Apple and Knife

by Intan Paramaditha

  Rain falls in the yard, soaking into the earth. Not a downpour, but slow, drop by drop. A long, soft tone, like a bow sliding against a violin string. Gita feels a chill. Fog is on its way.

  ‘So, the lewd seek your services.’

  ‘Those fine fingers of yours, child, were not made to point in accusation. It is not only the lewd. A mother of four came to see me. A woman you wouldn’t suspect, a nice girl, like you. She was no tourist at the beach, but a wanderer in the desert. She had grown hunchbacked from carrying too many heavy loads. She needed to do what she did to remain strong and accompany her master, who had to find a means of subsistence until they reached their destination.’

  ‘What do you require?’

  ‘Money, of course. I need to live, my dear. Then fabric for a sling. So that the baby can feel the mother’s embrace in the world beyond. The fabric can serve as a link if the soul of the baby longs for its mother or the mother longs for the baby. A bridge of sorts. But sometimes, the bridge is cut off. Sometimes, the mother goes crazy. The baby becomes an angel. They don’t need to know each other.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You’re repeating the question, child. Mothers can’t just bundle up their babies and toss them into the trash as easily as acrobats do tricks. Their determination is not like the roar of a beast. It is like the footsteps of soldiers who march onward, well aware that they are marching to their doom.’

  Gita feels another chill. Suddenly, she hears those footsteps, growing ever clearer, racing as bombs explode in the distance. Dust and grit mingle and obscure her vision, bringing blinding pain.

  ‘There are tears in your eyes,’ says the old woman. ‘May be slivers of glass got in. War destroys everything.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then, imagine. You are in a white room, simple, doorless. You don’t know where the room ends, but you have been sucked inside. You can hear nothing beyond it. Your body is light and you can’t set your feet down. You drift, you fall, empty, massless. You open your mouth, but you can’t scream. Yet, while there, you are still considered to exist. It is difficult, child. Difficult. That is why I prepare a bottle for each mother.’

  ‘A bottle?’

  She offers her thin hands, inviting Gita to follow. Something has drawn them closer; Gita no longer fears her. The two are like bats, relying on each other because the rays of the sun have penetrated their cave. They have to understand each other.

  Sumarni leads her to a room inside the house. A normal room, containing a bed with dull beige sheets. Beside it stands a timber wardrobe. The wardrobe isn’t especially wide, but it reaches to the ceiling. How odd. All it contains is empty sauce bottles, perhaps hundreds. Gita asks why she keeps so many.

  The old woman shakes her head. ‘These bottles are not empty. Each one holds a scream.’

  ‘A scream?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why do the screams need to be kept safe?’

  ‘A mother’s scream dies with her baby. They are no longer able to speak. No one will want to hear. They are troublemakers, pariahs. What I do, child, is offer a home for the screams. If I didn’t, the scream would evaporate and leave the woman mute for ever.’ Sumarni takes a bottle from the bottom shelf and cradles it. ‘This one belonged to a woman from my village. She came to me fifteen years ago, when she was very young. She’s dead now, so the bottle can be opened. Do you want to hear it?’

  Before Gita can decide, Sumarni is already turning the cap of the golden bottle. In the distance, Gita hears a wrenching howl. The death cry of a hound. The wail comes ever closer. No. The cry is her own. She is on top of a cliff, her hands and feet bound, her flesh scraping against a sharp rock face. Suddenly, she sees a figure above her, soaring. The creature has a skull with long pointed ears, and its black robes obstruct the sky. Gita sees only darkness. The creature descends slowly towards her until their bodies touch. It is so thin, but its weight makes her gasp. She struggles. The face of the one in the black robes inches closer, until its hard, cold lips graze Gita’s. Its mouth opens. It emits a rancid stench and a deafening screech. Gita turns away, clamping her eyes shut.

  Sumarni hastily reseals the bottle. She puts her arm around Gita’s shoulder and strokes her hair. She leads her guest slowly out of the room.

  Gita sits on the pale green sofa in the living room, biting her lips, covering her eyes with her hands.

  Sumarni sits next to her.

  ‘Did you see it? I keep every noise, so that it doesn’t place the kiss of death on them, so that they don’t disappear unburied.’

  ‘I really have to go now, really… have to –’ Gita stammers. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  Gita says goodbye to Sumarni, and goes to the door. Outside, the rain begins to pelt down.

  ‘Your house is so sombre. Now I know why no light enters. But understanding doesn’t make everything simple.’

  ‘Child, you forgot something.’ Sumarni is leaning against the door and clutching a bottle. ‘This is yours.’

  Gita shakes her head. ‘You’re mistaken.’ She shakes her head more firmly and quickens her pace. She doesn’t want to look back.

  Sumarni smiles sadly.

  ‘I’ll be sure to hold on to it,’ she says. She is quite certain her guest hears her. ‘My door is always open for you.’

  The Queen

  Maybe you don’t believe in the supernatural. I didn’t either, until my best friend Herjuno’s life was upended by a mocking, mystical force.

  One night, Herjuno had a strange dream. He saw a man dressed in sumptuous, glittering robes. The man sat, cross-legged and eyes closed, on a tapestry embroidered with gold threads. A sharp aroma wafted from the offerings that flanked the bed. Torches provided the only light. A dome, like a cloche, stood above the scene, supported by teak pillars. Soon came thunderbolts, rain, a fierce storm. With a roar, the gusts burst the door open and a greenish glow flooded the room.

  A searing light then forced Herjuno to avert his eyes. When he turned back, he saw a woman seated on a litter that was being shouldered by an entourage of bare-chested young men. The litter featured a carved dragon’s head, topped by a diamond-studded crown. The woman was the most exquisite Herjuno had ever seen. He could smell the strands of jasmine that tied the ringlets of her shimmering hair. But it wasn’t hair. The shimmering came from the eyes of snakes, black, cold, slippery. She was wrapped in an emerald robe replete with crimson roses. Flower petals lay scattered about like lips in full bloom.

  The woman clapped her hands twice. The young men lowered the litter, bowed their heads and then turned into fireflies. They flitted about before darting away and vanishing. Herjuno saw the man’s eyes open. The woman approached him and straddled his lap. His chin was raised and his eyes stared straight ahead. The woman stripped off her emerald robe, which slid to the floor. Herjuno held his breath.

  Their lovemaking was magnificent. They coupled three times. A fourth. Herjuno didn’t want to budge. The woman knelt in front of the man. Herjuno felt himself soar high into the sky. From above, he observed the rain become a fountain. It soaked into the carpet of verdant rice fields, making them fertile.

  Midnight. Herjuno woke. He glanced at his wife lying beside him in her frumpy nightgown. She was lying on her stomach, fast asleep. An anticlimax if ever there was one. The mattress beneath Herjuno was damp.

  The following day, Herjuno called me. Could I meet him for lunch, so he could tell me his dream? Clearly he wanted to know its meaning. Herjuno was old-fashioned. He had grown up in a big city but belief in the occult ran in his family. I smiled away his anxiety. ‘It was just a sex dream, man. Not getting to unclog the pipes enough lately, huh?’

  Herjuno punched my arm.

  ‘Or else you get off from watching other people do it. Or you’re longing for some wild sex. Threesomes. Orgies.’

  He punched me again but this time laughed, too.

  Privately, I thought the dream reflected the two years Herjuno had spent stuck in a dul
l marriage. The fountain that fertilised the fields represented a demand to spread his seed.

  Herjuno’s marriage was a surprise, even to me, and we’ve been best friends since secondary school. ‘Shit happens, man.’ He shrugged when he told me.

  ‘My God, Jun…’ I tapped my forehead. ‘Don’t tell me this is what that test of yours has led to.’

  Before being imprisoned in his marital jail, Herjuno was an adventurer in love. He was traditional: he championed the values of feudal patriarchy, updated. He considered the attributes of a modern knight to be the latest car (instead of a handsome steed), money from his old man to fund a start-up (instead of inherited land) and slim girls in shapewear (instead of virgins in corsets). Herjuno boasted of all these.

  All his life, Herjuno had known two types of women and he dated them simultaneously: those who were virgins and those who were not. For him, non-virgins existed to play around with. Meanwhile, his true vocation was testing virgins. If, during their courtship, a girl ‘surrendered her chastity to him’ (this was a favourite phrase of Herjuno’s – pretty anachronistic for the twenty-first century, huh?), that meant she didn’t resist temptation, which meant she failed his test, which meant she was unworthy of becoming his wife.

  Always leave room for the best: that was another of my friend’s catchphrases. I noticed that whenever he ate he saved his favourite side dish for last, only touching it once he had finished his rice and other dishes.

  Dewi was a female of the virgin category who, predictably, failed his test. But she also fell pregnant. Yet, I think what happened was no catastrophe. Herjuno, the larger-than-life knight who had never even heard of, let alone contemplated, pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, accepted a rotting durian because Dewi’s father owned a major corporation with mining interests.

  Two weeks later, I received an invitation that proudly announced their names: Herjuno Bambang Prasojo, MBA and Dewi Wulandari, BEcon. The marriage reception was held in the ballroom of a hotel that Dewi’s father had invested in. The usual reception halls were booked until the end of the following year. Among the wedding guests were General So-and-so, Minister Such-and-such and other faces that regularly greet the public on TV screens.

  Their child was born seven months after the festive marriage. From that point on, Dewi Wulandari, BEcon, became a consummate housewife. She cared for the baby, breastfeeding until the child was two. Herjuno entrusted his own small enterprise to his younger brother, a recent university graduate, while he accepted an offer as a director in his father-in-law’s corporation – proof that his MBA stood for more than Married By Accident.

  My friend was now desperately assuring me that something was going to happen. The dream was too real, too vivid, and Herjuno believed that a dream that leaves a question mark after waking is a sign.

  ‘Besides, Gus,’ he added, ‘I’ve got a genuine problem.’

  Maybe the dream was a warning, but it could also have been a solution.

  Herjuno’s belief in the occult grew. Now it was buttressed by not only his own superstitious family but his wife’s. Opening a new business? A palaver with a psychic was a prerequisite. Confirming a major deal? A horoscope analysis was de rigueur. So it was no wonder that in response to his bizarre dream, Herjuno resolved to contact Ki Joko Kuncoro, trusted medium to his extended family.

  —

  Once upon a time, there lived a wondrously beautiful princess. She begged her enchantress grandmother to make her beauty eternal. Ageless. Immortal. Her grandmother granted her request on the condition that the girl agree to become a lelembut, a trouble-making spirit. Then, for that glow of unfading beauty, the girl plunged into the sea and surrendered to the lapping of the seductive waves. She was now alone and friendless, but she possessed a palace in plain view of all and an assemblage of ghostly warriors. She was Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, Queen of the South Sea.

  One day, the Queen spied the founding sultan of Mataram, Panembahan Senopati, meditating, pleading for the prosperity of his people. So powerful was her desire that the sea raged, boiling, and the fish were hurled up onto dry land. This caused the Queen to reveal her form. It is unclear whether she was led to do so by a mortal threat to the creatures of the deep or by Senopati’s charm and power but, in the end, they came to know each other. Kanjeng Ratu was prepared to help Panembahan Senopati achieve prosperity on the condition that Panembahan and his heirs would serve as her consorts. An agreement was reached and peace descended upon the mortal realm once more.

  Since that time, the members of the lineage of Senopati are destined to serve as consorts to the Queen of the South Sea. The princes of the Surakarta Kraton have always held a special bond with this lelembut. Even the site of the union of body and soul with the Queen was deemed a special place, the Sangga Buwana Tower.

  The marriage of the Queen and Senopati meant a harmony of water and land, heaven and earth, linggam and yoni. The balance imparted fertility to the Sultanate of Mataram and yoked the South Sea to it.

  —

  Psychic Ki Joko Kuncoro’s workspace was covered with Javanese daggers, old books, and photographs taken with the rich and famous. I knew because Herjuno had asked me to come along with him. The psychic’s client list was nothing to be sneezed at: it included prominent businessmen and government officials. The psychic was dressed in black and looked as if he kept up with the times. On his desk stood a computer with internet access. Maybe googling information was quicker than seeking divine inspiration.

  According to Ki Joko Kuncoro, Herjuno’s vision was no mere dream. Nor was the beautiful woman an ordinary woman, but the Queen of the South Sea. Meeting her would lead to one of two outcomes: happiness or havoc.

  ‘She is zealous, merciless,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows that each year the South Sea demands life. Countless victims have been dragged beneath the waves. Not only those who dare to swim, but also those who simply sit and play with grains of sand. Before their death, they might hear a song, honey-sweet and seductive. A siren’s call. Then, as if sleepwalking, they heed the call of the sea. Some bodies are never found.’

  ‘I’ve heard of her. The princess who so desired everlasting beauty that she traded her life for the fate of shadows,’ said Herjuno. It sounded dreadful to me.

  ‘Actually, there’s another tale,’ said Ki Joko. ‘The Sundanese version. In the era of the Pajajaran kingdom, a princess suffered from a hideous affliction of the skin, an unnatural disease that could bring misfortune to the entire land. She was expelled from the kingdom by her ashamed family. She committed suicide, drowning herself in the clear waters of the sea. Water can salve scabies and sin. One day, when a royal entourage was praying in Pelabuhan Ratu, a beautiful princess appeared. The Hideous One had been transformed into a queen of the spirits and now held her throne in the South Sea.’

  Herjuno nodded, frowning. I was startled. This story was no cheerier. Women so lacking in confidence that they kill themselves are no less worrisome than those obsessed with beauty.

  ‘So, she fell in love with Senopati, as he prayed for the prosperity of his people?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but maybe more than that. Senopati was meditating, gathering all his mental energy, seeking a strategy to oppose the northern kingdom. No one truly knows what happened. It is said that for three days and three nights, the Queen shared secrets with Senopati: political secrets, military secrets and carnal secrets.’

  Three days and three nights. She certainly knew how to set the chess pieces of statecraft in motion.

  ‘And you must remember,’ Ki Joko warned, ‘never doubt her strength. She is a jealous woman; it is taboo for maidens of Kidul to wear orange or chequered cloth in the sea. It makes her angry, and when she is angry, she will devour anything. Livestock. Children. Babies. She is like Calon Arang, master of black magic. Her rage is blind. She can destroy you.’

  ‘What should I do, then?’ Herjuno asked.

  Ki Joko shook his head. ‘History will repeat itself. Don’t you see? Senopati gained po
wer by merging with Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, body and soul.’

  The Queen of the South Sea’s marriage to Senopati meant the fortification of Mataram’s territory as far as the boundless South Sea. A legitimation of his power. Who would not be terrified to hear of the Queen’s uncanny forces standing behind the Sultanate of Mataram? The lesson behind all this: don’t make enemies of wild horses. Ride them.

  Ki Joko muttered something. After a while, I realised that he was reciting Javanese poetry:

  Nenggih Kangjeng Ratu Kidul

  Ndedel nggayuh nggegana

  Umara marak maripih

  Sor prabawa lan wong angung Ngeksiganda

  Herjuno and I looked at each other.

  ‘Do I need to go to the South Sea and make offerings?’ Herjuno whispered to me.

  Ki Joko noticed our hesitation. I turned to Herjuno.

  ‘Do you understand the verse, Jun? The Queen of the South Sea / Flying high in the air / Came to worship / Lost authority to the Sultan of Mataram.’

  ‘Herjuno, listen,’ Ki Joko interrupted. ‘Before the marriage of the Queen and the next Mataram king, nine women will dance and summon him. The Queen will appear in miraculous fashion in the form of the tenth dancer. The most beautiful dancer of all. She can transform into anything. An animal, the wind, a woman. Before you can catch her, she has already changed shape. She can assume an incarnated form.’

  ‘Do you mean to say that there’s an incarnation of the Queen of the South Sea now, in our era?’

  He nodded. ‘If you’re able to grab hold of her saddle, she will take you places you’ve never imagined.’

  If you’re able.

  Herjuno felt he had understood. Like Senopati, who perpetuated the power of Mataram by marrying the Queen of the South Sea, Herjuno had to serve as the Queen’s consort.

  ‘If you meet her, recite these words: Gaze up to Heavenly Father, bow down to Mother Earth. And remember: never, ever underestimate her.’