Interpreter of Winds

by Fairoz Ahmad

  It was only after the wind had ceased that they discovered the witch was murdered. Stabbed three times with a keris. At the peak of her powers, she could speak to animals and feel the agony of leaves, and on some nights, if you caught her between the short hour dividing Maghrib and Isyak, she would gently coax the edges of your future from a grain of rice. And, once, the older ones said, she had dreamt of the Prophet every night, but those days had long gone and along with it, her divine grace.

  The women carefully washed and cleaned her wrinkled barren body, as men whose fingers had turned delicate wrapped her in white cloth. For her three wounds, they inserted three cotton balls so deep it made her flesh protrude. But the only thing they refused to agree on that night was her name, for no one remembered what it was, although everyone agreed they could catch glimpses of it after the rain. It was only the letters that had escaped them.

  Soon, someone, an old man, volunteered something and they all agreed that it must be her name, because it could be no other. And even those who still had doubts accepted that name, because it was already so late at night, and they had never stayed up that late before. No one wept over her death since those who would, or could, were long gone. But some of the older ones who still remembered those days, the days when she still dreamt of the Prophet, shed a couple of silent, economical tears. A few of the older women slept in her hut that night, to protect the body from wandering animals, and to while away the time, contemplated who her killer was.

  One day, many many days after that day, these women would tell their daughters that her spirit spoke to them that night. “She was confused because she greeted us but received no reply. She was like a child, making so much noise that we could not sleep. We let her be, because she did not yet know she had died. When I die, let me be as well.”

  That night, after the men had gone away, the old man, the one who had volunteered her name, returned to the hut and asked the women, “Have you seen a sheath? It is missing.”

  His wife, who was one of the women attending to the body, replied. “What are you saying? Please go home. Sleep. We need you to take charge of the funeral at dawn.”

  The man smiled and said, “You remember what to say if they come?” The wife nodded and shooed him off once more.

  2

  That day, the heat clutched the shoulders of each villager so tightly that no one could do anything. Those who resisted ended up being so pinched that they soon gave up and did nothing as well. Cows and buffalos sweated like never before, and men threw buckets of water from the river to cool their animals down.

  At the warung, Pak Guntur sat facing two young men in white robes and trimmed beards. “Are you not hot… in those?” Pak Guntur asked, pointing at their robes.

  “No,” one of them replied, swatting away at the flies around the table.

  “It’s their season now. The wind brings them from the west. It will clear in a few weeks,” Pak Guntur explained.

  Ignoring his remarks, the other asked, “Pak Guntur, has Pak Siswo conveyed to you his decision?”

  “Yes, he said if you feel so strongly about the matter, you should start your own newspaper,” Pak Guntur replied as he thumped the table to chase the flies away.

  “I do not understand. Our request was sensible. Many other places have adopted it. All we ask is for our newspapers to use the Hijrah calendar, not the Gregorian ones. Why must we adopt Christian habits?”

  Pak Guntur did not address the question directly. “When you are young, you feel that you can change anything. When you get older, you will realise that you cannot do much. Eventually small, trivial successes will bring you more fulfillment than the big changes you hoped for when you were young,” Pak Guntur said, ending his words with a guffaw.

  The young men laughed with him to drown the sting of his veiled rebuke. They chatted about the heat, the sun, the moon; and when they had exhausted the moon, they broached the topic of the murder. It was only when they saw a glass of badek being handed to Pak Guntur that they decided it was time to leave.

  “You made me lose two customers today, Pak Guntur,” Pranoto remarked, amused, when he saw the young men leave suddenly.

  “They did not eat much,” Pak Guntur replied.

  “That is true also. How is your tooth, Pak?” Pranoto asked.

  Pak Guntur muttered something unintelligible. Pranoto nodded and suggested tamarind paste.

  “You suggest tamarind paste for everything,” Pak Guntur replied, more audibly this time.

  “Because it works for everything. And you should not have badek now. It will hurt more.”

  “Why do you know so much?” Pak Guntur asked.

  “Because all day long I do nothing but collect the wisdom of my customers.”

  “Collecting too much wisdom is not good,” Pak Guntur reflected as he took a sip from the cup. The cool rice liquor soothed his dried lips but inflamed the pain inside his right cheek. Pranoto noticed his pain.

  “Have you not had a toothache before?” the warung owner queried.

  “No. God is punishing me at the wrong end of my life.”

  “God punishes everyone at every stage of their lives. We, however, sometimes confuse His blessings for punishment but never the other way around.” Pranoto then took a newspaper, rolled it into a stick and began swatting some flies on the table. A few moments later, after failing to hit any flies, he said, “I heard you found the sheath.”

  Pak Guntur did not reply immediately. He continued taking some sips from the cup, minute sips, more to cool his lips than to quench his thirst. And then he said, “Yes. It is an odd-looking sheath.”

  “Then it cannot belong to any of us.”

  “Perhaps. Pranoto, did any strangers visit the village that day?”

  “I did not see anyone. People say one of Kyai Sounawir’s students...”

  “That is possible. But you do know…”

  “Yes, Pak Guntur, I do.”

  “Then let us be more careful with our words lest they create more unhappiness.”

  3

  That night, it was said that the wind was so strong it blew itself into exhaustion and crashed into the forest, toppling some trees. “It was bound to happen. It had been working too hard. When you work too hard, you are bound to get careless,” Pak Guntur remarked, with extreme seriousness.

  “Had it not been for the wind, we would have heard her cries,” the wife snapped.

  “You are too practical. Could you make me some tamarind paste?”

  “What for?”

  “For my tooth.”

  “I thought you said let it be?”

  “Yes, but it is aching more.”

  “I told you to put the paste last week.”

  “Yes, Pranoto told me the same thing today.”

  “Why is it that you listen to him but not me?”

  “Because Pranoto does nothing all day long except collect the wisdom of his customers.”

  “You don’t make any sense.”

  “That’s why you married me. Go… go make the paste,” he urged her.

  In the kitchen, his wife boiled some water in a pot and placed some tamarind pulp, occasionally stirring the mixture. “How did you know her name?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “How did you remember her name? No one else remembered,” she repeated, louder this time.

  “Because it rained the night before. That was how I remembered… Did you see my fly swatter?” he asked his wife.

  “I threw it away just now,” his wife replied.

  “Why did you have to do that?” Pak Guntur asked indignantly.

  “It was just a piece of newspaper you rolled into a stick. It had gone soft. And it looked dirty. You can make a new one.”

  Pak Guntur walked into the other room and came out holding a piece of newspaper. As he was rolling it, his wife asked, “Did you visit him today?”

  “No. It is Jemuwah Legi. I know him. He will not see such things now. I have to wait till it is over.
” He heard the sudden pitter patter of feet and her wife popped out from the kitchen. “Then where did you keep it? I hope not in the house.”

  “No. It’s buried somewhere far.”

  “It is an evil object. I don’t want it near us.”

  “Yes, yes. It is not near us. It is buried somewhere far. Now, go make that paste.” Pak Guntur commanded, his brand-new fly swatter in hand.

  4

  Pak Guntur woke up for pre-dawn prayers and found most of the paste staining his pillow. He washed the remnants of the tamarind from his cheek and took his ablutions as the muezzin called for prayers. He sensed the notes drifting in the breeze, for even when the wind had collapsed from exhaustion, it had refused to let go. It had instead mellowed overnight, and became smoother, although at its edges, Pak Guntur could detect that it was once despicable and rough. “It is an old wind,” he thought, “trying to emulate its past.” Pak Guntur felt sorry for it and opened a window slightly so that it could do some harmless flapping. Later, he pottered around the kitchen and found the jar which his wife had used to store the rest of the paste. He spread a thick layer over his right cheek and sat by the door again. Amidst the dying sound of crickets, he heard soft footsteps approaching. “Why are you sitting here, Bapak?” his son asked, as he too, sat by the door.

  “Because I feel sorry for the wind. But if your mother asks, say that it is because I want the tamarind on my cheek to harden. I tried waking you up earlier.”

  “I was tired last night.”

  “You can always pray here,” Pak Guntur suggested, as he stretched his legs to ease the pain he felt in his knees every morning.

  “I have responsibilities at the pesantren, Pak. It is easier for me to do my prayers there,” his son deflected.

  “You remember how our mosque came to be? Your great grandfather built it from the foundations of a Hindu temple, when his heart was crushed with both pleasure and pain upon hearing a passing dervish recite the Quran. He did not replace the roof, you understand, because he wanted to leave something behind. Something for us to remember. It was his tribute to our forefathers.”

  “It is not right to have such things…” his son began.

  “But we have prayed there for so long,” Pak Guntur interjected.

  “Perhaps our prayers are not accepted.”

  “No one knows. A true act of prayer, Sunir, begins deep from a heart that feels nothing but remorse. But us—you and me, and the rest, do we pray because of the muezzin’s voice? Or because of a sorrowful heart?”

  “I don’t pray because of his voice, Pak. That is wrong,” his son asserted, firmly this time.

  “Sometimes I pray because his voice compels me to. I think you do too. Sometimes it helps, does it not?” And when his son did not reply, Pak Guntur asked, “Did Kyai Sounawir invite any outsiders to the pesantren recently?”

  “No, Bapak. We had no visitors this month,” his son replied in a more conciliatory tone as he prepared to leave.

  “Sunir?”

  “Yes, Pak?”

  “What happens to the gods whom people have forgotten? Where do they go?”

  5

  That afternoon, the sun decided enough was enough and encased the village in its dome. Pak Guntur was taking a nap in his rattan chair when a fly buzzed around him. He ignored the buzzing for a few times, at times swatting it away, until the fly said, “Pak, this is very urgent… I apologise for disturbing you, but my father asked that you come by his house immediately.”

  Pak Guntur opened his eyes by an inch and saw the vague outline of a little boy standing in front of him. He went back to sleep. But the buzzing continued. Pak Guntur then made an overly exaggerated gesture of a man who had woken up from a deep sleep, gave a big yawn, and with a slightly petulant manner implored, “Gusti… my dear Gusti. Why do you have to disturb an old man like me? What is so urgent that your father cannot wait?”

  “It’s Mr Meyers, Pak. He is at our house. He thought my father was the village head,” the boy Gusti explained, slightly intimidated by Pak Guntur.

  “It is probably the way your father uses his hammer. Sometimes, even I think he is the village head,” said Pak Guntur, his laugh strained by his toothache. “Let me get my shirt.”

  As they were trudging to Gusti’s house, Pak Guntur asked the boy, “Gusti, what do you do when you have a toothache?”

  “I use tamarind,” he said.

  “You are a stupid boy, Gusti. Just like me,” Pak Guntur muttered. They continued their walk, with Pak Guntur burdened by the heat and his troubled tooth. As they approached Gusti’s hut, Pak Guntur saw a European man, even younger than his son, waiting for him. “Good afternoon, Mr Meyers,” he greeted.

  Meyers greeted him with a firm handshake and asked why he took so long. An answer was given, which was then ignored. Meyers continued, “Pak Guntur, a villager here died about two weeks ago. Here… look here,” he instructed, pointing to a thick blue file he was balancing on one hand. “In the report by the local police, it was stated that they saw blood in the hut. Yet everyone here said she died in her sleep. Can you explain this discrepancy?”

  Pak Guntur did not look at the report but said, “Mr Meyers, there was no blood. She died in her sleep.”

  “This was not what the report stated,” he defended, flipping through the pages again as the file wobbled precariously on his palm.

  “I can bring you around to talk to the villagers. Or you can take a look at her hut. But it is a very far walk from here. And some of the villagers may still be at the field. We have eight fields and they may be working at any of these places.”

  “Right. I see… then it is not necessary to trouble so many people. I am rather busy today,” Meyers replied. He took out a pen and made some scribbles to the report. “I have corrected the report to reflect what you just said. Obviously, the first report must have been a mistake. I will close this case.” Meyers’ mood improved and before he left, said, “Your cheek looks inflamed. You have a toothache? Try rinsing your mouth with pepper and a bit of salt.”

  After Meyers left, Pak Guntur turned to Gusti’s father. “Toha, did you see his face?’

  “All red. Obviously new. The seasoned ones never come down at this time,” Toha assessed. The two men walked slowly to Toha’s hut, where tea was prepared. As they sat down, Pak Guntur complained, “You could have acted on my behalf. All the long walk here to see him.”

  “I prefer to remain the carpenter. It is less troublesome,” Toha said, as he sipped his tea.

  “What kind of a carpenter are you? You only make the little things. Make big things like houses, chairs.” “What to do, Guntur? Only the little things sell well. Prophet Isa was a carpenter. He probably made little things as well.”

  “And look what happened to him.”

  “It depends on whom you ask, Guntur. Here, have some tea,” Toha offered, pouring a cup. But Pak Guntur said, “Toha, I need to see Pakdhe soon. Jemuwah Legi is over.”

  “It will take me a while to retrieve it. I buried it deep and far.”

  “Thank you Toha. I understand. Once I am done, I need your help to keep it away, until it is needed again.”

  6

  That evening, Pak Guntur politely greeted the silhouette resting against the wall. The silhouette flickered momentarily against the light from the kerosene lamp, and beckoned Pak Guntur to its side, before emerging from the dark. Moments later, Tris Sastri sat cross-legged opposite Pak Guntur at the verandah. Tris Sastri placed two betel leaves on a wooden plate and sprinkled some lime and areca nuts. He folded the leaves in half and offered one to Pak Guntur, before retracting the offer. Tris Sastri smiled, tapped his right cheek several times with his index finger and apologised for his forgetfulness. He chewed silently, occasionally spitting out the red residue into a small basin. This continued for several minutes until he asked Pak Guntur to follow him to the work shed.

  In the shed, Pak Guntur saw a fire still burning strong and tools of varying shapes, some alread
y deformed. He saw a strip of metal with rough curves on the wooden table. “Who is that keris for, Pakdhe?” he asked.

  “A sugar trader from Sulawesi. He asked for a strong keris but I told him, ‘You are too old. There is no longer a need for a strong keris.’ You know, Guntur, if one is patient, Time can make a keris strong, and protect its owner. An Empu in Sulawesi took forty years to make a single keris which he forged by hammering it seven times each day. But traders like him, they have no patience. Nor is Time by his side…”

  “Such keris does not exist, Pakdhe. I saw it when I was a young boy. Our royal army fought the Dutch with such keris. They marched straight on, thinking bullets would not harm them. Then the Dutch opened fire. My grandfather, who saw our royal army as if they were God’s army—he was never the same then. Something changed in him.”

  Tris Sastri kept quiet for a few seconds, surprised by his reaction. “I apologise for bringing you here, Guntur. It is hot and dirty. The air inside is still thick with the heat of day.”

  Realising his mistake, Pak Guntur replied, “No, my apologies. I understand, Pakdhe. The heat this week is not natural. But such things should not be discussed in the house. And you have materials here which would be useful for this purpose.” Pak Guntur took out a damp and dirty white cloth and passed it to Tris Sastri. But Tris Sastri asked instead, “I heard one of them came today.”

  “Yes. Because there was mention of blood. But it is now settled. The report is now more favourable towards us.”

  “How wonderful that we can now change reality by a stroke of the pen,” Tris Sastri said.

  “Yes, but that is their reality, not ours. For us, the Moving Finger continues to write and having written, moves on. Nothing can lure it back.”

  Tris Sastri finally took the bundle and unwrapped it to reveal a keris. He pulled the dagger slowly out of its sheath, dislodging dusty rust which floated against the fire in a manic rhythm before being swallowed by yesterday’s rainwater leaking from the roof. Weeks of being buried in soil had rusted the blade and coagulated the blood stains. He took a small container of lime juice and added a few drops of arsenic. Tris Sastri carefully stirred the mixture and threw the wooden stick into the fire. He then dipped the keris into the mixture and waited for the rust to soften. And when he finally wiped the keris clean, Pak Guntur saw a shiny blade ingrained with fine markings.