Dogged by misfortune

An old woman, FR, with sunken cheeks, wrinkles all over her face and most of her front teeth gone, told me her life story. From the story I concluded that FR was dogged by misfortune all her life.

At first she married a well-to-do man, but unfortunately he was quite a Don Juan who had amorous relationships with no less than eight women of dubious morality. Perhaps due to overexertion, the husband died at quite an early age. This marriage produced two sons and a daughter.

Naturally, due to her husband's extraordinary frivolous deeds, FR lead an unhappy life and because the said eight women were "gold diggers" there was not much left of the husband's earthly possessions when he left the world.

When FR married again, she gained a husband who was so immoral he seduced her daughter from her first marriage, who was a teenager at the time. One of her sons now lives in Surabaya. This son asked FR to stay with him when she was an employee at a travel bureau near Hotel Indonesia.

In the beginning her son was quite attentive to her, but his filial devotion decreased as time went on. The son did not refrain from using abusive language and said his mother was a real nuisance to the family. FR could hardly endure her son's treatment and decided to return to Jakarta to find a job.

Fortunately she was offered a job as a housekeeper, which was not quite to her liking. Only her desperate condition made her accept the job, which included taking care of a disabled old man and two unruly children, cooking and doing the laundry for the whole family. Her salary was miserably minuscule.

In fact, coming from a well-to-do family during the colonial era, she attended a Dutch secondary school in Malang. So life is a puzzle that fits the adage: "Man proposes but fate disposes."

A. DJUANA

Jakarta