The Birdwoman's Palate Page 12

  “You know,” he says as he gently inches closer to me, “this is the first time I’ve met a food lover who’s scared of rice.”

  But it’s okay. He bothers me less and less somehow. Besides, he’s right. And I like that he’s getting along with Bono, despite the odds.

  Once we’re done eating, out of lingering guilt, I put twelve thousand rupiah into the charity donation box—the price of a plate of nasi petis—as if this action will absolve me of the falsity of my gesture. Then I buy two clusters of rambutans from the old woman slumped in front of the bookstore next door. This perks her up.

  It’s already afternoon, but it doesn’t feel like it. We drive off to Pamekasan by way of Sampang.

  11

  SAMPANG AND PAMEKASAN

  I still can’t believe I’m here, in Sampang. For the past few months, the air has been abuzz with the name. The news is constantly reporting what’s been happening in the regency. I still recall, some three months ago, that at least two lives were lost, dozens wounded, dozens of houses burned down, and the regency’s Shiite Muslims were driven out of their hometowns. The country’s intellectual elite hastened to note that the incident was linked to preceding incidents of conflict. They offered a wealth of historical evidence. But as usual, the federal government, the House of Representatives, and the country’s top religious authority—the Indonesian Ulema Council—all failed, perhaps deliberately, to take heed.

  I search for traces of the violence among the stretches of field and brush, the stores lining the streets, and the markets closed for business, but without success. The landscape looks lifeless, like it’s been turned into stone. None of it seems real, and I feel like I’ve come in late, right in the middle of the movie. Wherever I look, the signs of filth are so apparent and the city center so gray. Surely what happened here a few months ago can’t be reduced to a story of tragic love, which is what government officials and religious experts keep saying, and what the general public keeps saying as well, to the point that it has become fact. What could transform love into tragedy? Every tale of violence has its roots in something deeper than what’s visible on the surface.

  As though trained to read the minds of the passengers he drives through Sampang—visitors not from Madura—our driver speaks up. “You know about it, don’t you? What happened here with the Shiites and the Sunnis?”

  “Yes, horrifying,” says Farish. “And incredibly inhumane. Imagine how the Shiites must feel being forced to flee en masse, not even knowing where they’ll go. What are they, for God’s sake? Livestock?”

  “I know,” says our driver. “And to think that love did this. You know what happened, right? As always, it started with a conflict between two brothers. They were both Shiites, both totally stupid, both totally in love with the same girl. The younger brother was put in charge of the local branch of the national Shiite organization. You know the one, IJABI. The older brother was appointed to the branch’s advisory committee. The older brother, unwilling to be in the same organization as the younger, converted to Sunnism. But he still wanted to bring ruin to his younger brother, out of spite. In the end, sometime in December, a mob set the brother’s seminary on fire. After being driven out of his village, the younger brother was charged with blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison. People who n’didn’t understand what was going on, well, they got mixed up in the whole affair.”

  “Yes,” I say, “but doesn’t that just mean the older brother used existing religious tensions to give vent to familial ones?”

  “Ah, but of course,” says Bono. “Once again, it’s the classic problem of the chicken and the egg—which came first?”

  “If hatred and mutual suspicion already exist, anything can be turned into a reason for conflict,” I say obstinately.

  “But if my little brother dared to like the same woman I did, and if everyone knew about it, I’d want to beat the shit out of him, too, miss!” the driver exclaims, equally obstinate. “It’s a matter of dignity. What’s one supposed to do?”

  No one says anything. It occurs to me that this is another useful thing about food: unlike religion, it brings people together. But then again, bad food may have more in common with displeasing interpretations of religious doctrine.

  As if they can read my mind, none of them suggests stopping in Sampang for a snack. They’re all busy, or pretending to be busy, doing their own thing.

  Inda is talking on her phone with the colleague who is taking over her duties in Bangkalan. “Try to find out from Rizki where he’s been. Before it’s too late.” She speaks in an authoritative tone. “His parents won’t know, only him. Then we’ll check those areas for outbreaks.”

  Bono is busy on his iPad. He’s probably watching Top Chef. He’s a huge fan of Padma Lakshmi, though in his eyes no beauty could surpass Nigella Lawson. Farish is also absorbed in his phone. He’s probably committing the latest news to memory so he can yet again sound smarter than the rest of us.

  And, as usual, I’m alone with my thoughts.

  The regency of Pamekasan. The landscape suddenly changes. Not radically, but still, the difference is tangible.

  We pass an expanse of salt pans, a tobacco plantation, a health clinic in front of a dock, and a military building curiously named “Gunfire Artillery No. 8.” Seminaries flash by, along with elementary and middle schools with religious names like “Al-Islami,” mosques with pale-green cupolas, and people equipped with banners and megaphones, soliciting donations by the side of the road for a mosque. We enter a part of the city that isn’t just neat, clean, and well maintained but also so impossibly pretty it looks like something straight out of a travel brochure.

  We pass the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the attorney general’s office, the Bureau of Logistics, several large mosques, the University of Madura, and the offices for district-level executive boards of the major parties. They all look majestic and important, each one vouched for by a beautiful lawn. Almost every bridge, streetlamp, and gate is painted the color of candy: fluorescent-green, purple, orange, pink. Banners in support of Sharia law scream next to banners that read: “My city is clean and green.” Ads for sausage suppliers and Melt in Your Mouth meatballs are also present to add a comic touch.

  Our driver explains, cattily, that the regent elections are being held today, so the city has, of course, been beautified. No one can make a city beautiful in the blink of an eye, I want to say. People aren’t creatures with supernatural powers. But I decide to let it go.

  As with the other places, Pamekasan’s track record of avian flu infection consists entirely of one patient, in this case a thirty-five-year-old woman who lives with her parents. Her name is Siti Huriah. After having a high fever for several days, she was taken to the nearest health clinic, and for some reason she still hasn’t been transferred to Surabaya. From the looks of things, inadequate facilities aren’t our only problem; we also have trouble on the ground with interdepartmental coordination. The local authorities representing the Ministry don’t have any teeth, especially when it comes to tackling deeply rooted systems and values, like those in Madura.

  “She’s thirty-five? And still living with her parents?” I ask.

  “Yes, why not?” says Inda. “It’s obviously a lot cheaper.”

  “Think how it must feel—living with your husband and children while staying in your parents’ house.” I shudder. I can’t imagine living like that: not being able to eat what you want all the time, not to mention being ordered around and criticized constantly.

  “What’s her line of work?” says Farish.

  “The records don’t mention it,” I say. “But according to the nurse on the morning shift—Inda’s colleague spoke with her and included her report in this file—the woman wasn’t having that much difficulty breathing. Her fever wasn’t that high either, only between 101.3 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit. And yesterday it was back down to 101. So basically, her temperature’s decreasing. That’s what the nurse’s observations say. However, a report
by another nurse, the one working the afternoon shift, always reports it as over 102 degrees. Close to 104, even.”

  “Huh. That’s strange. Have the blood tests come back?”

  “Yes. And they’re negative. Anyway, based on the two clinical reports, the doctor has asked for another test. So now we’re waiting for the second lab test results.”

  “She’s probably not married yet,” says Farish. “That’s why she’s living with her parents.”

  “Or maybe she was widowed,” Bono chimes in. He’s clearly enjoying playing the stowaway on this mission. “You know what? She’s the same age as you, Run.”

  “But I don’t live with my parents,” I snap. “So actually, I’m free to bring home different men every night if I feel like it.”

  Good grief. I can’t believe I took the bait.

  Siti Huriah isn’t the old maid of Farish’s imagination. Her face is in fact quite beautiful, like that of an actress playing the part of a country girl. Her teeth look as if she’s just had them whitened at a dental clinic. Her skin is radiant and smooth, and this makes her look ten years younger. She doesn’t look sick. Even though the nurse’s report says her blood pressure this afternoon is fairly low, 90/60, and her temperature is almost 102 degrees, she looks curiously healthy. Anxious, but healthy.

  Even Farish can’t help noting, “Maybe Madurese jamu does cure somethin’ after all.”

  A little before this, upon arriving at the health clinic, we found that Inda’s colleague from the Ministry’s Surabaya office was already here. I must say I’m very impressed by their efficiency.

  “Where’s the nurse you spoke with?” I ask her now. “The one whose report I have in this file?”

  “As it happens, she was on the morning shift,” she says. “She just went home.”

  “How many nurses are here now?”

  “Two. They’ll be here till tomorrow morning.”

  “The morning shift nurse—can we contact her?”

  “Yes,” she replies. “Here, I have her number.”

  Then I speak with the two nurses on the afternoon shift. Twice I ask them why the doctor ordered a second test, even though the results came back negative. They say the doctor thinks the results should be positive.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “The clinical data doesn’t support it. The blood tests must be wrong.”

  When I examine the reports for her temperature, taken every four hours, sure enough it mostly hovers above 102 degrees Fahrenheit. The instances where it’s noted as being above 102 occur only when the nurse on the morning shift has gone home.

  Inda is talking with a head nurse and her colleague from the Ministry’s local office. She doesn’t seem particularly concerned about our patient’s condition. Or maybe I’m just jealous—too quick to dismiss a pretty face.

  “There’s something strange about this, don’t you think?” I ask Farish.

  “Yes. Very strange.”

  “So, what do you think—”

  “She looks like Ida Iasha,” says Farish. “You know, the actress.”

  “Ida Ia . . . ,” I sputter in frustration, but trail off as Inda approaches us. Her brow is furrowed. From the expression on her face, she wants to go somewhere else to talk. Once we’ve moved away from the patient, she clutches both of our arms.

  “Guess what? Curiouser and curiouser.” She gives our arms a good shake. “Why do you think this patient hasn’t been transferred to Surabaya?”

  We stare blankly at her. Why, indeed? Has her family forbidden it? Has her religious teacher forbidden it? Is she scared of leaving home?

  “It’s because the local SoWeFit office—my colleague over there—isn’t sure whether she really has the avian flu.”

  Now this is news.

  “But the test results.”

  “That’s what’s still under debate. The two afternoon shift nurses insist she has a high fever and that it tends to be even higher at night. The doctor on night duty thinks the same thing. They’re all positive there must be some technical error at the lab. Perhaps her blood test results were mixed up with someone else’s. That’s why the head of the health clinic, with permission from my boss at the Ministry’s Surabaya office, is running another blood test. We’ll find out the results tomorrow.

  “But here’s the interesting part. My colleague was holding the patient’s hand just now. She wanted to check whether her temperature really is that high. Turns out it’s nothing unusual—like someone who has a regular flu and maybe a minor throat infection that causes fever.”

  “Hmm.”

  “And apparently the one who’s been pushing for a transfer to Surabaya is the patient herself.”

  “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” says Farish breezily.

  Inda and I both look at him. What does he mean?

  “Can’t you see it?” he says. “I’m certainly not surprised. She’s thirty-five, she looks like Ida Iasha, and she still lives with her parents. She obviously wants to get the hell out of here. When I was in Australia doing two months of residency, I became pretty good friends with a vet who worked in the countryside. He was thirty-five and psychotic, with a support system made up of nine psychologists, none of whom succeeded in helping him; three psychoanalysts of the Reich school of thought; three masseuses; five yogis; two Pilates instructors; two life coaches who conducted sessions with him over Skype; and a shaman from Germany. Why am I telling you about him? Because he lived with his parents, too.

  “So, let’s go over this again. Our thirty-five-year-old female patient lives in Pamekasan. Wherever she goes, she’s surrounded on all sides by Sharia law and dubious jamu concoctions that probably have disastrous effects on the brain. I can almost guarantee that she’s wanted to run away from home time and time again but has no idea how. The older she gets, the harder it gets. Her wits grow duller. Her nerve shrinks. I bet she’s pretending to be sick so she can get to Surabaya. Without this excuse, she has no reason to leave Pamekasan unaccompanied.”

  It’s quite clear. Farish is the official Scientific Authority on Old Maids.

  Inda looks impressed, too. “Ida Iasha?” she exclaims. “The actress from the eighties? Who remembers Ida Iasha?” She lets loose a ripple of laughter as she goes back inside to speak with her colleague. A moment later, I see her walking to the clinic head’s office.

  Farish and I decide to return to the patient’s room. There on the bed lies Siti Huriah, like a child pretending to be sick so she can skip school. I can see it in her eyes: she knows that we know.

  When I ask her if she has any kids, her eyes instantly fill with tears. She says she used to be married, but her husband made eyes at other women and left her when she was one month pregnant. She had a miscarriage and fell into deep depression. Later, she returned to her parents’ house because, what to do? That’s what people did. “That was fifteen years ago,” she says, her chest heaving. She then confesses that the two nurses on the afternoon shift, the ones who are adamant about her having a high fever, are related to her. They promised to help fake her records to make it look like a case of avian flu. Even better, they said, avian flu patients didn’t have to pay for any medical treatment.

  Inda’s colleague is right; it’s just a normal flu. Farish is right, too; Siti Huriah wants to get out of Pamekasan. She wants to breathe freedom.

  12

  “FLY” SATAY AND “I LOVE MY SON” DUCK

  It turns out that the renowned sate lalat, or “fly satay,” of Madura is not entirely metaphorical in name: the pieces of skewered meat really are the size of flies. Or, to use a popular expression, “as small as a snotball.” They’re served in the same way as regular chicken satay—ten skewers smothered in peanut sauce mixed with sweet soy sauce. But, well, that’s the thing: they’re small as snotballs, and they make my blood boil.

  “What were you expecting, exactly?” asks Bono, laughing. “Real flies? Or ‘chicken’ meat made out of flies, like vegan ‘meat’?”

  Who knows how many p
hotos he’s taken with his iPad. I can imagine the tweets now: Yo, behold! Lord of the Flies in the flesh. Or: Fly Satay Air. Or: Snot Satay.

  “Flies posing as chicken?” says Farish, joining in as if he isn’t secretly disappointed as well. “Aren’t the viruses they spread enough?”

  “It’s because chickens spread even more diseases,” says Inda. “So it’s healthier to eat flies.” As Inda laughs at her own joke, she fiddles with the red cloth sloping over our heads, as if touching it will transform the roadside tent warung into a fancy restaurant.

  “I’m serious,” I say moodily. “This is god-awful. Worst food I’ve ever seen. What’s there to taste? There’s nothing!”

  “How about trying some authentic Soto Madura?” asks Bono. “Good thing we’re in Pamekasan, come to think of it. You can always get two kinds—one made with chicken meat and the other with beef.”

  This meal wasn’t planned. At this point, we’ve been stuffing our faces so much we can’t possibly be that hungry. But since we’re already in Pamekasan, it’s ridiculous not to steal the opportunity to sample the local wares.

  I look at Bono. He mentions the name of a restaurant.

  “That’s not far,” says our driver, from the bamboo platform where he’s sitting and hanging out. I see that he’s not eating, though. And I’m sure it isn’t out of fussy taste buds. It seems he recommended the warung near the mosque partly out of childhood nostalgia. “They say the food is good,” the driver continues, “but it’s expensive. And today they’ll be closed because of the election.”

  “Gah,” says Bono. “So what is there to eat apart from these stupid flies?”

  “Have you ever tried kikil kokot? Cow-hoof soup, Madurese style. It’s a favorite dish among us Madurese. But we’ll have to go to my little brother’s house.”

  I must say, our driver is a strange but interesting guy. According to his worldview, Madura serves as the benchmark by which to measure all matters. Large matters are sized up in relation to Madura at large. Small matters are sized up in relation to Bangkalan.