M Town looked just as Lebas remembered it. Low buildings, houses painted white, wooden fences covered in peeling paint. The main road – and there was only one – stretched from one side of the town to the other, ending at the bus station, where everyone tended to congregate. A large signpost with ‘M TOWN TAPE KETAN’ written on it, advertising the local version of ‘tape’, the fermented sticky rice dish, seemed to take the place of a welcome sign. The stores selling tape ketan were unchanged – all painted in the same colour, their display cases placed in the exact same position, selling the same green-hued M Town-style tape with the same purplish mounds of sticky rice swelling up inside. The row of stores at the market were not shut up at night with metal security shutters as they were in Jakarta, but with individual wooden boards that had to be put in place one by one. Most of them had been painted, oddly, in the colour of salted eggs and then numbered, so that no matter how many times they were removed, they could be put back again in the correct order. And then there was the distinctive aroma: the smell of marl, the lime-rich red earth, still wet from a recent downpour. The city’s smell of marl was always mixed with the fragrance of cloves, coming from the group of becak pedicab drivers who hung out by the side of the road in front of the market.
There were a few shops that sold wajik, sticky rice with palm sugar, the other signature snack of the town. One of them, called Mrs Pang’s Wajik, sat on the left side of the street like an ancient hermit made of stone, a silent witness to all that had happened in M Town ever since the Dutch occupation. On the right side of the street was Mrs Week’s Wajik, a newer store that had become popular as a purveyor of edible souvenirs. For a while, it was a competitor of Mrs Pang’s Wajik. Then they were joined by Ms. Week’s Wajik, which was said to have been built by Mrs Week’s husband after the couple’s divorce, when the family’s property had been split in two.
It was as if the people who lived in this town were themselves frozen in time. M Town had been this way ever since Lebas and his brothers could remember. Since childhood, every time they visited they felt like they had returned to the same people doing the exact same things. They even got the feeling that they would still find Grandfather Djagad well and alive in his huge house. All they needed to do was turn left off the main road, Kh. A. Dalhar Street, and they would see his house there, on the left side of the street, with its large sandy front yard. There was a large square pit near the mango tree, a garbage pit; on the weekends, Lebas used to burn everything that had been thrown inside it. The terrace of the house was quite large as well, and the brothers could still almost see the shadows of the workers who used to stand there, rolling and trimming the edges of the cigarettes that were still warm in their hands.
Grandfather Djagad didn’t have as many workers here in M Town as he had in Kudus. In this city, they made Proclamation cigarettes. Lebas couldn’t recollect the exact year when the brand had ceased production, but he could clearly remember that it had been on the day of Eid. He and his brothers had visited Grandfather Djagad then, and the house had been surprisingly quiet and deserted. Only then had the children even realized how big the house was. They had run around as much as they had wanted, had shouted as loudly as they had wanted, until their voices had bounced off the empty walls in an echo that filled their ears.
Their car came to a stop at Grandfather Djagad’s house. Kh. A. Dalhar Street was still the same, sloping downward and a little bumpy. The small shop run by an old Chinese woman was still there, and the owner was still sitting behind a glass shelf filled with matches and lighters. For some reason, she had always sold matches of the same brand, with the logo of two globes. She stocked small matches as well as large ones, the kind usually bought by food cart owners. The shop owner followed their car with her eyes until they stopped in front of Grandfather Djagad’s house. Lebas noticed that she was smoking a cigarette. It seemed to him that she hadn’t gotten any older, although there was a small child of about two years sitting beside her, busy teasing her. Perhaps it was her granddaughter.
The house had not changed: it was calm, with white walls. The mango tree outside was still the same – not bearing any fruit, but dropping its leaves all over the ground. It was as if the brothers could see Grandfather Djagad greeting them at the door.
The door itself was unique; it was split in half, but not down the middle and from floor-to-ceiling like most doors, so it could be opened wide, but it was split across its width, so that there was a top half and bottom half. Djagad used to greet his grandchildren by opening the top half of the door while the bottom half stayed locked. He would wave hello with a happy face, a faint cloud of smoke always hanging above his head. He was always smoking a kretek.
The brothers got out of the car. Lebas stretched himself lazily, while Tegar headed straight for the funny-looking door. But today, it remained tightly shut, and the house looked abandoned, with nothing but the cold dusty tiles to greet them. They knocked on the door.
‘It seems as though there’s no one here, doesn’t it? It’s so quiet.’
‘Where’s the caretaker?’ Lebas asked.
‘You didn’t call ahead to talk to him, Bas?’ Tegar said in response.
‘Now, how would I know the caretaker’s phone number, Mas?’
‘Ah, you really can’t be relied upon, can you? You are supposed to save important telephone numbers.’
‘I’m not a secretary!’ Lebas retorted angrily.
‘Enough, enough! Shh!’ Karim interjected. ‘I’ll call Paidi.’ He was the caretaker for Grandfather Djagad’s house. Out of the three brothers, only Karim had saved his telephone number, but this was not surprising because he was the most organized amongst them. And it was good thing too that he had it saved – if he didn’t, they would have been stuck outside the house waiting for who knows how long.
Soon, a young man appeared, moving towards the brothers in a respectful manner. Paidi greeted them with his gentle smile and apologized that he had kept them waiting, begging their pardon and explaining that he had left the house momentarily to take his wife to the market. The brothers were only now learning that Paidi was married. To be polite, Karim asked why he hadn’t sent word of the happy news to Jakarta, and the caretaker replied shyly that his wedding had been a simple affair, so far from fancy that he would have been embarrassed to invite the Soeraja family. Furthermore, in case he had even sent the invitation to their house, he wasn’t sure if they would have remembered who it was inviting them. Lebas chuckled on hearing this.
‘Of course we would have remembered you, Di,’ Karim said, and Paidi smiled in happiness. Even Lebas had to admit that his brother truly did pay attention to each one of their employees, no matter how humble their position, and would have certainly remembered the caretaker.
While Lebas made some small talk with Paidi, the latter opened the door, having some difficulty pulling the bolt off the rusted lock of the two-piece door. They could still smell Grandfather Djagad’s scent in the place as they entered the house. Perhaps his spirit still lived here, Lebas thought to himself. Paidi served them some tea in tin cups – white with military green accents and covered with matching lids to keep the tea warm and free from insects.
‘Mas Paidi,’ Lebas called.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Do you know where we can find Lady cigarettes?’
Paidi scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Lady cigarettes, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that a brand of cigarette, sir?’
‘Yes, of course!’
Paidi grinned. ‘That’s a funny name, sir.’
‘But do you know where to find them?’ Lebas repeated his question.
The caretaker thought about this for a moment and then shook his head. ‘I don’t know, sir.’
They decided to go out and ask around in the small shops around the market – perhaps the cigarettes were being sold there. They approached a number of shop owners, but none of them knew about or had even heard of Lady cigarettes. Clearly, the brand had not been sold in the market for a long time. So many different kretek companies sprung up then folded; perhaps Lady cigarettes was one of them, a brand with a short and fleeting lifespan compared to the long and enduring history of Djagad Raja cigarettes.
* * *
Dusk had fallen. It was dark, and the sounds of crickets and nocturnal creatures enlivened the air around the Djagad house. Once again, Lebas was struck by the feeling that their grandfather was still present in the house, and at any moment they would catch sight of him reading his prayers, or coming out of his bedroom with short slow steps, or sitting at the gazebo in the back and looking at the row of bonsai, which had now grown unkempt and misshapen.
‘Do you have a lighter, Mas?’ he asked Karim.
‘I had one. It was in my jacket pocket. You can go get it … It’s in my bedroom.’
Lebas went to look for it but then returned empty handed. ‘It’s not there.’
‘Maybe I lost it.’
‘A lighter is indeed a cigarette’s unreliable friend,’ Lebas quipped. ‘He is always disappearing, going here and there, wandering about with his elusive flame …’
‘Just go buy a new one,’ Tegar snapped, annoyed. ‘The little shop out front sells matches and lighters.’
‘I feel lazy. Ask Paidi to do it.’
‘You’re too much, Lebas! How could you be too lazy for something as simple as buying a lighter?’
‘What’s your problem? Why are you always finding fault in me? This is wrong, that is wrong … I’ll just go to the kitchen and light my cigarette with the flame of the gas burner.’ Lebas left in a huff. Tegar made it a point to show him his expression of dislike. The two brothers really were at each other’s throats all the time, fighting like cat and dog.
Lebas soon returned. ‘It turns out that they still use a woodstove here.’
‘But don’t they usually use matches for that?’
‘Well, here they are …’ Lebas showed his brothers a pack of rotten, unusable matches.
‘Enough of this nonsense. Just go buy a new one!’ Tegar advised again.
Before Lebas could answer, Karim burst in. ‘Let’s go together and buy one in the shop out front. Come on.’
The two of them headed outside. Lebas took along a hooded jacket so he wouldn’t get too cold. They strolled down the road, looking up at the sky.
‘Wow, the stars are so clear here!’ Lebas was blown away by the sight. He hadn’t seen so many stars in a long time.
‘In Jakarta, there are a lot of streetlamps as well as a lot of tall buildings that keep their lights on at night. All that ambient light drowns out the beams from the sky. But here it’s different,’ Karim explained, like he was a science teacher.
When they arrived at the shop, they saw a row of lighters and matches on display. Only after they had drawn closer, did they see the Chinese owner sitting inside the shop. Placed in the glass case near the front of the store, there were more lighters and many different brands of kretek, including Djagad Raja.
‘I’d like some matches, Bu.’ The Chinese lady handed Lebas a small box. ‘A big one please.’ She put back the small box and brought him a big one instead. He put down a twenty thousand rupiah bill, and she left to bring him back his change. ‘In Jakarta nobody sells matches this big, do they?’ Lebas looked at the box, opening it up and pulling out one of the giant matches. He could see the shop owner lighting a cigarette.
‘Bu, what are you smoking? Djagad Raja, right?’ Lebas spoke to the woman casually as if he was her good friend.
She lifted up the pack of cigarettes to show them. The brothers had never seen the brand before. It was almost empty.
‘What brand is that, Bu?’ Karim asked.
The shop owner stood up from her seat and walked closer, holding out the pack to them. ‘It’s an old-timer cigarette.’
Karim and Lebas looked at the picture of a woman on the front of the pack of cigarettes and read out the name together: ‘Lady cigarettes.’ They both stared at each other, their hearts pounding.
‘Bu, where is this factory?’
‘The factory?’
‘Yes, the place where they make these cigarettes.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘May I have these cigarettes, Bu?’ The old woman just laughed in response. ‘I’ll buy them from you, if that’s fine?’
‘You can buy your own … somewhere else.’ The shop owner snatched back her pack of Lady cigarettes from Lebas as if she was retrieving something incredibly valuable from his clutches. Perhaps she thought of the two men as strange city folk and was hesitant of sharing her prized possession with them.
‘Where can we buy them?’ Karim enquired.
‘In the market. Go all the way to the end, to the farthest corner. There’s an old shop there. Right next to a store called Harmonious Rice.’
‘Let’s go!’ Lebas said, excited.
‘At this time of the night? It’s sure to be closed.’ The old woman cried, cutting short his enthusiasm. The brothers suddenly realized that they were in M Town, not Jakarta.
‘Well, if that’s the case, we’ll go tomorrow morning,’ Karim reassured his younger brother.
The shop owner sat back down on her chair, smiling at the brothers and exhaling her cigarette smoke. They left, heading back to Grandfather Djagad’s house, where they excitedly informed Tegar that Lady cigarettes were still being sold in the market, but that only the old folks in M Town smoked them.
The next morning, at seven, the three brothers woke up. Or, more precisely, Tegar and Karim woke up. Lebas was still lazing in bed. Paidi was preparing porridge for them, with gudeg krecek, or stewed jackfruit, as side dish; this was the kind of porridge they used to eat for breakfast as children. But when Lebas overheard Tegar asking Karim to wake him up, he got up of his own accord and hurried to the bathroom for a shower.
They headed straight to the small shop at the edge of the market, just as the Chinese shop owner had directed them. They looked for the Harmonious Rice store, but the place looked more like a house than a shop, with piles of old things strewn around and emanating a strange odour from within. Out of the corner of their eyes, the brothers spotted piles of betel chew and leaves, and deduced that it was perhaps a sirih store. They spotted an old Chinese man sitting there – but the word ‘old’ didn’t do him justice. ‘Ancient’ was a more fitting description. He was a relic, like a piece of Chinese porcelain that had been buried in the ocean for centuries.
‘It’s like I can read the city’s history in his eyes,’ Lebas whispered, giggling. ‘If only I could see his eyes though … I can’t be sure if they are open or closed. And if they are open, I wonder whether he can still see, or whether his sight has been ravaged by cataracts.’ Tegar glared at his brother and gestured for him to stop speaking.
The old man was sitting there motionless, as if guarding his shop. His head was bald, and there were a few dark patches on his scalp. One single strand of hair was growing out of his head, waiting to fall out, as if it was left there just to demonstrate how old he is. He was wearing nothing but a loose undershirt. There was a cane resting against the wall not far from where he was sitting. A fly buzzed towards his oily eyes, landing on one of the closed puffy lids. He didn’t bother swatting it away.
‘We’d like to buy something!’ Lebas called out to him. The Chinese man didn’t move. The brothers looked at each other uncomfortably, afraid he had died right there in his chair.
‘Excuse me, sir. We’d very much like to buy something!’ This time, Tegar spoke in Javanese and in a purposefully loud voice, in case the man hadn’t heard them before.
Suddenly, a younger Chinese man walked into the shop. Perhaps he was the old man’s son – or his grandchild, or perhaps his great grandchild.
‘What would you like?’ he asked politely in Javanese. ‘Would you like some sirih?’
‘No, thank you,’ Tegar replied. ‘We are not looking for sirih. We are looking for Lady cigarettes.’
‘Lady cigarettes?’
‘Yes,’ Tegar nodded confidently, ‘you sell Lady cigarettes, don’t you?’
The younger Chinese man approached the ancient one. ‘Grandpa Uyut, do we sell Lady cigarettes?’ He addressed the older man as Grandpa Uyut, which meant the latter was indeed his great-grandfather.
Then, a surprising thing happened: the ancient man moved. He got up from his woven rattan chair, which was riddled with holes. As he stood, the chair let out a creak so loud it became apparent that the piece of furniture was just as old as the person using it. Tegar, Karim and Lebas were left startled by the man’s sudden movement. The fly that had been resting comfortably on the old man’s face buzzed away – perhaps it was just as surprised as they were. The man turned slowly, heading towards a messy corner of the shop. The younger man helped him as he sifted through the goods piled up there. Then, he found the Lady cigarettes, and took out a pack and gave it to Tegar.
‘Can we buy a whole carton?’ Lebas asked, but Tegar immediately interrupted him.
‘What do you need a whole carton for?’
‘For no special reason … Just as a souvenir.’
‘A souvenir? You think we are on a vacation here?’ Tegar was getting annoyed. ‘Just one pack,’ he said to the young man. ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘How much does it cost, Grandfather?’ The old man took a small piece of chalk and wrote a number on the wooden table with a trembling hand. ‘Four thousand five hundred,’ the younger man read out loud.
Lebas noticed that the price tag on the Lady cigarettes box said 3,500 rupiah for a pack of twelve. He realized that these men were earning a fairly significant profit, yet weren’t getting rich. He took the pack from Tegar’s hand and read from it: ‘Produced by Idroes Moeria, M Town-Indonesia.’
‘So these cigarettes are made locally? Do you know where the factory is?’ Tegar enquired.
The young Chinese man shrugged. ‘Perhaps my grandfather knows.’ He approached the old man again and moved his mouth close to his ear to repeat the question. To the brothers, the old man’s answer sounded muffled, like a bunch of confused bees. ‘He says that Lady cigarettes aren’t made here in M Town anymore,’ the young man reported and then he moved his ear to his grandfather’s mouth. ‘He says they are made in Magelang now.’
‘Magelang?’
‘Really, in Magelang?’
‘That’s what my great-grandfather says.’
And so the brothers headed next for Magelang.
* * *
They hadn’t even been driving for an hour when they reached the small town of Magelang.
‘But where can we find the Lady cigarette factory?’
‘Ask a local. Maybe they’ll know.’ Lebas pointed towards a small shop by the side of the road, and Karim pulled up there. Lebas got out and bought a bottle of water, using this as an excuse to strike up conversation with the shopkeeper. He saw a row of cloves displayed on a small rack stocked exclusively with cigarettes, and noticed that Lady cigarettes were being sold here as well – apparently, in this city these cigarettes were easy to find, probably because they were made here – and that they had been placed right next to the Djagad Raja’s packs.
‘And one pack of Lady cigarettes, please,’ Lebas said, picking one off the rack.
‘You’re not from around here, are you, little brother?’
‘That’s right. I’m from Jakarta.’
‘Wow, that’s far!’
‘How could you tell, Bu?’
‘People from around here speak Javanese, and they almost never buy Lady cigarettes.’ The woman chuckled.
‘Oh really?’
‘Yes, the only ones who buy those cigarettes are the old folks who have been smoking them for a long time.’
‘Oh, I see. Do you happen to know where the Lady cigarette factory is?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Lebas grinned from ear to ear on hearing this. ‘Keep going in this direction … you’ll come to a junction by the rice fields. Take a right there, son. Then keep going straight until you see a house with a mosque next door to it. That’s the place you’re looking for.’
Lebas’s grin vanished in astonishment. ‘Seriously, Bu? That’s the Lady cigarette factory?’
‘Yes.’
He immediately rushed back to the car and informed his brothers. All of them were amazed; it was such a lucky coincidence that the shopkeeper knew where the factory was located, and it wasn’t even too far away. They followed the route the shop owner gave them, and sure enough they found the lovely house with a large yard and a mosque next door. A small nameplate in front of the house read ‘PR. IDROES MOERIA’ and had the Lady cigarette logo displayed on it. The PR. stood for Perusahaan Rokok, or Cigarette Company.
As the brothers stepped out of the car, a sweet young girl peered out from the mosque, and then she came down the steps carrying a mukena, her prayer robe, which she hadn’t had the chance to fold yet.
‘Assalamu’alaikum,’ Karim greeted her.
‘Wa’ailaikum salam. Who are you?’ she replied.
‘My name is Karim. This is my older brother, Tegar, and my younger brother, Lebas.’
‘May I help you with something?’ she asked politely.
‘We have come here looking for Jeng Yah.’
‘Oh, Jeng Yah. Just a moment. Please come in.’
The three of them followed her mutely into the front room of the house. They were feeling a bit overwhelmed. They couldn’t believe that they were finally about to meet Jeng Yah, the woman their father had been calling out for on his deathbed. An old sepia photograph hung on the wall, showing the face of an elderly man. Perhaps this was Idroes Moeria. There was another photograph on the table, also sepia-toned, of two young women.
The girl disappeared inside, and then reappeared with a middle-aged woman: Jeng Yah.
‘Yes? I heard you were looking for me?’
The brothers looked at each other. She was just an ordinary looking woman with a motherly face. In fact, she looked to be about the same age as their own mother.
‘You are Jeng Yah?’
‘Yes, I’m Jeng Yah.’
‘We are looking for you because our father would like to meet you.’
‘Your father? And who is that?’
‘Pak Raja.’
Jeng Yah pondered over this for a moment. ‘Raja? As in, Soeraja?’ she said finally.
‘Yes!’ The three of them answered eagerly in unison.
‘The same Soeraja who owns Djagad Raja clove cigarettes?’
‘Yes!’ they cried together again, thrilled.
Jeng Yah smiled at them and then sat down. ‘The person you are looking for is my older sister, not me. Her name was Dasiyah, and mine is Rukayah. We’re both called Jeng Yah.’ The brothers’ excitement drained away as they heard this. ‘Where is Mas Raja now?’
‘In Jakarta. He’s very sick, and he keeps saying that he wants to see Jeng Yah. Can you tell us where the other Jeng Yah is now? Your older sister?’ Tegar asked.
‘Please have a seat first. What’s your name?’
‘Tegar. I am Pak Raja’s eldest son.’
‘Arum!’ Jeng Yah called out.
‘Yes, mother?’ The young girl responded.
‘Make three cups of tea please, will you?’ Arum, the young girl from the mosque, left to prepare tea for the guests. And then Jeng Yah began to tell the brothers a story. ‘I still remember the first time I met Mas Raja …’
* * *
‘Soeraja was a free spirit. He captured my older sister’s heart with his stories of travel and adventure. Yah’s eyes would shine brightly whenever she spoke of Mas Raja. Everything was going smoothly, and our father Idroes Moeria had even given them his blessing. But then Mas Raja got mixed up with the PKI, the Communist party.
‘It was believed that when the PKI was actively recruiting a lot of people, and their propaganda was everywhere, Mas Raja received some money to make a brand of cigarettes for them, a brand that the party would produce and sell. He called them Red Sickle cigarettes. After the generals were murdered in what was thought to be an attempted Communist coup, followed by the obliteration of the Communist party everywhere, Mas Raja was implicated too. Everyone knew who made Red Sickle kretek because it was written right there on the box: “Made by the Soeraja Factory in M Town”.
‘Soeraja became an easy target; no matter how emphatically he declared he was not involved in the political activities of the Communist party, his name was still on the list of people to be punished. Mas Raja was forced to leave M Town in order to save his own life. My older sister became a target too, as did my father, and they were taken in for questioning. Independence! cigarettes, which was better established than Lady cigarettes at the time, was accused of being associated with the PKI too. They made these allegations because Independence! used red paper – red like blood, red like the colour that dominated all the PKI propaganda. And this was despite the fact that my father had created his brand during the time of independence and had no relationship to any political party whatsoever.
‘Father was finally freed after he promised to shut down Independence! and Yah was freed because of her popularity as the “cigarette girl” from Lady cigarettes. She was renowned for possessing the unique gift of sweet spit – people said the cloves she rolled by hand tasted exceptionally delicious because she used her spit to seal them. My father and my older sister were both very lucky that they were acquitted and allowed to return home.
‘For a while, our family didn’t make any cigarettes at all. We didn’t even produce Lady cigarettes, although we still had permission to do so. We decided to be cautious – all we wanted was to stay safe and avoid any trouble. We took it day by day, living off our father’s savings.
‘As for my sister, Dasiyah … She grew skinny, and she lost her appetite, and she didn’t even want to drink anything. She was beside herself thinking about Mas Raja. She wanted to find out where he was, but she didn’t dare speak his name out loud or ask anyone about him, because if she went looking for him, then she would have been suspected again of being involved with the PKI party. Almost a year after the purported coup and its gruesome aftermath, a letter arrived from Kudus. It turned out that Mas Raja was there. That letter gave my sister hope again. At the very least, she knew now that her future husband was safe.
‘Dasiyah and Mas Raja sent each other more letters, and she eventually learned that the person hiding him was Pak Djagad, your grandfather. Djagad had started Proclamation cigarettes in M Town initially, but had decided to move to Kudus to develop his business. It seemed like Mas Raja had intentionally asked Pak Djagad for help. I wasn’t surprised – they must have already known each other when they both lived in M Town. But, you must know that Mas Raja had been our father’s trusted right-hand man, and it was certain that our father or Dasiyah must have told him about the business rivalry between them and Pak Djagad. Yet, in spite of being aware of this history, Mas Raja wrote to my sister about how Pak Djagad had invited him to form a partnership and create a new brand of kretek together. When she heard of this, Dasiyah was happy for her sweetheart. But Soeraja still didn’t dare leave Kudus, because he feared that if he got too far away from Pak Djagad, and no longer had anyone to protect him, he would be captured. The government was still actively looking for anyone who had been involved with the Communist party. Even the wives and children of those suspected were being hunted. But Dasiyah tried to stay hopeful, and chose to focus on Mas Raja’s safety.
‘Soon after that, Djagad Raja cigarettes were introduced in M Town and sold in our market. You could find them everywhere. I bought a pack for Dasiyah. She smiled when she saw them, but then burst into tears. I asked her what was wrong, and at first she said she was crying tears of joy, because Mas Raja had finally started his own kretek company and created his own product, just as he had always dreamed … But I knew there was something else. Then Dasiyah showed me his letter, and in it Mas Raja had asked for her forgiveness because he was forced to end their relationship. In order to ensure both their safety, he had to stay back in Kudus, and he didn’t know for how long. He also confessed to her that he had not been faithful to her or their love. All this time that he had been away, there had been another woman in his life, to whom he had been confiding all his troubles, and who in turn had been listening patiently to him. He was going to marry Purwanti, Pak Djagad’s eldest daughter. The letter ended with him begging for her forgiveness and saying that he still truly loved her and that he wished the situation had been different and that they could have been together. Soeraja informed my sister that his wedding to Purwanti was to happen only two days later …
‘Dasiyah cried her heart out after she had finished reading the letter. But she said she didn’t want to do anything about the wedding. All she wanted was for Mas Raja to be safe and happy. She tried to smile through her tears. To console her, I opened the pack of Djagad Raja clove cigarettes I had bought and offered her a kretek. I knew that she would calm down a little after having a smoke. She accepted the cigarette, and I lit it for her, and then lit my own cigarette. I told her that it was all right if she felt angry about everything that had happened. But my sister wasn’t listening … She had barely begun smoking when she wiped the tears from her eyes, stood up and threw away the cigarette, still burning, onto the floor. It was as if, just by smoking that kretek, she had gathered her courage. She said that she was going to give Mas Raja a piece of her mind. And that very afternoon, she packed a bag and walked to the M Town bus terminal. She went straight to Kudus. Father, Mother and I had forbade her from going, but she insisted. She didn’t stay in Kudus for very long, two nights at most, then returned home. I recall her telling us, still fuming, “I hit Soeraja on his forehead with a kerosene lamp … on his wedding day!” I remember she laughed hysterically, but she was weeping at the same time. She had felt victorious, but also pathetic. He must have looked really awful on his wedding day, with the stitches and bandages around his head.
‘The very next day, Dasiyah threw herself back into making Lady cigarettes. She recalled all the rollers and trimmers and they resumed their work.’
* * *
The three brothers sat speechless after hearing the story.
‘So, where is Jeng Yah now?’ Karim finally asked.
‘Jeng Yah, Dasiyah, my beloved older sister who you are seeking …’ Rukayah said sadly, ‘died in childbirth.’
‘Died? Died!’ Lebas murmured in disbelief. He leaned in to whisper to Karim, ‘So we have come all the way here just to discover that the Jeng Yah we are searching for is long gone.’ Karim ignored his brother and focussed instead on the Jeng Yah sitting before them.
‘So who did Jeng Yah the First marry?’ Lebas asked. The Jeng Yah before them smiled on hearing this. This would make her ‘Jeng Yah the Second’.
‘She married a good man called Sugeng. But she was already over thirty by then – she was thirty-two, to be exact. I was married nine years before she was. Their marriage only lasted one year. Jeng Yah died in labour,’ Rukayah said.
Suddenly Arum, who had been quiet all this time, spoke. ‘I am Dasiyah’s child …’
‘Yes, this is Arum Cengkeh, my sister’s daughter,’ said Jeng Yah.
Arum Cengkeh. Fragrant Clove, that was what the girl’s name meant.
‘You have a great name,’ Lebas said, and Arum smiled at the compliment. Tegar rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. Even at a time like this, his brother had managed to find a chance to flirt with somebody’s daughter.
‘Yes, I’m really Arum’s aunt. But I have cared for her as if she were my own child, especially because all of my own children are boys,’ Rukayah continued. Arum smiled at the brothers, and they could see then, in that instance, that Jeng Yah the First would have looked as sweet as her daughter.
They said their goodbyes, but before they could leave, Lebas took the opportunity to talk to Arum for a little while and exchange phone numbers with her.
‘Classic Lebas!’ Tegar grumbled crankily under his breath, but his brother didn’t care and continued talking to Arum.
Karim’s mobile lit up suddenly. ‘Mother’s calling,’ he said and answered the call. ‘Yes, Mother?’
They could hear their mother’s voice through the phone, and she sounded panicked and was practically screaming, ‘Karim, you have to come home right away! Your father has had a heart attack!’ Then she hung up.
The brothers exchanged worried glances. They rushed to their car. They drove immediately, heading back towards Yogyakarta as quickly as they could, so they could catch the next flight home to Jakarta.