'I wanted to satisfy my own hunger for love and wanted that love to be gentle and pure.'

So reflects Susi Saputro, the protagonist in Siti Rukiah's novella, The Fall and the Heart. The book, here translated into English by John H. McGlynn and published by the Lontar Foundation as one of its 'Modern Library of Indonesia' titles, offers an intimate portrait of a young woman's search for meaning against the social and political upheaval during Indonesia's War of Independence in the 1940s.

Susi's quest is challenged time and again; not merely due to the turbulence around her but also because of her own inner doubts as to the path she ought to follow, along with an overwhelming sense of duty and a need to please others ' primarily, her domineering mother.

The Fall is ultimately a tragic tale of a young woman who, in another place and time, may have attained the personal happiness she so longed for but ultimately ends up trapped by the social mores she so vehemently opposes and from which she tries so hard to escape.

The story, a first-person narrative, is told in retrospect covering a period of about six years beginning when Susi is 17.

A key focus of Susi's remembrances is her family ' her mother, father and two older sisters, Lina and Dini. We learn that Lina, the middle child, is 'pretty, selfish and spoiled', while Dini is 'unattractive', more 'like a man: a stubborn person with strong emotions' and 'unswerving' aspirations.

In contrast to her sisters, Susi describes herself as a 'calm observer', watching things unfold in a home dominated by their mother. Susi's father, meanwhile, is described as 'powerless', a man who 'always
acquiesced' to his wife's demands.

As Susi recalls, her mother's domestic tyranny had 'ruined' her home and the people in it. 'Father had given up all hope of finding love. Dini had been broken and would never marry. Lina grew arrogant and vain. And I, the silent one, became the maker of silent promises.'

Initially, like her father, Susi refuses to fight her mother and forsakes her first love, Rustam, whom she knows her mother would never accept.

However, as she becomes increasingly aware of the future she is heading toward, Susi makes a new promise ' to marry only for love ' and leaves home to help tend the wounded at a local Red Cross station.

But when Rustam arrives at the station, now a doctor and newly married, Susi moves on again; this time to join Dr. Mansur in a communist rebel camp.

Here she meets Lukman, the 'strongest' and 'most respected man in the camp'. In spite of her best efforts to deny her feelings, Susi falls in love with Lukman ' and he with her.

When the fighting closes in around them, Susi is forced to return home where she wages her own internal war to be true to her innermost beliefs and desires, but ultimately realizes there is no way to resolve the conflicting promises she has made to herself over the years.

Despite being just over 100 pages and written in a wholly unembellished style, The Fall packs a hefty emotional punch.

Words such as 'gentle', 'love' and 'red' are used frequently ' to allude to Susi's emotional state ' and are juxtaposed with other words like 'hard', 'struggle' and 'violence', conveying the enormity of Susi's challenge both at a personal level and in the face of the turmoil in the world around her.

Despite its setting, readers expecting lengthy descriptive passages about the revolution will be disappointed. There is little narrative sweep of landscape or environment to anchor the characters in time and place. A similar economy of detail is also employed in the treatment of the characters.

Susi's mother is arguably the most fleshed-out character in the book, beyond Susi herself. Not surprising, perhaps, given her position within the family and her degree of influence on those around her.

Some of the other characters are less well-rounded, however, and as a result come across as somewhat two-dimensional.

This unequal character treatment was frustrating on occasion, but in fairness to Rukiah, her commitment to the first-person narrative makes the story more realistic.

After all, when we remember people and events from our own lives, some are more clearly defined than others; and no matter how close we may be to someone, we cannot know all their innermost thoughts and feelings.

The Fall, which was first published in 1950, remains a work of historic significance as a piece of 1940s' Indonesian literature written by a woman who never wrote again following a ban of her works in 1965.

Rukiah's skill in conveying the ' often negative ' impact that the revolution had upon ordinary people's lives is reason enough to encourage a new generation of readers to discover the book. But the personal concerns and dilemmas described within its pages are universal.

The Fall presents a timeless theme of a young woman's longing for love and happiness. Admittedly, Susi's particular challenges are borne out of the day and age in which she lives, but hers is nonetheless a familiar coming of age story, detailing the angst common to young people the world over as they attempt to determine a course for their lives. As a consequence, The Fall and the Heart has much to offer contemporary readers.

The Fall and the Heart
S. Rukiah, translated by John H. McGlynn
The Lontar Foundation, 2010
111 pages

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