The Birdwoman's Palate Read online

  “What I’m trying to say is it’s ready on time. In a pinch, I mean. It doesn’t need to be boiled before being fried. So you won’t be late for prayers.”

  “I’m not too fond of pempek adaan.” Not fond of praying either, I think to myself.

  “Why? Because of your sinful ways?”

  “Ha ha.” Wise guy. “No. It’s because pempek adaan doesn’t have fish in it. It’s only made of flour, eggs, and salt. Where’s the art in that?”

  “Flour, eggs, salt, and prayer, ma’am,” says Ewan, suddenly chiming in. “Though, you know, people also call it Pempek Dos. Not doa—prayer—or dosa—sin—but dos.”

  “Because?”

  “Because they often explode when you fry them. And that’s exactly the sound they make: dosssss!”

  I can feel my appetite plummet. Dos, dosa, doa—they’re just not part of the plan.

  But we have a bigger problem at hand. Nadezhda. Crazy, wild, unruly Nadezhda. Nadezhda, who’s landed in this city, acting like a royal princess. Who can tell what her plan is?

  14

  A PERFECT CLUSTER OF PEMPEK

  In my dream, I watch my mother open a cupboard and take out birds, one at a time. Then she lays them down on the kitchen counter and calmly, with glassy eyes, starts beheading them, one by one.

  This time the patient is an old man. Seventy-two years old, in bad health. His file shows that he’s been hospitalized three times in the span of five years.

  He’s old. Of course his health is bad, Priya types over WhatsApp. She’s one of my colleagues at OneWorld. She’s never once been given a field assignment. It’s probably because she always plays the weakling, complaining she’s feeling unwell at the drop of a hat or that she’s sick with this or with that. Like she’s old or something.

  Hey, Run. You do know why they’ve asked you and Farish to investigate, don’t you?

  I’m about to type Why? but stop when I see the text at the top of my smartphone screen: Priya is typing . . .

  To make it look like DOCIR is working hard.

  Before I can respond, those words again: Typing . . .

  So if the corruption allegations get even worse, they can point to you guys and say, “Look how serious we are about managing the avian flu situation. Here’s proof.”

  Hastily, I type back.

  Is it really getting worse?

  Haven’t you been reading the news?

  I stop: Typing . . .

  The people who’ve been implicated at DOCIR still haven’t been taken into police custody. You don’t think that’s suspicious?

  But hasn’t one of them already been labeled a suspect?

  Yes, but it won’t be long before the others are, too. There’s a lot of evidence about who’s involved. The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee isn’t just going to keep quiet about it. And that goes double for Indonesia Corruption Watch. Once the CEC takes charge, DOCIR is done for.

  Ever since the National Audit Board found things amiss with two of DOCIR’s projects—a “system connecting” project and a research project on chicken breeding—the police, attorney general, and the Corruption Eradication Commission (CEC) have agreed that the right to handle the case will fall to whoever obtains approval to conduct an official inquiry. Obviously, the police beat the CEC in this particular matter and have obtained approval first just to prevent the case from falling into the hands of their rivals at the CEC. Once approved, the inquiry, processed so quickly at the initial stages, will suddenly stall.

  I recall Irma and the worried look in her eyes. Was she secretly involved in all of it? Why did she look so scared? Was she scared of being seen as a failure when it came to protecting so many people’s interests? Or scared of being found out that she was colluding with . . . whatever his name is—that asshole entrepreneur whom everybody suspects but just doesn’t talk about, along with that stinking corporation, Proto Medis? Or maybe she’s just terrified that the avian flu epidemic will obliterate humankind.

  So you’re saying that this is all just pro forma? That the findings don’t matter and all that counts is that DOCIR is conducting an investigation? To show how seriously they’re taking each case of avian flu?

  Yep.

  So DOCIR is just using us for its own political ends?

  Totally.

  What if the findings of our investigation do verify that we need a vaccine for human beings? Wouldn’t that be in SoWeFit’s interests?

  Yes. But what conclusion have you reached based on your field research so far?

  I reflect on this.

  At long last, I reply. It’s still too early to tell, Pri.

  All right. We’ll see what you find out.

  I reflect further. Something tightens in my chest.

  Fifteen minutes later, I type: The corruption scandal has nothing to do with the scientific validity of this investigation, Pri.

  However, I realize that my faith in anything apart from food is diminishing quickly.

  He’s been placed in an isolation room, but Mr. Zachri Musa doesn’t look like he’s suffering too much. And although his temperature has shot past 102 degrees Fahrenheit, he looks like he’s only experiencing mild fatigue and chills. He does look very old, older than his seventy-two years, but he still seems strong. When I ask him whether he’s dizzy or has trouble breathing, he nods and massages his temples.

  “Do you have a cough?” I ask.

  He nods and immediately starts coughing.

  Of particular interest is the fact that every time I ask him something related to his illness, he talks instead about other things. He prattles about two Palembang delicacies, something called Eight-Hour Cake and another called Maksuba cake. He describes the organic vegetable farm his family owns, and the local legends surrounding dishes that were once eaten by the rulers of the Malacca Sultanate but are now almost extinct.

  Farish, who can’t be bothered with human contact, unless said human is an attractive female, immediately shifts course. “I might as well head to the patient’s house with Ewan now,” he tells me. “Ewan says the place isn’t far. You just keep chatting with Mr. Zachri.”

  “Okay,” I say. “We can meet up for dinner later.”

  “Where?”

  I give him the name of a restaurant.

  “Okay,” he says. “Just text me the address. Hopefully it won’t take too long. So, about your friend, the really pretty one—”

  “Yes, yes,” I say quickly. “I’ll ask her to join us.”

  Suddenly I’m assailed by worry, but not at the prospect of Nadezhda joining us and all the consequences thereof. I feel that there’s something I don’t know, something that has disappeared from view, much like the terms of reference document in the scandal Priya was talking about—the unofficial one that Proto Medis drew up to ensure B. S. Incorporated would win the tender for the human vaccine project and that vanished from the radar of the National Audit Board when they audited said company.

  Priya’s words haunt me: Once the CEC takes charge, DOCIR is done for.

  Frankly, I don’t care if DOCIR is done for. Or if OneWorld loses a client as a result. Corruption is the country’s worst affliction, and yet we turn a blind eye to it every day. Enough already. The corrupt must be brought to justice. Serve life sentences if that’s what’s called for. But Irma . . . Irma is different. I like Irma. I don’t want her to be publicly humiliated, much less stripped of her position.

  Suddenly, Mr. Zachri grabs my hand. His hair, the color of sour milk, gleams in the lamplight. He asks me whether I’m going to try the pempek at the restaurant I mentioned.

  I nod.

  “It’s good,” he says, giving me a thumbs-up. “It’s from Plaju. The real deal. They use special vinegar. It always has chili seeds in it. And don’t forget to order their Es Kacang Merah.”

  “Es kacang merah?” Red-bean shaved ice?

  “It’s the ultimate local treat,” he says with a grin. His teeth still look great. “You boil the red adzuki beans, then
mix them with coconut milk, sugar water, red cocopandan syrup, and milk. Then you add melted chocolate for good measure. My kids say it’s like eating diamonds . . . made of chocolate! It’s fantastic . . . it’s beyond compare.”

  A bowl of red-bean shaved ice—the image at once takes shape in my mind, like cake batter in a cake pan.

  “But you know what?” he says. “I know another place that serves even better pempek. Where are you from, miss?”

  The old man’s hand still hangs from my arm. I make no attempt to brush it away. He smells like a combination of nutmeg and bananas.

  “Jakarta, sir.”

  “Don’t they have good pempek in Jakarta?”

  I smile. “No, sir. They don’t have good pempek in Jakarta.”

  “Would you believe,” he says, “that’s why I can’t live in any other city. The pempek isn’t as good as in Palembang. I’ve been offered jobs in Jakarta, Bandung—Bali, too. But I turned them all down. And why? The pempek in those places is lousy.”

  “But you can get things delivered from other cities these days.”

  “Hmph! Why bother with deliveries when you can eat it right at the source? Especially since my wife’s already passed, and my kids have already grown up and have their own families. At my age, miss, I don’t want to live too far away from the things I love. What’s left of them, I mean.”

  Did my father have a lot of regrets at the end of his life? Did he know death would come for him at the age of fifty, when most men are still in their prime? Besides his birds, which didn’t demand anything of him, did he also wish to be near the things he loved?

  “Know why pempek is called ‘pempek’?”

  “Is it true it comes from the word apek?” I ask. “Apek” is the affectionate term of respect for an old Chinese man.

  He seems to be impressed. He gives my hand a squeeze. “There are actually many versions of the story, miss. But a lot of them are hazy when it comes to details. The most famous one is a folktale from the mid-seventeenth century.”

  “Oh? How does it go?”

  He proceeds to tell me about a sixty-five-year-old Chinese man—an apek—who lived on the banks of the Musi River. The year was 1617, more or less. As the story goes, the apek was furious to see abundant catches of fish not being put to optimal use. So he began experimenting in the kitchen. He ground the fish into a fine paste and mixed it with tapioca flour. He then told his friends to ride around the city with him on bicycles selling this new food. “Pek, apek!” they would cry, their voices filling the streets. “Pek, apek!” And there you have it: “Pe-m-pek.”

  However, according to Mr. Zachri, this story has several problems. First of all, bicycles were only found in Portugal and Germany in the eighteenth century, and Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin the Second was only born in 1767. Second, and most importantly, tapioca comes from the cassava plant, which only began to be cultivated for commercial use as a staple food in 1810.

  I’m just about to respond when the room door swings open. A nurse wearing a surgical mask and gown pokes her head in.

  “Mr. Zachri,” she says in a low voice, “don’t spend too much time talking.”

  Mr. Zachri gives her a thumbs-up. “Yes, nurse!”

  The sweet old man doesn’t act at all his age, much less like someone who is gravely ill.

  The nurse dims the lights. Plunged in darkness, everything in the room, including Mr. Zachri and the equipment he’s hooked up to, seems to shimmer.

  The door closes again.

  “You must have heard the story about the palace competition.”

  I shake my head.

  “It goes like this. Once there was a king who grieved because his top chef had passed away. So he held a cooking competition. Whoever could invent the best dish using fish as the main ingredient and the right combination of spiciness, sourness, and freshness would be appointed to the position of palace chef.”

  The end of the story is, of course, predictable, but I wait for it nonetheless.

  “Finally, only four contestants were left. Someone who produced a Japanese-style dish, another a Padang-style dish, another a Javanese-style dish, and another a Cuko-style dish. Cuko—it refers to the name of the cook whose dish, pempek, was declared the winner. And so that was how Cuko became the new palace chef.”

  I burst into laughter.

  Mr. Zachri still hasn’t let go of my hand.

  “Miss,” he says. There is a change in his expression and tone of voice.

  “Yes, Mr. Zachri?”

  “Is it true? Am I going to die?”

  My throat seizes up.

  Again I see the image of my father, who died seven minutes before I arrived in the ICU. I see also the faces of his friends, the few he had. On the night of the tahlilan, as verses of holy scripture were being recited, they tried to lighten my heart, outdoing each other with tales of my father. His voice was like a nightingale’s—sweeter than Sinatra’s! He was loyal, willing to suffer for the sake of his friends! He was an artist and a philanthropist—once, all his paintings were bought up by a rich art broker, and he donated the proceeds to help start an artists’ workshop! And then there are the faces of my aunts and uncles, reciting stanzas of the “Surah Yasin” as they share memories of my father that are less than glowing. That incurable swindler! That inveterate gambler! That asshole who couldn’t care less about his own wife and child!

  And, most of all, I see my mother: her face drawn and wrinkled like an apple that’s been left too long in the sun. Her body, shrunken and hunched, weighed down by the pressure of things absent from her life: dancing, laughter, vacations.

  I swallow.

  “Sir, do you know how you got this ill?”

  “Honestly?” he asks.

  I feel the old man’s hand squeeze my wrist. I nod.

  Suddenly I feel the urge to massage his hand with the lotion I always keep in my purse. As if by doing so I can restore his youth, give him the skin of a teenager. But it would be too much. He’s not my father, after all.

  “Miss, my late wife has come to see me every day for the past two weeks. It’s like she wants me to join her. It’s thanks to her that I lived eating the best pempek in the world. And the most delicious Sambal Lingkung. Have you had it? It’s fish meat pounded fine, stir-fried powder-dry, delectably seasoned with galangal, cumin, and coriander. That wife of mine . . . bless her soul. She was a master cook. All our friends said so. Only now, since my wife isn’t here anymore, do I sometimes feel the urge to go to a restaurant so I can eat pempek. And that happens only once in a while. Every time she visits, my late wife asks, ‘What’s the point of living alone, my love? There’s no one in the world who can cook for you like I could.’ She then reminds me of our maid, Atun, who used to help her in the kitchen. ‘That Atun!’ she says. ‘What a useless maid—making Mie Celor like that, with lukewarm water! “Celor” is Palembang for “blanch”! The woman might as well not celor it at all! But in heaven, my love, anything we want to eat appears before us, ready and waiting! And we can eat as much as possible and never get full. Furthermore, you’ll become a burden to your children if you stick around too long.’”

  “Sir, please don’t think like that,” I say, because what else can I say? “Sir, could you please tell me one thing? Do you know how you caught the avian flu?”

  Suddenly, Mr. Zachri winces.

  “Miss,” he says. “I don’t think you understand. I really do wish I were dead.”

  Half an hour later, I find Farish and Ewan smoking on the veranda of Mr. Zachri’s house. The people from the local SoWeFit office have just finished combing the area and look like they’re beginning to pack up.

  Since when does Farish smoke? My heart is still in too much tumult to really care. The head nurse I spoke to before leaving the hospital wasn’t very forthcoming. In fact, she seemed callous. “Mr. Zachri probably won’t last very long,” she said, as if she were talking about the latest Nokia phone model. “The way he lives—it’s like he’s just waiting
for the sun to set at the end of the day.”

  When I examined his file, the pathology test results didn’t look promising. I couldn’t bear it, and I departed from the hospital with the grief and fury of a child who’s just lost a parent.

  In the car, for some reason, I thought about withdrawing from my work with DOCIR, about not consulting for OneWorld anymore—and what I’d do next. Maybe I would flee once this investigation was over, to Lima, to Luanda, to Lesotho—to any city as long as it’s one that would never cross anyone’s mind, not even Nadezhda’s. Then someday, five years later, I would return to Jakarta and start my life over again.

  What’s wrong with me? And now here’s Farish, looking at me with some concern.

  “Hey. Have you been crying?”

  I pretend not to hear.

  “What do you think caused it?” I ask, trying to compose myself. “Mr. Zachri’s illness, I mean.”

  “It turns out the next-door neighbor sells quails,” says Farish in an even voice. “And Mr. Zachri’s maid often buys quail eggs from them.”

  “Just like the case in Riau,” I say. I still remember the details: a two-year-old in Siak, Pekanbaru, who died after ten days in the hospital. The parents ran a quail egg business from home.

  A young woman with curly hair emerges from the house with three plastic containers of Aqua water and a plate of peanuts. Her face hangs in folds, like a piece of cloth someone is in the process of ironing.

  She must be Atun, I think. Useless Atun, who can’t cook.

  On my plate roosts a perfect cluster of pempek. Beside it are two handfuls of cucumber slivers and a pinch of shrimp floss.

  It’s perfection.

  Perfection before it’s drenched in vinegar and perfection after it’s drenched in vinegar.

  Perfection in the visual sense: its color and texture, its elasticity and size, its shape—like a jumbo-sized chicken croquette with a puffy center.

  Perfection in the metaphysical sense: when the brownness of the vinegar seeps into the crevices, the pempek changes color, from pale candlenut to rich caramel. And the look of the canvas changes, too, from ivory to sugar.