Touched

After some calculation at Beringharjo this afternoon Andi the dishwasher suggested eight for the cloud burst today. (Only lightest grimis, drizzle last number of days.) Setting out for Semesta mid-morning the usual diviner in the gang up from the Losmen reckoned three at the earliest, the same as his erroneous prognostication the day before.

         Through the wire grill Antok in the parking lot cadged for another Es teh – Ice tea, on this particular occasion and for the first time pushing his luck wanting to include a couple of pals. How many was that on offer: satu, dua, tiga?... Ah! Fair enough Antonius. The generosity had been too narrow these many weeks. How was Antok—Antonius sometimes from the Drinks-stand man—to bear up with his workmates without even trying?  

         Shortly before the blind man, the buta had passed, escorted and having his order taken by Andi. There he was again now at the cashier, again escorted. Truth to tell, the blind minstrels had been dodged under the verandas many a month. It was easy. They relied on people coming up to them particularly. Many of the elderly women were difficult to dodge, even the graceless ones shamelessly pressing their demand. In the end rarely were these able to be denied. OK. Enough already. One could not buy three hale and hearty young lads heaving motor-bikes there and allow the buta to pass unrecognized.

         Finally, after the others and somewhat behind his usual time, the baik kawan, good friend regular. A little touched, a little lumpy, baseball cap and songkok  Fridays, glasses, a mumbler and expansive conversationalist with a seeming antagonist of some kind every so often—finger-pointing, nodding, hand-waving dismissals. Out on the street once or twice the man was struck directing traffic like so many other self-appointed civic-minded wardens in this region; another time selling some kind of Muslim somethings from a tray hung around his neck.

         Chap opposite just leaving must have struck him previously or known him from the neighbourhood. Greetings, handshakes. Fellow wide-mouthed looking on with surprise when he saw the same extended to the foreigner in the nice hat, the bule, White. Touch to the heart that the other may not have in fact received.

         A pause. The usual place in front of the mirror on the edge of the first table was occupied today. Chap remained in place standing, a nod given. There may have been a hand flicked out quickly, or a shoulder bent.

         On the table the kacang packets, roasted peanuts. Plastic sachets holding about two dozen shelled peanuts with some fried garlic fragments and lightly salted. Crunchy and tasty. As Amri the owner of the eatery said, full of cholesterol, but Gee, whole-hog discipline all along the line could not be sustained. Chap liked them too taking away for later; acquired a taste for the treats.

         Most afternoons when our times coincided a pack passed to him. It was forgotten how it had started. Certainly the chap had not brazenly asked for one such as in this present case. As we often found each other at the prime table nearest the servery and alongside the passage, when the kacang was fished out from the jar one sideways to the expectant, appreciative hand.

         In the weeks previous, in the last two trips to Jogja, the sign, the warning sometimes given for the special individual, one touched or not right, had been difficult to read. Often it was signed in the immediate presence of the person concerned, as if he or she were blind as well as slow, directly under their noses. Rapid often, easy to miss or pass over. Often the sign was given with a smile if not outright leer that made the signer appear somewhat suspect themselves.

        During the course of such encounters one had picked up a new word, bodoh, usually translated as the harsh “stupid”; the accompanying sign had slipped previously in such exchanges. This afternoon the matter clearly established beyond any doubt. The chap departing had lent over the table for the information offered, the sharp term omitted on this occasion. Hand raised, right fore-finger brought over the brow above the right eye, up at an angle where it crossed the amygdala presumably. A kind of incomplete salute, no mistaking this afternoon.

         There had been a little laugh when the fellow saw the packet passed across; it had explained the brief stand-off previously that had puzzled the man. This was explanation and apology perhaps on behalf of his tribe.

NB. Rp37,000, all up, which included the author’s own gado gado, teh and three peanut packs. About four dollars Australian currently. 

Mourning John in Jogja (Mar25)

  

En route from the stacks to the cashier at Gramedia Sunday we unexpectedly broke into an impromptu chorus of Hey Jude. It was possible the song was playing in-store; otherwise the girl was carrying it in her head and it burst out just as she was being passed at the pen stand.  

Bright red Gram uniform, black trousers, early-20s and unscarved. (As unlikely as it seems in Indonesia, Gramedia might have been able to enforce a non-scarf policy. Difficult otherwise to account for the uniformity. The same regime had been suggested at one or two of the larger department stores further down Malioboro.) 

Hey Juuuude 

(Picking up…) Don't make it bad. 

Judging by the smile, the tuneless, rasping voice was never mind.

Take a saaaad song 

…And make it beeetter. 

Charmed the gal proper. Oh wow! A real film star almost-Beatle in the flesh, walking tall in Jogja. Certainly a White. And the topi! Hat! 

Small wonder the love choked up and could continue no further.  

The aircon made it difficult to know whether the low hum through the store had issued from the three dozen red colleagues standing at their stations.  

Raised chins and a distinct buoyancy had up-tilted Gramedia’s floor on Malioboro that Sunday afternoon. 

Crossing the river in the evening a large wooden bird-house on a balcony caught the eye. Darting traffic, a buzzing head and the rail-line on the other side had distracted there on all the previous passes.  

A large, weathered aviary with four or five openings facing the street on the upper, narrow ledge. A few days later morning light revealed a ramshackle knock-up that had been assembled over some long period, with various oddments protruding. 

The householders here did not sit out on the balcony watching the traffic or the trains pass, nor their neighbours below along the lane. From inside the front room there they heard the birds returning, clattering lightly against the wood, perhaps each identifiable by their particular manner—something like dad back with his Gladstone bag, removing his coat and trudging up the stairs. 

10-12 days before there had been a series of Beatles originals at Semesta that had one lingering, reluctant to leave. Yesterday. She Loves You. Roll Over Beethoven. All authentic un-remastered, contrary to the usual in Sin’pore. 

In some strange way the early 60s purity seemed to issue that night at the café, as outside on the roadway the becak drivers dismounted on the rise and pushed their chariots from behind, cars & bikes slowing to round them.  

Every so often one checked to see whether there were any bare feet among the Sisyphuses. 

All My Loving. She's Got a Devil in Her Heart. Ticket to Ride. 

Lesser, minor tracks from the time were suddenly ringing all heart, light youthful lyrics that far transcended the genre.  

The boys were still pouring out their Liverpudlian souls from the speakers here in what was perfect fidelity, with the volume a tad low in the garden setting, a certain strain for passages that seemed to slip by overhead.  

One had hardly mourned John at all at the time of his death 35 years before. That had needed to be left to the older, impassioned fans. For many friends back then the killing had struck hard.  

That night All My Loving in particular released yearning like it must have done from the original transistors held close to the ear by the teenagers of the time; tenderness channelling directly like lovers’ whispers drilling into the brain.  

The youthful voice through the overhead vines at Semesta in old town Jogja, on the rise from the right bank of Kali Code, produced a distinct vein of remorse for the murdered Beatle.  

         Here the parents of the Jogja youth, and their parents too, had missed these songs first time round. 

 

 

The Rains - Jogja In November (Nov25)

The rain arrived Friday last week around lunch-time, black clouds up in the north drifting over from Merapi. In Jakarta and Sumatra they had arrived the week before and instantly caused flooding. On Sunday community action on the Ciliwung River in North Jakarta had cleared rubbish washed downstream, which had added to the problem. On the same page of the Jak Post today another related item announced the intention of the police to issue fines for motorists who parked under bridges and overpasses during rain-storms. Warnings would initially be given and no action taken against bike-riders, who merely stopped to don weather-proofs; otherwise those attempting to wait out the rain would be issued Rp250,000 tickets ($US18.40). There had not been a drop of rain in Jogja four - five months and it had been late arriving when it came. Friday in the Sosrowijayan urban kampung, householders were immediately out clearing their gutters & drains. Rain like a heavenly assault when the clouds finally broke, fierce battalions machine-gunning the tennis court-cum-football field recently re-surfaced and painted outside Nurul Huda Mosque. With the storm too this playing field that early mornings hosted an aerobic class, transformed into swimming-pool and ice-rink Friday lunch-time for three tear-aways suddenly bursting out from the gang. Two boys and a girl throwing themselves onto the green waves, diving-sliding through the waters. Screams, laughs, cannon-balls & dodges, glistening chocolate and lustrous slick-back. Cavorting baby seals; mythic dolphins such as danced alongside sailors in far distant seas. Four point five years in Singapore, a feather duster would have done for the author looking on open-mouthed from beneath a shelter, staring all-agog and disbelieving. Woweee! Theme-park magically created helter-skelter without authorization, lacking safety-rails and all unsupervised. (The youngest monkey from the tiny corner-store opposite Red Palm Losmen, no more than five, plenty devil in the mite, but knows to return thanks for peanuts.) No alarmed parents or elders interrupting the jubilation, calling or scolding the children.

Barricade (Dec25)

The revisions of the morning at Semesta seemed to make something possibly of the new piece, some sharp probing and venturing achieved in the end, was there? Seemed so. It needed typing; post and be done. There was a small, loyal readership to keep on the drip, a Portuguese & Russian of late, and also Irishman. The Belander, Dutchman had fallen off some while ago and the Ukrainian only occasionally visiting now. Traffic from the U.S. was harder to differentiate.

Oddly, the entry to the PC room at the losmen was screened, roller-door only half-raised. At the front desk the thin legs of Wahyu it had to be.

Light thumb on the discolored rib of the shutter failed to budge it and immediately a caution from Wahyu.

— No, sir.

Cannot, he may have added. But not, please.

An abrupt tone of command, albeit in the lower register, was unusual. In fact, had there been heard anything of the like the six months in Jogja from anyone? No, it had not. Even at home with his wife suchlike for Wayhu would have been rare.

— You can come in, sir. Under.

Wahyu kept his seat before the screen.

The height of the opening meant crouching with bent knees, cawling almost. Inside it was dark and behind Wahyu a youngster was the sole occupant at the row of computers.

For a paying guest, an older man and a senior writer, Wahyu needed to make way.

Day-time duty manager at the losmen, thirty, married with a young son. Three years before Wahyu had won a scriptwriting contest, collecting the handsome prize of Rp5m—around five hundred dollars. In Indonesia certainly a princely sum.          

Games mostly on the PC that was attached to the printer for Wahyu, whiling away the time. Some form of billiards usually; another was a game of numbers in colorful balloons. Sometimes Wahyu searched contests and commercial ventures.

— Just a minute, sir.

Briefest flicker at the pointing finger was enough for Wahyu.

— Yes, sir. Old man…Neighbor. Meningal…

Someone had passed away a little up the gang, an old man. Funeral was that day, possibly not yet done.

The get-together of the men the night before that had included landlord Adhie had been a kind of wake. One chap perched on a motorbike as usual, three or four others opposite against the wall on stools.

Adhie had never sat in the gang on any of the previous visits to Jogja. Family man Adhie, busy and shy. In June Silence Is God had been mistakenly read on one of his tees. A devout, good Muslim—it was in fact Golden.

One or two of the others in the gang were regulars who sat nights along the narrow alley. None of them took their teh outdoors; they just sat and chatted quietly. Earnest, extended conversation was never much in evidence among the Malays. Closer to the station at the first narrow junction there could always be found a little knot of more ragged, slightly disheveled men, who in the Western context would have had beers between their feet. The turn there to the upper end led to the red light quarter.

The wake had demanded Adhie’s attendance, a neighborly duty. Returning late at night and finding Adhie’s face upturned with the others had been a surprise. Earlier in the evening when Adhie was needed for some scanning of documents his wife had indicated he was out at neighbors. The wife had even more limited English than her husband. Wahyu was much more accomplished.

— Just a Muslim practice, Wahyu explained.

The young man was caught by surprise at the challenge from a foreigner, and kaffir to boot.

The objection did not seem to impress Wahyu. It was difficult to tell. Judging reactions in a foreign culture was always tricky, even four years later.

         An ambitious, curious-minded young man Wahyu, interested to have his perspective enlarged. Money troubles were the present focus.

         Ten minutes later Adhie’s sister, who had been staying in the house with her children while her husband was away in Qatar, came along the corridor. She stopped at the outer entry door to the computer room, which she closed and turned the lock. In the gang the casket must have been on the move.

 

                                                                                                             Yogyakarta, Indonesia 2015