Eka Kurniawan - Beauty is a Wound

“If you rose to heaven in moksa ,” she said, “then who did I bury three days ago?”

This was a tale of betrayal, which began long ago, when they still were newlyweds, before their wedding night that came five years too late, and before Rengganis the Beautiful was born.

A stocky man with a bald head and one of his ears chewed off came to the bus terminal on a sweltering Sunday afternoon, pushing his way through the crowd, most of whom were tourists scrambling for their buses after spending their weekend in the city. He slammed into whoever got in his way, making the cigarette sellers spill all their wares, going to claim the battered old mahogany rocking chair that belonged to Maman Gendeng, who had in turn claimed it by killing Edi Idiot.

Since he had taken power, Maman Gendeng had faced many men who wanted that battered chair, the emblem of his rule, and had defeated all of them, but new men were always showing up and now, once again, a stranger was approaching. A number of Maman Gendeng’s cronies had been watching the stranger ever since he had entered the terminal, and they knew what he wanted without having to ask. Maman Gendeng also knew, but he remained silent, with his legs crossed, rocking himself back and forth, smoking a cigarette. Nobody yet knew the man’s name, where he came from, or how he knew that Maman Gendeng was in charge there, but clearly he wasn’t from Halimunda, because if he had been a local with ambitions, he would have challenged Maman Gendeng for that chair a long time ago.

At that time Maman Gendeng still kept his money stuffed into earthen jars stored by an ugly woman named Moyang, whom he trusted almost as much as his own wife. He was saving up his money to buy a surprise gift for his wife, although he wasn’t sure what exactly. Every day Moyang was at the bus terminal, as was he. She sold drinks and cigarettes during the day, and at night she would get fucked by men who didn’t care about her ugly face (because what’s the difference between a pretty face and an ugly face when you are behind some dark bushes?) and didn’t want to spend their money at the whorehouse, because Moyang never asked for any payment. Maman Gendeng had never screwed her, and he did not want to, but he did save his money in her jars, which were stored under her bed in the hut where she lived. All of Maman Gendeng’s friends knew where it was, but no one dared steal it, nor even dared look at it.

There were often scuffles at the bus terminal, since the schoolkids used the place for their fights, but Maman Gendeng was rarely the one fighting. Now, as that bald man approached the criminal to challenge him, everyone was waiting to see what would unfold, and how it would unfold. Nobody was sure the stranger would get what he wanted. After all these years, the people in the bus terminal had come to believe that no one could defeat Maman Gendeng, unless all the soldiers in the republic attacked him at once, and even then there were doubts, if what people said about him being impervious to weapons was true. Despite this, people were always waiting for his fights.

Very early that morning, when she was setting out a fresh set of clean and neatly ironed clothes for Maman Gendeng on top of the bed before leaving for school, Maya Dewi had requested that he not come home covered in filth as he often did. Sometimes it was because of oil or grease splatters from helping the bus conductors repair their protesting vehicles, other times it was the soot that stuck to the walls of the terminal. It wasn’t that such things made the clothes harder for her to clean, Maya Dewi explained, but that her husband just didn’t look as handsome in dirty clothes. That day he was wearing a cream-colored shirt, on which the dirt would immediately show, so he had promised that he would not get his clothes dirty, no matter what happened.

He was relaxing in that infamous chair on that sweltering Sunday afternoon, slowly inhaling the smoke from his cigarette and then slowly exhaling it, when he saw the man enter the terminal. Like everyone else, he knew they would come face-to-face. Now the bald man was right in front of him, and before he could speak, Maman Gendeng said, standing up, “If you want this chair, please feel free to take a seat, or feel free to just take it with you.” No one could believe it — even Baldy didn’t believe it, and stayed silent for a moment, looking at the empty chair.

“It’s not that simple,” said Baldy. “I want that chair and everything that goes along with it.”

“I understand perfectly, so please sit down and you’ll get everything.” Maman Gendeng nodded, tossing his cigarette butt.

“A preman who has never been defeated in a single fight suddenly surrenders his power without protest,” said Baldy. “There is no reasonable explanation for it except that he wants to quit the life and become a good husband.”

Maman Gendeng nodded his head smiling, and gestured for the guy to sit. The bald man wasted no time approaching that chair, the symbol of great power, daring, and victory, but right before his butt touched the seat, Maman Gendeng struck him on the nape of his neck with his fist, so hard the people thought they could hear the man’s very bones breaking as he collapsed next to the chair. In any case, Maman Gendeng did not get his clothes dirty. Someone dragged the bald guy out to the sidewalk while Maman Gendeng sat back down on his chair, smoking.

Since that day, Baldy had roamed about the terminal, becoming one of the thug’s best men. He called himself Romeo. Maybe he had read Shakespeare, maybe not, but he called himself Romeo, and everyone called him Romeo, even though they felt it was a weird name for a big bald guy with half an ear ripped off and its remaining stub all torn to shreds. Romeo became a part of the community, living among them and respecting Maman Gendeng’s power. People still didn’t know anything about his history or where he had come from, but the rest of them weren’t exactly transparent about their backgrounds either. Just like the rest, Romeo would have a screw with Moyang once in a while, until one day he said to Maman Gendeng, “I want to marry her.”

“So go ask her yourself,” said the criminal, “whether or not she wants to be your wife.”

Moyang wanted to marry him, so they had the ceremony and a small party paid for by Maman Gendeng, one month later. They both lived in the hut that Moyang had been living in alone up until now.

“I swear to God,” said Maman Gendeng, “Romeo married a woman who loves to sleep around.”

They had a honeymoon that made many people jealous. They came late to the bus terminal after making love all night long, and at midday they sometimes disappeared from Moyang’s kiosk and made love behind the bushes not far from the terminal, near the cocoa plantations. But after a while, it was clear that what Maman Gendeng had said was true. At night, if her husband was out and she had just closed her kiosk, Moyang would make love to other men — sometimes with a becak driver, other times with a bus conductor, and one time with both of them fucking her at once.

“We can not prevent a woman from doing what makes her happy,” said Romeo, “even if she is our wife.”

“You should have become a philosopher,” said Maman Gendeng, “that is, if you are not completely insane.”

“Well she herself gives me money,” Romeo continued, sitting next to that mahogany rocking chair that he had once coveted, “to try out the women at the whorehouse.”

The bus terminal had been the pride of their community for years, from the time Edi Idiot was still controlling the city until Maman Gendeng took his place. It wasn’t too big, because there was only one route leading away from the city to the east and to the north, while to the west there was only a small road that came to a dead end after passing through two other small cities. Not every preman gathered at the bus terminal, in fact it really might have been just a minority, but because Maman Gendeng was always there, watching the people passing by from that mahogany rocking chair, the terminal was an important place for them. Everyone in their community seemed happy; even though Moyang had married Romeo, they could still sleep with her for free whenever they wanted without having to pay, as long as she was in the mood.