Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

Dewi Ayu was buried in a far corner of the cemetery among the graves of other ill-fated people, because that was what Kyai Jahro and the gravedigger had agreed upon. Buried there was an evil thief from the colonial era, and a crazy killer, and a number of communists, and now a prostitute. It was believed that those unfortunate souls would be disturbed by ongoing tests and trials in the grave, and so it was wise to distance them from the graves of pious people who wanted to rest in peace, be invaded by worms and rot in peace, and make love to heavenly nymphs without any commotion.

Just as soon as that festive ceremony was done, people promptly forgot all about Dewi Ayu. Since that day, nobody came to visit the grave, not even Rosinah and Beauty. They let its ruins be pummeled by ocean storms, covered by piles of old frangipani leaves, and grown over with wild elephant grass. Only Rosinah had a convincing reason for why she didn’t care for Dewi Ayu’s grave. “It’s because we only tend to the graves of the dead,” she said to the hideous little baby (with her sign language that of course the baby didn’t understand).

Maybe it was true that Rosinah had the ability to see the future, a modest skill that had been handed down by her wise old ancestors. She had first arrived in the city five years earlier with her father, a sand miner in the mountains who was old and suffering from severe rheumatism, when she was just fourteen years old. They had appeared in Dewi Ayu’s room at Mama Kalong’s whorehouse. At first the prostitute was not at all interested in this little girl, nor in her father, an old man with his nose in the shape of a parrot’s beak, his silver curly hair, his wrinkled skin dark as copper, and above all his overly cautious way of walking as if every last one of his bones would collapse in a heap if she shoved him the tiniest little bit. Dewi Ayu immediately recognized him and said:

“You are addicted, old man. We made love two nights ago.”

The man smiled shyly, like a young kid meeting his sweetheart, and nodded. “I want to die in your arms,” he said. “I can’t pay you, but I’ll give you this mute child. She’s my daughter.”

Dewi Ayu looked at the little girl in confusion. Rosinah stood not very far from her, calm and smiling at her in a friendly way. At that time she was very skinny, wearing an embroidered dress that was way too big for her, barefoot, and with her wavy hair tied back by only a rubber band. Her skin was smooth, like most mountain girls, with a simple round face, intelligent eyes, a flat nose and wide lips, with which she was able to give everyone that pleasing smile. Dewi Ayu had no idea what use a girl like that would be to her and she looked back at the old man.

“I myself already have three daughters, so what would I do with this child?” she asked.

“She can read and write, even though she can’t talk,” said her father. “All my children can read and write and they can talk,” said Dewi Ayu with a teasing laugh. But the old man was hell-bent to sleep with her and die in her arms and give her the mute young girl as payment. She could do whatever she wanted with the girl. “You can turn her into a prostitute and take the money she earns for as long as she lives,” said the old man. “Or, if there’s no man who wants to be with her, you can chop her up into bits and sell her flesh at the market.”

“I’m not really sure that anyone would want to eat her flesh,” said Dewi Ayu.

The old man refused to give up and after a while he started to resemble a little kid who can’t hold in his pee any longer. It wasn’t that Dewi Ayu didn’t want to be kind and give the old man a few beautiful hours atop her mattress, but she was truly confused by this strange transaction, and over and over again she looked back and forth from the old man to the mute child, until the girl finally asked for a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote:

“Go ahead and sleep with him, any minute now he is going to die.”

So she slept with the old man, not because she agreed to the deal, but because of the child’s suggestion that he was about to expire. They wrestled on the bed while the mute girl sat on a chair outside the bedroom door, clutching a small bag filled with her clothes that had just a moment ago been carried by her father, waiting. As it turned out, Dewi Ayu didn’t need that much time, and she admitted that truly she didn’t feel much, just a little tickle in the middle of her crotch. “It was like a dragonfly scratching at my bellybutton,” said the prostitute. The man attacked her fiercely, with almost no small talk, like a battalion of Dutch soldiers approaching with a mission to destroy, moving freely and forgetting his rheumatism. His haste quickly bore fruit when he let out a brief groan and his body spasmed; at first Dewi Ayu thought it was the spasm of a man spewing the contents of his balls, but it turned out it was more than that — the old man also spewed his soul. He died sprawled out in her embrace with his lance still wet and outstretched.

They buried him quietly in the same corner of the cemetery where later Dewi Ayu would also be buried. Even though she never cared for her mistress’s grave, Rosinah always took the opportunity to visit her father’s grave at the end of every fasting month, weeding the grass and praying without conviction. Dewi Ayu brought the mute young girl home, not as payment for the sad evening, but because the mute no longer had a father or mother or anybody else she could call family. At least, Dewi Ayu thought at the time, she could keep her company at home, search for lice in her hair every afternoon, and keep watch over the place when she went to the whorehouse.

Rosinah did not at all find the lively house that she had expected, but a simple home that was quiet and still. There were cream-colored walls that looked like they had not been painted for years, dusty mirrors, and moldy curtains. Even the kitchen looked like it was never used except to make an occasional pot of coffee. The only rooms that looked well taken care of were the bathroom, with its large Japanese-style bathtub, and the bedroom belonging to the lady of the house. In her first few days at the house, Rosinah proved herself to be a young girl worthy to be kept on. While Dewi Ayu took her afternoon nap, Rosinah painted the walls, cleaned the floors, scrubbed the window panes with some sawdust that she got from a woodcutter, changed the curtains, and started to organize the yard, which was soon filled with all kinds of flowers. When afternoon came, Dewi Ayu awoke and for the first time in a long time encountered the aroma of herbs and spices coming from the kitchen, and they ate dinner together before Dewi Ayu had to go out. Rosinah was not in the least bit disturbed by the ramshackle house that needed so much tending, but she was intrigued by the fact that only the two of them lived there. At that time Dewi Ayu had yet to learn the sign language of the mute girl, so Rosinah wrote again.

“You said you had three children?”

“That’s right,” said Dewi Ayu. “They left as soon as they learned how to unbutton a man’s fly.”

Rosinah immediately remembered that comment when a number of years later Dewi Ayu said that she didn’t want to get pregnant again (despite the fact that she was already pregnant), and that she was sick of having children. They often chatted in the afternoon, sitting in the kitchen doorway while watching the chickens that Rosinah had started to raise claw at the dirt, and like a Scheherazade Dewi Ayu would tell many fantastical tales, mostly about her beautiful daughters. That was how they established a friendship that was full of understanding, so that when Dewi Ayu tried to kill the baby in her stomach in all those different ways, Rosinah did not try to stop her. Even when Dewi Ayu began to show signs of despair, Rosinah again proved herself to be a wise young girl and signed to the prostitute.