Translator

Another small trifle one hesitates to deliver. Negligible and slight. Such voluminous travel reports on every side from every region. Horrid to add to the store. Sights, adventures, misadventures, disappointments, hardships and delights. Incomprehension, blankness and failing on so many fronts. One hesitates to lay another load. The author has been back from Yogyakarta, Jogja, a full week now. Borobudur, Malioboro, the Kraton - the Sultan's Palace, following in the steps of many before him. One of the small tour buses joined for the trek to Borobudur with keen young and old photographer tourists documenting the sights for friends and family back home. It was too difficult trying to organize an independent excursion. Local buses were a possibility, the preferred option of course; but winging it without a guide and risking spending the entire day gadding about meant it was finally knocked on the head. A tour bus—van rather—not especially painful in the end. But, yes, following the well-plotted path. May as well have had a Lonely P in the knapsack like everyone else, flipping all the pictures in advance. Off Malioboro a delight eating at the push-carts on the weathered benches with the locals at a Sing dollar a go. Many got used to the No rice order. (The polished white constipating more than a little.) Gamelan at the Palace. An admission: prior to the visit this mature, educated, cultured traveler had the gamelan as the xylophone object one had seen in film clips. Wasn't that the gamelan? Whoever said the entire orchestra was gamelan? And one more while we're at it. Prior to departure from the great Southern land Borobudur had never once made it onto the radar. Angkor Wat perfectly clear; Stonehenge, Rheims and Notre D. No one in the circle sounded this other. Some of the recommended foods in Jogja were missed. In fact all. Foodie experiences No thanks. A nice girl was met in place of the one who had undertaken to come down from her kampung in the interior. (Mother disallowing in the end, after three dozen phone calls in the lead up, firm arrangements. Gal in her early thirties. Mother pressing her to marriage, but "not like this"....) Somehow still this memory returning; couldn't be shaken. No doubt the larger call of Jogja behind it: after two and one half years in Singapore a move now needed; the prospect of Java alluring, all those promising train lines up, down and across: Jogja—Semarang. East to Surakarta and Surabaya; West Purwokerto and across the central heartland to Bandung, Bogor and back up to the capital. In place of Montenegrin karst, Javanese volcanoes. Strangest of fates. How did this happen?
         Little English in Jogja. (Another of the traveler complaints regularly encountered.) Even on Malioboro, on the western side of the street amidst the tees and knick-knacks, little English, let alone the other side. Getting credit on the new sim card not straightforward, unfailingly nice and patient as the young lass at the counter always proved. In the case of checking credit before adding more another order of difficulty again. The best option was to find a school-age, alert looking youngster, university level preferably. Not much was required. It should not have been too difficult. All the kids, almost without fail, wanted a photograph in company. Tall white man in a panama was irresistible. Bingo at the first attempt here. Pair of friends skipping along; sisters it turned out. Fully covered in the traditional garb, scarved on top. Girls always the preference for reasons unnecessary to state. And, if that was where you were pointed, the fabulous theatrical Muslim appareil could not be bettered. You wanna be a movie star? Step this way into the rolling film-set. One, two. Action. Hello, Hello girls. A little startled. A little uncomprehending. Oh. Oh. Top-up credit? Well, they could try. The second taller, elder, a non-speaking part. Possibly not because she had lesser vocabulary. In Java and Malaysia you encountered traditional women especially like animated statues who offered words like Doges ducats to the riff-raff of the street. You thought at first they had not a word. But No. Words were offered like kisses behind columns here. One fine day when peace descended on earth and all the lord's creatures, certainly where observant, dutiful girls were concerned. The elder sister did not even raise her chin from her breastbone hardly.
         Top-up the man wants. Existing credit first. OKOKOK.... Amount to be added now?
         There. That wasn't hard was it? Good Oh. A trice. The girl behind the counter knew the drill in any case. She had added 10,000 R twice before. One dollar a time the man wants to come back every second day. OK.
         Another call to Sumiyatie presently. Thank you very much girls. A job well done. Excellent well.
         Not especially pretty either. Exceedingly thin under the habiliments. Sharp pointy features in the exposed rounds of the face, pale, pale hands protruding from wide satiny sleeves. Something of the aspect of plucked chickens in these unfailingly fetching costumes. Glazed young chickadees from some unknown kind of preparation. Quite unlike oven browning; boiling more like. Wing arms, little beaks, flitting eyes scared of the pot.
         Many thanks to you my dears, much obliged. Lavender ten thousand across the counter; and one for you too.
         Golly Gee how she started flapping those fledgling wings. OhOhOh.
         Touts, beggars, scammers, the blind, crippled, deformed and aged, so-so reformed junkie batik artists all attempting to extract a measly fifty rupiah would do if that's all you got on the other side of the street. Here this girl was overwhelmed. Not her. Flipped her perch. Flapping. Blushing without being able to raise any colour.
         What she spoke difficult to convey.
         Forget corny Holly- and Bollywood, all the homely country pie and curry. Forget English finishing school grads in historical dramas: Thank you kindly, I couldn't..... The well brought up lasses in the care of mothers, aunts and grans that one vaguely recalls from before the war. This was different. You never seen this on the screen. A kind of hot coal hopping.
         Said she, — But sir. No. Sir. Sir. This from my....
         Well she said heart actually. Jumping on the spot foot to foot, This from my heart. Below her satiny top that was met by the fall of her tudong, her scarf from her head, inside there beating was where she had drawn up her free offering of aid. Money absolutely not.
         But my dear, this is from my heart too…. A duet in tune. Oh. Oh. Oh. Tra la la.
         Hard to believe I know. The author apologizes. Take it as a small, small tiny hint of what we have become maybe, that's all.