Caught Between Two Worlds

By Dewi Anggraeni

I can see that my mother has stopped arguing with my father that my deafness is curable through high-tech surgery in Melbourne. They can see that though I rarely can hear them quarreling, as they go to another room for that, their tense and often mutually defensive body language upsets me.

"Sweetheart, remember this," my father says, pulling the hospital blanket over my legs, "your deafness is not the result of a curse. The ear surgeon has an excellent track record. He'll bring your full hearing back, mark my word. He led the team who developed the latest and most sophisticated bionic ear."

I try not to look at my mother when I answer, "Yes, Dad".

"I know you can't help being influenced by your mother and grandmother. They believe that our family has been cursed by that wretched woman. Narida, sweetheart, you must resist that. You must trust our medical technology and my surgeon friend. You mustn't give up. Promise me, my darling. Promise me."

My father doesn't realize how exhausting it is for me to work out what actually is happening to me. Just when I'm at screaming point, a nurse comes in and introduces herself to me, then to my parents. "How do you feel, Narida? Nervous? Don't be. The anesthetist will be here shortly."

I force a smile, then turn towards the wall, away from them all. I want to be left alone for a few minutes. My eyes begin to blur with tears. My mother leaves after saying that she'll fetch a jug of water, then my father follows, ostensibly to have a cigarette outside.

"So you're Rudi Strachan's beautiful daughter." If I hear correctly, those are the words uttered by a solid-built man of about 40, dressed in designer jeans and open shirt.

"I know your parents well. I used to go to school with your Dad."

I'm still working out whether he has come to see my parents, and why at this place and this moment, when my mother walks in.

"Bernard Lowry!" exclaims my mother cheerfully. "I hear you're my daughter's anesthetist. Take care, won't you. Darling, this is Mr. Lowry, your anesthetist."

Not expecting to see an anesthetist in a hospital in street clothes, let alone in jeans, I am taken aback. I hardly have time to say "How do you do", because the nurse asks me to hop onto the gurney. This is it. I'm going into the operating room. I concentrate on my mother's face and her squeeze on my hand until they all disappear behind the door. The face, and the squeeze, have been wrenched away from me. Oh God. I'm on my own now.

The surgeon, his assistants, the nurses, the anesthetist, the overhead light, the shiny surgical instruments on the tray, the powerful smell of disinfectant, all retreat from my consciousness. I am no longer lying sideways in the operating room.

The carriage sways along behind the horse. The heat and humidity are so oppressive I can almost feel the air I'm breathing in slithering into my lungs. And I can clearly hear all the sounds around me. The squeaks of the axle under us, the clip- clop of the horseshoes on the roughly sealed, narrow road, the carriage driver's tongue clicking, coaxing his horse, the whirring of his whip in the air.

And outside, the different tones of bicycles' and rickshaw's bells. I look at the woman in the seat opposite. She is wearing a crispy brownish sarong of inexpensive batik cloth, and a mauve kebaya made of faintly see-through muslin with thin lace borders. There is an air of natural modesty about her, in the way she holds her legs tightly together, her hands over her small woven cane clutchbag, keeping down the ends of her sash that she has thrown over her head, covering the hairbun at the nape of her neck. She is studying me silently; a loose smile on her lips reassures me she is not looking for faults. And in her quaint way, I see that she is a beautiful woman.

From the chattering in the street -- for we are moving slowly enough to catch people's conversations on the footpaths and in the pedicabs -- I know we are in Jakarta. Yet it is not the Jakarta with which I'm familiar. Everything reminds me of the sepia photographs my mother keeps of her parents and grandparents, even the woman in front of me doesn't appear to belong to my time.

"I've called you because I wanted to speak to you, Narida, child," the woman says in quaint Indonesian.

I look inquiringly at her, still too stunned to respond.

"I wanted very much to release you from my curse, child. But a powerful curse has to run its course. I was very angry and vengeful then, so my curse has assumed an entity of its own. I have tried to neutralize it by fasting. But I ran out of time, so I was only partially successful. Narida, child, I can tell you this. Your deafness cannot be reversed yet. However, you will improve and eventually become good, and none of your daughters and their daughters will be affected by the curse. It stops with you."

I want to ask her to explain further, but my teeth are clenched and my mouth won't move. It appears the woman can read my mind.

"I am Siti, Narida, child. I'm the woman that your great grandfather abandoned for a suitable wife of his class. Remember I told you when we met at a different time, that I would visit you again? That I'd try to release you from my curse? Remember?"

My teeth unclench and my jaw drops. "Mbah Siti?" I ask breathlessly.

The woman nods with a smile. "Yes, Narida, child."

She bends forward and puts one hand on mine. "I'm sorry, I wasn't able to do that. Your descendants will be free of the curse, but you still have to go through a few things, before you shake it off completely."

"What are they? Mbah Siti?"

"Narida, child, you will have a very complicated life in the next 15 years or so, involving five men, who love you and whom you love dearly. But you will eventually sort them out, and live a fairly normal life after that, and you will get your hearing back. That's all I was able to win for you, Narida, child."

I am held, mystified, by what I've just heard. Though awed and totally confused, intuitively I know that somehow I will overcome all my problems in the next 15 years of my life. When Mbah Siti (it's so strange calling her mbah, the respectful address for grandmother, when she looks so young) lets go of my hand, I feel weighted down by a powerful sense of loss.

"Mbah Siti," I call, "will you always look after me?"

"Of course I will, Narida, child, of course I will." Then, looking at me affectionately, "We'll meet again, from time to time, child."

"Can't I stay with you here?"

"Hush, child, of course you can't. Your mother and father are waiting for you. Now, we must part for the time being, Narida, child."

Again she bends forward to caress my head. My eyes well up with warm tears and I close them. When I open them again, I see my mother and father on each side of me, my mother's hand caressing my head. I have entered a world of total silence.

Dewi Anggraeni was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, and lives in Melbourne. She was the Australian correspondent for Tempo and now writes for The Jakarta Post, Forum Keadilan and other publications in Indonesia and Australia. She has published three works in Australia -- two novels, The Root of All Evil (1987) and Parallel Forces (1988), and a trilogy of novellas called Stories of Indian Pacific (1993).