Beauty Is a Wound (55 page)

She tried to remind herself that a similar fate had befallen her two older sisters. Alamanda had lost Ai, and Shodancho had disappeared to go look for his daughter’s corpse, which had been stolen from its grave. Adinda had lost Comrade Kliwon, who had killed himself, though she still had Krisan.

But still Maya Dewi could not be comforted. Every morning she still prepared breakfast, plates of rice and vegetables and side dishes, for herself and Maman Gendeng and Rengganis the Beautiful, just as she used to do. Of course it was only she herself who ate, and so at the end of this ritual she threw out the two portions of food that remained completely untouched. She did this at dinner too, for three days.

When Maman Gendeng was still alive, before he left, they had played out this lie together, tricking themselves into thinking that Rengganis the Beautiful was still with them. They would meet at the dining table, with a portion prepared for their daughter as usual, and throw it out when their meal was done. Now Maya Dewi had to do this all alone.

All alone.

But on the third day after Maman Gendeng’s death, she was not alone. She had someone to eat with. Just like the two nights and three mornings before, she sat down at the table in those dark clothes with two other portions of food, for her husband and her daughter. She hadn’t yet swallowed her first bite of rice when the door to their bedroom opened and the man appeared, and sat right down in his chair like usual. Maya Dewi continued to eat her rice with her right hand and the man began to stir his sauce. They both ate as hungrily as usual, without talking to one another. Only one portion of rice remained untouched, because only one chair was empty, but Maya Dewi was still imagining that Rengganis the Beautiful was in her spot, just as she thought she was imagining Maman Gendeng sitting in his chair and eating. She only realized that the man was truly present when dinner was finally over. She found her husband’s plate empty and the Beautiful’s plate still filled with the rice. She looked at Maman Gendeng in disbelief. They gazed at one another for a long time before that woman asked in an almost inaudible whisper, “Is it you?”

“I came to say goodbye.”

Maya Dewi approached her husband, touching him with extreme care as if he was made of wax and might easily melt away. Her fingers crept to touch the man’s forehead, then moved down to his nose, lips, and chin, and after this tentative caress she stared at him with the curiosity of a child. When she felt the heat emanating from his body, felt that he was alive, she moved closer and held him. Maman Gendeng embraced her in return, letting that woman cry on his shoulder, stroked her hair, and lovingly sniffed the crown of her head.

“You came to say goodbye?” the woman asked suddenly, looking up into Maman Gendeng’s face.

“I came to say goodbye.”

“You are leaving again?”

“Because I’m already dead. I already rose up into the heavens.”

“What about
her
?”

“I am going to watch over her. There.”

After stroking one of his wife’s cheeks and kissing the other, Maman Gendeng walked into the room that he had come from, closing the door behind him. Maya Dewi looked at the door in confusion, then looked at Maman Gendeng’s empty plate, then looked at the plate that was still filled with the rice that should have been eaten by Rengganis the Beautiful, then again looked at the closed bedroom door. In a panic, she ran to the door, opening it but finding no one there.

She kept looking for him. She made sure that the bedroom window was locked, as it had been since afternoon. She peered under the bed but all she saw was the remainder of an incense coil and the house slippers she usually wore before prayers. There was no other place the man could be. It would be impossible for him to hide inside the closet with its big mirror, which was divided into sections and filled with their clothes, but Maya Dewi opened that door too and then closed it again right away. She checked the surface of the bed and her dressing table, hoping to find some sort of a clue, but her search was very much in vain. She left the room and once again stood looking at the dining table.

Then she returned to her work. She neatened up the table and put the leftover rice and vegetables and side dishes into the pantry. Later the two mountain girls who helped her make cookies would eat it for their meal. She took the dirty plates to the washtub, and threw the rice that Rengganis the Beautiful hadn’t eaten into the garbage. She only washed her hands, not feeling like washing the dishes as she usually did, and returned to her bedroom, looking out into the empty space, then asked a question as if Maman Gendeng was still there.

“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 cri
minal 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.

But that happiness was disturbed one peaceful day that should have passed without incident. Moyang opened her kiosk but didn’t sell anything, instead just waited for Maman Gendeng, who hadn’t showed up there yet. When he did finally appear, looking practically dapper—a new look his friends had grown familiar with since his wedding—Moyang approached him straightaway and sobbed before him. Cries like that were the cries of an abandoned wife, so Maman Gendeng assumed that Romeo had left Moyang. But Maman Gendeng wasn’t convinced of the woman’s love or faithfulness toward Romeo, so he asked her:

“What’s going on?”

“Romeo left.”

“I thought you didn’t really love him that much.”

After wiping away her tears with the edge of her shirt, revealing her stomach with its many rolls of fat, she said, “The problem is, he left with all your jars of money.”

There was no way that Romeo would try to escape through the bus terminal, and that early in the morning no train would have left the city yet. So he’d probably run into the jungle, or someone must have helped him escape in some kind of vehicle. Whatever had happened, Maman Gendeng was furious and intended to catch him, dead or alive. So he gathered every last one of his men, and he ordered them to spread out in every direction, even to neighboring cities, and to touch base with the local thugs there. No one was allowed to return before Romeo was caught, unless he wanted a beating. So all the
preman
in the city left, and Halimunda was the most peaceful it had ever been. Only Maman Gendeng stayed behind, restless with fury. He had long dreamed of a peaceful family life, of being able to survive on honest money. He wanted a family just like other families and he had been saving his money to make this beautiful dream come true. He would buy something, maybe a fishing boat, and he would become a fisherman. Or a truck, and he would become a vegetable hauler. Or a few hectares of land, and he would become a farmer. He hadn’t even decided what he wanted to buy yet, and now someone had stolen all that money. He was truly enraged. For three days he waited impatiently, not explaining anything to his wife, who was dumfounded by his anxiety, and becoming an extraordinary grump at the bus terminal, so that all the conductors and bus drivers avoided him as best they could.