How does a marriage break down? Indescribable no doubt, ultimately.
Why would someone volunteer an account to a complete stranger? A foreigner at that? Stranger on the train phenomenon perhaps. The instinct to relate.
For some odd reason the Boyanese had long been confused with the Sulawesi here. In fact the two islands were very different. One of the problems was the variant terminology over the course of a long history. The Indonesian archipelago has had a Hindu past; a strong Arab infusion of course. Chinese. Thai seemingly. Dutch of course and Portuguese. Anglo-American in more recent history.
The island of Bawean, Pulau Bawean, home of the Boyanese, lies off the North-east coast of Java. (Sulawesi is the third largest island in the archipelago, after Java and Sumatra.)
A number of Boyanese had been encountered in Singapore. Travel between the islands went back many, many years. During the English colonial period good numbers of Boyanese set sail for the opportunities in Singapura.
One local Boyanese identity strongly recalled the old Montenegrins from the leading hill clans. How the pride pulsed in that breast! No-one in Singapore possessed a more extensive collection of kris. (A kind of samurai sword.) Numerous photographs with dignitaries and royals in Malaysia. Dr. Mahathir had made an offer for some prize possession. A certain community standing had been obtained by the fellow because of his interest in ancient Islamic manuscripts. If you wanted to see precious books, give him a ring some time. Sentosa address.
Watch out for the Boyanese, you were told. You wouldn't want to mess with a Boyanese girl for example, one would never get away with it.
The fixation on the ceremonial kris was an aid to memory.
A mild-mannered, avuncular and uncomplaining man on the road, as he called himself, Mr Yousef. Not a Boyanese himself, nor remotely connected to one.
Under no circumstances would Mr Yousef have anything to do with any Boyanese, even before the trouble with his wife.
It was the Boyanese who had brought Mr Yousef to grief, to this predicament of his on the road.
On all sides at lower Geylang Mr Yousef was greeted. Elderly upright old men and the younger generation too clearly held him in the same esteem. The respect accorded immediately apparent.
More often than not Mr Yousef sat alone; ate alone. The lot of a retired policeman, perhaps, even one esteemed.
Smoked his cigarettes legally off away from the tables.
Rough-sleepers in Singapore could be Mr Yousef's age and older. Many of the homeless chose that course rather than return to estranged family. The situation was common.
Three adult children from the first marriage; eldest daughter forty-four. Twenty-three years Mr Yousef had been out of the family home at Woodlands, over by the Causeway that separated Malaysia.
The girl was in her early twenties at the time of the blow-up. Every year Mr Yousef tracked the ages of the children from his first marriage.
At sixty-eight Mr Yousef had two younger children with his second wife in Medan, Sumatra, sixteen & five. The second wife called Mr Yousef Papi.
A house and land bought in Medan where the young wife had declared she would bury Papi within the family compound.
Don't, Mr Yousef told her. The respect and honour was good and well. But what about the future when the property might be sold, who would want some stranger's bones into the bargain?
As a Singaporean, Mr Yousef received only a thirty day visa for Indonesia, the same as an Australian. Even after nearly twenty years of living in the country.
More importantly, the Singaporean pension called Mr Yousef back to his homeland. One could transfer to an overseas pension, but that depended on all going well with the authorities and all the channels. Better return in person.
This also refreshed the second marriage; provided a release-valve.
At the same time relations with extended family could be maintained; births, weddings & deaths observed. There over the water there was a divide; even at the close proximity.
Twenty-three years to-and-fro between Medan and Singapore. A homeless rough-sleeper flying in an aeroplane a dozen times a year. The irony was far from lost on Mr. Yousef.
People chattered about it no doubt. Sleeps rough. Takes to the air. Got a stash.
The family home in Woodlands was sold some years ago. Mr Yousef signed the papers. His fifth share of nearly eighty thousand dollars at the time never came through. The daughter had probably seen to that. When he went out to her house to enquire she closed the door in his face.
The daughter would doubtless have her own story to tell. This is Mr. Yousef's side of it.
Three kids, twenty and down back in the early ‘80s. A cop's wage moderate; enough for getting by. Five-room flat in Woodlands could be bought outright before the boom.
A good Muslim does not drink, does not gamble. Back then Mr Yousef did not even smoke.
The sense was that Mr. Yousef never played around. Twenty three years later it might be difficult to tell, a man in his late-sixties. You would guess there were no additional darlings on the side even in those earlier years.
One day out of the blue Mr. Yousef finds his wife of more than twenty years in tears. Head down on the kitchen table, wailing.
What's wrong?
Wailing. Grief and guilt.
What's wrong?
— I passed you dirty water, Mrs Yousef confesses.
Did what?
She had passed her husband dirty water.
Mr. Yousef stood aghast.
After work chasing crooks and keeping the city safe, out of the blue confronting something like this at home.
There had been no reason. Mr. Yousef had given his wife no reason. Had there been a reason the disaster following could not have taken the form it did, you would think.
Mr. Yousef had no inkling. Stood dumbfounded.
It was done now.
Usually as well as spells and invocations, there was a bit of this & that added to these brews: steeping leaves, dash of urine, stirred by a feather, that kind of thing.
Sometimes the Holy Book was desecrated in the black rites.
You paid for it all of course too; the bomoh didn't provide service gratis.
A Boyanese had got into Mrs Yousef's head.
If you wanted a bomoh, if you were desperate and sought first-rate, it was best to consult you-know-who. The Boyanese.
Actually the wife, Mrs Yousef, loved her husband. Mr. Yousef, Man on the Road, knew that then the same as he knew it twenty-three years later.
Trouble was he was the wrong man to try that on.
Just as one does not see the former philanderer in Mr. You, nor the thug-cop, one neither sees a man capable of mountainous rage and soaring anger. Disgust and revulsion did not need such operatic emotion.
Run-away train. Tearing up the tracks. Brakes failing.
Sometimes these types of disasters might be averted by a deft intercession. Some respected mutual friend or relative. Thought for the children. Deeply regretted error fully and voluntarily explained. A reckless, desperate action arising from only love.
Mr. Yousef well knew his wife had acted only out of love and nothing else.
The intervention had been meant to keep him from straying; fears and wild premonitions overcoming.
Happy, regular marriage, turned overnight into trash.
A life, a family, undone by the hands of the Boyanese.
Around one AM as the staff at Labu Labi opposite Geylang Serai lock-up shop, Mr. Yousef and a young Malay family begin arranging the red and orange plastic chairs. The veranda provided shelter. Currently it was monsoon season. Blankets fetched from a cupboard in the adjacent corridor. The Malay couple had a three-year-old; Mr. Yousef surrogate Gramps. In the next few months the Malays expected housing placement. Saturday the man was back on the road to Medan.
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