Abus

Abus

By Bondan Winarno

If father hadn't forced me, I would never have studied the
Koran under Abus. Never. Abus wasn't my teacher's real name.
Everyone honored him with the Arabic title "Abu," but Father told
me his real name was Bustomi. He himself called him Abu. Even my
grandfather called him Abu. So, we children never called him
anything else, either. People called him Abu Bus, from Abu
Bustomi, to distinguish him from others with the title Abu. And
that's how the venerable Mr. Bustomi ended up with the name Abus.

When I was only nine years old, Abus was already eighty-one.
Nine times older than I was. Imagine! It wasn't surprising that
he always treated me disparagingly. In his presence, I was always
a bumbler. I could never hold my pen the right way when writing
the Arabic alphabet. And I was even worse when I had to read from
the Koran. Whatever I did, something would be wrong.

I didn't like Abus. Neither did any of my friends of my age.
But no matter how hard we worked together, we could never do
anything to him. Our parents would always side with Abus against
us. In my own home town of Petakan, Abus was always right. If
there was ever any trouble at the prayer-house, it had to be the
fault of the children. No one would ever have blamed Abus. In
short, Abus was the Ayatollah of Petakan.

Abus was thought to be the oldest person of sound mind in the
village. To be sure, Mak Nung was older than he was but she
passed her days without rising from her bed, which made her quite
different from Abus.

Abus lived two lives. The first was in the prayer-house where
he led the prayers and taught the Koran. Even though he had never
in his life been married, people said that there was no better
counselor around for giving advice to married couples who were
going through difficult times. And maybe because of Abus'
services, there were never any divorces in Petakan, only
marriages.

His other life was as a bubur vendor, selling black-rice
pudding. At three in the morning he was already up, preparing the
coconut milk, dissolving the palm-sugar, and boiling up the
sticky black rice, the green beans, and regular white rice in big
pots. Then, after leading the morning prayer, he would set up his
humble business on a low table in front of the prayer-house.

Maybe Abus had happened to read a book on sales techniques.
When he was selling bubur, he always had a smile for everyone.
His bubur, which was actually very good, sold well; his smile
always enticed customers to purchase a second helping. In the
prayer-house, however, the smile would disappear from his face.
Every day, except during the fasting month of Ramadhan, Abus wore
these two different faces.

I remember one time Abus belted me with his rattan stick
Whack! Right across my spine, on the thirteenth vertebrae. I
didn't cry, no way, I was ten years old at that time. But my
pride was certainly hurt. I had thought that by my age, I
wouldn't be treated like a little kid any more. And yet, Abus had
beaten me. Even my own father didn't hit me anymore.

After that incident I thought for a long time about how to pay
Abus back for my humiliation. Finally, I came up with an idea:
Abus obsessed with his siawak. Do you know what a siawak is? You
might be revolted if I tell you, but if I don't you won't
understand how I planned to take my revenge. Anyway, a siawak is
an Arabian tooth-brush, made from a short stick of wood with one
of the ends crushed to form a kind of brush. Once, when Abus went
on the pilgrimage, he saw that the Arabs always cleaned their
teeth with such a brush before they performed their prayers. So
he came to the conclusion that his prayers would be legitimate
only if he first brushed his teeth with a siawak, too. You can
imagine how bad it smelt after it had been used over and over
again.

Abus never threw his brushes away. He had made the pilgrimage
six times, and each time he had resumed with a new brush.
Everyone in the village who went on the pilgrimage knew that the
way to make Abus happy was to bring him back a new siawak. He
kept all his brushes in one of the staves of bamboo that formed
part of the wall of the prayer-house, near the spot where he led
the daily prayers.

One night, after the evening prayer, I stole one of his
brushes and took it back home with me. The next day, before
leaving for morning prayer, I poured out a mound of chili powder
and pepper, and rubbed the brush into the deadly pile. I was the
first one to arrive at the prayer house and I put the spiked
brush back in the place where Abus was most likely to reach for
it.

By the time Abus came, another ten or so children were there,
ready for the morning prayer. I tensed when I saw Abus choosing a
brush but breathed with relief when he chose the one I had fixed
for him. Unsuspecting, he began to clean his teeth. A moment
later he frowned. His eyes bulged. And then he hurled the brush
down onto the prayer-mat. As his mouth burned, his curses grew
louder and louder.

I ran out helter-skelter with the other kids. There was no way
that Abus, who was eighty-two at the time, could hope to catch
us. We kids were out of control that morning. Everyone was
frantically trying to guess who had doctored the brush but no one
was admitting to it. I certainly wasn't going to. And there was
nothing to be gained by casting suspicion on anyone else because
most all of us had reason to bear a grudge against Abus.

Because of what had happened none of us had the courage to buy
Abus' delicious bubur, and I went on to school with a very hungry
stomach I kept myself going by putting some fried taro into my
stomach at break time.

None of the kids went back to the prayer-house that day. Not
for the afternoon prayer, not for the twilight prayer, and not
for the evening prayer either.

When my father heard what had happened he asked me if it was I
who had done such a wicked thing. Lucky for me my father was
easily convinced that I hadn't. Father always preferred to be
proud of me.

As it happened, a week passed, and still not a single child
had found the courage to return to the prayer-house. My father
tried coaxing me into going back, but I didn't want to at all.

"If I go by myself and the other kids aren't there, Abus will
probably thrash the daylights out of me!"

My father tried to sway my opinion "At most he'll be angry for
a while. You can put up with that. As an older man who deserves
respect, he feels that you kids have played an unpleasant prank
on him. You'll just have to get over it and face the consequences
like a man!"

"But when Abus beats you he goes completely out of control," I
protested. "If he tries to take a stick to my butt, he's just as
likely to hit me in the eyes and blind me!"

Maybe the idea of me, his one and only male child, being
blinded, gave my father cause for anxiety, for after that, he
offered his services as a peace-maker. He urged all the children
of Petakan to come and face Abus together in the prayer-house.
And Abus couldn't be angry, because my father gave a very fine
speech of apology on behalf of all the children. Abus accepted
our apologies. Then, we, one by one, filed by to kiss his hand.

How were we to know that Abus' desire for revenge was greater
than his sense of forgiveness? The next morning we gathered
together, waiting for Abus to lead the morning prayer. All of us
were there. It was only Abus who hadn't come. Suddenly, we heard
He door of the prayer-house being shut from outside. And then,
click!, it was locked as well. Abus had locked us into the
prayer house. And he just left us there. That was his revenge.

Maybe I'm not the heroic type because I never did own up to
doing what I had done with that siawak. When it came around to
Idul Fitri and you're suppose to ask forgiveness for your wrong
doings, I gave a lot of thought to owning up but, in the end, I
didn't have the courage to say anything. I kept my secret to
myself.

I already said that Abus had made the pilgrimage six times.
That's right. Not that he was the richest man in the village. I
mean, have you ever known a rich bubur vendor? But Abus was the
most frugal man in the village and he saved all his money. His
sarong was stitched and patched and he never ate meat, except
maybe on Idul Fitri and Kenduri when it was given to him. He hid
all the money he earned from selling bubur and the fees that were
paid to him by his students in the bamboo joints of his house.
And when the time came, he would split the bamboo open, and count
his savings. He'd use this money to finance his pilgrimage and
pay the Pilgrimage Fee.

And that's what he did when he turned eighty-three. I, of all
people, helped him split the bamboo open and count his money. I
was the best student of arithmetic in Petakan. And Abus knew
that. I counted his money. He had more than enough for the
pilgrimage fee.

"Praise be to Allah!" he shrieked, throwing his hands in the
air. And then he began to cry.

The night before he left for the Holy Land, Abus suddenly
asked that the tahlil, the last rites, be read for him. His
request unnerved us.

"Just think of me as dead," he told us, "but read the tahlil
for me." Abus had always said that he wanted to die in the Holy
Land. Everyone had heard him say it. And now he was eighty-three
years old, and going on the pilgrimage for the seventh time.

"I may never return," he said. The next morning the whole
village fumed out to see him off at Poncol Station. And there we
were, all of us taking leave of a man going off to die. Abus
didn't cry, but there were many among us who did. When he was
leaving, I almost ran to him to kiss his hand and- tell him that
it had been I who had spiked his brush with pepper and chili
Before he died, I thought, he should know my secret.

But then you have to remember I was only eleven years old, and
in the end I didn't tell him anything and kept the secret to
myself.

And Abus didn't come back. We all thought he had passed away
in the Holy Land, just as he had wished. I began to regret that I
had not asked him for his forgiveness and often, when I performed
my prayers, I prayed that Abus was at peace by God's side and had
forgotten my trespass against him.

Each year thereafter, whenever people from the village made
the pilgrimage they were always told to find out what had
happened to Abus. That if he had died, they were to pay their
respects at his grave. But no one ever came back from the trip
with news of him.

One day, when I was eighteen, which was about seven years
after Abus' departure, an old man suddenly showed up at our
village. He wore a black cloak and was very decrepit but looked a
lot like Abus. Who was he? Everyone wanted to know. Was it Abus
or, maybe, Abus' ghost?

The onlookers stood stiff and silent as the black-robed figure
hobbled along the lane towards Abus' old house which was now
being used by our new religious teacher.

My father was the first to have the courage to greet the
ghost. "Assalamualaikum. Peace be with you!" my father said in
greeting. "Are you Abu Bustomi?"

Everyone looked on nervously from a distance. The figure
nodded its head slowly and my father kissed his hand. Abus pulled
my father towards him and embraced him.

"Abus has returned! Abus has returned!" my father shouted. Now
everyone approached, pushing one another forward to greet Abus
and kiss his hand. Poor Abus, so old and feeble. Don't forget, he
was ninety years old-was obviously touched.

He hadn't died. That meant I still had time to ask his
forgiveness for the incident with the tooth-brush. Now, at
eighteen, I had the courage to do it, even if it meant a
beating.

Father invited Abus to stay at our house, and when Mother
asked him what had made him come back to his birth-place, his
eyes filled with tears.

"Your sayur lodeh and salted fish," he told my mother
haltingly.

So Mother immediately set to preparing vegetables for sayur
lodeh and frying up some salted fish. Our new religious teacher
and several of the other elders were invited to lunch together
with Abus. I wasn't going to be allowed to sit and eat with them,
that was certain, but I stuck around to help Mother, scurrying
beck and forth between the kitchen and the dining room.

Abus ate ravenously. His appetite was truly phenomenal. His
forehead broke out in a sweat. Father put more rice and sayur
lodeh on his plate and offered him more salted fish, which he
accepted happily. The more he ate the more his forehead sweat.
Everyone was happy to see him. He wasn't dead at all. On the
contrary, he was here, beside us, with an astounding appetite.

When he finally finished eating Abus appeared quite
breathless.

"Thank you, Icah. That was an outstanding meal," he praised my
mother. "For seven years I've been longing for food like that."

Mother just nodded in response but I could see tears at the
corners of her eyes.

Abus leaned against the wall while he fanned his face with a
newspaper. He belched, then cried out "Praise be to God." For a
moment he was silent but then cried out again: "God is great!" He
then collapsed at my father's side. Father jumped forward, but
Abus was already gone. Only his corpse remained, lifeless in my
father's arms. Once again, I had missed the opportunity to ask
him for his forgiveness. I stood in a daze as the rest of the
people rushed around making arrangements for Abus' funeral. And
finally, when his corpse was left alone for a moment on the mat
still littered with dirty dishes, I knelt down and kissed his
hands which had been entwined on top of his chest. I whispered
into his ear, begging him to forgive me. I thought that maybe,
just maybe he might still hear me. After all, his spirit could
surely have not gone very far.

-- Translated by Tim Kortschak

The story is taken from Menagerie 3, printed here on the
courtesy of The Lontar Foundation.