THE NEXT TWO MONTHS WERE NERVE-RATTLINGLY SLOW. ALTHOUGH the play-dumb strategy allowed him to evade corporal punishment and peer ridicule, it was like locking up a hungry animal and placing raw meat just beyond the bars. Bumi was both the warden and the prisoner. It took self-discipline to be this dumb.
His brain’s boredom with life behind bars was coupled with escape anxiety. The next time he got ‘lost’ on a field trip there would be no return, if he was lucky. He wondered if it was really possible to escape. What if the bus driver didn’t let a kid on the bus? Or what if that driver turned him in for truancy? These thoughts became progressively harder to bear as they ricocheted around his brain all hours of the day.
And what would he do when he got to Tana Toraja anyway? He knew that Torajans had some similarities with his own culture and language, but they were of a different ilk, rice farmers and Christian-pagans to boot. They knew nothing of Bumi’s worlds: fish and sand and water; concrete and books.
So prevalent were these thoughts on Bumi’s mind that playing dumb became easier in the eight weeks he’d given himself to implement his plan. He was like a fish on deck that had given up floundering and let oxygen depletion take its course. Within weeks some of his peers’ Indonesian language skills became as good as his, without the colloquialisms, but with better overall grammar.
Still, thoughts of escape and potential consequences persisted, becoming an obsession that paralysed him as his eight-week deadline passed and became nine weeks, then ten. He wanted to just go and get it over with, consequences be damned. He wanted to drop the whole plan.
It was during week eleven that a new form of teasing began. Bumi had failed a pop grammar quiz, after having barely passed the previous three quizzes. His Indonesian was of the snap, crackle, let’s make a deal in the marketplace variety. He had yet to master perfect grammar and his thoughts were elsewhere during the lessons. His first failure was made public via Ibu Nova’s habit of announcing everyone’s marks, then giving the mean and median marks as an added math lesson.
Upon hearing Ibu say, “Bumi: four out of ten,” Daing, once Bumi’s biggest fan, began to laugh. The whole class followed Daing’s lead and began laughing at the mark. Bumi could have sworn that Ibu Nova waited a long minute before saying, “Alright children, settle down. I’m sure Bumi did his best.”
Up to this early point in his life, Bumi had been physically abused, taken from his home coercively and denied the freedoms of visitation to his family and speech. Yet this became the first time he experienced such an intensity of raw anger that he had to restrain himself from attacking someone. He had fantasized on violence numerous times, but never before felt such an immediate urge for it. When the class ran outside for recess Bumi ran ahead and turned to face Daing at close range. “Pantat lu!” he shouted, using the worst Indonesian insult he could think of.
Daing, who had scored nine out of ten on his grammar quiz, had no idea what that meant, but thought it sounded insulting by the severe tone in Bumi’s voice.
The other children were shocked by the severity coming from the usually good-natured Bumi. They all secretly liked him, even though he was a show-off. Lately he’d become much nicer and quieter, less bossy. Daing was their leader now, though it appeared a challenge was being issued.
“Shut up, Bumi,” Daing shouted, switching to Buginese, not knowing any Indonesian insults, “or I’ll punch your face.”
“You shouldn’t laugh at me,” Bumi said, his voice trembling as he switched unconsciously to Buginese in response to Daing.
Daing rolled his eyes toward the heavens as if to ponder Bumi’s statement, then said in Indonesian, “You forget how to talk Indonesian, Bumi?”
He laughed and so the others did too, pointing and calling out in that universal singsong of children’s taunting, “Heee caaan’t re-mem-beeeeeer, heee caaaaan’t re-mem-beeeeeeer.”
Bumi looked at them, suddenly not angry anymore, just disgusted with his former friends. “We were all friends back on Rilaka,” he said in Indonesian. He added for effect, “Fuck you all!”
Again Daing didn’t understand the words or like the tone, so he punched Bumi’s jaw, which shifted to the left as Bumi’s knees buckled and he flopped onto his back, stirring a cloud of dust into the air above him.
When Bumi’s dust cleared, Daing found in Bumi’s place a larger, older boy who went by the name Robadise, a mainlander.
“Good afternoon,” Robadise said.
The children all stared up at this giant among them and gawked, the way Americans gawk at Hollywood actors, awed by a superior human being. None of the city kids had ever spoken to them before.
It was Bumi who responded first, from his back. “Afternoon,” he said, deferentially.
“Afternoon,” repeated the other children. Bumi was still large for his age, but when Robadise helped him up Bumi found he barely reached the older boy’s shoulders.
“I’m Robadise. Robadise Paradise.” He smiled at his self-appointed moniker with the exotic English rhyme. He was speaking to Bumi, with his back to the others.
“I’m Bumi.”
“Boom! Eeee,” Robadise said with a laugh, turning Bumi’s name into its English homonym. Bumi, not knowing a word of English, did not laugh, though the others did, assuming Bumi was being made fun of again.
Robadise spun on his heel and snapped, “Bumi speaks better Indonesian than any of you!” silencing their laughter. He smiled and continued. “In fact, I’ve never heard a little kid who could swear so good.”
What could they say to this giant city-child with the funny rhyming name? Daing did the best he could: “If his Indonesian is so good why did he fail his grammar test?”
The question seemed to stun Robadise slightly, but he soon replied, “Who needs grammar? No one uses grammar in the real world. Bumi speaks fast and smooth. Compared to him you all sound like retards.”
Bumi recognized this insult from the market. He was often called a retard when he tried to overcharge for fish. ‘Kid, you must be retarded if you think I’ll pay that,’ or, ‘Do you think I’m retarded? That’s too much.’ For Bumi the term had always been an extreme but harmless insult because in the market slurs are just part of doing business. Terms like thief, liar, fool, retard, con artist, witch, devil; these were the terms of trade, and meant that to reach a deal some adjustments were needed. But when Robadise said the word it was serious. A retard was not something you could adjust your way out of. You were what you were, and apparently, most Rilaka children were retards. Bumi was personally offended on their behalf, but they didn’t seem to care. They were oblivious to the fact that they were being insulted. They just stood there looking perplexed. Like retards.
“Hey Bumi,” Robadise said with a smirk, “let’s go play gaple.”
Bumi agreed reluctantly. He loved gaple, but walking away from his stunned friends he felt like he was a worse traitor than any of the guards of Sukarno.
“Yeah, go play your baby games,” Daing sneered, but a hard glance from Robadise stifled any laughter as the pair separated themselves from the crowd.
THE TEST FAILURE, FIGHT AND ROBADISE’S INSULTS TO THE CHILdren of Rilaka solidified Bumi’s resolve for escape, and timing was on his side. The very next day he ditched a class trip to the tomb of Prince Diponegoro with very little planning and found his usual way to Arum’s corner of the market sidewalk.
Arum happily surrendered Bumi’s share of the profits and asked if there was enough leftover for him to buy some new materials, because she and Pram wanted to give it a go in the textiles market after all. Bumi obliged and used a portion of Arum’s own money for the purchase. His share was for only two men: the bus driver and Yusupu.
The worst part of approaching Yusupu’s spot was the under-whelming reaction of his own body. He suffered no palpitations, sweat or weakened knees. It disgusted him how easily he
’d come to terms with separation. No more Alfi, no more Win, no more Rilaka, and after this one brief meeting, no more Yusupu. And no more school or Ibu Nova or turn-around friends. No more soccer and no more grammar. Just weird buffalo ceremonies in the cool mountains, that’s all there would be from now on.
Bumi saw Yusupu from about three hundred metres away, idly chatting with an egg salesman. Things looked slow. Yusupu still looked old, but more at ease, like Bumi’s grandfather around the fire at night chewing a betel quid with his bright red gums, laughing at the stories but saying little with no apparent need to prove himself. Bumi lamented that he would never get to see Yusupu as a true elder.
These thoughts fled his mind in a hard heartbeat, for in the corner of his eye appeared Pak Anwar, the Local Government Peace and Order Officer. Bumi turned a slow about-face and ducked behind a large Chinese woman in a larger yellow dress. He had seen this woman before, giving change to Pram. He smiled at her and walked with her. The skin of her face stretched tight over her skull and her eyes widened in bewilderment.
“Good morning, Ma’am,” he greeted her joyously.
“Hello Child. Do I know you?”
“I met you here four years back. You gave money to my friend, Pram.”
“Well, Child, I have no money to spare at the moment.”
“Oh that’s okay. I just wanted to say thank you.” Pak Anwar had strolled further into Bumi’s peripheral vision and his heart was beating warning signals. He dared not turn for a better view, but he had a strong sense of being followed.
“Oh, well, you’re welcome,” the woman said.
“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since,” Bumi added, needing this brightly coloured shield.
“Oh, I lived in Jakarta awhile—for business purposes. But I’m happy to be back in Makassar, which is really my home now.”
“Oh,” Bumi said, “Rilaka’s my home, really.”
“Where’s that?”
He turned and pointed proudly at the small island speck in the distance, and realized as he did how conspicuously he was displaying his roots for Pak Anwar. He quickly pulled his hand back and faced the woman again. “It’s there,” he told her in a quick, barely audible whisper.
She peered over his shoulder and he saw Anwar in the space she’d left. “Where?” she asked sceptically. “I don’t see anything.”
All Bumi heard was a high steady pitch in his ears, like he’d felt when Daing hit him. All he could see was Anwar and more beatings, more ringing, more grammar and ridicule. He ran. The woman shouted gibberish after him and Anwar followed in pursuit.
Past street meat he ran, dodging chickens and stray mongrel dogs, as if from a monster of the deep. It would be better to have a death at sea than die slowly in school as time raced away from him.
Anwar’s longer and stronger legs had trouble keeping up. But he did keep up, for three city blocks. It was there that Bumi side-stepped, with agility and quickness that would impress any European football scout, into one of the rat-infested alleyways he’d always avoided. In the alley Bumi dodged children juggling a small rattan bola bugis ball on the dirt ground. It was a scene cut from his own village and pasted into an urban lane.
Bumi, despite his haste, was in awe of the boys’ skills, like Hafied kicking the bola bugis in a high arch over his shoulder with a quick spin to catch it again with the same foot. As Hafied turned Bumi had to dodge the smaller boy, and he ran right into his old friend Pak Syamsuddin, who was standing, coffee cup in hand, in front of his house, watching Hafied move, as impressed as Bumi but prouder.
Such was Bumi’s speed that he jarred the grown man from his rooted feet, spilling his coffee down his pants. He grabbed and held Bumi’s collar with the instinct of a disciplinarian, and they locked eyes in shared recognition as they fell to the ground.
Anwar slowed his pace, out of breath, as he watched them fall, and by the time he reached them he was walking. He looked down to see Syam holding Bumi firmly by the collar, gazing intently into his eyes. Hafied had let the bola bugis drop and had offered his tiny hand to Syam.
“Pak Syamsuddin,” Anwar said, “How are you?”
Syam looked up to see his least favourite acquaintance, the Local Government Peace and Order Officer.
“Very fine, thank you Pak Anwar. And yourself?” He greeted his enemy with a smile.
“Well, I’m standing at least.”
“I’ll help you up, Daddy,” little Hafied squeaked helpfully, grasping Syam’s hand with his own. Syam let Hafied help him up, pulling Bumi up with him.
“Sorry about that little one,” Anwar said with a nod toward Bumi. “I was just about to take him back to school, where he belongs.”
“Oh, but he isn’t finished here yet,” Syam said.
“You know this boy, Pak Syamsuddin?”
“Sure I do. I’m his tutor. I apologize for scheduling our tutorial during school hours, but today is my morning off and the only time I could do it this week, since I’m going fishing on Sunday.” It was a preposterous lie and both men knew it, but Bumi felt saved.
The lie was in fact so obvious that Anwar didn’t know where to begin poking holes in it, so as he caught his breath Syam started covering some angles. “I used to know the boy when he lived on the island,” he said. “He used to come almost every day to sell his father’s fish. I met him on the bus and explained to him—well, I helped him with his Indonesian. So, anyway, I saw him outside of his school one day on my way home and we agreed to meet today so I could help him…” His voice trailed off as he tried to think about how a high school physics teacher might help an eight-year-old in his first year of school.
“With my grammar,” Bumi offered, reading Syam’s thoughts. “Because I failed my last test.”
Syamsuddin raised an eyebrow at the boy.
“What school does he attend, then?” Anwar asked coolly.
“Pak Anwar,” Bumi interjected, “you know I go to 6th Country Primary School.” Anwar glared at his prey and as Hafied clung to Syam’s leg, Bumi wished he could do the same.
“So, Pak Syamsuddin, you encouraged the boy to skip his field trip without permission?”
“Oh, well I sent a letter to Headmaster Wayan informing him that Bumi would spend part of this morning with me. Did he not receive it?”
Anwar’s face slid down a little, his eyes lowered to Bumi. “This little one has a habit of getting lost during field trips,” he said. “So, if this letter of yours didn’t arrive some might think the whole thing a little suspicious.”
“Indeed,” Syam replied with due concern for the weight of Anwar’s words. “If only I had saved a copy in my desk. Speaking of which, Pak, I’m buying an updated globe. Would you like to have my old one?”
Pak Anwar smiled broadly and it was the first time Bumi realized the man had teeth. With their shine the mood lightened and Anwar said, “What a kind and thoughtful gift, Pak Syamsuddin. Thank you.”
“Wait here, Pak, I’ll go inside and get you the globe. It’s still in good shape, as good as the last time you saw it.” Syam took Bumi’s hand and walked him inside the modest one-bedroom house with Hafied following close behind, leaving his friends to the bola bugis.
“What’s happening, Pak?” asked Bumi. “Are we in trouble or what?”
“Pak Anwar has wanted my globe for a long time.”
The globe was perched on a small desk in the far left corner of the living room, and Bumi could see why the object was coveted. It took up most of the space on the desktop, yet still seemed too small to have such details. All the bumps, valleys, clefts, shapes, structures of the world’s geographic surface were shrunken and stretched and painted in beautiful deep browns, blues and greens right there on a little desk in a small room in a modest house. It held the promise of six billion stories in as many settings with even more
contexts. It was the most beautiful model he’d ever seen. Bumi reached out and caressed the world’s details with both hands.
“It’s beautiful,” he said in a low breath.
“I’m glad you like it, Bumi, because I give it to you.”
“I thought it was for the Local Government Peace and Order Officer.”
“It is for you. However, I advise you to give it to the Peace and Order Officer, in exchange for your freedom.”
Though Bumi didn’t understand why he had to bear Anwar’s gift, he did as Syam told him, walked outside hefting the forty-pound Rand–McNally Special Edition Globe, handed it to Anwar saying, “Here you are, Pak.”
“Thank you, Bumi,” Anwar said, patting the boy’s head as his teeth continued gleaming. “A very thoughtful gift from Pak Syamsuddin, don’t you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” Bumi said again, envious and sad at the loss of an object that was never really his.
“It certainly is,” Anwar said, though he was no longer looking at it. He held the heavy object with one strong arm and checked his watch on the other arm. “Well,” he said. “Gotta run. Enjoy your tutorial. I hope it helps you perform better in school, with your grammar tests.”
“Me too, Pak, thank you.” They shook hands softly, touched their hearts, and Pak Anwar left Bumi breathing a deep, long sigh. His body began shaking.
He focused on the bola bugis game to try to calm himself. He calculated the ball’s spin off a small foot, thinking also of the slowness of his mind’s linear process toward a simple concept that his own body seemed incapable of mastering, despite its above-average size and power, for his age. He thought of Daing’s punch, how he seemed unable to react to it emotionally or physically. His one desire was to understand the motivation for it. What had he done wrong? Some unnoticed offence back on the island perhaps. Maybe he had unintentionally showed Daing up in class. Or perhaps, because Bumi didn’t fit with or accept the new situation, he was too sharp a reminder that none of them belonged there, and therefore had to be dulled somehow—in this case with a fist to the chin.
Drive-by Saviours Page 6
