The Secret Our Home Harbors

English Translation: Sebastian Partogi

Little Annisa bawled her face while she was peeking quietly from behind a lockhole,

watching her dad and her mom devouring with such relish mutilated human legs -- to be

exact, the supple and succulent calf area. Her parents’ fingers were smeared with blood, with

slivers of raw meat still stuck to the edges of their fingernails. With her trembling hands,

eventually she summoned up enough courage to knock on the door.

Her father opened that door with traces of blood dripping from his lips. Annisa thrust forward

to him two copies of a general elections voting invitation which the neighborhood unit head

had delivered to their door.

Her father nodded, receiving the letter from her and he was just about to shut the door again.

“Dad, there’s that… on your chin…”

“What? Oh… yeah…” Her dad rubbed his chin, and traces of the dried-up blood started to

fade.

The door was shut again. Annisa was shuddering. She felt an intense headache. Something in

her stomach began to stir. Unable to suppress the nausea, she immediately ran to the toilet

and purged her lunch out of her body. She was vomiting several times until there was nothing

left to purge.

Her parents devoured yet another piece of mutilated human calf: to whom did that body part

used to belong to? She could only think of Uncle Hasan, a relative who died a week ago. Did

the mutilated body part belong to him? Or perhaps, it used to attach to the body of Mrs. Teti,

their solitary neighbor who died en route to the hospital after she had had a heart attack? Who

was that poor corpse?

All this time, she had never been able to muster up the courage to ask her parents: what on

Earth had they been doing? To be fair, she had attempted to ask that question subtly, and yet

usually her parents would scold her in response: “You, little kid, don’t you ever meddle with

adults’ business, ah!”

That left Annisa with no other choice than to remain quiet, pretending as if she had never

heard or understood what on Earth her parents were doing. In truth, her curiosity continued,

and, quietly, she continued to set her eyes and ears on total vigilance in her endeavor to

comprehend, what exactly these adults were doing and talking about.

For instance, Annisa noticed that recently, national politics seemed to be a recurring theme

which dominated her parents’ conversation. Annisa was listening in on her parents’

conversation as she was peeking at them as they were having animated conversations before

bedtime, while eating human fingers.

“Rumor has it that the man is a communist, not one to be trusted. If he win the elections, all

the ulama (clerics) will be criminalized”. Her father took a bite of that fat-looking thumb.

Despite the fact she had seen similar scenes quite frequently, Annisa still shuddered in

disgust every time she saw it again. Her vision started to blur due to nausea.

“This time, he has pretentiously appointed an ulama to be his running mate; must be merely

to project an image. He thinks we’ll be fooled…” Her mother then sliced a middle finger with

a sharp-edged knife, then started chewing with delight.

“Well, previously he had run with a deputy from a different faith, who later was indicted of

tarnishing our religion”.

“Yes, he has shown his true colors…”

“Now, the majority of mainstream media outlets are siding with him. What else can we

expect; he’s powerful”.

“For a long time now, I’ve never read or watched mainstream media outlets anymore. All of

them have no other interest but to put our group in a tight corner. The evidence? Every time

we conducted a peaceful rally, none of them were interested in covering it.”

Her two parents were chewing the meat from the severed fingers; wonder from whose corpse

had they chopped off those fingers.

That night, yet again, Annisa was vomiting violently in the toilet.

Since when did her parents had had a hobby of harboring human flesh, and, more than that,

took such pleasure from eating it? Annisa attempted to remember.

Was it possible that she had seen such an act since a long time ago, but she was simply too

young to comprehend? Only recently after she turned 10 that she started to more frequently

question everything that she was witnessing. And no imagery was more disgusting than that

of her parents eating pieces of the human body in such great gusto.

Eventually, after she was peeking or catching her parents in the act, Annisa started to get used

to it. Meaning, she was more able to suppress her nausea so as not to throw up, everytime the

aroma of the human flesh stirred her stomach. Yet, her parents’ behavior would remain an

unresolved mystery for her, and would never cease to trigger her curiosity.

Also, she started to recognize the unpleasant odor which got stuck to, and came out of, her

parents’ mouth, or maybe their sweat. A distinctive sort of stink. Not that stench produced by

trash which had piled up and started to rot. Also, not that suffocating effect caused by motor

vehicle emission. Instead, this was a fishy, rancid stink, which she believed came from

remnants of rotten flesh which got stuck in her parents’ teeth or fingernails.
It was not like her parents continued to stink like that. Sometimes, a dose of toothpaste,

fragrance or other pleasant scents could conceal that offensive odor.

Yet, on other occasions, she could not help but smell that unpleasant odor. She felt anxious

and frustrated because she was unable to tell anyone about this. She believed that anyone

would react in disgust upon discovering her parents’ disgusting behavior.

It wasn’t long before Annisa eventually became aware that she in fact also smelt similar

stench in other places. At school, in the traditional market, onboard a public transport vehicle.

The more adults gathered around her, the stronger the offensive odor became.

Annisa often felt frustrated, like when she had to tag along her mother to various social

events. Oftentimes, she would pretend to be fussy and, using laziness as an excuse, would

decline her mother’s request to accompany her in her gatherings with her friends. Yet, her

mother would respond to her by giving her long lectures on “how she could smile and

improve her manners.”

And Annisa still couldn’t comprehend, how come it was so hard to do exactly as she was

told?

Her mother’s friends were all beautiful, wearing bright lipstick and perfectly-shaped

eyebrows. They were all friendly toward her, smiling, touching her shoulders, sometimes

giving her gifts or pocket money. They already put on perfume, all right, yet the fragrance

was still not strong enough to keep the rotting aroma at bay.

Annisa became more and more anxious. Was she hallucinating? Maybe all that weird rotting

odor existed only in her mind?

***
Annisa became a daydreamer and she looked like a sad kid. She coped with her anxiety by

drawing pictures in her notebook in the middle of a lesson. She didn’t give a shit to whatever

the teacher was teaching and she remained engrossed in, and got sucked into, her own world.

Once Mr. Sujadi, her math teacher, caught Annisa in the act of drawing pictures. As a

punishment, she had to scrub the school toilet, along with a boy who had been caught

bringing a pornographic book and cigarettes to school.

Still, no reprimands or punishments seemed to be sufficient in changing Annisa. Just like that

day, when she was actually supposed to write a story themed “weekend family activities” in

her morning Indonesian language class, Annisa was not interested at all. Instead, she kept

herself busy; she kept drawing pictures. Fortunately, this time Mrs. Tika let her get away with

it, although she had passed through her desk and peeked into her notebook, full of drawings.

Afterward, during the Islamic Religion class, Mrs. Chosiyah was teaching students about the

four most dangerous maladies which could afflict the human heart. Could the heart suffer

from flu or diarrhea? Annisa wondered. These words were written on the whiteboard, in all

caps.

UJUB. GHIBAH. RIYA’. HASAD

“So, ujub can result in arrogance and arrogance is the devil’s trait. Naudzubillah Min Dzalik.

May God protect us from this. Number two, is ghibah. Any of you know what ghibah is? It is

speculating, gossiping, talking about other people’s flaws. This, is a very bad thing which you

all should stay away from, all right, children?”

“Allah SWT, God Almighty, said: may you refrain yourselves from gossiping. Gossiping, or

ghibah, is akin to eating your fellow human being’s corpses. Isn’t it disgusting? Another

malady of the human heart is riya’ namely a tendency to brag, or show off one’s good deeds

to others.”
“Do any of you enjoy eating the flesh of your dead relative? Obviously, it’ll disgust you. So,

will you commit yourself to, from now on, avoid gossiping, don’t watch entertainment gossip

shows which always talk about other people’s faults…”

Mrs. Chosiyah’s voice rose and fell; just passing through, came and went away, entering

Annisa’s right ear while going out her left ear as she kept herself busy, drawing just any

image which crossed her mind.

A small finger poked her shoulder while whispering, “sshhhh…”

Annisa didn’t turn to look but the finger kept on poking her. That was Ihsan, her classmate,

who sat behind her.

“Sshh… Let’s play after school is over, Nis…”

“Where?”

“My home.”

Ihsan had already asked Annisa to come to his house many times and although Annisa never

explicitly declined, she had never accepted the invitation either. Annisa glanced around

quickly, before she eventually turned her face away from him again. Lacking enthusiasm,

Annisa had never had any interest in playing with anyone. Yeah, but to do it occasionally,

what’s the harm? She turned her gaze to the front of the classroom again, where Mrs.

Chosiyah was explaining about the final word written there: hasad.

“You’ll finally figure why I keep on insisting to ask you to come with me,” Ihsan said once

again.

After class was over, Annisa and Ihsan went to his house together. All the way they were

mostly quiet, amused with their own thoughts. Yet as they were approaching their

destination, Ihsan started to speak.

“I know your secret.”

“Which secret?”

“I’ve seen your drawings many times… I know…”

“What?”

Ihsan pulled Annisa’s hand as they entered his house, sending her signals with his hand

gestures to move slowly. They were tiptoeing their way into the house. By the door which

was left ajar, these children started to see two human figures.

“The one with the moustache, that’s my father; the fatter one, my uncle,” Ihsan whispered.

Quietly, a sound of two adult men talking at the dinner table started to be heard.

“Stupid people indeed, descendants of the camels…”

“Exactly, these desert lizards, they indeed have no place here in this country…”

The two men were having an animated conversation in their loud voice and bombastic

laughter, unaware of the two pairs of eyes watching them. The man called Papa poked his

fork on the pieces of meat, chewing in great pleasure. The man called Uncle was burping, yet

didn’t show any signs that he would ever stop eating.

Annisa bawled her eyes, transfixed upon a piece of human head, appeared to be a woman,

served on the dinner table. The Uncle sliced and cut the nose apart. Ihsan muffled Annisa’s

mouth, keeping her from making a sound. Then he pulled his hand and asked her to come

upstairs, to his room.

For a moment, the remained still.

“I… I need to go to the toilet… I…”

Annisa’s voice got stuck in her throat. She could no longer suppress her desire to throw up.

Ihsan’s quick hands thrusted a bucket and a towel at Annisa. Upon purging the contents of

her stomach several times, Annisa was leaning weakly on the wall. Ihsan thrusted a glass of

mineral water at her.

“I always have these ‘ammunitions’ ready in my room,” he said.

Annisa nodded her head weakly. “Whose head was that?”

“Looks like Aunt Hasanah…”

“Dear God! Since when have you discovered this?”

“It’s been quite a while, perhaps two years ago. Besides doing it with Uncle, Papa also does it

with Mama; they only do it at different times.”

Annisa covered her face. “Dear God! Do you think all adults quietly do this kind of thing?”

Ihsan shrugged. “No idea, but I’ve smelled similar stenches elsewhere. On the road, on public

transport vehicles, in shopping malls, at friends’ homes, including in our teachers’ office…”

“Oh yeah, exactly!” Annisa exclaimed.

“Are we the only ones going through this? What should we do?”

“No idea, if we die tomorrow, I reckon these adults will eat our flesh as well…”

The two children sat next to each other with eyes which looked confused. They just couldn’t

comprehend how come adults secretly loved to eat human flesh, even that of their own

relatives.
***