Leila Chudori - Home

“But you like Rashomon and Seven Samurai better,” Ayah stated as a truth before turning to Nara. “When Lintang was small, we used to go to film retrospectives in the park at the Domaine de Saint-Cloud,” he added in an aside.

“I know that, sir. Lintang has told me about all the films she’s seen,” Nara said with a smile as he squeezed my hand in his.

Wrong move. I could see it in my father’s eyes. His smile vanished.

The plates had been cleared away. Dessert arrived, but Ayah declined the offer and ordered coffee instead. I asked for mint tea. The waiter brought to the table several stems of mint arranged like a miniature tree in a pot. I had only to pick the leaves, rinse them in a small receptacle of water, and then submerge them in a cup of hot water. As he followed this process and the movement of my hands with his eyes, Ayah kept shaking his head. It was obvious that bringing such a cynical man as my father to this place had been a very bad idea.

I tried to bridge the looming silence. “Nara is one of the few men I know — aside from you, Ayah — who actually likes to read poetry,” I said.

“Really?” Ayah asked with a tone of disbelief. Again his eyes scanned the interior of the restaurant with its hundreds of candles. “Whose works do you like?”

Nara wiped his lips with his napkin and slowly recited the lines of a poem: “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes / I all alone beweep my outcast state / and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries …”

“Shakespeare, huh?” Ayah took a breath. “But why did you choose ‘Sonnet 29’?”

Nara said nothing. My heart beat faster.

Ayah set down his coffee cup on its saucer, then looked into Nara’s eyes as if he were seeking some kind of truth. Ayah contended that a person’s honesty could be seen in his eyes. Even the smallest of falsehoods could be detected in a person’s downward glance or a timorous shade in his eyes. Ayah was confident of his ability to judge a person’s character merely by the light in that person’s eyes. He always frightened me by his ability to do so.

“When I think of that sonnet,” Ayah said, “the picture that comes to my mind is of a young aristocrat who was born into wealth but is now depressed because he has fallen into poverty. He covets the things that other people own: ‘Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope…’ The sonnet is well written, with a good choice of words, but its message is conveyed though the figure of a spoiled young man.”

Ayah glanced at Nara as he said this.

This time Nara’s reserve of patience seemed to be depleted. But he was not a person who easily angered, and he held his tongue.

“Nara likes Indonesian poetry too,” I put in.

“Especially Subagio Sastrowardoyo,” Nara said. “There’s one collection of his that never fails to move me…”

Nara spoke softly, as if worried that he was about to be clapped like a mosquito. Ayah stopped drinking his coffee and stared at Nara, but didn’t ask what book Nara was referring to.

Suddenly, they both said at once: “ And Death Grows More Intimate. ”

Although their chorus had been coincidental, I felt relieved. “I’ll have to read it again!” I remarked enthusiastically, feeling that the shadow of a white flag had fallen between them.

“I’ll bring the book for you tomorrow,” Nara cheerfully told me.

I wondered if the source of his good cheer was my enthusiasm or the perception that he might have finally gotten an edge on my father; but then Ayah suddenly returned the conversation to enemy terrain.

“You can have my copy. It’s on the bookshelf. Second rack down from the top, on the far left.”

There was no sound of friendliness in Ayah’s voice. Then he immediately pushed back his chair and stood up, a sign that our dinner together was over. It was going to be a very long drive back to Paris.

The next day I went to Ayah’s apartment for the sole purpose of berating him for his behavior the night before. His apartment, a small one in the Marais, with just one bedroom, a living room, and a tiny kitchen, was where he had lived since separating from Maman. His bedroom, though, was relatively large — at least compared to the living room. Apart from his bed, the room contained several free-standing shelves stuffed with books and a desk with a typewriter that faced the window.

The living room might better be described as a library, because all four walls were covered with bookshelves, and in its center was a sofa and two chairs, as if it were a reading room. Only a small bit of wall remained visible and that is where there hung two shadow puppets, Bima and Ekalaya, the two characters that had always served Ayah as his role models. On one of the shelves, in the middle of a row of books, were two sacred apothecary jars. The one jar was filled almost to the top with cloves. The other jar held turmeric powder. These two jars had been one of the reasons behind the argument that took place between Maman and Ayah on the night they separated.

“Hello. What’s up?” Ayah said, looking at me over the top of his glasses as he came out of the bedroom.

I had already decided that I wasn’t going to stay long, so I remained standing, my heart suddenly quivering with anger. “Ayah, Nara invited you to dinner to get to know you, not to be insulted,” I told him straightaway.

Ayah took off his glasses and frowned with surprise. I couldn’t believe it. He was surprised that I was angry? He told me to sit down, but I remained on my feet. I didn’t want to get caught there.

“Insult Nara? Who insulted whom?”

“You had to find something wrong in everything he said and did: his choice of restaurant, his choice of films, even his choice of poems!”

“He’s pretentious!” Ayah barked impatiently, as if he had forcibly refrained from expressing his true opinion about Nara the night before. “He’s a rich bourgeois kid used to getting anything he wants without working for it, whether it’s a car or eating in the most expensive bistro in Europe. If he wanted to meet me, why did we have to go all the way to Brussels? Wouldn’t you call that pretentious?”

This was the first time I began to suspect the real reason why Maman had been unable to remain married to Ayah. How could she have endured living with a man who always had to criticize everything that was wrong in his eyes?

“I’m not faulting Nara for having the good fortune to be the son of a man who got his wealth from hard work. I’m just not interested in pretense. His choice to recite lines from ‘Sonnet 29’ was such a cliché.” He paused before adding, “Sure he’s good-looking and a smooth talker, too — but what is it you like about him?” Now he was being saracastic.

“I like being with him and his family. Une famille harmonieuse! They are kind and welcoming to everyone they meet. I feel comfortable when I am with them.”

“What I asked you,” Ayah stressed, “is what you like about him, not about his family.”

Now Ayah had gone too far. “I don’t want to be like you,” I spat. “You’re never happy. You’re never thankful for the things you own. I don’t want to be like you, always cynical about other people’s happiness.”

As these spiteful words spilled from my lips, tears fell from my eyes in a torrent. Ayah looked at me, speechless, as if not comprehending the meaning of my accusations.

“I don’t want to be trapped by the past! And not just by your political past, Ayah, but by your personal life either.”

Ayah seemed shocked by what I’d just said. But I left him standing there in silence. I saw the hurt that was in his eyes, but I didn’t care. That night Paris was no longer the City of Light. Paris had turned into a dark and gloomy place, because that was the night I decided to break off communications with my father.