Translation of The Rainbow Troops [PDF]

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2011



TRANSLATION OF THE RAINBOW TROOPS



ANDREA HIRATA [Type the company name] 7/18/2011



CHAPTER ONE (TEN NEW STUDENTS) - PAGI itu, waktu aku masih kecil, aku duduk di bangku panjang di depan sebuah kelas. That morning, when I was just a boy, I sat on a long bench outside of a school.



- Sebatang pohon ficilium tua yang rindang meneduhiku. The branch of an old filicium tree shaded me.



- Ayahku duduk di sampingku, memeluk pundakku dengan kedua lengannya dan tersenyum mengangguk-angguk pada setiap orangtua dan anak-anaknya yang duduk berderet-deret di bangku panjang lain di depan kami. My father sat beside me, hugging my shoulders with both of his arms as he nodded and smiled to each parent and child sitting side by side on the bench in front of us.



- Hari itu adalah hari yang agak penting: hari pertama masuk SD. It was an important day: the first day of elementary school.



- Di ujung bangku-bangku panjang tadi ada sebuah pintu terbuka. At the end of those long benches was an open door, and inside was an empty classroom.



- Kosen pintu itu miring karena seluruh bangunan sekolah sudah doyong seolah akan roboh. The door frame was crooked. The entire school, in fact, leaned as if it would collapse at any moment.



- Di mulut pintu berdiri dua orang guru seperti para penyambut tamu dalam perhelatan.



In the doorway stood two teachers, like hosts welcoming guest to a party.



- Mereka adalah seorang bapak tua berwajah sabar, Bapak K.A. Harfan Efendy Noor, sang kepala sekolah dan seorang wanita muda berjilbab, Ibu N.A. Muslimah Hafsari atau Bu Mus. Seperti ayahku, mereka berdua juga tersenyum.



There was an old man with a patient face, Bapak K.A. Harfan Efendy Noor, or Pak Harfan- the school principal- and a young woman wearing a jilbab, or headscarf, Ibu N.A. Muslimah Hafsari,



or Bu Mus for short. Like my father, they also were smiling.



- Namun, senyum Bu Mus adalah senyum getir yang dipaksakan karena tampak jelas beliau sedang cemas. Yetbu Mus smiled a bitter smile Bu Mus’ smile was a forced smile: she was apprehensive.



- Wajahnya tegang dan gerak-geriknya gelisah Her face was tense and twitching nervously.



- Ia berulang kali menghitung jumlah anak-anak yang duduk di bangku panjang. Ia demikian khawatir sehingga tak peduli pada peluh yang mengalir masuk ke pelupuk matanya. She kept counting the number of children sitting on the long benches, so worried that she didn’t even care about the sweat pouring down onto her eyelids.



- Titik-titik keringat yang bertimbulan di seputar hidungnya menghapus bedak tepung beras yang dikenakannya, membuat wajahnya coreng moreng seperti pameran emban bagi permaisuri dalam Dul Muluk, sandiwara kuno kampung kami. The sweat beading around her nose smudged her powder makeup, streaking her face and making her look like the queen’s servant in Dul Muluk, an ancient play in our village.



- “Sembilan orang … baru sembilan orang Pamanda Guru, masih kurang satu…,” katanya gusar pada bapak kepala sekolah. Pak Harfan menatapnya kosong. “nine people, just nine people, Pamanda Guru, still short one,” she said anxiously to the principal. Pak Harfan stared at her with an empty look in his eyes.



- Aku juga merasa cemas. Aku cemas karena melihat Bu Mus yang resah dan karena beban perasaan ayahku menjalar ke sekujur tubuhku. I too felt anxious. Anxious because the restless Bu Mus, and because of the sensation of my father’s burden spreading over my entire body.



- Meskipun beliau begitu ramah pagi ini tapi lengan kasarnya yang melingkari leherku mengalirkan degup jantung yang cepat.



Although he seemed friendly and at ease this morning, his rough arm hanging around my neck gave away his quick heartbeat.



- Aku tahu beliau sedang gugup dan aku maklum bahwa tak mudah bagi seorang pria berusia empat puluh tujuh tahun, seorang buruh tambang yang beranak banyak dan bergaji kecil, untuk menyerahkan anak lakilakinya ke sekolah. I knew he was nervous, and I was aware that it wasn’t easy for a 47-yearold miner with a lot of children and a small salary to send his son to school.



- Lebih mudah menyerahkannya pada tauke pasar pagi untuk jadi tukang parut atau pada juragan pantai untuk menjadi kuli kopra agar dapat membantu ekonomi keluarga. It would have been much easier to send me to work as a helper for a Chinese grocery stall owner at the morning market, or to the coast to work as a coolie to help ease the family’s financial burdens.



- Menyekolahkan anak berarti mengikatkan diri pada biaya selama belasan tahun dan hal itu bukan perkara gampang bagi keluarga kami.



Sending a child to school meant tying oneself to years of costs, and that was no easy matter for our family.



- “Kasihan ayahku ….. My poor father.



- Maka aku tak sampai hati memandang wajahnya



I didn’t have the heart to look him in the eye.



- “Barangkali sebaiknya aku pulang saja, melupakan keinginan sekolah, dan mengikuti jejak beberapa abang dan sepupu- sepupuku, menjadi kuli ….. It would probably be better if i just went home, forgot about school, followed in the footsteps of some of my older brothers and cousins, and became a coolie...



- Tapi agaknya bukan hanya ayahku yang gentar. My father wasn’t the only one trembling.



- Setiap wajah orangtua di depanku mengesankan bahwa mereka tidak sedang duduk di bangku panjang itu, karena pikiran mereka, seperti pikiran ayahku, melayang-layang ke pasar pagi atau ke keramba di tepian laut membayangkan anak lelakinya lebih baik menjadi pesuruh di sana. The face of each parent showed that they were’t really sitting on those long benches. Their thoughts, like my father’s, were drifting off to the morning market as they imagined their sons better off as workers.



- Para orangtua ini sama sekali tak yakin bahwa pendidikan anaknya yang hanya mampu mereka biayai paling tinggi sampai SMP akan dapat mempercerah masa depan keluarga. These parents weren’t convinced that their children’s education, which they could only afford up to junior high school, would brighten their families’ futures.



- Pagi ini mereka terpaksa berada di sekolah ini untuk menghindarkan diri dari celaan aparat desa karena tak menyekolahkan anak atau sebagai orang yang terjebak tuntutan zaman baru, tuntutan



memerdekakan anak dari buta huruf. This morning they were forced to be at this schol, either to avoid reproach from government officials for not sending their children to school, or to submit to modern demands to free their children from illiteracy.



- Aku mengenal para orangtua dan anak-anaknya yang duduk di depanku. Kecuali seorang anak lelaki kecil kotor berambut keriting merah yang meronta-ronta dari pegangan ayahnya. Ayahnya itu tak beralas kaki dan bercelana kain belacu. Aku tak mengenal anak beranak itu.



I knew all of the parents and children sitting in front of me- except for one small, dirty boy with curly, red hair, trying to wriggle free from his father’s grasp. His father wasn’t wearing shoes and had on cheap, cotton pants. I didn’t know them.



- Selebihnya adalah teman baikku The rest of them were my good friends.



- Trapani misalnya, yang duduk di pangkuan ibunya, atau Kucai yang



duduk di samping ayahnya, atau Syahdan yang tak diantar siapasiapa. Like trapani sitting on his mother’s lap, or Kucai sitting neext to his father, or Sahara, who earlier had gotten very angry at her mother because she wanted to go into the classrroom quickly, or Syahdan, who wasn’t accompanied by anyone.



- Kami bertetangga dan kami adalah orang-orang Melayu belitong dari sebuah komunitas yang paling miskin di pulau itu. We were neighbors, and we were Belitong- Malays from the poorest community on the island.



- Adapun sekolah ini, SD Muhammadiyah, juga sekolah kampung yang paling miskin di Belitong. As for this school, Muhammadiyah Elementary School, it too was the poorest village school in Belitong.



- Ada tiga alasan mengapa para orangtua mendaftarkan anaknya di sini. There were only three reasons why parents enrolled their children here.



- Pertama, karena sekolah Muhammadiyah tidak menetapkan iuran dalam bentuk apa pun, para orangtua hanya menyumbang sukarela semampu



mereka. The first, Muhammadiyah Elementary didn’t require any fees, and parents could contribute whatever they could afford whenever they could do so.



- Kedua, karena firasat, anak-anak mereka dianggap memiliki karakter yang mudah disesatkan iblis sehingga sejak usia muda harus mendapatkan pendadaran Islam yang tangguh. The second, the parents feared that their children had weak character and could easily be led astray by Devil, so they wanted them to have strong Islamic guidance from a young age. - Ketiga, karena anaknya memang tak diterima di sekolah mana pun. The third, their child wasn’t accepted at any other school.



- Bu Mus yang semakin khawatir memancang pandangannya ke jalan raya di seberang lapangan sekolah berharap kalau-kalau masih ada pendaftar baru . Bu Mus, who was growing increasingly fretful, stared at the main- road, hoping there would still be another new student.



- Kami prihatin melihat harapan hampa itu. Seeing her empty hope scared us.



- Maka tidak seperti suasana di SD lain yang penuh kegembiraan ketika menerima murid angkatan baru, suasana hari pertama di SD Muhammadiyah penuh dengan kerisauan, dan yang paling risau adalah Bu Mus dan Pak Harfan. So unlike other elementary school that were full of happiness when welcoming the students of their newest class, the atmosphere on the first day at Muhammadiyah Elementay School was full of concern, and the most concerned of all were Bu Mus and Pak Harfan.



- Guru-guru yang sederhana ini berada dalam situasi genting karena Pengawas Sekolah dari Depdikbud Sumsel telah memperingatkan bahwa jika SD Muhammadiyah hanya mendapat murid baru kurang dari sepuluh orang maka sekolah paling tua di Belitong ini harus ditutup. Those humble teachers were in this nerve-wracking situation because of a warning issued by the School Super-intendent from the South Sumatra Department of Education and Culture: If Muhammaddiyah Elementary School had fewer than ten new students, then the oldest school in Belitong would be shut down.



- Karena itu sekarang Bu Mus dan Pak Harfan cemas sebab sekolah mereka akan tamat riwayatnya, sedangkan para orangtua cemas



karena biaya, dan kami, Sembilan anak-anak kecil ini yang terperangkap di tengah cemas kalau- kalau kami tak jadi sekolah. Therefore Bu Mus and Pak Harfan were worrried about being shut down, while the parents were worried about expenses, and we- the nine small children caught in the middle- were worried we may not get to go to school at all.



- Tahun lalu SD Muhammadiyah hanya mendapatkan sebelas siswa, dan tahun ini Pak Harfan pesimis dapat memenuhi target sepuluh. Maka diam-diam beliau telah mempersiapkan sebuah pidato pembubaran sekolah di depan para orangtua murid pada kesempatan pagi ini. Last year Muhammadiyah Elementary School only had eleven students. Pak Harfan was pesssimistic that they would meet the target of ten this year, so secretly prepared a school- closing speech.



- Kenyataan bahwa beliau hanya memerlukan satu siswa lagi untuk memenuhi target itu menyebabkan pidato ini akan menjadi sesuatu yang menyakitkan hati. The fact that he only needed one more student would make this speech even more painful to give.



- “Kita tunggu sampai pukul sebelas,” kata Pak Harfan pada Bu Mus dan



seluruh orangtua yang telah pasrah. Suasana hening. “we will wait until eleven o’clock,” Pak Harfan said to Bu Mus and the already hopelees parents. The atmosphere was silent. - Bu Mus’ face was puffy from holding back tears.



- I understood how she felt, because her hope to teach was as great as our hope to go to school.



- Today was Bu Mus’ first day as a teacher, a moment she hadd been dreaming of for a very long time.



- She had just graduated the week before from Sekolah Kepandaian Putri (Vocational Girls’ School), a junior high school in tthe capital of the regency, Tanjong Pandan.



- She was only fifteen years old. Sadly, her fiery spirit to be a teacher was about to be doused by a bitter reality- the threat of her school closing because they were short by just one student.



- Bu Mus stood like a statue under the bell, staring out at the wide shoolyard and the main road.



- No one appearred.



- The sun rose higher to meet the middle of the day.



- Waiting for one more student was like trying to catch the wind.



- Para orang tua mungkin menganggap kekurangan satu murid sebagai pertanda bagi anak-anaknya bahwa mereka memang sebaiknya didaftarkan pada para juragan saja. In the meantime, the parents probably took the shortage of one student as a sign for their children- it would be better if they sent them to work.



- Sedangkan aku dan agaknya juga anak-anak yang lain merasa amat pedih: pedih pada orangtua kami yang tak mampu, pedih menyaksikan detik-detik terakhir sebuah sekolah tua yang tutup justru pada hari pertama kami ingin sekolah, dan pedih pada niat kuat kami untuk belajar tapi tinggal selangkah lagi harus terhenti hanya karena kekurangan satu murid. The other children and I felt broken: heartbroken to face our disadvantaged parents, heartbroken to witness the final moments before the old school closed on the very day we were suppposed to start, and the heartbroken to know that our strong desire to study would be crushed



just because we were lacking one student.



- Kami menunduk dalam-dalam. Our head hung low.



- Saat itu sudah pukul sebelas kurang lima dan Bu Mus semakin gundah. It was five till eleven. Bu Mus could no longer hide her dejection.



- Lima tahun pengabdiannya di sekolah melarat yang amat ia cintai dan tiga puluh dua tahun pengabdian tanpa pamrih pada Pak Harfan, pamannya, akan berakhir di pagi yang sendu ini. Her big dreams for this poor school were about to fall apart before they could even take off, and thirty-two faithful years of Pak Harfan’s unrewarded service were about to come to a close on this tragic morning.



- “Baru sembilan orang Pamanda Guru …,” ucap Bu Mus bergetar sekali lagi. “Just nine people Pamanda Guru,” Bu Mus uttered shakily once again.



- Ia sudah tak bisa berpikir jernih. Ia berulang kali mengucapkan hal yang sama yang telah diketahui semua orang. She had already reached the point where she wasn’t thinking clearly,



repeating the same thing everyone already knew.



- Suaranya berat selayaknya orang yang tertekan batinnya. Her voice was grave, normal for someone with a sinking heart.



- Akhirnya, waktu habis karena telah pukul sebelas lewat lima dan jumlah murid tak juga genap sepuluh. Finally, time was up. It was already five after eleven and the total number of students still did not equal ten.



- Semangat besarku untuk sekolah perlahan-lahan runtuh. My overwhelming enthusiasm for school dwindled away.



- Aku melepaskan lengan ayahku dari pundakku. I took my father’s arms off my shoulders.



- Sahara menangis terisak-isak mendekap ibunya karena ia benar-benar ingin sekolah di SD Muhammadiyah. Sahara sobbed in her mother’s embrace because she really wanted to go to Muhammadiiyah Elementary School.



- Ia memakai sepatu, kaus kaki, jilbab, dan baju, serta telah punya



buku-buku, botol air minum, dan tas punggung yang semuanya baru. She wore socks and shoees, a jilbab, a blouse, and she also had books, a water bottle and a backpack- all were new.



- Pak Harfan menghampiri orangtua murid dan menyalami mereka satu per satu. Pak Harfan went up to the parents and greeted them one by one.



- Sebuah pemandangan yang pilu. It was devastating.



- Para orangtua menepuk-nepuk bahunya untuk membesarkan hatinya. Mata Bu Mus berkilauan karena air mata yang menggenang The parents patted him on the back to console him, and Bu Mus’s eyes glistened as they filled to the brim with tears.



- Pak Harfan berdiri di depan para orangtua, wajahnya muram. . Beliau bersiap-siap memberikan pidato terakhir. . Wajahnya tampak putus asa. Pak Harfan stood in front of the parents. He looked devastated as he prepared to give his final speeech.



- Namun ketika beliau akan mengucapkan kata pertama Assalamu’alaikum seluruh hadirin terperanjat karena Tripani berteriak sambil menunjuk ke pinggir lapangan rumput luas halaman sekolah itu. However, when he went to utter his first words, ‘Assalamu’alaikun, Peace be upon you’, Trapani yelled and pointed to the edge of the schoolyard., startling everyone.



- Kami serentak menoleh dan di kejauhan tampak seorang pria kurus tinggi berjalar terseok-seok. Immediately, we all turned to look, and off in the distance was a tall, skinny boy, clumsily headed our way.



- Pakaian dan sisiran rambutnya sangat rapi. His clothes and hairstye were vey neat.



- Ia berkemeja lengan panjang putih yang dimasukkan ke dalam. He wore a long-sleeved white shirt tucked into his shorts.



- Kaki dan langkahnya membentuk huruf x sehingga jika berjalan seluruh tubuhnya bergoyang-goyang hebat. His knees knocked together when he moved, forming an x as his boddy wobbled along.



- Seorang wanita gemuk setengah baya yang berseri-seri susah payah memeganginya. A plump, middle aged woman was trying with a great difficulty to hold onto him.



- Pria itu adalah Harun, pria jenaka sahabat kami semua, yang sudah berusia lima belas tahun dan agak terbelakang mentalnya. That boy was Harun, a funny boy and the good friends of ours. He was already 15 years old, the same agee as Bu Mus, but was a bit behind mentally.



- Ia sangat gembira dan berjalan cepat setengah berlari tak sabar menghampiri kami. He was extremely happy andd moving quickly, half running, as if he couldn’tt wait to get to us.



- Ia tak menghiraukan ibunya yang tercepuk-cepuk kewalahan menggandeng-nya. He paid no attention to his mother, who stumbled after him, trying to hold onto his hand.



- Mereka berdua hampir kehabisan napas ketika tiba di depan Pak Harfan. They were both nearly out of breath when they arrived in front of Pak Harfan.



- “Bapak Guru …, ” kata ibunya terengah-engah. “Bapak Guru,,” said his mother, gasping for breath



-



“Terimalah Harun, Pak, karena SLB hanya ada di Pulau Bangka, dan kami tak punya biaya untuk menyekolahkannya ke sana. “Please accept Harun. The Special Needs school is all the way on Bangka Island. We don’t have the money to send him there.”



- Lagi pula lebih baik kutitipkan dia disekolah ini daripada di rumah ia hanya mengejar -ngejar anak-anak ayamku ….. “And more importantly, it’s better that he’s here at this school rather than home, where just chases my chiks around.”



- Harun tersenyum lebar memamerkan gigi-giginya yang kuning panjang panjang. Harun smiled widely, showing his long, yellow teeth.



- Pak Harfan juga terseyum, beliau melirik Bu Mus sambil mengangkat bahunya. Pak Harfan was smiling tooo. He looked over to Bu Mus and shruggged his shoulders.



- “Genap sepuluh orang …,” katanya. “it makes ten,” he said.



- Harun telah menyelamatkan kami dan kami pun bersorak. Sahara berdiri tegak merapikan lipatan jilbabnya & menyandang tasnya dengan gagah, ia tak mau duduk lagi. Harun had saved us! We clapped and cheered. Sahara, who couldn’t sitt any longer, stood up straight to fix the folds on her jilbab and firmly threw on her backpack.



- Bu Mus tersipu. Air mata guru muda ini surut dan ia menyeka keringat di wajahnya yang belepotan karena bercampur dengan bedak tepung beras. Bu Mus blushed. The young teacher’s tears subsided, and she wiped the sweat from her powder-smudgeed face.



CHAPTER TWO (THE PINE TREE MAN)



- IBU Muslimah yang beberapa menit lalu sembab, gelisah, dan corengmoreng kini menjelma menjadi sekuntum Crinum giganteum. Bu Mus who, just have a few minutes earlier, had been on edge with a puffy, smudged face, now transformed into a budding Giant Himalayan Lily. - Sebab tiba-tiba ia mekar sumringah dan posturnya yang jangkung persis tangkai bunga itu. She held herself high like the poised stem of that beautiful flower. - Kerudungnya juga berwarna bunga crinum demikian pula bau bajunya, persis crinum yang mirip bau vanili. Her veil was the soft white of lily, and her clothes even gave off the flower’s vanilla aroma. - Sekarang dengan ceria beliau mengatur tempat duduk kami. She cheerfully began to assign our seats. - Bu Mus mendekati setiap orangtua murid di bangku panjang tadi, berdialog sebentar dengan ramah, dan mengabsen kami. Bu Mus went up to each parent seated on the long fore taking roll call. - Semua telah masuk ke dalam kelas, telah mendapatkan teman sebangkunya masing-masing, kecuali aku dan anak laki-laki kecil kotor berambut keriting merah yang tak kukenal tadi.



Everyone had already entered the classroom and gotten their deskmates, except for me and that smalll, dirty boy with the curly, red hair whom I didn’t know. - Ia tak bisa tenang. Anak ini berbau hangus seperti karet terbakar. He could not sit still, and he smelled like burnt rubber. - “Anak Pak Cik akan sebangku dengan Lintang,” kata Bu Mus pada ayahku. “Pak cik, your son will share a desk with Lintang,” Bu Mus said to my father. - Oh, itulah rupanya namanya, Lintang, sebuah nama yang aneh. Oh, so that is his name, Lintang. What a strange name. - Mendengar keputusan itu Lintang meronta-ronta ingin segera masuk kelas. Hearing the decision, Lintang squirmed around, struggling to break loose so he could enter the classroom. - Ayahnya berusaha keras menenangkannya, tapi ia memberontak, menepis pegangan ayahnya, melonjak, dan menghambur ke dalam kelas mencari bangku kosongnya sendiri. His father was trying hard to calm him down, but Lintang wriggled free,



pulling away from his father’s grasp, then jumped up and rushed into the class to find his seat on his own.



- I was left behind, watching from outside.



- Dibangku itu ia seumpama balita yang dinaikkan ke atas tank, girang tak alang kepalang, tak mau turun lagi. He was like a little kid sitting on a pony- delighted, not wanting to get down. - Ayah nya telah melepaskan belut yang licin itu, dan anaknya baru saja meloncati nasib, merebut pendidikan. He had just leapt over fate and grabbbed education by the horns. - Bu Mus menghampiri ayah Lintang. Bu Mus approached Lintang’s father. - Pria itu berpotongan seperti pohon cemara angin yang mati karena disambar petir: hitam, meranggas, kurus, dan kaku. He resembled a pine tree struck by lightning: black, withered, thin, and stiff.



- Beliau adalah seorang nelayan, namun pembukaan wajahnya yang mirip orang Bushman adalah raut wajah yang lembut, baik hati, dan menyimpan harap. He was a fisherman, but his face was like that of a kind shephred, showing he was a gentle, good-hearted and hopeful man. - Beliau pasti termasuk dalam sebagian besar warga negara Indonesia



yang menganggap bahwa pendidikan bukan hak asasi. However, like most Indonesian, he wasn’t aware that education is a basic human right.



- Tidak seperti kebanyakan nelayan, nada bicaranya pelan. Unlike other fisherman, he spoke softly. - Lalu beliau bercerita pada Bu Mus bahwa kemarin sore kawanan burung pelintang pulau mengunjungi pesisir. He told Bu Mus a story. “Yesterday,” he said neervously, “a flock of pelitang pulau birds visited the coast.” - He went on to tell her about how sacred birds perched momentarily on the tip of an almond tree, signaling that a storm was brewing, and the weather grew increasingly worse, stirring up the anger of the sea. - Belitong fishermen, like Lintang’s father, strongly believed those birds came to the island to warn of approaching storms. - Agaknya selama turun temurun keluarga laki-laki cemara angin itu tak mampu terangkat dari endemik kemiskinan komunitas Melayu yang menjadi nelayan. Without a doubt, all previous generations of men from this pine tree amn’s family were unable to lift themselves from the endemic cycle of poverty, inevitably becoming fishermen in the Malay community.



- Apalagi ia hanya semacam petani penggarap, bukan karena ia tak punya laut, tapi karena ia tak punya perahu. These fishermen were unable to work for themselves-not for lack of sea, but lack of boats. - Tahun ini beliau meng-inginkan perubahan dan ia memutuskan anak laki-laki tertuanya, Lintang, tak akan menjadi seperti dirinya. This year, Lintang’s father wanted to break that cycle. His eldest son, Lintang, would not become a fisherman like himself. - Lintang akan duduk di samping pria kecil berambut ikal yaitu aku, dan ia akan sekolah di sini lalu pulang pergi setiap hari naik sepeda. Instead, Lintang would sit beside the other small boy with curly hair- meand would ride a bike to and from school everyday.



- Jika panggilan nasibnya memang harus menjadi nelayan maka biarkan jalan kerikil batu merah empat puluh kilometer mematahkan semangatnya. If his true calling was to be a fisherman, then the 40-kilometer journey over a red gravel road would break his determination. - Bau hangus yang kucium tadi ternyata adalah bau sandal cunghai, yakni sandal yang dibuat dari ban mobil, yang aus karena Lintang terlalu jauh mengayuh sepeda. That burnt smell I noticed earlier was actually the smell of his cunghai sandals, made from car tires. They were worn down because Lintang had



pedaled his bicylce for so long.



- Keluarga Lintang berasal dari Tanjong Kelumpang, desa nun jauh di pinggir laut. Lintang’s family was from Tanjong Kelumpang, a village not far from the edge of the sea. - Menuju kesana harus melewati empat kawasan pohon nipah, tempat berawa-rawa yang dianggap seram di kampung kami. In order to get there, you had to pass through four thatch palm areas, swampy places that were hair- raising for people from our village. - Selain itu di sana juga tak jarang buaya sebesar pangkal pohon sagu melintasi jalan. In those spooky palm areas, it wasn’t uncommon to encounter a crocodile as large as a coconut tree crossing the road. - Kampung pesisir itu secara geografis dapat dikatakan sebagai wilayah paling timur di Sumatra, daerah minus nun jauh masuk ke pedalaman Pulau Belitong. Lintang’s coastal village was in the most eastern part of Sumatra and could be said to be the most isolated and impoverished part of Belitong Island. - Bagi Lintang, kota kecamatan, tempat sekolah kami ini, adalah metropolitan yang harus ditempuh dengan sepeda sejak subuh. Ah! Anak sekecil itu ….



For Lintang, the city district of our school was like a metropolitan city, and to get there he had to begin his bicycle journey at subuh, early morning prayer, around four o’clock a.m. Ah! A child that small.. - Ketika aku menyusul Lintang ke dalam kelas ia menyalamiku dengan kuat seperti pegangan tangan calon mertua yang menerima pinangan. When I caught up to Lintang inside the classroom, he greeted me with a strong handshake, like a father shaking hands with his daughter’s first suitor. - Energi yang berlebihan di tubuhnya serta-merta menjalar padaku laksana tersengat listrik. The overabundance an electric shock . - Ia berbicara tak henti- henti penuh minat dengan dialek Belitong yang lucu, tipikal orang Belitong pelosok. He talked withoung stopping, full of interest, in an amusing Belitong dialect, typical of those from remote areas. - Bola matanya bergerak-gerak cepat dan menyala-nyala. His eyes lit up as they glanced animatedly around the room. - Ia seperti pilea, bunga meriam itu, yang jika butiran air jatuh di atas daunnya, ia melontarkan tepung sari, semarak, spontan, mekar, dan penuh daya hidup. He was like an artillery plant. When drops of water of his petals, it shoots out pollen- glittering, blossoming and full of life. - Di dekatnya, aku merasa seperti ditantang mengambil ancang-ancang untuk sprint seratus meter. Being close to Lintang, I felt like I was being challenged to run in a



hundred-meter dash. - Sekencang apa engkau berlari? Begitulah makna tatapannya. “How fast can you ran?” his stare challenged. - Bu Mus then gave out forms for all of the parents to wrrite their names, occupations and addresses. - Each parent was busy filing out the form, except for Lintang’s father. - He hesitantly took the form and held onto it, tensely. - The form was like an alien oobject in his handds. - He looked to the left, and then to the right, seeing the other parents filling out the form. He stood up with a puzzled expressions. - “Ibu Guru,” he said slowly, “Forgive me, Icannot read or write.”



- Lintang’s father then added plaintively that he did noot even know the year of his own birth.



- Suddenly Lintang got up from his seat and went over to his father, took the form from his hands and eexclaimed, “I will be the one to fill out this form later, Ibunda Guru, after I have learned how to read and write!” - Everyone was startled to see Lintang, such a small child, defending his father.



- Aku sendiri masih bingung. I myself still felt confused. - Terlalu banyak perasaan untuk ditanggung seorang anak kecil dalam waktu demikian singkat. It was a lot of new things for a small child to experience in such a short amount of time. - Cemas, senang, gugup, malu, teman baru, guru baru … semuanya bercampur aduk. Anxiety, happines, worry, embrassement, new friends, new teachers, all of them stirred about inside of me. - Ditambah lagi satu perasaan ngilu karena sepasang sepatu baru yang dibelikan ibuku. One more thing made matters even worse: a new pair of shoes my mother had bought me. - Sepatu ini selalu kusembunyikan ke belakang. Aku selalu menekuk lututku karena warna sepatu itu hitam bergaris-garis putih maka ia tampak seperti sepatu sepak bola, jelek sekali. . Bahannya pun dari plastik yang keras. I tried to hide the sight of my shoes by tucking my feet behind me. Black with white strips and made of hard plastic, they looked like really ugly soccer shoes. - Abang-abangku sakit perut menahan tawa melihat sepatu itu waktu kami sarapan pagi tadi. This morning at breakfastt, my older brothers laughed so hard their stomachs hurt. - Tapi pandangan ayahku menyuruh mereka bungkam, membuat perut mereka kaku.



One look from my father was enough to silence them. - Kakiku sakit dan hatiku malu dibuat sepatu ini. But my feet hurt and my embrrassed, both because of these shoes. - Sementara itu, kepala Lintang terus berputar-putar seperti burung hantu. In the meantime, Lintang’s head was spinning around like an owl’s. - Baginya, penggaris kayu satu meter, vas bunga tanah liat hasil prakarya anak kelas enam di atas meja Bu Mus, papan tulis lusuh, dan kapur tumpul yang berserakan di atas lantai kelas yang sebagian telah menjadi tanah, adalah hal- hal yang menakjubkan. For him, the miscellany of our classsroom- a wooden ruler, a sixth grade student’s clay vase art project sitting on Bu Mus’ desk, the old-fashioned chalkboard and the chalk scattered about on the classroom floor, some of which had already been ground back into dust- was absolutely amazing. - Kemudian kulihat lagi pria cemara angin itu. Melihat anaknya demikian bergairah ia tersenyum getir. Then I saw Lintang’s father, the pine tree man, watching his son grow increasingly excited, with a bittersweet smile. - Aku mengerti bahwa pria yang tak tahu tanggal dan bulan kelahirannya itu gamang membayangkan kehancuran hati anaknya jika sampai drop out saat kelas dua atau tiga SMP nanti karena alasan klasik: biaya atau tuntutan nafkah. I understood. This was a man who didn’t even know his own birthday, imagining his son’s broken heart if he had to drop out in the first or second year of junior high for the classic reasons of money or the unfair demands of life. - Bagi beliau pendidikan adalah enigma, sebuah misteri.



For him, education was an enigma. - Dari empat garis generasi yang diingatnya, baru Lintang yang sekolah. For as far back as Lintang’s father could remember, through four generations of their family, Lintang was the first to go to school. - Generasi kelima sebelumnya adalah masa antediluvium, suatu masa yang amat lampau ketika orang-orang Melayu masih berkelana sebagai nomad. Many generations beyond his recollection, their ancestors lived durring the antediluvian period, a time long ago when the Malay people lived as nomads. - Mereka berpakaian kulit kayu dan menyembah bulan. They wore clothing made from bark, slept in the branches of tree, and worshipped the moon. - UMUMNYA Bu Mus mengelompokkan tempat duduk kami berdasarkan kemiripan. By and large, Bu Mus made our seating assignments based on who looked alike. - Trapani tak tertarik dengan kelas, ia mencuri-curi pandang ke jendela, melirik kepala ibunya yang muncul sekali-sekali di antara kepala orangtua lainnya. Trapani wasn’t interested in the class; he kept stealing glances out the window, watching for his mother’s head to pop up every once in a while among the headds of the other parents. - Tingkah ini diikuti Sahara yang sengaja menumpahkan air minum A Kiong sehingga anak Hokian itu menangis sejadi-jadinya seperti orang ketakutan dipeluk setan. On top of this, Sahara, that small, veil-weearing girl, deliberately knocked



over A Kiong’s water bottle, causing the Hokian- Chinese child to cry like he had seen a ghost. - Kejadian itu menandai perseteruan mereka yang akan berlangsung akut bertahun-tahun That water bottle affair marked the beginning of a rivalry between them that would carry on for years to come. - Tangisan A Kiong nyaris merusak acara perkenalan yang menyenangkan pagi itu. A Kiong’s crying nearly put a damper on that morning’s pleasant introductions. - Bukankah pensil semacam itu dipakai para tukang jahit untuk menggaris kain? Wasn’t that the kind of pencil tailors used to make marks on clothing? - Bukankah buku semacam itu baru akan kami pakai nanti saat kelas dua untuk pelajaran menulis rangkai indah? Wasn’t that the kind of book we would use in the seecong grade when we learned how to write in cursive? - TAK susah melukiskan sekolah kami, karena sekolah kami adalah salah satu dari ratusan atau mungkin ribuan sekolah miskin di seantero negeri ini yang jika disenggol sedikit saja oleh kambing yang senewen ingin kawin, bisa rubuh berantakan. It isn’t very hard to describe our sschool. It was one among hundredsmaybe thousands- of poor schools in Indonesia that, if bumped by a frenzied goat preparing to mate, would collapse and fall to pieces. - Our school was built on the edge of a forest, so when nature called, all we had to do was slip off into the bushes.



- Itulah pil APC yang legendaris di kalangan rakyat pinggiran Belitong. Obat ajaib yang bisa menyembuhkan segala rupa penyakit. The APC pill was legendary throughout the outskirts of Belitong as a magic medicine that coould cure any illness. - This generic cure-all was the government’s solution to make up for the underallocation of healthcare funds for the poor. - Ketika asap putih tebal mengepul seperti kebakaran hebat, kami pun bersorak- sorak kegirangan. Whenever the thick white pufffs arrose like smoke signals, we cheered and shouted with joy. - Kata-kata itu melekat dalam kalbu kami sampai dewasa nanti. Katakata yang begitu kami kenal seperti kami mengenal bau alami ibu-ibu kami. Those words were ingrained in our souls and remained there throughout the journey to adulthood; we knew them like thee back of our hands. - Jika dilihat dari jauh sekolah kami seolah akan tumpah karena tiangtiang kayu yang tua sudah tak tegak menahan atap sirap yang berat. - If seen from afar, our school looked like it was about to tumble over. The old wooden beams were slanted, unable to endure the weight of the heavy roof. - The atmosphere inside the class could be decribed with words like these: underutilized, ashtonishing, and bitterly touching. Underutilized, among other things, was a decrepit glass display case with a door that wouldn’t stay closed. - It was pathetic fixture completely void of content because no government officials wanted to visit our teachers, there were no graduates to be prooud of, and we certainly haddn’t achieeved anything prestigious yet.



- Poster itu memperlihatkan gambar seorang pria berjenggot lebat, memakai jubah, dan ia memegang sebuah gitar penuh gaya. The poster showed a man with a dense beard. He wore a long, flowing robe and had a guitar stylishly slung over his shoulder. - Di dalam gambar tersebut sang pria tadi melongok ke langit dan banyak sekali uang-uang kertas serta logam berjatuhan menimpa wajahnya. He was sneaking a peek at the sky, and a lot of money was falling down toward his face. - No one ever came to inspect whether or not we had the mandatory pictures hanging, since the school board barely acknowledgeed our existence. - His thick mustache was connected to a dense brown beard, dull and sprinkled with grays. - Jika kita bertanya tentang jenggotnya yang awut-awtuan, beliau tidak akan repot-repot berdalih tapi segera menyodorkan sebuah buku karya Maulana Muhammad Zakariyya Al Kandhallawi Rah, R.A. yang berjudul Keutamaan Memelihara Jenggot . If anyone asked Pak Harfan about his tangled beard, he wouldn’t botheer giving an explanation but instead would handd them a copy of a book titled Keutamaan Memelihara Jengggot, or The Excellence of Caing for a Beard. - Cukup membaca pengantarnya saja Anda akan merasa malu sudah bertanya. Reading the introduction alone was nough to make anyone ashamed of having asked the question in the first place. - Hari ini Pak Harfan mengenakan baju takwa yang dulu pasti berwarna



hijau tapi kini warnanya pudar menjadi putih. On the first day, Pak Harfan wore a simple shirt that at the same point must have been green, but was now white. - Bekas-bekas warna hijau masih kelihatan di baju itu. The shirt was still shadowed by faint traces of color. - Kaus dalamnya berlubang di beberapa bagian dan beliau mengenakan celana panjang yang lusuh karena terlalu sering dicuci. His undershirt was full of holes and his pants were faded from being washed one too many times. - Seutas ikat pinggang plastik murahan bermotif ketupat melilit tubuhnya. The cheap, braided plastic belt hugging his body had many notches. - He supported his family from a crop garden in the yard of their home. - Karena penampilan Pak Harfan agak seperti beruang madu maka ketika pertama kali melihatnya kami merasa takut. Because Pak Harfan looked quite like a grizzly bear, we were scared the first time we saw him. - Anak kecil yang tak kuat mental bisa-bisa langsung terkena sawan. Small children would throw a fit at the sight of him. - Namun, ketika beliau angkat bicara, tak dinyana, meluncurlah mutiara- mutiara nan puitis sebagai prolog penerimaan selamat datang penuh atmosfer sukacita di sekolahnya yang sederhana. But when he began to speak to us that first morning, his welcome address emerged like poetic pearls of wisdom, and a joyous atmosphere enveloped his humble school.



- Kemudian dalam waktu yang amat singkat beliau telah merebut hati kami. Almost immediately, he won our hearts. - Bapak yang jahitan kerah kemejanya telah lepas itu bercerita tentang perahu Nabi Nuh serta pasangan-pasangan binatang yang selamat dari banjir bandang. Pak Harfan’s threadbare collar hung loose as he told us the tale of Noah’s Ark and the pairs of animals saved from the epic flood. -



“Mereka yang ingkar telah diingatkan bahwa air bah akan datang …,” demikian ceritanya dengan wajah penuh penghayatan. “ there were those who refused to heed the warning that flood waters were coming,” he said, beginning his story animatedly.



- Cerita selanjutnya sangat memukau. Sebuah cerita peperangan besar zaman Rasulullah di mana kekuatan dibentuk oleh iman bukan oleh jumlah tentara: perang Badar! He went on to tell a mesmerizing story of a historical war during the time of Prophet in which the forces were comprised of priests, not soldiers: the Badar War. - Kami ternganga karena suara Pak Harfan yang berat menggetarkan benang-ben ang halus dalam kalbu kami. We were flabbergasted; Pak Harfan’s heavy voice had shaken the threads of our souls. - Kami menanti liku demi liku cerita dalam detik-detik menegangkan dengan dada berkobar-kobar ingin membela perjuangan para penegak Islam. We leaned forward waiting for more, straining our spirited chests, wanting to defend the struggle of our religious forefathers.



- Lalu Pak Harfan mendinginkan suasana yang berkisah tentang penderitaan dan tekanan yang dialami seorang pria bernama Zubair bin Awam. Then Pak Harfan cooled down the mood with a story of the suffering experienced by the founders of our school- how they were suppresed by the colonial Dutch, abandoned by the government, cared about by no one, but nonetheless stood firmly to pursue their big dreams for education. - Pak Harfan menceritakan semua itu dengan semangat perang badar sekaligus setenang hembusan angin pagi. Pak Harfan told all of his tales with the enthusiasm of his telling of the Badar War, but the same time, with the serenity of the morning breeze. - Kami terpesona pada setiap pilihan kata dan gerak lakunya yang memikat. We were spellbound by his every word and gesture. - Ada semacam pengaruh yang lembut dan baik terpancar darinya. There was a gentle influence and goodness about him. - Ia mengesankan sebagai pria yang kenyang akan pahit getir perjuangan dan kesusahan hidup, berpengetahuan seluas samudra, bijak, berani mengambil risiko, dan menikmati daya tarik dalam mencari-cari bagaimana cara menjelaskan sesuatu agar setiap orang mengerti. His demeanor was that of a wise, brave man who had been through life’s bitter diffficulties, had knowledge as vast as the ocean, was willing to take risks, and was genuinely interested in explaining things in ways that others could understand. - Even that first day, we could tell Pak Harfan was truly in his element in front of the students. - Pak Harfan tampak amat bahagia menghadapi murid, tipikal “guru”



yang sesungguhnya, seperti dalam lingua asalnya, India, yaitu orang yang tak hanya mentransfer sebuah pelajaran, tapi juga yang secara pribadi menjadi sahabat dan pembimbing spiritual bagi muridnya. He was a guru in the true sense of the world, its Hindi meaning: a person who not only transfers knowledge but who also is a friend and spiritual guide for his students.



- Beliau sering menaikturunkan intonasi, menekan kedua ujung meja sambil mempertegas kata-kata tertentu, dan mengangkat kedua tangannya laksana orang berdoa minta hujan. He often raised and lowered his intonation, holding the edges of his desk while emphasizing certain words andd then throwing up both hands like someone performing a rain dance. - Ketika mengajukan pertanyaan beliau berlari-lari kecil mendekati kami, menatap kami penuh arti dengan pandangan matanya yang teduh seolah kami adalah anak-anak Melayu yang paling berharga. When we asked questions in class, he would run toward us in small steps, staring at us meaningfully with is calm eyees as if we were the most precious of Malay children. - Lalu membisikkan sesuatu di telinga kami, menyitir dengan lancarayatayat suci, menantang pengetahuan kami, berpantun, membelai hati kami dengan wawasan ilmu, lalu diam, diam berpikir seperti kekasih merindu, indah sekali. He whispered into our ears, fluently recited poetry and Koranic verses, challenged our comprehension, touched our hearts with knowleedge, and



then fell silent, like one daydreaaming about a long lost love. - Beliau menorehkan benang merah kebenaran hidup yang sederhana melalui kata- katanya yang ringan namun bertenaga seumpama titiktitik air hujan. Through humble words, as powerful as raindrops, he brought to us the very essence of the simple life’s righteousness. - Beliau mengobarkan semangat kami untuk belajar dan membuat kami tercengang dengan petuahnya tentang keberanian pantang men yerah melawan kesulitan apa pun. He inspired us to study and dazzleed us with his advice to never surrender in the face of difficulties. - Pak Harfan memberi kami pelajaran pertama tentang keteguhan pendirian, tentang ketekunan, tentang keinginan kuat untuk mencapai cita- cita. - Our first lesson from Pak Harfan was about standing firmly with conviction and a strong desire to reach our dreams. - Beliau meyakinkan kami bahwa hidup bisa demikian bahagia dalam keterbatasan jika dimaknai dengan keikhlasan berkorban untuk sesama. He convinced us that life could be happy even in poverty, so long as, with spirit, one gave, rather than took, as much as one could. - Kami tak berkedip menatap sang juru kisah yang ulung ini. - We didn’t even blink watching this magnificient story-teller. - Pria ini buruk rupa dan buruk pula setiapapa yang di-sandangnya, tapi pemikirannya jernih dan kata-katanya bercahaya. - He was a worn-out looking man with shabby clothing, but his pure thinking and words shone brightly.



- Jika ia mengucapkan sesuatu kami pun terpaku menyimaknya dan tak sabar menunggu untaian kata berikutnya. When he spoke, we listened, fixed in enchantment and observing intently, impatiently waiting for his next string of words. - Ada keindahan di sekolah Islam melarat ini. Keindahan yang tak ‘kan kutukar dengan seribu kemewahan sekolah lain. There was a beauty in this poor school, a beauty that I wouldn’t trade for a thousand luxurious schools. - Setiap kali Pak Harfan ingin menguji apa yang telah diceritakannya kami berebutan mengangkat tangan, bahkan kami mengacung meskipun beliau tak bertanya, dan kami mengacung walaupun kami tak pasti akan jawaban. When Pak Harfan wanted to test us on the storry he just finished, our hands shot up- even though we weren’t sure whether or not wee knew the answer- and vied for the chance to answer before he even had a chance to ask his question. - Sayangnya bapak yang penuh daya tarik ini harus mohon diri. Sadly, the energetic and captivating teacheer had to excuse himself from the class, because his session was over. - Kami mengikuti setiap inci langkahnya ketika meninggalkan kelas. We followed each inch of his trail until he left the classroom. - Pandangan kami melekat tak lepas-lepas darinya karena kami telah jatuh cinta padanya. Beliau telah membuat kami menyayangi sekolah tua ini. Our stares could not be torn away because we had fallen in love with him and he had already made us fall in love with this old school.



- Kuliah umum dari Pak Harfan di hari pertama kami masuk SD Muhammadiyah langsung menancapkan tekad dalam hati kami untuk membela sekolah yang hampir rubuh ini, apa pun yang terjadi. The general course from Pak Harfan on our first day at Muhammadiyah Elementary School strongly imbedded in our hearts the desirre to defend this nearly collapsing schoool, no matter what. -



Tangan kirinya memegang botol air yang kosong—karena isinya tadi ditumpahkan Sahara—dan tangan kanannya menggenggam kuat tutup botol itu. He clucthed an empty water bottle in his left hand- empty because Sahara had spilled its contents- and stromgly held onto its lid with his right.



- A Kiong menatap Bu Mus dengan ragu kemudian ia kembali tersenyum. A Kiong stared hesitantly at Bu Mus, and then went back to smiling.



His father made his way up through the crowd of parents, wanting to see his child in action. - “Silakan ananda …,” Bu Mus meminta sekali lagi dengan sabar. “Go ahead,” Bu Mus nodged once more. - Ia berkali-kali melirik bapaknya yang kelihatan tak sabar. He kept glancing at his father, who appeared to be growing more impatient by the second. - Aku dapat membaca pikiran ayahnya, “Ayolah anakku, kuatkan hatimu, sebutkan namamu! Paling tidak sebutkan nama bapakmu ini, sekali saja! Jangan bikin malu orang Hokian!” I could read his father’s mind: “Come on son, strenghten our heart and say your name! At least, your father’s name, just once! Don’t shame the



Hokians!” - Bu Mus membujuknya lagi. Bu Mus coaxed him one last time - A Kiong malah semakin senang. Ia masih sama sekali tak menjawab. But instead of showing dejeection at his failure to answer, A Kiong became even happier. -



Ia tersenyum lebar, matanya yang sipit menghilang. His smile was wide and his chipmunk cheeks flushed with color.



- Maka berakhirlah perkenalan di bulan Februari yang mengesankan itu. And so ended the introductions in that memorable month of February.



CHAPTER FIVE (FLO) - PULAU Belitong yang makmur seperti mengasingkan diri dari tanah Sumatra yang membujur dan di sana mengalir kebudayaan Melayu yang tua. The small island of Belitong is the richest island in Indonesia, probably in the world. It is part of Sumatra, but because of its wealth, it has alienated itself. There, on that remote island, ancient Malay culture crept in from Malacca...



Deep under the swampy land, a treasure flowed: tin. Bleesed tin. A handful was sorth more than dozens of bucket of rice.



Like the tower of Babel, the metaphoric stairway to heaven and symbol of power, tin in Belitong was a tower of prosperity incessant as the pounding of ocean waves.



If one plunged his arm down into the shallow alluvial surface, or pretty much anywhere at all, it would shimmering, smeared with tin.



Seen from off the coast, Belitong beamed of shiny tin, like a lighthouse guiding ship captains. Instead, God had intended for the tin to be a guide for the inhabitants of the island itself.



Had they taken God’s gift for granted- until later they lost everything, like when the almighty punished the Lemurians?



The tin shone late into the night.



If seen from the air at night, Belitong resembled a school of comb jellies glowing brightly, emitting blue light in the darkness of the sea; by itself, small, gleaming, beautiful and abundant.



And bleesed is the island where tin flows, because like a widow flower swarming with honeybees, tin is always accompanied by other materials: clay, xenotime, zirconium, gold, silver, topaz, galena, copper, quartzm



silica, granite, monazite, ilmenite, siderite, and hemanite.



Layers of riches stirred below the stilted houses where we lived our deprived lives.



We, the natives of Belitong, were like a pack of starving rats in a barn full of rice.



PN operates 16 dredges.



It was a pulsing vein with a complete power monopoly over the whole island of Belitong.



They were like giant, greedy snakes that knew no exhaustion.



They were as long as football fields, and nothing could stand in their way. They smashed coral reefs, took down trees with trunks the size of small houses, demolished brick buildings with one blow, and completely pulverized an entire village.



They roamed over mountain slopes, fields, valleys, seas, lakes, rivers and swamp.



They dredging sounded like roaring dinosaurs.



We would follow along, beating on tambourines while he waddled backwarrds like a penguin.



His journey usually ended with him bottom up in a ditch.



And not only were the assets seized, but also the feudalistic mentality.



Even after Indonesia gained its freedom, PN’s treatment of its native employees remained very discriminatory.



The treatment differed bassed on caste-like groups. - Maka lahirlah kaum menak, implikasi dari institusi yang ingin memelihara citra aristokrat. PN melimpahi orang staf dengan penghasilan dan fasilitas kesehatan, pendidikan, promosi, transportasi, hiburan, dan logistik yang sangat diskriminatif dibanding kompensasi yang diberikan kepada mereka yang bukan orang staf. Because Belitong had already become a corporate village, PN slowly assumed the form of a dominant hegemonic ruler and, fitting with the feudalistic design, the caste of a PN worker automatically bled over into non-working hours. - Mereka, kaum borjuis ini, bersemayam di kawasan eksklusif yang disebut Gedong. The staff- almost none of whom were Belitong- Malays- lived in an elite area called Estate.



- Gedong lebih seperti sebuah kota satelit yang dijaga ketat oleh para Polsus (Polisi Khusus) Timah. Jika ada yang lancang masuk maka koboikoboi tengik itu akan menyergap, mengintergoasi, lalu interogasi akan ditutup dengan mengingatkan sang tangkapan pada tulisan “DILARANG MASUK BAGI YANG TIDAK MEMILIKI HAK” yang bertaburan secara mencolok pada berbagai akses dan fasilitas di sana, sebuah power Statement tipikal kompeni. This area was tightly guarded by security, fences, high walls and harsh warnings posted everywhere in three languages: Formal colonial-style Indonesian, Chinese and Dutch. - Kawasan warisan Belanda ini menjunjung tinggi kesan menjaga jarak, dan kesan itu diperkuat oleh jajaran pohon-pohon saga tua yang menjatuhkan butir-butir buah semerah darah di atas kap mobil-mobil mahal yang berjejal-jejal sampai keluar garasi. In our eyes- the eyes of poor village children- the Estate looked like it said, “Keep your distance.” That impression was reinforced by a row of tall pinnate trees dropping blood-red pellets on the roofs of the expensive can pilled up at the garage exit. - Disana, rumah-rumah mewah besar bergaya Victoria memiliki jendelajendela kaca lebar dan tinggi dengan tirai yang berlapis-lapis laksana layar bioskop. The luxurious houses of the Estate were built in the Victorian style. Their curtains were layered and resembled movie theatre screens. - Di dalamnya hidup tenteram sebuah keluarga kecil dengan dua atau tiga-anak yang selalu tampak damai, temaram, dan sejuk. Inside, small families lived peacefully, with two, maybe three children at the most. -



Rumah-rumah itu ditempatkan pada kontur yang agak tinggi sehingga



kelihatan seperti kastil-kastil kaum bangsawan.. The Estate was located on a high curve, giving the Victorian houses the appearance of nobles’ castles.. - Setiap rumah memiliki empat bangunan terpisah yang disambungkan oleh selasar- selasar panjang. Itulah rumah utama sang majikan, rumah bagi para pembantu, garasi, dan gudang- gudang. Each house consisted of four separate structure: the main chambers for the owners, the servants’ quarters, the garage and the storage unit. - Selasar-selasar itu mengelilingi kolam kecil All of them were connected by long, open terraces encircling a small pond. - Di tengahnya terdapat patung anak-anak gendut semacam Manequin Piss legenda negeri Belgia yang menyemprotkan air mancur sepanjang waktu dari kemaluan kecilnya yang lucu. In the center stood a statue of a potbellied child, the legendary Belgian peeing mannequin that always sprayed water out of its embarassingly funny little piece. - Pot-pot kayu anggrek mahal Tainia shimadai Dan Chysis digantungkan berderet- deret di bibir atap selasar Pots of silver ball cacti hung in rows on the rim of the roof. There was a special worker to tend to the flowers. - Di luar lingkar kolam didirikan sebuah kandang berlubang kotak-kotak kecil persegi berbentuk piramida yang berseni dan ditopang oelh sebuah pilar bergaya Romawi, itulah rumah burung merpati Inggris. Outside the circumference of the pond stood a square cage decorated with Roman pillars. It was the home of the English pigeons, voracious but tame. - Jika duduk di atasnya seseorang dapat merasa dirinya seperti seorang



paduka raja. Sitting on it, one felt like an exalted King. -



Di samping ruang tamu adalah ruang makan tempat para penghuni rumah makan malam mengenakan busana senja yang terbaik dan bersepatu. Next to the living room strecthed a long, intricate corridor.



Expensive paintings of high artistic value, which, because of their greatness, were difficult to understand, hung along the corridor walls.



My friend, if you were trying to get from the living room to the dining room and you weren’t paying atttention, you would get lost because of the abundance of doors in that house.



The occupants of the housee ate dinner weearring ttheeir best clothesthey even put on ttheir shoes for the meal. - Mereka makan dengan tenang sembari mendengarkan music klasik yang elegan: Mozart: Haffner No. 35 in D Major. Mereka mematuhi table manner’ Setelah melampirkan serbet di atas pangkuannya makan malam dimulai nyaris tanpa suara dan tak ada seorang pun yang menekan bibir meja dengan sikunya. After placing their napkins on their laps, tthey ate without making any peep while listening to classical music, maybe Mozart’s Haffner No. 35 in D Major. And no one put their elbows on the table.



On this serene night, the atmosphere of the Estate was very still.



- Tenang dan tidak berisik, kecuali sedikit bunyi, rupanya anjing pudel sedang mengejar beberapa ekor kucing anggora. There was almost utter silence. There was some playful noise coming from the corner over there, but wait, it was just a poddle meessing around with a few angora cats. - Namun, selain suara hewan-hewan lucu itu sore ini terdengar lamatlamat denting piano dari salah satu kastil Victoria yang tertutup rapat berpilar-pilar itu. A housemaid, after being snapped at by her boss, broke up the cute animals, and it was quiet once again. Not much later, the sound of tinkling piano keys escaped faintly from one of the tall- pillared Victorian homes. - Kedua tangannya menopang wajah murungnya sambil menguap berulangulang... Her chin rested on both of her hands, and she yawned over and over again. - Ia geram pada tingkah si tomboi dan malu pada sang guru, seorang wanita berkacamata, setengah baya, berwajah cerdas dan hanya bisa tersenyum-senyum. He was infuriated by the behavior of the tomboy and embarrased in front of the private piano teacher,, a middle-aged, well-mannered Javanese woman. - Sebagai Mollen Bas, beliau sanggup mengendalikan shift ribuan karyawan, memperbaiki kerusakan kapal keruk yang tenaga-tenaga ahli asing sendiri sudah menyerah, dan mengendalikan aset produksi miliaran dolar. Flo’s father was capable of managing the shifts of thousands of workkers, competent in solving the most difficult of technical problems, succesful in overseeing million- dollar assets, but when faced with this small girl, his youngest, he just about gave up.



- Semakin keras suara bapaknya menghardik semakin lebar Flo menguap. The louder Flo’s father scolded her, the wider yawns became. - Guru privat itu memperkenalkan dengan lembut notasi do, mi, sol, si dalam lintasan empat oktaf dan memperlihatkan posisi jari-jemari pada setiap notasi itu sebagai dasar bagi Flo untuk berlatih fingering . The private teacher meekly started with the notations do, mi, so, ti, moving across four octaves, and showing the fngeer position for each notation, a basic hand- positioning exercise. The difference between this school and ours was like the difference between land and sky. - Aku termenung I became lost in thought. - Aku tak bisa tidur akibat pusing menghitung berapa banyak jumlah guru di sekolah PN, tentu saja juga selain karena rasa senang akan masuk sekolah besok. I was dizzy trying to count how many teachers the PN School had- and also of course because I was excited about starting school the next day..



Not nerve- wracking like at our school. - Puluhan mobil mewah berderet di depan sekolah dan ratusan anak orang kaya mendaftar. Dozens of fancy cars lined up in front of school. Hundreds of wealthy children enrolled. - Seragamnya untuk hari Senin adalah baju biru bermotif bunga rambat yang indah.



The uniform for Mondays was a blue shirt with a beautiful floral print.



Whenever that vehicle passed us, we stopped, stared in amazement from the side of the road, and admired it. - Kepala sekolahnya adalah seorang pejabat penting, Ibu Frischa namanya. Ia seorang wanita keras yang terpelajar, progresif, ambisius, dan sering habis- habisan menghina sekolah kampung. The principal of the PN School was named Ibu Frischa, highly educated and very concerned with prestige. - Gerak geriknya diatur sedemikian rupa sebagai penegasan kelas sosialnya. Di dekatnya siapa pun akan merasa terintimidasi. She managed her gestures in a way that accentuated her social class. Up close, anyone would fell intimidated. - Caranya ber- make up jelas memperlihatkan dirinya sedang bertempur mati-matian melawan usia dan tampak jelas pula, dalam pertempuran itu, beliau telah kalah. It was clear by the way she wore her makeup that she was fighting her age; it also was clear that it was a battle she had already lost.



The PN School was Belitong’s most discriminating club.



This mean that the children of fishermen, pipe carriers, daily paid laborers or hard laborers sifting tin, like our parents, and especially native children of Belitong, didn’t have the least opportunity to receive a good education.



If they wanted to go to school, they were forced to join the Muhammadiyah village school, would if cassered by just a little bit of sstrong wind, could fall apart.



This was the most ironic thing in our lives: the glory of the Estate and the glamour of the PN School were funded cent by cent frrom the tin that was scraped out of our homeland.



Like the hanging gardens of Babylon built for the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar III for worshiping the god Marduk, the Estate was a Belitong landmark built to continue the dark dream of spreading colonization.



Its goal was to give power to a few people to oppress many, to educate a few people in order to male the others docile. The worshiped god wwas none other than status, status built through the unjust treatment of the poor native inabitants.



CHAPTER 6 (THOSE WITHOUT THE RIGHT)



- TAK disangsikan, jika di- zoom out , kampung kami adalah kampung terkaya di Indonesia. Without a doubt, if one were to zoom out, our village would apppear to be



richest village in the world. - Triliunan rupiah aset tertanam di sana, miliaran rupiah uang berputar sangat cepat seperti putaran mesin parut, The amount of mines sprawled across the land was unimaginable and trilions of rupiah were invested here. - Dan miliaran dolar devisa mengalir deras seperti kawanan tikus terpanggil pemain seruling ajaib Der Rattenfanger von Hameln. Billions of dollars flowed in like rats drawn to the melody of the Pied Piper’s flute. - Namun jika di- zoom in, kekayaan itu terperangkap di satu tempat, ia tertimbun di dalam batas tembok-tembok tinggi Gedong. Yet, zooming back in, the wealth of the island was visibly trapped in one place, pilled up inside the fortress walls of the Estate. - Hanya beberapa jengkal di luar lingkaran tembok tersaji pemandangan kontras seperti langit dan bumi. Just an arm’s length outside of those fortres walls spanned a strikingly contradictory sight, like a village chicken sitting next to peacock. - Di sana, di luar lingkar tembok Gedong hidup komunitas Melayu Belitong yang jika belum punya enam anak belum berhenti beranak pinak. There lived the native Belitong- Malays, and if they didn’t have eight children, then they weren’t done trying. It would be an exaggeration to call our village a slum, but it would not be wrong to say it was a laborers’ village shadowed by an endless eclipse since the dawn of the industrial revolution.



Belitong island, one of the first places in Indonesia occupied by the Dutch, had been oppressed for seven generattions, when suddenly, in the blink of an eye, hundreds of years of the drought of misery were drenched in one night by a rain of torment: the arrrival of the Japanese.



“ my son, the soldiers who never let go of their bayonets’ snouts turned our world into a hell.”



His innocent eyes reflected the anguish of a man whose dignity had been wounded and house land had been robbed. - Adapun pekarangan rumah orang Melayu ditumbuhi jarak pagar, beluntas, beledu, kembang sepatu, dan semak belukar yang membosankan. Our yard, overgrown with shrrubs, velvet, and shoe flowers, was boring. -



Pagar kayu saling-silang di parit bersemak di mana tergenang air mati berwarna cokelat—juga sangat membosankan. Our crisscrossed fence, which leaned over the edge of the ditches filled with still, brown water and mosquito nests, was also boring.



- Di antara rumah panggung itu berdesak-desakan kantor polisi, gudanggudang logistik PN, kantor telepon, toapekong, kantor camat, gardu listrik, KUA, masjid, kantor pos, bangunan pemerintah—yang dibuat tanpa perencanaan yang masuk akal sehingga menjadi bangunan kosong telantar, tandon air, warung kopi, rumah gadai yang selalu dipenuhi pengunjung, dan rumah panjang suku Sawang. Our stilted, worn- out house was crammed into the same area as the police station, the PN logistics building, Chinese temples, the village office, the religious affairs office, dorms for dock collies, sailors’



barracks, the water tower, Chinese- Malay stores, dozens of coffee warung- traditional roadside stalls- and pawn shops always full of visitors. At the edge of the village, tucked away in a corner, was the long house of the Sawang tribe.



The rest were government offices, built with no logical plan in mind, and eventually abandoned, or used for official projects, legal, and halal (permissible by Islamic Law).



As for the Malays, they lived like puppets- controlled by a small and comical but very powerful puppet master called a siren.



The siren roared from the PN central office.



Immediately, PN coolies bustled about, emergiing from every corner of the village to line up along the side of the road, jumping and jamming themselves into the backs of trucks which would bring them to the dredges.



The villagee fell quite again.



The sounds of pestles pounding against wooden mortars incessantly echoed from one stilted house to another, but when thee clock struck five, the shiren shrieked once again. The coolies dispersed to go home like ants fleeing a burning anthill.



- Kekuatan ekonomi Belitong dipimpin oleh orang staf PN dan para cukong swasta yang mengerjakan setiap konsesi eksploitasi timah. The economics strength of Belitong Island was dominated by the Staff living in the Estate.



But we didn’t know these underhanded, behind- the- scenes people or where they lived.



They sat prosperously on the highest throne in the most exclusive class.



They were the biggest benefactors of the riches of our island. - Kelas menengah tak ada, oh atau mungkin juga ada, yaitu para camat, para kepala dinas dan pejabat-pejabat publik yang korupsi kecilkecilan, dan aparat pen egak hukum yang mendapat uang dari menggertaki cukong- cukong itu. There was no middle class, or maybe there was- the public servants who engaged in small- scale corruption, or the law officers who took in extra money by intimidating the bussinessmen.



The lowest class was occupied by our parents, the PN coolies.



But, dont worry, beccause surely, as sure as they coming of the judgment day, the coolies got an annual raise accompanied by a very personal messsage: with this raise, we would like to show the company’s appreciation for your hard work and to thank you for making the company proud.



CHAPTER 7 (HIS FIRST PROMISE) - FILICIUM decipiens biasa ditanam botanikus untuk mengundang burung. FILICIUM DEPICIENS are usually planted by botanists to attract birds. - Daunnya lebat tak kenal musim. Their bountiful leaves know no season.



- Sebelum menyerbu filicium , serindit Melayu terlebih dulu melakukan pengawasan dari dahan-dahan tinggi ganitri sambil jungkir balik seperti pemain trapeze . Gorgeous parakeets would often visit them, and before attacking our filicium, those lovely green birds would first survey the area from the branches of a tall ganitri treee behind our school, scouting out the possibility of competitors or enemies.



Then, with lightning speed, those voracious birds would dive down and plunder the small fruits of the filicium with their razor- shap beaks. - Unggas mungil rakus ini menjarah buah-buah kecil filicium dengan kepala waspada menoleh ke kiri dan kanan. While eating, they constantly turned their heads to the left and right in a paranoid fashion. - Pelajaran moral nomor tiga: “Jika Anda cantik, hidup Anda tak tenang.. Moral lesson number three: if you are gorgeous, you will not lead a peaceful life.



Those bloated little birds, full of fruit, meandered about, to and fro.



As afternoon appproached, a few ashy tailorbirds birds would landd in silence on the branches of the filicium.



Calm and beautiful, they would peck at catterppillars crawling on the tree, eating less greedly than the parakeets, and then fly off again, as noiselesssly as they had arrived. - Hari-hari kami terorientasi pada pohon itu. Like those birds, our days were oriented around the filicium. - Di akarnya yang menonjol kami duduk berkeliling mendengar kisah Bu Mus tentang petualangan Hang Jebat On this protruding roots, we sat around listening to Bu Mus tell story of Robin Hood.



We were intoxicated for hours by magical stories from faraway lands that taught about life struggles and wisdom, like the moral stories from The Arabian Nights.



They touched our hearts and taught us empathy.



Lintang took a pencil from behind his ear, bit the end, and reached for th form.



As she watched Lintang’s thin and dirty fingers carve each letter of thee words, I saw Bu Mus get goose bumps.



We could only gawk at him- Lintang could write, and he could write well!



Bu Mus was awestruck, she just stared at Lintang as if he were a stunning pearl clam.



Moment later, a soft voice escaped her mouth, “Subhanallah, my godness, Lintang, praise Allah’s hollines, praise Allah’s holliness..”



CHAPTER 8 (MENTAL ILLNESS NO.5) Months became years, and before we knew it, we were approaching our teenage years.



Through our shared trials and tribulations, we gradually grew to be siblings and knew each other’s quirks inside and out.



It was baffling, he was so smalll- where did it all go? - Sebangku dengan Syahdan adalah A Kiong, sebuah anomali. Syahdan’s deskmate, the honorable A Kiong, was somewhat of an anomaly. - Tak tahu apa yang merasuki kepala bapaknya, --yaitu A Liong,



seorang Kong Hu Cu sejati,-- waktu mendaftarkan anak laki-laki satu-satunya itu ke sekolah Islam puritan dan miskin ini. God only knows what possessed his father- A Liong, devout Confucian- to enroll his only son at this Islamic school. - Ia memang memiliki penampilan akan ditolak di mana-mana. He had the appearance of a true reject. - Matanya tertarik ke atas seperti sebilah pedang dan ia hampir tidak punya alis. His eyes were titled upwards like sword blades, and his eyebrows were virtually nonexistent. - Seluruh giginya tonggos dan hanya tinggal setengah.. He was bucktoothed, and the rest of his teeth followed suit. - Maka jika digabungkan sifat populis, sok tahu, dan oportunis dengan otaknya yang lemot Kucai memiliki semua kualitas untuk menjadi seorang politisi. With all of Kucai’s other characteristics combined- opportunistic, selfcentered, a little deceitful- plus his know-it-all attitude, shamelessness and populist tendencies, he met all of this requirements to be a politician. - Beliau menyitir perkataan Khalifah Umar bin Khatab. “Barangsiapa yang kami tunjuk sebagai amir dan telah kami tetapkan gajinya untuk itu, maka apa pun yang ia terima selain gajinya itu adalah penipuan!. One day, in our Muhammadiyah Ethics class, Bu Mus quoted the words of Khalifah Umar bin Khatab, one of the apostless of the Prophet Muhammad, “Anyone appointed as a leader and accepts anything beyond his determined wage is commiting fraud.” - “....kepemimpinan seseorang akan dipertanggung jawabkan nanti di akhirat .....



“And remember, leadership will be just rewarded or punished in the afteerlife.” - Kami terpesona mendengarnya, namun Kucai gemetar. The entire class was stunned, but Kucai was visibly shaken. - Mendapati dirinya sebagai seorang pemimpin kelas ia gamang pada pertanggungjawaban setelah mati nanti, apalagi sebagai seorang politisi ia menganggap bahwa menjadi ketua kelas itu tidak ada keuntungannya sama sekali. As class president he was worried about being held accountable forr his actions after death, not to mention the fact that he already loathed looking after us. - “Ibunda Guru, Ibunda mesti tahu bahwa anak-anak kuli ini kelakuannya seperti setan. “Ibunda Guru, you must know that these coolie children cannot be kept under control!...” - Tangannya menunjuk-nunjuk ke atas dan napasnya tersengal setelah menghamburkan unek-unek yang mungkin telah dipendamnya bertahuntahun. Years built up frustation exploded from his body.



He almost seemed to be having difficulty breathing as he huffed and puffed unevenly. - Ia menatap Bu Mus dengan mata nanar tapi pandangannya ke arah gambar R.H. Oma Irama Hujan Duit. He stared at Bu Mus, but his gaze fell on the Roma Irama Rain of Money poster.



- Bu Mus juga terkejut. Tak pernah sebelumnya beliau menerima tanggapan selugas itu dari muridnya, Bu Mus was shocked. Never before had oone of her students protested something in such a direct manner. - Beliau ingin bersikap seimbang, She thought for a moment, and then forced her face to reflect neutrality. - Kucai senang sekali. Wajahnya berseri-seri. Ia merasa telah mendapatkan keadilan dan menganggap bahwa bebannya sebagai ketua kelas akan segera berakhir. Kucai was beaming. He believed that justice had been served and was sure that after years of wanting not to be class president, his suffering would finally come to an end. - Kami gugup mengantisipasi siapa yang akan menjadi ketua kelas baru. We nervously anticipated the results- who would be our new president? - Borek pucat dan Kucai melonjak girang. Terang-terangan ia menunjukkan bahwa ia sendiri yang telah memilih Borek, The color drained from Borek’s face an Kucai joyously jumped up and down- it couldn’t have been any more obvious that he himself had voted for Borek. - Kali ini Borek yang melonjak dan Kucai terdiam. This time Borek jumped up and down and the color drained from Kucai’s face. - Kucai terpuruk. Ia jengkel sekali kepada Borek yang tubuhnya menggigil menahan tawa. Kucai was distraught. He was irritated with Borek, who was shaking from trying to hold back his laughter.



- Bu Mus mengalihkan pandangan kepada Harun She shifted her gaze over to Harun. - Harun mengeluarkan senyum khas dengan gigi-gigi panjgannya dan berteriak pasti. Harun let out his signature smile, exhibiting his long, yellow teeth, and shouted sharply, “Kucai!” - Kucai terkulai lemas. Kucai’s body drooped limply as it admitted defeat. - Ia tak bicara jika tak perlu dan jika angkat bicara ia akan menggunakan kata-kata yang dipilih dengan baik. Trapani didn’t speak if it weren’t necessary, and when he did, his words were impeccably chosen. - Cita- citanya ingin jadi guru yang mengajar di daerah terpencil untuk memajukan pendidikan orang Melayu pedalaman, sungguh mulia. He wanted to become a teacher and teach in isolated ares when he grew up to help improve education and the condition of life for back-country Malays- a truly noble aspiration. - Seluruh kehidupannya seolah terinspirasi lagu Wajib Belajar karya R.N. Sutarmas. Everything in Trapani’s life seemed to be inspired by the song Wajib Belajar, a song about battling illiteracy, by R.N Sutarmas.



It was as if they were destined to always be at odds with one another. - Sahara yang sangat menghargai buku tertusuk hatinya dan menyalak tanpa ampun, “Masya Allah! Dengaranak muda, mana bisa kauhargai



karya sastra bermutu, nanti jika Buya menulis lagi buku berjudul Si Kancil Anak Nakal Suka Mencuri Timun barulah buku seperti itu cocok buatmu ….. She barked, “ Masya Allah! My God! Where do you get off criticizing excellent literature, A Kiong? Maybe if Buya writes a book called The Bad Little Boy Who Steals Cucumbers, it would be more suitable for your literaty tastes!” - Sebaliknya, Sahara sangat lembut jika berhadapan dengan Harun. On the other hand, Sahara had a soft spot for Harun. - Harun adalah seorang pria santun, pendiam, dan murah senyum. Harun, who was well-behaved, quiet and had an easy smile, was completely unable to comprehend the lessons. - Mereka memiliki kaitan emosi yang unik, seperti persahabatan Tupai dan Kura-Kura. The two of them shared a unique emotional connection like the quirky friendship of the Mouse and the Elephant.



He often ripped off the buttons on his shirt so there were only three left.



When we asked him why he was so fond of the number three, he pondered for a while, and then answeredd very wisely, like a village head giving religious advice.



One time, unexpectedly, he brought a large package to school and gave each of us a boiled caladium-tuber.



- Harun adalah anak kecil yang terperangkap dalam tubuh orang dewasa. His demeanor was very adult- like, but he truly was a child trapped in an adult’s body.



- Karena latihan keras, ia berhasil, dan mendapat julukan Samson. Because of hard work and excercise, he was successful an earned himself the nickname Samson- a noble title that he bore proudly. - Agak aneh memang, tapi paling tidak sejak usia muda Borek sudah menjadi dirinya sendiri dan sudah tau pasti ingin menjadi apa dia nanti, lalu secara konsisten ia berusaha mencapainya. It was definitely strange, but at least Samson had found himself at a young age and knew exactly what he wanted to be later; he strove continously to reach his goals. - Borek lebih baik dari mereka. Samson was better off than them. - Samson demikian terobsesi dengan body building dan tergila- gila dengan citra cowok macho, dan pada suatu hari aku termakan hasutannya. He was completely obssesed with body building and crazy about the macho-man image. One day, he lured me in and curiosity got the best of me. - Lalu ia menarik tanganku, kami pun berlari menuju belakang sekolah, sembunyi di ruangan bekas gardu listrik. He jerked my hand and we ran to the abandoned electric shed behind the school. - Dari dalam tasnya ia mengeluarkan sebuah bola tenis yang dibelah dua.



He reached into his bag and pulled out a tennis ball that had been split in the half. - “Kalau ingin dadamu menonjol seperti dadaku, inilah rahasianya!” “if you want to have a bulging chest like mine, this is the secret!” - Tiba-tiba ia merangsek maju ke arahku dan dengan keras menekankan bola tenis itu ke dadaku. Suddenly, Samsson forcefully shoved the tennis ball halves against my chest. - Aku terjajar ke belakang sampai hampir jatuh. I stumbled back and almost fell. - Dengan leluasa dan sekuat tenaga ia membenamkan benda sialan itu ke kulit dadaku karena sekarang punggungku terhalang oleh tumpukan balok. He had caught me by surprise and I was powerless, my back against some planks of wood. - Membuatku meronta-ronta. I wriggled around trying to break free. - Kupaham, belahan bola tenis ini dimaksudkan bekerja seperti sebuah benda aneh bertangkai kayu dan berujung karet yang dipakai orang untuk menguras lubang WC. The tennis ball halves were supposed to work like that strange thing with a wooden handle and a rubber cup that people use to unclog toilets. - Bola tenis itu adalah alat bekam yang akan menarik otot sehingga menonjol dan bidang, itu idenya.. In Samson’s crazy head, those tennis ball halves functioned as a tool to pump up chest muscles.



- Sekarang tekanan tenaga Samson dan daya isap bola tenis itu mulai bereaksi menyiksaku. Before I knew it, I was being turtored in Samson’s strong grip by the powerful suctioning of the tennis halves. - Yang aku rasakan adalah seluruh isi dadaku: jantung, hati, paru-paru, limpa, berikut isi perut dan darahku seperti terisap oleh bola tenis itu. I felt the life being sucked out of my insides- my herat, liver, lungs, spleen, blood and the contents of my atomach- by the cursed tennis ball halves. - Bahkan mataku rasanya akan meloncat. Aku tercekat, tak sanggup mengeluarkan kata-kata. My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head. I choked, unable to speak.



My breaths became short.



My legs flailed around hopelessly. - Tanpa menyia-nyiakan kesempatan, kuambil seluruh tenaga terakhir yang tersisa lalu dengan sekali jurus kutendang selangkang Samson, tepat di belahan pelirnya, sekuat- kuatnya, persis pegulat Jepang Antonio Inoki menghantam Muhammad Ali di lokasi tak sopan itu pada pertarungan absurd tahun ’76. 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 1967 fight.



- Samson melolong-lolong seperti kumbang terperangkap dalam stoples. Samson howled and groaned like a bumble bee trapped in a glass jar. - Aku melompat kabur pontang-panting. I broke free from his grasp, jumped away and botled off. - Belahan bola tenis inovasi genius dunia body building itu pun terpental ke udara dan jatuh berguling-guling lesu di atas tumpukan jerami. That genius body-building invention flew up into the air before sluggishly tumbling down onto a stack of straw. - Sempat aku menoleh ke belakang dan melihat Samson masih berputarputar memegangi selangkang-nya, lalu manusia Herucles itu pun tumbang berdebam di atas tanah. I stole a peek back and saw the boy Hercules hurl over and clutch his legs before falling down with a thud. - Di dadaku melingkar tanda bulat merah kehitam-hitaman, sebuah jejak kemaha-tololan. For days, my chest was encircled by two dark red circular marks, traces of unbelieveable idiocy. - Maka dengan amat sangat terpaksa kutelanjangi kebodohan- ku sendiri. I was forced to expose my stupidity. - Dan saat itulah untuk pertama kalinya aku mendengar teori canggih ibuku tentang penyakit gila. And for the first time, I heard my mother’s sophisticated theory of mental illness.



- “Gila itu ada 44 macam,” kata ibuku seperti seorang psikiater ahli sambil mengunyah gambir dan sirih. “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 chew the concoction. -



“Maka orang-orang yang sudah tidak berpakaian dan lupa diri di jalan-jalan, itulah gila no.1, dan gila yang kau buat dengan bola tenis itu sudah bisa masuk no. 5. “when people lose their minds and wander the streets nude, this is mental illness number one. I think what you did with the tennis ball falls into the category of mental illness number five.



- Sebagian mereka ke sekolah hanya memakai sandal, sementara yang bersepatu selalu tampak kebesaran sepatunya. Those who weren’t chicken footed wore shoes that were much too big. - Orangtua kami yang tak mampu memang sengaja membeli sepatu dua nomor lebih besar agar dapat dipakai dalam dua tahun ajaran. 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. - Kami seumpama kerang-kerang halus yang melekat erat satu sama lain dihantam deburan ombak ilmu. We were like small molluks clinging together to defend ourselves from the pounding waves in the ocean of knowledge. - Induknya adalah Bu Mus. Bu Mus was our mother hen. - Mereka adalah pria- pria muda yang sangat istimewa. Memerlukan bab tersendiri untuk menceritakannya.



What were their stories? They were two young, truly special boys. It takes a special chapter to tell their tales. CHAPTER 9 (CROCODILE SHAMAN)



- PAGI ini Lintang terlambat masuk kelas. Lintang was uncharacteristically late this morning.



“crocodile?” echoed Kucai. - “Aku maju sedikit, membunyikan lonceng sepeda, bertepuk tangan, berdeham- deham, membuat bun yi-bunyian agar dia merayap pergi. Tapi ia bergeming. Aku hanya berdiri mematung, berbicara dengan diriku sendiri.. 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. - Ukurannya dan teritip yang tumbuh di punggungnya memperlihatkan dia penguasa rawa ini His size and the barnacles growing on his back were clear signs that he was the ruler of this swamp.” - Tak adakata bolos dalam kamusku The word absent isn’t in my vocabulary..



You didn’t ask anybody for help?” asked Sahara apprehensively. - Yang ada hanya aku, seekor buaya ganas yang egois, dan intaian



maut.. There wasn’t anyone else around- just me, the giant crocodile, and certain death,” Lintang said dramatically. - Kami prihatin dan tegang mendengar kisah perjuangan Lintang menuju sekolah. We were fretful yet astounded thinking about Lintang’s struggle to get to school. - “Tiba-tiba dari arah samping kudengar riak air. Aku terkejut dan takut. “ 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!” - Menyeruak di antara lumut kumpai, membelah genangan setinggi dada, seorang laki-laki seram naik dari rawa. Ia berjalan menghampiriku, kakinya bengkok seperti huruf O,” lanjutnya. “ The shape of 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.’” - “Siapa laki-laki itu Lintang?” tanya Sahara tercekat. “who was he?” Mahar choked out. - “Ooh …,” kami serentak menutup mulut dengan tangan. Menakutkan sekali. “ooh,” we all gasped at once as we clasped our hands over our mouth, horrified. - Tegang menunggu kelanjutan cerita Lintang. We waited tensely for the story to continue.



Then he approached the ruthless animal blocking the road. - Ganjil sekali, buaya itu seperti takluk, mengibas-ngibaskan ekornya laksana seekor anjing yang ingin mengambil hati tuannya The crocodile submitted to him, wagging its tail like a dog after its masters’ heart.



We were stupefied. - Lalu mendadak sontak, dengan sebuah lompatan dahsyat seperti terbang reptile zaman Cretaceous itu terjun ke rawa menimbulkan suara laksana tujuh pohon kelapa tumbang sekaligus. “that Cretaceous reptile took a sudden, horrrific dive into the swamp. It was as loud as seven coconut trees crashing down!” - “Aku terkesima dan tadi telah salah hitung. Jika binatang purba itu mengejarku maka orang-orang hanya akan menemukan sepeda reyot ini. “i was startled. If that ancient animal had decied to chase me earlier, the only thing people would have found would be my decreipt bicycle.”



My courage collapsed; with just one pull, he could have drowned me in the water. But he just passed by.” - AKU termenung mendengar cerita Lintang. I became lost in my own thoughts. - Bagiku Bodenga adalah guru firasat dan semua hal yang berhubungan dengan perasaan gamang, pilu, dan sedih. Bodenga provided me with my first life lesson on premonitions. For me, he



symbolized all things related to the feeling of sadness. - Wajahnya carut-marut, berusia empat puluhan. His face was scarred with craters and he was in his forties. - Ia menyelimuti dirinya dengan dahan-dahan kelapa dan tidur melingkar seperti tupai di bawah pohon nifah selama dua hari dua malam. He covered himself with coconut leaves and slept under a palm tree, curled up like a squirell for two days and two night at a time. - Jika lapar ia terjun ke sumur tua di kantor polisi lama, menyelam, menangkap belut yang terperangkap di bawah sana dan langsung memakannya ketika masih di dalam air. 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. - Dan telinganya sudah tak bisa mendengar karena ia pernah menyelami dasar Sungai Lenggang untuk mengambil bijih-bijih timah, demikian dalam hingga telinganya mengeluarkan darah, setelah itu menjadi tuli. His ears could not hear because one day he dove into the Linggang River to fettch some tin and dove so deep that his ears bled. And then, he was deaf. - Bodenga kini sebatang kara. Nowadays Bodenga was like a lone piece of driftwood. - Serbuan Islam yang tak terbendung ke seantero kampung membuat orang menjauhi mereka, karena mereka menolak meninggalkan penyembahan buaya sebagai Tuhan. As Islam flowed into the villages, people began to shun Bodenga and his father because they refused to stop worshipping crocodiles as Gods. - Ayahnya telah mati karena melilit tubuhnya sendiri kuat-kuat dari



mata kaki sampai ke leher dengan akar jawi lalu menerjunkan diri ke Sungai Mirang. His father died by wrapping himself from head to toe in jawi roots and throwing himself into the Mirang River. - Ia sengaja mengumpankan tubuhnya pada buaya-buaya ganas di sana. He deliberately fed his body to the ferocious crocodiles of the river. - Masyarakat hanya menemukan potongan kaki buntungnya. The only uncovered remain was the stump he used as a second leg. - Kini Bodenga lebih banyak menghabiskan waktu memandangi aliran Sungai Mirang, sendirian sampai jauh malam. Now Bodenga spends most of his time staring into the currents of the Mirang Rive, all alone and far into the night. - Pada suatu sore warga kampung berduyun-duyun menuju lapangan basket Sekolah Nasional. One evening, villagers came flocking to the National School’s basketball court. - Karena aku masih kecil maka aku tak dapat menembus kerumunan orang yang mengelilingi buaya itu, aku hanya dapat melihatnya dari sela-sela kaki pengunjung yang rapat berselang-seling. 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. - Mulut buaya besar itu dibuka dan disangga dengan sepotong kayu bakar. Its big mouth was propped open with a piece of firewood. - Ketika perutnya dibelah, ditemukan rambut, baju, jam tangan, dan



kalung. When they split its stomach in half, they found hair, clothes and a necklace. - Saat itulah aku melihat Bodenga mendesak maju di antara pengunjung. That’s when I saw Bodenga urge forward amongst the visitors. - Lalu ia bersimpuh di samping sang - . He sat down cross-legged beside the crocodile. - Wajahnya pucat pasi. Ia memberi isyarat kepada orang-orang, memohon agar berhenti mencincang binatang itu. His face was deathly pale. He pitifully pleaded for the people to stop butchering the animal. - Orang-orang mundur dan melepaskan kayu bakaryang menyangga mulut buaya tersebut. They took the firewood out of its mouth and backed off. - Bodenga menangis... Suaranya pedih memilukan. It was an agonizing, mournful sound. - “Baya … Baya … Baya …,” panggilnya lirih. “Baya.. Baya.. Baya,” he called out softly. - Beberapa orang menangis sesenggukan. Aku menyaksikan dari sela-sela kaki pengunjung air matanya mengalir membasahi pipinya yang rusak berbintik-bintik hitam. Some wept with choking sobs. I saw Bodenga’s tears streaming down his pockmarked cheeks.



- Buaya ini satu-satunya cinta dalam hidupnya yang terbuang, dalam dunianya yang sunyi senyap. That unfortunate crocodile had been his only love in his outcast and forlorn world, and now that love had been taken away. - Ia mengucapkan ratapan yang tak jelas dari mulutnya yang gagu. Incoherent grieving escaped Bodenga’s mute mouth as he lamented.



In the years to come, whenever I was faced with heart-wrenching situations, Bodenga came into my senses. - Ia juga yang pertama kali memeprlihatkan padaku bahwa nasib bisa memperlakukan manusia dengan sangat buruk, dan cinta bisa menjadi demikian buta. And for the first time, I learned that fate could treat humankind very terribly, and that love could be so blind. - Namun tak sehari pun ia pernah bolos. Nevertheless, he never missed a day of school. - Delapan puluh kilometer pulang pergi ditempuhnya dengan sepeda setiap hari. He pedaled 80 kilometers roundtrip every day.



Thinking about his daily journey made me cringe.



When faced with a road 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.



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.



He sat himself down beneath the tree in the middle of the dark forest, embraced his two legs, shiveredin the cold, and waited patiently for morning to come.



It couldn’t be fixed again because it has already broken one too many times and was now too short to be reconnected.



He pushed the bike about a dozen kilometers by hand.



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 bback home, all 40 kilometers.



- Dulu ayahnya pernah mengira putranya itu akan takluk pada mingguminggu pertama sekolah dan prasangka itu terbukti keliru. Lintang’s father had thought his son would give up within the first weeks, but he was proven wrong. - Hari demi hari semangat Lintang bukan semakin pudar tapi malah meroket karena ia sangat mencintai sekolah, mencintai temantemannya, menyukai persahabatan kami yang mengasyikkan, dan mulai kecanduan pada daya tarik rahasia-rahasia ilmu. Day by day, Lintang’s enthusiasm didn’t fade, but rather it skyrocketedhe really loved schooland his classmates, and he began to be addicted to unlocking the secrets of knowledge. - Ganjaran yang ia dapat dari “kemewahan” bersekolah. That was the price he paid for the “privilege” of schooling. - Paling tidak ia senang melihat semangat anaknya menggelegak. If nothing else, he was happy to see his son’s bubbling enthusiam. - Ia berharap suatu waktu di masa depan nanti Lintang mampu menyekolahkan lima orang adik-adiknya yang lahir setahun sekali sehingga berderet-deret rapat seperti pagar, dan lebih dari itu ia berharap Lintang dapat mengeluarkan mereka dari lingkaran kemiskinan yang telah lama mengikat mereka hingga sulit bernapas. He hoped that one day Lintang could send his five years younger siblingseach born one year after the other- to school and also free them from



the cycle of poverty. - Maka ia sekuat tenaga mendukung pendidikan Lintang dengan caracaranya sendiri, sejauh kemampuannya. So, as hard as he could, he supported Lintang’s education in his own way, to the best of his ability. - Ayahnya yang buta huruf hilir mudik. His iliterate father paced back and forth. - Memandang jauh ke laut luas melalui jendela, He gazed wistfully through the window at the wide South China Sea, thinking very hard. - Lalu ketika Lintang lengah ia diam-diam menyelinap keluar melalui pintu belakang. Ia meloncat dari rumah panggungnya dan tanpa diketahui Lintang ia berlari sekencang- kencangnya menerabas ilalang. When Lintang wasn’t looking, he quietly snuck out the back door and ran like the wind, cutting through the tall grass. - Laki-laki cemara anginitu berlari pontang- panting sederas pelanduk untuk minta bantuan orang- orang di kantor desa. The pine tree man ran at top speed as swift as a deer to ask for help from people at the village office. - Lalu secepat kilat pula ia menyelinap ke dalam rumah dan tiba-tiba sudah berada di depan Lintang. Not much later, like a flash of lightning, he slipped back into the house and was suddenly standing attentively before his son. - “Em … emm… empat belasss … bujangku … tak diragukan lagi empat belasss .. tak lebih tak kurang …,” jawab beliau sembari tersengalsengal kehabisan napas tapi juga tersenyum lebar riang gembira.



“Ffoohh.. fffoohh... fourteen, son, no doubt about it, no more no less,” he answered while panting to catch breath, but wearing a wide smile full of pride. - Lintang menatap mata ayahnya dalam-dalam, rasa ngilu menyelinap dalam hatinya yang masih belia, rasa ngilu yang mengikrarkan nazar aku harus jadi manusia pintar , He felt a pang in his heart, a pang that made him make a promise to himself, I have to be an intelligent person. - Karena Lintang tahu jawaban itu bukan datang dari ayahnya. Lintang knew that the answer didn’t come from his father. - Ayahnya bahkan telah salah mengutip jawaban pegawai kantor desa. His father had even misquoted the answer he had gotten from village office’s employee.



From the day on, Lintang’s enthusiasm for school burned even more intensely. - Dengan ujung-ujung jari kaki menjangkau-jangkau pedal. The tips of his toes barely reached the pedals. - Ia akan beringsut-ingsut dan terlonjak-lonjak hebat di atas batangan besi itu sambil menggigit bibirnya, mengumpulkan tenaga. Every 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. - Beranda itu sendiri merupakan bagian dari gubuk panggung dengan tiang-tiang tinggi untuk berjaga-jaga jika laut pasang hingga meluap jauh ke pesisir. The house was a shack on stilts, in case the sea rose too high.



- Apa pun yang dilakukan orang di dalam gubuk itu dapat dilihat dari luar karena dinding kulit kayu yang telah berusia puluhan tahun merekah pecah seperti lumpur musim kemarau. 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. - Seluruh pintu dan jendela tidak memiliki kunci, jika malam mereka ditutup dengan cara diikatkan pada kusennya. They tied the frames shut at night with cheap twine. - Empat orang tua itu adalah bapak dan ibu dari bapak dan ibu Lintang. Both Lintang’s maternal and paternal grandparents lived with them. - Semuanya sudah sepuh dan kulit mereka keriput sehingga dapat dikumpulkan dan digenggam. Their skin was so wrinkly you could grab it in handfuls. - Jika tidak sedang menjalin pukat, keempat orang itu duduk menekuri sebuah tampah memunguti kutu-kutu dan ulat-ulat lentik di antara bulir-bulir beras kelas tiga yang mampu mereka beli.. 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. - Berjam-jam lamanya karena demikian banyak kutu dan ulat pada beras buruk itu. They spent hours on that arduous task- the rice was that putrid. - Selain empat orang itu ikut pula dalam keluarga ini dua orang adik laki-laki ayah Lintang, yaitu seorang pria mudayang kerjanya hanya melamun saja sepanjang hari karena agak terganggu jiwanya dan seorang bujang lapuk yang tak dapat bekerja keras karena menderita



burut akibat persoalan kandung kemih. 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 unablee to work because he suffered from inflamed testicles- a result of a nutrition deficiency. - Beliau adalah orang yang mencari nafkah dengan menjual tenaga. He was a man making a living by selling his bodily power. - Namun sekali ia memegang buku, terbanglah ia meninggalkangubuk doyong berdinding kulit itu. However, once he grasped the book, his mind escaped the cracks of the leaning bark walls. - Belajar adalah hiburan yang membuatnya lupa pada seluruh penat dan kesulitan hidup. Studying was entertainment that made him forget life’s hardships. - Buku baginya adalah obat dan sumur kehidupan yang airnya selalu memberi kekuatan baru agar ia mampu mengayuh sepeda menantang angin setiap hari. For him, books were like water from a sacred well in Mecca’s mousque, renewing his strength to pedal against the wind day after day. - Ia akan terisap oleh setiap kalimat ilmu yang dibacanya, He immersed himself in each sentence he read. - Ia tergoda oleh sayap-sayap kata yang diucapkan oleh para cerdik cendekia He was seduced by the eloquent writings of scholars. - Ia melirik maksud tersembunyi dari sebuah rumus, sesuatu yang mungkin tak kasat mata bagi orang lain.



He recognized the hidden meanings in formulass that didn’t register with others. - Lalu pada suatu ketika, saat hari sudah jauh malam, di bawah temaram sinar lampu minyak, ditemani deburan ombak pasang, dengan wajah mungil dan matanya yang berbinar-biran, jari-jari kurus Lintang membentang lembar demi lembar buku lusuh stensilan berjudul Astronomi dan Ilmu Ukur. 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 tthrough a photoocopied version of an archaic book titled Astronomy and Geometry. - Dalam sekejap ia tenggelam dilamun kata- kata ajaib pembangkangan galileoGalilei terhadap kosmologi Aristoteles, At alll once, he was immersed in the defiant words of Galileo against Aristotle’s cosmology. - Ia dimabuk rasa takjub pada gagasangila para astronom zaman kuno yang terobsesi ingin mengukur berapa jarak bumi ke Andromeda dan nebula-nebula Triangulum. He was entraced by the crazy ideas of the ancient astronomers wo wanted to measure the distance from the earth to Andromeda and the Triangulum’s nebulas.



- Lintang menahan napas ketika membaca bahwa gravitasi dapat membelokkan cahaya. He gasped when he found out that gravity can bend light. - Lintang terkesima pada bintang yang mati jutaan tahun silam dan ia terkagum-kagum pada pengembaraan benda-benda langit di sudutsudut gelap kosmos yang mungkin hanya per nah dikunjungi oleh



pemikiran-pemikiran Nicolaus Copernicus dan Isaac Newton. 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. - Ketika sampai pada Bab Ilmu Ukur ia tersenyum riang karena nalarnya demikian ringan mengikuti logika matematis pada simulasi ruang berbagai dimensi. When he reached he chapter of geometry, Lintang smiled cheerfully because his logic so easily followed mathematical simulations of various dimensions and space. - Ia dengan cepat segera menguasai dekomposisi tetrahedral yang rumit luar biasa, aksioma arah, dan teorema Phytagorean. He quickly mastered the extraordinarily complicated tetrahedral decomposition, direction axioms and the Pythagorean theorems.



- Ia melamun dalam lingkar temaram lampu minyak. Dan tepat ketika itu, dalam kesepian malam yang mencekam, lamunannya sirna karena ia terkejut menyaksikan keanehan di atas lembar- lembar buram yang dibacanya. This material was way beyond his age and education, but he mused over the fascinating information. He contemplated the information in the dim circle of light provided by the oil lamp, and right at the moment, in the dead of the ight, his contemplation expoded and he observed something magical happening on the old pages in front of his face.



- Ia terheran-heran menyaksikan angka-angka tua yang samar di lembaran itu seakan bergerak-gerak hidup, menggeliat, berkelapkelip, lalu menjelma menjadi kunang-kunang yang ramai beterbangan memasuki pori- pori kepalanya.



Each number and letter squirmed about and then lit up, transforming into fireflies buzzing around him and then penetrating his mind. - Ia tak sadar bahwa saat itu arwah para pendiri geometri sedang tersenyum padanya dan Copernicus serta Lucretius sedang duduk di sisi kiri dan kanannya. He had no idea that at that moment the spirits of the pioneers of geometry were grinning at him. - Di sebuah rumah panggung sempit, di sebuah keluarga Melayu pedalaman yang sangat miskin, nun jauh di pinggir laut, seorang genius alami telah lahir. In a very small, narrow shack of a very poor Malay family on the edge of nowhere far off on the seashore, a natural genius was born. - Seperti juga kebodohan yang sering tak disadari, beberapa orang juga tak menyadari bahwa dirinya telah terpilih, telah ditakdirkan Tuhan untuk ditunangkan dengan ilmu. Just as stupidity often goes unrealized, some people are often unaware that they have been chosen, destined by God to be betrohed to knowledge.



One problem after another struck our school.



For years, financiall difficulty was our constant companion, day in and day out.



Plus, people always assumed our school would collapse within a matter of weeks.



However, we were able to hold on, thanks to the winds of determination blown our way everyday by Bu Muss and Pak Harfan.



We came to see our school as the best thing that could have happened to us- it was much better than becoming coolies, coconut graters, shepherds, pepper pickers or shop guards.



The difficulties came in waves,, but we never took even one step back- in fact we became more immune.



We were living proof of the proverb “What doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger.”



And while our class still had only ten students, after a few years of no new enrollees, we finally had some underclassmen- their number were small, but there they were.



An old DKW motorbike with a sputtering exhaust pipe slide toward our school.



The pulsing veins on his brow gave the impression that he often forced his agenda upon others.



The fact is, people who are used to reproaching others usually lose teir grasp on good manners.



He was famous for his inability to compromise. As easy as a snap of his fingers, a school principal could be fired, a teacher could be kept from being promoted until the day of his or her retirement, or a teacher he disliked could be exiled to an isolated islandone that didn’t ever appear on maps- to teach primitive children and short-tailed macaques.



The sight of his glasses made all teachers in Belitong tremble.



Previously, we managed to slip through Mister Samadikun’s fingers when Harun saved us the first day by becoming our tenth student.



The truth is, Mister Samadikun had wanted to shut down our school for quite some time now- it was trooublesome extra work for the officials in the administration office of the Department of Education and Culture.



Those officials repeatedly pushed for our school to e banished from the face of this earth.



Mister Samadikun himself once bragged to his superior, “Ah, let me take care of the Muhammadiyah school problem..”



I wouldn’t even have to do that- a strong wind could finish off the school. In no time at all, it’d be flattened to the ground.”



In my fantasy, after those arrogant statements, Mister Samadikun and the high- level education authorities made a toast, clinking each other’s glasses filled with sugar palm milk.



Sugar palm milk usually came as a bribe from teachers who wanted to be promoted to principal or transferred out of isolated areas, or for their school to be deemed a model school.



The conditon was ten students, a condition dramatically fulfilled by Harun at the last minute.



He wasn’t just iked by us because of the pressure from his higher-ups.



He was personally responsible for making sure we took our exams at another school because they considered our school incapable of administering its own examinations.



In today’s competitiive education system inefficientt.



Bu Mus was as a ghost when Mister Samadikun arrived for the surprise school inspection.



To make matters worse, she was by herself.



Pak Harfa had been out sick for the past month.



The traditional healer said he was sick because his lungs inhaled lowquality chalk dust for dozens of years.



Mister Samadikun peeked into the classroom. As soon as he saw the completely empty glass display case, a belitling expression came across his face, as he was used to seeing achievment thropies in the display cases at other schools.



Mister Samadikun glared at her and snapped, “Call me Mister!”



Maybe it was an influence from his Dutch teachers, or perhaps it was to maintain his authoritive image, whatever the reason was, on thing was clear: he wanted to be called Mister.



Mister Samadikun took out the facility inspection form.



He sneered and shook his head repeatedly to make his disappointment known.



He drew a long, deep breath and looked at us- most of who were not wearing shoes and wore grubby clothes missing buttons.



Samadikun stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Lintang and me wearing slingshots around our necks, and tsk-tsk-tsk-ed in an upset manner at the sight of guava fruit stains all over Kucai’s shirt.



“Bu Mus! I have never seen a classroom as appaling as this. You call this a scholl?! This place is no different than a livestock pen!”



Bu Mus took the insult, but it was clear that it did nothing to diminish her pride in us.



Mister Samadikun was furious.



Mister Samadikun got all worked up, his chest huffing and puffing. It ws as though he was going to blow up at the daring words coming from Bu Mus’ loose mouth.



“It’s not just that!” Mister Samadikun cut her off.



Bu Mus was stunned,her face was noow red, he had touched a sore spot.



She never hesitated to put herself on the line for him.



We knew how very much she loved Harun, but we also understood that



Mister Samadikun had made up his mind, and that sealed it.



In this power struggle, with the difference in status being so great, we were sure to lose.



Bu Mus’ face got puffy.



Mister Samadikun was motionless.



CHAPTER 12 HE BETRAYED HARMONY - PAPILIO blumei , kupu-kupu tropis yang men awan berwarna



hitam bergaris biru-hijau itu mengunjungi pucuk filicium . Papilio Blumei, the captivating tropical black butterflies withg blue- green stripes, visited the tips of the filicium leaves. - Di mata awam kecantikan mereka sama: absolut, dan hanya dapat dibayangkan melalui keindahan namanya. To the euntrained eyes, both are their equally flawless in their beauty, which is impiled by their elegant names. - Berbeda dengan tabiat unggas yang cenderung agresif dan eksibisionis, makhluk- makhluk bisu berumur pendek ini bahkan tak tahu kalau dirinya cantik. Unlike small birds with aggresive and exhibitonist dispositions, these mute creatures have a short lifespan and are completely unaware of their own beauty. - Meskipun jumlahnya ratusan, tapi kepak sayapnya senyap dan mulut mungil indahnya diam dalam kerupawanan yang melebihi taman lotus. And even though there were hundreds of them, the flutter of their wings and their sweet mouths were silent as they wandered about, creating a vision even more stunning than the Garden of Eden. - Jika diperhatikan dengan saksama, setiap gerakan mereka, sekecil apapun, seolah digerakkan oleh semacam mesin keserasian. If one carefully observed them, their every movement, no matter how slight, was moved by harmony’s heartbeat. - A Kiong maju ke depan kelas untuk menyanyikan sebuah lagu, dan seperti diduga—hal ini sudah delapan belas kali terjadi—ia akan membawakan lagu yang sama yaitu Berkibarlah Benderaku karya Ibu Sud. A Kiong was “singing” Ibu Sud’s Berkibarlah Benderaku- “May my Flag Flutter”- as if he were a drill sergeant.



- Telinganya tak mendengarkan suaranya sendiri karena ia agaknya mendengarkan suara ribut burung-burung kecil prenjak saya pgaris yang berteriak-teriak beradu kencang dengan suarakumbang-kumbang betina pantat kuning. His ears semeed disconnected from his voice; their attention had been captured by the boisterous chatter of the stripe-winged, tiny prinia birds shouting over the buzz of female yellow-black beetles. - Ia tak mengindahkan jangkauan suaranya serta tak ambil pusing dengan notasi. A Kiong didn’t even are about the range of his voice and didn’t bother trying to sing on pitch. - Kali ini ia mengkhianati harmoni. He also betrayed the very premise of musical notes. - Lintang sibuk dengan rumus phytagoras Lintang was engrossed in the Pythagorean Theorem. - Sahara asyik menyulam kruistik kaligrafi tulisan Arab Kulil Haqqu Walau Kana Murron artinya: Katakan kebenaran walaupun pahit Sahara wass absorbed in embroidering calligraphic Arab symbols on her cross-stich, which read Kulit Haqqu Walau Kana Muron, meaning “Tell the truth, even when it’s bitter.” - Beliau berusaha keras menahan kantuk dan tawa mendengar lolongan A Kiong. She was trying very hard to hold back laughter as she listened to A Kiong’s howling.



A Kiong finished. Bu Mus looked at me: My turn to take action. - Ketika aku mulai menyanyi Sahar mengangkat sebentar wajahnya dari kruistiknya dan terang-terangan memandangku dengan jijik When I began to sing, Sahara looked up from her cross-stitch and glared at me with blatant disgust. - Aku tak peduli dengan pelecehan itu dan tetap bersemangat. I ignored her insult and continued spiritedly. - Namun, aku menyanyi melompati beberapa oktaf secara drastis tanpa dapat kukendalikan sehingga tak ada keselarasan nada dan tempo. Aku telah mengkhianati keindahan. I had no control, and there was absolutely zero harmony. I betrayed harmony. - Kali ini Bu Mus sudah tak bisa lagi menahan tawanya Bu Mus couldn’t take the urge to laugh. - Beliau terpingkal-pingkal sampai berair matanya. Tears ran as she shook in silent laughter. - Aku berusaha keras memperbaiki harmonisasi lagu itu tapi semakin keras aku berusaha semakin an eh kedengarannya. I tried hard to improve my sound, but the harder I tried, the stranger it sounded. - Inilah yang dimaksud dengan tidak punya bakat. This is what they mean by untalented. - Aku susah payah menyelesaikan lagu itu dan teman- temanku sama sekali tak mengindahkan penderitaanku karena mereka juga menderita menahan kantuk, lapar, dan haus di tengah hari yang panas ini... My classmates had no sympathy for my suffering- they too were



suffering from sleepiness, hunger and thirst in the midday heat. - Dan batin mereka semakin tertekan karena mendengar suaraku. Their souls were further oppressed by my singing. - Samson menyanyikan lagu yang berjudul Teguh Kukuh Berlapis Baja juga karya C. Simanjuntak sesuai dengan citra tubuh raksasanya. The song was very fitting with the Samson’s gigantic body image. - Ia menyanyikan lagu itu dengan sangat nyaring sambil menunduk dalam dan menghentak-hentakkan kakinya dengan keras. He sang it with an earsplitting voice as he bowed deeply and repeatedly stomped his feet. - Samson membatu, tak percaya dengan apa yang baru saja didengarnya, ia terheran- heran. Samson froze; he couldn’t believe his ears. - Inilah yang dimaksud dengan tak punya bakat dan tak tahu diri. This is what they mean by untalented and oblivious. - Maka seni suara adalah mata pelajaran yang paling tidak prospektif di kelas kami. To make a long story short, singing was the least promising subject for our class. - Oleh karena itu, ia ditempatkan di bagian akhir paling siang. Fungsinya hanya untuk menunggu waktu Zuhur, yaitu saatnya kami pulang.. Its purpose was to pass the minutes while we waited for zuhur- midday prayer, which marked the closing of the school day. - “Masih ada lima menit sebelum azan zuhur. Ah, masih bisa satu lagu lagi,”



“we still have five minutes untill the call to prayer..” - Siang ini panas sekali. It was a languid afternoon. - Kadang-kadang mereka hinggap di jendela kelas sambil menjerit sejadi-jadinya, menimbulkan suara bising yang memusingkan bagi perut-perut yang keroncongan. Now and again the stripe-winged prinias perched on the windowsill of our classroom, yelling as loud as they could and producing noises that made those with growling stomachs dizzy. - Bu Mus memandangi kami satu per satu untuk menjatuhkan pilihan secara acak … dan kali ini pandangannya berhenti pada Mahar. Bu Mus pondered. It fell on Mahar. - “Ya, Mahar, silakan ke depan anakku, nyanyikan sebuah lagu sambil kita menunggu azan zuhur.. “please come up to the front, my child. Sing a song while we wait for the zuhur call to prayer.” - Bu Mus terus tersenyum mengantisipasi kekonyolan apa lagi yang akan ditampilkan muridnya. Bu Mus returned to smiling in anticipation of yet another ridiculous performance by one of her students. - Ia menyandang tasnya, sebuah karung kecampang, karena ia juga sudah bersiap- siap akan pulang. He slung his rattan bag over his shoulder, already prepared to go home. - Di depan kelas ia tak langsung menyanyikan lagu pilihannya, tapi menatap kami satu per satu. Once in front of the class, he did not sing his song of choice right away.



He stared at us one by one. - Kami terheran-heran melihat tingkahnya yang ganjil.. We were perplexed by his unusual behaviour. - Setelah memandangi kami cukup lama, ia memalingkan wajahnya ke arah Bu Mus sambil tersenyum kecil dan menunduk, His stare was long and full of meaning. He then turned to face Bu Mus and nodded with a small smile. - Mahar merapatkan kedua tangannya di dadanya seperti seniman India, seperti orang memohon doa. After a while he drew his arms together over his chest like someone prayer. - Tampak jelas jari-jari kurusnya yang berminyak seperti lilin We were saddened as we noticed the backs of Mahar’s hands were oily like wax. - Ujung-ujung kukunya yang bertaburan bekas-bekas luka kecil sehingga seluruh kukunya hampir cacat. He had scars all over his finges and all of his fingernails were mangled. - Tangannya berminyak karena berjam-jam meremas ampas kelapa sehingga tampak licin, Hour after hour, until evening, he kneaded coconut leftovers, causing his hands to develop an oily appearance that never went away. - Sedangkan jemari dan kukunya cacat karena disayat gigi-gigi mesin parut yang tajam dan berputar kencang. The sharp blade on the grater spun quickly and sliced the tips of his fingers, making his fingernails deformed.



- Mesin itu mengepulkan asap hitam dan harus dihidupkan dengan tenaga orang dewasa dengan cara menarik sebuah tuas berulang- ulang. The grater puffed out black smoke and had to be turned on by an adult tugging its handle repeatedly. - Bunyi mesinitu juga merisaukan, suatu bunyi kemelaratan, kerja keras, dan hidup tanpa pilihan. The sound of it was harrowing, a sound of deprivation, hard work and a poor life without a choice. - Tuhanku! Kami terperangah dan Bu Mus terkejut. Prolog semacam ini tak pernah kami lakukan, dan tema lagu pilihan Mahar sangat tak biasa. My God! We never gave prologues like that, andd we never sang songs of that theme. - Lagu kami hanya tiga macam yaitu: lagu nasional, lagu kasidah, dan lagu anak-anak. We usually sang three types of songs: nationalistic songs, religious songs in Arabic and children’s songs. - Sahara melepaskan kruistiknya. Sahara let go of her cross-stitch. - Mahar tercenung syahdu, tatapan matanya kosong jauh melintasi jendela, jauh melintasi awan-awan berarakan.. He fell silent and stared out through the windows, past the drifting clouds. - Beliau menatap Mahar sambil tersenyu m penuh tanda tanya. Bu Mus stared quizzically at Mahar. - Lalu Bu Mus mengambil sebuah keputusan yang puitis.



Bu Mus with a few poetic words, let him go ahead with his unusual song choice. - Mahar tersenyum dalam duka. Mahar bit his lip, and gave a grimace smile. - Mahar bersiap-siap, kami menunggu penu h keingin tahuan, dan kami semak in takjub ketika ia membuka tasnya dan mengeluarkan sebuah alat musik: ukulele! We waited in suspense and were blown away when he opened his rattan sack and pulled out an instrument: a ukulele! - Suasana jadi hening dan kemu dian perlahan-lahan Mahar memulai intro lagunya dengan memainkan melodi ukulele yang mendayu-dayu, The atmosphere was still. Slowly, Mahar began gingerly strumming the ukulele, an introduction that broke the silence like the rumbling of distant thunder. - Ukulele itu dipeluknya dengan sendu , matanya terpejam, dan wajahnya syahdu penuh kesedihan yang mengharu biru, pias menahan kan rasa. Mahar hugged the ukulele somberly. His eyes were shut and his face was wrought with emotion, pale from holding back feelings. - Lalu dengan interlude yang halus meluncur lah syair-syair lagu menakjubkan dalam tempo pelan penuh nuansa duka yang dinyanyikan dengan keindahan andante maestoso yang tak terlu kiskan kata-kata Then, after a smooth prelude, he glided into the verses of the song with a slow tempo nuanced with anguish, but he sang with the loveliness of andate maestoso- words cannot describe its beauty. - Seketika kami tersentak dalam pesona, We gasped in awe.



- Ritme ukulele mengiringi vibrasi sempurna suaranya disertai sebuah penghayatan yang luar biasa sehingga ia tampak demik ian men derita karena kehilangan seorang kekasih. The vibration of Mahar’s voice was flawless, and is total comprehension of the song was incredible; he actually looked as though he were suffering terribly from loss of his beloved sweetheart. The rhythmic ukulele was made the atmosphere all the more romantic. - Syair demi syair lagu itu merambati dinding-dinding papan tua kelas kami, hinggap di daun-daun kecil linaria seperti kup u-kupu cantik thistle crescent , lalu terbang hanyut dibawa awan-awan tipis menuju ke utara. Verse by verse, the song crept over the old wooden walls of our school, perched on the tiny linaria leaves like thistle crescent butterflies, and then drifted away under thin clouds to the north. - Suara Mahar terdengar pilu merasuki relung hati setiap orang yang ada di ruangan. Mahar’s pained voice penetrated the depths of our hearts. - Apa pun yang sedang kami kerjakan terhenti karena kami telah terkesima. Whatever we had been working on- or not working on- before had been stopped. - Kami tersihir oleh aura seni yang terpancar dari sosok anak muda tampan yang menyanyi dari jiwanya, bukan hanya dari mulutnya, sehingga lagu itu menjadi sebuah simfoni yang agung. We were mesmerized, enchanted by the aura emanating from this handsome young character singing not just from his mouth, but from his soul, turrning the song into a grand symphony.



- Rasa kantuk, lapar, dan dahaga menjadi tak terasa. Sleepiness, hunger and thrist vanished. - Bahkan kumbang-kumbarrg dan kawanan burung prenjak sayap garis menjadi senyap, berhenti menjerit-jerit demi mendengar lantunannya. Even yellow-backed beetlees and their friends, the stripe-winged prinias, stopped thir chatter to hear Mahar’s song. - Mahar mengakhiri lagunya secara fade out disertai linangan air mata. Mahar ended the song with a fade out and the tear drop. - Bu Mus berusaha keras menyembunyikan air mata yang menggenang berkilauan di pelupuk mata sabarnya. Bu Mus was trying hard to hide the tears welling up in her eyes.