Friendship

By Sory Siregar

If someone smiles and tears well up in his eyes, what is the meaning of the smile? It could be interpreted in many ways. But I have my own interpretation. The smile Yamani gave me was the product of sadness and joy.

Yamani gave me a hug after his smile. We embraced tightly. After disentangling ourselves from our hug, he asked me to be seated.

"I heard about your release from Togar an hour ago, so I rushed here before your departure for Medan," I said somewhat loudly to make my words audible over the boisterous sound of children playing in family room.

"I was released yesterday".

"Without any conditions?"

"That's right, without no conditions. Furthermore, with an apology", he replied laughing.

"Thank God. The important thing is you are free now. Being wrongly detained does occur from time to time here. Sometimes an innocent person is even incarcerated to save the guilty one".

Yamani smiled. He seemed in good shape with a happy countenance after being detained for three months. His tenderness was still reflected in his face.

"Aren't you filing a lawsuit?"

He looked at me for a long time before answering.

"Is it necessary?"

"It could be useful. At least security personnel would think twice before recklessly detaining innocent people in the future".

He put off replying because the housemaid had entered the living room carrying two cups of tea and two slices of chocolate cake.

As soon as she left the room he burst out with: "Pressing charges means a lot of money, let alone filing suit against such an official institution. I would get into trouble and my money would also be drained. Filing suit takes money and I just don't have it".

He bid me to drink and eat some cake.

"Never mind," he carried on. "Let it be a precious experience for them. Actually, by apologizing they have admitted fault. What's the use of filing a lawsuit?"

Yamani was a young man who was dedicated to his teaching job at an elementary school in the vicinity of Jakarta. His low pay didn't lessen his dedication. It was little wonder that he was loved by his students and by the parents who knew him.

That was the reason lots of people, including his friends, were startled when they heard Yamani had been detained on charges of being involved in a riot in which a shoe factory was burned down in the area where he taught. No one believed Yamani was involved. But security personnel had received information that he was involved and they detained him three days after the riot.

Since then Yamani had been officially detained. My friends and I frequently visited him during his days behind bars. However, I was assigned out of town and was unable to visit him during his last month there. Two days after my return, I heard from Togar that Yamani had been released and I rushed to see him as a free man.

"He's a marvel," Zedra commented about Yamani. At least he was really admired by his close friends. As a holder of a degree in education, he preferred teaching at elementary schools rather than secondary or high school because, he said, it was at the elementary level that education should be fostered.

For Yamani, home was the basis where education was planted and elementary school was the place where it was grown. Hence, he wanted to play a role there. His argument was simple. "I went to university and finished my studies under the scholarship offered by the state, and what's wrong with me repaying it with my dedication?"

Dedication. The word was so strange to us, Yamani's friends. For the sake of this dedication, Yamani had also postponed his marriage to enable him to devote all his attention to his students.

Zedra, who spoke English fluently and who worked for a foreign oil company, expressed admiration for Yamani and his determined dedication.

"He is a rare human being", said Dody Mardanus, a reporter, who once wrote Yamani's profile in the magazine he works for.

"Try to imagine," Dody told me one day. "One day he was absent for a week because of illness. When I went to see him in his rented room, I found that the medicine prescribed by his physician was all vitamins. Crazy, he was suffering a vitamin deficiency.

"Since then, though my income is not much more than his, I've sent him vitamins weekly. At first he refused them, but I forced him to accept. That's why his face looks fresher now".

Of all his close friends at the university, Ambarwati was the one who really could not tolerate Yamani's detention. She was one of the first who met Yamani after his release.

Her failure to convince Yamani to file a lawsuit against those who detained him led her to meet with 10 other close friends of Yamani's, including me, to approve her plan. She initiated a gathering in her house.

"Yamani spent three months behind bars for nothing, just because of a misunderstanding. We can't let it pass just like that. He must bring charges against them. We have to defend such a sincere person", she said enthusiastically.

"Your words must be rectified. Yes, it will be the filing of a lawsuit, but Yamani was only detained, he never went to court".

"I don't care what term they use. But we have to go to bat for him. Don't worry about the expense, I will take care of it".

When she finished talking, Ambarwati seemed to become aware of how arrogant she sounded, though she is a daughter of a garment factory owner who exports his products overseas.

"I mean," she explained "this is nothing to do with arrogance, but I honestly intend to support Yamani financially".

The gathering at Ambarwati's house wound up with the conclusion that all would depend upon Yamani. But no one, except perhaps Ambarwati, was convinced that Yamani would agree to file charges against those who detained him.

Two days prior to Yamani's return to Medan to see his parents, four of us, Ambarwati, Togar, Zedra and me, visited him at his uncle's house, where he stayed when in Jakarta.

Yamani listened earnestly to all that was said by Ambarwati, a mother of one who acted as our spokeswoman. Then he gazed into her eyes for quite a long time.

"Do you all agree with this?" Yamani inquired, looking at the rest of us one after another. We all nodded.

Then Yamani turn his gaze upon Zedra. The employee of a foreign oil company returned his gaze.

"Zedra and all of you, I am not a marvel. And please tell Dody that I am not a rare human being. You are all exaggerating in many ways, including in creating terms undeserved for me. You make the assumption because you live in other surroundings. If you entered my surroundings, you would be surprised because there are lots of, I repeat, there are lots of tender-hearted people around us who arouse admiration. But no attention has been paid to them".

We didn't respond to Yamani's lecture. Ambarwati's mission was bound to be doomed.

"Compared to those I mentioned, I am nothing, not even a spot of dirt on a nail. I am convinced there are sincere people, too, in your environment but you haven't noticed them. Maybe your great respect for me has become exaggerated because of our friendship, not because of my real condition. Speaking honestly like this is good, isn't it?".

"That's not the reason we came here", Ambarwati interrupted.

"I know. You want me to sue those responsible for locking me up for something I didn't do. That's all, isn't it? Why should we spend money while those who detained me have apologized and expressed regret for what they did? It's an indication that the officer responsible for my detention and the jail warden were good people. And anyway, during my stay in jail I fostered a friendship with them. Do I need to ruin the friendship?".

"Friendship", Ambarwati mumbled.

"Yes, just like I have with all of you".

For a few moments there was no sound in the living room. I had no idea of the war raging in my friends' minds. But I know I was assailed by all kinds of thoughts. Can a relationship borne from injustice be called friendship? Wasn't the relation only a pseudo-friendship to make the victim of the injustice not bear a grudge and vent it when the time came? Was Yamani really being honest with himself? Was it not fear that forced him to submit to his fate? Was it fair of us, his best friends, to ask him to ruin the friendship he had fostered?

Up until we took our leave and said goodbye to Yamani, who would be leaving for Medan soon, other questions invaded my mind one after the other.

While walking to our car, I vaguely heard Zedra comment in his favorite English. "He is a great man. He is a great man".

Ambarwati turned toward Zedra.

"So great that even black has become white in his eyes".

Sori Siregar was born in Medan, North Sumatra, on Nov. 12, 1938. He participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1970 to 1971 and was an international broadcaster for the Indonesian section of BBC radio for two years from 1972. He has contributed extensively to magazines and journals, and is the author of six novels. A new collection of his short stories, Myth, will be published this year.