Oh ... Oh ... Oh!

By Idrus

Sukabumi is known for its cool climate, but the people lined up in front of the ticket window felt they were close to dying from the heat. Their backs, necks and armpits flowed with sweat which drenched their shirts.

Near their feet, flies as black as cough syrup gathered to feed on pools of spittle, some clear, some as thick as condensed milk.

From the crowd came the intermittent sound of a man coughing, hacking up phlegm and spitting on the ground. The flies swarmed around the newly fallen spittle like children fighting over freshly fried bananas.

The person coughing was a young man, no fatter than a withered branch, standing toward the center of the row.

"Why are you coughing?" the man behind him inquired.

"It's not dusty here."

"I'd be coughing even in the cleanest of places," the young man answered.

"I just got in from the Pacet Sanitorium. I'm heading for Jakarta."

The man who had questioned him pulled out his handkerchief.

"If you have a chest ailment," he advised, "you shouldn't spit on the ground. That kind of thing is contagious, you know."

The young man coughed again, and from his mouth came a substance like clotted milk with a red spot in the center. It resembled the Japanese flag.

At the head of the line was an Indonesian man clad in little more than rags. His hand was pushed through the ticket window and he kept repeating over and over, "one fourth-class for Jakarta".

The ticket seller cast him an angry glance.

"If you don't want to wait, you can leave."

"I've been standing in line for half an hour," the Indonesian replied indignantly, "and I've still not been waited on! Yet you take care of that guy first." He pointed at a man standing behind the ticket seller.

The ticket seller shouted back: "What's it to you? That's my business. If you want help right away you can settle your business behind here, too. But that'll cost half a rupiah more!"

The Indonesian quieted down. He shook his head and grumbled to himself, "That's that, I guess. It's every man for himself these days." He then looked down at the bags of rice beside him.

"... even me," he added slowly.

A Chinese man moved out of line. Mopping the beads of sweat off his forehead with the forded tip of his handkerchief, he stepped to the head of the line to stand beside the Indonesian. This made the Indonesian angrier.

"Excuse me, sir, but you shouldn't leave your place in the line. If you do that, everyone else will want to try. And then everyone will be pushing and shoving and making real trouble for the ticket seller."

"You talk too much," the Chinese man sneered.

"Do you know who I am? I have a pass from the Japanese authorities." He then turned to the ticket seller.

"One second-class to Jakarta."

The ticket seller was shocked.

"But second class is only for Japanese, sir, or for people with a pass from their district chief."

The Chinese man laughed and looked down at his fingers in which he held a Rp 5 note.

"Here's my pass," he said.

"The ticket to Jakarta is Rp 2.65. The rest ..."

The ticket seller snatched the money from the man's hand.

"Here you are," he said with deference, "one second-class ticket for Jakarta."

The train pulled out of Sukabumi Station. In the second-class car, the Chinese man was chuckling and smiling at a Eurasian girl. In the third and fourth-class cars, passengers were jammed together. Some were complaining, some even crying because of the crowding.

As the conductor was making his way from the third to the fourth-class cars, he was stopped by a group of people huddled near the steps.

"Tickets!" he demanded.

When they proffered money instead his voice rose in mock anger.

"What are you doing on the train? Why did you get on board if you don't have any tickets? How did you get onto the platform without them?"

"We gave something to the man at the gate," one of the party answered.

The conductor said nothing to this. He took the money from their hands and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Next time," he warned them softly, "buy a ticket, okay?"

The train came to a stop at a tiny station where several young men, all bare to the waist, got on. Only their caps identified them as keibodan (police auxiliaries). They searched the train for contraband. When finding someone's hidden bag of rice they confiscated it and took it off the train to the platform. They beat the smugglers, even the women.

One of the keibodan found a bag lying on a seat.

"Whose is this?" he asked, even as his hand reached out to take it.

A police agent addressed the keibodan haughtily: "It's mine. If you want it, take it."

The keibodan immediately saluted. "Excuse me, sir, but I thought it was someone else's."

After their search, the keibodan disembarked. Confiscated bags of rice sat in heaps on the platform.

"Is Mr. Murakawa here?" one of the keibodan whispered to another.

The other man shook his head and mumbled between broad lips.

"He just left for Bogor. Won't be back 'till this afternoon. We can divide the rice in five parts and leave one apart to show we did our work today."

Just as the train was at the point of leaving, an Arab climbed on.

"Masya Allah (God in heaven!)" he exclaimed upon seeing the dense crowd.

Behind the Arab came a young man in a tattered shirt and with a wooden left leg. Limping, he attempted to climb on the train but there wasn't room for him inside. He was forced to hang from the doorway by the handrails.

"Where are you going?" the Arab asked.

"Will you be able to hang on like that?"

"I'm going to Jakarta, sir," the young man answered politely.

"There's no one left here who can afford to give alms. Maybe someone will get off at the next stop and I'll be able to get inside."

The train was moving again. In the fourth-class car, the police agent was staring at a young woman with a hunched back. With a Don Juan sort of approach he asked her, "Pardon me, how old are you?"

"Huh, 32," the woman answered in surprise.

"Why do you ask?"

"It's nothing, but I was thinking what a pity it is that a woman as young as you is so hunched over." The policeman ran his hand over the woman's back.

"Odd though, how smooth your hump is."

He appeared to give the matter some thought.

"That's it!" he then declared.

"It's rice, isn't it? Listen," he said to her. "I don't like to see a young woman so stooped. If you put your rice into my bag, when we get to Jakarta, we'll measure it and I'll give you your portion back. Don't worry, the keibodan won't bother us anymore."

The policeman laughed as the young woman shamefully pulled the sack from her dress and poured the rice into his bag.

Near Bogor, as the train was racing over the rails, the one- legged man hanging on to the door lost his grip and fell. Someone pulled the emergency cord and the train came to a stop. People ran back down the track, but the young man was dead. The conductor made some notes but left the body where it was. The train went on its way.

The Arab, witness to all that had happened, pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"Astaghafirallah (May Allah forgive us)," he intoned again and again.

An Indonesian, who was standing beside the Arab, said: "It's better that he died here in this way than later on the banks of the Ciliwung in Jakarta."

Outside Bogor the train stopped briefly at another small station. The conductor got off the train and hurried to a small house where there was a man waiting for him.

The man had hardly caught the sight of the conductor before he asked, "How did it go, Karim? All right?"

Karim nodded. "Yeah, all right, but only for Rp 150. I'm hoping that you can give me my cut from that."

"I told you I wanted 150 clear," the man advised.

"That was three dozen genuine Koh-I-Noor. These days the market price is Rp 60 per dozen. Here's Rp 10 for you but I can't give you any more."

Karim accepted the money and asked, "Got anything else for Jakarta?"

"Some penicillin. Is there a market for it in Jakarta?"

"There sure is, sir. All the young men in Jakarta have the disease. But don't make it too expensive."

The conductor returned to the train carrying several vials of penicillin.

Not long afterward the train pulled into Jakarta's Gambir Station. The train's passengers pushed and shoved trying to be the first out of the building.

Outside the station's exit, a young woman stood sobbing. When someone asked her what was wrong she could barely answer, "My rice... The policeman took my rice."

The people around her tied to catch sight of a policeman carrying a bag of rice, but there was no policeman to be seen. And so the young woman kept on sobbing, until her tears were dry, as dry and empty as her purse.

Translated by James S. Holmes and Hans van Marle.

Taken from Menagerie 3, courtesy of Lontar Foundation.

Born on Sept. 22, 1921, in Padang, West Sumatra, Idrus is regarded as one of Indonesia's best writers. He wrote several collections of people-oriented stories focusing on simple human themes. He worked at Balai Pustaka publishing house and was a correspondent for the newspaper Merdeka. By 1960, he had moved to Kuala Lumpur, where he and his wife opened a publishing house and together published two magazines. He returned to his homeland in 1965 and was later offered a job at Monash University in Australia. He subsequently received his master's and later took doctorate studies at the same university. Idrus died in his birthplace in 1979.