Leila Chudori - Home

I knew that he had more to add, but impatiently I raised my hands, palms up, as if to ask, “Well?” The man was getting old.

Professor Dupont tapped the keyboard of his computer, and on the monitor there suddenly appeared a list of final assignments previously undertaken by students of the Sorbonne on the subject of Algerians in Paris. As he scrolled, the list grew longer, with hundreds of titles. My heart suddenly skipped a beat. I knew, of course, that numerous Sorbonne alumni had made documentary films about the Algerians in Paris when they were students. But I was convinced the documentary film I planned to make would be different.

Before I had the chance to express my argument, Professor Dupont turned the computer screen in my direction. “This is a subject that’s been hashed and rehashed by students here. Your proposal isn’t a bad one, Lintang. Non , not at all,” he said, his blue eyes burrowing into mine. “But it’s a good thing this is only a proposal… I strongly suggest you drop it at this stage.”

I found myself forced to nod. I thought of all the footage I had already shot with Algerian immigrants. I had been sure that the professor would agree to my proposal for my final assignment.

“You have great potential, talent, and spirit, Mademoiselle. So, eh, why don’t we try coming up with something a little more original?”

T.S. Eliot’s poem immediately reverberated in my ears. No wonder the poet hated the month of April.

“I find the Algerian immigrant experience in Paris to be extremely interesting, Professor,” I tried to say in a non-defensive tone. “They are French people who feel themselves to have two homelands.”

Professor Dupont stared me in the eye. His blue eyes reminded me of the turquoise in a ring my mother owned. The stone seemed to be boring into my dulled brain.

“But aren’t you forgetting, Lintang, that there is also something very interesting about you and your own background?”

My heart, which I thought had stopped functioning for the past few minutes, suddenly seemed to expand with a surge of new oxygen-giving blood.

“You, too, have two homelands: France and Indonesia. You were born in Paris, grew up in Paris. You know the place. But aren’t you curious about that other side of your identity, the land of your father’s birth?”

Professor Dupont took a copy of Le Monde from off his desk, which, given its crumpled state, he had apparently read. He opened the paper, folded it, and handed it to me. On page three, a headline read, “ Enlèvement: un Militant Indonésien Prend la Parole ,” a short article about an Indonesian student activist who had been kidnapped but now was speaking out. On the Economics page opposite was a bigger headline and longer article about the monetary crisis now affecting the Asian region, Indonesia included.

I said nothing. I knew the direction Monsieur Dupont’s conversation was taking. Indeed, I knew it very well. His question was one that had often disturbed my sleep. It was one that I had long ago stored away and buried deeply in my heart. I didn’t want to arouse something that was now at peace, there in the deepest recesses of my heart.

“Your father is a part of an important period in Indonesian history,” he said, refolding the paper and giving it to me. “Take it.”

I took the paper but couldn’t find a reply for Monsieur Dupont’s suggestion. Staring down at my smudged sneakers now seemed to be much more interesting than looking into the man’s blue eyes.

“The country where your father was born is in a state of unrest. Economics is the trigger, but the political situation is becoming increasingly unstable because of the country’s one-man rule for so many decades.”

So what if it was!? Wasn’t this the case in almost all developing countries, which were constantly going through periods of unrest because of uncertain social and political situations? Many countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia were led by corrupt authoritarian leaders.

“Don’t you want to visit the place of your origins? Don’t you want to understand what brought your father and his fellow exiles to a country that has almost no historical links to Indonesia?”

Obviously, I knew that my father had come to Paris not to admire the Eiffel Tower or to trace the steps of history at Notre Dame Cathedral. In fact, my father once told me that in all his life he had only twice set foot in the Eiffel Tower and those times had only been because a visiting Indonesian poet had forced him to go there. My father hated tourist sites.

I also knew that my father and his friends had not come to Paris with a briefcase of dreams or a suitcase of plans; there had been something darker, dangerous, and more covert. Even when I was too young to understand much about politics, I already knew that Indonesia — or rather, Soeharto’s everlasting and seemingly invincible New Order government — would not make it easy for my father to return to his homeland. This was what Maman always told me. And this was a topic I always avoided, because whenever Ayah began to think of Indonesia, he would inevitably begin to cry, painful and bitter tears.

I pretended to clear my throat. “I’ve never been to Indonesia.”

Monsieur Dupont pretended to be deaf. “What?”

“I know very little about Indonesia.”

My first statement was true: in all of my twenty-three years I had never once set foot in Indonesia, because my father, regardless of how much he missed his homeland, could not take me there. But the second statement, I had to admit, was a lie. Of course I “knew” Indonesia, even if only in second-hand fashion — from Ayah, and his three friends, my three adoptive uncles, Om Nugroho, Om Tjahjadi, and Om Risjaf; from books and documentary films; and even from arguments my parents had. But also from certain incidents, both good and bad, which formed a source of tension between my father and myself to this very day.

“If you know so little, don’t you want to know more? Tu veux s’évader de l’histoire? Do you wish to run from your history?”

Monsieur Dupont spoke with a flat tone, but I could hear him clearly. His questions were daggers and I could feel drops of fresh blood dripping from my heart. I’m sure he knew just what he was doing and what was happening inside me.

He took a calendar from his desk and counted off the amount of time that was left for me to find a topic for my final assignment to which he could agree. He muttered to himself as he took an empty form and then quickly wrote something on it in a hand that was fairly neat and even by European standards.

“You have six months to get to know Indonesia while undertaking research and taping your final assignment. D’accord? ”

I took the form without replying, though my advisor’s eyes demanded an answer.

“ D’accord ,” I was finally forced to agree.

“Surprise me. Come up with something brilliant. Come back to me when you have a clear plan.”

Because the professor then stood, I, too, was forced to stand. He was not going to allow more room for debate, much less a chance for me to refuse.

“Don’t be late, Lintang. You know the consequences if you’re unable to finish your work on time.”

The air in Professor Dupont’s office suddenly felt stifling. April was indeed the cruelest month. At that moment, I heard the sound of the Metro, which seemed to be keeping time with the gusting wind.

From behind the Metro window, Paris looked gray and gloomy. Letters, words, posters, and photographs flashed past so quickly. Gray, black, white, gray…

My roots were in a foreign land. I was born in France, a country with a beautiful body and fragrant scent. But, according to my father, my blood came from another country, one far distant from the European land mass, a place that gave the world the scent of cloves and wasted sadness; a land of fecundity, rich with plants of myriad colors, shapes, and faiths, yet one that could crush its own citizens merely because of a difference in opinion.