Well, I'm here now. Sorry for the prolonged absence. You know, the usual, life, school, etc, blah. And I got sidetracked by Pseudonymous Bosch's Secret series, which is really good. On a more positive note, I brought something to read. See, my class analyzed a short story (which is actually not so short) during Indonesian lesson, and it was a very intriguing, somewhat spine-chilling read. The title is Pada Suatu Hari, Ada Ibu dan Radian by Avianti Armand. Me, being the person I am, was intrigued with the author's writing style and wanted to try it in English. So, came my very logical decision to translate the whole thing into English. Yay.
Though I don't know if I missed correcting any grammatical mistakes of sort, I think I managed to do it pretty nicely. I tried to keep the sentences exactly the same with the Indonesian, but some ended up being weird or confusing, so I tweaked it a bit. I kept Radian the same though, since it is a name, though I'm quite sure it's actually Radiance if it's English...or is it the mathematical Radian? Hmm...
And, disclaimer!
Disclaimer: Pada Suatu Hari, Ada Ibu dan Radian is Avianti Armand's. It is not mine. I'm just translating it on a whim.
Once Upon a Time,
There were Mother and Radian
The sky became red. A dragon swooped down, sweeping the
stars and the sun in its wake. The tips of its wings brought flickers of
burning amber. Fire scattered. Wind raged. Fear was sprayed into the air, not
unlike the liquid ink of an octopus. The armored knights were sprawled across
the ground lifelessly. Screams of despair suffocated the space. The creature
was unbelievably furious. Houses, trees, and mountaintops in the distance were
wracked into something unrecognizable in shape. Everything was leveled to the
ground. All of them. All except one child who stood straight, unmoving. His
hands grasped a bow that had been stretched. His face was as dark as obsidian,
but his eyes were as bright as a lightning flash. From his bow was the great
arrow that was plunged into the dragon's chest.
That dragon will die,
Mother, whispered him. Then his eyes closed. Maybe asleep. Or trying to sleep.
The drawn picture on that large piece of paper was now embraced to his chest.
It was a picture that was tight with scratches and thick, broken lines drawn
filled with emotions. A picture made up of only three colors: red, black, and
grey.
I was floating. Maybe I was asleep. Without dreams, only
darkness--and I was awakened by the silence, which was quite strange for an early
morning that was usually clamorous. There was no call for prayer (azan). There
was no crow of the rooster or the recurring shouts from the green grocer and
the milkman's radio. Radian's bed was empty, but it was still warm. He had not
woken for long. I staggered out of the room and found the child in front of the
partially opened bathroom door. He stood, too stiff. Like a movement that was
suddenly frozen in the air. A weak ray of light brushed his little face.
A cold chill suddenly
crept through my back. That face was too white, too pale even for a morning
that was still blue. I immediately approached close. And there, behind the door
that was partially opened, my husband's body laid still. A blade of knife was
stuck on the chest. Blood bubbled up from his wound. The white flooring was now
flooded red. My world instantly went black.
****
That animal was once alive. Even now, it was still looking
very much alive. Only if it was touched, it would be felt that its flesh was
cold. The death of that hamster caused a huge ruckus in the class. Radian
killed it. In front of his classmates who were screaming in terror, he
strangled the animal until it was out of breath. The child was now stuttering,
refusing to take a seat. His back was attached to the wall on the corner of the
teacher's office. There were only the three of us: Ms. Tina--the school
principal--I, and Radian. Slowly, he inched closer, hugged me, and went back to
stand with his back attached to the wall. He seemed calmer--not afraid, just
sad.
We stared at him, Ms.
Tina and I, then back to the carcass of the dead hamster on top of the table.
If fate had said otherwise, this morning I would be the one lying dead. I could
still feel my husband's hands gripping my neck forcefully. Like the hamster, I
struggled. Fought back. But that man was stronger. I could smell fury from his
alcohol-tinted breath. Death slowly crawled down my spine. My neck rattled. My
head was almost cracked. When consciousness was almost gone from my grasp,
suddenly he threw me aside--crumpled in a heap on the floor, reaching for air
that was not willing to return. He left, just like that. And when my vision
recovered, my heart fell apart. Radian watched from a dark corner, soundless.
That face was thick with fear. Heavy streams of tears painted his cheeks. I
stared at him again. Maybe he was just curious, about what would happen if
someone or something was strangled firmly. That hamster had explained, how
death had been so close in taking his mother.
That night, we slept
side by side, not enclosing each other in an embrace. This level of closeness
was always enough, never more. The 25 watt bulb was dim, but it was still
enough to see the picture that Radian made before laying down.
A big tree. A big
house. Everything was black. A man in black clothes was hanging on the tree. A
single strand of thick rope wrapped around his neck. His head was dangling. Too
lopsided, as if his neck was broken. There were two huge black nails stabbed on
the place where his eyes were supposed to be. When I asked who the man was,
Radian only stated: a bad man. A little boy stood underneath the hanging man,
carrying a large sack. Popcorn, he said, pointing at the small lumps
reminiscent of cotton that spilled out of the sack. Rained down by falling
leaves, the child watched as the body of the man swayed as it was blown by the
wind. His cheeks were puffed, maybe he was happily chewing his popcorn. The
light of the bulb went through the piece of paper in Radian's hand, forming a
circle of light on the head of the boy in the picture, also on my little boy's
head. He smiled, but his eyes did not.
****
The night felt heavy, but the moonlight was enough to
illuminate the room. The woman in the mirror was silent, even when the years
that was carved on her visage, her body, spoke. I didn't recognize her. That
face was not my face. Those eyes were not my eyes. That body was too thin, too
dry to be mine. She was swollen and blue. Maybe she was tired. Or she was in
despair. But it was clear that she was angry. Anger shadowed like the black
wings of a raven, striking and scratching that face, leaving deep creases on
the skin.
A small hand touched
her back. The woman in the mirror tried to smile. She whispered softly, are you
hungry? The boy nodded. They held hands toward the kitchen. She opened the
refrigerator, skimming for a moment, then started to take out the contents one
by one: egg, mushroom, sausage, meat, onion, cheese, chili, lettuce, spaghetti,
milk, ... She arranged everything neatly on the table. Without a word she took
the pot, filled it with water, placed it on the stove, and then set the fire to
a high heat level. Without a word she cracked the egg, put the insides--the
shell as well--into the pot. She broke the little sticks of spaghetti, and put
it inside the pot. She opened the milk carton, and poured all of it into the
pot. She took a 25 centimeter knife, then chopped the onion into tiny pieces,
lettuce into minced shreds, sausage into small, broken pieces. Steam started to
permeate the kitchen. She cut the mushroom, tofu, meat, chili. The longer she
went, the faster her motions. Perspiration dripped down in beads from her
forehead. Water dripped down drop by drop from her eyes. Not long after,
everything was mixed up. Nothing that could be cut was left. Nothing
recognizable was left.
The woman stopped.
She heaved for breath. She sobbed. She stared at the knife in her hand. She
watched the boy standing silent beside her. The child moved little by little,
picking up the mixture of chopped ingredients on the table, and ate it slowly.
His eyes did not move away from staring at his mother. Those were sorrowful
eyes.
The knife clattered
down from her grip. The woman fell crumpled on the kitchen floor. Her energy
had been drained out. Finished. Her tears had been drained out. Finished. Now
she was hollow. The boy came closer, and then sat, drawing near to her. He
leaned his head on the woman's shoulder. Mother, he whispered.
****
When we die, where do
we go? I shrugged my shoulders. I don't know. Radian went back to drawing his
picture. Do you love father? I shrugged again. I don't know. What I do know, is
that I love you. Radian smiled without lifting his head. Did I love him? I
didn't remember.
From what I
remembered, we were a pair of happy adolescents. I was happy. He was happy.
Happily, we went to an island where the sky and the sea challenged each other's
blue. Happily, we explored each other's body on that beach. I didn't know why
we did it--having intercourse on the beach, which only made us sticky with the
smell of the sea, and the smell of sins that we couldn't erase so easily.
He never said love to
me. I never said love to him. But I carried his seed. We had to get married no
matter how. His parents wanted to save their faces. My parents wanted to save
theirs. I wanted to run. He wanted to do the same. Our parents forbade us from
separating. God forbade us from separating. But why did God not forbid him from
hitting me whenever he wanted to? Once, I fought back against him. I punched
his nose until it bled. But that beast hurt my child. I ran away from our
house. A heart attack paralyzed my father. And I was returned to my husband.
Turns out that God wanted me to hold on. Here is my body, here is my blood. Eat
and drink as you wish. I was a sacrificial lamb, whatever for, I don't know. Do
I love him?
Dusk dropped a ray of
light on the table. Radian was done with his drawing. He flipped his paper and
showed it to me.
It was a small island
in the middle of the sea and a small boat that was leaving the island. There
were two people inside the boat: a woman and her son. They were smiling. There
was a house on the island, shaped in a box with small square windows. Behind it
was a figure with his hands outstretched to the sky. Above the house was a
flock of flying black birds. There were twelve of them.The house was covered in
tongues of red. Burned, said Radian. The man was clearly trapped. He screamed
in a small speech bubble with many exclamation marks: help!!!! When he die, the
birds will take him away, he said. Why is he left behind, I asked. Because he
is bad, he answered.
****
I felt like living in
a soap opera with a female character who cried piteously because she was
tortured without a choice. The difference was that this one didn't cry.
The beginning was simple. A barbeque party. A green sky. A
butterfly as big as an umbrella flew around. Orange grass. A big house above
the clouds. Girls with wings on their backs and flowers on their heads. Boys
with colorful horns, gathered around the grill. One held a plate, another held
a fork, another a purple lemonade. Everything was normal, except for the
barbecue. Four eyeballs. Cutlets of auricle and three noses. Hands and feet,
complete with the fingers. A big lump of red meat with an arrow directed
towards it: the heart. Then, a decapacitated animal head with wide-open eyes
and a hanging tongue. Radian said, it's the dragon's head.
The woman showed the
picture to her husband during dinner. The principal showed the picture to her
that morning. Radian's picture. The man did not speak a single word. His hands
only slammed on the table, took a plate, and threw it. Right to her face. She
was trapped. The pain nearly blew her head off. She swallowed it. Anger surged
immediately. She swallowed it. The sound of broken plates deafened the ears.
Her son went out of the room and stood silent at the door, no longer feeling
strange when his father left.
Glass windows
reflected those dreary images. A fractured woman and a fragile child. The child
went into the room and came back with a piece of towel. Slowly, he dragged a
chair for him to sit on. With gentle hands, he wiped the bloody injury on the
woman's face.
I stood in a dark
corner, watering my hate with rousing anger. I can feel the seed slowly taking
its roots. Its strong branches searched for escape through every single vein.
It grew stronger. No, I wasn't able to swallow it.
****
I'm not hungry,
mother. The boy was terrified. But the woman kept walking towards the kitchen.
She did not open the refrigerator, did not place the pot above the flames. She
just took the knife and stood in front of the table. Just like that, for a very
long time. Her eyes stared forward. They were empty. Then, her hand started
moving, with a cutting motion as if she was trying to cut something invisible.
Something that might have only resided in her head. Slow at first. Then her
movement grew faster. Sweat ran in rivulets down her forehead. Droplets of
tears ran down from her eyes. The boy did not dare move closer. He only stared at
her mother's back that shook harshly. Something from the inside has broken that
woman, little by little, bit by bit. She did not recognize that woman anymore.
I did not recognize her anymore.
That noon, we laid
side by side on the surface of the floor, in front of the bathroom that was now
pooling with red, surrounding the body of my husband who once had lived. The
yellow glow of the sun spilled over. It was bright. It was too bright to see
the picture that Radian made, in the amount of minutes--I did not know how long
it was--I stood silent in the darkness. I looked upwards to find his eyes, but
he avoided me. His picture was outstretched towards me. I narrowed my eyes.
Rain. The woman and
the boy were walking hand in hand. Their eyes were sparkling. Their lips smiled
on gray faces. There was no sun. Only the lumpy black clouds were above them.
One of the largest ones floated low above the boy's head. On his shoulder, a
bird perched. Its wings were spread, ready to take flight. The woman was
clutching a blade of knife. It was big. Its tip was covered in something that
dripped red. They held hands on a road that started from a lost point, one that
grew wider and wider as it went down the end of the paper. On their left and
right, rows of giant trees bent toward the center of the road, creating a
canopy that gave the road shade and made it look even darker in its obscurity.
Black birds perched on the branches of the trees. Ravens, said Radian. On the
furthest boundary downwards the paper, it was written with askew capital
letters:
ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WERE MOTHER AND RADIAN.
Only the two of us, mother.
Jakarta, November 13 2007
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