Hamid: A Story

by ACHDIAT K. MIHARDJA

1

AT MOMENTS like these Hamid badly needed his wife — or somebody who similarly admired him and would praise him when, as now, he wanted to tell about the speech he had made at the meeting.

It was three weeks now since Mimi had gone to Bandung about an inheritance, so that Hamid had had to live like a bachelor, with only Salim to bear him company and manage the household.

It was almost sunset. Bathed, and in pajamas still warm from the iron, Hamid enjoyed the freshness of the afternoon breeze. He dragged out to the terrace his favorite sagging-seated rattan chair, and snuggled his fat body down into it.

His thoughts still on the meeting, Hamid was only partly aware of the pedicab drivers out front, chatting, cleaning their lamps, ringing their bells, or saying something to passing maidservants or working girls to make them blush. When, occasionally, some sentence registered on Hamid’s mind and startled him from reverie, he was shocked, and shivered as if frightened. How dirty-mouthed, how crude and coarse they are, he thought. He hated them. But he hated himself too for having, a week ago, praised them before a branch meeting of his party as heroes of freedom. Why was President Sukarno once so generous in praise of these rude men? What did he know about them? Palace and hovel are too far apart. But he, Hamid, knew all, for they lived behind his house.

The sun set; the evening drum sounded. Hamid turned on the lights and hastily performed his ritual washing in the bathroom. He prayed: Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Evening prayer finished, he ate — little, and without appetite. He was fed up with Salim’s cooking — fried bean cakes again. He lighted a Skipper cigarette, playing with the blue smoke that spiraled delicately upward.

He felt, as often since Mimi had gone away, a lonely deserted feeling in the house. He was a voluble person who loved to spend evenings on idle chitchat, and was restless and bored when alone. A week ago he was still easily able to allay this feeling: jump into the otlice car, and glide off to a friend’s to talk or invite him for a spin about the city, to Pasar Senen, Glodok, Jatinegara, Zandvoort, or anywhere, until the gas was almost gone.

But since the car had been damaged in a collision a week ago, he mostly just stayed at home, terribly bored. He sometimes invited Salim for a chat, but Salim was so talkative that Hamid could scarcely get in a word, and he often overstepped the bounds distinguishing friend from employer — as if he were addressing his friend Abdul, or his younger brother Otong, or his sweetheart Omah, rather than his employer Hamid, who gave him food and wages.

Furthermore, Salim was too fond of comparing the “normal” Dutch period with the present, harping on how in the old days he could eat, buy clothing, see every new film with his sweetheart, whereas now . . . Hamid thought him a deserter from the holy national struggle, and were it not that he pitied Salim because he could not return to his native village, now controlled by Kartosuw irjo, the Darul-Islam leader, would have chased him from the house long ago.

What to do, then? Since overtime regulations became valid for senior employees, Hamid never brought work home: it was more advantageous to continue working after hours in the office. And, save for newspapers and picture magazines, Ilamid didn’t like to read. Nor was he a journalist or author who liked to write at home for a newspaper or on a book.

“Isn’t Tuan going out this evening?” asked Salim. Hamid did not reply.

Under the Dutch, Hamid had been only a clerk second grade: now he was a category C senior employee — a real “six-C-er.” It was politienl activity which had won him the post, to which his party’s representative in the cabinet had forthwith appointed him. The moment this had occurred, Ilamid had gone straightway to the shrine of Luar Batang to present the Kulhu and Fatih ah to the soul of Sheik Abdul Muhji. After strewing flowers, he had caressed and embraced Jagur, the holy cannon, a Portuguese trophy. And that evening he had dined at home with the Minister.

Hamid’s speeches were clever — “remarkable,” said his friends in the party. And they were not the only ones who enjoyed listening; Ilamid himself did. He had once frankly confessed this to Mimi, who had replied, “Ah, dear, as happy as you are to hear yourself, you are not half so happy as 1.”The answer consumed Hamid with happiness: he embraced her, his eyes blinded by tears of joy.

This evening, as always, Hamid felt elated about his speech — as if he could still hear his voice and feel his gestures as he stood on the rostrum. The glowing reception of today’s speech had been especially wonderful. The audience applauded noisily after he analyzed and attacked “Tjiliwung Culture” as rampant in certain Jakarta social strata which liked dancing at Garden Hall, at the Hotel des Indes, at the Airport, and so on.

All this proved, he believed, that Indonesian social groups were dominated by a character crisis caused by “the aggression of Western culture, pioneered by the Dutch who wanted to colonize Indonesia again, assisted by henchmen who favored retention of the Dutch language in high schools and the university. This aggression must be stopped because it damaged and frustrated the national character. Dancing, swimming, and worse . . . The government itself, calling itself national and based on the philosophy of the Pantja-Sila, the Five Principles, had permitted this, and in the schools made boys and girls study and participate in sports together. Did all this not contravene the culture of the East? Where was the nation going? Did the national government want, to make us lose our way, as the colonial government had done? Was this what our country sacrificed, fought, and died fort

Suddenly Ilamid jumped from his chair. He could not bear to sit alone any longer. He sensed it was disloyal to criticize the government, because his party participated in it. He quickly went into his bedroom and changed to complete street clothes. But at the last minute he took off his tie again.

“Salim, Salim,” he called. “I’m going out. Close the front and side doors. Don’t you leave the house. Don’t think that, just because I’m out, you can go have fun at Omah’s house.”

The clock said 7:45. He hurried out, and jumped into a pedicab.

“Let’s go, Bung!”

“Where to, Boss?” asked the driver, who was bumming a cigarette from his friend.

“Anywhere,” The driver looked surprised.

“Eh, well ... to Tanah Abang, then.”

“Okay, Boss!” The driver jumped to his seal and pedaled them off, his palm-leaf cigarette crackling and sputtering. “Going to enjoy yourself, Boss?”

Hamid at first pretended not to have heard, then: “I’m looking for sate, Bung. I haven’t eaten Tanah Abang sate for a long time.”

2

AMAT’S pedicab squeezed skillfully among the crowding vehicles. At each near-collision, Hamid shouted a warning. But Amat always answered:

“Experience, Boss. Don’t worry . . . ten years of pedaling , . . in an office I’d have been promoted by now.” In a quieter street he enlarged on the theme. “Never had an accident, Boss. I’m not like those other showoffs. They’re less careful, less experienced. They’re nervous, too, so naturally they have accidents. But not me. Has our pedicab even grazed another vehicle? Just say ‘bismillah ‘ once and we are safe.”

And with that, for no apparent reason, the pedicab suddenly swerved to the left, tilting so that Hamid, hat askew, fell into the footrest section.

He shouted again, this time very angry: “Watch out, you fool! Do you want to kill us?”

“Experience, Boss, experience . . . Don’t you worry.”

They wore silent some time. Then Amat said: “Haven’t taken the Missus to market for a long time. Is she out of town. Boss?”

“She went to Bandung,” Ilamid snapped.

“Oh, to Bandung, Boss?”

Amat then had to push the pedicab up a hill. He was panting. But the moment he got on the downgrade, he began again:

“Uh . . . Boss, in Tanah Abang I know a . .

“Know’ what?”

“Someone who’s just come from Sukabumi. Wah, she’s quite a dish, Boss. Terrific. She’s a lovesick widow, too, Boss. You know what that is!”

Very angry, Hamid snarled loudly: “What do you think I am?”

Amat was embarrassed by the outburst. A miscalculation. This fish didn’t grab the bait. He decided not to say another word. At the corner by the movie theater Hamid got out and silently handed Amat two rupiahs and a half.

“Allah! Only a ringgit! You can’t he serious! I pedal till I’m half dead, and only a ringgit! Have a heart and give me some more.” Hamid ignored him and disappeared into the throng, followed by Amat’s highly audible insults: “if you don’t have any more, don’t take a pedicab, you shameless soand-so.” The watching people laughed.

As always, Tanah A bang was jammed with humans moving as restlessly as ants. Street vendors were laying out mats on which 1o spread cloth, ready-made clothing, teapots and cups, medicines, hair-combs, pins, and the like. Above their merchandise, Petromax lamps hissed. The vendors tried to outshoul one another:

“Step up, Hung! Step up, Tuan! Come on, Madam! Select first, then bargain. Don’t pay before you buy. You’re sure to be satisfied. If you don’t buy, you’ll regret it. Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

With voices already hoarse, and dripping with perspiration, they shouted through megaphones. Prom coffee shops and restaurants radios were going full blast. Here, Nji Ppit-Sarimanah, singing the Soudanese song “Hintang Gurilja”; there, Dimin singing “ Kerontjong Merdeka.’ On another radio, someone was speaking, and some words stopped Hamid: the subject was his own favorite— the character crisis and it was a woman speaking. Her voice was unfamiliar, but he agreed with her speech. Prom time to time he nodded and smiled to himself. He wanted to listen till the end, but his feet were repeatedly stepped on; to protect them, he had to let himself be swept along in the tide. Not far away was a rice house that featured goat sate. When he had ordered twenty large pieces, he noticed that fortunately the same woman’s speech was on that radio too, so, while he waited, he listened, nodding and smiling agreement as before.

After eating, Hamid again went along with the human sea. Usually he was unhappy when alone, with no friend to talk 1O; but this time, elated by the surrounding gaiety, he felt that alone he could better absorb all that was occurring about him.

This was the arena of ordinary life, the common people of the palm-leaf-wrapped cigarette and the hairknot greased with coconut oil; far from the world of “Soir do Paris” and the “Karel 1” cigar. But it was a world still pure and unsoiled, not yet ensnared in artificiality. Hamid felt deep satisfaction in seeing it mill before his eyes. He watched especially to see whether, among the women, any were scantily clad, as on the dance floor at the Garden Hall or the Hotel des Jndes. He also kept an extra-sharp Lookout to see whether, among the inhabitants of the shacks and muddy alleys, any embraced in public.

Hamid was like driftwood on an ocean swell. Sometimes he would watch someone bargaining for a piece of cloth; sometimes listen to the spiel of a patent-medicine hawker. He asked himself why these people, who were not outdone by even President Sukarno in the art of haranguing, didn’t use this skill to become a leader like “Bung Karno” or like him, Hamid.

Then he suddenly suspected that it might be more advantageous if he, Hamid, used his skill at speaking in the trade of patent-medicine selling. But this thought was quickly shoved aside by another: that the position of a patent-medicine salesman was not so high as that of a senior official like himself. The highest ranking patent-medicine salesman would not have had a journalist waiting to interview him as had occurred ten flays ago to Hamid.

3

UNWITTINGLY Hamid was being swept toward an open place where men and women in pairs were noisily dancing under the light of a smoky threewick kerosene lamp on a pole. A drum boomed, a wooden flute tootled the song “Kembang Beurcum,” and, at certain intervals, a gong clanged while a woman’s voice, already hoarse, tirelessly sang the verses:

Hamid pushed his way to where, by standing on his toes, he could see over the shoulder of a tall man. Five taxi-girls were dancing. The three still without partners stood in front of the musicians, facing the spectators.

By turns the girls sang erotic songs. All were young, some still children of thirteen or fourteen. Some wore green-yellow or red imitation-silk pedal pushers, while their kains were folded, reaching midway on their thighs. Their jackets were tucked into their kains which wore gathered with their sashes, the ends of which hung down free on either side. Red or yellow glass necklaces and bracelets decorated their necks and wrists. Their face powder was thick. Some did not wear pedal pushers, but the usual batik cloth instead. Some also wore, instead of a jacket, a kain sash around their torsos which only half covered their breasts. Several also had white handkerchiefs tied round their heads.

The pushing from behind had shoved Hamid out in front of the tall man, where he could see more clearly. Two of the remaining three taxi-girls now had partners. The singing and dancing grew more eager. The girls lightly moved their arms, while their hips writhed and their waists undulated, arousing their partners to passion and more zealous dancing. Their feet kicked like those of a colt round its mother, their backs arched and crouched, their heads swayed from side to side when the gong sounded.

Hamid pushed till he was right in front, with a full view. Suddenly he saw one of the dancers kissed on the lips by her partner. Hamid was startled. Insolent, he thought. Yet his heart pounded, and he felt a certain welling upward.

The man continued to kiss the girl’s lips, cheeks, and neck, pressing his body closer and closer to hers, while his right hand caressed her breasts. How brazen, seethed Hamid. But he kept staring wide-eyed, and that certain feeling welled up even stronger, choking him. He swallowed hard.

Just then he felt someone pushing from behind. A girl’s breast brushed his arm. The fragrant odors of “Saripohatji “ face powder and of a sweet tjnnpaka flower tucked in her hairknot made that certain feeling reach the boiling point. He glanced sidewise at her: young, and pretty. Her nose was pointed, her mouth tiny, and her black eyes sparkled. The moment they met Hamid’s, she smiled.

His heart beat faster. The girl pressed her body more tightly against him. His nervousness was great, but the throbbing emotions in his breast were stronger. Suddenly his uncertainly groping hand found the girl’s. As he grasped it, an electric current coursed through his body. While he caressed the hand, his eyes continued to stare at the embracing couple. After several momenls, his hand was suddenly pulled and a soft voice invited:

“Come, Sir.”

They entered a narrow dark alley. Hamid could not bear it any longer. Ani suddenly found herself locked in a tight embrace, pressed against a fence. Her lips were kissed and her cheeks bitten. She squirmed, trying to free herself, but Hamid pressed her even harder against the fence.

“Don’t, not here, Boss, not here,”Ani cried out, wriggling like an eel 1o free herself.

Hamid came to his senses; with his body quivering he freed Ani and picked up his cap, knocked to the ground by her flailing hands. They walked on without saying a word.

“Having a little fun, Boss?” asked a man’s voice. Hamid snatched his hand from around Ani’s waist. He felt as if his blood had stopped circulating. His face was pale in the light of the lamp covered with red paper hanging in front of a dilapidated shack. For he had immediately recognized the voice as that of Sanusi, the journalist who had interviewed him on the character crisis. Hamid felt completely humiliated. Ani’s tug at his sleeve pulled him out of his daze.

“Come on, Boss, please go in.”

Hamid felt his feet treading stairs, but suddenly he wrenched his arm from Ani’s hand:

“No, I’m sorry . . . I . . . I . . .”

He nervously pulled out a twenty rupiah note and thrust it at her. Surprised, Ani mocked him:

“Boss is a big spendthrift. Won’t there be a shortage in the household money?" She laughed piercingly. Her stab struck deep. A grade C official and popular leader, short of household money? How impertinent, how insolent. Hamid grew very angry. He snatched the smaller note from her fingers and threw a fifty rupiah note in her face.

“Why are you angry, Boss?” she asked as she bent to pick up the note. At its size, she laughed.

But Hamid had hurried away to catch Sanusi. He was no longer visible in tin1 dark alley.

“Did you see a man in a sport shirt and gray trousers just now?” Hamid asked of a man broiling sate in front of a shack with a green lantern.

“He just went into that alley, there.”

“Thank you,” said Hamid and hurried to it. He saw Sanusi entering a shack with a red lantern. At Hamid’s shout, Sanusi, startled, looked round.

“Uh, Bung,” Hamid stammered, “ uh . . . don’t tell anyone, huh? . . . don’t . . . uh . . . put it in your column . . .” Sanusi burst out laughing. “And . . . uh ... I didn’t do a thing, did I, huh? ”

Sanusi laughed louder. He guffawed. An understanding laugh, but it made Hamid lose courage. Why did Sanusi laugh so? Was he crazy?

“Don’t worry, Boss. I’ll take care of it.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,”Hamid felt relieved to have escaped the danger. He turned to leave.

“Oh, just a minute, Boss. Just leave it to me, but of course, you know . . . between the two of us. If not, well . . . ” and Sanusi shrugged his shoulders.

The despicable scoundrel, thought Hamid. He pulled out another fifty rupiah note and shoved it into the hands of Sanusi, who examined it under the light from the red lamp. He laughed mockingly.

“Fifty rupiahs. Ha ha!”

His sport shirt twitched with his laughter. This rotten journalist, thought Hamid. He pulled out another banknote.

Again Hamid received only laughter in reply:

“Ha ha, ten more ... a high official . . .”

Hamid was now too angry to care what happened. To hell with it, let Sanusi write it up in his gossip column, he wasn’t scared. He wanted to punch Sanusi’s flat nose. But he did not act on the urge. He quickly turned and walked a way from Sanusi, who was still laughing, with the two banknotes in his hands. Sixty rupiahs, chuckled Sanusi to himself. Manna, manna from heaven. Sixty rupiahs in two minutes, without lifting a linger. Out of this world. And, smiling, he entered the shack.

4

AT main street, Hamid jumped into a pedieab: “Kembang Street, Bung.”

Still greatly upset, Hamid wasn’t able to forget it all: the dancers embracing, Ani, Sanusi. He completely and utterly hated that Sanusi. He felt like killing him. But hts anger gradually gave way to fear. He felt as if the world were dosing in on him. lie was afraid lhat, just at this time of character crisis, Sanusi might mention him in his gossip column anyway. Because he hadn’t bribed him enough, judging from the way Sanusi had laughed.

In his confusion, Hamid almost wept. Bui he was suddenly relieved by the thought of going to Sukotjo, a tough sergeant-major, a former guerrilla fighter. He could help him. It was easy to get Sukotjo to do something. With a hundred rupiahs, it would all be settled. Let him threaten Sanusi, and, if necessary, yes, if necessary . . .

Ilamid fell calm again. Tomorrow he would go see the sergeant-major. Tonight it was too late. He felt greatly relieved now. His reputation as a leader, as a high official, and as a person of good character, would be protected.

It was already post eleven when begot out of the pedieab in front of his house. Fee... he was startled. Why was the light in the front, room still burning? Was Salim still up? Hamid rapped at the door.

“Salim, Salim, open up!” ‘The door was immediately opened. Mimi! “Why, Mimi, when did you get home?”

His nervousness was such that he was wiping his shoes on the doormat as if they were thick with mud.

“Early, dear, at eight o’clock. You must just have left when I came. The bus broke down at Puntjak. Where did you go?”

Hamid’s nervousness increased. Enable to think instantly of an answer, he tried to conceal his discomfiture by blowing his nose as if he had a cold.

“To a meeting, Mimi,” he got out after several blows. Mimi smiled and pulled him into the house.

Before going to sleep, Mimi told her husband howproud she was of his interview with Sanusi.

“I read the interview to Mother, dear.”

Ilamid smiled and playfully bit Mimi on the chin.

Throughout the night Mimi slept contenlcdly nestled in Hamid’s embrace. And, as usual, a knowing smile played lightly about her lips.

Translated by Robert MacQuaid