said nothing, certain that he was being rhetorical.
“You don’t belong to a political party. You’re not a member of any of the mass organizations. You always refuse to take sides. You malign LEKRA but then turn around and criticize signatories of the Cultural Manifesto.”
“Yes, and so?” I stared at Mas Hananto, waiting for him to continue his critique.
“Well what is you want, Dimas? Take a look at your personal life. You don’t seem to know what you want. Is it because you haven’t been able to move on from the past or is it that you just like being single?”
Now I didn’t understand. Was he irritated with me because I didn’t want to take sides or because he thought I still had feelings for Surti? Why must a person take sides and join one group or another, I asked myself. Was it merely to prove one’s convictions? And were convictions entirely unitary in nature? Socialism, communism, capitalism, and all the other isms… Must we choose one and then swallow it whole without any sense of doubt? Without any possibility for criticism?
I looked at Mas Hananto but kept my questions to myself. He had one hand on the steering wheel and was rubbing his jaw with the other. That night we said nothing more, at least not until Mas Hananto’s jeep stopped in front of my boarding house, but how the conversation ended, I frankly no longer recall.
What I do remember is that the next day and for the entire week thereafter, we didn’t speak to each other. At the office, Mas Hananto said only what was essential, hardly bothering to look at me when he spoke. His jaw and cheek were swollen and blue.
One day at the office, after about a week of us of not speaking, I watched from a distance as Mas Hananto laughed and spoke in whispers with Mas Nugroho and the editor-in-chief. I gave no thought to their little intrigue. I had no idea that their conversation that day would determine the course of my life, my fate, and my future as an exile, stranded in Paris. But then Mas Nug looked over in my direction and waved his hand, signaling for me to come to his desk.
“So, they had decided to send you to Europe?”
“No, they had decided to send me to one conference in Santiago and then on to another in Peking.”
“So you went to Santiago, Chile, and then after that flew on to China?”
“My journey in life has been a long one, Vivienne. Before going to China, I went to Cuba first, and it was only after some time in China that I came to Europe.”
I looked outside the window. To compare Paris and Jakarta would be like comparing coconut milk with gutter water.
A COFFEE STALL ON JALAN TJIDURIAN, JAKARTA;
SEPTEMBER 12, 1965
“I don’t know anything about the I.O.J. or its conference in Santiago,” I said to Mas Hananto after tracking him to an itinerant coffee stall near the corner of Jalan Tjidurian. I tossed the large manila envelope on the stall’s rickety table. This was the first long sentence I had spoken to Mas Hananto since we’d stopped talking to each other. Inside the envelope was an invitation to attend a conference of journalists in Chile.
Mas Hananto, who was sitting slovenly with one arm on the table and one leg propped up on the bench, stared at his glass of hot coffee as if pretending to be deaf. He lowered his lips to the edge of the glass and started slurping—a sound that disgusted me. I knew he was doing this to annoy me.
Feeling both surprise and the desire to smack him in the jaw again, I finally decided to sit down beside him. “This invitation is for you,” I said. “Why do you want me to go?”
Saying nothing, Mas Hananto lowered his head, looking into his glass of coffee again.
“I can’t speak Spanish. I’ve never engaged in any kind of journalistic activity at the international level. I wouldn’t know what to say at such a conference,” I sputtered, angry with him that he could so flippantly assign me a task without even consulting me beforehand.
“It’s the Chief’s decision,” Mas Hananto mumbled. “You have to go with Nug.”
A glass of coffee suddenly appeared before me.
Mas Hananto said, “The name of the organization is the ‘International Organization of Journalists,’ which is English, right, so the language of the conference is going to be English, which you speak perfectly well. It’s an annual conference for heads of media institutions from around the world. The delegates of each of the countries represented have been given a topic to discuss. You and Nug have one too.”
Still not looking me in the eye, Mas Hananto took another sip of coffee. “Listen, it will be a good experience for you. Guys from Harian Rakjat are also going,” Mas Hananto continued, as if to bolster the reason for me to go. “And we’re sending Risjaf to Havana to represent Indonesia at the Asia-Africa Organization.”
I didn’t reply. In a normal situation, I would have made a joke about Risjaf trying out every Cuban cigar he came across or something on that order, but this situation was different; there was something Mas Hananto was not telling me.
“Why aren’t you going?” I finally asked point blank.
“The Chief has decided that Nug will represent our office and that you will accompany him.”
Mas Hananto, still avoiding my eyes, was staring so closely at his glass of coffee, you’d have thought there was a miniature Maya reclining on its rim.
“We also have the situation here to deal with. Word has been going around about intrigues among the Communist Party elite and military high officials. The Chief feels that it would be best for me to be here in Jakarta.”
I didn’t know what to say. This was the first time Mas Hananto had ever told me something that sounded so very “internal” in nature. Even so, I still felt that he was leaving out something.
“After the conference in Santiago, you and Nug will join up with Risjaf in Havana and then go on to Peking for the Asia-Africa Journalists Conference there,” said Mas Hananto, offering further explanation.
I didn’t want to react. And I didn’t want to drink the coffee that had been placed in front of me.
Mas Hananto glanced at me. He knew that I wouldn’t give in to his bidding before he divulged the full details.
“Whenever you sulk, you stick out your lower lip so far you could hang a frying pan off it,” he said with a smirk.
I waited for Mas Hananto to say more but his attention was now on the stream of smoke rising from his cigarette. Shit! I stood to go, leaving the glass of coffee untouched and the envelope with the invitation and air tickets to Santiago on the table top. I had just turned and started to walk away when Mas Hananto called my name in a loud and broken voice.
I sat down, my lower lip still hanging.
Mas Hananto looked both irritated and sad. I had no idea what had come over him. “I can’t go, Dimas. I have to stay here, in Jakarta.”
I swallowed. This was the first time
