Maria

By Seno Gumira Ajidarma

For one year now Maria has been waiting for Antonio but to this day he hasn't returned. For one year she has left the front gate, the door to the house, and the windows open, just a little while longer each evening, hoping that Antonio will appear in the distance, walking towards home, and then break into a run to embrace her. But no one has appeared at the gate. No one has run to hug her or called out "Mama!"

How very much she misses Antonio, her hard-headed but happy-go-lucky boy. Though he has proven to be just as stubborn as Ricardo, his older brother, who has been missing for a long time, too, with no word of his whereabouts.

Gregorio, her strong-hearted husband, is also gone. She heard that his body was cut into pieces and scattered around like scraps of offal. That was when she also lost Ricardo, her oldest, hot-headed, son, who swore to avenge his father's death. She heard that he had turned into an exceptionally cruel war machine. People say that he makes sure enemy soldiers die in incredible pain. He is now a butcher.

The loss of Gregorio broke her heart, Ricardo's departure extinguished her inner-flame; Antonio's disappearance left her confused. The only things Antonio knew how to do were play the guitar, sing, and dance. So handsome was her younger son with his long and wavy hair, his smooth voice, and gentle eyes. But in the end he, too, had begun to burn inside. She often told him how Gregorio's death had broken her heart, how much it grieved her to know that Ricardo was a bloodthirsty killer, and that he was now the only reason she had for living. But Antonio, oh, Antonio, he was only in his teens, yet he felt that he must teach his mother the meaning of freedom.

For one year, a whole year now, Maria has let herself believe that at any moment Antonio might appear on the horizon. She knows that's where she'll first see him, her younger boy, his hair golden in the light of the setting sun and tossed by the wind from the coast.

For one year, a whole year, Maria has let herself believe that, hope against hope, at any moment she will see Antonio standing there. She will embrace him, her young boy, so strong and handsome like his father, and walk with him to the beach, all yellow and blue, where he will tell her everything. And though it is his mother with whom he speaks, he will tell his tale in intermittent phrases, like a young man declaring his feelings to his love. Oh, how very much she misses him.

Maria yearns to remind Antonio of the sound of waves, the voice of the wind, the whisper of the leaves, as she used to do, singing of them to him when he was a baby and she and Gregorio took him to the beach while little Ricardo scampered in the waves.

"It's been a year, Maria. Enough..." her sister Evangelista advised, though she herself knew how difficult it was for Maria to free her mind of thoughts of Antonio.

One year ago Mario had said, "He's still alive. No one has found his body."

Of course his body has not been found, was Evangelista's thought. They took it away in a truck. "And when they loaded the bodies onto the trucks," someone had told her, "they didn't distinguish between the dead and the almost dead."

Had Antonio been one of the dead or the almost dead? There were so many people who had not returned.

"They haven't found him, Evangelista. He must have escaped to the countryside and joined Ricardo. He will return."

Poor Maria, Evangelista thought, but Maria wasn't the only one who had suffered losses. There was no family that had not suffered. All had victims or disappearances.

"I'm sure he's alive Evangelista. My Antonio will return."

Now a year had passed, an entire year sine the incident. Maria didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about it ever again. So strong was her desire to consider that none of it had ever happened, it was impossible to think about it anymore. She wanted everything to be quiet and calm, as peaceful as it had been when Gregorio was alive. And Ricardo was still with her. And Antonio hadn't disappeared without a trace. At the very least, like it had been when Antonio was still there, before the incident one year ago.

"I've also lost my children, Maria, three of them..."

"I've lost my husband, Maria..."

"I've lost my whole family, Maria..."

"I'm alone in the world, Maria, but you still have me: Evangelista."

For a year, one whole year Maria has prayed for Antonio to return. Every evening, as night falls, when she closes the gate, shuts the door, and latches the windows, she still believes there is reason to hope. She will fetch a cold glass of beer for her son, light of her life, lay out clean clothes for him, and ask him to tell her what happened. She won't ask him to speak of blood and tears. Tales of suffering no longer interest her, for they are all too very much a part of daily life. Oppression, animosity, and degradation are subjects Maria does not ever wish to discuss. They do nothing but stir up resistance, and it is resistance that, through the ages, has always been paid for with pain and lives. How very dear the price must be for them to walk with their heads held high. Maria didn't want to hear of it anymore.

For a year, one year now since the incident, Maria has sat watching the flickering light of dusk and feeling that at any moment Antonio will appear, just as he used to, before there was talk about sovereignty and ideals. She wanted to listen to Antonio speak, to have him tell her about anything at all, small talk about his girlfriends: Rosa, Conchita, and Sonia. Oh how the women flocked around her handsome Antonio.

Yes, it's has been a year for Maria, but only one year. There are other women, other Marias, who have waited much longer, many more years, holding open a little while longer each evening their gates, and doors, and windows. And many who have given up hope that someday their lost children will return, and have stopped opening their doors and never go out again.

Many women have buried themselves so deeply in sadness there isn't anyone or anything capable of reviving them - not the resistance, not the rebellion. There are Marias who open the door and wait and Marias who close the door and wait, not knowing when their children will return.

The door to the house was still open. Maria could see outside soldiers in formation. For years they had passed by the house but it was not a sight she had ever gotten used to. It was a sight still foreign for her.

The sound of marching had just begun to fade in the distance when she heard the squeak of a gate. It was dark, already night. She had become so lost in her reverie she must have forgotten to lock the gate. She heard the sound of footsteps on gravel and then, all of a sudden, there was man standing before her. The person knelt and embraced her.

"Mama! I'm home, Mama!"

Maria did not move. She sighed.

"Antonio?"

"Yes, Antonio, Mama, your Antonio! Don't you recognize me?"

Now seated on the floor before her was a young man, but Maria didn't know him. His scalp, so full of scars with uneven patches of hair, resembled a strip-logged forest. The man's left eye was sealed shut, and his right eye, though open, was squinted, half shut. His face was full of scars, diagonal cuts running downward from both right to left and left to right. He had no ears and his nose looked completely out of place, as if it had somehow been moved form it's original home. His lips protruded grossly and his front teeth were missing. His clothes were nothing but rags and he wore no shoes. He had no fingernails or toe nails; they must have been pulled out by force. He was rail thin. Only in his half closed eye did there appear to be a sign of life, an ember. The rest of the man was wreckage.

"You are not Antonio."

"I am Antonio! I'm your Antonio!"

The wreck of a man shook Maria.

"You're not Antonio," she told him. "My Antonio is handsome, an angel. No, you're not Antonio."

"They beat me Mama! They beat me everyday because I wouldn't confess! But I didn't do anything, Mama. I didn't have anything to confess anything but they still beat me! They destroyed my body, Mama! My friends would not recognize me. My mouth is so damaged my voice has changed, but I am Antonio! you must believe me!"

"You're not Antonio. You're some other Antonio."

Evangelista came in.

"Evangelista! Tell Mama that I'm Antonio, her son!"

"Who are you? Who is this?" Evangelista asked Maria.

"Evangelista! Don't you know me either! Look at me! I'm Antonio! They destroyed my body but they couldn't destroy my spirit! They beat me every day because I wouldn't confess, but it only made me stronger! I'm not the Antonio I once was, Evangelista, but I am still your nephew, Ricardo's brother, the child of Gregorio and Maria!"

Evangelista put her arms around Maria from behind. The two women looked at the man as if he were a creature from another planet.

Almost simultaneously they said, "You are not Antonio. Now leave!"

The man who claimed to be Antonio paused momentarily. The ember in his half shut eye flickered and grew dim. A dream of three hundred and sixty-five nights had vanished in the space of a second.

"It's been a year," he said. "For a year I have longed for this meeting." He took a deep breath. "Mother, Evangelista, I'll go, though I know no better place to return to than here. Maybe it isn't time for us to be happy. The world, it seems, is no longer our home. You might not recognize me, but believe me when I say there is no Antonio besides me who is part of your family. Good-bye. Take care of her, Evangelista, in the name of my love for her."

Maria and Evangelista sighed, then murmured as one, "You're not Antonio. Please leave."

The wreck of a man pulled himself together and walked away. The women listen to the sound of his footsteps on the gravel, the sound of the gate being closed, and the rising wind.

Maria stared, empty eyed. "Close the windows, Evangelista. That crazy man might try to come back."

"Don't worry, Maria, I'm here with you."

Evangelista closed all the windows. When drawing the curtains she stared outwards. There in the darkness she could see the man, rubbing his half-shut eye as he walked slowly away, dragging his feet, and disappearing further and further into the obscurity of night.

She could hear very faintly the sound of soldier on the march.

Translated by Meredith Miller.

The writer was born in Boston in 1958 and grew up in Yogyakarta. He began writing fiction in 1974 and entered journalism three years later. He is currently deputy chief editor of Jakarta Jakarta magazine. His short story, Pelajaran Mengarang, (Writing Lesson) was selected as the Kompas daily's best short story in 1992. He received the 1997 South East Asia Write Award for his collection of short stories, Dilarang Menyanyi di Kamar Mandi (Singing in the Bathroom Is Prohibited). Maria, taken from Menagerie 3, is printed here courtesy of the Lontar Foundation.