Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

But then one day, in the tropical heat, Maman Gendeng got up from the mahogany rocking chair that he’d inherited from Edi Idiot and walked from the bus terminal to the closest store with a whooshing and buzzing sound in his ears. He demanded one crate of cold beer, because of the damned hot weather, but the shopkeeper only gave him one bottle. Maman Gendeng went nuts, smashed the shop window to smithereens, and took a whole crate of beer after berating the shop owner who, according to Maman Gendeng, was not one bit civilized. He returned to his rocking chair and killed that parched feeling with the hijacked beer.

With this event the realization hit home that, as far as the citizens of Halimunda were concerned, nothing had changed. Edi Idiot was dead, but a new scoundrel had arrived. His name was Maman Gendeng.

After Alamanda’s festive wedding celebration, Dewi Ayu had ordered the newlyweds to move into their new house. She was quite upset by all the recent events, and by how they’d affected her oldest child. She had time and time again warned Alamanda about her horrible way of treating men, but Alamanda had inherited a certain stubbornness from who knows which family member, and now she was suffering the repercussions.

Dewi Ayu had never imagined that she would give birth to beautiful but wild girls who would chase men only to toss them aside. But she had known about Alamanda’s bad behavior ever since the girl had first discovered boys, and now it seemed that Adinda shared her sister’s bad temperament. She used to be a total innocent, preferring to spend time at home rather than roaming about, but ever since Alamanda’s sudden wedding, she was disappearing more and more often. Look at the girl, now to be found wherever the Communist Party was having one of its raucous celebrations. And Adinda began to chase the man who once belonged to Alamanda: Comrade Kliwon. Dewi Ayu didn’t know what Adinda was thinking, but she suspected the girl wanted to get revenge on her sister through that man. It was really quite upsetting.

Men hunt my privates , she told herself, and I gave birth to girls who hunt men’s privates .

So she worried even more about her youngest child, Maya Dewi, who was twelve years old. She was afraid the child would imitate her two delinquent older sisters. Right now she was a good and obedient child who didn’t at all appear to be reckless. Her hands were busier than anyone else’s in that household, making everything pleasant and comfortable. She picked roses and orchids to arrange in the flower vase that she placed on the front room table every morning. She swept away all the cobwebs from the ceiling of the house every Sunday afternoon. Her teachers reported on her good behavior and she opened her textbooks every night, finishing all her homework before going to bed. But all that could change, as had happened with Adinda, and this was what really worried Dewi Ayu.

“To marry someone you don’t love is way worse than living as a whore,” she instructed her youngest.

Dewi Ayu thought she should marry Maya Dewi off as quickly as possible, before she grew up and went wild. For years she had always solved her problems with quick thinking, and the first idea that popped into her head was always the very thing that she did next. She didn’t want to see Maya Dewi grow up to face the same tragic fate that had befallen Alamanda and might yet befall Adinda. But she didn’t know who to set up with her twelve-year-old, because she didn’t intend to give her away to just anybody.

She wanted to talk it over with her lover, Maman Gendeng. One Sunday, the three of them went to a public park. They relaxed there all day, snacked all they wanted, fed the tame deer, and went on the swings. Dewi Ayu watched Maman Gendeng leading Maya Dewi here and there by the hand, pointing out the peacocks hiding in the shrubbery and throwing nuts to the gangs of monkeys. Dewi Ayu didn’t even care that they seemed to have forgotten she was there. She watched them walk to the edge of the sea cliffs and try to count the seagulls flying.

After they had all returned home and Maya Dewi went off with her neighborhood pals, Dewi Ayu finally spoke to Maman Gendeng.

“Why don’t you two get married?”

“Who?” asked Maman Gendeng. “Me and who?”

“You and Maya Dewi.”

“You’re crazy,” said Maman Gendeng. “If there is any woman I want to marry, it’s you.”

Dewi Ayu explained her worries over a glass of cold lemonade. They sat together on the veranda in the warm afternoon air. They could hear the waves pounding in the distance and the sparrows making a din in their nest on the roof. The pair had been lovers for many months now, one a prostitute and the other the customer who held a monopoly on her. Dewi Ayu insisted that Maya Dewi had to be married off to somebody, and because there was no one else close to her, the only man she could be married off to was Maman Gendeng.

“Are you trying to tell me you don’t want to sleep with me anymore?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Dewi Ayu. “You can still visit me at Mama Kalong’s whorehouse just like everyone else’s husband, if you’re not too embarrassed.”

“I would have to think something like this over, maybe for many years,” Maman Gendeng muttered.

“Try considering other people for once! The men of Halimunda are going insane. They are practically half-dead because they’ve been forbidden to touch my body, just because of some tough guy like you. If you let me go, you’ll be their hero. And in exchange you’ll get a girl who will never disappoint you, the youngest daughter of the most beautiful whore in the city.”

“She’s only twelve years old.”

“Dogs get married at two years old and chickens get married at eight months.”

“But she’s not a dog or a chicken.”

“You just think like that because you’ve never been to school. Every human is a mammal, just like a dog, and walks on two legs, just like a chicken.”

Maman Gendeng already knew this woman’s character, or at least he thought he did. He knew that Dewi Ayu would not give up on any idea, no matter how crazy. He drank his cold lemonade and felt himself shiver, as if he had to cross a bridge only seven strands of hair wide with all hell spread out below him.

“But I’ll never be a good husband,” he protested.

“So be a terrible husband if you want.”

“And it’s not yet certain that she will agree.”

“She’s an obedient young girl,” said Dewi Ayu. “She listens to everything I say, and I truly don’t believe that she will have any trouble with marrying you.”

“There’s no way I would sleep with such a young girl.”

“You’d only have to wait about five years.”

It was as if it were already decided. Even though he was a thuggish preman , Maman Gendeng trembled violently, imagining the gossip about such a marriage. They would say that he had raped the girl and was being forced to marry her.

“Marry her out of your love for me,” said Dewi Ayu finally, “if for no other reason.”

That was like a judge’s sentence for Maman Gendeng. It was as if there was a bee buzzing inside his skull and dragonflies flitting around in his stomach. He finished his lemonade but couldn’t rid his insides of all those creatures. Then he felt like there was a wild thicket growing in his chest, with thorns stabbing everywhere. Like a weakling loser, he collapsed against the chair with his eyes half-closed.

“Why’d you go and spring this on me all of a sudden?” he asked.

“Whenever I had said it, it would have felt just as surprising.”

“Give me a place to sleep, I want to lie down for a minute.”

“My bed is always open to you.”

Maman Gendeng slept soundly for almost four hours, snoring softly. That was the only way to survive all of this bee and thicket and dragonfly nonsense. Dewi Ayu passed the afternoon freshening up in the bathroom and sitting in the front room with a cigarette and a cup of coffee, waiting for the man to wake up. At that moment Maya Dewi appeared, saying that she wanted to bathe, but her mother asked her to wait a moment and told her to sit down across from her.