The many hats of Haji Johansyah

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