Amir said. “Is she pretty? Who is she?”
I smiled and shook my head. “It’s no one. I’m still single. But maybe one day…”
He smiled knowingly, like an elder brother. “Don’t worry. One day you’ll meet your Saidah.”
I was unnerved by Bang Amir’s sincerity. Shortly afterwards, when I stood to take my leave, I hugged him warmly. And as I walked away from the house to hunt for a becak, my heart felt like it was strapped in irons.
One night we finished writing up the news sooner than usual. It wasn’t even ten o’clock. At first I thought I’d find a bite to eat and go home, but then Mas Hananto signaled for me to come with him. When I asked where we were going, he just smiled and kept driving his beloved Nissan patrol jeep. On the way to wherever it was we were going, he mentioned that he and Mas Nugroho were in frequent correspondence with people close to Andrés Pascal Allende.
“You mean, as in the nephew of Salvador Allende?” I asked in awe, like some country hick when hearing the name of a celebrity.
“Yes,” he smiled, “and the founder of that country’s leftist party, the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria.”
I said nothing, leery of knowing (or not wanting to know) what their correspondence was about.
At the corner of Jalan Tjidurian in Menteng, Mas Hananto turned left. I said nothing. Now I knew that we were heading to LEKRA’s headquarters. From a distance, I saw, sitting on the terrace of the large house being used as LEKRA’s office, a number of people engaged in casual conversation.
“I don’t know about this…” I whispered to my friend.
“Take it easy. I just want you to meet some of my friends. Plus, I have a book in there I want you to read.”
I sat down among the nine or ten people who were there and soon found myself falling into easy conversation with them. Almost unaware of the passing time, we stayed at the office until almost midnight, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Afterwards, Mas Hananto gave me a lift to my boarding house.
As I was getting out of the jeep, he handed me a copy of the Indonesian-language edition of John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men. “Pramoedya translated it,” Mas Hananto said to me, as if this gave the book official imprimatur. “The book is mine but you can have it.”
I said nothing but nodded my thanks.
“After you have read it, I want you to tell me if you still think social realism is not interesting.”
“What happened to Hananto and his family?” Vivienne’s voice broke the spell and yanked me back to Paris in 1968. I couldn’t give her an immediate answer. She seemed to acknowledge this and to understand that there were other chapters in my life’s story that should, in their telling, precede what had happened to Mas Hananto.
I stared into her green eyes and stroked her face. I stood and was shocked, suddenly aware of my naked body. I looked down at Vivienne who smiled as her eyes traced my body’s shape, moving upwards from my legs to my chest.
“His wife Surti and their three children are still in detention,” I said flatly.
“Kenanga?”
“Yes, that’s their oldest”
“Such a pretty name.”
“It’s a kind of flower. I’m not sure what it is in French. The name of Bulan, their second child, means la lune and Alam means la nature. He’s the youngest, just three.” I said, chattering and looking away as I put on my trousers. I didn’t want Vivienne to know that those name were ones that I had once chosen when we were daydreaming. And by “we” I meant Surti and I.
“But what about Hananto?” Vivienne asked.
I was reluctant to say. The smoke rose from our cigarette, twirling in the air, taking me to a world of fog.
“Mas Hananto was the last link in the chain to be captured. Most of the other members of the editorial board at Nusantara News had already been swept up. The only ones not arrested were members of either Islamic or anti-communist organizations. Of course, they were close to the military as well.”
I sat down on the floor, silent in thought, counting the rising rings of smoke.
“There were these conferences for journalists in Santiago and Peking…” I finally began, attempting to give my gradually emerging story more historical context. “And Mas Hananto should have been the one to go to them with Mas Nugroho. He was more senior and much better than I in those kinds of networking jobs…” I stopped, searching for the words to continue. Vivienne stared at me, anxious to hear the rest. “But Mas Hananto couldn’t go. He had a ton of work to do, or so he said, and some pressing personal matters to settle as well. So I replaced him and went with Mas Nug instead. Neither was against my going or taking Mas Hananto’s place. Both thought I would learn a lot and gain some valuable experience besides.”
Vivienne brushed her fingers over my hair.
“If he had gone, he wouldn’t have been captured,” I said, suddenly feeling a chill in my bones. I put on my shirt but still felt myself shaking.
Vivienne frowned. “Not necessarily!”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not the way life works. If Hananto had gone, then everything else that happened would have been different. We don’t know what would have happened. Maybe you’d have been taken in or maybe not.”
“I’d feel better if I was the one who had been captured. I don’t have a family.”
“You have your mother and your brother.”
I didn’t reply. I knew Vivienne was trying to comfort me. She had a good heart, a gentle soul, but there was no way I was going to feel consoled when I thought of what had happened to Surti and her children. My cigarette was a stub in my fingers.
Vivienne lit a new kretek. She took a drag then handed it to me.
THE TRIVELI AREA OF JAKARTA;
SEPTEMBER 5, 1965
I was on my fifth cigarette already and Mas Hananto was still getting it off with that woman in her house. I looked at my watch. Two o’clock in the morning! I swore that if he didn’t settle his business and show his face before I finished the cigarette, I was going to leave him. I didn’t care if he groused at me the next day at work. And what was he doing in there anyway? He had a beautiful wife: Surti, who was perfect in almost every way. He had no reason to betray her. I couldn’t understand the man’s behavior but, as I was his friend, I also couldn’t remain oblivious to his proclivity for extramarital affairs.
This was the third time Mas Hananto had forced me to go with him when he went to see Marni. He needed me along to provide an alibi in case Surti asked where or with whom he had been.
Hearing a sound, I
