Bit by Bit…

One unexpected day, a Chinese Mandarin came to the town alone. He was a scholar, who was always very curious about the history of his race, and therefore he was interested in the story about the Mandarin fireflies that came from nail clippings. Sukab served him with arak wine, but this person didn’t easily get drunk.

“So, Mr. Sukab, you catch fireflies that fly around the graveyard?”

“Yes, then I breed them.”

“But your fireflies are so much different from the ordinary ones found in the fields. Your fireflies are not the kind explained in the encyclopedia of the world. We don’t find the Latin translation of your fireflies. A billion ordinary fireflies won’t be strong enough to create a sky-supporting column of light, and ordinary fireflies flicker about at night only to be found dead in the morning, while your fireflies can enlighten hearts lost in the darkness.”

“Come on, Mr. Udin Mandarin, don’t exaggerate it.”

“I think you understand, Mr. Sukab, that what I say is not an exaggeration. Is it really possible to breed those mystical fireflies that come from the Mandarins’ nails? Your fireflies are not biological insects, they’re mystical. My question is, what kind of treatment do you give them as farm animals? They aren’t the kind of fireflies that can be bred. Those fireflies are from nail clippings. They come out of the grave at night digging up through the ground. Are they breedable?”

“Mr. Udin Mandarin, I’m just a stupid person, I don’t think with my head. I only follow what my heart says. I never ask myself those questions that you asked me. I don’t even know what you mean by those questions.”

“My question is, if you run out of those nail-clipping fireflies, while in fact they can’t be bred, what will you do?”

Sukab studied his guest. He was an educated Mandarin, and it looked very clear that he never did manual labor. His fingers were well-groomed and looked soft, like a woman’s. His nails were rather long, but very clean, almost as clear as calm water in the pond.

“Mr. Udin Mandarin, Sir, how do you expect me to answer such a question about something that I never do?”

THERE, IN THE TOWN where the rainbow never fades, nobody thought the way Sukab did. He set up a firefly farm. From top of the hill, his farm, located near the sea, seemed to give off light, like a spotlight. It was a yellowish green, or greenish yellow, phosphorescent beam. Tourists who just arrived and were strolling by the sea at night were usually amazed to see such an amazing light.

“What light is that?”

“Oh, that’s the light from Sukab’s firefly farm.”

“Firefly farm?”

“That’s right, firefly farm. Nobody in this town thinks the way he does.”

The species of fireflies that Sukab raised was not an ordinary one, but it was the kind from the nail clippings of Mandarin people. That was it. It was believed that Mandarin people always kept their nail clippings. When they died, the nail clippings were also buried. The following night, those small bits turned into fireflies, and they flew out, making the deep dark night in the graveyard bright. Fireflies around the graveyard looked so beautiful, so sweet, as the good heart of man that shines through the dark.

“Fireflies, venturing the woods of pain…”

Thus people usually heard Sukab singing lightly to his guitar in front of his farm. Tourists who were passing always dropped by because they were charmed by the yellowish green or greenish yellow light beaming to the sky, so like a column of light erected by archangels. Ships that passed far away on the sea used it as a signal, as some kind of special lighthouse.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, on the north is a column of light, which means we’re passing the town where the rainbow never fades. That yellowish green or greenish yellow light beaming to the sky comes from a firefly farm. For your information, if you do want to set up a firefly farm in your country, you should know that only fireflies from the nail clippings of dead Mandarin people can be that bright. The night after their burial, fireflies that come from the nail clippings kept during their whole life, from infancy to death, will fly out from the underground. Ladies and Gentlemen…”

*

It all began during a crisis, when life was so hard, and happiness became a rare thing. People suffered, and any hard work did not earn them anything at all. Sukab was thinking about all these when a firefly passed before his face, blinking, as if surrendering. Then Sukab snatched it, kept it in a small pill bottle, covered it with a patch of curtain net, and tied a rubber band around to secure it. All alone, deep in thought, he then meditated on the firefly, and realized how the insect gave a light in the dark. Suddenly, he forgot about his useless life.

That night he went to the graveyard of Mandarin people on the hillside. It was an old graveyard, underneath which were buried Mandarin people from the very far past. Years and years back, in the town where the rainbow never fades, Mandarin people had been hunted as if they were some kind of creature that should be exterminated and were not supposed to live on Earth. They were slaughtered like animals, leaving none, despite the fact that they were the ones who had furthered trade in that town. People said that when the massacre took place, the rainbow, that had never faded, for the first time in the history faded, and even disappeared. Only after people realized that they were wrong, and regretted what they had done, and performed a mass repentance ceremony, the rainbow reappeared. The rainbow that never fades was also another major attraction the town had. Tourists came to touch the rainbow, but of course they couldn’t touch anything because rainbow was not a wall, but light.

It was the story about those massacred Mandarin people that had made Sukab decide to move and live in that coastal town. He liked climbing up the hill where the genocide victims had been buried. There, he saw a thousand fireflies blinking in the dark, flying around like some dance from the dreamland.

“Perhaps, these are the fireflies that come from the nail clippings of dead Mandarin people,” he thought, “their brightness is not an ordinary light of fireflies, it’s an enlightening brightness.”

At first, Sukab only set a small table outside of his hut, and put five pill bottles, each containing a firefly that gave a brightness in the dark.

One of the passing tourists showed interest.

“What’s this?”

“They’re fireflies.”

“What’s a firefly?”

“A kind of small insect that usually flies around in the fields.”

“Aha! The one with a phosphorescent glow?”

“That’s it! Here they are.”

“Why are they sold?”

“Who knows if you are interested in buying them. You don’t have fireflies in Scandinavia, right? Besides, they’re not ordinary fireflies.”

Then Sukab told the story about Mandarin people’s nail clippings. It turned out that the story made people buy his fireflies, and Sukab could establish a firefly farm whose beam became a sky-supporting column. The coming of foreigners who were enchanted by that story finally saved the town from a prolonged economic crisis. Any merchandise related to the story was always sold out. Truly enough, in the town where the rainbow never fades there were various attractions that invited tourists, from those who came for surfing to those who visited sacred caves. However, since the economic crisis started to cause political riots and bloodshed everywhere, the number of tourists decreased. It was Sukab’s firefly farm that stood upright as the major industry to compete with those from other tourist towns, and in fact the seaside town where the rainbow never fades regained its power.

(to be continued)

still, translate by …. (drum roll ever longer) …. me….

(for Sri Ajati)

This time, nobody’s seeking for a love
Among stores and old houses, among tales
Of masts and riggings. Vessels and boats, anchored,
Are whispering themselves to willingly get cleaved.

Shower’s dragging the gloom faster than ever. An eagle’s flight
Pokes at so grimly, and the day elopes, swimming,
Yielding to the lure of the horizon. Unmoved
are the land and the waveless sea, slumbering.

Nothing else. All alone, I’m walking
Pace by pace down the cape, chest suffocated by hopes
To reach its tip and altogether to wave goodbye
From the fourth beach, my last weep forborne.

1946

*Translated by… ehem-ehem… me…

Chairil Anwar is one of major Indonesian poets from the Generation ‘45 of Indonesian Literature. In his short life, 27 years, he crystallized the spirit of Indonesia (of his age, of course) during the revolutionary era in his works, works that are celebrated to this day, after more than half a century since his death.

One car flung out of the overpass, another got lost in a dense neighborhood, and another rolled over and hit a truck and exploded, then caught on fire. There were still two police officers chasing me. Just a piece of cake. They could never catch up with me, and after a prolonged chase, they ran out of gas and all they could do was cursing. I checked the sunset in my pocket. Unscathed, its breeze blowing, strokes of purple in the sky, waves splashing on the beach. Only for you was this sunset, Alina.

But Alina, police are not as silly as what I’d thought. They were completely alert everywhere in the city. I couldn’t even get my dinner. Even in the dark sunsetless sky, their chopper’s spotlight beamed on alleys between tall buildings. I got cornered and almost got caught. Had there not been an open sewer…

I already left my car when I reached this slum area. I ran between buildings, old houses, poles and ropes. I fell on dump, crawled up a worn-out ladder, until a vagrant ushered me to a place I would never forget for the rest of my life.

“Get in,” he said calmly, “you’ll be safe in there.”

He pointed at the open sewer. A rat crawled out of it. It was stenchy and reeking of urine. I peeked down. I found bats hanging upside down. I wavered. But, the roaring chopper with its searching spotlight wiped off my hesitation.

“Get in, you got no other choice.”

And the vagrant pushed me in. I fell face down. It was so stinky like hell. The sewer hole was suddenly closed and I heard the vagrant lay down on it. The chopper’s spotlight beamed through holes in that sewer but it wasn’t strong enough to catch sight of me. I felt the sunset in my pocket, with whose the golden red rays I could see in the dark. I walked down the sewer, which turned out to be high enough. I groped forward between the hanging bats (dead or alive I didn’t know). I saw a white light at the end of the sewer. Stinky water was flowing kneep-deep. In a dry spot, I saw vagrant kids sitting around or laying on their backs, scattered, holding their tambourines with eyes reflecting despair.

I walked on over them and tried to bear the smell. However, this was better than giving up your sunset, Alina.

At the end of the sewer, where the white light had been seen, there was a ladder downward. I followed the ladder. It became brighter and brighter. Gosh! You can believe it or not, Alina, but you will keep on reading. The ladder led to a mouth of a cave, and you know where I was when I got out of the cave? In a place that looked precisely the same as where I had taken the sunset for you, Alina. A beach with a beautiful sunset: waves, wind, and flapping birds – and of course the golden rays of light and purplish lines in the clouds that were floating like dreams. The thing is, there wasn’t a postcard-sized hole. Then, although precisely similar, they were not the same place.

I walked along the seashore, drenched in the virgin nature. Coconut trees, surely, sun, and crystal-clearly seen shore bed with ripples creeping so musical. There were no cottages, barbecues, nor marinas – they were indeed not necessary. Shuddering against the nature, the sunset gave off golden light to the edge of the universe. I was so ashamed to see all these. Alina, can I translate everything into words?

Sitting by the seashore, I was thinking what was all this for if nobody was there to see it? After walking around, I learned how the world in that sewer was totally vacant. There were no man, no rats, not to mention dinosaurs. Only flapping birds, which didn’t even look like birds that lay eggs and nest. They were present only as ornamental illustrations for the sunset. They were flapping and flapping all the time there. I couldn’t understand, Alina, what had this world been made for? What was the love-arousing sunset for if you couldn’t find even a single dinosaur to see it? Meanwhile, people up on the ground were making a fuss about the loss of sunset….

Thus, Alina, I took this sunset. I cut along its four edges with my Swiss army knife that I had always kept with me, so that a postcard-sized hole was then seen on the horizon. With the two sunsets in each my left and right pocket, I stepped home. The world that stopped revolving behind my back turned into humid and stinky darkness. I climbed up the ladder to the sewers of my beloved earth.

Once I was on the ground, after groping through the hanging bats, vagrant children scattered here and there, and knee-deep water, I didn’t see the police and their chopper anymore. The vagrant kid who had helped was now laying on his back playing his saxophone under a power pole.

I tried to find my car. It was still neatly parked in front of a supermarket. It seemed like having just been washed. Chewing my pizza, I stepped on the gas headed to the beach. With two sunsets in my right and left pockets, complete with its sun, sea, beach, and its golden rays of light, my car seemed to burst with divine lights. On the overpass, the freeway, I was riding my car with full speed…

Alina my sweetheart, my honey, my woman.

You must have learned about what happened next. I pasted the sunset that I had taken from the sewer on the postcard-sized hole, and they fit. And then I sent this “real” sunset for you via mail. I wanted to have what I had seen in the first place: a sunset in the most original sense of this word, not the kind of sunset that I found in the sewer.

Now the sewer was real dark, Alina. In the future, people will tell stories to their grandchildren about why sewers are now dark. They will tell that actually, there was, under the sewer, a world with its own moon and sun, but it is no longer there because someone has taken this underworld sunset to replace the real sunset. Those old people will also tell that the real sunset has been stolen by someone and has been presented to his girl.

Dear sweet Alina, my sweetest Alina, the ever-sweet Alina,

Please accept this piece of sunset, only for you, from someone who wants to make you happy. Be careful with the sunset and sea, the light can burn the sky and if the water spills it can flood the earth.

Along with this, I also send you my longing, with kisses and hugs and my warmest whispers, from the quietest place in the world.

~ the end ~

Dearest Alina,

Attached with this letter is sunset, complete with its wind, roaring waves, a setting sun, and golden rays of light. Do they arrive safe and sound? Of course, like any sunset in any beach, it has birds, wet sand, silhouette of rocks, and maybe a boat passing off shore. There might be edible bivalves, colorful stones, and the sparks of bright light flickering on the seafoam, resembling dreams that always drive me to think about the things that I most probably do with you, although I know they will all end up as mere probabilities—only God knows when it will come true.

I’m sending this piece of sunset for you, Alina, in a tightly sealed envelope from far away, because I want to give something more than bare words. There are already too many words in this world, and words, indeed, don’t change a thing. I will not add to the innumerable words in the history of man culture. What for? Words are useless and forever in vain. In addition, who will listen to them these days? In this world, everybody is busy wording without ever listening to other people. They don’t care whether people listen to them or not. They don’t even care about their own words. This world is filled with meaningless words. Words are redundant and are not needed anymore. For every word, you can change its sense. From every sense, you can change its meaning. That is our world, Alina.

I’m sending you this piece of sunset, Alina, not words of love. I’m sending you a piece of gentle sunset with real reddish sky precisely in the state when I took it, when the sun almost sunk behind the horizon.

Sweet Alina, melancholy Alina,

Let me tell you how I got the sunset for you. One afternoon I was sitting all alone by the sea shore, looking at the world that’s comprised of time, watching how time and space live in alliance, creating the universe for my eyes. From the seashore, at the edge of earth, universe appeared as a stroke of golden and the sea was a liquid metal, but still the foam on the splashing waves was as white as cotton and the sky was purple and the wind humid and wet and the sand warm when I thrust my feet into it.

All of a sudden the sunset and light shuddered. Beauty suddenly struggled against time and suddenly you came into my mind. “Perhaps, this sunset is good for you,” I thought. So I severed the sunset before it was too late, cutting on its four sides and thrusting it in to my pocket. Hence the beauty would be eternal and I can present it to you.

After that I went home light-heartedly. I knew you would like it because I know that is the kind of sunset you’ve ever imagined for us. I know you’ve always dreamed about a long holiday, a long-distance trip, and probably a pair of deck chairs in the sunset in a beach, where we converse looking up high to the sky wondering whether this is all true or not. Now you can take the sunset anywhere.

When I was leaving that beach, I saw people come swarming. It turned out that they became furious because the sunset was gone. I saw a postcard-sized hole in the horizon.

Loveliest Alina,

All this has happened and the it will still be like this. I had reached my car when from among the crowd I saw someone pointing at me.

“He is the one who stole the sunset! I saw him grabbing the sunset!”

I saw people walking towards me. After judging from their manner, I got into my car and hit the accelerator.

“Get his plate number! Get his plate number!”

I shot right to the highway. I sped up without panic. I had made up my mind to give the sunset to you and only for you, Alina. No body should take it away from me. The golden rays of sunset were flaring in my pocket. I really worried because even though my car windows were dark, the rays were bright enough to shine through every breach in my car, so that my car darted with a brilliant shine on the asphalt and sky.

From the radio that I had turned on, I knew that news about the missing sunset had spread everywhere. On my car TV, I saw my portrait featured. Gosh! Only one sunset gone and they were that panicky. Couldn’t they just wait until tomorrow? What would happen if everyone took one sunset for their girlfriends? It might be the right time now to produce fake sunsets that you can sell in shops, packaged in a plastic bag and sold by roadside vendors. It’s time now for us to mass-produce sunsets so that child street vendors can sell them at crossroads. “Sunset! Sunset! Get three for one dollar!”

My car darted in the highway towards the downtown. I had to be careful because everybody was searching for me. Police sirens roared in every corner. The bright evening lights without the color of sunset made the golden light from inside my car not to prominent. And what’s more, in the downtown, not every people gives a damn whether the sunset is gone or not. In the city, life goes without time, regardless morning, noon, afternoon, or evening. So, it’s never important for them whether sunset is there or not. Sunset is only important for tourists who like taking pictures of the setting sun. Possibly, that was the only reason why police officers searched for the sun that I had with me.

Police sirens approached from behind. With a loudspeaker, a police officer gave a warning.

“Driver of gray metallic Porsche with a plate number SG 19658 A, stop your car. This is police. You’re under arrest for stealing the sunset. Although it is not against any law, but based on…”

I didn’t want to waste more time listening to this. So I just hit him in such a way that he was hurled away from the road. I sped up and jet pass other cars with agility. In a minute, the city became noisy with roaring police sirens. But I knew the ins and outs of the downtown, streets with colorful lights, dark alleys not listed in directory books, and secret sewers secured only for those who live underground. (to be continued…)

* Translated by… (drum rolls) … me