Man Tiger (16 page)

He got his money for two weeks' work and said goodbye to the circus. He stayed put, wanting to keep up to date with the news from home. He couldn't uproot himself completely, even though his father dominated his memories of the town. He missed his mother and Mameh, and once in a while Maharani's beautiful face drifted into his mind's eye, as would, with less frequency, his friends, Agus Sofyan's stall, the surau, and the nightwatch hut—he couldn't possibly lose them all. So there he stayed, and told bus drivers and their assistants not to tell anyone where he was, devouring whatever news they brought.

Until one afternoon a bus driver told him his father was dead, and his body had started to rot.

He got on that bus, sat by an open window and let the sea breeze that blew through rows of pandanus hit his face. During the ride, his mind wandered, picturing his father's rotting body at his feet. For Margio nothing was more miraculous than to hear that Komar bin Syueb had died without himself having to cut his throat.

He got off the bus just as the truck carrying the boar hunters arrived, and his pulse beat faster on realizing he had missed an exciting hunt. Dozens of leashed ajaks leapt off the truck, milling on the sidewalk until someone dragged them to Major Sadrah's house on the side of the road right next to the military headquarters. Two fat hogs, with empty eyes and tied by the feet, hung from bamboo poles suspended on the shoulders of four boys. The ajaks are going to be happy when the day of the boar fight arrives, he thought. Once the hogs are dead, the pork eaters will go for a feast at the Chinese restaurants by the beach. He smelt the familiar stench of mud. Margio simply waved, paying particular attention to Major Sadrah, because Komar bin Syueb was yet to be buried and to socialize would be unseemly.

When he found out that Komar bin Syueb was going to be buried next to Marian, he didn't like the idea. Mameh insisted it was their father's last wish, for whatever that was worth. When he saw she was serious, he gave in and let fate have its way. Little Marian would have her revenge regardless of where his old man lay, and Komar would be slain every day in Hell for all eternity. He went to the surau because Komar had been brought there, and took part in the prayers for the dead. When Kyai Jahro asked him if he wanted to see Komar's face, Margio promptly shook his head, worried that, should he agree, his father might awaken from death.

Before shouldering the coffin, Margio received from Mameh the basket of flower petals. He wondered what good flowers would be for this rotting beast. But once again he saw Mameh's eyes begging him to spread the petals over the casket, instead of tossing them into the gutter. It dawned on Margio that Mameh had to be the sanest of them all. Her heart was earnest and free of hate, and when he looked at her, he was flooded with bittersweet memories of their childhood together. Perhaps they would be straightforwardly happy with their father consigned to Hell.

Kyai Jahro chanted prayers, and some muddy boys from the truck joined the funeral procession, escorting the coffin. Margio, walking at the back, scooped up some flowers and threw them over the coffin. Despite the colorful petals, the mood grew increasingly somber, below the clamor of people singing praise for the Prophet. They walked in rows on a path through the parched cacao plantation, heading to the Budi Darma cemetery, under the rays of late-afternoon sun that were beginning to turn everything red. The tiger writhed inside Margio, but Margio whispered to it softly: “Look, the guy is dead, so please rest.” He kept on scooping up the petals, tossing them into the air, and this time they floated about as though unwilling to fall, as though mirroring the thrower's reluctance. Eventually, they alighted on the sandy path to be trampled underfoot.

The gravedigger had been waiting in all patience, chin propped on his spade's handle, puffing on a hand-rolled cigarette. Mameh was right. The gaping grave lay next to Marian's mound. Margio recalled her burial and planting the headstone above the resting-place of that tiny body. He stood beside her now, trickling a handful of petals on her, and an unexpected surge of emotion brought him close to tears.

They lowered the casket and lifted the lid, showing Komar bin Syueb blanketed in a shroud that looked like a barber's bib. Kyai Jahro was chanting prayers incomprehensible to Margio, who had never quite finished his Koran lessons, having read through the Arabic verses without ever grasping their meaning. He set the basket on the mound and raised his hands with the palms open, saying amen repeatedly just like the others. Kyai Jahro ended the prayers, the mourners said the final amen, rubbed their faces with both palms, and the gravedigger descended into the burial pit, telling Margio to come help. Margio rolled up his pants, hurried down, and stood beside the gravedigger, feeling the wet soil under his feet, the ground that would become his father's final home.

Two of his friends lifted Komar out the casket, and then handed him to Margio and the gravedigger. The body was really heavy, perplexing Margio who had seen him old and frail and had heard about his many illnesses. Still the body weighed a ton. His two friends above had felt it, and he had seen surprise in their faces. Now it was the turn of the grave-digger and Margio. They staggered a little, panting, bracing themselves against the weight to lay Komar in his grave.

The pit was too small, preventing Komar from being laid out full-length. “For God's sake,” said the gravedigger, “I measured it.” Margio noticed it too, and estimated that it could need to be at least a foot longer. With some difficulty, they hauled up the body, the shroud slipping haphazardly, and put it back in the casket. Margio waited at one corner of the burial pit, while the gravedigger sourly asked for his spade and then got to work. He did the job hurriedly, tossing the earth every which way. It was getting late, and the cemetery was drenched red in the evening sun.

They once more lowered Komar's corpse, which had grown even weightier. How this happened was anybody's guess. But the four people carrying the corpse felt the change, as if something were swelling inside it. Margio thought it must be the weight of the man's sins, and he quietly scowled at the very idea shouldering his father's sins himself. Together with the gravedigger he dropped the body carelessly, sparing his own back.

Another problem. This time the grave was too narrow. Had the body expanded or did the grave somehow narrow in width as the gravedigger lengthened it? “Goddamnit,” the gravedigger said, really angry this time. “This soil doesn't want him.” Margio and the man strained to heave the corpse back into the casket before the pit was dug broader. They lowered him again, and again the space was too small. They dug more, and it was still too narrow, as if the pit walls were closing in, refusing to swallow the body.

Beaten down with fatigue, the gravedigger's face was pale in the evening light. Margio was red with fury. They all looked at Kyai Jahro, who stood on an earthen mound, and he was chanting prayers in a low voice, begging the Judge to accept the body, for the living didn't wish it to rot unburied. As he pursued his muffled prayers, leaves fell and the wind grew strong. The kyai closed his eyes, still moving his lips, then reopened them to stare at the body confined below. He turned to the crowd and said, “Bury him whatever way you can.”

They stuck Komar bin Syueb in there, not caring how tight the space was, the dead man curled into a crouch like a sleeping dog. Even Margio pitied him. Maybe that is what he deserves, thought the boy, gazing at a body that might have been doubled up in pain. He and the gravedigger wedged the body with clumps of earth so it couldn't roll over. The pair planted the supporting planks, one by one, covering the contours of the white shroud. The planks served as a powerful barrier between the world of the living and the realm of the dead, where Komar bin Syueb was confined.

It was almost dark when the sandy red soil finally covered him. The gravedigger slowly stepped on this soil, but didn't make it too compact, as a mandatory precaution lest the dead should be resurrected. Besides, it would make things easier if he had to dig there again. He embedded the tombstone, bearing the man's name alongside that of his father, and spread tiny pebbles around it. Moved by a strange pang of pity, Margio planted a frangipani tree at one end of the grave, and scattered the remaining flower petals, which exuded the scent of roses, jasmine, and ylang-ylang. Komar bin Syueb was left there with the sea breezes and ghosts.

As the air became still, they returned carrying the empty casket, treading the path back home with hurried steps. Sweat poured down Margio's forehead, but he wasn't tired and his spirits began to lift. Again and again he told himself, “Think about it, the beast is dead, so now it is up to us how to live our lives.”

At home, Mameh told him their mother had slapped her, and Margio wondered if Komar bin Syueb had bequeathed his brutality to Nuraeni. When he heard Mameh's explanation, he couldn't help but stifle a laugh. Mameh's suggestion was sound. It might be good for her to remarry. She was still young. How old now? Not even forty, Margio thought, too soon to be shelved away as a widow. He would support any man who wished to take her as a wife, provided he wasn't like Komar and promised never to be cruel. Margio would do anything for Nuraeni's peace of mind, and just like Mameh, he had thought of letting her remarry. That said, it was hardly proper to suggest it on the very day her husband was buried. No matter how much Nuraeni hated Komar, her daughter's impudent mouth was just asking for a whack. Margio told Mameh that, as time passed, their mother would be cured of her craziness and she would be her old sweet self again.

Mameh wanted Margio to butcher Komar's remaining chickens. He was reluctant at first, unable to comprehend why she would bother preparing a ritual meal for a man even the earth had rejected. He didn't tell her what had happened at the cemetery, worried it would only add to her grief, but he was still disinclined to help her organize a prayer ceremony for the vilest man he had ever known. But Mameh insisted, reminding him that every human being needed prayers, and that Komar did leave a few chickens and rabbits behind. Margio relented and he slit their throats one by one as Mameh got things ready in the kitchen.

It reminded Margio of the times he would steal Komar's chickens in petty revenge. Komar probably knew who the thief was, but by this point Margio was a young man in his late teens, and his father didn't dare challenge him. Mameh certanly knew who the culprit was.

The chickens butchered, Mameh brought out a bucket of hot water in which to soak them. She got busy plucking, while in the kitchen the stove had been lit to heat the water for simmering the meat. The rice was ready, and it seemed that Mameh had cooked while everyone else had been at the Budi Darma cemetery. Nuraeni showed up in the doorway to watch what they were up to, exactly at the moment when Ma Soma started chanting the call to the dusk prayers from the surau. The expression on her face was cold. After Marian's death she had become withdrawn, and now that Komar had fallen, she was even more reticent. Margio turned to look at her, and all he could do was beg the cosmos to give her a little taste of joy of the kind she had known when Marian was born.

The baby had been ailing since birth, its body no bigger than one of his calves, its head a bit larger. It had sunken cheeks and a protruding chin, and looked rather like a stick insect. Margio didn't notice this at first, because the baby was kept tightly wrapped in red swaddling clothes and its little blanket gave the impression that it was fat. Then one morning Mameh came with a pail of lukewarm water and Nuraeni unwrapped the baby to reveal its miserable self. It no longer wailed before dawn, but just lay there with its eyes half closed.

“Looks like she's going to die,” Nuraeni said.

Her breasts didn't produce much milk, and what they did seemed drained by the baby's first suckling. Kasia came late in the afternoon with bottled milk, but the newborn merely gave it a reluctant nip, parting and shutting her lips as the milk dribbled down her cheeks. Her breathing came in little gasps, sometimes she cried softly, but mostly she was quiet, as if it was written in the stars that she would grow up to be an obedient little girl. Margio sat in a chair beside his mother's bed, anxiously observing the fragile little being, exchanging glances with Nuraeni and Mameh as they all wondered in their hearts if this creature would see another day.

Margio breathed in the damp, foul air of the room, still fetid from the birth. The wickerwork ceiling was stained with water. The whitewash was peeling, and up there the spiders persistently built their webs. A small reddish light bulb shone weakly. Clothes were piled up on the corner of the mattress and inside a basket. Mameh's old school bag lay on the top of the cabinet and her unused shoes were stuffed under the bed. For Margio, circumstances had conspired to smother the little baby.

He stood up and asked for permission to open the windows. Nuraeni and Mameh were apparently of the same mind, and so Margio let in the light from the yard, and fresh air surged into the room bringing a little warmth and the scent of leaves, flowers, and loose soil. Spots of light landed on the baby, and Mameh moved the infant, fearing it would overheat. Yet the little one remained half asleep, as if unaware of the exquisite cosmos arriving to greet her.

“Looks like she's going to die,” Nuraeni repeated. The woman's sadness swept away any memory of the pleasure she had taken in this child. She had stopped chanting lullabies, and her hands no longer stroked the baby's sparse hair. She was looking at it wistfully, perhaps knowing that the baby's death was fated, and seeing how the little one's soul was already departing from its body. Margio couldn't bear to watch both the baby and its mother. He left the room and with it the process of death and the profound defeat of a despairing mother.

Komar bin Syueb had not come home that day, and Margio was seriously thinking of beheading him. Evidently he hadn't gone to work, as the shaving kit was still in his room. But both his bike and his favorite purebred rooster had gone. Margio realized that the day before his father had left for the cockfighting arena in the ruins of the railway station, and God only knew where he had slept last night.