My man

I do not know what Mbah's intentions were in persuading us to stay at his house. Did he feel it was inappropriate, and perhaps it would cause an uproar in the entire village, if my husband spent the night at my home? Because my mother is already a widow. Or was he intending to trap us alone together before the time was right, to engage in immoral acts?

We lay down on a bed made of split bamboo. I spread my mother's woven batik shawl on top.

All night we could only close our eyes. Yet, it felt so entwined. The skin had already met. Making my body feel like whispering sand. However, my man only kissed my fingers and forehead. Whispering goodnight into my ear. Causing my heart to race. My hand gripped the edge of the bed. Surrendering. Lying on my back like a banana trunk, becoming a field of surrender where all men find the outlet for their repressed desires. But not with my man.

All night long, the one I awaited did not arrive. I knew that, shoulder to shoulder beside me, he was making a great effort to remain still, preventing the bamboo partition from creaking. Startling Mbah, then peeking through the gap, catching us both in the act.

After being separated for more than a year by power, in an era of darkness and full of anxiety, as well as blood and human corpses, he came from a distant city to meet me in the village. Upon meeting, of course, we embraced as if we were about to crush each other's ribs, unraveling our longing. I had already leaned back, surrendering the tip of love against the pile of bamboo near the granary. However, no one lingered. Except for the words he spoke solemnly, resembling the utterance of a pastor, hesitantly:

"Do not let it be tainted until the wedding night. I will guard your purity like that of the Virgin Mary," he whispered, igniting my passion. I was in awe upon hearing the sanctity of his words.

Just like before, when for three consecutive nights, the two of us waited at my uncle and aunt's house for him to guard. Nothing more, my husband simply gazed into my eyes. He kissed my lips before heading to sleep in his room next door. On his identity card, he is registered as a student. Thus, he is considered safe. Meanwhile, the homeowner is hiding from the bloody pursuit carried out by the military.

On the third night an army jeep, without knocking, except for the clatter of their guns, burst in.

"Where is the owner of the house?"

"Sorry..., I don't know. We're just waiting."

The library was ransacked like a pile of garbage. All the books met a tragic fate. They were loaded and thrown into a jeep waiting outside. Fortunately, my husband was not taken along.

It is unclear how, recently, the uncle and aunt, from their hiding place, managed to sell the house through an intermediary. A member of the student regiment. My husband was offered a sum of money to find a rental, but he declined. I think he felt that he had found the harbor where his first love anchored in me. And that was already a blessing that must be upheld and honored. I was advised to return to the village.

While in love like a dove soaring through the sky, distance cannot separate us. To him, I am a brave iron that continuously calls out. With a few bills in hand, my man is tempted by longing. He comes to see me. Once, he left a souvenir, a handkerchief. In its corner, which I always kiss before sleeping, there is a small embroidery in red thread that reads SMS. An abbreviation for Semangat Elang Rajawali. A motto he quoted from a patriot he admires.

Several times, when leaving me to return to his city, my man would go so far as to torture himself for my sake. Standing on the metal plate of the train connection. Jostling with other passengers. Looking down the aisle, people were crammed together. Even in the restroom, what was visible was not the compressed waste, but rather a pile of people.

Don't be polluted until the wedding night. I will guard your chastity like Mary the virgin.

During the journey that spans half the length of Java Island, my husband and those who are testing their courage on the train can repeatedly stretch their legs at the edge of the tracks. This is because the train must stop, providing an opportunity for the aging iron series that roars and screeches from the front.

I am pure before my man. He stands firm like a rock, resisting the blossoming desire. He does not go further than merely adoring my eyes and lips. Or pressing his warm lips to my ear, swearing to endure until the wedding night. More than that, he feels he is already at the threshold of the bridge to hell.

My husband guided our lives from a point of absolute nothingness. When he pronounced the marriage vows, he did not have a traditional garment to present himself before the officiant. He wore only a short-sleeved blue shirt, his favorite. Part of the dowry money he borrowed from my uncle, the only witness at that time.

He held my hand, squeezing my fingers, and like a pair of doves, we soared high together. There was no lower ground than the bitterness of the life we traversed. Nevertheless, suffering could not resist tempting and betraying the words he once whispered. He not only swore by the words he spoke but also by the motto he inscribed in the corner of his handkerchief. His resilience and refusal to kneel enabled us to rise and navigate a life of sufficiency. Having children, blessed with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Like steel, he is an unbending figure. His oath to me remained steadfast even as he was confined to a wheelchair due to a traffic accident. His leg was amputated a hand's breadth above the knee. Trapped in a wheelchair, my man remained a gentleman. Meanwhile, as I approach old age, my spirit is profoundly burdened. Memory loss. Dementia has begun its assault on my brain. It is my man who takes care of everything, leaving me as a patient in a brain hospital.

As he was about to pass through the hospital door, my husband brushed aside the hand of the staff member who wanted to push his wheelchair. "Sorry, I am not the patient. My wife is."

The eyes of many people in the waiting room made my heart shrink. They did not sneer, but their sympathy poured out on my man.

I am so easily forgetful. I do not know where the plates, cutlery, and glasses are, which I just used a minute ago. My partner is the one who cooks, although I have not forgotten how to prepare vegetable lodeh for lunch, or soup for dinner. The reason is that he is worried about the fatal mistake I repeatedly make, forgetting to turn off the stove, causing the gas to leak. When he goes to the hospital for a check-up, he makes sure the stove is turned off. On top of it, he places a cardboard sign that reads, "For God's sake, never turn it on!"

How dangerous a single inch of memory is. While my memory of the past is so sharp. I clearly remember when I was a child playing on the edge of the river. My feet slipped when I was trying to reach the long beans on the cliff, even though I couldn't swim yet. My friends shouted for help. An adult hurriedly appeared to pull me out of the water by pulling my hair. I remember, when I was in elementary school I was the best rounders player, catcher in the village. If there was an inter-school match, my father took me. From the edge of the field he watched while holding back anxiety in case the bat hit his daughter's head. My father educated me harshly, full of violence. He once beat me while my body was tied to a banana tree. Because when I got home from school, I conspired with my friends to look for eels in the neighbor's rice field first. Humiliated under the eyes of the whole village. Violence that I was unwilling and impossible to forget. Which has now turned into revenge.

“Thank God, your crime has been repaid. Your body was thrown into the Bengawan River. No grave. Thank God…” I rambled.

My husband cannot bear to hear the inappropriate words spoken about a father, his own father-in-law whom he never had the chance to meet. All this time, he has still tolerated the expressions of my disappointment towards my father. That I was often picked up by Grandma and gently guided to her home, separating me from my father's violence.

My words have transformed me in front of that man; I am no longer the pure Virgin Mary. The tenderness of my heart and his sweet whispers have flown away.

"You," he said, never this harshly, "do not deserve to insult Father like that. He can be wrong. No one is perfect. However, we must be aware that he is missing, and you and all the relatives are already convinced that his body was shot by soldiers and discarded from the Bacem Bridge along with his friends. They distributed land to landless farmers in accordance with the law. But, the decree of that just regulation did not take effect. Father and his friends implemented it unilaterally. It was indeed wrong, but it is not a sin that warrants him being killed by the weapon of power that should protect and resolve matters legally. Not unilaterally. With weapons as well."

I did not express it, but I rejected his defense. I drifted further away from that man of mine. My trust and love have vanished. This is due to his allegiance to Father.

Thank God, your crimes have been repaid. Your body was thrown into the Bengawan River. No grave. Thank God….

When he groaned like a buffalo that had been whipped, enduring the pain of phantom limb syndrome in his amputated leg, I kept quiet. Pretending not to hear. Not caring. My man winced, calling out to his mother to ease the unbearable pain that was pounding away. Not in the amputated leg, but the torture was felt in the leg that had disappeared and was buried in our yard. To ease the pain, he pleaded to call his mother, who would never come. And I kept quiet, venting my disappointment at his attitude of siding with my father.

To alleviate the tormenting pain, my husband followed his doctor's advice to gently caress the amputated toe, while soothingly saying, "It's alright, my dear, this is where it ends. No more. Those who have gone far away should not be remembered anymore."

I feel jealous hearing his sweet talk. I remember well how he used to win my heart, honoring me, so that I would not move, allowing the place where we lay to remain undisturbed throughout the night.

I never asked him, but I suspect that my man's first impression of me deepened after he learned how my father faced death. He seemed to find himself and felt a sense of shared fate with my father.

In the past, my husband once told me that a labor leader who helped him break free from his father's harsh demeanor met a terrible fate. It was horrifying. He and his pregnant wife were dragged away by butchers with the military's consent. The couple became the earliest victims in a series of murders in their small town. They were pulled to the riverbank, slaughtered with machete blows, and swept away into the innocent flowing Asahan River...

Martin Aleida, now 81, writes short stories and novels, as well as a number of journalistic travel reports. Recipient of an award for faithful work from Kompas in 2013. In 2017, he won the best short story award in the Kompas2016 Short Story Selection event.

Melodia, born in Jakarta, February 8, 1967. A painter who graduated from ISI Yogyakarta class of 1985, has been studying realism with realistic techniques since 1988 and has held 3 solo exhibitions. Lives in Yogyakarta.