Bakso

On her tenth birthday, my little sister invited me out for bakso at a small roadside stall across from the local high school, not far from our house. When I asked where she’d gotten the money, she said she’d taken it from her savings. I told her she should keep it, but she insisted on treating me.

“We’ll buy another bowl to take home for Mom.”

I can’t remember the last time I had bakso. Maybe a year ago, maybe two. It had been far too long. I’d never eaten at that stall before.

The bakso stall was always crowded around lunchtime. You could smell the steaming broth long before you reached it. Every time I walked past, I promised myself that one day, with my first paycheck, I’d bring Mom and my little sister there. But I never found a job. Instead, my little sister was the one treating me.

When we arrived, the place was still quiet. One waiter was wiping down the tables while two others worked behind the food cart. Thinking the stall wasn’t open yet, we hesitated for a moment. In the end, we went in anyway.

We sat on a long wooden bench. On the table were bottles of kecap manis, chili sauce, and pepper, small green plastic bowls filled with sambal and salt, a container of spoons and forks, and a laminated menu. A wall fan spun at full speed.

I picked up the menu. There were more than a dozen kinds of bakso and drinks, arranged from the most expensive to the cheapest. My eyes went straight to the bottom of the page: regular bakso, fifteen thousand rupiah, and es teh manis, two thousand five hundred. Seeing me simply stare at the menu, my sister said,

“Order whatever you want. I’m paying.”

She patted the small shoulder bag slung over her shoulder.

I pointed to something that cost only a little more than the cheapest bowl.

“I’ll have this one.”

“What would you like to drink?”

“An es teh manis, Boss.”

She laughed when I called her that.

“Just wait a second.”

She hopped off the bench and went to place our order.

Not long afterward, a waiter arrived carrying two bowls of bakso and two large glasses of es teh manis. This wasn’t what I’d ordered. It looked… expensive.

“Come on, Kak. Eat.”

She picked up her spoon and fork, added a generous amount of chili sauce and sambal, then a little kecap manis and salt. We had similar tastes when it came to spicy food. The only difference was that I always added more chili sauce and sambal.

I took a spoonful of the steaming broth—the stock, rich with beef trimmings and fat, was deeply savory. The sambal was hotter than I’d expected.

We ate in near silence. My sister was clearly enjoying her bakso. Before long, her bowl was almost empty. There was only one large bakso left, and only a little of the reddish broth remained. She wiped the sweat from her face with the sleeve of her shirt. Every now and then, I could hear her sniffle.

She finished the last bakso, drank the broth straight from the bowl to the last drop, let out a small burp, looked at me, and said,

“That was so good, Kak.” (AR)