The Birdwoman's Palate

by Laksmi Pamuntjak

  “Wow,” says Toba, with a ripple of laughter. “Their diet’s healthier than mine.”

  “So, Amir,” I cut in. “You’re not worried about catching avian flu?”

  Amir looks at me like he doesn’t understand the question.

  27

  FAITH AND GOD

  Dear God:

  Even emeralds can’t compare to the glorious greenness of the sea You’ve reserved especially for these shores, for this beach called Lampu’uk, ravaged almost eight years ago now by nature’s wrath. These days, tourists may rave about the great surfing, the refreshing coconut water, and the bargain-priced seafood. But believe me when I say I see the signs of Your marvels—even if I don’t always believe. These vast piles of boulders lining the shore. This ocean, so green. This sand, marble-white and shimmering. The mosque that refused to be swept away. And those seven hundred new houses from the Turkish Red Crescent. Good deeds, I know, are part of Your wonders.

  So then, answer me: why tear away the women of Lampu’uk—nine-tenths of them—from their children, their husbands, their parents?

  It’s a long time before I realize there’s a cut on my hand, right on my middle finger, that won’t stop bleeding. From the rooftop of the Tsunami Research and Disaster Mitigation Center, we can see the ocean and the line separating it from land. A line that vanished overnight that fateful day, obliterated by the rolling waves.

  The red stain from the blood dripping onto the asphalt looks like gift-wrapping ribbon. It makes me shudder, reminding me of the bodies that were flung ashore like bits of burned paper, scattered and set adrift throughout the city. It’s hard not to be reminded of a certain tasty, though visually riotous, dish—Ayam Tangkap, also called Tsunami Chicken, because the crisp, fried curry leaves in it really do look like scraps of paper, scraps of blighted life.

  Not far from where we stand, looking out, are brand-new houses with zinc roofs of red and gray scattered across a grassy field. From the midst of all this juts a two-storied structure, fractured, proud, like a wartime relic: both witness and survivor of a great tragedy.

  I hear Nadezhda’s voice in my ear: “I feel like I’m watching a scene straight out of The Walking Dead. Any moment now a bunch of zombies are going to come lurching out of that building.” She’s trying to lighten the mood, and she’s not entirely wrong. But my head is full of other images.

  Not too far away, in that same grassy field, a helicopter—that icon of rescue—is parked by a riverbank. Behind it, across the river, red-roofed houses and leafy trees stand in rows. They are equally sapped and remorseful, as if silently weeping over what they miraculously, unfairly, escaped that December.

  A ferric, metallic smell assails my nostrils—the smell of blood. Then another voice approaches. The voice I’ve been waiting for.

  “You’re bleeding,” it says.

  “Yes,” I say, and all of a sudden my eyes fill with tears. And just like that, the voice transforms into the hand that I’ve longed for. In the blink of an eye, with astonishing speed, it is on my reddening finger.

  “Paper cut?” he asks.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When?”

  “Beats me.”

  And there we are: two people on the roof of a desolate building, casting our far-flung gaze at the row of mountains and valleys in the distance. They look almost as if they wish to entrap the sea, to lay siege and bring it to justice in a vicious circle of their making. What did you know, oh you mountains and valleys, of the waves that would come tumbling in?

  I’m aware that I’m looking at all this with half my vision directed at the man beside me—the man who is stealing glances at me, trying to read my mind. All along the main road, about a third of a mile from shore, even the warungs and cafés look quiet.

  “See that minaret?”

  I cast my gaze to the right. A tall, slender minaret with a color composition resembling that of a birthday cake—pink, cream, roasted-candlenut brown, and something else, something like bitter-gourd green—stands just a few steps apart from the beach, among houses whose residents clearly desire more color in their lives: Mediterranean blue, ivory yellow, violet. Forest green, lime-green, terra-cotta orange.

  “It can’t be,” I whisper. “Is it possible? Did that minaret dodge destruction as well?”

  “It’s very possible,” says Rania, suddenly standing nearby. “In these parts, people believe in God’s miracles.”

  The Lampisang health clinic on the city’s outskirts isn’t on our list of activities—not since the termination of our mission. But we visit anyway. Something about the place makes me depressed. From the outside, the building looks like it’s sustained heavy damage. It’s a good thing that the signage is still legible: both the health clinic’s name above the front door and the sign carved in stone by the roadside. The latter reads in gold letters without any punctuation: “Great Aceh Regional Government Inpatient Health Clinic Lampisang District of Pekanbada.” All around, black dust etches itself into the surrounding area like a burn wound on white paint. The local government clearly doesn’t have the funding to repair the health facility, on which so many people rely. I have no expectation there’ll be anyone inside. The building looks deserted.

  So, naturally, I’m surprised to catch another tiny miracle. Just inside the entrance, two young nurses—women wearing head scarves—faithfully pore over a sheaf of documents at a small, flimsy table. Upon further examination, one leg is wobbly. The ceiling is studded with holes. The floor tiles are cracked. The stairs are coated in dust. The air-conditioning doesn’t work. A lot of the patients’ beds—most of them have mattresses covered in leather—are torn.

  The nurses are very pretty. One of them has alabaster skin, naturally rosy cheeks, the most perfect straight nose. Eyes of the bluest topaz. What’s more, she’s nice. Her colleague is equally pleasant and just as easy on the eyes. Trusting, too. They don’t ask many questions, give us free rein to look around—at every room, ward, storeroom, and bathroom, bar none.

  I don’t have the heart to ask whether they want to keep working, with no patients, with no doctors, with no real roof, with no sign that further help is on the way. But surely I should ask something. So I inquire, a little stupidly, about the tsunami—where they were at the time, what they were doing, what they were thinking after they realized what had happened. I instantly regret it.

  As much as I can understand it, they don’t believe, as most of their friends and relatives do, that the tsunami was ordained by God for the sole purpose of testing and strengthening their faith. Yet they don’t seem shaken by any of it, the loss of family and friends. It seems that they’re genuinely grateful—for everything. This isn’t resignation to fate or Allah’s will. This is something different.

  “And more importantly,” says the woman who looks like a Persian film star, “all the enmity and strife were forgotten. I’m talking thirty years of conflict.”

  “You mean the civil war?”

  “Yes. Because all of us, including the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian government, had to work hand-in-hand in order to rebuild Aceh.”

  If a politician on TV said the same thing, I’d probably puke. I hate hollow sloganism. Besides, a lot of my Acehnese friends in Jakarta are of the opinion that the Free Aceh Movement didn’t have much choice but to sign the peace treaty—years of war with the federal government had weakened them. But when the same words come from the lips of someone like her, a woman who has to submit morning, noon, and night to the inane specifics of Sharia laws that don’t make any sense (at least not to me) and who could be hauled off anytime by the Wilayatul Hisbah for breaking rules that (again, to me) are subject to such wide interpretation—why do they sound so bracing?

  “I don’t mean to make light of the concrete improvements we’ve had,” she adds. “The paved roads, fancy cars, and four-star hotels. But it’s peace I’m most grateful for. No more curfews, military checkpoints, relentless terror. Peace.”

  I feel my eyes well
ing up. It doesn’t feel like a corny moment. I look at Farish. He gets it, but Hey, his eyes seem to say, what can one do? We’re humbled, and that’s that.

  We listen on to her. All along, I wonder what makes for a certain kind of rancor. What makes us so untrusting, so open to disappointments and failure? Is it because we don’t know how to give thanks? A grateful heart, they say, invites miracles, so why can’t we be more like this woman, see the things in our lives that for their apparent smallness can change so much: patience, consideration for others, a generous and liberating mind?

  After listening to their stories for a while, about the ebb-and-flow involvement of this NGO and that in repairing the clinic, about the punishments for the latest violations of Sharia law, I ask the obligatory question.

  “Cases of avian flu?” says the Persian film star. “No—not yet.”

  “Word is that a patient in Banda Aceh recently came down with it,” I say.

  “Really? Where, exactly? They must have been referred to the other hospital, then.” She hesitates. “The new one.”

  I fall silent. I don’t remember the patient’s background. Or where the patient is from or which hospital he or she is in. Nor have I brought the relevant file, because after all, this is none of my business, right? I mumble a name, then by degrees take my leave.

  For a second I worry that this wonder of the world will leave Farish breathless, too—the woman’s a thousand times more beautiful than that fucking what’s-her-name Inda. But I genuinely see no sign that he’s interested in any woman besides me. Not even Nadezhda.

  Before we leave the clinic, I ask the woman whether I can take a picture of her and her colleague. Sure, she says. I observe how the sun strikes the green of her gown, making her eyes look even bluer.

  When Farish and I are back in the car and I show the photo to the others, I realize that printed on the front wall, among other things, is a logo, “Secours Islamique and Islamic Relief Worldwide,” and in slightly ungrammatical English beneath, “Disasters Committee Working Together.”

  From the look on Rania’s face and how pursed her lips are, I prepare myself for a lengthy speech about the post-rehabilitation “effectiveness” of NGOs.

  28

  LUST VERSUS LOVE

  “Ever since I discovered sex, I’ve always played the role of teacher. My lovers are my students.”

  “What?”

  Nadezhda nods, as if to confirm what she just said. She’s just ordered room service: a platter of Asam Keueng and a plate of ayam tangkap—the same two dishes she took only one or two bites of back at the restaurant. But it’s no use criticizing Nadezhda, no use in saying, “What a waste of money.”

  She has money. I don’t. And I’m not her mother, so I have no right.

  As she lies faceup on her bed, she repeats what she just said, her two legs floating upward occasionally and swimming in the air. In Jakarta she does Pilates with a private instructor at least three times a week. “Pilates is like a new religion for me,” she told me once. “Through Pilates I’ve learned how to better understand my body.”

  “Women are always quicker when it comes to understanding their bodies,” she drones on. “If they’re willing, that is. Once they know which parts are sensitive to touch, they’ll never put up with awful sex again.”

  Where’s all this coming from? I think.

  The pair of perfect legs is now at a ninety-degree angle, and with ease, with grace, she brings her whole upper body—head, neck, chest, stomach—up toward her legs. Her arms make downward motions like the wings of a butterfly, as if she needs to support her weight so she can maintain her position. “This is called ‘the hundred,’” she says lightly. “You do this a hundred times. You must try it. It’s fantastic for tightening the abs.”

  “Nadz,” I say cautiously, “not all women are like you. I don’t even have a boyfriend. How am I supposed to think about who’s the teacher and who’s the student? Or the difference been awful sex and non-awful sex?”

  Despite myself, I’m getting wet.

  I know she knows I’m horny and that I need to overcome my lack of sexual self-confidence by whatever means necessary. And she’s right about the two dishes she’s ordered on an instinctive whim. While it may be true that I tend to lack confidence and motivation around Nadezhda, I do know the difference between good food and bad. And this asam keueng, made fragrant by the addition of bilimbi juice, not lime juice like in the restaurant, is definitely delicious.

  The WhatsApp message startles me, not just because it’s from Farish but because it’s seven fifteen in the morning.

  Hey. You up?

  I reply three minutes later because I’m attracted to him, and be that as it may, he can’t know how I feel. At least not now. Wassup?

  Wanna visit the Zainoel Abidin Public Hospital?

  Sure. Why?

  Apparently your boy was just there. And apparently they weren’t cooperative.

  Who wasn’t cooperative? The hospital?

  Yup, the hospital.

  Hmm.

  Leave at 8?

  Hmm.

  Is that a yes or no?

  Okie dokie.

  C U.

  C U.

  Once a consultant, always a consultant. I almost kiss Nadezhda, I’m so happy.

  At the last minute, Toba and Rania want to come, too—only then do I ask myself why Rania’s always at the hotel so early in the morning.

  “On the way back from the hospital, we can stop at the Tjut Nyak Dien Museum for a bit,” says Rania. “If you want to. There are a lot of local snack vendors by the main road. It’s better to buy them there than somewhere else. Afterward we could also go to the Tsunami Museum. It costs a fortune—a colossal waste of money if you ask me. Again, only if you want to.”

  All along the way, Toba, Rania, and Farish engage in fairly intense discussion about NGO politics, local politics, and how the tsunami changed—and yet didn’t change—a lot of things.

  At a lull I ask, “So how safe are we, really? Me and Nadezhda, I mean. Walking around Banda Aceh without wearing head scarves?”

  Something stops Rania from answering. It’s a question that has weighed heavy on my mind, though.

  Two years after the tsunami, so I’ve read, at least one hundred and thirty or so people were sentenced to floggings for supposedly violating local religious laws. A friend of mine in Jakarta was incredibly stressed because after losing both parents in the tsunami, her younger sister was caught red-handed with her boyfriend in an Internet café, guilty of “heavy petting and kissing,” reported one local radio station. They received sixty lashes each.

  I recall again the two nurses at the health clinic. How does it feel living life every day with such attractive faces in a place where women are forced to take responsibility even for the worst outcomes that spring from other people’s lusts?

  I suddenly understand what Rania is unable to utter.

  Being blown away isn’t something that happens to you every day—or ever, for that matter. But the new wing of this hospital isn’t just mind-blowing because of its hyper-modern appearance. Rather, behind its appearance I can feel the mechanical workings of a new system—one that is sound, solid, and genuinely modern. Astounding how the system has changed the behavior of the patients and their relationship to the hospital.

  I decide to sit down in the lobby and take it all in. The clean floor and gleaming surfaces, the trash receptacles in every corner. The efficient service counters, the bathrooms that don’t make one shudder in disgust. I watch visitors move around the space, how they seem to think twice about littering or sitting on the floor, about eating and drinking wherever they like. I watch patients sit down and line up in an orderly fashion. There’s German money behind it, I heard, big government money. Even the demeanor of the place follows suit.

  I nudge Farish.

  “What if they report us to DOCIR?”

  “Who cares?”

  “Who told you they weren’t cooperative?�
�

  “Someone.”

  “Come on,” I say, wringing the hem of Farish’s shirt. Why is he being so juvenile? “Who?”

  “Okay, okay. Diva told me.”

  “I see. And who told her?”

  “Who else? Enough already. Let’s check if Team Leon asked the hospital to say they had an avian flu patient in critical condition, even though it’s not true.”

  Team Leon. It sounds so animalistic. And how about us—what’s our team name? Team Farun? Or Team Fara? How about Team Firaun (“Firaun” as in pharaoh or tyrant? Hmm. Maybe not.) How about Team Arish? Or Team Holyfucking Stupid?

  But I continue to let myself follow Farish from counter to counter (so orderly, so clean, with clear, legible signs and icons) until we arrive at the Swine Flu and Avian Flu division in the Leuser Annex in the old wing of the hospital.

  The inpatient rooms are spacious, clean, and empty, as in not a single patient. Each room has been named for a bird—the Spotted Dove Room, the Kingfisher Room, the Cockatoo Room—complete with accompanying pictures on the walls.

  “This used to be the children’s annex,” says the Leuser Annex coordinator with a smile, as if she has fond memories of the place. Her name is Farida. She’s in her midfifties, perhaps closer to sixty. She’s friendly and receives us with open arms once we successfully convince the head nurse of the infectious diseases division in the new wing that we aren’t reporters or just poking around for fun. (Farish told them we’re from the Ministry of Livestock.)

  She spends fifteen minutes showing us around. So far, this annex is the most equipped and well-organized facility we’ve visited. When we express our amazement, Farida sighs, though her smile doesn’t falter.