The Rainbow Troops (5 page)

Then, all of a sudden, one of the wooden planks behind me fell and gave me room to gather my strength. Without stopping to think twice, I mustered the last ounce of strength left in my body, and with one roundhouse style move, I kicked Samson as hard as I could right between his legs—just like when the Japanese boxer Antonio Inoki took a cheap shot at Muhammad Ali in their 1976 fight. Samson howled and groaned like a bumble bee trapped in a glass jar. I broke free from his grasp, jumped away and bolted off. That genius body-building invention flew up into the air before sluggishly tumbling down onto a stack of straw. I stole a peek back and saw the boy Hercules hurl over and clutch his legs before falling down with a thud.

For days, my chest was encircled by two dark red circular marks, traces of unbelievable idiocy.

My mother asked me about the marks. I wanted to lie, but I couldn't. Muhammadiyah Ethics class taught us every Friday morning that we were not allowed to lie to our parents, especially not to our mothers.

I was forced to expose my own stupidity. My older brothers and my father laughed so hard they were shaking. And then, for the very first time, I heard my mother's sophisticated theory on mental illness.

"There are 44 types of craziness," she said with the authority of a psychiatric expert as she gathered tobacco, betel leaves, and other ingredients from her pillbox containers for making tobacco chew, squashed them into a small ball and chewed the concoction.

"The smaller the number, the more critical the illness," she said, shaking her head back and forth while staring at me as if I were a patient in a mental hospital.

"When people lose their minds and wander the streets nude, that is mental illness number one. I think what you did with that tennis ball falls into the category of mental illness number five. Pretty serious, Ikal! You'd better be careful—if you don't use common sense, that number will soon get even smaller!"

On another morning, at ten o'clock, the
jalak kerbau
flock should have already arrived. But that morning it was quiet. I smiled to myself as I thought about the unique characteristics of my classmates. Most of us came to school
berkaki ayam
—
chicken footed
, literally, but in other words barefooted. Those who weren't
chicken footed
wore shoes that were much too big. Our underprivileged parents deliberately bought shoes that were two sizes too big so they could be worn for at least two school years. By the time the shoes fit, they were usually falling apart.

Malay people believe that destiny is a creature, and we were ten baits of destiny. We were like small mollusks clinging together to defend ourselves from the pounding waves in the ocean of knowledge. Bu Mus was our mother hen. I looked at my friends' faces one by one: Harun with his easy smile, the handsome Trapani, little Syahdan, the pompous Kucai, feisty Sahara, the gullible A Kiong, and the eighth boy, Samson, sitting like a Ganesha statue. And who were the ninth and tenth boys? Lintang and Mahar. What were their stories? They were two young, truly special boys. It takes a special chapter to tell their tales.

LINTANG WAS uncharacteristically late this morning. We were dumbfounded when we heard his reason.

"I couldn't pass. In the middle of the road, blocking my way, lay a crocodile as big as a coconut tree."

"Crocodile?" echoed Kucai.

"I rung the bell on my bike, clapped my hands and coughed loudly so he'd leave. He didn't budge. All I could do was stand there like a statue and talk to myself. His size and the barnacles growing on his back were clear signs that he was the ruler of this swamp."

"Why didn't you just go home?" I asked.

"I was already more than halfway here. I wasn't about to turn around just because of that stupid crocodile."

I could only imagine what Lintang was thinking at that moment:
The word absent isn't in my vocabulary, and today we study the history of Islam—one of the most interesting classes. I want to debate the holy verses that foretold Byzantium's victory seven years before it happened.

"You didn't ask anybody for help?" asked Sahara apprehensively.

"There wasn't anyone else around—just me, the giant crocodile, and certain death," Lintang said dramatically.

We were fretful yet astounded thinking about Lintang's struggle to get to school.

"I was almost hopeless. Then suddenly, from the currents of the river beside me, I heard the water rippling. I was surprised. I was frightened!"

"What was it, Lintang?" asked a wide-eyed Trapani.

"The shape of a man emerged from the moss, cutting across the murky, chest-high waters, and ascended from the swamp. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as he walked in bowlegged steps in my direction. Each step of his oddly shaped feet formed the letter 'O.'"

"Who was he?" Mahar choked out.

"Bodenga."

"Oooh," we all gasped at once as we clasped our hands over our mouths, horrified. Not one of us could find the courage to comment. We waited tensely for the story to continue.

"I was more scared of him than of any crocodile!"

We knew. The man who emerged from the moss was a man who didn't want to know anyone, but who in coastal Belitong didn't know him?

"Then what?" Borek asked nervously.

"He passed by me as if I weren't there. Then he approached the ruthless animal blocking the road. He touched it! He petted it gently and whispered something to it—it was so bizarre! The crocodile submitted to him, wagging its tail like a dog after its master's heart.

We were stupefied.

"Seconds later," Lintang continued with a low voice, "that Cretaceous reptile took a sudden, horrific dive into the swamp. It was as loud as seven coconut trees crashing down!"

Lintang took a deep breath. "I was startled. If that ancient animal had decided to chase me earlier, the only thing people would have found would be my decrepit bicycle."

"And what about Bodenga?" we all asked in perfect harmony.

"Bodenga turned back and headed my way. It was clear that he didn't expect any gratitude. I didn't have the guts to look at him. My courage collapsed; with just one pull, he could have drowned me in the water. But he just passed by."

"Passed by? Just like that?" I asked.

"Yeah, just like that. But I feel lucky. Not many people have ever witnessed Bodenga's supernatural powers."

I became lost in my own thoughts. It was true that I had never witnessed Bodenga in action, but I knew him better than Lintang. Bodenga provided me with my first life lesson on premonitions. For me, he symbolized all things related to the feeling of sadness.

No one wanted to be Bodenga's friend. His face was scarred with craters and he was in his forties. He covered himself with coconut leaves and slept under a palm tree, curled up like a squirrel for two days and two nights at a time. When he was hungry, he dove down into the abandoned well at the old police station, all the way to the bottom, caught some eels, and ate them while he was still in the water.

Bodenga was a free creature. He was like the wind. He wasn't Malay, not Chinese, not even Sawang—he wasn't anybody. No one knew where he came from. He wasn't religious and he couldn't speak. He wasn't a beggar or a criminal. His name wasn't anywhere in the village records. His ears could not hear because one day he dove into the Linggang River to fetch some tin and dove so deep that his ears bled. And then, he was deaf.

Nowadays Bodenga was like a lone piece of driftwood. The only family that villagers ever knew was his one-legged father. People say he sacrificed his leg in order to acquire more crocodile magic. His father was a famous crocodile shaman. As Islam flowed into the villages, people began to shun Bodenga and his father because they refused to stop worshipping crocodiles as gods.

His father died by wrapping himself from head to toe in
jawi
roots and throwing himself into the Mirang River. He deliberately fed his body to the ferocious crocodiles of the river. The only uncovered remain was the stump he used as a second leg. Now Bodenga spends most of his time staring into the currents of the Mirang River, all alone and far into the night.

One evening, villagers came flocking to the National School's basketball court. They had caught a crocodile that had attacked a woman washing clothes in the Manggar River. Because I was still small, I couldn't push my way through the people surrounding the crocodile. I could only see from between people's legs. Its big mouth was propped open with a piece of firewood.

When they split its stomach in half, they found hair, clothes and a necklace. That's when I saw Bodenga urge forward amongst the visitors. He sat down cross-legged beside the crocodile. His face was deathly pale. He pitifully pleaded for the people to stop butchering the animal. They took the firewood out of its mouth and backed off. They understood that crocodile worshippers believed that when they died they became crocodiles. They also understood that for Bodenga, this was the crocodile his father had turned into because one of its legs was missing.

Bodenga cried. It was an agonizing, mournful sound. "Baya ... Baya ... Baya," he called out softly. Some wept with choking sobs. I saw Bodenga's tears streaming down his pockmarked cheeks. I felt my own tears stream down my face, and I couldn't hold them back. That unfortunate crocodile had been his only love in his outcast and forlorn world, and now that love had been taken away.

Incoherent grieving escaped Bodenga's mute mouth as he lamented. He then tied up the crocodile and carried his father's carcass to the Linggang River, dragging it along the riverbanks towards the delta. Bodenga hasn't returned since.

Bodenga and the incident of that evening created a blueprint of compassion and sadness in my subconscious. Perhaps I was too young to witness such a painful tragedy. In the years to come, whenever I was faced with heartwrenching situations, Bodenga came into my senses.

That evening, Bodenga truly taught me about premonitions. And for the first time, I learned that fate could treat humankind very terribly, and that love could be so blind.

While Lintang didn't have an emotional experience with Bodenga like mine, that hadn't been the first time he was faced with a crocodile on his way to school. It's not an exaggeration to say that Lintang often risked his life for the sake of his education. Nevertheless, he never missed a day of school. He pedaled 80 kilometers roundtrip every day. If school activities went until late in the afternoon, he didn't arrive home until after dark. Thinking about his daily journey made me cringe.

The distance wasn't the only difficulty he faced. During the rainy season, chest-deep waters flooded the roads. When faced with a road that had turned into a river, Lintang left his bicycle under a tree on higher ground, wrapped his shirt, pants and books in a plastic bag, bit the bag, plunged into the water, and swam toward school as fast as he could to avoid being attacked by a crocodile.

Because there was no clock at his house, Lintang relied on a natural clock. One time, he rushed through his morning prayer because the cock had already crowed. He finished his prayer and immediately pedaled off to school. Halfway through his journey, in the middle of the forest, he became suspicious because the air was still very cold, it was still pitch black, and the forest was strangely quiet. There were no bird songs calling out to the dawn. Lintang realized that the cock had crowed early, and it was actually still midnight. He sat himself down beneath a tree in the middle of the dark forest, embraced his two legs, shivered in the cold, and waited patiently for morning to come.

Another time, his bicycle chain broke. It couldn't be fixed again because it had already broken one too many times and was now too short to be reconnected. But he wasn't willing to give up. He pushed the bike about a dozen kilometers by hand. By the time he got to the school, we were getting ready to head home. The last lesson that day was music class. Lintang was happy because he got to sing the song
Padamu Negeri ("For You Our Country")
in front of the class. It was a slow and somber song:

For you, our country, we promise For you, our country, we serve For you, our country, we are devoted You, country, are our body and soul
We were stunned to hear him sing so soulfully. His exhaustion didn't show in his humorous eyes. After he sang the song, he pushed his bike back home, all 40 kilometers.

Lintang's father had thought his son would give up within the first few weeks, but he was proven wrong. Day by day, Lintang's enthusiasm didn't fade, but rather it skyrocketed—he really loved school and his classmates, and he began to be addicted to unlocking the secrets of knowledge. When he arrived home, he didn't rest; he joined the other village children his age to work as copra coolies. That was the price he paid for the "
privilege
" of schooling.

His father now thought of the decision to send Lintang to school as the right one. If nothing else, he was happy to see his son's bubbling enthusiasm. He hoped that one day Lintang could send his five younger siblings—each born one year after the other—to school and also free them from the cycle of poverty. So, as hard as he could, he supported Lintang's education in his own way, to the best of his ability.

When Lintang was in first grade, he once asked his father for help with a homework question about simple multiplication. "Come here, Father. How much is four times four?"

His illiterate father paced back and forth. He gazed wistfully through the window at the wide South China Sea, thinking very hard. When Lintang wasn't looking, he quietly snuck out the back door and ran like the wind, cutting through the tall grass. The pine tree man ran at top speed as swift as a deer to ask for help from people at the village office. Not much later, like a flash of lightning, he slipped back into the house and was suddenly standing attentively before his son.

"Fffooh ... fffooh ... fourteen, son, no doubt about it, no more, no less," he answered while panting to catch his breath, but wearing a wide smile full of pride.

Lintang stared deep into his father's eyes. He felt a pang in his heart, a pang that made him make a promise to himself,
I have to be an intelligent person
. Lintang knew that answer didn't come from his father.

His father had even misquoted the answer he had gotten from village office's employee. Sixteen should have been his answer, but his father could only remember the number 14—the amount of mouths he was responsible for feeding every day.

From that day on, Lintang's enthusiasm for school burned even more intensely. Because his body was too small for his big bicycle, he couldn't sit on the saddle. Instead, he sat on the bar that connects the saddle to the handlebars. The tips of his toes barely reached the pedals. Every day he moved slowly and bounced up and down greatly over the steel bar as he bit his lip to gather his strength to fight the wind.

Lintang's house was on the edge of the sea. The house was a shack on stilts, in case the sea rose too high. The roof was made of sago palm leaves and the walls were
meranti
tree bark. Anything happening in the shack could be seen from outside because the bark walls were already dozens of years old and were cracked and broken like mud in the dry season. Inside, it was a long and narrow space with two doors, one in the front and one in the back. None of the windows or doors locked. They tied the frames shut at night with cheap twine.

Both Lintang's maternal and paternal grandparents lived with them. Their skin was so wrinkly you could grab it in handfuls. Each day, the four grandparents bent over a winnowing tray to pick maggots out of their third-class rice, the only kind they could afford. They spent hours on that arduous task—the rice was that putrid.

There were also Lintang's father's two younger brothers: a young man who wandered around all day because he was mentally ill, and an obsolete laborer unable to work because he suffered from inflamed testicles—a result of a nutrition deficiency. With these people, plus Lintang, Lintang's five little sisters and his mother, the long, narrow house was very crowded. There were 14 people total, and all of them relied on Lintang's father.

Each day Lintang's father waited for neighbors with boats or skippers to give him work. He didn't get a percentage of the catch but was paid based on his physical strength. He was a man making a living by selling his bodily power.

Lintang could only study late at night. Because the house was so crowded, it was difficult to find an empty space, and they had to share the oil lantern. However, once he grasped the book, his mind escaped the cracks of the leaning bark walls. Studying was entertainment that made him forget life's hardships. For him, books were like water from a sacred well in Mecca's mosque, renewing his strength to pedal against the wind day after day. He immersed himself in each sentence he read. He was seduced by the eloquent writings of scholars. He recognized the hidden meanings in formulas that didn't register with others.

Then on one magical night, under the twilight of the oil lamp and accompanied by the waves of the tide, Lintang's thin fingers paged through a photocopied version of an archaic book titled
Astronomy and Geometry
. All at once, he was immersed in the defiant words of Galileo against Aristotle's cosmology. He was entranced by the crazy ideas of the ancient astronomers who wanted to measure the distance from the earth to Andromeda and the Triangulum's nebulas. He gasped when he found out that gravity can bend light. He was amazed by the roving objects of the skies in the dark corners of the universe that may have only been visited by the thoughts of Nicolaus Copernicus.