Indeed, she walked towards her accuser with a straight back and her held her head up high, and although I was too far away to make out what was being said, I could see her talking calmly to both the security guards and the guy himself. The guy was still angry and was throwing his arms around as he continued to no doubt cast aspersions on the young lady’s character, while she continued to stand her ground.
After a couple of minutes of this stand-off, the girl said something to one of the two security guards. He seemed to do a double-take, then appeared to ask her to repeat whatever it was she’d said. This she did, and then the security guy spoke directly to the punter who initially looked just as shocked as the security guy had a matter of seconds earlier. Nevertheless, the punter put his hand into the back pocket of his trousers and, lo-and-behold, pulled out what was quite clearly an expensive looking watch.
All three men looked dumbfounded. What had just happened? I turned to Heri sitting beside me in the hope that he would be able to shed some light as to what had transpired before our very eyes, but for once even he had no answers for me. We watched as the young lady simply turned away dismissively from all three gentleman and made her way back to from where she had come.
Subsequent to this little unexpected piece of drama, we did indeed call it a night and made our way home. That night, finally alone in the small hubby hole I was sleeping in in Heri’s place, I found myself unable to sleep. My mind kept drifting back to what I’d witnessed that evening and especially the altercation involving the working girl.
Who was she, I wondered, where did she come from and how had she ended up in her line of work? Most intriguingly, I wondered how she’d pulled off the trick with the watch. Had she, I mused, somehow performed a conjuring trick to put the watch back into the guy’s pocket – you know, a sleight of hand thing- or had she just noticed the dozy chap putting the watch there himself back in the room? It was a right conundrum, I told myself, and make no mistake. Those were my last thoughts as I finally drifted off to sleep.
The next few weeks went by and I started to feel a bit more at home in Jakarta. I started becoming a bit braver and began negotiating the city’s public transport systems and learning a bit more about the city and the amazing chorus line of characters it plays host to.
I was starting to learn that it is an unforgiving city in as much as it is survival of the fittest in all walks of life. The city is a contradiction of high-rise apartments, shopping malls and seven-star hotels amongst an array of polluted rivers, crippled and deformed beggars and appalling poverty, and as I took in my new surroundings, I became more aware of why Heri was not as yet living the good life. Notwithstanding this, still I didn’t feel despondent regarding my own chances of making a go of things. On the contrary, whereas I could see the challenges ahead, I could also see the opportunities too.
I carried on working with Heri and his friends at the building site, and although I was grateful for the work, it wasn’t long before I started getting itchy feet and started wanting to see what other alternatives were out there. We would work until just before 6pm, or magrib evening prayers, each day before usually heading out for a walk or just hanging around the settlement, known locally as a kampong, where we lived.
We would sometimes head back to Godok and the site of the adventures of my first night in Jakarta, but such trips were rather rare as most of us were keen to save what money we could and on the rare occasion when we did venture there, I found to my mild disappointment there was neither a repeat of prior histrionics nor any sign of the girl responsible for them.
I actually spent rather a disproportionate amount of time thinking about that particular young lady for some reason. I guess I was slightly in awe of the way she had held herself together and conducted herself that night, and couldn’t help but continue to compare it with the way I’d practically hidden behind my father when I’d been in the same situation back home. This girl was a bit of an enigma to me, and I decided that if I ever got the chance I would like to talk to her – just to try and get a bit of a handle on her and see what made her tick.
As it happened, I didn’t have long to have to wait. A couple of nights later and the usual suspects had decided on spending the evening in Godok. As usual, I was invited along and as I agreed, I started developing a plan of action. I would, I decided, try and get to meet her, and if all went well, I would attempt to put my curiosity to rest. The only problem was I didn’t know how to approach her except by way of presenting myself as a willing consumer of her goods for sale, if you get my drift. I remembered Heri’s initial warning to me that these young ladies were not tourist attractions to be gawped at or to have their time wasted by the likes of me asking inane questions, so I knew I would have to pretend to be interested in her services.
I decided if I saw her walking across the square tonight I would simply go through with a charade of pretending to be interested in her in the normal consumer manner and see what happened.
This meant, though, the embarrassment of having
