Читать книгу Ramadan Sky - Nichola Hunter - Страница 7

Another six weeks had passed without work when, on a steamy Friday afternoon, Aryanti came and asked for me. My heart jumped up when I heard she was there and I hurried outside to find her unsmiling at the gate. I was worried straight away because normally a young lady would never call at a man’s house, especially unaccompanied. She looked pale as she delivered the news: her mother had asked her to break with me because I still didn’t have a job.

I drove her to a place where we could talk without interruption and tried to get her to see sense. Her small brown hand held firmly onto the tea glass and her pretty face was quiet and sad, but she was insistent.

Finally I said: It is you who wants to break with me, not your mother. Lempar batu sembunyi tangan¹ Why are you telling me these lies? Who do you want to marry instead of me?

She began to cry a little but did not answer. Then I changed tack and told her I would not accept her request to cut our relationship, because it was a mistake. I would call her the next day after she had informed her mother of this.

Rhamat saw me come in that afternoon. Earlier he had seen Aryanti at the gate and I knew he would be full of questions. He can sniff out bad luck like a cunning dog and would be delighted to rub my face in it, while admonishing Aryanti for her lack of decorum. Only worse would be the kindly advice that would be given by his scornful wife who was holding his arm as I entered. They watched me together, like a vicious animal with four eyes and many claws waiting to pounce.

Even our hopelessly small house was against me as I tripped over an electric cord that someone had forgotten to put away and a plate came crashing down from the table and shattered onto the floor. I tried to find a reason not to smash it all down with my fists: the worn-out furniture and cracked dishes and the toys and clothes that had been carelessly tossed all over the couch where I slept. As soon as Rhamat began to scold me about the plate, I picked up a cup from the table and sent it flying past his ear and into the wall. Then I went out, quickly, kicking over a pile of sneakers at the door. The voice of Rhamat’s wife followed me like a chattering ape as I got on the bike and pulled out past a group of curious children. My throat was strained and tight and I realised that I had been shouting and my face was streaming with tears.

I drove through the traffic for several hours until I was tired and had to stop. I was nearly on the edge of Jakarta by then, at a small warung² by a river. The people were speaking the language of the Jakarta tribe who were here before everybody else. These people are very rough and many are bandits, but I am curious about them. I smoked and drank coffee and tried to understand a woman who was barking out instructions to her husband and children through the thick smoke of fish grilling over coals. The moon was small and faraway in the sky when I finally arrived home. The house was silent, full of people sleeping as if dead.

The next day I called Aryanti, but her answer was the same. Four times that same week I asked her not to break with me. I begged her to believe in me. I would get a job and pay the bike and we could get married as planned. But she did not change her mind.

I had been working in the street as an ojek driver for some weeks, but the money was small. Every man who has a bike and doesn’t have a job will be an ojek, and so you must wait in line for the jobs that come in slowly. Wait and smoke and talk. Sometimes Aryanti would walk past while I was there. I did not offer to drive her as I had done in the past, and she did not turn her head my way.

I was making very little and spending it every night, drinking and smoking kretek³ on the street with my friends.

Two more months went by like this. I had borrowed heavily from my mother, and my sister, who had borrowed herself to help me, and still I had not found any work. Then, one day, Budi came to see me and he was very excited.

Forget about the raincoats – this they will line up to buy from you!

He had begun selling ganja, which he bought from a guy from our old workplace. At first I thought it was a crazy idea and I told him so. He was a very small fish, and would get someone upset with him. But after a while I could see that he was making a little money without anybody bothering him, and I started to think about it more seriously. The problem was that I would have to borrow in order to buy the first ounce. I was still making my mind up when the police came.

In the street, opposite the ojek stand, there is a small petrol shop where they will sell you petrol and also fix your bike. Budi was there drinking coffee while someone was mending his tyre. I was in line at the ojek stand when I heard the alarm ring out:

Plokis! Plokis!

That is our name for polisi. Straight away I saw three pigs moving quickly towards the petrol shop. I was close enough to see a look of panic run across Budi’s face. The coffee was knocked from his hand, and then I nearly shit as I saw one of them push him onto the road, put his boot down on his face, and pull out a gun.

The street was suddenly electric watching the policeman scream and point the gun at Budi’s head.

Who told you to come here and sell that fucking shit on my street?

He gestured to the two others to stand Budi up and search him. He didn’t have anything in his pockets but a wallet, which they threw on the ground, after removing his money. He was standing there with two cops holding his arms and the other pointing the gun straight at his face. That’s when the silence froze everything for just a second. The whole scene seemed to shrink and get very far away. The little toy policeman pulled back the hammer on the gun and then leaned forward and Budi crumpled to the ground, like he was only a pile of clothes with nothing to hold them up.

It took a minute to realise that the policeman had not fired the shot, and that Budi had only fallen down with fright. The three men laughed in surprise when they realised what had happened. The one with the gun put it back in his holster, and they all returned to regular size and walked, slowly and still laughing, back to their car. Budi was lying down on the road holding his head in his arms.

After that I forgot about the idea of selling ganja. Rhamat told me not to see Budi any more, but I told him to mind his own fucking business and see what he would do if he suddenly found himself without a job.

A man slips and the ladder falls on him.

After the trouble with the job and Aryanti and Budi, I wondered what would come next. It already seemed that my bad luck would last forever, but late one afternoon a small change did come. Like other times before and after, it didn’t seem like anything special. I really only notice it now that I’m thinking about it. The beginning of change is a narrow laneway that opens like magic onto a large field of rice.