Jakarta Missing

by Jane Kurtz

  Eventually she’d panicked and started to cry. What if the plane didn’t land?

  She’d somehow been able to sense Mom was as scared as she was. Every week, the mules dutifully climbed the hill behind the house, trotted through Maji town, and then followed the lead horse onto the steep, rough road that led down the mountain to the savanna where Ethiopian Airlines planes landed once a week. The trip was only thirty-two miles, Dad said, but it took two days for the mules to descend 8,000 feet. A few days later, when shouts relayed the news that the mules had managed to trudge back up the mountain, Mom and Dad would rush out—but often they had to sigh over empty mailbags because the plane couldn’t land. “Don’t cry,” Mom had said, crying a little, too. “Oh, I hope the plane lands.” And then, finally: “Shh, isn’t that the Jeep?”

  Finally, gloriously, it really was the faint sound of the Jeep engine. She could remember her nightgown, wet with dew, flapping against her cold legs in the mountain wind as they ran outside. Mom whirled and whirled until her dress twisted around her slender legs. They held hands as the Jeep came around the corner and down the last hill, headlights shining, seeming to pick up speed on that hill just the way the mules did.

  “A dollar fifty,” the young woman behind the counter said.

  Dakar was startled. She was in North Dakota, not Maji. Planes here didn’t circle and circle and then not land because the weather was bad or there were too many animals on the field. They didn’t disappear, the hum growing fainter and fainter and finally fading completely away. She handed over the money, relieved that the change was going to be easy.

  The woman behind the counter had on an interesting turban, and her voice had a lovely accent. She might be from somewhere in Africa. Why would someone like that come to North Dakota? Dakar wondered. Maybe for the university? She wished she weren’t too shy to ask.

  “Hurry,” Dad suddenly called. “People are starting to come off. Hey, there she is!”

  Dakar raced back. She stared at the people who were trickling down the stairs. “Nah. That’s not her.”

  “It’s not,” Mom agreed, poking Dad’s arm teasingly. “You’re so excited you’re seeing things.”

  “Don’t be afraid to run up there, just push people out of the way,” Dakar told herself, bouncing with excitement. “Run up and fling your arms around her.”

  More people came out the door. Then there was a gap when nobody came out. Dakar had been waiting so long she felt paralyzed. Suddenly there Jakarta was. Taller. A little thinner. But most-definitely Jakarta. Her eyes flicked over the faces and met Dakar’s as Dakar started to run. But Jakarta wasn’t leaping down the stairs toward them. She wasn’t even walking down. As Dakar pushed her way up the stairs, she saw Jakarta’s face crumple like a piece of paper being scrunched up to be thrown away. Then Jakarta burst into tears.

  NINE

  Dakar was sure she had never been so miserable. She was scrunched in the backseat with one of Jakarta’s suitcases digging into her thigh. She wished Jakarta would look at her, but Jakarta was staring out the window.

  “Why did you bring me here?” Jakarta sounded as if someone were strangling her.

  At least she was finally talking. The whole time they waited for the luggage, all she did was point at her suitcases when they came around on the conveyor belt. “We were worried … It isn’t safe in Nairobi right now … Jakarta, be reasonable.” Mom and Dad’s words tumbled over one another.

  “Then it isn’t safe for all my friends who are still there. What about Malika and her family? What about the soccer team? They’re all still there.”

  “I’m sure their parents are there, too,” Mom said sharply.

  “The bombing didn’t have anything to do with us,” Jakarta argued. “It’s just ethnic tension. Like the fires in the Karura Forest behind our house.”

  Dakar remembered driving home at dusk and seeing billows of red smoke, streaked with sparks, over the forest. When they got home, she and Jakarta had raced to the balcony off Mom and Dad’s bedroom and watched pitchy trees go up with a whoomp sound and flashes of flame.

  “Some people say the developers started the fire,” Jakarta said. “It has something to do with plots that were given away in the forest. I have a Luo friend at school who says, ‘When liberation came to Kenya, the Kikuyu did the land grabbing. Now it’s our turn.’”

  Dad laughed. “Sounds like Kenya politics.”

  “I want to go back,” Jakarta wailed. “And why are there about ten Gummi worms in this big cardboard box? What a waste! It’s just like on the airplane when we threw away all those little plastic dishes.”

  “You can give me the Gummi worms,” Dakar muttered, “since they’re so wasteful and all.”

  If Jakarta heard her, she didn’t give any sign. “Malika and I made friends with one of the little kids in the Kikuyu village. When he heard I was leaving, he came to the house and gave me a present wrapped in a big leaf. It was one of those plastic dishes from the airplane. That was the most precious thing he could think of to give me. And yesterday we all threw those plastic things in the trash.”

  “Doesn’t she remind you of me?” Dad asked Mom proudly.

  Dakar frowned. “Just give her a little room to come back to us,” Mom had murmured on the way out to the car. But Dakar didn’t want to have to give Jakarta room. She knew she was feeling childish, but there it was.

  “I remember perfectly when I was a teenager and we visited the States,” Dad said. “The Beatles were just getting popular. We got to my cousin’s house that first night. Here was this room full of teenagers all waiting to watch the Ed Sullivan program. I had no idea who the Beatles were. I wanted to drop through the floor.” After a minute he added, “To this day I have never felt so out of place.”

  “You’ll feel much better once you get over jet lag and have a chance to look around a little bit,” Mom told Jakarta.

  “Strange,” Dad went on. “It’s okay to be different in a foreign country but not at home, where it’s expected you know it all and that you’ll act and dress and talk like your age-group.”

  “Culture shock,” Mom said. “You’re feeling culture shock, Jakarta.”

  Dakar tried to think what had helped when she was feeling culture-shocked. “Want me to show you the high school?” she asked. “They gave us an orientation tour the first day, so I know where things are. Melanie’s cousin goes there, so we could ask him questions.”

  “Who’s Melanie?”

  Dakar bit her thumbnail. Be careful what you tell her. Was Jakarta ready to hear that it was perfectly fine to have friends here?

  “We should stop at the high school right now,” Mom said. “I’m sure Jakarta would like to see it.”

  “I wouldn’t like to see it,” Jakarta said. “Not at all.”

  But Dad pulled into a space in front of the school, anyway. “Great idea. Let’s get you registered,” he said. “Then you can just go home and sleep without worrying.”

  Luckily for everyone, Dakar thought, they must have gotten there in the middle of a period. No one was in the halls. In the office Jakarta hummed under her breath the whole time, as if Mom and Dad were registering some other daughter. When the secretary handed over a locker combination, she spoke for the first time since getting to the school. “Will you help me find my locker?” she whispered to Dakar.

  Dakar wondered if Jakarta would look into any of the rooms as they walked by, but she didn’t. A boy with a white cane walked down the hall toward them, swinging the cane fiercely in front of him, looking like the grim reaper. Otherwise, they didn’t see anyone.

  Suddenly Jakarta grabbed Dakar’s arm. “Is there going to be anyone here who looks like me?”

  Dakar looked at her in surprise. “Sure,” she said quickly. Then she tried to figure out what Jakarta meant. Had she ever seen anyone who looked like Jakarta? No. Jakarta was distinctive. That was one thing that made her so great.

  In Maji, Jakarta used to ask Mom to tell her birth story over a
nd over. “Your grandfather was African American,” Mom would say. “Your grandmother was Japanese. They fell in love because of World War Two, but those times were a different day and time, and those World War Two babies were rejected by the families on both sides. Your dad ended up being adopted by an American couple. He grew up to be an amazing young man—talented, funny, the kind who seems to charm everyone instantly—and when he decided to go traveling around Asia to rediscover his roots, he certainly charmed your mother, who was the French teacher’s aide at the school where I was teaching in Indonesia.”

  “So my mother was French?” Jakarta would say every time.

  “No, she was Iranian, and she was very young. It was her first time away from home. When she got pregnant with you, she had no idea what to do. Then, when your father was suddenly killed in a car accident, she cried every day for a month and told me over and over that her parents would never help her out with the baby. I was worried sick.”

  “And you took her under your wing,” Jakarta loved to say, taking a deep breath.

  “Your father and I both did. We held your mother’s hands the night you were born. A few days later she wrote you the most loving, tender letter that she asked me to put away until you were eighteen. Her age. Then she put you in our arms and went home to her own mother.”

  Jakarta would let out the breath she’d been holding, and Mom would finish by saying, “You were born surrounded by love, Jakarta. I had the oddest sensation that your genetic father was there in the room, too. One time, when we all were lying on the white sands of Sanur Beach, he cupped his hands into an instrument and played songs for us. The night you were born, I would swear I heard that haunting whistle of a song as I stared down at your tiny face.”

  Too bad Jakarta wasn’t tiny anymore, because she was suddenly trying to squeeze inside her locker. “Hey. Close the door,” Jakarta said. “I need to see if it’s big enough so I can hide in here if I need to.”

  “Your head won’t go in,” Dakar argued. “You’re too tall.”

  Jakarta squeezed back out, fiddled with the combination, and finally said, “Smooth as gravy.” As they walked back, she asked, “Think I should get my spear out of the footlocker and bring it to school?”

  “I don’t think so.” Dakar tried to see Jakarta’s face. “The worst thing they do in middle school is just dump your books. You carry them on your side. If you stick them out in front, they can run by and dump them.” She decided not to tell Jakarta what Melanie’s cousin had said about ninth graders spitting in the salad dressing. “Come see this.” She dragged Jakarta over. “Wall o’ jocks,” she said triumphantly.

  Jakarta laughed, and Dakar felt a warm sweetness oozing in her throat. “I got the idea from you,” she said shyly. “Because you made up the wall o’ burghers in Amsterdam. Remember?” A girl rushed by them without a glance. Dakar studied her as she walked away and then looked Jakarta over. “Maybe we should go shopping after this.”

  “Why? I’m not going to pay seventy dollars or something for some pair of jeans.”

  “You wouldn’t be paying,” Dakar said. “Mom and Dad would.”

  Jakarta just shrugged. Dakar thought about the clothes in Melanie’s catalog. What would Jakarta say about them if she thought seventy dollars for jeans was bad?

  “Are you tired?” Dad said when they were back in the car. “I’m sure you’ll feel better once you get over your jet lag.”

  “Why don’t you take a nap?” Mom said.

  “I’m not tired,” Jakarta said. After a minute she let out a kind of muffled moan. “Actually, I think I’m sick. Really sick.”

  Jakarta was in bed the rest of the week. “How is she?” Melanie asked every day.

  Dakar always said something like “She’ll be fine. Getting better every day.” But it was hard. When Jakarta was well enough to get up for dinner and Mom said, “Isn’t the corn tender and sweet here?” Jakarta said that she preferred the chewy field corn they used to roast over the fire. When Dad asked if Jakarta had taken all her doses of medicine, Jakarta mumbled that she’d just as soon die as have to live here.

  Dakar felt sick herself, trudging to school every day, watching one small stand of trees across from the house turning color early. What if Jakarta insisted on going back as soon as she got well? Why did Mom and Dad seem so impatient with each other? She lit a candle and waited for the universe to give her some idea about what she could do. But no ideas came.

  Sunday evening Jakarta said, “I reeeeally need to jog.”

  “Great!” Mom’s voice was frizzy with tension and relief at the same time. “I’ll go with you.”

  Maybe it was going to be okay, Dakar thought as she sat on the porch and watched Mom and Jakarta start off. She took off her shoes and wiggled her toes against the warm steps, then leaned back on her elbows. Clouds had filled up most of the sky, but a little smudge of blue was still above their house letting sunshine spill through right onto their porch. Sunshine was always a good sign.

  She tried to remember what it had been like for her the first day. The house had seemed big and strange. Cottonwood had seemed little and tidy. She’d been homesick for everything, especially Maji, even though she hadn’t lived there for years. But now she liked the big trees in the yard here and the way the ceiling sloped down in her room.

  After a while she saw them coming back, far down the block. Jakarta sprinted toward her, arms pumping, hair flying all over, Donbirra graceful. “Abebe Bikila,” Jakarta shouted, lifting her arms in a victory salute.

  “Who’s that?”

  “First guy in history to win the Olympic marathon twice—way before our time. For stamina, it’s great to train in a high altitude like Ethiopia.” She sagged to the step beside Dakar. “Usually I do sprints—because of soccer. A long run feels like a treat.”

  It took a while longer for Mom to stagger up. She grabbed the porch railing and pulled herself up, hand over hand, laughing and panting at the same time. “You’ve gotten too fast for me,” she said, collapsing beside Jakarta.

  They sat without saying anything. Dakar could hear Mom still breathing hard, but not Jakarta. Jakarta’s face was barely pink, and her breathing sounded even and sure. Their patch of sunshine was gone, and a light wind had blown up, but in the one stand of birch trees the treetops were like match tips, blazing yellow gold. “I’m going to sit here forever,” Dakar said.

  “Why forever?” Mom asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s a nice even number.”

  Inside, the phone rang. “Dad’ll get it,” Dakar said. She didn’t want anyone to move. She wanted to reach out and put her arms around both of them. She could always say the wind was making her cold.

  “Deborah?” Dad called.

  “Coming.” Mom got up.

  “Don’t go,” Dakar wanted to say, but she didn’t. She listened to the door sigh shut behind Mom.

  After a few minutes Jakarta asked, “Has Mom been okay here?”

  “She’s been fine,” Dakar said. “Sometimes she’s been really happy, in fact.”

  “Did you guys visit her hometown?”

  Dakar shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s a long drive, you know. We were getting settled. After that, Dad needed to spend three weeks in Minneapolis. Then school started. And maybe she was afraid to go by herself.”

  “Afraid of what? The driving?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Dakar ran her finger along the rough porch floor. “The driving.” She didn’t want to say the rest. Maybe afraid the North Dakota part of her heart had been frozen so long it couldn’t thaw. Maybe afraid that if it did thaw, the ice would leave big holes for hoodies to crawl through. “After the bombing I was afraid that—” The door opened. Dakar stopped, assuming it was Mom coming back. But it was Dad.

  “Mom’s aunt Lily was in a car accident,” Dad said. “She’s going to be fine, but they think she has a broken leg.”

  “Who’s Aunt Lily?” Jakarta asked.
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  “Grandma’s sister. Your mom’s going to go and help out.”

  “That’s lousy,” Jakarta said. “That’s really lousy.” She scrambled up, pushed past Dad, and disappeared inside.

  Dad gave a frustrated shrug. “Everything is going to be fine,” he said to Dakar. Then he disappeared, too.

  Dakar sat on the porch and watched as the rain started. Soon a drizzle like the long, slow ripple of a jazz song was soaking the trees, putting out the matches one by one.

  FROM DAKAR’S BOOK OF LISTS AND THOUGHTS

  At Mombasa we were supposed to have such a glorious vacation. But when we went snorkeling, I panicked every time I had to put my face in the water. And while they were looking at coral gardens under the sea, I got two sea urchin prongs in my foot and also split my toe. So I spent the rest of the time limping around our hotel room.

  I used to think it was just me. But now I can’t remember if Mom had a glorious time or not.

  TEN

  The next morning it was still raining. Dakar dreamed that she had just told a story and the audience was applauding politely. She woke to the sound of the rain against the windowpane. The gentle clapping made her remember the little rains on a tin roof. A clattering of angry voices down the hall was more like the big rains on tin. She lay stiff and still, trying to hear the words. Wisps eked through. Jakarta was arguing with Dad about school. But they never argued with Dad.

  The argument was still going on when Dakar went down to eat breakfast. “Mom’s leaving tomorrow,” Jakarta was saying to Dad. “I need to spend a day with her. I need her to take me shopping.”

  Dakar shot a look at Jakarta, but Jakarta stared down at her bowl.