Man Tiger (17 page)

The station wasn't far from House 131, just a few hundred yards to the rear. Margio was on his way there, with his hands sunk into his pockets. He passed a row of houses, nodded a short greeting when he ran into a friend, and took a shortcut through the brick factory until he arrived at the steel rails. For a long time the railroad had been out of use, its wooden planks decayed, its steel bars rusted, and part of it had drowned in a rolling sea of knee-high weeds. Some nearby households used the rails to dry out mattresses, while others did the same for rows of firewood, letting them bake in the heat. Still others would roll out their tarpaulins to shower their unhusked grains of harvested rice with sunlight. Herders let their sheep and cows graze on the wild grasses, yet the plants never perished since they grew faster than the animals could consume them.

Margio remembered when the railway still operated, back in the early days after the family relocated. It was a dead-end route—a few miles to the west the train would reach its terminus. The railway used only one train, going back and forth, and thanks to this it could stop any time it pleased without worrying about collisions. The joke went that one passenger always asked to be dropped in front of his house instead of at the station, while another hailed the train to stop so he could get on board, and sometimes the engine driver had to hit the brake as the track was covered in firewood or resting cows, which had to be removed for the journey to continue. This joke was based entirely on truth, so far as the townsfolk were concerned. Then one day the train stopped coming, with no prior announcement or explanation, like a girl who silently ditches her boyfriend.

The station chief was still around, although no one knew if he'd retired or was still waiting for the ghost train's return. He lived next to the ruined station building, and people still referred to him as Station Chief. The building itself was nothing but bare bones. Piece by piece, it had lost all its equipment save for its timeless bell and the station's signboard. The ticket office was home to a wicker mattress used by various prostitutes, and the platform was crammed with dovecotes and chicken cages. Such was the palace of the cockfights and pigeon races. Every sunny afternoon, rows of birds could be seen flying faster than the train ever had. Elsewhere, the roosters would cavort, testing their spurs on each other.

When Margio arrived, it was too early for the usual hustle and bustle. All he found was a homeless mother and her child sat on a piece of cardboard, a dog rummaging in the garbage.

There was no one to ask about Komar's whereabouts. Disgruntled, Margio leaned on the bar of a crossing gate. The bastard should be here, he thought, inspecting the splatters of chicken and pigeon guano on the platform as if searching for traces of Komar's purebred rooster. People came walking up a path that crossed the railway track, pushing their bikes, carrying dark green bananas and sacks filled with who-knows-what, seemingly headed for the market. Women clutched their baskets on their way back from shopping. He kicked the gravel before leaving, walking on one rail and trying to keep his balance.

When the train ceased to run, he had stopped hanging out here. Back when he had found the billowing dark smoke from the locomotive's chimney fascinating, Margio would spend whole afternoons watching it go by. When the train was being turned around in the shunting yard, he joined the other cheerful little boys, who climbed on board and dangled fearlessly from the locomotive as it rotated. At other times, hearing the sound of the distant train, he would put a nine-inch nail on one track to get it flattened by the fearsome wheels. That way he'd have a small knife that only needed a little filing to make it really sharp. Some old men spotted what he was doing and tried to scare him by saying that he might make the train run off the track. Margio didn't believe them, and he went on as before. One day the train hit a fat cow, and instead of running off course, it nearly split the cow in half.

These days, Komar ruled the station with his gambler friends. As Nuraeni became increasingly crazy, the flower jungle appeared, and his wife's willingness to share his bed vanished, Komar resorted to this sanctuary. Almost every afternoon, after returning from his stall and hurling his bike at a cluster of roses, he'd carry his purebred rooster to the arena. Under a mercury lamp still glowing from the time of the station's heyday, he would hang about until late in the night, watching the games, feeding his rooster, or bathing it with what he called a herbal concoction.

No one in the house was interested in this business of his, and since Komar's infatuation with the rooster had made him less violent at home, they were not inclined to complain. His animalistic instincts were apparently channeled into cockfights, and the occupants of number 131 found a little peace as a result, until the day Komar learnt his wife was pregnant and went berserk. After that, he spent even more time at the station. Someone said he had seen Komar sleep there, perhaps with a prostitute in that ticket office, and Margio couldn't care less. The more Komar wasn't home, the better. Nuraeni had suffered enough at his hands.

There was no sign of him there, although he had left home with his purebred. Perhaps he had fallen out with someone, who would slit his throat, chop up his body, and put it in a sack with a bunch of rocks before throwing it into the river. Komar would be gone forever, and the thought gave Margio a thrill as he sluggishly walked along the track and through the brick factory to get home.

At number 131, he found the strapping rooster in the front yard. A rock held its cage steady against the wind. The man himself slumped in a chair inside, smoking a clove cigarette. This annoyed Margio immensely, and he tried to mock him, asking, “To what do we owe the pleasure, sir?” But after seeing the tired wrinkled face, a different grief crept into his soul, as he looked at the man who had seen, or would soon see, the death of an infant who was not his daughter though born to his wife.

Margio sat far across from him, staring without a word, before turning his face toward the room where Nuraeni forlornly contemplated the dying baby. He then turned his gaze back toward Komar, rusting away in his old age. The family was now complete, everyone present and all its fractures and hatreds accounted for. This couldn't be good. Komar glanced at Margio, briefly, unable to counter the boy's gaze, and then returned his attention to the clove cigarette between his fingers. Margio stared blankly, his eyes half closed, not sure what he was thinking, and focused solely on his own breathing. Mameh was the only one to stir. She carried the water bucket back into the kitchen, before returning to the room to sit on the edge of the bed. Nuraeni looked up at Margio, also very briefly, before staring at the baby who had started to fall asleep, probably never to reawaken.

It was still alive when a new day came, though it moved less than ever. Its mother's milk had dried up, and the infant only gave Kasia's bottle a brief lick despite Nuraeni's efforts to force some of the liquid into its mouth. The sockets of its eyes had deepened, and its mouth drooped. The smell of death emanated from it, like steam from a pot of hot rice.

The baby fought the angel of death, and Komar wouldn't look at it. Not once had he entered the room from which it never emerged, the mother fearing what the wind might do to such a tiny body. The cruel father merely sat in his chair smoking his clove cigarettes. Should his stomach insist on being filled, he would go to the kitchen and eat alone, without requesting or offering anything. Margio didn't move much. He slept in his chair and forgot about his friends. He watched events at home as if he were watching a play, coolly interested in how the actors performed the roles assigned them.

At nine Komar left for his stall, and relative peace followed, though Nuraeni didn't cease to fret over the little one. It wasn't the baby's life that Margio was worried about. If the half-living doll died, he was sure his mother would descend even further into madness. He wished Komar would do something—regardless of the baby's paternity—for Nuraeni, instead of just fussing over his rooster. But it was clear to everyone that Komar was glad the child was wasting away, eager for it to die.

On the seventh day, the man went missing. The rest of the family was overjoyed that the baby had survived so long on the few drops of bottled milk it managed to lick from the bottle. Nuraeni, Mameh, and Margio began to feel hopeful. A week was a milestone. If the baby could make it this far, it might tough it out for a year, a decade, or longer, even though its tiny frame was no stronger and its breathing imperceptible. Margio caught something like a smile on Nuraeni's face, and the woman found the courage to bring her baby out of the bedroom, tighly wound as ever to defend it against the elements.

This was when Komar should have named the baby. The child had been born in his home, after all, and for all the neighbors knew it was his. Instead, he went missing, leaving no word of his whereabouts. Margio searched for him again, but had no success. Neither the shaving kit nor the fighting rooster had gone. Since early morning Nuraeni had seated herself on the chair at the front of the house, singing a soothing lullaby as she softly rocked the baby on her lap. “Soon you will have a name,” she whispered. But Komar was gone, and there was no sign he would be coming back.

It was Mameh who told Margio to shave the baby. Without any of the usual ceremony, with only his sister and mother in attendance, he opened his father's shaving kit to find a pair of scissors and a razor. The baby was still half asleep in Nuraeni's lap. Her mother removed the baby's cap, and Margio washed its thin hair. With two fingers of one hand he took a lock of soot-black hair, and with the other opened the scissors to start cutting. A piece of paper on the table caught the strands. Afterward, they would weigh the baby's hair and, in accordance with tradition, make a gift of that much rice to a pauper. Margio and Mameh watched each follicle carefully to ensure nothing was lost.

The ritual was over in ten minutes, and Nuraeni's eyes were glazed with happiness. She slipped a knitted cap once again over the baby's bald head to protect it from the menacing air. Margio suggested his mother give the baby a name, and she chose Marian. The name popped out just like that. It could have been the name of a character from one of the radio dramas Nuraeni listened to in the afternoons, when their next-door neighbor put his radio on a chair in his front yard, and people squatted around it to listen. Or perhaps it recalled the name of a girl she knew in her youth. Margio and Mameh didn't ask. That the baby had a name was enough.

She died later that day, before they had finished eating the prized fighting rooster Margio had vengefully butchered. The baby went without a sound, simply fading away, the twilight of its life giving way to darkness. Nuraeni walked into her jungle garden, doing her best to keep her body steady. She picked flowers, chanting sad songs, her eyes flooded with tears.

What Maharani didn't know was that there was a deep wound within Margio's family, and the dead girl touched every part of it. That night at the film screening, the question of whether to tell her who Marian's father was, and that it was impossible for them to be lovers, tortured Margio. He wanted to lance the boil, to show her the true horror of the facts, but was deterred by his admiration for her and the girl's relentless expressions of love while they embraced in a corner of the soccer field. They kissed, and the truth froze Margio to the core.

The girl could tell he was uneasy, and put it down to nerves and inexperience. When she touched him teasingly, trying to free him from self-consciousness, he only looked at her with anguished eyes, pained with the knowledge that losing her was inevitable, and wondering if he could bring himself to break things off.

He couldn't possibly tell her what he had seen one particular day not long after Komar bin Syueb had found out about Nuraeni's pregnancy and had beaten her half to death. That day, once her husband had gone, she had rallied. She sang and beautified herself. Her good mood was inexplicable to Margio, even perverse. There were bruises on her body, but she didn't seem to feel them, and he was amazed by his mother's endurance. Nuraeni looked fresh, more pampered than abused. She wore a beige dress, and rushed out of the house despite her protuberant belly. Margio followed secretly, and when she reached Anwar Sadat's house, he lay down out of sight to keep watch. By then he had started to suspect Anwar Sadat, whose wickedness and roving eye were well known, and of course Nuraeni spent almost as much time at his place as she did at home. Margio wanted evidence, though he had no idea what he would do if he got it.

Dragging his feet, he crept closer to the familiar house. He entered through the side door without knocking, as he had done many times over the years. He found himself on the central porch where clothes were hanging out to dry. His mother would normally be doing laundry at the well or preparing lunch. The house was quiet, and there was no sign of life. Margio walked in without making any noise, his eyes fixed on a painting hanging on the wall. Maesa Dewi was in her room with her baby, the door slightly ajar. He went to the kitchen, but no one was there. Turning, he stood in front of Anwar Sadat's bedroom door. He wanted to open it, but couldn't. He chose to leave.

On the house's western side, there was a raised bed about six feet square, bordered by a waist-high wall. The family grew oranges and bananas there, below the house's many broad windows. The yard was taboo to outsiders, except for Margio, who had often gone there to chop down withered banana leaves. Through the front bedroom window, he could see the room was empty. Laila wasn't there. As he had already observed, lazy Maesa Dewi lay under a blanket despite the daylight flooding her bedroom. The third window, which was Maharani's, was always closed, opening only when the girl came home on vacation. Margio paused by the next room.

He heard muffled grunts from inside, and there was no doubt in his mind that Anwar Sadat and his mother were making love. Curiosity, or perhaps mischief, drove him closer, despite already knowing the truth. Through a glass window swathed by a crimson curtain, he saw his naked mother under Anwar Sadat. Unaware of the peeping Tom, their bodies rocked, intimate and inseparable. Margio wanted to see his mother's expression at that moment, to know the brilliant hues of her sweaty face, on which twenty years of abuse had been washed away by passion. He was happy to see them absorbed in lovemaking. His gaze strayed over the twisting bodies, dissolving into one another, before good sense finally prompted him to step away and walk home. He needed to sit down and clear his mind. On the way back, a headache surged up more feverishly than any hangover. He wanted to cry.