Twilight in Djakarta (3 page)

Sugeng suddenly went very pale and then quickly embraced her.

‘Aduh, don’t speak this way. I swear to you that before the baby is born we are sure to move to our own house.’

There was a ring of conviction in his voice, which caused Hasnah to open her eyes, raise her head; she embraced Sugeng, and she kissed him.

‘I, too, want another baby. How happy Maryam will be with a little one.’

And they fondled each other until Maryam came and climbed on the bed, clamouring for food.

During the meal Maryam announced that the family next door was going to move the following week.

‘Their mother told them they are going to move to Kalimantan!’ said Maryam.

‘Wah, at least Maryam will not be bothered any more by that wicked boy Iwan,’ said Sugeng laughing. ‘I only hope that whoever moves in next will not have such naughty children.’

The night was like any other night. Evening crowds at the Glodok bazaar. Thousands of electric bulbs gleamed like fire-flies dancing in the night. The lamps of moving motor-cars were like yellow balls of light. The smell of food which exuded from the restaurants hung heavy in the air, almost as if one could touch it, put it into
one’s mouth, munch it. The two – their mouths watering, saliva gathering in the throat, marble-sized – spewed out together, and the spittle spattered at their feet.

‘Come on, let’s eat,’ said one, nudging the other’s side.

They entered a small restaurant and found a place in a corner.

The Chinese ‘baba’,
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who ran the restaurant and was also the cook, approached their table. He was wiping his neck, his cheeks, his chest and his armpits with a dirty cloth, taking up the sweat of his body overheated by the large brazier in the other corner of the room. His smooth, oily skin glistened.

‘Fried bihun,’
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said the one. ‘You?’

‘Okay, beer.’

‘Okay, beer.’

The baba nodded and waddled back to his kitchen. The fat under his skin below his armpits wobbled as he moved. The baba wiped his chest once more, then took a plate from a stack on the table, wiped it with the same rag, took a second plate, and wiped it too. And then he started to cook fried bihun.  

Both portions of bihun were consumed. Greasy. Three empty beer-bottles stood on the table. Their two glasses were still about a third full.  

‘Where to now?’ asked the man in the Hawaiian-style shirt with green flowers on a yellow background. His hair was smooth, oily, heavily smeared with brilliantine and brushed up high over his forehead like a woman’s waved hair-do.  

‘Ah, we’ll just go home. Not much money. He just looked rich, all show. But his wallet was empty. Only thirty-five rupiah. You were wrong again sizing him up,’ said the other.  

‘You were the one to pick him out, Tony,’ said the
effeminate-looking
man.  

‘Hm, yes. Otherwise I’d have liked to go again to the house of
that Arab woman. But the money isn’t enough. You’ll sleep with me!’ Saying this, the man with short crude fingers pinched the thigh of his friend, and his heavy-lipped mouth opened a little, showing large, strong teeth.

Three men entered and sat down at the table next to theirs. The baba came up, waddling ponderously – his fat wobbling in his skin, oily and glistening – and wiping his sweat with the dirty cloth.

They stopped talking as the three new arrivals sat down. And they listened to their talk.

‘Good luck today, took in over seventy-five,’ said one. He was a little man, oldish, his shirt and trousers of cheap cloth.

‘It’s fine to own a taxi oneself,’ said one.

‘Yeah, and show off one’s profits, too,’ said another. ‘Yesterday I got thirty, but today only fifteen.’

Tony looked for a moment at the three taxi drivers, then his eyes rested on the man who said in the beginning that he had made more than seventy-five rupiah.

‘Another beer, Djok?’ he asked.

‘Okay, beer!’ shouted Tony.

They paid no more attention to the three taxi drivers who were now eating.

The night outside the restaurant was still as any other night. Electric lamps of vendors. People crowding.

‘Do you see that man in the blue tropical, Djok?’ said Tony slowly. Djok’s eyes followed Tony’s glance. They fell on a man who stooped over a pedlar’s table.

‘The usual way,’ said Tony slowly.

Djok nodded, and took off. He looked about, to the left and to the right, like someone who is out to buy something and scans the place for the things he wants to buy. Yet like someone who doesn’t particularly care whether or not he really finds the things he is looking for.

Behind him Tony walked on. When close to the man in the
blue tropical jacket Djok pretended to slip, and his body fell hard against the man’s back. Tony stepped up quickly, his hands moving with lightning speed to the trouser pocket of the man, and as Djok was murmuring ‘I beg your pardon, tuan,’ Tony was already lost in the crowd, crossed the street and then walked on slowly. Djok stepped back without haste, as he would if he indeed had tripped over that man. After the apology he went on. And that was that.

A few minutes later Djok also crossed the street at a leisurely pace, and found Tony awaiting him in front of the Orion Cinema. Djok saw already from afar that Tony had not been successful.

‘He was very cautious, his hand stayed right on his pocket,’ said Tony.

‘The louse,’ swore Djok.

‘Where now?’

‘Ayoh, home,’ said Tony.

They walked on, passed the police station, and under the big trees before the dark Lindeteves office they came upon several women who stood there waiting. Because he was so annoyed, Tony pinched the breast of one too hard, so that the woman shrieked and scolded; they both laughed and went on.

The vituperations of the woman pursued them in the darkness of the night.

They walked on. Crossed a bridge. Entered the shroud of darkness under old tamarind trees. Yellow balls of light, of taxicabs, came and went. Laughter of women was scattering in the air. Grasping hands invited. A hoarse voice swore obscenely. Then burst into roaring laughter. Like the devil’s glee at startling human beings. Three betjas raced. The winning driver yelled in triumph.

Tony and Djok continued walking.

Tony took out a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, put one into his mouth.

‘Smoke?’ he asked.

Djok took a cigarette, pinched it with his lips. He got out a match
and lighted Tony’s cigarette. The light of the match flickered and lit up Tony’s face – the thick lips, the hard and cruel lines of the sensual mouth, suggestive of a sadist.

‘Taxi, sir?’ A taxi moved slowly alongside.

Djok looked at Tony.

‘Why not?’ said Tony.

At the intersection in front of the Thalia Cinema and the Olimo Store Tony ordered the driver to turn left, towards Prinsenpark. The light of street lamps at the intersection illuminated the driver’s face through the windscreen. And instantaneously they both thought of the scene in the Chinese restaurant in Glodok, with the three taxi drivers chatting and eating at the table next to theirs, and the baba-cook with his smooth oily skin, sweating and constantly wiping himself with the dish-towel. And their taxi driver was the one who had said,

‘Good luck today, got more than seventy-five rupiah.’

As the driver started to turn into Prinsenpark, Tony ordered him to keep straight on; then to turn right and to follow the railroad tracks. It was dark here. There were no lights. A deserted street. And all houses already shuttered.

‘So, I’ll go to that Arab woman after all,’ said Tony suddenly, and he half rose from his seat, tapped the driver on his shoulder and said, ‘Stop!’

Something in his voice, some hidden menace, the tone which was not like the usual tone of passengers who wish a driver to stop, struck the driver’s consciousness and, gripped by fear, he didn’t stop the car immediately.

Resentment and anger rose in Tony.

‘Stop!’ he said again.

But now the threat and danger carried by the voice were stronger and more startling, and the driver, in growing terror, lost his head. He stepped on the accelerator as Robbers! flashed through his mind, and the whole menace, frightfulness, pain, loss
and terror contained in that word flooded his soul and mind.

Djok noticed an iron rod on the floor and picked it up.

‘What a blockhead,’ he swore, and raising the rod he swung it in the direction of the driver’s head. Tony tried to stop him, but before the driver could utter ‘Don’t hit …’, there was the thud of the iron on the skull, the stifled blood-curdling scream of the driver, blood from the head …. And then the cab, continuing to move as if drunken, careered left and right, eventually landing in a ditch at the roadside near the railway line.

Tony and Djok jumped out, looked around, there was no one in sight; they ran a short distance to a side street, walked on rapidly and Tony struck Djok, swearing angrily,

‘Why did you hit him, you pig?’

And Djok said, ‘I didn’t intend to hit him hard. Just to make him afraid.’

‘You never wait for orders,’ Tony raved on.

‘It’s true, I was going to knock his head just a little, to frighten him,’ repeated Djok.

They walked slowly, as was usual, when they turned into another street which was still somewhat enlivened by people and betjas. A few servant-girls were joking with betja drivers.

Tony’s anger began to subside. Djok continued blubbering, ‘It’s true, I didn’t intend to hit him hard!’ until suddenly Tony burst into loud laughter.

‘“It’s true, I didn’t intend to hit him hard. Only to frighten him”,’ he jeered. ‘But you struck so hard that his head was broken, and how could he be afraid – dead? Ha-ha-ha!’ he laughed, pleased with the wit of his own joke.

Djok tried to laugh too, but deep in his heart something stirred, not yet fully emerging, but beginning to rise, a chill which made him shrink.

And Tony, who had laughed his fill, was now saying in a cold, sharp voice,

‘It is you who hit him, Djok, not I!’ Djok knew that it was he. He would be alone with this feeling of terror which had begun to grip his body, The terror of a murderer. He glanced at Tony out of the corner of his eye. Hatred rose in his heart. Hatred of Tony who laughed at his terror.

Tomorrow, in a few hours now, the police will start looking for the taxi driver’s killer. Is the driver dead? He’s dead! No! He is dead! You’ve killed him! I have killed him! He is dead! He is dead!

Fear and horror enveloped and choked him, and as Tony pinched his buttock and said, ‘I’ll sleep with you anyway, Djok!’ he swung his arm and hit Tony in the face. Tony fell with no chance to parry, and Djok, whirling round, ran, ran swiftly, Tony shouting after him,

‘Haai Djok, here, where are you going? I’m not angry! Djo-ok!’

Djok kept running, turned and Tony’s calling voice was lost behind him.

He turned into a narrow alley, ran on – running where, running where, running where, drummed in his head, and deep in his heart he knew that he wasn’t running anywhere, and knew that the hunt was on, that he was the hunted one and that he was running away, and that he couldn’t run away.

Djok was still running, panting, his rasping breath like the sound of rusty hinges opening, running, running. And in the night only the trotting of his shoes was heard as he ran, turning this way and that, endlessly. Running and unable to run away. For ever.

T
HE CROWING
of a cock behind the hut, loud and clear, pierced the dawn. The sun’s rays, still feeble, tried to creep through the cracks of the decrepit, darkened bamboo wall whose paint was peeled off by rain and the hot sun in turn. The wobbly and crooked window, blown by the strong night wind, was half open, and through the opening a flowering djambu tree was visible outside.

Saimun stretched himself on his balai-balai,
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under his covering of two mats, slowly opened his eyes and then looked at the young woman who slept beside him. The woman’s small mouth was half open. Her camisole was undone except for the lowest button, and her kain
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enwrapped her limbs loosely, untied around the waist. Saimun was very still as he regarded the woman; he was at peace and happy, and when he laid his hand on the woman’s belly she moved a little and her hand held Saimun’s hand.

‘Neng,’ whispered Saimun, and his hand moved upwards, his blood rising. The previous week he had gone back to the dump and brought the woman to his hut. Just like that. He was surprised at his own daring. But also that the woman had so readily decided to follow him.

All he’d said was,

‘Come with me!’

And she got up, tied her clothes into a small bundle and the two of them walked over to his hut. Neneng, the woman, was his. Slept on his balai-balai. Itam slept on his own bench, not two yards away from theirs, separated from them only by an old batik cloth which
was hung up at night near the edge of the bench. Neneng slept with Itam too, but she always returned to Saimun’s sleeping-bench.

They never discussed it, but everything seemed to arrange itself on its own. That week it was Neneng who cleaned their little room. And they gave a part of their coolie wages to her for cooking.

Suddenly Saimun embraced the woman with ardour, his body burning. Neneng, awakened, smiled at Saimun, aware of his intent, and happily gave him what he desired. The hunger, which never loosened its grip upon him, so easily fanned his passion for the woman. That which consumed his body in the embrace with her seemed to dispel the hunger which nagged at his guts, gave him a feeling of power and confidence in himself: he too was a man, he was human, and in such a moment he was a male all alive, and the breath of life stormed through him, and the moans and little cries of the woman under him proved the force of his male assault.

The more the woman moaned, the stronger he felt his maleness and power, and he was great and strong, and not a little garbage man of no significance.

Then he lay back, Neneng tied up her kain, got off the bed.

‘We’re late,’ she said, pushed back the batik hanging and looked over to the balai-balai where Itam was still lying, but with open eyes.

As Neneng passed by his balai-balai he caught her hand to pull her down, to sit on his bed, but Neneng laughed, extricated her hand and ran to open the door.

Saimun got up, put on his pants and said to Itam,

‘You’re not quick enough! Tonight, you!’

Behind the thin bamboo partition they could hear Pak Idjo’s family beginning to stir, and Pak Idjo complaining that he was sick, saying to his wife, ‘Aduh, I am feverish. Look at the boils on my back! But if I don’t go out to earn, how then?’ And the voice of his wife said, ‘Just be careful!’ Then Pak Idjo’s little child started to scream and cry.

They went down to bathe in the stream where many people had already gathered, and then, after coffee had been brewed by Neneng in an empty tin that once held butter, Saimun and Itam hastened to the meeting place of garbage carts. The truck was there with Bang Miun, the driver, inspecting its engine. He was swearing to himself when they arrived. The engine wouldn’t start. Again the battery’s dead, Bang Miun muttered, how many times has it been to the repair shop, but it doesn’t want to go. Itam and Saimun stood behind Bang Miun watching how he scraped the cables of the battery. Saimun was always amazed when he looked at the engine of a car. He could not understand how a dead thing like that could move such a big and heavy truck, but neither was the driver able to explain it to him clearly. Saimun had once asked Bang Miun to teach him to drive. This was the highest aspiration of his life. To become a driver like Bang Miun, to get higher wages, to sit comfortably behind the steering wheel, and to control the engine and the truck. Bang Miun had said jocularly that he would teach him if Saimun were diligent and would wash the truck every evening. Saimun had been washing it every evening for a whole week now, but Driver Miun still had not started to teach him. Saimun was full of dreams of how he would drive that cart. He was afraid to press Driver Miun to start the lessons lest he become angry and refuse to teach him altogether. Suddenly Miun turned to him and said, ‘Saimun, get in, switch on the ignition and step on the starter. Put your foot on the accelerator a little.’

Saimun’s heartbeat quickened, so unexpected was such an order from Driver Miun. This was the beginning of his driving lessons, he thought. By now he knew where the ignition key was, where the starter and where the accelerator were.

Saimun climbed into the truck, sat down at the steering wheel, turned the ignition key and pressed on the starter-pedal with his foot. How proud he felt, and smilingly he looked around at Itam who regarded him with envy.

But the motor still wouldn’t start. The first garbage carts had already arrived, and coolies started to toss the refuse into the truck.

Driver Miun shouted for the coolies to stop filling the truck.

‘Ayoh, come on, push, the engine is dead.’

The whole crowd of them pushed the heavy truck, and at last the engine started but only after they had pushed it repeatedly and were all out of breath, panting; and Saimun and Itam felt a smarting pain in their insides because their stomachs were still empty. But the moment the engine started they all jumped on the truck, shouting and cheering, and under the hubbub the truck returned to the place for the reloading of rubbish from the carts.

Saimun was overjoyed because Driver Miun had said that at about noon he would begin his lessons.

‘I’ll ask that lu be moved, become knek,’
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said Driver Miun. ‘Knek Ali, three weeks not come. Sick. He ’lready back country, maybe not coming back!’

Sitting on the truck, now piled full of refuse, Saimun told Itam of his dream of becoming a driver.

‘And when I ’lready got my permit I look for work, become an oplet
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driver and lu I teach to steer,’ said Saimun. ‘Driver Miun, he drives a taxi after hours too. An oplet, he says, brings in a lot of money, y’ can take home up to twenty, or fifty, a day. Just think!’

Itam joined in day-dreaming of how Saimun would be an autolette driver – a vivid, resplendent vision, which filled him with gladness. Thus they dreamed on together, sitting on the garbage truck, its stench gone, all the rubbish gone, only the dream filling them with joy.

Hasnah was busy sewing a dress for the baby she carried when Dahlia knocked at the door and immediately entered, without
awaiting a response.

‘Idris is off on an inspection tour again, this time to Kalimantan, for ten days.’

Hasnah smiled and invited her to sit down.

‘You’re only one year in Djakarta, and fed up already?’ Hasnah asked her.

‘What do you think – staying in a house like this, who can stand it? It’s almost the same as before, when we stayed in the hotel. And my husband constantly going off, too. How can you stand it? The more so with a child. I don’t have a child but I’m almost losing my mind staying here.’

Hasnah smiled and said,

‘Soon we’ll move to another house. Sugeng promised that before our baby is born we’ll move to a house of our own.’

‘Ah, lucky you. I don’t know when we will get a house to ourselves. My husband is too obedient a government official. He doesn’t want to keep on begging for a house. If there’s no chance yet, that’s that, he always says. What’s the use of having a husband like that!’

Dahlia stood up to look at her face in the mirror near the window, stroked it in several places and said,

‘It’s time to go to the beauty shop again. Make-up and a permanent wave.’

She turned around and said to Hasnah,

‘Don’t you ever get a permanent for your hair? Why? Your husband doesn’t like it?’

‘Not at all,’ said Hasnah. ‘It’s too expensive, no money.’

‘Nonsense. You’re just lazy. Don’t be like that, Has. Just try and see how it’ll change you. Your face will be prettier when your hair is all done up.’

Dahlia took hold of Hasnah’s hair, got out a comb and went to work with zest. At first Hasnah protested, but she did not interfere. When Hasnah’s hair was done, Dahlia got out a lipstick from her
handbag and painted Hasnah’s lips. Then she got the mirror off the wall, held it up to Hasnah and said,

‘Nah, look, isn’t it pretty?’

Hasnah looked into the mirror, looked at her face. Very embarrassed, but inwardly pleased, she asked,

‘Is it really proper for me to be made up like this?’

‘Of course. Don’t let yourself go ungroomed. All men, including your husband, like to see you pretty like this.’

‘Ah, but my belly, it’s quite some weeks already, what’s the use of prettying up?’

‘It’s needed all the more, so that your husband forgets your big belly and keeps looking only at your face.’

They both laughed.

‘I am so pleased that you live next to us,’ said Hasnah. ‘The family before you had too many children, there was constant uproar and Maryam got into fights with their children. How long have you been married?’  

‘Three years!’  

‘You don’t want to have children?’  

‘In the beginning I did too. But it seems it’s not our fate. And now, with housing conditions as they are, I’m not eager to have a child.’  

‘Don’t think that way! Every child brings its own luck. Our second baby here will bring us a house.’  

‘How come you’re so sure that you’ll get a house?’  

‘Sugeng has promised it.’  

‘And if he said so does it mean that you’re sure to get it?’  

‘Yes.’  

‘You have no doubts whatsoever?’  

‘No. Why should I doubt if Sugeng has promised it?’ asked Hasnah, astonished.  

Dahlia shrugged her shoulders, and said,  

‘Who knows, maybe your Sugeng is an exceptional person. But
I never believe people’s promises. The more so, promises made by men. Even more so, promises made by my husband. Idris is an idiot. He’s an inspector of the Ministry of Education. His friends are all rich by now, but he isn’t worth even a half a cent.’

‘But you, you don’t seem to be at a loss. Look at your badju,
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they’re always beautiful. The material is always new. No lack of perfume, either,’ said Hasnah.

‘Yes, but I didn’t get it from him.’

Hasnah was about to ask her where she did get it from, but something kept her back.

‘Women today must be smart, look out for themselves,’ added Dahlia. ‘You must always be pretty. It’s the only thing men want from a woman.’

‘Ah, not Sugeng. He also loves his child.’

‘That’s what you say. How do you know he’s not playing around with another woman?’

‘I know Sugeng is not like that,’ said Hasnah.

‘How do you know?’

‘Somehow, I’m just convinced. Besides we were married by our own choice.’

‘You’re lucky,’ said Dahlia. ‘Do you like to go to shows?’

‘We do. But it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a show, because of this.’ And Hasnah pointed to her growing belly.

‘If you go out to a show, invite me sometimes?’

‘All right.’

‘Which film star do you like?’

‘Male or female?’

‘Ah, I like to see Gregory Peck, but he’s not quite forceful enough.’

‘Do you know who I like? Gary Cooper! There’s a real he-man for you!’

‘But he’s already old …!’

Sugeng was busy reading incoming mail when he got a call to appear before the chief of his bureau. His heart beating fast, he went to the office of his chief, hoping that the problem of his house was at last solved. The nearer Hasnah’s confinement came, the more nervous he had felt. He had fought who knows how many times with the people in charge of housing for the ministry’s employees. But he was constantly told just to have patience: he, at least, had a place to live, while there were many other employees who were separated from their families for lack of housing.

The bureau chief ordered him to sit down, and then said,

‘I have good news for you. According to the minister’s decision’ – and here he handed Sugeng a letter – ‘beginning with the end of the month, i.e. on the first of July, you will be promoted to the head of the import section.’

Sugeng shook the hand of the bureau chief and quickly went out. He was very happy – his salary would be higher and the chance of getting a house, as head of a section, would be greater. How pleased and happy Hasnah will be, a real professional advance.

They had been debating in the room for over two hours already; the problem they were discussing was turned over time and again, returning to its starting point, but it still looked as if the end was nowhere in sight. Suryono looked around him, and was amazed: were all these friends really convinced of what they were saying, and were they serious in believing that what they were doing here was of benefit to the nation? He felt somewhat trapped, because Ies Iskaq had once challenged him by saying that if he was so completely dissatisfied why didn’t he join them, to think about the nation’s problems, and she brought him several times to these meetings.

There were only six of them in the room. Ies, himself, Pranoto, the well-known essayist, who often wrote on Indonesia’s cultural problems and was considered to be the driving force behind this
small club. His face was that of a thinker and he always spoke with sincerity. Achmad, a labour leader, and Yasrin, a poet, who as time went on felt that there was no chance for him to grow and develop in his own country, and Murhalim, a young provincial comptroller who was constantly enraged by the conditions in his office.