Two Skulls

Two Skulls

By Motinggo Busye

I take a deep breath every time the story of two skulls buried
somewhere in the restive province of Aceh, the northernmost
province of Sumatra, crosses my mind. The two human body parts
are very important to me because they belong to my relatives. Now
I have to go to the area to unearth them.

The story started with a telephone call from Umi (Acehnese for
mama) telling me to immediately present myself at Lhokseumawe,
the capital of North Aceh regency.

Twice Umi called me about that. She said I had been appointed
by the family as the head of a committee in charge of moving the
skeleton of my grandfather from a isolated village to a better
place. I fully understood the message and would soon depart for
Aceh so that Umi would not need to call me for the third time.

I would shortly go there using land transportation, although I
understood quite well that the road linking Lampung and South
Aceh was quite rough. Moreover, the towns I would pass along the
way give me no special impression.

Later, upon arrival in Aceh, I directly went to see Mak Toha,
a kind-hearted old lady whom I have known since my childhood. My
relationship with her is like that of mother and son. And Ali,
her oldest son, was my classmate in junior high school. Mak Toha
was very surprised to see me standing at her front door. She
welcomed me with an Islamic greeting: Assalamu'alaikum, which
means peace be on you.

"You make me feel as if Ali has come back to life," she said.

"So, is it true that he is dead?" I asked.

"Yes, it is. But our family full-heartedly accepts God's will.
Ali has treaded the right path of God. For us, he is a valuable
ticket to go to Heaven,alhamdulillah (Arabic for praise be to
God)," she added.

Mak Toha asked me to be seated as she went to the kitchen to
make tea. While doing that, she asked me how I knew that Ali had
died.

"Ja'afar informed me," I said. I tried to hide the emotional
battle inside me. My heart asked why Ali had been the victim of a
brutal murder. Every one knew he was a smart dancer of seudati,
the most popular Acehnese classical dance. He was also a gifted
dramatist and an expressive poetry reader.

Ali once sent me a letter from Tripoli, Libya. After reading
it, I got an impression that he was a great worshiper of Qaddafi,
the controversial Libyan leader. He signed the letter as
"Qaddafi's son." But as time went by, Ali changed his attitude.
After he returned home from the North African country and settled
in Medan, Ali also sent me a letter. This time he seemed to have
freed himself from the hero worship. He said his job in the
capital city of North Sumatra province was teaching English.

"Although my mother is rich, I don't want to be spoiled. I
want to be self-supporting," he said. "In fact, my mother urged
me to start a patchoulie plantation, an easy way to get rich. But
wealth is not my aim," he said. His final sentence was the most
important.

That is the last letter I received from Ali. Some friends
informed me that he and some colleagues had been killed by
troops. All of them were buried in a mass grave. But to Mak Toha,
Ali is now a beloved missing person.

In his last days, people remembered Ali for his flawless
English. He had also memorized Shakespeare's works by heart. His
aptitude for languages became apparent when he was in senior high
school. Nobody believed that Ali was fit enough to carry a gun or
that he deserved to be a victim of military brutality. They
should not have murdered him. They should have appreciated him
for his artistic ability.

I remember one day Ali came to my house to tell me about a new
innovation of his. Shakespeare, he said, was not only a
playwright but also a great poet. He said he had just gotten a
book on Shakespeare from his uncle in Singapore. Ali asked me to
read one of the poems from the book: So shalt thou feed on Death/
that feeds on men/ And Death once dead/ there's no more dying
then.

What impressed me deeply was his ability to translate the
poems into Acehnese so perfectly. Acehnese people are known for
their love of poetry. There are a lot of traditional oral poets
in the province. And this time the local people had a chance to
hear Shakespeare's poems read by Ali, especially the ones
speaking about death. The locals believe that death only comes
once.

Years ago, Mak Toha told me that Ali rejected her advise to go
to Sidikalang, North Sumatra, to open a plantation because he
wanted to pursue her studies in Singapore. But he did not live
long in the island city. On my advice, he left for Egypt. But in
the land of the Pharaohs, Ali changed his mind and proceeded to
Libya.

Mak Toha denied the accusation by the military authorities
that Ali was in Libya to take part in military training. "That is
a lie, a poisonous lie. The truth is Ali was an English teacher
there," Mak Toha said.

Ali told me in his letter that Qaddafi liked to look down upon
uneducated people. A bright man, he was educated at a British
military academy under the sponsorship of sultan Idris, the
country's monarch whom he later ousted. Ali said Qaddafi did not
only speak English but French.

Mak Toha could not hold back her tears when she spoke about
her son. I felt sad too because Ali was now lying two meters
underground, in an unmarked mass grave.

And that day, I told Mak Toha I could not spend much time with
her because I had to proceed to Lhokseumawe to meet my relatives
and prepare everything for the removal of my grandfather's
skeleton.

But I had to postpone my departure to the North Aceh regency
town upon the strong persistence of the old lady. "Please spend
one night here so that my longing for Ali can be satisfied," she
begged.

I was lucky that Ibrahim, Ali's younger brother, suddenly
arrived. The young man was quite talkative but I did not mind
because I could shift my focus from Mak Toha's sentimental tale.
Ibrahim came fully dressed on such a hot day as that.

"Why are you dressed so in the scorching sun? " I asked.

"It is important, to show the troops I'm not an extremist. You
know, I'm an busy patcholie exporter."

Ibrahim informed me that he and relatives would immediately
leave for the village of Dayah Baureuh to unearth the bodies of
the victims of an indiscriminate massacre by the troops. They
arbitrarily accused innocent people of being members of the Free
Aceh Movement (GAM). The victims were buried in a mass grave
beside a field where they were gunned down.

"We want to find the victims' identity and rebury them in a
proper burial place with full respect," he said.

I was shocked to hear Ibrahim's story because what I heard
from Yacob, a friend of mine, the massacre was less inhuman. I
told Ibrahim that I would take part in the digging job. And with
Mak Toha's permission, we left for Lhokseumawe.

Arriving home, it was Umi's turn to be surprised because my
arrival was much earlier than she had expected.

I told my mother that we would have to delay the unearthing of
grandfather's body. Personally, I never met the old man because
he was shot to death in 1942 by the Japanese occupational troops.
I was touched, however, every time Umi told me the story of his
death.

I hoped the delay would not upset Umi. Although consistent at
all times, if she had to choose between unearthing her father's
skeleton and those of DOM officers, those notoriously brutal
military operation officers, she would, of course, prefer the
second. I knew that for sure.

When I told Umi how lively Mak Toha told the story of Ali's
excellence and how she tried to persuade me to spend a night
there so that she would be able to speak more about her son, Umi
shed dears and wiped them with the edge of her head scarf.
"I wish it were you who had been killed by the military so that
our family would have a medal from God for the next life," she
said firmly.

Umi also related how sincere Ali was. She once attended a
poetry reading in four languages by him. That took place in
Langsa, the capital of East Aceh regency.

"When was that, Umi?"

"It was right after he returned from Tripoli. Ali was fluent,
not only in English, but also in Arabic. Foreign consuls, who
attended the show, could not believe their eyes at what they
witnessed. It was par excellence. I broke into tears for over his
accomplishment. I was sorry you were not there," she said.

I did not say anything. I knew when Acehnese women spoke about
death they were fully overwhelmed by the spirit of holy war. For
them, Ali's death was an expression of love for God and a promise
to those he left behind.

At a meeting with relatives, we agreed to go Dayah Baureuh to
unearth the bodies of the victims of the military brutality. The
decision certainly pleased Mak Toha. And on that day, I received
a telephone call from Ibrahim in Sidikalang. He said he and his
family would arrive in Dayah Baureuh on Wednesday with food and
drinks. "I want to meet you there," he said.

Arriving at the appointed place on Wednesday, I hugged all the
people who had come to help dig the mass grave.

We worked extra carefully in order not to affect the bodies.
Some of the victims were neatly dressed, while others were
complete with ID cards. I was also surprised to find high school
class mates among the victims. But there were also many without
an identity.

One of the victims wore a bronze ring with an agate. "This
must be my son, Amir," said a woman, who was his mother.

Another woman shouted:" This must be Buyung, my son. Look at
his ring with the Persian emerald. Mak Toha, who was standing
nearby, kept silent.

"Ali tried to resist the execution," said Udin, an eyewitness
of my age.

"What happened after that?"

"He was gunned down by an army captain," said Udin.

Udin's statement pushed me to ask an officer who was there.
"If the executioner was a commandant, did he use a long or short
gun?"

"Usually, a pistol," he said.

I picked up one of the skulls, which had a hole in the
forehead.

"If Udin's story is true, this must be Ali's skull," I said
while cleaning soil from it. I was surprised to find a projectile
inside. I showed the bullet to the officer and asked whether it
was shot from a pistol.

"It is from a Vickers pistol," he said.

I asked Mak Toha whether she was satisfied, and she said:
"Alhamdulillah," adding, "But please clean it further because a
platinum-capped tooth will determine the truth."

I cleaned it until the old woman shouted in happiness because
there was no doubt any more; It was Ali's skull. I removed the
tooth and gave it to her. She kissed it with deep respect.
Afterward, she put it into her purse. At the same time, I also
put the bullet into my shirt pocket.

"If that is Ali's skull, this must be Rozak Harimau's," said a
young man who was standing nearby, whose name was Tengku Jajaj.
He attested that Rozak's canine teeth were similar to those of a
tiger. That is why he was called Razak Harimau (Razak the Tiger).

Mak Toha was happy to see me cleaning the rest of skulls in
the way Muslims bathed the dead. When they were all clean, I
wrapped them in a clean white cloth. After that, all the skulls
were placed in a row for a special prayer service. This was all
done according to Islamic tradition. The last ritual was burying
the skulls properly in a special grave.

But the following week, as I was unearthing my grandfather's
skeleton in another place, I had almost the same feelings. My
grandfather's skull also had a hole in the forehead. But I did
not find any bullet. What I saw was a bigger hole at its back. My
grandfather was also gunned down by a soldier, but he was a
Japanese soldier during the occupation of Indonesia in World War
II. Military fascism was extremely cruel during the Japanese
occupation.

When we held a family gathering in Lhokseumawe some time
later, one of the participants urged me to beg to the authorities
to confer my grandfather with a special medal of honor for his
heroic deeds in resisting the Japanese occupation. But I opposed
the proposal saying, "No, it is not necessary."

"But your grandfather was a victim of the Japanese brutality,"
my uncle said.

"Okay," I said, "what about my friend Ali, a victim of our own
military's operations?"

Everyone was quiet. It seemed we needed time for
contemplation.

Translated by TIS

The story is taken from "Dua Tengkorak Kepala (Two Skulls),
Kompas selected short stories, 2000.