Leila Chudori - Home

He shook his head half hopelessly. Through the rear window we watched as the thugs allowed the Mercedes to pass. Mita tapped Alam on the shoulder and told him to speed up. Alam muttered that it was impossible for us to save everyone and that we couldn’t expect any help from security authorities.

On Kyai Tapa we gained a distance from the crowd, and all breathed a sigh of relief. When the van was in the clear, Alam stepped hard on the accelerator, making the vehicle lurch forward.

“So, I’m pregnant am I?”

Alam glanced towards me with a smile. “What did you want me to say? That you were in a hurry to edit your film footage?”

“Who were those men?” I asked. “They definitely weren’t students and they didn’t look to be people from around here.”

Alam shook his head. “I don’t know. But it’s weird. All the men were about the same age. Some had crew cuts, others had long hair, but all of them looked physically fit and well trained — not like ordinary people. You saw how those soldiers just sat there watching even as those guys were picking and choosing which cars to stop.”

“So, who were they then?”

Again, Alam shook his head. I’m sure he had a hunch but didn’t want to say.

Mita, who generally had the coolest head and was the most rational-minded person among us, had just gotten off the phone with her mother and now looked worried as she reported their conversation.

“My mother told me that a group of men in a public transport van came and attacked Bintaro Plaza this morning. She’d gone there to shop at Hero Supermarket. Luckily, she managed to get out of the mall before they started to do anything. Even so, she was still afraid and there was real panic in her voice.”

O, mon Dieu .

Mita clutched Alam’s shoulder. Mita rented a small house in the Setiabudi area to be close to the office, but on weekends she — like Alam — usually went to see her parents, who lived in the suburb of Bintaro Jaya.

“Is your mother at home now?” Alam asked.

“Yes, but she’s in a panic. My father and their neighbors are coordinating efforts to blockade the roads into the area.”

“You should go home,” Alam advised. “Agam can take you there on your bike.”

“That’s all right.”

“This isn’t an offer. It’s an order. Hold on tight. I’m going to go fast!”—Alam drove Om Aji’s van with the speed of a plane. I was afraid to open my eyes. I was afraid we were going to crash into an electric pole or ram into the curb. But in the end we arrived safely at Satu Bangsa just around dark. Gilang and Bimo still hadn’t arrived in the jeep, but Alam felt sure they were safe. I had forgotten to eat all day and immediately stretched out on the sofa. I don’t know how long I’d closed my eyes, but suddenly I was awoken by the feel of Alam’s hand stroking my cheek. He was seated next to me, on the edge of the sofa. Alone.

“We have to go, Lintang.”

“Where is everyone else?”

“They’ve all gone home to their families, because they’re worried about those crowds breaking into the areas where they live. I think this place will be safe. Plus, there are a couple local watch-men outside.” I sat up straightaway.

“While you were asleep in here, there were bands of people burning cars and vandalizing stores out there. Agam took Mita to Bintaro. In times of danger like these, it’s usually neighborhood associations and their members who come together to prevent anything from happening to their homes and families.”

I was perplexed. What kind of mentality was this? What did the people have to protect themselves from?

“What, you mean to protect themselves against the kind of people we saw outside Trisakti?”

“That’s right,” Alam nodded.

“But why would they attack a neighborhood? What would they do?”

“Almost anything. Rob, steal, vandalize, or worse. Anything that an evil person would do, especially when he finds himself in a crowd of similar-minded people. With any luck, nothing will happen,” Alam said as if to calm me, though I felt sure he was trying to calm himself.

“There’s something weird about the group psychology in this country. When people are in a group, as soon as one of them screams ‘Thief!’ or ‘Communist!’ there’s no stopping the rest of the group from attacking the target, whether the target is an individual or a family and regardless if the accusation is right or wrong.”

I found this kind of behavior completely outside the norm of rational human behavior. Who could explain this aspect of Indonesia? I came here to study history and hear the stories of the victims of 1965 and now I’d found myself in another mad situation.

I thought of Tante Surti. “How is your mother?” I asked.

“She spent the night in Bogor. Ever since my grandfather died, my aunt Utari and her family have been living with my grandmother at her place in Bogor.”

“That’s good. So, what do you think we should do?” I asked. “Stay here or go to Om Aji’s place?”

“We’ll go to my place. I called a neighbor of mine earlier and he said that Pondok Indah and Pondok Pinang are still safe.”

I nodded, not inclined to contest his decision.

Once we were in the car, I called Om Aji and Tante Retno, who somehow already knew that I was safe and with Alam and that Andini was with Bimo. What? How did that happen? Where did they find each other?

“When you were asleep, I made some calls — to Om Aji, Gilang, and others. Because we were coming to the office anyway, Bimo and Gilang decided not to come back here. Instead, they went and picked up Andini at her place and took her and her friends to Gilang’s house.”

Even as we were driving from Satu Bangsa to Alam’s home, Alam was constantly calling friends to ask what roads were the best to take. Apparently, many main streets in the city had been barricaded or weren’t safe for vehicles to pass. Alam took such a circuitous route, through numerous tiny side streets, which he called “rat paths,” I could never possibly retrace our journey. And, as was becoming increasingly more common, I left everything in his hands, not even bothering to ask why these rat paths, which were hardly wider than the van itself, should be any safer than the city’s main streets. For the time being, I decided, any kind of logical question had best be discarded in the gutter outside. Or more precisely, anything that might seem logical to “Ms. Sorbonne”—which is how they referred to me when this alien creature began to ask too many questions — had to be put aside.

Jalan Pondok Pinang, where Alam lived, looked quiet and completely dark. I looked at my wristwatch: 11 p.m. With no small amount of trepidation, I picked up my knapsack and got out of the car.

“All the lights are off around here,” I whispered to Alam. “Do you think that’s intentional?”

Alam said nothing as he unlocked the front gate and herded me inside. After re-locking the gate, he told me to go inside the house. He was going to check the doors and windows outside. The more caution he exercised, the harder my heart beat. Where was I going to hide my video camera and laptop? I didn’t want these precious objects defiled again. O, Sainte Vierge… Why was I thinking about my belongings again? They weren’t important. What if, as Alam had described, a band of marauders had come into the neighborhood and robbed people’s homes? Or what if they had injured or harmed the people living there? And what about Mita and her family? Were they safe? I had to call her.

When Alam came into the house, he immediately closed the wooden window blinds of the living room. “All the doors and windows are locked,” he told me. “Are you hungry?” he then asked. “Or would you like to take a bath?”