"Ibunda Guru ...," Sahara whispered shakily, "heaven, it turns out, is in our village."
Bu Mus was like someone lost in space and time. She was holding her breath, choking on her words.
"Subhanallah, my child, Allah is most holy ... look at this place."
Security escorted us to the PN central office in the middle of the Estate complex. We were then invited to enter the secretariat's room in the central office. There, Bu Mus met her old classmates who had become PN secretaries and administrative workers—Midah, Aini, Nizam, Izmi and Nurul. They appeared far wealthier than Bu Mus. They wore fine clothing while Bu Mus' clothes were rather simple.
A man in a safari jacket approached and asked us to enter the meeting room. The meeting room was very fancy. The furniture was large and stood tall. We were nervous just being there. Not much later, a man we immediately assumed was the head of PN entered, accompanied by three men wearing suits. He looked the most authoritative, and those around him bustled about as they vied to wait on him. One of the jacketed men was Taikong.
Our early prediction of what he would look like was quite wrong; we had assumed he would resemble the foreman, intimidating and out to win. But standing before us, the head of PN was very different. It turned out he was a small man. His face was clean and he appeared very intelligent. His hair was already white and thinning, for a man his age. He looked friendly and willing to listen to others' opinions. He looked at Bu Mus for a moment, and then smiled.
A woman got up, gave her general courtesies, good this, good that, then said to Bu Mus, "Please tell us why you and your students are here to see the director."
Bu Mus fixed her jilbab and stood up. What happened next I will never in my life forget. Though Bu Mus had been through many ordeals, severely intimidated by Mister Samadikun and the head miner, this was the first time I saw her quiver. She opened her five-page speech.
We were ready to hear Bu Mus' voice shake with the opening of her speech, the preamble of the Constitution, the neverending fight for education, our school as a symbol of education for marginalized people, the fate of poor Malay children, and education as a human right. We were ready to clap our hands to support each paragraph as it came. Bu Mus remained silent, staring at the paper before her. A few moments went by. But it seemed she couldn't read the manuscript of her speech.
"Go ahead, Ma'am," said the woman.
Bu Mus did nothing. She looked like she wanted to say thousands of things that were not duly represented by those five pages. Not one word emerged from her mouth. Her exclassmates looked on impatiently.
"Come on, Mus, this is your chance. Speak!" Nurul whispered.
Bu Mus remained silent. The head of PN looked at Bu Mus with surprise.
"It's too kind of the director to see you. You said that you want to say something, so say it!" Izmi growled.
Bu Mus didn't make a peep. We looked on and whispered. What had gotten into our teacher? Did she have stage fright? Nizam was tapping her folder on the table in front of her, disappointed at seeing Bu Mus as silent as a stone.
"Say what you want to say, Mus! What is it?" Nizam raged.
The woman who opened the meeting tried to calm down Bu Mus' friends. Kucai looked impatient, as if he wanted to snatch the speech out of Bu Mus' hands. Maybe he wanted to deliver the speech himself in front of the head of PN.
"What is it, Ibunda Guru?" Sahara whispered.
Bu Mus kept quiet. The head of PN spoke, "Go ahead, Ibu Guru, don't be scared. Speak."
Instead of answering, Bu Mus just stared at the head of PN. Her eyes widened and her body shook. She gripped the papers she was holding in her hands even tighter. It was as if she were possessed by something. Being her students for many years, our instincts told us what was going on. She must have been reminded of Pak Harfan. She was haunted by the faces of the founders of the Muhammadiyah School in Belitong who had been threatened, jailed, tortured, exiled, tossed aside and killed by the colonial authorities for establishing the school. She couldn't bear the thought of having to defend the school on her own. In any case, she wasn't up against colonial authorities, but her own countrymen. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she refused to cry. Bu Mus never wanted to look weak in front of us.
The room was silent. Bu Mus took something wrapped in a handkerchief out of her bag. She walked up to the head of PN and handed the bundle to him.
Bu Mus returned to her seat.
The head of PN opened the package. Inside was a box of chalk. He opened the box and took out a few small pieces of chalk that had been used by Bu Mus.
"Thank you, Ibu Guru" said the head of PN.
We excused ourselves.
Chapter 39
Poverty Trader
WE WENT home empty-handed. Our mission had failed. Bu Mus had been so sentimental and emotional that she couldn't put on a professional front to give the speech to defend our school. We ourselves couldn't do anything. The grandeur of the Estate had brought us down, had caused our courage to dissipate completely. It was true what everyone had said before: The Estate and PN were too strong to be challenged.
We could only submit to our fate. Everything we had done to hold onto our school—facing the supervisor, working our butts off to win prestigious awards, challenging the king—had all been done in vain. Our school would vanish from the face of the earth. We had to accept our bitter fate.
We agreed to go to school the following Tuesday to salvage what was left of our valuables—our two wonderful trophies. Those were the only valuable things we had, and they were valuable to us alone. We also agreed to say our goodbyes under the filicium tree. It was so bitter.
However, when we arrived on Tuesday morning, we were surprised—the din of machines that had terrorized us for months was nowhere to be heard. We were also stunned to see PN workers tearing down the coolie barracks and the logistics team packing things up like they were getting ready to move. The dredges that had been pointed due east to tear down our school were now facing north.
Bu Mus darted around the schoolyard to find out what was happening.
A luxury car rolled into our schoolyard. A man got out of the car and approached Bu Mus. It was Taikong. Smiling, he told us something. What he said made us jump up and down.
"The head of PN has ordered the captain of the dredges to turn around."
Bu Mus was deeply moved. She pressed her hands against her heart. She said thank you to Taikong and hurried to the back of the school. We followed her. Bu Mus rescued our school's sign, which had fallen and was lying face-down in the dirt. She wiped the sign with the end of her jilbab until the writing could be seen again:
SD MD SEKOLAH DASAR MUHAMMADIYAH
After being wiped over and over, the white beams from the sign's sun shone once again. Our old school had risen from the dead and come back to life.
We were ecstatic to have our school back. Bu Mus raised the red and white flag in our schoolyard. It rippled magnificently, blown by the wind, dust, and sound of the heavy machinery leaving our schoolyard. We danced around and around the pole.
Bu Mus gave out tasks to restore our school. We fixed the roof, re-hung the board on the wall, put up an extra support beam so our school wouldn't collapse, and rebuilt our destroyed flower garden.
The strange thing was, after hearing our school would not be struck down by the dredges, the politicians, party members and representatives who had been visiting our school suddenly disappeared. Their blindness had returned. People returned to their indifference.
Even the institution that had installed the water pump without permission took it back, again without permission.
The experience taught me something important about poverty: it is a commodity. PN canceled its tin plundering plans for our school, and that didn't make us any less poor. Because we were not being wiped out, there was no more conflict with PN. No one could blackmail PN to take advantage of the situation or become famous for defending poor people. No one could become a faux hero, no election votes
could be gained from the incident. There would be no sad photos attached to fund-raising proposals. The turning around of the dredges had caused the market value of our school's poverty to plummet.
Chapter 40
My Promise to Bu Mus
THE SKY had been dark since morning, and then came a heavy rain. We splashed, running along the puddle-filled road toward school, covering our heads with whatever we could.
All eleven students were in the classroom, but Bu Mus had not yet arrived. The rain grew heavier. Thunder boomed. We stood on our tiptoes to peer between the gaps in the planks of the wall. We were worried, waiting for Bu Mus. Then she appeared in the distance, running with small steps under the downpour, crossing the schoolyard using a banana leaf as her umbrella, pausing intermittently under one of the gayam trees bordering the northern end of our schoolyard.
We watched her with concern. No one spoke, but I knew everyone else's hearts were full of commotion like mine: a feeling of pity mixed with pride and admiration. Obstacle after obstacle had been conquered by a thin, seemingly powerless young woman. But just look how powerful she really was.
Bu Mus saw us lined up through the cracks in the walls. She was soaked, but laughing lightheartedly, impatient to get to her students. We felt, as always, that for her we were the most valuable of Malay children. Bu Mus didn't want to lose even one of us, and she too was like half of our own souls. We were so lucky God had sent us a teacher like Bu Mus. Her service was truly indescribable. As Bu Mus crossed the schoolyard using a banana leaf as an umbrella, I drew up a promise deep in my heart: when I grew up, I would write a book for this teacher of mine.
Bu Mus quickly restored our morale. Our school became itself again, calm in its actions, celebrating learning even in its limitations, being dignified in its humility, and peaceful in its poverty.
Before we knew it, report card day had come once again. It was a fun day because our parents came to school. After the distribution of the report cards, we would enter our final examination month. Blue marks were for scores above five, red marks for five and under. If we got more than three red marks, we would not be allowed to take the final exams to move up a class.
First rank continued to belong to Lintang, and I returned to my second place seat. Harun was not happy with any number other than three, and he asked Bu Mus to fill in threes for all subjects on his report card. He looked at the number threes lined up while laughing loudly. He was happy even though the request relegated him to the fourth lowest rank in the class.
And it just so happened that Kucai, for the first time in his political career as class president, admitted his mistake. It was true that we had been used to working part-time after school, but Kucai had incited the members of Laskar Pelangi to leave school and work full time. In a very gentlemanly manner, he asked Bu Mus to reduce the grade he had received for Muhammadiyah Ethics by two. His grades were never too good to begin with, so further reducing them made him plummet in the rankings, right below Harun.
Bu Mus wasn't too surprised about Harun and Kucai, but the pair of names that filled the most concerning positions made her massage her temples. What was most bothersome to her was that they had lost interest because they were crazy about the paranormal, a serious violation for Muhammadiyah, and for Muslims generally. To make matters worse, the violation took place in an Islamic school. Those two dramatic creatures were, of course, Mahar and Flo.
Along with the ever-increasing euphoria of the secret organization they had founded—Societeit de Limpai—Flo and Mahar's scores dropped faster than a skydiver. Red numbers lined their report card like someone's back had been dikerok—scraped by a coin as part of a traditional massage. They only got blue marks for agricultural knowledge, craftsmanship, etiquette, and Indonesian—and that was only for talking. Flo's scores were the worst. In Math, English, and Science, she received a flock of swimming swans—three 2's. Her scores were even worse than Harun's.
Mahar and Flo were in a critical situation, and it was very possible that they would be bumped down a class level. They had already received three warning letters. Because of the worrisome problem, Flo's father secretly conspired with Bu Frischa, the PN School principal, to lure Flo back to the PN School, where Bu Frischa had promised that Flo would receive grades to be proud of. In order to try to tempt Flo, Bu Frischa sent a young, flashy PN teacher to approach her.
That evening, we passed the market on our way home from watching a football match. Bu Frischa and the fun teacher were shopping. Flo walked up to Bu Frischa like a cowboy about to have a showdown.
"My name is Flo, Floriana," she greeted Bu Frischa. The flashy teacher nodded politely and gave Flo his sweetest smile.
"Please inform this man that I will never leave Bu Mus and the Muhammadiyah School."
And Flo left it at that. Bu Frischa and the flashy teacher were left scratching their heads, and the idea to lure Flo back to the PN School was never broached again.
Flo and Mahar racked their brains to figure out how to overcome the crisis they faced. They were in a dilemma. They wanted to keep going to school, but at the same time they were addicted to the supernatural world.
Out of the blue, Mahar came up with a most absurd idea. They would try a way that they knew well: the shamanistic shortcut. A unique, ridiculous, and high-risk method.
Mahar and, later, Flo, were convinced supernatural power could give them a magical solution for their plummeting grades at school, and that they knew someone capable of harnessing the very sort of power that could help them. He proved his power when he was able to show the way to Flo when she was lost on Selumar Mountain. Of course, this all-powerful person, half man, half ghost, was none other than Tuk Bayan Tula.
According to Flo and Mahar, this school problem was a silly matter that was no match for the king of shamans. They believed that the half man half ghost could easily change a six to a nine, a four to an eight, and a red mark to a blue one.
Having devised a foolproof plan, they giggled and jumped for joy. The clouds that shadowed their faces while being scolded by Bu Mus had lifted. In class, they were delighted and didn't bother to study one bit.
All of the Societeit's members enthusiastically greeted the idea to visit Tuk Bayan Tula on Pirate Island. It turned out they too had wanted to visit their shaman idol for a long time. But the risk involved was not trivial. If Tuk Bayan Tula was unwilling to receive them, the visitors would never return home. But they were willing to take that risk as long as they got a chance to see Tuk Bayan Tula's face, even if it was only once.
Sailing to Pirate Island was the most important and the pinnacle of all the Societeit's paranormal activities. The expedition was extremely expensive. They had to rent a boat with at least a 40 horsepower engine and an experienced captain—one of the Sarong people. He charged a very high fee because he was experienced, knew Tuk Bayan Tula's reputation, and didn't want to die foolishly.
All of the Societeit's members tried to raise money. Mahar pawned the bike he had inherited from his grandfather. Flo sold the gold necklace and bracelet given to her by her mother. Mujis let go of his most valuable possession, a Philips two-band transistor radio. He also took on extra mosquito spraying jobs that took him as far as Tanjong Pandan. He even extended his service to include not just mosquitoes anymore, but also rats, lizards, even ants—he was ready for them all. The unemployed one collected garbage and sold it to make money. The dropout borrowed money from his father. The lone electone player pawned his electone, his source of livelihood. The Chinese gold plater broke open his piggy bank in front of his weeping children. The BRI bank teller worked overtime until midnight. The retired port master pawned his glass display case—which had to be carried by four people—causing a big fight with his wife. I myself lent my services to the post master.
Our hearts thumped anticipating the day of departure. When the collection of money spread out on the table, we found we had collected 1.5 million Rupiah. Amazing! The money—most of which was in piles of coins—j
ingled.
I trembled because never in my life had I seen that much money. Not to mention that, as secretary, I had to hold onto it. I touched it and was startled at the feeling of being rich. It turns out that for one who has been poor since before he was in his mother's womb, that is a slightly terrifying feeling.
I kept the money carefully in my pocket and never let go of it. Suddenly everyone looked like a thief. Money, indeed, has a cruel influence.
We departed the next evening. Many fishermen warned us that storm season had already arrived and Pirate Island was a dangerous idea. But we didn't back down. The draw to Tuk Bayan Tula's supernatural power was very strong, as was Flo and Mahar's determination to tackle their problem at school. Only we didn't realize that in the middle of the sea, death awaited us.
Chapter 41
Pirate Island
AT FOUR o'clock on Saturday afternoon, we set sail for Pirate Island.
At first, it was very fun. Dolphins chased the boat's bow, the sun shone brightly. But not much later, as the time for magrib prayer approached, our boat began being tossed around. The waves grew higher by the minute. The farther we got out, the harder the boat was to control.
The previously calm conditions had plunged into a horrific squall. A cluster of dark clouds moved toward our boat. Flashes of lightning struck one after another.
The captain tried to turn around, but the 40 horsepower engine wasn't powerful enough. He feared that if we tried to battle the waves, we would capsize. The waves were in a frenzy.
We were soon aware that the situation had turned perilous. And the true storm had not even arrived. Gigantic waves rolled in. We gathered in a small circle around the mast and tried to hold on, like people becoming one in the face of death.