Ah, my Sari. I am really happy for you, truly I am, but I am still sad. After that night with you I tried many times to call you and text you to explain my feelings but I guess you were still hurt and angry and you never replied or answered the phone.
I am so sorry, and I will always regret hurting you, Sari, but worse than that I will always regret losing you. I think we could have had a wonderful life together, but I know I ruined that with my behaviour.
Anyway, take care, my sweet, and be happy. I hope in the future if you ever think of me, the silly bule who came into your life for a few short weeks, you will just smile and think something nice, but I still have slight hopes that you can forgive me and perhaps one day we can be married instead. Am I crazy to hope for this?
All my love, Sari,
Charlie.
(PS: maybe we could meet for coffee and a chat after you have read this?)
I read it and just thought ‘hmmmmmm’, nothing more. I mean, what he said is all very nice, right? But it’s easy to be nice now when it’s too late. It’s easy to hurt someone, get what you want, and then just say ‘sorry’ and expect everything to be fine again.
Now I was starting to feel angry. How could he do like this? I questioned. Better the stupid bugil didn’t contact me at all again than send me something like this. What did he expect from me now? That I would feel sorry for him, that I would fall for his words and his flattery – in Indonesian language we call this type of talking basa-basi, which means ‘talking only’ – huh!
Yes, I was angry! At first I wanted to ignore him, but then I thought, No, he can’t do this to me. I want real answers. So I sent him a text and I just wrote: ‘Got your email. Am very angry. Meet me at Starbucks in Semmanggi Mall at 8pm.’ Then I switched off my phone because I didn’t want to talk to him again until then.
The rest of the day I spent deliberately not thinking about him and being as happy as I could be. I spoke a lot with Selvey, but not about Charlie, and she made me laugh a lot. Perhaps I should tell you now what I thought was happening in her life.
I was beginning to think she was being naughty and having an affair with a bule. Really, I know that sounds crazy because she had always said she didn’t like them, but for the last two months or so she had been acting very strange. I mean strange in a nice way because she was always smiling and happy those days and always talking in English quietly on her handphone. It was unusual for her to be so nice to people, and also she often came to work wearing sexy clothes and sometimes smelling of perfume.
You know what? A few times she even brought a hold-all to work with her with what I thought was probably a spare set of clothes in. I got to thinking she was sometimes staying overnight with her boyfriend. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me and I just had negative thinking about her, but I didn’t think so. Anyway, if she was being a bit naughty then it was not my business, was it? And anyway I actually was happy for her. Whatever was happening in her life right then was making her happy and a better person, I think. I just hoped nobody got hurt. I knew what that felt like and it sucked.
Anyway, I had a nice day and didn’t think about Charlie too much. I thought about Gary a lot, though, and I chatted with him a bit on YM. I didn’t tell him about Charlie or that I would meet him because I didn’t think it was important, really. I just wanted to talk to Charlie face to face so that we could close the matter and finish things properly. He didn’t mean anything to me anymore.
When I got to Starbucks he was already there. I didn’t care. Normally I would feel a bit guilty if someone had been waiting for me, even if I was not late, but not today. I didn’t want him to buy anything for me so I went directly to the counter and ordered an iced tea while he waited for me.
Good, let him wait, I thought.
Finally I got my drink and went to his table and sat down. He looked up at me and directly tried to hold my hand across the table but I moved it away so he couldn’t. I was not going to make this easy for him and fall for his basa-basi chitchat again.
He started to talk, to try and explain further the things he wrote in his email and his behaviour with me before, but I was not really listening. All I could hear was blah, blah, blah … You know, I felt nothing for him. I knew he was one of the men that Selvey talks about when she describes bules as ‘players’.
At some point I became aware that he had asked me a question and he seemed to be waiting for my response. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ I asked him.
‘I asked if it is too late for us; could we try again, please?’ he answered.
I looked at him but there was nothing there. No sense, no feeling, no curiosity even. In fact, there was just a gap where there should have been something. I didn’t even have to answer. I just looked at him and he knew.
He knew he has blown the best chance he would ever have of being truly happy in his life.
This time
