Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

Without giving up, finally Rosinah planned to teach her herself at home, at the very least her numbers and letters. But before she had the chance to teach her anything, Rosinah was dumbfounded to realize the girl already knew how to correctly count the lizard calls. She was even more surprised when one afternoon Beauty pulled out a pile of books left by her mother and read them aloud at the top of her lungs without anyone ever even teaching her the alphabet. There was something not right about these astonishing events, which had actually started years before when, to Rosinah’s amazement and without knowing who had taught her how, the girl had learned to speak. Rosinah tried to spy on the little one, but the child never went farther than the fence and not one single person appeared, and so she never met anyone except the mute servant, who spoke with her hands. And yet she knew the words for all visible and invisible things, for cats and lizards and the chickens and the ducks that roamed around their house.

Aside from all these marvels, she was still an unfortunate, ugly, and pathetic little girl. Rosinah often caught her standing behind the window curtain, peeking out at people in the street, or gazing at her when she had to go out to buy something, as if asking to be invited along. Of course Rosinah would have been happy to take her along, but the little girl herself would protest, saying in her pitiful voice, “No, it’s better I don’t come, because people will lose their appetites for the rest of their lives.”

She would go out in the early morning when people had not yet awoken except for the vegetable sellers hurrying to market, or the farmers hurrying to the fields, or the fishermen hurrying home, walking or gliding by on their bicycles, but those people wouldn’t see her in the dimness of the dawn. That was the time when she could get to know the world, with bats who went home to their nests, with sparrows who alighted on the buds of the almond trees, with chickens who cockadoodledooed loudly, with butterflies who hatched from caterpillars and flew to perch on hibiscus petals, with kittens who stretched out on their mats, with the aromas that wafted from neighbors’ kitchens, with the clamor of engines being revved in the distance, with the sound of a radio sermon coming from somewhere, and above all with Venus incandescent in the east, all of which she would enjoy while sitting on her swing that hung from the branch of a starfruit tree. Rosinah didn’t even know that the small gleam that glowed so brightly was called Venus, but Beauty knew it very well, as well as she had come to know the astrological portents of all the constellations in the sky.

As soon as day dawned, she would vanish inside the house, like the head of a turtle shying from those who disturb it, because schoolchildren always stopped in front of the fence gate, hoping to see her, staring at the door and the windows in their curiosity. The old folks had already told them the scary tales about terrifying Beauty, who lived in that house, ready to cut off their heads at the slightest disobedience, ready to gobble them alive for any whiny complaint: all these stories haunted them, and yet at the same time heightened their desire to meet her and determine whether such a frightening specter truly did exist. But they never met her, because Rosinah would quickly appear brandishing the handle of an upside-down broom, and they would run away screaming insults at the mute young woman. In truth, it wasn’t only children who would stop in front of the fence gate hoping to see Beauty, because the women who passed by in becak rickshaws would also turn their heads for a moment, as would the people leaving for work and the shepherds leading their sheep.

But Beauty did go out at night, when children were forbidden to leave their houses and parents were busy taking care of their children, and the only people out were the fishermen hurrying to the sea, carrying oars and nets on their backs. She would sit on a chair on the veranda, kept company by a cup of coffee. When Rosinah would ask what she was doing late at night on the veranda, Beauty would reply just as she had to her mother, “Waiting for my prince to come, to release me from the curse of this hideous face.”

“You poor girl,” said her mother that night, the first night they met. “You really should dance for joy at such a blessing. Let’s go inside.”

Dewi Ayu once again experienced graciousness à la Rosinah, wherein the mute girl had almost instantly prepared warm water in her old bathtub, complete with sulfur and a pumice stone and pieces of sandalwood and betel leaves that made her appear refreshed at the dinner table. Rosinah and Beauty gaped at her ravenous appetite, eating as if she was making up for the years upon years that had gone by without food. She finished two whole tuna fish, including their bones and spines, and a bowl of soup and two plates of rice. Her beverage was a clear broth with bits of birds’ nests floating in it. She ate faster than the two women accompanying her. After finishing the food, her stomach gurgled continuously, and after emitting a rumbling sound out of her asshole, the kind of fart that can’t be held in, she asked while wiping her mouth with a napkin:

“So, how long have I been dead?”

“Twenty-one years,” said Beauty.

“I’m sorry, that was way too long,” she said regretfully, “but there are no alarm clocks in the grave.”

“Don’t forget to bring one the next time,” said Beauty attentively, then added, “and don’t forget a mosquito net.”

Dewi Ayu ignored Beauty’s words, which were said in a small shrill lilting soprano, and continued, “It must be confusing that I rose again after twenty-one years, because even that long-hair who died on the cross was only dead for three days before he rose again.”

“It is very confusing,” said Beauty. “Next time, do send a telegram before you come.”

Somehow, Dewi Ayu just couldn’t ignore that voice. After thinking about it for a while, she began to sense a tone of hostility in the young girl’s comments. She looked in her direction, but the hideous girl just gave her a smile, as if to imply that she was merely reminding her not to act so carelessly. Dewi Ayu looked at Rosinah, as if hoping for a clue, but even the mute woman just smiled, seemingly without any double meaning at all.

“Just like that, Rosinah, you are already forty. In just a little while longer you’ll be old and wrinkled.” While saying that, Dewi Ayu laughed softly, trying to lighten the dinner table atmosphere.

“Like a frog,” said Rosinah with sign language.

“Like a komodo,” joked Dewi Ayu.

They both looked at Beauty, waiting for her to say something, and they didn’t have to wait long.

“Like me,” she said. Short and dreadful.

For a number of days, Dewi Ayu, busy with the visits of old friends who wanted to hear stories about the world of the dead, could ignore the presence of the annoying monster in her house. Even the kyai , who years ago had led her funeral with reluctance and looked at her with the disgust a young girl feels for earthworms, came to visit her with the virtuous manners of the pious in front of a saint, and with sincerity said that her rising again was like a miracle, and surely no one would be granted such a miracle if she wasn’t pure.

“Of course I am pure,” said Dewi Ayu lightly. “Because not a single person has touched me for twenty-one years.”

“What does it feel like to be dead?” asked Kyai Jahro.

“Actually, it’s pretty fun. That’s the main reason why, out of everyone who dies, not one person chooses to come back to life again.”