The many hats of Haji Johansyah

Martin Aleida

The red shop-house in the area locally called kedai panjang (long shop) is known among the residents of our small town as the only vendor of kupiah, rimless caps usually worn by male Muslims.

No sooner had the Muslim daybreak prayer finished than the shop turned into a house of mourning. Haji Johansyah Kuala died suddenly. He said Assalaamu 'alaikum (Peace be with you) to his right and to his left, then he groaned. There was something that he wanted to say, but he could only produce a gurgling sound. His wife leapt to his side. Haji Johansyah, however, waved his "better half" aside. He complained of feeling too hot. Then, his legs gave way and he collapsed face down on the prayer mat, his hand to his heart. His cap was thrown centimeters away from him on the floor.

His wife held his head close to her chest; then she screamed. It was a deafening scream; a second wake-up call for our town, after the call to prayer.

The shop-house was filled with the sound of sobbing. It was unusually busy. Tables and chairs were moved aside. Old glass cabinets filled with caps in assorted colors were moved to the wall and then covered with a white cloth. The front part of the house, where Haji Johansyah had met his customers, was cleared of furniture and his body was laid out there. There was no trace of pain in his expression, his lips formed a gentle smile.

News about the passing of the cap vendor spread fast. He had been no ordinary person. He was a proselytizer who had his own way of doing things. He called it his mission as a haji to make his fellow Muslims, particularly his relatives, laugh. As his jokes became popular and were remembered by his fellow Muslims, the mere mention of his name brought a smile to their lips, and invariably laughter would follow.

Haji Johansyah was dead. Who would believe it? When his close friends heard the news, the shock of it was delayed. "Could it be just another practical joke to amuse the townspeople?" they thought. They were not ones to be taken in. They sent their maids, or even their children, to find out if Haji Johansyah was really dead.

* * *

Haji Johansyah had found a receptive audience in our small town, which was bordered by two large rivers and two swampy areas. Given its location, everybody in the town knew everybody else.

Haji Johansyah had not been an especially busy man. The cap business was so-so, aside from the days before Idul Fitri and other religious events.

Thanks to his family's fine reputation, Haji Johansyah's word was never doubted. His father, who left him the shop, had been on the haj pilgrimage by bike. He traveled across to the Malay Peninsula and from there he pedaled the rest of the distance to the holy land. Upon his return home, he astounded people with his brilliant recitals of the Koran.

He had also become a reliable wild animal tamer. When the police found it too difficult to do away with a tiger that had killed rubber-tappers in the border area, Haji Johansyah's father was called in. By just waving the turban he had bought in Pakistan, he could easily calm the creature. Haji Johansyah went on his own haj pilgrimage as a teenager. He went by boat. He had a knack for making friends, and people in need were quick to pin their hopes on him.

One day, a middle-aged man dropped by his shop. He did not want to buy a cap but had come to seek advice. He had just lost two of his front teeth due to a coconut -- which he had been trying to pick with a hooked stick -- falling, bang in the middle of his upturned, optimistic face. This unfortunate man covered his mouth with his hand to hide the gap in his front teeth. Haji Johansyah advised him to go to Medan to buy false teeth. He gave him enough money to buy the false teeth and to cover his traveling expenses. On one condition, though: throughout the journey to Medan he was not allowed to hide the gap in his front teeth.

At first, the man hesitated and was too proud to accept the offer. Haji Johansyah, however, gave him a piece of interesting advice that he could accept. This is what the haji told the man: While on the train to Medan, he had to tell anybody who bothered to ask him where he was going that he was going to anywhere else but Medan, because mentioning the word Medan would make him open his mouth and reveal the gap in his teeth.

"Just tell anybody who bothers to ask you where you are going that you are bound for Lubuk Pakam," Haji Johansyah said. He could just about keep his mouth closed when saying this name. "On your way home, you can clap your hands. If anybody bothers to enquire, just answer as you please, just say you are going to Batangkuis. Yes, Batangkuis ... " By mentioning the name of this small town, he would have an opportunity to show off his new teeth.

The man took the advice. On the way to Medan, he told people he was going to Lubuk Pakam and could perfectly hide the gap in his front teeth. On the way home, he said he was going to Batangkuis and could show off his shiny false teeth.

Nothing was ever taken too seriously in our small town. People spent entire days chatting in the local coffee shop, exchanging jokes or debating political matters so heatedly they struck the table with their fists, with just a cup of coffee to tide them by until dinner time. And the shop owner, instead of losing his temper, joined the group. Sometimes, Haji Johansyah also dropped by. It was in the coffee shop that he shared his story about the man with the gap in his teeth.

If somebody visited Haji Johansyah's shop, just to look around, they would end up buying something for sure. He was good at making people feel special, which would loosen their purse strings by and by.

"Ah," he would say, smiling, while adjusting a cap on a customer's head. "Aimak jang (Oh mother), you look just like Sukarno, ah...."

Once, someone apparently thinking very hard was walking to and fro in front of his shop. An idea struck Haji Johansyah. He warmly invited the man to come in.

"To me you look confused. What's the matter?" he asked in a Malay dialect.

"Nothing's the matter".

"Look," he pointed in the direction of a drug store located not far from the crossroads. "This drug store has been looking for leeches for quite a lot time, to be used as medicine. If you like, you can take a few pails. Don't ask anymore, just take the leeches there...."

Believe it or not, the man returned to his village with haste. He went to the swamps to find leeches. He walked into the swamps -- thigh-high -- and waited for sometime before leeches sucked his legs. He collected them easily and it took but a little salt to get them off. In less than half a day, he collected two large pails of leeches. He took the leeches to the town, directly to the drug store at the crossroads.

"What did you say...?! It was Haji Johansyah who asked you to bring me leeches. What did you say...?! He is a haji, how could he lie?" muttered the drug store owner.

"He told me you had been looking for leeches for a long time," the man countered when the drug store owner fell onto his sofa with a thud, shocked to see two large pails full of leeches wriggling repugnantly.

The moment the man mentioned Haji Johansyah, the face of the drug store owner changed. "He got me...," he grumbled, while trying to contain a smile. With no further ado he paid the man, who returned home with a bulging pocket. Meanwhile, the drug store owner had to find someone who wanted thousands of leeches, or at least knew how to get rid of them. The one thing he would never do was tell someone else the joke was on him.

Haji Johansyah, however, wanted to tell all and sundry. That afternoon, he dropped by the coffee shop. And the townspeople laughed harder than ever.

Jokes sometimes backfire. One day, we, students at the Gubahan Islamic School, came to him to voice a complaint. The teacher who taught us how to recite Koranic verses, Haji Saibun Keramat, was too strict. He was always carrying a whip. Just a small mistake in pronunciation would mean the use of the whip.

"Oh, that's easy. Just take the whip and hide it," Haji Johansyah said.

We returned home. One of our buddies, risking everything, stole the whip. Then this friend hid the whip in Haji Johansyah's shop. There was a commotion in our school. Haji Saibun refused to teach us. "It is all right for me to stop teaching; it's not my responsibility; I receive no pay," he said to himself. He agreed to resume teaching only when he got his whip back. We, the children, remained resourceful. We went to the coffee shop and leaked the news that Haji Johansyah had hidden the whip under his table.

The whole town burst into laughter upon learning that it was Haji Johansyah Kuala who had hidden the rattan whip. For us, the students, this joke was a blessing. Only God knows what Haji Johansyah said to Haji Saibun. After this incident, he never used his whip to threaten us anymore.

My father was also one of Haji Johansyah's "victims". I knew why he had chosen him as a target for his joke. My dad was the most successful merchant and the only one who could compete with the Chinese traders. However, he was very stingy. He had never visited a coffee shop. One morning, when I opened the door to sweep the floor outside, I found a great mound of spinach on the sidewalk, stopping people from walking by. I knew who had done this. For the first time in my life I saw my father's big nose redden, his lips trembled -- not in rage, Dad was trying his best not to laugh.

"Come on, who else but Haji Johansyah would have done this," he said and asked me to move the spinach. It took six trips on my tricycle to transport the spinach to the market. Fleetingly, from a distance of some 50 meters, half a face was visible from behind a beam of the only shop selling rimless caps in our town. I knew it must be Haji Johansyah enjoying his practical joke. I also knew that in a matter of a few minutes, the coffee shop and, indeed, the whole town would rock with boisterous laughter.

All his life he grieved only once. In late 1965 soldiers came to pick him up and detained him for a few months, allegedly for having donated caps for a theatrical performance held to highlight the anniversary of the Indonesian Communist Party. One of the scenes in this theatrical performance depicted Sukarno and Hatta, both wearing a cap, proclaiming the independence of Indonesia. Our town was a gloomy one for many years. We came to understand the value of laughter.

* * *

The body of Haji Johansyah was carried to his grave in a vehicle made of a broad piece of wood and trunks of trees felled in Nantalu forest. Four bicycle wheels were used to make the hearse move. Behind it, accompanying those reciting the Koran, were a select group -- his close friends, who did not smile, let alone laugh, during the procession to the cemetery. The air was heavy with grief. An entertainer had gone, and his jokes, which had made people laugh for months on end, were lost.

Those who had been made the target of his jokes formed a circle in the center of the procession. In this part of the procession, mourning was mixed with giggling. One of them was my former teacher. I also found my dad, whose large nose reddened as he laughed softly.

I remember how thousands of our townspeople took to the streets when Haji Hubban Haitami, the most influential preacher in our area, died. However, the passing of Haji Johansyah brought the town to a complete standstill. Shops were closed as a sign of respect for the haji, who had not only demonstrated religious tolerance but had made life fun and kept enmity away, thanks to his use of jokes as a means of proselytizing. ***

Translated by Lie Hua