She swore over and over again that she had not had sex with anyone else, not once, not ever since we were married, and do you know what? I felt myself wavering.
Yeah, yeah, I know what I’m saying. I know how absurd and unbelievable, in fact downright impossible the very notion of this miracle conception is, but in the light of her adamant stand and determination of denial, in my addled brain I felt confused as to what choice I had other than to accept her at her word.
She stood there and swore to God, to her dead father’s soul, to me, that she had not been unfaithful. Her eyes shining brightly, she looked directly into mine and promised with all her heart that she still loved me, wanted me, and needed me. I can feel her now as she held me and told me how much I meant to her, how she had never stopped loving me and how this child could be a new start for us.
I so wanted to believe her. I really did, because I knew that if I didn’t then I had nothing, and I couldn’t bear that.
Oh, I was not completely deluded. I knew something must have happened, but I also knew I was very unlikely to ever find out what exactly. I gave her every chance to tell me and I told her that if something had happened when I was away in England, whether it was one-off thing, a regular ‘sex-buddy’ thing, or a full-blown affair, then she should tell me and we could sort it out together. She vehemently denied any of these took place and she just stated she had no idea how she came to fall pregnant and that it must have been a gift from God.
Although neither of us mentioned it, there was one other avenue potentially open to us. It was not really a real option, however, and that is why it was never mentioned.
So, I accepted the job with my old friend and started work in Jakarta in March of 2003. I ended up being sort of railroaded into taking the management position but actually soon found myself enjoying it and the job was not difficult at all. I felt I had landed on my feet despite being under-qualified for my new position as the Director of Studies at an English Language School.
Although I had sufficient experience in teaching, I still didn’t have any formal teaching qualifications at this point and I knew that I would be coming into contact with those that did, so I would definitely be needing to up my game. This in itself didn’t really worry me and I was looking forward to the challenge. I had managed to save and salt away some money whilst working in England, and I was now in a position to start studying again and finally get some qualifications. I knew I couldn’t keep ‘winging it’ so I enrolled online and got cracking on a degree in education.
At the same time, I started to get used to my new surroundings. Although I had visited Jakarta a number of times when I lived in Surabaya, I’d never stayed long and wasn’t particularly a fan of the city known locally as ‘The Big Durian’. I’d always considered it to be too noisy, crowded, polluted and, to be honest, too much. Previously, I’d always maintained I could never see myself living in Jakarta, yet, with necessity being the mother of invention, or something, here I now was having to get to grips with the place.
To be fair, I found my prejudices and fears regarding the city to be both outdated and unwarranted, and I quickly discovered that Jakarta had a charm all of it’s own. Although bigger, busier and noisier than anywhere I’d ever encountered before, it was never boring and it really did offer up opportunities for all tastes. For example, I found a much larger expatriate society than in Surabaya and I was able to start playing proper organised football again. After such a long time of ‘going native’ I now found myself making expatriate friends and as a result experiencing more of what the city had to offer.
I visited museums and art galleries for the first time in my life, and also enjoyed the experience of becoming a semi-regular visitor to the theatre too. I was introduced to a new cosmopolitan way of life and in no time at all, it seemed, I became acclimatised to my new surroundings.
I fell into a new routine whereby I would wake up early and go for a run before breakfast. Then I would settle down for a couple of hours studying before heading to the office to start work at around 11. As lessons at the school didn’t normally commence until mid-afternoon, I would then have a while in order to deal with administrative issues and plan my own lessons. Reasonably late finishes of around 8 or 9pm would usually prevent too much socializing during the week, but weekends would be spent following leisure activities, both old and new, and making new friends.
Jakarta’s malls are legendary and the metropolis is probably second only to Singapore in Southeast Asia in that respect. Never really having been one for spending days on end traipsing around such places, they held little personal interest for me but even I had to admit they were a haven for when I wanted to visit good eateries, bookshops or cinemas.
The traffic jams were, and are, legendary of course, but steps are constantly
