Maria

Maria

By AA Navis

Batang Antokan river flowed swiftly from Lake Maninjau to the Indian Ocean. I could clearly hear the clamor it made from the spot where I stood. During the colonels' rebellion, popularly known as PRRI, at the end of the 1950s, many dead bodies were thrown into this river by both sides of the warring factions. One of them was Maria, a friend of mine.

The first time I saw her my heart whispered, "she is different from other women". The second time, the words were "she is special". Today I still have the same feeling for Maria.

That afternoon when I was strolling with Cok, the young woman was coming from the opposite direction and we were on a different side of the street.

"Look, her style is different. She looks like a newcomer here," said Cok, nudging my waist with his elbow. I agreed with him as I also admired her beauty.

As she was passing by I turned to get a better view of her. I thought she was the kind of woman that everybody could not just glance at once. Her biggest attractions were the "challenging" gait that made her breasts shake provocatively, and her slightly plump body.

The other pluses were her attractively curled hair, red lips and eyebrows which looked like two crescents. But from a distance it was her scarlet overcoat which was so prominent.

Initially, like Cok, I also believed she was a newcomer or someone who was staying for just a couple of days. But at that time girls who came from other towns always donned the "New Look", a frock which hangs from shoulders to calves. But this woman was not in that dress, and was no newcomer.

She was also tall. The second time I saw her was at a movie theater. My eyes took over the job of the laser technology to search for her distinct beauty. "Look, she is really unlike other girls," I told Cok, who was with me at the time.

The crowd who rushed out of the theater gave way while staring at her. I was under the impression that Maria was very much aware that she was the center of public attention. She walked as though thrusting out her breasts.

Some young men tried to act as if they were unintentionally brushing against her, or preened and strutted like a male turkey courting its female.

I did not remember how I and Cok developed a friendship with her. I was also curious myself as to why we were attracted to her. Imagining myself a sculptor, I wanted to make her a model of a beautiful woman. From her face I saw no qualifications for a model. Her nose? Nothing special. Her lips could not even hide her protruding teeth. Her jaw was rather square and her skin would never be mentioned by a novelist writing about romantic beauty.

Her full name was Maria Yusran. The surname was in fact a combination of her father's and mother's names. Although just 23 years old, she always claimed to be a mature woman.

Before I knew her better, I used to think she was mischievous. I got the impression from her own statements, saying she did not hesitate to do what were considered taboo for other women; she did not want to do what was believed to be specifically women's tasks. But the lists did not include house cleaning and cooking.

"I want my house and garden clean. But don't take keeping everything clean and cooking as special jobs for women," Maria said when we discussed husbands and wives obligations at home and outside.

"Men and women are only different biologically, not socially," she added.

I refrained from saying anything, although I believed it was the biological differences that distinguished social jobs between the two sexes. Even in our region of the Minangkabau in West Sumatra, where women and men shared equal rights, household tasks were the responsibility of women. Only henpecked husbands were willing to do the household chores.

"After you," she would say every time people opened the door for her. "Such gallantry is already outdated," Maria said, arguing it was a product of a culture in which women were regarded as the weaker sex. "I just don't like it one bit."

One day when we were climbing the slope of Merapi mountain, she slipped and fell. But she refused the help we offered.

"If a woman has a mishap, every man offers his helping hand, but when a man experienced the same, other men did nothing to help him," she added.

"Yes, it is too much," I said. "But in this custom, women have to be blamed. They just remain idle when someone -- male or female -- has an accident because they believe it is the men's duty to help the unfortunate."

Maria was reluctant to agree with my statement. Usually when she felt insulted she would beat the person, but this time she remained impassive.

However, when she got involved in serious discussions she sat upright with face lifted, eyes burning bright and lips protruding, and her laughter sounded different. But it was melodious to others' ears.

During our friendship, I failed to dig up further her plann for the future, be it career, marriage, the ideal husband or the number of children she wanted.

I had the impression that she did not want to discuss anything about her past or future. For her, if today is Wednesday, yesterday was also Wednesday, and so was tomorrow.

One day I found her depressed at home. She was sitting with her hand supporting her chin, looking straight ahead. She did not pay attention to my presence and answered all my questions curtly.

I did not believe she was disturbed by my visit. She seemed to be in need of someone to talk to. That was why I waited patiently until the ice melted.

Maria worked at an office, which had never previously employed any female employees. But in what looked like a desire to change with the times, the office recently accepted three young women. The new secretary to the director was Rita. There was also Delly, secretary to the deputy director while Maria was assigned to the general staff.

Maria and Delly developed a close friendship. They went to work and returned home together. Later, they also shared the same room in a boarding house. At the office, they were also closely involved because the workload was too little and there were too many employees.

For Maria, working with so many male employees was not pleasant. She said mixing with men of the same age was just like being with the feeble minded, while being close to elders was nothing different from hearing dirty jokes everyday.

If you keep a distance from them they would connect you with many negative things. But Maria had taken all this with no hard feelings. Sometimes she told her experiences of the day just like cracking a joke.

Sometimes she had to accompany her boss to out of town for an assignment, occasionally with a driver but sometimes just the two of them. During the journeys the boss always behaved like a responsible father to his daughter.

But as time passed, especially when they were alone in the car, he slowly changed and lately behaved like a sugar daddy, his hand wandering to different parts of her body.

Initially, Maria said she had zero tolerance for the boss's unwanted sexual attention. But all she could do was scold him not to go further.

"It is not easy to have deal with such a naughty boss," she said.

The boss did not stop his behavior.

Returning from a trip one night, Maria also had to worry about the presence of the driver.

"On the way home the old man did try to kiss me," she said. "He must have thought that I would not scream because I would be ashamed in front of the driver. "I did not scream, but I did scratch him with my long fingernails."

Maria said the boss moaned in pain but did not cry for help. While the driver seemed unaware of what was happening, the boss stopped grabbing her.

On the following day when they met at the office, he did not show any emotion. "If all women here acted like cats everything would be under control," he said.

Maria had no regrets working at the office. Nor did she blame Delly's boss, who behaved as badly to that friend of hers. But Delly's reaction was different. She did not scratch the boss's face, she threatened to report his harassment to his wife. The boss stopped right there.

Maria told me that she hated the general belief that female employees were tolerant of sexual harassment in the office.

"Why do the male bosses believe they have to wield their sexual power? Don't male and female employees have equal rights because both are paid by the government? Why don't men look at women from a social point of view?

"Falling in love among them is normal but sexual abuse is another thing," she would say.

Meanwhile, Delly was pregnant, Maria said in answering my question why she had looked sad that day.

"I'm let down. I'm terribly disappointed by Delly and her boss. She had always claimed nothing happened between her and Tajak," she said.

Although Maria and Delly shared the same room, she was shocked to hear that her friend was six months' pregnant.

Maria felt she had been cheated by Delly. But, for her it was nothing. She only regretted Delly's position. "If she was in love with the boss why she had not asked him to marry her? And if the man really loved her why he should have abused her?" Maria said.

I was no less surprised to hear Maria's story. But I remained indifferent. Maria said that she felt very bitter at Tajak's answer to her question about the possible marriage between him and Delly.

"I really have no reason to marry Delly, but her condition has forced me to think about it," Maria quoted Tajak as saying. Tajak had only planned to keep Delly as his mistress if she had not fallen pregnant.

"That guy is a real bastard," she said.

I asked Maria why Delly had waited for six months to reach the decision, and she replied they had planned an abortion but to no avail. So now they were talking about marriage.

"Just imagine if she had the abortion and it killed Delly, what Tajak would do? I'm disgusted," Maria said.

"If women did not show positive signals to men's advances or did not flirt nothing would happen," I said.

Maria was irked. "Men always put the blame on women, as if we have demolished the whole world, we have been the root of corrupt practices in the bureaucracy, have pushed men into sexual scandals, have breached all people's trust," she said.

She also said that men had always claimed that women were synonymous with vices -- gambling, drunkenness, drug abuse and theft.

"Men, including you," she said, "have also said that they are polygamist by nature."

Now, Maria added, no men would take care of Delly's heartache after she had been seduced and abused by the boss. "To talk about this matter makes me sick," she said.

I told Maria that our culture had been created by men to try to calm her down. Men are biologically much stronger than women. That is why all norms and laws have been made from the male point of view and for men's interests.

I added that although there were so many laws that gave equal rights to women, women had been treated as subordinates to men and not as their partners in their implementation.

"Stop giving me a sermon," she said with fire in her eyes.

Maria and my friend Cok got married after a two-year relationship. Several days before the wedding day, Maria told me with her cheerful countenance:"Do you remember when we started to know each other? I enlisted you and Cok as candidates for my husband.

"But at last I dropped you because Cok had the courage to give me instructions. Do you remember at another meeting one day? The room where we met was so dirty and Cok showed me a broom to clean it. Do you remember that?"

"But it never came to my mind that an emancipated woman like you still needed a man to give her instructions," I said, and my comment upset her.

According to a story of a friend, Cok was detained one day for his alleged involvement in the rebellion, and one week later was imprisoned. Apparently, he grew a beard and looked like Fidel Castro of Cuba.

In jail he was interrogated and tortured before he was taken to this river for execution.

Maria, who did not want to be separated from Cok, hugged him closely when he was about to be shot. During the war, nobody wanted to use rational or healthy thinking.

When the gun went off, Maria and Cok died instantly and their bodies tumbled into the fast-flowing river

"Nobody knows whether their bodies were found or not," said Johor, my friend who told me the story.

I pondered their deaths at the Antokan river for a long time. I asked myself why people had the heart to kill someone in a civil war who had surrendered after losing another war.

Translated by TIS

The author was born in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra, on Nov. 17, 1924. He started his career during World War II in sculpture, painting and music, but finally focused his activities on poetry and radio drama.

He later worked in the Department of Arts, Ministry of Education and Culture. His short stories have been published in Robohnyya Surau Kami (The Fall of Our Prayer House) in 1963, Bianglala (Rainbow) in 1963 and Hujan Panas (Hot Rain) in 1963. He also wrote Kemarau (Dry Season), a novel in 1967, and Saraswati Dalam Sunyi (Saraswati in Loneliness) in 1970, for which he won a UNESCO/IKAPI award. Some of his short stories have been translated into foreign languages.

The short story Maria appears in Anjing-anjing Menyerbu Kuburan: Cerpen Pilihan Kompas 1997 (Dogs Raiding A Grave: Kompas Selected Short Stories 1997). It is printed here courtesy of Kompas.