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by Leila S. Chudori

  He is always listening.

  Your friend,

  Moh. Amir Jayadi

  Unconsciously, Lintang held her chest. That vacuum. That little space in her body. That conversation between us and Him? Was it in her as well?

  FLNEURS

  On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur.

  L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

  LE PETIT PRINCE,

  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

  “YOU CAN SEE CLEARLY ONLY WITH THE HEART. The essence cannot be seen with the eyes.” That’s the sentence from The Little Prince Lintang remembered best, ever since the first time her father read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s fantastic tale of a little boy whose plane crashes in the Sahara desert.

  That night Lintang had one question. Or maybe she had a thousand questions—but one question, always starkly present, unendingly posing itself, was there in her heart. Would she have the clarity of mind to see and to decipher the complex problems that awaited her in Jakarta?

  Lintang wasn’t able to answer that question, at least not yet. But that night, and during the days and nights that followed, she typed almost nonstop, as if there were no tomorrow. Every so often she’d look at a book, a manuscript, a journal, a clipping, a paper, or an old photograph and then would begin to write again, to type again. Reading something more, using a yellow highlighter to underscore a phrase, she’d then write again. Countless cups of coffee filled her stomach, which was about to scream from high acid content, and Ravel’s music filled her ears. Eyes open wide, she blinked as she studied the tens of pages in her proposal, checking its language for fluency and whether or not the sources that she quoted effectively bolstered her argument. In her proposal, Lintang explained the importance of revealing information that had too long been buried by official Indonesian history; how necessary it was to provide a space and a place for those historical actors whose voices had been silenced. Lintang had to produce a convincing argument for her need to conduct her work in Indonesia, and not, for instance, in Paris or Amsterdam. The names of the sources she quoted ranged from well-known players to persons whose voices time had almost forgotten.

  Three days had passed and now on the morning of the fourth, she was sprawled on the sofa in her apartment, trying to get a little sleep before bathing and getting ready to see Professor Dupont to turn in her proposal. She slept so soundly that she definitely would have been late had not a kiss as gentle as cotton awakened her.

  “Nara …”

  Lintang rubbed her eyes. Her throat suddenly felt parched. What time was it? Where was she?

  “I started to get worried when you didn’t answer the telephone. I know your proposal is due today and that you should be leaving soon for campus.”

  Lintang jumped up from the sofa. As she did, the loose pages of her proposal flew into the air. Not bothering to first pick them up, she raced into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Nara smiled and shook his head as he picked up the sheets of paper and arranged them in their proper order. Then he poured orange juice into a glass and rolled up his sleeves to make breakfast. He assumed that Lintang had not been eating well and had probably consumed gallons of caffeine during the past several days.

  “Yum, an omelet and sausages? And where did you find the croissants? I’ve haven’t had a chance to shop this week. Did you hold up the boulangerie on the ground floor?”

  Dressed in a kimono bathrobe, Lintang pounced on the breakfast Nara had arranged neatly on the table.

  “Their first croissants of the day were just coming out of the oven when I arrived, so I scooped them up,” Nara said.

  “You are an angel,” Lintang said as she kissed his lips. “That place is the only reason I can stand to live in this shit hole of an apartment. I love waking up to the smell of their freshly baked croissants.”

  “But this morning you woke up because of my kiss,” Nara said as he repeatedly kissed her face. “Is there enough time for me to help relieve some of your tension?”

  Lintang laughed, pulled the lobe of Nara’s ear, and then went into her bedroom to change her clothes.

  “I straightened up your proposal and put it in the green folder,” Nara called after her.

  “Did you read it?”

  “Just skimmed it—I was fixing your breakfast, you know—but it looks to me to be pretty good, in content and in tone. I’m sure Monsieur Dupont will be impressed.”

  As Lintang dressed, Nara put her messy kitchen back in order.

  She came out from the room wearing black jeans and a white blouse. Hanging from her shoulders, and complementing her simple apparel, was an almost diaphanous batik scarf her mother owned.

  Sitting down at the kitchen table, Lintang began to talk: “You know, all the stuff I’ve read these past few weeks, in my father’s unpublished manuscripts and the letters that’s he’s received over the years, and all the documentary films I’ve seen—both the unprofessional and professional ones produced by Australian filmmakers and the BBC—reveal a blood-filled side of Indonesian history that has thus far been largely ignored.”

  Nara could only nod as he listened to Lintang speak.

  Pausing to take a breath, Lintang then attacked the omelet and sausages before continuing: “The massacres that took place around Indonesia and the hunt for members of the Communist Party and their families served to bolster a strong and enduring power structure. And those concepts of ‘political hygience’ and being ‘environmentally clean’…Merde! What the hell are they anyway?!”

  Still eating her omelet, Lintang spoke quickly, no pausing for commas, no stopping for periods, sometimes jabbing her fork in the air.

  Afraid that Lintang was going to stick him in the eye with her fork, Nara took her hand and lowered it to the table. “Very good, darling, but it’s time to get ready to go. I’ll go with you as far as Monsieur Dupont’s office; but after that, I must go see Professor Dubois.”

  “Oh, hmm…” Lintang suddenly felt guilty for not having paid sufficient attention to Nara or his own academic concerns. “Is he going to give you his recommendation?”

  “It looks like it…but come on,” Nara told her. “When all this is over, I am going to kidnap you and lock you in the bedroom for three days!” he added with a leer.

  Nara grabbed Lintang’s jacket and the two of them ran to the Metro station. At that moment, Lintang could not help but think how easy her life was. She would finish her final assignment. Nara would continue his schooling in London. Soon, it would be summer in Paris again. Life was neat and orderly, just as it should be.

  Dimas put the oversized envelope containing the X-rays of his chest and abdomen into a large bag the hospital had provided. He was sorely tempted to throw the results of the examination into the trash container—Bam!—but he realized that would be overly dramatic and childish. He sat at the Metro station, staring at its subterranean walls and the array of announcements on them. They suddenly seemed to transform into a series of advertisements and health advisories about vaccines, skin diseases, breast cancer, and AIDS. He felt chafed. What a cliché it was: he would not die like Hananto, before a firing squad, or be thrown off a cliff or drowned in the Solo River. He would be slowly worn away by a fucking disease he could not even see.

  It was such a cliché, so damned banal and mediocre that Dimas was relucant to talk or think about the topic, even to himself.

  Dimas held his stomach, which had begun to feel queasy. He took the bottle of pills he had just paid for at the hospital. Opening the cap, he popped two tablets into his hand and then swallowed them straightaway.

  Paris was preparing to welcome the beginning of summer. Dimas counted the number of summer days that he still might see.

  Ever since the first time Lintang set foot on the campus of the Sorbonne as a freshman student, the wide corridors of the main hall held a special place in her memory. The Sorbonne was where she first met Narayana; where she first recorded autumn’s falling leaves and winter’s chilling winds; where she learne
d to wait patiently for the right moment, for those few seconds, when a flower opened in bloom; and where she had honed her editing skills by sifting through hours of film footage to find the most arresting images and most interesting quotes of the people she’d interviewed. But the most important thing, and what made the experience different from her primary years of education, was that the Sorbonne had made Lintang feel accepted, a natural part of academic life, where questions of a student’s skin color or appearance were of no concern. She felt at the Sorbonne a life of freedom, one which she and her fellow classmates had been invited to explore, to plunge into the world of intellectual life. Nothing was more exciting and stimulating.

  Professor Dupont’s challenge for her to take a closer look at her own history had brought her here, to this corridor. Today, walking down one hallway and then another on the way to her advisor’s office, Lintang felt that she had already embarked on a journey towards a foreign destination called Indonesia. The door was open. Lintang took a breath, gave the door a rap, and then stuck her head inside.

  Seeing Lintang’s face, Professor Dupont waved for her to come inside. “Lintang …”

  “Professor…”

  Dupont smiled widely. “Amazing!”

  Lintang breathed a sigh of relief. “Hmm, oui?”

  Dupont nodded and took Lintang’s proposal from a stack of folders.

  “The topic is interesting and unique. No other student has done such a thing before. You have a clear focus—even if you yourself might be seen to be a victim of the events of 1965 in Indonesia.”

  “Attendez, Professeur. I don’t think I want to include myself as a victim.”

  Professor Dupont stared at Lintang with his blue eyes. His eyes smiled, though his lips revealed no emotion.

  “I understand. But in the eyes of the viewer, the outsider, that is how you will be seen. Because you’ve never had the chance to know that part of yourself: your father’s homeland.”

  Lintang said nothing.

  “This could be an amazing documentary film—as long as you can bring it on time, that is, and are able to stay faithful to your focus.”

  “But Professor, about my final point…?”

  “You mean, the need for you to do the work in Indonesia? I don’t see a problem,” the professor answered. “I’ll give my recommendation to the dean. Some funding should be available, but you’ll probably have to come up with some of your own as well.”

  Lintang had to resist throwing her arms around her advisor and giving him a big hug. But from the happy look she gave him, Professor Dupont could see in her eyes two gleaming stars.

  “I’ll send in my recommendation today. You’ll need to wait a day or two for approval but, after that, we can meet again to discuss the technical details.”

  “Merci, professor.”

  Lintang took her advisor’s hand and shook it happily.

  “De rien, Lintang.” He gave her a serious look. “Your documentary film is about the joys and sorrows of mankind, about life and life’s history. C’est la vie et l’histoire de la vie. As such, you must not see your work merely as my final assignment for you. Your film must come from here.” He pointed to his chest. “Not just from your brain alone.”

  On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur. We can see clearly by using the heart.

  “D’accord, monsieur.”

  “You must be careful, Lintang. Indonesia is going through a period of unrest. Students and activists are taking to the streets. But you have to remain focused. Even more important, you must finish your work on time. If you are late, you will not graduate. Tu comprends?”

  “Je comprends. Merci, monsieur.”

  Lintang ran the entire length of the hallway. She felt that she was reaching for something. Reaching for something that had always been foreign inside her. Plucking something from I-N-D-O-N-E-S-I-A.

  Nasi kuning, ayam goreng kremes, kering tempe, sambal bajak teri, urap tabur kelapa… My God. Yellow rice, coconut-battered fried chicken, tempeh sticks with peanuts and chili, fried hot pepper sauce with dried and salted white fish, steamed vegetables with grated coconut… It was unreal! Lintang was really going to Jakarta where she would be able to get those dishes any time she wanted. Even so, she still dug into her father’s cooking like an inmate who had been fed on stale rice and salt for the past two years. She tried everything, ate everything, almost not even chewing before she swallowed.

  “Just look at you, eating like that. That should teach you not to fight with your father.” Nugroho was astonished to see Lintang wipe clean two whole plates of food.

  Nara scratched his head; the rissole served as a starter had never tasted so good. When Dimas came out of the kitchen to check on them, he found that the nasi kuning and all the side dishes were gone, with only empty plates left on the table.

  “Like something more?” he asked his daughter.

  Lintang smiled widely.

  “O, mon Dieu.” It was Nara who groaned.

  Dimas laughed happily, then returned to the kitchen to fetch Lintang more food.

  Shortly thereafter, three young men entered the restaurant. All were clean and good-looking in appearance, neatly dressed in suits and ties. Each carried a valise.

  Risjaf, who was standing by the cash register, looked taken aback. He knew who the young men were and so he remained, standing there, unmoving and unsure what to do: whether to roll up his sleeves to fight or invite them to stay. They looked friendly, however, and even more than that, they looked hungry. Were they here for lunch? Nugroho lowered his glasses on the bridge of his nose and stared at them cautiously. Even Tjai forgot about his beloved calculator, he was so entranced.

  It was Nara who spoke first, calling out to the three: “Raditya, Yos, Hans! Hi! Come on over here.”

  Still looking surprised, Risjaf showed the young men the way. His suspicion diminished when he saw the three warmly shake Nara’s hand, and then vanished altogether when Lintang rose, moved two tables together, told them to sit down, and handed them menus that Yazir had brought to the table.

  “Am I seeing right,” Nugroho whispered to Risjaf. “It looks to me like those boys are from the embassy.”

  “I was just going to try to find out who they are,” Risjaf answered.

  “Good afternoon. May I be of assistance?”

  Suddenly, Tjai was standing in front of their table. What the…? Nugroho and Risjaf stared quizzically at each other. Now, with Tjai exhibiting such authority over the situation, Yazir retreated in orderly fashion from the scene. Since when had Tjai shown interest in greeting customers and taking their orders? Tjai was a creature enamored with his calculator; so fixated was he on fiscal discipline that the restaurant’s books were always neat and never showed red on the bottom line. What could possibly have caused Tjai to leave his calculator and come down from his perch at the cash register to approach the three men who were now sitting around their lovely young “niece”?

  Lintang took control of the field: “The Padang set menu is good. How about if we all get nasi Padang? That way you’ll get a variety of dishes to try. And you too, Nara? That way I can steal food from you.”

  “Four nasi Padang,” she said to Tjai. “And do you want to try the iced jackfruit?” Lintang asked the three men. “It’s like this,” she said with her right thumb in the air.

  The young men nodded like dullard cattle. Nara smiled, letting Lintang control the wheel. Tjai just stood there, not moving, not doing anything, just staring at these Indonesians who were strangers to the place.

  Lintang quickly understood that these three men had to kulo nuwun, that being to offer their greetings to the restaurant owners.

  “Oh, Om Tjai, this is Hans and Yos and Raditya.”

  The three men stood and politely shook hands with Tjai. “And this is Om Nugroho and Om Risjaf. The other partner is my father, who is in the kitchen cooking. We call them the ‘four pillars’ of Tanah Air Restaurant.”

  The three nodded politely in the direction of
Risjaf and Nugroho who stood somewhat at a distance, watching. Risjaf and Nugroho returned their nods.

  Tjai wrote down their orders and then scuttled off towards the kitchen. Lintang imagined his gesticulations as he reported to her father that there were three young Indonesian diplomats sitting outside, in the restaurant, at a table with his daughter. Then she saw Om Nug and Om Risjaf disappear behind the kitchen door as well. She was tempted to sneak into the kitchen just to overhear the tittle-tattle of the four pillars, who had never seen any representatives of the New Order government set foot in the restaurant ever since it opened.

  Hans looked around at the walls of the restaurant. Raditya left the table to study the guest book on a side table near the entrance. He looked at the signatures and read the supportive messages of famous people who had dined there: Indonesia’s leading poet, Rendra; the famous sociologist, Arief Budiman; Abdurrahman Wahid, head of Indonesia’s leading Islamic organization, and his wife, Nuriah; Danielle Mitterrand, wife of the French prime minister; and others.

  Only a few minutes passed before, suddenly, Dimas Suryo—yes, Dimas Suryo, Lintang’s father—appeared at the table carrying several plates of nasi Padang. Lintang was sure he had come out of the kitchen to make sure that his daughter was not being scalped or in any other way violated by these three young men. She repressed a smile as she helped her father serve the meals.

  “I know you only ordered four servings,” her father said to Lintang, “but I felt sorry for Nara. You’re sure to eat most of his meal for him.”

  Lintang motioned towards the visitors. “Ayah, this is Raditya and Hans and Yos. They’re friends of Nara.”

  The three young men rose instantly, like soldiers before a general.

  Dimas shook their hands and then invited them to enjoy their meals. But he didn’t make a move to leave the table where Lintang and the young men were seated. He stood, his hands now knitted together, watching them. No smile on his face.

  “Ayah…?”