Leila Chudori - Home

“Why Balzac, Dumas, and other poets, even modern-day ones, have cited that place as a source of inspiration, I will never understand.”

Dimas shook his head. They walked along the bank of the Seine until they came to Antoine Martin’s bookstall. There, they engaged the owner in small talk and Lintang said her goodbyes, even as they rummaged through the place for used books and records.

“You’re going so far away,” Monsieur Martin said to Lintang through clenched teeth in which he held a cigarette as he scanned the shelves and piles of books. “I’m going to find something nice for you to read along the way.”

Finally, he found what he was looking for and handed the slim volume to Lintang: The Waste Land . “This is free for you.”

Lintang laughed. She already owned Eliot’s collection of poems but she thanked Monsieur Martin enthusiastically. Maybe she would take it with her. The one she owned was a wreck, full of scribbling and loose pages.

After buying a few used books, they slowly traced the River Seine, their purchases in hand, marveling at how this river, which was constantly being groped and explored by tourists, photographers, and filmmakers, was able to hold so many stories in its rippling waters, including the arrival of Dimas and his friends in Paris, this large city, home to some of the best and most important writers, philosophers, filmmakers, designers, models, and architects in the world. But at the very least, the River Seine had not been violated in the same way the Solo River had. How mankind had betrayed nature by using the river as a place to dispose of corpses and, worse still, by doing so, had betrayed all sense of humankind.

“Ayah…?”

“Yes…?”

“Are you really OK — your health, that is?”

“Yes.”

“What did the results of the tests show?”

“A problem with my liver, is all. Medicine will cure it. I’ll go in for another check,” Dimas answered, his eyes on the tourist boat coming up the Seine.

Typical. Lintang knew that when her father didn’t want to talk about something, he would segue the conversation to a topic lighter in tone.

“Ayah…” Lintang stopped and took her father’s hand. “I want you to be here to see me graduate, build a career and home, and have children.”

Dimas placed his hand lovingly on his daughter’s cheek. But there was something, some kind of clot that seemed to be stuck in his throat.

“I don’t intend to miss any of those events, Lintang. I will be there, right at the front. And on your wedding day, when you marry Nara, your mother and I will be there to be a give you to him and his parents.”

Lintang laughed and exclaimed. “Ayah! Who says I’m getting married to Nara? I don’t know who I am going to marry. I don’t know if I even want to get married. I know I want to have children but I can’t picture myself in a marriage.”

Lintang’s statement caught Dimas by surprise. This information was new and foreign to him. What?

“But aren’t you serious about Nara?” he asked. “Didn’t you get mad at me and all defensive about him when you thought I was mocking him? And now…?”

“Stop!” Lintang suddenly demanded, seeing that her father had indeed succeeded in steering the conversation to another topic. “Don’t try turning the conversation around. I was asking you about your health.”

“ Dear Lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know Your stairway lies on the whispering wind … ”

Dear God… Lintang knew that she had to hold her tongue when her father went into his Led Zeppelin mode. If she were to dare to mock his taste in classic rock — a musical period she felt should be stored in a museum along with memories her parents shared, such as the time they went to London to see a Led Zeppelin concert — the result would be a three-hour course in its merits. Her father would lecture her about this legendary British band, which he deemed to be the most influential band in the world. He and her mother were just two of the band’s billions of fans.

Her father was so good at changing the conversation and she was so irritated with him for his skill that she didn’t even remember having immediately agreed with him when he suggested they go to the Père Lachaise cemetery. And so it was, without a plan, without a destination in mind, and without a fixed desire of something to do, they had found themselves in the cemetery grounds.

“Today, we really are flâneurs .”

Dimas smiled. “Which doesn’t necessarily mean this to be a meaningless journey.”

Dimas felt calm and at peace in this place. Perhaps it was strange, but that is what he felt. So, too, Lintang — which is what, in the end, reunited them again: their shared memory of exploring the graveyard, studying the gravestones, and talking about the famous figures who were now nothing but bones beneath the cemetery ground. Lintang’s first experience in using a camera as a girl had been here in this cemetery.

In Indonesia, cemeteries were generally not places for strolling, sitting, watching twilight, or creating poetry. Even in front of Chairil Anwar’s grave, whose stele-like gravestone set it apart from all other graves around it, Dimas had never found the cemetery in which it sat to be an intriguing or comfortable place — not like the Cimetière du Père Lachaise. But, that said, there was something — a scent, a sense of ownership, or a sense of unity, perhaps — that united it with Karet cemetery where the great Indonesian poet was buried.

As they were passing Jim Morrison’s grand tombstone, Dimas bent down and picked up a small clump of soil from the site. Smelling the soil, he shook his head. “It smells different.”

Lintang followed her father’s example and picked up another small clump of soil near the grave and smelled it too. A look of confusion appeared on her face. “What’s the difference? Different from what soil.”

“ In Karet, my future home ,” her father said, not bothering to cite the source of the quote, because he knew Lintang was familiar with Chairil Anwar’s poetry.

As a child Lintang had never been comfortable when she heard her parents speak about death or plans for their final place of rest. Frankly, she still wasn’t.

“Look at the gravestones here,” Dimas said to Lintang. “Aren’t they extraordinary? You get the feeling that they were erected not only as a result of the desire on the part of the living to continue their relationship with loved ones who have already crossed over to a world we do not know, but also with the intent of nurturing in the living a feeling of melancholy. But, whatever the case, I think I would be more comfortable and happy to be buried in Karet, Chairil Anwar’s home.”

Lintang immediately paraphrased one of the poet’s more famous lines. “I want you to live for a thousand years more, Ayah. So stop talking about where you’re going to be buried.”

“OK,” Dimas agreed. “There’s one thing I want you to do for me,” he said while removing the Titoni 17-jewel watch which, for decades, had gripped his wrist. “I want you to give this to Alam, Om Hananto’s son. It’s very old but it still runs well.”

Lintang’s heart trembled as she took the watch from her father. “This was Om Hananto’s?”

Dimas nodded. “Yes. He gave it to me the last time I saw him, before I left Jakarta.”

As if it were a precious gem and not an old timepiece, Lintang carefully wrapped the watch in the scarf she had been wearing.

“Ayah, one thing I’ve always wanted to know is what it is with this ménage of you, Om Hananto, and Tante Surti.” Lintang felt relieved to have finally released the question that had haunted her for years.

A slight look of tension appeared on Dimas’s face. Finally, he lowered his body and sat down beside Jim Morrison’s gravestone. The sun was edging towards the horizon, but with summertime approaching, daylight would remain for some time to come.