Toothless

By Ode Barta Ananda

"Have I lost my good looks, San?" Katil was trying to close his mouth tightly. The feeling of loss and sadness was apparent.

Santi just smiled, or more precisely she was smiling thinly, not unlike Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

"What has handsomeness to do with a full set of teeth?" She prised her husband's lips open to confirm the absence of some front teeth.

Katil parried her move and hurried to the mirror. He displayed his teeth, grimacing slightly.

Santi shook her head before she approached. She was plump and moved slowly. She checked the back of the mirror and said, "Uda, why do you believe so much in mirrors?"

"What do you mean?"

"This mirror is a cheat, Uda!" hissed Santi while showing her neat row of teeth.

"A cheat?" Katil frowned trying to guess where his wife's words were heading. She was a lecturer in philosophy.

"A big cheat. The mirror shows us that our right side is on the left and the other way around. A mirror distorts facts!"

"So, what looks ugly in the mirror, is not necessarily bad according to you, a lecturer in philosophy?" Katil was trying to understand his wife. He was trying to understand while being sarcastic -- it was his trait as an activist.

Santi did not want to respond to his insinuation. "Uda, you must know why I just checked the back of the mirror."

"You behaved like a macaque," Katil laughed infectiously. "Only a macaque has the habit of checking the back of a mirror before looking at it!" He could not hide the empty space between his front teeth any longer, for the sake of responding to his own joke.

"The macaque's behavior is not a joke, Uda!" Santi said, her mouth closing firmly before she added, "It teaches us that anyone looking at the mirror must remember to check behind the mirror. We should not believe only in what is in front of us, we should know what is behind our backs!"

Katil smiled shyly. He had not expected his discussion on teeth to move on to mirrors and the philosophy of the macaque's behavior. He bowed his head and pressed the cemented floor with his toes. He walked unsteadily to the living room where the discussion had started.

Santi followed in triumph. But her elation only lasted until she sat down. She asked, "You didn't throw your teeth away, did you?" Santi swallowed, suddenly remembering their depleted savings due to the cost of replacing her husband's two front teeth knocked out by a vendor selling cendol (a cold drink with rice-flour droplets). The vendor was angered because Katil said that he had not boiled the water for the cendol.

"I didn't throw them away, but ..."

"But lost them unintentionally?"

"No."

"So?"

"Hmm ..."

"Uda, have you forgotten that the two front teeth are made of gold?" Santi reminded him. "You once took me along to Bukittinggi. Unintentionally you left me at the Aur Kuning terminal."

"I did not forget you that time, San." Katil said in earnest, noting that Santi hadn't forgot last year's incident. "I was somewhat annoyed because you chatted so long with your college friend, hmm, what was her name again?"

"Lely!" Santi snapped. Such a tone would always come up if Katil, a literature graduate, started to weave sentences into a paragraph of arguments.

Usually Katil showed indifference. This time was no different. "Ah, Lely!" He snapped his fingers. "Considering your gossip might be lengthy, I just went straight to Kapeh Panji, to attend a meeting on the es mambo (popsicles) epidemic hitting the Tigo Baleh region."

Santi looked her husband in the eyes. Again she smiled thinly when she saw the sincerity in her beloved husband's eyes seemingly resting on his pointed nose. It was this love that made her seemingly indifferent to the lack of money she received from Katil. He was now virtually dedicated to his non-government organization activities, practically neglecting personal economic needs.

Katil responded with a smile before saying, "Besides, you knew that we were heading to Kapeh Panji. And ..."

"Enough!" said Santi. If he got his way, Katil would continue harping with a fluency that resembled his hour-long speeches in front of the public to convey the importance of one of his NGO programs. "Now I want to hear your sincere explanation, Uda, where are the two gold teeth?"

Katil raised his head and frowned. He said in a distinct voice, "I have donated them to the village head. I hope the donation will induce the wealthy in our village to also donate gold. When the gold has been collected, it will be further channeled to the relevant agencies to help the country overcome the increasingly permanent monetary crisis ... "

"Stop!" Santi pressed her index finger against her husband's lips. "You did that because you really wanted to 'show your teeth'? Were you sincere or was there some kind of protest implied?"

"What do you mean?" Katil always succeeded in involving people in an argument.

"I'm quite sure you perfectly understand what I mean. I may not understand you if later on you will represent our village to carry the gold collected ... "

"As one of the representatives of thousands of villages in the whole country, to present the gold collected from the villages, to the authorities in charge, ..." Katil cut in, continuing the train of his wife's thoughts. Only, his skill in composing sentences weakened somewhat. Perhaps because -- "However ..."

"Yes!" Santi cut in. "However, how many grams of pure gold can be collected from a village? Besides, we live in a less developed area." Santi cleared her throat on seeing her husband shake his head. "And if each village sent a representative, what about his travel expenses? Wouldn't the costs exceed the value of the donations?" She saw that her husband had shifted his attention to a program on their black-and-white TV.

"Why does our country have more and more ceremonies?" Katil, feeling cornered, changed the topic of conversation. He willed his wife's concentration on to the TV program.

"In my opinion, one of the functions of a ceremony is 'to show one's teeth'. But the teeth are no more! Whatever the situation -- "

Before Santi could say, "Ugh!" Katil coughed loudly.

Santi held her hand to her chest in disappointment. She diverted her annoyance by switching off the television.

-- Translated by SH

Glossary:

Uda: term of reference for older male in Minangkabau language

The writer lives in a village in the Sijunjung district, Sawahlunto Sijunjung regency in West Sumatra. The Kompas daily and Horison are among the newspapers and journals which have published his stories.