Man Tiger (15 page)

For Komar bin Syueb himself, there was nothing more agonizing than what was flaunted right in front of him, a wife pregnant with another man's child, parading in public. It threw into shadow the nagging realization that he had made his family suffer for years. At the barbershop, he worked in distracted silence. He nearly sliced off a customer's ear, and left another's hair a tattered mess. His eyes grew teary with self-pity, as he recalled all the despair-ridden years and tried to trace his mistakes to their origin.

The years had gone by so quickly, life receding in the distance like a train narrowly missed. He recalled his weary youth, when he wandered from one hamlet to another, looking for work in the factories. He would stay at each one for a few months, cutting shoe leather, carrying wheat sacks. After years of this, he found himself ill and penniless. He resorted to his shaving equipment and looked for a shady place under a tree to wait for customers and shave their heads, though he knew he couldn't make much money that way. When Syueb told him to come home to marry, his only possession of note was a thin gold wedding band, an object he never should have bragged about.

The day of the wedding arrived, and he could see how unenthusiastic his bride was. He had never written the letter she had pined for, and never apologized. It wasn't that he didn't want to write nonsense on a pink sheet of paper scented with talc, but rather that he truly didn't know what to write about. There was nothing interesting about a life under the shade of a tree waiting for customers worried about their unsightly hair. But the woman is mine, he thought. Marriage makes her mine, and she is meant for me. If she isn't there for me when I want her, I have a right to be angry.

Sitting in the barber's chair, Komar wiped his eyes with a calico cloth, worried that someone from the chicken noodle kiosk might catch him blubbing. Again he bemoaned the passage of time, gone so fast he never had a chance. He stared aghast at his hands, which had hurt his wife hundreds of times, their children too, and again his eyes brimmed with tears. The mistakes were all his. He had carved out his own sorry life for himself. But when he thought of the many times he had returned home to a gloomy wife, to the little devils he had conceived with her, it was clear to him that no man could have done much better. His family ought to have seen how blighted his life was and helped him. Since that wasn't going to happen, they should forgive his outbursts.

A man came by and asked him to cut the hair of a little boy, and Komar had to turn his face away to hide his redrimmed eyes. He invited the child to sit in the chair. As he prepared to get to work, he tried to reconcile himself to the central new fact of his existence: Nuraeni would give birth to a baby that wasn't his.

For a while, fleetingly, he was ready to surrender to the cosmos and his own tragic fate within it. But when he got home, he had to contend with the sight of his wife's belly, and all sense of balance was lost. His temper flared and he beat her, calling her a whore, smacking her with the water-dipper, lashing her with the rattan duster. His heart only lightened when he saw his wife kneeling in a corner of the house in surrender. Then Komar went to his room and lay down alone. When night fell and brought release in the darkness, he cried without a sound, praying that the angels might descend and write down all his misfortunes in a miraculous act of holy pity.

The unborn child grew undeterred within Nuraeni's shaken womb, enduring the lashes that fell upon its mother, and perhaps developing some sense of the stepfather out there bent on preventing its birth. Mameh was always right beside her mother, now bedridden and frail, shrunk from the constant cruelty. The daughter gave Nuraeni sponge baths, gently soaping the purple bruises before smearing her flesh with a rice and galangal liniment ground in her own mouth. Despite the pain, Nuraeni remained happier than her children had ever seen her before, which touched Margio and Mameh. They had rarely seen her smile, and now she was sharing her little joy with them, a beggar doling out a few treasured pennies. To the two children, she said softly:

“If it is born, it will come with vengeance, to kill Komar bin Syueb.” Mameh sobbed, and Nuraeni's words crystallized Margio's desire to kill his father.

When Nuraeni's belly grew conspicuously large, Margio barred her from doing any more housework. He wouldn't let her go to Anwar Sadat's house or to work at home. It still shamed him to know she had been naked before someone other than his father, but Margio's spirit warmed to see the pleasure his mother took in being pregnant. He took care of the house and prepared the meals. By this point, both the children had completed high school. Margio could stay at home to protect his mother from his father, and rarely hung out with his friends. Komar himself began to find some peace of mind in accepting his ill-fated life. He no longer paid attention to the woman who carried a bastard foetus around his house, and took to spending more time inside his room. Later on, he would come home from work in the wee hours and set off early, and no one knew where he went. Perhaps he kept longer hours at his barbershop, or maybe he was ignoring his business altogether and hiding out somewhere else. Whatever the truth, his family ignored him, caring nothing about what he was up to. They were happy to have him out of sight, wishing he'd have the good sense to leave forever. A man who let his wife stray shouldn't show his face at home.

When Nuraeni stopped coming to Anwar Sadat's house, Kasia made inquiries and found out about the pregnancy. After that, she paid regular visits to check on Nuraeni's health. The bruises worried her, and she frequently arrived with bananas and milk, good food for pregnant women. Nuraeni often felt embarrassed by the midwife's kindness. Kasia did not know that the baby benefitting from her ministrations was the result of her husband's infidelity. Kasia's presence was a trial, but when she said goodbye she raised the expectant mother's spirits with a report of the baby's good health, and Nuraeni's contentment was mixed with pity.

In the seventh month Mameh bathed her mother with water and flower petals. The flowers were not plucked from the jungle garden. Mameh was still convinced her mother found joy in that botanical bedlam. She bought the blossoms from an old woman at the market, and their scent was strengthened with an aromatic oil.

While Nuraeni enjoyed the heavy aroma of the blossoms, Margio was sleeping at the nightwatch hut, curled up beside Agung Yuda. Drunk on sticky-rice arak, Margio muttered, “My mother's pregnant, and there's going to be one more neglected kid in the house.” He fell asleep without a blanket, despite the sting of the chilly night air. The winds grew stronger as he slept, pummeling the collapsing cacao plantation as they blew in from the sea, but still Margio remained sprawled unconscious on the braided mat. When he woke, Jafar, a neighbor on patrol duty, was talking. His voice was urgent, but Margio, half-drunk and dizzy, couldn't comprehend what was being said. Jafar repeated himself. “Your mother's about to give birth,” he said. Margio had to fetch Kasia to help with the delivery.

Margio stumbled away without a word. He took the shortcut around the surau and was soon stood in front of Anwar Sadat's house, trying to gather his wits. A terrace lamp lit the dim house and other smaller lights seeped through cracks in the door and pierced the closed curtains. It was a damn cold night and they were sure to be asleep, but someone had to take care of his mother. He walked to the door, shook his head to clear it, and rapped his knuckles on the wood. Silence. He knocked again, more loudly.

There came the sound of someone stirring, and Margio stopped knocking. The front bedroom door opened, pouring light into the living room, and then the curtains were drawn back. Behind the windowpane Laila's face appeared. As soon as she recognized the boy, she opened the door. She was wearing a nightie that made Margio rather reluctant to look at her. Sniffing the arak on Margio's breath, she asked:

“What's going on? You're drunk, and you're banging on the wrong door.”

“No,” Margio replied. “My mother's about to give birth.”

For a moment Laila stared at him, wondering whether Margio was talking drunken nonsense. Then she left him and the open door to look for Kasia. Margio fidgeted on the terrace, blew on his palm to smell his breath and snorted again and again to try and make the odor go away.

Kasia appeared with rolls of cloth and a trunk-like kitbox, which she had Margio carry. Without saying much, she set off in haste, Margio trailing behind. Despite her age, she kept up a fast pace. Most of the children born in that hamlet had come into the world with her assistance, and had Margio and Mameh been born there, Kasia would've been the first to hold them.

Mameh and Jafar's wife stood by Nuraeni, while she lay on her mattress groaning. Komar was not at home, which wasn't unusual. Commonly he returned only out of necessity, driven back by exhaustion and hunger. “Bastard,” muttered Margio on discovering his father's absence. Kasia heard what he said and snapped at him. Bad language was completely out of place. It's no good for the little baby, she added. Margio retreated to a wooden chair in the front room, while Mameh and Jafar's wife waited by the bedroom door in case Kasia needed something or asked for help.

It had only been three days since Mameh had bathed her mother with water and flower petals. The baby was coming too early, and though it might still live, it would be better off staying put a while longer. He waited nervously, as if it was his own child. He found some clove cigarettes in his pocket, and smoked non-stop during those tense minutes, listening to Kasia's voice offering solace and encouragement, and to Nuraeni's groans as she tried to push the child into the world.

Near three in the morning, as Margio impatiently watched the clock, the baby's cries were heard. The baby won't like Komar, Margio thought, his trembling fingers throwing a cigarette into the ashtray. He wanted to get a look at the baby, despite his trepidation. He was still certain it would be a girl. Mameh and Jafar's wife hadn't moved from their post by the door. It wasn't yet time to go in. Kasia hadn't called them, though the baby's cries were slicing through the darkness. Later, Jafar's wife came out carrying the rolls of cloth, the bedsheet, and a blanket soaked with blood into the bathroom. Mameh was carrying a different bundle. A fetid smell hung in the air.

Kasia appeared at the door, disposing of her rubber gloves in a plastic bag, which she gave to Mameh to throw away, and reminded Margio to properly bury the other bundle Mameh had in her hands. Margio stood up, ready to obey, but he was held back at the bedroom door by the scene inside.

His mother lay there with the baby swaddled tight beside her, no longer crying, but feeding at its mother's breast. A very emotional scene it was, under the dim light that always came in from the neighbors' house via a cluster of wires dangling from their roof. Nuraeni was looking intently into the baby's face, stroking the hair on her delicate head.

“Look, Komar,” Margio mumbled to his absent father, “her face is cursed to be very happy.”

Under the dim gleam of a peanut vendor's lamp, she was as beautiful as a girl painted on a Chinese porcelain vase. Her abundant hair hung very straight. It was fine, sifted in the slightest wind and dancing with her every movement. She was five foot two and slender as a stork. Her figure was girlish, and her cheerful expression made more alluring by lips that pouted with every word she uttered. As befitting her name, Maharani, queen of queens, she could conquer anyone. When she took Margio's hand in a firm grasp, he trembled and the valiant boar-vanquisher was nothing more than an adorably tongue-tied schoolboy.

People were flocking to the film screen set up in the middle of the soccer field, while across the way sat a pickup truck belonging to the herbal tonic company. A man was talking into a microphone about the properties of their tonics as the crowd waited impatiently for the film to start. Some of the townspeople gathered around the pickup, lured by prizes— umbrellas, fans, wall clocks, and, most valuable of all, an eighteen-inch television set—to buy tonics that would boost virility, tighten a woman's sexual organs, work as a diet aid, improve the appetite, cure gastritis, overcome fatigue, and so on.

Margio and his friends stood behind the peanut vendor. After months at university, Maharani had become a real city girl, but it seemed that she couldn't find a boy she liked better than Margio. She always came back for him. She was wearing a tight yellow sweater to ward off the chill, a pair of flared jeans, and flip-flops. Still holding Margio's hand, the girl coyly tugged at his arm and kissed it sweetly.

They had never held hands like that before, and Margio was fascinated by the girl's nerve. It made him feel confused and vulnerable. He couldn't even turn to look at the face he so adored, and instead stared at the silhouettes of people going back and forth like fleeting shadows on the screen. He wanted very much to join them, but the skin of his arm retained a memory of the girl's lips that distracted him. Sweat trickled down the nape of his neck. He had once gone to a brothel, with a group of friends, and when it was his turn to mount the voluptuous, middle-aged woman on the bed, Margio shivered violently, horrified rather than aroused. The way he felt now surpassed the panic he had felt then, which he only survived thanks to the prostitute's skill in stroking and slowly stiffening his desire. Now he was looking for help from anyone at all. He was hoping the girl would free him from this awkward situation, and help did come when she squeezed his hand more tightly. Margio turned and met her gaze, her sparkling face. He took it all in at once, her slender nose, curved eyelashes, and parted lips.

“Do you know that I love you?” she said.

If she weren't Anwar Sadat's daughter and the younger sister of Laila and Maesa Dewi, perhaps Margio would have been more shocked to hear her say it. Trying not to upset her, the flustered boy nodded abruptly and squeezed her hand in return. It seemed to make Maharani happy, giving Margio time to turn his attention back to the blank screen and watch the shadows with a vacant stare.

Their relationship had never been as intense as this, despite the many years they had known each other. That night when Margio had accompanied her through the rain under his umbrella, they were just kids, but even then he had felt a growing awkwardness. This girl is a kind of untouched beauty, he thought, someone who sat on her sofa watching television with a family that didn't know violence, sheltered by the warmth of her home. Meanwhile he was on the terrace sitting on a stool made from a coconut palm bole, peeking at the same television through a glass pane, with nothing to protect him from the elements. There was a wall separating them, even though it was a transparent glass wall that should have let them look at and confide in one another, yet it was impermeable. On the night he found himself walking with her under the pattering membrane of the umbrella, their shoulders touching, he had considered their closeness an unpardonable indecency. And Margio felt uncomfortable with her tonight, even after all these years.

Margio liked the girl because she possessed a natural beauty, the world's ideal of beauty. He liked her for trying to close the distance between them. The boy couldn't remember the first night that marvelous face came to occupy his imagination. He felt more and more miserable at the chasm between them. For him, the love that had suddenly emerged was a brilliant illusion too confusing to be real. Maharani, on the other hand, had been in love with him from a time before she could remember, and made increasing efforts to discover whether they really belonged together.

On that rain-washed night they were no more than two children becoming friends. Being the same age, they later found themselves going to the same school, across from the soccer field, in a building that had been there since the Dutch colonialists roamed the country, not long after the boundary-staking founders had arrived. Margio would walk to her place in the morning, and Maharani would be waiting. The two kids in their school uniforms would cross the soccer field chatting about their friends. Perhaps it was during times like this that the gods flew above them, enthusiastically spinning the cords of love. These cords could break, but for Margio and Maharani they grew stronger until the youngsters dreamed of being together, of sharing and owning each other. And when it was time to go home, Maharani would wait at the school gate, and Margio would be ready to walk side by side with her across the same green grassland.

The cords unraveled and refastened obscurely, ensnaring them, and Margio spent day after day at Anwar Sadat's house. When he needed some physical help, Anwar treated the boy like a son. The man's affection was sincere, thanks to Margio's excellent behavior. It seemed that Anwar Sadar had begun to suspect that his youngest had fallen for the boy, but he couldn't care less what kind of man his daughter chose, after all the tiresome episodes in the young lives of Laila and Maesa Dewi.

Maharani would sit on the sofa with Margio to watch the afternoon TV shows, and anyone could see they were like a couple of tamed lovers, born to be together. Since such behavior was allowed, Margio grew fonder of Anwar's home than his own. He enjoyed eating bags of chips with Maharani, but the awkwardness deep inside never faded. He continually reminded himself that the intimacy would be temporary—a brief delight. Maharani would find another man and fall in love with him and soon forget the boy named Margio. The boy always stood ready for the day when the name Maharani would be merely a sweet memory.

When Anwar Sadat sent the girl east to university, Margio told himself that this was freedom. It was better for him to see her choose another man and ignore him than to be continually tortured by the possibility of having her. He was sure there would be loads of boys at university, most of them damn smart, none of whom would fail to notice the arrival of a beautiful girl. They would compete for her, and in time Maharani would be caught. Margio was full of this dismal hope when he saw her leave, as he carried her bags. Maharani was leaving with Anwar Sadat, catching the bus outside their house, which waited next to the oil palm trees. Margio lifted the heavy bags into the trunk as Maharani kissed the hands of her mother, then Laila and Maesa Dewi, before standing before him and unexpectedly asking him for his hand. Margio let his hand be kissed, which caused his stomach to lurch. But it was nothing compared to the time when her hand suddenly gripped his arm tightly, not to ask for a goodbye kiss, but as a loving touch, that night when the herbal tonic company organized the free film screening at the soccer field.

But her departure didn't set Margio free. Whenever Maharani was on vacation she would come home, always hoping Margio would be there, hoping to have him to herself. Instead of loosening, the cords bound them together ever more firmly. On their date-like little rendezvous, Maharani would tell him about all the things she had seen at university in such a way that the stories felt like Margio's, too. At this point Maharani hadn't gotten used to holding his hand when they walked side by side, although everyone they knew talked about the young lovers. As Major Sadrah's wife put it: “That girl is crazy about Margio.”

Now, on the night of the Tonic Company's film screening, the girl was impatient to make sure that Margio knew about the love rooted firmly in her body, and it was clear to Margio that the girl was his, although the awkwardness and discomfort still constrained him. Maharani remained an untouchable beauty.

They stepped away from the peanut vendor and walked to a grassy mound where people sat during football matches, under the lush shadow of a tropical almond tree. They sat close, and Margio could smell her scent. Her hair stroked his face when the wind impishly pulled at it. He still couldn't believe she had confessed her love for him, a confirmation that the oval face, still glowing in the darkness, might be his, a masterpiece in his possession. He was stunned.

Maharani took Margio's hand, lifted it, and coiled it round her body. He was holding the girl clumsily now, unsure whether to hold her tight, bringing the skin of his wrist against her bare waist, or simply hang onto her sweater. She lowered her head, and looped her own arm around Margio, bringing them closer together, their breathing finding a single rhythm. This is what it feels like to belong—the thought dawned on them almost simultaneously, as the gods of love hummed above their heads.

Down on the field, there was some kind of dispute. People were yelling. Night had deepened, and the crowd was tired of buying tonics. They wanted prizes. The voluble salesman, who had been handing out tonics as though the company were his, apologized and made the excuse that he still had buyers to serve and that no one had yet won the television set. If truth be told, the television set was a display item that would never actually change hands, though it was a charm far more alluring than the man's frothy mouth behind the microphone. Then, after handling the last of the transactions, he shut the doors on the pickup, only to reopen them when the time came to replace the film reel. The projector's light now fell on the white screen, which waved slightly in the wind, while people clapped and others whistled.

The film was the old classic
Cintaku di Kampus Biru
, famous for its provocative kissing scenes.

Margio and Maharani didn't pay much attention, not only because the screen was far away and the sound drowned by the audience's excited voices. They were too occupied with interpreting their bodies as they leant against each other, exchanging warmth as the air grew thick. It looked as if there would be heavy rain that night. Margio could feel the blood rushing faster in Maharani's body, just like in his own.

Maharani stirred a little and looked up at Margio's stubbly chin. She stared at him fixedly, as if something were moving on his face. Breathless, he realized it was time to act as a man and a lover. He returned that interrogating gaze of hers, their faces close, breathing the same air, feeling the breath on their faces, while their chests heaved in unison. The girl's eyes, shaded under curved lashes, dimmed by the light from street lamps and the cloud-swathed moon, looked at him longingly, and Margio knew what she wanted, but not what to do.

The girl was exasperated by his stupidity. Maharani was on the hunt, and Margio nearly choked, but tried to keep his pride intact by waiting for the girl's lips to touch his. They had no idea how to begin, but pressed their mouths together, exchanging warmth and feeling the silkiness of each other's tongue.

They stopped abruptly—feeling conspicuous on the soccer field, though no one was watching—and stared at each other. The girl's eyes twinkled, and Margio looked sad. “There's something you don't know,” he said forlornly, so softly the words went unheard. Pain welled up at the thought that despite their new intimacy, he couldn't share his deepest anguish. Maharani became uncomfortable. He was detached, and she sat up, no longer leaning on his shoulder. The pain in Margio increased, but he was afraid to lose the girl he worshiped. Maharani threw him a look of bewilderment, which was only translated when she opened her mouth.

“Don't you like me?”

The question pierced him. Of course he did. More than heaven or earth, he worshiped Maharani. He wanted her, but was shackled by the thought he didn't deserve her.

“I'm nervous,” he whispered.

It set him free for a while. Maharani seemed to like the idea,
I'm nervous
. His insecurity smacked of romance. After all, they should be nervous. She was, too, and together they would cope with what was before them and grow in confidence. As they sat there, Maharani melting against him once more, his discomfort returned. He had lied about his nerves. The problem had a different complexion. It kept him from embracing her fiery love—it made him curse his inability to be honest with her.

Maharani came home the day after Margio's return, perhaps having heard of Komar bin Syueb's death. She said she was on vacation. Margio believed that, vacation or no, the girl had come back to comfort him, to sweep away his grief. Of course, she had misunderstood the situation. Margio wasn't sad at all.

Maharani visited his home every day, sometimes to eat with the family, her presence a reminder of the old days when Margio ate at Anwar Sadat's house. They grew closer, reaffirming the attraction founded between them a long time ago. One day Maharani asked him to take her to Komar's grave, misinterpreting his feelings. But Margio firmly said no. Maharani began to remember the old stories everyone told her about Komar bin Syueb's cruelty. She had seen it for herself when he whacked little Margio with a clothes-drying pole. She sensed for the first time the long history of pain behind Margio, and she wanted her love to be a balm and consolation to him.

Margio had left not long after Marian's death to avoid killing Komar. As he had told Mameh, there was a tiger inside him, and he had yet to learn how to control it. He left with the circus performers, following them to a town an hour's ride away. He had persuaded the manager to give him odd jobs, such as feeding the elephants and horses. The circus manager took one look at his strong build and imploring eyes and granted his wish, and the boy proved able to handle diligently a variety of tasks. Margio's real purpose was simply to see how the trainers tamed their tigers, to spy on their training sessions, to get to know these people for a couple of weeks. But as the shows came to an end and the circus troupe was about to head out to towns that stretched all the way east, Margio saw that his mission was doomed. The circus tigers were different from the one inside him.