Thoughts at a Lounge Bar

By Valentinus Irawan

This is my third glass of tequila. The first irritated my throat, but this one is helping me forget the daily nag of the monetary crisis. I have never faced such a nuisance in all the time since I was appointed bank director.

"Don't you think you have drunk too much,Pak?"

The question came from my new secretary, sitting beside me. She is fresh from secretarial school. Here am I, a workaholic, enjoying myself. I need the refreshment.

I gave her a signal to pour more into my glass. The mood is soft, accompanied by the exotic Mandarin music. I am actually waiting for a more lovable moment where my happiness would reach its peak.

"Jimmy has AIDS," I mumble. I want to discuss something that has disturbed me lately.

But she looks offended.

"Do you suspect that I will infect you with that virus?" the tall girl asked with a graphic frankness.

Now it is my turn to be shocked. How could she feel that I was suspicious of her in that way? I had not asked her to spend a night with me. She must be experienced.

"No. I just cannot understand how Pak Jimmy, our senior officer, has contracted the deadly disease. By the way, do you have work experience elsewhere?"

"Yes. I started working when I was a second-year student. I worked at a South Korean automotive company. But I did not mix with white-collar employees."

She is not as bright as I thought her to be. She seems to be ignorant that AIDS has mostly infected middle and upper-class people, whose sexual behavior flouts traditional taboos.

In fact, I'm disappointed I had hired her. I don't like women who have worked at foreign companies. Managers of these firms live here alone -- either away from their families or they are unmarried -- and they are usually promiscuous.

"You're lost in your thoughts," she said, smiling. Her dimples make her more attractive. She seems to have regained her sense of humor.

I am surprised to feel her fingers under the table. She takes my hand and puts it on her lap. I look around.

"You look a little bit uneasy, why? Everyone has come here to let their hair down and remember this is a club for the elite," she says with her saucy glance.

I feel so disturbed. I'm scared. Since I got the news about my AIDS-infected colleague, I have been terrorized by strange thoughts.

I imagined myself being summoned by the clinic where I have had a general checkup. The doctor first speaks to me about many unrelated things, and questions me about my extramarital sex life. He then reveals that I have AIDS.

Positive, he said.

I imagined myself leaving the doctor's office numbed. Outside I saw darkness all around. In the next few years, I lost weight. My immunity to disease collapsed, and I could not even fight a cold. In and out of hospital, I felt death was not far away. People avoided me. My wife and children fled.

"You look very worn out, Papa," they would say.

My secretary is massaging my fingers. What a striking contrast with my wife, who is always too lazy to move from her chair in front of the TV set when I get home.

I look over my secretary's body. She really has beautiful curves in all the right places; my wife does not even have "places".

Oh God, how could I have such negative thoughts?

As my imagination wanders further, I find my secretary sleeping beside me in a hotel bed. She stares at my body, which looks ghostly that day. She touches my wrist -- which is cold -- to check the pulse. When there is no response, the woman screams hysterically.

I had got overexcited in bed. I forgot I have a cardiac problem, hypertension, cholesterol. I am also a chain-smoker. The next morning, newspapers carry the headline: A Noted Banker Dies in the Saddle.

However, the nightmare is not as horrible as the death of my secretary lying beside me. Some women have died in hotel rooms of different causes, such as taking too many dangerous drugs, while sleeping with their bosses.

If my tragedy really happened, what would be the effect on my good name? You see, I am chairman of the church fundraising committee. How would my children react to news reports saying I was found beside my dead secretary in a hotel bedroom?

And how my wife would cry. How would I face my colleagues at the office? I don't know, but what I did know was that I was drenched in a cold sweat.

"You are deep in thought. What are you thinking about? Do you think I should have a blood test?" my secretary asked, once again flashing her mischievous grin.

God, every time she does that she really looks like my eldest daughter. She is a college student. I don't know how she is because I have not seen her for months, even though we live under the same roof.

I feel my back tingling with cold sweat and my heartbeat growing more irregular. I look around the dim hall.

I imagine my daughter in a corner there with some lonely businessman whose potbelly is so hideous.

It is a disgusting image. Most of the visitors at the bar are middle-aged men like me, whose bellies are like mine, too. They are also with young women, so young that they could be their daughters.

My thoughts are getting darker. I cannot imagine my daughter being ushered into a room by a tightfisted old man. Horrible.

My daughter might come home one day feverish with HIV. Slowly, her beautiful face would become wan like that of the dead. Her body would be reduced to a walking skeleton.

I feel sick and dizzy.

"Pak," my secretary said, "if you don't enjoy this place why did you bring me here? You are always looking around -- are you expecting someone? If you are, I can go home now."

"No, sorry darling. I have a slight headache," I lied. I ask her to fill my glass again.

"It's enough Pak, you have drunk too much. I am not strong enough to carry you if you collapse. Come on, please, let's go."

Oh my God. Her last words are exactly the same as my daughter's whenever she asked us to leave a boring event. I think too much Mexican booze has fogged my rational thinking.

Or it is because I have drunk too little?

I grab the bottle and pour the rest of its contents into my glass. Within seconds, I gulp it all to the last drop. Now I have more cheer than I need.

I look seriously at the woman beside me. Her form has gradually changed into my daughter. She smiles childishly. Oh God, could I sleep with my own daughter, my own flesh and blood?

"Pak, let's go to the Hilton, Mandarin, or ... another hotel. Should I call the driver?"

Her voice sounds so far away to me, and my mind has returned to the clinic where the doctor told me I had AIDS.

Translated by TIS

Glossary:

Pak: a colloquial address for elder men, means sir or father.