The Flame Tree (16 page)

T
HAT EVENING
M
AS
B
ENGKOK
brought Isaac his medicine and a box of slow-burning mosquito coils. “Ibu Halimah said you wanted these,” Mas Bengkok said. He lit one of the green coils with a match, stuck it on its tiny aluminum stand, and placed it under Isaac’s cot. White smoke curled up and spilled upward from around the cot’s edges, its heavy fragrance spreading throughout the room.

There was enough sedative in the medicine to soon make Isaac drowsy but not enough to put him into a deep sleep. He found himself in a ravaged land, dotted with broken-backed helicopters and demented mobs. With a jerk, he woke up. The lightbulb was still burning overhead. A rooster crowed. His arm was draped over the side of the cot, its wood frame digging into his forearm.

Claws scraped on the outside staircase, accompanied by rasping breaths. From under the mushollah door wafted the faint stench of a carrion eater.

The beast of his dreams was getting closer.

Isaac listened with mounting horror. “Mas Bengkok, help!” he shouted. “Mas Bengkok, please get me out of here!

Something shook him and shook him again. “What? Who?” Isaac said, and now the words were full and real in his mouth. Mas
Bengkok stood over him, a dark but familiar outline in the unlit room. Isaac looked around with blurred eyes.

“You were shouting. What’s wrong?”

Isaac took a light-headed breath. He was sweating. His heart still thudded in his chest. He said, “I heard something out on the landing. Could you check? Please, Mas Bengkok, please.”

The hunchback shrugged and went out into the hall. He returned a moment later. “Nothing there.”

Isaac’s heart quieted. He thought about what Ibu Halimah had said about dreams, about how the truest dreams come at dawn.

He wondered if she was right in ways she did not know.

At his morning Qur’an lesson Isaac had such difficulty concentrating that Mr. Suherman finally asked, “Is the malaria bothering you?”

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” Isaac said. He didn’t intend to say anything more but found himself blurting, “I’m having awfully bad nightmares.”

Mr. Suherman said, “Isaac, I promise that no harm is going to come to you.”

Isaac said, “Something evil keeps chasing me.”

Mr. Suherman said nothing. His penetrating gaze seemed to search both Isaac’s mind and heart. Then he picked up his Qur’an and with both hands held it over Isaac’s head. He murmured a prayer in Arabic.

When he put down the Qur’an, there stole over Isaac’s heart a
calmness that was not there before, enough to make him wonder:
Could Islam really be a wide road to hell for everybody who travels on it?
He asked, “Mr. Suherman, how do Muslims become saved? Are they saved when they say the confession of faith?”

“What do you mean by ‘saved’?”

“Well, eternal salvation, saved from hell and given eternal life in heaven.”

“Ah. Is salvation then a matter of punishment and reward? Do you seek God because you fear hell and wish for heaven?”

Isaac was silent.

Mr. Suherman said, “A famous saint in Islam once walked the streets of her city crying out, ‘I want to set heaven ablaze and extinguish the fires of hell so that we know who is praying to God out of love and not out of fear of hell or hope for paradise.’”

Isaac said, “I am saved, not because I want to go to heaven, but because Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and I believe in him.” Approved words of piety that tripped off the top of his brain but were as lifeless as he was himself empty of emotions.

“How hard Christians make it for Almighty Allah to forgive sins,” Mr. Suherman said. “Requiring blood sacrifices and death and gore. Allah is Allah the Forgiver and the Forgiving. It is as easy for Him to forgive entire seas of sin as it is for a mother to kiss her baby. There is no such thing as original sin. We are born pure and perfect and inheritors of paradise, yet we can choose to disobey Allah and to sin, again and again. But Allah is compassionate and forgives with extravagant mercy.”

The school loudspeaker broke into Mr. Suherman’s words with
the call to noon prayer. Mr. Suherman reacted immediately. He murmured a brief prayer in Arabic and then went outside for the ritual washing. He returned to pray in the former mushollah. He ignored Isaac as though Isaac were not there. He stood facing Mecca. With his eyes closed and his hands clasped together at his waist, he recited several Qur’an verses in Arabic. He raised his hands with palms outward to either side of his face, thumbs touching his earlobes, and with a louder voice said, “
Allahu akbar!
” He bowed at the waist and then knelt and bent forward until his forehead touched the prayer rug. This he did twice, each time crying aloud, “
Allahu akbar!
” He straightened his back, and with his hands resting on each bent knee and with his right forefinger elevated as though in emphasis, he recited the confession of faith. “
Ashhadu anna la illaha ilia allah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan rasul allah”:
“I confess that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His prophet.”

Isaac followed in his mind the familiar flow and tilt of the Arabic words. He knew them by heart; he traced them out in his mind without saying them.

After a silence Mr. Suherman continued his prayers in English, from his kneeling position: “Praise be to God, Lord of All the Worlds. The Compassionate, the Merciful. King of the Day of Reckoning. You only do we worship, and to you only do we cry for help. Guide us in the straight path, the path of those to whom you have been gracious, with whom you are not angry, and who go not astray.”

After another brief meditative pause Mr. Suherman went on.
“Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, you have chosen this child Isaac according to your purpose so that your glory may be shown to the world. This child Isaac is a child of the Book, and I pray that you, O Allah, the Merciful and the Compassionate, grant him mercy and compassion and protect him from the Evil One in the hours of his waking and in the hours of his sleep so that your purpose may be fulfilled on the day you have ordained. Amen.”

The effect of Mr. Suherman’s prayer on Isaac was the same as that of Reverend Biggs’s Evacuation Eve prophecy. It was rain on parched soil—not enough of it to soak deep, but it was the first rain in a long time. Where had it come from? It could only have come from God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. The God of Ishmael.

Isaac desperately wished for the strength of Mr. Suherman’s faith, the simplicity of his prayers and adoration. Why was his God so distant?

While waiting for his supper Wednesday evening, Isaac sat cross-legged on the prayer rug, reading the Qur’an, which he’d put on the bookstand in the cone of light spreading from the overhead bulb.

Behind him the door opened. Mr. Suherman said, “This is a sight to warm my heart.”

Isaac expected a flush of guilt in his Christian soul, but none came. Still, as a matter of face, he said, “Got nothing else better to do.”

“You have a special visitor.” Mr. Suherman stepped inside the room and motioned for somebody out in the hall to come inside.

The visitor who shuffled in barefoot and with downcast eyes was a boy in a clean sarong and neatly mended tunic. He carried a plastic bag.

“Hey, Isak,” he muttered.

“Is that how we greet each other?” Mr. Suherman scolded.

“Al-salamu alaikum
, Isak.”

Isaac rose uncertainly to his feet. “
Alaikum as-salam
, Ismail.”

Mr. Suherman left the cell, closing the door behind him.

Ismail glanced at Isaac. Ismail’s face flushed, and he lowered his gaze again. “You look fat and healthy,” he said, a meaningless throwaway phrase commonly used as a casual greeting.

Isaac should have replied in kind, but he said, “I’m skinny and I’m not that healthy. I got malaria.”

Ismail nodded, swinging the plastic bag in his hands. “I heard.”

Isaac said, “You remember the treasure hunt on the river, those mosquitoes? That’s where I got the malaria from.”

Ismail nodded again. The plastic bag stopped swinging. He was biting his lips, but a giggle escaped anyway. “You should have seen yourself, a big old bulé cow swinging his arms like a crazy propeller—” Ismail caught himself. He coughed and said, “Sorry.”

“Yeah, well, malaria isn’t any fun.” But Isaac was smiling too. “
Aduh
, my mother was angry when I got home.”

“And my father was furious,” Ismail said. “He spanked me with the broom. My sister laughed until she farted.”

The two boys stared at each other and then burst out laughing themselves. Isaac plopped down on his cot. He gestured to the chair. “Sit down. Sorry I don’t have anything to offer you for a drink, but, well, you know…” He gestured at the walls around him.

“I hope they let you go soon,” Ismail said.

“Me too. Say, that coin we found, what did you do with it?”

“I had to hide it,” Ismail said. “Imam Ali told me it was a wicked thing and ordered me to throw it away, but I hid it instead, up in the
jambu
tree.”

“Imam Ali,” Isaac said. The name inserted itself between the two boys, bringing with it a silence. Isaac fidgeted on the cot. He didn’t know what to say; rather, he had a lot of things to say, questions to ask, but he didn’t know the right
first
thing to say.

Ismail abruptly opened the plastic bag. He put a cardboard box on the floor. “For you,” he said.

Isaac leaned over and lifted the top. Nestled inside was a new pair of red-trimmed Reeboks. He picked them out, staring with wonder at Ismail.

Ismail, looking down at his lap, said in a flat and formal voice, “I humbly apologize with all my heart for taking your shoes. I have made
istighfar
before God, and now I seek your pardon.” He fell silent. He pressed his thin lips together until they blanched. He released them and said, “I’m sorry, Isak, I really am.” He looked at Isaac, blinking his eyes.

Isaac said, “They’re new.”

“I couldn’t get yours out of that glue trap. They’re probably still stuck there in the middle of the road.”

The two boys were silent for a moment and then began laughing so hard again that Mas Bengkok opened the door to tell them to shut up, that they could be heard in the dorms. Ismail wiped his eyes and said, “I got the money to buy these working for Kiai Suherman, doing errands and stuff. He’s strict, but he pays like an American.” He smiled his old Ismail smile, an electric current zinging across his face and brightening his eyes. “So, you’re going to become a Muslim? That would be great if you did. Just think of all the fun we could have together.”

Isaac looked at Ismail. He thought of their forays into the cane fields, their swims in the irrigation canals, the time they’d dragged a monitor lizard into Ismail’s sister’s room when she was napping. Yet over all these memories was another that Isaac didn’t want to remember but that cast its shadow regardless.

Ismail asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“But there is something.”

“Really, Ismail, it’s nothing.”

“I’ve said I’m sorry. I mean it, I truly do. I want to be friends again. But something’s still not right, is it?”

Isaac opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again. “During the riot you carried a poster of my head on a spike.”

Ismail frowned absently, not recalling, and then blood rushed to his face, burning the skin to a mottled auburn ash Isaac had never seen before. “I—I—I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I was…amok, I was amok, I didn’t mean it. I—” He shut his mouth so hard that his teeth clicked. He flung himself
down on the rug. For a second Isaac thought Ismail was prostrating before him, but Ismail was in prayer, pleading, “
Astaghfir allah al-azim
, grant me forgiveness, O Allah.” He repeated this several times. He sat up, took a quavering breath, and then turned his head and smiled tentatively at Isaac. “You forgive me too, please?”

Isaac pursed his lips thoughtfully. He said, “You’re a terrible artist. It didn’t look like me at all.”

A crack of a shared smile, followed by another round of helpless laughter. For a second time Mas Bengkok had to step in the room to shush the boys.

When Ismail left, he did so with a promise that he’d visit again as soon as he could. They would plan their next adventure.

T
HE NEXT DAY A
dozen men sat on prayer rugs laid out in the large hall, the bright midafternoon light bringing out the rich reds and browns of the rugs’ weave. Mas Tanto and the bully Udin were among those listening intently to Imam Ali of the Al-Furqon Mosque. Despite the small numbers of attendees, the Imam was using a microphone and speaker to address his audience. His yellow eyes glowed; his long narrow tongue flickered as he spoke.

Isaac worried that the Imam would be able to sniff out his presence, trace the odor of Christian bulé boy wafting from the hole in the shutter. He shouldn’t be watching, but he couldn’t tear himself away.

The Imam said, “The Americans call me a militant and a terrorist. If being a militant Muslim means wanting to remove from our own land this incredible insult of arrogant American infidels trying to seduce our own people to leave the straight path, then, yes indeed, I am a militant! And if the Americans want to call me a terrorist, why, I suppose I am indeed a terror to the enemies of Allah! Words of praise, indeed, brothers, that I am called a militant and a terrorist!”

The others chuckled and nodded their agreement.

“Brothers, when the infidels seek to overcome Islam, then the purpose of
tabligh
, the teaching of Islam and the strengthening of faith of the Muslim
ummah
, becomes the tabligh of the sword. The Holy Qur’an repeatedly says”—and here the Imam recited verses in Arabic, which he translated into Indonesian—“‘Slay them, slay them, behead the kafir. Smite them on the neck.’”

He looked at each of the men and then cried out, “Praise be to Allah, Ruler of All Worlds! Brothers, may I speak frankly? We have in our hands the means to demonstrate to our weaker brothers in the Nahdlatul Umat Islam, and to the Islamic world, and to the world of the infidels, our devotion to Allah and to His cause and purpose. I speak of the infidel child. Allah’s stern word is very clear regarding the fate of infidels should they refuse to believe in Him and His Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. Indeed, let us give this child a reasonable opportunity to believe, but as far as appeals and negotiations regarding his release, they are of no more worth than a dog’s vomit. Are we to listen to the counsel of the confused minds and the half blind? If it becomes necessary, who among us is willing and ready to wield the terrible sword?”

Tanto’s visage filled Isaac’s vision. A thoughtful look was on that square, stern face. He turned his head, swiveling his gaze as unerringly as a radar beam until it was upon the shutter. Isaac could not close his eyes. After several seconds Tanto released that locked-in gaze and bent his head to whisper to his companion Udin. Udin’s scraggly chin straightened. His gaze too swung out and up.

Isaac flung himself away from the shutter.

The Imam closed the meeting by reciting the confession of faith:
“Ashhadu anna la illaha ilia allah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan rasul allah!”
The words, the lilt, and the cadence were the same as Mr. Suherman’s, whose confession Isaac had found so moving and alluring, but the Imam’s confession was cold and brutal, like the bite of sharp metal on skin, slicing through jugular and spinal cord.

“There is no compulsion in Islam,” Mr. Suherman had said to Isaac in this very room. “Do not worry, you are safe,” he had said. These remembered words and the remembrance of Mr. Suherman’s assurance calmed Isaac’s fright. Surely Imam Ali had been speaking with the same hyperbolic indulgence that a sports fan employs when advocating the execution of a referee.

He lay down on the cot. A commotion erupted in the hallway outside. In a loud voice Udin ordered Mas Bengkok to open the door. Mas Bengkok protested.

“We are here on the Tuan Guru’s business,” Udin said. “Open this door immediately.”

“Open it yourself,” Mas Bengkok said sourly.

The door burst open, and Tanto strode into the cell, followed by Udin. Udin reached behind him and shoved the door shut on Mas Bengkok’s face. Isaac cowered on the cot. Tanto took the three steps to the window and looked out the hole in the shutter, taking his time to see what could be seen.

Udin twirled the hairs on his chin with dirty fingers. “They are treating you very well up here in this little hideaway, bulé boy. A little resort of your own, eh? There’s some of us been wondering where you were. Mas Tanto finally let the cat out the bag.”

Tanto turned and looked at Isaac with a face as expressionless as plywood.

“You should show some gratitude to the Tuan Guru,” Udin continued, “and the best way to do that is, of course, to become a Muslim. It is very easy to become a Muslim. This is what you say,
Ashhadu anna la illaha ilia allah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan rasul allah
, in the presence of two Muslim witnesses. And here we are! Can you say that, bulé boy?”

Isaac warily shook his head.

“And after you say that, you confirm it by being circumcised, which we all know you aren’t. Or you can be circumcised first and then say it. It doesn’t really matter, I don’t think. What do you think, Mas Tanto?”

Mas Tanto had no thoughts to share.

“I thank the Tuan Guru deeply for his hospitality,” Isaac said.

“Such politeness! Have you ever heard such a polite boy, Mas Tanto?” Udin suddenly dropped the pose. “Say the
shahadah
, bulé boy. And for a dog like you it is best said when you are kneeling on the floor.”

Isaac shook his head again, fear putting agitation into the movement.

Udin grabbed Isaac’s upper arm, digging hard with his fingers. Isaac levitated off the cot, trying to ease the agony of Udin’s upward pull. Udin dragged him to the prayer rug. His other hand clamped around Isaac’s neck. Crying and sputtering, Isaac tried to fight back, but it was as useless as spitting into a monsoon wind.

Udin forced him downward, kicking at his legs until they
gave way and he was kneeling on the hard rug. Udin continued forcing Isaac’s head down until his forehead touched the rug. The grip on his neck eased enough to allow Isaac’s vocal cords to operate.

“Say it,” Udin hissed. “Repeat after me:
Ashhadu anna la illaha ilia allah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan rasul allah
.”

“No, I can’t, I can’t, I won’t, I can’t.” Isaac was not aware in what language he was wailing out his resistance.

Udin shook him as a terrier would a rat. “Say it!
Ashhadu anna la illaha ilia allah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan rasul allah
.”

“No,” Isaac croaked.

Udin tightened his grip, blocking off Isaac’s windpipe. Isaac gagged and tried to pry off Udin’s fingers. The door opened, and Mas Bengkok charged into the room. Udin’s grip momentarily eased. Isaac broke free with a lunging, twisting effort that sent him sprawling forward on the floor. Udin’s dirty fingernails clawed tracks into the skin of his neck as he tore loose.

“What’s going on?” Mas Bengkok demanded.

Isaac crabbed up against the wall, crying and gagging.

“We’re only trying to supplement Kiai Suherman’s Qur’an instruction,” Udin said.

“Mas Tanto I know, but who are you?” Mas Bengkok said directly and thus, for a Javanese, very rudely. “You are not a teacher of any kind, you’re nothing more than a cowboy.”

“I am a member of the NUI.”

Mas Bengkok snorted. “That so? You aren’t behaving like one. This boy’s in my charge.”

Mas Tanto stirred at last. “I put him in your charge,” he said.

“Indeed you did, Mas Tanto,” the hunchback said with more civility. “But higher authorities have taken a direct interest in the boy, and I am now responsible to them and not to you.”

Udin hooted in derision. “Kiai Suherman is not a high authority. He wants to be an American.”

“Oh, to be young and wise again like you,” the hunchback said. “Now leave.”

As he left the room with Tanto, Udin stooped to snatch up the new Reeboks Ismail had given Isaac.

Mas Bengkok looked at Isaac. “Might as well take you down for your bath,” he said. The hunchback recited the names of Allah on the way down the stairs and kept reciting as he stood guard outside the door.

When Isaac was done, Mas Bengkok escorted him back up the stairs. Each step was another name of God. “Al-Badi. Al-Baqis. Al-Wadi.” His steps faltered as the names came slower and finally stopped altogether. He pounded his head with the flat of his palm. “Allah! I nearly had it, nearly had it. Aiyah aiyah, what comes next, what comes next?”

“Ar-Rashid,” Isaac said.

Mas Bengkok pounded both sides of his head. “Of course. Stupid. Stupid! I nearly did it too. So close, I’ve never been so close.”

He locked Isaac back in his cell, muttering all the time about how he came so close and then forgot the ninety-eighth name of God.

He returned with the dinner tray, once more reciting the
names of God. This time the names came smoothly and without hesitation. “Al-Muti, Al-Mani, Az-Zarr, An-Nafi.” He unlocked and opened the door. “An-Nur, Al-Hadi.” He entered. “Al-Badi, Al-Baqi, Al-Waris.” He placed the tray down on the bed. “Ar-Rashid.”

He paused and took a deep breath.

“As-Sabur.”

The ninety-ninth name of Allah.

He shifted his gaze beyond Isaac’s shoulder, as though hoping to see the gates of heaven opening and the angels of Allah descending. No celestial rewards? Ah, no matter. A broad smile appeared and then faded to a somber but pleased expression. “I’ve done it at last, Isak,” he said. He stepped forward, placed both hands on Isaac’s shoulders, and drew him close for a Javanese kiss on both cheeks.

“Eat all this food,” he said. “The Tuan Guru Haji has declared tomorrow a fasting day for the Nahdlatul Umat Islam, sunrise to sunset. He does this sometimes when something special is going to happen.”

Isaac did not respond to Mas Bengkok’s smile, which evaporated. The hunchback left without saying good night, starting again on a cycle of Allah’s ninety-nine names.

Isaac still felt the hunchback’s moist, oaty breath on his cheeks. He rubbed both of them with his hands and sat down in the chair. He stared at the food, a larger mound of rice than usual, colored with various sauces and the most savory of meats.

The pebble of loneliness and fear rattled around in the empty
chambers of his heart. He said, “Mom? Dad? Where are you? I miss you. I’ve had enough here. I want to go home.”

The words broke no dam of pent-up tears. No flood of anguish or other heartbroken emotion roared down to flush him away from this burned and sterile place.

At last he lay down on his cot. And after a while he slept.

He slept a waiting sleep. The hours passed. His dreams felt no fetid presence of the Lord of the Crows and raised no alarm.

In the distance an impatient rooster crowed. Isaac heard an echo of Ibu Halimah whispering, “The truest dreams are those that come at dawn.”

What he dreamed of, half awake and half asleep, was the red-lipped girl at the dangdut show. A warmth spread in the hollows of his bones and in his groin. His penis stiffened until it was agonizingly distended. Isaac moaned. His penis twitched and spasmed. Something warm, like urine, but much more sticky, spurted onto his thighs.

At that moment the door crashed down. Five or six men rushed into the room, led by Udin. Mas Tanto was at their rear. “Grab him, quick,” Udin said.

Isaac had no time to react. Two men seized his arms and slammed them onto the cot. Two other men grabbed his ankles and forced them down against the canvas.

“Let me go!” Isaac cried out. “What do you want? Let me go!”

Imam Ali materialized at the doorway. His bright crow’s eyes glittered. His narrow tongue flicked across his thin lips. Isaac’s muscles lost all strength and his blood turned to vapor. “Please
don’t kill me,” he gibbered. “No, please, don’t behead me.”

“Behead you?” Udin said. “It’s not your head we’re cutting off.”

The others guffawed.

Udin said in an unctuously soothing voice, “Don’t worry, Isak, today you shall become a Muslim. There is one little detail that we are taking care of first.”

Imam Ali stepped forward. The two men holding Isaac’s ankles spread them apart. Imam Ali moved in and stood at the foot of the cot between Isaac’s legs. He lifted Isaac’s sarong until Isaac was fully exposed.

Isaac squirmed, but the men held him tight. One of them said, “It’s dark in here. Are you going to do it by feel?”

The Imam chuckled and in his cackling voice told Udin to turn on the overhead light.

“Mas Bengkok!” Isaac shouted, straining to lift his head. “Mas Bengkok! Help me!”

The Imam said, “Quiet down, boy. This is standard procedure. It will only hurt you if you let it hurt you.”

Mas Tanto had taken a place behind Isaac’s head. Isaac tilted his head backward, trying to catch a glimpse of him. “Mas Tanto! Please, you know me, please help me. Please.”

“Ah,” Imam Ali said. “What do we have here? Do you know this is the first white worm in its blanket that I have ever seen? What a pitiful-looking thing. Like a starving grub.” He flicked it with his finger as the other men laughed. “A slimy, starving grub. He’s just finished masturbating, would you believe.” He chuckled as the others laughed uproariously.

Isaac screamed, “Mas Tanto, please!”

Tanto stepped forward and clamped a rough, calloused hand over his mouth, pressing down hard so that Isaac could not open it to bite his fingers.

Imam Ali used Isaac’s sarong to clean the penis, still chuckling and shaking his head. “Boys will be boys, eh?” he said. He took Isaac’s cleaned penis in his fingers. He stretched out the foreskin as far as it would go. Isaac tried to kick his legs to shake the Imam loose, but the men’s grip was too strong. “I think it could stretch out farther,” the Imam said.

Without warning, he pulled back the foreskin, slipping it over the glans of Isaac’s penis. The foreskin resisted for a moment. The Imam tugged harder, and tissues that connected the inner foreskin to the glans tore loose. The pain was excruciating. A million volts of electricity stabbed into the center of Isaac’s spinal cord, and his back arched off the bed. Huge beads of sweat popped to the surface of his forehead. He screamed so violently that his lungs seemed to rip loose from their anchors. Tanto’s thick hand muffled the noise.