Leila Chudori - Home

“Careful now, Yos,” Nara cautioned, shaking his head. “It’s my mother’s; I don’t have any of my own.” I said with a smile to Nara, who I could see had begun to become irritated.

“Would you like to have some made? I know this seamstress, Bu Narni, who specializes in kebaya . She’s the one behind most of the kebaya and baju kurung that the women here are wearing.” Yos wasn’t slowing down. “She’s here tonight. Come on, I’ll introduce you to her.”

Hans now stepped in. “Don’t listen to him, Lintang. He’s married and has kids besides. But I’m still a bachelor and I promise always to be faithful.”

Hans took my fingers and kissed the back of my hand. I turned to Nara who gave me a look of resignation, as if to say “What am I supposed to do?” It’s true. It probably would have been useless for him to even try. For these friends of his, hitting on women was probably their only entertainment. Laughing loudly, they resembled a pack of male gorillas who’d never seen a female gorilla before.

It was at that moment that I realized something: this Kartini Day celebration had nothing whatsoever to do with Raden Ajeng Kartini or the ideals she expressed in her letters. Kartini Day was an excuse for people to get together and eat; for women to rat their hair and put on kebaya ; and for men to show off their best batik shirts.

More than an hour had passed since we’d arrived at the residence, and not once in my conversation with other guests had anyone mentioned Kartini, that young woman from Jepara whose date of birth is one of Indonesia’s most important days of commemoration. I began to ask myself if any of the other guests had even read Kartini’s letters; her thoughts on the challenges to education for the native population in the colonial era were far advanced for the times.

Pretending to have to go to the ladies room, I placed my glass of orange juice on the table and left Nara’s group of friends. As I was walking away, I let my eyes roam the garden. The pendet dancer had left the stage, and now there was being held a fashion show of sorts, with a number of very attractive Indonesian women showing off various kinds of kebaya . As fascinated as I was by the apparel, tonight I was far more interested in observing the guests — some of whom I could see were also studying me with a range of expressions on their faces. Some seemed to be trying to remember my face. Others stuck out their lower lips at my sight; but most gave me a friendly and welcoming smile, just as Nara’s friends had done.

I was quite sure that most of the guests didn’t recognize me and didn’t know who I was. But I was also sure there were others who did and were whispering about me — that I was the daughter of Dimas Suryo, the Indonesian political exile who had found himself stranded in Paris and was never allowed to return home. When I went to take a glass of lychee and ice, I heard at my back a number of men engaged in a conversation about me. I kept my back to them and listened.

“Who the devil brought her here?”

“What does it matter? She’s not her father.”

“But have you forgotten government policy?”

“But that ban is for former political prisoners working as civil servants, or as teachers or journalists. What’s the big deal about her coming to a party?”

“It’s no big deal, but we did get that notice from Jakarta.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That we’re not to frequent Tanah Air Restaurant; that all the people there are communists.”

“That’s not what it said. It said…”

“What does it matter any way? What matters is the food and they have good nasi kuning and fried sambal .”

“The problem isn’t about us going to Tanah Air Restaurant. The problem is that she’s here and that, that she’s…”

“That she’s what?”

“That she’s beautiful!”

At that point, I snuck away, distancing myself from the young diplomats busily debating my presence, unaware that I, the uninvited guest, was able to hear what they were saying. I safely returned to Nara’s circle of friends, who were still razzing him.

Although I continued to find the behavior of Nara’s friends to be juvenile, after the conversation I had just overhead, I now enjoyed their japes and jibes. At the very least, they had accepted me into their presence without making an issue of my parentage. Furthermore, they didn’t seem to care that my father was a political exile who was considered an enemy of the Indonesian government. But standing there, in the midst of all those people, I felt like there were hundreds of eyes staring at my back.

Across the garden I noticed a cluster of women with big hair and beautiful kebaya in conversation; they kept turning their heads to look in my direction. I felt incredibly thirsty. Not conscious of doing so, I had gulped down the entire contents of my glass of iced lychee. A few seconds later, Tante Sur with the red kebaya suddenly appeared and was standing beside Nara and taking his hand.

“Naraaaa,” she said in a cooing tone. “Come with me, will you?” She then gave me a big smile. “I just need to borrow him for a second.”

Ostensibly, Tante Sur wanted to talk to Nara about something in secret, but she only pulled him a couple meters from our circle and then spoke to him in a voice loud enough for the rest of us to hear.

“Where is your mother, Nara? Why didn’t she come tonight?” Tante Sur pretended to whisper.

“She’s with my father in Brussels, on business.”

“Is that your girlfriend, Nara?”

“Yes, Tante, she is.”

“Oh, not Sophie anymore?”

“Sophie…?”

I snuck a glance at Tante Sur. Her head was thrust towards Nara as if about to discuss a bank heist. “I was just talking to Om Marto, and he said your girlfriend is Dimas Suryo’s daughter.”

“That’s right, Tante.”

Restraining myself from turning to look at Nara and Tante Sur, I pretended to study the name cards Hans and Raditya had just given to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tante Sur do a double take.

“But, Nara,” she said in the voice of a mother chastising her five-year-old son, “Om Marto mentioned the government’s continued stress on the need for ‘political hygiene.’”

Nara burst into laughter. I knew he was laughing at the euphemism the woman had used. The original Indonesian term, bersih lingkungan , could also be translated as “environmentally clean.” The sound of his laughter was one of disgust.

“Excuse me, Tante Sur, but I really don’t think that Om Marto or any of the other diplomats are going to be admonished because Lintang came to a kebaya fashion show held to commemorate Kartini Day. Enough said, Tante.”

A few seconds later Nara was again at my side. He took the glass from my hand and put it on a side table, then took my arm and said that it was time to go home. I could see a look of anger on his face.

In the taxi on the way to my mother’s apartment, where I was going to stay that night, Nara said almost nothing at all. When we arrived at my mother’s apartment building and got out of the vehicle, we stopped and stood together on the sidewalk outside.

“Nara?”

He looked at me.

“That talk about ‘ bersih lingkungan ’ and the need for political hygiene, is that some kind of rule set down in writing?”

Nara took a deep breath and shook his head. “I have no idea. What I do know is that it’s the most discriminative regulation on earth.”

Obviously, Nara was overstating the case. There were other regulations that were much more discriminatory — apartheid, for one — but Nara was angry, and his anger was natural, because someone had insulted his girlfriend.