She was grateful to him for his protection from the authorities who chased Bumi away, then from the vigilante democracy hunters. Her anger at being abandoned and never visited had faded, replaced with a fresh wave of gratitude and fury.
He had returned her husband, as promised. The timing was wrong. He always delivered and usually in the wrong circumstances. Whether this practice was cunning or buffoonery she would never decide. She watched him stoop to shake crumbs from his pocket for a stray dog and knew that his intentions were good. She had little choice but to trust him. Only he could satisfy her curiosity and calm her nerves.
“Did he take medicine before?” Robadise asked.
She had no recollection of Bumi ever taking medication. He had generally avoided putting anything in his mouth other than the food she prepared for him in the most sanitary conditions.
“Well, he takes it now,” Robadise said. “He seems calmer, no more twitching. The whole way up he sat calmly in the car. But as usual he ignored my advice and burst onto the scene to hug his daughter like some orangutan through an open cage.”
“Why is he here? How?” Yaty asked. She clutched both his hands in her own. She had half-hoped and half-feared that this day would come, but such reckoning was far ahead of schedule and she was unprepared, undecided about how to handle it.
“He didn’t say much,” Robadise said. “Only that a friend had repaid his debt. Anyway he’s here and he demanded to see you. We must all sit down and talk about this situation openly, like Europeans. There is no obvious solution.”
She returned his earnest gaze and saw how he had aged, the crow’s feet and snow in the mountains, softened belly and hardened skin. She knew she had all the same signs, and her eyes were hardened too. “For a mother there is always an obvious solution,” she said. “Though I love Bumi and always will, Mathias has given us what he could not: safety, comfort, a good life.” She took his dampened hand and walked him back to where Baharuddin and Bunga competed for the ghost of their father’s love.
THE SIGHT SHE’D LONGED FOR HALF HER ADULT LIFE BROKE HER heart when finally seen. It was the image of her dreams: Bumi squatting on his haunches tracing a hardened crooked finger over a drawing by his son, a picture of a hardened crooked fisherman hauling a net from the sea. Bunga sat cross-legged at his side. Baharuddin tried to flip the page of his sketchbook to reveal his own favourite: two demons locked in carnal kung fu battle over a Big Mac. But Bumi pressed firmly on the fisher with his index finger.
Yaty wondered where Beti and Mathias had gone. This was Mathias’s home, and her home too, and yet Bumi and their two children sat so comfortably in the living room as if it had been his toil and not Mathias’s that had afforded her safety and security for these past six years.
“Hello, Bumi,” she said.
Bumi’s head snapped upward and the rest of his body snapped to attention. He dropped Baharuddin’s sketch pad. “Yaty,” he said in scarcely more than a whisper. He stepped carefully over the sketch pad and approached Yaty like a preying mantis, slowly, deliberately, carefully. He held out his arms to her.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“Yes, we do,” he said.
Bunga stared up at them and sucked her teeth sympathetically. Baharuddin had flipped the page in his notebook and stared at the two fighting demons.
“Come outside with me,” Yaty said. She ignored his extended arms and took his right hand in hers.
He allowed himself to be led and said nothing.
Robadise waited outside. He squatted and smoked a cigarette.
“Go inside and rediscover your niece and nephew,” Yaty said to her elder brother.
Robadise crushed his cigarette on his heel and obliged her.
BUMI ACHED FOR YATY’S EMBRACE MORE PAINFULLY THAN HE ever had before, so that his body shook in anticipation and an incumbent dread that he may never touch her again. To come this far and be denied his wife’s touch would be the cruellest torture in a savage journey.
She led him to the shade of a tree then turned to face him, placed her hand on his chest and bowed her head. As he reached to touch her face she sank suddenly to her knees and put her arms around his waist, held onto his buttocks. He cradled her head in his hands and felt the jolt of her periodic sobs.
THIS WAS NOT AS YATY HAD PLANNED. ALL THE STRENGTH SHE had summoned from millions of years of mothers abandoned her with one look into Bumi’s long-suffering, over-sized eyes. Most men, having suffered like Bumi had, would have hardened hearts and cruel expressions, or be mad or dead. Bumi somehow had come through his ordeal cleaner and kinder than before. Perhaps Canada had treated him better than she had expected.
Her well-planned words churned still in her mind. They refused to complete their dress rehearsal. “Bumi,” was all she could say.
He joined her on the ground then, pressed her teary face to his, kissed her salty lips and laughed.
“Bumi,” she whispered.
“Yaty,” he said. He pulled from his pocket a tattered piece of paper and handed it to her. “My friend in Canada drew this of me,” he said. “It is for you, so you can see how I looked in Canada.”
Yaty stared down at the picture and half smiled. “Bumi, why are you so good?” she asked.
He stared at her blankly and offered no reply. The picture hung wilted in his hand.
“You are so good to me,” she said. “And so bad for me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did all I could. I returned.”
“You did more than expected, Bumi. I wasn’t ready for you.”
“What would you have done?” he asked.
She shook her head, put her hands on his chest again, pushed him away. “Prepared,” she said.
“Shall I go and come again?” he asked. “I’m sorry I left.”
“Me too,” she said. “They say you never could have protected me from what followed anyway, but I think you could have found a way. People always underestimated your strength. Your return proves it again.”
“Or proves my bad timing,” Bumi said.
The words in Yaty’s story finally overcame their stage fright and flew from her mouth as if to compensate for lost time. She told him what needed to be said, that Mathias was a good man who had done the needful and become a good second father and husband, and had even touched her heart and womb, given her another great blessing, a third child, a second life. Everything she had done had been for the children and any benefits to her were secondary. They were safe in the mountains with the cheek-turning Christians who would crucify any Buginese Muslim foolish enough to try to kill one of Bumi’s children as recompense for the children they thought Bumi murdered, especially now that Yaty had converted. Conversion had been necessary in order to gain acceptance in Tana Toraja during a tense revolution, and she had no regrets. They were safe there and nowhere else, so there they had to stay. They had to stay with Mathias.
“Then here I too will stay,” Bumi said, chest puffed and brow furrowed.
Yaty had said her piece and suffered no delusions of controlling the actions of obstinate men. She turned and left him there with half her heart. She walked past Mathias, whom she had not noticed watching from the doorway, and straight to their bed, into which she flopped heavily, her strength vanished.
IN THE HEART OF RANTEPAO, THE CULTURAL AND TOURIST CENTRE of Tana Toraja, Robadise and Bumi found an outdoorsy shop serving mostly foreign backpackers. Bumi used the last of Sarah’s mother’s loan to purchase a one-person tent, a camp-stove, a super-lightweight cooking pot, a plastic bowl and a metal spoon.
Robadise left Bumi with some grocery money and drove back to Makassar. The brothers-in-law had reached a mutual unspoken agreement that in this domestic affair Bumi was on his own. Robadise would give no more assistance, protection or interference. He left with only a brief warning: “Be
careful. These mountain dwellers are docile but mad. They’ll slaughter you like a working-class pig if they see you as a threat, and Mathias is a popular man.”
“You chose my wife’s keeper well,” Bumi said.
Robadise took Bumi in a surprise embrace and said, “I hope you know I did it out of love, Brother. I admire you now as always.” He released Bumi from his gorilla grip and said, “Maybe in this new democracy your brain will be useful.”
THE CAMP WAS COMFORTABLE ENOUGH FOR THE FIRST FEW DAYS. Bumi had ample rice and even a few eggs and spices. Bunga and Baharuddin occasionally brought him a bucket of water from the house, and he caught Beti sneaking curious peeks from afar. He quickly abandoned the hopelessness of thinking he was waiting for Yaty to come to her senses. From his little hovel, he witnessed glimpses of her second life. Beamed through window slots and a Chinese-made tent mesh, the star of these short films wore a genuine smile while her second husband brimmed with the confidence of a saviour. Unlike back in Makassar, neighbours and extended family came round with waving hands, little warm touches and cordial greetings.
Bumi forgot about Yaty as best he could and looked forward to the silent visits of his timid son and conversations with his precocious daughter. They never came together, and each visited every other day at best, making his hermitage worth the mental strain that filled the rest of his days. Bunga had inherited her father’s intellect and, apparently, none of his defects. She was top of her class in virtually every subject, had an unaccounted-for love of sports and games and had dozens of friends. She belonged to the Girl Scouts and studied martial arts. She had her mother’s love and sympathy for the poor and the underdog and was never plagued by the doubts and fears of her father.
Over months of late-night discussions, when Bunga brought her father his food, he fell into the role of a parent to a teenager. Spurred by an unearned sense of pride in her achievements, relief that she hadn’t fallen prey to his own shortcomings and fear that life would betray her idealistic energies, he muttered comments like, “You’d better go study for your math test then.” She’d smile and say, “Yes, Sir,” and when she scampered off he’d find crumbs in his beard and feel a fool for his attempted paternalism. He was more like a family pet than a father. He provided nothing and had earned no right to lecture.
Yet Bunga visited him faithfully every other night and told him things that most fathers would never be privy to: about her first kiss with her Christian boyfriend, the boy’s pathetic attempts to touch her budding breasts. Every other night she confessed to Bumi her successes but also her insecurities, confusions and even her sins: slapping her brother, disrespecting her mother and father, sexual fantasies about classmates and teachers. He didn’t deserve such confidences, yet he couldn’t turn them down. He needed them for the same reason he had once needed to read. For joy.
That joy came with a price. Hearing Bunga describe Mathias as her father was a kick in the hindquarters for Bumi. But, as her confessions became increasingly intimate and detailed, he suspected that he was more like her diary than her pet, and he bandaged the wound of what he lost with gratitude. Her admiration for Mathias was grudging and reluctant, just as Bumi’s had always been for Yusupu. He only wished, through all those six months, that he could offer something more in return.
While Bunga’s confessions could take as long as half an hour (at which point she would apologize, look around nervously and excuse herself) Baharuddin’s visits were comparably brief and professional, a food delivery service. Bumi marvelled at Baharuddin’s utter difference from his sister, his slow, distracted movements, almost twitches, as he glanced around looking anywhere but into Bumi’s face. Baharuddin seemed at a complete loss in Bumi’s presence, as if he needed some kind of lifeline to pull him back to the familiar.
Bumi did what he could to boost the boy’s confidence. He started with the obvious strength of his artistic talents. “I was so impressed with your drawings. Can you show me more?”
Baharuddin revealed a hint of a smile and said, “Okay. Mom said they’re good but Dad… Mr. Mathias thinks I should study harder and get my head out of the clouds.” He looked about to laugh, then stared at the ground.
“The clouds?” Bumi asked, unable to resist the chance to mine for dirt on Mathias.
“Just a metaphor,” Baharuddin said.
Bumi was overcome with a heavy laughter and Baharuddin stared at him blankly.
“Sorry,” Bumi said. “It’s just that I know it was a metaphor, of course.”
“Oh,” Baharuddin said. His shoulders slumped.
“Son, in my eyes you have grown in an instant from a toddler to a boy who knows about metaphors and imagery. I can only laugh.”
Baharuddin shook his head. “I’m going in now,” he said. He put the plate back down for Bumi, hesitated, left it on the ground and turned around to add, “See you later. I’ll bring my sketchbook next time.”
Baharuddin was like the awkward teenage girl and Bunga was ready to embark on a political career. Bumi sprawled out on his back and looked, as he had when he was a child, for guidance in the stars. They stared back and said nothing. He became lost in their eternal futility.
Baharuddin was true to his word. He took great pride in showing Bumi the rest of his sketches.
Bumi thought them exceptional. “You must win all kinds of prizes for these,” he said.
“Oh no, I don’t show them to anyone except Mom and Mr. Mathias. And Bunga, sometimes.”
Bumi cocked his once-famous eyebrow of scepticism at Baharuddin. “You’re kidding,” he said. “These should be hanging in every gallery in the country.”
The sketches showed skill and imagination. Baharuddin translated abstract ideas into mythical images of flying buffaloes fighting in the sky as chickens wearing suits or factory workers’ uniforms gazed up at them from opposite ends of a rice terrace.
“Where do you come up with this stuff?” Bumi asked.
“I dream it.”
“I hope you realize,” Bumi said, “that you have been given a great talent.”
Baharuddin nodded slowly.
Looking at one sketch of Yaty with her arm crammed inside a pregnant pig, Bumi was surprised at the twinge of anger he felt. “Your mother has changed since I knew her,” he said.
Baharuddin gave that same distant nod.
The last thing Bumi wanted was to turn the children against their mother, and he didn’t want to lead his own heart, or what was left of it, down that road either. Better to turn them against Mathias, if possible.
“Listen, Baharuddin,” he told the attentive child. “Don’t listen to Mr. Mathias. Your talent as an artist is astrological.”
Baharuddin rewarded Bumi’s compliment with a smile that melted some of the coldest winters he’d known.
“You really like to draw, Son?”
“Yes!” Baharuddin answered with a certainty almost unnatural for a child in an adult’s presence.
“Then keep doing it,” Bumi said. “As much as you can. To hell with studying.”
Bunga was more overt with her complaints against Mathias. It was obvious to Bumi that she respected her new father, but she was vexed that he treated her like the hired help. “I know it’s my traditional role and all that but sometimes I miss the way it was when I was little,” she said.
“Your mother used to do all that work for us,” Bumi said.
Bunga nodded. “Mr. Mathias won’t even let her get a job,” she said. “He says she is the Queen here and that is her job, but he won’t hire a servant. So I do most of the housework and I also take care of the animals—except those filthy pigs, Mom takes care of them. Mr. Mathias says it’s good for me to do domestic labour. He says if I think too much about school no good man will want me. The boys don’t do anything.”
But other than that one complaint Bunga praised her new
father and expressed gratitude toward him. He had saved them from misguided vengeance, provided for them and treated them as if they were his own. Bumi wanted to question her logic, the joy she, Baharuddin and their mother seemed to take in being possessed. But he resisted that temptation. His nemesis, by all accounts, was a good man, a better man than he, an adequate protector, provider and giver.
Never much of a sleeper, Bumi’s recently freed mind picked apart the words of his children. He sought some weapon to use against this superior foe. No matter how he analyzed this problem he could conceive of only three weaknesses, three consistent complaints the children had about their stepfather: he treated his daughter like a servant, he had no faith in his son’s art and he gave Beti preferential treatment. To Bumi, for whom circumstances had left nothing in life but his children, these were three massively egregious offences. But, to see things from Yaty’s perspective, he knew that Mathias’s armour remained shiny and impenetrable. He did right by his new children and Bumi knew this.
BAHARUDDIN WAS MORE SHIFTY THAN USUAL AND HE RUBBED HIS chin on his upper wrist a few times, snapped his head sideways a few times and said, “I read about Toronto on the Internet. I think you must have really missed us if you wanted to come back from there. They have so many art galleries.” As he spoke, Baharuddin put his forehead to the ground and reached out with his hand, a non sequitur movement resembling a Muslim in the act of prayer.
Bumi looked at his deferential son and pondered the boy’s statement. He noticed that Baharuddin’s hands looked a little rough, a little reddened, and he chastised himself for not noticing it before. He took hold of his son’s hands but Baharuddin yanked them away, as if shocked by the physical contact.
“Son,” Bumi said.
But Baharuddin was already on his feet. He backed away awkwardly and rolled his head as if cracking his neck. “Goodnight, Dad,” he said. He turned and trotted into the house.
Drive-by Saviours Page 31
