He had married Nuraeni when she was sixteen years old and he was nearly thirty. As was common in the village, the match was an arranged one, and the engagement had lasted four years. On the day Syueb came with a pail full of rice and noodles and a dark blue scarf to ask for her hand in marriage on behalf of Komar, she was a girl whose breasts were only budding and with hair still sparse between her legs. Of course, the two fathers had discussed the matter already, meaning that even this proposal was arranged, a formality. They agreed that once Nuraeni was able to bear a child, the two would be married in the nearest surau. Present at the time were Syueb and the girl’s father, their wives, and a couple of other relatives, whereas Komar was off somewhere, perhaps in the big city looking for work, like most of the local young men, and Nuraeni was probably out washing clothes at the water spout or searching for clams with her friends.
The girl wasn’t told until dusk. Her father said, “Nyai, one day you will marry Komar bin Syueb.”
She really didn’t know the man at all, aware of him only as someone in the village, a name to which she could barely attach a face. The fact it was him didn’t surprise her, because she had no expectations. Like every other girl, she had been waiting for the moment her father would tell her who she would marry, but there was no young man she favored over the others. The news itself was enough to make the twelve-year-old girl happy, despite the inevitable fear of what would follow. At least now Nuraeni was able to tell her closest friends she had a fiancé. Nothing was more embarrassing for a girl older than twelve than not knowing who would be her husband.
The evening changed many things, because little Nuraeni had become the young woman Nuraeni. Her mother bought her crimson lipstick and an eyebrow pencil, and she no longer let her slightly protruding breasts be exposed in the breezy air of the hillside village. The news rippled out swiftly, reaching the ears of relatives and friends, of the girl whose fate was half bound with Komar bin Syueb’s, and they felt happy for her.
She no longer followed her father to the rice fields in the morning, to stand on the plough so it sank into the mud while two buffaloes walked slowly along the plots, splattering her with earth. Nor would she lead their two sheep to the grassland on the hillside, herding them with the other shepherd kids, carrying two dry coconut stems as firewood on the way home. No, these tasks were now her younger brothers’, while she stayed at her mother’s side. In the morning she would light the grill to cook rice and learn every aspect of making the perfect lodeh dish. She still went to the rice fields, not to till the land, but to scatter seeds that had been soaked overnight. When their light green spikes shot up, she would join the other women to pull them out and plant them in the plots drawn with crisscrossing lines by her father and younger brothers. As they waited for the rice to grow tall, her father and brothers spread the fertilizer and kept watch on the water lest it turn stagnant, and she and her mother would carry the lunch hamper to a hut by a levee. She would return to the fields with her mother again when the algae and weeds needed clearing, and there would also be a time for her to harvest the ripe grains with an ani-ani knife, back in the days before the villagers used sickles. Other than that, Nuraeni had to look after her body in order for it to blossom, and to mind her language. For now she had a fiancé and was preparing for her wedding.
As for Komar, in keeping with local conventions, he had left his village shortly after turning twenty, since there wasn’t much to do at home for men of his age. Syueb had several plots of both wet and dry fields, but he could manage them with his wife without help, and had all the time he needed to serve as the only barber in the village. After a short lesson on how to shave people’s heads, how to use a blade to trim mustaches and stubble, and after several attempts to replace his father, Komar followed a friend and wandered out into the world, equipped with the knowledge of how to shave a man’s chin. Naturally, at first he didn’t want to be a barber at all, and hoped to get a job at some factory instead, like other young men.
He would come home once a year, before Eid ul-Fitr, more commonly called Lebaran, together with many other young men and wandering families, who during this great homecoming would appear in rows on the hilly path, with cardboard boxes and bags in their hands or on their shoulders. His hair was greasy with pomade, and he sported a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, corduroy pants still smelling of the barbershop, a watch, and a pair of black leather shoes that prompted him to tread carefully around the ubiquitous mud holes.
In his large bag was tobacco for Syueb, a batik skirt for his mother, pretty gowns for his younger sisters and, since he’d heard about his engagement, a present for his future wife as well. She was a stranger to him, but he knew she was beautiful and welcomed the marriage. He remembered the day the girl was born, because he’d been playing right next to her house and had watched people gather in anticipation of the baby’s delivery. He’d seen Nuraeni several times when she was a schoolgirl, since the school wasn’t far from his house. But his knowledge of her didn’t stretch much beyond her long, curly, dark hair, often tied back with a ribbon, a pointed nose, plump cheeks, and gleaming round eyes. When someone told him that his father had chosen the girl for him, sure enough Komar dreamed about her every night, until he decided to come home earlier than usual.
They met on the eve of Lebaran. Komar gave her a tin of biscuits and a pretty pink purse, and bashfully handed her a photo of himself. He was pictured posing in front of a bright yellow Volkswagen Kombi, which obviously wasn’t his and was clearly sitting in a parking lot. He looked awkward with one hand half sunk in a pocket, but his expression was cheerful and rather proud, as if no one could contrive a better pose and location.
They spent the whole Lebaran day together, going from houses to house, shaking hands with neighbors and relatives, and bragging that they were soon to be husband and wife, just as other couples were doing who had only met that day. Komar and Nuraeni walked side by side, stopping many times to greet passersby, the couple blushing from a mixture of joy and embarrassment. Nuraeni held on tightly to her pink purse, while Komar couldn’t really decide where to put his hands, first slipping them into the pockets of his corduroy pants, then folding them across his chest, and finally letting them hang clasped behind his back, as it certainly wasn’t yet time for them to hold hands. Even the slightest touch would make both of them shiver, their faces reddening.
Komar took her to try Wa Dullah’s meatballs at the noodle stall, which had a reputation for quality and high prices. It stood by the river in a row of stalls where people waited for the ferry. Customers jostled to be served, and when the couple’s order came they found a big rock to sit on, and ate there, holding the bowl with one hand and the spoon with the other. At one point Komar slipped, and a meatball was flipped into the air, and they giggled, warm and full of love, the way it should be at the beginning. In the afternoon they had grilled fish at a shack under a hog plum tree, after fishing with some friends at Wa Haji’s ponds. It was the habit of the locals to bring cooked rice wrapped in banana leaves to his land on the hillside, and fish there and cook the catch without going home. Days passed, but it felt like their time together would never end.
One night Komar took Nuraeni with a group of friends to see a play at the village theater. After Lebaran the theater would always be packed, since there was little to do at night unless you traveled far away to another town. They would always remember the play’s title, Titian Rambut Dibelah Tujuh, though the other details became blurred. It was about a heartless son, rather like the humble folk hero Malin Kundang, who becomes so rich and proud that he rejects his own mother and is turned to stone. At the office was a poster of a man burning in Hell. They would never forget that evening, because it was the first time they touched. In the dark, sat on a plank bench, they held hands. Not squeezing, just holding and that was enough to make them sizzle as if a fire had been lit in their bellies. That night they went home and both dreamt of being bitten by a snake.