Ratna Kusuma, A Prologue

Oleh Benny Arnas

To the moaning wind:

Can you transform the sun into a love letter?

I find it hard to believe

that an owl can cross

a river of tears

—Juli 2000—

Surprisingly, that night Ratna Kusuma felt a shiver run through her when she saw the piece of wood in Pical’s hand.

Ratna and her mother were in fact quite used to confronting the forty-year old man who was frequently out of his mind and would hurl things in the house when he was under the influence of alcohol. So far they had always managed to calm him down. But it was a new experience for Ratna to find him clutching a hefty piece of wood, his eyes burning with fury. The fourteen-year old girl suddenly felt there was no way she could win. She really wanted to call her mother but a flash of her mother’s weary face held her back. Surely it was inconceivable that a father could bring himself to beat his daughter with a piece of wood, she comforted herself.

In fact Pical often mistreated his wife, but not his only child. However he did once whip her with his belt after she’d had a blow up with a neighbour’s child over some trivial matter that had resulted in Ratna inflicting a minor wound on the kid’s hand. On that occasion Pical had seethed with rage and had berated her as a weakling. He was angry, not because the hand of the neighbour’s kid was bleeding slightly, but because the wound she had inflicted on Ratna’s leg was more serious. Pical did not want his daughter to be defeated or to give in. The remnants of gangster blood running in his veins had not completely disappeared. In the end he only gave Ratna’s slim waist a tiny pinch when he found her asleep near the pile of tea in a plastic bowl that she hadn’t finished packing. Just then Ratna had woken up and was immediately commanded to make him a cup of tea. Ah, how that image would flash randomly into her head!

But right now Pical was not just under the influence of alcohol but also caught in a state of fury against his wife.

 After the night prayers, full of confidence, Pical had dropped in at Leha’s warung where he often hung out with his gangster mates. Although Pical no longer stole from people or extorted money from the merchants along the railway lines he was unable to completely sever his ties with his former associates. And of course, you guessed it, the warung was a warm, comfortable place for the consumption of alcohol. Pical hadn’t been there for almost a week because Leha and the rest of the gang –several of whom were gang bosses – often taunted him, calling him an old gangster who had lost his spurs. All he was good for was to get deeper in debt. However things were clearly not as he had expected, for tonight the ridicule was clearly still pouring from their filthy mouths, spreading a stench throughout the warung.

“Cal, remember you’ve already guzzled three bottles of Malaga beer. Don’t clock up any more debt. Poor Leha has to bear the cost. She says you’ve still got long-standing unpaid debts.” Jalin the gang boss of the T-junction, was openly scornful. “Aren’t you afraid of getting killed, with all these debts piling up?” he sneered.

“What’s the bill for his bottles of Bintang?” asked Sukri, a member of his former gang who now worked for Murdok, the gang leader of the railway lines.

“A lot…,” Leha replied, glancing over at him. “I can’t remember the exact amount. Somewhere in the region of Rp.200,000. I’ve got it written down somewhere,” she said as she tidied up the bottles of cheap beer and the dirty coffee glasses.

“Watch your mouth, Leha!” said Pical, pointing a finger accusingly at the warung owner. “Didn’t Laila pay off all my debts yesterday? You’re pretty good at slandering people now, aren’t you?” he exclaimed, rising from his seat.

“Don’t talk rubbish, Pical! Laila never came here.” It was Leha’s turn to point the finger at him. “Maybe she’s clever at relieving her husband of his money!”

The laughter in the warung caused the glasses to crash against each other, smashing them and scattering slivers of glass that pierced his eardrums. As if unable to bear the pain, Pical leapt up, kicking the bench he’d been sitting on. The laughter did not die down. The slivers of glass were not removed from his ears and head. Blood was gushing, but this time it was from his heart, which felt like it was being toyed with. Some of the men sneered as they clapped Pical on the shoulder. He suddenly looked like an old man, the most wretched man on earth.

 He turned away. Still unsteady, and with a bleeding heart he staggered back home. It wasn’t the broken glass that had shredded his self esteem, but rather a sharpened bamboo stake had wounded him and toppled him headlong into a pit of incalculable shame.

“Just like that bitch of a wife of mine!” His fury needed to find a harbour so the pain could sail off to some other place.

                                  ***

Unusually, that Friday night Semper Timur was deserted and silent despite the fact that it wasn’t even midnight yet. Ratna had just finished making up the packets of jasmine tea and putting them on trays to be picked up by the employees of the tea merchants who’d learned the winding route to their house.

  That night she was wearing her mother’s housecoat because it had rained all day and her change of clothes wasn’t dry. Laila had been asleep since 9 o’clock as she had to go to bed early in order to be up by 3 am to prepare the bakwan fritter dough, slice the tempe soybean cakes, make the stuffed tofu and peel the bananas. After daybreak she’d fry them while Ratna cooked up fried rice and made tea for breakfast. When it was still early Tina and Vera, the neighbours’ daughters who were Ratna’s age but had dropped out of school, would come over to their place to pick up the trays of fried foods. Laila divided the food into four trays. Vera and Tina would take two of them to the neighbouring kampungs and come back to deposit the income from sales in the afternoon. Leila would take her tray around the kampung. The other basket was taken to be left with Bu Rosyad, the bakso meatball soup seller who once a week would offer them free bakso.

Actually, Laila didn’t always leave her daughter to parcel up the tea by herself of an evening. If she wasn’t too exhausted she’d slice the tempe and prepare the bakwan dough to keep Ratna company while she was busy working. She’d occasionally help with packaging the tea if her own tasks were finished. But because of the rain that afternoon she’d come home with her clothes soaked and clinging to her body. After having a bath and eating some of the tempe from the morning she went and put on a faded, long sleeved t-shirt, because Ratna had been wearing her favourite housecoat since getting back from school earlier, and lay down on her bed.

  Laila was aware that a girl her daughter’s age shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden of earning a living. From the time she was in the second grade up to when she finished primary school just a few days ago, Ratna had been contributing to the family income by selling fried foods from class to class at her school. Laila tried to stop Ratna from doing it so she could concentrate on her studies without having to worry about working. But her words were like a rubber ball thrown against a wall. Laila felt supported when the school ruled that, “Students are forbidden from selling in class”. However she forgot that Ratna’s upbringing had taught her to be an enterprising child. Even though she stopped distributing the food at break times she still took a tray to school and left it with Bu Rosyad.

  Laila never ceased to feel bad, knowing what Ratna was doing for her family. So she was very happy to see how much pleasure Ratna got out of watching TV soaps at Vera’s place next door. At those times Ratna could enjoy being young, watching those soaps, even if several trays of tea were waiting for her to be packaged when she arrived home from Vera’s. And it was usually 9 pm before she got back, sometimes even 9.30 if the episode they’d been watching was a tear-jerker and the three girls were divided in opinion about it. Laila often got a laugh out of listening to their typical girl talk. Especially when Vera and Tina were arguing with Ratna who paid more attention to the planes, trains, airports and tall buildings than to the melodramatic love stories.  

Suddenly there was an irregular knocking on the door. Ratna wasn’t surprised – she was clearly used to this particular uneven knock. It was her father for sure.

 Ratna hurried over to the door, tying back her hair with a slack rubber band as she went. She pulled back the bolt and the door swung open.

A man in a dirty cotton shirt with its top three buttons undone, was standing there, one arm leaning against the door frame. His shoulder length hair was damp and unkempt. His face, neck and exposed chest were glistening with sweat oozing from every pore. His eyes were red and he stank of alcohol.

“What did you do with my money, Laila?” he blurted out, not even looking at Ratna.

“Mum’s asleep,” Ratna said soothingly. She knew only too well what her father was like when he was drunk. She guessed it was the housecoat she was wearing that caused him to mistake her for her mother. “Come on, Dad, I’ll give you a hand.” She went to take his hand to help him inside.

“Ah, don’t act the innocent with me, Laila.” He pushed Ratna’s hand away and staggered into the house. “Where’s the money I gave you the other day? You have no idea what it feels like to be ridiculed by the people in the warung.”

            “Dad, Mum’s asleep. She’s exhausted from being out all day in the rain. Talk to her tomorrow.” Ratna followed her father who had turned and was heading for the kitchen. He bent down near the doorway and seemed to be picking something up.          “Maybe I can make you a hot cup of tea.” Ratna knew her father preferred tea to coffee. He might often guzzle beer or coffee at Leha’s warung, but that was more of a way to be with his old gangster mates.

Ratna stopped short when Pical turned around. He was clutching the meter-long piece of wood they used to fasten the kitchen door with.

“Dad!”

* * *

Early in the morning Ratna was carried half conscious to Mak Suban’s house. She was the old woman who sold nasi udeg, coconut milk rice, every morning near the neighbouring headman’s house. Lots of the fringe dwellers in North Jakarta came to see her with mysterious requirements or on some medical matter.

“It looks like your daughter’s been struck on the back of the head by the door plank, Laila.”  

“So what do we do next?”

“What do you do next? Well, you should just hit him back.”

Laila remained silent. She knew the healer’s manner of speaking well.

“This tops it all! What kind of behaviour is this from that husband of yours, Laila?” Mak Suban sighed. “Though I’ve seen Pical has changed quite a bit these past few years. Since starting the motor bike taxi business two years ago he’s really reformed, but it’s obvious he still likes to get drunk and hang out at the warung,” she rattled on as she felt certain areas of Ratna’s head. The girl had returned to consciousness.

“So how’s Ratna, Mak?” Laila asked, getting back to the subject at hand. She’d come to Mak Suban to get treatment for Ratna, not to gossip about her husband.

 “With a deep wound like this, Ratna could be ….”

A worried expression came over Laila’s face, causing Mak Suban to pause mid-sentence. “Could be what?” she mumbled, deeply concerned.

“Could be crazy.” Mak Suban’s tone of voice was very calm in contrast to the implications of her shocking reply.

“Crazy?” Laila could hardly get the word out? She unconsciously touched Ratna, sitting beside her, on the shoulder.

Mak Suban burst out laughing. She was immune to reactions such as Laila’s. “Here’s some of my holy water,” she said, holding out a glass of water. “Hopefully there won’t be a thing wrong with her.”

Laila took the glass, feeling very uneasy, and gave it to Ratna who drank it straight down in one gulp. She thanked Mak Suban and slipped her a ten thousand rupiah note as she said goodbye.

On the way home they remained silent. Ratna touched the back of her head from time to time, either because it still hurt or because of the pain in thinking about the crazy people they often came across. She wanted to cry but couldn’t. She really loved her father but right at this moment she was furious with him. At the same time all Laila could do was listen to her own erratic breathing, in and out of her nose and mouth. Her stride, bigger steps than usual, made Ratna gasp as she tried to keep up with her. Ratna knew something was aflame inside her mother’s chest. But she also knew that she was incapable of extinguishing it.

 One, two, four, six days passed. Pical would often stay away for a day or two, but this was almost a week. Something to worry about, especially for Ratna. However she just repressed it. She was sure her mother was feeling the same.

Since the events of that night Laila had been quieter than ever. Ratna had no idea what her mother was thinking. Was she thinking too much about Bu Patiya’s carrying on about the rent money that was already two months in arrears. Or was she thinking about the same thing as Ratna – Father.

Last night Ratna dreamed that she saw her father. Strangely, it felt like she wasn’t dreaming at all. It all seemed so real. She thought it over and hoped he actually had come over to her bed and got her talking about all sorts of things.

The next day Mang Rojak, the security guard, brought Ratna home. His right hand had been maimed by her father when he’d been trying to arrest him for gambling at Leha’s warung a few years earlier. He told Laila that Ratna had caused an uproar among the children studying the Koran at the prayer house near his guard post. Ratna had been talking to herself in front of the prayer house. The children yelled out “Ratna’s crazy!”

 “It looked like she was talking to Pical’s ghost,” the security guard told Laila, apparently convinced that her husband was dead.

 Laila really wanted to tell him off but she couldn’t see past his damaged hand. She was aware that the most important thing right then was to ask about what had really happened to Ratna. Ratna is crazy and Pical is dead were obviously both nonsense. Her eyes widened. The victims of her husband’s violence back in his gangster days still obviously hated him to the point they hoped he was dead.

“Dad really was there, Mum!” was Ratna’s response when her mother asked her the same question over and over.

 Laila touched the back of Ratna’s head, asking with raised eyebrows, “Does it hurt?”

Ratna shook her head. “This has nothing to do with my head, Mum.”

Maybe it’s true what Mang Rojak had said earlier, that your father is dead.

Suddenly she felt that she didn’t need to cry, if his words had not been mere conjecture.

  A week earlier both Ratna and Laila had been reluctant to bring up the subject of Pical. Every morning Ratna still packaged up the tea as usual, and watered the hibiscus out front in its pot made of an old truck tyre. And of course she made the tea for them both. It was the same with Laila. She went to the market every day for bananas, cabbages and spices for her fried foods, and she’d prepare them before dawn.

It was if they had a mutual understanding that life is all about keeping active, not questioning what had happened, and especially not weeping and wailing!

However, on the tenth day after Pical had gone missing Ratna gave in. She brought up the issue she’d been keeping to herself and began sounding off on it in front of her mother.

 Laila glanced at her sharply. “Is it any of your business what I did with the money? You think I did something with it, don’t you? Did I buy myself make-up and lipstick to hang around the railway lines while you were asleep?”

Ratna didn’t dare look directly at her mother. When Laila used the word “I” and not “Mum” it meant she was truly angry. Ratna regretted having asked her about her father’s money.

“The overdue library payments and the absentee and late fines while you were at school came to Rp.500,000. I only just found out that the school collects these fines before you can graduate. Why didn’t you tell me? And to make matters worse, I only had Rp.300,000 saved up.” Laila’s voice was full of emotion.

 Ratna said nothing. She did know about the regulation obliging students who were late or absent without explanation to pay a fine but she thought the rules didn’t apply to her. At no time when she’d been late had the teacher demanded payment. She had no idea it was all noted down and payment demanded before graduation. Ah, here was another issue to upset her. So I am at the bottom of this problem, am I, Mum? She longed to say this out loud, full of regret, but she knew there was no point.

“Come with me tomorrow?”

“Where to?”

“We have to leave here.”

“Why?”

“You don’t need to know why, or where we’re going.”

“There’s no way Dad would do anything to us, Mum. He must be really sorry.”

“This has nothing to do with your father. Who else fears him? Anyway, who can guarantee a man like him won’t act rashly. You still remember, don’t you, when I was fed up with his behaviour three years ago and I wanted a divorce? He squirmed like a worm sprinkled with salt. He promised to stop stealing and no longer carry a knife and that he’d stop gambling and drinking. But where’s the proof?”

“But Dad did stop stealing and carrying a knife. He’s been running the motorbike taxi. He’s changed.”

“But your father’s often been caught out gambling at Widow Leha’s warung.”

“But….”

“And he comes home every night with his breath stinking enough to make you sick.”

 “But….”

“But your father does have the taxi and always brings in money. Is that what you want to say, Ratna?”

Ratna bowed her head. Her mother’s way of speaking, mocking her father’s contribution, really hurt her.

“Forty thousand. That’s what he gave me. What can you get for that?” Laila’s voice rose.

Ratna stopped before she said anything.

“Your father is really an angel when he’s not falling back into his old ways. He made you take school seriously, unlike the girls next door who dropped out to hang round the railway lines….  But he forgets, mere words won’t pay for your schooling.”

It was true, Ratna knew, that her mother’s heart wasn’t as fierce as her words. What she didn’t yet know was her mother very much hoped for a miracle the following day. She planned to find a job for Ratna, but didn’t know where or with whom. With a bit of luck she would be asked to live with the person employing her, so Laila hoped. The amount in arrears owed to the school before Ratna had been able to graduate meant she’d had no choice but to use the rent money plus the money her husband had given her to pay off his debts. (Besides she wasn’t willing to waste Rp.200,000 on his beer bill.)

 As she thought, school being free was just a dream in the midst of an outbreak of war.

Even so, for Laila, sending Ratna to school was like splashing water over your body. Instead of getting a bit wet here and there surely it’s better to have a proper bath. Leaving school without a diploma would be such a waste. Yes, right then Ratna’s school was everything. Laila already felt guilty enough because she’d only intended to send Ratna to school until she was eight. And how will you carry on with school later?

“So far we’ve coped. We’ve always been able to face your father when he was drunk. But there were no guarantees. Just look at the night you were hit.” Laila tried to dispel her regret over the school. “You often said so yourself after you were hit on the head.”

“I’m not crazy, Mum!”

“Who said you were crazy? I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“Maybe because I long for dad.”
“Long for? Ha, you sound just like a posh person, talking like that.”

“Don’t you believe me about Dad coming yesterday?” Ratna tried not to think about having an ideal man as her father. “You’re sure to be influenced by what Aunty Misna is saying.”

“Well, there you go again, Ratna!”

“But I did get to talk to him, Mum. He’s sorry. It was the alcohol that made him act in such an extreme way.”

“You not only talk to yourself but you also dare go against me. You think you’re so clever!” Mother ground her teeth to suppress her anger.

“But father really did come!”

* * *

Yesterday after her bath Ratna had seen Pical pop up in the kitchen. He’d stopped and reacted calmly when she’d called out to him. Ratna had been a little surprised because he acted as if nothing had happened. But she managed to ask him where he’d been these past few days. He hadn’t replied immediately, but remained silent for a moment then he’d begun to cry. This really confused Ratna. After a while he’d wiped away his tears and spoken, begging her forgiveness for his wrongdoings. He also wanted to see Laila. For Ratna it was like seeing her father as a new person. Suddenly Aunty Misna had come in the front door and just as she turned her head towards the next door neighbour, Pical had vanished.

“What are you doing standing there half naked, dripping all over the place?” asked Aunty Misna, not mincing her words.

“I’ve just had a bath, Aunty,” Ratna replied. “I happened to see father just now coming in from the back.”

Misna, who shared the clothesline at the back of the house, looked at the back door. “Are you sure he came?” Her voice was cloaked in doubt.

Ratna nodded.

“So where is he now?”

Ratna looked around.

“Ah, so what your mother said is right, that lately you’ve been like someone in a daze. Talking to yourself.”

“It’s true, Aunty. Father was here just now.”

“How’s that possible?” Aunty Misna waved her hand.  “See, the back door’s locked and I have the key. So where did he get in?” She carried her bucket of washing over to the door. “Look!” And she put the key in the padlock hanging from the bolt.

Ratna said nothing.

* * *

That afternoon it was Ratna herself that Laila hawked around. She offered Ratna to the shopkeepers and stallholders in Tanah Abang, Pasar Minggu and Mangga Dua to help or to do any work available, making Ratna feel she wasn’t a human being, and especially not Laila’s own daughter. She was nothing more that a moving, breathing item of merchandise. Laila was in fact not a regular hawker. She never offered her daughter to a shopkeeper or stallholder who was male.

“What’s the matter? Do you feel like you’re about to be thrown out?” Laila said as if reading the mind of her daughter who had a sour look on her face. “We’re going to Jatinegara now.”

Laila didn’t need a response. She was just letting Ratna now it was time she thought for her self.

“If there’s no one who wants to employ you we’ll look for a place to live somewhere.”
Why don’t we just go home? The question only echoed inside Ratna.

“You know, Ratna, all the money we have in the world is sixty thousand rupiah.”

Again Laila didn’t need a response.

In the Jatinegara Market they went to stallholder after stallholder, getting knockback after knockback, going from one rejection to another. It was getting well into the afternoon and hope had almost slipped away when Laila’s ears picked up the sighing of a Chinese woman.

 While Ratna was feeling as if God deliberately wanted to see their struggle last the whole day, Laila’s spirit took her over to a batik stall.

“What’s the matter, Madam? Can I help you?” the stall owner said as she stepped away from her friends, the neighbouring stallholders.

 Laila said nothing for a moment. She glanced at the brown face of the woman whose hair was twisted and pinned into a bun. Her clear face exuded sincerity and her sloping eyes emitted tranquillity.

Ratna, this is your lucky day, kid.

From then on the canvas of her new life was laid out before Ratna. Many stories were brushed over it until the colours blended, gradually turning dark like when a tea bag is dipped into a cup of hot water.(*)

Diterjemahkan oleh Tonni Polard dari prolog novel Bersetia (Mizan, 2014) karya Benny Arnas