Eka Kurniawan - Man Tiger

Margio had left not long after Marian’s death to avoid killing Komar. As he had told Mameh, there was a tiger inside him, and he had yet to learn how to control it. He left with the circus performers, following them to a town an hour’s ride away. He had persuaded the manager to give him odd jobs, such as feeding the elephants and horses. The circus manager took one look at his strong build and imploring eyes and granted his wish, and the boy proved able to handle diligently a variety of tasks. Margio’s real purpose was simply to see how the trainers tamed their tigers, to spy on their training sessions, to get to know these people for a couple of weeks. But as the shows came to an end and the circus troupe was about to head out to towns that stretched all the way east, Margio saw that his mission was doomed. The circus tigers were different from the one inside him.

He got his money for two weeks’ work and said goodbye to the circus. He stayed put, wanting to keep up to date with the news from home. He couldn’t uproot himself completely, even though his father dominated his memories of the town. He missed his mother and Mameh, and once in a while Maharani’s beautiful face drifted into his mind’s eye, as would, with less frequency, his friends, Agus Sofyan’s stall, the surau, and the nightwatch hut — he couldn’t possibly lose them all. So there he stayed, and told bus drivers and their assistants not to tell anyone where he was, devouring whatever news they brought.

Until one afternoon a bus driver told him his father was dead, and his body had started to rot.

He got on that bus, sat by an open window and let the sea breeze that blew through rows of pandanus hit his face. During the ride, his mind wandered, picturing his father’s rotting body at his feet. For Margio nothing was more miraculous than to hear that Komar bin Syueb had died without himself having to cut his throat.

He got off the bus just as the truck carrying the boar hunters arrived, and his pulse beat faster on realizing he had missed an exciting hunt. Dozens of leashed ajaks leapt off the truck, milling on the sidewalk until someone dragged them to Major Sadrah’s house on the side of the road right next to the military headquarters. Two fat hogs, with empty eyes and tied by the feet, hung from bamboo poles suspended on the shoulders of four boys. The ajaks are going to be happy when the day of the boar fight arrives, he thought. Once the hogs are dead, the pork eaters will go for a feast at the Chinese restaurants by the beach. He smelt the familiar stench of mud. Margio simply waved, paying particular attention to Major Sadrah, because Komar bin Syueb was yet to be buried and to socialize would be unseemly.

When he found out that Komar bin Syueb was going to be buried next to Marian, he didn’t like the idea. Mameh insisted it was their father’s last wish, for whatever that was worth. When he saw she was serious, he gave in and let fate have its way. Little Marian would have her revenge regardless of where his old man lay, and Komar would be slain every day in Hell for all eternity. He went to the surau because Komar had been brought there, and took part in the prayers for the dead. When Kyai Jahro asked him if he wanted to see Komar’s face, Margio promptly shook his head, worried that, should he agree, his father might awaken from death.

Before shouldering the coffin, Margio received from Mameh the basket of flower petals. He wondered what good flowers would be for this rotting beast. But once again he saw Mameh’s eyes begging him to spread the petals over the casket, instead of tossing them into the gutter. It dawned on Margio that Mameh had to be the sanest of them all. Her heart was earnest and free of hate, and when he looked at her, he was flooded with bittersweet memories of their childhood together. Perhaps they would be straightforwardly happy with their father consigned to Hell.

Kyai Jahro chanted prayers, and some muddy boys from the truck joined the funeral procession, escorting the coffin. Margio, walking at the back, scooped up some flowers and threw them over the coffin. Despite the colorful petals, the mood grew increasingly somber, below the clamor of people singing praise for the Prophet. They walked in rows on a path through the parched cacao plantation, heading to the Budi Darma cemetery, under the rays of late-afternoon sun that were beginning to turn everything red. The tiger writhed inside Margio, but Margio whispered to it softly: “Look, the guy is dead, so please rest.” He kept on scooping up the petals, tossing them into the air, and this time they floated about as though unwilling to fall, as though mirroring the thrower’s reluctance. Eventually, they alighted on the sandy path to be trampled underfoot.

The gravedigger had been waiting in all patience, chin propped on his spade’s handle, puffing on a hand-rolled cigarette. Mameh was right. The gaping grave lay next to Marian’s mound. Margio recalled her burial and planting the headstone above the resting-place of that tiny body. He stood beside her now, trickling a handful of petals on her, and an unexpected surge of emotion brought him close to tears.

They lowered the casket and lifted the lid, showing Komar bin Syueb blanketed in a shroud that looked like a barber’s bib. Kyai Jahro was chanting prayers incomprehensible to Margio, who had never quite finished his Koran lessons, having read through the Arabic verses without ever grasping their meaning. He set the basket on the mound and raised his hands with the palms open, saying amen repeatedly just like the others. Kyai Jahro ended the prayers, the mourners said the final amen, rubbed their faces with both palms, and the gravedigger descended into the burial pit, telling Margio to come help. Margio rolled up his pants, hurried down, and stood beside the gravedigger, feeling the wet soil under his feet, the ground that would become his father’s final home.

Two of his friends lifted Komar out the casket, and then handed him to Margio and the gravedigger. The body was really heavy, perplexing Margio who had seen him old and frail and had heard about his many illnesses. Still the body weighed a ton. His two friends above had felt it, and he had seen surprise in their faces. Now it was the turn of the grave-digger and Margio. They staggered a little, panting, bracing themselves against the weight to lay Komar in his grave.

The pit was too small, preventing Komar from being laid out full-length. “For God’s sake,” said the gravedigger, “I measured it.” Margio noticed it too, and estimated that it could need to be at least a foot longer. With some difficulty, they hauled up the body, the shroud slipping haphazardly, and put it back in the casket. Margio waited at one corner of the burial pit, while the gravedigger sourly asked for his spade and then got to work. He did the job hurriedly, tossing the earth every which way. It was getting late, and the cemetery was drenched red in the evening sun.

They once more lowered Komar’s corpse, which had grown even weightier. How this happened was anybody’s guess. But the four people carrying the corpse felt the change, as if something were swelling inside it. Margio thought it must be the weight of the man’s sins, and he quietly scowled at the very idea shouldering his father’s sins himself. Together with the gravedigger he dropped the body carelessly, sparing his own back.

Another problem. This time the grave was too narrow. Had the body expanded or did the grave somehow narrow in width as the gravedigger lengthened it? “Goddamnit,” the gravedigger said, really angry this time. “This soil doesn’t want him.” Margio and the man strained to heave the corpse back into the casket before the pit was dug broader. They lowered him again, and again the space was too small. They dug more, and it was still too narrow, as if the pit walls were closing in, refusing to swallow the body.