Taman Gajah is located in the middle of the intersection of our neighborhood as if it was a landmark of our neighborhood and perhaps it was. Surrounding Taman Gajah are rows of the middle class houses of the north and south, the upper class houses of the east and the lower class houses on the west, and it’s people who resides in them into prosperity. I can’t imagine the state of my neighborhood when Taman Gajah hasn’t been built. I don’t know whose idea it was to build Taman Gajah, but after it was built, things seem to change. Taman Gajah has succeeded to emerge the four different sides together as now they have shared something, something beautiful, and that is Taman Gajah.

Taman Gajah is blessed with many form of lives. In there, there are tall trees where underneath, lies the ice cream man and the candy man snoring peacefully, there are blooming flowers, picked by passing teenagers in puppy love phases, there are fresh grasses that are stepped on by running children and their nannies chasing them. It is filled with swings, and see-saws, and slides, but what brought children to Taman Gajah itself, is of course the elephant statues. Two elephant statues, one on the south east corner of the park, and one on the south west the size of a real baby elephant made of steel, each majestically placed on the corners of the park. Children would make a disorganized line, and they would climb up the statue and pretend they were riding the elephants, and their faces would brighten up.

And, just like the rest of the children in the neighborhood, every afternoon my nanny would bring me to Taman Gajah, and in Taman Gajah is where Mei, the seamstress daughter from the west, Santi, the businessman’s daughter from the east, Ivan, the boy with the little tail in his head from the north, and I, the writer’s daughter from the south, would gather in Taman Gajah, and stray from the gathering of our tired nannies, and here, we would relish ourselves in ice cream and candies, here we would listen to the teenagers reciting their corny poems and laugh, and here we would run, without acknowledging this wondrous thing called time that would soon separate us from our beloved Taman Gajah.

***

Mei, is the daughter of the seamstress Ci Nina, who lives in a house, on the west side of Taman Gajah. The house is located on the edge, and is far smaller than the other houses. What was supposed to be their garden, is built a small, square, studio adorned with no windows, no doors but a writing in paint that says Ci Nina’s Clothes. From this room from early morning we would hear Ci Nina’s high-pitched yells to her assistant forfabrics, the sounds of her machine as it did its work, her moans when she would accidentally cut herself, or worse, had sewn something wrong.

We would hear her until late at night, when we’d finally hear Ci Nina’s tired machine wearing off, and we would hear Ci Nina’s sigh of satisfaction, as she inspected her hard work that day.

I hated going round Mei’s house, not because it was small and pieces of fabrics were scattered here and there on the floor or because of the mismatched furniture; not because the brimming house is not only filled by Mei, Mei’s large father who spent the day with a pencil, paper and calculator, Mei’s three little brothers who runs around the house or her clients waiting to be ushered in Ci Nina’s but because of Ci Nina, sitting in her small studio, behind a table, her face hunched over her sewing machine, around her was a sea of fabric, enveloping her in her intense air of solitude, only the sewing machine whirs filling the air. It bothered me.

I remembered when I first met Mei. I was standing outside of Ci Nina’s studio, hearing to the whirs from inside, waiting for my nanny when in front of me appeared a little girl. Her hair was in braids, her skin pale white, in contrast to the sack she was wearing that was made from a number of different fabrics and patterns. I eyed her from top to bottom, and halted numerous times on her decorated potato sack.

“What are you wearing?” I managed to ask her.

“Do you know how many times people have asked me that?” She said, she took a step back.

“Ten times.”

“No. No one ever asked me that.”

“So then…”

“But their expressions are always like yours.”

I smiled.

“What are you wearing?”

“I don’t know. My mum stitched this up.”

“Why don’t you buy clothes?”

“Why should we buy clothes, if mummy can make clothes?”

“So you don’t have to wear a potato sack.”

She didn’t say anything. Her expression didn’t change.

“It’s colorful.”

She smiles.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

***

On the east side of Taman Gajah, lives Santi. Among a sea of tiny, slanted roof, is Santi’s large, giant roof, that sits on top of Santi’s hard-to-miss, two-story house with a balcony on each floor, floor-to-ceiling windows, and double doors with a large garden and swimming pool and protecting all this is Santi’s giant gate. I was admiring the large gate standing majestically before me, when a girl of my age slammed open the big double doors and ran to the gate and gripped it. I was stunned.

“Will you play with me?” Her skin was white and she was wearing a pretty dress. Her hair, let down and silky. Before I could answer, a nanny came out of the large house, and forcefully pulled the little girl from the gate, who reluctantly let her grips go.

“Come back tomorrow!” She yelled. I did.

Inside Santi’s house it is just as you would imagine. The floor, the pillars, the stairs and the high ceilings are marble, and the house is decorated in gold curtains and vases and statues of goddesses and in the middle of the living room is a black, gleaming piano where Santi is forced to practice four hours everyday. When I first stepped into the marble floor, Santi had been practicing her piano, and every once in a while, the beautiful notes that had been echoing through the house would halt and I would hear a sigh or a whine.

Around Santi’s bedroom there had been framed photographs of her family.

“This is my older brother” Santi explained. “He’s graduated, and he lives somewhere else now. Sometimes he visits. I miss him.”

Santi’s brother looks  like her, white, clean-cut and neat. Santi pointed to her mother, wearing a glamorous dress with her hair up. Santi was in her lap, wearing a dress with her hair down.

“This is my mother. She’s out probably shopping and at night she goes out too, for parties and things.” I nodded in understanding.

Santi’s face grew sour.

“This is dad.” She says. “He’s a businessman so he travels a lot. When he comes home he brings me lots of presents, but I never see much of him.”

With that, Santi ended her presentation of the far from perfect family and flopped the framed picture on a table.

I noticed, that Santi’s windows had been barricaded with black steel gate, preventing Santi to open her windows.

“It’s so I don’t fall down, like last time.” Santi explained. I decided not to ask what happened last time, as I saw Santi’s scar in her forehead, hidden under her thick hair.

“Santi, do you ever go out?” I asked her.

“No, I’m not allowed. Nanny is not allowed. Only mother goes out.”

“Would you like to go out Santi?”

She smiled and nodded.

***

Ivan lives in the north row, right across from Taman Gajah. He had a two-story house like mine. I’ve never been in his house before, but I imagined that inside, he would have the same design as my house; medium sized rooms, fit for a small family. My nanny had forced me to befriend Ivan, as she and Ivan’s nanny were good friends. I was reluctant, but succumb to this as he turned out to listen to my every order; “Ivan pick me some flowers.” I would tell him or “Ivan dance around like a monkey.” both of which he would oblige to do. I felt bad, but that pang of guilt was erased by Ivan’s rendition of a monkey. I liked Ivan, he was a good friend that always listened intently, whatever I said. There was only one thing I hated from Ivan, his tail.

It wasn’t a real tail coming out from his rear end, if it was he would’ve looked more like a monkey and would be mocked by me profusely, but it was a tail from his hair. Ivan’s hair was a page-boy haircut, but he had one strand growing long that stopped to the nape of his neck. A tail. I hated this tail, and always pulled it when he irritated me with his inane chatters. Ivan always did what I told him to do, but Ivan never ever listened to my one pleas to cut his tail.

“I like my tail.” He would say confidently.

“But why, Ivan? It’s weird. Either have short hair or long hair. You can’t have both.” I argued.

This confused him.

“I like my tail.” He would repeat. And that would be the end of the discussion.

It was a strange friendship, with me as the head, and Ivan as the tail of it all.

***

Every afternoon, the four of us, Mei who lived in the west and helped her seamstress mother to sew, with her colorful potato sack; Ivan with his moderately peaceful home in the north, with his tail we would pull whenever we got the chance; Santi, the businessman’s daughter who plays piano, who lives in a large home in the east, with her pretty dresses and ribbon; and me, the writer’s daughter, who lives in the south would gather in Taman Gajah ignoring our obvious differences and only caring of ice-cream, and the grass, the wind, and Mei’s colorful sack, and Ivan’s tail, and Santi’s dress, and our imagination.

Often, one of us wouldn’t come to Taman Gajah, therefore our foursome would be incomplete. I remembered one afternoon, when we were waiting for Santi, but instead we saw her sleek, silver car slide past us, and Santi’s face pressed against the tinted window, mouthing ‘sorry’ to us, and next to her was seated her mother. Another time, we waited for Mei who didn’t come out of the studio because she had to help Ci Nina who had a big order to fill out. But at the time, we thought, there was always tomorrow.

***

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I don’t want to be my mother.”

“A seamstress?”

“I don’t want to be my mother too.”

“What’s your mother’s job, Santi?”

“She shops and she goes to parties.”

“I think that sounds nice. I’d like to wear pretty dresses rather than make them.”

“So Mei wants to be a pretty lady who shops and goes to parties.”

“That’s right. I don’t wanna wear a potato sack no more.”

“I think your potato sack is pretty, Mei.”

“Thank you. What do you want to be then, Santi?”

“I bet you want to be a pianist.”

“I bet you want to be a horse.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Well, you’ve got the tail already, haven’t ya?”

“I don’t want to be a horse.”

“Then why do you have a tail?”

“I like  my tail.”

“Then you want to be a horse.”

“Then you want to be a pianist.”

“No, I want to be a teacher.”

“A teacher?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Teachers are noble. They teach us things. I want to be noble.”

“Will you still wear pretty dresses?”

“Maybe, if not I don’t care.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t care about pretty dresses. I just want to be noble.”

“How about you, Lu? What do you want to be when you’re big?”

“A writer.”

“A writer? What do you want to write about?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Will you write about me?”

“Maybe.”

“If you write about me, don’t write about my potato sack.”

“Why?”

“It’s ugly.”

“I think your potato sack is very pretty.”

“I think so, too.”

“Thanks, Santi. But I like your dress a whole lot better.”

“No, my dress is boring. Your potato sack is different. It’s pretty.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“If you say so.”

“Let’s trade then.”

“Really?”

“Yes, my dress for your potato sack.”

“Okay then.”

“Do you think I should cut my tail?”

The next day, Santi is grounded and forced to throw the potato sack, Mei won’t take off her new dress, and Ivan cut his tail.

***

So, that’s all we ever did, we would meet every afternoon every day, run around or lie in the grass and talk. Sometimes, when we’d feel up to it, we’d join the line forming behind the two elephants and when it was our turn and were on top of the elephants we would each imagine our future. Mei would imagine wearing pretty dresses, her hair worn up. She would shop all day and at night flit from party to party; Santi would imagine being a teacher, the colorful classroom filled with the laughter of children and her own, and the windows would be open and no one would force her to play piano ever again; I don’t know what Ivan imagines, probably as one of those teenagers that sit in twos in Taman Gajah, proclaiming undying love, while his tail stays loyally in the collar of his shirt.

And me? I imagine our real future. I imagined Mei, taking Ci Nina’s place in the studio, buried beneath the fabrics and patterns, and all day she’d shut in with only the sounds of her own grumbling promising herself a brighter future and the whirs of the sewing machine, and slowly she would forget her pretty dresses, and her parties and would keep working for these women she aspires to be. I imagined Santi, taking her seat on stage with a heavy heart, and playing the piano, now without stopping for a heavy sigh or a complaint, and the applause she would get, and I imagined her forced smile, and her eyes looking out the barred windows. I imagined Ivan and his tail, to be one of the people in twos in the park, proclaiming his undying love to a boy next to him. And I imagined myself to be around this dynamic three, their imagination, and their reality emerging into one. Mei in her pretty dress would bring a dress to alter to Mei hard at work at her sewing machine, Santi the teacher would be in the audience of Santi the pianist and Ivan with his girlfriend would pass and stare at Ivan with his boyfriend. And I would always lean to my elephant, close enough to his ear, and would whisper ‘Mei is a pretty lady, Santi is a teacher, and Ivan has a girlfriend.’

***

In 1998, we were all separated. Mei and her family, packed up their house, and brought the money they had saved. Their house was empty and the studio unusually silent. What was left in Mei’s house, was one of the many of Mei’s potato sack, I guessed that she had left it for Santi. Santi and her entire family and household was gone also, brought to Singapore. Ivan also had fled to his hometown. He promised to return if things got better. Not only they had left, but most of our neighbors. Taman Gajah was deserted. The street was empty and silent. There were no more children running around chasing ice-cream man. Everybody left, but us. We stayed at home, with the lights turned off, curtains closed, windows and doors locked. We pretended we had fled when we were right there, silently, sleeping, eating, drinking and going through our day by day routines without making sound. For three days, we stayed that way and any noise produced by each of us accidentally surprised us, and immediately our paranoia would rise. I miss Mei. I miss Santi. I miss Ivan. I even missed his tail.

***

When we finally peeked out our curtain it was over. The television we had on mute for three days, finally produced noise again, but even without the grim voice of the presenter we could see from the pictures, what had happened. A few days after that, some of the neighbors came back, including Ivan. Ivan and I braced ourselves and went to Taman Gajah.

The tall trees where they usually stood loyally shading the ice-cream and the candy man was chopped off, it’s branches whimpering by the sidewalk, there were no more flowers, and the grass that used to be green, had turned brown and it’s roots uplifted from the ground. The swing had lost it’s seat, the see-saw was split in half and the slide was hunched over. And the elephants? The one standing in the east, was covered in writings of profanity and anarchic anthems, the east were similarly vandalized but had also lost it’s right hind leg. But their eyes, was still looking up, as if praying.

Ivan and I never saw Santi nor Mei ever again. Every afternoon after that, me and Ivan would still meet in Taman Gajah, where people had already started restoring it’s form. Ivan would climb up the elephants prayed for Mei and Santi and their lives and their safety and we thought about the last time we had all seen each other, all of us yelling out our goodbyes and our see you tomorrows as we walked to our homes at four different sides.

***

I had ran into Ivan in a party. I was standing by myself, observing the crowd, when a tall, handsome boy had came up to me. He looked young, and was wearing a shirt with two buttons open and trousers and his hair was over-gelled.

“Excuse me, but you’re Luna right?” He said to me, while eyeing me from top to bottom.

“Yeah, and you are?”

“You’re the one that wrote Elephant Park?” He asked.

“Yes. You are?” I repeated my question.

“How dare you not recognize me.”

I looked at him. He did not have a tail. But he was Ivan.

“I see you’ve cut your tail.”

He let out a girlish laugh.

“My, my. You’ve grown up.”

“So have you Lu. You became a writer after all.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

“Not nothing. I like Elephant Park. I like how you described me.”

“Sorry about that. But you knew...why didn’t you look for me? You could at least call me.”

“I thought it’d be strange. We haven’t met for years, and out of the blue: It’s Ivan.”

“Not as strange as being written about right? I tried to contact you.”

“Yeah?”

“I went to your old house.”

“Really?”

“I met your folks.”

“Hm.”

“None of us had ever met your folks before, Van. They’re really nice.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked where you were. That I was writing a story, and it had you in it. “

“And what did they say?”

I bit my lip.

“You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to talk about them.”

“How did you know it was you?”

“I was just reading the story, when it hit me. Hey that’s me. That’s Mei, that’s Santi, that’s Luna. I looked at the author’s name. That’s Luna.”

“What do you do now, Van?”

“I’m a horse, darling.”

He laughed. I laughed.

“I’m an interior designer.”

“That’s great.”

“What ever happened to Mei and Santi?”

“Santi’s a businesswoman in Singapore.” 

“How about Mei?”

“Mei...she was a seamstress for a while in her hometown.” I paused “She killed herself.”

“I see.”

“What about Ivan?”

“Ivan has a girlfriend.” I said. 

“Oh yeah. That.”

“Bye Ivan.”

“Bye Luna.”

“Someday, I want you to meet my boyfriend.”

“We’ll bring Mei, the pretty socialite and Santi, the noble teacher.” I smiled.

“We’ll all have lunch, the five of us.”

“It’s a done deal.”

***

The last time I went to Taman Gajah, the trees that had been seeds, had grown to be a tall, loyal tree, the flowers had bloomed, but now they had small fences around them and a sign that prevents it from being picked. Children were running around the paved side of Taman Gajah, as now you are not allowed to step on the grass. On the east, Mei’s house was now occupied by another family with numerous number of children when I passed Ci Nina’s I heard the hoarse yells of a woman and the whirs of a sewing machine; on the west, Santi’s house was bought by another family, and in Santi’s room, I saw the small grips of a girl looking out; on the north, Ivan’s house that are still occupied by distant relations of his family and my house, is now turned into a dry-cleaning business after I had moved out and my parents marriage went to a downfall.

Although, there were now different rules, Taman Gajah had revived itself from it’s downfall, and there were the resting ice-cream and candy man resting under the trees, and the teenagers in twos by the flowers, teenagers who had been babies when I was still a child who I still recognized and there were still children running around the pavements and making disorganized lines towards the two elephants, and I swear, that in the corner of my eye I could see a foursome; one girl wearing a colorful potato sack, one girl wearing a pretty dress and ribbon, one boy with a tail behind his head and one girl observing it all. And I said ‘Mei is a pretty lady, Santi is a teacher and Ivan has a girlfriend’ and I smiled because it was true.

***

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A writer.”

“What kind of writer?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Will you write about me?”

“And me?”

“And me?”

“Yes, I’ll write that you are a pretty girl with pretty dresses, you are a noble teacher and you have a girlfriend.”

“I’d like that.”

“So do I.”

“Me too.”

Jakarta Dec. 24, 2008

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