<\/p>\n
Samoa was barely nineteen, when we met in art school. Fifty years later, I\u2019m wondering if I knew her at all. From what she tells me in text messages and the odd phone call, I sense an unacknowledged calamity of sorts. Samoa was the proverbial frog swimming in a pot on a lit stove, not feeling the rising heat.<\/p>\n
I always knew she was a passionate woman, as her mother\u2019s blood runs through her veins. Like all Javanese, Samoa\u2019s mama believed the world was inhabited by 85 evil spirits and an infinite number of benign entities, ready to possess her at dusk\u2014the spirit hour. Her privileged life on Java, as a member of the aristocracy, ended unexpectedly and forever with a visit to the country of the belandas<\/em>. She fell in love with a handsome, tall Dutchman from the working class. Soon after, the German army invaded the country. Both lovers joined the resistance and for the good cause, lived an exciting life with sabotage acts under the German occupation. After the war, their two daughters were born, and Samoa\u2019s mama\u2019s life grew quiet.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Samoa told me she\u2019d always felt loved. Boundless love flowed steadily, especially from her papa to his golden girls. As an exuberant child, her life\u2019s mantra became I feel, therefore I am<\/em>. Sis looked like her, but took after their dad: deliberate, in control, very Dutch\u2014the dominant type. Samoa adopted her mama\u2019s belief in hidden forces, and her mama\u2019s astrologist became her fortune teller too.<\/p>\n At thirteen, infatuations grabbed her. As her parents turned protective, tempers flared, between Samoa and her mama, sometimes paired with hair pulling. Tossed around in an ocean of emotion and choking on words, Samoa poured whatever moved her onto the page. She didn\u2019t exist, until that boy liked her. When he responded in kind, she floated on clouds and was in hell, when he ignored her.<\/p>\n Easy Indo girl<\/em> were the taunts from milky-white classmates, and she steeled herself. At sixteen, she fell in love with a handsome, tall Dutchman from the working class. A rowdy confrontation at home made her pack her bags, and she moved in with her Rembrandt. Now she was free.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Life doesn\u2019t work that way. Her papa\u2019s connections in the world of books led to the job of converting Harlequin romances into Dutch. Art school students at night, the couple worked daytime jobs. That\u2019s when I met them, and became their friend. She confided about John\u2019s aggression, that he pushed her around, following his father\u2019s example at his home. At the weekly dinner with Samoa\u2019s parents, her papa pulled the ace from his sleeve: two rental suites in their large, four-story house.<\/p>\n \u201cSweetheart, are you in trouble? I could let you have a suite.\u201d<\/p>\n Samoa jumped at the offer and countered. \u201cThat\u2019s great, papa, but John must come too, and you can\u2019t come upstairs and snoop.\u201d<\/p>\n He kindly agreed, and it was settled. To keep things even, Sis moved into the other suite on the floor below Samoa and John.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n After our graduation, we stayed in touch. John and Samoa hawked her designs in London, but beyond filling the orders, her fashion adventure went no further. As their love faltered, so did her embryonic calling to dress the beautiful.<\/p>\n She hadn\u2019t lacked admiration before and the tempting-hot devil of new love beckoned. With the change of lovers, she changed careers too. Other amours<\/em> warmed her bed and her home became theirs. \u201cI believe in love. It\u2019s what I live for,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n I left the country and news trickled in. I had to read between the lines, until we caught up, face-to-face. The story is familiar: she gave, and gave, and forgave. She was the steady address for the man with a girlfriend elsewhere. Choking off the beast of jealousy, she asked little in return and her sense-of-self shattered. She enabled the addict to use her for his bread and butter, a roof over his head. With a bruised heart and a coke habit, she finally told the last man to leave her home. Her well had run dry.<\/p>\n The cure for despair became to work long hours in her chosen job. As she dressed the faces of celebrities for film and TV, her private life evaporated. She played the Oscar-worthy role of the coveted, Indo artiste<\/em>\u2014pliable and sweet. The praise for her work was the balm for her soul. As she kept her distance from heartbreaking love, she found a satisfying substitute with plenty of willing lovers on short vacations abroad. She became the queen of flirtation.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n When her mama fell ill, Samoa as the single daughter took on caring for her. As the 85 evil spirits haunted her mama, she\u2019d only fall asleep with Samoa in bed beside her. Until the day Samoa became the unknown ghost in her mama\u2019s fearful mind. Lost in the jungles of her past, Samoa\u2019s mama lived another year in a care home.<\/p>\n For the sake of his little grandson, Samoa\u2019s papa offered Sis a trade: his ground floor apartment with the garden for the second floor. Samoa could taste her resentment. \u201cSis surely isn\u2019t going to help me with dad,\u201d she predicted. Her trips abroad stalled, and her life became all work and no play, as she made sure her papa was alright. Sharing the same front entrance with him, she didn\u2019t invite anybody, and of course, no men.<\/p>\n The day Samoa found her papa on the floor beside his bed with his face blue and his eyes open, staring at her but not seeing, she understood. She dropped down beside him and begged. \u201cPapa, wake up, you can\u2019t leave me, papa, damn you, wake up.\u201d She dialed 911. When the ambulance arrived, Sis also stepped into the room.<\/p>\n \u201cI still don\u2019t want to think about that day,\u201d Samoa confessed. \u201cIf I do, his face will haunt me in my dreams. Everything was difficult then. Fearing his lingering spirit, I didn\u2019t ever go into his apartment.”<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n When Sis faced a depression, Samoa shrugged it off. \u201cWhat possibly could make her life difficult? She hasn\u2019t worked a day beyond showing her perfect hands for a couple of commercials.\u201d<\/p>\n I objected. \u201cLooking after a child and a household with a man is also much work.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt really isn\u2019t,\u201d she insisted.<\/p>\n Her resentment building, Samoa rang the doorbell one day, and when Sis appeared in the doorframe, Samoa said she couldn\u2019t cover for Sis that day.<\/p>\n Her sister yelled, \u201cYou, selfish bitch. I won\u2019t give you the satisfaction of breaking up my marriage. I\u2019ll get another sitter. Who needs you?\u201d She slammed the door in Samoa\u2019s face. That was the last time they \u201ctalked.\u201d Cut off from the only child in her life, Samoa most of all cried for her lost life.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Another year went by, and another. She suffered a bout of physical ailments. \u201cThis is no life. I must change things,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n She sold her two floors of the house\u2014her inheritance. As she purged her dad\u2019s unit of old furniture and family memories, Sis arrived to see about the noise. Like a queen, she scanned the floor. \u201cAre you going to rent out papa\u2019s floor?\u201d<\/p>\n A whiff of Chanel number 5 hit Samoa\u2019s nose, and her stomach cramped. She told Sis she\u2019d sold her<\/em> home. \u201cI\u2019m getting rid of papa\u2019s things. Take whatever you like.\u201d<\/p>\n Sis took what she wanted, although it wasn\u2019t much. A few days later, Samoa left her birth home and relieved, slammed the door shut on that life.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n In her new, tony condo, Samoa blossomed. \u201cI could plan to see a friend every day of the month and never see anybody twice.\u201d Then added: \u201cTo be honest, I prefer to live and travel alone now.\u201d<\/p>\n With money in the bank, she could afford to become choosey on contracts and dropped the less desirable clientele. Now she liked her calling even more. \u201cRetirement isn\u2019t for me. I\u2019ll just work forever,\u201d she assured everybody. With plenty of free time, she traveled to beaches and cities, capturing the hearts of gorgeous young men with her confidence and beauty. She sparkled. \u201cI love the manly man, the one who hunts and appreciates a liberal woman, southerners. Northerners have no game,\u201d she announced.<\/p>\n She lived life to the fullest, loved passionately and drank thirstily from that well, unencumbered by moral codes. \u201cEvery adventure is a good adventure,\u201d she told me. \u201cWhen the affair is over, I move on.\u201d<\/p>\n Partir, c\u2019est mourir un peu<\/em>. To Leave is to Die a Little. Again, and again, she faced rejection. A decade-long affair finally met its crescendo, after his wife and young child had left him, but he still rejected Samoa, for no reason at all. Her toes buried in the warm sand, she wondered who\u2019d miss her if she walked into the ocean. An obliging Greek god saved her from that moment, and it passed.<\/p>\n Yet, another lover-boy pursued her through the hot streets of Crete and squatted inside her vacant heart. One month later on a Dutch rainy day, the same twenty-something Adonis arrived at her home. \u201cI\u2019m trembling, like I\u2019m sixteen again,\u201d she confessed on the phone, as he was sleeping. \u201cHe may be my last chance for love.\u201d<\/p>\n When he woke up, his request to sponsor him pierced her heart: to him, she was a wallet with Euros, and she refused. He left the following day. She crumbled, wanted to jump from the roof to end the pain of humiliation.<\/p>\n Her milky-white friends were useless: \u201cAll their lives they stay within their boxes. What do they know about love in the eyes of my Adonis?\u201d Expecting my unconditional love from half a world away, she let her rage fly on WhatsApp. Insulted by my concern, she fumed: \u201cIf you think I’m going to kill myself, you’re crazier than me. No, I don\u2019t need a therapist. I have my astrologist. A little compassion, is all I ask.\u201d She planned to die before she would get ugly and old, Samoa had told me on her sixtieth birthday. \u201cEighty is not for me, no way.\u201d<\/p>\n Alas, our friendship didn\u2019t survive her ceaseless barrage from decades-long of pent-up, displaced anger. She mistook my silence for permission to continue to trash me, until she was tired of it. As I\u2019m grieving for my lost friend, she seemed unaware of the rising danger in her submerged state.<\/p>\n ———–<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rising Heat Samoa was barely nineteen, when we met in art school. Fifty years later, I\u2019m wondering if I knew her at all. From what she tells me in text messages and the odd phone call, I sense an unacknowledged calamity of sorts. Samoa was the proverbial frog swimming in a pot on a lit stove, not feeling the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-non-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3773"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4746,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions\/4746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}