The Ocean Tells A Story (#2)

By Leila S. Chudori

Chapter 1 – Biru Laut

Seyegan, 1991

There was the sound of rhythmic tapping.

Then I just realized. The gentle tapping was coming from Sunu’s fingers tapping on the door of our potential new house in Seyegan, tucked away in a remote corner of the outskirts of Yogyakarta.

Ah… Sunu’s hair was still short and neat. What year was this? My friends all still looked young. I was thrown back to university days, when we were still hunting for safe places to hold discussions and to spend the night, away from the prying eyes of intelligence officers. The arrest of three activists in Yogyakarta three years prior still felt raw and haunted us.

“This door is made of teakwood,” said Sunu in a strong voice. Among the five of us, only Sunu had a good understanding of building construction. That was why I brought him, along with Kinan, to see the house. Soon enough, Daniel and Alex decided to tag along. Of course, that wasn’t a wise decision, because as usual, Daniel believed that everything in the world was up for debate. The hot weather could even be the start of an argument. The mosquitoes that loved to swarm around his feet would definitely stir up a controversy. Any student who had never read the poetry of Rendra or a youth who had no interest in the suppression of books regarded as “left wing” would provoke Daniel into an endless brutal verbal attack on the ignorant student. Bringing Daniel to the house was not part of my plan. That was where Kinan came in. Apart from being the ultimate decider, we all acknowledged that in many situations Kinan often presented compelling arguments. More importantly, Kinan served as a stopgap for Daniel’s mischief.

A few moments after Sunu unlocked the door with the owner’s key, the creak of rusty hinges filled the air. Before us lay an enormous spacious room with a floor that apparently hadn’t been touched by a broom for months. Several scattered wooden chairs looked musty from exposure to leaks in the roof in a number of places. There were two long windows facing the terrace, and two windows on each side along the left-hand wall. Most of the windowpanes were already broken. The right-hand side of the wall also had a damaged useless window. Alex, who always conversed with his camera, started to snap every corner, every inch of the two centimeters of thick grime covering the floor, every door, and every window that, according to Sunu, was made from teakwood. Alex seemed to pick the house’s intriguing corners, before Gusti, whose eyes resembled camera lenses, overtook him. The rivalry between the two aspiring documentarians of the world was often very inconvenient for us.

Alex was frugal with his shots, but when he did capture something, it was precise and sharp. If Alex appeared emotionally captured in his photos—which I tended to prefer—Gusti, the silent one, projected mystery, distance, and a coldness toward his subjects. If Alex used half a roll of film for an event, Gusti could go through several rolls.

Daniel’s groans filled the air as he attempted to guess which era the last inhabitants of the house had belonged to. 

“Perhaps the Dutch era,” he muttered, responding to his own question with a grumble. “Or maybe the Stone Age,” he added.

Kinan was engrossed in examining the dirty walls. You could no longer tell whether they were cream, or filthy brown. 

Sunu murmured and only I could decipher the words uttered between his rarely used lips, “We could pitch in to buy some paint.”

Kinan seemed oblivious to Sunu’s statement, or Daniel’s groans, sounding just like a buffalo, as she busied herself rubbing the wall, examining the grimy surface as if it was a piece of silk fabric.

“We could use this large room for the discussions. Just put out some mats,” I tried to drown out Daniel’s grumbling. By then he was poking at a spider’s nest in the corner of the ceiling with a piece of wood he had found in the corner of the room. Sunu seemed unconcerned by Daniel’s comments. He opened the door to the room located directly on the left at the back. I trailed behind Sunu, and it seemed like we both knew straight away that the vast room had to be transformed into our office, a place where we would do all the administrative activities needed for our discussions and movement planning. The Winatra student movement had been launched in several cities at once. What a waste of time if all we did was hold discussions even for a hundred years, without ever taking any action.

Suddenly, you could hear Daniel’s cries. Sunu feigned deafness, busily tapping on the wall in the front room. That meant it was up to me to find out what was wrong with Daniel. As I entered the corridor connecting the front and back rooms, my nose was attacked by a nauseating stench. Daniel’s voice grew louder. 

There were three small bathrooms and toilets that seemed to have been used by people passing who knew the house was empty. Daniel cursed and began expounding a theory about why Indonesia would never progress. (Because our society didn’t value cleanliness, and still enjoyed throwing trash anywhere was his answer to his own question.) 

“We can clean this up,” Kinan attempted to halt Daniel’s grumbling by immediately dousing the incredibly rancorous little bathrooms with a hose. Surprisingly, the water tap was still working just fine.

I left the two who were still arguing, and checked the kitchen that was at the back, facing out onto the garden. The owner had even left a stove, a dish cupboard, and a dining table that had probably been used more frequently for meal preparation.

“I think we should take it, Laut. Six million rupiahs a year! Much cheaper than the house at Pelem Kecut,” Kinan suggested, recalling the rental price at our previous house.

“The place is a dump. Let’s find another one!” said Daniel, sour faced. “The location is too far from everywhere, it needs a lot of fixing up, and it’s clear we don’t have that kind of money. Not to mention the locals’ nicknames…”

“What’s the nickname for the house, Dan?” Kinan asked, suppressing a smile.

“Haunted House. They say every Friday night there’s a ghost that lounges around here,” Alex interrupted, still taking pictures of the kitchen, or maybe more accurately the remains of a kitchen. 

Of course, we did not care about ghosts hanging around on Friday nights, or perhaps the spirits cooking instant noodles on Monday nights. We also did not care how dirty or messy the house was. Except for Daniel, the excessively clean and slightly spoiled one, because the cleaning duties were always strictly and neatly assigned. Since we all followed the division of work, it wasn’t difficult to imagine this large Dutch-era house, or haunted house, transformed into our office and home.

Sunu had started jotting down what needed fixing, mostly just paint or cleaning. Windows needed glass and cheap canvas curtains. Guest chairs and some worktables needed repairing and varnishing. Rooms needed a good scrubbing. Sunu inspected the electrical connections, which didn’t seem too much of a problem. We just needed to buy a few light bulbs.

“Only the bathrooms and walls will cost something,” said Sunu, eyeing the walls of uncertain color.  

Kinan nodded, “Bathrooms, toilets, and the kitchen, Sunu. As for the walls, let’s hold off with the paint. I have another idea…”

Sunu looked at me, as if I were the translator of Kinan’s ideas. I shrugged, as I really had no idea what Kinan’s plan was to make the disgusting walls more appealing, other than to paint them. 

With a blank look on his face, Daniel approached Kinan and Sunu, offering a sheet of paper.

“What’s this for, Dan?”

“Try to draw a map of how someone would get here to the house from the campus?”

Before Kinan could respond, Alex swiftly replied, in the sweet lilting accent of someone from the island of Flores.

“Keep going on Godean Street until you reach the market. Then turn right towards the north. After five kilometers, you will reach a crossroads, where you will find a banyan tree. Turn left. 300 meters from there, enter Pete Village, keep going till you pass the kindergarten with the red fence. Follow the road that descends. Then enter a slightly narrow alley, keep going, and the house will be on the left, marked by another much larger and older banyan tree, with roots reaching the ground.” 

Alex’s answer did not calm Daniel. Instead, it turned his pale Manadonese face red. That meant: his temper was rising, the blood rushing to his head. Apart from the various repairs needed, Daniel questioned how people could reach the haunted house, if just reciting the directions took 15 minutes. How could we get funds to renovate, paint, and fix the messy bathrooms? How could we convey to our friends that the Winatra student discussion group and office had moved to the middle of the forest in Pete Village? Daniel said all this like a theater actor, reciting a monologue on the stage.

Kinan responded calmly to the long monologue. “About the repairs, leave it to Sunu and me. You don’t need to worry. As for the haunted house nickname, it’s good, because that’s why the rent is so cheap. About the distance and the confusing directions…” 

Kinan looked at Daniel, still seemingly dissatisfied with not having his theatrical moment, “That’s actually an advantage.”

“Because the haunted house is hidden, we’ll be safe. It looks like the flies will have a hard time finding the village. We’ll be free to discuss anyone’s books, whether it’s Laclau’s works, or Ben Anderson’s, or even Pramoedya’s novels will breathe the air of freedom out here.”

All of a sudden Daniel fell silent. All the theatrical monologues he had prepared collapsed at once, because he just realized how ingenious Kinan was. 

The arrest three years ago of a number of activists for owning some banned books, including Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s works, still haunted us, especially students who enjoyed reading literature or books containing left wing thinking. Surely, the location of Seyegan, in Pete Margodadi Godean Village was a perfect choice. The location of the haunted house was insane, far from the center of the city, from the campus, or let’s say, from civilization. But in Kinan’s eyes, it was a strategic location. We would feel safe to hold various student discussions and activist activities, even preparations for supporting farmers in a number of parts of Central and East Java provinces.

It seemed that Daniel had just realized this clearly. For him, everything had to be verbalized in order for him to understand why Kinan had to make that tactical decision.

Although we maintained the pretence of making all the decisions together, in reality Kinan often made the decisions. And we went along with this for a variety of reasons. Kinan’s decisions often resolved disputes between Sunu and Daniel, between Alex and Daniel, or between anyone else and Daniel. For us, Kinan always thought realistically, and tactically. Moreover, Kinan was our senior. Two years older than us. Our bridge to Arifin Bramantyo, the senior activist from Wirasena who was the core of Winatra. Sunu and Daniel certainly knew Bram from a number of student press activities a few years ago, when Bram was still studying actively. But I got to know Bram closely only through Kinan. (Continued…)

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• Laut Bercerita by Leila S Churdori at Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36393774-laut-bercerita
• Chudori LS. Laut Bercerita. Cetakan pertama ed. Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia; 2017. https://search.worldcat.org/title/1010505308
• A little about Laut Bercertita from Kompasiana, Bercerita tentang ‘Laut Bercerita’; Bagaimana Leila S. Chudori Mampu Membawa Saya Merasakan Ketidakpastian akan Hilangnya Biru Laut by Zakiyyah Rahmi Ayu, April 8, 2022.
• Featured image credit: Mother’s Prayer by Mark Chaves, Bali Street Photography, https://flic.kr/p/JdMuju