How do I talk about my host sister except that I mention Charles Dickens? A stodgy, long winded writer, Mr. Dickens and I have spent quite a bit of time together this past month. Every afternoon when the atmosphere sags under the heat of the day, I retreat into his dark, and melancholy stories. In his books, it is usually cold and raining. I find this refreshing. If I am to be honest, I have also been using these books as a literary Irish exit of sorts, allowing me to circumnavigate stilted interactions with Wilda.
My host sister Wilda and I are the same age but the similarities stop there. Aside from the obvious (she is married, she is pregnant with her first child, a girl) there is a gaping cultural divide between us. Wilda acts her age within her Indonesian culture, and I act my age outside of it. This often leaves us at a loss for what to say to each other. We talk too much about the weather and count down the days until Ibu and Bapak return home. Our parents (her biological and my host) have been gone for a month and will not return until the end of October. They are making the pilgrimage (or Haji) to Mecca. It is one of the five pillars of Islam and it sounds to me both very important and incredibly boring. (Note: when I ask my host parents about Haji before they leave, they sum up the 40 day pilgrimage as “just walking around in circles and praying”). Wilda has moved into her parents house while they are gone for two reasons: she needs to be closer to her older sister as her due date draws near, and someone needed to babysit the American while Mom and Pops are away.
It is awkward to say the least, because we can’t quite figure each other out. From Wilda’s perspective, there must be something wrong with me that I am not married yet. There is something strange about me that I am here in Indonesia on my own, and more over, that I chose to be here independently. On my end, my Western liberal and feminist upbringing makes me wrinkle my nose at marriage and kids at this time in my life. The family jokes that Emily is afraid of nothing, and Wilda is scared of everything. While I have managed to move to the other side of the world, Wilda will not cross a busy street without her father or her husband holding her arm. One time she asks me to hold her elbow while we sidestep traffic, and I do my best not to laugh. I sleep with the lights turned off. The dark scares Wilda. In all things she seems to be the Charles Darnay to my Sydney Carton. Or something like that. And so it happens that we really don’t have much to say to each other. We are alone in the house, but don’t spend too much time together. Most evenings, my nose is buried in a book about orphans and pickpockets, while Wilda sends Whats App messages to her husband.
I like Wilda’s husband, Khusul. He speaks with the soft cadence of a boy who works in a crafts boutique, and for the longest time I affectionately referred to him (in my mind) as “Lady Butt”. He is not chubby, but curvy in a masculine way. He is quick to flash a smile, but rarely speaks. He spends long periods of time out in the yard, with a cigarette between his fingers, blowing lazy streams of smoke into the sky. I love it when he is here on the weekends. I like watching them together, hoping to catch a glimpse of the reason they got married. I want to see them in love, because Western tradition and Rachel McAdams rom coms have taught me this is why people get married and have babies. I am a little disappointed when I ask Wilda how they met, and she says they met in school and they texted a lot. That’s it. That is their story. I have grown up thinking love and marriage is the product of a fantastic meet-cute encounter. Wilda was raised to see matrimony as a necessary and practical step in becoming an adult. I ask her how he proposed. She says her parents talked to his parents and they set a date.
In contrast, my Mom and Dad met in their late teenage years. Their love story is the kind you hope for when you ask people how they came together. There are cheesy pick up lines, initial misunderstandings, red sneakers, love notes on gum wrappers, break ups, pizza in the park and Carole King love songs. I love imagining them then, knowing no more than I do, just that they liked the way it felt to be together. I try and imagine Wilda and Khusul, sending texts back and forth, the high “ping” of a message received making their hearts jump with anticipation. I wonder if Wilda’s daughter will be disappointed to learn that her parents’ marriage is built on emoticons, or if she will privately thrill at how her parents were brought together as I do with mine.
I give up on trying to find common ground with Wilda towards the end of September. I finish reading “A Tale of Two Cities” where Dickens writes “that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other”. When it comes to my host sister, I think no words could ring more true.
Around 3am on October 4th, I am roused from sleep by the bright kitchen light outside my room. I think Wilda has turned it on again after I’ve gone to bed (she is afraid of ghosts, so likes the lights on at all times). I can’t sleep with the glare, so I groggily rise to shut it off again. In the kitchen, I find Wilda pacing in circles. She has felt a few contractions and can no longer lie in bed. I proceed to privately flip out. I’m trying to recall anything I know about emergency home births and labor breathing techniques. For some reason, I can only think about Dennis Quaid. I remember seeing a movie with him as a kid where he must deliver a baby on the side of a highway. I forget the name of the film, and wish my eight year old self had paid more attention. Luckily, this baby isn’t on Dennis Quaid time, and we walk around the kitchen for a few more hours, until Wilda is exhausted and needs to rest. For a woman who is wearing Hello Kitty pajamas un-ironically, she shows immense maturity in these early moments of labor.
I have one class that morning so leave Wilda and Ninin (my other host sister) after a sleepless night. I can’t concentrate at school. I think about all the ways the date October 4th will be ordinary for most people, and how it will completely transform Wilda’s life. I rush home and catch Ninin and Wilda as they are heading out the door and I am hustled into the car with them. It is unclear as to whether my going with them was part of the initial plan, or if they are worried of what I will do if left at home unattended. Either way, I am pressed as far against the side window as I can be, giving Wilda a wide berth for her ever expanding and quickening contractions. I believe I whimper “oh man oh man oh man” all the way to the hospital.
The hospital is painted bright green and yellow and there are no waiting rooms. I am led into the delivery room with everyone else and promptly move to cower in the farthest corner. “Everyone else” at this point includes Khusul who has left work to meet us, and another female neighbor. We’re crowded into this sterilized space and I can see each of us are breaking down from the excitement and the trauma of it all. There are spazzy hand motions, raised voices, and nervous laughter. Everyone is freaking out. Everyone except Wilda. Wilda, who is afraid of moving traffic, geckos and the dark is the bravest soul in the room. She is a planet of calm, and slowly we all gravitate into her orbit, taking big, deep breaths.
What follows is an experience I can never give back. To say that “labor” is labor is an understatement. To be honest it looks fucking terrible. As the baby crowns I think that this is the way we get sexually active teens to use protection. Stick em’ in the maternity ward and I guarantee girls will never let boys “forget” a condom ever again. I think there is no way I will ever put myself through this unless I am positive I really want the baby I push out of my body. I become radically pro-choice standing by Wilda’s head.
Every time I freak out in that delivery room though, all I have to do is look at Wilda’s face. I am ashamed, adding to the nervous energy around her as she (not me) undergoes something so profoundly world shattering. Wilda is with us, but not with us. She is with herself on a different plane. We all could not be there and I don’t think she would notice. She seems to have gone to some place deep inside herself and alternately rests and draws energy from this point of focus only she can feel. Her strength is awe inspiring.
My host sister gives birth to a beautiful baby girl at 3pm on October 4th. She has a mass of dark hair and sweet puckered lips. They wrap her up like a Chipotle burrito and put her in a baby “health box” while the mother naps. The rest of the day and into the evening, family members come and go and sleep in the room with Wilda. I stay, because no one has taken me home yet. I stay because I can’t take my eyes off of the baby and her mother. Wilda looks the same, but she also looks different. She has undergone something I can’t even imagine. She is twenty four years old and she now has a little person who depends on her. We are the same age, but now I think she looks older than me, like she knows something I don’t.
Later that evening, everyone leaves for evening prayer and it is just Wilda, the baby and me. I pull out my copy of Charles Dickens and my host sister watches her daughter sleep. Quite suddenly, she breaks the silence. “Thank you for being here”, she says. I look at her, and she looks at me. I don’t have the words in Indonesian to tell her how moved I am. I don’t have the words in any language to tell her what she did this afternoon inadvertently changed me, and has changed how I view her. I don’t have the words to tell her I am sorry I held up her life and compared it to my own. I can’t communicate how much I admire her. Instead I simply say “Anda sudah sepurnah”. You were perfect. She smiles at me and drifts off to sleep. I go back to my book, where the following words leap off the page and hover over me in this hospital, over this experience, over my life here: “Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true”.
rootsandfernweh 