When You Come Home ...

By Alex Leonard

From nine in the morning when you go to work till five in the evening when you come home, I'm all alone. I have no friends. I have nothing to do. I just stare into space all day.

Our cleaner comes for a few hours and I talk a little with her, but really she has things to do and so we don't say much to each other.

Nobody calls, nobody comes around. I don't go anywhere. Of course I want to go out and do something ... but where can I go? What can I do?

When you leave to go to work, I take a shower, turn on the radio or TV and then sit here on the sofa and stare into space. I can't think about anything, it's like my thoughts have reached a dead end. I get so bored, and then frustrated and angry because my life is so boring. I get mad and want to smash and burn things ... but I don't know what I'm mad at. You have your work to do and you're out there trying to make money for us to live on so there's no reason for me to get mad at you. It's torment, and I want to scream and cry. Shit!

My life is so boring! Sooo ... sooo ... boring ...

When I lived in Bandung and Jakarta it was different. I was always doing something, always going somewhere. It was easy to find friends to hang out with or go for rides with or go shopping with. Someone always seemed to have a good idea, and suddenly we'd be doing something, going somewhere.

It's true, then I always had money. I just had to nudge Papa and he'd slip two hundred or five hundred thousand rupiah into my purse. That was before the 1998 monetary crisis, when five hundred thousand was a lot. Papa often slipped me money without my letting him know I needed it. I'm the first child and the only girl in my family and I've always been pampered. If I wanted something, I just bought it. It didn't matter how much it cost.

In high school I always had the newest, coolest things before anyone else. If anyone else had something new and cool then I had to have it as well, and so I'd go home and tell Papa to take me to the mall so we could buy it.

When I was in my second year of high school, some Nike shoes everyone had been talking about finally went on sale. But they were so expensive nobody bought them. Then one day a girl I couldn't stand came to school in them, and everyone crowded around to admire them. It really irritated me, and so I went home and told Papa I had to have those shoes. The next day I wore them to school and beat that stupid girl.

My clothes and shoes and bags and makeup were always of the best make and style. When I was studying at the public relations school on Jl. Thamrin in Jakarta I always wore Esprit things. I had just about a complete Esprit wardrobe. Esprit things are expensive. I also shopped in the Body Shop a lot. My powder, moisturizer, skin cleanser and shampoo were all from the Body Shop. Body Shop things are expensive too. But it never made any difference to me because I always had a lot of money.

When I was in my second year of high school, I was given a car. A Chinese businessman whose application for a building permit my father had supported sent it to our house one day. His application had been successful and he had asked my father how I got to school. Papa said I used public transport. The next day there was a new Honda Civic in the driveway.

Since then I've had four other cars of my own. When I finished high school I got a Toyota Hardtop, which was really big and really cool to drive. Its tires made a sound like the whirring of a helicopter's blades. But we resold the Hardtop almost immediately because the first time I drove it home, forgetting how high it was I drove it into the garage and destroyed the garage roof. Then I got a Feroza. When I began at the foreign languages school in Bandung, Papa gave me a Suzuki Escudo. When we moved to Jakarta and I started going to the public relations school I got a Baleno.

But I was always a bad student. I never studied, and missed most of my classes. I always cheated in examinations. Everyone cheated at the public relations school I went to. Or instead of cheating we'd just miss the examination and then visit our lecturer the next day and slip him some money for a Pass. We were all from wealthy families and were going to college just for something to do for a few years or to please our parents. Hardly any of us graduated. . . maybe two of my classmates.

Anyway the most important thing to us was our appearance. You had to look good, to wear well-known labels. . . If you didn't you'd have no friends and be ridiculed all the time. So that's almost all we thought about, our appearance how we could maintain it, how we could improve it. . . We followed fashions carefully. We all looked really good.

I was really happy in Jakarta. I had money, a car, friends... I could go shopping whenever I wanted to, I could drive to Bandung for the weekend.

My boyfriend lived in Bandung. He always gave me money as well. For my birthday two years ago he gave me three million rupiah and told me to go out and have a good time. I invited my friends to the Jakarta Hard Rock and we danced till closing time, then went to another disco till dawn.

My boyfriend took me shopping and let me buy whatever I wanted bags, shoes, makeup. He was very kind and understanding. After all, what makes women happy is shopping. Most women anyway, because it's true some women like to stay at home. But those women get wrinkles quick.

My boyfriend was very kind and understanding. He bought me a hand phone, and when I got mad at him and smashed it he bought me another one.

I lose my temper very quickly. And when I'm mad I can't think properly. I just want to smash and burn things, or punch up whoever I'm mad at. There was a song my boyfriend liked to sing along with, a Dewa 19 song, the song he remembered his ex- girlfriend by. He always put a recording of it on in the car. Every time he put it on and started singing along with it I got mad. I'd rip the cassette out of the player and throw it out the window onto the road. But my boyfriend would forget and keep on buying that stupid cassette again and again. I must have thrown it out of the window five times.

He bought me a diamond ring once. It was beautiful and cost about four million rupiah. Then later I found the photo of another girl in his wallet and got really mad. I took the ring off and threw it into a ditch, and just walked away. He was shouting "No, Cindy! What are you doing? Stop! No!" But I didn't care, I was so mad.

When I was little I was scared of foreigners. They all seemed so big and white and strange. I never imagined that one day I'd be married to one.

Sometimes when we're lying in each other's arms and looking into each other's eyes I'll be astonished at the fact that I'm so close to a bule. In love with a bule! Married to a bule! Lying naked next to a bule! It 's so strange I can hardly believe it.

But I love you, Darling. You make me soooooo... happy... You make me laugh and laugh, you're tender with me, you take care of me, you never get angry with me. If you're not with me I miss you terribly. I miss being held by you and miss looking into your eyes. Green Eyes. I miss your bum and your stomach. The tiny white hairs on your stomach... so fine...

Please don't hurt me. Please don't fall in love with another girl. If you fall in love with another girl I'll be so sad. And really, really angry.

I'll get so mad, I'll smash and burn everything around me, and I'll hit you and kick you and bite you. I'll take a knife and stick it into your ribs.

I'll break a bottle over the stupid girl's head... Don't do anything with any other girls. Don't hurt me, darling.

I know we'll be happy together forever... Sure, it's difficult at the moment. We don't have much money, your salary's still small, and I can't keep on asking you for money. I'm ashamed, because every time I ask you for money I'm putting pressure on you, burdening you.

To tell you the truth, I thought married life would be different. I thought marriage would bring me comfort and security. I used to daydream about seeing my husband out the door in the morning. In my daydreams my husband was always the director of a big company, he wore suits to work and was driven there in a smart company car by a polite company chauffeur. In my daydreams I had friends the wives of directors of other companies with whom I shopped at Sogo and Senayan for expensive clothes and cosmetics.

Sometimes we flew to Hong Kong or Singapore to go shopping.

For so long it was as though marriage was my ultimate goal in life, what everything else in my life was leading me towards. But now that I'm married I feel lost. I feel like there's somewhere I should be going, but I don't know where. I feel like there's something I should be doing, but I don't know what.

I think about having a child, but we can't have a child now because we have no money. I think about going shopping with friends, but I can't go shopping with friends now because I don't have friends and we have no money. You go to work in boardshorts and sandals. We ride around everywhere on your rusty scooter. We hardly ever eat at restaurants or go shopping for clothes.

Every time I go to the supermarket or to the mall and see something I really, really want I feel awful, really awful! I see something nice and I want it, but I can't have it. I can't have what I want! Even if I have the money for it with me, it's your money as well, and I can't just spend it on something expensive like that. After all, you're the one who works. I don't work, I don't do anything.

Sometimes when we're looking around in the mall together and I see something I like and say, "Pa! Will you buy that thing for me?" sometimes it's enough that I've said it, that I've opened up my heart... even if you just say "Ya..." the main thing is I've said it.

When I go out and look around, I see people everywhere and they all seem so busy, as though they all have something important to do. What are they doing? Where are they going? I feel like I'm the only one in the world with nothing to do, and it drives me crazy!

Nobody has time for me. The friends I used to have here in Bali have things to do, and whenever I ring them they have an excuse for not coming to see me or for not meeting up with me. That makes me feel very sad and lonely. I feel all alone in the world, all alone... All... alone...

Then you come home from the office and for a few hours I can smile and laugh. It's like the whole world is smiling and laughing. I get to do what people in Jakarta call olahraga muke - facial exercises.

When you come home it's like a flower falling on my face ...

I never feel lonely or sad when you're home. When you're home I long to be close to you all the time, to be laughing with you and joking around with you, dancing with you, pinching you and tickling you ...

That's what really makes me happy.

Glossary:

Bule is Jakarta slang meaning "a white man"