The Question of Red

by Laksmi Pamuntjak

your life does your name justice or you might as well not have been born at all. The elders have a phrase for this: keberatan nama. It means a state of being burdened by a name too great, or too portentous.

Review opening line

Such is the story of Amba and Bhisma. Sweet and lethal, like nightshade.

And darling, he told Amba privately, you know that no woman should accept the conventions of her name, much less be trapped by it. It was Amba’s fate to rise above the old judgments, to give her name its own meaning.

He who doesn’t know her, doesn’t deserve her.

“In the end she will always do things in the extreme. Wanting to go to university, not wanting to marry. She is a giant family scandal waiting to happen. That is what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of her.”

They spoke of life being better than death, even if in life there was suffering, for in death there was no love.

adults liked to warn you about life’s dangers. They did so not because they knew about the world, but quite possibly because they were cowards.

So he came home ashamed. He knew his blessings—education, opportunity, knowledge of the world—were not shared by many of his friends, or by most people in his country.

Adalhard knew that while Bhisma would always be the he who owned Amba’s dreams, he, Adalhard Eilers, would be the he who never vanished.