Haram

Bang Harip didn’t come often to Pak Udin’s little nightly gatherings and for that I was grateful. On the nights he appeared, the group would break up earlier than usual, with everyone making excuses about tasks that required early rising. Harip always brought something with him that made you shiver a little.

The first time I met Bang Harip was on a perfectly cloudless night that gave us a view of an enormous orange moon. We sat cross-legged on Pak Udin’s verandah and made the kind of talk that you can never remember later — you only remember passing a pleasant evening. It was during one of those long pauses in conversation when people say you can hear the rustle of angel wings overhead when Bang Harip appeared at the gate.

He didn’t ring the bell, he just stared at us. At my side Pak Rusli murmured the holy oath, “la illah la.” Pak Udin invited Bang Harip to enter and found a cushion for him. Bang Harip stared at me, rather rudely, I thought, while Pak Udin made introductions.

“Bang, this is Mister David, he is here in Indonesia for studies. Please speak slowly; Mr. David’s Indonesian is not perfect, but is quite adequate. Mr. David, Bang Harip is a police official who does special work.”

So that was the reason everyone seemed tense! Bang Harip was a goon, a man who did dirty jobs for the government. I felt everyone’s eyes on me and knew they were silently pleading for me to not continue our previous conversation. We had been talking about the current regime’s cruelty and corruption, topics that never ran dry.

I studied this man, Harip, while Mina, Pak Udin’s daughter, poured him some tea. He was around my age, which made him twenty years or more younger than the others. He was dressed in a fine silk batik shirt that made him look a bit dandified. I later found out that he had an interest in one of Pak Udin’s daughters, but whether it was Mina or Yanti, I couldn’t say. I hoped it wasn’t Mina.

We sat in silence for awhile, then Bang Harip turned to me.

“Do you like guns?”

In order to appreciate how strange this question was, you have to realize that outside of the military and police, gun ownership is haram, absolutely forbidden in Indonesia. Even the worst criminals stick with knives.

While I was struggling to put words together, Bang Harip took a revolver from the big side pocket in his shirt. He deftly removed the bullets and handed it to me. It was a Smith and Wesson .38, an ordinary pistol in America. I examined it for a polite amount of time and handed it back.

“Have you had this weapon a long time, Bang?” asked Pak Anton.

Bang Harip gave a little snort and then started reeling off the names of places he’d carried his gun. Aceh, East Timor, Irian Jaya. The killing floors of the Regime.

“This pistol has been my best friend. I never carried another weapon.”

I have never done military service, but I know that a pistol is not a primary weapon of modern war. It is the weapon best suited for intimidation and assassination, and when I looked at Bang Harip I saw the face of an assassin.

Pak Udin steered the conversation to the local soccer team and their chances in the national finals. Everyone had a heartfelt conviction on this subject and the night became lively again. Pak Udin’s wife appeared with plates of sate sticks. It was a typical evening at my friend’s house, but I felt an undertone of menace. Harip was staring at me throughout the conversation and I wasn’t sorry when he curtly made his excuses and left.

“Yes, Harip is a very ambitious young man,” said Pak Udin between bites of spicy chicken sate.

“I think he will go very far with the Regime,” said Pak Anton. “He has … certain qualities.”

How I love Indonesia. It’s a place where what is not said is more important than what is spoken. I sensed a story was coming.

“Bang Harip figures in some business that took place a couple of years ago,” said Pak Udin.

“But first, let me ask you this, Mr. David. What is the value of human life?”

“I’m not sure I under-”

“Plato said the unexamined life is worth nothing. Schopenhauer said life has no value in itself; it is just a manifestation of blind Will.

“But Mr. David, I tell you that here in Kota Kasar, even the lowliest beggar on the street knows the precise value of life.

“ Fifty US dollars.”

There were chuckles and groans from the other men.

“Don’t forget the rupiah devaluation,” said Pak Hasan

“Yes, one must factor the recent economic tremors,” said Pak Udin. “Let’s say that life is now worth forty US dollars. That’s what it would cost you to have someone eliminated. It doesn’t pay to make enemies here.”

“Yes, that’s why we’re such polite people,” said Pak Anton.

“You may laugh, but a young man in this city does well to respect the purity of girls from good families,” said Pak Rusli. “ A maidenhead is such a flimsy little bit of skin, but it is reinforced by the ferocity of hired killers. In this way even evil men play their part in The All-Knowing’s plan.”

There were murmurs of Allahu Akbar. Pak Udin offered me a clove cigarette and lit one for himself.

“I think Mr. David knows something about the Minangkabau. Pak Adam, who is not here tonight, is from this tribe. Their homeland is in the central and western part of Sumatra.

“Of all the ethnic groups of Indonesia, the Minang are perhaps the most unusual. The women run everything — property is inherited from mother to daughter and the women head the family businesses. Women choose their mates and pay the groom’s family a dowry. The male head of a family is not the father, it is the mother’s eldest brother. There is a Minang expression that goes ‘heaven is to be found beneath your mother’s foot.’

“In spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, the Minang men are far from being…what is the English word? Yes, sissy. The Minang men are not sissies, they are as tough as anyone in this country. They gave the Dutch a very hard time. This street, Iman Bonjol, is named after the Minang leader of the Padri revolt. Consider the poor burgher who awoke from his nap, groggy with beer, to find his little bed-slave girls screaming in terror and a Minang dagger at his throat. Thousands were killed.”

“Are you saying that the Minang killed more Dutch than we Batak? That is hardly credible,” said Pak Rusli.

A good-natured argument broke out. It was concluded with the agreement that there were more than enough dead Dutchmen to go around for everyone.

“Yes, the Minang,” said Pak Udin. “They have a couple of big cities, but their soul is to be found in the little villages, the kampung. They are a devout people. They all rise with the muazin’s call and they go to bed not long after sunset. In these kampung, everyone knows everyone’s business. In fact, one of the worst things a kampung dweller can say about someone else is that he is a person with secrets.

“Yan was a person with secrets. Yan was a young man from a large family of well-respected people. Two of Yan’s uncles made the haj to Mecca. Like all the boys of the kampung, Yan studied three things: the Koran, Minang cooking and the fighting art, pencak silat.

“In order to become a man, all Minang boys must master these three fields. Of the first I will say little; all Muslims study the Koran.

“Minang cooking is the cuisine that is best known in this country and abroad in Indonesian restaurants. When a young man has attained mastery of the art, he can get work anywhere as a cook.

“Pencak silat is what makes it foolish to insult a Minang man. It is somewhat similar to karate, but much more vicious. A silat player can easily kill a man, but he does it in a drawn-out way — he reduces his opponent’s defenses by breaking his limbs before finishing him with a final blow to the head or the heart. I have seen silat players stand in a stream and kill fish by kicking the water.

“Yan was an outstanding silat student. He specialized in the tiger style, whereby a man begins his attack from a seated position on the ground. His body unwinds as he springs up and he unleashes tremendous power.

I said that Yan was a man with secrets. At the age of seventeen, he was a handsome young lad with a good future in his family’s restaurant. His mother had an understanding with the mother of a sweet little girl of fifteen. God was smiling down on Yan.

“Yan’s good fortune attracted the jealousy of a jin. Yes, Mr. David, a jin. I have a doctorate in Comparative Literature, Pak Rusli here is a physicist and Pak Anton taught Military Science at the Army School. Yet I tell you that these things you read about in A Thousand And One Nights, these jin, they are as real as the existence of this glass of tea in my hand, and none of us doubt this. These jin can be good or evil, but even the evil ones love God and are angry with their rival — Man.

The jin that taunted Yan was certainly not a benign one. One day Yan took notice of a young widow, a newcomer in the kampung. She kept a small shop stocked with dried fish, chilies, rice and other necessities. No one really knew her; her husband had been the distant relative of a townsman who was also dead.

“This widow was comely in the Western fashion — tall, big breasts, ample hips.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. David, but I cannot understand the Western fascination with large breasts,” said Pak Rusli. “I have heard that some deluded women in your country have their breasts expanded with plastic injections. Is this true?”

I admitted it was.

Pak Rusli shook his head. “I think there is an unbridgeable gulf between our two cultures. One must regard a woman’s beauty in its totality, not its parts.”

“Come now, Pak,” said Pak Udin, “will you deny the power of a well-turned set of buttocks?

“Anyway, we were speaking of the matter of Yan. Yan began spending time at the widow’s shop. She had a little girl’s voice that was attractively incongruous with her lush body. Stronger men than this seventeen-year-old virgin boy have fallen prey to such wiles. Before long the entire kampung was talking. Yan’s intended shut herself up in her family’s house and refused to eat.

“Like all Minang females, Yan’s mother was a tigress in human form. When she was sure she had her facts straight, she beat the poor boy about the head with a stick and then led a delegation of family women to the widow’s shop. You can imagine the scene. Screams of ‘shameless whore’, dire threats and even some violence. When the women departed, they left a shop full of smashed goods and bruises on a once beautiful face.

“But don’t think that these jin are sissies either. The sun rose that morning on a kampung with two less souls than the previous day. Nothing like this had ever happened, certainly not in a family like Yan’s. A search was made, but the fugitives had arranged for a car in the next kampung and they were far away.

“And where do you think they went, Mr. David? Yes, the city in Indonesia where one goes to hide, to go to ground. Here, Kota Kasar, where the revolutionaries hid from the Dutch, where small town criminals hide from the police, where opponents of the Regime…well, never mind.

“Two million people, enough to screen a fugitive. And a city large enough to dull the curiosity of its inhabitants. Yan and his woman set up house in a little place owned by some friends of hers. There Yan learned the answers to some of life’s mysteries while the rainy season downpour hammered at the tin roof of their little home. If Yan ever thought of his kampung and his family, the young widow’s body and her skills in using it drove those memories away.

“The jin was happy. Jin do not require food or drink; they live on dreams and longings. Yan was out of his mind with lust — the more he delved into that woman, the more he wanted her.

“She left him, of course. There are some who would say that she herself was the jin, but let’s not stray into metaphysics. I think she was a woman who came to her senses and saw she was going nowhere in the world with this besotted boy she had ruined. He awoke one morning and she was simply gone, and her friends wouldn’t say where she went.

“I know your Book’s story about the Prodigal Son. It’s a beautiful little parable. It has no parallel in the Minang ethos. Yan sent a letter to a friend back home asking about his family. The reply was not ambiguous. Yan’s mother cursed the day she conceived him and said hell would be too comfortable a place for such a dog.”

I was startled. “Wasn’t that a little strong, Pak?”

“Mr. David, you do not know these Minang women. A Javanese woman whose husband is unfaithful will ply all the usual tricks — screaming, crying, withholding of favors. A Minang woman in the same situation is quiet and docile, until the morning when her man wakes up with a burning pain and sees his testicles on the bedside table. How much deeper is the emotion engendered by motherhood? A husband is inside his wife for a few minutes at a time, a son is inside his mother for three-quarters of a year.

“Here in Indonesia we don’t need Freud to tell us how convoluted family life is.

“So now we have Yan wandering the streets of Kota Kasar wondering how to stay alive. He had cooking skills, but owners of Minang style restaurants are Minang themselves; they would naturally ask the boy about his background and he was too guileless to lie. Somehow Yan found himself in the rough section of town, Nibung Raya. I’m sure you’ve heard about Nibung, Mr. David, it’s the brothel area run by Chinese gangsters. The bars and massage parlors are staffed by girls who have fled desperate situations in their kampungs. All kinds of men go there at night. Chinese shopkeepers, government officials, foreign seamen from the port of Bau — as long as there are just a few robberies and no more than one or two knifings a week, the government shows remarkable tolerance.

“Nibung brings in a lot of money, which is scattered widely. The business owners make weekly payments to city officials, the police get their share, doctors make a handsome fee checking the girls every month, the girls send home a few rupiah to their mothers and the poor sell sate and aphrodisiacs from little stalls,

“A modus vivendi that fills a lot of stomachs prevails. To keep the arrangement fine-tuned, the brothel owners have formed an association, a triad. This triad employs a gang of Chinese youths who are a bit rough. They eject the poor girls who go crazy after seeing so many men at their worst, and these boys also show free-lance thugs the same consideration that your Western trade unionists display towards scabs.

“Yan’s eyes surely bulged with wonder as he took in the sights of Nibung Raya. There was nothing like this back home. And the wealth! The girls wore designer clothes, the pimps had Rolex watches, and the narrow streets were choked with Mercedes and BMWs.

“At this point, Yan had no money and was very hungry. He watched the carnival of excess from a dark alley. A foreigner, a fat Greek seaman, stumbled into the alley to relieve himself. This sailor wore a heavy gold chain around his neck. Yan was not aware of making a decision, he just snatched the chain and ran. The Greek began howling and wobbled after the thief.

“In the way that animals in the jungle respond instinctively to a strange noise, the Chinese boys lounging in their billiards hall heard the robbed man’s yells and were instantly out the door. They saw Yan pursued by the fat bule and three of them took up the chase. Nibung is a maze of streets and alleys that lead nowhere. Before long, the young thief was cornered in a dead end street. He turned to face his pursuers.

“Now the Chinese lads slowed to a stroll. The fun was about to begin. They’d give this stupid country boy a kung-fu lesson. Imagine their surprise when Yan abruptly sat down in the street with his legs crossed. Well, it wasn’t as entertaining to beat a passive victim, but they had a job to do.

“A half-hour later one of the Nibung doctors was summoned from his apartment inside a massage parlor. This time he had real work. Inside a pool hall were three young men stretched out on billiards tables. All had at least one broken limb. They were in terrible pain, but the expression on their faces was one of shame. When the story got out that a skinny pribumi boy, a native Indonesian, had annihilated them, they’d be finished.

“The doctor did what he could for the lads and then made a phone call.

“Soon a black Rolls Royce — perhaps the only car of this make in all Sumatra — parked in front of the pool hall. A short, ugly Chinese man stepped from the back. It was Lee, the owner of the Lee Garden Hotel and many other places in Nibung. Lee listened to various accounts of the night’s occurrence and assessed the damaged property on the billiards tables. He turned to his bodyguard.

“‘The boy will try to sell the gold chain tomorrow. Make the calls. I want him unharmed.”

“After walking the streets all night, constantly looking over his shoulder, Yan found himself in the gold market. The place was just opening. The Chinese shopkeepers were throwing buckets of water on the sidewalks and scrubbing them down.

“Yan approached a store owner and offered him the chain. The merchant looked closely at it. He noticed the broken clasp and stared at the boy.

“`This is a remarkable piece of work`, said the shopkeeper. `It is very valuable. Unfortunately, I don’t have sufficient cash on hand, but if Little Brother will indulge me and wait here, I will return quickly from the bank.`

“Who knows what thoughts went through Yan’s head as he waited? Perhaps he dreamed of returning to his kampung riding a fine motorcycle, carrying beautiful gifts for his family. His mother would weep with joy and forgive his little escapade. Perhaps his eyes were closed and he smiled as the half-dozen men warily surrounded him and closed in.

“They politely asked him to step into their car. Yan supposed they were the police. Now his disgrace was complete. They took him to the Lee Garden Hotel and escorted him to the penthouse on the top floor.

“Lee himself opened the door and invited the boy to enter.

“`I admit everything`, the boy said.

“Lee was startled. `Where do you think you are, Little Brother?`

“`This is the police station, isn’t it?`, asked Yan.

“Lee took a long, hard look at the boy and then roared with laughter. What a treasure! What a find! A deadly warrior who had destroyed three of the triad’s roughest enforcers, yet a dirt ignorant country boy who still had shit between his toes. It was just too good.

“Lee invited the boy to sit at his dining table and had many fine dishes brought in. The boy poked suspiciously through the food until Lee assured him there was no pork or other unclean meats. Yan gorged while Lee described the brilliant future that awaited his new protege.

“This man Lee had an enemy, someone he had hated all his life. It was his cousin, Ahua. The story goes that the feud began when they were both small children. Perhaps the reason for their hatred was long forgotten by both and only the hatred itself remained.”

“Only God can see into the hearts of evil men, bismillah rahman rahim, said Pak Rusli. “I remember two brothers I went to school with who-”

“Please, Pak, one story at a time,” said Pak Udin with a laugh. “We do not want to confuse Mr. David. If we overwhelm him, he may choose to spend his evenings chasing girls at the discos instead of listening to old men’s gossip.”

I protested that there was nowhere in the world I would rather be. The truth was that these men fascinated me. I didn’t know anyone back in the States who could spin stories. In America we get our entertainment commercially packaged in books and movies.

“Yes, we were speaking of Lee and his cousin. This cousin, Ahua, ran a small prostitution racket at a disreputable hotel, the Casablanca. The hotel is near the Dharma Agung University. Many of the Casablanca girls were college students, far from home and the watchfulness of their parents.

“Lee’s own operations were much larger and more lucrative than Ahua’s, but he was jealous. In the gangster world, Ahua had a lot of prestige because his girls were so choice, certainly preferable to the poor little kampung girls that staffed Lee’s brothels.

“Lee had been planning to get rid of his cousin for a long time, but it had to be done in such a way that he would be held blameless. Lee had powerful protectors in the Regime, but they would frown on an inter-triad war.

“If a non-Chinese killer were used, Lee would not be implicated and Ahua’s men would not feel compelled to seek revenge. Of course, everyone would know who was behind the act, but face would be preserved.

“So now we have Yan sitting at Lee’s dining table, eyes large with wonder as the gangster described the fame and wealth that would come to him when he was a big and important man, the top pribumi in Lee’s organization. I’m sure that Yan thought of the fickle young widow. She would come crawling back to him!

“ Lee carefully laid out the first job. A man, an incredibly evil man, was ruining the harmony of countless lives. This detestable person had to be stopped so that he, Lee, could continue with the enterprises that kept so many families clothed and fed. Lee gave the boy certain essential details, and then outlined the escape plan.

“Yan would be taken to a safe place where he would wait for a couple of weeks for things to cool down. Then he would take a boat from the port of Bau to Jakarta, and would become a trusted lieutenant in Lee’s operations there. A fine house and a car would be provided.”

“Of course, it was all lies,” I interrupted.

“No, no, Mr. David, Lee fully intended to honor his promises. He saw the boy as a valuable asset. But let me go on….

“Lee stopped talking and looked the boy over. ‘I think Little Brother has had an eventful day. Go down to the third floor and wait in the lobby. I will arrange for two of our most skilled masseuses to relieve your stress. Go on — they’re very pretty.’

“So Yan walked down the stairs and got another taste of the good life that was to come.

“This is how it came to pass that Ahua, the famous procurer of college girls, walked into his office late one night to audit the day’s take and was startled to find a young pribumi sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“The job done, Yan ran outside and jumped on the back of the motorcycle that awaited him. The driver sped off with a roar.

“Yan was safe — the hiding period was just a formality. He was taken to the Lao Moi building on Jalan Subianto. Perhaps Mr. David has passed by this place? It is a huge, old warehouse that takes up a full block. On the first floor there is a barbershop and a Chinese restaurant. There are no windows above the first floor. Since I was a boy I have heard many rumors of what takes place in that building. It is supposed to be a sprawling, twisting labyrinth of secret passages, rooms sealed off like honeycomb cells, concealed doors and stairs that lead nowhere. There are huge rooms that hold black market goods smuggled from China and tiny chambers where opium addicts lie on mattresses and smoke away their last days. It is an evil place; even the police are afraid to go there. In the old days it served a purpose. Freedom fighters would shelter there after killing a Dutch official or a planter. Now the damned building makes you shudder when you pass by.

“Yan was placed in a bare room with a cot and a sink. It was just above the kitchen of the restaurant — he could hear the commotion below and smell the food cooking. Yan was told to be patient and wait for word on the boat that would take him to Java. The Chinese man who conducted him to the room asked with a smirk if the boy wanted books to pass the time, perhaps a Koran? Yan’s stare made the man hurry from the room. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

“As you know, we Indonesians hate to be alone. Look on the streets during a busy day and you will rarely see someone going about a task by himself.

“Yan was alone in a small room for the first time in his life. He did some silat exercises, then thought of his uncle, who had taught him those skills and also taught him they were never to be used for bad purposes. He tried to pray, then thought of his mother, who had showed him how to pray. He thought of the young widow, then realized he would never again see the little girl to whom he had been engaged. His karma had brought him to this evil place. Night and day the room resounded with the banging of pots and pans below. The smell of the Chinese food being cooked below nauseated him — he couldn’t eat the fish and rice they brought him.

“Finally, he had enough. He left the room and walked through the twisting passageways until he found himself in the street. He asked someone directions to the nearest police station.

“I said before that Bang Harip figures in this story. Harip is an interrogation specialist. He was brought in to extract a confession, but his skills were not needed. The problem was how to get the poor boy to shut up. He not only described his crimes, he went back to the times when he was a child running around the hillsides with his friends. He described his family and the happy days he spent working in the their restaurant.

“His main concern was sparing his family the disgrace of a trial. He and Harip came to an agreement and early one morning, in the police station courtyard, Harip put a bullet through the base of Yan’s skull. Yes, he used the same pistol you examined earlier, Mr. David.”

We were silent for awhile. I was moved by the story. Yan had not plunged into evil, he was coaxed into it one step at a time by worldly people.

“What about Lee?” I asked.

“Oh, him. Sometimes on the street you can still see him hunched in the back of his Rolls Royce, the only car of its kind in all of Sumatra. Kota Kasar is a gangster town, Mr. David. Gangster towns are never dull.”

There was still something that bothered me. “Yan was out of danger. All he had to do was wait. Why did he give himself up?”

It was Pak Rusli who answered. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? The boy came from a good Muslim family. The constant smell of the Chinese cooking in that tiny room, the smell of pig meat, drove him mad. Allahu Akbar.”