Only once did Mameh see Nuraeni plucking flowers, not long after Marian died. She was singing strange ballads, which Mameh didn’t recognize. Perhaps they dated back to the time when her mother was still a girl. These melancholy songs flowed, while her fingers tweaked each flower carefully and placed it in her basket. It was as if plucking the flowers were the same as killing them, and her sorrow for them as great as the void left by the baby.
When Komar bin Syueb died, Mameh followed her mother’s example by picking flowers for the burial. At first she thought her mother would let her do it, because so little had been given to the dead man, but the look on her face made it clear that Nuraeni disapproved. She had given too much to that bastard already. But Mameh was now a young woman, and didn’t always obey her mother’s wishes. She kept picking flowers, regardless of her mother’s pain.
By this time Margio had concluded that nothing would ever make Nuraeni happy. Certainly not the flowers. As long as they reigned over the yard, turning it into a crazy jungle, Nuraeni’s nonsense chats with the stove and pan were unstoppable, a symptom of a grief that never left her. But even if the flower jungle didn’t make her happy, it gave her some kind of solace, and for that small blessing, the normally careless Margio was always extra careful around the plants. Nothing else came close to lifting his mother’s mood.
Until one day after he had stayed up really late watching a wayang performance about the death of Semar, the mysterious and powerful pariah god. He had come home to get something to eat that morning, after briefly sleeping at the nightwatch hut, and he found his mother beaming. He had never seen her like this. There was color in her cheeks. Her round eyes were brighter and, look, she had lipstick on, and face powder, and looked washed and fresh, too.
Warm rice, bawal fish, and coconut and vegetable soup were set out on the dining table. It wasn’t often that his mother started so early. He had only expected to find last night’s leftovers, and was amazed by the sudden change at home. He whispered Mameh to ask if something had happened, but she was just as baffled, despite being home so much. They checked the calendar and the Weton list of holidays, but it was just an ordinary day. They gave up and assumed that her good mood wouldn’t last beyond sundown, but they were wrong. Nuraeni became happier every day, despite retaining every ounce of bitterness toward Komar.
With time, her belly gave her away, and Margio realized what was really going on. Nuraeni was pregnant. He also had a feeling that the baby was a girl because, as people said, that’s how it is when a woman suddenly becomes exceptionally beautiful during pregnancy. Popular wisdom would be proved right when Marian was born.
Nuraeni craved odd foods, like raw cacao, and Margio roamed all over the bankrupt plantation looking for a tree that still bore fruit. On another occasion she asked for banana-heart soup, and it was Mameh who cooked it for her.
In truth their mother’s pregnancy irked Margio and Mameh. Think about it, said Margio to his sister. He was almost twenty years old, and now suddenly he was about to have a raw, red baby sibling. But the radiance of his mother’s face persuaded Margio to be extra-attentive. He worried she might be too old to bear a child safely. How old was she now? Margio calculated she was at least thirty-eight. Still fairly young, and the twinkle in her eyes had restored some of her youth. She could still get pregnant two or three times more, thought the boy.
Nuraeni’s behavior toward Komar didn’t change. He saw her talking to the stove and the pan still, and although now her tone was cheerful and teasing, his indifference to her was so great he didn’t notice anything unusual. He was the last to find out.
For a long time, she had been going to Anwar Sadat’s home to help with housework, and she didn’t stop until the birth. Komar allowed her to help at Anwar Sadat’s because there was so little to do at home. Major Sadrah’s wife would often ask Nuraeni to cook when her children visited or military guests came to dinner, and she would be allowed to take some of the food back with her. She worked in a shop cooking and making cakes, too. But where she worked most often was at Anwar Sadat’s place, which was next-door. Kasia had to go to the hospital every day, and was always busy when she got home. Her daughters meanwhile were nothing more than parasites. Nuraeni would help by cooking rice and vegetable dishes. She’d wash and iron their laundry, sweep the floor and the yard, and take care of Maesa Dewi’s little baby.
Every day, after Komar had his breakfast and pedaled his bicycle to the shade of the tropical almond tree in the market, Nuraeni would hurry to Kasia’s house and enter without even knocking, first to bathe the little baby, then to carry dirty clothes to the bathroom while Maesa Dewi and Laila lay sprawled on the couch, munching potato chips, and Anwar Sadat swayed in his rocking chair, smoking a clove cigarette. Nuraeni would then cook lunch while the dirty clothes were soaking in soapy water. Being pregnant didn’t stop her doing all these chores, and that was one reason why Komar didn’t realize they were about to have a third child.
Actually, Margio was the first in the family to hang out at Anwar Sadat’s house, where he was often asked to do odd jobs. It began when he had just moved to number 131. Margio was told by his father to learn to read the Koran under the supervision of Ma Soma. These classes were a sweet excuse for Margio to escape his boring house and offered a place to make new friends. He also discovered another attraction.
After the Isha prayers, he’d huddle with some of the other kids on Anwar Sadat’s front terrace, beside the large windows. There were no televisions in most local homes, but Sadat had one and let Margio and the others watch it. Sometimes older men, puffing clouds of tobacco smoke, would also come to watch the television, seated on coconut-wood chairs lined up on the terrace. The little kids were timid about going inside, because there, in front of the television set, the family would be sitting quiet and unperturbed, with the girls munching green peas. It wasn’t proper to disturb such tranquillity, so peeping through the windows was as close as they got.
On certain occasions, however, Anwar Sadat would let them in. In a commanding tone, he would tell them to sit on a braided mat, which took the place of chairs, or on the sofa. Sometimes they listened to him, except when they had chores to do. However, they would definitely comply when there were signs that Anwar Sadat was going to show a video. The man often went to a video rental shop in the hotel by the beach, especially on Saturday nights, and would let the children from the surau watch. This was how Margio became as familiar with Kungfu Shaolin as he was with Rambo.
One evening Margio sat alone outside Anwar Sadat’s window. It was raining heavily, so the other kids had run home, but not Margio. All that afternoon Komar had been beating Nuraeni, and he didn’t want to see it going on into the night. He planned to start his evening watching television and conclude it by sleeping at the surau. Anwar Sadat’s family shot the breeze until one of them complained about being hungry, and Margio understood they hadn’t prepared anything for supper. Seeing Margio sitting on the terrace, Anwar Sadat approached him and asked if he was willing to go buy food at the market. Although it was late, there would usually still be vendors around, offering fried tempeh, chicken satay, and even grilled fish. Before Margio could say yes, Maharani, the youngest daughter, stepped out of the house and told her father she would go, too. They shared an umbrella, braving the rain and the dark.
That was how Margio started doing odd jobs for Anwar Sadat and, more important, the beginning of his magical relationship with Maharani. They were the same age.