The Rainbow Troops

by Andrea Hirata

  In the end, we came to the conclusion that we must disclose the situation to A Kiong. He was our only shot at penetrating the seashell curtain in Sinar Harapan Shop.

  We ushered A Kiong to the flower garden behind our school and sat on a small bench near a cluster of Beloperone plants and blooming hibiscus, the perfect place for discussing love.

  A Kiong listened intently to my story, but he showed no reaction. His face didn't change at all. The gist of our story completely escaped him. His stare was empty. I guess A Kiong didn't know the first thing about the concept of love.

  "It's as simple as this, A Kiong," I said impatiently. "I will give you letters and poems for A Ling. Give them to her when you pray together at the temple, understand?"

  He raised his eyebrows, his spiky hair stood on end and his round pudgy face looked even funnier than usual. When he relaxed his eyebrows, his chubby cheeks fell down as well, swaying comically. He was a boy with a peculiar but amusing face.

  "Why don't you just give them to her yourself when you see her every Monday morning? It doesn't make any sense!"

  A Kiong didn't actually say that, but that's what his furrowed brow meant. I answered him in my heart telepathically, "Hey, Hokian kid, since when has love ever made sense?"

  Drawing a deep breath, I turned myself around and stared off into our school field. I acted as if I were in a soap opera. I picked Dracaena leaves, crumpled them in my hands, and then tossed them up into the air.

  "I'm shy, A Kiong. Near her, I am paralyzed. I'm a compulsive man. Compulsive men are always careless. If her father found out, I can't even begin to imagine the con sequences!"

  I got those breathtaking lines from Aktuil, a magazine my older brother subscribed to. I probably hadn't used them correctly, but I didn't care.

  Upon hearing a dialogue that resembled the ones from radio dramas (very popular at the time), Syahdan hugged the petai cina tree beside him. I ran out of words trying to explain to A Kiong that, in the world of love, sending letters carried a higher romantic value because they carried an element of surprise.

  I guess A Kiong picked up on the hopelessness in my voice. He may not have been the smartest student, but he was a loyal friend. As long as he could help, he never turned down a friend in need. My theatrics melted his heart.

  A Kiong smiled and I bowed to him like a shaolin ap prentice excusing himself from his master to go out and fight crime. But because of his inherited sense of entre preneurship, he demanded rational compensation. And I didn't mind doing his math homework.

  Through A Kiong, my love poems relentlessly flooded the fish market. It was an easy task for him, and he began to relish his rising math grade. The relationship among me, A Kiong, and Syahdan was one of mutual symbiosis, like a starling on a buffalo's back. A Kiong was completely unaware that his actions could potentially cause a terrible clash between him and his uncle, A Miauw.

  I always pushed A Kiong to tell me what A Ling looked like when she received my poems.

  "Like a duck seeing a pond," he answered with a good natured tease.

  One beautiful evening, in the beautiful month of July, I sat on a round stone in our flower garden and composed a poem:

  Chrysanthemum Flower

  A Ling, look up

  And see high in the sky

  Those white clouds drifting your way

  I sent chrysanthemum flowers to you

  When I slid the poem into an envelope, I smiled. I couldn't believe I could write poetry like that. Perhaps love has the ability to bring things into the open, like hidden abilities or characteristics, things we don't know live inside us.

  Chapter 21

  Snatching Ritual

  MUJIS, the mosquito spraying astronaut, told us that the other day he sprayed the PN survey office and saw the big map of tin exploitation.

  "Three dredges are pointing toward this school!" he said sternly.

  Mujis could even name the IBs.

  "IB 9, IB 5, and IB 2."

  IB is the local way of saying EB, emmer bager, Dutch for dredges.

  Mujis' news was horrifying, since whatever stood in the way of the dredges would surely be destroyed. But as usual, Bu Mus lifted our spirits. She asked us to pray so that nothing bad would happen to us. We soon forgot the threat of the dredges. Especially me, because I was taken aback by even more surprising news.

  Here's the story. On the way back to school after buy ing chalk today, while I was pedaling, Syahdan read some thing off the bottom of the chalk box in his hands: meet me at Chiong Si Ku.

  What? A message from A Ling! It must have been A Ling's writing! The hidden message made me lose control of the bicycle, which wobbled and plopped itself down into a ditch. I tried to save the invaluable chalk and the writing on its box. Time and time again Bu Mus had been disappointed in me for the way I handled the chalk. Syahdan and I dove into the dark mud. The chalk was saved, but we were not. We were soaked.

  Syahdan was mad at me. I felt terrible seeing him like that, but it was also pretty funny. All I could see were the whites of his eyes, because he was covered from head to toe in black mud. My knees were bleeding.

  When we got to the school, I took the chalk out of the box and put it in another one so I could bring A Ling's message home with me.

  At home, I read the message over and over. The message stayed the same any way it was read: she wanted to meet with me. Backwards like in Arabic, from the front, from above, from far away, or from close up. Reflected in the mirror, rubbed with candle wax, read with a magnifying glass, read behind a fire, sprinkled with wheat flour, read while held behind my legs with my head between my knees, looked at for a long time like a 3D picture. The message was always the same: meet me at Chiong Si Ku. It was straightforward Indonesian, not idiomatic, not scientific, not metaphoric, nor was it in code or symbols. I just couldn't believe it. But in the end I concluded that I, Ikal, would soon meet with my first love! It was indisputable, let the world be jealous.

  Chiong Si Ku or the Snatching Ritual was held every year—in fact, it still is. It's a lively event where all the Belitong Chinese gather. Each and every family member attends, and their relatives return to Belitong from all over Indonesia in hoards just to take part. Everyone was drawn to it. There are many other entertaining activities tied into the old religious ritual, like pole climbing, a Ferris wheel, and Malay music. Chiong Si Ku had developed into the most highly anticipated cultural event on the Island. All the major elements of our community came together to celebrate: Chinese, Malays, Sarong people, and Sawangs.

  The central focus of the Snatching Ritual is three large tables, each 12 meters long, two meters wide, and two meters high. Piled on top of the tables are all kinds of offerings—household items, toys, and various foods—provided by the Chinese community. At least 150 things, such as pans, transistor radios, black and white TVs, cakes, biscuits, sugar, coffee, rice, cigarettes, textiles, soy sauce, canned drinks, buckets, toothpaste, syrup, bike tires, mats, bags, soap, umbrellas, jackets, sweet potatoes, shirts, pails, pants, mangoes, plastic chairs, batteries, and assorted beauty products, are heaped together in big mountainous piles on the large tables. At midnight, everything goes up for grabs or, more precisely, can be snatched by anyone. That's why Chiong Si Ku is also called the snatching ritual.

  The main draw is a small red pouch called fung fu, hid den in the mountains of other things. Fung fu is coveted by everyone because it is a symbol of luck. Whoever finds it can sell it back to the Chinese community for millions of rupiah.

  The three tables are arranged in front of Thai Tse Ya, a shrine to the ghost king constructed from bamboo and colorful paper. It stands five meters tall with a stomach that's two meters wide. That paper ghost is terrifying. His eyes are as big as watermelons. His long tongue looks like it wants to lick the greasy pork meat roasting beneath him. Thai Tse Ya represents man's worst characteristics and bad luck. All evening and night, Confucians from all over Belitong Is land flow in to pray in front of Thai Tse Ya.
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  Thai Tse Ya is across from the temple, and I was supposed to meet A Ling on the red temple veranda.

  A Kiong and his family entered the temple yard for prayer. He smiled at me. I replied to his smile with a grimace because I was nervous. I was a wreck thinking about what a young Chinese woman would think of a Malay village boy like me. Being in the middle of their environment made me uneasy. Would it be best if I just went home? No, my longing was already like a bleeding wound.

  I had been waiting for A Ling ever since I finished doing the isya prayer. Those wanting to witness the ritual and the accompanying entertainment began arriving in great numbers. There was no sign of her — maybe I had come too early. I should have just come late, or not come at all.

  The superstars of the snatching ritual were the Sawangs. Without them, the ritual would lose its excitement. They were successful every year because of their solid organization. They researched the position of valuable items from the start of the evening, the angles from which they should attack, and how many people were needed.

  The larger Sawangs were assigned to intercepting other snatching groups to make way for the smaller bodied Sawangs to jump on the tables. The rest of them lurked underneath, ready to seize whatever fell off the table. The group consisted of about 20 people.

  I had been waiting for two hours. A Ling still hadn't shown up. Thousands of spectators and hundreds of eager participants began to fill the temple yard. The dangdut bands boomed. The Ferris wheel spun happily up into the bright sky. Shouting traders peddled various things. It was all very lively. The balloon sellers rang highpitched bells, making me even more restless.

  The atmosphere grew even more boisterous when a few snatchers from the Sarong people's community showed up. They covered their heads like ninjas; only their eyes were visible. Then, not much later, some Chinese snatchers got together. There were no less than six groups.

  The snatchers were visibly desirous and impatient as they waited for the moment at midnight when a Confucian priest would strike a large water jar. When the jar broke, the snatching could begin.

  I was completely indifferent to the snatchers, who were busy preparing, looking like sprinters about to take to the starting line for a hundred-meter dash. Each pair of zealous eyes gazed at the heaps of things to be snatched overflowing from the tables. It was exhilarating. It was also a truly irresistible temptation in the midst of their tiring lives.

  I didn't care about any of that, because my thoughts were focused on A Ling. Where could she be? Didn't she know my chest was pounding because I wanted to meet her so badly?

  Then I saw the Malays who would participate in this year's snatching ritual. Instead of being in groups, they were scattered, and I already knew why. For me, the snatch ing ritual was not just a ritual; it was also a cultural library that held many lessons to be learned. This ritual made me better acquainted with the character of my own specific ethnic group, Malay, and with that of human character as a whole.

  The Malays, as usual, were having great difficulty organizing themselves. Rather than focusing on their course of action for the ritual and winning the competition, they occupied themselves with internecine political tussles. They bristled at criticism and very rarely were willing to engage in introspection. They always held different opinions and were more than happy to argue over these opinions. It didn't matter if the overall goal was not reached, as long as they didn't lose face during the petty debates. And it can certainly be said that the tendency was for the thickest and the least educated among them to expound most loudly and eloquently.

  If the Malays succeeded in actually forming a team, every single one of them wanted to be the leader. So in the end, a solid team was never formed, and they ended up operating individually and fighting solitarily. Consequently, all they managed to bring home was a sugar cane, a few packages of coconut cookies, half a pair of socks, a couple of doll heads, some coconut seeds that the Sawangs hadn't bothered with, a water pump—or just its plug to be more exact—and bruised and battered bodies.

  But once again, I didn't care about the snatching ritual or the customs of the snatchers. My focus remained on A Ling even though three hours had already crawled by in vain.

  Suddenly, all eyes turned to a tall, thin figure. He was a Sawang man and was highly respected in the snatching ritual. For years and years, his ethnic group assigned him to the special task of hunting down the fung fu: the extremely valuable red cloth. Bujang Ncas was his name.

  He came wearing a black robe, like a boxer. A Sawang child always trailed behind him and took his robe off for him when he joined up with the rest of the Sawang snatching team.

  I had seen Bujang Ncas in action before. He leaped onto the table with the agility of a squirrel. He wore a level expression. He didn't bear the greed of the other snatchers. His behavior was like that of the slave promised freedom by Siti Hindun if successful in killing Hamzah, the Islamic commander in the uhud war. The slave had no business with the uhud War; it was not his own and, after running his spear through Hamzah's chest, he hurried home.

  And that's how it was for the wildeyed Bujang Ncas. He spurned the other valuable items. He paid no heed to the roars of the hundreds of rugged men engaged in a brutal struggle. He skillfully tiptoed over the sea of things. His sharp, lively eyes glanced to and fro. And within no time at all, he pinpointed the fung fu. Somehow, he always managed to find it, even though the priest hid that small, red, sacred cloth neatly within the folds of a woman's nightgown, or in one of the hundreds of cookie tins nearly impossible to open, or in a sack of candlenuts, or in the gaps of a sugar cane, or inside a pomello.

  Bujang Ncas tucked the fung fu into his waist. Then, the living legend of the snatching ritual took a single jump and landed on the earth without uttering a noise, as if he had the power to make himself weightless. A moment later, he disappeared into the crowd. He ran off with the supreme symbol of the snatching ritual, swallowed by the dark, the smoke, and the aroma of incense.

  Because I was tense from my prolonged wait for A Ling, my stomach rose and made my gut ache. My legs were exhausted, my head was dizzy. Nonsensical thoughts began to possess me. Was A Ling just as I had pictured her all this time? Was what I had imagined of her different than reality? Maybe she never really cared about me.

  My chaotic thoughts were interrupted when I suddenly heard the glass jar break. The surprise snapped me out of it, and I ran like hell to safety as thousands of snatchers attacked the three tables as if they were possessed.

  And then I witnessed one of the most astounding human phenomena in existence. Even though I saw it every year, it never failed to take my breath away. Mountains of hundreds of things on top of three tables vanished in less than one minute—25 seconds to be more exact. That moment, when the temple garden transformed into a state of total chaos, cannot be described with words. Hundreds of people mercilessly attacked the tall tables with the ferocity of madmen. They were no different than ravenous sharks preying on their victims.

  Those who successfully climbed onto the tables, with movements as quick as lightning, systematically tossed things down to their colleagues waiting below. Those acting alone climbed atop the tables, swooped down and seized whatever they could, and proceeded to stuff it into their sacks; this too was done at lightning speed. Occasionally, they couldn't get their bags off the table because the con tent was beyond their strength limitations.

  Dozens of snatchers were fighting over something and a brawl broke out in the middle of the heap. They toppled back, collided, and then fell headfirst to the ground. The spectators didn't even have a chance to clap—they were too dumbfounded by the tremendous yet horrifying scene of unimaginably wild human behavior.

  Those who didn't bring sacks put whatever they could into their pockets, and even into their clothes—they looked like clowns. In such a fastpaced situation, the brain no longer functions logically—even grains of rice and sugar were being shoved into pockets. If their pockets and pants were full, they put
what they could into their mouths. They took as much as possible of whatever they could get their hands on, as long as it was still on the tables. If need be, they would even put things in their nostrils and ears—it was bizarre!

  If one was fortunate enough to snatch a transistor radio, it was a futile hope to expect to bring it home in one piece, because that very radio was being snatched by 15 people at once, and all that was left in the end was the knob or the antenna. The principle wasn't to get the antenna—it was to make sure no one else got the fully intact radio. The case of the destroyed and unusable radio was a trivial mat ter. The snatching ritual is a manifestation of human greed. It is irrefutable proof of anthropological theories that ego ism, greed, destruction, and aggression are all fundamental characteristics of Homo sapiens.

  In less than 30 seconds, the snatching ritual—which people had been awaiting for a full year—was already over, leaving nothing but thick dust, heavily injured snatchers, and tables as broken as my heart in its wake.

  I had been waiting for almost five hours, from isya prayer until midnight—A Ling had not shown up. She had bro ken her promise. Maybe she was picking bean sprouts and had forgotten her promise? Didn't she know how much the message on the chalk box meant to me? She wasn't even coming.

  I was tired of listening to the Malay dangdut song Gelang Sipatu Gelang, a song that asked those in attendance to go home because the show was over. I stared blankly at the traders tidying up. I was sad to see the masses leave. My hope was broken. Apparently, the happiness I had felt all this time buying chalk was felt by me alone. I was no more than a wolf howling at the moon, an unfortunate man with an unrequited love.

  My chest tightened because of longing mixed with hopelessness. I wanted to pedal my bike away as fast as possible and then throw myself into the Lenggang River. But just as I was about to pedal off, I heard a voice directly behind me. It was as soft as tofu. It was the most beautiful voice I had ever heard in my life, like the tinkling of a harp from heaven.