Moonshine (update April24)

Near half two on the third visit this time round at Pak Muh’s stall at Beringharjo, high time Anton in the yard received something to slake that mighty thirst of his.

        The usual hand at the throat signed.

        OK Anton, granted... Lads, a drink for the man.

      As always, brilliant kampung folk in attendance at the tables with their bright, lively eyes, furtive looks and ready greetings. Opposite a pair from Kaliurang way. Merapi, the chap had initially answered. The steaming mountain gave secret pride to the inhabitants on the slopes. Faint-hearted orang lived down on the flat by the rivers, keeping birds in cages and finding excitement on the screens. There had been no word for a stretch now of any kind of eruption; lately Sinabung on Sumatra and the other on Bali had stolen Merap’s glory.

         If Anton—and not the more usual Antun—traced some Belanda or other Euro admixture in his family line, it was unapparent in that thick-set Java Man form. Well, perhaps a more fixed scrutiny might suggest something. Parachute Ant into a Macedonian gypsy camp there would have been hi-fives and back-slapping alround.

         Not surprisingly, this afternoon Ant’s sidekick eventually got in on the act himself, trailing on his pal’s coat-tails.

         What about me then, hey?

         Just testing the water; flying the kite. Past visits following Anton this chap too had received the occasional beverage.

         Good and well. Another then there, lads…Yes, him too, when the drinks waiter sought confirmation.

         In the brief indecision, the to-and-fro, there seemed to be some by-play between the lads at the choice of drink here. Perhaps this fellow was going for top shelf, an iced lemon, maybe with extra sugar.

         To-and-fro through the wire fence.

         Playing funny buggers, ah? Can’t make your mind up? What about for you a draught of oplosan, maybe?

         An explosion. Big tonnage too in that cavernous space and reverberating out into the yard.

         Far out! Hilarious! A chorus of a dozen at least, both male and female, returning laughter.

         The blaring had been carefully timed and bruited loudly. Heard by every diner, passerby, all the lads in the cycle yard, their customers and right the way round that central part of Pasar Beringharjo.

         HAHAHAHAHA.

         Even without the recent news there would have been great gaiety. Two or three years back there had been a famous song by that name playing endlessly the length and breadth of Malioboro. On YouTube innumerable renditions made it hard to find the original. The original was a fantastically raunchy slow-beat version masterfully arranged. A killer.

         Oplosan, oplosan…

         The man had claimed the girl’s heart; she couldn’t get him outta her head. A demon lover beyond compare, one unfortunately given to the demon drink. Something like that the lyric went, though it was the arrangement that captured. Limp imitators fell flat.

         At the time it had not emerged that the moonshine was in fact called by that name. Oplosan.

         A week ago a bad batch had done for over a hundred drinkers out in the West around Jakarta and Bandung.

         Ten points to the Bule for that witty grenade.

NB. 1 The camp kitchen @ Pak Muh, with the ablution stalls at the end of the passage and the motor-cycle yard adjacent. (The little mussolah where the girls and women perform their prayers is just around the corner.)
NB. 2. The eating area.

Nowhere To Hide - published in a longer sequence by NWW

A food court behind Beringharjo without a single drinks stall serving either teh tawar or teh jahre — black or ginger tea. (Ginger with susu, milk did not appeal when it was likely condensed.) A short sit without then. Busy lunchtime, a place had been staked with the folder and a couple of mandarins while the teh was investigated. Returning from the scouting, a young lass—fifteen she turned out, in Sec. 3—was found at the table. On the approach she had watched the tall Bule’s stride with apprehension and growing horror, it was later clear. (The handsome panama only added consternation.) Daughter of a cruise ship worker it would shortly emerge, talkative chap keen to practice his English again after a long holiday from that employment. (Cringing from the lass as Dad hoed in indefatigably.) Coming to a stop at the table where the girl was marooned with Dad nowhere in sight, the place clearly marked for himself by this tall stranger she now saw, what was a young lass to do with herself? The usual smile and some little blushing perhaps? Following a brief nod lowering eyes to her lap? What was it to be? Scarved young schoolgirl hailing from a town a couple of hours out and boarding in Jogja at a better class institution, it seemed from Dad’s subsequent explanation. What, would she jump from her chair, grabbing the two drinks that had been placed on the table-top and flee for her life? Really? Not immediately. First, before she could gather herself for the effort, steel her mind and rise to her feet, this young girl would crumple, take to the table-top to hide herself head down on a crooked arm for shame. A trapped animal hopelessly cornered might lose strength for either fight or flight in such circumstance. Oh dear. Surrender complete and utter; hiding her dreadful mortification. Down for the count perhaps five full seconds; perhaps two or three more too. Leaping up quickly after that with mind enough to collect the two tall plastic cups and outta there. (A substitute drink had in fact been accepted at the stall in place of the two preferences—ginger or black—until the girl manning the counter was able only to offer plastic.) Two minutes later here was Dad circled round behind. My daughter. Sorry.... Modesty and delicacy like you wouldn’t believe; deference like you wouldn’t credit. (The panama was not a young man either; perhaps young eyes thought august and impressive—certainly intimidating.) Somehow Dad was able to reassure her they could return to the table, the Bule had expressly invited. Chewing the ear thereafter for all he was worth the man, despite the evident preoccupation with paper and pen; sweet young kid squirming at the bumbling. Four or five times Dad had been round the world. Round world trips were much preferable to circling the Caribbean and suchlike. Once Michael Crichton had been aboard, best-selling No. 1 Jurassic Park. The waiter was given advance notice of the Hollywood film about to go into production at the time. Michael Douglas more than once a guest. Another notable was the King of Jordan. (With his pretty young wife, chap was reminded.) Table Mountain in Cape Town. Anchorage, Alaska. The Bering Strait. Surprisingly there were no visits to China, only HK. (Ten years ago that market was still nascent. How times change.) A real estate venture was now doing well in Semarang. Talk the legs off the chair Dad, go on. The dutiful girl sitting angled away from the eyes of the stranger the whole time, rocking herself now and then. Glimpses of glossy cheekbone once or twice; never the corner of an eye. Dear me, when a loose strand of mee dangled and swung from her mouth, by golly! it did take some reeling in. The ceremony of parting with dad gave the girl time to slip on her mouth mask unnoticed. With that added screen she could bear up beneath the gaze for her own farewell, brown eyes staring out like the fox again and colouring under cover. From the father one would never have guessed such a creature. During formative years he had been absent and it was a pity the mother remained at home.

NB. https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-four-short-pieces/

Holding On

An optical illusion likely, but this new cycle attendant out front at Semesta appears to swing his amputated arm more than the other. The thought was looseness from the lack of weight at the end—the mangling here had occurred in the hand and wrist. Something to be grateful for the fact it was the left, a small mercy. Could he still manage a bike in motion on the roads? That loss would also be a severe limitation for a man here—wheeling the cafe patrons’ bikes for parking as much as he could manage. In stride in soldierly gait the man seemed to have little control, the short arm flopping about like a fish on the end of a line. Nerve ends and tendons shot and possibly he was still becoming accustomed to his condition.

The Guard-House

 Scenes In and Around a Guard-House

The rich luv, just luv to death the secure. Gotta keep em safe; and lottsa not so well-off around the place don’t forget. Stalking ‘em it sometimes feels like when they’re walking to the car door, to the resto and the office. Sends a chill.... Well, that’s overdoin it in these parts, but you know what I mean. Can’t get enough secure. They’ve got state-of-the-art fighter jets, missiles and the like here, if any of the neighbours wanna get narky. But the worry is the dark gardens round the towers, out beside the pool late night and the carparks. What about deliveries? Who really knows what’s lurking in those trucks and vans that come in by the gate? It wouldn’t take much to hurl a rudimentary petrol bomb up against their windows, grab one of the children coming home from school outta the hands of the maids. CCTV, floodlights, gates and barriers need backup from the human element; another layer if nothing else. Therefore Yana @ $70 per 12 hour shift. (Boss gotta pay another $10 levy because he’s a foreigner, never stops reminding him.) What did he say, three through the day and two nights? Beaut gig that particular one, according to Yana, because it allowed plenty of kip on the guardhouse floor under the fan. Enviable slot. The people upstairs don’t know that of course, they think the uniformed Sec. boys are watching out for them every tick of the clock, patrolling the grounds, checking rubbish bins for suspicious parcels. No joke, the really conscientious supers want to know who threw what into the garbage cans

Another Return

Twenty-eight months later changes at Pinang Merah, Red Palm and the Malioboro area generally. The little baby girl at the losmen has a baby sister now and is a baby herself no more. The old ibu initially mistaken as the resident grandma remains herself and the old animist granddad outback same. The pair is in fact unrelated; it seems the former is a kind of long-term family servant—the laundry service here is her province and also most of the cooking; in her old age the cleaning of the rooms now falls to the duty manager. The old man is great uncle to Adhie who runs the place for the extended family and keeps out of the main house. (Almost certainly Adhie’s mother, a regular visitor to what was once her former home—a widow now—endures the old heathen on sufferance.) Adhie is father to the two girls.

            A new manager has been installed by the name of Tyo. (The former, Wahyu, an ambitious and prize-winning film-maker, was never going to hang around too long.) Sounding like a given name, Tyo is actually family name: the young man in his early twenties and purblind—holding paper and phone hard-up against his thick lenses in order to see. Recently returned from his English studies in Papua to his native Jogja because of some trouble here.

            Reports of few tourists lately; Malioboro is certainly far less crowded. And this as the hotels continue to rise and municipal works powering ahead. One side of Malioboro has been re-paved, seating added and new bus-stops built. The old buses too have been replaced by more sleek models, which seem to have immediately impacted behavior. You have to worry what another two and one half years will bring.

A couple of hours after arrival Pieter the Belanda, a make-up artist from Amsterdam, turned up at Pinang Merah with an interesting family history to divulge. Pieter’s grandmother was Javanese from the Eastern side of the island and married in early teens to a Dutchman. As a child during the war the mother experienced things that clearly left a mark upon her. The family had decamped to the Netherlands in the early fifties and when Pieter brought back his mother forty-five years later the woman could not enter the darker alleyways and needed to get off buses when the passengers pressed too close.

            The "mixed blood' back in Holland, as Pieter called them, are a sizable, identifiable group. Even Pieter who appears as Dutch as any of the figures in the paintings of the old masters can be picked by people with a keen eye; picked particularly by other mixed bloods. Manner and gait was the give-away Pieter suggested; the liquid, feminine walk of the Javanese one of the tell-tale signs. As an experienced and credentialed illusionist, Pieter has his own sharp eye that can quickly penetrate ethnicity and all its telling giveaways. The game in the glossy fashion mags was second nature to a man of Pieter’s history; a life-long study from earliest days.

            The becak driver Paijo is on his way back from his kampung out near Cilicap. Naya who has been teaching in Malacca for a few years in town. Amri and her painter husband Luddy hopefully will be met in the next few days too. For the dental work a decision to proceed  only as far as the simple fillings—with its peeling paint and rising damp Bu M.’s surgery does not inspire confidence for Xrays and more sophisticated procedures.

Dark Side of Moon (Dec25)

Down there in the urban centres one gets almost nothing whatever of the old stuff—god, the moral codes, death & the after-life. In these communities all that’s ever present. Imagine, so many prostrating themselves FIVE times EVERY day, without fail often. The other day one young friend escorted the author to a famous old saint’s tomb down by the docks—surrounded, incidentally, by dirty great towers, J P Morgan, Westin, &etc. Saints are present to us Muslims you know, P, quoth Zee. Oh yeah. Chatting, we came to the contentious matter of the combining of prayers; ie. Nos 3 & 4 together, say, cos you were pressed for one reason or another. Zainuddin with his relaxed attitude to such outward observances commonly did that, the young woman was told. Nazeera gave a pitying look, taking care to remain respectful, as she knew of the esteem in which the old Sufi friend was held. Impossible to imagine the difference compared to down there. Dark side of the moon.

NB. Another excerpt from an email exchange with a friend in Oz.

Tireless Courage

UNDETERRED.... Pillar got in the way and the car was beginning to move. Quick-step onward. A van it was. BY DARKNESS, or THE DARK?... UNDETERRED BY DARKNESS. Gothic. Mystical. Wow-wee!... There had been too many When Opportunity Meets Dedication, Endeavour whatever tees sighted in the last few days, a number borne by the most unlikely looking types. There had been a clearance; they were popping up in dark dingy corners sported by cleaners, riff-raff & whatnot. The continuum was advanced here by Undeterred. Five – six percent of the population could field that term confidently without recourse to aids. Here the particular enterprise was only caught as the van moved off along Onan up into the gathering Geylang gloom. Singapore Post no less. Yes, it was no joke: Sing Post was undeterred by darkness. Resolute. Determined. (Excuse me while I retch in that planter there by the plumbing shop. Ah! Sorry bout that.) Nothing could deter; and certainly not the evils of the dark. By dawn there would sit the parcel and letter sent by loved ones in the bottom of your letterbox by the escalator near the foot of the stairs. Go fetch whenever you may care. Sing it loud and give a cheer! the P. O. worked through the night here; tirelessly, let it be known. Neither potholes in the road nor any satanic force would bedevil or deter. Valiant all weathers and all hours. The city could sleep snuggly and unperturbed. Golly! Always nothing less than riveting the sloganeering here; inspired copywriting. There would have been back slaps and hi-fives in the agency for this one. (There was often an evangelical tone.) It was a Chinese thing; one thought back to the old placards of the Mao era, — Let a thousand flowers bloom.... The government was tiresome here too, always the best foot forward, full of action and stir. The insignia was the thunder bolt. In Indo and Malaysia you might put the missive in the post-box and best to follow that with earnest prayer. (Where was there any dark on this island by the way? The shots of Earth Hour recently in the newspaper raised a giggle.)