Color

By Sirikit Syah

It was a fine day in early May. Susan got herself ready. Her kids had left for school and her husband for the office. She took a taxi to Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, as she needed to replace the curtains in their house.

They had used the same curtains since they moved to this house two years ago. Now, she wanted a change and Tanah Abang was her favorite place to shop for textiles. Last month she had bought a nice carpet for a low price. And since her Indonesian friend introduced her to this market last year, she had been shopping for textiles for the clothes she sewed herself. The selection was quite good here and the price was the cheapest.

Tanah Abang was as crowded as usual. She had shopped here quite often textiles for curtains for windows and doors, textiles for bedclothes and some fine fabrics for her dresses. She had even bought cute T-shirts for her husbands and her two sons. She had become Indonesian enough not to feel shy about shopping at Tanah Abang. Besides, she had already mastered enough Indonesian to get by in shopping. She found no problems.

She remembered when she first arrived in this lovely country. Everybody tried to address her in Indonesian whenever she went out with her husband. They became offended when she didn't respond but, as a Filipino, she didn't understand the language.

It was rather odd. She looks like any Indonesian woman but she couldn't speak Indonesian, while her husband, who is American, speaks it quite well. In the past, people often spoke Indonesian with her and spoke English with her husband, and they responded the other way around.

She enjoyed shopping in Indonesia as it reminded her of her hometown. People bargained and there was a feeling of satisfaction if you got the price you wanted. It was an achievement but it was not because she had to save money. Charles gave her his monthly salary and it was more than enough for a nice living in Jakarta. But the art of bargaining had been in her blood.

She didn't enjoy shopping in America where the price was fixed. Today a necklace was priced US$200 and in tomorrow's sale it would be priced $40. She felt cheated.

"We never know the real price of goods here," she complained to her husband.

"Why? Isn't that proof that the consumers decide the price? The producers just follow whatever the consumers want. Consumers are king here."

"No. It's the other way around. I didn't buy the $40 necklace, even though I wanted it so much when it was $200 yesterday. I felt cheated. The true value could only be $10 or less. Consumers are made stupid here."

Susan smiled. When she lived in California with her husband, she didn't shop as much as now. She prided herself for being good at bargaining. Indonesia is a heaven for bargain shopping.

She carried four big black plastic bags as left the market. Suddenly she heard noises. Traffic and crowd sounds. People were flooding the street in front of the market. She saw a convoy of mass green. Hundreds of motorcycles, thousands of people. People were emotional and they cheered each other and made finger signals.

"Oh my God. I forgot about the campaign," she panicked. She knew she shouldn't have gone out at a time like this. They had discussed this frequently at home but she forgot about it. Hurriedly she threw herself into a passing cab.

"Sorry, I am not working," the driver said, trying to push her out.

"Please, drive me," she begged, handing him Rp 20,000.

The driver, either attracted to the money or taking pity on her, reluctantly drove the cab. They moved very slowly in the back of the convoy.

It felt like hours. They had not left the Tanah Abang area yet when suddenly there was noise coming from behind them.

"Shit! They must have turned around the corner and they will come back this way," the driver gasped. The cab was already in the middle of the roaring vehicles. The convoy in front was not finished, and there was a flood of vehicles coming from the back. Within seconds, they were trapped.

They couldn't move even an inch. Apparently, they were the only people foolish enough to try to get in the way. Susan stared from the taxi window and saw green everywhere. Several young faces stared back at her and gave her a hand signal, but she didn't know how to respond.

There was a bang on the window. Then one more at the rear of the cab, and again, and again. Susan saw a burly man open the front door and pull out the taxi driver. Her door was opened too and arms grabbed her out.

She didn't see the taxi driver. The taxi was soon filled with people in green and driven following the convoy. She was thrown up in a truck filled with men and women wearing green. Then she realized what was wrong with her, and that even made her feel worse. She wore a bright yellow dress. Yellow was her favorite color. She was an admirer of Cory Aquino and People Power, so she always had reason to wear yellow. The curtains for her house were yellow, too.

She was forced to stay in the truck, joining the convoy, until it got dark. Then they brought her to their headquarters. She was questioned intensively. The questioners were angered when she couldn't answer fluently in Indonesian. They thought she was playing games. They didn't believe she was not an Indonesian. One of the angry young women tore her dress.

"How dare you wear this color today? Are you challenging us?" she yelled at her.

"I am sorry, I really don't understand what is happening here," she tried to explain. Tears were falling down her cheeks. She was exhausted, frightened and in pain. Some people had hit her. Her mouth was bleeding and her cheek swollen.

They released her late that night. Perhaps they believed her, or felt pity on her, or they were tired themselves. Somebody took her with on a motorcycle home. No apology.

It was a few minutes before midnight. Charles was nervous. He had called the police three times already, and they had become irritated.

"We are doing what we can do and we will let you know as soon as we find out about your wife," one police officer said on the phone. He sounded impatient.

"How long will I have to wait?" Charles asked.

"Not long if you just let us do our job and stop bothering us." The line went dead.

His kids had dinner without him and their mom. Now they had gone to bed. Charles had been trapped in a rally himself on Jalan Kebun Jeruk. After two hours, they finally managed to leave the area. He trembled when he remembered the brutality of the people towards passersby, especially those traveling in expensive cars.

Charles turned on the TV.

"She might have gone to one of her friends, and decided to stay until the campaigning ended," he said as he tried to convince himself that nothing bad had happened to his wife. But it was unusual for her -- she usually wrote a note when she wouldn't be back at when he got home.

Something on TV attracted his attention. It was ANteve news. In Medan an elderly man wearing a green shirt was trapped yesterday in a red rally, and he was brutally beaten. He was in a coma now in a local hospital. The red party made a statement, saying the man provoked their people by wearing green.

Charles felt sick. He switched to another channel. An RCTI news flash. Surabaya was in a war. Everything red was burned down, presumably by the yellow party. But the yellow party commented that this was done by others to make it appear that it was them. It was manipulation. A drama. Chaos.

He was sweating in an air-conditioned room. He almost jumped when the bell rang. He ran to open the door and found his wife limping, her dress torn down. Susan fell in his arms and fainted.

Charles didn't need to ask anybody what had happened. He knew. His wife wore a yellow dress. He didn't bother to call the police. To file a report? What kind of report? His wife could be blamed for wearing the wrong color at the wrong moment. This is a campaigning country. And color does matter.

Sirikit Syah is a freelance journalist, chairwoman of the Surabaya Arts Council and lecturer at Dr. Soetomo University in Surabaya.