The Noni's Thantophobia

      Me and my husband newly moved out permanently stay to an abandoned house adjacent by the old Dutch town, such a historical site people went for aesthetic pictures thanks to the Dutch who used to occupy the land hundred of years ago. The house itself used to be a wood trading company, as I read on the banner upon there, surely a part of the elite colonial civilization.

           The façade had made me being amative. It was eerie, yet evocative. The building formed tall, bosoming things as much as dusts wrapping its walls around, as if it had a soul, it would be a be a psycho with mysteries and tales. I knew it years ago, and at that moment also I eagerly told Maged about the building.

           “It’s so beautiful and creepy. I would like to buy it and stay there someday.”

           “If I had to choose, I’d stay there too.” Maged drew a sweet smile.

           The forelsket was already there though I had no idea if we were going to start a life together in the future when I was 22 and he was 25. Some people said, words are longings and even prayers while we spilled them out to the wind.

Before we moved, we bided for the procedures for actually purchasing the building, refurnishing everything and made it neat. Despite for my guests whom I invited at the first week of our new life, the house – still – brought them into shuddering the whole time.

           But me and my bule[1] husband, Maged – who held no Indonesian passport yet – were apparently not such ghost craven. Once they emanated in a sight out of nowhere, we’re going to open a coffee-warm conversation, indeed. We watched those horror movies where ghosts attempted to take people’s soul and sanity, while we’re convinced that ghosts couldn’t kill human in real life.

           “If only horror movies are played by Muslim, we’d just say audhubillahi min ashaitanirrajeem[2] and the movie is khalas[3].” I chuckled as I threw my head back while Maged kissed me on my neck.

           Today we just came back from Antalya for a honeymoon, it was only miles away across my husband’s hometown by the Mediterranean sea sequestering both away. The driver we ordered from the airport was extremely astounded of how we had the guts to live there.

           “It’s just a building, Sir.” I laughed. He watched us from the rearview mirror with squinting thunderstruck stare.

           Later – though – he replied with a laugh as well. “I thought your husband was a local Arab from Kauman.”

           Antalya was hot too. But it was not that humid back then. Semarang was hotter than anything else, and it’s almost completely like a sauna.

           “We’re gonna get to our room and turn on the AC.” Maged smiled as he fumbled the key in his pocket, inserting those metal curvatures inside our keyhole.

           The door was opened to twitch a shock on both of us. Our living room couch was full of bleeding red. We hadn’t installed anything on the wall but a few pictures of antique architectures. It was one or two until we came back and those pictures were erased. To replace the enormous buildings, pictures of exactly the same beautiful white woman with blonde hair were hanging on the wall.

***

           “This can’t be a real ghost. Somebody had broken into our house.” I laid my head on his shoulder which sensed the tremor of my body, warmed by blood pouring free within, distributing fear and a full bunch of qualmishness. “And those bloods, it could be a rat penetrating by the small slit somewhere.”

           “Calm down, babe. It’s just a ghost. They aren’t stronger than us.” He rubbed my back.

           We were too fatigued that we ordered an online cleaning service to clean the lurid evidence, without explaining anything, not about the noni pictures on the wall. Those people might be questioning but I had paid them so I made sure they left as soon as the work’s resolved. I’m ashamed, a bit, but who cares.

           Noni is basically how you’d call a Dutch ladies during the colonial era. It’s feckly like “miss” and anything. They were mostly seen as beautiful, even after their deaths as nowadays people oftentimes comparing between local and bule ghosts. That’s how I saw racism didn’t exist solely in human life. They even made bright-skinned ghosts seemed prettier, respected apathetically how they did the same old dirty do everyone did. The Dutch woman that appeared in my new home herself was so pretty I could’ve been envy. She’s wearing a 19^th century dress excessively decorated by laces and brocade, the framework was sliding neatly on her waist while I imagined her walking down my staircase indolently, holding the brim of her dress or she’d slip down by the stair.

           When the cleaning service guys left, Maged slept already. A glimpse of abendrot dominated the horizon and the view inside was much more spectral. I used not to be a fainthearted little sneak. Walking downstairs alone would be a normal thing but when the living room light was abruptly off with a baffling popping sound. Only the pictures stayed luminous. Pairs of blue eyes were all awaiting, observing my vulnerable self around this whole new place. They’re all owned by one person, who’s now constraining me to know it was there. It’s watching me.

           I stayed close to the biggest picture. Her aura radiated out, frantic energy that occupied my head thinking it was a haphazard to make this place a home. It tried to jolt me with regret, right when my ears acutely droning with jabs and twinging sensation, my heart pounding when it’s not ready to hail a combative nudge from my back, inverting me down with my face on the floor. The dehiscent picture above me began to drop over my body. A frosting hand touched my neck, wrapping an ice-cold metal.

           I was gonna die as my mournful outcry ruptured down the eve.

***

           The man was only a few inches taller than her. His tan skin was kissed by the whole year summer sun, he trimmed his beard neatly without even shaving the whole bushes of sensual side of the figure. Marjolijn couldn’t enjoy more when the man – who’s maybe five years older than her – combed his hands through his beard.

He looked like he wouldn’t start over a conversation. His hair was halfheartedly combed, while the mimic showed a mind too occupied to ‘have a life’, date the white Dutch ladies or have a cruise to Netherland. But her father said that he was the only man looking serious during the Vrijmetselarij ritual in the Constante et Fidele, if not also that he’s the only Javanese-Arab in the lodge.

           “Does it mean good or bad?” Marjolijn asked playfully.

           Jan Hoevink smiled, “good.”

           Once she started a talk. “Good afternoon.” She said, tried not to be exaggeratedly cheerful.

           “Good afternoon.” He respectfully answered.

           Marjolijn pursed her lip, realizing more attempt to be needed. “What’s your name, Sir?”

           The man soon smiled, mentioning his name then asking her just to call him by the name. Marjolijn Hoevink, the daughter of the richest banker in Semarang, had to face adulthood and now found out she’s appealed to a Javanese-Arab man whom she finally knew his name was Samir. They met a few times more, before it was getting more intense.

           Jan Hoevink – unlike most Dutch man back to the 19^th century – was not a racist. Vrijmetselarij taught him to equalize human, Vrijmetselarij – also – taught him to liberate, not limited to his own mind but also for his daughter’s mind, to choose her own way of life. He began to receive Samir in their mansion every weekend, that Samir who brought flowers and Oud perfumes, which he claimed was given from his cousin from Hadramaut. Samir, also, was buying a million-worth pendant found in Sinai just to pleasure her.

           It took a short life until the whole circumstance changed. Marjolijn couldn’t ever meet him anymore. He moved away to Kalimantan, marrying an Arab woman then he was being a Sultan for the newly established sultanate. The highest stressful thing could be her father, who changed from liberating her to thinking she lost her sanity. Those cries along nights by nights and murmurs, it made him pull her hands to move away from the mansion, the one keeping so much reminiscences.

           She resisted, insisted to stay until his father gave in and moved away himself. She’s locked inside the house, with the despondency staying still as the century tracked on. Her body was buried in the backyard, while her soul was still locked up inside. She tried to find Samir, calling his names. But she could never go anywhere. A few weeks ago an Arab man opened its key for the first time, and he looked exactly the same like Samir, his hair, his beard, his tan skin and even the shape of nose, his ability to break her heart for the second time. This man had a wife.

***

           I woke up to Maged caressing his palm on my face. My body was stuck in an unseen narrow ring, clamping me down to completely get out of my dream. I wanted to scream, and all my mouth could do was opening wide, my eyes watching the ceiling as I saw Maged tried to calm me down when his face itself was worried.

           “Babe, relax. I’m here. What happened to you? It might be just a dream.”

           My answer was prepared, gotta say I was dreaming bad. But it was too hard to answer when I saw the noni’s fingers running down my feet. Her sharp nails scratching my nude thighs, while now she handed her personal razor on my neck with hostile eyes attached. Her eyes were full of fire. She screamed right beside my ears, though Maged couldn’t hear any of them.

           “Stay away from my love!.”

           By the time her voice stopped echoing, I eventually took control of my own breathe.

           “Babe…?”

           “I’m sorry. I had a nightmare.”

           It’s like he couldn’t trust what his own eyes have just seen. He shook my body, “you were fainting under the picture. It was shattered. And the weirdest part I noticed was… what on earth is this? I never saw you wearing a necklace.”

           “What necklace?” I stared in disbelieve.

           Maged softly touched my chest, where the pendant rested on there, giving a cold vibe on my skin. Soon I remember how it was pinching down my neck, almost an attempt to suffocate me to death. It’s not mine. I believed it was from the noni, and she’s clearly having a problem with me.

***

           When Maged was working, I undertook to figure out where did this necklace come from, slinking into a locked door. It was less than one meter square, but the things inside had raised my eyebrows into curiosity onto those peculiarities. There was an archaic book its original white has turned sallow. I pulled it from the very stacks of things, as the first page harrowed my neck with sharp goose bumps. The noni was there, and her name was Marjolijn Hoevink. This album was full of her picture, one in front of this immense house, and the others began to add more drops of quaint under my head. There she was sitting on a classic couch, with a man amorously contemplated at her. Even the picture could say how they fell in love.

           I scanned on every single part of the man. I was half caught in fear, and the other half with anomaly, of why the dreadful moment made me taste the fear of Marjolijn’s ghost creeping down my feet, her emotion ran amuck as she screamed at me to stay away from ‘her love’. I used to question what she meant, and now I figured it out.

           A text said, “Ik hoop bij je te zijn tot de dood – I hope to be with you ‘till death.” And it clearly referred to that man, apparently named Saamir, who looked exactly like my husband.

           Appearance of Samir’s doppelganger, the reason why she’s hitting me with bloated up rampage, something that even elucidated my nightmare onto clearer interpretation. It was a show-and-tell session, of Marjolijn for her heartbreak when her lover left to marry someone else. I wanted to tell her to move on, or at least that I’m not being here to make a problem. I’m tired of being ruined by this invisible noni most people set as an urban legend or local creepy pasta. It’s too weird because I wouldn’t do that to a human, but this was something else.

           I shouted out loud. “Marjolijn Hoevink, ik ben hier met jou te praten – I’m here to talk to you!” I counted on my Dutch, which fluency came from my background of mastering history in one of the best history university’s department in Indonesia. She might be speaking old Dutch, but that’s not a big deal, it could be like talking to my grandma with a cross-epoch language.

           “Marjolijn, come out!”

           I opened the door which connected to the living room, where I saw the noni bursting out in tears. Though she was burnt inside, her face was pale, congealed by both hurts and centuries. I sometimes envied her for how she’s stay pretty when she cried, meanwhile I’m having an exceptionally ugly cry which Maged must hate. She saw me, her eyes was aflame by the tears.

           “Listen up, I’m not here to ruin your feeling.” I told her.

           “You did.” Her low tone shocked me backwards. I never talked to ghost. Was it even real? What if I was just a lunatic seized up in a hallucination? Instead, I walked closer, when she surprisingly stood up and stared down at my shorter self.

           “It’s 21^st century, we’re living a life and you’re not a part of this time. Forget everything and stop putting us in danger.”

           She thrashed out of heartsick. “Your husband looks like my fiancé. Don’t you know!? Don’t you know!?”  

           “He doesn’t ask to be looking like him. It’s not his fault, nor mine.”

           Marjolijn Hoevink was too quick to even give an answer, though. The translucent figure pierced inside my body, when it ultimately felt painful. It was more and more bizarre. I’m getting possessed, and I realized I was. I could still feel my soul in my chest, but her emotion, the whole thing she felt, was now duplicated into mind. Not because I was actually sad, but Marjolijn used my tears to cry for her. I was losing the entire control, as she walked to a furniture with me and Maged’s picture printed out of a vintage analog camera.

           Thunderbolt clapped outside, swooping down the mansion with melancholy. The picture of Maged oddly lacerated the core of my heart, right when the door was open.

           “Babe, I’m home!”

           I turned my head. Maged raised his eyebrows with a bunch of questions in his head. “Why are you crying, hun?”

           I walked, or it was precisely Marjolijn walking towards him. Pretty sure it was a whole different way to view on Maged. I’m not me anymore, neither was Maged. Marjolijn’s inside me. It’s all about Marjolijn and Saamir. Meanwhile the man in front of me abruptly turned into someone who flashed a memory of heartbreak, a memory of being left out into the wild, harsh forlorn.

           “Laat me niet alleen, schat – don’t leave me alone, dear.” I touched his face, burying my head on his chest. Lipstick stain was sticking on his shirt, underlining this basorexia ruling from my head to toes.

           “Oh come on, babe, stop joking. You know I can’t speak Dutch! What does that even mean.”

           “Kom naar boven. Lat me je stevig vasthouden – Come upstairs. Let me hold you tight.” I pulled his hand, tears humected my cheeks still.

           “What are you talking about? You never did this to me?”

           There was the climax of those promiscuousness the only thing I wanted now was my sanity. I pushed Maged down the bed, pressed myself against him, such a bridge of heartbreak and relieve. I had to grasp Marjolijn’s cingulomania when she held his arms. Warmth of passion blossoming all over, with satisfaction of finishing the final part of sobbing, seeing the tears dropped on Maged’s shirt. A sheer smile was engraved, as those lips couldn’t stand more to fondle the man.

           Again it was the line written in the photo album, right after the first kiss.

           Ik hoop bij je te zijn tot de dood – I hope to be with you ‘til death... []

[1] Bule is an Indonesian term for non-Indonesian and non-Asians.

[2] Arabic words for “I seek protection to God from the cursed devils”

[3] Arabic word for “done” or “finished”