Leila Chudori - Home

It was around that time that I began to see my home as a hell hole, filled with tension and disappointment. My poor mother was too blind to see. Either that or she was too busy erasing all traces of my real father, the man whose child she had borne but who had disappeared from her life. There were no photographs of my real father on display in the house. No personal effects that he had ever owned. Not even any letters from him to me — at least not until one day when Alam came to the house to give me a letter that my father had sent to the Hananto family home. Somehow, my real father had at last figured out that if he wanted to communicate with me, it would have be through an intermediary. Thereafter, when he wanted to speak to me, he’d first call Om Aji’s or Tante Surti’s and tell them when and where he was going to call back. They would then call me and I would go and wait wherever it was he was going to call. I especially liked it when he called me at Om Aji’s, because it gave me an excuse to see Andini, whom I was secretly fond of. I’d always borrow her books and pretend to forget to return them to her.

No one else in the world knew about what I was going through except Alam. Maybe Andini suspected. And I suppose Kenanga, Bulan, and Tante Surti might have guessed as well, since Alam was always getting punished at school for standing up for me. That Tante Surti often invited me to stay overnight at their house was another indication that she knew something of my troubled relationship with my stepfather.

Once, when Alam and I were in senior high, this gang of boys beat me up, tied me to a pole, and took turns pissing on me. Alam came in like a superhero to save me and beat the shit out of those guys. Afterwards, when the principal called my mother to school, it was difficult for me to lie anymore about what was happening. I was just happy that on that particular day God showed mercy on me. Pak Prakosa happened to be on duty out of town, so I managed to escape punishment from him.

In 1982, after graduation from high school, I was accepted for admission to the Faculty of Social Science and Politics at the University of Indonesia. Alam got into the Faculty of Law. This was when I finally was able to say goodbye to the hell of living in my stepfather’s home. Alam and I moved into a crappy boarding house near the campus in Rawamangun. Money was tight and food was whatever we could manage. Sometimes we ended up eating instant noodles for weeks on end. But that was OK. If we got too hungry or wanted some variation in our diet, we weren’t at all embarrassed to go to Tante Surti’s place, on Jalan Percetakan Negara. Alam’s family home always felt more comfortable and pleasant than my own home ever had; and Tante Surti was always generous, ever ready to give us a simple but comforting meal. On weekend nights, when Alam was teaching karate to his students, I’d lounge about in his room drawing by myself. Sometimes I’d draw faces: my mother; my father as a young man with a thin mustache, just as he appeared in an old photograph; Andini; and others. Sometimes I’d just scribble, producing images in shapes and forms as unclear and uncertain as my future.

On nights that he taught, Alam would usually come back around ten, always sweating but never tired of trying to persuade me to study the art of self-defense so that we could “beat the shit out of sons-of-bitches like Denny and all other species like him,”

Alam was like a brother to me, and I knew he felt the same. He wanted me to be as butch and masculine as he was, ready to face any challenge. But I wasn’t born with his body of steel or sarcastic wit. He was always telling me that I had to build my own future, that I had to do something, anything at all, to make our country a better place. He sounded so heroic and full of fire, which I admired; but I knew I would never be like him. Even so, I truly did want to do something to make this country a better place, even if it was only through my drawings, because I had no idea whether the knowledge I gained in my studies at the university would ever help to make this country better.

And now here I am, back again at my childhood home, standing outside with the same feelings of tension and disappointment that plagued my childhood. Why had did I so readily agreed when Alam asked me to meet him here? I suppose it was because when he finally returned to the office at around sundown yesterday, he had in tow with him Om Dimas’s daughter, Lintang. Sight for sore eyes that she was, I couldn’t cuss him out in front of her. The demonstration to protest the rise in fuel prices and the corruption, collusion, and nepotism that were underming this country hadn’t broken up until around the time for evening prayer, and all that ass could do when he finally appeared was to grin and smile. Gilang didn’t seem at all put out, and gave Lintang an enthusiastic welcome.

So we didn’t get much of a chance to speak. We just snapped at each other under our breath. The demonstration had gone off smoothly, I have to confess, without any untoward incidents and all pretty much according to plan. But Alam was gone the whole day! And the thing is, I’m sorry to admit, when Alam isn’t around, I’m reluctant to act on my own. Gilang has hectored me about this, my “dependence” on Alam, saying that it’s reached a “worrisome stage.” Which is why, I suppose, he’d been very happy to see me flying solo that day.

“Where have you been?” I asked Alam.

“Long story.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you later. Hey, how about if we meet at your mother’s house tomorrow?”

“What for?”

“Don’t argue. Let’s meet there tomorrow, OK? Call it a history exercise.”

Sometimes, Alam could be brilliant. He was always bubbling over with new and interesting ideas. But just as often, they seemed crazy to me. Why were we meeting at this hell house?

Eleven o’clock on the dot, the shithead appeared with Ms. Beautiful beside him. Hmm, with Lintang around, maybe Alam was going to be careful about bathing and start shaving regularly?

“Wow! Clean as a dolphin’s backside!” I said in jest, because Alam often neglected to shave, even though he was a guy with a constant five o’clock shadow. Alam just smiled at the remark. No way! This was going to be trouble! Whenever Alam started seeing a girl, he’d usually be all hot and bothered about her for about two weeks max. If he passed the one-month mark in a relationship, it was an exception. And in such cases it was usually I who had to lend a shoulder to the woman whose heart he’d broken for her to cry on. …Which happened not too long ago when Andini and I were forced to console Rianti, who cried so much her eyes were swollen and puffy. She was just the latest in a string of girlfriends Alam had broken it off with because she had asked for assurances about their future. I felt sorry for Om Dimas’s pretty daughter if Alam was going to take her for a ride.

“Hi, Bimo.” Lintang smiled and placed her hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t get a chance yesterday to give you the package your father sent with me.” She took from her knapsack a small package and a white letter-sized envelope which she gave to me. My eyes were fixed on her bag. “He said he was sending some recent photographs so that you’ll know he’s still young and fit-looking,” Lintang said with a laugh.

I thanked Lintang but put the package aside for opening later and then invited them to take a seat on the front terrace. Even though it was a Saturday and the office is closed that day, I was sure that Gilang would soon be calling everyone for us to gather that night or the next morning, because the government was supposed to announce an increase in fuel prices. There were no days off from the struggle.

Lintang and Alam sat beside each other on the rattan settee. When Lintang asked where the bathroom was, I pointed inside the house and to the left. Only then, after Alam and I were alone, did I get the chance to swear at him.