The Communist

By Manaf Maulana

After 34 years of self-exile in a faraway province, Murtiono decided to go home to Central Java. His decision was not only based on his longing for his family, but also inspired by the new government policy on those who were allegedly involved in leftist activities before the abortive communist coup in 1965.

The nation's new leader announced recently all former communist activists who left home to seek refuge abroad in the wake of the coup, were now free to return without fearing prosecution.

Murtiono did not flee the country. The poor peasant left his village when he and fellow villagers were persecuted for their alleged involvement in leftist activities.

Before that Murtiono lived peacefully with his wife, tilling a small plot of land. Then came the coup attempt, which quashed all his happiness. He and many other villagers were members of the Indonesian Farmers Association (BTI), a wing of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), which was extremely active in rural areas.

Murtiono did not understand politics as well as educated people. He was led to believe that all farmers had to join BTI in order to get an allocation of fertilizer and seeds, and to avoid any conflict with the policies of the ruling regime.

He and his fellow BTI members can now assure anybody who cares to ask that they were not involved in any illegal activities during those years. The only thing they did was attend briefings at the house of the local community leader.

However, after they heard some Army generals had been brutally murdered by left-wingers in Jakarta, the lives of Murtiono, BTI members and everyone else who attended the meetings at the community leader's house became frenzied. They became the targets of public anger. Cold-blooded murders followed. Brutally mutilated bodies were found floating in the river or laying in the paddies.

It did not take Murtiono long to decide how to save his neck. He asked his wife's blessing to leave for a faraway province. In short, during his three decades of self-exile he tried his hand at everything to make ends meet. He worked as a construction worker, market porter, plantation laborer and the last thing he did was roam the streets selling traditional sweet drinks.

During these long years Murtiono completely lost contact with his wife. No words did he ever receive about her fate. He prayed to God to protect her from the fiery campaign of revenge by the anticommunists. And may she wait for him to return.

***

Only recently Murtiono alighted from a bus at the small station near his home village. It was early in the morning. He carried a bag, which contained a couple of kebaya, or traditional dresses, three necklaces and two pairs of earrings for his wife. While in his pockets he had three million rupiah. Murtiono did not allow himself to stop and imagine how ebullient his wife would be to see him again.

Since it was still dark he did not ask the ojek to take him directly home because his wife must still be asleep. From the nearby mosques he heard people reading the Koran, waiting for the subuh (dawn) prayer. He wanted to spend the time with a cup of coffee at a nearby food stall.

"On your way home,Pak *)," the stall owner said to him. Murtiono nodded smilingly.

"Where do you live?"

"Randuwangi village."

"You come from there?"

"Yes, it is my birthplace, but I have been away for too long. Now I'm returning"

"Then we're neighbors, Pak."

Murtiono was surprised. He looked straight into the man's eyes but could not recognize him. The stall owner must have been a teenager when he left the village, he thought.

"Who's your father," Murtiono asked.

The stall owner looked down poignantly before answering the question. "I'm the only son of the late Pak Paijan. I'm called Kasmin."

Murtiono did not say anything to this. Paijan's face was still fresh in his memory. The jovial fellow was his good friend. Paijan was one of the earlier victims of the anticommunist bloodbath in the village. Paijan's body was dumped in a field, his head nearly severed from his body. The bodies of other victims were scattered nearby.

"My father was murdered when I was still a small boy."

Murtiono repeatedly nodded his head in full understanding. He said at last: "He was a victim of cruel slander, which ruled our village at the time."

"The slander killed my father and condemned me this life. All I can do is run a stall like this, because since my father was accused of being a communist, I was denied my right to join the Army, the police or the civil service."

"How about your mother? Alive?"

"No, she has followed father to the grave."

Murtiono took a long breath. He tried to imagine how ill-fated Paijan's wife was, the widow of an alleged communist activist.

Suddenly Kasmin began to cry. "By the way what is your name, Pak?"

After Murtiono told him his name, Kasmin's face beamed again.

"Oh, you're Pak Murtiono. You were also accused of being a communist, but you managed to escape. My mother used to tell me about you."

"Now Kasmin, please tell me anything you know about my wife."

Kasmin did not say anything for several minutes, letting the silence drag on. He knew Sumi, Murtiono's wife, who was now married to Pak Barjo, the former village head.

Kasmin thought about how to tell Murtiono this bitter truth. The old man would certainly be crushed to hear the news. He stared at Murtiono's face with a deep sense of sympathy. Kasmin had heard from his mother that the Murtionos were happy together until he left the village. Kasmin decided to tell Murtiono the truth in the kindest way possible.

He had hardly stopped speaking when he saw Murtiono's face turn pale. The old man appeared to be extremely offended by the betrayal.

Murtiono's mind roamed back to when he and Barjo were still bachelors. Both of them fell in love with Sumi, who was the most beautiful girl in the village. But Barjo was not much of a competitor, because as a lover he was too timid and gutless to win Sumi's heart.

However, Barjo seemed to have difficulty accepting his defeat. Ever since, the relationship between the two former rivals was never very good. Barjo was the most fervent accuser of Murtiono. To him, Murtiono was the most dangerous communist criminal in the area. Simply put, Barjo was the cruelest man behind the witch- hunt of suspected leftists in the village.

Murtiono understood Barjo was wielding a banner of revenge and a poisonous ambition to make Sumi his wife -- or at last to sleep with her -- through any means necessary. And he did it.

Deep in these painful memories, Murtiono was no longer listening to Kasmin, who was asking him where he planned to go because he wanted to close the stall.

Kasmin repeated the question: "Pak Murtiono, do you still plan to go home and live with Sumi?"

Murtiono could not find the right answer.

"I advise you Pak, please don't go there. My house is open to you, stay with me."

After Kasmin said he was closing the stall, Murtiono realized that morning was approaching.

"Okay, Pak, let's go to my house. I feel almost like you were my own father."

They walked side by side. On the way home Kasmin told Murtiono about his family. He was married and had two children, who, he said, would love to welcome Pak Murtiono into their home.

Arriving at Kasmin's house, Murtiono found true hospitality.

***

However, the older neighbors did not have the same reaction to Murtiono's return. Injurious gossip against him started and spread swiftly like a brushfire, because anticommunist sentiment was still high among the rural people of the country.

When news of Murtiono's return reached Sumi's ears, she panicked. She thought her former husband had come back to take her from Barjo. Besides her dismay, Sumi also felt guilty because she had not waited for him. She had betrayed Murtiono.

Barjo also heard the news. Silently, he panicked too, because he had married a woman who was not legally divorced. But as a former village head, the most powerful man in the area, he manifested his reaction in a different way.

Barjo began a campaign to preserve the village's stability against the dangerous communist virus. This virus, he said, had returned to the village under the guise of Murtiono, the only local communist still alive, who wanted to revitalize communism here.

"It is against the state philosophy," he said, "and that's why all the people should go hand in hand to crush it."

Because Barjo was a former village head, many villagers were easily taken in by his words.

Murtiono realized he would be easy prey for Barjo's campaign to chase him away from his place of birth. But this time he had no plan to surrender. "If God Almighty wants me to die here now, I will face death like an innocent man," he told himself.

***

Several days later, some villagers decided to solve the dilemma of Murtiono's presence. In the darkness and silence of midnight, several masked men forced their way into Kasmin's house and dragged Murtiono outside. Kasmin was too powerless to help the old man from the dagger-wielding men.

The next day, he and other villagers heard that Murtiono's severely mutilated body had been found in a ricefield.

Translated by TIS.

*) Pak means father, but it is also used to mean Sir.