(Before the disappearance, this post was titled Midnight Introductions by My Favourite Pak).
*Pak: short for “Bapak,” meaning Sir. Literally means father; commonly used as a polite greeting for men.
Something quite upsetting has happened. My favourite Pak has disappeared. There’s a possibility he’s found someone else. He could, at this very moment, be opening someone else’s door.
The thought of this drives into my ribs.
I wonder whether he still thinks of me. I remember when we were happy.
Our apartment building has a rotating roster of doormen and women but he was my standout favourite. We developed a fondness and I always loved it when he saw me coming and bounded out of the door in his enthusiasm to open it and shake my hand. In a new country where home has little of the affection with which it is usually associated, there’s something to be said for someone you barely know opening the door for you and making it clear they’re really glad you’re home safe.
“Miss Alison, Miss Alison!!” he would call, and so would begin another bewildering but affectionate exchange between us with each of us striving to understand the other - me trying desperately to understand his Indonesian and him trying valiantly not to embarrass me by making it clear my Indonesian is not even remotely understandable.
Whenever he saw me with a suitcase he asked me how long I would be gone for and told me in an entirely unsleazy way that he’d miss me. I didn’t care if it was true because the way he greeted me on my return made me believe it was, and that was enough for me.
We shared milestones together: on voting day he proudly wielded his purple-dyed index finger and I congratulated his pride in his new democracy. After the bombings he told me hati hati and I listened. When I limped in with a fractured kneecap his eyebrows bunched as he listened to my bumbling explanation of my clumsiness (I didn’t mention the vodka). When our air-conditioning broke and I was almost delirious with the fever of a parasite waging wars in my digestive system, he sat me down in front of the lobby air conditioner and organised for our apartment AC to be fixed immediately (anyone who has lived in Indonesia and tried to get anything fixed, let alone quickly, will know what a feat of affection this is).
Sometimes if I was dressed up he smiled and with his eyes in the sky he said, “Miss Alison! Cantik!” (beautiful). In these unsexy Jakarta days, and particularly those following the Are you Pregnant Incident with the Star Mart Man^, Pak was a little ray of self-esteem sunshine.
So yeah, I really liked him.
But he wasn’t just a friendly door-opener, as I was to discover a few months into my time of living in his building.
One day my male flatmate Heartbreaker came home and through hysterical laughter told me he had just finished being lectured by My Favourite Pak. Apparently my gallant defender (Pak) had seen Heartbreaker with another girl and had cornered him in the lobby the next time he saw him. It is extremely uncommon for two people of the opposite sex to share a roof unless they are married or related, and my Pak had obviously assumed Heartbreaker and I were a couple. We were not. Pak wanted to know what kind of a man would do the wrong thing by His Favourite Tenant (I’m pretty sure this is what he called me behind my back). He wasn’t going to continue opening the door for some young blue-eyed Heartbreaker who was fooling around on me. Straining to take the allegations seriously, my flatmate spent some time explaining that he and I were just friends – really! - and the matter was resolved with a wary-eyed handshake.
In the weeks following this exchange, life began to get interesting in the Lobby of Tower 14.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in Indonesia must be in want of a husband. In want of a husband quite urgently, actually.
It is an odd thing being a single woman in Indonesia. Particularly a single white woman, away from her home, her family, and seemingly oblivious to the fact she has become a rather horrendous freak of nature – single and quite utterly independent (!!) I have had taxi drivers swivel backwards to look at me, appalled, whilst driving at speed on tollways – simply because I have answered the inevitable question honestly and told them that actually, I’m not sudah menikah (already married) at my ripe old age. For a while I followed the advice of other similarly unattached white girls, and pretended to be married with a husband waiting at home. But I soon discovered it’s much more entertaining to tell the truth and watch the worlds collide.
So, for my Pak, the revelation that I was indeed quite single and alone in this great big city, was a problem which he plotted to single-handedly solve.
The weekend following my Pak’s conversation with Heartbreaker, I arrived home after a Saturday night out to be greeted by my Pak. Now, we had some confusing conversations in our time, but the ones where I was slightly tipsy were by far the most entertaining. On this occasion, Pak was extra-specially excited to see me. I soon found out why.
Miss Alison, maybe you would like to meet my friend?
And in moments I was involved in an exceedingly awkward conversation with Pak’s ‘friend’ from Sumatra, who had mysteriously materialised out of nowhere. It’s times like these the language barrier can be really helpful. Just pretend you don’t know what’s going on, look utterly confused and call the bloody lift, quickly.
Another episode followed - one morning I returned from a run and Pak looked into my hideous sweaty face and told me excitedly that he something for me. Wait wait, Miss Alison, he said, and rushed behind the reception desk to pull out a piece of paper. He pressed it into my sweat-slicked hands and I read the scrawled name and number. His face was almost bursting with hopefulness and he said something along the lines of: That’s the number of another friend of mine. See, I’ve fixed you! There’s no need to be so ridiculously alone anymore! I’ve found you a man! You can make sense again! (It was in Indonesian, so I’m paraphrasing). Pak’s enthusiasm was so genuine I found myself nodding and agreeing that yes, perhaps I would give this mystery scrawled name on the paper a call.
(I did not).
It’s been a while since I had any midnight introductions by my Pak. Soon after these episodes he disappeared, presumably to the lobby of another apartment building. Perhaps he gave up on me. Perhaps he’s gone to marry-off another, more willing, single woman. I did appreciate his good intentions.
So this is a call out for anyone who might have seen my Pak (those of you in this 18 tower ghetto, perhaps one of you is having your door opened by him as we speak! Filthy ghetto hussies). Please let me know if he’s spotted. He looks a bit like a grown-up Indonesian version of Bart Simpson. Beaming smile. Bounding door-opening abilities. Last seen searching for a husband for me.
If found, please return to Tower 14. He’s the man who made my Jakarta apartment feel like home and I want him to wave me off one last time.