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“That I am the daughter of Dimas Suryo,” Lintang cut in.

“That’s right,” her father answered. “You’ve spent your entire life in Paris, far from what happened over there. You were cut off from Indonesia. You don’t know it. You’ve never experienced it, never met its people, never smelled its soil or heard the sound of leaves slapped by showers in the rainy season. You’ve never gotten to know your Indonesian relatives: your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, or your cousins. All that you know is what you’ve heard from me and what you’ve overheard at the restaurant. You still don’t know the country firsthand.”

Dimas took a breath, ignoring the ache he felt in his stomach. “In Indonesia, everything will be different. If you intend to interview the families of political prisoners, you have to know that there will always be someone watching and recording what you do — especially because of the family name you carry.”

Lintang nodded.

“Have you thought about how you’re going to get a visa to go to Indonesia? All the years that I’ve been here, I still haven’t been able—”

Lintang interrupted her father, impatiently: “I met someone at the embassy, a junior diplomat who said that he would help.”

Dimas looked at his daughter in surprise and silently praised her foresightedness. Wherever had she attained her planning skills?

“And you must always remember,” Dimas continued, “that my crime — being part of the ‘political fornication’ engaged in by PKI, LEKRA, and whatever other groups you want to mention — is a permanent one that will extend beyond my generation. Like it or not, you have inherited my political sins and they are now your burden to bear.” He looked at his daughter with affection. “Let us only pray they won’t be a millstone for your future children as well.”

“‘Political fornication…’” Lintang mused. “I’ve never come across that term in any of the books on political theory that I have read. Je dois me rappeler . I must remember that one. You, my father, have a gift for words.”

Dimas laughed and mussed his daughter’s hair. “In the ’60s, before I left Jakarta, the political situation was explosive. You were either on the left or the right. You were red, pink, green, or maybe even greenish. Jargon and catchphrases were an essential element of any kind of discussion or discourse. There were all kinds of accusations thrown around. Nouns instead of adjectives were used to describe you. You might be a ‘Manipol,’ a person who supported the ‘Political Manifesto’ that Sukarno espoused. Then too, you might be a ‘Nekolim,’ standing for a person bent on ‘Neo-colonialism and Imperialism.’ If not one of those, you might be a ‘Revolusi’ or a ‘Kontra-Revolusi,’ a person who either supported the goals of the revolution or was against them. These are just a few of the terms that were being thrown around, but there were hundreds of other epithets, atrocious acronyms, most of them not worth remembering, much less studied or researched. The point is, in that time, Indonesia had no neutral zone. There was no gray: you were black or white, either with ‘us’ or ‘them.’”

Lintang listened to her father with rapt attention. She had never really discussed Indonesian political history with her father before.

“I was friends with everyone,” he added, “with Om Hananto, Om Nug, and so on… Well, I wasn’t completely of one mind with the editor-in-chief of Nusantara News Agency, where I worked at the time, but I was friends with Amir, or ‘Bang Amir,’ as I called him. Even so, I was seen to be in bed with leftists and had committed acts of political fornication with them. As such I was a Red, a Communist Party supporter. I won’t dwell on this. That was the risk for anyone who did not want to choose. Not to choose was seen as the same thing as making a choice.”

“Who’s Bang Amir?” Lintang asked.

“Bang Amir was a member of the Masyumi Party. There were two political parties that Sukarno banned: the Socialist Party and Masyumi. …You’ll have to read up on Indonesian political party history to keep all the characters and factions straight.” His eyes studied his shelves of books.

“Later, Ayah. I can look myself. But I’m curious about this Bang Amir.”

“Amir is my friend, Mohamad Amir Jayadi. I don’t know how it happened really, but for whatever reason, we were close and saw eye to eye on many things. A lot of the things he said seemed logical to me. Maybe I couldn’t always grasp Natsir’s reasoning — that’s Mohammad Natsir, chairman of the Masyumi political party and one of the country’s leading Muslim thinkers at the time — but Bang Amir was able to make me think about spirituality without having to link it to organized religion.” Dimas looked enlivened and leaned towards Lintang. She followed suit, leaning closer towards him. “Spirituality was something older and deeper than religion, something that was honorable and integral to the essence of mankind. When I talked to Bang Amir, it was like two normal people talking, without all the trappings of color, symbols, parties, ideologies, or groups. We spoke together as friends, as two reporters curious about the relationship between man — that small and finite creature — and the greatness of nature.”

Lintang felt that her father was entering an area completely foreign to her, but she savored it.

“Did he — Bang Amir, that is — share the view that you had committed political fornication?”

Dimas shook his head slowly. “No, he didn’t.”

Lintang could see that her father thought highly and fondly of this man, that he had not been her father’s political enemy.

“He wasn’t the kind of person given to sticking political labels on everyone. By the way, that term is one that I came up with after years of trying to figure out why I was never able to obtain permission to go back to Indonesia.” Dimas took another breath, then exhaled. “And that’s what you have to be ready for: that you too will be seen in the same light. They see it as an inherited sin. Will you be able to deal with that kind of small-minded prejudice? With having people shun you for the blood you carry in your veins?”

“I think I can. What with all the documentaries I’ve watched and with all the books I’ve read…”

Dimas raised his hand. “Watching and reading are very different from experiencing, my sweet.” He then took her face in his hands. “It’s a terrible thing to experience, one that could haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Lintang knew her father was right. Ever since childhood, she had a capacious mind and a gift for detail. Past events were as clear for her today as when she had experienced them: the feel of the grass and the smoothness of gravestones at the Père Lachaise cemetery when she visited as a child; the pungent scent of spices in her parents’ kitchen when her father prepared Indonesian food; the gaiety of discovering a secondhand book at Antoine Martin’s bookstall; the titles of books that lined the shelves at Shakespeare & Co. She remembered everything very clearly. Not only could she remember all the events that had happened in her life, but she was able to remember their sensations and smells. Yes, indeed, her father was right. If anything bad were to happen to her, she would not be who she is if she could expunge that experience from her memory.

“I want you to be prepared,” her father went on. “Your decision to make a documentary film will not be easy to carry out. Will you need permits? I cannot imagine the trouble you’d have if you were to seek official permission, especially with my name on the back of yours. You know, don’t you, that most former political prisoners use pseudonyms when they write for the mass media and that their children don’t use their father’s name?”