Home by Leila S. Chudori

nothing to do with her,” I said unequivocally.
    He gave me a serious look. “So I’m the one who’s inconsistent and you are sure your position is the right one? Tell me, are you consistent? Do you know what you want? Either in politics or your personal life?”
    I said nothing, certain that he was being rhetorical.
    â€œYou don’t belong to a political party. You’re not a member of any of the mass organizations. You always refuse to take sides. You malign LEKRA but then turn around and criticize signatories of the Cultural Manifesto.”
    â€œYes, and so?” I stared at Mas Hananto, waiting for him to continue his critique.
    â€œWell what is you want, Dimas? Take a look at your personal life. You don’t seem to know what you want. Is it because you haven’t been able to move on from the past or is it that you just like being single?”
    Now I didn’t understand. Was he irritated with me because I didn’t want to take sides or because he thought I still had feelings for Surti? Why must a person take sides and join one group or another, I asked myself. Was it merely to prove one’s convictions? And were convictions entirely unitary in nature? Socialism, communism, capitalism, and all the other isms… Must we choose one and then swallow it whole without any sense of doubt? Without any possibility for criticism?
    I looked at Mas Hananto but kept my questions to myself. He had one hand on the steering wheel and was rubbing his jaw with the other. That night we said nothing more, at least not until Mas Hananto’s jeep stopped in front of my boarding house, but how the conversation ended, I frankly no longer recall.
    What I do remember is that the next day and for the entire week thereafter, we didn’t speak to each other. At the office, Mas Hananto said only what was essential, hardly bothering to look at me when he spoke. His jaw and cheek were swollen and blue.
    One day at the office, after about a week of us of not speaking, I watched from a distance as Mas Hananto laughed and spoke in whispers with Mas Nugroho and the editor-in-chief. I gave nothought to their little intrigue. I had no idea that their conversation that day would determine the course of my life, my fate, and my future as an exile, stranded in Paris. But then Mas Nug looked over in my direction and waved his hand, signaling for me to come to his desk.

    â€œSo, they had decided to send you to Europe?”
    â€œNo, they had decided to send me to one conference in Santiago and then on to another in Peking.”
    â€œSo you went to Santiago, Chile, and then after that flew on to China?”
    â€œMy journey in life has been a long one, Vivienne. Before going to China, I went to Cuba first, and it was only after some time in China that I came to Europe.”
    I looked outside the window. To compare Paris and Jakarta would be like comparing coconut milk with gutter water.

    A COFFEE STALL ON JALAN TJIDURIAN, JAKARTA ;
    SEPTEMBER 12, 1965
    â€œI don’t know anything about the I.O.J. or its conference in Santiago,” I said to Mas Hananto after tracking him to an itinerant coffee stall near the corner of Jalan Tjidurian. I tossed the large manila envelope on the stall’s rickety table. This was the first long sentence I had spoken to Mas Hananto since we’d stopped talking to each other. Inside the envelope was an invitation to attend a conference of journalists in Chile.
    Mas Hananto, who was sitting slovenly with one arm on the table and one leg propped up on the bench, stared at his glass ofhot coffee as if pretending to be deaf. He lowered his lips to the edge of the glass and started slurping—a sound that disgusted me. I knew he was doing this to annoy me.
    Feeling both surprise and the desire to smack him in the jaw again, I finally decided to sit down beside him. “This invitation is for you,” I said. “Why do you want me to go?”
    Saying