Like me, he has a passion for food, and is a trained chef. I haven't seen him since my sister got married, about 5 years ago for about an hour, at best. The time before that was about 10 years before that, or maybe even 15 years before that. But I've seen his wife and son more recently (who are both lovely! I have a soft spot for his son, who's about 7 and going on 25!), last time I went back to Indonesia, for Christmas. Sani and I used to hang out a bit together when he was a teenager, and I was kid. He cooked me Spaghetti Bolognese once when he was in chef school, and I remember he struggled to find the right ingredients when he went shopping, since in this province/village where 42,000 people live, Western ingredients like spaghetti and tomato paste were quite hard to find.
"Does it taste good?" he peered at me, earnestly. "Like, you know, Italian?"
"It's great! Really, really, good Sani!" I declared, slurping the tubes of pasta and knodding.
He rang me today, out of the blue, his ship was docked in Amsterdam for the weekend, so I quickly cycled to meet him at the Amsterdam Passenger terminal, where we agreed if I wasn't there in half an hour, he should call me again.
Running late (as I do), I took a shortcut through Centraal Station's tram area, and peddled at breakneck speed to meet him, since he had such a short window of time to meet. He had to start work at 12.30pm.
Police often patrol Centraal station for renegade cyclists that think they can take on trams and pedestrian traffic, giving stern warnings about getting caught in tram tracks and bowling over pedestrians. Dodging through people hauling suitcases, and weaving between the masses, I was praying I wouldn't get caught, and I suddenly hear someone calling out my name.
I stop and do a U-turn, and it was him! The chances of me taking that shortcut, and him seeing me were really not that high, especially since we agreed that he would wait at the Passenger Terminal for me. I couldn't believe it.
"How did you recognise me? I was going so fast." I asked in disbelief, after I gave him a big hug.
He grinned. "I don't know. You just look just like your mother, I guess."
I took him somewhere close for breakfast. I decided on pancakes, and he decided the same.
"You know, this reminds me of the time you and your sister taught me how to make pancakes. In the village, when you were visiting once."
I vaguely recalled the instance. I must have been about 8 or 9.
I look at him and see the essence of the shy teenage kid that I used to hang out with with a wiser face, but the same kind smile. He must look at me and see the marginally taller version of the same loud mouth little girl that used to terrorise his street when I came to visit. It was a really beautiful moment to be there with him today.
Only the universe would have known that almost 20 years later, we would still be laughing over pancakes, but on the other side of the world.
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