The Daughter

By Diani Savitri

It was another heavy blow and its power made her reel. Her feet were barely able to keep supporting her tiny body. But she would not submit and allow herself to be tossed about helplessly.

"Dad!" she called out loud, immediately tightening her lips again afraid that the water might gush into her mouth. She could hardly see him, his tall and sturdy figure, but for all that she still believed he was there for her.

She stumbled again, tried to stand up but the wave, rushing back from the edge of the shore, pulled her hard, now further away from him. She could not resist the drag. She thought the ocean would swallow her and she would die.

That happened on a clear day, one with warm sunshine and a cool breeze. She was almost four and she and Dad had been playing on the beach. She always yearned to just relive that day over and over again.

"You're not going anywhere, you're just going to finish your dinner,"

She heard her mother's words but as usual she did not listen to them. She got up from her seat, never once looking into Ma's eyes. She walked over to their kitchen with her empty plate, a stale room with barren soil that, as far as she remembered, was always muddy.

She finished her dinner before Ma did. Ma never paid attention, she thought. They were having a meal together and she had finished hers five minutes ago. But did Ma ever notice what she did? Why should she listen to Ma when Ma just never, never listened to her.

She slipped off her rubber sandals and put on her favorite shoes, which were sitting beside their stove. They were her only pair of shoes -- the bright red, high-heeled shoes with straps around the ankles. She always won all of their arguments using very few words, although she now came to wonder if it was her silence that actually defeated mother.

Snatching her bag -- the small, bright red shoulder bag with a very long strap allowing it to hang down to her thigh -- from the dining table. She stole a glance at Ma. Ma was expressionless; her eyes were back to their usual state -- distant and desolate.

The Woman Spirit has abandoned that poor creature I call my mother, she thought. It was weird to think how the Woman Spirit was able to creep in and out of Ma; she knew that the Woman Spirit crept in every time Ma dared to reprimand her over this or that.

As Ma was too weak to confront her daughter, then maybe, she mused, Ma summoned the Woman Spirit into her. Strong and fierce was that Woman Spirit. Her strength came forth and took shape as the fire in Ma's eyes. But even the Woman Spirit was always defeated in the end; after which she crept out, away from mother's normally sullen eyes.

She walked elegantly towards the front door. She touched her chest slightly, feeling her super-thin gold necklace and its heart-shaped pendant. She felt proud. She had fair skin, a pretty face on an well-formed head, slim. The tight shift dress embraced her rounded bosom, the red shoes and the red shoulder bag dangling freely were just superfluities. She herself was a real head-turner.

She had just turned sixteen that very day.

She had just entered her twenties when she spotted Putera that night at the club which she frequented. She felt a twinge in her heart, almost physical inside her chest. She was suddenly suffocated and needed to leave the room to get fresh air.

"Putu?" he said to her.

"Why are you following me?" she replied.

"I know it's you. Putu, are you still angry with me?"

"Angry? You must be mad. I love you!"

"Putu, listen. Please don't cry. I'm so sorry I did what I did."

"I've forgiven you a long time ago. It was my fault. I was born impure. I was born to be treated that way."

"Putu, please. It was a mistake. I heard about the baby ..,"

The girl child had been stillborn. "She was fatherless like me, but was worse. You do not love me. At least father loved mother. He left her but I know he once loved her. You don't love the baby. At least Father loved me. He left us but I feel that he still loves me," Putu thought bitterly.

"Putu ..."

"Don't touch me. Please don't touch me. Please ...".

"I'm back now. I've moved to Denpasar now. I can give you money, if you need any. You're ... working, tonight? Do you have a ... a guest, tonight? What about your mother? She's got worse, I've heard. You still live with your mother?"

"What do you care about Ma? She's a crazy woman. She's crazy and has been as silent as a statue since father left fifteen years ago. You know that."

"I'm really sorry, all right? I was banished by my family, I went to study in Jakarta and got married there. I sometimes visit my banjar 1), though. They've forgiven me."

They didn't have a sixteen year-old daughter who'd given birth to a fatherless, stillborn female child. They had you, the eldest son of a respected village chief. One who bore the title Anak Agung2).

They had to forgive you. My banjar has every reason not to forgive me. They didn't forgive mother either. Both of us are the unwedded mothers of bastard daughters and forever outcasts ...

"I have to leave now, really. Please stop crying. I understand if you don't want to say anything but I'm so sorry! I'm going now, Putu. Please stop crying."

"Did you say you're married?"

Putera stared at her, half-frightened. There was something in Putu's tearful eyes, more than in her trembling voice, which scared him.

It was the Woman Spirit. It took her over in the same way it used to take over her mother. It visited their angry and distraught souls. Putu could feel it, feel its anger, creeping into her. She consented to it, as she knew it was the only way not to feel hurt.

They argued over whether to bury or to cremate her.

"She was not a Hindu, you see her pendant there? I say we bury her."

"The pendant was her father's! She's one of us, wasn't she? I think we should cremate her,"

"She was a neither-nor. She didn't belong to anyone, not to anything!"

"No way we have a procession for her here! She was an outcast, remember? She was half-devil, for all I care. She never had any religion!"

"She was an illegitimate child but she's no devil. Her damn bule3) father was evil, she was innocent."

"Innocent? And how come she got that disease? Do you think she'd have got it if she'd been innocent?"

"I agree with you, I say we cremate her!"

"I agree with you, I say we bury her!" She was twenty-four when she died of AIDS.

Glossary:

1. Balinese word for village.

2. A Balinese title for people of higher caste.

3. A derogatory term for Caucasian westerners, now common in Indonesia.