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“Oh, that's grouper,” Mrs. Priasmoro informed her, “but be careful of those little green chilies. They are very
pedas
.”

“Hot, very hot,” Rininta said as if Lintang didn't understand Indonesian.”

“Oh, I'm used to hot food,” Lintang said to Mrs. Priasmoro. “My father likes to cook; in fact, he's a chef.” Lintang ate her fish avidly. “I'd love to get the recipe for this fish.”

“Your father is a chef? In Paris?” Mrs. Priasmoro remarked in astonishment. “That's amazing! I mean the bistros in Paris are the best in the world. Where is your father's located?”

Unimaginable! Un-fucking-imaginable! Rama suddenly turned pale and stiff. He stopped chewing and looked at Lintang, not
quite believing what he'd just heard. Aji and Retno sensed their son's apprehension. But wasn't Rama supposed to have already told the Priasmoros about his own family history—people seen as enemies of the state?

“Oh, it's not a bistro; it's a restaurant, an Indonesian restaurant,” Lintang clarified, “but it has a bar in it, too. In Paris, you can't have a place without wine,” she emphasized.

“An Indonesian restaurant? Well that's nice, very nice,” Mr. Priasmoro said with a nod. “It's nice to know that white people like Indonesian food too, isn't it, dear? It's we Indonesians whose stomachs can't adapt,” he stated, and then began to chuckle as he looked at his wife and daughter. “Remember that trip a few years ago—going all the way to Europe for holiday, and still spending half our day looking for rice?!”

Rama felt relieved to see the conversation turning elsewhere.

“You ended up going to Chinatown, isn't that right, sir?” Rama asked, not trusting his own ability to steer the conversation.

Aji was now certain that Rama hadn't said anything to his prospective parents-in-law.

“Yes, yes, that's exactly what we did. Actually there was an Indonesian restaurant in Paris. Where was it, dear? What's the name of the street?”

“Rue de Vaugirard,” his wife reminded him while passing a dish of goat satay to Lintang. Lintang took the platter of skewered meat unaware of the unease in the air. She was impressed by the thickness and the marbling of the tender pieces of meat on which was drizzled a soy-based
sambal
and slivers of fried shallots.

“It was Rininta here who always had to have rice. We hadn't been there even a week and she was already whining. But what were we supposed to do? We couldn't go to that restaurant.
It's owned by communists!” Mr. Priasmoro said jocularly, not noticing the change on the faces of his guests. His words so surprised Lintang, she almost dropped the platter of satay. With a trembling hand, she placed the platter on the table.

“So what did we do in the end?” Rininta asked in feigned exasperation. “We ended up going to yet another café for more French food.”

“Well, we couldn't go to that commie place. You don't understand politics. And all you cared about was rice,” Mr. Priasmoro grumbled at his daughter, as if she were twelve years old. “Funny in a way how those communists became famous for their restaurant, with their names written up everywhere when the food wasn't even special, or so I heard: just fried rice with an egg on top!” He guffawed but then caught himself: “Please, please help yourself to more,” he said to Aji and Retno.

“They don't just serve fried rice!” Lintang suddenly exclaimed, her eyes ablaze.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod!” Andini whispered with evident excitement.

“What was that, dear?” Mrs. Priasmoro asked, giving Lintang a chance to clarify.

Rama looked like he wanted to slip from his chair to beneath the table.

“They don't just serve fried rice with an egg on top. They have a complete Indonesian menu and all the dishes taste great. There's Padang-style
rendang
, fried beef lung, shrimp with chili sauce,
nasi kuning
with all the fixings—tempeh, anchovies, and wilted vegetables. There's also
gulai anam
and even
ikan pindang serani
, which are also very good, and the restaurant is always full from afternoon to night. It's full!” Lintang spoke forcefully, her
eyes brimming with tears.

Rama didn't know whether to be angry or to crawl inside a hole in the ground to never come out again. Aji and Retno looked at each other—for now it was painfully obvious that their son had not kept his promise to speak to his future in-laws. Andini just smiled, while muttering ohmygod as she nibbled on the satay.

“Oh, is that so?” Mr. Priasmoro asked, giving Lintang a look of surprise. “Have you been there?”

“Yes, I have. I go there a lot. I was at the opening, in fact. My father is one of the founders of and the cook at Tanah Air Restaurant.”

Tears now streaming from her eyes, Lintang stood and quickly asked permission to go to the bathroom. Mrs. Priasmoro nodded and shakily pointed her finger in the direction of the bathroom as the tableau at the dining table turned into a scene on television where someone has pushed the pause button. Freeze frame. No one moved. No one spoke.

Lintang rushed to the sink in the bathroom, turned on the water, and washed her face. Tears and tap water turned to one. She scrubbed her face so hard that her cheeks and forehead turned red and puffy. She looked at her image in the mirror. Flaming red, anger-filled, and wild-looking. She didn't recognize herself. And then there flashed on the glass the same blood-filled letters that she had seen in the Marais rising above a pile of fresh overturned red earth: “Dimas Suryo: 1930–1998.” Hot tears oozed from her eyes.

“Lintang.” Andini tapped the bathroom door.

“Yes.” Lintang tried to conceal her hoarse voice.

“Are you OK?”

“
Oui
…Yes.”

Lintang coughed to try to clear her throat. Her voice still felt hoarse. Lintang didn't care if someone looked down on her but
she couldn't sit still to hear her parents insulted.

“I'm coming in, Lintang. OK…?”

Lintang didn't answer. She heard the sound of the door opening. She'd forgotten to lock the door. Andini was now standing behind her, kneading her shoulders.

“You go, girl!” Andini whispered in English. “I'm proud of you.”

Lintang looked at her crazy cousin and suddenly the two of them began to laugh.

“
Mon Dieu,
I can't imagine what your parents must feel. I have to apologize to them for ruining this occasion.” Lintang looked around for a tissue to dry her face.

“Don't you worry,” Andini advised. “Tonight the guilty party is Rama. You're the hero. Come on, let's go home!” Andini took Lintang's hand, which was still shaking.

The Kijang van carrying the Aji Suryo family crossed the streets of Jakarta still thick with people averse to a night at home. Each of the van's occupants drowned themselves in thought.

“Put on some music, Papa,” Andini finally said, attempting to break the ice.

Her mother looked through the cassette box and chose a collection of traditional songs.

“Oh, God, Mother, not Waljinah. I can't stand her singing
keroncong
.”

Young Andini had the makings of a dictator.

“Then what do you want?”

Andini leaned over the front seat and rifled through the cassettes. “There! Got one!
Three Little Birds.
” Almost instantly, Bob Marley started rocking the Kijang, shattering the frozen atmosphere.

Aji shook his head. “Waljinah has a golden voice but we can't play
keroncong
. Instead, we've got to hear this bump-bump-bump kind of music,” he grumbled but with a smile on his face.

Lintang put her hand on her uncle's shoulder: “
Pardon
, Om Aji…I'm so sorry for ruining tonight's meal.”

Om Aji raised his left hand and patted the fingers on his shoulder. The weekend may not have turned out to be as calm and carefree as he might have liked, but his niece's attitude had served to illuminate the dark roads on which they traveled. No doubt, Rama was feeling hurt and troubled right now, but the lesson learned tonight was to be honest and to stand up for what is right. Aji had never felt such relief as he did right now. And he felt an even greater appreciation for his brother, who had raised a daughter who was intelligent and held a firm hand.

“There's no need at all to apologize,” he said to Lintang. “You didn't ruin anything. In fact, you've made everything lighter and clearer for us all. Don't ever apologize for standing up for principle.”

Lintang smiled as she fought back her tears. She clutched her uncle's hand and squeezed it tightly.

Andini looked out the window as she sang along to Bob Marley's lyrics. “
Don't worry about a thing, 'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!
”

FADED PICTURES

“
LE COUP DE FOUDRE
…” That's how my mother described the first time she set eyes on my father at the Sorbonne campus in May 1968. Maman and Ayah always spoke of that time full of sentimentality for the revolution, for liberty, justice, and freedom. Although unspoken, yet clearly in the background, I suspect, was the ongoing sexual liberation at that time. (Prior to the May Revolution of 1968, Maman told me, dormitories on the Paris campus were segregated by gender, but not so thereafter.)

History depicts the May 1968 revolution in a heroic light, but when I read historical accounts of the time, I find myself feeling somewhat uneasy; the generation of that time comes across as overly serious and full of themselves. When Maman first used the term
coup de foudre
in a conversation we were having about the May 1968 movement, I almost choked. The water I'd been drinking immediately surged up the wrong pipe and came out of my nose. The literal meaning of “
un coup de foudre
” in French is “lightning,” but if used in the context of a meeting between two people which makes their hearts pound, the term is laced with emotion and means “to instantly fall in love.”

Whenever Maman told me how romantic her first meeting with Ayah had been, even after their divorce, I could not stop myself from laughing. Like Maman, I guess—before she met Ayah,
that is—I simply rejected the possibility of
le coup de foudre
. For me, the road to love is much more simple and predictable: two people meet, get to know each other, and gradually find themselves attuned and comfortable with one another. That is love. Love at first sight is a phrase cooked up by greeting-card companies to sell Valentine's cards and Hollywood, which employs every means to sell love on the big screen. I once suggested to Maman that perhaps she and Ayah thought of May 1968 as such a monumental time for France only because of the meaning it had for them as a couple.

In response to my insolence, she warned me: “Be careful what you say. The time will come when you might have to eat your own words.” And now it seems that time has come and I am being forced to eat my own words.

I'd always been sure that I would never experience what my mother did: being struck helpless by a flash of lightning. I already had Narayana, after all, who could never be described as a bolt of lightning. He was a giant umbrella, protecting me from the threat of storms. Having him, why ever would I worry about being struck by lightning?

Yet, the fact is, I was stuck by
le coup de foudre
, in the form of a man named Alam: Segara Alam. Tall, with wavy hair, chocolate-colored skin richly darkened by the sun, and chiseled facial features roughened by the stubble of his beard. The shirt he was wearing could barely conceal the muscles of his arms, the breadth of his chest, and the flatness of his stomach. At first I thought he might be an athlete but that guess made no sense at all. After all, I met him at Satu Bangsa, a political activist organization. He was the son of Hananto Prawiro, my father's friend, but also one of the Jakarta contacts Om Nug had recommended me to meet.

At our initial meeting, Alam didn't appear enthusiastic to see me. It was as if I was an intrusion on his busy schedule. He kept looking, back and forth, at his watch and his cell phone, which wouldn't stop ringing and which he declined to turn off. Maybe it was his flashing black eyes, darting here and there, not looking at me; maybe it was his brisk and clipped way of speaking, as sharp as the knife my father used to slice onions; or, quite possibly, it was his dismissive attitude, which said to me that my presence at his office was a waste of time and space and that he had more important work to do. Whatever, I found myself suddenly nervous in his presence and had difficulty forming complete sentences. I sounded stupid when I spoke, especially with my every phrase being immediately contradicted by this supposedly brilliant and experienced activist.