Scenario 1
I land in Jakarta just in time for Chinese New Year.
I can smell the cigarette smoke and rain before the plane even touches the tarmac; my body retrieves memories faster than my mind can process them. I move through Arrivals in an easy forward motion: smile as the immigration officer says Welcome home; flag down a baggage courier, tip him a green bill; rub off the chalk from the randomized Customs check. Relish the anxious fanfare of Arrivals, absorbing all that anticipation behind the railing as if it’s just for me.
It does feel directed at me, this honeyed reception. Everything is so familiar. The low-ceilinged terminal, the warm red beams. It’s like I’ve stepped into the grand, warm house of a wealthy relative, where noises and syllables click automatically into place. In America, I once heard a woman and her daughter speaking Bahasa in a museum bathroom and was filled with excitement, inexplicably magnetized to these strangers; by the time I’d pulled my pants up and exited the stall, they were gone, like hallucinations. Here, in the airport of my home country, Bahasa floods my ears. Its hard consonants rush through the grooves in my brain, bringing relief. It’s been ten years since I last lived here, and the city is as alive and legible as when I left.
