Beauty Is a Wound (29 page)

The opportunity to speak his heart came one bright afternoon when they were walking together in the forest on an excursion to find the old guerrilla routes. The man showed the girl the hut where he had lived for many years, the caves where he had hidden and meditated, and the caches of leftover weapons, mortars, guns, and gunpowder. He also showed her the defense forts that the Japanese had built. Then the couple sat looking out at the sea, in the yard right in front of the guerrilla hut, on the very stone chairs and table where he once held meetings with his troops. The weather was warm and an eastern wind was blowing pleasantly.

“Would you like to drink some fruit juice here at the seaside? “asked Shodancho, and Alamanda replied, “Yes, that would be quite delightful.” She had imagined that a guerrilla hideout would have been much scarier. Shodancho went back to the truck that had brought them both to that spot and returned with a thermos.

The scattered fishing boats that had headed out to sea that late afternoon bobbed softly out in the ocean, floating like lotus flowers on a pond. There were two or three fishermen on top of those boats and they all sat facing one another. They didn’t wave or shout, they just sat there looking all around and chatting with their friends.

The fishermen wore thick clothes with long sleeves, sarongs tied around their shoulders, cone hats, gloves, and their feet in tennis shoes, all to protect them from the fierce cold ocean air which would gradually weaken them with rheumatism in their old age. Shodancho commented that in the future, individual fishermen would slowly go extinct; big fishing vessels that could match the catch of fifty fishermen would replace these boats that were so small and vulnerable against storms, and their captains would never have to worry about getting rheumatism. Alamanda only replied that the fishermen had been friends with the sea for too long to be frightened by storms or rheumatism, and maybe they didn’t want to catch any more fish than they needed each day—she’d heard that from Kliwon.

Shodancho chuckled, and then they began talking about which kinds of fish were good to eat. Alamanda said that grouper was the most delicious and Shodancho said that he liked squid and then Alamanda protested because squid weren’t really fish since they didn’t have scales or fins. Hearing that, Shodancho laughed again. They both then fell silent for a moment, and then Shodancho poured some fruit juice from the cold thermos he had brought into Alamanda’s empty glass. That was when Shodancho said what he wanted to say, or rather asked exactly what he wanted to ask:

“Alamanda, do you think you might like to be my wife?”

Alamanda was not at all surprised. She had heard that question asked by so many men, in so many different variations, that over time it had lost its power to shock her—she could even guess more or less when the man was going to pop the question. In her experience, there were always signs that a man was about to confess his love to a woman, even though the signs were different for each man. She felt that a woman just knew these things, especially if, like her, that woman had already refused twenty-three men and had accepted the twenty-fourth. Now Alamanda was scheming how to mire the twenty-fifth in a fever of unrequited love.

She stood and walked toward the edge of the cliffs, watching two fishermen slowly paddling their boat, and then said without looking at Shodancho, “A man and a woman must love each other if they are to get married, Shodancho.”

“Well, don’t you love me?”

“I already have a sweetheart.”

Well then why do you get all dressed up every time we meet
? Shodancho said to himself a bit indignantly.
And why did you want me to take you to the photography studio and let me look at the pictures of your body, and why did you mend my unraveled uniform, unless to show me that you cared?

Shodancho replayed their courtship, made all the more irate by the realization that the girl had just been playing with him all along. He cursed himself for his carelessness, for letting himself forget that this girl was the same girl who had captured the hearts of so many men before tossing them aside like useless garbage. He had been a fool to think the girl wouldn’t dare do the same thing to a
shodancho
who had led a rebellion and who was a city hero, but in fact she did dare, and apparently she had really enjoyed herself.

He was even more enraged to see her sitting there calmly across the table, having sat back down to drink her juice. And by the time she smiled at him he was blind with fury, but still completely composed. Finally he said, “Love is like a devil, more terrifying than satisfying. If you don’t love me, fine, but at least make love to me.”

This guy is pathetic, Alamanda thought. She looked at Shodancho’s face, and for a minute she wondered why all of a sudden it was quivering and shaking all over and seemed as though it had split in two, and why each half seemed to rise and fall independently of the other. She wanted to ask Shodancho what was happening to his face but her mouth, just as inexplicably, couldn’t be made to move. Suddenly she felt her own body begin to wobble, and she prayed that it had not split in two like Shodancho’s face. But that was what had happened when she looked at her hand that was still holding the half-empty glass of fruit juice: now her hand had split into two, three, even four pieces.

She could still see but everything was starting to go blurry when Shodancho stood and walked around the table toward her, saying something that she could not hear at all. But she could feel it all right when Shodancho stood next to her and caressed her cheek softly, touching her chin and the tip of her nose. Alamanda wanted to stand up and strike the man for being so forward, but all of her strength was gone—she could only stagger, falling weakly against Shodancho.

She felt the man’s hands holding her slender body tightly and then all of a sudden she felt as if she was flying in the air, wondering whether she had died and if her soul was heading for the kingdom in the heavens. But she could see, even with her evermore blurred vision, that she wasn’t flying at all and was still just floating slightly because Shodancho had picked her up and placed her on his strong shoulder to carry her away. Hey, where are you taking me, she tried to protest, but not a sound emerged from her mouth. Shodancho brought her into the guerrilla hut, and Alamanda flew through the air once again when he threw her down onto the bed.

Now she was lying there, beginning to realize what was really going on. Frightened by what might befall her she began to fight back, but her strength had not yet returned. As time passed she felt all the weaker, until her body and her hands and even her feet stuck tightly to the surface of the bed, and she wasn’t able to move them even the tiniest bit.

When Shodancho began to undo the buttons of her dress, Alamanda was completely powerless and she surrendered totally, in rage and ruin. She watched the man remove her dress and throw it to the edge of the bed. Shodancho continued to work with an eerie calm, and when she was totally naked, she felt Shodancho’s fingers, with their rough fingertips calloused from carrying weapons during the war and scarred with old shrapnel wounds from the same era, begin to slither slowly across her body, nauseating her.

Shodancho said something she couldn’t hear, and now it wasn’t just his fingertips moving but the palms of his hands, which began to grip her body as if he aimed to destroy her. Shodancho wildly squeezed her breasts, making Alamanda want to howl, explored her whole body, pushed between her thighs, and he began to kiss Alamanda with his lips, leaving a trail of spit across her body. Alamanda now didn’t just want to howl, she wanted to slit her own throat so that she would die before the man did anything else. She couldn’t tell how long she was in this situation, maybe half an hour, maybe an hour, a day, seven years, or eight centuries, all she knew was that Shodancho then took off his own clothing to stand naked and cavalier next to the bed.

For a moment the man still kneaded her chest before throwing his body on top of her, kissing her lips with revolting little nibbles, and without wasting much more time he penetrated her. Alamanda could still see his face that looked like a white blob very close to her eyes, feeling her vagina torn apart by his savagery. She began to cry, but she didn’t even know whether her body still had the capacity to make tears. It seemed to be going on endlessly, for an additional eight whole centuries. No longer having the strength to open her eyes, she only felt her body being treated so filthily. And then she lost consciousness, or that was what she thought happened because she could no longer feel anything at all, but maybe she didn’t want to feel anything anymore. Finally Shodancho let her go and rolled to the side of her body, which since the beginning had remained in the same position: naked on her back, practically glued to the bed.

Shodancho lay beside her, with ever-deepening breath, so that Alamanda thought the man had fallen asleep. She swore that if she only had all of her power at that moment she would not have hesitated to take a knife and stab that man to death as he slept. Or to detonate a mortar in his mouth. Or to shoot him deep into the ocean with a cannon. But she was wrong to think the man had fallen asleep, because Shodancho now got up and said—and this time she could hear him—“If all you want to do is conquer men and throw them away like abject trash, well then it’s too bad you met me, Alamanda. I win every war I fight, including the war against you.”

She heard these cynical and contemptuous words that pierced like a thorn but couldn’t say anything in reply, only look at Shodancho with a still-blurry gaze as he stood up and gathered his clothes.

After that, Shodancho dressed and put the girl’s clothes back on her body piece by piece, saying it was time for them to leave the jungle and return home. Now Alamanda was dressed and it looked as though nothing had happened. But she was nowhere near as alert as she had been before, still anesthetized by the secret poison. She only remembered that everything had happened after drinking that fruit juice.

She again felt like she was flying when Shodancho picked her up from the bed. This time he did not throw her over his shoulder, but carried her against his waist with both of his strong arms, which in the olden days had carried a canon and had even carried one of his men, wounded in a battle against the Dutch, to safety. Now Alamanda lay in his arms while Shodancho walked away from the guerrilla hut toward the truck. He sat her down at his side and then he steered the truck along the dirt road through the dark and dense jungle.

He brought the girl back to her house. Alamanda could only recall the journey as a long dim tunnel of light. When they arrived at the house Shodancho came out of the truck carrying Alamanda’s body and was greeted by Dewi Ayu, who helped Shodancho bring the girl to her room. She was laid out across her bed as Dewi Ayu asked what had happened. Shodancho replied calmly that it was nothing to worry about:

“She’s just carsick.”

“It’s because you ravaged her body without permission, Shodancho,” replied Dewi Ayu, whose life experience led her to understand what had happened without anyone having to say it. “But don’t think you are a lucky man just because you won this battle.”

Alamanda was left alone in her room, and for the first time she felt tears begin to wet her cheeks, as everything seemed to go black and then she truly lost consciousness.

WHEN ALAMANDA REGAINED
consciousness the next day, the first thing she thought of was Kliwon and immediately she knew that everything was over for her and her sweetheart.

At that time, Alamanda felt she was a cursed woman; maybe she didn’t regret what she had done, and maybe she accepted what had happened to her because of it, but she still felt cursed. She wanted to write a letter to her sweetheart to arrive right after the letter with the photographs, telling him what had happened, except not the part about how she been out of control and toyed with a man who should not be toyed with and also not the part about how Shodancho had raped her. She would only tell him that she had slept with Shodancho. She was ashamed of herself, but the only thing she truly regretted was that she was going to lose her beloved and despite the fact that she knew Kliwon would have her in any condition, she absolutely did not want to see him. She still loved him, but she would lie and say that she had fallen in love with Shodancho. She would say she was leaving her old lover to marry her new flame. And she would ask his forgiveness. She wrote the letter that very afternoon, and put it in the post box just as soon as she had slid it into a stamped envelope.

Now she had to reckon with Shodancho, get her revenge, and think about what she could do to satisfy her rage short of stabbing him with a stiletto knife. So, after she put the letter to Kliwon in the mail, she went to the military headquarters, receiving an uncharacteristic salute from the soldier standing guard in the monkey cage at the gate, and just as Maman Gendeng had once done upon his arrival, she went straight into Shodancho’s office without knocking first. Shodancho was sitting behind his desk gazing at two photos of Alamanda that he held in his hand, with the eight other photos spread out across the table. When Alamanda barged in, he was taken off guard and tried to hide the photographs, but Alamanda gestured for him not to bother. Then the girl stood before Shodancho with one hand pressed against the table and the other shoved against her hip.