Leila Chudori - Home

Vivienne stood and went towards the kitchen. After she’d disappeared behind the door, Lintang’s three uncles immediately sat down around her, then waited for her to consume the last piece of boiled banana, one of her favorite treats.

“Here is the list of the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of your father’s and our friends,” said Tjai rapidly, exhibiting his natural sense of organization. “Some of them I’ve e-mailed; others I’ve had to contact by post.”

Lintang read the list and noted the ones she had already contacted herself.

Nugroho handed her another sheet of paper. “And here is the list of restaurants that you should visit, if you have time. “One of the restaurants I’ve listed is Padang Roda. Try to find out if it’s still there. And make sure you visit Senen Market. That’s where we always used to drink coffee and gab.”

“That place is a shambles now,” remarked Risjaf who had been back and forth to Indonesia several times since getting permission to visit. “It’s a very different place now.”

“Most important is for you to visit the family of our late friend, Om Hananto. Tante Surti…”

“Kenanga, Bulan, and Alam… All their names are written down,” Lintang said, interrupting Nugroho, who was too busy looking for the addresses of other friends to notice the rising impatience in her voice.

Lintang still hadn’t decided quite what she felt towards this hodgepodge family of hers. There was something odd and complex in the relationship between her father and the rest of them. What was it between him and his late friend Hananto and his wife, Surti? (What was she supposed to call her? Tante? Aunty?) What kind of weird ménage à trois was it anyway? Where did she and her mother fit in this strange configuration? And what about Kenanga, Bulan, and Alam? She didn’t know them at all, yet they seemed so familiar. She had read their letters, after all. Why did her father feel more responsible for those three children, in particular, than, for example, the children of other former political prisoners?

Lintang was still studying the names and addresses Tjai and Nugroho had given to her when her parents came out of the kitchen. All eyes turned towards Dimas and Vivienne.

Nugroho couldn’t resist goading this odd couple whom he knew still loved each other. “If you were still teenagers, I’d have a snide comment for you, like ‘What were you doing in there?’ or ‘You sure were in there a long time!’”

Dimas waved his hand dismissively, signaling he couldn’t be bothered to respond. “Vivienne came in to ask about the results of my medical checkup. She thinks I’m sick and hiding something from her,” he groused. “I don’t know why she simply can’t accept that I, in my twilight years, can still be so fit and healthy and handsome!”

Vivienne shrugged and sat back down next to Lintang. “That was a failure,” she whispered.

Lintang smiled. “Let me try, Maman. Tomorrow we’re having lunch together and then going to Antoine Martin’s.”

Vivienne nodded, but didn’t expect her daughter to succeed where she hadn’t.

Risjaf offered some words of advice: “I’d just like to say, Lintang, that whenever you meet someone connected with the Soeharto government, your first reaction shouldn’t be antipathy. Many have actually helped us. Just like those three young diplomats. Some have even sent financial assistance or found jobs for the children of former political prisoners at their offices. So, what I’m saying is that as a student researcher, you had best adopt a neutral position.”

Lintang nodded in reply.

“Your uncle Aji will explain it all to you.” Dimas stroked his daughter’s hair. “For the most part, the kids of friends of ours who work for the mass media don’t go by their own names.”

“What? Haven’t you ever told Lintang about Rama, Aji’s boy?” Nugroho asked, surprised.

Dimas scratched his chin, which wasn’t at all itchy. “I’ll let Aji explain. Lintang will be staying at his house.”

The others said nothing. Lintang looked left and right, not knowing what had happened to her cousin.

Dimas immediately changed the subject. “So, now that your ticket and visa are in order, what about your equipment: cassettes, tape recorder, laptop, notes, pens, and so on?”

Lintang nodded. “All I have left to do is to pack.”

“Before you pack,” Nugroho started to say as he removed a thick brown envelope from his back pocket and handed it to Lintang, “this is from all of us here. It’s still in francs but you can change it when you get to Jakarta.”

“ Iki opo to? ” Dimas asked in Javanese, not knowing his friends’ plan.

“It’s not a lot,” Risjaf said to Lintang, “but maybe it will help. For us here, you are our daughter too.”

Lintang looked at her three uncles, from one face to another, with tears beginning to well in her eyes. Tjai nodded, reaffirming what Risjaf had said. This was crazy. Lintang knew very well that none of her uncles were rich, with money to give away.

“I got a stipend from my department,” she said to them, “and I have some savings as well. I’ve been working part-time, and Maman…”

Nugroho, too, had tears in his eyes: “Listen, Lintang. We can’t go to Jakarta. Only Risjaf has been able to go there. That’s why you are going for us. You will be our eyes and ears.”

Lintang felt her throat constrict. Suddenly unable to speak, she squeezed Nugroho’s hand.

“Please, Lintang, go see my Bimo and tell him that I am just as healthy as I was when I left thirty-four years ago. And that I am just as handsome as I was when I saw him in Singapore fifteen years ago. We talk on the telephone, but I almost never get to see him. Who can afford the airfare? Please take as many photographs of him as you can.”

Nugroho’s voice grew hoarser as he spoke. Dimas’s eyes glistened. Tjai and Risjaf pretended to be busy getting plates and glasses, trying not to be seen wiping away the damn tears that had come to their eyes.

Vivienne squeezed Nugroho’s hand. “Lintang is sure to meet Bimo. He and Alam are good friends. I’ve heard that they are going to try to come to Europe next December for the International Conference on Human Rights in The Hague.”

Always so rational-sounding, Vivienne was ever able to soothe a person’s heart.

Wiping his tears, Nugroho nodded and laughed. “That’s right. He told me that he’d be coming to The Hague with Alam and representatives from other non-governmental organizations on December 10. After the conference, he’ll swing down here with Alam. I mark the calendar every day, counting how many months and days it will be before I meet my little boy again.”

“He’s not your little boy anymore,” Risjaf said, patting Nugroho on the shoulder. “He’s a young man now and better looking than his father.”

Dimas squeezed Nugroho’s shoulders, not saying anything.

“I will give you full report on Jakarta,” Lintang promised Nugroho. “Thank you all for this,” she said with the envelope in her hand.

Lintang hugged each of her uncles, those strong and steadfast pillars. If, when she arrived in Jakarta, she possessed even a shred of their strength, she knew that she would be ready to explore this foreign world that she called her homeland.

Dimas and Lintang walked among the rows of grand and beautiful tombstones. They looked at Édith Piaf’s grave marker — black with a crucifix — contrasting in its simplicity with the others. Before the grave of Marcel Proust, it was as if they were flâneurs in the midst of enjoying the beauty of death eternalized in beautiful form. Death celebrated in poetry, flowers, and verdant trees that lent passersby their cooling shadows. Dimas hadn’t thought to wonder why, on the day before his daughter’s departure, they had ended up coming to this cemetery. What they had decided was to visit a number of places in Paris they both liked — with no clear plan, time schedule, or map. Earlier in the day, they had enjoyed a simple meal together at a small café on Île St-Louis. They spoke of the Tour d’Argent, one of the city’s oldest and costliest restaurants, and laughed at the craziness of anyone willing to spend so much money there just on lunch or dinner.