The Wandering

by Intan Paramaditha

  Your relationship with Bob makes you think of Marcus Werner, the English teacher from Germany, and his student turned lover.

  You forget which one of your co-workers first came up with the idea of calling her Nyai. What’s clear, however, is that although the nickname stuck, you and the other English teachers at EGW weren’t really imagining an indigenous woman who became a Dutch colonist’s wife. You called her Nyai because you all considered her face very ‘native’, a polite way of saying that she looked like a hick. She was petite but always sported seven-centimetre heels. She had big eyes, lustrous brown skin, and hair that tumbled straight down to her waist. You and your fellow light-skinned friends felt more beautiful than her. None of you could fathom why Marcus Werner, Mr Handsome Expat, would be attracted to Nyai, with her village looks. She hadn’t even passed Basic English. The only explanation could be that Nyai was exotic. Some of your friends cynically called her ‘whitey chocolate’, the sort of dark Indonesian look that only Caucasians liked.

  Yudi, your exploitative Marxist, knew about all of this. He knew that you envied Nyai but he never felt jealous over your earlier obsession with Marcus Werner (Yudi saw himself as too sophisticated for that). On one of your dates, he asked, ‘If you all hate her so much, why do you lift her image by calling her Nyai?’ Then he talked about the character Nyai Ontosoroh in a Pramoedya Ananta Toer novel, a brilliant woman who symbolised colonial resistance. At that point you had yet to read Pramoedya.

  Only after all these years do you realise how terribly mean you and your friends were to Nyai. You were like Cinderella’s stepsisters fighting for the attention of your white Prince Charming. But now you’re not much different from the woman you looked down upon: Nyai Werner, rather than Nyai Ontosoroh. With Bob, it’s as if you’re wearing the seven-centimetre heels that belonged to Marcus’s girlfriend.

  The first time you went out to dinner with Bob, you felt very self-conscious. He invited you to a pricey Asian restaurant near St Marks Place. You were wrapped in a knee-length black dress that you’d just bought at H&M. Cheap but not cheap-looking, even tending towards demure and sweet. But you caught a different take on the situation from the eyes of the waiter serving you. He was very friendly, but his eyes were busy making calculations. Sizing you up, even if he wasn’t judging you. It was quite clear. You’d entered the restaurant with a white man old enough to be your father.

  For the waiter, of course, that would be the definition of exotic.

  Exotic, a euphemism for a woman, a young ward, or a combination of the two from the Third World: a sugar baby.

  After a series of dates, you don’t care any more. There’s no point fighting off those looks. If you and Bob were in Indonesia, maybe your light skin would keep you from being considered whitey chocolate, but you’d certainly be accused of being a gold digger, chasing after a white man with money, even if he is bloated and bald. Maybe you’re like Nyai after all. Not having to worry about the cost of dinner or a movie definitely sits well with you. Besides, Bob is an engaging conversationalist. As far as insight and taste go, Marcus Werner now seems like a mole in your eyes compared to Uncle Bob, blob that he may be. You don’t know any men smarter than Bob, except maybe for Devil.

  Bob tells you about the twists and turns his life took before he became a scholar of Chinese culture. As a graduate student in the seventies, he felt that too many of his colleagues were researching South East Asia, including Indonesia. He chose another path. As you get to know him more, it dawns on you that he’s always wanted to be different; he’s an ex-hippie with hipster tendencies. You listen enthusiastically. From Bob, you learn that Indonesia used to be important to the First World. But that was back during the Cold War.

  Bob eventually became a Sinologist and found a position at New York University. In the late nineties, as China’s economy took off, the study of East Asia became more and more popular. The field was crowded and competitive, so he spread his wings into South East Asia. In contrast to the seventies, by the new millennium South East Asian Studies had become quiet territory. Maybe the subject wasn’t important any more.

  How come the US gets to determine whether your home is important or not? you wonder. After all, as Fernando said, Americans were notorious for their lousy geography.

  Bob continues his story. Wanting to expand his scope of expertise from East to South East Asia, he took time off from university and lived for a year in Vietnam. The vagaries of his personal life seemed to follow the path of his career. He’s been divorced twice. His first wife came from Taipei; his second, from Hanoi.

  Next project: Jakarta, you say silently.

  ‘Why Asia?’ you ask.

  ‘Going to live in Asia was the best decision of my life,’ Bob says, taking a swig of Cabernet.

  From a young age Bob felt sorry for two groups: firstly, Americans who were comfortable living in the same state their whole lives. They never had a need to see another world. The second were tourists who travelled constantly in order to collect photos or souvenirs (American tourists, they say, are most easily duped into parting with money). They toted cameras to obvious places – the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Great Wall of China – only to produce images that hardly differed from those in travel magazines.

  Bob strenuously avoided these two groups that deserved his pity. He travelled to a place to live with its community. He wanted to feel as one among them.

  ‘Yes, but why Asia?’

  He just laughs and asks back, ‘How about you? Why New York?’

  ‘Aspirations of the Third World. Cheers!’

  ‘Cheers!’

  Your glasses clink, and he laughs louder. You laugh too, even though you know that your answer is serious. After all, the beautiful lovers of Bollywood always head to London or America (yes, London or America – maybe New York or Kansas aren’t so different).

  You don’t want to think about how sex with Bob feels. If you had to give an account, to a psychiatrist maybe, you wouldn’t want to explain it for long. Cold. Scaly. Like touching paper. When he reaches climax, odd sounds come from his throat, almost as if he is out of breath. Sex with him always goes too fast for you, and often the two of you agree to leave the act unfinished, suspended, which keeps you on edge all night.

  At first this disappoints you, but sex has stopped being a priority in your life. Far more exciting is your penetration of Bob’s world: waking up in his apartment in Greenwich Village and feeling the First World in your whole body. Bob’s New York isn’t about taking the 7 train from Jackson Heights, crammed with passengers fighting over seats and annoying others by playing loud music or manspreading. With Bob, New York means attending the Tribeca Film Festival, queuing at an artisanal coffee shop near campus (Starbucks? For the plebs), and buying organic products, from vegetables to soap. There are no ethnic supermarkets whose workers are unable to answer questions because they can’t speak English. In the morning, he wakes up first and occasionally prepares breakfast for you before walking to campus. You go to La Candela as usual, then at night he escorts you to the theatre. With Bob, you see a neatly packaged New York, a New York that welcomes artists from all over the globe, not mini-gladiators scrambling to take a bite of the Big Apple before they are eliminated.

  Bob’s world.

  For you, this is the definition of exotic, the City of Dreams.

  You don’t want to dwell on who is using who, whether Bob is dating you because he has a thing for Asian women, or whether you are hunting for a green card and voluntarily entering a bourgeois Caucasian cosmology so comfortable as to be almost sterile. Bob hasn’t made you tumble into love, let alone thirst for sex. You’re not looking for a daddy figure either. But with Bob you don’t feel lonely. You’re pleased to find that how you dress and speak doesn’t embarrass you when the good professor bumps into acquaintances at the theatre.

  Spring comes to New York, and you settle contentedly into your new routine. From Thursday to Sunday, you stay at Bob’s. Sometimes you d
o nothing but hang out at home, Bob at his desk, and you on the couch watching movies on your laptop. You’re walled in by bookcases that reach the ceiling, and you can read any book you want. Apart from books, Bob’s apartment is decorated with large wall maps, calligraphic scrolls from China, and half a dozen crystal snow globes lined up on the bookshelves. Often, instead of reading, you prefer to take a snow globe and shake it so that white granules flutter down upon the small world in your hand.

  You remain close with Meena while all this is going on. On Thursday evenings, she invites you over to adventure with her in her kitchen. She makes you Thai beef with basil leaves, teriyaki chicken, Hungarian mushroom soup, dishes from around the globe. The aroma of spices lingers in your jacket after you return to Bob’s.

  ‘You smell of grilled meat,’ Bob comments when you arrive at his apartment. Then later he will say: ‘Onions.’

  Often he can’t guess. His eyebrows knit.

  ‘Hmm, smells …’

  ‘Ethnic?’

  The varied fragrances tease him, so he demands: ‘You have to invite me to meet your friend the cook.’

  You nod, even though the plan never materialises.

  Before your first dinner with both Meena and Vijay, you imagine that it will be a mild form of torture. Vijay may still have not fully recovered from the shame of meeting you that time; he looks awkward. He obviously knows you heard their passionate oohs and aahs. Meena, on the other hand, is totally at ease, either pretending not to know, or knowing but unashamed and feeling that no comment is necessary. Her composure establishes a safe space for you and Vijay, for the three of you.

  Maybe you’re still a little jealous, but before long you feel happy, amused, even amazed watching them dine together. Much of their conversation revolves around spices, which at times they treat almost like fictional characters. ‘Do you know that spices are con artists?’ Vijay asks. ‘They sit sweetly in the cabinet, but while we’re asleep they visit their brethren in Asia or Africa. They’re not content with the kitchen. Like Meena.’ Vijay looks at his girlfriend, teasing.

  Meena shakes her head and shoots back: ‘And what are they up to in Asia and Africa, then? Holding Non-Aligned Condiment Conferences?’

  ‘Could be,’ Vijay says. ‘They oppose the hegemony of salt and pepper.’

  The weather remains cool at the end of April, but sweat beads on Vijay’s forehead as he savours Meena’s spicy cooking. Every now and then he sighs. Meena’s hair becomes a little dishevelled and her face grows red. You restrain a grin watching the scene before you. Dinner has never felt so pornographic.

  Your relationship with Vijay and Meena is strange. Being between them often makes you feel lewd. The picture of Vijay, overcome with the succulence of Meena’s spices, intertwines with your imaginings about the heat of their bed; he rocks his hips, mouth open, above – or below – Meena. But of course, you and Meena don’t talk about sex, let alone with Vijay present. Sex only rears its head once, when you and she pass Draupadi, a shop that sells saris and Bollywood DVDs, which leads you to talk about the Mahabharata. In my country the Pandavas’ wife is named Drupadi, you say.

  Drupadi gets romanticised a lot in India and Indonesia, but nobody thinks about how incredible her management skills were. ‘She must have had a secretary,’ you say. ‘Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be arranging your schedule with five husbands?’

  ‘But the division is perfectly logical,’ Meena responds. ‘Drupadi has one year exclusively with each husband. Before changing, she walks on fire to become holy and has her virginity restored.’

  ‘She becomes a virgin again for each husband?’

  ‘Yes,’ Meena says, grimacing, as if in pain. ‘Not very nice, is it?’

  You both laugh. That’s your one conversation that deals with sex. You both despise these fantasies about virgin wives, but also agree that the Mahabharata is a thrilling early epic of adventure. From the Odyssey to the Mahabharata, travel is the most ancient human desire.

  Your relationship with Bob, meanwhile, is no less odd. He seems aware that you don’t love him, but he also knows that being close to him gets you excited – about life, if not him. In spring, for the first time in your life, you begin to feel happy. But as befits a journey, happiness is a terminal, not a destination; nobody stays there too long.

  Continue to the next page.

  Death of Cherry Blossoms

  Spring wraps death in beauty. We’re bewitched by pink cherry blossoms on trees previously naked and dry. The clear azure sky and the soft rays of the sun, all the luxuries that we’re deprived of during winter, distract us from the ephemerality of cherry blossoms. Garden lawns become carpets of pastel, petals falling, so sweet and fresh that no one thinks about their demise. We willingly deceive ourselves into believing that cherry blossoms sound a beginning, not a warning. By the end of spring, trees have become completely green without our noticing. Their lushness, a sign of the passage of time, makes us forget that we sought life in trees flowering with pink.

  Amid the beautiful death of cherry blossoms, Meena is preparing another death.

  You forget precisely how Meena’s saga came to be exposed. You assume that Meena hadn’t wanted to share her story with you because you weren’t that important in her life. You just happened to be there, playing the role of a neighbour who faithfully attended her adventures in spice when her lover wasn’t present. She never intended to befriend you. But we are often with someone because we have no choice.

  That Thursday evening, as you savour her caramel bread pudding, she tells you a secret. The sweet caramel smell lingering in the oven has left you relaxed, unprepared.

  Meena didn’t meet Vijay at a party. Her husband, Raj, had put them in touch via email before he went to England for dissertation research.

  You gasp. Raj. Sudden entrance, stage right, an unknown name.

  Meena met Raj after he moved from Buffalo to New York. A friend had introduced them. Raj was then a PhD student at Columbia. He had been born and raised in Arizona, but had visited Delhi several times with his parents. On one of those visits he met Vijay, a cousin.

  Meena and Raj married after dating for a year. Everything seemed fine. They were compatible, as were their families. Raj’s parents owned a store back in Arizona. They came from the educated middle class, like Meena’s parents. After their marriage, Raj gave up an apartment near Columbia so they could move into a bigger and cheaper space together in Jackson Heights. Meena liked this decision because she could readily walk to Indian supermarkets and restaurants.

  You suspect that Raj must be a brute, perhaps prone to domestic violence. Maybe you just need a compelling reason to explain Meena’s betrayal of her husband, but this proves a vain hope. Raj is gentle and faithful.

  I woke up one morning and wanted to change directions.

  Meena’s statement slashes into you. Betrayal may be unavoidable on a journey. But Meena never left her kitchen. Those spices. Yes, maybe they didn’t feel at home? Was she provoked by masala? Something had to be to blame.

  You chew on the bread pudding for so long that your teeth hurt. Breaking up in adolescence is easier. We fall out of love (and we believe, naively, that all those feelings are real), or we can curse ungratefully: slut. But sitting with Meena here, in a kitchen suffused with the sweet smell of caramel, you don’t know who she should be with. You were never in her place, in a world shaken by an encounter with her husband’s cousin. You haven’t been on the journey that made her stop and question the previous turns she took.

  ‘What about Vijay?’

  Meena offers you coffee, but you refuse: you’ve already had two cups today. You ask if she has juice. She replies that it’s past its expiry date.

  ‘Vijay will go home in June.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Life goes on.’

  You don’t know whether to believe her.

  Meena doesn’t finish her pudding that day. You’re reminded of the trees that are now fully green. T
here are no longer any traces of cherry blossoms to be found.

  Before going to sleep you discover several email messages from your sister. In addition to a personal note, as usual she forwards information from the mailing lists she follows. Your brain operates like a paper shredder. Trash. Trash. Trash. Spam. Trash. But then a message catches your attention. The title, all in caps, reads ‘FWD: NO TO AA JIM’S TALK AT LENTERA IMAN ELEMENTARY’.

  You’ve always wondered how the two of you could be siblings. But if you have anything in common, it’s your shared loathing for the cleric Aa Jim.

  You read the first paragraph of the message:

  Assalamualaikum Fellow Moms,

  As we know, Aa Jim will attend the graduation ceremony of Lentera Iman Elementary. Many moms do not approve of Aa Jim’s decision to engage in polygamy. A few months ago, Aa Jim’s first wife announced her intention to seek a divorce. Polygamy clearly hurts women. Inviting Aa Jim to speak at Lentera Iman Elementary will set a bad example for our children.

  You smile. You know that your sister is an active member of Lentera Iman Elementary’s PTA. She must be actively trying to sway the political attitudes of the mothers (who are eager to call themselves moms). All of a sudden you feel greater affection towards certain memories of your sister. A couple of years ago, the two of you sat in front of the television watching a gossip show reporting on Aa Jim’s second marriage, a woman who became known as Sister Tini. Previously he’d been a favourite with moms: sympathetic, young at heart, always projecting the image of a loving, monogamous family man with his wife, Sister Dini. Yep, Tini and Dini. The single letter difference must have annoyed at least one of them, probably both.

  ‘Masya Allah, how heartless,’ said your sister. ‘How must it feel to be Sister Dini?’

  ‘Probably a hell of a lot like plunging into a sewer,’ you said.

  Your gratuitous remark caused your sister to glare. But she was genuinely furious with Aa Jim. Shortly after he married Sister Tini, mothers in hijabs burned his photos and books. Your sister cheered. You wouldn’t have thought these mothers had the capacity for running riot, but Aa Jim united them, just as he united you with your sister.