on to better things.
At last I decide to head to my room and go to bed. I touch my stomach and whisper to the child sleeping there. When you’re born, you have to be smarter, stronger. Don’t be like your mother.
I fall asleep thinking of my options. One: stay in this room until I run out of money and get kicked out. Two: go back to my parents and wait until the baby is born and pretend that my husband is overseas. Three: look for Inu.
I fall asleep listening to the growling choir of thunder beyond: the vibration of the zinc roof, rattled by gale-force winds, the hammering of rain, drowning me, even though I’m here in my bed. I will live alone. I know that. It’s my fate. I’m just a stupid, stupid girl. Maybe the stupidest girl in the world.
Some time after, I hear knocking on my door. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t want to get up, ever again. Maybe it’s better if I stop living. There’s more knocking, but I ignore it. I stay there, quiet, lying on my back. The knocking is more insistent now. I open my eyes but I don’t answer. The knocking does not want to stop. Uncertain, I go over to the door. Unlock it. Then, turning the handle, the lights go off.
*
Boom. The door swings open. It is only darkness that I see. In that darkness I hear sniffing, sobbing. A man, crying, in front of me. A grown man. His sobs are strangled and it’s as if I’m stuck in space. Slowly that figure in the dark advances. He reaches for me. He is wet, his clothes are wet. He holds me. His hands are very cold, and shivering, and they cling to my skin. He holds me and I surrender. No fight in me.
“Inu?” I ask, into the dark.
He doesn’t answer. Just a sob.
“I should’ve never asked you to leave,” he sobs.
Here are my tears, falling.
“Inu,” I whisper.
He holds me tight and he is choking. He is weeping. I have never heard or seen him cry.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Sorry, forgive me.”
I wrap my arms around his waist. I don’t know what to say. How much I missed him, how sorry I felt to have done all those things to him, how much I have to say. All of this boils over and becomes streams on my cheeks. My knees feel numb. Is this a dream? If it is, let me sleep, let me dream on.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say.
Inu nods and nods. I run my fingers through his hair. He feels so real. Inu tries to hug me again. But then it’s as if he can’t because suddenly the bump of my belly writhes in protest, unwilling to be ignored. Inu realises it’s there. Lit by a flash of lightning, I see him. Inu. He rubs my belly. Then lowers himself, touches his head there, to listen. And then he places a kiss.
He stands up again. He whispers: “Is it mine?”
“Ya,” I reply, nodding in the dark.
I see him break into a warm smile—even though I can’t really see. I feel the whole space turn hot. My life is aflame. This is no dream. He kisses me.
*
So that’s my story. The next morning Inu takes me away from my rental. I say goodbye to Lala. She has a look of joy and total envy. She gives me all sorts of paper bags to use, Zara, Marks & Spencer, all the brands. She knows I love bags like these. I don’t know how Lala got in touch with Inu and explained things. I owe her everything. She’s really my mum. (Afterwards I will find out that Inu came by the rental after Mother told him I was carrying his baby. That’s where he met Lala and she explained it all.) I feel myself glowing. I take all my clothes
out of the wardrobe and hand my key to the landlord.
“You sure you’re not coming back?” the landlord asks.
I nod. Absolutely not. This time, all will be well. I’m sure of it. Last night I held Inu, soaked to the bone. Today I have the privilege of riding on his small, terrible bike, going back home to Pamulang. My heart shudders. I fear that there are other people there. All this while I imagined Inu was back together with Ferlita. He’d married her. They were living together. But when I step into the house—it smells the same, just as it did four months ago.
And all the while Inu steals glances at me, quickly turning away whenever I look back. He’s nervous. I don’t know why. He’s thinner, his cheeks a little sunken, he’s got circles around his eyes.
I check the house. Nothing much has changed. The kitchen is messier and the piles of dirty plates taller. Dirty laundry in heaps everywhere. The fridge has nothing in it. The bed is undone, only on one side—nobody’s been here keeping Inu company while I was gone. Okay. Good. He didn’t replace me with anybody else.
When I finish checking the bathroom—all my toiletries, even my colourful sponges, are still arranged in their original places—I return to the living room and find Inu on his dusty, beat-up sofa watching a football gossip show on his ugly little television. Same old television. All relaxed. Just as before. I look at him. I’m calm. Content. I get to see him like that again. I missed it so much. I sit down next to him, take one of his arms, and wrap it around my shoulders. I lean into his chest. I settle in. The remote is on the table. I grab it, switch to the infotainment channel. Now this is a real gossip show. Hehe.
Inu starts playing with my hair. His fingers snag a few times. Of course. I haven’t had the time or the money for L’Oreal shampoo or to stick it in hair irons every day. But that’s not important anymore, because he strokes my hair anyway.
“Ferlita’s hair must be softer than mine,” I say, suddenly thinking about her again. I have to be sure.