Uluwatu

Deincarnasi

Rumah baru saya di ujung jalan belum selesai. Saya sebenarnya sudah siap pindah, tetapi tinggal di rumah di Bali yang belum disucikan dengan upacara yang sesuai adalah hal yang mustahil.

Namun, saya mengumpulkan semua berkas dan dokumen yang bisa saya temukan dan segera memindahkannya ke ruangan aman di rumah baru itu.

Di sinilah narasi terputus. Dalam buku Eleven Demons, saya mencoba menyajikannya secara berurutan, setiap peristiwa sebagaimana adanya, tetapi tanpa penjelasan sepanjang buku, itu hanya akan menimbulkan kebingungan sebanyak yang saya alami saat itu.

Saya perlahan-lahan merasakan hal itu sebagai semacam pelepasan diri dari tubuh fisik. Segala sesuatu yang saya pahami tentang keluarga saya, istri saya, hidup saya, dan teman-teman saya mulai menghilang. Dan bukan karena kebetulan, tetapi dengan niat penuh dan semakin jelas.

Apakah saya benar-benar dipaksa untuk memberikan bukti keberadaan saya kepada pengadilan, membuktikan pernikahan saya, kelahiran anak-anak saya, hasil kerja saya selama hampir 20 tahun?

Orang-orang yang saya kenal sebagai teman selama bertahun-tahun tiba-tiba menjadi dingin selama beberapa bulan terakhir, tanpa alasan yang bisa saya pahami. Kemudian saya bertemu Kim di tempat parkir dan dia berkata, "Saya telah mendengar banyak hal buruk tentangmu!" Kemudian dia tertawa, "tapi jangan khawatir, saya hanya percaya setengahnya!" Alasan di balik aktivitas sosial Made yang tak henti-hentinya mulai menjadi jelas

Satu-satunya orang yang tampaknya tidak berbalik melawan saya adalah para staf rumah tangga yang tinggal bersama kami.

Di kantor baru saya yang belum selesai, saya mulai memeriksa semua barang yang berhasil saya selamatkan. Made Artini dan Nyoman Sudana sering bergabung dengan saya. Mereka mengingat banyak hal, telah menyaksikan atau mendengar hal-hal yang tidak saya ketahui. Tukang kebun, I Wayan Dharma, mendengar percakapan penting antara Made dan pengacaranya, Wikantara.

Staf lain melaporkan hal-hal yang telah mereka lihat dan dengar. Made sering mengabaikan kehadiran mereka dan mungkin lupa bahwa mereka bisa mendengarkan. Mereka menderita karena kemarahan dan perubahan suasana hati Made yang tiba-tiba, tetapi Made tidak berhasil membuat dirinya disukai oleh mereka. Ketika Wayan Pugri lupa memadamkan lilin suatu malam, Made menemukan bekas terbakar di meja keesokan paginya dan sangat marah serta berteriak, "Meja ini lebih berharga daripada kamu!" Para staf tampaknya menyadari bahwa itulah sikap umum Made terhadap mereka.

Butuh waktu berbulan-bulan bagi kami untuk mengumpulkan semuanya, menyusun kenangan, foto, video, saksi, email, potongan dokumen, termasuk banyak dokumen yang Made sendiri masukkan ke pengadilan sebagai bukti. Kami meneliti dokumen-dokumen lama dan file komputer yang pernah ingin saya buang. Saya menemukan bahwa semua foto kami dari tahun 1994 hingga 1996 telah hilang, tetapi Made lupa menghancurkan negatifnya, dan saya mencetaknya kembali.

Setelah memeriksa dokumen-dokumen itu, saya menyadari bahwa saya memang menikah dengan seorang bernama Made Jati, tetapi ada Made Jati lain, seseorang yang tidak saya kenal.

Made Jati yang lain itu telah berusaha keras untuk menceraikan saya sejak bulan-bulan pertama pernikahan kami, dan Made Jati itu hidup sebagai wanita lajang yang belum menikah di kota lain.

Deincarnation

My new house down the road was not yet finished. I was ready to move in anyway, but living in a house in Bali that has not been properly consecrated with an appropriate ceremony was impossible.

I did, however, gather every file and document I could find and move them immediately to a secure room in the new house.

Here the narrative breaks down. In Eleven Demons I try to present it in sequence, each event as it happened, but without a book length to explain, it would only lead to as much confusion as I experienced at the time.

I gradually came to feel it as a kind of deincarnation. Everything I had understood about my family, my wife, my life, and my friends was falling away. And not by accident, but with full and increasingly obvious intent.

Had I really just been forced to present evidence for my existence to the court, prove my marriage, the birth of my children, the results of my nearly 20 years of work?

People I had known as friends for years had become suddenly cold over the last months, for no reason I could understand. Then I ran into Kim in a parking lot and he said "I've been hearing lots of terrible things about you!" Then he laughed, "but don't worry, I only believe half of them!" The reason for Made's relentless social activities was becoming clear.

The only people who did not seem to turn against me were the house staff who lived with us.

In my new unfinished office I began to go through whatever I had salvaged. Made Artini and Nyoman Sudana often joined me. They remembered things, had witnessed or overheard things that I was unaware of. The gardener I Wayan Dharma overheard revealing conversations between Made and her lawyer Wikantara.

Other staff reported things they had seen and overheard. Made often discounted their presence and probably forgot they could listen. They suffered her angers and sudden shifts of temper, but she had not endeared herself to them. When Wayan Pugri forgot to put out a candle one night, Made found a burn spot on the table in the morning and flew into a rage and screamed "this table is worth more than you are!" The staff seemed to recognize this as her general attitude towards them.

It took months for us to pull things together, assembling memories, photos, videos, witnesses, emails, scraps of documents including many that Made herself entered into court as evidence. We combed through old documents and computer files that I had once meant to throw away. I found that all our photos from 1994 through 1996 were gone, but Made had missed destroying the negatives, and I printed them again.

Going through the documents, I realized that I had been married to one Made Jati, but there was another Made Jati, someone I did not know.

The other Made Jati had been hard at work to deincarnate me from even the first months of our marriage, and that Made Jati was living as a single unmarried woman in another city.