Man Tiger (12 page)

As time passed, she began to suspect that Komar didn't really love her and had no intention of marrying her. Just think, she said to herself, last Lebaran he didn't take her to that photo studio near the Koranic school. He clearly didn't want her picture in his wallet, and felt it was sufficient to leave her a blurred picture of himself, probably taken from a distance with an instant camera. She was jealous of the other girls, who had gone with their boyfriends to the Tan Brothers studio, the only Chinese family they knew, wearing lovely dresses, powder, and lipstick, and standing before a floodlight—or so the girls told her—to get their photos taken against a backdrop of swans upon a pond.

With time all hope that the wedding would happen vanished. She was a little girl again, although she didn't resume ploughing the rice fields or herding sheep. She no longer bothered with primping herself and looked forward to the time when, through some good fortune, the engagement would be broken. Then maybe another man would propose, a man who would send her letters, take her to be photographed, and maybe even give her a beautiful ring and a sewing machine so she could learn to make her own wedding dress.

She went about life as if she didn't have a fiancé, and painfully she had to mask her situation. Perhaps a few friends knew the truth, but she tried to convince herself they were too busy with their own lives to realize that someone among them had been spurned by her fiancé. When people asked for news of Komar—and Syueb himself would visit to find out this or that about the bad manners of his son—Nuraeni would tell them he was fine, but he wasn't coming home before the next Lebaran. She felt like a know-it-all witch who could spy on her lover through a small mirror, and if that were indeed the case, she would love to throw rocks at him and hit him with a rice-pounder, because nothing else would show how much she resented that man.

Lebaran came round again, but Nuraeni awaited it not with a blossoming heart, but with an icy will. She had promised herself not to ask for an explanation. She didn't even think about welcoming him, and if he did come around she'd treat him like a distant guest who had dropped by to ask for a drink. There would be no nostalgia and no soft sentiments. Komar would have to pay a high price for the way he mistreated her.

Komar finally did swing by. His greasy, pomaded hair was unchanged, and he wore the same old wristwatch, although the corduroy pants had been replaced with blue jeans held up by a faux leather belt, and he wasn't wearing a shirt, but a long-sleeved T-shirt. This year he had grown a mustache and a beard, and had let them become unkempt. He offered no explanation for his silence, just as there was no beautiful purse for Nuraeni, only a tin of biscuits. Last year he had been very polite, sitting and blushing nervously; now he was loutish, and sat facing her with one foot on top of the other. His hands eagerly reached for a clove cigarette, lighting it and letting it crackle, prompting Nuraeni quickly to put an ashtray in front of him.

Asking no questions, Nuraeni put a glass of cold lemonade next to the ashtray and just sat in her chair playing with her fingernails. No news was exchanged and there was no sweet talk. Komar even opened the tin of biscuits he had brought and shamelessly took one for himself while babbling about Wa Haji's fish last year.

That night, despite her resentment, Nuraeni went to the theater with him, to spare the feelings of his father and his future parents-in-law, in case they sensed that she was acting coldly toward her husband-to-be. This time they went to see
Nyai Dasima
. The title stuck in their minds, but not the actors' names, because acting companies came and went in the village. For Nuraeni it was her third visit. She had seen a different play with a group of girlfriends on the carnival-filled night of Independence Day. Nothing special happened during the show, except for Komar trying to squeeze her hand. But something sickening happened on the way home.

They slowed down to let their friends go ahead, and in a quiet spot Komar shamelessly asked Nuraeni for a kiss. Shocked by the unexpected request, Nuraeni cringed and shook her head in fear, but Komar gripped her hand and insisted. “No,” she said. Komar persisted. “Just a little kiss,” he implored, “one tiny touch.” There seemed to be no other choice. To scream would only humiliate them both, and she supposed Komar wouldn't go any further, since far behind them were other people walking in the same direction. Without saying yes or no, she let his mouth attack her own, as he pushed her against a hibiscus tree. His lips pressed against hers in a long-drawn-out kiss. His wet open mouth smelt of tobacco and nipped at her lips with tiny, tugging bites. Afterwards, Nuraeni felt nauseous.

Their former intimacy was lost, and Nuraeni remained icy the next day. For the sake of good manners, she saw him off at the village hall the next day, and there, inconsolable at the memory of the letters that never came, Nuraeni asked him for nothing. Instead, it was Komar who spoke up:

“Aren't you curious about my job?”

Why should she care about his job if he didn't care to think about her, the way she ached for news from him week after week until she felt all worn and rusted inside. She stared at him, her eyes sharp and almost cruel, twisting the lips he had once crushed with a kiss. Flaunting her disdain, she finally opened her mouth: “So what is it?”

“A barber,” Komar replied.

Going so far away just to be a barber, Nuraeni thought. She couldn't care less whether Komar were a bandit, a bully, a thug, or a thief. A year of disappointment had exhausted her love, and what he did was of no interest. When Komar, bag in hand, walked away to join the other migrant workers, Nuraeni didn't do more than nod slightly to acknowledge his departure, this time without glistening red eyes or a stream of tears. As soon as Komar disappeared at the foot of the hills, she rushed to the spout to shower. Only now he was gone did she bother to pay attention to her appearance.

All that happened, and yet at the age of sixteen she allowed herself to be hustled off and married to that man. Komar's gift was a six-gram gold ring engraved with their initials, and he always bragged it was the work of a well-known and skilled local engraver. Nuraeni wore a traditional white blouse, her hair tied into a high bun, and displayed a disdain she would have been disappointed to learn was flattering. Komar wore a black suit and a borrowed black hat (a peci), and Wa Haji officiated as
penghulu
. Nuraeni's father gave up one of his ewes for slaughter, since it had already given birth to five lambs, which were now getting big. He also dug up all the rice in the family storage chest. There was no
wayang—
or shadow puppet—performance, but there was enough food that the guests could take some home.

From the first night, the marriage was one of hatred. Nuraeni lay exhausted in bed, still in her wedding blouse, her hips and legs tightly bound in a batik skirt. The lust-ridden Komar invited her to get naked so they could make love, but Nuraeni merely growled, half-awake, remaining wrapped-up and defensive. Without another word Komar stripped off his clothes, keeping on the underpants that swelled with his erection, and shoved his newlywed to wake her. Nuraeni rolled over, groaned, and reached for the bolster. Annoyed, Komar began to yank at her skirt, tugging at it until his wife was clumsily unrolled. The skirt undone, he discovered a pair of light-green panties with a floral design. Komar pinned her down, lowering first her underwear and next his own, and then thrust into her. They fucked without words until they ached and finally fell asleep. Having lost her virginity, Nuraeni retrieved her skirt, covered herself up, and turned her back on her husband, keeping her legs apart because of the smarting between them.

A week later, Komar went to look for a place for them to live together, and a month after that took Nuraeni to the coconut godown near the Monday Market. He provided a mattress, a stove, kitchen utensils, a table and chairs, and his shaving kit. They owned a Dutch bike, which Komar bought from the flea market in front of their terrace. Nuraeni's quality of life had deteriorated, but she dealt with it without complaint.

Sex was always difficult. Nuraeni shared none of Komar's eagerness, and when his lust built until he felt it constrict his throat, he would frequently force himself on her. When that happened, he was brutal. He threw her on the mattress, and fucked her with her clothes on. On other occasions, he would make her lie with her legs apart on the table or have her crouch in the bathroom. When Nuraeni tried to resist, he would beat her. A slap to the face was a common occurrence, and at times he kicked her beautiful calves, sending her tumbling helplessly to the floor. Only then could Komar get between her legs.

To Nuraeni, her husband's treatment felt like slow death, but she didn't know what to do. She never thought of leaving him and going back to her father. Her family would have been furious. All she could do was keep to herself, and since sometimes Komar could be sweet and treat her well, hope didn't die entirely. No matter how hard things became, she never gave in to self-pity, a stoic resolve she would pass on to her children.

Margio was a child of domestic rape, yet the boy seemed to be an infinite consolation to Nuraeni, and her husband's brutality lessened with his arrival. His birth put a dampener on Komar's lust, and his mother loved him even more for that. He was a source of joy to them both. But with the passing of time, as the little boy began to grow, crawl, and walk, Komar's desire returned. It surged and made him shiver. He would wait to catch Nuraeni off guard and jump on her. He was a savage again. She tried her best never to let him see her naked, but it did nothing to deter him. He would take any opportunity to pull up her skirt, slip her panties down, and then, standing by the door, to penetrate her with a wiggling of his buttocks. It was the old regime returned, complete with ruthless slaps and swings of the water dipper. Nuraeni became pregnant again, and Mameh was born two years after Margio.

Eight years of life in the godown stole Nuraeni's youth and charm, and the young woman she had been rarely resurfaced. Her cold, catty attitude deepened when Komar asked for her wedding ring so he could buy House 131. She had to hide behind a veil when the family moved, to hide her sadness.

Their new home triggered a change in Nuraeni. She started to talk a lot, and the words sprang from dissatisfaction and unhappiness. The problem was that the words weren't directed at anyone, but to her stove and pan, her constant companions since the day of her marriage. The stove was full of rust, its flames flaring up to different heights, while the holes for the wicks were really a mess. The pan, too, had been riddled with holes until a traveling welder patched it up. She muttered dismally to the stove and pan at all hours of the day. She was particularly vituperative about the warped wicker sidings, saying they were no better than a cow shed.

Komar took the hint, and one day, after a year of living at 131, he bought rolls of new wickerwork, and with Margio's help removed and replaced the old walls. They worked hard for a week, cutting and pegging, securing them with small wedges and painting them with lime. The house was brighter after that, thanks to their work, but it didn't touch Nuraeni one bit. Sure enough, before long a storm roared through the cacao plantation and lashed the new sidings, and with the changing seasons they twisted into shapes reminiscent of a storm-lashed sea. The lime paint cracked and fell in flakes on the ground, and all of this was related bitterly by Nuraeni to her stove and pan.

There were other issues, of course. Despite Komar's repairs on the first day at the new home, many of the old roof tiles had cracked, opening a number of leaks. If Nuraeni didn't furnish the middle room with pails and bowls, the dirt floor turned to mud. Komar had to go to the brick factory for new tiles, which meant a whole day of work lost. This took care of the mud problem for a while, but when the rainy season returned, more tiles cracked and the pails and bowls reappeared. In the company of the stove and the pan, Nuraeni mocked herself.

Komar could never make the house as nice as the ones lining the side of the big road, and he knew it. To shut her nagging mouth, which always found cause for complaint, Komar had a ready excuse. “There's not much we can do as long as Ma Rabiah still owns the land.”

Yet later, when they did own the land, little improved, and Nuraeni kept up her conversations with the kitchenware. Komar began to think his wife had gone mad, but he never let that thought deter him when it came to plundering her flesh.

Margio seldom saw his mother happy, and often thought of doing things to cheer her up. He would go back to their kampong and look for gifts for her. If he had some money from doing odd jobs at other people's houses, Margio would buy his mother ten sticks of satay or a new pair of flip-flops, which lifted the gloom for a little while. Nothing worked for long, and when he realized that he started to direct his frustration at Komar.

Back then, Komar often hit Nuraeni right in front of their son, beating her black and blue. Margio was still too small to intervene, and he often got whacked himself. He would lean against the door, with Mameh at his side biting the hem of her dress, while Nuraeni cowered in a corner and Komar stood above her with the rattan duster in his hand. Komar always found some excuse to swing it at her.

Sometimes the beatings happened outdoors, and Nuraeni would run round the house for all the neighbors to see. Komar chased her, and devils orbiting them stoked his anger, until Nuraeni ran into the house to shield herself with the door. But Komar always pushed his way in, on one occasion shivering the door to pieces. He would throw her to the floor and kick her thighs over and over. The watching neighbors would rub their chests, and Margio turned his face away. Mameh was the only one who cried, sobbing for a long time afterward in her mother's embrace.

His mother's stubbornness began to manifest in Margio, who wouldn't fight Komar but took to provoking him, goading him to swing the rattan cane. Sometimes Komar didn't like it when Margio left for his grandfather's kampong, but the boy stood his ground. On a Saturday afternoon, he'd leave without saying a word, returning on Sunday night to face Komar's rage. The next day Margio would limp to school, after Komar had beat him, plunged him into the water tub, yanked at his ears and thrown a coconut shell dipper at him. Komar would often feel envious when he watched the boy calmly playing with his marbles, trading cards, and crickets. Margio would grow more unyielding to Komar's grumbling, chipping away at the man's patience until he got smacked. Margio never fought back, as everyone knew, but stayed calm with his toys until Komar seized them and threw them into the trash. Margio would pull them back out, and Komar would run after him, dragging him along by one of his feet, with the boy's sprawled body scraping against the ground. Margio would be lifted and tossed into the house, smashing against a chair leg. The boy would simply grimace, and the unsatisfied Komar would come after him again, grabbing him by the hair and banging him against a wooden pole. On one occasion the kid's forehead gushed blood, but Margio never backed down.

Even gentle-mannered Mameh got her share of the rattan duster, the same way he'd lash out at a stray cat when it passed him. Peace came only in the idyll between Komar's departure on his bicycle to the barbershop at the market and his return.

When they finally acquired the land from Ma Rabiah, Komar decided to lay down a cement floor. It was his last effort to quiet Nuraeni, and he ordered Margio to help. Margio was then fifteen years old, a young man who had once joined Major Sadrah's boar-hunting party, and strong enough to mix the cement. They worked on Sundays. Komar mixed the cement with lime to make it stickier, while Margio turned the paste with a mortar. Nuraeni served them sweet tea, bananas, and sweet-potato fritters, but wasn't happy about Komar's big plan.

Their floor did not reveal itself in a day, but gradually emerged. First there was the living room, where planks were laid down while the cement dried. The next Sunday they covered the two bedroom floors. After four weeks the entire house had hard flooring all the way to the kitchen and even on the terrace. Mameh could sit on the floor to play board games like mancala with her friends, or roll out a mat and lounge about. Komar grew increasingly affectionate, praising Margio's work, and still Nuraeni remained cold to him, and untouched by the pretense.

Five months went by and they found a crack in the floor. At first Komar thought it must've been caused by the raw lime and was certain that it wouldn't get any worse. But the crack grew, and by the end of the month it was a kind of crater, as if a five-ton steel ball had bounced off the floor. A neighbor said it was probably caused by the damp, another told them that a trash hole or a well must have been there once. Holes emerged, one in the living room, two in the kitchen, and a small one in a bedroom.

Just as she had with the bamboo walls and the roof tiles, Nuraeni celebrated the crumbling of Komar's work by gossiping about it with the various utensils in the kitchen. After listening to this babble, Margio could only walk away, because he knew that once Komar's patience had reached its limit, he would drag Nuraeni into the bedroom and slap her, or throw her against the stove.

His home was a wild place, and Margio humbly admitted that in all his years he hadn't understood the relationship between his parents. How did two people dedicated to punishing each other come to live like this? In Komar's place, Margio wasn't sure he could bear Nuraeni's sneers and scathing whispers; and Komar was utterly contemptible. The man never hesitated to use his fists on his family, driving them closer to their graves every day. But in the end Komar gave up and yelled at Nuraeni: “Everything in this house is your responsibility!” And so it was. Komar became increasingly engrossed in raising chickens and rabbits. He had a gamecock that he would take to the cockpit, and he bred pigeons to race at the soccer field or the abandoned railway station.

After Komar stopped giving a damn, Nuraeni took more pride in the house, although Margio and Mameh soon realized she had an extremely weird idea of decor. One day she cut up some old calendars, and pinned pictures of the Taj Mahal and the actress Meriam Bellina to the wall above the wooden chairs in the living room where they received guests. She also cut up Margio's old drawing book, where she found Margio's inept drawings of mountain scenery along with some calligraphy, and put these up next to the door. No one commented, neither Margio nor Mameh. They worried that would only make her sadder, though it was plain that what she was doing didn't make her happy either.

Then one day she received an allamanda seedling from an old neighbor. The yard had always been totally bare, a place for children to play marbles, but now she planted the seedling there. Margio was glad she had something to keep her occupied, no matter how trivial, though he had lost his spot to play marbles. Every morning Nuraeni watered her plant, and by the time it started to look firm and the leaves were no longer drooping, she got a bundle of golden dewdrop seedlings. She turned them into a living fence around the front yard, leaving a narrow space through which people could walk into the house. She watered the golden dewdrops, and Mameh sometimes thought she seemed more interested in the care of her plants than in that of her children.

One by one other flowering plants arrived, while the allamanda and the golden dewdrops grew sturdier and greener. She planted jasmine by the kitchen wall, roses in four groups near the golden dewdrops, and then came the mussaenda. Globe amaranths thrived alongside the ditch flanking one side of the house. Lantana shrubs grew next to the terrace's disintegrating wall. Wild lilies bloomed near the garbage hole, and from the tall old allamanda she took seeds and planted them in the eastern corner of the yard. They had most extensive flower garden in the entire town, putting any flowershop to shame, because Nuraeni grew even the achiote, together with the saka siri, both of which required a great deal of moisture in the soil. The coastal morning glory was left to creep up a bamboo pole that leaned against the kapok tree.

Further plantings came in the form of hibiscus and jungle flame, which seemed to bring density to the limited space of the yard, together with the bougainvillea whose seeds Margio brought home from school. Last were several orchids planted in coconut shells and hung from the house's rafters. Komar watched the spread of flowers with awe, thinking his wife was beautifying their house, and hoping it would improve her attitude. The plants became lush with the arrival of the monsoon season, and some began to bud. Colors appeared amid the jungle of green, and like his father, Margio spied on Nuraeni, hoping to see her cheerful at the luxuriant growth in her garden.

It turned out the plants were
too
healthy. The yard, which they had imagined a beautiful garden adorning their little house, was now a jungle, with blooms popping up every which way. Months passed and the allamanda began to soar, its highest tips slithering over the roof, its bright yellow flowers contrasting sharply with the blue sky, enchanting butterflies. The jasmine by the kitchen wall was a glimmer of white against a dark-green background, like stars in a night sky. Everything spread rapidly, like the dense golden dew-drops that had grown into a solid fence.

The garden became indistinguishable from dense undergrowth, and Margio started to call it a wilderness. The leaves either withered or jostled each other for light. Komar realized his assumptions about what Nuraeni was doing were quite wrong, and he treated the plants with his old disgust. Returning from the barbershop, he'd let the wheels of his bicycle squash some golden dewdrops, or hurl the bike onto a rose bush. The mistreatment killed some of the plants, and others withered, adding to the chaos. Within two years, no one could see the façade of the house; it was covered entirely by shimmering green leaves. When guests came, they had to ask where the front door was. Dead plants fertilized the soil, and the remainder thrived.

One day Mameh saw a snake slithering over the terrace and screamed until Margio caught it. It was a small, common tree snake, a venomless and quite harmless kind. Kids would play with them, letting them glide in and out of their fingers, and magicians managed to slide them into one nostril and out the other. But it made Mameh think about chopping down Nuraeni's flowers, or at least returning the yard to the beautiful garden it once was, with slender, well-trimmed trees. She was all set with a machete and a stick, but Nuraeni caught her, and said to her firmly, “No!” Mameh didn't dare argue, for the expression on her mother's face said she wouldn't tolerate anyone touching her wilderness. Mameh gave up and put the machete and stick back in the kitchen.

Only later did Mameh understand what her mother was up to. Nuraeni hoped to make the house as ugly as possible, as much a ruin as she had said it would be on the first day they arrived. Such a depth of bitterness expressed in this ironic manner, as she spoiled the house with flowers, scared Mameh.

She never tried to touch the plants again. No matter how much she wanted to pick the brilliant jasmines or the blood-red roses, she always held back for fear of her mother. Mameh had never seen Nuraeni furious before, anger being Komar's privilege—not until she tried to touch the flowers. It frightened her. She thought that if Nuraeni really lost her temper, the results would be far worse than her husband's everyday brutality.

The flower jungle became more than a nest for snakes and caterpillars; it was a hideout for foxes and thieves. The neighbors did laugh about it now, and Komar continued to crush the flowers. If someone asked what the flowers were for, Nuraeni was quick to reply: “For my funeral.”

Only once did Mameh see Nuraeni plucking flowers, not long after Marian died. She was singing strange ballads, which Mameh didn't recognize. Perhaps they dated back to the time when her mother was still a girl. These melancholy songs flowed, while her fingers tweaked each flower carefully and placed it in her basket. It was as if plucking the flowers were the same as killing them, and her sorrow for them as great as the void left by the baby.

When Komar bin Syueb died, Mameh followed her mother's example by picking flowers for the burial. At first she thought her mother would let her do it, because so little had been given to the dead man, but the look on her face made it clear that Nuraeni disapproved. She had given too much to that bastard already. But Mameh was now a young woman, and didn't always obey her mother's wishes. She kept picking flowers, regardless of her mother's pain.

By this time Margio had concluded that nothing would ever make Nuraeni happy. Certainly not the flowers. As long as they reigned over the yard, turning it into a crazy jungle, Nuraeni's nonsense chats with the stove and pan were unstoppable, a symptom of a grief that never left her. But even if the flower jungle didn't make her happy, it gave her some kind of solace, and for that small blessing, the normally careless Margio was always extra careful around the plants. Nothing else came close to lifting his mother's mood.

Until one day after he had stayed up really late watching a
wayang
performance about the death of Semar, the mysterious and powerful pariah god. He had come home to get something to eat that morning, after briefly sleeping at the nightwatch hut, and he found his mother beaming. He had never seen her like this. There was color in her cheeks. Her round eyes were brighter and, look, she had lipstick on, and face powder, and looked washed and fresh, too.

Warm rice, bawal fish, and coconut and vegetable soup were set out on the dining table. It wasn't often that his mother started so early. He had only expected to find last night's leftovers, and was amazed by the sudden change at home. He whispered Mameh to ask if something had happened, but she was just as baffled, despite being home so much. They checked the calendar and the
Weton
list of holidays, but it was just an ordinary day. They gave up and assumed that her good mood wouldn't last beyond sundown, but they were wrong. Nuraeni became happier every day, despite retaining every ounce of bitterness toward Komar.

With time, her belly gave her away, and Margio realized what was really going on. Nuraeni was pregnant. He also had a feeling that the baby was a girl because, as people said, that's how it is when a woman suddenly becomes exceptionally beautiful during pregnancy. Popular wisdom would be proved right when Marian was born.