Leila Chudori - Home

It was only then I suddenly remembered my own belongings: my films, video camera, laptop, transcripts, and notes. I rushed to Mita’s workroom. Usually tidy and neat, the room was now in complete disarray, and the top of the desk where I had left my things was bare. I yanked open the desk drawers, wildly searching their contents. My hands shook and I sniffled as I tried to chase away the unbidden tears.

Mita stopped what she was doing and came over to me. She looked shocked by my desperate state of confusion. She took me by the shoulders and began to say something but, suddenly feeling my stomach turning, I yanked myself away from her and bolted towards the bathroom.

Everything that had been in my stomach before now filled the porcelain bowl of the office toilet. Partially digested kernels of rice from the nasi uduk I had eaten the night before still clung inside of the porcelain bowl. I wearily sat down on the bathroom floor still facing the toilet seat. No more than a second later I heard the sound of someone — I knew it was Alam — bounding through the door. I could feel him gently embrace me from behind but I could do nothing but cry. Merde, merde . The tears fell faster.

A half hour later I was still sitting listlessly in a chair in the middle room. On the side table beside me was a glass of warm water Alam had placed there. Ujang had given me some kind of mentholated oil in a small green bottle, which he told me to rub on my temples, but the smell of it almost made me want to retch again.

Mita now looked much calmer and was putting together an inventory of items that had been damaged, stolen, or destroyed. I was continually having to wipe away my tears.

Mita again came to me and put her hand on my shoulder. Her voice was calm and without emotion: “Lintang, listen to me. You have to calm down. The more miserable you are, the happier they’ll feel. That’s what terrorism is about. We know who did this and we know why. That’s how they operate.”

All I could think of was my lost work. Monsieur Dupont’s comments. “But all my recordings, Mita… All the interviews for my final assignment: Pramoedya, Djoko, Tante Surti, Om Aji, Bimo, and all the other former political prisoners and political observers… All of them are gone, along with my laptop, my notes, my schedule planner.”

At that moment, Alam appeared with my video camera in his hand. It was a bit worse for wear, but it hadn’t been destroyed.

I yelped with glee and threw my arms around him, but he quickly extricated himself from my embrace. Odi was smiling broadly at the sight — perhaps their first smile since earlier that morning.

“I found your laptop, too,” Alam said, “beneath one of the benches. It probably needs a re-boot, but try not to be so down. I’m sure everything will be fine. We’ll get everything taken care of, one by one.”

I suddenly found myself embarrased. My loss was nothing compared to the damage the office had incurred, much less the suffering of the former political prisoners and the members of their families I had interviewed. What was the value of this material, collected in only a few weeks’ time, compared to the lost years of people’s lives?

“Thank you,” I blurted out, once again about ready to burst into tears, not because of my own predicament but because of the patience and kindness everyone had shown to me. Alam patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry for being so childish and thinking only about myself. Forgive me, please. Did you lose much stuff?”

I felt ashamed for not having asked this question before and for not having immediately pitched in to help them put the office back in order. I took a deep breath and stood up, then began to help Ujang straighten the desks and bookshelves and drawers that were lying about.

“Yeah, we lost some film footage and some document folders,” Agam said, but more to Alam than to me.

Alam nodded: “OK, I’ll check and see what’s missing.”

They both seemed calm when they spoke. Though obviously upset, they nonetheless were able to remain calm.

I again offered to help but my mind was going all over the place, thinking about what I would say to Professor Dupont. Suddenly, I began to panic again. “I’m going to need to borrow a computer and get online,” I said to Alam. “I have to request an extension from Professor Dupont. And I’ll have to repeat all the interviews with my respondents. This is a force majeure ,” I almost shouted. “I have to send an e-mail to Professor Dupont! …Or maybe I should call him. Yes, that would be better. I should call him!”

Mita stared at me, then said to Alam, “Alam, why don’t you take Lintang to your house and try to get her to calm down. Either that or give the girl a valium.”

Alam smiled at Mita and then told Gilang that he was going to take me to his house and that he would be back as soon as he could.

“Good idea,” Gilang said. He raised his right thumb in agreement with Alam’s suggestion. “Make sure everything’s OK.” He then glanced at me. “And there’s no need to rush back soon.”

“Alright, will do. Can I use your jeep again?”

Gilang waved his hand as if to shoo us out the door. “Take it. I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

After we got into Gilang’s jeep, I asked Alam, “Why are we going to your place?” I was surprised to see the street was quiet — probably the only street in Jakarta that was quiet that early morning.

“You said you wanted to borrow a computer, didn’t you? You can use my laptop at home. Besides, I want to show you something,” he said with a grin.

I glanced back at my own laptop, resting beaten and forlorn on the back seat. I had to stop myself from swearing. I could only hope the screen wasn’t broken. That would be expensive to fix or replace.

Alam rented a very small house on a side street in the South Jakarta area of Pondok Pinang. The house was painted white and looked to be well maintained. It was covered with green climbing plants. As the house had no garage, Alam parked Gilang’s jeep on the street outside.

When Alam opened the door to his house, I felt like I was entering a large reading room, one both clean and comfortable. Every wall of the large front room was covered with books, from floor to ceiling. I walked around the room, saying nothing but feeling thrilled to be surrounded by such a large repository of knowledge. At the back of the room were two doorways, one open, one closed. Through the open doorway I could see a small kitchen whose walls and cabinetry were painted entirely red. I guessed that the only thing it was used for was making coffee and instant noodles. The other doorway, whose door was closed, I assumed led to Alam’s bedroom.

“You need to rest,” Alam said to me. “Why don’t you lie down on the sofa there or in my room. My room is also where I work. There’s a laptop on the desk. The password is SegaraAlam65 but I change it every week. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll put on some water to boil,” he said, leaving me.

I entered Alam’s bedroom-workroom and was amazed to see how it neat it was: almost too neat for a man living on his own, I thought. He must have a maid coming in regularly to clean up after him…or a girlfriend, I thought. Nara was fairly neat, but I would never have guessed Alam to be as obsessive about orderliness as he apparently was. Beside the closed laptop on Alam’s desk were three 2-B pencils and three ballpoint pens, lined up neatly beside one another, like a military defile.

A number of books and piles of stationery were stacked so straight that I hesitated to touch them. There was a door in the wall next to the night table, a closet I guessed. I looked at the bed and the bedside table next to it. The Titoni watch his father had owned was there now. Beside it was a wooden framed photograph. Looking closer, I saw the photograph was of Om Hananto, the same one that my father had in his photo album. The photograph was dated 1965.