But Stephanie couldn't get Mark to accompany her on the next appointment. After coordinating with him via a call—she didn't have time to go to Mark's place to discuss in details, the client's house was in another end of the town—she trusted Mark to be able to find the supply depots and reported there.
This visit was from a partnership with, well, Visit, a company that proposed to have a joint programme with them, to expand their client base. Considering Prattle was also in a plateauing curve of client's growth, Stephanie agreed.
"I thought it was Vision? Vis—, Visit?" The old gentleman client of the day said after a click of unlocked deadbolt heard and the door opened. He stood touching the door panel, warily eyeing Stephanie.
She produced her Immune ID card; the display immediately lowered the tension by a notch. The man took his mask away. Stephanie's heart drummed faster. Which Protected bastard dared show their face on an elderly's doorstep, carelessly exposing the high-risk person to the virus?
"Visit," Stephanie replied gently, lowering her aviator that protected her eyes from walking under the scorching sunlight. When people still moved around and did their business by driving or hopping on air-conditioned vehicles, nobody gave a second thought about the people who broke their backs under the unforgiving Jakarta sun and hot air pollution. Economy, they said.
But now the people who might want to change their minds were dead. So were the people who laboured under the heat. Stephanie had no one's mind to change.
She hauled her luggage walking from the bus stop to this place, so she caught her breath before extending her hand for a handshake. A gesture appreciated by the Protected as a means to feel another human being's skin.
"I'm Stephanie from Prattle. I'm sorry if it's confusing, but I need to explain why it's not a home nurse today who visits you, Sir."
The man shook her hand and waved his other hand away. "Ah, that's fine. The nurse is scheduled for tomorrow, my stretching therapy. So you're replacing Sigit today, am I correct?"
"Yes, Pak." She called him 'Pak', Sir in Indonesian. She had a call with the Visit team one day before where they briefed her about the regular Companion, Sigit, who had been serving Mr Maryono Halim for a couple of months.
"So I won't be shadowing him?" she remembered she asked the Visit team lead who looked sternly at her via the monitor screen—more of a logistics issue than immunity, the guy was the medics on-site after a protest near the Palace resulted in an open fire with the new police. For the obvious reason, Visit didn't call the sessions as visits, but assignments instead.
There was no need to, the paramedic explained. Stephanie was a seasoned Companion, after all, he added, and the client was easy. Effusive and fluent to talk about a lot of things, a man of trade back in his youth, having seen different folks. All she needed to do was to pick up his weekly grocery order from a designated depot in Lebak Bulus Square. Always had a shortage of couriers, those points. When she raised a concern if she might misplace the items, they said that the orders were subsidised by the government on an allowance for the elderly. It would have all the same contents as other parcels.
"Come on in, I have not been notified by anyone but this is such a welcomed surprise. Considering no one talks to me recently . . .," he trailed approvingly. Mr Halim was roughly in his seventies, traces of hair peppered sparsely on his almost bald honey-skinned head. His slouching posture superseded what had to be the assertive and firm gait in his youth. A pair of reading glasses perched on the top of his nose. Stephanie could imagine his absorbed expression when reading.
He walked inside in a complaisant aura, his voice faded out as Stephanie lifted the grocery parcel once again and followed him in.
Her eyes didn't betray her initial observation of the accommodation. It was classical, probably built in the 1950s; it gave off the vibe of a grandfather's house that hosted collectables and antique trinkets, but also associated with the yummy aroma of chicken curry the grandmother always cooked a pot full every time their grandchildren visited. The energy, however, was depleted like a dry well in summer.
Stephanie had her fair share of elderly clients. Most of the appointments were booked by their Protected children or grandchildren so they wouldn't feel completely isolated. With this type of client, the conversation would flow naturally. Elderly people loved to talk, sometimes incessantly. But that was a good thing according to this co-founder of Prattle; it meant a life full of experiences to share.
She heard complaints from her colleagues about a grandmother or grandfather repeating the same story they had on the first meeting over and over in the subsequent sessions, but she always found a way to steer the conversation to other things she found refreshing. Such as, just picking another topic.
Who knew the sambal ikan bakar, or roasted fish chilli sauce recipe, that Mama Elisa invented decades ago might go extinct if Stephanie didn't document and publish it on Prattle blog with the client's permission? The 65-year-old lady had no more descendants. She was an Immune herself, a fate she accepted as being the last one of her family. What a curse it had to be to grow old and instead of lying on her deathbed surrounded by a loving family, her flesh and blood who sent her off with loving memories and knowledge that they would continue her legacy.
She was the one reading on her messaging service the obituary issued by the local hospital. One by one, last photo by the last photo. Stephanie was still in contact with her, and in her free time, she took time to visit Elisa. But, however many hours spent with a Companion would not fill up the massive hole left by bereavement.
She asked where to put the groceries when the old gentleman took the cluttered crossword puzzle books away from the sofa and straightened up the coffee table. Making a beeline to the countertop, she started unpacking.
"So this is one week's supply, yeah?" she chirped in while arranging the canned sardines next to a big glass jar of sugar. She thought of curating the fridge content itself, in case there was something expired needing to be tossed out. It was always good to extend thoughtful help. She herself got her groceries unsubsidised, and that was proper since she had gotten a stable job.
"Yes. Doesn't vary much. Can't really have the standard package changed to suit my cooking plan. Do you know where I can get green chilli peppers? I've always wanted to taste green chilli sambal again."
Stephanie's heart grew more sympathetic. She showed the screen on her phone. "Oh, there's a grocery app, a centralised one sent from Central Jakarta point. They still sell basic items, but we have to contact them first if it's seasonal. Do you want me to teach you how or do you have someone to order it?"
Quite surprisingly, in her tenure, she found out that the elderly were not necessarily averse to new technology. If given time and safe space to learn, free from fast-paced and ever-changing applications, they would eventually get the hang of it.
Stephanie always advised her designer and freelance developers not to change the elements much because elderly people who were in need of talking Companions might be frustrated by the learning curve only to ditch the idea altogether. As they established that physical presence was necessary, there came the trade-off. The government treated Companions service provider apps as an inclusive product, mandating delicate care for every new release.
The grocery app was not much different. Stephanie could teach Pak Maryono in this session. To which he agreed. "Maybe my son knows how to do this, but I don't know where he is anymore."
The yellow flag in her brain alarmed her. A sensitive topic, then. Alas, she couldn't keep it to herself still.
"It's like how you ordered the weekly nurse in your Visit app. But this one is the groceries," she measured her words carefully, unassuming.
"I, I don't make the order. My son did. Last year. On a subscription basis, so he will be charged monthly." He watched Stephanie sort the leafy greens and pointed to the crisper rack so she could store them there. His spine wouldn't like it if Maryono bent down.
The calm, almost zen flow of storing each item away occupied her mind until she reached the bottom of the carton box. A pack of sugar. "Does he make any contact with you? If you tell me how I can reach him, I can probably suggest some visits."
But Maryono shook his head. Without the protecting layer of the reading glasses, his eyes looked tired and dimmed. Once again, Stephanie was reminded of how dire the worldly situation was. People were expected to survive, to continue running this planet. But on a day-to-day basis, everyone was on their last leg, ready to snap.
"He joined the revolution against the unified government as he would like to call it. Those rebels."
Stephanie swallowed her next words. Her personal guide to the other Companions included steering clear from sensitive topics since they wouldn't know who listened to the conversation. It was not recorded, but who could guarantee there wouldn't be a system placed in people's homes to bug either the Companions or the clients.
Besides, there could still also be a possibility of someone dobbing on the Companions, luring them in under the false guise of 'easy, safe, typical' clients, until the conversation went in a different way rapidly. Their business reputation was not the only one at stake, given that every Companion—including those working for Prattle's competitors—could also get arrested.
"This trophy here, the first winner of an engineering challenge," Stephanie pronounced the engraved words slowly. The gold base was scratched and the opaque plastic revealed parts of the two circular columns. A perfect diversion as that trophy happened to be in her vicinity.
Maryono smiled. His eyes bloomed with energy bundled inside until now. A sprinkle of happy recollection of the past tended to have that effect. "At his uni, yes. He's a talented student. Not the best, no, but like me when I was young, he loves to explore many things. He isn't really into studying theories for exams or even fooling around with a group of friends. But he enjoys tinkering. Maybe until now."
"Quite often found engrossed in his makeshift workshop, sometimes with a friend or two from the same class, designing and building things. A bit like a black horse when the jury announced the result since even his professors thought the project led by the A-list students would win. But my son's idea was the most innovative one all across. Don't we all need this kind of salvation? A breakthrough in science so our life can resume to normal?"
She didn't reply. Instead, she went back to sit down on a wooden chair, an old design from the 70s. In a quaint kitchen, decorated with mismatched colours and appliance models, she felt oddly at home.
"You find this homely?"
She nodded. "Many young people, at least before the pandemic hit, got obsessed with fully-furnished new homes. They wanted every piece of furniture colour- and style-coordinated. For example, since the trend fell into the track of minimalism and modern lines, they took great measures to ensure no single line represented a different era. I saw people chuffed after finding their perfect colour palette. If they stuck to beige or grey, then any pop of colour had to be intentional. It looked like a photo from interior design magazines."
Maryono rubbed his chin while looking around his sitting area. "The modern family house, isn't it?"
"Exactly. Don't get me wrong," she held up both palms in the air. "I like those houses. People invited me to their place and I wondered in awe. But, in my opinion, that crushed the very idea of minimalistic. As in, people regard minimalistic merely in the form of design, not the essence. Like, those couples who live in their late parents' houses that are not minimalistic. But this couple, in the sense of minimalism itself, is the one who practises it. They don't buy the furniture in new designs because the old ones still work. They don't renovate the bathroom because the old ones without a shower—only a big bucket and a smaller one—still work. They might not be able to post it on social media to boast about their minimalism practice because the interior isn't the standard. But they embrace it truly at heart."
"I get you. I think this is a new trend. Back in my days, I also had a few years of renovation business under my belt. But everyone in my time did it cumulatively. They didn't, rarely even, have everything put together when they first purchased a new house. Newlyweds received housewarming gifts from everyone, mismatched all the way. I still have this room with vintage tiles," Maryono cued her to follow to a classical reading room, "and old chairs you might love to see."