Pavle Radonic ~ Four Short Pieces

1. Pearly White

Bu M. was a fair way out­ta the usu­al pro­file. But this was Indonesia of course. The first morn­ing she rocked up 20 mins. late on the back of a motor­cy­cle, explain­ing lat­er she was delayed hav­ing brekkie with her hub­bie. That was him in front, styl­ish walk­ing shoes a give­away. More on the man short­ly. Bu hums gold­en oldies & operetta while she works—the music was not for her patients. Touch me now, hold me now this morn­ing for the sec­ond appoint­ment. In her scarf and long cov­er a tri­fle sur­pris­ing, before an English speak­er in par­tic­u­lar. This morn­ing she had made the bule, the for­eign­er who was pay­ing top prices, wait over one and one quar­ter hours out in her hot wait­ing-room part open to the sky and with­out any fan, much less air­con. One patient exit­ed after 35 mins. Forty-five lat­er anoth­er pair from the small room, although there was a bench seat in there. All three women. Laughter had rung out through­out with occa­sion­al pas­sages of music. Thought was the assistant—hardly looked a bona fide den­tal nurse—was light­en­ing the ordeal with­in. At a cou­ple of points, briefly and the mat­ter uncer­tain, hints of sharp­er tones sug­gest­ed that the women were dis­com­fort­ed by some of the pro­ce­dures. Being Indo, you were free to engage the pro­fes­sion­al any­way you liked, espe­cial­ly if she was ner­vous charg­ing high fees. (Hearing you were stay­ing in a los­men rather than hotel gave Bu M. some cau­tion, as well as the expe­ri­ence with Bapak Faris no doubt, plead­ing for rock bot­tom in his par­lous posi­tion. The rec­om­men­da­tion for Bu M. had come from Bapak.) Bu was Jakarta-born. Never been to Tanah Abang inci­den­tal­ly; strange for her to hear enthu­si­asm for the place hous­ing the largest slum in the cap­i­tal. So, then, what brought you to Jogja, Bu? You mar­ried here? In fact it was well guessed: mar­ried there. But that was not exact­ly how Bu her­self would have put it. Bu had done her stud­ies at Gaja Mada U, and…“someone took me for his wife…” Aha. I see…No need remind Bu the man had been sight­ed on the last vis­it. A few years old­er, lighter on his feet and keep­ing him­self in trim at the gym most like­ly. A not par­tic­u­lar­ly come­ly woman Bu in her ear­ly for­ties. Bu would not have been much more attrac­tive twen­ty years before either. The tri­fle horsi­ness hadn’t come on in mid­dle-age all of a sud­den. But some man had tak­en her for his wife even so. Bu had some­one to touch her, hold and care for her. It had been clear enough in the momen­tary glimpse of the pair togeth­er. The chap had slid a brief side­ways smile pass­ing back to the bike after he had escort­ed his wife to her door. They had some­thing good going. Certainly Bu was love­ly in her ways, polite, warm, easy in spir­it. Rather delight­ful. It was what had attract­ed the dude, per­haps even more than good earn­ing prospects. (Bu her­self would not have sport­ed such fetch­ing shoes, but might have been proud of her partner’s adorn­ment.) Bu need­ed to know her patient was OK with the scale of her charg­ing for sim­ple filling—about a fifth of Sing or Oz rates. Another ques­tion Bu: Did Bapak Faris ever com­plain a bit per­haps about that music?…Surprise on Bu M.’s face. Genuine like all the rest of her; no pro­fes­sion­al per­sona here. What, the old iras­ci­ble trained clas­si­cal pianist, an Arizonan con­vert­ing to Islam and there­by ban­ished from the fam­i­ly, had sat in that chair there with­out a whim­per while the Simon & Garfunkel had drib­bled down upon his head and Bu her­self hum­ming accom­pa­ni­ment the while? The Carpenters. Lloyd Webber. The woman had worked on what teeth the old indi­gent Prof. had retained for free, with­out any shad­ow of doubt.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

~

2. Nowhere to Hide

A food court behind Beringharjo with­out a sin­gle drinks stall serv­ing either teh tawar or teh jahre — black or gin­ger tea. (Ginger with susu, milk did not appeal when it was like­ly con­densed.) A short sit with­out then. Busy lunchtime, a place had been staked with the fold­er and a cou­ple of man­darins while the teh was inves­ti­gat­ed. Returning from the scout, a young lass—fifteen she turned out, in Sec. 3—was found at the table. On the approach she had watched the tall bule’s stride with appre­hen­sion and grow­ing hor­ror, it was lat­er clear. The hand­some pana­ma only added con­ster­na­tion. Daughter of a cruise ship work­er, talk­a­tive chap keen to prac­tice his English again after a long hol­i­day from that employ­ment. (Cringing from the lass as Dad hoed in inde­fati­ga­bly.) Coming to a stop at the table where the girl was marooned, with Dad nowhere in sight ini­tial­ly, the place clear­ly marked for him­self by this tall stranger she now saw, what was a young lass to do with her­self? The usu­al smile and some blush­ing? Following a brief nod low­er­ing eyes to her lap? What was it to be? Scarved young school­girl hail­ing from a town a cou­ple hours out and board­ing in Jogja, dad sub­se­quent­ly informed. What, would she jump from her chair, grab­bing the two drinks that had been placed on the table-top and flee for her life? Really? Not imme­di­ate­ly. First, before she could gath­er her­self, steel her mind and rise to her feet, this young girl would crum­ple, take to the table-top to hide her­self head down on a crooked arm for shame. Precisely thus. A trapped ani­mal hope­less­ly cor­nered might lose strength for either fight or flight in such cir­cum­stance. Oh my! Surrender com­plete and utter; hid­ing her dread­ful mor­ti­fi­ca­tion. Down for the count per­haps five full sec­onds. Leaping up quick­ly after that with mind enough to col­lect the two tall plas­tic cups and out­ta there. Two min­utes lat­er, here was Dad cir­cled round behind. My daugh­ter. Sorry… Modesty and del­i­ca­cy like you wouldn’t believe. Deference like you wouldn’t cred­it. (The pana­ma was not a young man either; cer­tain­ly intim­i­dat­ing.) Somehow Dad was able to reas­sure her they could return to the table, the bule had express­ly invit­ed. Chewing the ear there­after for all he was worth; sweet young kid squirm­ing. Four or five times Dad had been round the world. Round world trips were much prefer­able to cir­cling the Caribbean and such­like. Once Michael Crichton had been aboard, best-sell­ing No. 1 Jurassic Park. The wait­er had been giv­en advance notice of the Hollywood film about to go into pro­duc­tion at the time. Michael Douglas more than once a guest. Another notable was the King of Jordan. (With his pret­ty young wife, chap was remind­ed.) Table Mountain in Cape Town. Anchorage, Alaska. The Bering Strait. A real estate ven­ture was doing well in Semarang now. Talk the legs off the chair Dad, go on. The duti­ful girl sit­ting angled away from the eyes of the stranger the whole time, rock­ing her­self now and then. Glimpses of pol­ished cheek­bone once or twice; nev­er cor­ner of an eye. Dear me, when a loose strand of mee dan­gled and swung from her mouth, by gol­ly! it did take some reel­ing in. The cer­e­mo­ny of part­ing with dad gave the girl time to slip on her niqab unno­ticed. With that added screen she could bear up beneath the gaze for her own farewell, brown eyes star­ing out like the fox again and colour­ing under cov­er. From the father one would nev­er have guessed such a crea­ture. During for­ma­tive years he had been absent and it was a pity the moth­er remained at home.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

~
3. Fashion Statement

Quart noon in the same win­dow seat on Sabang, the office crowd hard­ly to com­pare with the orang of Tanah Abang. On clos­er inspec­tion the bench seat at 16 Sabang was in fact not red vel­vet at all; more like crim­son indus­tri­al wear fab­ric. Overnight the same 5 1/2 & 2 hours late tidur, dis­turbed by the muezzin, who remark­ably the morn­ing pri­or had failed to make any impres­sion. Warnet first up, then per­haps anoth­er attempt to fax the bank docs to Sydney. (After almost six years one had been finan­cial­ly vio­lat­ed and a ques­tion now whether the CBA would accept respon­si­bil­i­ty.) Difficult to enter that ele­va­tor for the 12th floor and con­front the Sidney Sheldon fan at recep­tion of the office share around the cor­ner. Over a dozen var­i­ous stores around Sabang had been tried before an oper­a­ble machine was found, on that par­tic­u­lar day mal­func­tion­ing for some rea­son. Back in Sing Saturday the oper­a­tion could be per­formed pain­less­ly. Perhaps the woman on the 12th had now recalled the par­tic­u­lar movie star dop­pel­gänger. GROAN.  In this instance at least it seemed not to have been Mr. Bean. The pass­ing thought against all odds too at that vis­it yes­ter­day ought be owned: behind the closed door of the one office there remain­ing for letting—Rp1.3m monthly—after briefest of pre­lim­i­nar­ies and essen­tial­ly word­less­ly (though the woman’s English was more than ade­quate), a flame of rapi­do sex over­look­ing all those rick­ety rooftops at ground lev­el, the phone in the cor­ner and abun­dant desk space avail­able. In a not too dis­tant uni­verse the same was being enact­ed with dif­fer­ent flo­ra and fau­na. Further not­ing too: it would be almost incon­ceiv­able envis­ag­ing any­thing of that kind with that woman’s equiv­a­lent in a Western set­ting, Western garb and English pit­ter-pat­ter. As the old Brits in the 50s used to remark, dread­ful­ly cock-shrink­ing. Admittedly, here in Jakarta the lady had devel­oped quite a bit of smooth front desk blath­er her­self, but there were most def­i­nite­ly lay­ers close beneath the sur­face. Sashaying around the counter and through the cor­ri­dors like her fore­bears had done across the water-logged pad­dies; that glossy fab­ric falling over her bel­ly, her hid­den droop­ing breasts and sag­ging bot­tom. Cleopatra head-dress rich­ly pat­terned in black and gold and shad­ow­ing the tight oval of her paint­ed face. A world of dif­fer­ence. Long had the Javanese, and espe­cial­ly the Central Javanese, devel­oped those mar­vel­lous folds and wraps, the dye­ing and fine­ly judged assem­bly of colours, tones and fab­rics. This was why high class escorts went to so much trou­ble and care. (In youth that kind of per­si­flage had been entire­ly under­es­ti­mat­ed.) Were one prop­er­ly equipped dur­ing pre­lim­i­nar­ies, cru­cial pas­sages of Sheldon might have been piped into the lady’s ear. Perhaps some com­pas­sion ven­tured for poor Setya, being dragged over the coals cur­rent­ly and seem­ing­ly about to be aban­doned by all and sundry, nev­er mind the veiled threats and men­aces. One recalled cheeky Marcel down in Melbourne a few years ago at the kebab shop in the pres­ence of the beau­ti­ful young Arab girl behind the counter. You would take all her clothes off, said the Frenchman glint­ing, but not ogling. Only leave the scarf. In the present case on the oth­er hand the more advis­able course would have been to leave in place all the clothes in fact and work entire­ly beneath cov­er. Aduh! It had been the weary­ing hunt for the fax that was to blame.

Jakarta, Indonesia

  1. Setya Novanto is a for­mer Indonesian politi­cian, present­ly serv­ing a 15 year jail sen­tence for corruption
~
4. Husband & Wife Fantasia

Not an unusu­al sight. It was the actors and the cir­cum­stances that raised the plat­form here in this par­tic­u­lar case. The long haired hip­pie string-bean who either kept a shop at the base of Joo Chiat Complex, or else man­aged for the own­er, could be found after­noons on his stool out along the pas­sage just by the esca­la­tor off the cor­ner. Day by day the same, the man as if past­ed on a bill­board; or as if he were one of the manikins fur­ther ahead. This Saturday rather than an instal­la­tion, sud­den­ly a dra­ma unfold­ing before one’s eyes fea­tur­ing an august Raja receiv­ing from his com­pan­ion, his good wife in her black scarf, hood­ed Arab eyes and hook nose to match, lo and behold! the deep­est, heart-felt bow in cre­ation. Woman going whole hog too, drop­ping her fore­head onto the back of husband’s palm…Everyday scene of course; noth­ing extra­or­di­nary. Perfectly famil­iar in that quar­ter. How many times had it been wit­nessed in pre­cise­ly that form? Day by day this pair took turns out there by the entrance to the shop. Man get­ting away to Wadi occa­sion­al­ly, where there was always a nod offered in pass­ing and a half smile. Going by his shop the same. Wife the same in her case too. In the wife’s case her acknowl­edge­ments came in the form of a greet­ing as a lover might make in a busy bazaar, no telling where the eyes of the hus­band and his clan are. Rarely did the woman leave the stool; cer­tain­ly nev­er ven­tured to Al Wadi unac­com­pa­nied. In fact she had nev­er been sight­ed oth­er than against the wall by the esca­la­tor, slump­ing a lit­tle, droopy lids that else­where could denote only one bad thing. (Sleep depri­va­tion here in the pun­ish­ing heat.) But just now had she returned from a late lunch? Visited her moth­er in hos­pi­tal per­chance?… Surely she could not give such hon­or to her hus­band at each and every change of shift, every meet­ing and return. (They almost nev­er sat togeth­er in com­pa­ny out front of the shop.) What was that remark­able cer­e­mo­ny all about there as dusk fell ear­ly on the first Saturday of March? What bonds had been forged between the pair over how long a term? (Six years and more under the eyes of one wit­ness.) Forget about four wives, harems, gen­i­tal muti­la­tion and all the rest: so often here the heart was raised and spir­its soothed by the scenes of moth­ers, fathers and chil­dren, the elder­ly and their kin and hus­bands and wives com­ing togeth­er and reluc­tant­ly draw­ing apart on these pave­ments. Robert Plant was the ref­er­ence for this chap, the Zepplin guy. Or was it the oth­er, Robert Page, with the great frizz? (Schoolboy friends had been the real fans when Bette Midler’s Surabaya Johnny first began point­ing in anoth­er direc­tion even at that ear­ly stage.) Similar vin­tage in this case, the years weigh­ing more heav­i­ly on the wife.

Geylang Serai, Singapore

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Australian by birth and Montenegrin ori­gin, Pavle Radonic has spent eight years liv­ing in SE Asia. Previous work has appeared in a range of lit­er­ary jour­nals and mag­a­zines, includ­ing Ambit, Big Bridge, Panoply, New World Writing and Citron & Antigonish Reviews.