The Palace of Love –Part Two

 

 

Makcik. Kampung Alor Ganu, Anak Bukit, Alor Setar. Kedah, December 2017

After having lunch, Mak Saodah washed the dishes and got ready for prayer.

That was the time that her husband, Pak Mohammed took a nap.

When the prayer in the hall was over, so as not to disturb him, Mak took off her telekung and went out into the garden.

She went into the thick vegetation behind the house with a red plastic bag in her hand. She collected enough rambutans to fill the bag, while her fingers chased away the ants that were also running up her arms.

 

Rambutan

They had never had a big fight. Mak, she had always indulged him and he had respected and loved her.

Well, if she had to describe what love was, maybe she wouldn't have been able to. That is, it certainly wasn't the overwhelming love she saw in the movies.

“It's not like we're Saloma and P. Ramlee*,” she thought aloud, grinning as she walked home with the heavy plastic bag on one side.

“Quite right? Am I Saloma?” she asked jokingly to the cat who looked at her without expression.

“But not that there is only that kind of love,” Saodah kept thinking while in the kitchen she began to prepare dinner before going fishing. “There are many types of love; respect is one of them, for me.”

She was almost trying to get the words out of her mouth as the radio played a Sudirman song at a low volume.

“In my opinion, there are people who are born to experience those movie-type loves, but many others love each other like me and Abang. With simplicity, with modesty.”

She thought about when it was the last time he had kissed her on the lips and she began to smile like a child, her hand wrinkled and flat with thick veins poking her mouth, with shame, as if someone could read her thoughts.

“What are you thinking, Mak!?” she told to scold herself.

However, she did not remember it. But she was fine with that. Their love had generated the love of their children and their grandchildren. This was the most important gift.

“After all, films are just about bringing to life stories that most ordinary people will never be able to experience,” she said to herself, smiling setting the fish on the fire.

Meanwhile, Mak saw her husband walking towards the door with the rug under the arm. He went to pray in the surau.

“I'm cooking fish tonight, Abang. Soon, I'm going fishing with Mak Rokiah. Have you looked at the bicycle?” Mak said aloud, leaning out of the kitchen door. She saw her husband from behind nod the head as he put on his black sandals and headed out the driveway.

The old woman's wrinkled face lit up with a calm smile.

She turned off the radio, picked up the fish bones, and walked to the door, taking her usual hijab with another hand.

Just outside the side door, she threw the bones at the cat, who ran hopping and meowing.

Saodah put on the veil, arranged it neatly on the sides of her face, pushing inside the white hair, and went to get the fishing rod in the tool shed.

She grabbed the bike, tried the brakes and satisfied Mak headed for the river.

 

 

The air was fragrant. It was her air, she could recognize it with the eyes closed, without seeing where she was.

“What is the use of traveling the world? My whole world is enclosed in this air that smells of river, rambutan, and wood of the house boards,” she thought while pedaling.

From a distance, she saw Mak Rokiah who was waiting with the fishing rod in her hand and her wide camouflage hat.

“Assalamualaykum,” they greeted each other and went to sit on the edge of the small stream. Ahead it joined the great brown river of water that reached the edge of the market.

Near Mak's house, there was still the wooden jetty pulled by ropes, by the hand, which carried her, when she was still a child, to the other side of the river to go to school.

At that time, it seemed to her the greatest adventure that could ever happen. Children's eyes see things in a different dimension, then as they grow older their gaze adapts to that of reality.

Every so often she comes back and, with Mak Zaleah who lives right there, they still go from one shore to the other just to remember their childhood and slap each other on the arms laughing.

 

The two friends fished for an hour, taking only a few small ikan sepat, but talking a lot about cooking and the latest case on everyone's lips: that is, the daughter of Pak Irfan, the fruit seller, who apparently got pregnant before the wedding that will take place in a few weeks.

Mak greeted her friend. “Till we meet again. Tonight I will cook delicious fish for Abang,” Mak Saodah said as she climbed onto the bicycle. Mak Rokiah nodded and turned to walk home.

Mak Saodah rode her bike home as the sun goes down.

She sat down for a moment on her husband's bamboo bench and admired the large house and the sun radiating through the branches of the trees. The cat rubbed on her ankle; she stroked him with her hand as she felt a grip in her heart.

 

 

No one can understand the beauty of this place if they haven't lived there, she thought as she touched her chest on the blouse with another hand.

Mak sighed deeply and walked back into the house with the light giving way to shadows.

She went to the bedroom. Mak could hear the flushing of the water in the bathroom, it was Pak taking a shower.

Saodah started stroking the pillow slowly.

She had done it, both of them.

Still with the traditional method of kampung.

Using cotton from the dried leaves of the kapok tree, which they called pokok kekabu. Mak stocked it in bags so that it was well dried, keeping it even for years; then she sat in the back of the house, protected from the wind, with part of the hijab covering her mouth and nose and began to separate the seeds from the cotton. She beat it well and filled the linings made with kain fabrics that she no longer used after sewing them. Every three or four years she replaced the cotton which had now hardened.

Now young people prefer to buy pillows, no one has the patience to keep cotton for years and work it.

The fabric of the pillow was yellowed with moisture and sweat, but on those pillows, they had loved each other, she thought, looking at the long fingers with thick knuckles and the veins bulging the dry skin of their hands.

She went into the kitchen and prepared the two dishes with rice, roasted fish, dried anchovies, vegetables, and sambal. She sat in the dim light of the kitchen, with the small white bulb hanging over the sink and the radio playing a Saloma song.

“Ah, Istana Cinta! This is a beautiful song!” Mak exclaimed loudly, happily as she rocked the head, beating time with the tips of her toes on the floor, muttering the lyrics with the mouth full, as she finished the food with a full hand.

    “Dengan cinta ku bina istana
    Kau sentuh runtuh jadi pusara
    Cahaya hidupku jadi gerhana
    bisa jiwa memandang gembira...”* 

Saodah turned to the radio and said smiling, “This is my Palace of Love, Saloma!” Then, she had a pain in her chest and touched the chest with a grimace.

“Abang! Abang! Come to eat!” Mak screamed as she stood up to wash her plate.

The old woman glanced at her husband's place with the full plate and the glass of water and the coffee one with a saucer to keep it warm.

 

She turned off the radio and the light walked down the dark corridor. Mak looked into the living room and saw Pak sitting in the armchair smoking while watching an old black and white film on television.

“Go eat, Abang, the fish gets cold. It's tasty, you'll like it so much...,” she said.

He looked at her, smiled, nodded, and turned to watch television.

“Hard-headed,” Saodah muttered faintly as she walked towards the bedroom.

She went to the bathroom to wash, did the ablution, prayed next to their double bed.

Mak put the folded rug in two with the telekung on top of it, untied the short hair, and lay down slowly on the bed with a grimace and the creaking of the springs.

She had another stronger sharp pain right in the middle of her breast.

Mak Saodah frowned, placed her left hand on the empty side of the bed beside her, closed her eyes, and let out her last breath.

She died alone, as she had lived through the last four years of her life.

Pak Mohammed had died of a heart attack four years earlier.

 

    “The secret of a good old age
    is simply an honorable pact with solitude.”
    (Gabriel García Márquez)

* P. Ramlee and Saloma were a famous couple in film and music industry in the late 1950s / 60s in Malaysia and also married.
*“With love, I built a palace
You touch it collapses into a grave
The light of my life became an eclipse
can the soul look happy...”
(Saloma, “Istana Cinta”)

Italian version