God, I thought, now he’s sounding like Bung Karno. What was the connection between the so-called struggle and Bang Amir’s transfer?
The scowl on my face appeared to make Mas Hananto uneasy, but I was angry and I wanted him to know it. Apparently sensing this and also knowing that if he tried to counter me our argument would only grow worse, he wisely turned and walked away.
That evening I decided to visit Bang Amir at his home, which was just a becak-ride from Nusantara News, on a small and shady side street off Salemba Boulevard. His wife Saidah—a woman with wonderfully long wavy hair and the tender voice of a mother who never seemed angry or impatient—answered my knock on the door. She invited me in and ushered me to the living room.
“Bang Amir is praying. He won’t be long. I’ll make some coffee,” she said as she retreated to the kitchen in the back.
I nodded. Looking down at the coffee table in front of my chair, I saw Capita Selecta, one of Natsir’s works, and several other titles as well along with a notebook and a fountain pen with its cap on. I knew that Bang Amir was a Masyumi follower, of course; and though I hardly knew Natsir himself and had scant knowledge of the ideology behind his Masyumi Party, the man struck me as being courteous and sincere. One day, in a conversation with Bang Amir at the office, he started talking about Natsir and told me how he hoped that Natsir would soon be released from the prison in Malang where he was being held. Unfortunately, because of a news deadline, we were never able to finish this conversation.
“Dimas Suryo …”
Bang Amir had a low and deep voice, like that of the popular bass vocalist, Rahmat Kartolo. Sometimes I found myself talking to him just to hear the rhythmic cadence of his sultry voice. But I was interested in what he had to say—and not just his criticism of the editor-in-chief, whose management style seemed to derive from herd instinct; I was interested in his other thoughts and ideas as well.
I stood to greet Bang Amir and we warmly shook hands. I stopped myself from blurting out how shocked I was not to see him in the editorial room, but I guessed he was able to intuit the reason for my visit, namely a sense of solidarity with him as a fellow journalist and editor. I’m sure he also guessed that I strongly disagreed with the editor-in-chief’s decision to transfer him to another section. Whatever the case, we jumped into ready conversation, talking about this and that, while drinking tubruk coffee and smoking kretek, completely skirting the subject that was on each other’s mind.
During the course of our conversation, Bang Amir revealed how he had come to meet his wife Saidah. Their first meeting was at the wedding of a friend, he told me, and when they looked at each other, they had immediately fallen in love. Amir stressed that as long as Saidah was beside him, he would be able to overcome whatever peril might befall him. “Even a transfer to the marketing division,” he added sardonically, finally entering that taboo domain. “When I pray, I always thank God for having given me Saidah to stand beside me. Without her, I would be a boat adrift. With her, I am able to maintain my balance and feel calm.”
As if having said enough about the sensitive issue, Bang Amir immediately segued into commentary of a more spiritual nature. “I believe that Allah shows the blessings He has bestowed on me by providing, inside myself, a small and private space, a little vacuum as it were, which only He and I occupy. And it is in there I go, Dimas, whenever I am trying to understand what is happening.
I wasn’t quite sure what Amir meant by this “private space” or that “little vacuum” but I was charmed by the imagery and dissolved in it like cocoa power in hot water. Whether it was because of his mellifluous voice or as a result of what he’d said, I said nothing in reply.
He took another sip of coffee and then asked out of the blue, “So, why don’t you want to get married and settle down?” yanking me back to the profane world.
I smiled. Suddenly, the image of Surti flashed before me. Bright. Shining. A kitchen smelling of turmeric. A kiss that overwhelmed my senses. I was startled. Why had her face appeared just now, when I was annoyed with Mas Hananto?
“That look on your face tells me you have someone already,” 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