Color

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.