Bedtime stories

By Seno Gumira Ajidarma

"So, they fall asleep while looking at the moon, Mama?" The mother only smiled, looking out of the window. The moon was shining.

"Shall I draw the curtains?"

"Leave them open, Mama, I want to look at the moon, like them."

The mother refrained from voicing what she was about to say. She kissed Sari's cheeks.

"Sleep well, Sari."

"Good night, Mama."

The mother switched off the lamp, closed the door, and left Sari alone.

Sari held her head to one side. Her eyes blinked while she looked at the moon. She could not sleep.

That night her mother's story was entirely different. Maybe because her mother ran out of stories. Sari had heard nearly all of her mother's stories. When Sari was five her mother started telling her stories before she fell asleep, otherwise, she would lie awake. Now Sari was 10-years-old.

She had heard some 1,825 stories and remembered all of them. Her brain was well trained, she did not want any story retold. Her mother was a career woman, but however busy she was, she always tried to tell her daughter a story before the child fell asleep. When she was out of town or abroad, she called right on time to tell her daughter a story. If she made a long airplane trip, she recorded her story on tape. The mother could tell stories in an attractive way, because she used to do some theater work. Sari was lucky.

But after five years of telling stories each night, the mother had nothing more to tell. The mother had finished with the One Thousand and One Nights, she had recalled as best as she could Aesop's fables, even wayang stories complete with the carangan (the ones developed by puppet masters). But she could not find one single story that she had not told Sari.

"Maybe I am getting old," she complained to her driver.

"Ah, how can that be, Madam. Many have laid their eyes on you."

"Husssh"

"It's true, my driver friends told me so."

"They are assessing me?"

"No, Madam, the drivers related what their employers said."

"So, their masters speak of me?"

"Yes."

"Hmmhh! I don't give a damn!"

"Who says you must give attention to their interest?"

"Don't they know I have a husband?"

"That's exactly why!"

"Why?"

"Their desire becomes more acute."

"Oh, they must be out of their minds!"

"Jakartans are known to be so, Madam."

"Let it be so. I'm perplexed. I have run out of stories for Sari. She remembers all the stories I have told her. I'm confused. I have told her all versions of the story of the origins of rice from Java, Bali, Lombok, and Irian Jaya. I don't know what story to tell her now. I have read Katak Hendak Jadi Lembu (The Frog Wanting to Become a Cow), Burung Pungguk Merindukan Bulan (The Owl wishing for the Moon), as well as other folk tales like Calon Arang, Bandung Bandawasa, Sangkuriang and Asal Mula Gunung Batok (The Origins of Mount Batok). I have nothing more to tell. I'm forgetting things and am growing old. Should I play the laser disc, Beauty and the Beast?"

"No, Madam, you shouldn't do that. Telling a bedtime story is different from a mechanical laser disc player which makes no distinction who the listener is. You can be sophisticated, but first of all you must be human. Telling a story to a child reflects a personal relationship."

"You are smart, aren't you?"

"I may be in a lowly position now, but I once attended a university."

"Which one?"

"Salatiga."

"The University of Salatiga? Were you a dropout or were you thrown out?"

"Ah, Madam, don't make fun of me."

"Who's making fun of you? It must be you who feels that way."

Before they arrived home, the former student, now driver, succeeded in convincing his employer to make up a story for Sari. She agreed, but she didn't feel she was up to it. Telling stories with ease did not necessarily mean that one could write them well.

"But I cannot write stories."

"Ah, if you want interesting stories, the newspapers are full of them."

"They are not stories but news."

"News is also a story, Madam. I mean it can be told."

"Is there interesting news in the newspapers?"

"That is the problem, Madam. Is there interesting news in the newspapers?"

The car was approaching the house.

"Ah, we shall arrive soon. What shall I do?"

"Just look in the newspaper, Madam. There are bound to be stories that can be told."

Sari was in front of the garage with a doll in her arms.

"You are very late, Mama. I am sleepy."

"Like usual, isn't it? The meeting ended late, the streets were clogged. I called you from the car, didn't I?"

The mother took the child in her arms.

"Tell me a story. Quick."

"I haven't taken off my shoes yet."

Carrying Sari on her shoulders, the mother snatched a newspaper from the table. It didn't matter what date the paper was. She glanced over the headlines. When she put Sari in bed and took off her high heeled shoes and her blazer, one news item stuck in her mind. She was pondering whether to turn it into a story.

"What story are you going to tell, Mama?"

The mother sighed. Where was the boundary between a story and reality?

"Listen, Sari, it's a story about a woman."

The mother started reading the news item.

I have lived here since I was eight. Now I have three children and one grandchild. I am 39 now. I consider this place our home, but suddenly I have been forced to abandon this place for only Rp 400,000. Who wouldn't be angered being paid so little in compensation?

It is true that my husband and I live on state-owned land, but I have an identity card and I regularly pay property tax. I have never opposed the government. Now, after my house has burnt down and my property has been damaged, I possess nothing.

They should not abandon us like this.

I do not know where to go now.

What I can only do now is to evacuate some of my children. I am now waiting for some certainty. Rp 400,000 for a family to lease a decent house is far from enough. It would only pay three months' rent. There is no money left to pay for a truck to transport the remainder of our goods. I am doubtful whether we can live in an apartment. I cannot imagine what life is like in an apartment. How can I believe the promise that we will have a better life in an apartment... ? *

The mother was trying to tell the story based on the photographs in the newspaper. She was so occupied she didn't notice that Sari was wide-eyed with surprise.

The bedtime stories her mother told her were usually very romantic, beautiful, and evoking a peaceful nature. Now there was a lot of dust in the air clouding Sari's imagination. Bulldozers attacking the walls of people's homes. In a very short time one neighborhood was stripped down to the ground. Mothers were being led away, children were crying, and fathers were fighting with officials. Sari shut her eyes. The mother went on telling about huge fires, the wailing of people losing their homes, and the heat of the sun which seemed to sting more intensely than usual.

When she ended her story, describing the slowly setting sun, round, red and big, behind the silhouette of intersecting flyovers, the mother felt as if she had been running a race and was now out of breath.

"So, they fall asleep while looking at the moon, Mama?"

Sari remembered that her mother only smiled, looking at the moon outside the window, refraining herself from saying what she was about to say, she then kissed her.

Sari was looking at the moon. This time her mother's bedtime story did not allow her to sleep a wink.

The father who came home in the wee hours was startled when he saw Sari was not asleep when he opened her bedroom door. He saw her looking at the moon while sucking her thumb.

"What's the matter?" he asked his wife who was still watching CNN.

His wife showed him the newspaper she had read before. Her husband read it cursorily.

"You told her about evictions?"

She did not reply, instead she asked him a question.

"You are not going to ban the newspaper only because it has made Sari sleepless?"

Her husband only snorted. He opened the curtain and looked at the bright moon above the palm trees.

* The article was taken from Oct. 16, 1994's issue of Republika.

Translated by SH

Seno Gumira Ajidarma was born on June 19, 1958, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He grew up in Yogyakarta. His first writing, a poem, was published in Aktuil magazine in 1975.

His collection of short stories Saksi Mata (Eyewitness) obtained a literary award from the Ministry of Education and Culture. The work was also published into an English translation in Australia as Eyewitness (1995). He is a journalist for Jakarta Jakarta magazine. Dongeng Sebelum Tidur appears in Pistol Perdamaian: Cerpen Pilihan Kompas 1996 (Pistol of Peace: An Anthology of Kompas Short Stories 1996). It is printed here with courtesy of Kompas.