My Husband Brought Me Here

A tiny room with minimal lighting.
A long narrow bed was the only furniture in it. Spread on it was a sheet of such faded and dirty white, with stains all over. I tamped down a surge of disgust as I took my seat on top of it, face to face with a woman of, perhaps, my age.

Raucous laughter and the wailing of dangdut music rang out outside our door. Just a routine night in the red light zone.

“If I may ask, how did you end up working here, mbak?”
I aimed that question to a woman clad in black pants and a red T-shirt. She was not wearing too much make up, she looked far from cheap. But the most astonishing thing for me was the copious utterances of faith dripping from her lips.
“Astaghfirullah… well…I know what I’m doing is wrong, mbak…”
“Well, sometimes I want to quit doing this, mbak. I feel ashamed before God. Afraid that my kids will find out …”
“Oh, in a day? If business is brisk, alhamdulillah, up to four men, mbak…”

Mbak’s looks and speech, which led me to believe that she came from one of the regions in Central Java, had truly changed my initial opinion of the people viewed in our society as prostitutes.

Back to my initial question, the woman looked pensive for a while. Her eyes misted a little when she started to tell her tale,
“It all began with my husband, mbak. A lot of times he didn’t come home. Then one day, I secretly tailed him. That’s how I learned that he often visited this place…”
I listened, waiting for the woman to continue as soon as she was comfortable enough to.

“Then I had a row with him, because he wouldn’t stop coming here. He had a crush on somebody here. In the end, he left me, mbak. Left, and no news of him since.”

I smiled a little at the term she used earlier. In front of me, the short-haired woman heaved a deep breath.
“Yeah, I didn’t know what to do, mbak, left to my own devices, just like that. In the end I tried to look for him here, thinking he must have gone to see his girlfriend again.”

The tan-skinned woman stared at me, struggling for a smile, even as her lips trembled as they opened.
“But I didn’t find him. It crossed my mind to go back to my hometown, but I was too ashamed. How could I go home alone, without my husband? Besides, I have my children to think about. How was I supposed to take care of them? I have no skills.”
And so?

The figure before me offered a sheepish smile.
“In the end I work here, mbak. The place where my husband used to go to…”
How ironic.

But can I justifiably blame her her profession, which wives everywhere view as a threat? Should I say that she ought to be tougher and that it’s better to return to her family in her hometown? Isn’t it better to be unemployed than selling one’s favor?

But I am not in her shoes. I do not know the details of her circumstances, her family history, the age and real condition of this woman’s children, and for that reason, it does not seem fair to judge her on any moral ground, much less on mere assumption.

I shook her hand and thanked her, pressing some money for the time she had spared for me. She seemed momentarily dumbstruck, before she hugged me, thanked me over and over, and whispered,

“Please for me, mbak, so that one day I might…”
The sentence was left unfinished, but I knew what I had to say.
Amen.

Tanah Abang, December 31, 2003

footnote:
mbak : a saying for an older woman (like to a big sister), or a polite way to used infront of the name, especially to javanese, ppl.

HAPPY KARTINI'S DAY FOR ALL WOMEN IN THE WORLD... KEEP FIGHTING !!

source : A story from a woman's heart (Catatan Hati Seorang Istri) by Asma Nadia
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