“Salut, ma chérie …”
“Nara!” I looked at Alam and slowly released my hand from his grasp. He continued to stare out of the window, unaffected by my move.
“Tu me manques, Nara.” Even to my ear, I sounded overly enthusiastic in expressing my longing for him.
He laughed and said, “I miss you too. Ça va?”
“A bit tired, actually. Lots going on here.”
“How are your interviews going?”
“I just finished one.” I glanced at Alam, whose unblinking eyes remained trained on the Jakarta street. Though he showed no outward reaction to my conversation, I sensed that he was listening carefully.
“Have you interviewed Pramoedya or any other writers?”
“Not yet,” I told him. “My interview today was with Surti Anandari.”
“Ah, Hananto’s wife, the friend of your father… Speaking of whom, you’ve heard about your father, right?”
“Yes, Maman called yesterday to tell me that she would be taking Ayah to the doctor today. I don’t know what kind of threat she used, but at least she got him to obey,” I laughed.
“I miss your voice so much, and your laughter too,” Nara said. “At least now, we might find out what’s wrong with your father. I just wanted to call, but now I have to go, Lintang. Be careful, my love.”
“Salut.”
“Salut.”
I shut off the thin cell phone as I tried to think of a way to restart my conversation with Alam and break the uncomfortable silence that had suddenly suffused the taxi. My mind went blank. I didn’t know what to say. And Alam continued to torture me with his own silence and by continuing to stare at the passing storefronts as if they were exotic tourist sites.
Suddenly, he turned and looked at me. “So Nara is…?”
“My boyfriend…”
“And this boyfriend of yours is telepathic or has the power to project himself to Jakarta just to remove your hand from mine?”
God, this was confusing. How was I to answer such a question? To talk with my boyfriend on the phone when my hand was being held by another man… How could I do that? Was it even ethical? But hadn’t I gone past ethical bounds ever since…ever since le coup de foudre?
Alam now gave me a sharp glance. “Don’t bother to answer,” he said in English. “Do you know why my mother dotes on ikan pindang serani, the spicy and sour milkfish soup? And turmeric? And jasmine flowers?”
I nodded my head, unsurely.
He looked at me intensely. “Those three things are symbols of a past love—an intense and deeply felt affection that could never be fulfilled.”
“…which is why my father always has a stock of turmeric in his apothecary jars,” I replied as if finally inserting the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle.
“I don’t want such an ending: to love someone and then to lose that love and only be able to remember from a distance and wonder what might have happened.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Them. Your father and my mother. I don’t doubt that my mother loved my father, and I am sure that your father loved your mother, too; but I am also just as sure that they loved each other. Their names, Dimas and Surti, are a symbol of lost hope and a broken love story.”
Alam bowed his head, bringing his face very close to my own, but then stopped, not touching me, directly in front of my nose. I could feel his breath, which smelled of menthol and made my blood course faster through my veins.
“I don’t want to be like them. I know what I want and now, after thirty-three years, I I’ve finally found it.”
Now it was I who had to look out the window.
Jakarta, May 6, 1998
Ayah Dearest,
I was so happy to hear that you finally let Maman take you to see the doctor. Please ask her to call. I’d like to hear from her what the doctor said, because I know that you don’t like talking about your health.
One more request is for you to do whatever the doctor tells you to do. Please do this for me, and for everyone.
Jakarta is not the way I thought it would be. It’s so packed and crowded and so hot and humid and so different from how you yourself must imagine it to be. It’s a megalopolis now with huge bedroom communities like Bekasi to the east, Tangerang to the west, and Bintaro and Pamulang to the south. The numerous toll roads and flyovers, arranged in pell-mell fashion as they are, make me feel sorry for any cartographer who had to make a map of the city.
Om Aji and Tante Retno have been true saviors for me. They’re like my fairy godparents and they treat me like their own child, the same way they treat Alam and Bimo. You are so lucky to have a brother as kind as Om Aji.
During my time here so far, Alam, Bimo, and Andini have been of great help to me. I regret not having ever met them before. If I had known them since childhood, how very different my life might have been. They are such wonderful cousins to have; they fill my life here with friendship and color. It’s only their language I sometimes find difficult to understand. I’ve been writing down all their favorite swear words. They are very aesthetically challenging.
Please tell Om Nug that I delivered his packet of things for Bimo: the letter, some recent photographs, and the book, Men without Women, by Hemingway. Bimo was very happy to receive them.
My meeting with Tante Rukmini and her husband, the general, was strange and cold. It will take more time than I have now to describe the atmosphere in their home but, suffice it to say, it was so oppressive as to make me feel weary.
If I successfully finish my work here, I will owe it all to the friends I’ve made at Satu Bangsa, who have been especially accommodating and have helped me to secure interviews with numerous sources. They also let me use their desktop computer to edit the footage from my interviews. Mita, who heads the documentation section, is very good at operating the equipment and has given me a lot of help. Because of all their help, by the time I return home, most of my recordings will have already been neatly indexed and catalogued. I’ve been trying my best to keep up with my note-keeping, as well, writing up my notes as soon as possible after each interview, because often, outside of the actual interview, my respondents provide me with interesting information and observations that I might be able to use in voice-over narration.
My interviews have, in a sense, taken the form of sporadic conversations: the first with Om Aji at his home, followed by others at the Museum of the Treachery of the Indonesian Communist Party. After that I filmed one session with Bimo, and the other day I spent almost an entire day interviewing Tante Surti at her home in Jalan Percetakan Negara. Before the interview, we feasted on ikan pindang serani that Kenanga made. She is, I must say, the strongest young woman I have ever met in my life.
Interviewing Tante Surti was the most troubling one for me, because I’ve known of her and her family ever since I was a kid. Someday I’ll show you my filmed interview with her—after it’s been edited, of course.
I finally managed to get an interview with Pramoedya Ananta Toer, whose works I had read in English translation. Now Alam has lent me the original Indonesian versions to read. I went to a discussion of the Buru Quartet with Alam, Bimo, and Gilang (the head of Satu Bangsa). In the end, the discussion got around to his autobiographical work, The Mute’s Soliloquy, which made me very happy indeed. I’m extremely pleased with the footage I captured of Pramoedya that day. He is so very much alive that I’m sure viewers will find the material interesting. He didn’t just answer previously scripted questions. He was spontaneous. It was a standing-room-only crowd, and questions were fired at him from all directions. There were good questions, clever questions, clichéd questions, questions from fans, critical questions, blow-mouth questions (a term I got from Alam meaning talking just to hear oneself speak). It was a very thorough discussion and I was able to record everything.
After the question-answer session, I got the chance to interview Pramoedya, though not for very long. He briefly told me about his imprisonment, his exile on Buru
Island, how he was able to write, and about his family as well. Most of the information he gave me I already knew from books and interviews with him I’d read in the press, but it’s always different hearing something for yourself.
I think I might have come up with a title for my film: in Indonesian, “Mendengar Suara dari Seberang” and, in English, “Voices from the Other Side.” (Professor Dupont has insisted that besides French, I also give the film English subtitles).
Just as we were leaving the site of the discussion on Jalan Proklamasi, Alam and Bimo suddenly told me to get into Gilang’s jeep, fast. After getting in, Gilang took off from the place like a bat out of hell. Turns out, he had spotted a number of “flies” at the discussion, that being the term activists use for undercover military intelligence agents. I myself hadn’t noticed anyone out of the ordinary, because all my attention had been on Pram.
Things are heating up here. After the government raised the price of fuel, all other prices rose as well, bringing people out to the street to demonstrate in ever greater numbers. The military has attempted to engage in “dialogue” the student activists who are coordinating the demonstration, but the students have continued to demonstrate. Student demands are not confined to the price of fuel and the Rp. 100 trillion the government has provided in subsidies for certain banks (many of them owned by the president’s cronies); they are demanding sweeping governmental reform, including that President Soeharto step down. Even with all of this going on, the president has decided to attend the upcoming High Level G-15 Conference, in Cairo—as if the problems affecting this country are minor and will soon blow over and go away.
Alam and Bimo are up to their necks in work, determining strategy, supervising the students, and helping them to unite in a coordinated mass movement. According to Gilang, this is one student movement that both political activists and the mass media are happy to support because their demand is also the same: Reform!
Rama, an alumnus of Trisakti University, found it hard to believe when Alam told him that a free-speech platform had been set up on the campus, where anyone was free to speak, even to criticize the New Order government.
All because of me, I’m afraid to say, Rama was called in by his superiors for an “interview” and subjected to intensive questioning. How was it, his superiors wanted to know, that a person like him from a “tainted background” could get by undiscovered and find a job at a state-owned enterprise? I feel very guilty for what happened, even though Om Aji insists that incident that night was a blessing in disguise.
With Alam and Bimo busy setting up free-speech platforms at campuses and elsewhere, I’ve had to go to interviews on my own. One was with Djoko Sri Moeljono—a former political prisoner who was exiled to Buru Island because of, he guessed, his activities with SBBT, the Trikora Steel Workers Union. Before being sent to Buru, Pak Djoko was first imprisoned in Serang in 1965. After that, he was held at the Nusakambangan penal island and only after that was he sent to Buru, where he remained until his release in 1978.
Pak Djoko described for me in great detail life on Buru Island, where he served as head of the barracks in which he and other prisoners lived. Until the day of his release, he said, neither the government nor the military authorities ever informed him of his alleged crimes. What I have found to be most tragic—both for him and the other political prisoners I’ve come in contact with—is the difficulty all of them had had in finding gainful employment after their release because of the stigma of having been a political prisoner.
I’d love to tell you about all the other interviews I’ve conducted, but there is not enough time for that right now, plus I think it will be more satisfying to watch my documentary film, which will both give a bigger picture and be more in-depth than anything I could put down on paper.
I was happy to hear that you had dinner with Nara at the restaurant. What did you cook for him? I hope it wasn’t too spicy. I’m guessing that he will come to the restaurant often now that I’m away.
Give my love to Maman, Om Nug, Om Tjai, and Om Risjaf. Take care of yourself and remember that I always love you.
Your loving daughter,
Lintang Utara
BEKASI, MAY 1998
That day was a fateful one. It started in the afternoon when Alam took the time to accompany me to Bekasi, to the east of Jakarta, and to the home of “Mrs. D,” a former member of the Kediri branch of GERWANI, the leftist Indonesian Women’s Movement. Although I know the woman’s real name, I think it best not to reveal it because of the trauma she continues to feel. Mrs. D is a woman of about sixty, but still in quite good physical shape: she walks erectly, her eyes are clear, and she’s able to speak in a clear and crisp voice.
In my interview with Mrs. D, she told me that when she was a member of GERWANI, her job had been to teach village women to read and write. After the events of September 30, she and her husband, who was a member of the Kediri branch of the Indonesian Farmers’ Front (BTI), were arrested and imprisoned in separate incarceration facilities for nine years. After their release in 1974, they came to see firsthand the difficulty their entire extended family was having in finding and keeping steady employment, all because they had relatives—Mrs. D and her husband—whose identification cards included a numerical code indicating that they were former political prisoners.
Her father, Mrs. D said, was imprisoned for two years simply because of his relationship to her; her brother, who was also arrested, was sent to Nusakambangan prison and not released until sometime in the early 1970s. (She wasn’t sure of the year.) Except for their home, almost all their goods and belongings had been confiscated by the military.
My interview with Mrs. D lasted for almost four hours, after which she invited Alam and me to share a simple meal with her. Finally, when we were ready to go, she gave both Alam and me a hug.
After saying goodbye and leaving her house, Alam and I headed back toward the main street to look for transportation back to Jakarta. Suddenly Alam tapped me on the shoulder and whispered for me to walk faster. Even though I didn’t know why, I did just what he said and began to walk at a much faster pace, as if in pursuit of something. Looking around furtively, I saw, next to a cigarette vendor’s stall, two men sitting down. Both had crew cuts and were dressed in civilian clothing—obviously undercover military personnel assigned to tail us. Fortunately, they hadn’t seen us leave Mrs. D’s house. But when we arrived at the intersection that led to the main road and started to hail a taxi that was coming our way, we saw the men suddenly jump to their feet and start walking quickly in our direction. As soon as the taxi stopped in from of us, Alam yanked open the back door, pushed me inside, jumped into the taxi himself, then slapped the driver on the shoulder and ordered him to go and to step on the gas.
For the first few minutes of the ride, neither of us could speak, and Alam kept turning around, looking out of the rear window, until the taxi merged with traffic on the main road. Only then did he start to relax. He took my hand and kneaded it with his.
“Do you think they were watching me?” I asked.
Alam paused before answering. “Jakarta is on the move. Actually, I’m guessing they were watching me.”
“But you’re going to be OK, aren’t you?” I truly was worried about him.
Alam smiled and said, “I’m just fine,” then put his arm around my shoulder.
When we arrived at Satu Bangsa, Bimo informed us that three “flies” had come to the office looking for me. I was shocked—I’d never before had dealings with intelligence agents—but the surprising thing was that it didn’t disturb me.
“What did they say?” Alam asked.
“Basically, they know who Lintang is,” Bimo replied, “and they came here to check her travel documents and to see whether she had obtained official permission to make a film.”
Now, I was taken aback. What pesky flies they were! “And so…?”
Bimo spoke as if I wasn’t present. “I told them Lintang was just a visitor to this office
and that they couldn’t meet her here.”
I broke into a cold sweat. “How did they find out so fast what I’ve been doing here?”
“Don’t let them get to you,” Bimo said to me with a smile. “What do you think flyswatters are for?”
Alam rubbed my shoulders with his hand. “Just be calm. Let them do their own thing. Want to order something to eat?”
Bimo looked at us, shaking his head: “Be careful, Lintang. You’ve got one rabid and hungry dog on your leash.”
Odi then stuck out his head from behind his computer to shout at me: “Yeah, you listen to what Bimo says. Be careful. Alam has an attention span of two weeks. After that, it’s ngehe. Yup, it’s just bye-bye!”
“Or maybe, just maybe,” I sparred, “I’m the one who’s stringing him along! Ever think of that?”
At this, Bimo, Odi, and Mita clapped their hands and whooped so loudly that Alam started swearing under his breath, “Bangsat, bangsat, bangsat—you sons of bitches!” When I took out my notebook to write down this new word for me, Bimo grabbed the pad and began to read out loud all the slang words that were written there: “Nyokap, bokap, yoi, yoa, nyosor, koit, asoy, bokep, jajaran, ngehe, bangsat…” Bimo choked with laughter. “These are Alam’s words.” I grabbed the notebook from his hand.
“As they aren’t to be found in the dictionary, I’m interested in looking into their etymology.”
“One is pretty and the other one is crazy,” Mita said. “No wonder you get along!” She then took the film cassette of my interview with Mrs. D from my hand and returned to her room, where she helped me writing down the time-coding into my footage so we could begin to edit it. From her room, I could hear Alam and Bimo still mocking each other, sounding like high school children.
“You’re the one who says ‘bokep’ for ‘porn flick,’” Alam grumbled at Bimo.
“I say bokep, because you act like you’re in a blue film,” Bimo retorted.
My collection of interviews and notes was growing and beginning to look very well organized—all thanks to Mita, who was an incredibly gifted editor. Even with all the other work she had to do—handling film footage from demonstrations, public rallies, and the free-speech platforms, all of which she had to time-code and index—she kindly took time to help me. She probably felt sorry for me, knowing that in addition to editing the film footage, I also had to transcribe the interviews and translate the written transcripts into French and into English as well, as per the request of Professor Dupont.
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