Kitchen Curse

by Eka Kurniawan

  This was the record of what he owed the Fat Lady at the Filthy Canteen. He would say to himself before falling asleep, “I don’t need to worry about it yet, I’m sure I’ll be able to pay it back soon.”

  Then he would sleep peacefully, without first having to be told the tale of Lutung Kasarung the Monkey Prince or “The Red Onion and the Clove of Garlic.” He didn’t need an alarm clock to shriek and wake him up in the morning either. He didn’t even know what it felt like for the warmth of the morning sun’s rays to touch his body, because the windows of his pigpen were always shut tight. The only way he knew it was time to get up was the bustle of the students and professors arriving outside; when he heard that, it was usually already seven in the morning.

  He would roll around and stretch a bit, then get up and open the door. The Dean would be getting out of his car. Edi Idiot would give him a friendly smile, and the Dean would glare back at him. Then the Pretty One, his junior, would appear; Edi Idiot would smile and the Pretty One would scurry away. But his feelings were never hurt. He would just head over to the water pump, in no rush, wash his face, and then lazily stroll over to the Filthy Canteen, order a coffee, and hang out until midday.

  There was lots of gossip and idle chatter to be heard at the Filthy Canteen. Who should take responsibility for getting Nurul knocked up? Which fat mustachioed old guy was monitoring the students “posing a threat to the nation’s safety”? Who deserved support: the black Timorese who were pro-Indonesia or the black Timorese who preferred independence? (Obviously nobody was going to defend the descendants of the Portuguese who were still in power.) But even with all of these serious matters under discussion, there was only one topic that truly threw the nomads into an uproar:

  “They say the Rector might forbid us to sleep on campus.”

  Edi Idiot successfully lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor, right behind the Fat Canteen Lady’s ass.

  And, indeed, one day it truly came to pass. Edi Idiot came home late in the afternoon from a tiring odyssey to find his pigpen locked and all his things piled on a rickety chair out front. He panicked and bolted over to the security guard’s booth.

  “Wh—who locked the building?” he stammered, angry and afraid.

  “How should I know?” the guard said. “I heard they want to turn the place into the kitchen for a new cafeteria for the do-gooder civil servants’ wives.”

  “Those dogs!”

  “Who are dogs?”

  “You know, those pigs.”

  Whatever had happened, clearly the security guard would not be able to return him to his splendid kingdom. Edi Idiot trudged back to his locked pen to gather his things. He put his flaccid pillow into a filthy backpack, along with his three pairs of jeans and his favorite shirt. He rolled up the bamboo mat and stashed it in the rafters—he would come back and get it at some point. Then the little table … ah, just leave it there. Who knows, maybe he would return to reign over the pigpen once more. Finally, he folded his cherished blanket and clamped it under his arm.

  And now what?

  He stood at the department gate at a loss. He didn’t know where to go. He hadn’t rented a room in four years, and worse than that, he had no money to rent one. His feet led him to the student quad, where most of the nomads took advantage of the rooms left unused at night, but all he found was locked doors and dejected, banished students. A few of the kids tried to incite the others into a little protest against a truly unjust situation, but most were sleepy and exhausted—and unmotivated—so they didn’t respond well. And Edi Idiot, of course, preferred to hustle past everyone and find a comfortable place to sleep for the night.

  He wandered around from one building to another, covering every corner of campus. He ran into some of his nighttime compatriots, who were just as despondent, but he didn’t find a good place to sleep until well after midnight, when he lost his way in the chancellor’s building, wandered out the north entrance and found an empty security booth. Well it’s not a pigpen, he thought to himself, but a monkey cage will be just as good!

  And so there he slept, surrounded by the ghosts of dead whores and women who had killed themselves, evil spirits, and other sorts of horrific beings. None of that spookiness disturbed him in the least—he slept soundly, like a nail driven into a door. But then he awoke with a start in the morning to find a mangy dog sniffing his ass. The dog was just as surprised and backed off a little. Edi Idiot gave him a hearty kick, and he ran away yelping.

  Then, still gasping for breath and clutching at his chest, Edi Idiot sat up. He let the morning sunlight bathe his body, whispering softly, “Oh, thank you, God. How disgusting would it have been if that damned dog had sodomized me!”

  He quickly grabbed for his backpack, clamped his blanket under his arm and walked towards the Filthy Canteen to get a cup of coffee as usual. And this became his new routine: sleeping in the monkey cage with horrifying creatures, then awakening to the sniffing molestations of a mangy dog. And now, every morning for a number of days, there was this sight for all the world to see: a young guy, skin and bones with dread-locked hair, walking from the chancellor’s building towards the Filthy Canteen, carrying a backpack stuffed full of clothes and a pillow, a light-brown blanket clamped under his left armpit. He was our friend, Edi Idiot, whose bad luck had forced him to play such a pathetic role.

  But, as it turned out, it wasn’t just the people passing by who felt sorry for him—he started to pity himself. He began to weigh all the bad things about sleeping in that monkey cage. In a month or two he was certain to develop acute pneumonia and, plus, even though he had his cherished thick blanket, the cold air in the open booth might give him rheumatism; both good reasons to make him long for the old days that maybe hadn’t really been so great. He was also worried that living among all those supernatural beings would sooner or later leave him traumatized. But what horrified him the most was the possibility that one morning he would wake up and that mangy dog would be in the process of sodomizing him!

  Drinking coffee at the Filthy Canteen, he counted what was left of his money. He had three thousand in bills and four hundred in coins. He tried to think of all the different ways to double such a small amount so that he could rent a storage unit, just for a couple of months. But the capitalistic spirit had no hold on his half-witted brain; the only plan he could think up was to gamble the money on a game of dominos. He quickly got the Fat Canteen Lady to change all his money into hundred-rupiah coins, and he hurried back to the department to gather all his gambling friends. They often played out back behind the canteen, where the professors who loved to stick their noses in other people’s business wouldn’t witness their coarse behavior. In the first half an hour, Edi Idiot won 600 in coins, but as the game went on, he lost, coin by coin, until his friends, who were better gamblers, had completely cleaned him out.

  But Edi Idiot was still caught up in the game and called out, “Keep going!”

  “What are you going to bet with?”

  “What can I do, I’ll bet Ayu Azhari.”

  “You can’t, you bet her three days ago and you lost.”

  “Okay then, Sarah Azhari.”

  “Whatever, she’s not your girlfriend.”

  “Who cares?”

  “You’re going to cheat. That’s it, let’s split.”

  “But …”

  His friends had already scattered in every direction. Only Edi Idiot was left, glumly trying to think how he could get some money to rent a room, one that would keep him safe from the sexual harassment of snot-nosed dogs.

  For a while, he would beg at a busy intersection, but what he earned fell far short of what he needed. He was even tempted to steal just a tiny bit; but his balls shriveled up when he read a newspaper article about a thief who had been burned alive by an angry crowd. And, so, Edi Idiot began to lose his glow. His smiling features, which had often cheered his friends up, became grim and drawn, as if he had aged twenty years. He was often lost in thought though hadn’t turne
d into a philosopher; he would loudly pronounce upon his situation, but he clearly wasn’t a poet either—maybe he was starting to lose his mind again.

  He began to consider the possibility of killing himself. Sometimes he even thought about going home to his village and giving up on all the effort he had put into becoming a respectable college graduate. But he didn’t do any of that. He still loved the university, the city, his friends—he had to survive, no matter how pathetic a life he had to lead.

  Sometimes he felt how low and lost he truly was: subsisting on this earth in a sorry state, and probably going to hell when he died. But his melancholy lifted in an instant one morning when, walking along the road from the chancellor’s building to the Filthy Canteen, carrying his bag on one shoulder and his blanket under his arm, he ran into a young woman he knew. Her name was Widy. They were in the same class when they started university, but fate had set them on quite different paths—Widy had graduated and had even got a faculty job.

  “Oh, Widy, my friend, how are you?” Edi Idiot approached her with a bright face and an outstretched hand.

  Widy, who was heading towards the faculty office, looked at him with concern. “Oh, Edi, how long has it been since you had a bath?”

  “Oh, my friend, don’t bother about that! I’ve heard you haven’t been around much lately?”

  “Me? If you ever went to class, you would see me at the podium lecturing once a week.”

  “Ah, well, now I’m embarrassed.”

  “You look hungry, can I treat you to a meal?” Widy asked.

  They stopped by the Filthy Canteen and had breakfast together, talking about all kinds of things, but mostly reminiscing, as two friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time will do. Where’s our bald friend Agus? Ah, he got a job in Jakarta. Yes, it’s true, Iwan became a journalist, quite impressive. And Sinta, I heard she got married—had a kid, but then got divorced, it’s unfortunate for her. I don’t know about Andy, I heard he went to Kalimantan—what a dope, to drop out like that, maybe it was for a business opportunity but as far as I know every business he ever tried failed.

  “And you? My God, are you the only member of our class who is still hanging on to student life?”

  Edi Idiot just smiled and asked, “I heard you had plans to get married?”

  Widy smiled too and nodded. “I certainly do,” she said. “Right now we’re saving up for a house and all the domestic odds and ends.”

  “I thought you were saving yourself for me!”

  “Too bad you took too long and missed your chance.”

  Edi Idiot finished his breakfast feeling satisfied, because for the first time in a long while he had been able to eat as much as he wanted. “Well anyway,” he said, “If your fiancé runs off on your wedding day, I would be honored to take his place.”

  Widy laughed.

  “Thanks, I’ll think about it.”

  Edi Idiot’s eyes shone as he looked at his friend—no, not because he was picturing what it would be like to replace her wayward fiancé, but because he was thinking that now was the right time to strike, spring upon Widy with the request he had been preparing through breakfast.

  “My dear friend,” he said quietly, afraid of being overheard by the other diners at the Filthy Canteen, “would you be willing to lend your unfortunate and pitiable old pal over here some cash?”

  “You’re asking to borrow money?”

  “Not so loud, sweetie, but … yeah, that’s what I mean.”

  “You’re not in real trouble, are you?”

  Edi Idiot looked around and then looked back at his friend. His eyes welled up (ah, he hadn’t expected to get all weepy). Then slowly he confessed, “You know that I live in a pigpen, don’t you?”

  “A pigpen in the animal husbandry department?”

  “No, I mean the building that used to be for the mimeograph machine.”

  “Yes, everyone knows that.”

  “But I don’t live there anymore.”

  “So, that’s why I haven’t seen you lately.”

  “University authorities have forbidden us to live on campus anymore. Now I’m living in a monkey cage, with giant ape spirits and the ghosts of women who died in childbirth for company, and there’s a snot-nosed dog trying to go to bed with me.”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s the security booth near the chancellor’s office.”

  “Oh my God, honey, that’s terrible.”

  “Yes, it is!” said Edi Idiot. And, getting carried away, he dramatized a bit: “I have developed pneumonia, possibly dengue fever too, and I might be experiencing heart failure. I’m starting to suspect I’ve lost a kidney and I’m worried that if I stay there any longer I might get AIDS.”

  “It would be better if you could rent a room.”

  Aha! Barely maintaining his self-control, Edi Idiot whispered, “That’s exactly why I want to borrow money from you. Or if you don’t have any money, at least you could share your bed with me.”

  “I’d much prefer to lend you some money.”

  “That’s perfectly fine.”

  “But all I have is a hundred thousand.”

  “That’s more than enough.”

  They carried the transaction out discreetly. And while it was going on, Edi Idiot was saying thank you a thousand times. You are a true friend, Widy. I hope you always stay as beautiful as you are now. I hope you get promoted quickly—if you can, become a Rector who takes the side of unfortunate students such as myself. I hope your good works are received by God, and I hope you might truly be interested in making me your husband.

  Widy just smiled at all that flattery and said she had to hurry to the lecture hall to teach.

  “Yes, yes, goodbye, my friend!”

  Widy left, and Edi Idiot waved both hands joyfully.

  Now he had one hundred thousand. Edi Idiot ruminated, alone amid the din of the Filthy Canteen. Yeah, this was enough to rent a room for two months, he thought. Maybe three months, if he looked for one far from campus, but he began to consider a few things. He would probably end up with a Cruel Landlady, and a Greedy Landlady, and of course a Bossy Loudmouth Landlady. There was only a very slim chance of getting a Generous and Sweet-tempered Landlady.

  If he was renting a room, he could no longer yell as loud as he wanted in the middle of the night and it would be strictly forbidden to get drunk. It would be even more awful if he had a curfew and had to be home by nine. The more he thought about it, the more he hesitated, and the idea of renting a room started to fill him with dread.

  But what else could he do? His good friend had already lent him the money, which he was now holding firmly in his grip. And what’s more, it was awful to keep living in the monkey cage—he could die of shame.

  As he was thinking about that, his eyes fell on the Fat Canteen Lady. She was serving a customer. “Full portion or half? With vegetables? Oh, pecel.” Then another. “What do you want with it? Rice and vegetables with a fried egg, two pieces of tempeh and an ice tea, two thousand five hundred. Thank you.” All of a sudden, Edi Idiot remembered something. He opened his bag and found that notebook. Once the Fat Canteen Lady was taking a break alone, Edi Idiot approached her.

  “Here’s what I owe,” he mumbled, quiet and ashamed.

  The Fat Canteen Lady counted it out and Edi Idiot lost more than half of the money.

  But he was overjoyed that he had finally settled that debt. He took off for a stroll, whistling. Cheerful songs were once again on his lips. He had already forgotten his plans to rent a room, so what had possessed him? Did he have a brilliant idea? Indeed, he did. That afternoon, he paid a locksmith to open the door to his pigpen. And that night he spent the rest of his money buying cheap white arak wine and a plastic bag filled with wrapped bundles of rice from a roadside food stall. With this, he treated all his friends to dinner. They had a wild party, getting drunk and singing until they all fell asleep, completely at peace.

  Before he had fully lost consciousness, E
di Idiot did not forget to pray—“May I find a way to repay my debt to Widy … zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

  THE OTTER AMULET

  “Do you still get beaten up a lot?” asked an old friend when we ran into each other at my grandmother’s house during Lebaran.

  “Well, no, not anymore,” I answered, grinning.

  He made me think back to when I was still a little kid. My mother had just given birth to my younger brother, so Father parked me at Grandma’s house in the village. In my new school, I was the only one who wore shoes and the only one who had a pencil sharpener. Naturally, this was bad news. With my undersized, frail body, nose full of snot, and often suffering from a cold, I was an easy target for my classmates. Every day they robbed me of my pocket money.

  On one occasion three of them beat me up for purposely not bringing any pocket money to school. Grandma got wind of what was happening. You might think she would call on the school principal and lodge a complaint about the bullies; or send me back to be with my mother, which is what I wanted.

  But it turned out Grandma had her own way of handling things. That afternoon she took me to a hut near a spring. Later on, I learned the owner’s job was, of course, guarding the spring. The hut was tiny, with smoke curling up from a hole in its wooden roof. Maybe the people inside were cooking over a charcoal fire. Grandma knocked, and a few moments later the door opened.

  Before us stood an old man who immediately invited Grandma to come in and sit down. “No need! I’m just dropping by,” said Grandma, looking at something behind the old man’s back. A boy was standing there, older than I was and looking at us as if we irritated him.

  “What grade is your boy Rohman in?” Grandma asked.

  “Fourth grade,” said the old man, turning to face his son. “Go ask your mother to bring us some tea.”

  But Grandma signaled to the boy to stay and ordered him to come close.

  When he approached, she said to Rohman, ignoring the old man, “Listen, starting tomorrow you’ll move to grade two and share a bench with my grandson. If anyone gives him a bad time, you can beat the boy as hard as you like.”