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Jakarta Post

Smoking with god (part 1)

My father has his own window in the second floor, in the study where he sleeps

Rain Chudori-Soerjoatmodjo (The Jakarta Post)
Sun, July 12, 2009

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Smoking with god (part 1)

My father has his own window in the second floor, in the study where he sleeps. I guess it's not only a study now. It is also father's bedroom. The window my father sleeps in is white and large and made out of pretty strong wood with some cuts and jags here and there. There are no curtains. Father prefers it that way.

Father sleeps in the room on the second floor that used to be his study. His items were moved upstairs, to this room, one day, by him and the maid while mother was at work. When mother went home that day, she was not surprised to find father's cupboard empty and his night stand missing.

The tiles that the night stand used to be in were white, in contrast to the tiles around it. I thought that was funny. I thought it would be dirty and dusty. That night, mother did not say anything to anyone in the house, and went straight to bed but father called me upstairs.

In his study, amongst the computer and the shelves filled with large books that I was not allowed to read, I found father sitting in a small cot that I used to see in the garage and a single mattress. Father was looking at the window. When he saw me, he seated me next to him and the both of us watched the street with its infinite lights, from the streetlights, from neighboring homes, from the tirelessly busy cars.

"Look at those cars, Luna." He says. I watch in awe, wondering who were inside all those cars.

"They're like all the ones you sell, Dad." I tell him. I know that I was supposed to make him feel better, but I did not know how. Mother was asleep downstairs and knowing that fact made me willing to wake her up and make her angry.

"I sometimes wish they were toy cars, Luna. Then I can make them go and do whatever I wanted." He said.

"You mean, like god does to us?"

"I guess playing with toy cars, lets us be god to them." He says and falters. "God does not play. I don't think."

He turns from his large window. I follow him and we watch his empty study. The lights were not on, and as we stayed motionless, the movement from the street reflected its shadows on the ceiling.

"Do you think god is watching us?" He whispers to me.

"I think god is watching the street. It's too beautiful, especially from up there." I say to him.

***

In order not to run to each other, father had organized it so he had to work later and mother had organized it so she had to work earlier in the morning. They both became ghosts, and I watched them knowing I could do nothing, while they did everything. I became accustomed to seeing both of them as lifeless body on their bed, and unrecognizable silhouettes of unavailability.

On Sunday mornings though, I would leave mother in her pool of exhaustion while I climbed up the second floor, bringing breakfast along, and wake my tired father, his body in a nook in the small single bed that couldn't fit him.

The room stayed the same. The old computer that could only be woken up by a slap in the side, the tall double shelves, the books that occupied them, the unrecognizable paper that kept important notes at the time when written; the only difference was the small bed, the soiled mattress, and the presence of my aging father looking out the window.

He would never say *I'm tired.' Never. Because he knew, I was even more tired than him, than her, than them. I was tired of watching all this, and he knew. So he stayed quiet and gave me an unextended welcome to watch life passing before us with him.

"What are we looking at this morning?" I ask him. I jump up the bed. He was leaning at one corner of the bed, looking out the window in despair. I didn't have to ask because it was the same every morning.

Workers leaving to the office. Children leaving to school. Students leaving to college. And people, there was people.

"Look at the bus stop." The bus stop was across the street, and it would mainly be filled with students or workers. It would always the same people entering the morning bus, and it would always be the same people exiting the night bus.

They were bored people, tired people, but, they were people with a purpose, with a place to go. They were people who were just...there. I looked at the same sleepy faces I had seen the week before. I watched one after another trail and sit at the stop all of them with the same look. Some read, some eat a small snack, others sit primly and just wait. The bus came soon after, and they all left.

The bus stop was now empty and the only thing that was left is an empty plastic bag, chasing after the bus.

"Let's have some breakfast." I said to him.

"Sure." Father then motioned for me to open the window. Within seconds of opening the window, the room was immediately filled with light, with a bird swooping in to say hello and goodbye again and with street noises.

Street vendors that never took a break, even on Sundays, selling the same cigarettes my father smoked and old bread; the same cars that exits our neighbor's houses every weekday, now filled and headed out to a theme park or such; and those people, people that was just ready, that were unrecognizable but added the noise with their shuffling feet and their inaudible cough.

I took my bowl of cereal, while father, from under his pillow, took out an old, moist cigarette and smoked silently out the window.

"Do you think god smokes?" He looks at me.

"No. He knows better. Especially some cheap, old cigarette."

"What do you think he would smoke?"

"If he smoked?"

"You want god to smoke, dad?"

"I want him to feel like, human. I want him to feel our suffering." I look at him.

"Well, I think god has strong perseverance. There are a lot of things in our world too bad to see, but he sees them all. That's pretty strong, don't you think?"

"If I met god, I would offer him a cigarette." He exhales.

"And if he declines?"

"I'll say *believe me, you need one.'" He inhales deeply, and looks at his cigarette with longing.

"And you'll smoke together with god?"

"That would make an interesting anecdote right Luna? Smoking with god."

"Why would you have a cigarette in heaven anyway?"

He stays quiet. Maybe he's too tired. I finish my cereal and look back out the window.

"What have you been looking at all this time?"

"Oh this and that." He says. He looks at me sternly. "I want to smoke with god."

***

"Luna, I need to talk to you." Mother says, right after I had finished my dinner. She had finished hers first, eating in unusual speed. The maid came in the dining room, taking away the dirty plates and putting our leftovers together to bring to father upstairs.

Mother shifted uncomfortably. It had been months since mother had uttered these words to me, and I wondered if it wasn't already too late to talk of father speaking upstairs. I waited for her to be comfortable.

"As you can see, father has been sleeping upstairs for sometime which has made an, uncomfortable atmosphere in this household." She explains to me, her tone brimming with hurt. I nodded.

"And don't you think it would be so much easier if it was not, uncomfortable?" I nodded.

"How would you do that?" I asked her.

"Well, basically. Your father and I, we're not one --we don't feel like we're married, this is not a normal marriage situation, right, Luna?" She asks me.

"I would say it wasn't."

"And this situation here, it's just like me and your father are not living together right?" I nodded.

"That is why, I have decided for father and I not to, live together."

"I see." I look down at my hands. At hard times, I look at my hands, to prevent myself from crying. I can't look at anything else other than my hands so as not to cry. I don't know why I have chosen this maneuver, but I have found that if I did this, I would have no reason to cry.

"And who's going to live here?" I ask mother, my eyes still on my hands.

"No one. It wouldn't be fair, right? We would be moving out, and father would be moving out."

I have four lines on both my hands, shaped like a curvy M. I wondered if I got this from father or mother.

"I know you're not okay with this, but it's the best for all of us."

I actually have other small lines on my hands. There are too many to count but I will try.

"Think about it. In this situation, we're not like a family anyway. Moving would just make it official."

I have five fingers on each hand.

"I know it's too soon, but think of our future, Luna. I would be happy, your father would be happy, you would be happy, Luna."

My nails are short, and a little dirty. I have to clean them tomorrow.

"I'm sorry, Luna. It's for the best."

She sighed. I didn't know what to think. I knew I had to think about it. My hands weren't helping me.

"What do you think?"

"I think, you need a cigarette." I tell her, and I ran up the stairs.

Think, think, think.

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