11

13.08.2016

At the first meeting, I noted that one of the gang had been very nice actually. He was the guy who had initially offered to buy me a beer. That was Aron. I also met with Aron again after all the back and forth to chat a bit. As he was telling me about a particular day he had spent with Tom, he fell silent mid-sentence.

“What’s going on?”, I asked.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you,” he replied with a look of concern.

After I assured him that I would never see Tom again after I left Jakarta, he relaxed.

“I remember one night where we ended up in a hotel room with two girls.”

The two had been considerably drunker than he and Tom. “I told Tom to leave it alone because the girls were no longer able to properly make decisions, but he insisted on staying.”

My breath caught in my throat. I had a bad premonition. “After watching Tom get closer and closer to one of the girls and her not being able to get rid of him, it got too much for me.” He told me how he had called a cab and gone home. Tom had told him the next day what exactly had happened after that, but I didn’t want to hear it. It was already pretty clear to me.

The spell of this new world was starting to wear off.

The next night, he took me to a club that was on the outskirts of Jakarta. The club was incredibly large, very dark, and illuminated by precisely placed patterns of light on the walls. After a tunnel that seemed to stretch on for eternity, we finally stepped into the main hall. Over to the left side were separated spaces with marble tables. The people he was meeting there were all the children of diplomats and public figures, which is why they had naturally snagged such a table in that private area. The main sponsor could not refrain from going off in the highest tones, on how his father’s job was responsible for all of us sitting at that table. After a few superficial conversations, we headed to the dance floor. The dancing was still fun, of course, but the atmosphere and the company of the others felt off to me. I didn’t belong in that world. I didn’t like these people.

Surrounded by hundreds of people, in a lively club no less and yet again feeling completely alone. I was tired of pretending to be one of them.