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Having received your message, I now write to you. I am sorry for the loss of your mother, Dimas. I kneel and pray to God that He has taken her to His side. I hope that you and our fellow countrymen there in that distant land are strong and in good health.

Do you remember our discussion that one time about the vacuum that each of us has inside, the one that only you and God can fill, to create a Union between you and God that can

never be broken or disturbed by anything or anyone? This is the right time for you to look at that space inside yourself, alone. To converse with it if that is your bent, or to be silent if that is what you choose. Either way, He will listen to you.

He is always listening.

Your friend,

Moh. Amir Jayadi

Unconsciously, Lintang held her chest. That vacuum. That little space in her body. That conversation between us and Him? Was it in her as well?

On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur.

L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

LE PETIT PRINCE,

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“YOU CAN SEE CLEARLY ONLY WITH THE HEART. The essence cannot be seen with the eyes.” That’s the sentence from The Little Prince Lintang remembered best, ever since the first time her father read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s fantastic tale of a little boy whose plane crashes in the Sahara desert.

That night Lintang had one question. Or maybe she had a thousand questions — but one question, always starkly present, unendingly posing itself, was there in her heart. Would she have the clarity of mind to see and to decipher the complex problems that awaited her in Jakarta?

Lintang wasn’t able to answer that question, at least not yet. But that night, and during the days and nights that followed, she typed almost nonstop, as if there were no tomorrow. Every so often she’d look at a book, a manuscript, a journal, a clipping, a paper, or an old photograph and then would begin to write again, to type again. Reading something more, using a yellow highlighter to underscore a phrase, she’d then write again. Countless cups of coffee filled her stomach, which was about to scream from high acid content, and Ravel’s music filled her ears. Eyes open wide, she blinked as she studied the tens of pages in her proposal, checking its language for fluency and whether or not the sources that she quoted effectively bolstered her argument. In her proposal, Lintang explained the importance of revealing information that had too long been buried by official Indonesian history; how necessary it was to provide a space and a place for those historical actors whose voices had been silenced. Lintang had to produce a convincing argument for her need to conduct her work in Indonesia, and not, for instance, in Paris or Amsterdam. The names of the sources she quoted ranged from well-known players to persons whose voices time had almost forgotten.

Three days had passed and now on the morning of the fourth, she was sprawled on the sofa in her apartment, trying to get a little sleep before bathing and getting ready to see Professor Dupont to turn in her proposal. She slept so soundly that she definitely would have been late had not a kiss as gentle as cotton awakened her.

“Nara …”

Lintang rubbed her eyes. Her throat suddenly felt parched. What time was it? Where was she?

“I started to get worried when you didn’t answer the telephone. I know your proposal is due today and that you should be leaving soon for campus.”

Lintang jumped up from the sofa. As she did, the loose pages of her proposal flew into the air. Not bothering to first pick them up, she raced into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Nara smiled and shook his head as he picked up the sheets of paper and arranged them in their proper order. Then he poured orange juice into a glass and rolled up his sleeves to make breakfast. He assumed that Lintang had not been eating well and had probably consumed gallons of caffeine during the past several days.

“Yum, an omelet and sausages? And where did you find the croissants? I’ve haven’t had a chance to shop this week. Did you hold up the boulangerie on the ground floor?”

Dressed in a kimono bathrobe, Lintang pounced on the breakfast Nara had arranged neatly on the table.

“Their first croissants of the day were just coming out of the oven when I arrived, so I scooped them up,” Nara said.

“You are an angel,” Lintang said as she kissed his lips. “That place is the only reason I can stand to live in this shit hole of an apartment. I love waking up to the smell of their freshly baked croissants.”

“But this morning you woke up because of my kiss,” Nara said as he repeatedly kissed her face. “Is there enough time for me to help relieve some of your tension?”

Lintang laughed, pulled the lobe of Nara’s ear, and then went into her bedroom to change her clothes.

“I straightened up your proposal and put it in the green folder,” Nara called after her.

“Did you read it?”

“Just skimmed it — I was fixing your breakfast, you know — but it looks to me to be pretty good, in content and in tone. I’m sure Monsieur Dupont will be impressed.”

As Lintang dressed, Nara put her messy kitchen back in order.

She came out from the room wearing black jeans and a white blouse. Hanging from her shoulders, and complementing her simple apparel, was an almost diaphanous batik scarf her mother owned.

Sitting down at the kitchen table, Lintang began to talk: “You know, all the stuff I’ve read these past few weeks, in my father’s unpublished manuscripts and the letters that’s he’s received over the years, and all the documentary films I’ve seen — both the unprofessional and professional ones produced by Australian filmmakers and the BBC — reveal a blood-filled side of Indonesian history that has thus far been largely ignored.”

Nara could only nod as he listened to Lintang speak.

Pausing to take a breath, Lintang then attacked the omelet and sausages before continuing: “The massacres that took place around Indonesia and the hunt for members of the Communist Party and their families served to bolster a strong and enduring power structure. And those concepts of ‘political hygience’ and being ‘environmentally clean’… Merde! What the hell are they anyway?!”

Still eating her omelet, Lintang spoke quickly, no pausing for commas, no stopping for periods, sometimes jabbing her fork in the air.

Afraid that Lintang was going to stick him in the eye with her fork, Nara took her hand and lowered it to the table. “Very good, darling, but it’s time to get ready to go. I’ll go with you as far as Monsieur Dupont’s office; but after that, I must go see Professor Dubois.”

“Oh, hmm…” Lintang suddenly felt guilty for not having paid sufficient attention to Nara or his own academic concerns. “Is he going to give you his recommendation?”

“It looks like it…but come on,” Nara told her. “When all this is over, I am going to kidnap you and lock you in the bedroom for three days!” he added with a leer.

Nara grabbed Lintang’s jacket and the two of them ran to the Metro station. At that moment, Lintang could not help but think how easy her life was. She would finish her final assignment. Nara would continue his schooling in London. Soon, it would be summer in Paris again. Life was neat and orderly, just as it should be.

Dimas put the oversized envelope containing the X-rays of his chest and abdomen into a large bag the hospital had provided. He was sorely tempted to throw the results of the examination into the trash container — Bam! — but he realized that would be overly dramatic and childish. He sat at the Metro station, staring at its subterranean walls and the array of announcements on them. They suddenly seemed to transform into a series of advertisements and health advisories about vaccines, skin diseases, breast cancer, and AIDS. He felt chafed. What a cliché it was: he would not die like Hananto, before a firing squad, or be thrown off a cliff or drowned in the Solo River. He would be slowly worn away by a fucking disease he could not even see.