The Rainbow Troops (15 page)

Few people had ever been here, and among those that had, the most foolish would have to be us. We took quiet, cautious steps. We all took machetes out of our sarongs and formed a straight line to watch the back of the one closest to us. We heard something snap shut along with a big splash of water. It was the shutting of an unfathomably large crocodile's mouth. Snakes were dangling from the branches of trees.

The shack was about one-hundred meters ahead of us. The closer we got, the clearer and more mysterious it became—it was actually in an abandoned field. Who was the extraordinarily brave person who had had a field here?

The field was very close to the edge of the Buta River. Definitely dangerous. The owner surely wanted to be close to the water without regard for his own safety. A stupid move. Perhaps his stupidity had ended his life and was the reason why this field was unattended. In any case, whoever he was, he was definitely not cultivating this field because the amount of pests plundering the plants was unbelievable. A troop of monkeys and a dray of squirrels controlled this field.

Something caught our attention: a branch from the rose-apple tree near the shack was shaking greatly, like it wanted to crash down. This was clearly the doing of a greedy longtailed monkey.

We approached the rose-apple tree with caution and devised a strategy of attack. The monkey was having a big celebration in the branches and was unaware of our presence because it had covered itself in the luxurious leaves. The closer we got, the worse its behavior became. It shook the branches, causing the growing fruit to fall—extremely crude. We wanted to catch it redhanded and give it a fright; a small way to entertain ourselves during our frustrating search for Flo.

We jumped under the branches and yelled loudly to surprise the monkey. But as soon as we did, the situation reversed itself. We were beyond surprised to see a white, happy looking monkey perched leisurely on a branch, like a child playriding a horse. It appeared to have just woken up and had not yet had a chance to wash its face. It roared with laughter at our pale and confused appearances. Flo, that little rascal, had been found!

IN A BOOK, I saw him riding a horse, holding onto the animal's stomach like Kublai Khan. His eyes gleamed as if the god of spears had pierced his heart. My blood bubbled as he crept stealthily toward a male moose. I couldn't bear turning the final page when he said he would throw away the love of mixed Tutuni and Chimakuan women. All this was because he wanted to preserve the Pequot Native American blood flowing through his veins—and the most saddening part was that he was the last of his tribe.

And so he roamed the boundless prairies of Yellow stone all alone on an unsaddled horse. As he shrieked all day and danced to challenge the sun, his vision began to darken. He crawled around, praying for a woman from his tribe to appear among the coyotes just as the gods had produced the Squamish women. But time brought only the wind and heartlessly betrayed him. He grew old. And when death fulfilled its promise, he died a virgin. That morning, the sky welcomed pure Pequot blood with open arms.

It was a riveting story. I never grew tired of it, even after repeated readings. How was it written so I felt as though I were there, in the middle of the Yellowstone prairie, when I didn't even know where that was?

"It's the power of literature," said the postman.
Literature,
asked my heart
, what's that?

During school holidays, we often helped the postman. Our poor village postman. He worked alone, starting after
subuh
prayer at dawn, taking care of the post office and thousands of letters. In the afternoon he received letters, packages and outgoing money orders. In the evening, he opened the post office and sorted the letters; then he delivered them by bi cycle throughout the village. Sometimes this task continued on into the night. A postman's work is very grueling.

I carried the weight of the postman's struggle in my heart. I made an effort to wake up in the middle of the night to pray earnestly. I squeezed my eyes shut:

Oh God, I don't yet know my goals for the future. But when I do grow up, please God, please make me anything besides a postal worker, and don't let it be a job that starts at subuh. I promise You, I will never hang the Koranic teacher's bike in the bantan tree again.

Ever since I offered up that prayer, Kucai, Mahar, and Samson were both surprised and irritated at my refusal to participate in the hanging of Taikong's—the Koranic teacher's—bicycle at alHikmah Mosque.

The postman gave us a little money for shouldering the postal sacks and let us read books with stories like the one about the Yellowstone Native Americans. The books actually belonged to PN School children who had already returned to Java or other areas. The undeliverable books were kept in the post office.

Working at the post office was our school holiday activity. At night we slept at the alHikmah Mosque. At the mosque, we told each other all kinds of stories. We never tired of telling the story of the day we searched for Flo at the mountain and of Tuk Bayan Tula's proven message. That had been the first time Mahar demonstrated what would become his signature gesture, the one he'd do whenever he felt he was in the right: he lifted his eyebrows and his shoulders in unison with a righteous, repeated nod, not unlike a postmate penguin. It was very obnoxious.

One day, when I was helping the postman put outgoing letters in his bag, I was surprised to see a letter with my address on it and my name as the recipient: Ikal.

I secluded myself behind the post office. I opened the letter beneath a
rambutan
tree. My heart raced. The letter contained a poem:

Longing

Love has truly been troubling me

The moment you glanced my way

At the snatching ritual on that fateful day,

It caused me to have a sleepless night,

For from my room, your face would not take flight

Who are you,

The one who has me constantly daydreaming?

You are nothing more than a bothersome boy

But, even so, it is for you I long Njoo Xian Ling (A Ling)

My eyes were transfixed staring at the paper. My hands shook. I read it again and a bitter hunch slipped into my heart. I was happy but also stricken with a dark feeling of sadness—like something terrible would soon happen to me. I turned around. I saw the post office's fence slowly turn into tightly packed human legs. In the gaps between legs, there was a man squatting on his heels across from a tailless crocodile carcass. He looked at me. Tears flowed down his pockmarked cheeks.

At that moment, I knew the pain that had struck the crocodile shaman, Bodenga, when I had witnessed him on the national school's basketball court all those years ago; a traumatic event ingrained in my young mind. It is a trauma that always comes back to me whenever I get a bad feeling. And that afternoon, after many years, for the first time, Bodenga visited me.

SELUMAR MOUNTAIN isn't extremely tall, but its peak is the highest point in East Belitong. To enter our village from the north, one has to pass the left shoulder of the mountain.

From afar, Selumar Mountain resembles an upside down boat: strong and vaguely blue. Situated along the ascent and descent, on the edge of the left shoulder, were the homes of the Selinsing and Selumar residents. They fenced in their yards with bamboo rope, planted tightly and trimmed low. The twin villages were separated by a deep valley, flooded by the peaceful Lake Merantik.

One's stamina surely would be tested during a bi cycle ride on the short but steep ascent to Selinsing Village. Young Malay men trying to impress their sweethearts wouldn't stoop to ask their girls to hop off the back of the bike on the way up, determined to pedal up to the peak using all of their power, teetering along the road.

After conquering the Selinsing ascent, the bicycle would dive down into its descent. The young man would let out a satisfied smile and ask his sweetheart to hold his waist tightly, convincing her that if she chose him, he would later be a dependable husband.

Then the bike would go around two bends, following the course of Lake Merantik's valley, and be greeted by the ascent to Selumar Village. And any sweetheart would understand if she were asked to get down, because while the ascent to Selumar was not quite as steep as Selinsing's, its distance was much longer. It is this that makes the ascent to Selumar less realistic for proving one's love.

Only a quarter of the way through Selumar's ascent, pushing the bike would already feel like a burden. The bamboo fences would look like they formed hovering steps because the eyes would be seeing stars from exhaustion. The closer the peak, the heavier the steps, as if one's feet were loaded with rocks. Sweat would flow heavily down the eyes, earlobes and neck through one's shirt and drip down to soak one's pants.

Nevertheless, when the peak was reached—that is, the peak of Selumar Mountain's left shoulder that I was talking about earlier—all the exhaustion would pay off. Spread out wide in front of your eyes would be beautiful East Belitong, bordered by a long blue coast, sheltered by pure white and bright clouds, and neatly lined with pine trees.

From the peak of that shoulder, one would see houses scattered along the banks of Langkang River's estuaries, winding like snakes. Those groups of homes were not fenced in by bamboo, but by ownerless fields of wild grass. The farther away one got, the more distinct and wider the distance between the two settlements would become.

The settlement that turned to the southwest appeared to faintly follow the one and only main road toward the capital Tanjong Pandan. The settlement that continued straight south was cut off by the wide and bumpy waters of the legendary Linggang River heading out to the open sea. Across the river, houses were assembled neatly around our old, disorderly, and totally disarrayed market.

If you travel along this path, don't rush down from Selumar's peak toward the valley. Stop and take a rest. Lean for a while against an
angsana
tree where baby yellowtailed squirrels play. Listen to the orchestra of pine needles and the hysterical shrieks of small birds fighting with black bumble bees for rose-apple nectar under the sun. Enjoy the sweet composition of the landscape: the mountain, the valley, the river and the sea. Loosen your shirt buttons and breathe in the fresh southern winds carrying the aroma of
andraeanum
petals from the heart flower, which swells up with fertility as its descendants grow in high places. It's named the heart flower on account of the shape of its petals
.
Many call it the Love Flower.

I myself am not sure whether the naturally fragrant aroma clearing the chest originated from the
andraeanum
or from its symbiotic partner, a kind of fungus called
Clitocybe gibba
— the stemless mushrooms working hard to cover the roots of the taro family. Those mushrooms sprout up in a more humid climate when the west winds blew in toward the very end of the year. They had a plump, low and sturdy form.

Laskar Pelangi often picnicked on Selumar Mountain and we were already a little bored with its attractions. usually we didn't trek all the way up to the top; we were satisfied going 75 percent of the way up. Besides, the granite composition of the slope up there made the climb to the top a slippery one. But this time, I was very enthusiastic and determined to push up to the peak. My friends welcomed my enthusiasm. Nothing extraordinary had happened yet and they were already busy talking about the breathtaking scenery that we would later witness from the peak: the bridge over the Linggang River and the barges of glassy sand leaning up against the pier.

But I didn't care about any of that because I was on a secret mission. The secret had to do with the amazing scenery that could only be found at the highest point of Selumar Mountain. The secret was also related to the gorgeous flowers that only grew at the highest elevations: the red needle flower and, if I was lucky, the sweet
muralis
flowers would still be in bloom this week.

I call the
muralis
the Flower of Mountain Grass—my own very technical term. Because this flower likes to scatter itself about, six or seven of its offspring had infiltrated the zebra grassland. Its calyx is as wide as the thumb, and it is a dull yellow propped up by a light green stem with no uniform size: spontaneous and cute. Its leaves could not be called beautiful because their shape and color resemble those of an ordinary
trifolia
. But if successful in picking at least 15 of them, taking off their leaves, and throwing in a few of those red needle flowers to make a bouquet—the heart of any woman receiving it would melt.

After three hours of climbing, we arrived at the top. All of Laskar Pelangi was gushing about the view spread out below us.

"Look at our school," yelled Sahara. It was a pathetic looking building, even from afar. No matter what distance or angle it was viewed from, our school still looked like a copra shed.

Kucai pointed to a building, "Look! It's our mosque!" Everyone shouted, "That's the Chinese temple, stupid!" Even though Bu Mus tried as hard as she could, Kucai, like most politicians in this country, had an IQ quite difficult to raise.

Then a pointless debate began, dividing everyone into two groups.

As usual, Mahar began telling fairytales. According to him, Selumar Mountain was a dragon that coiled itself up and had been sleeping for centuries.

"This dragon will wake up later on judgment day. This mountain peak is his head. That means his head is under our feet at this very moment! Its tail coils in the mouth of the Linggang River."

A Kiong was shocked.

"So don't be too noisy, or you'll be punished by the spirits," Mahar continued, not yet satisfied with making a fool of himself.

A Kiong continued to eat up Mahar's tale. To show his admiration for the useful story, he respectfully gave Mahar a boiled banana from his provisions. It was behavior like that of primitive people paying a tribute to a shaman for curing scabies. Mahar snatched his tribute as quick as lightning and shoved it into his digestive system, completely unaware of the power he currently held over A Kiong. Our laughter exploded at the sight of this. But A Kiong stayed serious—for him, this situation was no laughing matter.

I didn't laugh either. I soon felt lonely among the bustle. My eyes couldn't be peeled away from a foursided red box down below.

I investigated the wild grass fields on the mountain's peak, picking the buds of the wild red needle and
muralis
flowers and tying them together with shrubs.

It was truly a beautiful view from the mountain top, like a song. Its introduction was the gathering of white clouds hanging low as if I could reach them. The vocals, the long whistles of
prigantil
birds, sounded near and high pitched. The refrain: thousands of doves invading the lilies spread out below like a giant carpet. And then the song faded out in the forest of mangroves.

It was for this fantastic scenery and the flowers that I made every effort to climb Selumar Mountain. No matter how overcome I was by the beauty, the real reason I was at the highest point in East Belitong was that red box down below. That red box was the roof of A Ling's house.