Macabre profession an old man's way of life

By Joko Sarwono

BOGOR, West Java (JP): In Islamic teaching washing the dead is a responsibility of the living. But just looking at bodies, especially those which are barely recognizable as humans, can be unbearable.

This is why we need people like 82-year-old Maat -- who will take care of any body entrusted to him. Whether they have relatives or not, they are prepared for burial and to meet God.

Maat has prepared the dead for 20 years. Maat retired from the Red Cross hospital in 1971, but the hospital's morgue management employed him when their employee died.

Maat has been a kitchen boy, gardener, and laundry man before he began washing bodies full time in 1976.

"It's quite natural for low ranking people like me to get moved around a lot," he said.

He is the hospital's only corpse washer proficient in the necessary Moslem prayers. But whether Moslem or not, the hospital calls on Maat almost every time corpses arrives.

Along with, Yusuf, who mainly handles non-Moslem bodies, Maat handled the corpses which made last year's headlines: those killed in the Bogor market fire and the 31 passengers killed on the Jagorawi toll road.

"Other people can barely look at the remains," Maat said.

They were all handled as well as possible. But Maat decided not to wash the traffic accident victims because they were charred. Most had been trapped in an inferno when an intercity bus exploded after crashing into other vehicles.

Maat also bathed the Tjetje Tajudin's body, the main witness in an armed robbery on the Jagorawi toll road who was tortured to death in police custody.

Several years ago people were shocked when they opened sacks floating down rivers and found tattooed bodies. Their identities were never discovered but Maat cared for them like the rest.

They were later reported to be habitual criminals' bodies. Security officials reportedly killed them as a warning to other criminals.

"There were so many of them," Maat said. "The remains were already decomposed and full of creatures. People threw up at the sight of them, but I washed them as usual."

Maat can no longer count the thousands of bodies he has washed, maybe about 14,600 if two showed up daily for 20 years.

Maat has handled so many bodies he no longer questions how people could end up in his hands in sacks after gruesome deaths.

His spoke crisply and a little coldly.

Maat said he was illiterate. "I was too busy working to learn," he said. This was probably why, despite being so busy, he remained a lower ranking civil servant with a small pension.

He receives Rp 15,000 a month which he said was the rate for pensioners of his level in 1971.

He said he was content to work at the hospital although the wage was small because he did not have any other skills. His wife, Rokayah, 65, has never taunted him about his low paying work.

However, he did sound regretful about the small pension. "I worked there for so long," he said.

Maat gets Rp 10,000 for each body and is paid monthly. His five children and in-laws help him make ends meet. One son-in-law works at Bogor's Unitex factory.

He said the corpses never haunted him.

"I always say to myself, this is what I'll be when I'm dead."

None of Maat's offspring intend to follow in his steps.

"No, I'm scared," said his nine-year-old grandson, Irfan Fauzi. Irfan said he wants to be a soldier.