Authors: Eka Kurniawan,Annie Tucker
Tags: #Historical Fiction, #Humour
Beauty Is a Wound (62 page)
“For you,” he said, “Beauty.”
After that it all went well, until they finally fucked. Fucked. Fucked. And kept on fucking. What was the difference now, everything felt the same. Sleeping with Rengganis the Beautiful and sleeping with hideous Beauty wasn’t all that different. Everything was the same, everything made his genitals spew. He kept on having sex with that woman. “Fucking her,” he explained. And then he found out that the girl was pregnant, but he didn’t care “and kept on fucking her.”
Until one day Beauty asked, “Why do you want me?”
He replied, not knowing whether he was being honest or not, “Because I love you.”
“You love a hideous woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Because “why” is always difficult to answer, he didn’t answer. He could only respond “how,” and that was easy. To show his love, he kept on caressing her; he didn’t care how ugly she was, how disgusting, how terrifying. Everything felt fine, he had discovered a joy almost unlike any other that he had ever experienced in his life. But Beauty kept on hounding him, every time they met and made love, with the question, “Why?” Krisan stayed mute. Even though he knew the answer, he didn’t want to say it. But the night before he was killed, he finally replied.
His fourth confession: “Because beauty is a wound.”
Because beauty is a wound
.
Beauty is a Wound
Copyright © 2002 by Eka Kurniawan
Translation copyright © 2015 by Annie Tucker
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Published by arrangement with the author.
Cantik ita luka
was originally published in 2002 by AKY Press and Penerbit Jendela, Yogyakart, and from 2004 by PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, Jakarta.
Publication of this book was made possible with assistance from the Indonesian Translation Funding Program.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First published by New Directions as New Directions Paperbook ndp1313 in 2015
eISBN 978-0-8112-2363-8
eISBN 978-0-8112-2364-5
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
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