The Birdwoman's Palate Read online

  “Hot damn,” says Bono.

  “Wow,” says Farish.

  “Best pempek in the world,” says Nadezhda.

  “Fucking amazing,” says baby-face Ewan.

  I’m soaring. It feels like my head is being pulled upward, rising, almost detaching, tingling with a pleasurable sensation both salty and spicy, warm and sweet, spreading now through my tongue and neck and chest and stomach. Two forces, then, simultaneously at work—one transporting me to heaven, one grounding me on earth.

  15

  CEK MIA’S GULO PUAN

  Due to the simplistic nature of Garuda Airlines’ domestic routes, we can’t fly directly to Medan from Palembang. We first have to fly back to Jakarta and change planes before flying to Medan. And flying back to Jakarta tonight doesn’t work out timing-wise because Farish and I still have to report to the Ministry’s Palembang office for data consolidation and the necessary niceties. Only tomorrow in the late morning will we fly to Jakarta, then wait for the afternoon flight to Medan. Yet, I secretly rejoice. We have more time, and more time means more food.

  We’re done eating several rounds of pempek, and in the end we decide to visit the Grand Mosque for a while. I’m just about to put my bag in the trunk of the car when I see that it’s brimming with treats that Palembang is famous for. Bono and Nadezhda must have cleaned out an entire store. In addition to fish crackers, cookies, and dodol candies, there are also several packets of civet cat coffee, each one worth 235,000 rupiah.

  “Nadz,” I say, “how are you going to bring all this with you if you’re continuing on to Medan with us?”

  “Relax,” she says lightly. “Bono and I will divvy them up later.”

  “Yes, but you’re sure to buy more in Medan, and in the end you’ll ask me to put some in my suitcase, too. Then I won’t be able to buy as much.”

  “Why are you being so selfish?” Nadezhda asks in a high-pitched voice, though she keeps her tone light.

  All of a sudden, Farish, his face bright red—a combination of overeating and awkwardness—interrupts. “You can put some in my suitcase. I have plenty of room.”

  “Oh my, aren’t you the gentleman,” Nadezhda says sweetly.

  The sight of all this flirting maddens me. “Why are you being such a softie all of a sudden?” I ask, poking Farish in the stomach.

  “I shouldn’t have eaten breakfast just now,” Farish says weakly. “Before we went to the store, I ate two helpings of pempek dos, with toast. And chicken porridge, too. You were totally right, Run. I should’ve just had coffee.”

  “You know,” says Nadezhda plunking her butt down in one of the passenger seats. “Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.”

  We’re in for a lecture. I can sense it.

  “But it also can be dangerous for one’s health,” she says.

  “Meaning?”

  The car begins to move. I’m not sure if this is the time to formally introduce Nadezhda to Farish and Ewan—watch out, this woman doesn’t just prey on animals, vegetables, and tubers. She also feeds on eloquence and romance (when the two are intertwined).

  “At base,” she says breezily, “we are all creatures in search of variety. But breakfast is the one moment in everyday life when we need to revert to routine. For this is when we feel safe, carefree.”

  “Your point being?” I interrupt. I immediately think of my panic-filled mornings: waking up late, clothes unironed, no time for breakfast, rancid coffee, work piling up in the office.

  “Just imagine,” continues Nadezhda in that distinctive manner of hers, part philosopher, part poet, part goddess from seventh heaven, all ethereal, “what the day is like before it’s fully light outside, when the city has just woken up. There’s a calmness, a looseness one can feel in the air before everything tenses, sharpens, makes demands. Ten minutes, thirty minutes, however much time it may be, that time is truly ours. We enjoy those moments. We enjoy our rituals, whether they be chicken porridge, a slice of bread with jam or honey, or simply fruit, yogurt, and coffee. We read the news online, watch it on TV, read the paper. In essence, when we wake up in the morning, we determine our caloric consumption for that day.”

  I watch Farish and Ewan gawking at the goddess.

  “And yet,” she continues, “it is at that very moment, when there is something that makes us happier than usual, a new lover who has stayed over, for example, or the incredible sex of the night before, or a public holiday—one extra day to have more sex—that we often feel tempted to eat more than usual.”

  “Really?” says Ewan, his face bright red. “How come I never feel relaxed or happy in the morning? I’m the eldest of six brothers and sisters. My mother and I work hard to make ends meet since we don’t have Father anymore. It’s been that way since I was little.”

  “Same here,” says Farish. “I’ve lived on the same small street for years, and the noise is really something else. There are always buildings being constructed, neighbors fighting, warung owners fighting, and babies crying all morning. Not to mention the sound of birds chirping and the occasional gusts of wind.”

  “Oh, also, when I have a new girlfriend, I usually lose my appetite,” adds Ewan, his face becoming redder still.

  “And come to think of it,” says Farish, “I’ve never brought a girl home for . . .” At this point he stops, as if grasping for the least vulgar word he can find. Suddenly I feel a strange tingle on the back of my neck.

  “My point is,” says Nadezhda, who is rarely shaken by the arguments of others, “it is when we feel relaxed and comfortable that we feel tempted to eat more than usual. Especially foods rich in carbohydrates. A croissant slathered with butter, a sliver of cake from a friend, a plate of fried rice, the leftover rendang stew from the night before.”

  “After a big breakfast, wouldn’t you reduce the amount you eat at lunch and dinner?” asks Farish in a faux academic tone, trying to overcome his embarrassment.

  “Mmm, not always. Someone who breakfasts like a king will usually continue to keep eating like a king. Lunch and dinner too will be eaten as if he were a king. In essence,” says Nadezhda, her voice growing firmer still, “the benchmark we set for ourselves will change and, all of a sudden, in the ensuing hours our stomachs and heads will demand the same. The more we grant ourselves concessions, the more our stomachs will demand. And that is why breakfast can be so dangerous.”

  “Well,” says Farish, “I always eat like a beggar. Breakfast, lunch, dinner—it’s all the same. I mean, except for now . . .”

  “Hah!” I say with a grin. “Look who ate chicken porridge and two helpings of pempek dos this morning, followed less than four hours later by still more pempek, two slices of Bugis cake, and two glasses of orange juice sweetened with sugar.”

  I see Bono tilt his head in my direction. Up to this point, he’s been quiet, doing things on his iPad.

  “Run,” he says tonelessly, “there’s no point in avoiding breakfast like you do, then polishing off five kapal selam-style pempek stuffed with boiled eggs and three fat batons of lenjer-style pempek in a single sitting for lunch. That’s not optimizing your fish-protein consumption. That’s just loading up on bad fat from that garbage they use as cooking oil.”

  I do want to see the Grand Mosque, but there’s actually another reason why I want to go—the Gulo Puan vendors. I’m not sure if they’ll be there today since it isn’t Friday, but what’s the harm in trying?

  Walking along the footpath from the parking lot to the mosque, I realize that there’s something different about this place. For a while I concentrate on taking in my surroundings: the row of leafy trees that soften the sun’s rays; the pointed tips of the minarets, two hundred and sixty years old; and in the spaces between them, refreshing bursts of palm trees, green and lush, adding an extra texture to the canvas. The grounds of the mosque, those beautiful new tiles, cool to the touch and strangely moving. Malayness and Chineseness clinging to each and every architectural detail. The orderliness of thing
s.

  Nadezhda and Bono seem to be relishing every moment, their fingers working their respective electronic devices, their lips moving nonstop. The two of them have a flair for photography. They never click just any old way, like the people who take photos with the sole purpose of putting them up on Facebook or Instagram. And whenever they upload photos to social media from their trips, they never fail to add an explanation:

  Clock towers remind us of older times, when the West dominated public spaces and real life was shut away behind boarded-up windows and doors. (Nadezhda)

  My fellow foodies, there’s more to the northern Jakarta area of Pluit than perennial flooding and all manner of things forbidden. In the open-air food court at Pluit Sakti Raya, you’ll find a Medan-style shaved ice and a giant freshwater prawn soto that will prove you don’t need to be a sinner to enjoy life. Carpe diem! (Bono)

  I suddenly feel a rush of tenderness toward them. Their passion for the seedy and sublime still surprises me to this day.

  I hear the opening lines of a sermon being broadcast over the mosque loudspeakers. The sound fills the air. But I’m not bothered in the least, perhaps because the volume is low, unobtrusive, questing. From different angles I again examine up close the architectural lines of the mosque, the roof corners that jut skyward and the greenness of their tips, the calligraphy adorning the windows, the play of the mosaics across the floor, the solemn, almost stately entranceway—part temple, part mosque.

  The sermon continues, like background music. It neither startles nor rankles. I walk toward the majestic reflecting pool and its sparkling fountain. The sound of spraying water sharpens my senses for some reason, and gradually, just like that, the words reach my ears. I don’t resist. The longer I listen, the more I realize that what is different about the mosque is that the person delivering the sermon is speaking not about sin, restrictions, or even laws. He is speaking about beauty, peace, the magical. His voice is a steady but inquisitive vibrato, almost full of wonder at its own quiet searching.

  I linger by the side of the pool for a long time and lose myself in thought.

  I hear Nadezhda’s footsteps and look up. Her eyes are fixed on an old woman who holds her hands under a faucet that dispenses holy water. Above it is a sign: “This faucet dispenses certified holy water for ablutions.”

  The water she awaits fails to flow.

  “Ach!” we hear the old woman exclaim.

  “Maybe they reserve the holy water for Friday prayers,” I hear Nadezhda say to her, trying to make light of it.

  The old woman doesn’t seem to hear. Yet she won’t waste a minute more of her time. Nadezhda and I watch her get up and walk away from the fountain, as if to avoid being crushed by disappointment.

  “Don’t tell me you’re right,” I say.

  She sits beside me, on the edge of the reflecting pool. She looks serious.

  “It’d be so depressing if I were,” she says. “Would they really lie about something so sacred? If so, it’s doubly sinful—using religion to make empty promises.”

  A moment later, I notice Bono waving at us from afar. Even at this distance he looks excited. He appears to be holding something in one of his hands—a bowl, from the looks of it—and occasionally he ladles its contents into his mouth. Nadezhda and I approach.

  And then I realize my darling friend has found the gulo puan I’m so curious about.

  There are so many unpleasant facts in life, and this is just one of them: gulo puan is on the verge of extinction. But here, on the grounds of the Grand Mosque, this snack, renowned for being the food of sovereigns in the days of the Malacca Sultanate, can be found—and usually only on Fridays. If one comes across it on any other day, it will be nothing short of coincidence, like today.

  Cek Mia is a mother of four. She had no intention of coming to the Grand Mosque this morning. Like all the other gulo puan vendors, she always tries to get here half an hour before the men finish their Friday prayers. After her children leave for school, on days that aren’t Friday, she usually spends the morning shopping for groceries and ingredients for her wares. Sometimes on the way home she stops somewhere to satisfy her hankering for a sweet es kacang or some pempek. But for the past few days, she’s been ecstatic.

  Her big brother’s good friend, a businessman from Bandung, has recently come to visit. He has a potbelly and a booming voice, and seems to have fallen in love. He can’t stop talking about how sexy Cek Mia is—look at those curves, look at that skin—even though she’s married with four children. Not only that, he feasts on her gulo puan as if it’s the only food in the world, and has promised to fund her business. He’s even offered to help bring gulo puan to Bandung and Jakarta. “The Javanese love sweet things, dear sister,” he said this morning. “However,”—here he winked—“to achieve success, you have to be willing to take risks!”

  When Cek Mia asked what he meant by “risks,” Mr. Potbelly leaned his face in close and whispered, “I do want to invest. But before one invests, one wants to have an idea of how the market will react.” And because Cek Mia just stood there staring at him, Mr. Potbelly continued: “Come, now. Are you brave enough to hawk your wares at the Grand Mosque today? How about we conduct a little experiment. Let’s see how many people buy it. And how long you last before the authorities give you a talking-to.”

  At first Cek Mia was hesitant. Why take the risk of being shooed away or arrested, of embarrassing her family and herself? There had been a hiatus for almost a decade since she resumed selling gulo puan at the beginning of the year, long before they spruced up the Grand Mosque to make it what it is today. She still has several loyal customers, even if their numbers are few. And although she gets wistful whenever she remembers her prime—when a day’s work would mean selling thirty-three pounds of gulo puan, whereas now she’s lucky if she sells fifteen portions—she is still a woman of faith. She believes that gulo puan isn’t meant to bring happiness to everyone in this world. Rather, by bringing happiness to just a select handful of people, she is doing something important and useful.

  But this morning, something caused her to change her mind. As she was clearing the plates from breakfast, suddenly her husband piped up. “Listen. Have you thought of retiring from selling gulo puan?”

  Cek Mia looked at her husband incredulously.

  “Come on. Take a look in the mirror. Your income’s not exactly ballooning, but you are.”

  So hurt was Cek Mia that she almost asked for a divorce on the spot. How dare he criticize me, she thought. After I’ve borne him four children and tended to all his needs like a . . . like a . . . goddamned servant. But then she recalled that offer: the offer of a man who knows how to appreciate a woman. And she thought, Want to see what success looks like? I’ll show you. I’ll become the lady mistress of a gulo puan empire. And once I’m rich and famous, I’ll divorce your sorry ass!

  Bono is telling us about his plans to open a second Siria—a Siria II—in an upscale neighborhood in Jakarta. Pondok Indah, perhaps. This isn’t an interesting topic of conversation for Farish and Ewan; they’re busy chatting with each other as they enjoy bowls of tekwan fishcake soup. Tekwan, the close relative of the pempek.

  Nadezhda doesn’t look convinced about Bono’s plans.

  She doesn’t look too convinced about this restaurant either, which serves cuisine from the Dempo region of Sumatra, and whose house specialty, the locals say, is pempek made from the flesh of the Belida fish. It’s surrounded by convenience stores and shops selling auto parts and baking equipment.

  “But here, the belida is prized more highly than mackerel.” I say this in the restaurant’s defense, though I still prefer by far the marvel that is the pempek we ate at that other place. “Originally, all pempek was made using belida. Only recently did people start using snakehead fish instead because it costs less and is easier to find. And after that came mackerel.”

  “Yes,” Nadezhda says, “but pempek’s taste isn’t wholly dependent on the type of fish. For some rea
son, these taste too rubbery, too starchy. It’s like the difference between the dim sum in Hong Kong and the dim sum in Shanghai.”

  She’s right. I stare at my Pempek Kapal Selam. It’s so beautiful in its shapelessness, you can almost taste it. It makes you weep. But when I start to explain this, Bono immediately cuts me off.

  “Nadz is right,” he says, even though I’m not suggesting she isn’t. “The fish is clearly superior, though I also liked the pempek at the other place. They were crispier on the outside.”

  He dips his spoon into Farish’s bowl, scoops up several slices of tekwan, and savors them. “Wow,” he says at long last. “Now this is good.”

  In a flash, my spoon and Nadezhda’s enter the fray. It is a very good, stunning broth: clean tasting, sober—with just the right amount of bamboo shoots and cucumber garnish. And the tekwan are soft and supple.

  To his credit, the dish’s rightful owner doesn’t seem perturbed in the least. He simply leans back in his chair and smiles, having grown accustomed to our antics, like that of children.

  “I’ll buy you another bowl,” Nadezhda says sweetly as she calls a waiter over. “Let’s give their celimpungan and mentu a try as well. I’ve heard they’re good. I want to try the one with papaya filling.”

  Farish’s grin widens. The Nadezhda factor is at full throttle.

  I hear my stomach gurgling in protest.

  “Come on. The Pondok Indah set will still brave hours of traffic to go to Siria I. After all, this is what they’ve been doing for months.” Nadezhda prattles away, returning to the initial topic of conversation.

  I gaze at her full lips and her even white teeth. How is it possible for her teeth to still be so white after being relentlessly assaulted by red wine, coffee, and now vinegar?

  “Because that’s the consumptive behavior of South Jakarta’s upper class. Where they’re seen hanging out is very important for their image.”