by David Nesbit
As we started playing cards, we soon all became engrossed in the game and the intensity in which we all wanted to win was surprisingly high. It was good-natured enough, but everyone wanted to win, there was no doubt about that. As the evening went on, I began to relax more in the company of these guys and to start to feel like a ‘real man’ for the first time. I mean, here I was living away from home, working, spending my own money in leisure time with people much older than me, and I was feeling a real sense of independence; of having taken the first steps to real adulthood and of having my destiny in my own hands. I conveniently pushed to the back of my mind the minor details of my somewhat cramped living conditions, the dreariness of my employment and the very meagre daily wage that accompanied it, together with the fact that the job, as bad as it was, would probably end soon and then I would be back to square one, and instead just relaxed back in my chair and lost all my matchsticks to my brother and his mates.
Soon even this novelty and feeling of well-being wore off and I began to get just a little bored, so I started taking less interest in the game and more in my surroundings. We were at a small market, which seemed to specialise in selling cheap clothes, perfume and fish! There seemed to be a battle for supremacy going on between the contrasting aromas of inexpensive body spray and various dead sea life, the combination of which was quite an assault on the senses, I can tell you.
I was looking around at the vendors and customers and trying to take it all in, when I became aware of something else going on. All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, there seemed to be an influx of young women milling around. This was somewhat confusing. What were they doing there? They all seemed to be reasonably attractive and quite well-dressed yet they didn’t appear to be interested in doing any shopping, and what was more, they were all either in pairs or alone.
I was confused. Confused and naïve as it turned out.
My elder brother saw me gazing around in wonderment, and gave me another one of his knowing grins. ‘Hey, bung,’ he called out to me. ‘Do you like what you see?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied truthfully. ‘I don’t know what it is I am seeing.’
At this Heri and his friends all laughed, but I got the feeling it was good-naturedly and without malice, as if I had said something amusing and not as if they were mocking me.
Eko took it upon himself to explain the facts to me. ‘These girls are the same as you, bung. They come here from the villages seeking their fortune but soon find to their cost there is not that big an opportunity for poor illiterate country girls to become captains of industry.’
I was still confused and told Eko this. I asked him what the women were doing now in the market and watched him smirk and shrug his shoulders.
I looked at the other guys and they all had similar expressions and body language and then very slowly the penny began to drop.
‘No!’ I exclaimed. ‘Surely not! Surely these young women are not …’
‘Hush yourself, bung,’ admonished Heri. ‘Don’t cause a scene. They will not appreciate the attention and nor will their men. You can be sure of that.’
‘What men?’ I said my voice quieter now. ‘I see no men with them.’
‘Oh, they all have men not far away, bung, you can be sure of that too. You can’t see them but they are here, lurking.’
How fascinating, I thought. Fascinating yet seedy, dirty and sad all at the same time.
I tried to stop looking at them, but it was difficult. It wasn’t lust that made me look at these young women; (at least I don’t think it was). It was, I don’t know, interest more than anything else. They seemed to be at ease with the place and didn’t look especially nervous or ashamed or furtive or anything like I would have expected women in such a profession to look, and the men who approached them seemed exactly the same. I saw men walk up to these ladies and talk to them the way I would talk to a street vendor or shop assistant; with no embarrassment or special attitude whatsoever. I found it confusing at first, but then I guess I got used to it.
I wanted to go and talk to the girls and to find out more about them and their lives but Heri told me that would be an unwise thing to do. He told me that they wouldn’t appreciate that because ‘time is money’ and the guys in the background certainly wouldn’t appreciate it either. However, Heri continued, if I was interested in actually going with a girl then that would be a different matter.
I am sure that I blushed when he said that, but something changed right there at that moment. The men, Heri included, didn’t laugh at me or josh me any more. They looked at me with neutral yet somehow caring expressions, as if they had decided to stop teasing me and to help me out instead.
I still wasn’t really feeling any real sense of lust for these girls, attractive as they were, but I did want to talk to them. I asked Heri what would happen if I went with one of them, where would she take me, how much would it cost, for how long and would I be safe, and he did his best to answer me and put my mind at rest. He said the girl would probably take me to one of the tiny shack-like buildings the far side of the market, that it would cost about Rp 25, 000 for as long as it took, and that I would be perfectly safe because everyone could see I was with him and his friends, and that if I wasn’t back safe and sound within a reasonable amount of time, everyone would know they would come looking for me.
I thought about it for a while: where was the harm, I mused. Just go and have a look and a talk, then come back. No harm done, I thought. Then, I thought again. What’s the point? Although the situation was interesting to a degree, what would I get out of it other than my curiosity salved and a dent in my wallet? No, I decided, I would just stay where I was and let the evening float by.
So, I watched as they made they way across the market square, half wishing I had the bravery to take Heri up on his offer, and half-grateful I hadn’t. There was something captivating about the way all the girls carried themselves; a poise or proud elegance, if you will, that seemed incongruous to say the least considering the circumstances, but it was there nevertheless.
After a few minutes, the procession of nubile young and not-so-young bodies finally left the square and slowly we returned to our card games and drinking. A couple more hours went by and we were beginning to start thinking about calling it a night when my attention was caught by the sound of a commotion coming from the other side of the square.
Where all had been quiet and peaceful enough a minute ago, now a rather large man was cursing loudly and threatening all kinds of retribution on an as yet unseen personage. Although the string of garbled profanities made it difficult to make out exactly what he was complaining about from where we were sitting, the gist of his unhappiness seemed to bear relation to a certain dissatisfaction with a recent business transaction.
‘Pelacur kotor! Dia mencuri jam aku,’ is about the politest utterance of his I can relate here. It literally means, ‘the dirty prostitute has stolen my watch.’ I presumed this meant he had been ripped off by one of the prostitutes we had seen earlier and so I immediately looked to Heri for clarification. Heri confirmed this was most likely the case and we continued to watch the drama unfold.
The man was standing shouting in the square and making quite a scene, and so I asked Heri why the fellow simply didn’t go back to whichever girl had allegedly taken his watch and retrieve it himself.
‘No, dik,’ said Heri. ‘He can’t do that. If he does, the security guards in the area will set about him, instead. Under no circumstances can the girls be touched or hurt in any way. No, he has to do it this way. He has to make a commotion out here in public and then leave it up to the security to take over.’
We watched as two men emerged from the shadows and gently converged on the guy. Politely but firmly, they took an elbow each and led him to a small food stall opposite us and started the process of trying to calm him down. They spoke quietly to him and listened with what appeared to be sympathy as he, no doubt, outlined his tale of woe. After a few minutes, one of the
two men slipped away and headed off in the direction the girls had disappeared a couple of hours earlier, while the other security guy continued nodding and talking to the aggrieved customer.
‘Where’s he gone, Ri?’ I asked Heri.
‘To get the girl. The one matey here is accusing of being a thief,’ he explained. ‘This will be interesting, Jack,’ he continued. ‘Watch and learn.’
Within five minutes the first security chap was back with a young lady in tow. She looked to be in her late teens or very early twenties, had a small and somewhat skinny body, short black hair and stood, I guess, no more than 150cm. She was, I presumed, the suspected thief.
Upon studying her more closely, I was taken aback by the way she carried herself. I would have expected someone in her position, being practically paraded as a thief in public, to at least look a little apprehensive, if not downright petrified. I remembered my own experience of public humiliation at the hands of Pak Simon when he’d accused me of being a thief back in my village and how utterly numb and incapable of speech I was at the time, but now saw none of the same trepidation present in this particular young lady.
Indeed, she walked towards her accuser with a straight back and her held her head up high, and although I was too far away to make out what was being said, I could see her talking calmly to both the security guards and the guy himself. The guy was still angry and was throwing his arms around as he continued to no doubt cast aspersions on the young lady’s character, while she continued to stand her ground.
After a couple of minutes of this stand-off, the girl said something to one of the two security guards. He seemed to do a double-take, then appeared to ask her to repeat whatever it was she’d said. This she did, and then the security guy spoke directly to the punter who initially looked just as shocked as the security guy had a matter of seconds earlier. Nevertheless, the punter put his hand into the back pocket of his trousers and, lo-and-behold, pulled out what was quite clearly an expensive looking watch.
All three men looked dumbfounded. What had just happened? I turned to Heri sitting beside me in the hope that he would be able to shed some light as to what had transpired before our very eyes, but for once even he had no answers for me. We watched as the young lady simply turned away dismissively from all three gentleman and made her way back to from where she had come.
Subsequent to this little unexpected piece of drama, we did indeed call it a night and made our way home. That night, finally alone in the small hubby hole I was sleeping in in Heri’s place, I found myself unable to sleep. My mind kept drifting back to what I’d witnessed that evening and especially the altercation involving the working girl.
Who was she, I wondered, where did she come from and how had she ended up in her line of work? Most intriguingly, I wondered how she’d pulled off the trick with the watch. Had she, I mused, somehow performed a conjuring trick to put the watch back into the guy’s pocket – you know, a sleight of hand thing- or had she just noticed the dozy chap putting the watch there himself back in the room? It was a right conundrum, I told myself, and make no mistake. Those were my last thoughts as I finally drifted off to sleep.
The next few weeks went by and I started to feel a bit more at home in Jakarta. I started becoming a bit braver and began negotiating the city’s public transport systems and learning a bit more about the city and the amazing chorus line of characters it plays host to.
I was starting to learn that it is an unforgiving city in as much as it is survival of the fittest in all walks of life. The city is a contradiction of high-rise apartments, shopping malls and seven-star hotels amongst an array of polluted rivers, crippled and deformed beggars and appalling poverty, and as I took in my new surroundings, I became more aware of why Heri was not as yet living the good life. Notwithstanding this, still I didn’t feel despondent regarding my own chances of making a go of things. On the contrary, whereas I could see the challenges ahead, I could also see the opportunities too.
I carried on working with Heri and his friends at the building site, and although I was grateful for the work, it wasn’t long before I started getting itchy feet and started wanting to see what other alternatives were out there. We would work until just before 6pm, or magrib evening prayers, each day before usually heading out for a walk or just hanging around the settlement, known locally as a kampong, where we lived.
We would sometimes head back to Godok and the site of the adventures of my first night in Jakarta, but such trips were rather rare as most of us were keen to save what money we could and on the rare occasion when we did venture there, I found to my mild disappointment there was neither a repeat of prior histrionics nor any sign of the girl responsible for them.
I actually spent rather a disproportionate amount of time thinking about that particular young lady for some reason. I guess I was slightly in awe of the way she had held herself together and conducted herself that night, and couldn’t help but continue to compare it with the way I’d practically hidden behind my father when I’d been in the same situation back home. This girl was a bit of an enigma to me, and I decided that if I ever got the chance I would like to talk to her – just to try and get a bit of a handle on her and see what made her tick.
As it happened, I didn’t have long to have to wait. A couple of nights later and the usual suspects had decided on spending the evening in Godok. As usual, I was invited along and as I agreed, I started developing a plan of action. I would, I decided, try and get to meet her, and if all went well, I would attempt to put my curiosity to rest. The only problem was I didn’t know how to approach her except by way of presenting myself as a willing consumer of her goods for sale, if you get my drift. I remembered Heri’s initial warning to me that these young ladies were not tourist attractions to be gawped at or to have their time wasted by the likes of me asking inane questions, so I knew I would have to pretend to be interested in her services.
I decided if I saw her walking across the square tonight I would simply go through with a charade of pretending to be interested in her in the normal consumer manner and see what happened.
This meant, though, the embarrassment of having to broach the subject with Heri. I decided to keep things brief and not tell Heri of my plans in advance, rather I would bring the subject up only if I saw the young lady and then I would try and let Heri know I wished to take him up on the kind offer he and his friends had previously extended.
The evening panned out exactly the same as previous ones spent in Godok. We found a spot and some of the guys ordered beers while Eko and I just sipped iced tea and water, and we played our games of matchstick-cards while chatting amiably and watching the world go by. At about 10pm the usual procession of girls started as the young ladies made their way round the enclosure of small eateries, or warungs, and that’s when I saw her and made eye contact. She smiled at me and my heart started to beat just a little faster. It was now or never.
‘Ri,’ I nudged my elder sibling.
‘Hmm?’ he was preoccupied talking to his friend, Untoro, and paid me little heed.
‘Heri,’ I persisted. ‘Ri.’
‘What is it?’ he muttered, now annoyed that I was disturbing his flow.
‘That.’ I said, nodding over in the direction of the nameless lady who continued to give me the slightest hint of what could be construed as ‘the eye’.
Now Heri caught on.
‘Ahhhhhh, I see,’ he sort of smirked. ‘Leave it with me.’
Heri had a quick word with his friends who all grinned at me, and each contributed Rp 4,000 leaving me to pay the remainder.
So, this was it. I took a deep breath I got up out of my chair and went over to her.
She smiled at me and we started chatting in what we call basa-basi, or small talk. I was once more aware of the fact that I shouldn’t take up too much of her time lest she think I was just playing with her. Heri had warned me once again to get right to the point as quickly as possible, and so after a couple of minutes I did.
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br /> ‘Would you like to spend some time with me, Non?’ I asked.
‘Sure, sayang. You know time is money, eh?’ she replied, still smiling.
‘I do, Non,’ said I, the smooth operator that I am, and we left together for the row of shacks just visible the other side of the market.
As we walked together I felt self-conscious and shy. I was sure that everyone in the market would be looking at us and knowing who we were and where we were going, but I needn’t have worried because a quick glance around assured me that no-one was paying us the slightest bit of attention. People were just getting on with shopping, selling, talking to their friends or whatever it is they were doing. I was heartened by this and began to relax a bit more. I did wonder, however, just what the hell I thought I was doing and why. I was telling myself I was just curious and I just wanted to know more about her, about things and about life in general. I was arguing with myself that my curiosity was natural and harmless, but it was an argument I was in severe danger of losing.
We reached the row of tin shacks and the girl, Devi was her name, produced a key and opened one and led me inside. It was tiny, probably smaller even than Heri’s room in his kost, and all it contained was a mattress on the floor, a chair piled up with clothes, a fold away table also piled with clothes, some cutlery and crockery, and in the far corner, a tap and a bucket – presumably for washing clothes, cutlery, crockery and bodies.
Devi was nice to me. She could see I was nervous so she did her best to put me at ease. She smiled easily and chatted pleasantly as if we were old friends as she moved around the tiny place. She told me she was going to take a wash first and suggested I had one too.
She was nice. I was relaxing and felt ok.