Confused, Rohman turned to his father, but the old man merely smiled. Then he said, “Don’t worry! Tomorrow he’ll be in second grade.”
Such was Grandma’s way of solving my problem. From that day on, Rohman was two grades lower than he should have been. He was really something else. From the moment we shared a bench, nobody dared give me a hard time. My shoes were now spared the trampling of dirty feet. To be sure, sometimes, outside school, a kid who didn’t understand the situation would harass me, but the next day Rohman would beat him black and blue.
Not long afterwards, Father took me back to my mother’s place. I didn’t understand what was happening. Mother once told me I cried for days on end, begging to go back to Grandma. I didn’t know what made me cry, and I did not know what happened to Rohman either: did he jump back up two grades where he belonged or did he stay where he was when I left? In my new school, sometimes there were boys who gave me a hard time, but I coped okay. In junior high, I had lots of friends, and no one bothered me. In senior high, I slept with several pretty and clever girls. Since this type of girl was rarely fought over, I faced practically no competition. Then I went to university and became a bookworm. I came very close to forgetting that I’d ever had a bench-mate called Rohman. Now I was engaged to Raisa, my boss’s daughter, and no one dared to come between us.
Then, last Lebaran, I went back to visit Grandma, and ran into Rohman. He asked me a really dumb question: “Are you still getting beaten up a lot?”
The two of us sat on Grandma’s veranda and filled each other in on everything that had happened since we parted.
“Every time I go back home,” said Rohman, “I visit your Grandma to ask how you are doing.” I merely smiled and patted him on the knee. He continued, “Even today, I often worry that someone is beating you up.”
I laughed and once again patted him on the knee.
“Don’t go overboard like that!”
But with a serious face, he stared at me and asked, “Where are you staying now? I’ll bring you an amulet.”
“An amulet?”
“Yes, an amulet. It’ll make you invulnerable to fists and weapons.”
The amulet is now in my hands. Its name is the Otter Amulet. According to Rohman, who brought it to my apartment, it’s called that because it is made from an otter. Or maybe a weasel or a mongoose.
As I really didn’t know what I should do, I asked Rohman whether I should pay him. How much? Rohman simply laughed and shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I don’t want your money.” He’d given me the amulet because he was genuinely worried about me. “Just remember,” he said, “I promised to protect you.” But since he could no longer guard me, the best he could do was give me the amulet.
I didn’t suppose Rohman would have given me such a gift without expecting something in return, so I asked him about his job. Maybe he had a kid of his own. Maybe, like many other villagers, he was trying to park the kid with me, so the boy could get a job in the firm where I was employed or in an office owned by somebody I knew. But it became clear he needed nothing from me. He had already become the boss of a copra business in South Banten, and his eldest son was only eleven years old. So, he really and truly needed nothing from me.
I forced him to stay over with me one night, and I took him on a quick tour of Jakarta, just for fun. Then he went back to his work.
And now the amulet is with me. The Otter Amulet.
For several days, I tried not to pay it any attention, but the more I tried to forget that I owned an amulet, the more I kept remembering it. The amulet was kept in a small cotton pouch, with a drawstring loop the size of a bracelet to hang it from. I’d inspected it carefully, and it certainly looked like some kind of dried pelt. There was no sign at all that it had any magical power. So, I doubted whether it could really protect me.
Before he left, Rohman had said to me, “You have to carry it with you if you want to feel its power. Just stick it in the pocket of your pants, that’ll be enough.”
But I’d usually let it sprawl on my desk, next to my computer.
Eventually, I had the idea that the only way to be sure the thing worked was to test it. But before that I had to check one thing. Ten days after Rohman’s visit, I phoned him.
“So far as I know, every amulet has its taboos,” I said. “Tell me what I am forbidden to do.”
Rohman laughed. “You don’t need to worry about anything.”
I’d never once started a fight in my whole life. Of course, I’d had some unpleasant encounters. But, every time, I tried to resolve the situation without coming to blows. My friends would say I was sharp enough to turn enemies into friends. But, to be honest, there were times when I had to take evasive action. More exactly, I backed down.
When I first started to think about testing the amulet, I pictured various people who had got my back up and ought to be taught a lesson: the taxi driver who pretended to be lost and took me on an epic diversion, then demanded the sky-high fare appearing on his meter; the small-time thug who held me up in Tanah Abang a long time ago when I first arrived in Jakarta; and a colonel I saw who drove his car into an old woman on a street corner and then sped off without looking back.
With a little anxiousness, I took the Otter Amulet from my desk and for a moment or two rubbed it gently in the palm of one hand. Did I really believe all the nonsense about amulets? My father and mother had never spoken about such things, and I myself had never been that interested in them, although I knew they existed. It was hard to square Rohman the tough little kid with Rohman the man full of magical knowledge. But the more I thought it over, the less strange it seemed. It was well known that his father, the guardian of the spring, had various magical powers, and Grandma and Grandpa believed in him. So perhaps it made sense that someone like Rohman could own an amulet, or even make one himself.
I put the amulet into the lefthand pocket of my pants. It was the best place, since I never put anything else in that pocket. The amulet would never accidentally fall out (for example, if I bent over to pick up some small change or fiddled with my cellphone). For a few moments I tried to sense whether the amulet was communicating with me in any way, sending me some signal.
But there was nothing.
I began to have my doubts. Had Rohman really made me invulnerable to fists and weapons? Who knew, maybe if I tried to test it, I’d end up black and blue. I’d be lucky to escape being killed on the spot.
I felt dizzy and glanced at a razor blade.
“No, you will bleed if you cut yourself. The amulet only works if someone beats you up or tries to wound you with a weapon.”
In that case, I thought to myself, there’s only one way to put it to the test. After thinking all this over for a while, finally I went off to work. No problem and, anyway, there was really no need to put the amulet to the test. Since I was afraid the amulet wouldn’t function as Rohman had promised, there was no reason to quarrel with anyone. I could get on with my life in the normal way, exactly the same as before I’d been given the amulet.
I was now twenty-nine and fine without the amulet. With this thought in mind, still—I don’t know why—I kept the amulet in my pocket.
I walked back to my apartment shivering. I didn’t know how bad I looked after what I’d done. People looked me over, staring suspiciously. I didn’t care and kept on walking. I checked my hands. Dried blood everywhere. My shirt, too, was stained. I could see that my fingers were all stiff, and I didn’t think I could move them.
They moved on their own. Shivering like me.
What I pictured was Nasrudin’s body slumped in a corner of the bathroom, blood oozing from the corners of his lips. I was so happy to see this blood, although it wasn’t the color I’d imagined but darker. It wasn’t the red of the flag but more like that of a rotting rosebud.
“That’s for your filthy mouth,” I said. I’d hated him for a long time. He was always buttering up my boss and trying to denigrate me. He had a way of re
futing my ideas and turning them round to make it sound as if they were just the jokes of an idiot. I knew my boss was taken in by what he said and looked at me pityingly. The only thing was that, since I was engaged to Raisa, no one could shake my position in the office. Even so, honestly, I wanted just once to teach Nasrudin a lesson.
These memories made me start shivering again.
That day I did my utmost to infuriate him, and I waited to see if he would hit me. It happened in the bathroom after most of our colleagues had gone home. He didn’t hit me, so I provoked him once again. Finally, he came up to me and grabbed my shirt collar.
“What do you want?”
I spat in his face.
For a moment, he was dumbstruck. Of course, he wouldn’t have expected this from me. He mopped his face with his shirt sleeve without relaxing his grip on my shirt. He stared at me. I smiled at him derisively. He continued to stare at me. I stared back at him. These moments were very tense. I waited to see what he would do.
Then—blam—he punched me on the jaw. The blow forced me back a few steps, but I felt nothing. I smiled and went up to him.
He hit me again, but I still didn’t feel a thing. He punched me again. I took it as if I were a sandbag. He went on hitting me for about ten minutes, or maybe thirty. He was totally bemused that his blows had no effect on me. Finally, I launched a counterattack.
One blow sent him flying into the doorjamb. The second produced a bruise on his temple. The third sent him staggering. After who knows how many punches, he collapsed in a corner of the bathroom and blood began to issue from the corners of his mouth.
“Mercy! Mercy!”
I left the bathroom. I smiled. Then I laughed. Then shivered.
I was still shivering, but also overwhelmed with glee, when I unlocked the door to my apartment. As I went inside, I got the feeling there was someone there. It must be Raisa, I thought, Raisa had a key and could go in and out as she pleased. Sometimes she would sleep over, and at times like that we would of course make love. She’d leave in the morning, returning to her parents’ place.
I turned on the lamp and saw her there on the bed. Naked.
Strangely enough she wasn’t alone. She was with a man, also naked. They were screwing, and I merely sat down on a sofa and watched through the open door of the bedroom. I felt myself getting aroused, too. My head was spinning.
I took off my shoes, then pulled off my socks. I looked at my hands, still stained with blood. I peeked once more at Raisa and the man with her. I heard her sighs of pleasure, which I knew so well. I’ll ejaculate in a few moments, I thought.
And so it happened. I leaned back. It looked like the man on top of Raisa had finished, too. He got off the bed and came up to me.
“Hey! So you’re back?” he asked me. I knew his voice very well. Rohman. Still naked, his genitals hung down between his thighs.
I didn’t reply, I wasn’t sure whether I was asleep or not. Maybe something in between.
Later on, I remembered what had made me cry, day after day, at Grandma’s. One night, I saw Grandma on her bed along with the old guardian of the spring. Grandpa just sat there on his rattan divan. His gaze terrified me, and I started crying from that night on.
How could I have forgotten him? But on this night, and for years afterwards, I remembered. But I was glad too. I was glad to see that blood on my hands. I was glad to see Raisa bathed in sweat on my bed. I was glad to see Rohman walking, stark naked, with his genitals hanging down, towards me. Most of all I was glad to have the Otter Amulet in my left pants pocket.
DIMPLES
Moments before, the woman with the lovely dimples had been shivering, utterly ravaged by the evening’s torments, but now her face was plastered with a smile, her dimples deepening as she gathered up her clothes. A moment before, she had been a newlywed, teeth chattering, pale and in agony. Now she was a happy young divorcee.
The man had dissolved their union, emphatically reciting his three talaq: I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you. Their first night together had also been their last. Sitting on the bed’s golden sheets with the scent of jasmine floating in the air, Dimples had taken stock of the situation. Sweat still clung to her skin and her long hair fell across her back onto the pillow. She was still half-naked but she had to leave immediately, because she was no longer the mistress of the house.
There was the sound of the man’s impatient steps behind the door, keplak-keplak. She recalled how he had stripped her naked and then undressed himself, just a short while ago. Dimples was ice-cold and immobilized while that man was on fire, leaping upon her and thrusting ferociously. Then he stopped for a moment, his forehead wrinkled—not for very long, but long enough for Dimples to ask silently, What’s wrong? Am I too young for you, Master? The man’s reply was to make the bed rattle like a palm tree branch being thrashed by a hurricane as he hurriedly finished his lovemaking. Then they both lay back for a moment, flooded with sweat and gasping for breath.
But the man was still on fire—not with desire but with rage. He threw a blanket over Dimples, jumped up from the bed and pulled on his shorts. Without even looking in her direction, he cursed her before severing the ties between them, slamming the door of their wedding chamber with a final shout: “You whore!”
The woman with the two snot-nosed kids had watched stonily as the headman had bound Dimples and her destiny to that man. Dimples didn’t have the strength to return her malicious stare—she was drowning in the bustling wedding celebration and felt like she was dying, over and over again.
She almost fainted as the guests lined up. They inserted white envelopes with red and blue stripes lining the edges into the assigned box before coming to greet the couple. The touch of each man’s palm pressed to hers brought on a chill, and every woman’s kiss upon her cheek tossed her into a flushed turmoil. She grew even more flustered when the woman with the two snot-nosed kids approached, greeted her, kissed her cheek, and embraced her. Dimples was amazed how none of those three was crying, since her own eyes were abysmally flooded. The woman used her very own scarf to gently wipe away the two small rivers running down Dimples’s cheeks and ruining her makeup. That made Dimples cry even harder. Her nose started to run, and she tried to clean up her face with the cuff of her blouse.
The photographer approached, aiming his camera. They all stood in a row. When that man held her hand in his, Dimples thought she would lose control of her bladder. When the photographer gave his command, one-two-three, the woman smiled and so did her two kids. Bam! Now that smile was going to last forever, but Dimples knew it was a lie, as fake as the cordial look that had just passed between them, barely masking the violence underneath.
As the man led her to the wedding chamber, she could still see those three stares, illuminated by an unbearable flame of emotion. Even though she turned away, that heat still burned in her chest, so before being swallowed behind the door, she vowed to the woman and those two kids, “I will return him to you immediately,” although she could only say it silently.
One accursed night, just before dawn, her father had gone to the spring that rippled at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by a thicket and shrouded in luscious mist. The spring flowed into a small irrigation canal that encircled the village, here and there branching off, cutting through the fields to bring the rice paddies their source of life. The water was lively with little fish, eels, and tadpoles, all moving along in a swift rhythm, making the green algae sway and the colorful stones scrape cheerfully along the bottom. The married men of the village took turns checking in on the spring just before dawn, to make sure it wasn’t clogged with mud, so that the rice would grow at the right pace. But that particular night was cursed, because a goddam snake bit his big toe.
The man hadn’t yet arrived at the spring, and there he was, her father, left twitching on the footpath, his lower leg hot and stinging. His big toe looked red and raw in the moonlight as he gazed at it in the glow from his torch, which had fallen into the grass. He
at slowly spread upwards, and he could feel it cutting off the circulation in his leg, inch by inch. He knew that soon he would lose the life in his toe and all that would be left would be a putrid blue lump. Then his whole leg would die, and then his body would follow, and then his soul.
He thought of his wife, he remembered his one and only daughter. He didn’t want to die. He grabbed the torch and burned that toe of his in its flame and then he ripped a sleeve off his shirt and used it to make a tourniquet around his calf. The excruciating heat in his leg did not abate, even though it was holding steady for the moment. He was fighting with death. He stood clenching his torch, wobbling and shaking. His body was drenched with sweat. He thought he was going to expire right then and there, standing up, just like that.
Crying out from the pain, the man staggered off across the fields and headed for the witch doctor’s house. It seemed as though the torch at the man’s gate was as far away as the end of the world, and its flame flickered mockingly in the distance. This witch doctor alone had the anti-venom stone, and this witch doctor alone could drive death from his toe—even though he was a truly nauseating person, with bad breath and wild eyes.
When the man arrived on the front terrace of the witch doctor’s house, he was half-dead. He collapsed on the steps, howling and banging on the door. His pounding grew weak and his arms waved limply when the witch doctor finally opened the door, standing there shaking off the fog of sleep. Then the woman came to stand behind the witch doctor. Her two sons had also awoken, and they stood nearby.
“Snake venom is killing me,” the dying man said, brandishing his foot.
“Apparently so,” replied the witch doctor. The woman and her two children disappeared inside the house while the witch doctor got his torch to examine the man’s big toe. It was lacerated and blue. The woman reappeared with a small bundle of cotton cloth before being swallowed again by the darkness behind the witch doctor, who took out the magic stone that could counteract the venom. The dying man waited anxiously for the witch doctor to pull death from his big toe, but instead the man asked, “How are you planning to pay?”
Kitchen Curse Page 7