Santi

By Gus tf Sakai

Unlike yesterday, Santi came to the building on her own today. By herself and with her sad face, marked by the glaring absence of self-confidence. She is nervous and repeatedly bites her lip. No, she does not want to behave out of character like she did yesterday. Today she has shed her showy mask and appears as she is.

Yesterday she had to appear cheerful because that is the best way to apply for a position, according to a guide for job seekers she had read. Even so, Santi is pessimistic and tired, too.

She realizes that she should no longer pretend to be what she is not, to be flamboyantly optimistic and show unflagging patience even though a job may not be in the offing.

But Santi has reason to be happy. The company has called her in today to give its decision on her application. Yesterday she was interviewed. But the postscript in the employer's letter was odd.

"Bring along your diary," it said. Whatever for? She had never heard of someone accepted for a job based on entries in a diary.

Oh yes, she remembers that during the interview, which she found to be nothing special, the interviewer asked whether she kept a diary. Santi forgot when it came up.

"Do you ... keep a diary?"

"I do."

"What do you write in it?"

Santi was taken aback by the question. After a moment's silence, she eventually replied: "All important experiences. Every event I have found impressive."

That was all. But why was the diary so important now? Do they want to be sure that new employees are not liars? That is simple enough to do and does not need to involve a diary.

Santi stops in front of a mirror located on the ground floor and looks into it. Unconsciously, she moves her hand up and touches the door frame, pushing it hesitantly.

It seemed to take a long time to open. Once behind it, Santi is suddenly overwhelmed and stops a moment to collect herself.

The room is cool but that is not enough to soothe her despondent spirit. She is still nervous and worried. Her left hand, which holds the diary close to her chest, is stiff and heavy. A cold sweat streams down her body.

Questions race in her mind over whether she should hand over her diary to the interviewer. In the roomy and palatial hall, Santi is by herself, although there are so many people going to and fro who sometimes unintentionally brush against her.

With her sweat getting cooler, she asks herself again: "Should I give the diary to the official or not? Isn't it full of private notes and grievances?"

But it had been like that since her mother passed away and her world had caved in. Her father, who had long been loathe to work, busied himself with his evening antics on the waterfront.

People said the place is full of drunkards who get into fights over nothing at all. At first, Santi believed her father was not one of the louts. When her mother was alive, he would ask for money from her, which Santi thought was to buy cigarettes.

She was wrong. Santi knew now that he was a lush. Why now? It is because her mother had tried to conceal the ugly truth from her children. Today, her father's failings haunt her.

Late one night, her father came home, banging at the door and shouted abuse at Santi. He forced her to give her all the money her mother had left her.

Her father took every rupiah so that Santi had to stop making cakes to sell to the school canteen for four days because she had no money. She borrowed money from neighbors and started taking in washing.

On another day, Santi returned from school overjoyed because she had finished her final exams. But she was shocked to find Yanto, her younger brother, lying on the floor, trembling. The glass partition near him had been smashed.

Yanto refused to say what had happened. But Santi later heard from neighbors that the Yanto had long been frustrated by their father's amoral way of life.

Yanto had repeatedly encountered the old man at the harbor area hanging out with a prostitute. He was shocked by what he saw. He dropped out of high school and became hysterical whenever he was left alone.

Santi had also found Yanto alone, sitting in the living room, lost in thought. At times, after hitting the glass wall, he laughed by himself. Another day he jabbered away to himself and then started wailing hysterically.

With these tragic scenes played out in front of her eyes, could anyone expect her diary to be free of sorrows?

She stands alone in the hall and her hand grips the book even more forcefully. The cold sweat intensifies.

After taking several deep breaths, Santi moves toward the lift. When the door opens, she sees several men, with bags and neckties, coming out. They look so big and tall.

She looks up in awe because she imagines something huge will come crashing down on her. She is also trying to conjure up an image of the man waiting for her on the 8th floor.

He may be the one who interviewed her yesterday. But probably he will be a new guy, who is more eagle-eyed and vigilant, more straightforward and firm. The person might also be a woman, who knows?

Suddenly Santi imagines a man who looks like her father. He is quiet and calm, but once he explodes he can be terrifying. That is also possible, she thinks.

She halts and thinks of something else. The company, involved in property and service sectors, could also hire a personality analyst to find out how applicants really are. If this is the case, she will only be more nervous.

"Bring the diary?" asks the official who greets her in a heavy and husky voice. He says it without using anda, the polite Indonesian for "you."

"Y...y...yes," Santi stammers. The man grabs the diary from her -- just like her father seizes everything from his children -- and starts scrutinizing the entries before he returns to the first page. Here there are so many words blurred by teardrops.

No, she says to herself, I don't want it to be this way. But suddenly she imagines the face of Didin, her youngest brother, who has courageously taken on so much of the family burden.

After Santi decided to join a computer course, because her economic high school education is not enough to help make ends meet, Didin took over the family's financial responsibility. Like Yanto, 14-year-old Didin has also dropped out school. He tries to earn money by shining shoes in the office complex.

Santi also remembers Ika, her younger sister and the youngest in the family. Should the 10-year-old drop out of elementary school, too? No, Ika has to continue her studies.

"Water drops?" asks the company official with a frown. "Are these tears?"

She nods, looks down and says nothing. The man calmly thumbs through the other pages. Can he peruse the pages of Santi's life so coldly and meticulously? There are so many pages smudged by teardrops which make the entries difficult to read.

"You wrote them while crying?" he asks Santi with a smile. "You should have written when you had composed your thoughts."

Santi wants to look straight ahead but does not have the guts. When you had composed yourself; does this man know when her sorrow will end? No, it will never cease. The specter of terror will continue to haunt her. Their vicious father will never let her and her siblings live peacefully.

Even when he finds them in a good mood, he always believes that they are happy because they have money, the thing he covets. He doesn't hesitate to try and get what he wants through abuse.

"Sadness?" the man mumbles before he laughs sarcastically. "I believe life is full of sorrow, but don't you think it is also filled with joy?"

Santi still does not have the stomach to look at him. Actually, she feels insulted but powerless to say anything.

"You have to be brave," he says. Then he says nothing, as if to give Santi a chance to show a reaction. She tells herself: "What for? This man does not understand my true situation."

"OK," he said, laughing. "Joy, sorrow, for me or for anybody else is like the two sides of the same coin. What does it mean? I don't believe that happiness is avoiding you. Don't you have any beautiful childhood memories?"

Santi could not remember. She recalls her late mother who ran a small business. That was not bad. Santi did have beautiful reminisces about those days but these had nothing to do with her job application.

All the idyllic days of the past can never wipe out today's sadness. "One doesn't sleep on history," she thinks.

"It is true that one does not live in the past," the man says as though he can read Santi's mind. "But with past happiness one can learn that life is not always to be regretted. Have you ever thought, or felt, that optimism for better days makes you stronger and enables you to forget your suffering?"

Santi believes this man does not have the slightest knowledge about her life yet looks at problems in a muddled way. She remembers her brothers again. She feels ashamed to have put so much burden on the shoulders of skinny Didin. She also remembers Ika with her dreams for the future.

"I don't understand," Santi says.

"Oh," says the man cheerfully. "There lies your problem. There are so many difficulties that you have failed to understand but tried to solve in the diary."

Santi looks at him in the eyes. His face has started to make her nauseous. "I don't understand what you have said," she repeats.

"Someone, miss. You must need someone outside yourself."

"No, what I need is a job," Santi retorts.

"Oh, yes, that is what I have to reveal to you right now," the man says, again turning the pages of Santi's diary. With a smile, he returns the book to her.

Santi takes it back with her heart beating faster. She feels her breath is running out.

"Santi, that is your name, isn't it? Our company is in need of more employees. But ..." the man says, sitting back in the chair. He smiles and rubs his hands together.

"The ones we need are people with a profound sense of optimism. Cheerful people, those who remain happy in any sad situation. Here, Santi, nobody is interested in despair, much less to jot notes down about it. And after reading your diary, the company has decided ... "

Santi does not want to hear it. She gasps for breath and closes her ears with her hands.

The lift opens its door to let people out. The door stays open for a moment as if biding its time for Santi to get in.

Slowly, she turns and steps in. When the lift reaches the ground floor, Santi leaves the building.