The Rainbow Troops

by Andrea Hirata

  "DID you do your homework?" Bu Mus asked Mahar as she launched into a long spiel scolding him about his over the top behavior. He had, she lamented, already turned down the path leading to the realm of the occult. One of our favorite classes, gym, was canceled for the day for the sake of an intervention. We all came into the classroom to help bring Mahar back to the right path.

  Mahar lowered his head. He was a handsome, smart and artistic young man, but he was very stubborn about his convictions.

  "Ibunda, the future belongs to God."

  I saw the trial facing the teacher. Her face was washed out. My mother once said that the teacher who first opens our eyes to letters and numbers so we can read and count will receive endless rewards until the day she dies. I agreed with her—but that is not the only thing a teacher does. She also opens hearts.

  "You have no positive plan; you never read or do your homework anymore. The time for shamanism and turning your back on Allah's verses is up." Bu Mus was beginning to sound like the morning news anchor on Radio Republik Indonesia.

  Newsflash: "Your test scores have taken a sharp dive. Your third quarter exam is right around the corner. If the score is bad and can't bring your average up, I won't let you join us for the final quarter test. That means you cannot take the national examination to move up in school."

  This was getting serious. Mahar's head sunk down even further. The sermon continued.

  Headline news: "Live according to the teachings of alQur'an and the hadiths: That's the guiding principle of Muhammadiyah. Insyaallah, God willing, later when you are older, you will be blessed with a halal livelihood and a devout spouse."

  In other news: "Mysticism, paranormal science, superstition, they are all forms of idolatry. Polytheism is the most serious violation in Islam. What about the good deeds we learn in faith studies every Tuesday? What about all of the lessons? What have you learned of the godless peoples of the past? Where are your Muhammadiyah ethics?"

  The room was tense. We hoped Mahar would ask forgiveness and say that he'd learned his lesson. unfortunately, he replied with an objection.

  "I look for wisdom in the dark world, Ibunda. I am embittered because I want to know. Later, in a mysterious way, God will give me a devout spouse."

  How dare he! Bu Mus tried very hard to contain her emotions. I knew she wanted lay into Mahar. Her patient face grew red. She left the room to calm herself down.

  We all stared at Mahar. Sahara's eyebrows came together, her stare brutal.

  "Go out there and apologize! You don't even know how lucky you are!" she snarled.

  Kucai, as the head of the class, took his turn. His voice thundered, "Opposing a teacher is the same as opposing a parent: insubordination! Haven't you heard that the punishment for insubordination is a hernia? The base of your thigh will be as big as a pumpkin!"

  Kucai berated Mahar, but his big eyes fell on Harun.

  Mahar's face bore a strange expression. He looked both remorseful and determined to stand his ground—to stick to his version of things, naturally. We were not going to take this disrespectful attitude, but just as we were about to protest against him, Bu Mus reentered the room with more breaking news:

  "Listen carefully, young man. There isn't a drop of wisdom in polytheism! The only thing you'll get from practicing mysticism is lost, and the longer you stick with those beliefs, the more lost you'll become in the bottomless pit of polytheism. And the devil himself will help you fan each ember you toss into that fire!"

  Mahar cowered, but it didn't stop there. Bu Mus continued, "Now you have to straighten up because ..."

  Before she could finish her ultimatum, Bu Mus was interrupted by a greeting, "Assalamu'alaikum."

  Bu Mus stopped midsentence and spun around to face the door. There were two people standing in the doorway. Bu Mus returned the greeting and invited the two people to enter, a man with an important looking face and a boyish young girl. The girl was tall and thin. She had short hair, white skin, and a pretty face.

  The important faced man tried to give a friendly smile. "This is my daughter, Flo," he said slowly.

  "She no longer wishes to attend the PN School and has been absent for two weeks now. She is insistent on at tending this school here."

  The man scratched his head; he was at a complete loss. Each word fell out of his mouth one by one, as if they weighed dozens of kilograms. His speech indicated that he was through trying to reason with his child.

  Bu Mus smiled bitterly. Trials came in endless succession. She was dizzy from thoughts of the sick Pak Harfan circling in her head. She was facing all of our problems— from teaching itself up to the threat of our school being shut down—alone. To add to Mister Samadikun's threat were the inescapable dredges, the deviant Mahar, and now another girl who, with her tomboy mien, would surely be unruly. Today was Bu Mus' unlucky day.

  Flo herself was indifferent—she didn't even crack a smile. She just stared at her father. That beautiful girl's demeanor gave an impressive image. She looked like she had an assertive character and knew exactly what she wanted. Her father returned her stare in kind, his own stare full of defeat. He went around our class to inspect everything. Maybe it reminded him of a Japanese interrogation room. The look in his eyes was sad as his voice conceded. "So, I turn my child over to you, Bu Mus. If she gives you trouble, you know where to find me. And I am sorry to have to say this, but she will surely give you trouble."

  We laughed, her father smiled bitterly. Flo still seemed indifferent, as if her father's words held no meaning. Her father excused himself.

  "Alright then, welcome to our class. Please take a seat next to Sahara," Bu Mus said to Flo.

  Sahara was absolutely delighted. She wiped off the empty seat next to her. Surprisingly, Flo didn't move. She stared far off out the window. We were taken aback.

  Then Flo looked our way, pointing at Trapani as she stated, "I only want to sit next to Mahar."

  Unbelievable! The first sentence from her rich little mouth, only a few minutes after setting foot in the Muhammadiyah School, was defiant! Defiance was not an ordinary occurrence at our institution. We didn't address our teacher just with the normal respectful term, guru, but with an even higher term, Ibunda Guru.

  Bu Mus' face grew cloudier. She had just been thinking about Mahar and this new tomboy student of hers and how they would destroy the Muhammadiyah ethics of this school—and now they wanted to be united? Bu Mus' life was laden with trials.

  Flo's face made it clear that she was unwilling to com promise. Bu Mus didn't intend to argue; it would have been useless. On the one hand, Flo probably didn't consider herself a girl, so she didn't want to sit next to Sahara. On the other hand, she probably thought Trapani should give in to her because she was a girl. Disorientation is often confusing.

  Bu Mus was forced to make a difficult decision. She signaled to Trapani to step aside. Flo rushed over to fill Trapani's old seat beside Mahar. Mahar immediately displayed his three annoying signature traits: raising his eyebrows, shrugging his shoulders, and nodding his head. It was a nauseating sight for us, but he was elated. Just as he had expected, God had mysteriously granted him a partner. A prayer had been answered on the spot. Consequently, Trapani lost his deskmate. Because we had no other desks, he had to sit next to the notoriously temperamental Sahara. Sahara herself was extremely displeased about this and did not want to accept Trapani as her deskmate. She roared, her brows furrowing.

  ON those first days, we were dazzled by Flo's array of school supplies, but to her, they were unremarkable.

  She had six different bags to match her daily outfits. Friday's bag was the most interesting because it had fringes like the bags we had seen in Indian films.

  Flo looked out of place sitting in our classroom. All of the furniture in the room was unfit to be used by her. She was like a swan lost in a pen of ducks. What was this rich girl looking for in this poor, possessionless school? Why did she want to trade the sparkling PN School for this copra warehouse of a
school? Whose yard did she steal an apple from to deserve being tossed out of the Estate's Garden of Eden?

  It turned out she wasn't expelled from the PN School or kicked out of the Estate. She wanted to switch to the Muhammadiyah School of her own free will, without pressure from any other parties, and in a safe and sound, spiritually and physically healthy condition—it was only her mind that wasn't quite right.

  When we asked her why she switched, she answered in a highfed, wealthy voice with a lisp. Her answer made the hair on the back of our necks stand up: "Because I liked your dance at the Carnival. It was magical."

  That answer unlocked the mystery of why she wanted to sit next to Mahar. According to Mahar's own maxim, fate is circular, and in our classroom, the circle of fate had united two ghost fanatics.

  It was strange, but at the barren Muhammadiyah School, Flo was very enthusiastic, as if something had moved her. She was never absent even one day and was very wellmannered toward her teacher. She arrived earlier than anyone, even Lintang. She swept the school, drew buckets of water from the creepy well, and watered the flowers with diligence. The poor Muhammadiyah School was a bridge to her soul.

  Flo was very close with Mahar. After trying to find herself through rather zany rebellions, she was finally able to do so together with the young shaman. Mahar, too. He had found the one person who understood him, never insulted him, and appreciated all of his strange deeds.

  People seeing the two of them would assume they were a couple, a handsome young man and a pretty tom boyish girl always together, equally crazy. But they didn't have that kind of emotional connection. They were crazy together, but their true sweetheart was the dark world of shamanism.

  Oddly, Mahar made a lot of progress with Flo around. He was further drawn to mythology as well as the relationships between the supernatural and other subjects like an thropology, folktales, archaeology, the strength of healing, ancient sciences, rituals, and guiding beliefs. He more or less thought of himself as a scholar of the paranormal. Flo was a true adventurer. She was less concerned with mystical happenings, or understanding their scientific aspects, and more interested in experiencing as many hairraising things as possible. Flo's only use for deep mystical experiences was to test herself, to see how much fear she could tolerate. She was addicted to trembling in the dangerous ghostly world. Even compared to Mahar, Flo was crazy.

  One cool evening after a heavy rain, our Flo took an oath to be a member of Laskar Pelangi. As a rainbow bowed across and thunder reverberated through the East Belitong sky, Flo pledged her promise of friendship.

  Chapter 29

  Plan B

  BECAUSE OF EDENSOR Village and the story in If Only They Could Talk, I was able to move beyond feeling sorry for myself. I honestly left behind the blueprint of my beautiful first romance that had blossomed through my chalkbuying routine.

  This is the amazing thing about being a child: the ability to quickly mend a broken heart after years of love—five years to be exact! Ah, it turned out I had been in love with A Ling since the second grade, and even though we only met that one time, it was love. Yet I was able to recover within a week, and with the help of a book. Magical. Sometimes adults need years to remedy a broken heart from a three week platonic love. What is it that makes adults grow increasingly negative with age?

  Now I remembered A Ling as the most beautiful part of my life. And even though I was now greeted by a bear claw with the nails of a carcasseating vulture, I remained diligent, and with the same instinct for love and the same enthusiasm, I set off with Syahdan to buy chalk every Mon day morning.

  Each time I went to buy the chalk, I followed the same procedure and enjoyed the same succession of feelings amidst the putrid smell of Sinar Harapan Shop. I simulated the series of sensations I felt for the beauty of my first love as if A Ling was still waiting for me behind the familiar seashell curtains.

  When I wasn't buying chalk, I occupied myself by diligently reading practical psychology books on selfdevelopment and becoming more fanatical about John Lennon's inspirational sentence.

  The books suggested that I find my talents—and I had no doubt what those talents were: I had an affinity for writing, and I was a skilled badminton player.

  I knew so because I always won first place in our badminton district. I had the trophies lined up at home. There were so many trophies that my mother used some as weights to hold down wash piles, as door stops, or supports for the chicken pen walls. She used one as a hammer to crack open candlenuts. There was even a trophy from my latest competition with a pointy top that my father used to scratch his back.

  I always defeated my opponents by a landslide. Poor things; they practiced hard for months and months, ate half cooked eggs every morning with jadam and bitter honey for extra strength, but they were helpless before me.

  Sometimes I took action with a drop shot and a double somersault, returned smashes while chatting with the spectators, and hit the shuttlecock while rolling on the ground. I often took straight shots from between my legs with my back to my opponent, and it wasn't a rarity for me to do so lefthanded!

  Seeing me play, weakminded opponents would become distraught and, if they were lured into expressing their anger, would guarantee their own loss. Spectators roared watching the entertainment at the badminton court. When I was competing, the market was quiet, the coffee stalls were closed, kids were let out of school, PN coolies left work early, government employees left work for a while— that is, if they had gone to work in the first place—and the community representatives with no work to do lined up alongside the court way before the match.

  "The curlyhaired mouse deer" is what they called me. The badminton court next to the village administration office thundered with excitement. Those who couldn't find a place to stand alongside the court climbed nearby coconut trees to see me in action.

  I thought all of these facts were more than enough reason to call badminton, as they say in the selfdevelopment books, my main ability.

  My other great interest was writing. There was not much proof to confirm my ability, or lack thereof, in this field other than A Kiong's comment that my letters and po ems to A Ling often tickled him with laughter. I wasn't sure what that meant—it could have been because they were either really good or really bad.

  So I began to hone in on those two fields. I practiced badminton every day. If I were exhausted, I looked at John Lennon's picture for a while, with his thin smile and round glasses, and my enthusiasm was reignited.

  As the selfdevelopment scholars explained, a constructive individual has to make a plan A and a plan B.

  Plan A meant mobilizing all of your resources to develop your main abilities—in my case, these were definitely badminton and writing. This plan covered every detail, from step one all the way up to the peak of glory. Every time I read this plan, I had trouble sleeping.

  I was extremely happy to have a clear formula figured out for my plan A: to become a famous badminton player or writer. If possible, maybe both. If not, one would do. And if I couldn't become either of them, anything would do, really, as long as I didn't become a postal worker. y When I looked around at the other Laskar Pelangi members, I knew they all had their special plan A's too.

  Sahara, for example, wanted to be a women's rights activist. The inspiration for this aspiration came from the tremendous oppression of women she saw in Indian films.

  A Kiong wanted to be the captain of a ship. He said it was because he liked to travel. I was doubtful. This must have been his aspiration because of the big shape of the captain's hat. I suspect he wanted to cover part of his tin can head with the big hat.

  Kucai, from the moment he became aware that he had the qualities of a politician—sly, populist, and shameless, with a big mouth and an irresistible desire to debate—had a clear aspiration: to be a member of the Indonesian legislative assembly.

  Out of the blue and without hesitation or timidity, Syahdan announced that he wanted to become an actor. He didn't seem
to have the slightest capacity for acting. In our class performances, he couldn't even play a role with lines because he always made mistakes. So Mahar always gave him the simple role of fanning the princess. Syahdan didn't need to say anything during the entire performance. His only task was to fan the princess with peacock feathers. He was often incapable of doing even that.

  Everyone urged Syahdan to reconsider his aspiration, but he wouldn't budge. He didn't care about any of the jeering. He wanted to be an actor, period.

  "Aspirations are prayers, Syahdan," Sahara advised him. "If God granted your prayer, can you imagine what would become of the Indonesian film industry?"

  As for Mahar, he wanted to be a renowned psychic, respected even by those who opposed him.

  Samson's aspiration was the simplest. He was a pessimistic individual. He only wanted to be a ticket checker and security guard at the village movie theater. This was because his hobby was watching movies and the security job carried a very macho image. In the meantime, the good and handsome Trapani wanted to be a teacher. And Ha run, as always, wanted to be Trapani.

  It was all because of Lintang. If there were no Lintang, we wouldn't dare to dream. The only thing in our heads— and the head of every other boy in Belitong—was that after elementary school, or maybe junior high, we would sign up to be PN langkong; in other words, we would be prospective employees, then work our whole lives as miners, and then finally retire as coolies. That's what we saw happen to our fathers and their fathers before them, generation after generation.

  But Lintang and his extraordinary abilities gave us confidence. He opened our eyes to the possibility that we could become more than we had ever dreamed. He gave us encouragement, even though we were full of limitations.

  Lintang himself aspired to be a mathematician. If he achieved it, he'd be the first Malay mathematician. Wonderful! I was moved whenever I thought of it; I had quietly fallen in love with Lintang's plan. So I prayed, frequently, that he'd achieve his dream. Suppose, just suppose, that God asked someone to sacrifice his or her dream so Lintang could achieve his. I would sacrifice mine for Lintang.