Putri's delusion

Putri's delusion

By Mark P. Kancana

The candle merrily flickered a warm glow inside its glass case
on top of the white tablecloth. Putri looked at this source of
dancing light with her head rested lightly on her dainty fingers
and her elbows on the table. She shifted her attention, looking
out of the window where she saw a luminous and overcrowded night
time Jakarta from the 25th floor of the Residence Luna Building.
She was celebrating her second wedding anniversary with her
husband, Ari, at the French Le Char restaurant. She wanted to be
happy at the moment. She listened to the pianoman playing some
classical tune and paused, before she silently said to herself,
"I should be happy."

That night on the 24th of February, she was having a romantic
candle-lit dinner with her loving husband who sat across from
her. He wore a gray three piece Giorgio Armani suit and a
Valentino tie she bought for him for last New Year's celebration
at the Shangri-La Hotel. Through her eyes, his well groomed dark
hair glistened softly as he carefully spooned his bowl of corn
potage soup, his favorite cream soup. She would now and then
crack a smile at him whenever he looked up at her. Then, she
would see him indulge in his soup and occasionally pour tabasco
sauce into his bowl. His dark brown eyes sparkled and reminded
her of the day they first met five years ago.

Those were the very eyes that took her breath away. She was in
love with him then and still is now. But her heart was afraid of
what she suspected to be true. This was supposed to be their
second wedding anniversary celebration, but something was amiss.
Behind his seemingly natural loving gestures there was an oddity.
He was perfectly loving, almost as if it were calculated. The way
he opened the car door before they entered the building, the way
he took her hand into his and even the way he kissed her. It was
passionate yet different. It was all too perfect.

That morning, she thought Ari almost forgot about her wedding
anniversary. But somehow two stems of red roses appeared by her
bedside the very morning before she woke up. They were ordered at
a 24-hour florist near from her house. It was 10 days after
Valentine's Day. Just 10 days after Ari's so called "business
trip" to Bali. It's Saturday night today, she mused as she took
the crystal water cup from the wooden table and observed Ari
closely through her dubious eyes.

From Ari's peculiar gestures, she imagined that his mind was
still savoring the night he spent in Bali on the 14th during his
"business trip". As Ari's faithful wife, Putri does not believe
in celebrating Valentine's Day. To her the day to celebrate love
should be any day and not confined to just one day. She thought
of it as a Western tradition not fit for an Indonesian woman. So,
it did not bother Putri that her husband was off on a business
trip on Valentine's Day. He was a busy man and it was expected of
him to travel extensively to tend to his business. So, on the
night of the 14th, she contemplated amicable thoughts about her
husband, who was, actually, laboring long and hard at the beach
in Nusa Dua, showering mundane pleasures to his recent lover,
Lisa. On the beach amidst the crashing waves and the whistling of
the wind, Cupid's arrow cast its spell and delivered these secret
lovers into a lustful bliss.

She ordered two 150-gram tenderloin steaks cooked medium rare
with an appetizing dark mushroom sauce for their main course. It
reminded her of the first time they met. She was an air hostess
trainee at Elang Air. It was during the session at Jane Ruppert
Powels School for character development, when Ari's hypnotizing
eyes first captivated Putri. Ari was there to make up the table
manner session. At the time, she had never eaten a tenderloin
steak before and having somebody look at her like Ari, made her
even more nervous. Both of them were not used to eating Western
food. So, trying to cut the meat with a knife and eat it with a
fork was a task unto itself, even without somebody staring at
her. It was something new to her, but she had always wanted to
learn all this. And being a stewardess, she thought, would allow
her to see the world. She wanted a change from her shielded
existence in a traditional middle class household. She rebelled
from her father and with much pain and persistence finally got
her way.

Similarly, Ari as she remembered was not from a rich family
but he was driven and determined. He studied hard and made it to
law school at the University of Indonesia on a scholarship. He
graduated cum laude and was recruited by the best private law
firm in the country, Ahmad Buyung Siregar and Associates. He went
through many training sessions and though he was new, was well
liked at the firm due to his ability to fit in. Knowing how to
act and how to be helpful without attracting too much attention
was his specialty. He knew what the mentality of the Indonesian
senior officers was like and managed to get on their good side.

But there was one thing he wanted the most: he wanted to carry
his family to the top of the social ladder. He wanted to be the
one to have an office on the highest floor of the Wisma Indosemen
Building. He wanted to be respected for his power and wealth. He
wanted everything he could achieve within his lifetime, no matter
what it took.

Putri knew he was boldly ambitious, yet somehow lost in his
blind appetite for success. Putri knew only that she could put
him back on track. She knew she was the rain that tamed the ever
raging forest fire that he was. She was a calming element in his
life. She was so sure of that.

"Don't you think it's beautiful up here, Ari?" Putri asked,
breaking the silence. She did not expect an answer. She looked
down at the streets and saw a red and white band of car lights,
resembling a strip of bright ribbon covering the length of
Thamrin street.

The traffic was still held up by routine evening congestion.
The cars inched along the road, carrying people from their work
places to their homes. They were still a luxury for many in
Jakarta. For Putri, the luxury was to spend time in a romantic
setting with Ari.

"Ari, you look unusually handsome tonight," she complimented
him, watching him grin with a slight embarrassment. But he still
kept quiet.

"You know, if I'm not careful I could easily lose you to
somebody else," she said jokingly while wishing to God that it
would never happen to her. She wanted desperately to know... to
feel that he would always be by her side forever, no matter what
it took and no matter what happened to either of them. She loved
him with all her heart and she knew she would never let him go.
Never. She would do whatever was necessary to keep them together.
Whatever was necessary.

"Ari, darling, did you have a rough time at the office today?"
she tried to sound congenial while pretending he was there. "You
haven't told me about what happen to you at the office in ages,"
she continued. "You're so quiet. You still don't get along with
Mr. Bambang, right? I know he's a bit tough to deal with but
that's life, honey. He's your boss. Remember the saying that your
boss is always right. So the answer to your problems is just to
be patient and strive to become the boss, right? Sometimes we
must cope. And of all people I know you know that."

She extended her arms and put her hands across the table on
top of the white tablecloth in a vain attempt to comfort him. She
was happy when she could comfort Ari. It made her feel important
and secure. She loved him. She sat there listening only to the
sound of her breath and was pleased. Yet, for a fleeting instant
she was disturbed by an unfortunate recollection. She creased her
forehead as she reminisced about the scarlet past and placed her
fisted left hand under her chin.

She said, as if to thin air, "Ari, have you ever thought of
our child?" She abruptly looked across the table into the eyes of
his mirage. "You know we can still have another child, don't
worry about what happened to me. It was an accident. It was not
your fault."

She pulled her body upright and stroked her black velvet
evening gown to remove any wrinkles in her stomach and took a
deep breath of remembrance. "I was six months pregnant then and I
lost our little Alya," she took another deep gulp of air and
sighed. "I don't know why I had to fall down and...lose her." She
cocked her head slightly in an angle and teardrops rolled down
her silky light skin, falling onto her cheeks and continuing down
to the tablecloth.

"But why? Was it God's will? We had to lose her..." she almost
whispered and looked down searching for the answers to her own
questions. "But Ari," she exclaimed as she once again looked at
the emptiness across her, "we still need to care for her, you
know. She was our daughter. We should visit her tomorrow and put
some flowers on her home at Tanah Kusir."

She leaned forward, pressed her breast against the side of the
table as her hands mimicked the gesture of putting flowers on a
grave using those found in the vase in front of her. She
carefully placed three of the white chrysanthemums on her napkin.

"Why won't you go with me?" she asked accusingly. "I
understand that it was our mistake when we first conceived her.
We weren't even married then. But you said you were going to
marry me right away, didn't you? Ari, why did you have to lie to
me? If you had married me on February 24th two years ago as you
had promised none of this would have happened. At least, if you
had already proposed to me, we wouldn't have been in that
argument and I wouldn't have fallen down. Remember? Please say
something, honey! Your silence is killing me."

Her heartbeat increased and her face became warm. "Ari, if we
hadn't fought that day I wouldn't have fallen down from those
steps and Alya would still be with us. Don't you understand
that?" Her voice continued to rise, "Ari don't you understand we
have a child together and she will always be part of our lives.
We have to try to work things out between us darling, for our
little Alya."

She sighed and looked out of the window towards the dark and
cloudy sky. She continued her protestation. "Yes, for our little
Alya we need to work on our marriage, darling. I forgive all of
your faults. Now we need to think of our future, our house,
Alya's brothers and sisters and....."

She paused abruptly and grasped her gown. She took a deep
breath, almost realizing, for once, that she was all alone there
at the table. She mumbled some words and gazed at the splendid
scenery. She grimaced and uttered, "Isn't it so beautiful up here
Ari?"

Putri's eyes wandered dreamily into Jakarta's bright maze of
buildings. She saw the brilliance of the night, unaware of the
pretense of the city. Hidden behind this radiance was
restlessness and the social puzzles of metropolitan life.

Tightly and close to her heart, she clutched the stems of the
two red roses she received two weeks ago. She stared at the
blinding street lights of Jakarta beyond the windows of her room.
In the darkness of her chamber at Grogol Mental Hospital, she
paced across the tile floor in her rubber slippers. She stopped
at intervals when she passed the bars of street illumination
entering the room through the barred windows.

That night, she was sure Ari still loved her. In her mind
nothing could change that. The Ari that got married to Lisa last
Valentine's Day was not the Ari she knew. The fact that Ari and
Lisa had spent their honeymoon at the Nusa Dua Beach Hotel did
not change Putri's mind. She knew Ari, Alya's father, would
always love her and had promised to work on their marriage.

"He said so himself at Le Char restaurant that night," she
thought to herself. In fact, she still saw him in the room with
her. He did not leave her. He would always be there with her. The
roses were still in her arms, dried up and dead. The usually dark
red tint of the roses was gray under the night light. There was a
deafening silence surrounding her. She stared at the corner of
her chamber and saw little Alya sitting at the corner near her
father. Her heart was content. Her family was not lost after all.

Mark S. Laksana is a pen name of Mariam K. Sutalaksana. She
was born in Jakarta but globe-trotting is part of her life's
mission. She attended college in the United States and lived
there for eight years. Sutalaksana also lived in Malaysia for
four years and has traveled extensively in Asia, Europe, Africa
and South America. Currently she is a director for a
manufacturing and trade company and is pursuing her writing
interests. Last year she began contributing articles, mostly on
dance, to The Jakarta Post. She has written in both Indonesian
and English, and Putri's Delusion was her first published short
story. At 24, she expects to continue writing both fiction and
non-fiction and hopes to have a book in print in the near future.