Leila Chudori - Home

After saying goodbye to her father at the door to his apartment, Lintang went to meet Narayana at Au Petit Fer à Cheval , the classic bistro in the Marais. She was late by ten minutes, but Nara greeted her warmly, impatient to possess her for the three days and nights he had so often mentioned to her. As soon as Lintang arrived at the table, one they had to reserve far in advance because of the café’s popularity, Nara gave in to the desire he had postponed for so long and immediately embraced her and gave her a passionate kiss. Lintang neither resisted Nara’s embrace nor encouraged him to continue. Her head was still full of Indonesian names unsuited for a French vocabulary: Karet, Surti, Hananto, Kenanga, Bulan, Alam, Karet, Bimo Nugroho, Karet, Chairil Anwar, Karet …

“What is it, ma chérie …”

“My father kept talking about Karet.”

“Karet?”

“A cemetery in Jakarta.”

“Oh …”

“He said it’s not as grand or beautiful as the cemeteries here, that it’s just a normal cemetery. But still, he said, Karet is the place where he wants to go home!”

Why she had suddenly snapped at Nara and thrown this information in his face, Lintang didn’t know; but sometimes, and for no apparent reason, Nara suddenly seemed to transform into a young aristocrat who had no idea that there were still places in the world where beggars existed and piles of shit littered the streets.

“I know of Karet, Lintang. I know it’s a cemetery in Jakarta,” Nara answered patiently, trying to understand what she was really saying. He had been to Jakarta often. Lintang knew that.

Hearing Nara’s calm voice, Lintang suddenly felt guilty and started to cry. She hugged him, then took a sip of whatever it was he had been drinking.

“I’m so sorry, mon chéri. My father was in such a strange mood today.”

“Maybe he’s just sad because you’re leaving.”

“Leaving? I’m only going to be gone for a few weeks. At most a month and a half, if I have to extend. I have a deadline to meet.”

“But you’ve just been reunited and now you’re going away.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Lintang said in agreement with Nara’s theory. “Maybe that’s it.”

“I’m sure that’s it. Your parents love you. And your relationship with them is not only that of parent and child; you are like a friend for them. But enough of this for now. It’s getting late, my lovely. Let’s get something to eat and then go home for dessert! I want to kidnap you now.”

Nara stroked Lintang’s neck.

Lintang smiled and her eyes were aglow. She lifted Nara’s glass and drank the rest of its contents in one swallow. “How about if we forget about having dinner tonight? We can pick up a bottle of wine and go to my apartment now.”

Nara grinned widely when he heard this brilliant idea.

“But you’re going to be hungry,” Nara noted soberly. “I know you’re going to get hungry.” He protested because he knew that if there was one thing that might get in the way of their lovemaking, it would be Lintang’s empty stomach.

“After our kidnapping session, we can order Chinese,” Lintang suggested. “Come on, let’s go!”

Lintang straightened her bag and Nara quickly paid the bill. On the sidewalk, they held each other closely as they walked.

“One and a half months is too long, ma chérie. Please make it just three weeks. More than that and I’m going to come and get you!” Nara nibbled Lintang’s ear. He was restless and the Metro seemed so far away and would take so long that he immediately hailed a taxi and they soon set off in the direction of Belleville.

“ D’accord !”

For three smoldering hours — three days was not realistic — Nara succeeded in making Lintang forget the word “Karet.” For three hours Lintang whispered a different vocabulary, an intimate one that further flamed Nara’s passion. Weeks and weeks of delayed desire had to be allayed in that one night only. They turned up the music as loud as possible so that their neighbors, separated from them by only a thin wall, would not be bothered by the constant creaking of the bed and the high-pitched moans of its inhabitants. But after three boisterous and sweat-filled hours, when Nara was lying asleep and naked on the bed, Lintang opened her eyes to look at the ceiling. She got out of bed, wrapped herself in a sheet, and went into the kitchen. There, her father’s words began to stir up her thoughts. She tried calming herself with a glass of water.

Through the large window in her apartment, Lintang could see the streetlights of Belleville washing the old buildings with their glow: spice stores, a boulangerie, and the old apartment building across the street from her own. Suddenly, the streetlights began to die, one after another, and in just a few seconds the buildings outside had turned into tombstones, standing in a neat and even line. Lintang squinted her eyes to see. Directly in the middle of the row of tombstones, she could see a mound of fresh red clay earth, not yet covered by stone or cement, where a plain wooden plank was planted. On it was printed the simple words: DIMAS SURYO, 1930–1998.

JAKARTA 1993

THEY’RE ALL STANDING, bodies bloodied, limbs injured — miniature statues that have been placed there, arranged just so, forever frozen in one position. Maybe a few facts can be gleaned from their assemblage; maybe the rest is just a series of poses.

The small figures behind the glass seem to be actors in some kind of play. One of them has been shot in a living room. Another one, tied to a chair, is being tortured. All kinds of cruelties have been carved into this extensive diorama which has served as the official history of this country for twenty-eight years.

I watch as a group of grade school students form a neat line behind their teacher and the museum guide, who proceeds to explain to the children how the communists abducted the generals and then hacked and slashed their bodies with swords and knives. Two of the boys press their foreheads to the glass, their eyes bulging as they take in the cruel sights they’re seeing. Behind them is a group of junior high school girls, waiting to take their turn to look through the glass.

Ooh, yuck! Creepy! Those are bad guys.

Is that blood or ketchup, ma’am?

In the film, they were singing.

Be orderly now, and write down what you see for a report…

The first and second comments are from the grade school students and the third is from a junior high school student who is comparing the scene in the diorama to The September 30 Movement: the Treachery of the Indonesian Communist Party , a feature film that all students are obliged to watch annually around the time of the anniversary of the events depicted in the diorama.

This is history. Here, in this place, the powers that be have conflated a story capable of disrupting childhood memories, inserting in them scenes of defilement, corruption, and horror. Compared with the filmed enactment of the same events, which come across as highly theatrical if not outright melodramatic, the diorama is able to elicit a more powerful emotional reaction precisely because of its silence, which permits the mind greater room for a gory imagination. Who created this diorama? What was its original intent — a tool for information, education, propaganda, or entertainment? Or all of them together? Could the diorama’s creator have known how effectively it would be used as an educational tale for the schoolchildren of this country, how this country’s mentality would come to be shaped by wounds and paranoia?