Free Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan, Annie Tucker Page B

insurance, access to a great repair shop, and they were throwing in a driver who was experienced in handling engines. He returned home with Mr. Willie, who became their driver and mechanic, especially useful because they needed someone to take care of the plantation equipment. He was of medium build, in his mid-thirties. His vest was always left unbuttoned, his clothes perpetually covered in grease, and he carried a pistol to shoot rats and pigs. That was back when Dewi Ayu was still just an eleven-year-old girl, five years before Mr. Willie proposed to her.
    “Think about it, Mister,” she said. “I’m sort of a crazy woman.”
    “When I look at you I don’t see any signs of insanity,” said Mr. Willie.
    “When Ma Gedik died, I realized I had only married him because I was so angry that Ted had destroyed his love. So, clearly, I’m crazy.”
    “You’re just a little irrational.”
    “And that’s just another way of saying crazy, Mister.”
    But now her salvation came: she could run away and avoid having to reply to his proposal. It was still morning and the record had not yet finished playing its last song when she saw military trucks lined up on the beach, ready to round up all the remaining Dutch inhabitants and take them to a prison camp. The day before, the soldiers had come to their houses and ordered them to pack. That night, without saying anything to anyone, especially not to Mr. Willie, Dewi Ayu had gathered her things. She didn’t take much, just one suitcase filled with clothes, a blanket, a thin sleeping pallet, and documents proving her family’s holdings. She didn’t take any money or jewelry, because she knew all that would just get stolen. Instead, she gathered up some necklaces and bracelets that had belonged to her grandmother and flushed the jewelry down the toilet into the waiting shelter of shit. She divvied up the remaining portion into a number of small envelopes to give to the household servants so that they could survive while looking for work someplace else. For herself, she swallowed six rings inset with jade, turquoise, and diamonds. They would be safe inside her, would come out along with her shit, and then she would swallow them again, for as long as she was imprisoned. But now it was time to go—one of the trucks had stopped outside her house and two soldiers had gotten out with bayonets in their hands and they were climbing the steps to the veranda where she was sitting waiting for them.
    “I know you guys,” said Dewi Ayu, “you’re the photographers who used to work at the bend in the road!”
    “Yeah, that was fun. We got photographs of every single Dutch person in Halimunda,” answered one of the soldiers.
    The other one spoke: “Prepare yourself, Miss.”
    “You mean Madam,” said Dewi Ayu. “I’m a widow now.”
    She asked for a moment to say goodbye to the household servants. They seemed to know that their mistress would be leaving. She saw one of the cooks, Inah, crying. Inah truly owned the kitchen, and Dewi Ayu’s grandmother had entrusted all the meals for family guests to her. Dewi Ayu would never again enjoy her tasty rijsttafel , maybe not for the rest of eternity—a good cook was an important part of any family’s wealth, but now the family had disappeared and the last member was herself leaving, to become a prisoner of war. As she gave the woman a golden necklace, Dewi Ayu was flooded with memories. When she was little, Inah had taught her how to cook, had let her grind spices and fan the stove embers. She felt a shock of sadness more overpowering than when she had heard the news that her grandmother and grandfather had died.
    Next to the cook stood a houseboy, Inah’s son. Muin was his name. He always dressed sharper than anyone else, with his blangkon hat, impressing even the Dutch. His duty was to make rounds throughout the house, but he was busiest at mealtimes when he had to set and mind the table. Ted Stammler had taught him how to use the