Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

“Don’t think you can just order me to strip naked,” said Alamanda.

“It’s up to you, Miss,” said Comrade Kliwon. Indeed his own clothes were also quite wet, and so he removed them piece by piece, spreading them out on the roof of the boat until not one stitch of fabric was left sticking to his body. Comrade Kliwon was now stark naked.

“What are you doing, you stupid man?!”

“You know exactly what I am doing.”

He went back to lie in the same spot he had been before, his genitals drooping with no hint of lust, confusing Alamanda. After thinking for a few minutes, she thought that perhaps she should take off her clothes and lay them on the roof of the boat, just as he had done. She would be naked, and if that caused the man to become lustful and force himself upon her, well, whatever had to happen would happen.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Comrade Kliwon as if he could read her mind. “I’m just kidnapping you.”

The girl finally took off all her clothes. She sat with her back to Comrade Kliwon, clasping her knees. High up in the sky, maybe God and the angels were laughing down at them: stupid humans, naked but not doing anything except sitting silently as far away from one another as possible. They continued this standoff until sunset, when they both began to get hungry. Comrade Kliwon went fishing and caught a number of flying fish, which they had to eat raw because there was no fire. Comrade Kliwon had grown accustomed to this during his friendship with the fishermen, and had no trouble, but Alamanda refused and preferred to go hungry. When night fell, overcome by hunger, she too ate raw fish, and gagged.

“You’ll only taste the fish for as long as it is in your mouth,” said Comrade Kliwon. “After it goes into your stomach, you’ll go back to feeling normal.”

“Just like you are only going to be with me for as long as you kidnap me,” countered Alamanda sharply, “and after we go home you are going to go back to being the same pathetic man as always.”

“Maybe we won’t be going home.”

“That’s even more pathetic,” Alamanda continued to bait him, “because you are not even brave enough to come on to me in a place as quiet as this, without anyone to be a witness and with me here naked before you.”

Comrade Kliwon just laughed, and returned to eating the raw fish. Not being able to stand his provocation, Alamanda finally emboldened herself to take another piece of fish and try again. She withstood her queasiness, chewing the fish as little as possible, and quickly swallowed it: and that was how she kept on doing it.

This drama lasted for two weeks as they drifted together out at sea, all alone. They never even encountered any other fishermen, because Kliwon had purposefully taken the boat to a very deep trough, which none of the fishermen liked because it was hard to catch fish there. The weather stayed clear the whole time, without any threat of a storm, but some changes did take place inside the boat.

Alamanda had finally gotten used to eating raw fish and even joined in the fishing on the second day. On the third day the two dove into the ocean together and went swimming around the boat, whooping and laughing. After that, they took off their clothes and lay them out to dry on the roof and sat at opposite ends of the boat: believe me, they did not make love, but at night Comrade Kliwon protected the girl from the cold wind by covering her with his own body, and they slept together peacefully. They were starting to get used to this strange life, and even starting to enjoy it, but on the fourteenth day Kliwon decided to row back to shore.

“Why do we have to go home?” asked Alamanda. “We can stay here quite happily.”

“It wasn’t my intention to kidnap you for the rest of our lives.”

As he paddled, Comrade Kliwon sat next to the girl, but they both stayed mute. There was something they both were thinking about, even though it just spun around and around in their heads, and neither allowed it to come out during the entire journey home. Until finally, when they docked on the beach, Comrade Kliwon surprised the girl with his soft voice:

“Listen, Miss,” the man said, “I care for you, but if you don’t care for me, that’s quite alright.”

Oh my God, here is a man who always surprises me. Nothing he does can be predicted, even by the book of fate , thought Alamanda. She didn’t say anything, even though her heart longed for her to say, yes, I love you too.

They maintained their silence for the journey back home on the bike. Alamanda interpreted the man’s silence as heartbreak because she hadn’t given him an answer, while Kliwon interpreted Alamanda’s silence as a young girl’s shy hesitance to respond to the love of a man. Alamanda was worried, and wanted to reassure the man that he didn’t need to feel brokenhearted and that she loved him, so that when they arrived at the house, she started to speak. But before one word came out of her mouth, Kliwon cut her off and said:

“Don’t answer me now, Miss. Think about it first!”

That week passed full of happy days. They worked in the mushroom barn together without debating anything, just talking about things that pleased them both. Wherever Kliwon went, Alamanda followed him and vice versa, until the people who saw them began to assume that they had become sweethearts.

The news of their relationship wasn’t discussed only on the mushroom farm, but also by the rice farmers and the corn pickers, and then the talk began to creep past the city walls. Not liking to be the subject of all this gossip when they themselves hadn’t even formally recognized their relationship, one day Alamanda finally said to Comrade Kliwon, “Don’t you know that I love you?” and right then and there Kliwon replied with complete assurance, “Yes, everyone knows it.” And that was enough to put an end to their reputations: Comrade Kliwon was no longer a womanizer and Alamanda was no longer a man-eater.

They continued their romantic relationship for about a year, until Comrade Kliwon got a scholarship from the Party to return to university, and to do that he had to go to Jakarta. The separation was so painful that Alamanda begged him:

“Please ravish me before you go.”

“No.”

“Why not? You have slept with almost all the girls in Halimunda but you won’t ravish your own sweetheart?”

“No, because you are different.”

Comrade Kliwon would not be swayed, and was determined to not even lay a hand on the girl. “Not until we are married,” he said, like a pious youth. During the week before his departure they couldn’t bear to be separated, together from morning until night. Then the day came. Alamanda took Kliwon to the train station. When the engineer was ready and the whistle blew, Alamanda couldn’t keep herself from kissing the young man. They had never even brushed lips before, but now they were kissing each other in a smouldering embrace underneath the almond tree. It’s true what people say, flames shot out of their lips. These were kisses of parting, a parting that proved to be excruciating.

The train began to move and the two reluctantly pulled their lips apart, while all the people at the station stood as still as statues, watching them.

“In five years,” said Comrade Kliwon, “we will meet again under this almond tree.”

Then he ran and leapt onto the train that was beginning to pick up speed, seen off by Alamanda’s waving hand and her tears at his departure, as she stood in the same spot until the train’s caboose was out of sight.

And now on to the next game, with the most famous man in Halimunda as the contestant and victim, the head of the military district who once led the most infernal rebellion against the Japanese: Shodancho. Like an old fisherman who catches a big marlin on a tranquil day at sea, the girl’s feelings were all in an uproar to think that she might capture such a big prey, perhaps the biggest of her entire life, and she would always remember her days of conquest, step by step, all the way back to the first offensive in the pig-fighting arena. She was aware that the man had been lured by her beauty the night of that event, and all she had left to do was yank on the snare to trap him.