Love and Madness (The Boyanese)

How does a marriage break down? Indescribable no doubt, ultimately. 

Why would a person volunteer an account to a complete stranger, a passing acquaintance? A foreigner at that. Stranger on the train perhaps; the instinct to voice. 

Again in recent days on the streets here the repeated sighting of people, young, old, male, female, foreign workers and locals, muttering to themselves; mumbling as they went. Had the city made them mad? In some strange way the sight was not troubling, the sign of the inner cogitation somehow reassuring. There was always so much needed pondering.

For some odd reason the Boyanese had long been confused with the Sulawesi here. In fact the two islands are very different. One of the problems was the variant terminology over the course of a long history. The Indonesian archipelago has had some strong Hindu past; a strong Arab infusion of course. Chinese. Thai seemingly. Dutch of course, and Portuguese. The Anglo-American bite of the cherry in more recent history. 

The island of Bawean, Pulau Bawean, home of the Boyanese, lies off the north-east coast of Java. (Sulawesi was 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 years. It seems during the English colonial period a good number 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 the chap! No-one in Singapore possessed a more extensive collection of kris. (A kind of samurai sword.) On the phone there were 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 on the card. (Doubters revealed shoe-box offices in Sentosa—prime real estate in Singapore—could be bought for seven or eight hundred a month. Easily parleyed into useful prestige.) 

That was one kind of Boyanese. 

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 a fling. 

The fixation with the ceremonial kris was an aid to memory; another strong reminder of the Montenegrins in their stony wastes.

A mild-mannered, quiet, avuncular and uncomplaining man on the road, as he called himself without much self-pity, Mr Yousef. Not a Boyanese himself, nor remotely connected to one. Under no circumstances would Mr Yousef have had anything to do with any Boyanese, you could tell, even before the trouble with his wife. 

It was the Boyanese who had brought Mr Yousef to grief, to this current and long-standing 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 can be Mr Yousef's age and older. Something of a surprise. The comment had been made more than once. Many of the homeless around the place had chosen that course rather than return to estranged family. Social workers would tell you the situation was common all over. 

Three adult children from his 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 from 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 year old and 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 well and good. But what about the decrease in land value? At some time in 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 on the territory. 

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 put some air into the second marriage; release-valve. 

At the same time relations with extended family could be maintained; births, weddings and deaths observed. There over the water the divide was decisive; 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, safe to assume. Sleeps rough. Takes to the air. Got a stash.

The family home in Woodlands was sold some years past. 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; told him she didn't want to see him. 

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 80's. A cop's wage moderate; enough to get by on. 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. No reason for suspicion.

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.
You did what?

She had passed her husband dirty water.
Mr Yousef was nothing short of aghast. 

After work chasing crooks and keeping the city safe, out of the blue confronting 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. An innocent victim.

It was done now. 

Usually as well as spells and invocations, there was a bit of this and that added to the brew: steeping leaves, dash of urine, stirred by a feather, that kind of thing. 

Sometimes the Holy Book was desecrated in these 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 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 Yousef, nor the thug-cop, one neither sees a man capable of mountainous rage and soaring anger. Disgust and disenchantment did not need such operatic emotion. 

Run-away train. All brakes failing. Barriers none, nor useful interventions from any side. 

Sometimes these types of disasters might be averted by a wise, measured intercession. Some respected mutual friend or relative. Thought directed toward the children. Deeply regretted error fully and voluntarily explained. A reckless, desperate action arising from love alone. 

Mr Yousef well knew his wife had acted out of love and nothing else. 

The intervention had been meant to keep him from straying; fears and wild premonitions clouding judgment.

Happy, regular marriage, turned overnight into irretrievable disaster. 

A life, a family, undone at 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 have a three-year-old; Mr Yousef surrogate Gramps. In the next few months the Malay couple expect housing placement. Saturday the man is back on the road for Medan.