The Stranger with Blue Eyes Visits Borneo
The yellow-green rice fields seemed to glow. The blue of the distant lake melded into the blue of the mountains behind it and then stretched right into the same blue of the sky. A painter would be hard-pressed to capture it all because it was the same deep blue that would appear so exaggerated when translated to canvas. It would seem unbelievable.
I saw none of it. At least, I only saw it afterward, through the pictures I took. I was seeing red, but I focused on the whites — the wisps of puffed clouds, the sparkling shells at the shoreline, the polished stones of the temple. They reminded me of those shiny white teeth of Diane at the Abelmar Travel Agency who assured me my trip would be a “wonderful experience of a lifetime.” I wanted to punch in those white teeth of hers.
I’ve traveled 20 hours in sleepless turbulence, three days on a fishy cargo ship, two days in a sputtering rowboat and a six-hour trek through dusty Banjamarsin to get here, and now I’ve spent four hours in a sweaty marketplace trying to explain to my hunched guide who spoke no English that I couldn’t travel with him. Through most of it I was cursing that Crest toothpaste smile on the face of Diane as she assured me multiple times, “Oh yes, all of our guides speak the native tribal dialects of Indonesia and you’ll have a wonderfully exotic trip.”
Now, I was stuck screaming at a guide who didn’t speak English. Sure, he understood the tribal dialects of Borneo, he just didn’t speak English.
I guess it was Moustafa who first noticed me in the town square. I noticed him as he tried rubbing out the berry stain from the bataki weave he had just lugged up from the Akus. He figured no one in market would notice, but I saw. He wasn’t selling much this morning, things were slow. I didn’t know it, but things were often slow here, and Moustafa often wondered when there would be a day when things weren’t slow.
As the sun steadied overhead, and his yawns grew more frequent, I stopped to watch Moustafa work on the stain, first wetting his tunic with his belly sweat, then using his spit, but finally asking for some durian juice from the fruit seller in the next warang. Moustafa rubbed and scraped and made that berry stain grow from the size of a 10 rupee piece to a blot bigger than his fist. He cursed and continued wiping until he wore a hole in the bataki. He flipped it over so no one could see it and cut his original yelling price by half.
He turned to stare at me as I watched him and our eyes locked. It seemed as if the whole square stopped to look at the both of us. The old hantus stopped mashing their bodoni beans and stared at me, the stranger. Girls peddling their corn bead jewelry pointed and giggled. A few men halted their intense bargaining.
“You have sparkling blue eyes that glisten like when the sun hit the waves of the Banjabaru at dawn after the September storms,” Moustafa said.
I smiled, a bit red-faced. Ly-Ly, my guide, spoke in the Indonesian I didn’t understand.
“He says you have hair the color of dried sawgrass,” Moustafa said.
An old hantu stood came up behind me with a large knife and I threw up my arms reflexively. Moustafa explained she sells medicine in the market and asked to bend over so she could cut off some hair. I obliged, not knowing that she would get a price for those locks that would far exceed what she could get for the bear testicles or leopard claw she had stashed in her pouch.
Few strangers ever ventured to this side of the island. I spoke loudly again to Ly-Ly as Moustafa listened in. For some reason, I thought he would understand easier if I shouted louder. That never worked. I finally cupped my hand and turned it up and Ly-Ly pointed to the beer photo outside Pudja Darma’s Pub.
“Beer!” I barked. “Of course you understand that. Free San Migs for you.”
Ly-Ly rubbed motioned to my pack of Salems in my shirt pocket.
“Of course, free smokes you understand, too,” I surprised myself with my own anger. “Well goddamit you’re supposed to understand more than that. That’s what they promised me. That’s what they said. You’re no good to me unless you speak English. Don’t you see that?”
Ly-Ly smiled and nodded as the smoke escaped through the gaps on the side of his two front teeth. He crawled up onto the stool next to me in Pudja Darma’s.
“Yes, I from Abelmar Travel. Go Banjabaru on boat. I take. OK? OK?”
“No, you don’t see, it won’t work. It won’t work at all. I need a translator. Abelmar promised me someone who could translate. No good. No boat. No go.”
“Yes, boat. You pay, I take. Jungle cruise like Disneyland. Good time. OK? OK?”
“No, not OK,” I said, stamping out the smoke.
I looked around for help. I fished in my faded orange rucksack and pulled out a book. I noticed that Moustafa followed us inside the pub, and I welcomed how he jumped in, but not how he kept eyeing my opened rucksack.
“Do you need help?” Moustafa asked.
“Yes, you speak good English? Look, I’m trying to tell this gentleman here that a mistake has been made. I arranged with a travel agent to have a guide who spoke the tribal river dialects to take me up the Banjabaru for some research. But he doesn’t speak English. Please tell him this isn’t going to work out.”
Moustafa spoke to Ly-Ly. As they spoke I noticed how we were all about the same age, I figured, but all so different.
“But sir, Mister Ly-Ly here is a rare find,” Moustafa said. “He says he speaks all the tribal dialects. It’s very different than Indonesian. There are eight hundred tribal languages, and he speaks all of the ones along the Banjabaru River.”
“Fine, fine, but he doesn’t speak English. Don’t you see? I need a translator.”
Moustafa and Ly-Ly talked among themselves. They motioned to me and laughed and talked some more, making me gulp my beer down faster than I normally would have. Could I trust them?
Finally, Moustafa said, “I will go with you and Mister Ly-Ly will translate from the tribal dialects to Indonesian and I will translate to you. My name is Moustafa, you call me Mousta.”
We negotiated a deal and the three of us set out the next morning on Ly-Ly’s long blue rowboat. For three days we rowed up the Banjabaru, stopping overnight at the Akus, the Bataks, the Kintamanis. The pygmy chieftan of the Bataks, who stood as tall as my waist, was fascinated by an old ragged t-shirt of mine that had a picture of Marilyn Monroe on it. He wanted to trade it for an old curved knife with a leather sheath with antlers and cow teeth woven into the handle.
“I certainly cannot let you part with this,” I told the chief.
“Oh, it’s just an old rusty thing I found a couple of years ago, it doesn’t mean anything to me,” the chief said through the two translators. “I made it with my own hands when I was a child, it has little value.”
“It’s a tribal heirloom that has been in my family for generations, see the monkey teeth woven into the handle,” Mousta finally translated to me.
We made the trade, both thinking we got the better of the deal.
Along the way at every stop, I took out a photograph of a dark handsome man in a sailor’s uniform and showed it to some of the older people to see if anyone recognized him.
“Jan Provost?” I asked. “You recognize him? You know him?”
Nobody did. On the third day, as Ly-Ly and Mousta rowed up the river, Mousta asked about the photograph.
“He is a man who lived with my grandmother for most of her life,” I said. “I knew him as Uncle Jan, he was from here. He would tell me about living here, and how he was a sailing captain. He was like a grandfather to me, and an important man to me.”
“You are trying to find him?” Mousta said, eyeing my strong, muddy hiking boots and leather hat.
“No, I am trying to find out about him,” I said, scratching my arms covered with bug bites. “He left here a long time ago, and always wanted to return, but said he wasn’t able to. He said the Dutch government wouldn’t allow it, but no one in the family would ever talk about why. There were rumors that he had killed someone here and something about black magic, but no one in the family really ever knew. Everyone who did know is gone now.”
“I see, and you are coming all this way and trying to find out why he left?” Mousta laughed. “It seems silly to come so far for that.”
“Yes, when we get to the state seat in Banjamarsin I will see what records there are,” I said. “That’s where I’ve chartered a plane out which will take me to meet my friends in Bali. Do you know where the state seat is in Banjamarsin? Do they keep good records? Would they have records that go back to the 1940s?”
“Sir, have you not heard? We had a great fire. The Great Banjamarsin Fire. It was historic. Hundreds of people died. Much of the records were destroyed then. We have not much. Most of Banjamarsin was destroyed then. We never fully recovered.”
“When did that happen”
“I guess it has been about fifty years,” Mousta said.
Ly-Ly laughed, startling me. Mousta squinted.
“Why do you want find out about this man who is not your relation?” Mousta asked, a bit more boldly.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“I think I can help you,” Mousta said.
As we rowed closer to the state seat, the large-leafed trees tapered away along the banks, and sporadic clusters of bamboo huts gave way to longhouses made out of rotting wood topped with sheets of metal. For most of half a day, Mousta told me about Yarafoulid, the wise former statesman of Bajamarsin who runs the Borneo Museum and Historical Association. This ancient old guy actually remembered the names of thousands of people who have lived in the area. I was frantic to see the old man. I thought it would be just my luck that he would die before we’d get there and I’d once again lose the chance to find out about Uncle Jan. I took the oars from Ly-Ly and rowed myself for half the day, hoping to quicken our pace.
When we docked, and Ly-Ly found a bemo, Mousta directed us across town to a bare concrete block house. A little old man poked his head out from a doorway blocked by strands of beads. The old man’s face was lined like my map of the Banjabaru. He wore Levis and a nylon acetate paisley shirt that looked like it came from K-Mart.
This was Yarafoulid. I must admit, I was disappointed. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a wizened bald guru in a robe with a dot on his forehead knelt in a lotus position, or something like that.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked rawly in perfect English.
What the hell is right. I didn’t really know how to answer. I looked at my two guides and suddenly realized I no longer needed their services to speak.
“Come in, come in,” the old man said. “I’ve been expecting you. But you shouldn’t have come, not today, not now. No, no, you shouldn’t have come. I didn’t think you would have the nerve.”
I thought perhaps the old man was expecting some other fair-headed foreigner, so I tried explaining. He held up his hand.
“I know. I know why you came,” the old man said. “Yes, I did know him. I did know that man, but you shouldn’t have come here. You should go away.”
Ly-Ly laughed again, as if he understood. I didn’t even tell him who I was looking for, and I was obviously irritated. I pulled out my wallet and lay a few hundred rupees on the table.
“I’m willing to pay for some information,” I said. “Please.”
Drumming his fingers on the table as if in intense thought, Yarafoulid quietly collected the rupees and went back into another room and shuffled through papers. Mousta, meanwhile, strolled through the main room, looking at framed front pages of newspapers from years past on the walls and peering at relics and photographs inside glass cases. Who would ever come in here to this museum, and why? Mousta wondered that, too.
“This, this is my only picture of us together,” Yarafoulid said. “His name here was Yani.”
I studied a dark photograph of a much younger Yarafoulid and a man who looked vaguely like my Uncle Jan. I pulled out my own picture, and Yarafoulid said, “Yes, that one you have was taken years later. I remember.”
“Please tell me what you know,” I said, throwing out a few more hundred rupees when I noticed hesitation in the old man. Mousta continued wandering and Ly-Ly watched the money and licked his lips.
“As a boy he left to join the Dutch in the great war. It was long ago. He returned and reconnected with his tribe — the Dya Gita — but they have all perished. He was the last,” Yarafoulid spoke as if he was in a trance. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “He died recently, correct?”
I nodded and gulped.
Yarafoulid pointed to the wall where a framed photograph had five rows of 10 men all lined up for a group shot. On the fourth row, third from the right, stood Uncle Jan, very plainly. In Dutch under the photograph, I could decipher “Convicted.”
I remembered my overweight uncle only a month ago, wheezing and coughing as he stood over his workbench and fixed the delicate insides of watches for the neighbors. I remembered the models of ships he made out of wood that lined the old Uncle Jan’s bookshelves. I remembered how Uncle Jan said he wished we could go back together someday.
“Why do people want to know what they shouldn’t?” Yarafoulid asked me softly. “Why do you wish to bring up the past when it cannot be altered?”
I was sweating, and must have looked feverish. I came so far.
“You must tell me,” I said. “I know there are secrets. What are they? I will pay. I will pay anything. Here. Take this, please tell me.”
Now, U.S. dollars flowed from my money pouch. Mousta’s eyes got wide. Ly-Ly paid more attention.
Yarafoulid paced the main room back and forth with his eyes closed as if he were summoning something from deep inside him. He exhaled deeply, opened his penetrating black eyes and focused on me.
“You won’t believe it,” he said flatly.
“Try me.” I tried challenging Yarafoulid’s unnerving stare.
Yarafoulid closed the door to the windowless room that put us in the dark. Ly-Ly let out a long sigh much like a soft howl. Yarafoulid’s voice became heavy.
“About fifty years ago, a foreigner came to Banjamarsin who had the most shocking blue eyes anyone had ever seen. The people in town called him ‘The Man with Blue Eyes’ and he became a friend to them all,” Yarafoulid said. “He came in search of answers. He came to find the Dya Gitas and learn their secrets.”
Mousta was glad it was dark because it hid the growing smirk on his face. He had heard this story many times before.
“But Yarafoulid,” Mousta asked as if on cue, “Wasn’t the tribe of Dya Gitas known for practicing black magic?”
The old man turned to Moutafa and said, “Yes, you know this, even though you are an Aku. Everyone knew this and stayed away from them. They had a sect of fifty men who knew their secrets. Your uncle was one of them.”
Yarafoulid stuck out his crooked bony finger at me accusingly.
“Your uncle was one of the men who taught this foreigner the secrets,” he continued. “Then, one day, the foreigner was found murdered outside the town. He died a horrible, painful death and his cries could be heard throughout the night. They cut out his blue eyes.”
The melodrama was too much for Mousta to take. He stood up and crossed room to keep from bursting out with laughter.
“And soon after, the Great Fire broke out. So many died. So much was destroyed. They blamed the Dya Gitas for the murder and the fire. The five main chiefs of the tribe were tried and hanged, and the rest were banished. The men in this photograph have died, one by one, most in the great war, many of disease, some of loneliness, some of old age. Your uncle was the last.”
I stood up and opened the door to allow light into the room. I was angry.
“What bullshit,” I scowled. “Nice ghost story. I can’t believe what a con artist you are. You should be in Jakarta.”
Yarafoulid seemed nonplussed. He smiled. “What part of it do you not believe?”
“All of it! The Man with the Blue Eyes, the murder, what bunk! Now please, tell me for real, you must have known him as a young man. You have photographs of him?” I pleaded. “Do you remember or not? What was he like?”
Yarafoulid smiled. “Always searching, young man, he was always looking, like you. He was never satisfied. He taught you a lot, I can see. You may not be related by blood, but you have a lot of him inside you. And, I knew after the last of the Dya Gitas died, that another stranger, a stranger who looked like you, would be drawn to come here, and I hoped I would see that stranger as I now see you. I just didn’t think the timing would be so perfect, so appropriate, so right.”
Mousta, Ly-Ly and I were captivated as our eyes followed Yarafoulid to the wall in front of the screaming headlines of one yellowed newspaper. The papers were in Dutch, and I could read enough of it to know this paper was about their Great Fire. I translated the main story, reading about the carnage and destruction, as Yarafoulid continued talking.
“Fifty men would die before you came, that I knew, but I didn’t know when his spirit would return,” Yarafoulid still said mysteriously. “Look here, in the corner of the paper. Look at this item.”
In the yellowed corner, folded, crumpled, behind the glass, was a short story about the mutilated body of a foreigner found dead in the countryside. The only description was that he was blue eyed, and that his eyes were never found. I stopped reading.
“See the date of the paper, my friend?” Yarafoulid said.
It was September 15, 1968 on the newspaper. I shivered as I realized that today’s date was September 14, 2018.
“Exactly fifty years ago today, the man with the blue eyes was murdered, and now you come to visit me,” the old man said. “Maybe you will find what you are looking for. Maybe you will find what he did not.”
I sat down, a little pale perhaps from the scant meals of rice and cabbage I had lived on for the past few days, a little ill from the lack of bowel movements, or perhaps a little shaken by the story. Yarafoulid offered some tea.
“No, I must go,” I said. “I must leave here immediately.”
I paid Mousta and Ly-Ly their negotiated fee — about fifteen U.S. dollars — and threw in a few dollars more. I handed Yarafoulid much more, which made Mousta cluck, since he still had aching muscles from days of rowing. I flagged down a bemo and outside, not before handing my card to Mousta and saying, “If you ever get to the States, please call.”
Moustafa smiled widely, but he handed the card back to me and said, “Sir, I have no reason to ever leave this island. I have my two children, my wife, my friends, my country, right here. Everything I could want. Why would I ever want to visit your country?”
I pressed the card back into Moustafa’s hand. “Maybe someday. Thank you, Mousta.”
As I hurried off, I looked back and saw how Mousta rejoined Ly-Ly and Yarafoulid.
The next day I read about another great fire that hit Banjamarsin, sweeping in quickly from the countryside. The Borneo Museum and Historical Association was obliterated, as was most of the neighborhood. I could never find out what happened to anyone I knew there.
The afternoon I walked out the door, I didn’t see how they counted out all the rupees and dollars evenly. I also didn’t see Mousta pass the framed yellow newspaper on the wall and examine the date closely. Mousta wondered how Yarafoulid did it, but he didn’t ask. He never asked, he didn’t want to know.
He turned to his two friends to collect his share.
Other Scary, Creepy Stories . . .
Visits at the House on Fuller Street
A Family Exorcism and My Uncle: The Pope of Park Slope
Other Family Based Stories . . .
Raw Horse Meat Saved Her from a Botched Abortion
Car Karma: Los Angeles’ Car Obsession
