Leila Chudori - Home

“Where the hell were you yesterday and what the fuck are you up to now?”

“Calm down, Bro. I took her to see Lubang Buaya yesterday.”

“What for?”

“She’s making a documentary on ’65. I wanted to give her some context and to make sure she understands that the history of Indonesia as it is depicted there is the only one the younger generation knows.”

“And…?”

“She was mesmerized. She recorded everything: the monuments, the diorama.”

I said nothing. I was beginning to understand the reason for Alam’s disappearance.

“And how is she up here?” I asked, with my index finger on my forehead.

“Very bright. At first I thought she’d be the typical Westerner: all rational-minded and that kind of thing but then bowled over by exoticism and so on. But in fact she’s not. She asks good questions, straight and to the point.”

Alam smiled. Ngehe! Fucker! He’s the one who’s mesmerized.

“You watch yourself, buddy. This one isn’t for the bedroom. You’ll be tarred and feathered by all of Paris and Jakarta if you try. God, I can see your mother running after you with a machete and hacking you to pieces!” I chortled, imagining Alam’s elegant mother crazed and with a machete in her hands.

“Don’t worry. Not my type. The bright ones are always trouble in bed.”

Alam took a cigarette and offered me one, too.

“Not now, Alam. My mother,” I glanced inside the house.

Alam put his cigarette back in its packet and swished his tongue around the inside of his mouth as if to dissipate the urge to smoke.

“So why did you want to meet up here?”

Lintang returned to the terrace. She looked at Alam and then at me. “Bimo, I have a huge favor to ask of you.”

“Name it.”

“All the names on my list of potential respondents are victims. But I’m thinking…I’m thinking that I really need to interview the other side, too.

The other side? I shook my head in disbelief. The man with the burning cigarette butts? You must be kidding.

“I know this might be hard, Bro, but I think it’s a good idea,” Alam said to me. “Yesterday Lintang recorded Lubang Buaya but she needs more…”

“More context! Right, I got it,” I cut him off impatiently. “But I don’t think he’ll agree to do it. The military has its own special bureaucracy and procedures. And even though he’s retired, he’d still have to get permission and that could have consequences. Lintang would have to provide an official letter of request and then, even if her request for an interview was granted, which I doubt it would be, they’d probably appoint a public communications officer to talk with her, not my stepfather.”

Alam looked at Lintang, who was trying to get her head around this bureaucratic tangle.

“Then how about this, Bimo… How about if I just try speaking to your stepfather and see what he says?”

I took a breath.

“OK, Lintang, but only if you can accept the risk in what you’re doing. My stepfather is not the friendliest guy in the world.”

Lintang nodded. The three of us then went into the house and walked through it to emerge at a rear terrace that faced a small garden. After my stepfather retired from the military with the rank of brigadier-general, he was appointed to serve on the board of commissioners of PT Maharani, the state-owned tin mining company. The job was neither pressing nor time-consuming and most weekends, Ibu told me, my stepfather usually spent at home, sitting there on the back terrace, viewing the garden as she prepared their midday meal. Afterwards, she said, they usually went to visit friends or, if they were in the mood for spending money, maybe go to one of the malls where Pak Prakosa might buy a new golf club and my mother a tube of expensive lipstick. I didn’t know whether they had plans to go somewhere today or not. When I called my mother the night before, she didn’t say if they had plans today but told me that she would tell my stepfather that I was coming to see him. “Pak…” My stepfather closed the newspaper he was reading and turned his head toward me. No change of face. No difference in expression. “Yes?”

“I want you to meet Lintang, a friend of mine. She’s a student at the Sorbonne and would like to ask your help.”

My stepfather looked at Lintang and nodded. Lintang extended her hand to him, which he shook, and then asked us all to sit down on the chairs facing him. My stepfather had never much liked Alam, whom he thought was a trouble-maker but also because his father was Hananto Prawiro. He scarcely acknowledged Alam’s presence.

“So, Lintang, how can I be of assistance?” he asked.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, this being a weekend and all, but I came to Jakarta to finish my final assignment for my undergraduate degree.”

“Good. Good for you,” he nodded, without evident emotion. “What’s it about? What’s your field?”

“Cinematography. I’m hoping to make a documentary film.”

My stepfather nodded again, his face still expressionless. He didn’t seem to know who Lintang was, but I was sure that he was trying to guess right now.

“I want to make a one-hour documentary about Indonesian history.”

“Well, that’s awfully broad. What part of Indonesian history do you have in mind?”

“September 1965 and its impact on the families of victims.”

Pak Prakosa straightened up and looked at Lintang more closely.

“What do you mean by ‘victims’?”

“I mean the families of political prisoners, the ones who didn’t know anything or weren’t involved but then had to suffer for years afterwards, even up to this day.”

The general’s features immediately hardened. At that same moment, my mother came out of the house and onto the back terrace, no doubt to announce that lunch was ready to be served. Ibu didn’t know that I was bringing others along to talk to her husband.

“Ibu, this is Lintang, a friend from Paris. From the Sorbonne.”

“Oh…” Ibu shook Lintang’s hand and nodded towards Alam. “Paris?”

“That’s right, Bu Prakosa,” Lintang answered in a polite tone of voice. Ibu studied Lintang’s face, as if searching her memory for something she knew about the younger woman.

“Lintang, is it?”

“Yes, Lintang Utara Suryo.”

Lintang seemed to be testing the waters. My mother’s face immediately paled and she released Lintang’s hand. “Oh…”

My stepfather immediately stood up and looked at her. “You’re Dimas Suryo’s daughter?” I could feel the tension in the air and stood, I don’t know why.

“Yes, sir, I am,” Lintang answered calmly, “but the documentary film is for my final assignment as a student at the Sorbonne.”

Ibu quickly took control of the uncomfortable situation by doing what she always did: changing the subject and ignoring the matter at hand.

“Lunch is ready, Mas,” she said to my stepfather. “Bimo, do your friends want to eat lunch here?”

Offering lunch was, of course, the only civil thing to do, but it was also a sign for us to go. I knew very well the look on my mother’s face, which meant that I was to get out of the house now and to take with me these “friends” who were likely to give her husband a migraine.

“That’s kind of you, Tante, but we have an invitation for lunch at a friend’s house,” Alam smoothly lied.

“Yes, thank you, but we must be going,” Lintang interjected, no less politely. “I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed your weekend, Bapak and Ibu Prakosa.”

“Lintang…” Pak Prakosa’s voice caused Lintang to stop in her tracks.

“Yes, sir.”

“Even though I’m retired, I am not allowed to give any kind of interview without permission. If you would like one, you’ll have to go to the military headquarters with an official request from your university.”