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Seven Floors Above A Cemetery
I just learned that the apartment block I live in was built over an old
cemetery. My taxi driver nervously told me, after dropping me off
near the old run down lobby. The news does not come as a surprise,
but confirmed why the building has so many churches.
Indonesians believe in ghosts and things that go bump in the night.
One Indonesian friend told me after visiting the States that, “Americans believe in UFOs; we Indonesians think that is strange
yet we all to some degree believe in ghosts”.
This belief often determines where people live, particularly confirming
why when people ask me where I live, they look at me strangely
when I tell them. I cannot laugh at this belief and believe ghosts
are possible, even professing to having my own ghostly experience.
Yet here I am in a building, one of the first apartment buildings built
in the Big Durian. Obviously, once a symbol of the new prosperity
that now is a little run down, even spooky if you notice it when you
drive past it. Still skeptical, I asked the security guard about the
apartment building and he confirmed the taxi driver's story.
The old lady who runs the store in the lobby added to the story,
telling me that part of the cemetery contained the unnamed graves of the dead. The nameless people buried without any known family.
No wonder many apartments were empty, even if the rents are very
reasonable by Indonesian standards.
Being a foreigner, many Indonesians will shyly avoid the subject of
ghosts, but will freely discuss the subject with each other. Many
expatriates dismiss it as superstition, as Indonesians tend to be
superstitious people. But I am one foreigner that likes to keep an
open mind about most things.
One time I was staying in a room in the city center and expatriates lived
on the third floor. The “second wives” of Indonesians lived on the
second floor. Friday night was the only night that the car park was
always full - at least until midnight.
I always had an uneasy feeling in the kost, although it was luxurious
by Indonesian standards. One night, I did not want to go out and
party after a hectic week. I had a rare night in. I felt uneasy all night
and fell into a restless sleep, only waking up a few hours later feeling
unusually cold.
Looking behind me, I saw the shape of a beautiful girl sitting there
in a nightdress brushing her hair. I froze for a moment, but she was still
there brushing her long dark hair; then suddenly there was nothing.
Thinking it was nothing at first, I lit a cigarette, put on a DVD and
noticed my neighbor was playing late night porn again.
Shrugging off the experience, except remembering the deep beauty
of the woman by the mirror, I said nothing about it. A few days later,
the Indonesian girlfriend of one of my neighbors, ran out of her room
screaming. I was on the balcony; she sat down breathlessly, her
boyfriend was probably still in Blok M.
I went over as she looked very upset and sat down with her. We talked, then
she whispered softly in my ear…”A girl was in my room, then
disappeared”. At the end of the month, I moved out never
mentioning the incident in my own room.
Back to the apartment, the lobby always felt eerie late at night.
Occasionally, I would arrive there after a night out, the air seemed
thin, misty even being a large mostly empty lobby. The old lady
minding her store would be sleeping with her head on the table, her
fat daughter reading a book. Both security guards were outside chatting
on the wall near the car drop.
I usually would walk in, bid everyone good night and head for the
creaky old lifts that take me to my bit of space, in this crowded city.
I have never sensed anything strange, never had an uneasy feeling
or felt uncomfortable. But you can bet from now on, I will keep one
ear open and wonder if underneath the lobby the graves were
moved or still lay under the concrete.
Copyright © 2008, Mark W Medley, City of Dreams: An extraordinary journey, inside the heart of Indonesia's capital - Jakarta