Beauty Is a Wound Read Free Page B

with Dewi Ayu again, not even caring that she was now just a corpse.
    Rosinah walked behind the casket carried by four neighborhood men. The baby was fast asleep in her embrace, protected by the edge of the black veil she was wearing. A woman, the whiner, walked next to her with a basket of flower petals. Rosinah grabbed the flowers, throwing them into the air along with coins that were quickly fought over by the young children who ran underneath the casket to grab them, risking being tumbled into the irrigation channel or trampled by the mourners chanting the blessings of the prophet.
    Dewi Ayu was buried in a far corner of the cemetery among the graves of other ill-fated people, because that was what Kyai Jahro and the gravedigger had agreed upon. Buried there was an evil thief from the colonial era, and a crazy killer, and a number of communists, and now a prostitute. It was believed that those unfortunate souls would be disturbed by ongoing tests and trials in the grave, and so it was wise to distance them from the graves of pious people who wanted to rest in peace, be invaded by worms and rot in peace, and make love to heavenly nymphs without any commotion.
    Just as soon as that festive ceremony was done, people promptly forgot all about Dewi Ayu. Since that day, nobody came to visit the grave, not even Rosinah and Beauty. They let its ruins be pummeled by ocean storms, covered by piles of old frangipani leaves, and grown over with wild elephant grass. Only Rosinah had a convincing reason for why she didn’t care for Dewi Ayu’s grave. “It’s because we only tend to the graves of the dead,” she said to the hideous little baby (with her sign language that of course the baby didn’t understand).
    Maybe it was true that Rosinah had the ability to see the future, a modest skill that had been handed down by her wise old ancestors. She had first arrived in the city five years earlier with her father, a sand miner in the mountains who was old and suffering from severe rheumatism, when she was just fourteen years old. They had appeared in Dewi Ayu’s room at Mama Kalong’s whorehouse. At first the prostitute was not at all interested in this little girl, nor in her father, an old man with his nose in the shape of a parrot’s beak, his silver curly hair, his wrinkled skin dark as copper, and above all his overly cautious way of walking as if every last one of his bones would collapse in a heap if she shoved him the tiniest little bit. Dewi Ayu immediately recognized him and said:
    “You are addicted, old man. We made love two nights ago.”
    The man smiled shyly, like a young kid meeting his sweetheart, and nodded. “I want to die in your arms,” he said. “I can’t pay you, but I’ll give you this mute child. She’s my daughter.”
    Dewi Ayu looked at the little girl in confusion. Rosinah stood not very far from her, calm and smiling at her in a friendly way. At that time she was very skinny, wearing an embroidered dress that was way too big for her, barefoot, and with her wavy hair tied back by only a rubber band. Her skin was smooth, like most mountain girls, with a simple round face, intelligent eyes, a flat nose and wide lips, with which she was able to give everyone that pleasing smile. Dewi Ayu had no idea what use a girl like that would be to her and she looked back at the old man.
    “I myself already have three daughters, so what would I do with this child?” she asked.
    “She can read and write, even though she can’t talk,” said her father. “All my children can read and write and they can talk,” said Dewi Ayu with a teasing laugh. But the old man was hell-bent to sleep with her and die in her arms and give her the mute young girl as payment. She could do whatever she wanted with the girl. “You can turn her into a prostitute and take the money she earns for as long as she lives,” said the old man. “Or, if there’s no man who wants to be with her, you can chop her up into bits and sell