Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

Krisan headed for home with a heavy heart, but he was finally at peace. He passed by a fisherman who was out boating all alone, and that fisherman questioned him.

“What are you doing alone out on the ocean, without even one fish in your boat?”

What are you doing alone out on the ocean, without even one fish in your boat ?

“Getting rid of a corpse,” said Krisan, shivering to hear that man’s voice echo, reverberating against who knows what.

“Heartbroken over a beautiful lover? Ha. Ha. Ha. Let me give you some advice, kid, look for an ugly lover. They will never hurt you.”

Heartbroken over a beautiful lover? Ha. Ha. Ha. Let me give you some advice, kid, look for an ugly lover. They will never hurt you.

Then the fisherman left, heading off in the opposite direction, but Krisan kept thinking about his advice. And when he arrived at the place where he had parked his minibike, he said to himself, “Maybe it’s true, I should look for an ugly lover. The ugliest in the world.”

Not long after Dewi Ayu was able to kill that mighty evil spirit, Kinkin played with his jailangkung at Rengganis the Beautiful’s grave. He was certain that this time he would succeed, because that evildoer who had always thwarted him had now been defeated. He planted an effigy in the shape of a wooden doll into the dirt on top of the grave, which would become the medium for Rengganis the Beautiful’s spirit, and then he began reciting mantras. The doll began to tremble, a sign that the spirit had been called, but then it shook violently, a sign the spirit was angry, and then it almost collapsed. Kinkin tried to calm it down, but Rengganis the Beautiful’s spirit rebuked him.

“You idiot, what are you doing?!”

“Calling your spirit.”

“Yes, obviously,” said Rengganis the Beautiful. “But listen up: no matter what, you will never be able to marry me.”

“I just want to know who killed you. Please permit me to seek revenge for you, and avenge my love,” said Kinkin while prostrating his body in front of that wooden doll, truly begging.

That wooden doll, Rengganis the Beautiful, said, “Even if you lived for a thousand years I would never tell you who killed me.”

“Why not? Don’t you want me to avenge your death?”

“No, because I still really love him.”

“Ok, then I’ll kill him and you two can meet in the world of the dead.”

“That’s bullshit. You’re just trying to trick me.” And Rengganis the Beautiful disappeared.

But finally he did find out the truth, not from the spirit of Rengganis the Beautiful but from another spirit, one he didn’t recognize. He called spirits at random, believing that now no one would be preventing them from speaking truthfully, and believing that all the spirits knew what human beings didn’t know. He called one of the spirits, who looked old and frail, but its voice was quite strong.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. I’m not as strong as before, but I’m back, kid.”

Ha. Ha. Ha. I’m not as strong as before, but I’m back, kid.

“Do you know who killed Rengganis the Beautiful?” asked Kinkin.

“Yup. It was Krisan who killed Rengganis the Beautiful. Kill him, if you really love that girl, and if you have the balls. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

Yup. It was Krisan who killed Rengganis the Beautiful. Kill him, if you really love that girl, and if you have the balls. Ha. Ha. Ha.

And that was how he killed Krisan, in Beauty’s room, with five well-practiced shots from an air rifle.

For seven years after that he huddled in prison, at the mercy of all the bad guys there. He was sodomized about once a week, beaten almost every day, forced to share half of his allotment of food at every meal, and lost all of the possessions that he had given to Kamino for as long as he was locked up. But even amid all of that suffering in prison he was happy, because he was there on a mission of true love, avenging the death of the woman he had adored ever since the first moment he laid eyes on her.

He received one year’s clemency for good behavior and was freed. He appeared in the outside world looking haggard and emaciated, with long unkempt hair and his face turned into skin and bone, his brow and jaw protruding. He was like a living skeleton, but he inhaled the air of his liberty with a sense of complete independence.

Even though he had been given some clothes and some money for food and transportation he walked on foot from the city jail, and didn’t change his clothes, still wearing tattered rags like a city hobo. The clothes they had provided him were just folded in his hands, and the money he had been given was safe in his pocket. He didn’t want to stop anywhere or waste any time. He wanted to go back home and make sure that that man had been buried.

Finally he found Krisan’s grave, next to the grave of Comrade Kliwon. His name was clearly written on his grave marker, so there could be no mistake. Kinkin made a new grave marker. He threw away the old one bearing Krisan’s name, and exchanging it with the new one he had made.

And so now there is written: DOG (1966–1997).

For years, Krisan had kept thinking about that idea, about having a hideous lover. “What’s wrong with ugly women?” he asked himself. “They can be fucked just like beautiful women can.” And he remembered the talk about Dewi Ayu’s daughter who people said was ugly, maybe the most terrifying-looking person on the face of the earth, and even though he knew that Dewi Ayu was his grandmother, which meant that this ugly face who they said was named Beauty was his aunt, he didn’t care. He had screwed his own cousin, so where was the harm in screwing his own aunt?

So one night he went to his grandmother’s house, and saw that the girl was sitting on the veranda as if she was waiting for someone. He was a little bit unsure about how he could get to know her, so for a number of days he just watched her from the darkness before going home tired. Only on the seventh day did he dare push through the hedge at the side of the yard. He picked a rose that was growing there, approached Beauty, and gave her the flower.

“For you,” he said, “Beauty.”

After that it all went well, until they finally fucked. Fucked. Fucked. And kept on fucking. What was the difference now, everything felt the same. Sleeping with Rengganis the Beautiful and sleeping with hideous Beauty wasn’t all that different. Everything was the same, everything made his genitals spew. He kept on having sex with that woman. “Fucking her,” he explained. And then he found out that the girl was pregnant, but he didn’t care “and kept on fucking her.”

Until one day Beauty asked, “Why do you want me?”

He replied, not knowing whether he was being honest or not, “Because I love you.”

“You love a hideous woman?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Because “why” is always difficult to answer, he didn’t answer. He could only respond “how,” and that was easy. To show his love, he kept on caressing her; he didn’t care how ugly she was, how disgusting, how terrifying. Everything felt fine, he had discovered a joy almost unlike any other that he had ever experienced in his life. But Beauty kept on hounding him, every time they met and made love, with the question, “Why?” Krisan stayed mute. Even though he knew the answer, he didn’t want to say it. But the night before he was killed, he finally replied.

His fourth confession: “Because beauty is a wound.”

Because beauty is a wound .