Twilight in Djakarta Read Online Free PDF Page A

you going? I’m not angry! Djo-ok!’
    Djok kept running, turned and Tony’s calling voice was lost behind him.
    He turned into a narrow alley, ran on – running where, running where, running where, drummed in his head, and deep in his heart he knew that he wasn’t running anywhere, and knew that the hunt was on, that he was the hunted one and that he was running away, and that he couldn’t run away.
    Djok was still running, panting, his rasping breath like the sound of rusty hinges opening, running, running. And in the night only the trotting of his shoes was heard as he ran, turning this way and that, endlessly. Running and unable to run away. For ever.
    1 Bandits. 
    2 Celebration at the end of the Mohammedan fasting month.
    3 ‘The White One’, or Whitey.
    4 Pak; short for bapak , father. 
    1 Tricycle-carriage with driver pedalling from elevated saddle behind the open passenger-seat.  
    2 ‘Vulgar form of address, second person singular.  
    3 Exclamation of encouragement 
    4 Two and a half rupiah, formerly the largest silver coin.
    5 Exclamation of pain and surprise.
    6 Lit. ‘silver’ = one rupiah.
    7 Sir, Master, Mister. 
    1 Mother. 
    1 Maid; servant-girl. 
    1 Younger sibling, male or female. 
    1 Indonesian-born Chinese.
    2 A dish based on fine translucent Chinese noodles with vegetables and bits of meat, or shrimps. 

June
    T HE CROWING of a cock behind the hut, loud and clear, pierced the dawn. The sun’s rays, still feeble, tried to creep through the cracks of the decrepit, darkened bamboo wall whose paint was peeled off by rain and the hot sun in turn. The wobbly and crooked window, blown by the strong night wind, was half open, and through the opening a flowering djambu tree was visible outside.
    Saimun stretched himself on his balai-balai, 1 under his covering of two mats, slowly opened his eyes and then looked at the young woman who slept beside him. The woman’s small mouth was half open. Her camisole was undone except for the lowest button, and her kain 2 enwrapped her limbs loosely, untied around the waist. Saimun was very still as he regarded the woman; he was at peace and happy, and when he laid his hand on the woman’s belly she moved a little and her hand held Saimun’s hand.
    ‘Neng,’ whispered Saimun, and his hand moved upwards, his blood rising. The previous week he had gone back to the dump and brought the woman to his hut. Just like that. He was surprised at his own daring. But also that the woman had so readily decided to follow him.
    All he’d said was,
    ‘Come with me!’
    And she got up, tied her clothes into a small bundle and the two of them walked over to his hut. Neneng, the woman, was his. Slept on his balai-balai. Itam slept on his own bench, not two yards away from theirs, separated from them only by an old batik cloth whichwas hung up at night near the edge of the bench. Neneng slept with Itam too, but she always returned to Saimun’s sleeping-bench.
    They never discussed it, but everything seemed to arrange itself on its own. That week it was Neneng who cleaned their little room. And they gave a part of their coolie wages to her for cooking.
    Suddenly Saimun embraced the woman with ardour, his body burning. Neneng, awakened, smiled at Saimun, aware of his intent, and happily gave him what he desired. The hunger, which never loosened its grip upon him, so easily fanned his passion for the woman. That which consumed his body in the embrace with her seemed to dispel the hunger which nagged at his guts, gave him a feeling of power and confidence in himself: he too was a man, he was human, and in such a moment he was a male all alive, and the breath of life stormed through him, and the moans and little cries of the woman under him proved the force of his male assault.
    The more the woman moaned, the stronger he felt his maleness and power, and he was great and strong, and not a little garbage man of no significance.
    Then he lay back, Neneng tied up her kain, got