~~~~~
Melati spent most of the time with Ayu and Sukma while her brother and Agung were away. The chatter between the three friends was very often about the two absent men.
“Do you know why father called him Bandri?” said Melati.
The other two looked up from their weaving and shook their heads.
“You know how father was very fond of hunting for honey,” explained Melati, feeling just then the spectre of her father’s murder. She swallowed hard and refused to allow the tears to come. “He said that the name Bandri reminded him of the buzzing sound the bees make.”
Ayu leant over and put an arm around Melati’s shoulder.
“Bbbaannnnddddrrriii!” Ayu mimicked, just like a bee.
Forgetting her bad memory in an instant, Melati burst into a fit of giggles along with Sukma.
“Now I have a new name for my husband,” Ayu said between her own giggles. “I will just buzz when I want him!”
“Buzz now because they’ve been away for so long,” complained Sukma.
The three of them buzzed long and loud as they busily weaved their fabric on the porch.
The large pebble message left by Bandri was kept carefully on a small shelf attached to the house wall. When the buzzing died down, they started talking about the symbols on the pebble.
“Each mark means a sound,” explained Ayu. “So he means ‘se-ma-n-ga-t’.”
“Passion,” breathed Sukma wistfully. “What does it mean?”
Melati felt her face get hot as she looked at Suk’s provocative expression. Sukma was only teasing Ayu, but still it embarrassed Melati.
“It means I love him,” answered Ayu. “It means I will do anything for him.. it means I’m missing him now...”
Her answer tailed off with the shedding of copious tears. Melati and Sukma dropped their weaving and hugged her.
“They’ll be back soon,” said Melati trying to reassure her. “The Sun Spirit will look after him.”
“Agu will look after him,” said Sukma with confidence, as if he was more powerful than the Sun Spirit. “He’ll never let anything bad happen.”
Melati wondered if their brothers cared for each other like the way she cared about Suk, and the way she beleived Suk cared for her.
“They will look after each other,” Melati said with hope in heart.
“That’s true,” said Ayu, beginning to recover her poise. “Agu knows the right thing – he thinks about things even if he doesn’t say it.”
“He talks when he needs to,” said Sukma. “He’ll look after Dri.”
“Really!?” said Melati. “I mean – does he talk?”
“Oh yes,” Sukma answered brightly. “But maybe not when you’re around Mel,”
“He’s just shy Mel,” murmured Ayu, putting a hand on her knee. “He likes you really.”
“You scare him!” Sukma quipped.
Melati pulled a scary face at Suk, poking out her tongue, while Suk pulled a face back. Ayu chuckled. Even though Agung’s sisters were her closest friends, she still couldn’t tell them what her mother had said to her, and anyway she didn’t think she should break her mother’s confidence. Yet finally her desire to understand Agung broke through the pretence.
“But really - why doesn’t he speak much – there must be a reason?”
Ayu looked at her, no longer evading the question.
“Alright,” she said, breathing in deeply. “We can try to understand him better if I tell you both something that’s probably best to keep to ourselves.”
Sukma looked at her sister with questioning eyes.
“You were just a baby Suk – but there is something I’ve tried to forget,” Ayu began quietly, almost apologetically. “And now our parents never talk of it – but you are older -”
“What is it?” demanded Sukma now.
“I’m sorry Suk.. When Agung was a boy we had an older brother, his name was Bria..” Sukma made a mewing sound, staring at her sister who added painfully “Bria was about Untung’s age when it happened - he was a year older than Agu.. They were playing together when Bria was bitten by a snake.. and Bria died.”
As if reliving the trauma, Ayu cradled the pebble with Bandri’s inscription while Sukma hugged her sister tightly.
“I’m sorry sister,” Ayu whimpered, dropping the pebble on her lap to return the hug. “There’s nothing we can do.”
In aching empathy, Melati reached out to put her arms around her friends, laying her head against theirs, not knowing what to think or what to say.
“You see, I think this has something to do with why he doesn’t say much,” Ayu managed to explain after the pain subsided. “It’s as if he still blames himself for not saving his brother – as if somehow he has turned in on himself.”
“I’m sorry,” Melati mumbled, struggling to express churning emotions. “I never knew.”
Ayu carefully mopped up teardrops that had fallen onto the pebble.
“Do you know he helped Dri make up a lot more marks?” she said. “They wrote Kampong Likupang on his machete.”
“Our big brother is great, isn’t he?” sniffed Sukma, still hugging Ayu. “We love him – don’t we?”
Ayu and Sukma went on to relate funny stories about Agung and Melati’s feelings completed their transmutation. Now she was missing Agung almost as much as she was missing her brother. She began to believe that her feelings for Suk’s big brother must really be those of love, and that finally she understood the wisdom of her mother’s words.
The Tropical Sun - Belief, Love and Hate Page 6
