Friday, November 27, 2015

The Muezzin


Landlord Adhi's mother identified the man positively. Yes, she was sure, Pak Yatin. A little shy smile at the challenge. Sorry to appear doubting Ibu.

         Where had those sandals gone?... In the sarong ten metres along the gang was quite alright, numerous men attended Nurul Huda in sarongs.

         Nurul Huda Masjid in Gang 2, Sosrowijayan, this one particular muezzin was a standout.

         A few days before Wahyu the day-shift manager at the losmen had suggested a chap named Pak Yatin. Adhi the landlord confirmed: the chap in question could only be Pak Yatin.

         The problem was a definite match for the particular voice. There were now three or possibly four muezzin making the various calls from Nurul Huda, one at least a newbie introduced in the last few months. The new chap and the old mainstay were the clearly distinct voices; one other certainly in the mix and possibly two. 

         No pattern was evident. How the men organised themselves was unclear. A roster of some kind was doubtful.

         With his prima donna straining the newest, younger voice positively irritated. Earlier in the year Nurul Huda had been free of this kind of put-on, all the voices emanating from older men reaching through mature contemplation for the call to their brethren. This new chap suggested he had opened a direct line to the beyond. It made painful listening; made one positively wince in the room and out along the paths. 

         Given the example of the other this fellow was a travesty. The chap seemed to be auditioning for a recording contract, the volume on the amplifier always turned up to the max. In the case of the other, Pak Yatin—if Yatin was truly the man—the volume was often erratic, sometimes barely audible in the beginning, and at other times oscillating as the call progressed.

         The stand-out muezzin was not on top of the technology. An old guy, a grey-beard one suspected, one with plenty of inner fibre retained. Landlord Adhi's uncle who lived in back, a kind of classic Byzantine saint in aspect, would have been perfectly fitting were the man not in fact an old Javanese animist. (At first meeting earlier in the year he had wanted the matter known.)

         The reconnoiter that evening following Landlord Adhi's mother's identification bore no fruit. Looking into the mosque from the gang the men within could not be differentiated. In the far corner the pulpit stood with microphone attached. From the gathering of men it was impossible to tell who had just delivered the call. One still hesitated on a touristic pass through a mosque, especially a small neighbourhood house of worship.

         The reason Pak Yatin was dismissed at first sight when the man of that name unexpectedly turned up one morning for some repair work at the losmen was because he was too young to fit the bill. Unlikely-looking in person and too young.

         For a number of weeks on this last visit the chaps passing along the gang out front of the losmen were scanned. Two or three weeks previously when the hunt began in earnest Wahyu had suggested an older fellow who always wore a songkok, with hair grown out behind. In his seventies, Wahyu guessed. The man usually wore a sarong when he attended the mosque and called the azan, Wahyu added. Promising.

         There were a couple of prospects penciled as they passed one way or the other along the gang, one thin old chap in particular who looked about right coming from houses somewhere toward the station. A slow-stepping fellow like him, spare frame, still healthy, with fairly thick grey strands a few inches behind seemed close to the mark. 

         The man sought was perhaps an ex-smoker; the remaining strength of voice suggested the habit had been overcome. Retired, an honoured paterfamilias; quiet and unassuming. If one could lay eyes on the man before the microphone the sight would be something to behold. 

         To date the only muezzin who had ever been seen in action was at another small neighbourhood mosque in a narrow gang not far from Nurul Huda. Chap had been glimpsed passing the open doorway and footsteps needed to be retraced. The example of this man had suggested that muezzin required some privacy in the mosques in order to perform his particular duties. At this mosque a five or ten minute walk on the other side of Sosro the muezzin had stood in the front corner turned to the wall, microphone in one hand and the other providing some firm bracing it appeared clutching the back of his head just above his shirt collar. 

         Amplification in the last decades meant muezzin no longer needed to climb up into their minarets to deliver their calls to the four quarters.

         Like any great vocalist, this particular man's phrasing at Nurul Huda was unique, quite inimitable. (There was in fact a hint that the prima donna had given it some study.) Some part pleading might have been involved in it; at his age the question of personal salvation, while not necessarily the specific burden carried, must have been bound up. One heard a predicament, a certain fraught position implied in the rendition of the verses sounded by this muezzin. 

         Allahu akbar / Allahu akbar.... Hayya 'ala salahh / Hayya 'ala 'l-falah.

         God is great / God is great.... Come to prayer / Come to victory 

         In this man's vocal posture there might have been sufficient enough sense of individual worth and dessert, a not unreasonable hope maintained; that however of course remained entirely for Allah to determine. Certainly there was no room for complacency in this muezzin's stance. Modesty, frankness and perhaps above all submission such as one had never heard in a Christian context. 

         The man was compelling. As an Intercessor, if that were possible in Islam—which seemed not to be the case, despite the prayers of others always being valued and actively sought—a chap like this would be highly esteemed. Under the sway of the man's rhythms and elongated notes one stumbled in pursuit. Tellingly the year before, Faris the Arizonan convert had revealed it had been an Iranian muezzin in the Shah's time who had finally brought the American over to Islam. (No-one ever converted from Quranic readings, Faris had added.)

         After three or four other voices in recent days, on the Friday the maghrib had been delivered by the man, Pak Yatin. All were in agreement.

         A day or two prior a workman had appeared at Red Palm beginning repairs on the sagging eaves out front over the entryways. Mid-year a couple of other chaps had worked on the division of a room at the losmen, constructing a party-wall of bricks and mortar, a pair of bathrooms, floor-tiling, architraves and jambs labouriously chiseled from the timber. For the present Adhi could only afford aircon in one of the rooms. The pair of workmen were fine jovial sorts, the chief with his moustache and flatcap a kind of character leapt out from the pages of a children's picture book—Happy Jack the candle-stick maker, whose product was delicious sherbet. The repairman for the eaves was another kind of fellow.

        Not far into his fifties, a ready and able all-rounder it was easy to see, Yatin. Sturdy and capable, moderate and well-mannered; a tradesman from two or three generations past in the Western case.

         Slight squint; at a brief encounter on his second day numerous gaps in the teeth were visible. Typical warm smile, from a face that looked incapable while the man was wielding his pliers. 

         Men like Yatin got on with their tasks, working steadily and surely. Pak Yatin had at the same time a young face and one deeply cut and creased. In the usual way, in coming days he would be difficult to recognise in passing.

         This could not be the man, Wahyu was immediately told. Too young for one thing. 

         Only thirty himself, Wahyu could not be expected to judge ages. This man the young would-be screenwriter had in his mid-sixties. (In another case Wahyu had been out fully twenty years.)

         Pak Yatin could pull rusty nails alright. Swing a hammer. You could not imagine him concentrated at the microphone up front at the mosque producing those tones that had one in such thrall.

         Sometimes a child's lullaby sounded in that voice. Many evenings one was pinned to the bed listening for the reach, waiting to hear how far it might rise and fetch. Some kind of preamble for the usual surat for the maghrib in particular carried this uncanny lulling, in

uniquely soothing tones. 

         Twice this had been clearly and positively identified as Pak Yatin. His signature hoarse voice, landlord Adhi's mother indicated on one occasion by a clasp of her throat.

         Pak Yatin still smoked, though not incessantly; during the works he was never seen with a cigarette dangling, as had been the case for the pair earlier in the year. One Friday when Pak Yatin worked under lamplight at Red Palm he was found later in a camouflage tee passing the front of the losmen on his way to the mosque. A hard body man. Shortly after he was unexpectedly encountered seated on the steps opposite the children's playground smoking. 

         Positive identification. Landlord Adhi's mother had been in that house opposite Nurul Huda almost forty years. Mystery solved; a face and form could be put to the voice. 

         Almost four months hearing the calls from Nurul Huda and studying them in some kind of fashion. In some sense it had been the muezzin who had drawn one back to Red Palm three months after the first visit, 4AM wakings notwithstanding. 

         One had long accepted the liability of a tin ear. (What must Mozart's famous discrimination in quarter tones have meant for life experience?) Still there was no expectation of a spanner in the works near the beginning of the final week of the fourth trip to Jogja.

         Tuesday 24's dzuhur call approaching noon. As the voice sounded the noisy fan on the wall of the room was as usual turned off in three not-too-rapid clicks.

         Almost immediately the realisation struck. 

         It was clear an error had been made. A confusion. This now was not Pak Yatin. Yatin stood to the side of this particular man.

         The new aircon room at Red Palm was windowless. There were glass bricks over the bed-head providing some pallid light, but no ventilation and no direct access to outdoors. 

         Better reception could be achieved by kicking open the magnetic catch on the bathroom door for the small ventilator in the ceiling that funnelled purer notes into the room.

         Pak Yatin was in a direct line with this muezzin, a descendent and pupil. The confusion was now understandable.

         Out on the front veranda Wahyu and Landlord Adhi's mother confirmed what had been immediately and abundantly clear. No, this was not Pak Yatin. This was…. 

         ....Ahmadwaji needed some short grappling.

         The description of another sarong man, minus long strands behind in this case.

         Sandal search again. Again the thin Polynesian sarong doubled in front was perfectly decent no matter which young girl might be passed in the gang.

        Once more two or three figures lurking within Nurul H. made identification impossible. It seemed too that the azanwas not delivered from the pulpit. As most of the older men here often spoke almost no English, putting the question was not possible either.

        Waiting-out the quarry was the only recourse, with Wahyu happening on hand.

        Ahmadwaji would be along shortly. (For some reason Ahmadwaji needed no dignified title.) 

         Wahyu did not attempt to mask his boredom. Ahmadwaji held even less interest for Wahyu than Yatin. The wait went on. One could be unlucky, Wahyu half-apologised, suggesting the man may have taken a snooze indoors, what with the rain started.

         Wahyu was surprised and a little bewildered at all the fuss. For Wahyu the quality of voice of the muezzin was unimportant. Wahyu had a particular ustad for his weekly Quranic classes, a respected and trusted man still in his thirties who gave what Wahyu considered wise and vital counsel. Yatin the repairman and Ahmadwaji were neither here nor there for Wahyu. Such men might be only functionally literate (Yatin had not a word of English); none of them could approach the understanding and insight of his ustad, Wahyu maintained.

         A passing shower in the event.

         — Come sir. Come.... There, you see?... The old man.... No, the one standing with cigarette.

         Two men but one cigarette. It was a familiar face. If Yatin had been slightly, ever so slightly, disappointing in his person, the figure of Ahmadwaji had nothing whatever to do with that remarkable force of delivery in his call to prayer.

         A scarecrow figure thin and slight, flap-eared, blinking behind his glasses and stooped. Later the old photographs of blind Gus Dur the former President came to mind. 

         On the way to lunch a slow march past the mosque offered a close examination. 

         More rain to come, the man Ahmadwaji agreed in a sparrow voice, returning English to the bahasa he had received. 

         With another there Ahmadwaji had been scanning the clouds. Some evenings Ahmadwaji sat on the steps opposite the mosque smoking and watching the children’s kites riding a breeze that was imperceptible on the ground. 

         Pak Yatin had been acknowledged for his striking calls. In the case of Ahmadwaji one had held back.

 

 

 

                                                                                                Yogyakarta, Indonesia

 

Sunday, November 22, 2015

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 gadoteh and three peanut packs. About four dollars Australian currently. 



Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Mourning John in Jogja


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 twenties 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! The 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 on all the previous passes there. 

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.

Ten/twelve 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 case 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 and 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 thirty-five 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 poured out a yearning like it must have done from the original transistors held up 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.


Thursday, November 12, 2015

The Rains (Jogja In November)




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 for four or five months and it had been late arriving when it came. Friday in the Sosrowijayan urban kampung householders were immediately out clearing their gutters and 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 that 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 and 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 came to interrupt the jubilation, call or scold the children.


Saturday, November 7, 2015

Barricade



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 it? Seemed so. It needed typing; post and be done. There was a small, loyal readership to keep on the drip, a Portuguese and Russian of late and also Irishman. The Belander, Dutchman had fallen off some while ago and the Ukrainian only occasionally visiting now. The traffic from the U.S. was more difficult to differentiate.
         Oddly, the entry to the PC room at the losmen was part screened, the roller-door only half-raised. At the front desk the thin legs of Wahyu it had to be.
         Light thumb on the discoloured rib of the shutter failed to budge and immediately brought a caution from Wahyu.
         — No sir
         Cannot, he may have added; but not please.
         A tone of command, albeit in the lower register, was unusual for Wahyu. In fact, had there been heard anything like it in six months in Jogja from anyone?... No it had not. Even at home with his wife suchlike for Wayhu would have been out of the ordinary.
         — You can come in sir. Under.
         Wahyu kept his seat before the screen.
         The height of the opening was no more than a metre. Inside none of the lights were on and behind Wahyu a youngster the sole occupant at the row of computers.
         For a paying guest, an older man and a senior writer too, 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 and collected the handsome prize of Rp5 million—around five hundred dollars. In Indonesia certainly a princely sum.           
         Games mostly on the front PC that was attached to the printer for Wahyu, whiling away the time. Some form of billiards that was usually won; another a game of numbers housed in colourful balloons. Sometimes there was searching contest openings and money-making ventures. On this occasion another kind engagement was keeping the man.
         — Just a minute sir.
         Briefest flicker at the pointing finger was enough.
         — Yes sir. Old man… neighbor. Meningal….
         Someone had passed away a little up the gang, an old man. Funeral was today, possibly not quite done.
         The little get-together of the men the night before that had included landlord Adhi had been a kind of wake. One chap perched on a motorbike as usual, three or four others opposite against the wall on stools. Adhi had never sat in the gang on any of the previous visits to Jogja. Family man Adhi, busy and a bit reclusive. In June Silence Is God had been mistakenly read on one of his tees. A devout good Muslim—Golden in fact.
         One or two of the others in the gang were the regulars who sat along the narrow passage chatting nights. None of them took their teh outdoors; they just sat and chatted quietly. Earnest, extended conversation was never much in evidence among the Malays. Up 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 analogue would have had beers between their feet. The turn there to the upper end led to the red light quarter.
         The wake had demanded Adhi’s attendance, a neighbourly duty that needed to be performed. Returning late at night and finding Adhi’s face upturned with the others had been a surprise. Earlier in the evening when Adhi was needed for some scanning of documents his wife had indicated he was at some neighbours. The wife had even more limited English than her husband; Wahyu was much more accomplished.
         — Just a Muslim practice, Wahyu explained; and was caught by surprise at the bold challenge from a foreigner and kaffir.

         The objection did not seem to impress Wahyu, but 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 Adhi’s sister, who had been staying in the house with her children while her husband was away working in Qatar, came along the passage to close and lock the entry door to the computer room in order to seal us off better still. The casket might have been on the move.

                                                                                                             Yogyakarta, Indonesia 2015

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Homer in Java




There had been earlier talk at the lunch table. Opposite a young, recently married couple they might have been were zelni price, desirous of talk the Montenegrins say. For a short while there was a hope the pair might be brother and sister, perhaps platonic friends. She was too pretty for the boy, had better English and more spirit. Would a young wife smile quite as much as that and extend the conversation so far? Not for the first time that kind of allowance was found freely granted by a Javanese husband. (Being able to engage a foreigner at such length was something of a feather in the cap of a young Javanese husband.)
         Another beautiful head-scarf. It took so very little. Even a drab single-coloured scarf could work wonders. Well into the fifth year in the region, it was still difficult to fathom. What an array of benefits were involved for a woman first of all. The simplicity, the freeing from the tyranny of the hair salon, the wonderful eye-catching tented fabric like a Cleopatran head-dress and the child-like framing of the face.
        The pair had recently returned from an ocean cruise that took in both Alaska and also Hawaii. It was the first tale of this kind heard in Indonesia. In Singapore one would not have blinked an eye—that cabin-fevered hot-house was escaped at any possible opportunity. Flipping from Hawaii to Alaska was a novel combination, just the kind of breaking-of-mould adventure that was most highly prized in places like Singapore. But an Indonesian voyage of that scope?
         It was in Alaska that the young woman had bought the fine, delicately spotted long-sleeve tee that was partly visible beneath the fall of her scarf and that had been available in the hipster outlets in Melbourne five years before. Husband had not objected to a light touch on the sleeve.
         Was this serious dollars opposite then? A month’s cruise presumably—or at least an air ticket involved in order to join ship up north somewhere. Big money.
         Alaska had not really been that cold; summer, about ten degrees. Hawaii was hot like Java.
         Loaded but wearing the wealth lightly and taking lunch at Pak Muh’s at Beringharjo? One dollar meals and ten cent teas.
         The common Javanese poise even in the young here was impressive. There might be a seriously rich contingent that eschewed glitz and unfortunate Westernization. Quietly, unostentatiously wealthy, an old Vespa parked around in the back-lot of the market.
         A more straightforward explanation emerged: the young man worked on the ship, probably as a waiter. Many of the younger generation sought those positions for the rich remuneration. That was all. Sometimes it was not easy to guess.
         The luncheon companions with whom one had arrived had been badly neglected. A pair of East Javanese casual business partners, they were destined to be disappointed with the fare at Pak Muh’s. In Jogja Amy usually ate at the McDonald’s in the mall, always doing good trade. At the outset Jedid had made the joke about the sweetness of the food in Central Java. Being so delectable themselves, the Central Javanese girls cooking and serving merely in proximity to the food ensured it was richly sweetened.
         A vain plea had been made for the Easterners’ OJ to be “less sweet”. In the end Amy had tried neutralizing the sugar with a spoonful of sambal; until the colour of the respective glasses was compared it seemed another joke from Jedid. The bakso—beef meatball—soup was the same: barely touched by Amy. At another meal around on Sudirman a few weeks before the menu had confined Amy to chillied kangkung—mostly translated as water spinach. Easterners commonly had problems with the food in Central Java.
         The spicy Easterners needed to attend to some business and the Alaskan trippers excused themselves shortly after. (Among the Malay peoples leaving a table, and especially leaving a fellow alone, was a matter for regret that required an excuse and apologetics.)
         A little quiet time after lunch was not going to be had either. (Sundays were especially busy at Beringharjo and at Pak Muh’s.) Hard on the heels of these departures another family group and from the outset keenly eyeing the foreigner. The mother in particular could not hide her interest.
         Briefest side-glance suggested little of promise. Angled away from the newcomers and fixed with pen and paper they could be ignored for a time. The bench-seat with the back could comfortably fit only three. It was not clear immediately that the father had retreated to the passage-way behind where he intended to take his meal on his feet in fact.
         Impossible to permit of course. We bunched close. As the young daughter had the more accomplished English eventually she was inserted by her elders beside the foreigner. And away we went.
         A closer look at the outset would have immediately told this was another fine, warm and loving family. Everywhere one ventured in this region it was the same, families holding together excellently well. It was remarkable. Often a kind of picture-book cast from missionary pamphlets was suggested. (An odd English Wycliffe missionary had been encountered at a stall in front of Beringharjo the night before.) Watching the loving and devotion in all the small acts of sharing a cheap meal could utterly captivate a foreigner. In the cheap eateries in the Malay quarter of Singapore, in Malaysia and Indonesia, an outsider could share a long table and more often than not was invited to join the magic circle.
         Dodi was a phys. ed. teacher and taekwondo instructor: middle-aged, tall, erect and in good trim. Luckily for the wife he was not a philanderer, one could immediately see. The young first year university accounting student was a beneficiary of a settled, good union. More picture-book perfection incarnate.
         The family lived in a small town called Jumprit near Magelang; Borobudur was the more prominent marker. Near Jumprit again was a locally famous spring it seemed. Communication was halting. Dodi had a smattering of English too and father and daughter bounced off each other not very successfully. Pictures on the phone showed a kind of rivulet with old worn stone steps in one shot. Not a lake and something less than a river. The water at Jumprit had special properties, like the zam-zam at Mecca; “my Mecca”, Dodi had said, meaning his as a Muslim. (In Singapore once a Hadrami had suggested he went to Mecca to see “my Prophet”—Mohammed’s grave.)
         There was not only health-giving water at Jumprit. In recent time a farmer digging in his padi had unearthed some kind of elaborate stone carving. Word was the potential relic here at Jumprit might be larger than Borobudur. The archeologists were slowly working away.
         Jumprit was certainly worth a visit; it was beginning to come under the notice of foreign travelers. The Sugiharto six room house in Jumprit now had three empty rooms. A son was away in Canada on his studies and an elder daughter somewhere else working on a doctorate in chemistry.
         If the foreigner would like to visit the Sugihartos would be greatly pleased to host him. The rooms were vacant. No money. No money. A third time too that was reiterated: this was no fishing expedition for dollars from a rich foreigner. The matter seemed perfectly clear without the reassurances. This kind of earnest hospitality was not unusual in Indonesia and certainly not unusual for a Montenegrin witnessing. The high honour of providing hospitality in the Balkans generally went back to Homer and likely far beyond. Elements of it remained in modern day Montenegro. It continued to flare brightly there on occasion still despite the extensive tourist enterprise.
         Being on the receiving end in what was after all a foreign culture continued to catch one slightly by surprise, that was all. The Greeks, Serbs, Albanians and Montenegrins had nothing to teach the Javanese in regard to hospitality.
         In the extended offerings, the pleas and reassurances, what came to be added too again surprised only because of the uncannily close parallel. To have something of that particular kind plainly articulated here in the tropics in precisely the same familiar terms was what struck.
         Perfect strangers at a table thrown together by accident not twenty minutes earlier.
         Poor old Grandma Stana was fated never to see her eldest or favourite son again after their immigration. The old woman would be denied. In the years of absence while hope still remained Grandma Stana’s hospitality and generosity was even more strongly evident than usual, especially for strangers or wayfarers. Poor Gran never missing any opportunity, leaping with alacrity at the slightest chance and never failing. Thirty years after her death former orphans and the destitute in the village, a series of old women, took the young grandson’s hand to kiss in appreciation of the kindness.
         With three sons in fact wandering the sirok bjeli svjet, wide white world, all the old grannie could do was perform what acts of kindness were available to her on her side. Never tired in her endeavours; lost no opportunity.
        Dodi the taekwondo master—the daughter had been asked his rank—put the matter quite explicitly; rather baldly and bluntly and in the strained foreign language with no special force of feeling apparent.
         As a Muslim it was his duty, Dodi informed in a kind of school-masterly manner, to offer what hospitality he could. By this means perhaps, a fond father—and the mother too no doubt—hoped someone in Canada would extend the same to their son, Dodi suggested. (The wife and mother’s mute pleading, nodding and prompting the other two, flowed out from her like light on running water.)
         If a companion came additionally to Jumprit that was fine too, a small party could be accommodated. Three rooms vacant. Dodi originally hailed from Semarang, the capital of Central Java up in the north where Dodi’s parents still lived, a town that had been on the author’s radar for some while. Dodi had a car; he would happily provide a tour of his home-town three or four hours away. He went up regularly. Numbers and email provided. A king tide of generosity that one sincerely hoped might indeed ripple out in some fashion to the northern hemisphere.