Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

Krisan tried not to cross paths with the fishing boats that were returning to the beach, and didn’t worry about the larger vessels that were farther out. Morning was breaking behind Ma Iyang Hill, its rays like strong straight lines that penetrated the surface of the ocean, glittering with phosphorescence. The reddish color on the horizon began to fade; seagulls, and swallows, began to fly overhead. The light made it easier for Krisan to see where the fishing boats were going, and he could turn if he thought they were going to pass by too close.

For a long time he rowed in widening circles, looking for a quiet area of the ocean, that he thought no other ship would visit. Then he found it, in a dark blue part of the water. He knew for certain that the spot would be very deep, and that was why it was deserted, because there weren’t a lot of fish in such a place. Of course neither Rengganis the Beautiful nor Krisan knew that many years ago Comrade Kliwon had kidnapped Alamanda and had brought her to this very same spot.

Morning came in all its perfection.

“So when are we going to get married?”

“Don’t rush, soak up the sun for a moment first,” replied Krisan.

Krisan lay down at his end of that boat, looking at the sky. Rengganis the Beautiful tried to do the same at the other end. Krisan’s forehead was wrinkled and his face looked gloomy, not at all enjoying the perfectly clear day. Meanwhile Rengganis the Beautiful was growing restless, waiting for their wedding. Finally she sat up again, now truly impatient, and asked:

“How are we to be married?”

“I’m making it a surprise.”

Krisan approached the girl, stepping over Ai’s corpse.

“Turn around,” he said.

Rengganis the Beautiful turned around, looking out at the horizon, her back to Krisan. She waited until she saw Krisan’s hands making a fast circle, and before she realized what was happening, she was being strangled. A handkerchief was wound around her neck and Krisan’s hands were tightly pulling its corners. Rengganis the Beautiful struggled to get free, her legs kicked everywhere, and her hands tried to pry that handkerchief loose. But Krisan was way stronger. They fought for about five minutes, before Rengganis the Beautiful lost the fight and lay sprawled out on the bottom of the boat, dead, right next to the corpse of her cousin.

Krisan looked down at her, and his eyes welled over. His breath came in ragged gasps and wheezes. With his hands shaking violently, he lifted Rengganis the Beautiful’s body and heaved it into the ocean, letting her sink. Then he cried at the gunwale, crying like sentimental teenage girls cry, crying like newborn babies cry, crying with a deluge of heartbroken tears. And in between sobs he spoke aloud, although there was no one there to hear him.

“I killed you,” he said, sobbing again, “because I only loved Ai.” He cried for a full half an hour after that.

A third confession: it was Krisan who raped Rengganis the Beautiful in the school bathroom and didn’t take responsibility for what he had done.

This is the hardest part of the story to tell, but it is the truth.

One day, when he and Ai were visiting Rengganis the Beautiful’s house after school, he was sitting on the sofa reading an old magazine. The two girls were upstairs in Rengganis the Beautiful’s room. But all of a sudden he heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Krisan put down the magazine, and Rengganis the Beautiful appeared before him, wearing nothing but a bra and underwear. He might have seen her like that before, he might have even seen her totally naked, but that was when they were still little kids. Now they were both fifteen, and Krisan had been having wet dreams for quite some time.

Just like most men, Krisan was in awe of Rengganis the Beautiful’s body, which was both beautiful and provocative. Delicious, that was the only word for it. He often imagined her firm round breasts and her softly curving waist, and now he could see almost everything. The bra that she was wearing didn’t really cover all of her breasts, so Krisan could appreciate their gleam, and her low-cut panties that covered a small soft mound. It made his dick come alive, and turn hard as steel. He had to grope at his pants to adjust it, because it was slanting up and getting pinched. Meanwhile, Rengganis the Beautiful didn’t seem to mind that Krisan was there and looking in her direction, in fact she seemed pleased that that boy was looking at her. She came down the stairs with perfectly calm steps, approached the ironing table, picked out some clothes, and put them on, and that lustful moment passed, but Krisan never forgot it.

There are two kinds of women that a man can love: the first kind of woman he loves in order to dote upon and cherish her, and the second kind he loves in order to fuck. Krisan felt he now had both kinds: Ai was the first kind of girl, and Rengganis was the second. He wanted to marry Ai, but he always dreamed of one day having sex with Rengganis the Beautiful, despite the fact that he had never succeeded in declaring his love to Ai and he had no idea how to have sex with Rengganis the Beautiful without getting in terrible trouble.

When the three were small they had a nice hideout: the field that Comrade Kliwon had bought. Shodancho built them a tree house on a branch of an old banyan tree at the edge of the orchard. Their mothers and fathers never worried about the three of them roaming about in the fields, because they could all watch out for one another. They played together, just as they had always done since before the tree house, and just as they continued to do long after. But in the days when they were going to the tree house all the time, the game they played most often was the wedding game. Rengganis the Beautiful always wanted to be the bride, and because Krisan was the only boy, he always played the groom. Ai would play the same roles every time too: the witness, the village headman, and the invited guest. They always enjoyed this game, even though Krisan felt forced into playing his role; he really wanted to be the groom for Ai.

Rengganis the Beautiful would be adorned with a crown made from a wreath of jackfruit leaves, as would Krisan. They would sit under the banyan tree, next to each other, while Ai kneeled with her knees on the ground before them and said:

“Are you two ready to marry one another?”

“Yes,” Krisan and Rengganis the Beautiful always said.

“And so you are married,” said Ai. “Now kiss.”

Rengganis the Beautiful would kiss Krisan’s lips for a few seconds, and that was the moment Krisan liked the best.

But beyond that — outside of the game — Rengganis the Beautiful always still thought of Krisan as her fiancée.

That annoyed Krisan, but he couldn’t do anything about it, because just like Ai, he knew what Rengganis the Beautiful was like: spoiled, willful, childish, simple, fragile, unstable, and a whole series of other words that explained how pointless it would be to get mad at her. What was even more annoying was Ai’s attitude. Krisan in fact wanted them to gang up on Rengganis the Beautiful a little bit, just to make her come to her senses, but instead Ai faithfully defended every scandalous thing the Beautiful did.

At that time Krisan wasn’t yet quite so hot for Rengganis the Beautiful, even though he knew the girl was very pretty and quite provocative, because he liked quiet girls with serious faces, girls who were calm but could also be quite fierce, and a girl like that was Ai. Forget lusting after her, he often thought of the Beautiful as a third wheel. And Ai’s tendency to protect her made him jealous.

However, there was something else that made him even more jealous: dogs. Shodancho’s child had been infected by his obsession with dogs. Krisan used to always hope that if Ai wasn’t with Rengganis the Beautiful, then he could be alone with her, but if Ai wasn’t with her cousin, then it could be sure that she was playing with dogs, and she would keep playing with them even if Krisan tried to spend time with her.