Leila Chudori - Home

Even after the Party leaders had been arrested, the hunt continued, but now they were bringing in anyone thought to be sympathetic to the communists: mothers, wives, and friends. That was what made me worried: thinking of Mother being hauled into the city square where people were being held. Fortunately, Om Kiasno had enough power and authority to prevent that from happening. It was only because of him that Mother and I weren’t touched, though we were interrogated several times.

Now in Jakarta, even though we feel we still need a pair of eyes on our backs, we can at least pass the days a bit more calmly. It’s not that Jakarta itself is any safer but, for us at least, there is now a distance between ourselves and the calamity that happened in Solo. For the time being, at least.

I hope you are well. As soon as I find more information about Surti and the children, I’ll send you a cable.

Your loving brother,

Aji Suryo

Lintang shivered to think of how awful it must have been to live through that period of time. It was lucky her two cousins, Uncle Aji’s children, hadn’t yet been born. Lintang then removed another letter from her uncle, this one relatively recent, having been written in 1994.

Jakarta, June 1994

Dear Mas Dimas,

I just watched a news program on television about an incident that’s as shocking as it is disturbing. Last month the Indonesian government banned two news magazines,

Tempo

and

Editor

, and a tabloid newspaper

Detik

— which, quite naturally, angered the students and political activists, who took to the streets and staged a demonstration outside the Department of Information building on Merdeka Barat, which is only a few hundred meters away from the presidential palace. Rendra was there, reading his poetry. The crowd held aloft banners protesting the ban. The military came and victims fell. They arrested Rendra (but later let him go) and beat the painter Semsar Siahaan so bad they broke the bones in his legs.

I know that the New Order government has more power than ever before, but the ban of those magazines and newspaper indicates a level of arrogance that is beyond belief. They did it because they knew they could do it and get away with it without there being any impact whatsoever on their continuation in power. The students and activists can protest all they want, but the noise they make is little more than the buzzing of a mosquito waiting to be slapped. The (Western) world may grumble, but the Indonesian government could care

the less; their ears are plugged and sealed. It’s all so easy. Life goes on, “aman sentosa,” as our Javanese president is prone to say, in a situation of safety and security.

What is the news of Lintang? She must be a high school senior now. Is her plan to go to the Sorbonne working out? I always pray for her success.

Andini is preparing for her final high school examinations and is experiencing a bit of stress. She hopes to get into the Faculty of Letters at the University of Indonesia. Rama meanwhile has just done something both startling and worrisome: he applied to and was accepted for employment at PT Cita Karya, one of the state-owned construction companies in Jakarta. Obviously, he didn’t use the Suryo name on his application form. Ever since his acceptance into the firm, he’s rarely been home to visit except at the time of the Idul Fitri holidays.

Retno sends her warm regards. If you know anyone coming to Jakarta, let me know and I’ll find the cloves and other spices you want. And, of course, if there are any new books you want, tell me and I’ll pick them up as well.

In closing, give my love to Vivienne, Mas Nug, Bung Risjaf, and Bung Tjai. And a big hug for Lintang!

Yours in Peace,

Aji Suryo

Lintang leaned back against the chair and thought of her uncle’s family. She had never met her two first cousins, only seen their pictures. What she knew of them she had learned first from her father, when he would tell stories about his brother, and then, when she was older, from her own correspondence with Andini. She had met her uncle Aji just once, when he came to Europe for office-related work and took some extra days off to come to Paris to see his brother, whom he hadn’t seen in the flesh in more than a couple decades. Even though she was only in primary school at the time, she would never forget how long the two brothers had embraced and how they had talked as they smoked and drank coffee through the night and into the morning. That was the only time her mother hadn’t grumbled about the ashtray full of butts and the ashes scattered everywhere.

That visit was when Lintang learned a bit more about her two cousins, Rama and Andini, enough to make them more real for her. Rama was in senior high school; Andini was still in primary school, just like herself. Om Aji told her that Andini liked to read, just like her; so that same evening she begged her mother to take her to Shakespeare & Co. to buy some English-language children’s books. Lintang willingly sacrificed her small allowance so that her cousin could read the books that she was then reading: Little Women ; an English translation of Le Petit Prince ; and an abridged English-language edition of Les Misérables .

Sometime after Om Aji returned to Jakarta, Lintang received a thank-you letter from Andini for the gift of books she’d sent. Thereafter, the two of them soon became pen pals. Lintang was especially pleased to have a cousin like Andini who, like herself, was a fanatic reader. Over time, and with the advent of the Internet and their subscription to e-mail accounts two years previously, the traditional snail-mail exchange of letters between the cousins had changed into a rapid exchange of ideas through the virtual world.

Lintang imagined meeting her cousin for the first time and how happy she would be. Having grown up as an only child, she had often wished for a sister or brother. She had some distant cousins from her mother’s side of the family; but since her mother’s brother, her Uncle Jean, had never married, she had no close cousins in France. She was excited and looking forward to meeting this sister-like cousin with whom she had corresponded for so many years.

Lintang’s thoughts returned to her father’s cache of correspondence. Looking through the stack, she found several more from Aji but then, when she saw one with a completely different kind of penmanship, her fingers stopped searching. She removed the letter from the pile. Surti Anandari. Her fingers trembled. The stationery had yellowed and the ink was somewhat faded, but she could still read the words clearly.

Jakarta, December 1968

Dear Dimas,

I don’t know whether you will receive this letter or not. After having been detained for several months at the Budi Kemuliaan detention center, I am now home.

In the many times I was interrogated, I didn’t know what to say and didn’t know how to answer their questions whenever they asked me about Hananto, because I really didn’t know where he was. I wasn’t lying then and I never will lie. I never knew what Hananto was up to — either in matters of love or politics. But they didn’t believe me. Or simply didn’t want to believe me.

Since they captured Hananto last June, we’ve heard nothing from him directly. After he disappeared in October 1965, I only heard about — but didn’t actually know — how he was able to move about, like a shadow in the mist, from one

village to another, from one city to another. I only heard of his peregrinations through the wind. And more than that, through silence.