Sanyo

Sanyo

By Idrus

Beneath the radio loudspeaker that had been rigged up in the
village square sat Kadir, a fried-peanut vendor, whose basket was
full of hot peanuts but whose pockets were empty. Over his head
an oil-lamp flickered, like a beacon far out to sea. The air that
night was so hot it was difficult to breathe. There were no
takers for his peanuts; the ice-cream man was drawing the
potential buyers instead.

Kadir had been sitting there, like some sort of watchman, for
the past two hours, itching for someone to talk to. But it was
the loudspeaker that blared at him, calling out for people to
work as sanyo. Kadir had no idea what was being said. It was like
the radio speaker was a foreigner, a squat, yellow-skinned,
bloodthirsty up-country tribesman from somewhere outside of Java
whose language he could not understand.

Only with great effort did he manage to get his tongue round a
few of the words that were spoken. "Sanyo, sanyo ..." he
repeated. What on earth did sanyo mean? San meant "three" in
Japanese, didn't it?

"What's the use anyway," he said finally after considering the
matter. "There's no sense brooding just because no one's buying.
To hell with sanyo, whatever it is. I'm willing to bet that's the
reason why business is so bad."

A popsickle vendor, with tattered trousers and a wide-brimmed
peasant's hat on his head, came up to him. The man was shirtless,
and his body appeared to be half light and half dark.

Kadir looked the man over. "That guy's popsickles are going to
taste even better once his customers get a good look at him," he
thought cynically.

Because the popsickle man was no mind reader, he wasn't to
know what might be running through Kadir's head, and smiled at
Kadir. "I'd like some peanuts, two cents' worth," he said to him.

"You can't get anything for two cents, not nowadays," Kadir
answered, contemptuously. "And I'll wager you that sanyo is the
reason why."

"Be a sport," the vendor begged. "Just a few, anything to dull
the hunger. Popsickles are all I've had to eat."

Kadir began to feel sorry for the man. He rifled through his
peanuts, found a few small ones, and handed them over. In return
the popsickle man gave Kadir two filthy banknotes.

The man popped the nuts into his maw, one at a time. "What's
with all these empty ones?" he remarked with irritation.

"What do you mean, 'all these empty ones'?" Kadir retorted. "I
only gave you four."

"Where are you from?" the popsickle man then asked.

"From Bogor. I get back there about once a month. I'm a
kumico, a headman. The Japanese appointed me."

This brought Kadir's interlocutor up short. He was scared to
death of the kumico in his neighborhood and always played it safe
by giving his kumico a free popsickle every day. He feared that
if he didn't he'd be docked his daily ration of rice.

He now spoke in a soft, respectful tone: "Then who takes your
place when you're in Jakarta, Mr. Kumico, sir, if you don't mind
my asking?"

Kadir colored to hear himself addressed so formally. "My son,
Binu," he replied with pride. "He's just finished school. He's
the one with the brains in the family. Me, I can't even read or
write. It's when I hear that cigarettes are being distributed in
Bogor that I go back, not otherwise. Not to flog them at black
market rates, mind you. You won't catch me selling them under the
counter."

"Mr. Kumico, sir, you don't suppose that I could become a
kumico too, do you?"

Kadir scrunched up his face. "Couldn't say really. It used to
be a cinch, but it's harder now. "He spoke in a voice reminiscent
of Saiko Sikikan, the Java Occupation Force of the Imperial
Japanese Army. "Still, it seems I heard on the radio earlier that
they're taking on new ones. But you can bet it'll be harder to
get in."

"Mr. Kumico, sir. This 'sanyo', what's it mean anyway?"

"Search me. These days people like to use complicated words
for the most trivial things."

A customer approached. The man's hair was in a tangle and he
was wearing nothing but a pajama top and boxer shorts. His legs,
sticking out from the shorts, were no bigger than rice stalks.
"Three cents' worth," he announced.

"The popsickle man took out three sticks and gave them to him.

"Not popsickles!" he said crossly, "Peanuts is what I want!"

"But the only thing you can get for three cents," Kadir
remarked slowly, "is those popsickles."

"You give me peanuts, or else," the man insisted. "There's
more sanyo than ever these days, or haven't you heard? If you
don't give me those peanuts I'll report you!"

Kadir began to tremble with fear. He picked out a few small
peanuts and gave them to the man, then plucked up the courage to
ask: "Please sir, this sanyo they're talking about ... What's it
mean exactly, if you don't mind my asking?"

"An Indonesian big shot," the man replied while cracking open
a peanut. He cracked open another but found it empty. "A guy
whose head is totally empty, like this!" He flung the shell at
Kadir and angrily stomped away.

Kadir turned to the popsickle man. "That does it. We got to
find out what a sanyo is. Who knows, he could be anything, a
scalper for instance."

The popsickle man sighed while looking at his body. "It's a
hard life these days. We're like popsickles, getting smaller all
the time. In the end all that's left is water and the wooden
sticks to be thrown away."

"I see it somewhat differently," Kadir added. "If you ask me,
we're the same as popsickles, being bitten into and sucked on by
people."

"Well, you know the saying, 'There's more than one path
leading to the mosque.' You choose your own poison."

Music was playing on the radio in the square. A Japanese song,
Kadir at first suspected, but somewhere in the middle he heard
the phrase "my soul".

Kadir applauded when the song came to an end. "That was nice.
Sounds like a modern keroncong song to me."

The two men were suddenly startled by the presence of another
man standing before them. "A penny's worth of peanuts," the man
said.

Quick as a wink Kadir reached over for a sheet of paper and
wrapped the nuts before giving them to his customer. "Mind if I
ask you something, sir?"

"Ask away!"

"What I'd like to know, sir is if this sanyo that everyone is
talking about is a black marketeer?"

The customer was both startled and angry. "What did you say?
How dare you insult Greater Japan! Do you know who I am? You must
be a spy. Come along with me. It's off to the police station with
you!"

Glossary:

keroncong: Portuguese-influenced music

kumico: kampong head under Japanese colonial system

Translated by D.W. Roskies

This story is taken from Menagerie 3, printed here courtesy of
the 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 took
doctorate studies at the same university. Idrus died in his
birthplace in 1979.