Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

Shodancho delivered all these things himself and found Comrade Kliwon lying down on a cot, his two hands folded beneath his head and looking up at the ceiling.

“I guess you still have a good reputation with the ladies, Comrade,” said Shodancho. “One of them sent you a set of clothes and a tray of food.”

“And I know which lady — your very own sister-in-law.”

After that Comrade Kliwon fell silent, his body language unchanged. But in the dim light of the room, Shodancho smiled, enjoying his little revenge. This is the man who robbed me of my beautiful wife, he told himself, and cursed my two children.

“Tomorrow I will see you executed.”

He didn’t plan for the execution to be as simple or fast as a bullet. He wanted to see Kliwon die slowly — his fingernails yanked off one by one, his scalp peeled off, his eyes gouged out, his tongue hacked off. Shodancho smiled a cruel acrid smile in anticipation.

But Comrade Kliwon did not react. Incredibly, he didn’t seem to care, and that really got under Shodancho’s skin. Lying in his cot, this living corpse looked full of authority, full of self-satisfaction as if he was dying as a martyr, full of wonder at the life that he had chosen and would never regret, even though it had brought him to this unfortunate end. There was a huge gulf between them, between a man with the authority to order executions, and a man counting the hours until his death. The first made uneasy by his power, the second made calm by his fate.

In fact, Comrade Kliwon was not thinking about Shodancho at all, instead swept away by nostalgia back to all of his memories of the city he would soon be leaving. How exhausting revolution was, he thought to himself, and the one thing that made him happy was that I can leave this all behind without having to become a reactionary or a counterrevolutionary .

So Comrade Kliwon felt like he should thank whoever had carried out the coup. Because the following day he was going to die and would leave all this exhausting business behind. He wasn’t too worried about his mother, she was strong and could take care of herself, and that made him all the more ready to die, even happy. A little smile played across his lips, which made Shodancho all the more annoyed.

“You are going to be collected at ten to five, and at five o’clock sharp your execution will begin. So tell me your last request,” Shodancho ordered.

“This is my last request: Workers of the world, unite!” replied Comrade Kliwon.

Shodancho left and the door slammed shut.

LOTS OF PEOPLE get married in the months of the rainy season. Crowds of villagers attend ceremony after ceremony for weeks on end and the golden janur kuning poles marking the houses holding wedding parties stick out of fences at almost every single intersection, arching over the street to dangle their festive decorations. Meanwhile, those men who aren’t married yet go off to the whorehouse, lovers meet more often to get it on in secret, long-married couples seem to relive their honeymoons in the months of the rainy season, and God creates many tiny little embryos.

Even during the massacre of the communists, people still made love whenever they had the chance, especially during the heavier downpours. But this kind of thing, at least for the moment, was not happening with Shodancho and Alamanda. Nor was it happening with Maman Gendeng and Maya Dewi, who were still acting out the same drama they’d been acting out ever since their wedding night almost five years ago.

But one thing was making Maman Gendeng very happy: he now had what could be called a home, something he’d long dreamed about, ever since he first fell in love with Nasiah and saw the girl’s glowing love for her sweetheart. For years he had fantasized about a loving gaze like hers, about a family and a house — years full of despair doubting he would ever have anything even close to his dream, mostly because everyone thought of him as a troublemaking scoundrel.

Now when he came home from the bus terminal, after hanging out and chatting the whole afternoon, or playing cards with Shodancho, his wife would be waiting for him at the dining table and would hasten to prepare his bath. He spent every night floating in an indescribable joy and now felt quite civilized, because he had clean clothes just like his neighbors, ate at a dining room table just like his neighbors, and slept on a mattress covered by a blanket, just like his neighbors.

As well as completing her household tasks and doing her homework, Maya Dewi diligently took care of her husband. Just as he had promised Dewi Ayu, Maman Gendeng never touched another woman, even though he hadn’t touched his own wife yet either. Year after year passed, and the little girl began to grow into an adolescent. She was already much taller, her body had filled out and her breasts were developing perfectly. But Maman Gendeng still saw her as the same little schoolgirl she had always been. He kept her company, smoked his cigarettes while she did her homework, and he tucked her in at night, but they never even slept in the same bed.

He was carrying out a truly amazing feat of sexual abstinence. When his lust appeared from time to time, he would conduct some experiments in the bathroom to try to calm himself down and, with regards to this issue, Shodancho was the best friend Maman Gendeng could have had. Even though their backgrounds were so different, fate had united them in a deepening friendship and Shodancho didn’t just bemoan the possibility that his wife might still love Comrade Kliwon, he also began to discuss all his family problems with his most trustworthy friend.

After they’d played trump, and the other players had made themselves scarce, and any city issues had all been taken care of, they usually began to discuss their personal problems. And then they no longer seemed like friends, but more like a pair of brothers moaning and sighing to one another. One day, Shodancho spoke frankly about Alamanda’s iron underwear.

“And the key to unlock them is a mantra that nobody except my wife knows.”

“But I heard she was pregnant?”

Then, Shodancho suddenly burst into tears, sobbing, “She’s been pregnant twice. I named both those babies Nurul Aini, but they both vanished from her womb!”

“There’s no woman who can get pregnant without getting fucked, unless you believe in the Virgin Mary.”

Shodancho gasped for breath and explained, “Well, I raped her when she was careless with that crotch protector.”

Maman Gendeng comforted him by saying that even he himself hadn’t yet touched his wife. “And I vowed, Shodancho, that I would never go to the whorehouse again, so I only entertain myself in the bathroom. It’s pretty effective for relieving crankiness and preventing tantrums. You really do have to routinely purge the contents of your balls.”

“But I already do stuff like that,” complained Shodancho.

They then agreed that the key to their happy marriages would be found in time, even though it seemed to move so slowly, and in their patient acceptance. Maman Gendeng would have to live in anticipation until his wife was old enough to be made love to. “I don’t know when that will be, Shodancho. And really what you need is time too, isn’t it, time to grovel, because sooner or later, with enough persistence, a woman can be brought round.” At least that was what the wise men who had been with many women always said. “So, if you are patient, your patience will bear fruit. Just like drops of water can wear away a hole in a rock, your wife will finally let go of her stubbornness and maybe even begin to fall in love with you. You won’t need to cajole or convince or seduce her into opening her crotch protector, because one night she’ll open it for you herself. Believe that this will happen, Shodancho, because there is no woman — or man — who can stay stubborn to the death.”