Of Kamboja & Butterflies

Evi was waiting for Mama at the cemetery today. 

She took a day off from work, brought a sandwich and a bottle of water, burned three joss sticks, and sat in front of Mama’s headstone.

She was not alone. There were swarms of small, white butterflies that flew around, flitting among the sweet-smelled flowers of the frangipani trees that grew on the cemetery ground.

People in her hometown here—a mid-sized city in Indonesia—believed that the dead would be attracted to the sweet smell of the frangipani, or kamboja in Indonesian, the way butterflies would be to the nectar-filled flowers.

The wind tousled her hair and carried faint fragrance of kamboja as she stared intently at Mama’s headstone, her name painted in red: 李 美 玲 (Lǐ Měi Líng), and the period of her life: 30 June 1974 – 6 September 2024. Mama died a year ago in a hit and run accident.

In Memoriam painted above Mama’s name. 

Her memory of Mama was like a constellation of stars dotted with massive black holes on random spots.

Gaping black holes of parts of Mama’s life that she had no idea about—gaping black holes that had become so much more pronounced now that Mama was gone, forever and ever.

It was not like Evi did not try to ask Mama about her life before she had Evi. It was Mama who did not seem to want to talk much about her life before Evi’s arrival into this world, as if she had built a massive wall that separated her life before and after Evi. That, and it seemed to Evi that Mama was always too exhausted to talk. She had worked from dusk till dawn, and when she came home smelling like beer and perfumes, all she wanted to do was to sleep, to be left alone.

Thus, their conversations usually revolved around daily, mundane stuff.

Have you eaten? Don’t eat too late.

Drink enough water. Your kidney needs it.

It’s cold. Wear your jacket otherwise you’ll catch cold.

They talked more when Evi was younger, when Mama would still check Evi’s schoolwork—skimming the pages of her homework, checking, erasing Evi’s works if she did not do them according to Mama’s standard of cleanliness and penmanship, ignoring Evi’s tears and pleading along the way.

Mama was an excellent baker, that much Evi remembered. Once in a while, when she had enough money to buy the ingredients and was in a good mood, she would bake different cakes, all equally delicious. She would sell the cakes to their neighbors for extra money (like when Evi needed a new glasses or money for a school trip to the museum) and leave two pieces for Evi to eat at home. Evi’s favourite was the kue lapis, the layered spiced cake.

It had always been just Mama and Evi.

Mama’s parents disowned her because she had eloped with Papa—a former convict, thus he was deemed unworthy of being a part of Mama’s esteemed family.

Papa died when Evi was two weeks old. Alcohol poisoning, or something like that.

So Evi was waiting for Mama here at the cemetery today, because she wanted to get to know her own mother, her only family. That was not a strange wish now, was it? The pain of not knowing became unbearable these days when she really missed Mama.

Today was the peak of the Hungry Ghost month in the Chinese lunar calendar (around August-September in the western calendar), a time when—according to the tradition in many Chinese-Indonesian families like Evi’s—the gate of the underworld opened and the spirits of the dead would be able to come visit the world of the living.

Thus, on this special day Evi wanted to meet Mama’s spirit and see if there was anything at all that she wanted to tell Evi. 

Evi hoped that Mama would let her guard down more now that she was no longer here. She no longer had to deal with the vicious gossips from neighbors about her being a single mom, about her job (she worked as a karaoke companion to men singing and downing beers in the karaoke booth, though nothing shady had ever happened there), about her morality.

She had burned the three joss sticks, praying for Mama’s spirit to come. Though there was no sign of her yet.

There was just this butterfly zigzagging around her.

Evi opened her palm, trying to lure the butterfly—

“That kind of butterfly doesn’t trust people easily.”

A voice from behind startled her. Evi turned around and saw a young woman, about the same age as her, standing next to a kamboja tree. She was pretty, with a white heel-length dress, long dark hair, and sparkling, friendly eyes.

The woman sauntered closer, and Evi realized something—

“Mama …” she whispered. Mama never showed Evi any of her photos when she was younger, but Evi could not shake off the resemblance of that woman with her own mother.

The woman did not seem to hear Evi’s comment.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Evi.

“Just-just chillin—you?”

“I’m meeting my boyfriend.”

“In a cemetery?” Evi tilted her head.

“It’s a long story. My parents hate him, he is a former convict, you see. But I love him so much!”

“He … he must be so-so special to you,” Evi stammered as she realized the woman story was like her Mama’s story too.

“He is! Tomorrow he will wear his best suit and go with me to meet my parents. During our secret meetings in this cemetery, I have taught him all about my family’s tradition, the do’s and don’ts. My parents will change their mind about him, I’m sure!” the woman beamed.

“I can see you are very happy.”

“Oh I am! I have a loving boyfriend, he’s going to find a good job and we could finally buy a house and build our future together. I love baking so I want to open a bakery. We have plans for our future together!” her crisp laughter was like a bell tinkling in Evi’s ears.

“Well, I have to go. You take care, ok?” the woman smiled with a tender glint of her eyes while Evi was still baffled by the woman’s resemblance to a younger version of her Mama.

Then Evi remembered something and decided to ask,“Wait! Who are you?”

The woman winked and answered,”Just a woman in love!”

Then she turned around and walked away before disappearing behind a row of kamboja trees.

Evi stood still, stunned, though she had this strange conviction that now she knew a bit more about Mama: how beautiful her eyes looked when they were beaming with happiness.