Lightning Strikes the Yard

By Edi AH Iyubenu

Dad's dream became reality. During his nap last week after the evening Muslim prayer, he dreamed that Mom gave birth to a cute, chubby baby. Unfortunately, Dad said, before the young midwife helping deliver the baby had finished cutting the umbilical cord, the baby suddenly started giggling.

"It was more scary than the loud high-pitched laughter of Mak Lampir," Dad said at the table.

We all tried at first to convince him that a dream only indicated a sound sleep. "You must have been too tired from working during the day," said my elder sister as she breastfed her seven-month-old baby.

"Or you may have forgotten to say a prayer before you went to sleep, Dad," I chimed in.

Dad repeated that his dream must have brought a bad omen on the whole house. "If only the chubby baby had not started giggling or if only it had started crying, we would have good fortune now," he said, deep worry evident in his voice.

And now, the evening before Tuesday, before we finished our dinner in the kitchen, there was a repeated loud knock on the front door. It was if whoever was knocking was being chased. We looked at one another for a moment before I forced myself, despite my reluctance, to answer the door. From behind the curtain I saw outside -- amid the evening raindrops -- the figure of an elderly man, the skin stretched taut across his face.

He bowed to me.

"Who are you?"

"I'm looking for your father," he said in a heavy voice. It reminded me of a story my friend told of meeting a spooky ghost while looking for crickets in a rice field, also in the evening before Tuesday.

"Dad?"

"Yes, your father, Prakoso."

I knew that it was impolite for me to be standing on the inside and him on the outside, especially because it was very cold. But I really did not have the courage to look at his face, let alone fully open the door.

"Come on, call your father, quick. It is urgent," he said, looking furtively around the yard of the house several times as if afraid he was being watched.

I hurried back to the kitchen, telling the others of the suspicious visitor. Suddenly the kitchen was filled with tension. Dad was uneasy, too.

"Better tell our neighbors, first, Pak," said Mom, who was obviously concerned.

Dad shook his head. He disappeared into his bedroom and, leaving it, slinked slowly to the front part of the house. I secretly prayed that nothing strange or terrible would happen in the house tonight. I hoped the visitor was only a street beggar who happened to know Dad's name and would soon leave after drinking a cup of coffee.

Unfortunately, my hope remained hope when Dad suddenly rushed to the kitchen along the passage between my elder sister and me. Breathing heavily, he grabbed the machete -- the one he usually used to cut cassava stems -- lying next to the water barrel. Mom let out a sudden shriek. My elder sister sobbed. I was shocked and stupefied.

"You go now or I will cut your throat!" Dad shouted as if possessed by the devil. I trembled until I shook. Mom and my elder sister rushed to Dad and hugged him tightly. Dad was still standing, his body trembling as if unable contain the outburst of fury in his chest.

The man, whose face was lined with the scars left by slashes from a sharp weapon, looked at Dad sharply, then at Mom and my elder sister and then at me.

"You will regret it ...." he said softly, turning and disappearing into the thick of the night.

"Scoundrel. How dare you disrupt my peaceful life! Watch out because if you dare to come here again, I'll break your neck!" Dad said, still speaking in a booming voice. Mom and my elder sister persuaded him to sit down in the sitting room and asked him to drink a glass of water.

I could only be quiet, a little ashamed. I did not dare to look at my furious father, nor his expression of boiling anger. Now, in my early teens, was the first time I had seen my own father so horrible at the peak of his fury.

The next day I found out the reason why Dad was so enraged. I discovered it secretly from my elder sister, who warned me time and again as she spoke that I should not tell her story to anybody, including Dad and Mom.

The strange man from the night before turned out to be Dad's fellow comrade-in-arms in the 1960s, when members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) dominated the life of villages. Pramono, the old man, finally was able to influence Dad to join other PKI members. He promised to fulfill all Dad's needs. At the time Dad was having financial difficulties because his rice fields were overrun with rats. In a few months, Pramono kept his promise. All Dad's needs were guaranteed, from rice to other daily necessities.

"The relationship between Dad and Pramono became even closer and continued to be so until the outbreak of that horrible event which befell PKI's members," my elder sister said, her voice hushed. "People were furious because PKI had killed a number of officials in Jakarta. Then PKI was accused of attempting to topple the government. Soon afterwards a massacre occurred in the village. Anybody suspected of being a PKI member was likely to be murdered. Including Dad ... "

"Didn't father know that PKI does not recognize God?"

"Yes, he knows. However, cut-throat prices of daily necessities forced Dad to accept the reality. He said that he had promised to himself that he would abandon PKI once his life returned to normal. Unfortunately, this horrible event did take place. Dad ran away to Madura while Mom hid in the house of her grandmother in the suburbs of Jember.

"For many years Dad and Mom were separated. Dad only dared to see Mom again in the 1970s, when his appearance had already changed beyond recognition. Then Dad brought Mom here. This is not our village. Our birthplace is Madiun."

It turned out that my pride for the land that I trod and considered the place where my mother's blood dropped as she gave birth to me was only artificial.

"Nobody here knows that Dad was a PKI member who escaped the massacre."

"Dad is not a PKI member. He was forced!" I said.

"Yes, yes. but they will never care about the reason. What they do know is that PKI members have to be completely wiped out from Indonesia, that's all!"

At night Dad walked up and down the length of the house, carrying his machete. His face was taut and tense. He lit his cigarette several times, threw it away and sat back in the chair. He opened the door, sighing heavily and again looking closely at Mom's face, by then helplessly frightened.

"If that asu is bold enough to show up here again, I will really have to kill him!"

"Pak, put away the machete. Pramono could not come ... The children are to be pitied; they are frightened ..." Mom said flatly, although fear stalked her heart, the kind of fear no less dark than the dark night that drifted deeper and deeper.

"I really won't let him live if he insists on me joining him! Hah! We were separated for close to 10 years just because of him! I almost lost my life because of him! I led a neglected life in another village. I was overwhelmed by fear just because of him! And now, unthinkingly, he has come here to ask me to revive the communist party. Huh! The son of a bitch!"

"Talk it over nicely with Pramono, Pak. You don't have to use a machete and the like ..."

"Huh! I know his character inside out. Pramono will not give up before he achieves his ambition, which also includes the revival of that damned party!!!"

Mom spoke no more. She seemed unable to pacify Dad. Suddenly, from afar, the sound of lightning strikes came one after another, like the barking of a dog. Dad rose suddenly and opened the door. His eyes penetrated the night with his wild gaze. He held his machete even more closely. " He really wants to die," he hissed after asking Mom to enter the house.

Mom hugged me in the middle room. Her heart beat faster than usual. My elder sister, gripped by fear, could not help crying. There was not the slightest sound save for the boom of lightning striking the yard and Dad shrieking obscenities. The night was split by the clamorous quarrel. The wind was blowing but it quite far away. The thick drizzle obviously had shrunk in fear.

"You scoundrel, Pramono. Death to you!!!"

"Crttttaaarrrrr ...."

"Asuuuu ...."

"Crttttaaarrrrr ..."

In a short time, these horrible sounds seemed to be communicating with one another. We, who were in the middle bedroom, felt as if we lived a million years away with an endless typhoon raging round us. There was only the sound of drizzle dancing on the roof tiles. All was quiet.

The booming sound of the lightning and my Dad's angry shrieks were no longer heard. Slowly, Mom lifted her head and dragged her feet to the front door. She let out a cry. My elder sister and I ran to the object of her distress -- Dad lay weakly on the wet grass in the yard of the house.

And the large machete was nowhere to be seen.

"Daaaad ....!"

"Paaakkkk"

"I have killed him! I have done away with this PKI scoundrel! I have destroyed his arrows of lightning!"

"Where is Pramono, Pak?"

"Dead! I have killed him!"

I was struck by what he had said. I had never imagined in my life that I would witness a member of my family killed or kill a fellow human being. And now Dad had done this. Dad had killed a human being. Policemen would come and Dad, handcuffed, would be dragged before a court of law. And people would give me a new nickname: "A killer's child!"

I rushed to the wide expanse of the front yard, letting the rain wet my body. I ran through wild plants to find the body of Pramono. I did not want the police to find the body and use it as material evidence to put my Dad in prison.

"What are you doing there, ignoramus!" Dad shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Looking for the body to hide it!" I shouted back.

Suddenly Dad giggled. "You will never find it. The wind has carried his body away! Well, obviously I am not as stupid as you think I am. I also don't want to be handcuffed. I don't believe that I still have that skill to kill someone without a trace!"

The weirdness struck me. Was Dad aware of what he was saying? Or, was he under such serious mental pressure that he was disturbed?

"Come on in, everybody ....!

The call woke me up from my own deep thoughts. I did not know what was really happening. One thing was obvious, though. In the entire yard I could not find a single drop of blood, let alone Pramono's body.

Djokdja, April 16, 1999

Glossary:

Mak Lampir: a hateful, monstrous old lady with magic and supernatural skills in a TV martial arts serial; the embodiment of evil.

Pak: a respectful term of address, in this case used by a woman for her husband

asu: dog

Translated by Lie Hua