Member-only story
Oleander Flowers
The translation of Putu Fajar Arcana’s Indonesian short story “Bunga Jepun” by Tjahaja.
A month after the bomb exploded in Legian, Luh Manik hadn’t decided anything. Every evening, she still liked to walk along the path, passing several rice fields and banana plantations, to arrive at an open building where she used to practice dancing. In the past, around the last rice field, near a small temple, Luh Manik used to pick oleander flowers. She didn’t have to climb up the tree. A bamboo stick, complete with hooks for flowers, had been placed by the trunk by whoever. Then, the white oleander flowers, after being hooked, would rotate down like a helicopter propeller before touching the ground.
Luh Manik imagined herself on an airplane traveling abroad. “I should be dancing abroad,” she always ended her fantasies with those words. She hurriedly picked up the flowers that had fallen on wild briars.
At that time, Luh Manik was really enjoying her carefree days. In the evening, after picking the flowers, usually with her ensemble waiting for her in the bamboo open building, she left for Nusa Dua. She was always given a seat next to the driver with another dancer. Meanwhile, instrument players crammed into the truck bed, mixing with the gamelan instruments. In rainy weather, they were never afraid. Simply pull up…
