A Sacred Cow

By Afrizal Malna

The handful of soil which I picked up in the neighborhood and put into my mouth was still there. While watching the people moving along the street, I saw a worker drop a block of ice which he was carrying on his shoulder. The ice fell on the ground and slipped into the ditch. It broke into pieces and mixed with the foul contents of the murky water.

Suddenly an old woman, who was standing nearby, shouted: "Fire." But as she realized that she had responded incorrectly and startled the people, she covered her mouth with her hand. Lately the residents of this poor neighborhood had become easily upset. Reports circulating here said that their houses would soon be demolished to pave the way for an important project.

Pak Rodji, who lived at the end of a small alley, had sold his house and the entire surrounding plot of land. The people said the buyer of the property retained a large portion of the price because Rodji owed him a lot of money. The buyer was the owner of a nearby shop.

Amid the rapid expansion of the city, the residents of this neighborhood were now facing a bleak future. As the skyscrapers threatened to bury us, the social and economic gaps were becoming wider. We were living under hut ceilings made of pieces of zinc and plastic.

One day as I arrived after attending a meeting with the neighborhood leader to find out about the latest price of land, I heard people shouting excitedly because they said a cow had wandered into the neighborhood. All of the residents came out to see the creature.

There was no grass within the neighborhood, so why had the cow come? The beast moved slowly and gracefully from one alley to another with august steps as if it had known this area for years.

Nobody had any idea where the animal had come from and what had made it visit our parched realm. Some people said the local residents should own it. They also decided either to sell it or slaughter it. But most of the women voiced objections because they had pity for the cow which was so tame and well-behaved.

"Look, it doesn't disturb anybody," they said. They also said that the sound of the cow's lowing evoked a feeling of dignity, which had been absent from the neighborhood for a long time.

***

Almost no day past without the residents finding the cow strolling around in a slow and majestic routine. Sometimes it would stop near a kitchen where a housewife was busy cooking. Another time it would interpose its big head through a back doorway. To the people this cow looked more imposing as its neck was full of knotted veins.

Sometimes the animal would be so relaxed that it would lie down before a front door. At nightfall, it always proceeded to a a nearby place of worship to take another rest. The people said the cow's eyes were cast down every time it heard the people reciting the Koran, the Muslim holy book. Local women said its eyes were like the reflection of clear water at the bottom of a well.

Ever so slowly, the animal became part of our neighborhood. To the residents its presence meant so many things. "The cow has also taught us that this neighborhood is more precious than we ever thought before," they said. "It's not only a peaceful place to live but also it is our heart, our priceless past and our noble and warm spirit."

So their pride in their area took on greater significance. They started to care about its sanitation and to make it more radiant they also had street lights installed. With those simple efforts, the residents started to feel that their sense of social solidarity had been tremendously boosted. Forgotten was the news about the possible demolition of their houses which had in the past been welcomed as holding out the prospect of large compensation payments. They no longer thought about that. What was more important now was that nobody would separate them from their hearths and homes.

"We love our area with all its pluses and minuses. We love its repeated power blackouts and heavy downpours. We also love the disappearance of trees because many have been felled to get timber to build new huts." It is worthy of note that the only remaining tree, which the people believed to be the oldest in this area -- although nobody knew its exact age -- was regarded as a sacred tree. Our fathers used to seek shelter under it.

Now, with the coming of the cow, the story of the sacredness of the tree was again retold. The most senior citizen in the neighborhood said that the tree had been planted by a saint. The holy man had also left behind a sacred cow. But the animal had mysteriously disappeared a long, long time ago.

The disappearance coincided with the aggressive expansion of the encircling urban conglomeration. In nearby kampongs houses were forcefully demolished or burned down to pave the way for the construction of modern buildings and highways. The construction boom also brought satellite dishes and electric lamps.

When I took a taxi from Harmonie to go to the Cileduk district in southwest Jakarta recently through the winding and narrow old streets, the driver told me that the population in the old sections of the city had changed significantly. "They no longer act as traditional cowboy champions because the new, all-powerful factor in society is money," he said.

He added that the new residential suburbs have modern names such as Bintaro, Pondok Indah, Cinere Permai, Lippo City. Nobody was interested in giving them traditional names like Sentiong, Poncol, Tanah Sereal, Tanah Tinggi, Jelambar or Matraman.

While continuing his story the driver suddenly shouted: "Fire." But the shout seemed to surprise him and he tried to shut his own mouth with his hand.

The traffic was now getting progressively worse. The old sections of the city had been hit by floods, he said. And new migrants from the rural areas had invaded our neighborhood. Most of them had no skills and worked in factories. They liked to seek shelter in slum areas sending the previous ethnic groups, which had lived there for ages, to more spacious places in the suburbs. Their old slums had now become the melting pots for new cultures. We now heard strange dialects and the age-old social cohesion had lost its meaning. Our areas had been made an emergency gateway for poor migrants.

Slowly, we realize that we have lost so many important parts of our traditional way of life. Our relationship with the traditional preacher and neighborhood chief, whom we regarded in the past almost as our parents, has now been replaced by a formal liaison between citizens and bureaucrats. The compulsory contributions or "voluntary" taxes have been increased from time to time for no justifiable reasons. Donations for kampong betterment projects are demanded arbitrarily by kampong officials without consulting the residents. Levies are also imposed on shop owners. The ulemas or religious leaders ask for more and more donations for the upkeep of the mosque and to finance religion classes.

Our people have undergone a change of attitude beyond words. In this situation they seemed to have forgotten the sacred cow until one day an old man came to remind us that the cow was actually the old one which disappeared from our vicinity decades ago. The news was taken by the old villagers as something of a shock. This meant that our neighborhood was not for demolition.

The cow had come to remind them that our area was a sacred location. The ghosts of our forefathers have to be summoned to dwell under the old tree.

One day some people tried to take the cow to the tree and tie it there but the animal seemed to prefer to lie down beside the mosque.

Once as I bought a new refrigerator, the color of which was dark blue, a lot of the neighbors were caught by surprise because usually they only buy white ones. Many of them came up to me and wanted to see its interior. My wife was glad to have a new appliance. She said, "I feel very happy because the refrigerator makes our family complete."

That day I suddenly heard a fracas from next door. Someone must have attacked another with plates. I also heard Okot, my neighbor's wife, verbally abusing her husband. "...now you start to dare and degrade me. How dare you say I inherited feeble- mindedness from my aunt, and compare my mouth to a garbage dump. You said you don't need me anymore, you also called my mother a witch, and my family a crew of rat eaters."

I also heard a door being banged. It was followed by the sound of Okot crying. A moment later someone knocked at my door. It was her, with tears streaming down her cheeks. She was looking for sympathy and said she wanted to spend the night in our home. I said OK. My wife provided her with a pillow and sarong and told her she could sleep in the living room although it was very small.

None of us had really been aware that the woman was an immigrant from Uganda. Her name sounded alien and was not easy for us to pronounce correctly. It was something like: Okot p'Bitek. She came to the country with her husband who later quit her for good. After that Okot got married to an Indonesian from the area. The man works as a guard at a factory.

***

That day I woke up at midnight because the weather was unusually hot. I saw that Okot was sleeping soundly. She must have been tired after her bad day. I went out to grab a breath of air. I walked slowly through the narrow alleys until I reached the place where the sacred tree was located. I found the animal with its eyes half closed. It stared at me. The eyes really looked like a mysterious small well of fresh water.

Suddenly I felt a strong sexual impulse inside me. I approached the animal. It welcomed my overture. After it gasped for a deep breath, it kissed my right ear I could feel the warmth of its nose. I kissed its back and hugged it passionately. I took off all my clothes and started to navigate into another world. I felt I was being carried away by the sensual sound of its lowing. The bell, which was hanging from its neck, also produced a mystic sound.

I was not aware how many hours I had been on the cow's back but suddenly, as I regained consciousness, I saw -- but unclearly -- a lot of people around. I heard my wife weeping. I also saw Okot carrying my daughter. The people then took me and the cow to the law court. But it turned out that they did not know to which court they had to go and which article of the penal code they should use against me. So I decided my own fate. I told them, "Let me and the cow jump into the sea."

They said nothing, only some of them cried. I saw my wife weeping sorrowfully. I chose Muara Kamal, on Jakarta Bay, as my execution place. Arriving there, the cow and I slowly walked into the water as the dawn appeared on the eastern horizon. Many more people were standing along the coastline with flashlights in their hands. I saw the mayor among them. He was dressed in a suit.

I was deep in thought about how the city had been developing. It disturbed my mind. The city had been managed under a cloak of mystery. No ordinary citizen knew what the authorities wanted to do with this capital city and how many more houses would be torn down and how many more plots of land would be robbed from the awe-struck earthlings. The neighborhood chief was also a part of this dirty business.

My body and the cow slowly submerged. We have lost our land, our birthplace and now, together with the fishes, we are going to another world. During the journey I saw the roots of the trees which grow in my neighborhood. The roots have their origin under the sea but their tops are nowhere to be seen. But they are our destination.

The mouthful of soil which I put into my mouth while I was at home was still there. My body and that of the cow slowly turned into water and later corral reefs, the playground of the fishes. It was a mysterious world and a time without limits.

Translated by TIS

* Taken from Derabat, Selection of Kompas's best short stories 1999, courtesy of Kompas daily.