Apple and Knife

by Intan Paramaditha

  All of a sudden, she felt the ground beneath her tremble and then crack. She looked at the dancers. Had their frolicking caused it? No, no; they didn’t seem to notice. Something was amiss. Careful to avoid drawing anyone’s attention, she withdrew slowly and hid behind a tree. Yes, something was amiss. And whatever that something was felt very close.

  Slowly, the glow of the campfire dimmed then disappeared entirely, swallowed by an enormous shadow. Dahlia squinted, trying to peer at the danger that was taking shape. A wolf, but far too huge for an ordinary wolf. It was as tall as a tree.

  A giant wolf wanted to join the merrymaking and the beautiful creatures realised it too late. The wolf approached the festive crowd, hurled them into the air, lunged at their necks. Dahlia covered her mouth. She was witnessing a massacre. Blood flowed from shredded flesh but the faces retained their smiles.

  Beautiful heads were liberated from bodies. They sprawled behind the leaves, were flung to the treetops, bounced along the paths. Perfect faces that smiled until death.

  Now she doubted whether they were ever alive.

  Dahlia dared not leave her hiding place. Silence had taken hold of the night. The screaming had stopped. All were dead.

  The giant wolf, however, remained. It began to sniff out Dahlia, the only being left from the massacre. The night was so still. The only sounds were her breath and that of the wolf. The eyes of the great beast cast around. Dahlia retreated slowly. She tried to recall where the red door was.

  She would run to it, open it, then slam it shut, never to return.

  There had to be something that would distract the wolf. She wished another creature in the thicket would arouse the monster’s desire, so she could run as fast as she could. But the party had ended. Only she and the predator were left.

  Dahlia remembered an old trick, her last hope. Yes, she would throw a pebble as far as possible. Then she would dart away.

  One.

  Her fingers trembled as she picked up a pebble. Careful, careful.

  Two.

  Grasping the pebble, she waited a moment. She would have to be swift and precise.

  Now was the time.

  Three!

  She threw the pebble and sprinted away with all the speed she could muster.

  Over ditches and barbed hedges. The grasses were like wildfire that singed and stung her legs. Soon… soon a door would appear.

  The door was near the well.

  But which one? She found one well, then another, and another. She had to find the well that reflected the shadow of a woman with deep eyes.

  Her knees had gone numb but she kept running. The wolf’s fury could be felt so near, its breath on her ears. Soon. Soon there will be…

  A red door… No door!

  The door wasn’t there. She had merely circled back to her starting point. Here was where the party had been. Here, too, the party had ended. She couldn’t escape; the master of the house liked her scent.

  She whirled around. The wolf loomed in front of her, its eyes full of embers and boring into her. Its fangs glittered.

  At that moment came the sensation. A comet that had flown off for just a fraction of a second and made her gasp. The feeling when a car almost skids off into a ravine on a sharp curve. Resisting. Crashing. Eyes closing. But then–

  Release.

  Surrendering to the darkness, she saw a hand reaching for her. The woman of the well with infinite eyes. She drove the wolf away with a mere swish of the hand then took Dahlia and flew into the well.

  Now she understood everything. The well was a sea of red wine.

  Blood blackening boiling billowing.

  Unfolding the origins of life.

  And death.

  The woman invited her—

  to haunt eternally the boundless deep.

  Yes.

  Let’s do that.

  Pa, Pa … See you later. Tomorrow I won’t be late. Goodnight, Pa.

  They will meet again tomorrow at sunrise.

  If she wakes up.

  If.

  The Obsessive Twist

  Salimah twisted, sweaty and sinuous, bathed in the colourful lights. In skin-tight leggings and a beaded, black dress that hardly concealed her voluptuous curves, she swayed to the beat. Her cat-like eyes were framed by false lashes. They looked straight at the audience. The men, bewitched, swore to drop to their knees and surrender to the curve of her hips and to lavish kisses on her shiny black stiletto boots. Her mouth, rimmed with scarlet Viva lipstick, opened as she encouraged the crowd to dance.

  No question about it, her killer moves made men obsessed.

  The villagers adored a few other dangdut singers besides Salimah, like Tety Maryaty and Cici Ciara. They were equally skilled and had a similar pedigree: each had participated in the selection for festivals for Qu’ranic readings and each had dreamed of becoming a pop singer before finally joining the Red Honey Dangdut Band. Tety Maryaty was never seen out of her tufted shirt and leopard print pants; she was a bit too curvaceous to carry off the sporty look she so wished to emulate. Cici Ciara, on the other hand, tended towards a wistful expression and dreamy eyes; she could turn any song into something melancholy.

  Unlike her peers, Salimah was never too peppy or too woeful. Her singing was dynamic. It was crisp and untamed. She called to mind Elvy Sukaesih, the Queen of Dangdut. Salimah’s movements were graceful, seductive, sometimes passionate. But she always seemed to be holding something back. It was as if her dress, which barely left her room to breathe, was keeping an enormous power in check. Many said the gleam in her eyes resembled Itje Trisnawati’s. But unlike Itje, who acted coquettishly, Salimah was never known to play around. Far from feeling discomforted by a man’s gaze, she relished it. And then crushed it. Her eyes inflicted a sting, as if she were constantly searching for something. Loyal fans fantasised about what she would be like if she ever let loose the fire she guarded within.

  The women who grew up with Salimah knew she was older than she looked. They tracked her life history: married at seventeen; a mother a year later; divorced at twenty-three; single until now, age thirty. For a village dangdut singer, she wasn’t all that young.

  Surely she had inserted a susuk into the soft tissue of her body as a talisman. That, at least, is what her neighbours whispered. There was something mesmerising in her allure and some found this terrifying. Not a few were convinced that Salimah had turned to magic, that she had made a dark sacrifice, probably a life, for her beauty. But her fans didn’t care. Sexy widow or the reincarnation of Nini Pelet, complete with her love potions, the woman was a knockout.

  ‘Is this addictive or what?’ Salimah shouted in the microphone. ‘Let’s see you move!’

  Salimah’s voice reverberated even after the concert. The night market had already dispersed but, cradling cheap liquor, men were still jabbering about how she moved.

  ‘Who would you go for, Cici or Salimah? A girl, or a lady with experience?’

  ‘As if you know the difference.’

  ‘Salimah has such a great butt, she must work it around in bed.’

  It wasn’t just the drunks who daydreamed about Salimah. Innocent youth and upstanding husbands did, too. They showered her with small gifts. A kid or two would look for her backstage, where the ladies changed in a makeshift cubicle that was overflowing with cosmetics and costumes, speckled with snack crumbs and heady with the scent of deodorant. The boys, harmless enough to trespass on this female domain, delivered gifts from Salimah’s fans.

  ‘Hey, Miss Salimah, somebody bought you martabak. Here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Same as usual, Solihin.’

  Salimah thought back to how so many teenage girls, herself included, would steal glances at Solihin when he was on his way to the mosque. Salimah was certain that he gazed back at her, but for years he never dared make a move and he ended up marrying another woman instead. He was struggling for recognition in the community and courting Salimah wouldn’t help. Besides, he thought t
hat Salimah would only be interested in rich men, who would spoil her with expensive dresses but never offer to marry her. Now, even after sending her several gifts, Solihin pretended not to notice when Salimah smiled at him in the street.

  The slightly cracked and clouded mirror reflected Salimah’s make-up-free face. She was busily trimming her eyebrows with a pair of clippers. Whether or not she had the help of a charm, half an hour later that mirror revealed an enchantress.

  Salimah left the martabak untouched. She passed it on to the band, so they would have a snack when they finished performing.

  Salimah sometimes invited men on stage to dance with her. Now and then a man would take the opportunity to snuggle up to her and peek at her cleavage, or even try to kiss her on the cheek. Fans who overstepped their bounds got a shove from Salimah but, still, she smiled and her eyes twinkled mischievously as she sang. ‘So many times, I’ve played around with love…’

  Salimah’s reputation as a dangdut queen lasted until at least the mid-nineties. That’s when things changed. More and more villagers proclaimed themselves pious. They gathered in the mosque and zealously denounced those addicted to dangdut or, more precisely, addicted to Salimah’s provocative gyrations. The loudest protests came from Haji Ahmad, a local authority. Previously, he’d seemed unperturbed by her presence. Even his wife regularly chatted with Salimah after Tarawih prayers during Ramadan. Now, Haji Ahmad said, ‘The provocative dancing of dangdut bringeth only evil. No good can come of it. Guard thyselves, O my fellow Muslims, from immorality, from liquor, and from accursed women.’

  His condemnation grew. ‘And indeed, how great the distance between sight and sound. It is not dangdut that is sinful, but intoxicating women, who arouse lust. Such women are the root of fornication, of zina. The zina that we often fail to notice, O Muslim brothers and sisters, is the adultery of the eyes.’

  Haji Ahmad believed dangdut as a musical form could be redeemed, as when the king of the genre, Rhoma Irama, preached through song. He still remembered when Rhoma, now a haji, visited the village. It was several years ago, before Suharto’s fall. The former president’s party, Golkar, was campaigning in the village. Although Haji Ahmad couldn’t forgive Rhoma for abandoning his struggle on behalf of an Islamic political party, the shrill singing of the lord of dangdut met with his firm approval:

  ‘Emancipation of women, do not oppose the will of God, this is calaaaaaamity…’

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘O ye women, keep thine honour!’

  Now it wasn’t the wail of Rhoma that could be heard but the voice of Haji Ahmad reverberating through mosque loudspeakers: ‘For too long, the people’s morals have been allowed to go to ruin. Look at what our children watch on television. All manner of Western influence. All manner of unseemly nakedness. All manner of decadence. Let us engage in moral jihad!’

  His rage reached its peak during the Independence Day celebrations. Nothing truly unprecedented transpired but the incident took place in broad daylight, when the sun made everything more shameful. A man clambered onto the stage to dance with Salimah. Although he only jerked his thumbs around while barely moving his hips, his eyes were unblinking, staring at Salimah’s shoulders and the motion of her hips as she shimmied.

  Suddenly, a shout from the audience: ‘Hey! He’s got a hard-on!’

  Others repeated the cry and some hooted. The audience was in a half-mocking, half-jealous uproar. At the song’s end, shouts thundered forth, accompanying the man’s descent from the stage. Salimah continued her singing but that afternoon everyone’s head carried a vivid set of pictures: Salimah’s curves, a lustful male gaze and a physical reaction witnessed by all.

  News about the man’s arousal on stage spread quickly. Haji Ahmad’s wrath could no longer be restrained. Here was proof of zina of the eye. Salimah’s dancing was toxic.

  ‘We must oppose Salimah’s immorality to the death!’

  The following day, after the festivities subsided, a group of men confronted Salimah in her home. The delegation claimed to be acting on behalf of a mosque and was led by Haji Ahmad. But Salimah, who spent her teen years at a mosque, knew full well that several of the men were anything but devout. She had seen them gambling and selling downers in dim street stalls. But maybe the situation really had changed. Haji Ahmad forbade Salimah from singing again. If she did, she would have to leave the village. Salimah saw anger boiling in his eyes, eyes that for many years had held a different radiance.

  —

  Trivialities tend to evaporate from memory but Salimah never forgot. She remembered when Haji Ahmad came to the mosque, replacing Haji Ibrahim, to teach Qur’anic recitation to the youth. He lectured teenage girls, subjugating their thinking. At that point Salimah, only fourteen, dared not look any man in the eye. She wouldn’t meet the gaze of her recitation teacher, though she surreptitiously observed how Haji Ahmad, who was in his early forties, was much more handsome than elderly Haji Ibrahim or even Solihin, who all the village girls were crazy about.

  One night, Salimah was the last student at the mosque. Haji Ahmad asked her to work through a segment of the Holy Book, to determine her readiness for a Qur’anic reading contest. They sat facing each other. Salimah read the Sūrat an-Nūr, with its prescriptions on morality. After a few verses, Salimah realised that Haji Ahmad wasn’t paying attention. She made deliberate mistakes but her teacher didn’t correct her. Salimah sensed Haji Ahmad leaning further forward until his breathing caught her attention. Heavy breath. Masculine breath. Salimah raised her head. Haji Ahmad was staring at her. His eyes held an odd, ambiguous look, as if they could penetrate her veil and the shirt buttoned up to her neck. Salimah met his gaze. They stared at each other for a long time until footsteps could be heard approaching the door. The muezzin of the mosque.

  The next day, Haji Ahmad acted as if nothing had happened. Salimah felt disappointed, though she wasn’t sure why. To be more precise, she didn’t want to know why. For several years after that, she was conscious of Haji Ahmad staring at her from afar while she pretended to look down. Salimah tried to guess what might have happened if the muezzin hadn’t appeared. Each time she did, anger rose within her. Her cheeks flushed and her heart beat fast. Maybe Haji Ahmad had gone senile. But even now, after tormenting several pairs of eyes with her body and her own glances, Salimah never forgot that he was the one who had taught her how dangerous the gaze can be.

  —

  After the Independence Day incident, Salimah, dangdut queen who aroused the village men, never received another invitation to perform. The fans who had revered her didn’t defend her in the least, though they still ogled her and whistled when she passed.

  ‘Hey, Sal, when do I get my dance?’

  ‘Salimah, Salimah, Salome has a hole where all of us can play!’

  Salimah stopped and glared. Furious, she scooped up a handful of gravel, ready to pelt the shameless mouths before her.

  ‘You dog!’ she retorted. ‘All you’ll ever get hold of is your own dick!’

  One day, Salimah left the village without so much as a word of goodbye. Asep, her son, stayed behind, looking after a neighbour’s roadside stall. Whenever he was asked about his mother, he simply replied that she was working elsewhere. Her name came up occasionally, when the villagers reminisced about her seductive swaying and how it had obsessed the men.

  Two years later, a woman with a hijab and a haggard face appeared in the village one quiet night. Almost nobody recognised her. Salimah. A dull white headscarf framed a face caked in cheap, chalky powder and blotchy red lipstick. The villagers were unsure whether her lips were smiling or grimacing in pain.

  People began to concoct their own versions of how Salimah came to be the way she was now. Some said she had been whoring in the village before she left, had contracted a filthy disease and had then looked for a job in the city so she could treat it. Other rumours told of how she had been a migrant worker in Malaysia until her employer beat her. Whatever the reason, she had changed. With th
at headscarf in place, Salimah looked more subdued. But she didn’t seem to be going through rebirth as a pious Muslim. She had returned in a state of ruin. She glowered at everyone around her.

  She was no longer a shapely dangdut queen but a terrifying, strange woman. None of her former fans dared approach her, except one.

  That fan was Solihin, who used to lavish her with gifts. Not long ago, he had been appointed village head. Previously, Solihin had memorised the songs that Salimah crooned. He became intimate with her rhythms and sighs, calculating to the second when she would perform her signature moves. He gawked when she wiped away her sweat or got too hot and undid her jacket, revealing bare shoulders that sparkled in the lights. Salimah now looked strange, even creepy. She was no longer an object of fantasy, no longer capable of making anyone obsess over her.

  He asked Salimah to become his second wife, unofficially. The power he now wielded allowed him everything he always wanted but couldn’t have. Only Salimah had escaped him. To his astonishment, she refused. If she had rejected him ten years before, perhaps he wouldn’t have been devastated. But now was different. He was a village head and Salimah was no longer a dangdut queen. Was his offer not an act of compassion, as when the Prophet had married middle-aged widows?

  Clear images of the former Salimah hovered before Solihin’s eyes, disconcerting him. While making love to his wife, Solihin saw Salimah’s red lips. But reality can’t keep up its deceptions indefinitely. His wife’s hips were not those of Salimah, whose sensuous thrusts had so bewitched him. Solihin had never in his life been known to be wild or to gamble or drink. Yet, being addicted to a widow was more dangerous.

  Battling to conceal his desperation, he made a new offer. If Salimah wouldn’t be his wife, then Solihin wanted to see her as she used to be, when she captivated men, when the succulence of her body and her sighs haunted his wickedest imaginings.