Retirement

By Maria Magdalena Bhoernomo

Pak Habi was frequently awakened from deep sleep by the cries of babies and women ringing in his ears at midnight, after his retirement from the Army. The screams seemed so loud and deafening. And strangely, the shrieks turned even louder as he tightly covered his ears with his hands or plugged them with tips of his blanket, causing pain and dizziness.

He thought he had been dreaming when he had the weird experience for the first time, and thus he just ignored it. But as he was again roused by the cries in following nights, he grew restless and anxious. He was afraid that maybe he had suffered some serious psychological trauma. Then, he tried to recall certain events he had witnessed as an active soldier. Ah, there were so many gripping, terrifying and saddening occurrences. For instance, he was once assigned as a commander of a group of ten soldiers, to quell an armed separatist gang that was causing security disturbances in another province.

As he led his platoon through a village-sweep operation, there was suddenly lots of gunfire. All his men fell within seconds, leaving him as the only survivor of the assault as he was able to hide in a trench. Then he counterattacked with a volley of shots from his automatic rifle. Moments later he heard the cries of infants and women coming from a home not far from the trench. So he moved stealthily to check the hut, only to be stunned by the sight of a frail old man who had recently been killed by a gunshot in the chest. His body lay prostrate on a prayer rug.

It was indeed a story of his past, when he was only a chief sergeant.

"Is it that distressing incident that plagues my sound sleep?" Pak Habi wondered in his mind after again being awakened by the sounds. In the heat of the attack and with his wild counterattack, he thought perhaps, it was he, Habi, who had shot the poor old guy who was apparently saying his prayers that dawn, though, at the time, he believed it was the enemy's doing. But he soon realized that it was an experience common to soldiers. So he tried to forget it right away.

But now the very incident came back to haunt his mind. And feelings of guilt gripped him all at once. He believed now that the old man had been killed by him.

He was lamenting it deeply. And he considered the disturbing cries ringing in his ears a punishment he had to accept in this world. In the life hereafter, the retribution he would get might be far more excruciating. He imagined a glimpse of himself being grilled over a flaming fire.

It was sheer torture to be distracted by the wailing babies and women. And he was frequently weeping and whimpering, begging for God's forgiveness for all his sins. On another night he was again terrorized by the screams. Apart from the crying, he now heard the voices of dozens of women shouting and cursing at him.

"Barbarian!"

"Damn you!"

"Be cursed!"

"Hell be with you!"

"Your gunshot killed my husband and kids!"

He trembled with fear while hugging his wife, sound asleep beside him.

"Hey, what is it, pak? What's wrong with you?" his wife asked in surprise as she awoke.

"You must've just had a nightmare. Are you all right?" She tried to smile. "Wash your face to make your mind fresh."

He rose promptly and hurried to the bathroom to wash his face. Then he went to the living room for a brief smoke. And as he was enjoying the smoke, their eerie sounds returned to his ears. They were now the cries of dozens of babies and women, again with the curses amid the screams.

"You've got no conscience! You slaughtered my husband and children for promotion in your rank!"

"Revive my innocent husband!"

"You're a mindless thug! My man was only a small farmer but still you gunned him down while he was working in his field!"

He was shuddering with horror now. The nicotine was not helping. His mind was racing, suddenly recalling a black episode he once partook in at a remote village. At that time he was also a group commander, assigned to crush armed separatist rebels who were struggling for independence.

One early morning he was crossing a corn field with his men when a group of men were spotted in between the bushes, and someone thought they heard shots. He and his platoon escaped the possible ambush after swiftly taking cover behind some dikes and returning fire toward the men and the sounds.

He saw lots of people being shot dead.

"Chase!" he finally ordered his men. And while firing intermittently, they ran toward what they thought were the rebels. He was then flabbergasted to see over a dozen farmers lying dead in the field. No weapons could be found near the dead villagers, except muddy hoes.

"We've killed them, commander!" a group member cried out with tearful eyes.

"No! It wasn't us! Our enemies butchered them purposely!" he replied with some doubt.

"But they're native inhabitants, sir! The rebels surely knew them and might have been their relatives!" a young soldier noted.

"It's impossible that they killed their own!" remarked another.

"In a guerrilla war nothing is impossible! They killed civilians to bring disgrace on us! They will blame us for the mass murder so that civilians will hate us more and become our adversaries!" he stressed.

At the time, he was actually convinced of the truth of his own words. He was also very sure that his enemies had slaughtered the innocent people, because that is what he was trained to think. But now he was hesitating, seriously considering the feasibility of his men being responsible for the dead farmers, even if it was by accident.

For any soldier, it is strictly prohibited to kill civilians during periods of war or peace. And he, as all other soldiers in the world, had always tried to abide by the rule. And if a soldier shot dead a civilian, it was always officially termed an accident. In other words, the civilian was a victim of a stray bullet.

So he was trying to find consolation by remembering standard rules to be understood and observed by soldiers all over the globe. And that they frequently face certain risks in a fierce battle, such as inevitable collateral damage. The more intense the clash, the greater the likelihood of bullets straying.

He then recalled the great war between the Pandawas and Kurawas in the Hindu epic Mahabharata he had once read. In the battles of Kurusetra, though ferocious, no victims fell from stray arrows because the field was especially designed for combatants, rather than a civilian settlement.

He smiled amusingly after becoming aware of his wandering thoughts. He began to feel sleepy and returned to the bedroom, where he lay beside his wife already in peaceful sleep.

However, just as he closed his eyes the terrible sounds returned. He tried in vain to shut them out, but to no avail. And the shrieks just became increasingly deafening.

Again he shuddered with terror. He shivered with fear and cold, and embraced his wife tightly.

"Hey, what are you doing, pak? Do you want to make love? I can't believe it, you haven't been able to in ages!" she scoffed with irritation.

He kept hugging her while quivering with fright.

"Come on, what are you waiting for then don't just hug me!" his wife complained, growing even more resentful. "It's okay if you're impotent, but you don't have to act like a fool!" she whined. His wife had, for some years, no longer enjoyed affection, in fact, due to his lack of virility upon returning from his assignment where he had to kill civilians from his own country. He was not yet cured of the dysfunction in spite of thorough medical treatments. As suggested by his physician, he had even taken Viagra many times, but to no avail.

"Don't just lie there hugging me like a child!"

Translated by Aris Prawira