The Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata

Author:Andrea Hirata
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2004-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

23

From my Room, Your Face Will not Take Flight

In a book, I saw him riding a horse, holding onto the animal’s stomach like Kublai Khan. His eyes gleamed as if the god of spears had pierced his heart. My blood bubbled as he crept stealthily toward a male moose. I couldn’t bear turning the final page when he said he would throw away the love of mixed Tutuni and Chimakuan women. All this was because he wanted to preserve the Pequot Native American blood flowing through his veins – and the most saddening part was that he was the last of his tribe.

And so he roamed the boundless prairies of Yellow stone all alone on an unsaddled horse. As he shrieked all day and danced to challenge the sun, his vision began to darken. He crawled around, praying for a woman from his tribe to appear among the coyotes just as the gods had produced the Squamish women. But time brought only the wind and heartlessly betrayed him. He grew old. And when death fulfilled its promise, he died a virgin. That morning, the sky welcomed pure Pequot blood with open arms.

It was a riveting story. I never grew tired of it, even after repeated readings. How was it written so I felt as though I were there, in the middle of the Yellowstone prairie, when I didn’t even know where that was?

“It’s the power of literature,” said the postman. Literature, asked my heart, what’s that?

During school holidays, we often helped the postman. Our poor village postman. He worked alone, starting after subuh prayer at dawn, taking care of the post office and thousands of letters. In the afternoon he received letters, packages and outgoing money orders. In the evening, he opened the post office and sorted the letters; then he delivered them by bi cycle throughout the village. Sometimes this task continued on into the night. A postman’s work is very grueling.

I carried the weight of the postman’s struggle in my heart. I made an effort to wake up in the middle of the night to pray earnestly. I squeezed my eyes shut:

Oh God, I don’t yet know my goals for the future. But when I do grow up, please God, please make me anything besides a postal worker, and don’t let it be a job that starts at subuh. I promise You, I will never hang the Koranic teacher’s bike in the bantan tree again.

Ever since I offered up that prayer, Kucai, Mahar, and Samson were both surprised and irritated at my refusal to participate in the hanging of Taikong’s – the Koranic teacher’s – bicycle at al-Hikmah Mosque.

The postman gave us a little money for shouldering the postal sacks and let us read books with stories like the one about the Yellowstone Native Americans. The books actually belonged to PN School children who had already returned to Java or other areas. The undeliverable books were kept in the post office.

Working at the post office was our school holiday activity.

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