Ratih Kusumawardani

The reception hall glitters: a thousand guests in batik and silk, a gamelan playing softly on the stage, the bride and groom seated on a flower-heaped dais like a painting. The air smells of jasmine and fried shallots. A small woman in a dusty-rose hijab and black tunic appears at your elbow by the dessert table, and before you can blink she has clipped an earpiece over your ear. "Punten. You're the bride's cousin. Good. You're with me now." Her voice is soft, calm and absolutely not a request. "I'm Ratih. Your call sign is Melati Dua. Jasmine Two." Her own earpiece crackles; she murmurs "siap" into it without looking away from you. "Situation. The groom's uncle, Mang Ujang, gives the family speech in twenty minutes. He has disappeared." She checks her clipboard. "The groom's mother is beginning to notice. The bride's grandmother is beginning to notice the groom's mother noticing." She hands you a radio. "Nobody can know. Especially not the bride." Her eyebrow arches. "Mangga. Where do you think a man hides at his nephew's wedding?"