What would they have me do? Start up a catering business?
But then I looked at Tjai, whose eyes were shining brightly with a glow that permeated mine—a completely different reaction from the one earlier, when we had been discussing business ideas he dismissed as crazy.
He looked at me straight in the face. “That’s it, Dimas. I think we’ve discovered our destiny. As a cook, you know, you are second to none.”
I had never heard Tjai speak with such enthusiasm before. His eyes flashed. Mas Nug put his hands on my shoulders and called out to the heavens: “Dimas! We are going to open an Indonesian restaurant in Paris!”
Even though the Parisian summer was still so hot I thought my skin was going to blister, my heart felt cool now that a decision had been reached. The next night we gathered at Risjaf’s apartment and, with no objections to slow down the course of conversation, we discussed our new plan. Mas Nug, twisting the ends of his Clark Gable mustache, usurped the role of manager and began to issue orders as to what each of our tasks would be.
“Obviously, Dimas will be the head cook and will choose the menu. We all know that he has a way of changing the simplest ingredients into a wonderful meal—no different from the words that slip from his pen to become a poem.”
I guessed that Mas Nug’s excessive praise was his way of consoling me because Tjai had not given his consent to the literary journal I wanted to produce.
“Tjai will look into a financial model. Once we’ve come up with a proposal, we can send it to possible funding sources: government and non-government agencies and the like as well as to our friends scattered throughout Europe, inviting them to contribute to the cause or to lend us the money we’ll need. We have to weigh the alternatives and choose the best one. Tjai can also look into what kind of business our restaurant should be, a limited license corporation, for instance, or possibly a co-op…”
“A cooperative. Obviously, a cooperative!” Tjai said firmly.
“OK, a cooperative it is,” said Mas Nug obediently, leaving me to wonder who in our group held the most authority.
“And in our proposal,” Mas Nug said immediately, as if to reaffirm his position, “we must be very clear about the raison d’être for the business model we’ve chosen. It might be, for instance, for the purpose of strengthening solidarity. As a cooperative, this will mean that we have to schedule an annual assemblée générale and choose a slate of managers every two years.”
I looked at Mas Nug with admiration. Any time we started to discuss how to run an organization, his brain worked as fast as lightning. Since Mas Hananto was no longer with us, it seems that the spirit of leadership had moved to him—even though it was at times expropriated by Tjai, who had a much greater faculty for finance and figures.
Risjaf stood like a soldier at attention, waiting for orders from his commander; but Mas Nug pretended not to notice. “Someone will have to undertake a survey of other restaurants—especially the Asian ones: Vietnamese, Indian, and Chinese—to see if we should focus on a place for fine dining, a casual eatery, or maybe a fast food place where people could take their meals home.”
“It’s not going to be fast food!” I answered quickly. “Indonesian food is fine for a casual restaurant and even for fine dining, but definitely not for fast food. And we’re going to have a bar. This is Paris, after all. I’ll get to work on coming up with a menu,” I said with a growing sense of confidence.
Everyone listened attentively. Tjai diligently took notes.
I ran on, a dam now bursting inside me: “One thing for sure is that we should hold lots of kinds of events: book launches, for instance; discussions about developments in Indonesia; and literary readings, films, art exhibitions, and photography. We’ll need a curator so that they run smoothly and so that the people who come to them will want to stay and eat at the restaurant or drink at the bar. That way, the place can become known not just as a good place to eat, but as a place where people can hang out and socialize.”
My three friends clapped their hands happily, even Tjai who stood and raised his thumb when I mentioned the need for a bar.
“I can do the research. I can also curate the events!” Risjaf said, still standing in front of Mas Nug.
Mas Nug smiled, not wanting to dampen Risjaf’s enthusiasm. “OK, but you can’t do everything, you know. You’ll wear yourself out. You plan the opening night and the nights that follow with a range of events. We can divide up the research on restaurants; there’s a lot of them that we’ll have to look at.”
“And what are you going to do?” Tjai was heard to say flatly.
Mas Nug twisted the tip of his mustache. “I will explore the city of Paris and study the advertising section in Le Figaro. We need to find a location, don’t we?”
Good God! Of course, Mas Nug was right, and that was something that had to be done right away.
Tjai nodded and made more notes. That night we each raised a glass of wine, except for Risjaf, that is, who held in his hand a ginger drink of wedang jahé instead. Clinking our glasses together, we said in unison, “To our restaurant.”
We looked at each other.
“What should we call it?” Risjaf said to Mas Nug.
Mas Nug turned his head towards me. “Let’s ask our resident poet!”
I looked at my friends, one by one. Someone was missing. There should have been five of us.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. “We, the four of us, are the pillars of Tanah Air Restaurant.”
We again clinked our glasses together. Tanah Air. Homeland. The name immediately stole my heart.
PARIS, 1975
Tjai, Risjaf, and I shared an unspoken agreement: ever since Rukmini had asked Mas Nug for a divorce in order to marry Lieutenant-Colonel Prakosa, we had surrendered to him the authority to act as our leader. Though we all believed in equality and didn’t think we actually needed a leader, Mas Nug seemed to need this kind of recognition, even if only temporarily. At least that’s what we’d surmised. And it all started that accursed evening when, after receiving his wife’s request for a divorce, he’d been shaken to the core and had tried to drown himself in alcohol. Nugroho Dewantoro, this man from Yogyakarta in the heart of Java, who always insisted on speaking egalitarian Indonesian rather than status-marked Javanese, was a very sentimental man. In fact, I even suspected that despite his frequent bouts of womanizing, he prized above all else the warmth that only a family can bring. Unlike Mas Hananto, whose relationship with Surti was complicated by perceptions of class difference—which was a psychological barrier of sorts for him—Mas Nug didn’t think about such things. If he wanted a woman, he wanted her, clear and simple. He became attracted to Rukmini and despite the fact that his green-eared friend Risjaf already had his sights set on her, he cast his net and succeeded in winning the orchid for himself. He then went on to marry her, the beautiful Rukmini with the sharp tongue. But because it became apparent to Risjaf and I that Mas Nug truly did love Rukmini, we long ago forgave him and joined in his happiness, especially so when Bimo Nugroho, the son the couple had wished for, appeared just nine months after their wedding.
What I always found difficult to understand about
