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Three days had passed and now on the morning of the fourth, she was sprawled on the sofa in her apartment, trying to get a little sleep before bathing and getting ready to see Professor Dupont to turn in her proposal. She slept so soundly that she definitely would have been late had not a kiss as gentle as cotton awakened her.

“Nara …”

Lintang rubbed her eyes. Her throat suddenly felt parched. What time was it? Where was she?

“I started to get worried when you didn't answer the telephone. I know your proposal is due today and that you should be leaving soon for campus.”

Lintang jumped up from the sofa. As she did, the loose pages of her proposal flew into the air. Not bothering to first pick them up, she raced into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Nara smiled and shook his head as he picked up the sheets of paper and arranged them in their proper order. Then he poured orange juice into a glass and rolled up his sleeves to make breakfast. He assumed that Lintang had not been eating well and had probably consumed gallons of caffeine during the past several days.

“Yum, an omelet and sausages? And where did you find the croissants? I've haven't had a chance to shop this week. Did you hold up the
boulangerie
on the ground floor?”

Dressed in a kimono bathrobe, Lintang pounced on the breakfast Nara had arranged neatly on the table.

“Their first croissants of the day were just coming out of the oven when I arrived, so I scooped them up,” Nara said.

“You are an angel,” Lintang said as she kissed his lips. “That place is the only reason I can stand to live in this shit hole of an apartment. I love waking up to the smell of their freshly baked croissants.”

“But this morning you woke up because of my kiss,” Nara said as he repeatedly kissed her face. “Is there enough time for me to help relieve some of your tension?”

Lintang laughed, pulled the lobe of Nara's ear, and then went into her bedroom to change her clothes.

“I straightened up your proposal and put it in the green folder,” Nara called after her.

“Did you read it?”

“Just skimmed it—I was fixing your breakfast, you know—but it looks to me to be pretty good, in content and in tone. I'm sure Monsieur Dupont will be impressed.”

As Lintang dressed, Nara put her messy kitchen back in order.

She came out from the room wearing black jeans and a white blouse. Hanging from her shoulders, and complementing her simple apparel, was an almost diaphanous batik scarf her mother owned.

Sitting down at the kitchen table, Lintang began to talk: “You know, all the stuff I've read these past few weeks, in my father's unpublished manuscripts and the letters that's he's received over the years, and all the documentary films I've seen—both the unprofessional and professional ones produced by Australian filmmakers and the BBC—reveal a blood-filled side of Indonesian history that has thus far been largely ignored.”

Nara could only nod as he listened to Lintang speak.

Pausing to take a breath, Lintang then attacked the omelet and sausages before continuing: “The massacres that took place around Indonesia and the hunt for members of the Communist Party and their families served to bolster a strong and enduring power structure. And those concepts of ‘political hygience' and being ‘environmentally clean'…
Merde!
What the hell are they anyway?!”

Still eating her omelet, Lintang spoke quickly, no pausing for commas, no stopping for periods, sometimes jabbing her fork in the air.

Afraid that Lintang was going to stick him in the eye with her fork, Nara took her hand and lowered it to the table. “Very good, darling, but it's time to get ready to go. I'll go with you as far as Monsieur Dupont's office; but after that, I must go see Professor Dubois.”

“Oh, hmm…” Lintang suddenly felt guilty for not having paid sufficient attention to Nara or his own academic concerns. “Is he going to give you his recommendation?”

“It looks like it…but come on,” Nara told her. “When all this is over, I am going to kidnap you and lock you in the bedroom for three days!” he added with a leer.

Nara grabbed Lintang's jacket and the two of them ran to the Metro station. At that moment, Lintang could not help but think how easy her life was. She would finish her final assignment. Nara would continue his schooling in London. Soon, it would be summer in Paris again. Life was neat and orderly, just as it should be.

Dimas put the oversized envelope containing the X-rays of his chest and abdomen into a large bag the hospital had provided. He
was sorely tempted to throw the results of the examination into the trash container—Bam!—but he realized that would be overly dramatic and childish. He sat at the Metro station, staring at its subterranean walls and the array of announcements on them. They suddenly seemed to transform into a series of advertisements and health advisories about vaccines, skin diseases, breast cancer, and AIDS. He felt chafed. What a cliché it was: he would not die like Hananto, before a firing squad, or be thrown off a cliff or drowned in the Solo River. He would be slowly worn away by a fucking disease he could not even see.

It was such a cliché, so damned banal and mediocre that Dimas was relucant to talk or think about the topic, even to himself.

Dimas held his stomach, which had begun to feel queasy. He took the bottle of pills he had just paid for at the hospital. Opening the cap, he popped two tablets into his hand and then swallowed them straightaway.

Paris was preparing to welcome the beginning of summer. Dimas counted the number of summer days that he still might see.

Ever since the first time Lintang set foot on the campus of the Sorbonne as a freshman student, the wide corridors of the main hall held a special place in her memory. The Sorbonne was where she first met Narayana; where she first recorded autumn's falling leaves and winter's chilling winds; where she learned to wait patiently for the right moment, for those few seconds, when a flower opened in bloom; and where she had honed her editing skills by sifting through hours of film footage to find the most arresting images and most interesting quotes of the people she'd interviewed. But the most important thing, and what made the
experience different from her primary years of education, was that the Sorbonne had made Lintang feel accepted, a natural part of academic life, where questions of a student's skin color or appearance were of no concern. She felt at the Sorbonne a life of freedom, one which she and her fellow classmates had been invited to explore, to plunge into the world of intellectual life. Nothing was more exciting and stimulating.

Professor Dupont's challenge for her to take a closer look at her own history had brought her here, to this corridor. Today, walking down one hallway and then another on the way to her advisor's office, Lintang felt that she had already embarked on a journey towards a foreign destination called Indonesia. The door was open. Lintang took a breath, gave the door a rap, and then stuck her head inside.

Seeing Lintang's face, Professor Dupont waved for her to come inside. “Lintang …”

“Professor…”

Dupont smiled widely. “Amazing!”

Lintang breathed a sigh of relief. “Hmm,
oui
?”

Dupont nodded and took Lintang's proposal from a stack of folders.

“The topic is interesting and unique. No other student has done such a thing before. You have a clear focus—even if you yourself might be seen to be a victim of the events of 1965 in Indonesia.”

“
Attendez, Professeur.
I don't think I want to include myself as a victim.”

Professor Dupont stared at Lintang with his blue eyes. His eyes smiled, though his lips revealed no emotion.

“I understand. But in the eyes of the viewer, the outsider, that is how you will be seen. Because you've never had the chance to
know that part of yourself: your father's homeland.”

Lintang said nothing.

“This could be an amazing documentary film—as long as you can bring it on time, that is, and are able to stay faithful to your focus.”

“But Professor, about my final point…?”

“You mean, the need for you to do the work in Indonesia? I don't see a problem,” the professor answered. “I'll give my recommendation to the dean. Some funding should be available, but you'll probably have to come up with some of your own as well.”

Lintang had to resist throwing her arms around her advisor and giving him a big hug. But from the happy look she gave him, Professor Dupont could see in her eyes two gleaming stars.

“I'll send in my recommendation today. You'll need to wait a day or two for approval but, after that, we can meet again to discuss the technical details.”

“
Merci
, professor.”

Lintang took her advisor's hand and shook it happily.

“
De rien,
Lintang.” He gave her a serious look. “Your documentary film is about the joys and sorrows of mankind, about life and life's history.
C'est la vie et l'histoire de la vie.
As such, you must not see your work merely as my final assignment for you. Your film must come from here.” He pointed to his chest. “Not just from your brain alone.”

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur.
We can see clearly by using the heart.

“
D'accord, monsieur.
”

“You must be careful, Lintang. Indonesia is going through a period of unrest. Students and activists are taking to the streets. But you have to remain focused. Even more important, you must
finish your work on time. If you are late, you will not graduate.
Tu comprends
?”

“
Je comprends. Merci, monsieur.
”

Lintang ran the entire length of the hallway. She felt that she was reaching for something. Reaching for something that had always been foreign inside her. Plucking something from I-N-D-O-N-E-S-I-A.

Nasi kuning
,
ayam goreng kremes
,
kering tempe
,
sambal bajak teri
,
urap tabur kelapa
… My God. Yellow rice, coconut-battered fried chicken, tempeh sticks with peanuts and chili, fried hot pepper sauce with dried and salted white fish, steamed vegetables with grated coconut… It was unreal! Lintang was really going to Jakarta where she would be able to get those dishes any time she wanted. Even so, she still dug into her father's cooking like an inmate who had been fed on stale rice and salt for the past two years. She tried everything, ate everything, almost not even chewing before she swallowed.