Six hours altogether. Rp300k taxi fare; 10k was return on the train.
We had chosen the date badly. Muslim New Year and a long weekend meant a queue at the station ticket-office, seats sold out. The standing option was declined; therefore the taxi going out, about thirty dollars.
Twice before in the week prior Faris’s toothache had resulted in last minute cancellations.
The macet, traffic jam was not so bad. Bad enough however given the bleak roadside scenery of dilapidated shop-fronts devoid of any conceivable hope of redemption. Some new housing and commercial construction was taking the place of old, without any hint of past failures comprehended.
A number of years Faris had not taken the road-trip and swore off it ever again.
LA Tropical, he quipped in a low voice.
Two thirds along beyond Klaten glimpses of green rice-fields finally; later the train back would deliver a great deal more, with straw-hats toiling. An old local permaculturalist some days before had made the claim in the newspaper that only farming provided a means of independent living for man.
Two hundred thousand Rupiah was given from both sides to the poor family we had come out to visit in Kampung Ngasinan, a short distance out of Solo, aka Surakarta.
In planning the trip a couple weeks prior, Faris had agreed a hundred each would be a satisfactory offering. On departing the house however after the visit, Faris thought differently: one hundred was neither one thing nor the other, the man unexpectedly suggested. Two hundred might amount to something for the family. In the circumstances, four hundred thousand would at least provide respite.
Some years ago Faris had taught in the neighborhood, encountered this family and taken particular interest. Now there was a disabled husband who had fallen from a fruit tree nine months earlier; a young three year old boy and the old mother of the house in her mid-seventies, wobbly and effectively blind.
There had been two major interventions previously: some years before Faris and his American son had financed sealing of the roof of the house to keep out the rain. This had amounted to paying for plastic sheeting to be laid under the roof tiles. There were no ceilings in the house; with the passing of a few years the plastic above our heads in the front room had shredded in a number of places.
In order to clear family debts that had increased since the accident, Faris had sourced from his network a French Muslim benefactor, a fireman from Marseille. Since debts had mounted again and growing pressure from neighboring creditors to sell the house. At present the family was splitting profits from the fruit harvest of their trees with pickers.
Shortly after being seated cups of tea were brought from out back by the young mother. A half hour later the fuller hospitality arrived from in front, delivered by a neighbour—heaped plates of noodles with some egg and vegetables. Meals that were scaled for Western appetites; servings at the local warungs were much smaller.
The household itself would not be partaking. Still, no one made eyes at the food, not even the little three-year-old. The family was well-fed—a paunch showed the Invalid was not suffering on that score and the little boy took his father’s build. Second or third tier poverty, perhaps.
On a day-bed opposite the small TV sat the Invalid; the wife shared the couch with Faris and the boy played on the floor with plastic toys, wheeled vehicles mainly. An old exercise bike stood against the wall immediately inside the entry door. The Invalid had made some progress from weekly physiotherapy, the wife reported.
On the other side of the entry out of the way, the old mother sat on a bench smiling through the opening when she bent forward to survey the room. The old mother was paper-weight thin with inflamed gums, cloudy eyes and over-sized hands distended from field-work. Dickens came to mind: a loved smiling mother, quietly abiding and never complaining, maintaining all her cheer.
Various neighbours came to the door and the window over the bed. The window held no glass or sashes; a concertina panel of wooden slats had warped and sat askew. It was through the largest gap that neighbors came to converse and observe the visitors.
Small children came to the open doorway. Teens, young mothers with babes on hip, middle-aged scarved women took turns at the window, smiling and waving.
Nine or ten square meters the front room measured, certainly a larger space than many front rooms along the gangs of inner Jogja. A couple of low packing-case cupboards, pitted concrete floor that had once been polished. There were complaints about the flickering television; it was important for the Invalid and the old mother, who was prone to falls outdoors.
Plastic stools were brought into the room for the guests to rest their cups and plates. From under a corner of the day-bed mattress the wife fished out a prospectus for an insurance scheme for the boy’s future education. This Faris took up and studied carefully. It would come in handy in a renewed petition to the Marseille fireman. Apart from this man, Faris had one other possible benefactor, a well-to-do Arab who might respond favorably to a plea.
Behind a narrow passage led to two smaller rooms with mattresses on the floor in the corners. At the rear a low cupboard held a rice-cooker, cutting-board and cooking utensils; the other side a little tiled annex held a hip-bath.
A well came to be mentioned. Old rusty iron piping was found running into the concrete floor that accessed ground water; an electric pump rather than bucketing on a winch here. The wife showed the spurt from the plastic hose attached to a spigot. Unlike in Jogja and Jakarta, the water was clean in Solo, Faris reassured when he noticed caution over the tea.
Outdoors a tall boy came at one point to hang a bird-cage on a high hook immediately beside the entry door, almost over the head of the old mother on her bench within the shadow of the porch. Inside the wooden cage the tiny bird immediately began twittering in a voice that pierced the heat of afternoon. All the tall wooden cages seen in Jogja held small, often tiny birds that were raised high for better voice projection, it must have been. Shade did not seem to be the main factor.
The volume of the television was low, another of its faults. Sporadic conversation continued.
From its perch the bird sent high notes out into the passage between the houses opposite that made a row toward the river. The first notes after the bird had settled made a listener leap and follow the call in pursuit. Ahead the little bird darted, happy to be chased. A lively musical gambol delivered suddenly, the last thing one could have expected here.
Forty or fifty years ago caged birds had disappeared from Western cities. In these traditional communities on the Equator the prizing of bird-song continued. Smaller Malaysian towns were the same.
The tall young lad who had delivered the cage was not part of the household; nor could this visit family have owned the bird. The front pillar on which the cage had been hung belonged to the house, however, still owned by the family.
The sudden appearance of the bird in the cage puzzled later at night back in the hotel. Light, airy melodiousness of that kind in that setting of the Solo house had one metaphorically scratching one’s head. In another context, something of the kind might have been provided in a house visit where there was a pianist among the members.
Could the entertainment have been provided by solicitous neighbours, for the reception of the guests?
The whole thing left one flabbergasted.
Outside the open door at the Kampung Ngasinan house a row of similar houses stretched down to the narrow water-channel behind—in flood no doubt justifiably termed a river. While we sat a woman had emerged from one of the houses and took care to lock the door behind her with an old, oversized latch key. Shuttered against the heat, the houses gave the impression of an abandoned, derelict quarter.
At the rear door of the visit house chickens could be heard; none were visible outdoors. A plastic & vinyl merchant had rolls of his product out front of a store a few doors along; the better class of houses here would have floor covering. Some house fronts had been painted and carried minor decoration. In the event of a sale here the visit house would fetch a decent price.
Precast concrete slabs along the river would contain the flood-water when it arrived; during the dry there was no stir in the dirty, littered channel.
An inspection created awkwardness with some men gathered in a work detail for a People’s Garden, one of the chaps unexpectedly conveyed in English.
Like many others still young in Indonesia, gleaming white teeth showed a number of gaps.
Thus far the men had not made much of an impression on the baked clay; some leveling of ground to begin. There were half dozen men from the houses with a pair of hoes between them, lazily at work.
At home the men had children and old parents too. They were able-bodied at least here.
The man with the good English had noticed the flash of doubt; an involuntary reflex hearing of the intended project.
A proffered handshake attempted to retrieve the situation. Smiles were exchanged.
The tee bearing the Arabic alphabet from the Islamic museum in Kuala Lumpur could not counter the effect of fine sandals and handsome white panama.
Faris had mentioned the old Java script that was now little in evidence these few years since his last visit to the city; we noticed it in only a couple of places. Rather than a heartland of fundamentalism following the lead of the infamous old cleric, Abu Basheer, Solo in fact cast back to its pre-Islamic roots. There was long-standing tension here with Islam. The Solo Sultan was renowned for his meditation up in the tall tower of his palace that we skirted on arrival in the taxi. During his regular astral travel the Sultan visited far distant countries and on return reported back to his court.
Embarrassing, suggested the young man at reception at Gloria Amanda apologetically that evening.
The Invalid appeared genuine. It was only his relative youth that raised doubt for a stroke. The chap was two years younger than his wife. An injudicious marriage had made matters harder still now in this house, as the husband’s family was too poor to offer any kind of aid.
Ordinarily, a benefactor like Faris might have expected to have been asked for his blessing prior to a marriage. Everything was harder now. Faris felt some frustration.
On entry the Invalid had taken Faris’s hand in his two and brought it to his forehead. A scramble to rise to his feet had been shaken off by Faris. Twice the Invalid demonstrated his incapacity: the right arm had little feeling below the elbow; there was almost none in the hand. A couple of times through the visit the Invalid took the numb hand by the other for massage. The arm could be raised to the horizontal, but no further; and the gait involved an angled dragging of the right leg, toes of the foot bent inward.
The man seemed lucid. Possibly given more time he could further improve. Faris could report back faithfully; the fireman or the Arab might be persuaded.
Of five or six interventions of this kind over the years across Java and Malaysia, Faris had two families continuing dependent and struggling. Another Jakartan scenario was similar to this in Solo. In Faris’s judgment the little boy here seemed promising. Being able to amuse himself for a couple of hours augured well for future schooling, could it be provided. The insurance scheme might be a worthwhile investment here.
During the six month teaching stint nearby that had introduced Faris to the neighborhood, he had been housed with Western volunteers who sought to tempt the Convert with beer and other alcohol. An Arizonan Muslim was received as a challenge by Faris’s colleagues.
Nightly Faris had taken his supper at Kampung Ngasinan and sat with the people. One of the scarved older women who came across tried unsuccessfully to prompt Faris’s memory. Unfortunately, there had been little progress made in this neighborhood and in the case of the particular family back-sliding.
In over four weeks there had been no rain. When it did arrive in December the roof of the visit house would leak; overhead the daylight had gleamed through the small perforations. The plastic itself was not expensive; not that thin, cheap kind. The labor over the tiles would mean four or five days’ work for a pair of men. In the meantime some of the holes might be patched.
Solo, Indonesia
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Pavle Radonić is an Australian writer of Montenegrin origin who has spent ten years living in SE Asia. Recent work has appeared in QU Literary Magazine, Airplane Reading, Superpresent Magazine, New World Writing & The Wrath-Bearing Tree.