Cut my heart open and in that wound you will see the face of my grandmothers; their kitchens; the smell of their perfumes; the languages they spoke; the languages they learned; their handwriting; the letters my paternal grandmother wrote me; the letters I wrote her; the school she taught in; the bumpy road to Central Java with no highway; the long river stretching across the horizon; a cigarette at the tip of the driver’s hand hanging by the truck window; six more hours and we’ll be there; my family won’t take you to the galleries but give us a map and we will show you where we eat–we. will. show. you. LOVE; where do you find them if not on the dining table; in the living room; the bamboo mat is spread; come join us before we break apart. We can’t take you to the galleries; cross the road with us and you will see a bakery; if i tell you that bakery sees us more than any other place in the world, will you believe me? Come up north with us to where my ancestors were born; nothing but paddy fields up there; take a nap in the living room and browse our photo books; you are part of the family now; it’s a long way back; if i tell you we got each other, will you believe me? Sit with us before we break apart. My paternal grandma cooks until she can’t; reads until she can’t; writes until she can’t; laughs until she can’t; fights until she can’t; listen to me when I speak of her–when I speak of wanting to return; before I break apart. Cut my heart open and in that wound you will see my maternal grandmother in her sungkit cloth spread diagonally across her body; the olive oil she used on her hair and on mine; thick encyclopedias of different flowers; have I told you she was a gifted gardener?; have you seen our backyard?; do you want to bring some chillis home?; say a plant and she will garden it for you; pick a flower, an herb, handful of seeds and she will find a home in you too; water our garden with us before I break apart. Cut me open and in that wound you will see the yellow paddy fields sway lazily to the pulse of my paternal grandmother as she wrote me letters in broken english; I swear to god she taught me how to write; cut me open and you will see my maternal grandmother holding my hand wherever I go; she taught me unconditional love–you know what that’s like? I can’t take you to their houses anymore; if I tell you they were all I have, will you believe me?
Hana Anandira is an Indonesian writer and researcher examining the intersection of technology, colonial violence and the politics of everyday life. Her work has been featured in The Jakarta Post, Marginalia, Whiteboard Journal, Further Reading, and more. Today, she is editor-at-large for literary archiving platform IDWRITERS and volunteer translator at Progressive International.
