The Birdwoman's Palate

by Laksmi Pamuntjak

  Rania is telling us one of those stories now. “I was born in 1965 in Banda Aceh, but was raised in Medan. We used to live in this area, before the market was built. I don’t remember anything about those days. I was just a baby. When I was in elementary school, my father told me about how the shophouses at the intersection outside the fish market were looted when I was just one year old. That was when anti-Chinese and anti-Communist sentiment was at its peak. We weren’t Chinese, but since we lived in the vicinity, we were sent packing, too, and forced to flee to Medan.

  “Many of my father’s friends got rich in Medan and didn’t want to come back here. But my father had sentimental ties to Aceh—this city especially. And so, twenty years later, we returned. Now my father is dead. My mother, too. I live by the sea on Weh Island, off the coast from here, with my dogs. They’re my loyal companions and protectors. But almost every year some of them are poisoned by neighbors, and we say nothing. I’m not sure if it’s because we don’t love and value our dogs enough or it’s because we’re more afraid of violence and conflict. It gives you pause, though. Sometimes it breaks my heart.”

  Meanwhile, the car continues toward the Grand Mosque, and, once we’re on Jalan Diponegoro, Rania speaks again. “See that row of shops there? Last year four of them were set on fire. Three were stores owned by the Ramai group, and one a store owned by another conglomerate called Sejahtera. They’re both local stalwarts. Anyway, nobody knows who did it or why, but it caused quite the commotion.” She’s pointing now to a Pante Pirak convenience store by the side of the road. “The group that owns that chain practically runs Banda Aceh—and we’re not just talking about convenience stores. They own waterparks, restaurants, bakeries, salons, modern cafés, you name it. They started out as a single clothing store, not far from the Rex, and pretty much dominated the landscape. But now that the national convenience store chain Indomaret has reached Aceh, Pante Pirak just went totally berserk.”

  On the main street behind the Grand Mosque, we pass stores selling cloth and gold. Nearby, a Buddhist monastery and three churches stand miraculously undamaged, and in apparent harmony. A Catholic church called Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, a church of some Protestant affiliation, and a Methodist church. Expensive luxury cars jam the road, as if they, the cars and the road, belong to an entirely different history—one that’s still being written, unfolding in accordance with a logic that has nothing to do with destruction or tears.

  That night, we eat at a restaurant famous for its Sate Matang. It seems like everyone is anxious to vent.

  To my right, Farish, Rania, and Toba:

  “People hate me because they think I’m in over my head. I even manage all my supervisor’s schedules and accounts. But I don’t mind—I asked for that responsibility. ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘let me handle your schedule. That way, your office won’t always be crowded with people waiting around to talk to you.’”

  “Mighty noble of you. And his secretary didn’t protest?”

  “Nah, she couldn’t handle the responsibility, and she knew it, too. If it were all up to me, I’d try to schedule meetings for him only on Fridays or Mondays. That way, if he has to head out of town during the weekend, he can come and go straight from the office, no time wasted.”

  “If you ask me, it’s imperative that a meeting starts on time and keeps to a strict agenda—who will be talking and what about. And if it’ll last from nine to eleven, then say so. Don’t just say from nine to whenever.”

  “That’s what I think, too.”

  “And of course people just hate you more because you say the first fucking thing on your mind. But what can you do? There’s always hierarchy in bureaucracy.”

  “You know what I find really annoying? When Mr. Second-Tier Civil Servant doesn’t have the guts to speak to the secretary general and Mr. First-Tier Civil Servant doesn’t have the guts to speak to the minister. Then everyone ends up waiting on everyone else and nothing gets done.”

  “Not to mention the fact that we live with our decisions—the ones we make and don’t make today . . . and the consequences can be long-term. Get this: once I was part of a team of consultants that was asked to put forward ideas for an anti-corruption strategy to be implemented nationwide. That was in 2003. In 2006 we’d just entered the drafting stage for the strategy. Now you take a wild guess how long it took. The law only fucking came out in 2011.”

  “See? That’s why consultants should be bolder in asking for more money. If we don’t, they’ll treat us like cows, constantly milking us for ideas. Consultants should be highly paid. Hell, we should get fucking top dollar; we’re the ones who bring in our contacts and networks to get projects rolling.”

  “I agree. Actually, there are lots of promising kids working in the Department of Foreign Affairs. A lot of new blood. And they know their stuff when it comes to recruitment. No wonder the National Investment Coordination Board is poaching them. Still, they’d be hopeless if they had to clean up the ministry bureaucracy from the inside.”

  Nadezhda and Bono:

  “What’s up? Why the long face?”

  “I’m fucking depressed.”

  “Um. That’s not news.”

  “No, seriously. I just read an article about that marvelous chef in Modena . . .”

  “Massimo Bottura?”

  “That’s him. The one whose restaurant was ranked third on ‘San Pellegrino’s World’s 100 Best Restaurants’ list.”

  “Really? You’re still obsessed with those lists? When are you going to get over them?”

  “What do you mean? I’ll always be obsessed with them. Those lists are important. People these days don’t have the patience to do thorough research. They go for the bottom line.”

  “But ultimately, all lists are subjective—it all depends on who puts them together.”

  “Yes, but they still set a certain standard. After all, the people who put them together have experience. They’re considered experts in their field.”

  “But those lists can’t set the standard forever. They’re seasonal, subject to change.”

  “They’re still important, no matter the establishment: a restaurant can’t be okay all the time or on top forever. Every restaurant has its moments.”

  “Okay, so what’s the problem exactly? You want to get on that list? ‘Siria: Third-Best Restaurant in the World’?”

  “You’re such a bitch.”

  “And that’s why you love me. So tell me, what’s so special about Bottura? What makes him better than everyone else?”

  “I’ve never tried his food. I imagine it must be out of this world. But this article was talking about the way he thinks, his approach to food.”

  “Which is . . .”

  “He sees food as a metaphor. Each dish he creates, according to the article, tells a story. His most famous dish, for example, is called ‘camouflage.’ It is a combination of foie gras custard, dark chocolate, and espresso foam—the inspiration came from a conversation between Picasso and Gertrude Stein in Paris at the beginning of World War One. They saw a camouflaged truck across the street—”

  “Hmph.”

  “What do you mean by ‘hmph’? As a Parisian you should appreciate—”

  “Naturellement. But I don’t see the connection.”

  “According to the article, Picasso, who’d never in the whole of his life encountered camouflage, much less that of the kind used in war, said something along the lines of, ‘Ah, we’re the ones who created that—that’s Cubism!’”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Funny, right?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “C’mon. Funny, right?”

  “Okay, okay. It’s funny.”

  “So picture this: I see you and Aruna covered in mud, riding a motorized becak in Medan, and this inspires me to create a dessert that looks like pempek. So instead of being vinegary and spicy, the sauce is sweet, made from, say, palm sugar or chocolate, to represent the muddiness of things. As for the part of the dish meant to res
emble the pempek—let’s make the ingredients something rather unexpected. Potatoes, for example, to symbolize transportation. Something that rolls . . .”

  “Hmm . . .”

  “Same thing, right?”

  “All right. I get your point. But potatoes and palm sugar?”

  “Why not? I can put my own spin on ‘black on black’ if I want. That’s another Bottura creation.”

  “Oh right. The dish that was inspired by Thelonious Monk.”

  “What don’t you know? Anyway, what’s stopping me from whipping up any old dish, throwing in some spherical ingredient, then claiming, oh yeah, I was inspired to create this dish after listening to Bonita’s cover of ‘A Pair of Eyes’?”

  “Well, no one’s stopping you.”

  “My point is who’d be able to say, ‘Bono’s such a liar,’ or ‘Bono just made that up so he can sound artsy-fartsy.’”

  “True. Nobody would dare accuse you of being a liar. But everyone would be entitled to think it.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Oh, come on, you. Cheer up.”

  “So I’m right. That’s the key to success: get famous and people will believe anything you say.”

  “Yep. Life just isn’t fair.”

  Meanwhile, the sate matang is certainly robust, and its meat well done, in keeping with the dictionary definition of what “matang” is: “well done, cooked through.” But the “matang” of its name actually refers to the name of a village in Bireun, where the dish originated.

  The beef has been cut into large cubes—all lean, without a trace of fat. Before being skewered and grilled, each piece has been simmered in a coconut milk sauce until thoroughly saturated in sweetness and spice. The skewers of satay come with a plate of peanut dipping sauce. But this isn’t a satay for sauce lovers. No. This satay demands a more sophisticated and discerning palate. Bono makes comparisons to Sate Klathak and Sate Maranggi. Nadezhda makes reference to Sate Bali or Balinese satay. As if they want to prove that good satay, true satay, doesn’t need to be dipped in anything at all, they push their plates of peanut sauce toward me, making a huge production of devouring skewer after skewer.

  And as for me, do I protest? Do I proceed to immediately drench all my satay in sauce to show them I, too, have my own opinions? No. Why? Because I’m still floating in the ocean of voices not my own. I feel attenuated. So much for being the designated “food aficionado.” All I have on my mind and palate is Leon’s voice, which I keep hearing in my ears. It seems to permeate the restaurant.

  26

  COFFEE, MEN, AND PRIZEWINNING SONGBIRDS

  Nadezhda often speaks about feminine cities and masculine countries, the woman that is Paris and the man that is Spain; London, the city of men, and Vienna the coquette; transsexual Moscow, homosexual Bangkok, and asexual Japan.

  To me, Aceh is the Land of a Thousand Coffee Warungs, and Banda Aceh is the City of a Thousand Coffee Warungs. And it is almost 100 percent male. All along the road I see men everywhere, mainly in the small traditional coffeehouses. Everywhere—from the insides of buildings to the courtyards outdoors, in the nooks and crannies fragrant with coffee. Coffee strained through a socklike sieve before it’s poured from one long-spouted stainless steel pot into another, or stirred straight into boiling water before it’s poured into a glass, sans grounds. I see men everywhere. Watching. Sipping. Filling the air with their aromas and appetites.

  In the Ulee Kareng district, at the famous Warung Kopi Solong, men are scattered throughout like coffee beans of the celebrated Gayo variety.

  This morning the six of us are sitting in the back near the bean-grinding station, having coffee.

  The barista is friendly. “Can you guess what I put into my Robusta beans?”

  “How should we know?” we reply.

  He grins. “Butter,” he says breezily. “You really can’t tell?”

  Then, just like that, in keeping with convention, the men opt for black coffee while the women order sanger, milky coffee with sugar. And thus Nature lays bare a collection of correspondences: men = dark; women = light; men = bitter; women = sweet.

  Out of idle interest I center my attention on Toba. Whenever he smiles or stretches his arms, he transforms, turning into the contours that shape his cheeks and his jaw, his this and his that. How male can you get?

  So then, why is it that, despite being in He-Man Land, my gaze keeps shifting to the one man beside me, who gives me a nudge with his wiry arm whenever I’m in need of human touch? This man, who doesn’t seem to care too much for human beings, yet waxes so eloquent about fauna and flora? Who’ll occasionally sit alone, brooding in the darkest corner and waving away all offers of a stiff drink yet other times gulps it down seriously, earnestly, as if he were conducting his own case study for the push and pull between discipline and punishment? This man—capable of netting and containing my rage with the precision of an avid butterfly collector.

  I don’t tell Nadezhda how I sometimes catch a whiff of other scents he gives off—sharper, more intimate ones. The smell of his fatigue when he took off his shoe at one point to adjust his sock. The old-man smell of long-accumulated sweat tinged with the smell of popcorn (I should know—I’m popcorn, after all). That distinctively male smell that rushes out every now and then from his crotch when he shifts in his seat.

  I don’t tell Nadezhda because I’m used to thinking of men as her domain.

  There really and truly are, it would seem, certain women—like champagne—to whom the whole world belongs.

  The food at the restaurant isn’t memorable. One might even say it’s not that good. But Amir, our driver, can’t stop smacking his lips as he provides commentary on this dish and that—the Keumamah and Gule Pliek Ue; the Sie Reuboh, Lepat, and Eungkoh Bilih Paih; the Eungkoh Tumeh Asam Keueung and Pacrie Nanas.

  Meanwhile, I become more and more convinced that really good Acehnese food is probably found only in local households, not restaurants. A lot of my Acehnese friends in Jakarta have said the same thing. I whisper as much to Rania.

  She seems pleased. “And not only that!” she says. “Guests are never not served food in an Acehnese house. I’m not just talking about snacks. It has to be a complete meal. Rice, meat, vegetables—the works.”

  But it looks like she doesn’t want to hurt the driver’s feelings. They’ve known each other for a while.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” says Rania. “There’s one more thing. In general, Acehnese men know how to cook. Don’t ask me why; they just do. Even their knowledge of spices is above average.”

  Coincidentally, Amir is blathering on to Bono and Nadezhda along similar lines, pointing to the scraps on his empty plate.

  “Take this curry, for example,” he booms. “A man’s dish—Adam’s domain. Now picture this: We’re at one of last year’s kenduri. It’s a community-wide feast to mark the harvest. It’s March. There are four thousand people! Now guess. Who do you think made the beef Beulangong curry? Who do you think sliced up the jackfruit and seasoned the meat? Us menfolk! Us Adams, of course, working together. And all the while, all the Eves did at most was stay inside and make the easy dishes: rujak, pickles, Bubur Kanji Rumbi . . .”

  I exchange glances with Rania, who, despite Amir’s affirmation of her theory, seems undecided whether to openly acknowledge the sexism. “It’s true, though. A beulangong is a large clay pot, so obviously a lot of people need to pitch in.”

  But then, in the background, I hear Amir’s voice grow gentle. Through the crevices between his teeth, stained yellow with bits of boh itek masen—salted duck egg—I hear “shamas, lovebirds, mynas.” I prick up my ears.

  “The birds who win that competition are fantastic! And pricey! Last year’s champion, a white-rumped shama, sold for 130 million rupiah!”

  “So which birds make the best singers and which ones usually compete?” asks Toba.

  “There’s a bunch of them. There’s the orange-headed thrush—we like to call it the teler-teler. It’s exactly the same
size as a collared dove. There’s also the crested jay, a type of myna with a crest like a candle. And the beard bird, also known as the grey-cheeked bulbul, which is akin to a pied starling but smaller and usually a light-brown and cream color, with a beard like an old man.” He laughs. “There are lots of different beard birds, too—more than one kind: tembak beards and besek beards, and who knows what beards besides. But none of them can compare to the white-rumped shama—that is, when it comes to sound quality, stamina, and how many songs it can memorize.”

  “What about lovebirds?” asks Toba. “Isn’t that a bird one sees a lot at these competitions?”

  “That’s right. But the better ones are all imports. The local ones—their eyes are usually of average size and shape—aren’t all that special. The ones that are imported, though, have large, round eyes and a wonderful sound, high and clear. I mean, really unique. I like canaries and oriental magpie-robins, too. That last one I mentioned is black and white, and their voices are kind of like the white-rumped shama’s, which is actually red and has a tail—”

  “You said you keep birds, too, Amir?” asks Farish. “And enter all the competitions?”

  “Sure do,” says Amir with a grin. “And I’ll tell you, what I don’t do for those birds! Preparing them is serious business. Two to three months before the contest, I start giving them vitamins and Scott’s Emulsion every day. I feed them crickets, caterpillars, and ant eggs. Once in a while, during the monsoon season, they get Timphan dumplings—a local sweet snack made of glutinous rice, banana, and coconut milk—to improve their stamina. Then, when it gets hot, I give them bamboo worms to keep their body temperatures down. Sometimes I even give them carrots and apples to keep them in good shape.”