Shaving again this morning, keeping up appearances, brought back Pak Sulaiman. Since the news from KL Pak Sul had been much in mind. The night before a chap in the gang sitting on his bike, using the rear view to check on sparse whiskers again triggered.
In these cheap rooms in Indo & Malaysia, especially the losmen in the former, keeping that delicate, wonderful beard of Pak’s in perfect line would have been a task of hours. Well, 20-25 minutes concentrated attention certainly, before Sul could allow himself to get out on the street. Like the man in the gang, between times over the course of the day, no doubt there would be further regular monitoring.
Such a handsome figure did Pak cut, adding the judiciously selected batik and regal manner to match. Short of funds and relying on the generosity of the Dato up in KL, nonetheless the full production was always eye-catching. Only a real artist could create that kind of assemblage.
Some years ago Pak’s writings on Islam and his love of the Malay culture had won him the regard of the rich Dato, the owner of an extensive fast food franchise in the northern capital. While Pak Sul was still teaching at the university up there, Dato had promised him a stipend for life, now become indispensable in his precarious circumstances in his eighties.
Recent photographs showed a sorry physical deterioration. The beard had gone, in its place numerous bloody melanomas they must have been over that truly putih face. The saving grace was one young former student’s devotion and the clearly superior nursing home, as evidenced by the swimming pool outside the dining room.
These eight or nine years later Sul’s playing in particular at the music shop in Jogja returned to mind. At the time the performance had been quite startling enough; now with the new perspective the example of that former vitality, the musical capacities and other dimensions of the man, stood against the woefulness of that overthrow up in KL currently.
The broken pavement tiles were no more now around the Malioboro tourist precinct at least. The knick-knack stalls along the strip were no more, cleared out by the municipal authorities and relocated in various corners off the main drag.
As a consequence the area had lost its hustle and some of its charm. The number of becaks, an outstanding feature of the quarter, had been reduced by more than half. It reminded of the sorry case of the Thieves’ Market in Sing.
There were many different writings inspired by Pak Sul. (The man didn’t like the abbreviation. Muslims did not truncate their names like that, he maintained, which was of course quite wrong.) We had gone on two forays seeking possible marriage options for the gallant. We had gone to a poor kampung in Surakarta to assess a family’s appropriateness for financial assistance. (Sul had a fireman in Marseille ready to contribute to a worthy cause.) There were two or three outings to the Subud group, an ecumenical order with some strange practices reminiscent of primal scream therapy.
Preceding all of these there was the music school visit.
Sul was an irascible old buzzard. Decades ago the American family had essentially disowned the convert. The prospective matches smelt out his parlous financial position; in his mid-seventies the impressive beard and attire wasn’t going to swing the deal. Sul needed and deserved special consideration.
Here is one of the earliest passages from the first weeks in the acquaintance, June 2014. The Rameau at the music school.
Mid-morning teh tawas manis—black sugarless tea—on a Chinese corner across from Beringharjo. High tables and chairs with backs, good lighting and fans.
After so long in Singapore, the absence of the Chinese in Central Java was noticeable.
Faris the Arizonan convert had made an unavoidable point earlier in the morning on the return from the music school up a short distance off Sosrowijayan. With his mounting dental problems, soft food was important for Faris; he had spied the sign for bubur in passing.
We had popped into the stall on the way out and returned after his performance, only to find the common Chinese blankness at the encounter with a stranger.
At the stove the woman had not only paid Faris no regard, quickly turning aside, but there had also been a kind of scowl flashed. Something that was not to be endured.
— I'm not going to accept that, Faris declared, turning on his heels and allegro down the steps.
The not uncommon reception from the wary Chinese here, that was in marked contrast to the ready and generous Indos at virtually any encounter. It prompted Faris to recall the terror at the fall of Soeharto.
A room opposite the reception desk at another generic hotel turned out to be the music school Sul had mentioned a number of times, piano one side and two electric keyboards opposite. Dark, drab and tight, the high ceiling was the small concession.
Approaching his mid-seventies, Faris carried a paunch that resulted in a heavy tread. Melanomas had long threatened his pale skin and the last of the teeth were going. (Poor maintenance in earlier years was owned.)
Whereupon at the keys in this lacklustre, unpromising space, a young, energetic and astoundingly nimble sprite suddenly leapt out, as if from behind a fern, with a Rameau improvisation that had been developed decades back by the talented young pianist and his teacher.
Here were racing passages, feinted returns, virtuoso dashes and plunges into sudden depths. The sweep of the movement, its intricacy and force, took a listener away on a breathless chase. You sat flushed listening to that boundless elan.
After the Rameau introduction in the eighteenth century the program progressed steadily in the direction of the present. Two Beethovens and a Schubert were included, before Faris rounded back to Mozart for the finale.
In the event the piece might be found corny, an apology from Faris had preceded the Fur Elise.
The Schubert recalled Faris to Brahmas' love for his friend's wife, Clara. Being a gentleman, Johannes had restrained himself, channeling his feeling into his music, Faris explained.
Closely acquainted with unrequited love himself, as was to shortly emerge, Faris infused his interpretations here with the ache of years past.
In earlier years Beethoven had been Faris's favourite; since the colossus had been replaced by Mozart, who gave some little trouble that morning.
The small room contained all this swelling force unleashed by the Arizonan convert, at Rp25,000 for the half hour. On entry it had been assumed the owner of the hotel indulged the old man, providing access to the instrument. It was a small sum to provide for the privilege of the performance.
Outside returning via the bubur stall, the treacherous, broken pavement needed to be negotiated, piles of soft volcanic dirt in a number of places underfoot and pungent fumes from the road, all of which had not been anywhere apparent earlier coming out.
It was often thus after the music, Faris remarked enigmatically.
Faris had forgotten his mask and cap at the hotel. (2014 well before the Pandemic of course. For a number of years Faris had been using some kind of mask against the traffic fumes. Many of the becaks were beginning just then to convert to motorisation, which Faris decried.)
Yogyakarta, 2014 - 23
