Noorhayati (Part I)

Korrie Layun Rampan

Flowers were turning white on the twigs of sungkai trees, the old ones tossed away by the gentle wind. The seasonal currents played the forest rhythm.

"So you're leaving?" The girl's voice, soft and uncertain, broke through the rustle of foliage.

"Is there no other choice?"

"As I told you yesterday, Noor, it's the best choice. So the sooner the better," replied the young man. "It's for our future!"

The sungkai flowers fluttered in the breeze. Hornbills sang from afar, with the intermittent cries of proboscis monkeys leaping along tree branches.

"I'd better stop holding you back then. Go, but please don't abandon me."

"You think I'm going to betray you?"

"It could happen. I'm just a village girl. In the city, temptation is everywhere, with beautiful, stylish girls offering you a better match. Isn't that right, kak2 Chaidir?"

"Noor, you're so sentimental. You said you'd wait. You'll have time to grow up and work in the rice fields. After dark you can weave mats and cloth, and wait for me."

"You're taunting me. You said this time it'll be much longer because you have a scholarship to study abroad.

"I'll grow old if it's too long. And..."

"The disaster3 will come before we tie the knot? Is that what you mean? Come on, Noor, you won't go blind. Don't feel trapped by the passage of time."

"I just want to give some meaning to my spouse, children and a family."

"That's why I'm going away this time."

"So?"

The stems of sungkai, white with flowers, swayed in the wind. Down the hill, trees grew closely together. Resin hung on tall branches. There was silence amid thick shrubs and rattan.

"All this abundance around us gives us peace, Noor. It's unwise to be lulled for too long. I'm going for this reason, for the sake of our village, our community, you and me!"

"Very good, kak Chaidir. But we're not getting any younger. Everybody thinks I should be surrounded by a brood of kids."

Chaidir was silent.

"You won't know it while you're away. But I'm right here. Can I always turn a deaf ear to the gossip?"

"You should be proud, Noor. I'm the only one capable of furthering my study in our village. All my peers are elementary school dropouts."

"Well, if you really love me, then let me go!," she said, her voice trembling with emotion.

"I've always given in to you. Though we were betrothed as children, nobody can force us to go on if our union is not blessed. But as for me, I feel I've made my choice. Kak Chaidir, do you feel the same?"

"The fact is that I didn't change after my college years, Noor. I couldn't imagine having a wife who couldn't live out here in the forest."

"But your study will take a long time. Two years plus four more make six years, if everything runs as scheduled. I'll be 25 by the time you return. It's so old."

"It'll be the right time for us to build a family. We'll be truly mature."

The sungkai petals scattered on the ground were turning yellow, exuding the odor of decay. The rising sun peeked through the trees.

That had been his last conversation with Noorhayati, his fiancee, almost seven years earlier. Now he was on his way home after finishing his master's and doctorate in America.

He knew every detail of Noor and her life; he had even been there when she was born. By village tradition and local customs, his engagement with Noor had been arranged when she was still barely out of infancy, he in elementary school.

Now they said it was inappropriate for a scholar to marry an elementary school graduate. But he was determined to help Noor make the best of herself when she returned.

The gust of wind and the river stream splashing against the bow of the boat made its own melody. He was filled with a vague longing. Chaidir could not tell if he was missing Noor or America, but his muscles were tight with tension.

His village was not as beautiful as America's countryside, let alone its towering urban landscape. His second home offered changing seasons and more variety than simply a dry and wet season.

He had loved spring with the warmth of sunshine. It was the time when flowers bloomed in city parks, and on the great stretches of canopy of farmland. Then came the months of falling leaves and snowy ground.

It was a gorgeous sight, true, but Chaidir never felt he belonged. He always felt the tug to return to his village, where a young woman faithfully awaited him.

The water taxi would reach his destination in a few hours. Chaidir had prepared his luggage so he could easily alight. He had not told anybody of his return; he wanted it to be surprise, as he returned for his people and the nation.

His diploma was in his suitcase. Translated by Aris Prawira Notes:

1. Sungkai: a type of wood fit for furniture 2. Kak: term of address for an older man or brother 3. Some traditional communities in Kalimantan's interior believe that people will succumb to inherited blindness in young adulthood.