"Yes, Gayah. I knew it from the first time. I just didn’t have the heart to tell you then. But now it’s different. I know it’s getting closer to the time you give birth. I know how confused you must be. What if the child is not mine…. Right?"
Rogayah nodded slowly, still crying.
"Well, you don’t have to be confused anymore, my dear. I want you to love the child. To raise him well, and bring him to the path of Allah." He put one hand on her shoulder. He was dying to draw her near and hug her, but he knew he couldn’t.
"No! I can’t love this child knowing that it’s not yours." She cried. "I can’t. I hate it."
Rausin shook her shoulders to bring to her attention.
"Gayah look at me. Look at me!"
Rogayah stopped crying and looked at him. "What do you want?" She said.
He spoke with a softer voice, "Gayah, let me ask you one question. Does the child ask to be born?"
Rogayah looked at Rausin, tears fell down her cheek. She shook her head.
"No. It’s not his fault to be born to this world. It’s not his fault to have Janssen as his father. It’s not his will, it’s not his choice. You cannot blame it on the child, my dear."
"It’s easy for you to say that, Bang. I swear I would kill the child if it’s not yours. I hate it." She answered him coldly.
"Yes, Gayah. It’s easy for me to say that. I’m not the one who got raped. I’m not the one who carries the child for nine months. I know, I won’t be around too long anymore. Whatever you decide on the future of the child will be your decision alone. Rogayah, I just don’t want you to be a killer."
"Do you think it’s easy to kill? No, Gayah, it’s not easy. When you kill someone for the first time your conscience will fight you. The guilty feeling will haunt you for days, months, even years. But once you get use to killings, you blind your conscience… you blind your heart. Look at me, Gayah. I’m a killer. Look at where I end up. I have never ask you this question before, but I’m gonna ask you now. Among your many Gods, is there a God of Love?"
She nodded, "Kwan Im, the Goddess of Love." She said.
"Go to the temple, Gayah. Pray to her, ask her for guidance. I believe She will show you the way. Don’t kill, my dear. It only makes you the same as your enemy."
Rogayah didn’t answer him, she asked him a question instead. "When was the first time you killed a man, Bang?"
Rausin chuckled. "A long time ago, Gayah. When I was very young. I killed the man who killed my lover."
"You took revenge on her death, then. It wasn’t wrong." She said.
"Oh it was wrong, Gayah. My lover was a whore. We lived together in her house. And that man was one of her regular customers, who gave her money in exchange for sex. He got jealous and prefered to see her dead than stop giving him the pleasure because she was going to marry me. It was all wrong, Gayah. It was what made me like this."
Rogayah was shocked to hear the story. She always regarded Rausin as a noble man. She could hardly believe the story.
Rausin saw the shock in her face, "Yes, Gayah. That’s who I was…. And I’m paying for my sins now. Please promise me you won’t fall into devil’s way like me. Please promise me you will take good care of the child. Please…."
"Time’s up!" A guard emerged and pushed Rausin back inside the cell.
"Gayah, promise me…" He pleaded.
Rogayah didn’t answer, she cried and left the city hall.
Rogayah kneeled before the statue of Kwan Im. She had gone directly to the temple after meeting Rausin. She prayed and prayed until she felt exhausted. It was almost sunset when she finished praying. She walked slowly back home, but her mind was getting more and more stressed to think that Rausin insisted her to raise Janssen’s child. She hoped that the baby was Rausin’s.
She entered the house and went directly to the bedroom. She didn’t even pay attention of Mpok Ati who had been worried about her the whole afternoon.
Two weeks had passed since her short reunion with Rausin. Her doubts still haunted her day and night. The thought of losing Rausin brought more burdens to her mind. She was at home sewing kebaya that afternoon when Mpok Ati suddenly came inside handling a sealed envelope.
"Gayah, this came from the City Hall. Can you read it for me? Is it about Rausin?"
Rogayah took the envelope and tore it open. She read the letter and her hand trembled.
"Rausin’s trial will be held tomorrow, Mak. At eleven in the morning…."
She felt weak. The day she had been afraid to even imagine had finally come. She felt her head spin and fainted.
Rogayah opened her eyes and felt a stabbing pain around her back and belly. She screamed and held her belly. She looked at around her and saw Mpok Ati and two of their neighbors were helping.
"Calm down, Rogayah. Take a deep breath now. You’re about to give birth. You fell to the floor and the water broke." Mpok Ati caressed her forehead.
"Don’t you worry, my child, I’m here to help you." She said again.
The labor was premature, considering that she was only entering the eighth month of her pregnancy. She prayed to Kwan Im to save her and the child.
12 days after…
Rausin was wearing new clean clothes. He had trimmed his beard and combed his hair. He was going to see his dear wife today, in exchange for his last meal.
He paced back and forth in the room. He was placed in a different cell now. Clean and bright. The three of them occupied the cell for the night, and tomorrow they would be escorted to the front of the city hall to face their execution.
He heard footsteps coming closer and saw two guards. They opened the cell and took him to a room. Rogayah was there, holding a bundle of white blanket. Mpok Ati stood beside her. She let out a cry when she saw him coming. Rausin approached her and saw that there was a tiny baby sleeping in her arms.
"Your son, Bang Usin…" She whispered.
Rausin took the baby in his arms and cried. "My son?" He asked.
Rogayah nodded , "Your son."
Rausin touched his hair. It was black and curly like his. And he has his lips too. But his skin was more like her mother, smooth and yellow, like Chinese.
"He has your voice, Bang. He cried loud at night, waking up our neighbors." Rogayah told him.
"Good boy." He kissed him and held him close.
He gave the baby back to Rogayah and he hugged his mother. "Mak, please forgive all my mistakes."
Mpok Ati cried, "You’re already forgiven, my son."
She kissed him on his cheeks, forehead and hugged him once more before saying, "Now I leave you two alone."
She was about to take the baby out but Rausin stopped her, "Mak, I want to be with my child too."
"All right, son." She kissed him once more and went outside. Once outside she sat on a stool and cried alone.
Rausin held Rogayah and the child in his arms. Rogayah was crying. Rausin tried to swallow his cry, but it was such a hard thing to do. Tears started running down his cheeks.
"Rogayah, promise me that you’re going to bring him up in my way. Show him the path to Allah. Show him how to become a moslem. Tell him our story and let him know about the suffering of the people."
Rogayah nodded, "I promise, Bang. I promise."
They cried holding each other tight.
"Rogayah, I want to say something to you, something I’ve never said before…. I want you to know….that …. I love you….."
Rogayah’s tears were flowing faster, "Oh, Bang Usin… I know that. I’ve always known that you love me. You don’t need to say it out loud… I know."
Rausin shook his head, "I have to say it now, or I will not have a chance to say it, my love. I love you. I’ve fallen in love with you since the first time I saw you lying on the street near the plantation. And everyday I love you more and more."
"I love you too, Bang. We both love you." She said crying still.
"What’s his name?" Rausin asked. His voice was croaking because he tried not to cry.
"I have not given him a name. It’s your right as his father to name him."
Rausin kissed Rogayah on her lips, lightly. "Thank you, my love. Thank you for giving me such a wonderful boy. From today on, he will be called by my name, Rausin."
Rogayah smiled, but the tears kept flowing down from her beautiful eyes. Rausin bent down to kiss his son and then kissed Rogayah’s lips. She kissed him back and they had the longest kiss. Their last kiss…….
The execution didn’t take long. The names of the prisoners were called out one by one. One prisoner at a time. He would kneel on the ground with his head down. The executioner would swing the sword cutting his head. Then the coroner would collect the head and labeled it for the family to claim later. Then the next prisoner would be called and so on. There were total 10 men who got executed that morning.
Rogayah stood among the crowd. She insisted that she had to be with Rausin until the very end of his life. Mpok Ati couldn’t stop her from going. She left the baby in her care.
When Rausin’s name was called out, Rogayah moved her way to the front. As she saw Rausin started to kneel down she cried out his name as loud as she could.
"Bang Usin!!!!!"
Rausin turned his head and managed to smile to her. She mouthed the words: I love you. And Rausin mouthed the same words to her. He kept smiling as he let his head down. Rogayah turned her face away as she saw the executioner swung his sword of justice. She went further away from the crowd and sat crying on the corner of a building.
A Chinese man who once owned a shop opposite the building saw her and went out from his shop to help her.
"Are you all right, Cik (sister)?
Rogayah looked up with her wet eyes, she’s crying hard now.
"My husband had just been executed….." She whispered in her cry.
The man took her hand, "Come with me, Cik. It’s not good crying here on the street."
She shook her head. "I want to go home, Ko (brother).
"Then I’ll take you home." He said.
Rausin was buried the next day. People say he was smiling at his death. Rogayah did keep her promise and brought up her son in a moslem way. Mpok Ati died two years later of a broken heart. She lost her motivation of life when she lost her one and only son.
The people of Kampung Tebu and Kampung Gula had 8 years of freedom. Marwan ironically died 3 months after Rausin’s death from malaria tropicana. The plantation was reopened 8 years later by the new governor general and once again the people in both kampung suffered from the cultuurstelsel.
Rogayah who then used her original name, Fung Yin Li, kept her friendship with the former shop owner in Batavia, Lim Siau Bun. Ko A Bun, as she called him, took her, her baby and Mak to Bekasi and they lived with him. He used to be a successful businessman in Batavia so he had money to buy a big house in Bekasi.
The bachelor befriended her for 10 years. Helping both Yin Li and little Rausin in everyway he could. He loved her dearly and had asked to marry her several times only to be rejected again and again. Until one day, when Rausin reached 10 years old, he came before her to once again propose her to marry him. He said this would be the last time he asked for he was planning to go back to China. Bekasi was not a promising town, and Batavia had become ecologically ruined. People who used to stay inside the citiy wall had moved due to malaria epidemy. He would go back to China, to ask forgiveness for leaving the homeland in the first place and to start a new life, with a new family if she agreed to come with him. If not, she could still occupy the house and manage the farm they had.
Yin Li finally gave in to his endless love and went with him to China. Surprisingly, she found out that A Bun’s family was highly respected. His father was a governor in a province. Yin Li’s life turned 180 degrees from poverty to wealthy. Rausin enjoyed education, however he was forced to changed his name to Chinese name. Yin Li insisted that he bore the family Fung’s name. A Bun respected her decision. So from that day, our young Rausin had become Fung Lauw Sin. The closest Chinese words for Rausin.
At the age of 17 he was sent to England to study economy. By the age 25 he had become a successful businessman, and had a company of his own. He opened a branch of the company in Batavia, exporting sugar and spices from the city worldwide. He often stopped by in Kampung Tebu to visit the factories and plantation, and make sure that the native workers got paid for their work. He, had followed his father steps, only in a much different way.
He never forgot visiting his father’s grave too. However, when Fung Lauw Sin died, his sons were too busy taking care of their new business in Hong Kong that Rausin’s grave then forgotten. So today, we do not know where the location of Rausin’s grave anymore. His name had long forgotten by the people of Kampung Tebu. But if you go there and mentioned Fung’s name, they will all recognized the name. The Fung, the conglomerates who owned the factory, the plantation, the export-import business and brought prosperity to the villagers. Rogayah and Rausin were names long forgotten.
Simon Ong looked at his mother in disbelief. "Fung family like Jacob Fung?"
Karina chuckled, "Well, yes. Like my maiden name, Karina Fung."
Simon’s eyes grew wider, "So you and uncle Jacob are descendant’s of Rausin?"
"Yes, my son. Why don’t you ask your uncle to show you the jade pendant. He has it."
Simon looked a bit confused. "Jade pendant?"
"Simon…. like the one Fung Yin Li had." Karina seemed hopeless by her son’s ignorance.
"Oh.. oh.. that pendant. How come he has it, mom? Not you? You’re older than uncle Jacob." He protested.
"Yes, I’m his older sister. But I do not carry the Fung’s name anymore. I now carry your father’s family name. Uncle Jacob will get married someday, and he will pass on that pendant to his son too. To carry the Fung’s legacy."
"We’re here, ma’am." Pak Slamet, the driver informed them as he stopped the car in front of the City Hall, now was called the Jakarta History Museum.
"Well, Let’s go, Simon." She opened the car door for him.
Simon looked across the front yard of the Museum. He pointed, "There’s where they executed Rausin, mom?"
"Yes, dear. Now come on, you can even see the sword of justice inside the museum."
"Oh Cool!! Let’s get inside, mom. Hurry!" He ran up the stairs leaving his mother behind.
"If you need me just use the car call, ma’am" Slamet said.
"Thank you, Pak."
"Ma’am, it was a wonderful story. You have made him interested in history now. You’re a good story teller, Ma’am."
"No, Pak Slamet. You have listened to the version for an eight-year-old boy. The complete story is a tragedy. But like all mothers before me, we have to pass it on to our children, as part of our family’s legacy."
"It should be made a movie." He murmured and got back into the car.
"I’m glad you find it entertaining." Karina Ong smiled and walked away to get to her son who was now waving at her and shouting for her to hurry.
She climbed the stairs of the city hall, just like Fung Yin Li had. Only she climbed the stairs with joy, instead of sadness, with pride instead of hopelessness. Rausin and Rogayah might have been forgotten by the worlds. But their names will live forever in the lines of the Fung family.
THE END