Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

After bringing them two glasses of cold lemonade from the kitchen, he said that his mother had passed away long ago, having died the moment he was born, to apologize for the house’s unkempt condition, if not to change the topic of conversation. But the girl’s face did not seem the least bit relaxed, as she waited for the next opportunity to harangue him some more.

“You sly faggot, there’s no way you raped her,” Ai said.

“Of course, I could never be so cruel,” said Kinkin calmly. “If you love someone, you would never do that, not even if the opportunity arose. I proposed to her properly and I am going to marry her because I love her.”

He would inherit his father’s line of work and the house in the graveyard. Such things were always passed down through the generations and the reason why was clear: nobody else would want the job. Everyone in the city believed that the graveyard was filled with evil spirits and ghouls, and only a gravedigger’s family could stand to live there year after year. The family also passed down their secret magical knowledge about how to carry on relationships with the spirits of the dead through the use of jailangkung . Kinkin was the last and only available heir, without brothers and sisters. But if his peers were afraid of him, it was not just because he was a gravedigger’s son and could play jailangkung , but because of his cold face and the humid stench that emanated from his body, as if he carried an evil spirit on his shoulder wherever he went. It was enough to make the hair on the napes of their necks stand up, so Krisan stayed mostly silent. He truly had not wanted to come, and had done it just because his cousin had forced him.

“Don’t think that just because you know black magic you can do whatever you want,” the girl continued.

“Black magic is not useful at all,” Kinkin said, waving his hands in protest. “It gives you a pseudopower that is false, artificial, and of course evil. My own personal experience has taught me that love is more powerful than anything.”

Apparently love had made him quite stubborn and the girl Ai knew it. She didn’t really want to prevent him from loving Rengganis, she just wanted to protect the Beautiful, and she could sense that there was something not right about these marriage plans. She stood and reached for Krisan’s hand, but before leaving she looked at Kinkin and blurted out,“Love the Beautiful with all your heart,” sounding exactly like a mother giving her son-in-law advice on his wedding day.

Kinkin nodded confidently. “Of course.”

“But if it turns out that your love is just like one-hand clapping and my beautiful cousin doesn’t want you in return, I will never let anyone marry you two,” Ai threatened. “I am destined to protect her, so that she can always be happy.”

The assertiveness of her voice often made people unable to meet her gaze, and Kinkin also bowed his head. “Yes but,” said Kinkin, “her own father has already accepted my marriage proposal.”

“Even so.”

Ai didn’t give the kid the chance to say another word. She yanked on Krisan’s hand, and that boy quickly walked toward his minibike. With the girl riding behind him, they left and went to the Beautiful’s house, where they found a household in chaos and the sound of her howls coming from the second floor. In the room below, they found Maya Dewi crying silently on the corner of the sofa, with the two mountain girls standing awkwardly in the kitchen doorway. Krisan sat down in front of the woman while Ai sat beside her, reaching for her hand with a confused, worried expression: “What’s wrong, Auntie?”

Maya Dewi wiped away her tears with her sleeve. She tried to smile at her niece and nephew as if to say that it was nothing serious before explaining, “She went on a rampage the moment she knew that she was to be married to that Kinkin.”

“He has been running his mouth off at school,” said Ai.

“The poor kid, wanting to marry a girl who is pregnant by somebody else,” said Maya Dewi. “He loves her so much.”

“I don’t care whether he loves her or not,” said Ai. “Rengganis will not marry someone she does not love.”

The Beautiful’s howls suddenly fell silent. They were alarmed, but then she came hurrying down the stairs with a face that was as red and swollen as if it had been submerged in ice water, wearing nothing but her nap-time pajamas. She sat right down next to her mother without even trying to wipe away her tears.

“If you don’t love the gravedigger’s son and don’t want to marry him, then tell me,” her poor mother said, “tell me, who is the man you care for and wish to make your husband?”

“I don’t like anyone,” said the Beautiful. “If I have to get married, I want to marry my rapist.”

“Tell me who he is.”

“I will marry a dog.”

Her pregnancy was already clearly showing, and just like all pregnant women, her beauty had grown even more radiant. It was as if her black hair came from a deep mysterious darkness, falling straight past her hips, not having been cut for years. She had skin like the crust of a freshly baked loaf of bread still warm from the oven. Ever since she was born, people had known that she was the most beautiful girl in the city. Both her parents were quite proud of such a blessing, but they had always been concerned about the price to be paid for it: her simplemindedness. They helped her to always look her best, struggling to braid her hair every morning before going to school. At the annual Beach Princess competition, her father brought the Beautiful even though it was quite evident that she couldn’t dance very well and sang with a heartbreakingly bad voice, but her beauty had intoxicated every member of the jury so that she was chosen as the princess.

“Do you know which dog?” asked Ai.

Rengganis shook her head, full of regret. “Every dog looks the same to me,” she said. “Maybe he will come once his baby is born.”

“How will he know that it’s been born?”

“My child will bark and he’ll hear it.”

Nobody knew where she had gotten such a far-fetched fantasy, but she looked so happy imagining it, with her cheeks now glowing, that the others stayed silent. Without forcing her to say anything more, her mother embraced the girl and stroked her long hair, saying, “You know, your Mama got pregnant with you at the same age you are now.”

When night fell, she told her husband everything that had happened that day, while pointing out the remnants of the commotion the Beautiful had created. Maman Gendeng sat on the stairs with a tragic face.

“Everyone knows that Kinkin wasn’t in the toilet that day,” she said. “And Rengganis doesn’t want to marry him.”

“Well if that’s how it is, then we have to force our daughter to tell us who did it.”

“And if she stays mum?”

“If she stays mum, then I will marry that girl to whoever wants to be her husband,” her husband said. “As long as he isn’t a dog.”

As it turned out, she kept mum. Of course lots of men wanted to marry her, but only one had the guts to propose to her, and that was Kinkin. So despite Rengganis the Beautiful’s refusal, they began to prepare for the wedding, as her time to give birth grew ever closer. It wasn’t that Rengganis the Beautiful didn’t know about these plans, but now, unexpectedly, she was facing them calmly, saying that it was the kid who would end up feeling resentment and regret.

The girl Ai was caught in the middle of that messy situation. “If we force her, she will do something terrible,” she said. She knew what Rengganis the Beautiful was like. Her mother and father did too, but apparently they no longer cared. For them it was enough that Maya Dewi was the illegitimate, fatherless child of Dewi Ayu, just like her older sisters, and they did not want the Beautiful to share a similar fate. Even Maman Gendeng, who had never lived virtuously, was deeply saddened — someone had raped his daughter, and he, the most feared man in the city, didn’t know anything about what had happened. He felt he was facing the most formidable enemy of his entire life.