The Tropical Sun - Belief, Love and Hate

by J. S. Philippe

  ~~~~~

  In the mid-morning of the second day they eventually crested the last hill, their muscled physiques shining with sweat. On the descending slopes before them lay the barren exposed ore fields. Beyond the ore fields stretched the mining and fishing town of Bitung. From their vantage point could be seen three large boats, and many small boats close by the shore. A glittering deep turquoise strait of seawater lay between the mainland and the green island of Palua.

  The green-tinted ore could be found on the rocky, rutted and ravined southern slopes of the volcano. Lumps might be found directly on the ground, or more likely in exposed gullies that had been washed out by heavy rains. Some miners from the town worked together in teams to dig and gouge out an area that appeared rich in ore. Around the ore-fields were a few rough native houses and shelters for mine workers and smelters.

  Heat haze smoked the blue sky and the fierce tropical sun beat down upon it all like the bronzesmith’s hammer; in the mirage of wavering air, the ore fields on the southern slopes of Tongkoko seemed to tremble to the blows. The weight of ore they could carry may be enough for smelting into perhaps two knife blades. They had nothing to trade for ready-smelted bronze so, until their boat was ready, they needed to carry as much ore back home as they could.

  “We can try over there first?” said Bandri, indicating to where they found good ore on the last trip.

  Apart from a few small pieces, it appeared the area had been picked clean. More luck came when they climbed down into a small canyon, and then into an eroded gulley at the bottom. They picked away at the walls of the gulley, which yielded some sizable pieces of quite green ore.

  “What’s this?” said Bandri, holding up a shiny yellow rock he had just dug out: about the size of a little finger. “It’s only small - but heavy,” he added, passing it to his friend.

  Agung weighed it in his hand and scratched it with the tip of the machete.

  “It’s quite soft – it’s not bronze. I’ve never seen it before.”

  Bandri held it again, smiling as he rubbed it with his fingers.

  “It’s like a piece of honey,” he said, putting it in the deep pocket of his kathok. “I’ll give it to Ayu.”

  They found no more good quality ore at that site, but their packs were only half full. Under the tropical sun, they felt the burden of heat scorching down from overhead. They needed shelter.

  Lugging their packs across the gravelly slope, they found a small wooded valley. As they drew closer, they could see a few native houses beside a stream. No-one appeared to be around. In the shade of a tree they rested, drinking the stream water and munching on raw vegetables, fruit and honeycomb.

  “Bisa kita?” - “Can you help us?” said a quiet voice.

  Looking up they saw a frail-looking elderly woman, standing nearby. Her presence had come as a surprise, for neither of them had noticed her before. It seems she had walked over to them from the houses not far away. An intense sadness was imprinted on her wisen features.

  Both of them stood up, and tried to speak at the same time.

  “What is it? – Are you alright?..”

  “Yuli.. We want to find my grand-daughter Yuli – this morning – my son is looking for Yuli - and our neighbours are looking.”

  “Where did she go?” The question seemed the best that Bandri could offer at this unexpected turn of events.

  “Wong njupuk Yuli.” - “Men took Yuli.”

  The words hung in the air, as both of them thought about it. Neither of the friends wanted to accept into their consciousness the possible implications of the simple short statement.

  “They took Yuli. We think men from Bitung – this morning,” she said between pitiful sobs. “We don’t know who they are. They took Yuli.”

  The two friends listened quietly as she spoke in halting Javanese, trying to understand the trauma her family had been going through. Her grand-daughter was a young girl. The girl had been washing the clothes near their house when her mother heard the screams, and witnessed the abduction by four men. It happened so quickly.

  The friends exchanged glances. Bandri could sense that Agung was thinking of Suk who was of a similar age. Mel was not much older. They knew that some tribesmen acted to satisfy their base cravings, taking what or who they wanted.

  The girl’s father had been working on the ore fields, and there were few other people in their little village. The explanation exhausted the old woman, who they persuaded to sit and eat. The friends needed to step away from her to talk quietly together.

  “This is so bad!” moaned Agung in anguish. “The poor girl.”

  “It’s just the thing Eko warned us about - there could be a lot of them, and we probably can’t do anything,” reasoned Bandri. “We’re strangers here.. We wouldn’t be able to recognise any of them – and we need to get back.”

  “But we can’t leave her.”

  The two fell silent as they grappled with the dilemma.

  “We should try and help if we can,” admitted Bandri, knowing that Agung was right. “But we need to be careful. If we can’t help, at least we tried.”

  “Alright,” said Agung, satisfied at a compromise. “Then we go home.”

  They decided to try and follow where the girl’s father, mother and neighbours had gone in pursuit of the abductors. The lone old lady gave them several names and descriptions to try and remember. Leaving their backpacks in the woman’s house, they set off in the direction of the town, taking their weapons.

  The two young men walked quickly down the tracks towards the town, which took them past another village. They made enquiries but no further information was forthcoming. The locals seemed alarmed at their arrival, and only the older people were visible. Dogs barked. They had seen dogs before, although they didn’t have any at Likupang.

  “I don’t like the noise they make,” Agung said grimly. “But dogs can warn us.”

  “It would be alright if we looked after them well – these dogs are so scrawny – they look like they have some disease.. We could breed some teal ducks at the edge of the village – they should make a loud noise.”

  “And we could eat them!” suggested Agung more optimistically.

  Neither had gone down into Bitung before. The curved slopes of the Tongkoko volcano provided a pleasant backdrop for the town, beside the seafront where the boats were moored. Seen from a distance it looked peaceful and pleasant. The town of Bitung however was more populated, noisy and bustling than any place they had experienced before. Smoky smelting works lined one street and odorous fish handlers lined another. Poky alleyways led off to more houses and marketplaces, mostly made out of coconut lumber. Many buildings were of two stories and a few were three stories.

  People conversed, argued, bartered and traded – a madding crowd of men, boys, older women and very young children. Stray dogs led in the shade or trotted about. Human and animal smells filled the air: smoke, fish, cooking, rotting matter and sewage - foul and fetid in the heat.

  “I don’t see any young women around,” remarked Bandri. “Maybe they stay inside.”

  “Or girls,” muttered Agung.

  They stopped at a large fish merchants, admiring the wealth of goods on offer. There were glistening and coloured fish of every description: sea bass, tuna, jack fish, octopus, shell fish, shark fins and hunks of larger animals.

  “Dolphin,” grunted Agung.

  “They eat everything,” commented Bandri with sadness. The Malay believed that dolphins were harbingers of good spirits.

  “Punapa?” – “What do you want?” asked the merchant. He was of middle age and middle height. Apart from being unusually fat, there was nothing particularly notable about his appearance.

  “We are looking at the parrot fish,” said Bandri, unprepared for the question.

  “Strangers - What have you got?” said the merchant, looking at them dubiously. Their kathoks marked them out as two Malay in a Javanese town.

  Bandri realised that the mercha
nt was expecting a trade.

  “What do we need?”

  “A mark or some goods, or bronze,” the man replied, looking at the sheath hung at Agung’s waist.

  “What is a ‘mark’?” enquired Bandri.

  The man pulled out a rectangular piece of wood from under the counter. He held it up for their inspection. It had a distinct pattern of marks scratched into the surface.

  “The tribe of owning men make these,” he informed them. “Do you have something to exchange.”

  The friends exchanged glances. Bandri looked back at the man and shook his head.

  “No sir, we are are sorry.. We wanted to ask another question?”

  “You are strangers,” stated the fish merchant.

  “Yes sir - but we want to help people from this place who have lost their daughter.”

  The man’s reaction informed the friends that this was not a subject he was comfortable discussing, but before anything else took place there was a commotion at the end of the long counter. A woman was being held by two men. She wore a loose-fitting dark blue sarong and head-cover, which fell back revealing her to be elderly and thin.

  “She stole it - She’s stolen a fish!” one of the young men was proclaiming. “She’s got it in there.”

  “I haven’t stolen anything!” the woman pleaded, vainly trying to free her wrists. “My daughter gave it to me.. I haven’t -”

  “Hold her Yasan!” the other man spoke over her protests and delved into the folds of her sarong, pulling out a jack fish.

  The merchant had hurried towards the scene, while the two friends looked on. They were astonished by the intense agitation created. It was an unexceptional fish - the counter was heaped with them and they had seen them on other stalls too.

  “It’s just a fish,” exclaimed Bandri. “She says she didn’t steal it.”

  “Be warned - you are strangers!” the merchant declared. “The men say she stole it - and there are two of them!”

  “Owner, what do you want us to do?” asked the one called Yasan, heedless to the continuing protests of the woman whose anguished eyes looked into Bandri’s own.

  A crowd had already gathered, mostly of men, some carrying weapons. “Take her to the tribe!” called a man from the crowd, and then another echoed the same. Bandri heard someone mutter “They will be rewarded.”

  “We didn’t see her steal it,” Bandri declared, feeling desperately afraid for the woman now. “Why should she steal it?”

  “There are many fish,” added Agung. “She didn’t steal.”

  “She stole it! – I saw it!” the man called Yasan insisted to a rumble of acceptance from the surrounding men. Bandri looked at this Yasan, about the same age as himself but more swarthy, wearing a white and garnet-red kain with a dagger scabbard at his waist. Thick black hair crowned a handsome, proud face. The young man’s eyes stared back at him with an arrogant hostility that made Bandri’s own eyes almost weep with sadness. Yasan started appealing to the crowd “Who are they!? They’re not from here!”

  “You are strangers!” the merchant repeated, glaring now at the two Malay men. “Don’t interfer!”

  The crowd started to jostle. “Take her to the tribe!” called yet another man.

  Inside himself Bandri’s emotion began to boil as he felt the rage of confusion at the cold justice of the crowd. He raged at their selfish greed. Breathing in he readied himself to plea mercy with the merchant and the crowd, but just then he felt a large hand on his shoulder. Close to his ear Agung warned “Be careful.”

  “Alright,” announced the merchant. “The tribe will decide.”

  At once the woman was hauled away by Yasan and his accomplice through the jeering crowd. The merchant turned towards the Malay men.

  “What will happen to her?” asked Bandri, trying to sound consolatory.

  “I cannot answer any more of your questions,” the merchant declared in a tone of dejection. “You must leave.”

  Many cast suspicious looks in their direction as the Malay men edged their way clear of the crowd. Walking away from the bustle of the town centre, they soon found themselves in a quieter street where they decided to enquire again about the missing girl at a smelting works.

  Bandri’s enquiry was made in his best Javanese dialect. The man in charge of the works looked first at Agung who was pre-occupied, gazing at all the bronze-making activity and equipment. Bandri followed the man’s eyes as he noticed the impressive sheath holding Agung’s machete. Using a rag to wipe the sweat from his bald head, the man turned to look at Bandri.

  “It’s bad for the father,” he remarked. “But I can’t help you young man”

  “Thank you sir,” said Bandri, even though he found the man’s answer unsympathetic.

  “Let our sun be on you,” the man said, followed by a condescending smile. He turned his back on Bandri and continued scraping the excess bronze off a freshly cast knife blade.

  As they left the smelting works Bandri noticed three burly men standing in a huddle nearby. They wore kains of white and garnet-red, all armed with knives in scabbards at their waist.

  “Bitung!?” Bandri muttered. “We were warned about this place.”

  The incidents had greatly affected the moral of the two friends who now drifted towards the seafront. Neither felt like debating the nature of their reception in Bitung; instead they sought distraction by discussing the rigging of a big boat moored close to the pier.

  “Nggabungake kita kanggo ngombe?!” –“Join us for a drink?!” came an affable shout.

  Three men were sitting in the shade on fishing nets holding containers of toddy from which they drank. The friends understood the invitation partly because a couple of them beckoned them over with vague waves of their arms. Bandri felt relieved that at least some men from this town appeared more sociable, even though they might be drunk.

  “We should get to know them a bit before we ask about the girl - don’t talk about what happened in the town.”

  “Be careful,” grunted Agung. “We need to get back.”

  Over toddy they introduced each other. One of them called Tirto was darkly sunburned, old and lean. The other two, Bambang and Wira, were middle aged men wearing kains each with dagger scabbards.

  “We’re sailors, can’t you see?” said Wira in an easy manner, waving a hand which was missing a finger towards the boat they had been looking at. “They make sure we look out for the boat.”

  “What about you two?” asked the man called Bambang, who Bandri noticed was dark skinned and had a scar across his right cheek which looked like a wound from a knife – maybe something that he had sustained in his youth.

  “We’re fishermen, but we’re building a bigger boat now,” offered Bandri. “We were looking at the rigging.”

  “Where are you from?” asked Bambang.

  “A place called Likupang.”

  The three sailors seemed to accept this information. Bandri was glad of that; he didn’t want to give them too much information.

  “I used to sail on a big boat like that – we travelled a long way north one time to a big island,” Tirto said in a matter a of fact manner. The other two men from Bitung smiled knowingly. The old man added: “The winds blew us there!”

  “He’s full of stories – but we don’t believe all of them!” laughed Bambang.

  “The current goes north too,” said Wira, waving his hand in the general direction. “If you get too far away you won’t get back.”

  “It’s true I tell you!” Tirto replied earnestly. “With a good boat you can sail back if you know how – we got back but it took many days.”

  Bandri was enjoying this encounter and intrigued by the prospect of discovering new lands.

  “What island did you find?”

  Tirto described several islands, some small with just a few trees surrounded by dangerous coral reefs, one big mountainous island where they had been able to stay for a time to replenish their stocks, and a fascinating account of an isl
and with a magical apparition.

  “We saw an immense fountain of water, fire and smoke with rocks in the sea a long way off, which made a giant breathing sound – very loud - like banua.. banua-wuhu ..It was.. kuwoso lan ayu!”

  Hearing his wife’s name in Javanese, but not properly understanding the context Bandri enquired further: “Tirto, please what do you mean - kuwoso lan ayu?”

  “perkasa dan cantik” – “mighty and beautiful” Tirto explained in a Malay dialect. Then he added: “We called the place Banua – some of us called it Banua Wuhu.”

  The two friends were enthralled by the tale of the ancient seaman. For a while, as Tirto recounted his adventures the two friends forgot the reason they were there.

  “You’re Malay,” interjected Bambang, appearing to be weary of the old man’s tales. “Why did you come into the town?”

  Bandri told them about the abduction of the girl called Yuli.

  “I am glad to only have sons – if I had daughters I feel I would not be able to leave home – some tribes around here get women this way. They will keep the girl locked up and force her to marry.”

  Bambang’s words formed the impression that it was a common problem in the Bitung region. The discussion had become sad and angry. Bandri and Agung felt the anger towards men that so destroyed happiness, love and lives.

  “If you call it marriage,” groaned Wira. “It’s rape! Then what will the girl do when she’s pregnant and she has a child? - It’s difficult to leave then.” Bambang muttered supporting curses as Wira went on “What’s worse is that they will take fresh young girls, even if they already have women – because the women they have already hate them!. Some girls have killed themselves – some say they killed the girls!”

  “A man’s word counts for the word of two women,” muttered Bambang. “That’s the custom.”

  “It’s so bad that they have not learned to respect women,” said Bandri mournfully, thinking about the poor woman with the fish. The horror of girls being abducted and raped was more than he could bear to let into his consciousness.

  “They’re pigs!” growled Agung who fingered the handle of his machete.

  Meanwhile, Tirto had been listening and observing.

  “I can hear you all my friends,” the old man said with a steady voice. “You’re right – of course you are. But be careful what you say around here! There are many of them and they can be vengeful. Did you ask in the town?”

  “Yes,” answered Bandri. “At two places.” He told them about the incident with the man called Yasan.

  “Yasan! - The senior’s son?” exclaimed Wira. “You fools!”

  “They proclaim the sun but their hearts are dark!” Tirto muttered.

  “You must leave right now,” Wira told them. “Don’t go back through the town!”

  “Go that way.” Bambang pointed along the seafront. “When you get to that banyan tree there is a path past the town. If they ask we’ll say you went the other way.”

  With barely time for thanks, the two Malay men were promptly dismissed. Bandri felt guilty at having to take such a hurried departure from the three sailors, and cursed their luck in the town of Bitung. The two friends walked briskly until they got to the old tree. At that point they paused to look back the way they had come, before heading along a small path which started just beyond.

  “Look?!” uttered Agung. “Pigs!”

  The two of them hid themselves behind the broad grey trunk of the banyan tree.

  Tuhan!” Bandri cursed under his breath. “There’s lots of them!”

  A group of about ten men armed with bows and knives had appeared from a street onto the seafront. Some of their kains were white and garnet red, including the one called Yasan. The gang paused while a bald-headed man walked towards the three sailors. He appeared to be asking a question. Bandri felt a very real fear creep up his spine and saw Agung nocking an arrow into his bow. With a pounding heart, he readied his own bow, seamlessly dipping the arrow head in the poison pouch, nocking the arrow and peering back through a gap in the twisting roots.

  Bandri’s fingers tingled on the string of his bow feeling the flight tucked between, just above the knotted marker. He had yet to pull back on the string, and his eyes scanned along the arrow. He had prepared the arrow, almost without thinking, and now he raised the bow, aiming through the gap. Every arrow was different no matter how well they were made; this one was straight but the stone arrow head, smeared now with poison, was a little heavier than he would have preferred for game hunting - but it could be better for this occasion.

  His mind hummed with aggravation. Why should these men be after them!? They had only tried to help, hadn’t they? He saw Yasan goading men in the gang, who were all now checking their knives and selecting arrows, fixing them in their bows - Yasan didn’t seem interested in taking prisoners. If the gang came for them, they must run or fight! His heart ached for Ayu and he knew they must survive for Likupang! Agung will fight - so they had to fight! And then they can run!

  The gang were now debating something, and arms were being waved around. If they started in this direction Bandri decided to try and pick off Yasan first. After a caustic interlude, the gang hustled off in the other direction.

  “Some Java have good spirits,” muttered Agung.

  Jogging rapidly along the path, past a rubbish tip at the edge of the town, they were able to retrace their route back up the hill. Once safely out of Bitung they rested for a short time under the shade of a rambutan tree.

  “I saw that bald man from the works,” said Agung as their breathing returned to normal. “I was aiming for him.”

  Bandri recollected his feelings as they hid from the gang.

  “We did him no harm,” he said, still unable to understand why the bald man had been part of the gang, but then pouted his lips towards Agung’s machete.

  “Greed,” grunted Agung.

  There was a quiet interlude when neither talked as they plucked fruit from the tree. They sat down under the tree as they peeled off the hairy skin of the fruit and munched on the soft flesh, ruminating on their experience. Bandri kept thinking - was greed for bronze enough of a reason? He thought back to the way the bald man replied to his enquiry about the missing girl.

  “Cunning,” suggested Bandri, raising his eyebrows. “Cunning could be another reason.”

  Agung spat out a fruit stone with exaggerated force.

  From their position they could look back down on the town and its bustling streets. They were about to leave when Bandri noticed a crowd gathering near the centre of the town.

  “Look there – in that open space,” he said, pointing.

  At this distance they could not distinguish individual features, but they could see a figure being tied to a wooden scaffold. A shudder of despair ran up Bandri’s spine as he recognised the dark loose sarong that flapped in the light wind.

  “Pigs!” grunted Agung in disgust. “An old woman?!”

  Once the out-stretched arms of the feeble figure were secured the other people moved back, leaving just one who wore a dark-coloured kain. This man held in his hands something long that glinted in the late-afternoon sunlight. The glinting sliver was raised aloft, and in one fell swoop it flashed down on the end of an out-stretched arm. The dot of a hand fell away in a small red sprinkle. A moment later the dull sound of a cheer reached the two horrified friends. By then, Bandri had keeled over to vomit.

  In a depressed mood, the friends reached the group of ramshackle houses with the barking dogs. An old man sat beside a litter of puppies playing around a bundle of coconut sennit.

  “We’ll get dogs,” said Agung flatly.

  In exchange for some heavy lifting work to fix the broken roof of his house, the man gave them a couple of the brown and white yapping creatures.

  Arriving back at the small village, they found that the old lady was now accompanied by several neighbours. Nobody had traced the girl. Retrieving their packs, they saw that both packs were now ful
l with ore.

  “Please accept our thanks for your time,” said the old lady, placing her frail hand into each of theirs. “This is all we can do for you.”