Noorhayati (Part II)

Korrie Layun Rampan

After studying in the United States, Chaidir, his degree in his bag, sits on the boat taking him back to his village in the Kalimantan hinterland. There, his love, Noorhayati, would be waiting for him ...

The wind kept hitting the bow, pushing the tarpaulin on both sides of the boat and rocking it now and again. Its engine roared noisily amid the nature's silence. Chaidir gazed ahead, saying nothing.

As the boat got closer to the village, he felt more agitated. Noorhayati's words before his departure suddenly came to mind.

"Perhaps the only thing that can hamper your progress, Chaidir, is my presence. I'm a poorly educated villager."

"But I'm also from here. Let's start a life together, Noor."

"What I see is the reality. Life means balance, mutual support. If any imbalance occurs, life will be fragile. The fragility will be on my part!"

"But you can learn. You said you wanted only three children. Well, we'll have only three. When you are 32, we'll stop having children. By the time you're 40, we'll be liked young lovers again. What a beautiful time. The world will be ours."

"But we'll no longer be in a village. When you finish your studies, you'll be somebody. And I will be discarded because you won't need me."

"Look, I'm studying biology and agriculture. I want to stay in our village, building irrigation dams for rice fields. We'll motivate the villagers to work together. We've got to build the community ourselves."

"It sounds very good, so ideal. But it seems I can't achieve what you imagine. I'm too weak, too bland. I've got no particular talent."

Chaidir suddenly glanced at his watch. The water taxi would reach the village in a quarter of an hour. The contents of Noor's last letter struck him, full of anxiety and suffering, as if they had been doomed to separation forever.

"Many things have happened since you left," she wrote. "Logging has become widespread, with its terrible impact on the local community. We've heard the term 'contract marriages' for the first time in our region. Strange, I know, but that's the fact.

"Our trees are all gone. The giant trees you used to be proud of as God's blessing for the welfare of villagers are no longer here. Weeds are draining the soil. Erosion is intensifying and there are flash floods. I think, when you come home, Chaidir, you'll be disappointed. Our people remain unchanged -- poor, ignorant, untrained and undernourished, but our environment is being looted!"

The water taxi cruised on. Tree stems tied together into rafts almost filled the river. On both riverbanks, logs of selected meranti and keruing wood were tied on rafts.

The boat berthed, but the first thing Chaidir heard was the uproar coming from the communal toilet on the riverbank. People scurried around, screaming and shouting.

The incessant clamor and shouts sounded nearly as loud as thunder that would deafen Chaidir. "Noor's been run over by a log! Noor's run over by a log!"

Chaidir jumped quickly onto the riverbank, before going up ironwood steps on the river slope to an upper road leading to a lou, Kalimantan's traditional house. Toward the plain were numerous logs scattered over new lanes built for the passage of the commodities. The lanes went further upward, entering the forest like they were penetrating the obscure end of the horizon, the void at the end of life.

Amid the screams, cries and sobs, Chaidir noticed a body that had almost been flattened by the rolling log released from above. The log had moved sideways and kept rolling through village paths, knocking down everything in its way.

Chaidir rushed toward the body and could still recognize the broken face. "Noor. Yeah, Noorhayati!"

People were scuttling around him and shouting thoughtlessly. "Noor's dead! The official's daughter's killed! Where's our spears, our daggers..."

Chaidir squatted and then kneeled on the side of the crushed remains. Suddenly, the crowd turned and stared at him, the stranger who had just arrived by boat. The yells that filled the air turned to silence abruptly.

At the crack of dawn, all that existed in the lonely village seemed worthless with the death of Noorhayati.

Translated by Aris Prawira

- Contract marriage: Marriage that lasts as long as the expatriate stays in the region, and is automatically terminated when the worker returns home or moves