Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

“I hope all the Japanese are murdered and their guts come spewing out,” said Helena.

“Don’t be so crass, my child can hear you,” said Dewi Ayu.

“So what?”

“So, her father is Japanese.”

They all laughed at her bitter humor.

But the hope that the Allied troops might come really lifted their spirits. So when a lost carrier pigeon flew into their house and one of the girls caught it, they sent messages for the Allied soldiers. Help us; We have been forced into prostitution; Twenty young women are awaiting their warrior saviors . The idea was silly, and they could not imagine how the bird would ever find the Allied troops. Still, they released it one afternoon.

There was no indication that the pigeon had returned to the Allied troops. But when the bird reappeared again without their letters, the girls believed that at least someone, who knows where, had read them. So with excitement they sent new messages. They did this over and over for almost three weeks straight.

No Allied troops came; who came instead was a Japanese general none of the girls had seen before. Upon his sudden arrival the soldiers who guarded the farthest corners of the property tried to block him from entering as best they could. The two soldiers he questioned trembled, their knees knocking together.

“What kind of place is this?” asked the general.

“A place of prostitution,” Dewi Ayu called out before any of the soldiers could reply.

He was a soldier with a tall and sturdy build, maybe a descendent of the old-fashioned samurai, with a sword hanging from either hip. He cultivated two bushy sideburns on his cold and serious face.

“Are you all prostitutes?” he asked.

Dewi Ayu nodded. “We are caring for the souls of sick soldiers,” she said. “This is how we have been made into whores, by force and without pay.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“You sound like you don’t believe that a Japanese soldier could knock a girl up, General.”

He disregarded Dewi Ayu’s commentary and began to scold all of the Japanese men at the house, and when nightfall came and a number of the regular customers appeared, his anger grew all the more impassioned. He called a number of officers and held a private meeting in one of the rooms. It was clear that no one dared disobey him.

In the meantime the girls in the house looked at their savior with joyful gratitude, as if he was a wonderful victory they had won with the letters that they had tirelessly sent. “I almost don’t believe it, that an angel could have a Japanese face,” said Helena. Before he returned to his military headquarters, he approached the girls who were gathered in the dining room. He stood in front of them, removed his hat and bowed, down as low as his waist.

“ Naore !” cried Dewi Ayu.

The general stood up straight again and for the first time they saw him smile. “Send me another letter if these demented men so much as lay a hand on any of you.”

“Why did it take you so long to come, General?”

“Well if I had come too soon,” he said in a deep and gentle voice, “I would have found nothing but an empty house.”

“May I know your name, General?” asked Dewi Ayu.

“Musashi.”

“If my child is a boy, I will name him Musashi.”

“Pray that you have a girl,” said the general. “I have never heard of a woman raping a man.” Then he left, getting into the truck waiting out front, as the girls waved. As soon as he was gone, the officers who had been standing and wiping their cold sweat off with their handkerchiefs, promptly hurried after him. That was the first night that no one came to rape them. It was so peaceful, and the girls celebrated with a small party. Mama Kalong gave them three bottles of wine and Helena poured it into small glasses like a priest at Holy Communion.

“To the safety of the general,” she said. “He is so handsome.”

“If he ravished me, I would not resist,” said Ola.

“If my daughter is a girl, I will name her Alamanda, after Ola,” said Dewi Ayu.

All of it came to an end quite suddenly — there was no more whoring and no more Japanese officers coming around at nightfall to buy their bodies. One thing that made some of the girls nervous was that they were going to have to meet their mothers, and they didn’t know how to speak about what they had experienced. Some tried standing in front of the mirror, building their courage, saying to their own images, “Mama, now I am a whore.” Of course they couldn’t say it like that, so they would try again, “Mama, I used to be a whore.” But that also sounded wrong, so they would say, “Mama, I was forced into prostitution.”

But they knew that saying that to their mothers would be much harder than saying it to a mirror. The only slightly fortunate thing was that it seemed like the Japanese did not plan to take them back to Bloedenkamp any time soon, and instead would continue to hold them there at the house. Not as prostitutes, but as prisoners of war just like they had been before. The soldiers still guarded them vigilantly, and Mama Kalong still invited the girls to take advantage of the excellent care she could provide them.

“I treat all my whores like queens,” she said with pride. “I don’t care if they are already retired.”

They filled their days, weeks, and months entertaining themselves with Dewi Ayu, who continued to sew for her baby. With the help of her friends, she already had almost one full basket of small articles of clothing, made from the fabric they had found in the household closets. At least it spared them the boredom of waiting for the war to end, until finally Mama Kalong came with a midwife.

“All of my prostitutes who have ever gotten pregnant have given birth with her help,” said Mama Kalong.

“But I sure hope that all the women she has helped give birth have not all been prostitutes,” said Dewi Ayu.

On a Tuesday of the same year that had begun with her being taken from Bloedenkamp prison and brought to the whorehouse, she gave birth to a baby girl she promptly named Alamanda, just as she had promised. The child was lovely, inheriting all of her mother’s beauty. The only indication that her father was Japanese could be found in her small eyes. “A white girl with squinty eyes,” said Ola. “Only in the Dutch East Indies.”

“It’s just too bad that she’s not the general’s daughter,” said Helena.

That small baby quickly became lavish entertainment for the house’s inhabitants, and even the Japanese soldiers bought her dolls and threw a party for her good fortune. “They have to respect her,” Ola said, “because no matter what, Alamanda is the child of their superior.” Dewi Ayu was pleased that little by little Ola had been able to forget her troubled past, and seemed to be her happy self again. Her days were spent helping out with the little baby, alongside the others, who all called themselves Aunties.

Early one morning, a Japanese soldier entered Helena’s room and tried to rape her. Helena screamed so loudly she woke everyone up and the soldier ran out into the darkness. They didn’t know which soldier had attempted the rape, until morning came and the general appeared. He grabbed one soldier, dragged him out into the middle of the yard, and gave him a pistol. The soldier shot himself in the mouth, exploding his own brains. After that no one dared approach the women.

Meanwhile, the war wasn’t over yet. They heard through the grapevine, from Mama Kalong and from a number of the servants who came to help her, that the Japanese troops had finished building defense trenches along the southern coast. In secret Mama Kalong had given the girls a radio, so they heard that two bombs had fallen on Japan and a third bomb had not yet been dropped, which was enough to electrify the house. It seemed as though the Japanese soldiers had also already heard the news. In the following days they just sat underneath the trees listlessly, and one by one they began to disappear, sent who knows where. By the time the Allied planes finally began to fly across the Halimunda skies, releasing small pamphlets proclaiming that the war would soon be over, there were only two Japanese soldiers left guarding the house.