Inyiak Lunak the Town Cryer

Written by : A. A. Navis

uring the war when West Sumatra tried to secede, Otang, Dali’s friend, went home to the village like many other people before the government forces attacked. Otang wasn’t a hero. He also wasn’t a civil servant. If Otang went home to the village, it was because Natsir his idol, who has sent him to ranch in Florida for a year of work experiences. But what he learned about animal husbandry on that ranch could not be put into practice at home. There were socio-cultural problems and also a lack of capital. So, Otang settled in Jakarta to wait for a change in the situation that might improve his lot.
How could he not support Natsir? Otang asked. His father ran a food stall, yet he had been given the opportunity to see in all its wonder the America he had dreamed of when he saw it in movies. It was more than solidarity. He would have been ashamed to feel anything less than what he did.
Otang married before he went to America. His parents wanted to make sure he didn’t fall for some girl there and stay forever: at first, Otang was annoyed but he agreed as soon as he met his future wife who was as beautiful as Tititen Sumarni, the movie star: the only difference was the beauty marks on her upper lip. When he returned to the village because of the war; Otang already has two children. He did nothing the whole time he was there. There wasn’t anything he could do. From the time he was still in grade school up to his time in America, Otang had never learned how to work. He had learned how to be person who knows things. But during the war, knowledge had no use. What you needed, other than weapon, wan an idea or at least a scheme.

***

Eventually Otang village was occupied by government forces. They called it “liberating” the area. The time came when Otang had to take up a hoe and work. He had to join the work gangs and stand watch at night. All the men were thrown together at that time, regardless of whether they were elderly, farmers, teachers, hajis, traditional leaders, or people like Otang. As soon as Otang began to hoe, he got blisters on his palms. Blisters were not excuse not to work.
The military commander of their region held the position of Chief of Territorial Affairs. His name was Talib, and he was a sergeant major. He was a big man, tall and strong. He spoke in a deep baritone. When he shouted, every one was frightened. The sound of hoes hitting stones rang out as they dug up grass. After a while, Sargeant Talib stopped supervising the work, but his orders reach them almost everyday. Inyiak Lunak spread the news from one end of the village to the other while beating his gong which made a cher-cher-cheer sound because it was cracked. Inyiak Lunak’s voice was hoarse as if his vocal cords were cracked, too.
Having to work almost every day irritated Otang and everyone else. It wasn’t just that they were losing time to do their own jobs. They felt they were being purposely humiliated like a conquered people. From constantly hearing the cher-cher-cher of the gong accompanied Inyiak Lunak’s broken voice, Otang came to hate the town crier. If he happened to pass Inyiak Lunak on the street, he would look away. If he was sitting in Mak Mango’s coffee shop on the corner of the market and Inyiak Lunak came in, he would hurriedly depart. If Inyiak Lunak was there before him, Otang wouldn’t even enter.
Otang became even more fed up with Inyiak Lunak when he learned what Sergeant Talib did when all the men were working. He and one of his corporals went around to the villages and slept with the wives of the rebels who were being held in the countryside. Corporal Jono was jus as bad as Talib. So was Basri, the local administrator who came from one of those villages, as were many others. Deputy police inspector Hartono slept with the two daughters of Sudira, the prison warden. “what can we do? Wat can we say?” was the comment of the people in the occupied region.
Finally, even though he didn’t fight in the war, just because he sympathized with them, Otang had to pay the price like everyone else. Misfortune stalked him, but not because he sided with the rebels. It was because he had a beautiful wife. Atun, whom he had been very proud of, became his knife in his heart. When the men were ordered out to work, Sergeant Talib stopped by to see Atun. People said he even stayed till morning when Otang was on night watch.

***

At first, Otang didn’t know what was happening. His mother-in-law didn’t tell hi, much less Atun. Otang didn’t understand the dark looks of the two women every time he came home from the work detail. At first, that’s haw it was. But, when Inyiak Lunak, the town crier; whispered to him that he should take Atun to the city, Otang began to see how things really stood. He was furious. He was scathing with his-mother-in-law for going along with it.
“Otang, put yourself in Atun’s place or in mine. Could we stand up to them? Should we have told you so you could beat up that Talib?” his mother-in-law asked once Otang began to calm down.
But Otang was not consoled. He felt crushed by a mountain of regrets. He was sorry he hadn’t taken up arms against the government. If he had joined the rebel army, he would have shot men like Sergeant Talib dead. There were two things, though, that he did not regret. The first was that he had returned to the village in solidarity with Natsir. The second was that Atun was so beautiful. But bringing his wife and children back to the village because he was sure the rebels would win the war was the miscalculation he regretted most.
He was angry at Sergeant Talib. Furious in fact. He also despised him and was disgusted art his behavior. But his fury abated when he saw all the soldiers dresses in green who were like Sergeant Talib only more so. He realized that he was not a brave man. He had never learned to be brave. Not in school nor far away Florida. He had only heard and accepted what his teachers said or what he read in books.
So when Reagent Kasdut, whom Otang had known in school and who held the rang of captain, took a tour of inspection in his area, Otang went to see him. He told him what the army did to people.
“If the army had become to liberate this area with some humanitarian concern for the people, the rebellion would had been put down in three months. But because they are vicious enemy even if they have to spend years in the jungle.”
“That’s the army, Otang. It’s a bad risk for the loser. Our army would be just as vicious if they were fighting someplace else,” said Regent Kasdut, the captain.
“Do they have to be vicious to their own people?”
“That’s the policy of the commanding officers so that no people any place any place will ever dream of rebelling again.”
“Will people love the army and threat them like heroes if they have these vicious policies?”
Right now they are not going to change their command policies, “said captain Kasdut, the Regent.
Otang recalled the saying that was current at that time: ‘if you fear the rifle barrel, run to the butt.’ It was pointless to oppose the side that was winning the war. So when Regent Kasdut returned to the country seat, Otang went him. Since then, no one in the village knew where he had gone or where he was.

***

Twenty five years later, Dali ran into Otang in Jakarta. They met at the home of Kasdut, who had retired with the rank of colonel. Otang had changed. He was calm. He seemed pious. He spoke softly and gently. He had a beard like Haji Agus Salim. It was white. On his head perched a black, velvet cap, precisely placed. But he didn’t sit with Dali in the living room. He stayed in the black room with Kasdut’s mother-in-law who was almost 80 years old.
“He’s a clean leader now. His title is Datuk Rajo di Koto (King in the City). He was chosen and installed by the members of his clan who live here now. People say there’s something fishy about the title. It is not accordance with traditional law. But that’s the clan problem,” Kasdut explained. He had also made a leader of this clan in the village be fore he retired. His title was Datuk Rajo Kuaso (Powerful King). It was a fitting title for a colonel who had one been regent. “as for me, my title is legal according to traditional law. The whole clan, at home and away, agreed on it,” Kasdut continued.
Dali was curious as to why Otang preferred to sit with an old woman rather than a friend he hadn’t seen for 25 years. All shorts of possibilities occurred to him. Maybe Otang didn’t want to see Dali because he didn’t want to reopen old wounds from the time of the rebellion. He had left Atun behind for the Sergeant, his replacement, and his replacement’s replacement. But that was an old story. Did he still want revenge even after Sergeant Talib and his friends had paid for their deeds when the communist uprising was put down?
“He’s gone on pilgrimage to Mecca twice,” Kasdut went on as Dali pondered the situation. Then he added as if weren’t important: “my mother-in-law considers him a member of the family. I support him. Who else would?”
Since leaving the village and the war zone, Otang had carried his injuries and heartbreak around Jakarta with him. He had hoped the city would allow him to forget the past. But the city just offered more of the same poison, especially when he saw men in green uniforms with women on their arms. To Otang, they all looked like Sergeant Talib and Atun. It made him nauseous. Finally, Otang confined himself at the house of his in-law where he was staying. Even when he did go out, he never went farther than the garden fence.
To dispel the loneliness, he read books on religion because they didn’t deal with painful conflicts. He didn’t read them in order to study their contents because he didn’t want another burden. He stayed away from newspapers and magazines. If he wasn’t reading, Otang did whatever he could around the house. He cleaned or did small repairs.
Finally Otang came out of hiding when he had to attend the funeral of one of his nephews. Once he broke his isolation, he was almost never at home during the day. He would go visiting, from house to house, to see some family member or a friend from his village he was received with open arms, even by Atun’s relatives and especially by the older people who had nothing to do and needed a friend with whom to pass the time. Otang could fulfill their needs. After a while, he knew exactly what was required. The woman liked to hear about the marriages and deaths of people they knew in the village or elsewhere. The men liked to hear news from home then talked about the doing of their friends. The ones who were civil servants were interested in the promotions of others they were acquainted with.
Otang didn’t search for news of that kind. Rather, he collected it piece by piece from the people he visited. Finally, he became a source of reputable information. He knew what each person and group was interested in hearing. People began to look forward to his visits, just as they looked forward to the arrival of the paper boy.
Otang even found a soul mate in a widow who was a member of one of the families he visited regularly. But a household needs a source of income. Even though at the time he proposed, Otang’s in-laws told him he didn’t need to support his wife-to-be, Otang was the kind of man who wanted a real wife. He had elevated Atun, who was as beautiful as a movie star; too high. Now he needed a source of income, a job with a salary. But what could he do in middle age? He could go into business but what would he sell? Could he even do it? Where would he get the capital? Otang was confused and spent most of his time looking for job that would suit him. He went out in the early morning and returned at dusk.
All the old people he visited regularly were perplexed that Otang has stopped coming to see them. There was an aged doctor who no longer practiced who usually addressed Otang in an old fashioned way as “Engku Otang.” The doctor told him: “Engku Otang, what you do is the same as I did when I was still a doctor visiting patients. Understand?”
Otang didn’t understand. But he nodded anyway. Much later, it came to him as he talked it over with his wife. He should be paid for each visit he made. It wasn’t enough that they gave him something to eat or drink whenever he visited or occasionally slipped him a bill saying it was “for bus fare.” But how could he ask his acquaintances and friends from the village from money? It would be too awkward. To Otang, visiting friends wasn’t a commercial profession like being a doctor. But it was his wife again who had an idea.
“You didn’t study in America for nothing, you know,” she said.
From that time, Otang changed his schedule of visits, the ways as well as the times. Of course, he was received with anxiety and gentle chiding. Otang excuse was simple. He told them he had things to do. He had a wife now and responsibilities for his household. Sometimes he added that he had had difficulty getting a bus.
“Why didn’t you tae a taxi, Engku,” they would ask.
From then in they gave Otang taxi fare, but he continued ride the bus. With the old ladies who were interested in religion, Otang knew exactly what stories would appeal. He told them about Moses who, as an infant, was floated down the Nile by his mother and washed up at the Paraoh’s place. Or he told them about Zulaika who was crazy about Joseph. Or else about Khadijah’s loyalty to the prophet Muhammad and his loyalty to her. If he telling them about some real life event, Otang never failed to discuss it in terms of the Koran and Hadith. He was no different than a skilled preacher: sometimes he would give the old ladies religious books he bought from the sidewalk vendors in Kramat.
“These are good books. They are Arabic writing and also roman type. You should read and reread them. It will bring you closer to god,” said Otang. Then he would read a passage out loud. Of course when it was time for him to leave, the old ladies would reimburse him many times the cost of the books, in addition to his taxi fare.
There were many people from his village in Jakarta, and Otang would visit three of four houses in a day seven days a week. He would visit the wealthy ones or those with important positions once a month. The others he would see once every two months. Before the Idul Fitri holiday or when the traders and business people were closing their books for the financial year. Otang would reap a windfall in the name of charity. It was through the goodwill of his rich friends that Otang had twice been able to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Once he went with his wife. Everyone gave him money. he had dollars, Saudi riyals, Japanese yen, and of course rupiah. Before the Lebaran holiday, the money came with the comment, “to buy dates.” It added up. It was almost enough for the Deluxe fare for the Haj pilgrimage.

***

Otang fell ill, he had a stroke, and there were complications, the doctor said. They put him in the hospital ward. The next day he was moved to a VIP room. He had many acquaintances willing to guarantee payment. When Dali went to visit him, flowers lined the hallway outside Otang’s room. There were dozens more inside. There was a card attached to each. Dali was curious so he read each of them. He read all the cards on all the flowers in the hall. He saw the names of famous professors, major industrialists, high ranking officials, ministerial staff members, and also card from Kasdut.
Otang opened his eyes when Dali leaned down close to his ear and said his name. He looked at Dali sadly for a long time as if there was a great deal he wanted to say. It made Dali sad, but he didn’t show his feelings. He tried to smile as a way of reassuring Otang that his illness wasn’t grave. Dali gently massaged Otang’s hand that wasn’t connected to the IV until he closed his eyes as if to sleep.
The soft voice of one of the other visitors reached Dali loud and clear: Otang might have heard it, too.
“He is rare creature. If he doesn’t recover; no one will be able to replace him,” someone said.
“He is like a living communication device,” said another.
“Just like Inyiak Lunak in the village. He carried good news and bad around hitting that strange sounding gong that was cracked.”
“But Inyiak Lunak and his gong only ever brought bad news,” somebody put in.
Suddenly, deli felt Otang’s hand that he still held begin to tremble. His legs began to kick.
“Call the doctor,” Dali shouted.
Everyone stood up and gathered around Otang’s bed. They started at him anxiously not knowing what to do. Soon after, the doctor arrived. All the visitors were sent out. They waited in the waiting room, each alone with his feelings.
Dali sat down on a cloth chair. He thought about tag who had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. His thoughts wondered, seeking the reason for Otang’s decline. Was he offended by the visitor who compared him to Inyiak Lunak, the Town Cryer; with his broken gong?
Dali was sure the mention of Inyiak Lunak, much less the comparison with him, had reopened and old wound from the days when there was war in the village, when the state saw them as traitors to the nation, when the form and measure of treachery were unclear.


Translated by Rebecca Fanany