Roasted Eyeballs

By Maria Magdalena Bhoernomo

"I really want to taste roasted eyeballs on skewers, mas*," said my wife as I stroked her round belly one night.

"What kind of eyeballs, honey?" I asked with delight. All I wanted to do was satisfy her wishes and listen to her strange demands. It was natural for me, as her husband, to take care of my wife's cravings during her pregnancy, what with our first child due after 10 years of waiting. During this long wait, I had frequently doubted our fertility, to the point of thinking she was a barren woman I would have to divorce.

"It doesn't matter what kind of eyeballs, mas!" she replied, kissing my cheek.

"How many skewers?" I asked.

"Only one!"

"Do you want it hot and spicy?"

"It has to be hot, mas!"

My hands kept caressing her bulging stomach. The midwives told us we had another four months before delivery. And the ultrasound said it was a male. I was filled with pride! I'd be having a baby boy!

***

"Your wife must have a craving, right?" remarked the goat sate seller when I ordered 10 skewers of roasted goat eyeballs.

"Come back here tomorrow afternoon! You'll have the whole lot then," he told me.

"Why tomorrow?" I asked impatiently. I wanted to take the grilled eyeballs home immediately and watch my wife relish them.

"It takes 50 eyeballs from 25 goats to make 10 skewers! It's not easy to get that many, I've got to procure them from a slaughterhouse," he answered with a hospitable look. "I hope they will be ready tomorrow afternoon."

"Any number will do if you can't make it 10. The point is that tomorrow I want to go home with the sate. It's to satisfy my wife's craving, you know!"

"It must be a baby boy! Have you checked with the ultrasound?"

I nodded. I said goodbye after paying for 10 skewers, with an agreement for a partial refund if he could not fill the whole order by tomorrow.

And my wife sullenly glared at me when I came home without the skewered goat eyeballs.

"You'll get them tomorrow! I just ordered the sate for you," I comforted her.

"Don't lie, mas!" she sobbed. Then she went into the bedroom and wept on the bed.

Feeling sorry for her, I approached and tried to assure her: "I swear to God! I ordered them from a sate seller and I already paid."

She continued to sob and I tried to be understanding. A pregnant woman with a craving sometimes gets emotional. Again I stroked her belly. I was sure the gentle caress would suffice to express my heartfelt love for her and the fetus in her womb.

"Be patient. You need 50 goat eyeballs for 10 skewers. That means 25 slaughtered goats," I soothed her. I felt like a father appeasing his fussy little girl.

"Why did you order so many skewers? I only want one," she snarled, wiping off her tears.

"I would have been ashamed if I'd bought only one!"

My wife sighed. Then I kissed her cheek before heading for the bathroom.

"Have dinner by yourself after your bath," she cried after me.

Whistling, I entered the bathroom.

***

The grimace on her face revealed her nausea when he laid the goat eyeball sate in front of her.

"Put it on the dining room table!" was her response.

"You should eat the eyeballs while they're still warm," I said.

She didn't answer. When it was time for dinner, she remained silent, her nausea still apparent from the look on her face as she sat uncomfortably in the dining room.

"Come on, have some," I urged, while pushing the sate toward her.

"It's yours, mas, the sight of it is enough to satisfy me."

I was hungry and a bit curious about the taste, so I took a skewer. I tried to enjoy it, but after finishing the eyeballs I began to feel a repulsion and disgust. I rose and ran to the bathroom to vomit up the eyeballs.

After rinsing out my mouth, I returned to the table to find my wife savoring each mouthful of the grilled eyeballs.

"It's delicious!" she said with a sweet smile.

"Eat the rest, then."

She devoured the sate down to the last bite.

***

"I want more eyeball sate, mas, but not goat again," said my wife before going to bed.

"What kind of eyeballs, dear?"

"Human eyeballs! They must be more delicious than goat," she said.

I was aghast, even panicked at hearing this. "Don't talk like that," I objected.

"I'm serious, mas! And you should be ready to find some for me."

I didn't have the heart to say no. I don't know why. Maybe my overwhelming love for her made me want to pamper her. Or maybe it was because I didn't want my son to dribble on himself like an idiot.

"It's must be easy to get human eyeballs these days. They say that out in the regions where people are fighting, there are lots of heads just laying on the road," she said with a faraway look in her eyes, like she was in a daydream.

Her words made me shudder. My heart beat faster. Though I had long been ready to fulfill her unusual requests, with full understanding for her pregnancy, this time her demand was scary. But still I promised her I would do what I could.

So I asked for an assignment in a region where there was a devastating conflict.

Naturally, this made my superiors and colleagues wonder because I had long been known as a gutless journalist. I frequently refused to cover stories where there was a risk of riots, even student demonstrations. I couldn't stand the sight of human blood. I had once passed out when covering a traffic accident, and the person only had a cut on their forehead.

"Your new-found courage must have something to do with your pregnant wife," my boss said with a smile.

"So you're not afraid of being shot? Take care! It's a conflict area and the security men often use force to break up fights, and the feuding parties are likely to be carrying guns."

My fellow newsmen attempted to discourage me from going. But I was determined to go to the conflict area. And my wife kept pushing me to satisfy her strange appetite.

"If you can collect five human eyeballs, come back quickly, mas," was how she said goodbye to me when I left.

***

The communal hatred in the area was intense, with thousands of houses being burned down, destroyed cars a common sight and the smell of charred flesh hanging in the air.

Imagining my wife relishing roasted human eyeballs, I strode along the road with a group of Red Cross workers looking for victims in the scorched ruins of a market. In front of some burned kiosks, I saw some decapitated heads, without eyes.

"Who gouged out the eyes?" I asked a nurse.

"Lots of people do it," she answered in a restrained voice.

"What for?"

"To make sate. They say human eyeball sate is very tasty."

"This is crazy!" I cried with disappointment. I had arrived too late.

"Yes, lots of people have lost their minds."

"Do you ever find whole heads? I mean, heads with the eyes still in them?" I asked nervously.

"So, you want some eyeballs too?" the nurse asked.

I nodded without hesitation.

"You can try over there on the edge of the forest. There might still be lots of heads with their eyeballs," she said, pointing the way.

I hurried to the village near the forest. And she was right, the stone paths were filled with human heads, all with their eyes. I didn't want to hang around there for too long, so I took out a small knife from my backpack and scooped out five pairs of the gazing eyes.

After placing the eyeballs in a bottle of alcohol I had prepared at home, I felt relieved. I was pretty sure the human eyeballs would remain fresh in the alcohol. Now I just wanted to get home and give them to my wife, so she could turn them into tasty sate.

***

Welcoming me home, my wife smiled sweetly.

"Yesterday afternoon, I had some human eyeball sate, mas. It was delicious!

"I bought the eyeballs from a vegetable hawker who passed by our house. It seems it is not difficult to find this kind of sate. The hawker said roasted human eyeballs on skewers are sold in all the markets!"

*** * Javanese term for a young male, in this case a husband.

Translated by Aris Prawira