At the age of only thirty-two, the Sundanese Eka Kurniawan is without any doubt the most original, imaginative, profound, and elegant writer of fiction in Indonesia today. If anyone has a chance of filling the aerie in Indonesian literature left empty with the death of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, it is he. It is no accident that his first book, published in 1999, Pramoedya Ananta Toer dan Sastra Realisme Sosialis, is by far the best work, admiring and critical at the same time, on the master written by an Indonesian. Traces of Pram are visible everywhere in his fiction, yet Eka, born into another culture and in another, gloomier epoch, writes in an inimitable manner, which is immediately recognizable in any paragraph. Over the last six years, he has published two outstanding novels, the enormous if unwieldy Cantik itu … Luka (Beauty is … a Wound) in 2002, and the fiercely dense Lelaki Harimau (Man-Tiger) in 2004. In 2005 he published his first collection of short stories, Cinta Tak Ada Mati (No Death for Love), and, in the same year, a second collection, Gelak Sedih dan Cerita-cerita Lainnya (Sad Laughter and Other Tales), from which the story translated below has been drawn.

He was born on November 28, 1975, in a remote village of southeastern West Java, two hours’ drive south of Tasikmalaya, and close to the Indian or Indonesian Ocean. This village, where he spent his earliest years with his four grandparents, is blazingly recreated as the scene of Cantik itu … Luka. Later, he joined his parents at a rubber plantation near to Tjilatjap. He received his primary education in a public school in the small town of Pangandaran. There, stimulated by the books he borrowed from itinerant bicycle-riding “librarians,” he started to discover his gifts. He wrote comical short stories for his classmates and published his first poems in the children’s magazine Sahabat. When the time came to enter junior high school, he moved to Tasikmalaya and lived with an aunt. He continued to write, now with a typewriter given by his father when he scored the top marks for his class in five subjects. Although he expanded his reading in the school’s library, he eventually got bored and set off on weeks of solitary wandering, first to Jakarta, then back through Tjirebon, Tegal, and Purwokerto. On his return, he found that he had been expelled.

The only school prepared to admit him without forcing him to repeat classes was the special teacher-training senior high school back in Pangandaran. (These high schools were abolished not long after he graduated.) For his final two years, he was always the top student, but also indulged his wanderlust in the Segara Anakan marshes near Nusa Kambangan, the port of Tjilatjap, and the south-coast caves used to store ammunition during the Japanese Occupation; these locations became the settings of some of his subsequent stories.

On graduation, he enrolled as a student in Gadjah Mada University’s Literature Faculty, where he also worked for the student publications Pijar and Balairung. This was the period when Suharto’s New Order was starting to fall apart, and regime violence against students steeply accelerated. When bored with classes, he turned to graphic design, writing comic books and playing in bands. He has said that he decided to become a writer when he found himself stunned by Hunger, Knut Hamsun’s celebrated novel about Norwegian peasant misery.

After completing his MA thesis on Pramoedya, he set to work on his first novel, titled O Andjing (Oh Dog), 140,000 words long, which he completed in 2001 at the age of twenty-six. But he could find no publisher in Djakarta, only a tiny one in Central Java, which promised to print only two hundred copies. Luckily, at the end of that year, he was awarded a six-month fellowship by the Akademi Kebudayaan Yogyakarta, which gave him the time radically to revise O Andjing and turn it into the scarcely less enormous Cantik itu Luka, which, with the support of the AKY, was finally published at the very end of 2002. It stirred a huge controversy in literary circles, which helped the first printing to be sold out very quickly. In 2003, he moved to Djakarta with his wife, the writer Ratih Kumala. There he worked on Lelaki Harimau (mostly written in the food court of the Sarinah department store), which was published in May 2004 and quickly went through two printings. In 2006, Ribeka Ota’s translation of Cantik itu Luka into Japanese came out. In the midst of all this, Eka found the time and the energy to translate Maxim Gorki’s Strike, John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s Of Love and Other Demons, as well as Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve.

Some of Eka’s readers find many of his writings distinctly morbid, even perverse, in their fascination with murder, violent sex, monsters, the supernatural, and Indonesia’s heart-breaking modern history. They are not mistaken in so feeling. But the judgment misses three things: the sheer, queer elegance of his Indonesian prose, which at its best is superior even to Pramoedya’s; his black sense of humor, quite close to Pram’s as well as Twain’s; and his gift for parody and ear for how his fellow- Indonesians (of different groups and generations) speak.

I decided to translate Coret-coret di Toilet not only because it is one of Eka’s best-known short stories, but because it is very blackly funny. It catches perfectly the atmosphere of student life in Indonesia at the start of the new century, as the brief promise of Reformasi was being extinguished by gangsterism, cynicism, greed, corruption, stupidity, and mediocrity. It also mirrors beautifully the bizarre lingo shared by ex-radicals, sexual opportunists, young inheritors of the debased culture of the New-Order era, and anarchists avant la lettre. Finally, it shows Eka’s gift for startling imagery, sharp and unexpected changes of tone, and his “extra-dry” sympathy for the fellow-members of his late-Suharto generation. It could be said to be Eka’s update of parts of Pram’s Tjerita dari Djakarta, written as the promise of the Revolution was being extinguished, which has the Eka-ish subtitle, Karikatur2 Keadaan dan Manusianja.

The translation of “Corat-coret di Toilet” (Grafitti In The Toilet), read here.

John 19:22: “Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.”

He pushed open the door of the toilet, enjoying the smell of still fresh paint. Then he closed the door, locked it from the inside, and, a few moments later, standing in front of the toilet-hole, undid his pants.¹ With a hiss, the liquid sprayed down into the hole, giving off an ammoniac scent. The kid smacked his lips, grinning with satisfaction. When he was done, he shook what he was holding in his hand and bathed it with a few splashes from the dipper, tossing the rest of the water down into the hole. Then buttoned up.

The kid, twenty years old, dressed punk-style, stood there admiring the unspotted walls of the toilet. They had just been painted a tempting cream. He gave a little laugh, revealing four bad teeth, then groped in his backpack till he found what he was looking for: a felt-tip marker. With a triumphant grin, he wrote on the wall: “Asshole! Reformasi’s a total flop, Comrade! Let’s complete the democratic revolution!”²

At seven in the morning, before the students had begun to make a racket in their classrooms, a kid had already attacked the toilet, located precisely beneath the staircase. There was something wrong with his urinary system, so he had to go all the time. Maybe because he drank too much coffee, or took too little exercise. After finishing his boring morning ritual, he stared at the graffiti on the shimmering wall with mildly sadistic pleasure.³ With a pen, he scrawled an arrow aimed away from the first sentence. But the tip of the pen was too sharp to make the arrow really visible.

Putting one hand into his bag, he fumbled around in search of something that would make the lines thicker. But he found nothing and had to make do with his pen. Someone banged on the toilet door, so he faked a groan, to let whoever it was know that the toilet was occupied and the occupant didn’t want to be disturbed. Feeling fairly sure whoever it was would be patient, he retorted, in small, but still legible letters: “Blabbermouth! Provocateur! The revolution was already dead in your grandpa’s time. Our nation loves peace, and a lunchtime nap. Let’s hunt up a wild girl and find the revolution in bed!”⁴

The next to show up was a tomboy girl, with a hitchhiker’s knapsack. She was wearing very tight jeans and an oversize singlet. Sometimes the neckline would drop down, once or twice showing what was bra-less inside. She hated peeing, because it was such a hassle to undo her pants. She had tried once to pee standing up, following the bad habit of boys, for convenience’s sake. But the result wasn’t at all satisfactory. The annoying liquid sprayed out all over, and some of it dribbled down on her pants. But in this world everyone is condemned to pee, so she peed in that same toilet, even though it was a hassle.

As had happened with most of the toilet’s consumers, her eye was caught by the scribbles on the wall, and she felt tempted to add her own commentary. She fumbled for a felt-tip in her bag, but all she found was her lipstick. Before adding to the graffiti, she paused for a moment’s reflection. She searched in her bag for a small mirror, but with no luck. Usually, she didn’t take a small mirror with her, even though the lipstick was always there. It didn’t matter anyway. She applied the lipstick to her lips, then kissed the toilet wall, leaving a clear print. She smiled as she stared at the kiss, but then started to feel her message wasn’t clear enough. So she wrote in lipstick: “You gotta be a henchman of the military! New Order running-dog! Feudalist, bourgeois, reactionary moron! Blabbermouth full of bullshit, get ready for the revolution!” ⁵

For the next two days, nothing much happened in the toilet, until another kid stopped by. He took down his pants and squatted over the hole. “Plop! Plop!” He was startled by how loud it sounded. So he opened the tap to let the whoosh of the gushing water compete with the disgusting plop-plop noise. Very embarrassing! And while enjoying these stinking moments, the kid started to read the three comments on the toilet wall. He smiled at the last of them, trying to imagine what kind of girl had written it.

After washing his behind, he stood up and pulled up his pants, while still staring at the rows of letters on the toilet wall. With a lewd smile, he leaned over and kissed the lipstick lips. Holding his own lips between two forefingers, perhaps asking himself what kind of warmth he should be feeling, the kid took out his pen and excitedly added his own contribution. “Hi, gorgeous! I like your red lips, as red and as hot as the spirit of a wild animal. Wanna trade the feel of lips with me?”

Later, and in broad daylight, another girl showed up, a different type. A hedonist, and dressy. Her backpack was really much too small and filled with the usual this-and- that small arms of a come-hither girl. Her appearance in the toilet obviously had nothing to do with peeing or conducting a “Plong! Plong! concert.” Not even with washing her hands or spitting. The reason why she entered the toilet almost every day was simply to renovate her face, which was a mess thanks to several hours’ exposure to the soot-filled air. She wasn’t very self-confident, and naturally always had to fix herself up.

The girl stood by the little tank, staring at her reflection in the little mirror in her hand. She sprinkled her face—which she would never admit was filthy—with a pretty thick layer of powder, and redid the eye-shadow around her eyes. Nor did she forget to rouge her cheeks. Then she recombed her tangled hair and fixed it in place with a ribbon and a clip. As for her ashen lips, she swabbed them over with blazing red lipstick, as red as the national flag. Just at that moment, she read over all the splenetic comments on the wall. With a flirtatious laugh, she made her own contribution, also in lipstick: “Bandit, you wanna trade feel of lips with me? Okay! Meet me at nine tonight at my grandma’s. N.B. Don’t bring along any spies!”⁶

On the umpteenth day after the toilet was freshly painted, a guy showed up at the toilet. A big and tall guy, his scalp was covered with the stubble of a recent full shave. A moustache and a thin beard adorned his fair-skinned face. A silver earring hung from his left lobe, and he had four or five necklaces around his throat. The floppy shirt he wore was made of tie-dyed cloth, while his pants were baggy. Anyone looking at him would certainly suspect him of being queer, though this could be hard to prove.⁷

Even from what he would later write on the wall, which expressed his deepest feelings, it would still be tough to decide on his sexual leanings. He had gone into the toilet in search of a quiet place for a chat, away from the usual racket, and now pulled out his cell phone, which had been ringing for a while in his pants pocket. Using his right hand to hold the cell phone to his left ear, while his mouth kept up a steady chatter, he used his left hand to hunt for a pencil, and found one while his brain was still busy scanning the graffiti on the wall. This is what he eventually wrote: “Coward! Revolutionary in bed! Beaten up just once by the military and you run to mummy’s crotch. Hey, if you guys really wanna be revolutionaries, just show up here! Big mouths! Agitators! PKI maggots!”⁸

For a week thereafter, nobody could bear to enter the toilet, thanks to a frustrating development. Some bastard, for sure a goddamn shit without morals,⁹ and cursed by almost every faithful customer of the toilet’s services, did something revolting. God knows on what day and at what hour he entered the toilet and immediately showered the bowl with a stream of rockets from out his ass. The idiot then went off without cleaning up his damned wastes, piled up around the hole in each other’s arms.¹⁰

You could be sure that from then on anyone entering the toilet after that lost the appetite for doing anything there. Everyone avoided the room. Everyone? Not quite! It turned out that there was one nutty kid who went in on purpose. It happened during a class period, and this kid tore out of the classroom clutching the front of his pants, scared he wouldn’t make it. He went to the first toilet on the top floor. Occupied. The second, also occupied. So was the first toilet on the ground floor. His legs began to tremble, and he leapt from side to side, struggling to prevent a disaster at the wrong time and in the wrong place. But because he couldn’t stand it a second longer, he entered the fatal toilet. In a single blind movement, he stood there, gave in to his need, and whoosh …

All this time, he held his breath and kept his eyes tight shut. But when he was done, he decided on an act of heroism, to put an end to the horror in the toilet. With his eyes still tight shut, and holding his nose, he sloshed water into the bowl, attacking the now almost shapeless piles, till they all came free and disappeared down the hole, even though he felt nauseous.

Now the kid felt better, and he started to read the messages on the wall, with what was left of his fury at the tragedy that had just occurred. He took out his blue-ink felt- tip pen and immediately wrote: “A real reactionary jerk, dropping a load of bombs without cleaning up afterward! Probably never even wipes his ass! Hey, shithead, yeah, I’m a Commie, a fan of Indonesian Comics! Wanna make something of it, ha?”¹¹

Everyone knew that the toilet had been painted to make it look clean and pleasant. Before that, it had showed its real face: a small, marginal room where lots of people liked to babble. The walls were completely covered with comical graffiti responding to one another—radical-progressive ideas, obscene sexual invitations, and the complete works of poets whose masterpieces had been rejected by publishers. In addition, amateur cartoonists embellished the walls with sketches for “toilet comedies.” As a result, the toilet’s walls were thickly covered with mischievous graffiti, some sharp as nails, others idiotic, just like the walls of public toilets everywhere—in bus terminals, stations, schools, stadiums, and even government offices.

Eventually, the toilet walls became such a dirty mess that the Dean decided to have the toilet repainted once again. Thus the communal public diary was erased. But, as everyone knew, a first piece of graffiti then appeared, followed by someone’s commentary, and sure enough the toilet walls ended up once again covered with representations that tried to emulate the reliefs on the walls of ancient temples. This situation troubled the pious students, who loved beauty, loved harmony, and upheld the highest moral values.

One such student eventually entered the toilet and was immediately irritated to see that the walls, only a few days earlier nice and clean, were again full of the idiot fantasies of troublemaking babblers.¹² This guy wasn’t a vandal and had never before damaged public property, but on this occasion he felt extraordinarily provoked. Out of irritation, of course. So he too started to write, even though in his heart he felt like crying. “Friends, please don’t scribble on the toilet walls. Keep them clean, for cleanliness is part of morality. The toilet is not the place to let off steam. Please channel your aspirations to the members of parliament …”¹³

As it turned out, within a single week, dozens of comments were scrawled below the words of this pious student. By the end of a month, the number had reached almost one hundred. No way to tell who had pitched in to return the walls of the toilet to their natural filth. The comments on the pious student’s proposal were scribbled with every kind of tool: pens, felt-tips, lipstick, pencils, blood, nail-scratchings into the concrete, and even bits of brick and charcoal. The urge to comment was so great that the old proverb was perfectly exemplified: if there’s no rattan handy, any root will do. The first graffiti read: “Blabbermouth, I don’t have any faith in our members of parliament. I have more trust in the walls of toilets.” The second went: “Asshole, I agree!” All the remaining one hundred and thirteen graffiti simply said: “Me too.”

Introduction to “Grafitti In The Toilet” by Benedict R. O’G. Anderson, read here.

He has been compared to the late Indonesian man of letters, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, but Eka Kurniawan is averse to that confining, imposing description of “literary figure.” Best known for his sometimes brutal portrayal of ordinary lives, he speaks with Maggie Tiojakin about the roads yet traveled.

Like many aspiring writers who need to pay the bills, Eka Kurniawan started out as a journalist. The 33-year-old native of Tasikmalaya, West Java, then submitted a few short stories to Kompas daily’s respected literary page, and they were accepted.

“People always asked me how it happened that I had my stories published in Kompas,” says the Gadjah Mada University graduate. “But there’s really no magic to it. I sent [the stories] out to the editorial department, even though I didn’t know anybody there.”

Gradually, his journalistic days of meeting deadlines came to an end.

His first book, which established him as a serious writer, was published in 1999, titled Pramoedya Ananta Toer dan Sastra Realisme Sosialis (Aksara Indonesia) A second book came out a year later, a compilation of short stories called Corat-Coret di Toilet (Toilet Graffiti, Aksara Indonesia.) By 2002, the year he published his debut novel, Cantik Itu Luka (Beauty is Scarred, Penerbit Jendela), he was well on his way to becoming one of the few influential writers in the country.

Benedict Anderson, the renowned Indonesian scholar and historian, in his article, “Exit Suharto: Obituary for a Mediocre Tyrant”, in the New Left Review, writes: “It is nice, after half a century, Pramoedya Ananta Toer has found a successor … the sheer beauty and elegance of [Eka’s] language, and the exuberance of [his] imagining, give one the exhilaration of watching the first snowdrops poke their little heads up toward a wintry sky.”

For some writers, such a compliment would be enough to put their head in the clouds. For Eka, however, it gives him more reason to keep his feet on the ground and remain himself.

“I respect Pramoedya very much,” confides Eka. “I’m very honored to be referred to as Pramoedya’s successor. But, at the same time, I don’t really know what to do with it. I can’t quite envision myself as a literary figure, because I have a hard time defining that label. What is a literary figure? I prefer to call myself a writer, because it suggests a profession.”

It is a profession, however, that gets little appreciation in this country.

Avoiding mainstream topics in his writing, Eka prefers to look beyond the normal stories of people living their day-to-day lives without alienating the essence of life itself. His most celebrated novel, Cantik Itu Luka, talks about a woman forced into the world of prostitution during colonial times. The woman gives birth to an ugly daughter whom she later calls Cantik (Beautiful).

“I try to see things not as they are, but as they should, would or could be,” explains Eka. “Generally, I’m inspired by a lot of things — newspaper stories, TV shows, books, etc. I think writers do have the obligation to expose themselves to what’s going on around them, analyze the reality as they see fit and repackage it in a way that will reach their audience.”

Amid the glut of chick-lit, song-lit and movie-to-book adaptations piling up in local bookstores, Eka finds it unfortunate that most emerging writers feel the need to conform to a generic style and the exploration of conventional themes.

“I’m not saying they’re bad books,” says Eka. “But my biggest concern is the fact that writers today have a tendency to adopt homogenous styles. It’s like they can’t break away from the trend, conveniently stuck in one place.”

Homogenous is not a term used to describe Eka; his short story titles include the provocative “Bercinta dengan Barbie” (Making Love to Barbie), “Lelaki Sakit” (A Sick Man), “Assurancetourix” and “Hikayat Si Orang Gila” (The Tale of a Mad Man).

Agus Noor, a writer with an equally unique storytelling voice, has described Eka as a “storyteller who gladly embraces the inheritance and history of literature from around the world.”

A devoted reader of Chairil Anwar’s prose and poetry, as well as Salman Rushdie’s sometimes controversial books, Eka believes that writers are made by the books they read. When people ask him what it takes to become a writer, Eka always tells them to read more.

“They don’t believe me, of course,” says Eka, chuckling. “They give me this look, as if I’m lying. But that’s the honest truth. The more I read, the better I write.”

Eka now lives in Jakarta with his wife, Ratih Kumala, an accomplished writer in her own right. A multitalented writer with a strong interest in graphic design and comic-book writing, Eka has set his eyes on new projects this year.

“There’s no limit,” he says. “I’m always trying to figure out new possibilities, new themes and new ways of communicating to the readers.”

Japan’s role in globalizing Asia has been widely recognized. Ever since the 1990′s, Japan has been exporting waves of it’s cultural products such as anime or animated films, television dramas, music, manga or comics, novels, and so on. These spreads of cultural products across the borders of Asia have sprung new hope for Japan’s relationship with other Asian countries. Through the consumption of Japan’s cultural products, it can promote cultural dialogue, and hopefully Japan can overcome its unfortunate history with the rest of Asia, especially regarding to the World War II.
 
However, globalization not only demands an integration of cultural diversity in the global community. It also reflects peoples’ (nations’) needs to develop a strong self or cultural identity (ies). In this light, one can see that Japan is not only an exporter of media. Rather, Japan has also been receiving various media from other Asian countries; such as Korea with its television dramas.

Though Indonesia it does not share the same amount of attention as Korea does in the Japanese market, Japan has also been receiving media from the former country as well. This study will look at one of these contributions, the novel Bi wa Kizu (Beauty is a Curse). In 2004, Cantik Itu Luka (Beauty is a Curse) was published in Indonesia by one of the leading publishing bodies of a large Indonesian media group, KOMPAS Gramedia Group.

The novel revolves around the life story of a half-Dutch half-Indonesian woman, Dewi Ayu, from the end of Dutch’s colonial rule to the Japan’s invasion (1942-1945), up until the era of communist revolution in Indonesia (1960s). One of the turning points of her story was the time she was forced to become a comfort woman for the Japan Imperial Army. As a piece of historical fiction, this work has been received widely in Indonesia.

What is surprising is that despite the contents of this novel, in 2006, the Japanese company Shinpusha purchased the publishing rights and a translation of this work was published entitled Bi wa Kizu. For foreign countries to succeed in penetrating a target market, every cultural product must overcome the language barrier; in the case of this study, the language barrier between Indonesian and Japanese. This is where translation plays a major role.

In this study, I found it interesting how a Japanese publisher decided to publish a novel about the life of a comfort woman in Indonesia during War World II, and in the translations I have observed that there certain sections of the novel where the brutality of the Japanese Imperial Army was described stayed unaltered. Nonetheless certain sections were slightly altered, probably for the sake of the Japanese market.

This study wishes to show some samples of the author’s observations, and analyses about how Japan is portrayed by the novel (both the original and translated versions), and, through the consumption of this novel in the Japanese market, whether this can be seen as a sign for Japan’s willingness for self-reflection about its past.

But who are they (this whole class of opium eaters)? Reader, I am sorry to say, a very numerous class indeed … I do not readily believe that any man, having once tasted the divine luxuries of opium, will afterward descend to the gross and mortal enjoyments of alcohol. I take it for granted: that those eat now, who never ate before … and those who always ate, now eat more.
– Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater

Her eyes were dreary, with her very curved eyelashes. And if she spoken, we could hear that melodious voice of her. Once in a while her lips would give us smile, making our heart intoxicated, going up to the seventh sky. The more I loved her, the more she loved me too. Then I would touch her fingers and we hold our both hands for so long. Everyday was like that, until she had to leave this cruel world. Alone and languish.

This is not a tale nor a roman. No, my sensible reader, these notes not mean by the writer as that. I wrote this as a warning for anyone that were willing to see for a while, on what things had happen to me. Maybe one of them will be useful to be pick on its goodness.

In the end of this August, the wooing rain made the heart go melancholic, and I started to remember what has passed. In this bamboo platform, my reader, the place where I made this notes, she had slept intimately. Her head placed on my lap. Her small and light body, once a while coughing raising ones pity. In her once dazzling skin, I can felt her fever. But see those dreary eyes, my reader, if we smartly saw, we could still see her flaming spirit.

“Are you happy?” I asked once in a while.

“Yes, I’m happy,” she answered.

It’s enough for me to hear that she was happy, so I become happy too. Of course not all the time she was that happy, on the other time I saw her very worried and gloomy. But she always felt happy when she slept on this bamboo platform. I would hang people heads if I had to, so I could always take her here.

A woman maid would come kneeling dragging her knee, sitting in the corner of the bamboo platform and we would smell the breeze of her body. We would be given two pipes, she would took out those opium balls and heated it above the fire of the oil lamp. That maid would go, teasing by the sway of her hips, and a little of her vicious smile. Maybe she was upset seeing other woman sleeping stickily on my lap. That was how the maids were, their manners and character are not good towards female guests.

But because of this woman who was now sleeping that I came to this opium house. My sensible reader, now her hands that was shaking reaching out to that bowl of opium. Urge by overflowing love, I pushed the bowl so she could take it. For that she gave me another smile, that made two dimples appeared on her cheeks, and I passionately stroke those dimples like I wanted to nibble it.

Under the light of the oil lamp, we started to smoke that opium with the pipes. I heard that she also started to cough, then I caress her hair to make those cough go away. For a while those cough was gone and we started to smoke opium again. In other platforms, people also laid their back stretching their feet, some of them talked, others played with those nasty women.

Half a slept this heart lover laid again her head on my lap. Like she used to be, she would tell me things back and forward, then when she was exhausted she would asked the book that she always kept between her arm and side like a baby titled Baboe Dalima. Because, “I wanted to be like those Dutch women,” she said.

We laughed because that book told about this opium houses, and my reader, it was told that we are people with bad manners and dirty, lazy and morally damage also. Maybe, Mr. Perelaer forgotten, those opium houses build as it was so people who feel that they are good people not to go near to those houses, so they also does not know what actually happen inside there.

My sensible reader, we came to the opium house with 20 cents of provision only. Many people had to work to their bones in the cane fields to earn a couple of tents cent. We were pretty lucky, there was a little inheritance from a relative that died suddenly a short time ago. But, my reader, with that 20 cents we had only a few opium, only a couple roll of tike*. I just sold our antic wardrobe so we could have opium that was better quality.

And from that antic wardrobe we only got a small tip of opium, the rest of course for that owner of opium house. A person that never show up even to see the house for a second, sitting relax in his nice house to received money that delivered by his male servants that guard those opium houses. But my reader, that money not all went into his pocket, because he also had to paid opium tax to the government. Not a small amount of money. He also had to pay to buy new opium, to whom else, also the government. So my sensible reader, the money from that antic wardrobe, most of it goes to the house of the governor in Buitenzorg. They can say that the opium houses are having no good, but they would stay silent because they made a lot of money for those big pockets.

The old people said that a long time ago, opium could be bought easily. Sundries sellers that came by carrying goods on their shoulders and who also sold cane liquor sometimes sell that opium too. They bought it as retail from the Arab merchants, very cheap also. But when the government took over the opium market, those opium houses were built, we could not buy those opium from an unknown person, accept we wanted to be jailed or got fined. And we bought that opium in those houses five times more expensive than the one that you could buy from those sundries sellers, which went around the place. The old times have past, now everything is government business.

Of course my sensible reader will asked, how the both of us can enter the opium house and smoke the opium, that regular salary not even enough to pay them and we had to sell our things, which also the antic wardrobe that had been mention before. Is it like people eating rice and have to eat it all the time, because if not we could die? Or we were trap as a person sink to a deep pool in a stream and did not mean to drink its waters unstoppably because we were drowning? Or we experimented like we tried a cooking given by a relative and we wanted to know how its taste like, then those opium become addiction so we try and try it again?

You have to know that in these times all of the people smoke opium, in an opium house or in one of our own house, and also there were people who smoke it in the field or in houses’ party. I had seen a small boy already tried that opium and his mother let him, she even tried it too. People said, I heard it before I tried myself to smoke it, opium can make the exhausted and tired body gone, and make it more spirited. When I got married, my parent in-laws gave me the opium, so my work would be vigorous, they said. It was right, my reader, that opium made us as strong as a cow spur.

It was right said by the great poet Ronggowarsito, “Become mad, if not, you will not be allotted.” My wife and I started to smoke opium since our first night, to have fun and for our social life. Once a week, if we had the money and wanted to see the stamboel** comedy near the town square, we would visit one of the opium houses, which lately we became regular customers. We spent 20 cents to recover our body, which were tired so we could become happy again. From the opium house we would go home hand in hand, sing silently and eat peanuts.

But all those images had gone stolen by the passing time. Now I only can remember it with a sad heart and an open wound, which are painful. My reader, but let me tell you how those events made me left by the woman that I fall in love so much.

Once a while, which these things similarly happen often, my reader, I did not have enough money to go out once in a week, so we stayed home. It seems that if we did not show up in that opium house for a long time, they thought that we were buying opium not in that opium house again, but from the illegal dealers that often around, which their opium were totally forbidden to buy and sell because they were from the black market. Of course we would not make problems like that and I already said that today we do not have money to buy opium. They never trusted that kind of reason, so they sent their thugs to our house. Those thugs messed up our clothes, wardrobe, bed, and kitchen, to search the illegal opium. Of course they could not find what they were looking for, but when they left, at the same time they threaten me and my wife to buy opium at the opium house. No wonder if we say that this world are crazy.

But not because of the threat that made us came back to that opium house. No, my reader, I am not afraid to those thugs. I am still a descendant from the master of martial art champions and can still took care of myself from all the hit that will come. One time, I forgot what day, I had to accompanied the woman that I loved to that opium stall, not other than because of one particular disease that started to become serious in her body. They said that the disease was cholera.

How I hate to have to remember the disease that chewed away the body of my wife, that her behavior become depressed, swept away the radiant of her looks. I borrowed some money from my parents-in-law to buy the opium medicine drinks, Bleeker. Once a while I met with Isaac Groneman that advised me to just take my wife to the opium house. This man told that he was writing a book that he would give the title as The Book of Self Preservation and The Medicine When Cholera Disease Strike. “Opium can make your wife cured from that disease,” he said. So I believed it, my reader.

At least, the woman that I loved here seem to be happy and spirited and forgot her disease, as long as she was sleeping in this bamboo platform to smoke some opium.

My reader, let me confess that her disease were not getting any good. I could see the foreseen death on the look of her face. I could only take her to the opium house, give her a couple of tike rolls, if in luck I could give her better quality opium, to see those ghost of death scared away by the opium smoke that made my heart lover become cheerful, smiling and showing those dimples of her.

I also read in De Locomotief that I found accidentally, people wrote about how bad is opium. Is opium an evil friend, my reader? Is it right that opium exploiting the money of the poor native of this land? Is it right that opium made the body ruin and not curing anything? If it was right that opium are evil and made us ruin, I will never regret having to come to this place and let my wife to be an eater.

Everyday, my reader, the disease made her freezing and feverish, also coughing. I was sad to see her melancholic, declining and very tired face. I often saw her crying putting up her misery, and pleaded to be taken to the opium house to rid the pain.

That was why, my reader, I am happy to see her please, smile sweetly and talk funny. Is there anything that can replace a pleasure as that? Doom the people whom saying that opium is evil in De Locomotief. They do not have wives that are dying and the only thing that can make her happy was to smoke opium from its pipe!

Until it came the day when her closing time was without mercy. Back and forward I brought opium for her to our home. She vomited as well. A week past and I had to make a decision that was so hard. I … that was why I lost that woman.

What do I have to say, my reader? I will cry remembering her. But it is all right, let the reader know what had happen. I killed her. How it was, let it be buried. I just did not want to see her suffer. One time I saw her so cheerful, smoking her opium, and I wanted that misery would not come again. I stop her life when she smoked that last opium of her. She died happily, didn’t she?

Now let me feel a small happiness also with opium, getting rid of sadness and loneliness, while making this notes. A naughty woman came along to accompany. My reader, do you know the difference between a lover and a naughty woman from the opium house? If you are sitting together with your lover, my reader, you can hold and caress your lover, and you will get to be hold and caress intimately too. If you are sitting together with naughty women, you can hold and caress her, but you will not be hold and not even be caress. Those differences were very distance, my reader, and those differences not only sad, but it also hurt. Believe me.

But with opium, that pain will be swept for a while.

And we caused the clouds to overshadow you, and we sent down manna and quails upon you.
– The Koran 2:54

Initially Maharani had hoped to find a new recipe at the city museum, but this was what she found:

A long time ago, a Bugis fishing ship sank in a storm in the Atlantic. There was only one survivor, a young man with leather pouch filled with spices, who had been rescued by a Portuguese merchant ship. They provided him with the plainest of European food, which sent him rushing into the kitchen where he took over as undisputable master of spices. That evening the tongues of all the ship’s occupants tingled, experiencing a sensation that their ancestor had never encountered.

Among all the history books and other volumes, only one Spanish encyclopedia, published in 1892, mentioned that man’s name, despite his significance to the history that followed. He has been forgotten by history, but to him we owe thanks for sending the traders of the West our way, along with the rats smuggling themselves on the Spanish ships, which came for the direct purchase of more of the aforementioned spices. This was the beginning of the greed of Europe, and the Dutch followed with their huge company.

Actually, the Dutch who eventually dominated the Spice Islands never really mastered the cooking spices they desired so badly. As we shall see, the dramatic rebellion of Diah Ayu is truly proof of that.

And practically everything that grew could be eaten. I say almost because some things could make you deathly ill if you ate them, but could heal you if you were dying. These were difficult secrets, only know to a handful of people whose ancestors had handed them down from generation to generation.

Starving to death would be the most outlandish thing one could do in a place like this, even though that frequently happened. Edible fruits abounded in the forests, and even leaves could be eaten, along with stems and sap. There were fields planted in crops. There were rivers and lakes where the fish reproduced faster than people; not to mention the vast waters of the ocean. And wild animals that seemed as tame as doves. All one had to do was toss something, and it would grow where it landed; if this were not a dream, then it was heaven.

It was in this place that people like Alfred Russel Wallace were astonished at the thousands of species, both alive and dead. It was here that people like Eugene Dubois mixed with those who had live. But among people of that sort, of course, there were also the traders who would immediately begin calculating how much profit was to be made from a country with such a treasure trove.

They established businesses before taking over kingdoms. They sent governor-general, who distributed their bureaucratic machines to all nooks and crannies of the country: residents, assistant residents, and controllers. They subdued minor rulers, making them into territorial regents, and these regents held sway over district chiefs and the district chiefs over sub district officials or village chiefs. The Dutch also controlled the Chinese traders who purchased rights to collect taxes for the auctioning of many commodities: spices, livestock, salt, and even opium.

That is the way business was done in those days. You had to plant what they wanted and not plant what they did not want. We also built long roads, laid down railway tracks, and built harbours because that is what they wanted. Along with all this came: the post office, the telegraph and eventually gaslights, the telephone and newspapers.

Outside of this machine of colonial bureaucracy, there were private sector Europeans who owned plantations and native slaves.

All of this created a great stage upon which a seething rebellion by the natives would unfold. Heroes were born and heroes died. We know of many of them, and we put paintings about them on the wall of our schools. Among them was a woman who carried on the rebellion without a spear of sharpened bamboo. She was Diah Ayu, and she fought her battle from her own kitchen.

Maharani knew of only a few recipes and spices. Most of these she had memorized from magazines. Now, she was impressed that a woman could become a hero just by mastering cooking spices.

Who was this woman? She was a famous cook, and a patriot admired by children. What we know of her legend, most of it learned in elementary school, are actually inconsequential nonsense.

It is hard to tell how the storytellers came to their elaborations. The stories they told now seem to have came as much from their heads as from accurate and substantiated data. In these legends, the figure of Diah Ayu was made strange, melancholy and pitiful. It could be suspected that these were efforts to expunge her from history, so that what little would remain of her would be an untrue image of the woman herself.

Following are some of the errors to be gleaned from the legends. She was sold by her father to a Dutch plantation because of her beauty. That is not true. She could not be said to have been beautiful, although the Dutchman did sleep with her enough to have produced two children by her. The fact is that actually she was purchased because of her extraordinary ability to combine spices, her skill in cooking, and her habit of producing delicious food.

Another erroneous belief about her follows. She stealthily taught other servants in the household how to read and write, and these servants taught the servants of neighbours, so that the servants of the Dutch became smart. They organized an uprising that took place on one unforgettable Thursday. That is not true. Diah Ayu was illiterate. But it was true that she was teaching the other servants. What she actually taught them were kitchen secrets: how to process cooking spices properly.

There were several reasons why this came about. First, the Dutch women, just like their men, thoroughly enjoyed the undreamed of affluence they experienced in the colony. They became lazy creatures, passing time on the verandahs of their homes looking out over tea plantations, while flipping through fashion magazines sent directly from Paris. Second, if a Dutch woman did try learning some special recipes, she was sure to fail if she tried to use them. This is reflected in the efforts of Mrs. Catenius van der Meulen, who traveled around to the homes of the owners of famous cooks recording their recipes in volume after volume. The book looked impressive, but she overlooked the fact that there were secrets untold never included in her tomes.

Diah Ayu was one of the keepers of such secrets. She could make the most sumptuous food, and the secret was in the spices. Certainly it is not an overstatement to say that in these islands there are just so many things that can be eaten. Here a banana stems, there a coconut cluster. Even grasshoppers and ants could be cooked and served up at the dinning table, much as snails and frogs were served. What is clear is that nobody in this country ever had to pray for manna, such as the children of Israel got from God.

But care had to be taken: there were secrets hidden in the abundant luncheon menu. The fruit seed used to prepare the crispy chips could kill you within seven days if mixed with vinegar and salt. These secrets were hidden in the kitchen, in the hands of the women who processed the spices and boiled the tubers. Among the concoction that tasted so delightfully like the food of gods, were combinations that worked as miraculous remedies, while others were deadly and merciless killers. And only the cooks who prepared them could tell the difference.

Finding all this out embarrassed Maharani greatly, because she knew her family took no pride in the way she cooked. It was becoming clear that the city museum would not yield any recipes that would help her improve her reputation as a cook.

She could create strange concoctions that could render a man permanently impotent: she succeeded in doing this after having borne two children for her Dutch master. She then emboldened herself to process dangerous combinations of spices that could kill a person most completely. She chose guests of her master’s family as her victims. Of course she did this carefully and stealthily by lacing the vegetables with the lethal concoctions. And to prevent suspicion, she made sure to formulate concoctions that would take a week or two after being ingested to complete their deadly tasks.

Her working methods were extraordinary, and took as many victims as a battle on the frontlines of a war. Within a year she had killed fifty-two Dutch colonists. At least that it what the newspapers reported concerning “the suspicious natural death” occurring in and around Batavia. It is possible that one or two of the deceased may not have actually been among her victims, but it would be exceedingly difficult to determine an exact figure.

What eventually made her rebellion so terrifying was the fact that she was teaching other servants her culinary secrets, and these servants were passing on what they had learned to still other servants living in their neighbourhoods in the brief moments they were able to encounter each other. Very quickly, the secrets of the cooking spices, which had been previously known only to select group of people throughout generations untold, became the knowledge of almost every cook in town. It was Diah Ayu who had turned the spices into weapons of death, and it was also she who organized all of the cooks so that on one specific Thursday they undertook their culinary rebellion. They killed their masters all at once; but not with a kitchen knife, with mushroom sauce.

That was the worst day ever in colonial history, when 142 full-blooded Dutch citizens died all in one day. This happened in 1878.

It certainly is true enough that there are women (and men) who have used such methods. Mixing arsenic into food, for example, and then fatally poisoning someone. But Diah Ayu’s methods were so meticulous; mixing ordinary cooking spices that everyone was familiar with on a daily basis to bring about a seemingly natural death. That may be the primary reason for attempts to cover up the real history of the cook, Diah Ayu, to the point that little but legend and myth remain.

Today history exposed the kitchen secrets and placed them in Maharani’s hands. She went home from the city museum with the knowledge of how to murder her husband at their dining room table. She would be free of the curse of the kitchen and the bedroom as well. As soon as possible.

A moment ago, she had been a newlywed, trembling, pale and dying. Now, she was a happy young divorcee.

The man had just divorced her. The third pronouncement of divorce was delivered in all seriousness. Their first night together was also their last. Sitting on a mattress covered with a yellow sheet patterned with floating jasmine, Dimples was gathering the few things she owned. Her long hair flowing freely down her back and falling across the pillow, the sweating and half-clothed woman had to leave immediately. She was no longer mistress of the house.

She heard the man’s feet shuffling behind the door, impatiently. She remembered how, just a short while ago, he had stripped her clothes off before he undressed himself. Dimples froze while the man burned with passion. He entered Dimples savagely and then calmed down momentarily. It was brief, but long enough for Dimples to ask herself, Why? Too easy, Master? The man’s response was a frenzied lovemaking that made the bed creak like a coconut tree shaken by a storm. Then it was time for them to roll over, bathed in sweat and out of breath.

The man still burned, not with desire but with fury. He threw the sheet over the Dimples’ body, got off the bed and put on his underwear. Without even the slightest glance at her, he cursed before severing the ties between them and left the wedding bed, slamming the door: “Whore!”

She was dazed when guests lined up to congratulate them, placing white envelops with red and blue borders into a box. Every time she accepted an extended hand, a coldness made her light-headed, occasionally making her black out, and every kiss on her cheek from a woman guest made her tremble, thrown under their penetrating stare.

It was especially so when the woman with the two snotty children approached her. They shook hands, kissed and hugged her. Dimples was amazed at how they could be so dry-eyed when hers wouldn’t stop leaking. The woman wiped away the rivulets on her cheeks with her shawl, ruining her make-up. This only made Dimples weepier. Her nose started to run, and she wiped her face with the sleeve of her kebaya.

A photographer arrived, carrying his camera. They stood in a row. The man was holding her hand; Dimples felt like wetting herself. The woman smiled while the photographer gave directions, one-two-three, as did the two children. Flash! The smile would be eternal, but Dimples knew it was a lie. As false as their gaze of intimacy, which actually held cruelty.

She could still see their stares, laden with an unbearable, raging flame, when the man ushered her into their wedding room. If she turned around, the heat of their stares could still burn a hole in her chest. Before she disappeared behind the door, she promised the woman and the two snot-nosed children, “I will return him to you immediately.” But only in her heart.

The man had yet to reach the spring. He was writhing in pain on a narrow trail with one hot and stinging leg. His big toe shone red, bathed in moonlight and lit up by the torch that had been thrown at the grassy field. The heat spread slowly, as though it was slicing off his foot inch by inch. He would not know how long it would take before his toe was gone, leaving behind a blue decay. After that his leg would disappear, followed by his body and, finally, his soul.

He called to mind his wife and only daughter. He did not intend to die yet. He burned the toe, then tore his sleeve into strips and tied a tourniquet on his calf. The torturous heat did not disappear, although it subsided for a moment. He pitted his luck against death. Clutching the torch, he stood up unsteadily. His body was soaked through. He thought he would die as he stood.

Crying and enduring the torture, the man bore through the field toward the house of the shaman. The torch in front of the shaman’s house seemed to be at the other end of the world, its flame flickering, teasing. Only the shaman had a stone that was a talisman against snakebite, and only the shaman could drive death from his toe. No matter that his stomach would turn at the shaman’s bad breath and wild eyes.

By the time he reached the porch of the shaman’s house, he was almost at death’s door. He collapsed on the steps and, groaning loudly, he pounded on the door. His knocking had grown weak and his hand hung limp when the shaman opened the door, still clouded with sleep. Then the woman stood behind the shaman. The two snot-nosed kids also rose and stood beside them.

“A snake is destroying my body,” the dying man said, pointing to his toe.

“That appears to be the case,” the shaman said. The woman and the two children vanished into the house, while the shaman got a torch and examined the man’s toe. It was blue and torn. The woman reappeared with a small bundle of unbleached cloth before being swallowed up by the darkness behind the shaman, who took out his magic stone. The dying man waited anxiously for the shaman to yank death from his toe, but instead, the shaman asked, “How will you pay me?”

Whimpering, the dying man answered, “Take my pregnant goat.”

The shaman shook his head. “I want to knock up Dimples, your daughter.”

“She is still underage.”

But he had to give up this child with dimples on her ripe cheeks to the shaman or else the poison would tear his soul from his body. The man wept, torn between the pain of death and mourning his daughter’s fate.

“Take the girl,” he said, giving in.

The shaman smiled, emitting a putrid odor. But instead of treating the man, he stood up, turned and went back inside the house. The dying man groaned in a strangled breath, alternately calling out the shaman’s name and then repenting. The shaman reemerged shortly, carrying something.

“Say it again before this,” said the shaman, holding out a holy book.

The man knew the shaman had never read the book, that he had touched the book only a few times. But the dying man revered the book, had never carried it carelessly, had placed it upon his head and kissed the cover, had turned its pages slowly and read from it in a state of ablution. He looked at the shaman, gasping for breath.

“Upon this holy book,” he said hoarsely, “I give you Dimples, my daughter, as your wife.

Again, the terrible odor. The shaman raised the wounded half of the leg, causing the man to groan even more. He untied the tourniquet, which left a pallor of death, then retied it at a higher point. He rubbed the magic stone on the snakebite, the dying man’s howls the dogs in the village to go barking. The stone was again rubbed against the wound, following by the shaman’s reading of his magic charm. The dying man was writhing. When the dawn was still very dark, he screamed and screamed until his voice was no longer heard and he went into unconsciousness.

When he came to, the man found himself in his own bedroom. Sinfully, he called his daughter and said, daughter, you will be the wife of that bad-smelling shaman.”

She was even convinced that the tragedy of the poisonous snake was no more than a simple trick the man had played. Perhaps it was a ghost snake that was in league with him to subjugate those who visited the spring, and the magic stone was just another spell. But, like her father, she honored oaths made upon the holy book, so she submitted to being shown her future home.

The woman and the two snotty kids were waiting on the veranda, standing upright like stakes. She was ill at ease under their stares full of accusation.

Trying to maintain her self-control, Dimples smiled sweetly, red spots blooming on her cheeks, her dimples becoming more alluring. They knew the smile was false, she thought.

The man gave her name, an introduction that was simply nonsense, as everyone in the area knew her. Even if the woman and the two snot-nosed didn’t know her, she didn’t think they would want to hear it, let alone remember it.

She kneeled before the woman, took the woman’s hand and kissed it, pressing it deeply against her lips. The hand was as cold as death. She approached the first-born child, stroked his hair and kissed him on both cheeks. He was silent, motionless. The little one shrunk from her when she touched him, held him and, with a little force, kissed him on both cheeks.

All of it felt like a cheap drama. Her fear changed and became a withering sadness. She was unable to look at those accusatory faces.

Their faces haunted her through panic-filled nights.

Those insomniac nights by the window, she wished she could steal the wings of an owl and fly away to the moon. Nights when her father did not allow Dimples out of the house, because she would soon be a bride.

One night from behind her window, she saw four young men in the security post at the end of the road. They sat around a small kerosene lantern, playing a dominoes card-game. White steam floated over their heads and was blown by the night toward Dimples’ face.

A thought crossed her mind. Now she knew how to free herself from that foul-smelling man of spells.

“Come here,” Dimples said as she went around to the back of the post.

The four young men looked at one another, mumbling uncertainly, until one of them came down and slipped away in the direction the girl had disappeared, followed by his three friends. There, they saw her in the glow from the lantern, already naked.

“All of you,” she said awkwardly, “let’s make love.”

The invitation was like an incomprehensible incantation. They trembled.

The boldest of them was the first to understand, his body heating up, his hand stretching out to the girl to grope her full breasts before recklessly taking off his clothes. Equally bare-skinned, he led her into the undergrowth of a palm, pushed her down and took her virginity.

The other three got their turns not long afterwards, so that Dimples walked home bow-legged.

She left the room with her bundle of clothing. She did not take leave of the man, who was pacing to keep his anger under control. Nor did she take leave of the triumphant woman and the two snot-nosed kids. She walked limply through the village, with pain between her thighs. She had no place to go, as all doors were closed to her and none would receive her again. Not even her own father.

Where she went, Heaven knows. This was better than stealing that putrid man from anyone, although it would not erase the sorrow that had taken hold of her.

But if you ever see a black shadow dancing atop a hill on certain nights, that is Dimples. One night sometime later, she married the crescent moon.