The Birdwoman's Palate Read online

  In other words: a duck that has been smeared with salt, garlic, and aromatic herbs and stored in the fridge for three days, then rinsed and dried before being put into the oven on low heat, no more than 275 degrees Fahrenheit, for four to ten hours. A duck that, after being cooked in its own fat, is removed from the oven to cool before it’s fried and then gobbled up piping hot. A duck, rich, oozing—a heavenly thing.

  For half an hour the only words to be heard at our table are: “Oh my God,” “No way!” “It’s sooo good.” “I think I’m gonna die.” There’s no looking around, no soaking up our surrounds.

  Farish has given in. He and Inda have ordered duck rice, the kind you find listed on menus as a cheap lunch special: a plate of rice along with a piece of fried duck, sprinkled with a mixture of dry-fried garlic, shallots, candlenuts, and coriander and garnished with a slice of cucumber and a few leaves of Thai basil. And of course, there’s some spicy green-mango sambal on the side. Bono and I have each ordered two portions of duck, no rice. When it comes down to it, we’re the same kind of person. Although we’re crazy about rice in every form, in every language—bibimbap, coconut rice, Nasi Begana, risotto, paella, Japanese garlic-fried rice, and good old Indonesian lamb-fried rice—we couldn’t bear to tuck into something that demands this much respect, this fried duck, for instance, if it came on a mountain of steamed rice. The composition would be all off. Rice, which by right should provide balance, would only ruin one’s appetite, not to mention a work of art.

  Luckily Bono and I have ordered those two extra portions of duck, which comprises three pieces each. That way, unlike Inda and Farish, we won’t have to go back if we want more and start the whole process from the beginning. This means lining up at the cash register, which feels more like a ticket booth at a soccer stadium; jostling with other fried-duck aficionados at the serving stations that consist of long tables laden with rice, sweet soy sauce, and sambal; grabbing one another’s orders—first come, first serve!—and gawking at the sea of Sosro Tea bottle caps flooding the filthy tables and floors.

  To add to all this, the restaurant doesn’t feel like a restaurant at all. It feels more like a cafeteria—the kind you might find in the middle of some parking lot, with blazing red walls and a makeshift zinc roof, sprawling, shoddy, crammed with long tables, with ads posted in every corner and signs written in big red, yellow, and green letters.

  When we further scrutinize the serving stations, we become truly aware how absent hygiene is from the place. There are the bowls of mango sambal on the tables, whose contents have spilled everywhere and been left for hours for flies to swarm around. The Thai basil leaves and cucumber slices have been left out in uncovered plastic boxes until the servers pick them up with their hands and plop them onto our plates. There are abandoned duck remains in shallow woven rattan baskets, which have become arenas for fly-to-fly combat. There’s the floor, littered with drink cartons, plastic wrappers, bottle caps, and who knows what else.

  But nobody cares. Wherever you look it’s as if the world has stopped spinning and all that exists is the relationship between man and duck.

  “Damn,” says Bono. “I’ve made the rounds of all the bistros in France, and even then there was no guarantee I’d find a genuinely decent duck confit. And it’s a fucking French staple! Next thing I know, I go to Bangkalan, in Madura, in the Republic of Indonesia, and what do I find? A confit-like dish with a texture that would floor any French chef.”

  “I suppose the only difference is that this version uses cooking oil,” I say, trying to sound just as worldly. “That’s what a French chef would say in his defense.”

  “And the ducks they use here. Sickly. No good.” Farish’s tone is bitter, because he’s lost the bet.

  “And, probably, the fried spices they sprinkle on top,” Inda quickly adds. “Like it or not, it’s this feature that makes the dish Indonesian—it’s how fried chicken and duck are usually served in Java.”

  This Inda woman really isn’t bad at all. Turns out her knowledge extends beyond infectious diseases. I’m even growing to like her.

  “I want there to be two types of duck confit in my restaurant,” says Bono. “The first, already on the menu, is in the French style, served with pommes de terre àla sarladaise—potatoes roasted in duck fat. The second would be cooked in the Madurese style, like this one. The only thing I’d change is the sambal, and the rice would come as a side dish.”

  “Seriously?” I ask. “You don’t like the sambal?”

  Bono doesn’t look entirely convinced about how he feels. “Honestly, if you ask me, it’s a bit too sour. Too strong. And its sourness is a spicy kind of sour, but so what. Not everything spicy is tasty. I mean, the whole sambal lacks complexity.”

  “They probably did it on purpose,” I say, “to avoid having it be too sweet, too stereotypically Javanese. To make it more distinctive. Or maybe they want the contrast to be sharper—to have a sauce with enough character to penetrate the meat’s succulent core. A sweeter sambal would only be compounded by the sweet soy sauce, and the texture and flavor of the duck would be lost.”

  “As far as I know,” says Inda, “even in Surabaya the sambal that comes with fried duck is usually of the mango variety. If there’s time before your flight to Palembang, you should stop at . . . you know, that place. I forget the name. Their duck doesn’t compare to this one if you ask me, and the same goes for their version. Nothing special, I mean. The point is, you can’t escape the damn thing.”

  “Either way,” says Bono pointedly, “I’ll have it in my restaurant, too. Just you wait. But it’ll be a much better version, I can promise you that.”

  “Thai style?” asks Inda.

  “Bono style,” says Bono, without the slightest hint of arrogance in his voice.

  As we head back to the Avanza, watching the crowds of people still thronging to the restaurant, Farish suddenly pipes up.

  “Unbelievable. Look at these people. No one seems to be affected by the avian flu scare. They’ll act like there’s no tomorrow, all for the sake of eating duck. Bizarre.”

  10

  THE TROUBLEMAKER AND THE LEGENDARY WARUNG

  Two banners, both green—the color associated with Islam—greet us on the road into Village T.

  One is aimed at sinners: “Offenders of Sharia law will be severely punished.”

  The other is aimed at the police: “Untrustworthy police officers and those pretending to be police are not welcome in this village.”

  I think about putting on a head scarf, but I see several young women on the road who aren’t wearing them, so I decide not to. Then I wonder what’s going on with the police.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” says Inda. “It’s the jamu-makers’ way of protesting. There’ve been a lot of bogus sweeps recently. The police claim the raids are targeted at those who use illegal chemicals in their jamu, even though most of the jamu-makers here have returned to making their medicines from herbs. They’re probably the ones who are mad as hell. Clearly they refused to bribe the police.”

  “But, miss.” Our driver interrupts us with a heavy Javanese accent. “The jamu they make here really n’doesn’t hold a candle to those from some of the other regencies in East Java. Take Banyuwangi, or Ponorogo. The jamu here n’don’t cure nothin’.”

  Inda is silent. “He’s right,” she whispers. “The jamu here is crap, really. More often than not, they’re just homemade concoctions to make you stronger or help you lose weight. Of course it ‘don’t cure nothin’.’”

  Then she adds, still whispering, “You have to be careful when you hire a driver in Surabaya. Often, they have friends or family in Madura who make jamu, and before you know it, you’re being driven there for a visit. There won’t be anything you can do about it, and in the end they’ll force you to buy jamu. And, um, other things, too. Like medicines to decrease vaginal discharge or odor, Madurese miracle wands—”

  “Miracle wands?”

  “Um, I’ll explain later,” says In
da, suppressing a smile. “As it is, you can’t tell whether the jamu you buy is purely herbal jamu, which usually isn’t very effective at all, or jamu that contains chemicals as its main ingredients. Chemical-containing jamu is obviously dangerous because it can kill.”

  “Yes, you really should be careful,” Farish suddenly chimes in. “It’s dangerous business dealing with chemical substances. Making counterfeit medicine is on the rise now, and very lucrative. Word is the ringleaders have connections to several high-ranking officers on the federal police force. How could they not be above the law if they’re paying thank-you money every month?”

  Suddenly, Nadezhda comes to mind. “I only buy expensive medicine,” she always tells me, in that imperious way of hers. “Imported medicine. I don’t do it to be irritating, darling. But one has to have standards. The odds that they’re fake are much slimmer.”

  Costly Nadezhda. Cautious Nadezhda. Irritating, yes, but so hopelessly irresistible.

  The house is quiet. The only person at home is the patient’s mother, Hajjah Delima—“Hajjah” because she’s made the pilgrimage to Mecca. She’s about to go to the clinic to see her son. Her husband, the obstinate kyai, is nowhere to be seen.

  “The kyai is busy,” says his wife. Her face and her voice are weary. The plants and trees that surround the house look weary, too.

  Hajjah Delima isn’t more suspicious of us, because we’re with Inda, who’s visited before. But it’s obvious that Bono is making her a little uncomfortable. How could he not, dressed all in black, with his spiky hair, his quirky glasses, his bee-stung lips? I think about telling Bono to wait in the car, especially since he really doesn’t have any business being here. When I suggest this to him, he says, “Okay, I’ll just walk around for a bit.”

  “Rizki’s my only boy,” says the woman, who is now starting to cry. “Always getting into mischief, that kid. Cuts class all the time and doesn’t come home for days. One thing’s for sure, if he came into contact with any infected chickens or ducks, it definitely wasn’t here. N’aren’t any farm animals ’round here, sister. Hardly any chickens or ducks neither. Take a look yourself if you n’don’t believe me. Half a dozen chickens belonging to the neighbors at most. But that kid of mine! Mercy me, sister, he’s a handful! Just turned seventeen, but when he fights with his father, the whole village can hear it. It’s just plain embarrassing! The other day he even joined in n’beatin’ on some Shiite folks living in Sampang, though the kyai already told him there ain’t no use n’poundin’ on people who’ve strayed in their faith like that. After all, God Almighty’ll judge them, too. Me and the kyai just think it’s hopeless sometimes. Who knows what’ll become of that kid.”

  “Ma’am,” Inda asks carefully, “would you mind telling us again how and when Rizki began feeling ill? Mr. Farish and Ms. Aruna here are from SoWeFit’s central headquarters. They just want all the information to be complete. And perhaps we could examine the area around the house? With your permission, that is.”

  But it’s as if she hasn’t heard us at all. “The kyai’s always saying, ‘Don’t forget, all people have minds. We can think for ourselves. Don’t just follow what other people say, even religious scholars.’ And he’s a religious scholar himself! But Rizki keeps saying minds are weak, they need direction. ‘The mind is the devil itself’—that’s what he said to my husband. Ain’t that disrespectful? In the end, he went and beat up those Shiite folks, and one of the people who died was my little sister’s husband.” Really crying now, she points to the photo on a table: a young man in his late teens with stony eyes and a mouth set in a hard line. “Now God is punishing the kid. And n’don’t we have to accept God’s judgment? The kyai n’doesn’t even want to visit the clinic. In his heart, he’s already let Rizki go.”

  Who knows what moves me to speak up—after all, what do I know about religion? “Ma’am,” I say carefully, “you said just now we all have to think for ourselves. That means we have to act for ourselves, too. I believe in miracles, but I don’t believe that such miracles are determined entirely by God alone. I believe that miracles are inseparable from human action. Isn’t that so? It means we should try our hardest before we surrender everything to God.”

  The woman looks at me, almost in disbelief, then suddenly she grabs my arm. “But isn’t it too late already? Isn’t it too late to move him to Surabaya?”

  Everything happens quickly after that. Inda makes a few calls, Farish, too, and all of a sudden, I hear that an ambulance will transfer Rizki to the hospital in Surabaya. Inda has already entrusted one of her colleagues at the SoWeFit office there with the responsibility of monitoring him. That same colleague will also ride with Rizki in the ambulance and deal with various odds and ends on the hospital side so that Inda can still come with us to Pamekasan.

  Hajjah Delima squeezes my hand.

  Afterward, Farish, Inda, and I circle the area surrounding the house—clusters of bamboo and trees that look like they’ve never even seen water. Hajjah Delima wasn’t lying—not a single chicken or duck around. We ask all five neighbors, and they say the area’s never had much poultry. When Rizki came down with avian flu, it was obvious he caught it somewhere else.

  Farish, Mr. Animal Expert, seems offended by the absence of any field evidence. “I really hate my job,” I hear him grumble.

  In the end we give up and go back to the car. I ask Inda to pass on this information to her colleagues so all the records will be complete.

  By the time we reach Bangkalan City’s downtown, I suddenly feel something. Don’t tell me I’m hungry. It’s pretty clear the driver is.

  “If you want to know what real Bangkalan food is like, you should try the warung near the main mosque.” As he speaks, he points to a small eatery painted bright green, with swinging doors, like in a Western. It’s located just a few doors away from the Bangkalan Grand Mosque, right next to an ancient-looking bookstore. “Everyone in Bangkalan’s been eating there since my granddad’s time.”

  It’s clear he’s requesting that we stop there.

  I’m intrigued, and I can tell Bono is, too. And this time, my fellow teammates don’t need to be asked if they agree.

  The five of us go in. Five—this time we’re with our driver, his eyes shining. The warung is tinier than tiny and impossibly packed. Most of the patrons are locals. Most of them know each other—religious students from the mosque next door, civil servants, truck drivers, parking attendants. When confronted with our group, especially Inda and me, who aren’t wearing head scarves, their attempts to act indifferent are obvious.

  The space, which consists of two long tables facing a wall, is dominated by browns and greens—a brown-tiled wall and a wood-veneer table, along with a fluorescent-green plastic cupboard stocked with bottles of soda. The patrons are old and young, rich and poor, male and female. They sit in rows, side by side, each one intent on his or her dish. There’s rice with lamb curry; rice with rawon—a sweet beef stew; rice with tripe soup; and Nasi Petis—a combination dish with chunks of beef and a hard-boiled egg, doused in that odious petis sauce. As they eat they take turns reaching for the free sweet soy sauce and sambal that have been placed on the tables.

  I’m momentarily startled by the menu on the large board above the counter: seven dishes, all of them involving rice and something else. Worried that I’ll cause offense, I ask Inda, “Would it be rude if I ordered something and told them to leave out the rice? I’d still pay full price.”

  For the first time, Inda looks at me with a barely concealed smirk. You city folks. You think everything has a price. “Just order a complete set. I’ll eat your rice.”

  Probably because I look so indecisive, the man behind the counter snaps, “Come on! Move it!”

  Hastily, I approach the counter, but once I’m there, my mind goes blank. I still don’t know what to order. I know that this isn’t the kind of place where Bono and I can order a variety of dishes just so we can taste a little of each. And as it turns out, I’m not that hungry.
It’s my eyes that are hungry, and they’ve sent a signal to my brain to convince me that I feel the same way. But my stomach is telling me something else entirely: that it’s still kind of bloated from the mango sambal and rivers of oil from lunch. That it feels like it’s going to explode.

  “Go sit over there!” snarls the man behind the counter, a disgusted expression on his face as he points to an empty chair. He gives me a menu to look at.

  I finally make my decision and whisper to Inda, “One nasi petis.”

  “Pay me back later,” she says, waving my money away. She returns to the cashier with confidence, and I see the surly man write our orders on the counter with a piece of chalk.

  As we wait for our food, Bono and Farish grin sympathetically in my direction. “Good job,” Farish says, his voice tinged with good-humored sarcasm. “And now we won’t be eating dinner in Pamekasan, even though everyone says the food is better there, more refined . . .”

  “Nah,” sneers our driver, the Bangkalan patriot. “All Pamekasan has is sate lalat. That stuff’s no good. Oh, and Kikil Kokot.”

  My instincts were right. When the nasi petis is set in front of me, the very sight almost knocks me out. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I say weakly. The mound of rice dominates the plate, but there’s too little of everything else. There’s a single slice of boiled egg drenched in some sort of meat curry, a single piece of tough dry-fried empal beef, and a single pinch of shrimp-paste sambal on the side. I don’t even like petis to begin with! But yet again, I feel guilty as I watch how the people around me are eating with such gusto. To them, this isn’t just a restaurant. It’s a part of their childhood and their history, and it represents happiness for a countless many.

  In the end, my good-natured teammates help me finish my food. I’m especially astounded by Farish, who, after devouring his rice and lamb curry, is still willing to eat half my rice.