Eka Kurniawan: Man Tiger

It was no secret. Everyone in the village knew Margio often stole his father’s chickens, not because he needed them, but out of spite. “I have no idea what was in the boy’s mind that he could think of gnawing on someone’s neck,” said Sadrah.

Anwar Sadat himself now lay motionless under a brown batik cloth on the floor of his usually bright living room, now gloomy with unforgiving sorrow and echoing the undulating sobs of the women. The cloth was soaked with red, and curved to the contours of the corpse, while blood still flowed across the floor. Dark and clotted. No one dared to pull apart the curtain that divided the worlds of the living and the dead, for they were aware of the gaping wound, grimmer than any ghost. Just the thought of it made people nauseous and they would back away from the body.

Two policemen arrived in a patrol car. Its red light kept swirling even after the siren had been killed. They both froze by the door, the only people who’d had the chance to turn down the cloth, just for a second, before putting it back. Now they felt like an integral part of the event, though they had no reason to stay. Anwar Sadat’s wife hadn’t let them take the body away for a postmortem, which was reasonable. There was no mystery about the cause of death or the killer. Anwar Sadat didn’t need to be examined, and the only things that would be granted to him were the ritual washing, the covering of his wound with cotton wool, prayers, and an immediate interment.

It appeared that he wouldn’t be buried until the next morning. Maharani, his youngest daughter, was away at college and would not make it back before dawn. The fact the girl had been home last night only added to the drama. She had been there the whole week during her long holiday, before she suddenly took off that morning. People imagined the tragedy spreading all the way to Maharani’s lodgings, the girl still exhausted and unpacking. She would have to return all her belongings to her backpack or leave them behind altogether, exiting in tears and bearing a thousand questions, for she’d left her father in good health. No one had told her it was murder. There was just a short message that he had died, and now the girl was probably hurrying to catch the next bus or train home.

At the house of mourning, groups of women flocked into the front yard and the terrace, whispering to each other and cooking up their own versions of what had happened. Five oil palm trees and a starfruit tree decorated the spacious yard where little children liked to swing on a tire that dangled from a branch. By the roadside a majestic flame tree shed petals that scattered on a carpet of Japanese stiltgrass, on which small children would play-fight and roll around and where a raft of turkeys roamed. At each of two corners was a pond, with fat goldfish and lotus plants and little splashing fountains. On the edges and in the middle of these ponds were a number of stone sculptures: semi-nude women doing hand laundry and children swimming, all produced by Anwar Sadat’s very own skillful hands.

Another of his artworks familiar to the neighbors was a wooden slit drum in the shape of a penis, hanging in front of the house. It functioned as a bell for guests. Years ago he had arrived as an art institute graduate, selling paintings by the beach, before getting married and settling in the village. He always said that he was an admirer of Raden Saleh, and displayed his own reproductions of the great painter’s work in his house, including the famous tiger and bison fight, shamelessly imitating the man’s techniques. He was not at all bothered by the fact that his artistic reputation was known only among the people around his house.

He married a trainee midwife, who once dropped by and asked him to paint her portrait. Anwar Sadat made the girl look far more beautiful than she had ever really been, and she fell in love with him for that. Not wanting to break the girl’s heart, he married her instantly, later to find himself very rich as the girl was heiress to half the township’s land. Ater that he was no longer so eager to pursue artistic fame of any sort, owing to the inheritance of his wife who also worked as a midwife at the hospital. But of course he still painted and made sculptures, mostly portraits of people he knew, and impeccable copies of Raden Saleh’s masterpieces. Save for a portrait of Major Sadrah in the man’s own house, his canvases collectively displayed a myriad of beautiful women.

He really had no job after he gave up painting professionally. He spent his boundless free time playing chess with Sadrah, sponsoring the village soccer club, and chasing girls. The last of these habits, the pursuit and seduction of girls, and sometimes widows or willing wives, was done with more passion than he ever put into his painting. This too was no secret, because a secret couldn’t stay long in the mouth of any of his neighbors. Even so, the immoral impression he gave never eclipsed people’s respect for him, and at every meeting they would let him give lengthy speeches, and he always turned out to be an eloquent speaker. He was charming, and for that reason people forgave him. Plus there was the fact that few of his friends could honestly claim to be better behaved.

That morning nobody had seen the grim reaper resting on his shoulder. Anwar Sadat was a jolly devil who never looked glum, as if death might never touch him. As usual he went to the pancake stall for breakfast, where he jostled with teenagers in school uniform looking worried as they waited for the school bell. Anyone there would have heard jokes from his fried-tempeh-and-pancake-stuffed mouth. Anwar Sadat would have been sitting on the small bench, before the smoldering stove, while the vendor poured batter into the griddle on the stove, turning the fritters over and over in a wok full of boiling oil. He would have pinched the chins of girls in school uniform until they protested at the lewdness, and pulled to one side to avoid his sudden attempt to peck at their cheeks.

They would remember him clearly, wearing plain white shorts and an undershirt bearing the ABC jewelry store logo. He was chubby and a little sluggish, due to age and lack of exercise, yet he would brag that his cock was as solid as a horn, and never concealed his explosive lust. That morning he talked a lot, worrying about his youngest child, who had given no reason for her decision to leave when she was still on holiday, carrying her bag to the bus station alone, refusing to be seen off.

The previous night, after watching the movie at the soccer field, the girl would not talk to anyone. She wouldn’t touch her dinner nor watch television as she usually did, and the entire night there wasn’t so much as a peep from her radio, something she normally enjoyed. She didn’t even leave her bedroom to go to the bathroom, and Anwar Sadat was puzzled that she didn’t perform the dawn prayers, since his youngest child was quite pious. She came out of her room that morning, still not talking and tears in her eyes. Anwar Sadat had no idea what had happened, and he was afraid that if he asked she would only snap at him. He wondered whether he’d done something wrong. The young girl simply walked past him, carrying her towel to the bathroom. And something out of the ordinary happened yet again, as Maharani was out again in only a moment. She went back to her room and made herself up simply, as if she believed that she was as beautiful as she should be. But then she came out holding a bag, ate nothing for breakfast, and said brusquely, “I have to go.”

In retrospect, her dejected eyes and cheerless face seemed to hint that her father was going to die that afternoon. Yet she left Anwar Sadat in a hurry, insisting on going alone to the bus station, as though they would have lots of time to see each other in the future. At the pancake stall he couldn’t stop grumbling about Maharani, not with any real sense of grievance, but rather as an excuse to boast about his daughter.