Twilight in Djakarta Read Online Free PDF

off the bed.
    ‘We’re late,’ she said, pushed back the batik hanging and looked over to the balai-balai where Itam was still lying, but with open eyes.
    As Neneng passed by his balai-balai he caught her hand to pull her down, to sit on his bed, but Neneng laughed, extricated her hand and ran to open the door.
    Saimun got up, put on his pants and said to Itam,
    ‘You’re not quick enough! Tonight, you!’
    Behind the thin bamboo partition they could hear Pak Idjo’s family beginning to stir, and Pak Idjo complaining that he was sick, saying to his wife, ‘Aduh, I am feverish. Look at the boils on my back! But if I don’t go out to earn, how then?’ And the voice of his wife said, ‘Just be careful!’ Then Pak Idjo’s little child started to scream and cry.
    They went down to bathe in the stream where many people had already gathered, and then, after coffee had been brewed by Neneng in an empty tin that once held butter, Saimun and Itam hastened to the meeting place of garbage carts. The truck was there with Bang Miun, the driver, inspecting its engine. He was swearing to himself when they arrived. The engine wouldn’t start. Again the battery’s dead, Bang Miun muttered, how many times has it been to the repair shop, but it doesn’t want to go. Itam and Saimun stood behind Bang Miun watching how he scraped the cables of the battery. Saimun was always amazed when he looked at the engine of a car. He could not understand how a dead thing like that could move such a big and heavy truck, but neither was the driver able to explain it to him clearly. Saimun had once asked Bang Miun to teach him to drive. This was the highest aspiration of his life. To become a driver like Bang Miun, to get higher wages, to sit comfortably behind the steering wheel, and to control the engine and the truck. Bang Miun had said jocularly that he would teach him if Saimun were diligent and would wash the truck every evening. Saimun had been washing it every evening for a whole week now, but Driver Miun still had not started to teach him. Saimun was full of dreams of how he would drive that cart. He was afraid to press Driver Miun to start the lessons lest he become angry and refuse to teach him altogether. Suddenly Miun turned to him and said, ‘Saimun, get in, switch on the ignition and step on the starter. Put your foot on the accelerator a little.’
    Saimun’s heartbeat quickened, so unexpected was such an order from Driver Miun. This was the beginning of his driving lessons, he thought. By now he knew where the ignition key was, where the starter and where the accelerator were.
    Saimun climbed into the truck, sat down at the steering wheel, turned the ignition key and pressed on the starter-pedal with his foot. How proud he felt, and smilingly he looked around at Itam who regarded him with envy.
    But the motor still wouldn’t start. The first garbage carts had already arrived, and coolies started to toss the refuse into the truck.
    Driver Miun shouted for the coolies to stop filling the truck.
    ‘Ayoh, come on, push, the engine is dead.’
    The whole crowd of them pushed the heavy truck, and at last the engine started but only after they had pushed it repeatedly and were all out of breath, panting; and Saimun and Itam felt a smarting pain in their insides because their stomachs were still empty. But the moment the engine started they all jumped on the truck, shouting and cheering, and under the hubbub the truck returned to the place for the reloading of rubbish from the carts.
    Saimun was overjoyed because Driver Miun had said that at about noon he would begin his lessons.
    ‘I’ll ask that lu be moved, become knek,’ 1 said Driver Miun. ‘Knek Ali, three weeks not come. Sick. He ’lready back country, maybe not coming back!’
    Sitting on the truck, now piled full of refuse, Saimun told Itam of his dream of becoming a driver.
    ‘And when I ’lready got my permit I look for work, become an oplet 2 driver and lu I teach to