Leila Chudori - Home

“What’s going on?” I shouted at Mita as I grabbed her by the arm. “We have to find Alam and Gilang and the rest of the guys.”

As the helicopters continued to circle overhead, the students below grew all the more angry. Even if I could get through to Alam on the phone, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear him over the roar of the helicopters. I concentrated on filming this mysterious incident instead.

When finally the helicopters did begin to leave the area, the students booed and waved their fists in the air. With the choppers’ tails still visible, I focused my lens on their identification numbers as they flew away. Who knows, maybe I could use this information at a later date. Just at that moment, we heard the sound of gunfire. One shot. Two. Then screams of surprise. And wails. Mita spontaneously pulled me down into a crouch. Everyone covered their heads and ducked. People started running in all directions. We heard some more shots. From the outside, coming in. Members of the student regiment yelled for everyone to move away from the perimeter of the grounds and to go inside the building. Students ran past us, throwing stones. Who knows where they’d found them. I now felt more afraid with that barrage of stones going over our heads towards the outside. Mita clutched my shoulder to prevent me from standing up because I was still trying to see what was going on.

“Don’t stand up, you dumbass!” Mita screamed at me while pushing my head down.

“It’s stopped, Mita. I want to see.”

We slowly stood and I quickly prepared to use my video camera. Mita kept grumbling that I was acting like a damned fool war correspondent. Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be anyone who had been hurt or wounded, but the students were swearing and shouting. What had that gunfire been about? Just to make people afraid. Quel imbécilité!

“Lintang, turn that thing off and get inside the building!” Mita shouted at me. The shooting had stopped. There was no sound except that of people running. Mita grabbed my hand and pulled me inside the lobby of the building. At that moment I caught sight of Gilang, Bimo, and Alam who were running in our direction. Finding me, Alam immediately embraced me and held me tightly. Suddenly, I felt so safe that I never wanted to part with him.

All together now, we quickly talked about what to do. Alam would drive Om Aji’s van. Mita had her motorcycle, but we weren’t going to let her go off alone.

“We’ll form a convoy,” Agam suggested.

“What’s the big fuss?” Gilang said. “Bimo comes in my jeep. Agam and Odi can take Mita’s bike, and Alam can take the girls in the van!”

Mita had her hands on her hips. “What girls are you referring to?”

“Oops, sorry, Mita. I meant ‘women.’” Gilang held up his two hands in submission.

As we were making our way to our respective vehicles, something else made us pause: Alam reported that a student guard had told him that hundreds or even thousands of people had congregated at various points along Kyai Tapa, the boulevard adjacent to campus that leads to the center of town. He said they had begun burning cars and were making their way towards the Tomang Plaza shopping center, very close by.

“So what do we do?” Bimo asked. “Wait till they pass or try to make our way through them?”

Not knowing how to read the situation, no one replied. No one knew what to do.

Alam told the rest of us to wait where we were for the moment. He would try to see what the situation was like outside and would be back in five minutes. No! I didn’t want to be separated from him again and I ran after him, ignoring Mita’s shouts for me not to follow.

“What are you doing coming with me? I’ll be right back.”

Alam seemed to intentionally pick up his stride.

“No, I’m coming with you!” I answered stubbornly as I struggled with my knapsack.

Alam took my knapsack from me and started to run. Near the front gate, we could see that the crowd of people who had amassed outside the campus gate earlier had begun to drift away. Alam questioned two student guards. They gave him an answer similar to the news he had heard previously: cars were being set afire and unknown groups of men were commandeering trucks and public mini-vans. The guards pointed towards a cloud of smoke whose source we couldn’t see. The situation seemed to be getting out of hand. I squeezed Alam’s hand as hard as I could, wanting to sew his hand to mine.

“Thanks!” Alam said as he hugged the younger men who remained standing there steadfast.

He then looked at me and gave me a little smile for having squeezed his hand so tightly.

“Don’t be afraid!”

“How can I not be when you disappear like that?”

Now he really did smile. “I didn’t disappear. I was just talking to Mas Willy.”

We walked back to where Gilang, Mita, Agam, Bimo, and Odi were waiting.

Bimo grinned broadly when he saw us holding hands. Reflexively, I released Alam’s grip. This was embarrassing. In Paris, there would be nothing out of the ordinary in such a display. But here, in Jakarta, I was turning into a shamefaced shrinking violet.

We went to our vehicles. Alam called out instructions before we started to go: “The crowd outside the gates has begun to disperse. We’ll drive slowly and make our way through. If there are too many of them, don’t do anything; just be patient and drive very slowly. But when you get to clear road, step on the gas. Got it?”

Agam and Odi, who were on Mita’s cycle, were the first to leave and the first to break free from the crazy mass of people on the street. Now it was our two vehicles that had to pass through the sea of people. It was totally crazy out there. As we made our way towards the intersection, we could see that Tomang Plaza was closed and now surrounded by a huge crowd. I couldn’t stand it not being able to record what was happening and I tried to shoot the scene through the van’s rear window. God, a crowd of people was breaking into an ATM.

“Are they looting?” I asked, surprised.

“Be careful,” Mita said to Alam, pointing to a group of long-haired men. Some were carrying thick wooden clubs which they used to rap the hoods of cards.

“Lintang, put that damn thing away!” she barked at me.

I immediately obeyed her and then was terrified to see that three men from that same group were now approaching our car.

Alam rolled down the window with feigned calm.

“Where are you going?” one of the men immediately asked.

“I’m trying to get home. My wife here is pregnant and I need to get her home,” he said as he stroked my cheek.

What!?

The three men stuck their right thumbs in the air.

Across the street, I caught sight of a few soldiers with rifles, sitting idly, watching the scene, and not doing anything at all.

When the men grinned at him and stepped aside for us to pass, Alam slowly stepped on the gas. But then, suddenly Mita screamed, “Watch out, Alam!”

Six or seven men came running towards us from the opposite direction. But their target wasn’t us; it was the car behind us, a Mercedes. Why they had chosen to stop the car and prevent it from passing, I could only guess.

“The people in that Mercedes, Alam, what’s going to happen to them?” I stupidly asked. Instead of doing nothing, Alam opened the door and got out of the car. Oh my God. He was calling out to the men. Two of the men broke away and came up to Alam. I didn’t know what Alam said, but I saw the brutes nod. They then called the other men, who had formed a circle around the Mercedes behind us. Alam got back into the car shaking his head.

“What happened out there?” I asked.

“When I looked inside the car and saw the driver was about the same age as Om Aji, I told the men he was my uncle and they believed me.”