The midday sunshower was easing into a few drops. I wound down my window welcoming the mountain air. We drove slowly, looking for our motel. My husband looked at the right side of the street, and I the left.

I was soon distracted by the shops prettied up for tourists.

My attention was drawn momentarily to an antiques-cum-gift shop, because the front door was uncannily reminiscent of that of the house of my childhood on the outskirts of Bogor, a rustic retreat where my parents would regularly take me and my sister for a relaxing weekend.

Of course the house was no longer there. It had given way to a real estate development 10 or 15 years ago.

“Ah, there it is,” said my husband, his voice bringing me back to our immediate task. He was pointing to a building some 100 meters away. “Not a bad-looking auberge” he said, “don’t you agree?”

“Hmm, lovely,” I sad flatly.

At that moment, all I wanted to do was to go back and touch the door, as if convinced that beyond that door I would walk into the nostalgic world of my childhood.

“You’re not fully awake yet?” asked my husband as he pulled up in front of the motel. I straightened my back up and grabbed my jacket from the back of my seat as he stepped out of the car.

“After we check in, can we go back to that antique shop?” I asked.

My husband looked toward the direction I was pointing, then nodded lightly. “If you want to,” he said.

*****
The wedding we were attending was not until 5 p.m., so we had plenty of time to look around and have lunch. Within 10 minutes we were looking at the carved wooden door.

Dreamily, I moved my fingers through the relief leaves and flowers in a West Java forest, a worn but recognizable picture.

My husband stood aside, watching.

“So, is it?” he asked.

“Is it the door from the house? Nooo,” I said, pointing to the
middle part, “that one had a deer around here.”

I pushed the door, still flushed with anticipation.

We stepped into a rather dark interior. Beyond it was a glass door that opened to a partially covered yard where some items, still in their dark plastic wraps, were carefully stacked.

A figure came away from what turned out to be a bar unit used as a small office, and spoke to my husband. In some country towns people seemed to have difficulty relating to non-Caucasian people.

If there was a Caucasian person nearby, they’d immediately go to him. I’d conditioned myself to behave accordingly. I let my husband take charge of the small talk and went on with my own business, in this case, browsing.

I started toward the nearest corner, intending to wind myself around the items on display. But I didn’t go very far. As I stepped closer to the wall, I saw something that caught my breath. When I recovered, I called out to my husband.

“This … this is Mbak Sularsih’s painting!” I pointed to an 85 centimeter by 60 cm framed watercolor in front of me.

“It is!” I nearly choked with emotion. “This is our house of retreat near Bogor! Oh God, I’ve finally found it!’

The woman, realizing now that I spoke comprehensible English, moved closer to face the painting, saying, “You know the artist? This is your house? How fascinating! My partner got it from a dealer in Melbourne. He said he was instantaneously drawn to it.

“He didn’t know what it was, but it was as if there was a hidden message in it, he said. So what was the artist’s name again? Here, the signature looks more like initials, SG.”

I didn’t feel like telling a private story to a complete stranger, so I just made up a tale about my parents having a picture of their house done, just to have it stolen.

It was dramatic enough. And my husband played along with it.

Then the woman told us an interesting story. The man, who had sold it to the dealer had related to him that while he had been genuinely attached to it, he had been unable to take the effect of it on his health.

“It was as if he was really enchanted by it,” recounted the woman. “He repeatedly dreamed of being visited by a woman of a nondescript age, who just looked wistfully at him, without saying a single word.

“He said it had never happened until he bought the painting. It took a toll on his health, because he found it difficult to sleep. So he knew he had to part with it.”

The price was on the high side, but I wasn’t going to let it slip through my fingers again, so I took out my credit card and bought it on the spot.

*****
The wedding went swimmingly well. The autumn afternoon was mild, and not a drop of rain upset the ceremony in the park. The bride and bridegroom were exaltedly happy, and the family and friends were suitably emotional.

Halfway through the reception I became increasingly anxious. I couldn’t get the painting off my mind, fearing it to be stolen from our motel room.

“We should have asked the receptionist to keep it in their safe,” I whispered to my husband, who assured me that nobody in Maryglen would have even heard of Sularsih and her painting. Only when we returned to the motel did I begin to feel better.

But I was too worked up to fall asleep.

“OK, remind me how you came across that painting in Melbourne,” my husband said, fighting sleep.

I was accompanying a decorator friend checking out antique furniture when I literally stumbled upon Sularsih’s painting in the storeroom of an auction house. It was on the floor, leaning against the side of a Queen Anne sofa.

It was a real surprise, because I hadn’t thought of it for decades. Incredulous, I told my friend that it was a picture from my childhood.

Not knowing the full significance of that painting to me, my friend said it would be interesting to see how much it would fetch on the day. After noting down the time and day of the auction, we went home.

Now that it had reentered my life, its importance seemed to grow in intensity by the minute.

On the day I was there an hour before the time. To my extreme disappointment the painting had gone. The auctioneer told me that a man had seen it not long after my friend and I had inquired about it. And he had made an offer way above their reserve price. So they had sold it.

“I hadn’t realized that could be done,” I was almost in tears. “Can I have the man’s name and contacts?”

The auctioneer said I could leave my name and contacts and he would pass them on to the man.

Nothing came of it. I was heartbroken. For weeks I was unable to recall any dreams.

*****
“Tell me again about Sularsih,” said my husband as he began to wake up.

My mother met Sularsih at a play where one of the actors was a mutual friend of theirs. Sularsih’s husband was a university lecturer, a known intellectual and a member of the Indonesian Graduates Association, a leftist-affiliated body.

While Sularsih was a lot more politically aware than my parents, my mother did not recall that she was politically active.

She was more artistic than political, my mother said. And she was sure Sularsih was not involved in the 30 September Movement in 1965, where seven Army officers were cruelly murdered and their bodies thrown into a disused well.

The terrible event set into motion a dreadful purge of anyone and anything communist or suspected as communist in Indonesia, the communists being the ones then held responsible for the initial crimes.

It didn’t take long for Sularsih’s husband to be arrested along with other members of the association. Sularsih and their 5-year-old daughter sought the help of my parents, who put them up in the house near Bogor. They lived there for nearly two years, before someone reported them. Then they also disappeared.

My sister and I came to know them slightly better during the time they were living in the house, from our monthly or fortnightly visits.

We were several years older than her daughter, but we played well together. One weekend, they showed us the painting Sularsih had done. We were thrilled and flattered.

Then Sularsih took us aside and said in a low and serious voice,
“If something happens to me, I want the little one to have this painting. And if something happens to both of us, I want one of you to have it.”

All weekend Sularsih was in a somber mood, as if she’d had a premonition of what was to come.

We thought nothing of it at the time. But when we told our mother about it, she went quiet and did not say anything for some time.

After their arrests — presumably they were arrested — my parents made some enquiries, but without success.

Some time later, a relative of Sularsih came for their things. My mother could not say that the painting was ours. “After all, it is hers, and being her relative, he is more entitled to it.”

We didn’t think she had done the right thing, but accepted. The situation was sad enough without us creating any more problems.

*****
Many years after my marriage and move to Melbourne, my parents sold the property near Bogor to a developer. It seemed that that chapter of our lives was closed.

No news about Sularsih, her husband or her daughter ever reached us. After our parents passed away, my sister and I often wondered what happened to those three, but we never once mentioned the painting. It must have fallen and lodged in a dark recess of our mind.

Coming across it in an auction house in Melbourne was like being thrown back in time and having to grope around for solid ground.

“The funny thing is, I didn’t feel dazed until I got home that day. It didn’t hit me till then,” I said to my husband, who was handing me a glass of water. He then walked to the corner, took the painting out of its wrappings, and stood away to take a good look at it.

That night Sularsih visited me in my dream. I didn’t recall any actual conversation, but I woke up with the understanding that we were holding the painting until her daughter came to claim it.