The Birdwoman's Palate Read online

  Her writing was peppered with phrases like “beyond all compare” and “the bitter sting.” And there was nothing moderate about any of it. When they first set eyes on each other, at a conference in some town in Europe (France or Italy, most likely), “I knew we were destined to make love.” And then, not the next week, not the next day, but the very next minute—as if compelled by some mystical force, they left the old castle through a back door, ducked below a bridge somewhere on the grounds, and there, pressed against the cold, wet stone, without so much as a single word, she let him hike up her skirt. Then, “moaning,” she “surrendered” herself, “fully,” “completely.”

  That’s how they continue to make love for the next few days—“urgently, as if the world were coming to an end”—on the wet bathroom floor (while the other conference attendees are busy conferencing), in an alcove in the garden (while the other attendees are eating dinner), behind a giant wine barrel at a vineyard (while the other attendees are tasting wine).

  Chrysander is portrayed as half animal, with the lust of a wild ox: “He needs me every minute, every second, long bouts of it, again and again. I allow him to ravish me with his manhood.” And in an old church, gazing at the angel statues and their weeping faces, it strikes her: “I have found my sexual soul mate. He makes me so wet. He satiates me so.”

  But by day four of the “madness,” Nadezhda’s tone begins to change—as does the neatness of her handwriting. “He frightens me. And sometimes, without meaning to, he hurts me. Yet I can’t imagine my life after this is over, after he’s gone.”

  A few pages later: “Why is he always blathering on about himself and his work?” And: “Why does he compare everything he eats to his mother’s cooking?” But such complaints don’t prevent them from going at it in the park in broad daylight. The following day, something ends with a “resounding, earth-shattering moan.”

  By the sixth day, toward the end of the conference, Nadezhda is sure that she’s spotted Chrysander squeezing the breast of a sexy writer from Senegal. “Typical Greek,” she fumes. “Who does he think he is? Some sort of god? That he owns the world and everything in it?” That night, as dinner is being served, Nadezhda empties her glass of wine over Chrysander’s head just as he’s pouring wine into Miss Senegal’s glass. Nadezhda runs out of the room. Chrysander follows her. In front of a statue of Aphrodite, they exchange slaps. And all of a sudden, just like that, they’re kissing, making love until the sun breaks over the horizon.

  At that point, I remember closing the diary and putting it down on the bed. I was trembling. Was this what they called Life? This torrent? Flammable, full of surprises, like in fiction? If this was Life, then what had I been doing for three decades? Apparently I hadn’t lived, didn’t know what “Life” meant. Life had banned me—from sex and from bringing forth little Arunas into the world. I hadn’t even been permitted an old geezer to nurse in his final days.

  What had happened instead: Life had taken a look at me, sized me up, and said, “Aruna, I hereby bestow upon you a deep and abiding relationship with food, for that is all you are worthy of. Unlike your friend Nadezhda, you lack the power of champagne—a power that would entitle you to the blessing of both food and sex. My apologies, but that’s Life. And Life isn’t fair.”

  Had God played a hand in this? And if so, on what basis did he decide who got to have one gift and who got to have two?

  But there it was. I was an unworthy woman. Because I wasn’t a woman. I was popcorn.

  Once I’d calmed down, I opened the diary again. I wanted to finish the tale of the Greek and Champagne. Were they still together? When Champagne went abroad, did they meet up and continue their quest to master 1,001 different sex positions? Why hadn’t she brought this guy back to Jakarta so Bono and I could meet him?

  Then my eyes came to rest on a different name. It was a different story, a different city, and probably a different year. Even the handwriting had changed—not print, but a slanting cursive, penned in a civilized, Westernized hand.

  His name is Aravind. I must give credit to Nadezhda, though, for she truly is an epic kind of gal—from Greece, she swims on over to India, still looking like a million bucks. But the city she’s talking about clearly isn’t in India at all.

  Her language changes, too.

  She isn’t describing what’s happening to her anymore. She’s imagining herself as someone else—a “she,” not an “I”—a character in a film or a dream.

  “She stands on the sidewalk. Tall, slender, with long, glossy locks hanging down her back. She looks up at the window, her lips parted. A fine mist winds among the towers, like a hazy, incense-filled dream, and the city bows its head in sadness . . .”

  Then, lo! He appears. The man she’s been waiting for, a writer whom she has long admired but has only met once, by coincidence, for a mere three minutes.

  He, Aravind, had sent her letters filled with words that made her fall in love, that made her feel justified for being awed by him from the start.

  “Sometimes,” she writes, “three minutes last a lifetime.” They’d agreed to meet here, in this city.

  It’s their first night together, and he offers to cook dinner for Nadezhda in the kitchen of her “thumb-sized” apartment, “barely big enough for both his body and mine.”

  He turns out to be pretty skillful in the kitchen, as skillful as he is with his sentences, which are refined, but whoa, don’t they “pack a punch”! A plate of tomato and mozzarella salad, drizzled with Spanish olive oil, followed by a simple, classic pasta dish. A bottle of elegant Burgundy, and a few macarons from Ladurée for them to share. Later, they nibble each other’s tongues to find out if the taste of white chocolate changes from mouth to mouth. The next moment, they’re lying together naked, listening to a Monteverdi aria rising above the peals of laughter and the footsteps of people passing below.

  At that point, I longed to return to the language she used to describe Chrysander, to his untamed passion, explosive and laugh-out-loud funny, for there was something about Nadezhda and Aravind’s story that verged on cliché.

  See for yourself:

  He bolted upright as if he’d lost track of time. Glancing at his watch he scrambled to his feet and snatched up his collared shirt and trousers, which lay in a heap on the floor.

  “Sorry, darling,” said Aravind. “But I have to go back to my hotel. My partner calls my room every night around now to make sure I’m back. She’s very suspicious.”

  And strangely enough, Nadezhda doesn’t pour wine over his head or slap him silly like she did with that lecherous Greek. “There are times when we must heed our mother’s wise counsel and swallow our pride,” she writes bravely. “For not all men are the same.”

  At that point, I wanted to strangle Nadezhda, especially when I read: “I’m positive we’re destined for each other. It’s only a matter of time. Someone who respects his wife so much will be sure to respect us.”

  I read the diary from cover to cover, and for the first time I was unsure of my feelings toward her, and, also, about my jealousy. Should I have been jealous? Or should I have pitied her instead? Pitied her because she was so attractive to men, and so attracted to men, yet incapable of building a future with any of them? Because at her age (she was in her thirties, like me) she’d never had a serious boyfriend whom she could introduce to her family and friends. Then again, how did I know she didn’t like things just the way they were? Maybe that was exactly what she wanted: freedom. Freedom to have sex without any commitments. Without making future plans. And maybe that was what made her so lucky.

  One thing was clear: I didn’t feel like I understood Nadezhda any better after reading her diary, much less feel like I had any power over her. She’d concealed this side of herself from me because all her life she’d been expected, forced even, to uphold the values and desires of her family. Minor infractions weren’t forbidden as long as they were hidden away, as long as they didn’t interfere with the order of things or appearance
s. And who was I not to respect this way of thinking?

  Nadezhda is champagne, and this also means that she’s generous. She gives off bubbles—and what are bubbles if not diamonds in water? She’s not the type to be easily offended or enraged. I’m sure she wouldn’t be mad if she found out I’d read her diary and that I know about her crazy urges and powerful emotions, even if she has to suppress them once she steps foot on Indonesian soil.

  So you see, it’s impossible for me not to love Nadezhda. In fact, I love her so much, often it makes me weep. For, like Bono, she’s such a slave to passion, to the hope of greater heights, and yet she can’t give free play to all that she is. Like me, she’s lonely as hell.

  After talking, eating, and drinking our hearts out at Siria, we go back to my place.

  “Really? You want me to come along?”

  “Yes, why not?”

  Nadezhda stops sniffing around the contents of my fridge (in this respect she’s exactly like Bono) and stares at me in bewilderment.

  “But you’ll be working,” she says. “You’ll have things to do.”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t mean you can’t be in the same city. And it doesn’t mean we can’t eat together when I have free time.”

  She walks over to the sitting area. I trail behind her, trying to not let the smell of the leftover Big Mac in the fridge follow me like the stench of some infectious disease. I didn’t plan any of this—Nadezhda coming here. But after drinking so much she seemed eager to chat. The more she drinks, the more alert she becomes.

  She sits on the sofa and slips off her high heels.

  “Bono’s coming, too,” I say. “But we’re taking different flights. I’ll get there at eight in the morning; he’ll get there at ten.”

  “You’re going to Surabaya first and then on to Madura? Are you spending the night in Surabaya?”

  “Yup.”

  “Bono’s going to Madura, too?”

  “Yup.”

  “And Bono and I are allowed to ride in the same car as you and your co-workers?”

  “I haven’t said anything to my team, but I don’t think there’ll be a problem.”

  To be honest, I’m not sure whether I’m allowed to bring my friends along on official business. Sure, Farish and I will be the only ones from Ministry headquarters in Jakarta, but I’m anticipating the Ministry will assign people from its local branches to join us in each city and on several of the field assignments.

  When we’re in Surabaya, Bono will meet me at restaurants we’ve read about. In a pinch, he can figure out how to get to Madura by himself, too. The main thing is that we agree to meet at such and such place, around such and such time. This is the good thing about planning a trip with other food-obsessed people. They don’t feel like they’ve lost out if petty little details don’t go their way—like transportation, or weather, or distance, or cost. They’ll only feel cheated if they don’t find the restaurant they’re looking for.

  “Hmm. It would be fun,” says Nadezhda, mulling it over. “I’ve been wanting to visit Palembang and Banda Aceh for ages.”

  Briefly, absurdly, I see myself and Nadezhda sitting in jail, rounded up by the Wilayatul Hisbah—the Islamic police in Aceh province who enforce Sharia law. Nadezhda, with her swanlike neck, her full, poori-like breasts, her hot ass. I can’t imagine how I’m supposed to go anywhere with her in Aceh, even if she wears a burka. Not Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, and certainly not the more conservative towns like Meulaboh and Lhokseumawe.

  “All right,” I tell her. “But that means you have to come to Medan, too. From Palembang, we’re going to Medan for two days before heading to Banda Aceh.”

  She looks agitated. It’s like something inside her doesn’t want to be left alone, doesn’t want to surrender herself to routine. It’s the same confusion I saw in Bono on Thursday night. Perhaps she’s unwilling to stay behind while Bono goes, or she’s unwilling to let me and Bono go together and leave her behind. Or she’s thinking, with that somewhat complicated brain of hers, that this is her chance to prove she’s not a hedonist who feels comfortable only in the more permissive societies of temperate climes. This is her chance to get to know her own country.

  Suddenly: “All right!”

  “Huh?”

  “My schedule next week is pretty clear,” she says brightly. “I’ll join you guys. But only when you get to Palembang, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  This is what happens with Champagne and Popcorn. One makes a request and the other grants it.

  7

  THE FIRST CASE

  The sign reads “Dominica.” It’s an old building from the looks of it, built during the colonial period under the Dutch, and I imagine that from behind those dew-covered windowpanes, I’ll be able to see the orange of the trembling horizon in the distance—like something out of Once Upon a Time in the West. Pure Sergio Leone land.

  As I approach, however, I realize that the building has recently been renovated and now houses a bar.

  When I was a little girl, I wrote in my diary almost every day. I also had a fondness for everything French. One of my favorite names was Dominique. And because my name wasn’t Dominique, that was what I called myself in my diary. I even changed the name of the boy I had a crush on all through elementary school to Alain. (His real name was Ananda.) Whenever the Dominican Republic was mentioned in the newspaper or a magazine or in the news on TV—and you could count the number of times this happened on one hand—I had to know. And who doesn’t love Sundays—dies Dominica, the day even God takes a break?

  I enter and see Leon at the bar. He’s not alone. I don’t need to wait for the woman to lean her face close to his to know that it’s Katrin. And when her tiny purse falls to the floor, I know she’s dislodged it from the bag hook underneath the counter on purpose. You’ve got to be kidding me, I think. Katrin is sexy, no doubt about it, but her tactics are stale. Naturally, she wants Leon to get a good look at her big breasts when she bends down to pick up her purse.

  Still, my pulse quickens. For a second, I think Leon is going to kiss her.

  But then I hear the bartender. “A Baileys on the rocks for the lady and an old-fashioned for the gentleman.”

  All of a sudden, the sound of my own laughter echoes through the bar. From their choice of cocktails, I know it’ll never last.

  I love arriving in a new city in the morning. The morning never tells you how it really feels. It slows everything down. It’s kind when it comes to facts. The morning brings things to light gradually, layer by layer, so that when the city finally makes its appearance, it’s not as a thing ready-made, but rather a thing not yet final. Something that can still be shaped. Something full of promise.

  At 8:20 a.m., Farish and I are in the middle of the city, amidst the smog and the sunlight, inside a Toyota Avanza. With us is a young woman in her midtwenties named Inda, from SoWeFit’s local office here in Surabaya. She’s not pretty pretty, but she’s interesting pretty and good natured. Her lips have a curious shape to them, irregular, a little plump, and it’s easy to make her smile. Guys seem to like this combination. Most of them are not out to date beauty queens anyway. For a split second, I’m jealous. But not for long.

  It’s a good thing she’s here, I think. Good for Farish, and good for me. Farish and I met at the Lion Air check-in counter at the Jakarta airport this morning, and between now and then we’ve spoken to each other a total of three times:

  1.

  Farish: Morning.

  Me: Morning.

  2.

  Farish: I’m sitting in 8C. You?

  Me: 19F.

  3.

  Farish: Is someone picking us up when we arrive?

  Me: Yep.

  I leave Farish and Inda to it so they can work their magic on each other.

  “Yes, that’s right, Farish,” says Inda. “The word is that thousands of chickens in Tulungagung are dead as well. Not just ducks.” When she says “Farish,” she draws it out—“Fariiis
h.” It makes me wince, but I say nothing.

  “Hmm, yes. Very strange,” says Farish from the front seat, in a heavy, ponderous voice.

  As he speaks, the idiot turns his whole body around so he can get a better view of Inda. I look out the window. I can’t bear to watch.

  He continues. “As far as I know, the clade strains of the virus only affect ducks.”

  “Yes, it is strange, Fariiish,” says Inda with exaggerated sadness. “We’ve already checked with several chicken farmers over there. They all say the symptoms correspond to those of avian flu. Who knows how many hundreds or thousands of chickens they’ve already slaughtered since.”

  “They’ve incinerated all the carcasses?”

  “Yes,” says Inda, this time sounding genuinely upset.

  I can’t help feeling upset as well. I enjoy a good barbecued bird, but I don’t like it when scores of chickens are being turned into charcoal just because it’s suspected they’ve come down with a virus. I show some delicacy and try not to ask her about the various restaurants I’ve been thinking of visiting while I’m here—the ones specializing in fried duck.

  “Well, it’s a shame,” Farish says, grinning stupidly. “But I suppose barbecuing them is all for the best.”

  Two-bit playboy.

  I steal a glance at Inda. She looks all bashful, like a country maiden.

  Suddenly I have a headache, a persistent frontal jab, like a shard of glass trying to break through the surface or a giant mite trying to find its way out of the hostile environment that is my head. I can’t bear to watch this bad soap opera scene any longer, so I look outside. Then I realize it’s been fifteen years since I was last here.

  The Surabaya of my memories is dirty, dusty, disorderly. When I last visited, in the late nineties, the air was roasting, to the point of torture. Sometimes, as I took it all in from behind a car window or from the side of the road, it seemed as if the pavement was swelling with heat, steam rising in plumes from the asphalt.