Nadia untied her apron and laid it neatly over the back of a chair. She did not look up at him, but whispered, "There are old ones who say Fortune shows us many faces, only to mask her evil from our sight."Yusri winced as he heard the proverb. It was unlike them to speak in the old manner, but he knew the game well and countered with another, saying, "The pain of a deep wound is far less prolonged than that of a mark of shame." However, his retort lacked conviction and she sensed it, so he continued, " Someday the people of Kampong Maju will speak of Ahmad Daud's son with pride. There lies responsibility. There lies duty and honor. You would want me to live up to their respect, would you not?"
He watched Nadia nod again, silently. He had been too frank, but she had forced him. Exchanging proverbs requires delicacy, lest the banter become too rough, and today he had no patience for such play. It was a day of importance, after all. He was going home...home to Kampong Maju after four years of change, and everything had to go well. Did she realize how much depended on his success?
Taking her hands in his own, he whispered a phrase she had seldom heard him speak in the past. Then, kissing her forehead lightly, he led her outside to the car.
"I must be going," he said as he got in.
"Allah protect you, Yusri bin Ahmad Daud. Selamat jalan."
"Selamat tinggal," he smiled. And with that, he started the engine, waved goodbye, and slowly pulled out of the drive port.
* * * * * Once under way, the highway hummed pleasantly beneath the wheels. Yusri turned off the radio to listen to the engine and tires sing in harmony as the car rolled smoothly southward. It was indeed a beautiful day.
To his left, the sunlight glanced off the sea in a shower of radiant sparks. Lazy waves washed up against the sandy coast and an occasional gull glided in low over the water, searching for basking fish. For a second, Yusri considered pulling over to the side of the road for a swim, but only for a second. Although he was in no hurry, there were still many kilometers ahead.
Rice padi and bamboo groves, field after field of cassava passed by on his right. Now and then there were kerbau, the huge gray water buffalo, walking along the side of the road or lazing in mud holes up to their necks in coolness. Small children stood waving from the porches of their stilted huts and a few cyclists gave way as Yusri sounded his horn and sped down the coastal highway.
How good to be free, he thought as he travelled. I could be working in those fields now, or throwing grain to the chickens like that old man there. She how he squats! Such a life.
In truth, Yusri himself had known poverty and left it behind, though it had not been easy. The first boy chosen from his area to attend the experimental school on the East Coast, he had studied much harder than the rest to graduate with distinction, to earn his seat at the national university. Once there, he had spent long hours in the library each evening, patiently learning the laws of international commerce and economics, subjects still undreamt of in his village, Kampong Maju. And the time had returned to his home for Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, he had been greeted by friends and relatives alike with an air of respect which made him feel at once proud and ashamed to have come up from such humble surroundings. For the kampong fishing community was still a century removed from the life he had come to know in the capital. He had vowed not to return again until he could do so in style and in triumph.
That was more than six years ago. Even when he had married Nadia, he had refrained from returning to the village, insisting that his parents travel to the capital where the ceremony was performed at the bride's modern home. But now he had a job with the government. They had a home of their own and a child on the way. Yusri had settled; his star was rising. And he at last had a car, the very symbol of success and the first any villager from the region had ever owned. There was no longer any reason to wait. The road to Kampong Maju stretched out before him.
It is truly a pity that Nadia is too weak to travel with me on this trip, he thought. How proud she would be when we arrived in the village, the children and young men circling round the car to touch its smooth finish, the women and young girls reaching out to pat her growing belly and whisper prayers for our child's happiness. We would be the talk of the village.
