Leila Chudori - Home

“What can I tell you, Lintang? It’s just the story of a student romance. I was friends with Om Hananto first, ever since I started college.”

Lintang waited for the rest of the story, but her father appeared to be trying to figure out how to disentangle a snaggled skein and turn it into a smooth, straight, and simple thread that did not give rise to perturbing questions. But Dimas didn’t know how to untangle this knotted ball of thread. Could he not just bury it with the bones in the ground of the Cimetière du Père Lachaise?

“And then…?” Lintang gently tried to stress the tone of demand in her question.

“I once…I once dated Surti when we were students, but, in the end, she married Hananto. That was it; nothing special about it. Just an old romance, now forgotten.” The greater the undertone in his voice, the more unconvincing his words seemed to be.

Lintang studied her father’s face and the soft flickering light in his eyes, which sapped her of the strong urge to know more and to ask him further questions.

“It was just like Om Risjaf and Tante Rukmini. He was interested in her but, in the end, she chose to marry Om Nug. They’re just funny stories from our student days that are not important now and don’t have…”

“The two stories differ,” said Lintang, her curiosity renewed. “There were plenty of times I heard Om Risjaf and Om Nug talking and joking about the past, plus Om Risjaf never actually dated Tante Rukmini. That’s different from your situation with Om Hananto and Tante Surti.”

“Why is it important for you to know about this?” Dimas had begun to feel his daughter trespassing on personal territory — a domain he had never truly spoken of or freely explained, not even when Vivienne had demanded that he be honest with her about his feelings. “And what does this have to do with your final assignment?”

For a while, Lintang said nothing as she tried to understand her father’s feelings. Yes, this was his personal space. But she had to know the entire context and background of her respondents, especially the Hananto Prawiro family.

“I will be meeting the Hananto family,” she finally said, “and if there is some kind of special relationship between you and them, I think I need to be prepared. I am coming to them as a research student to document their life history, which is a dark spot on the history of your homeland, Ayah, and on my homeland too…”

Dimas looked at Lintang, his heart was touched when hearing her say “my homeland.”

“You know, don’t you, that the word ‘ flâneur ’ has multiple meanings?”

Lintang nodded her head slowly.

“In the sixteenth century the word flânerie meant the custom of strolling the pathways, enjoying the twilight air or flowers blooming in the spring. The implication here is that it was an activity undertaken by aristocrats who had time to spare. More recently the word flâneur came to have a much more ambivalent meaning. In it was now an aspiration on the part of a person who is undertaking a journey to fulfill his curiosity and study the local culture. This is different from the previous ‘ flâneur ,’ which meant a stroller or a wanderer who went from one place to another, without any certain destination. Witnessing a flâneur is like watching a motion picture of an urban life.”

Lintang felt certain that her father had a reason for this lecture on the semantics of ‘ flâneur. ’ She would try to be patient. At the very least, listening to a lecture on etymology would be much more beneficial than hearing him expound on the awesomeness of Led Zeppelin.

“But I am most in agreement with the explanation provided by Charles Baudelaire, who said that activity on a journey is the same as a home for the flâneur , like water for fish. Passion and work become one in the activity. A flâneur will forever be looking, and building his home in the flow and motion of movement. He might feel he has left his home, but in fact he built a home in his journey.”

“Like a seagull,” Lintang commented.

“Yes,” Dimas said, turning his head, as if being drawn back to the real world after being submerged in a sea of thought and semiotics. “That’s what your mother used to say: like a seagull.”

In late spring, the Paris sun doesn’t retire early from its duties. Père Lachaise Cemetery was still bright even though the hour showed it to be eventide. “I am still wandering, with or without a destination. I was still a flâneur when Surti asked me to throw down my anchor and seek port. I guess it was a logical risk. I shouldn’t have been surprised when Surti chose for herself a man who was ready to stand beside her and was able to promise to protect her and their future children from anything the sky might cast down on them. That’s all…”

Lintang nodded slowly, though her face was full of questions.

“And when you met Maman? Did you feel ready then? Or did you still feel yourself to be a flâneur ?”

Dimas paused. He knew that his marriage to Vivienne had been based more on need and comfort than anything else, but he was also aware of how unfair that sounded. Certainly what he felt for Vivienne would always be pure and sincere. To this day, however, he did not know whether it was love or a comfortable sense of security. He so very much wanted to tell his daughter that settling in Paris, starting a family with her mother, and building a home in exile was not something he had ever wished or aspired to. But “exile” was not a word he ever would have said in front of Lintang’s mother, because, for Vivienne, Paris was home. What he and his three friends had done — jumping from Santiago to Havana and then to Peking before finally landing in Paris — had not been a journey they had made out of choice. They were not epigones; nor were they members of the Beat generation who wandered about the United States because of choice — to breathe in the air of freedom and to experiment with sex and drugs. He and his friends were forever haunted by a feeling of being watched and hunted as a result of their political choices — or, in his case and that of Tjai, as a result of their not choosing.

“I love your mother and everything about her. I love her because she gave me the most beautiful gift in the world, which is you.”

Finally, after having found the right formula for closing the topic of conversation, Dimas had provided an answer. But Lintang was a curious student, trained by both her parents and teachers not to accept at face value the answer given or what is written in a book.

“Kenanga, Bulan, and Alam… Are those names ones that you chose?”

Dimas almost fell over backward. He suddenly turned pale. Damn! Having such a bright daughter was as irritating as it was pleasing.

“Yes,” Dimas answered with a long sigh. “Those were names that I came up with long before the children were born. They represent the dreams of a young couple in love. But it was Surti who chose to give the names to her children. What you might…”

“Ayah! Don’t underestimate me,” Lintang chastised with a smile. “Look at my name and look at theirs. They all have your fingerprints on them. Supposing I had a younger brother or sister, I’m sure you would have given them names like ‘Button Flower’ or ‘Blue Sea.’”

Dimas broke out laughing. Just like Vivienne, Lintang had no space in herself for secrets or darkness. Everything had to be bright and glowing.

“Tell me, Ayah, once and for all, are you still a flâneur ? Are you the inveterate wanderer who is always seeking, always traveling, never able to anchor?”

This time Dimas gave a sincere and honest answer: “I want to go home, Lintang. To a place that understands my odor, my physique, and my soul. I want to go home to Karet.”