I want to tell you a story

By Dewi Anggraeni

When I looked out of the window this morning, I saw something which made me smile. From where I stood at the bedroom window, the single cloud in the blue sky looked like it was perched atop the tall gum tree across the valley. I felt happy.

Lately there had been more of these mornings where I was greeted with definite images as if thoughtfully sculpted by Mother Nature to please me.

I heard Lila step out of the bathroom, so I gathered my clothes and slowly moved in that direction. In her dark blue skirt suit Lila looked distinctly corporate. I smiled my compliments. She smiled her thank you.

"Are you sure you don't want Susi to come and keep you company for a few hours?" asked Lila at breakfast.

I looked up cheerfully from my toast and gently nodded.

Lila turned toward her study and returned almost immediately with her bag and briefcase. "Well, don't forget your appointment at three this afternoon, then."

We smiled our goodbyes.

When I heard the front door close I rushed back to my bedroom, took out a flyer I had brought home from the library yesterday. Contemporary art and politics in Indonesia, I read again and again. I hadn't shown it to Lila because my intuition told me she would not have approved of my going to that exhibition. Funny. She had taken me to five art exhibitions since I arrived in Australia yet I was certain she would have frowned on this one.

I knew the place. I had been there twice on the way home from my therapy sessions, since Lila or Susi stopped coming with me.

Filomena, my therapist, used art a lot. She would show me the images and then tell me about them. Then when I nodded or shook my head, she would tell me a story. Most times they were funny, occasionally rather sad.

The beautiful parks surrounding the building ill-prepared me for it. I was still filled with springtime. The birds, the breeze, the colors, all made me straighten my back and lift my chin. Then I walked in.

The installation art could have been from anywhere, but the images, even heavily distorted ones, were unmistakably Indonesian. My heart began to beat faster. But I walked on in.

Disembodied heads stared at me, and when I moved away, their eyes followed. My clasp bag slipped out of my hand. I wiped my sweaty palm on my skirt, and bent over to pick it up. Lucky for me, the two other people in the room paid little attention to the incident.

"This is eerie, don't you think?" said one of them, a woman of nondescript age wearing a beige skirt and a brown shirt, in Indonesian.

I looked at her profile. She could be Indonesian. Before she turned to me, I quickly rushed away. In the long corridor I could still hear her companion's voice. "There's so much anguish. It must have come out of the artists' subconscious. I mean, you couldn't live and experience all that without wounding your soul," he said.

***

"Please help her," pleaded my mother to the doctor who came to visit us. "She has been wounded right to the soul. I don't know what to do anymore." She spoke as if I were not in the room, and then she began to weep.

Strange. I didn't know what she was talking about. I didn't feel a thing. The doctor slowly packed his black case, then leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed in the middle distance.

"I have a friend who lives in Melbourne. She's visiting us at the moment. She's aware of what has happened. I'll see if she can take her away for a month or so."

"To Melbourne?" asked my mother, absently wiping her face.

"Yes, to Melbourne. Physically your daughter has almost recovered. But psychologically ... "

"I know. I know," my mother interrupted, as if conscious for the first time that I may not have lost my hearing.

Thirteen months later I was still in Melbourne. My moods had stopped fluctuating wildly, and I felt generally happier. And safer. Lila and Susi had become my surrogate mother and sister.

***

A group of students had just arrived. Their rowdy bantering and laughter were reassuring and disconcerting all at once. Reassuring because now I felt able to recede to the background unnoticed, disconcerting because the boys' hooting and sniggering sent an electric current to the back of my head.

***

One of the men punched me in the mouth when I couldn't stop screaming.

The world plunged into a black hole.

When I came to, I couldn't see clearly. Everything was red, red, red. I had been roasted on a spit. My body was racked by burning, excruciating pain. I must have groaned because one of the men hit me about the face, shouting something like, "Be quiet, or we'll finish you off!"

They were laughing aloud, making insulting comments about my legs. That was when I realized I was naked. I returned to the black hole, pulling the whole world with me.

I woke up in hell, or what I thought was hell, as everything was blurred, seen through a black and red veil which seemed to envelop me.

Someone lifted me onto something. This time, though the pain was still overwhelming, the person clearly tried not to make it worse, because the lifting was slow and gentle. "Careful. She's still alive," called out a woman's voice.

"I know. Give us a hand, will you? And lend us your jacket too, if you don't mind. That cloth isn't big enough. She's shivering!"

***

I stood shivering in front of a series of paintings each depicting a man being tortured. Then I saw a fifth painting, showing a headless battered naked body. And when I looked more closely, there was a head nearby, and a face on it. It was my face, but it was gagged.

"Can you tell us how many men were there?" asked one of the kind women from a non-governmental organization, some three weeks after the horrific event.

"I can't remember," I squeaked, "probably seven, or eight."

The women looked at each other briefly, then one of them asked, "Do you remember what they looked like?"

"They ..." I couldn't continue as violent sobs shook my body, still sore and weak from actual injuries, shame, fear, and total incomprehension.

That evening the phone rang and my mother answered it. She went silent and quickly turned away from us. Several moments later she gasped. My sister got up and tried to yank the handpiece from her, but my mother had already slammed the phone down.

When she sat down in front of me again, I saw that her face was as white as chalk.

"What happened? Who was it?" asked my sister.

"Bastards!" she hissed. "Bastards!" this time louder. Then, "Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!" she shrieked, again, and again, and again.

My mother was later tranquilized, and my distraught sister told me that a man had told her on the phone that he knew we had been visited by the women from the organization. He said that he would know if I had told them anything. And if so, he and the others would come and do the same to my mother and my sister.

***

"Oh I heard the stories all right," the woman in beige and brown and her companion were suddenly standing less than two meters from me.

"But they were all secondhand. Very reliable, mind you. From the women who had interviewed the victims. Horrendous stories. But because none of the victims would come forward, the perpetrators went scot-free, so to speak. There's a new government in power. They might show more political will to investigate those crimes."

"Did you write about them?" asked her companion.

"I tried. But somehow it didn't come off. Maybe I need a firsthand account. Heaven forbid."

"Oh you writers are so weird," his voice became affectionate. She laughed, stiffly I thought.

I felt sweat tickling my scalp, underarms and palms. Reluctantly I walked on, entering another room. Something else is itching. My throat. And my jaws.

My knees nearly buckled when I looked up. Black and red images came off the walls and the ceiling, and began to revolve around and around.

Half-naked women and men chatting and writhing. Suddenly a man's head moved very close to my face, his tongue lolling, his eyes open wide. He was panting, and taunting me. Laughter. Loud and threatening.

***

The room was cool. All the images had disappeared. But the woman and her companion were sitting on chairs close to the divan where I found myself. A man in a white sports jacket came in and looked at me, sighing with relief.

"Thank God you've come to. We took the liberty to search your bag, and found a phone number. We rang this number. Your friend said she'd come straight away. Luckily her office is only two blocks from here."

He looked at the small table nearby and continued, "We've brought you a glass of water. Or would you like something stronger?"

I shook my head feebly. The woman reached out and held my hand. My first reaction was to withdraw it, but all energy seemed to have left me so I just looked at our clasped hands, as if they were not attached to me. The woman's companion then brought the glass of water to us. Just then the door opened and Lila walked in.

She rushed up and hugged me, wrenching me away from the woman's hand. She didn't let go of me straight away, as if trying to protect me from an invisible threat of an imaginary foe. When I pulled my face away I saw the woman and her companion quietly leaving the room.

"Wait a minute," I called out.

Lila grabbed me by the shoulders and looked incredulously into my eyes, then examined my face, as if doubting my identity.

"You ... you spoke!" she whispered.

The woman and her companion turned, immobilized.

"Please," I said, "come back."

Everyone in the room froze as silence fell. Maybe I was only imagining this scene. Maybe this was just another dream. Maybe it was another room with images.

But the woman moved toward me. Her smile was warm and friendly. "You want me to stay?" she asked.

"Yes. I want to tell you a story."