Dada 161

He would sing in an old ring or fairground if they would let him. Some would laugh, most of them migrants from over the border; maybe that’s why the Malay hated him and called him traitor. The song came from more than forty years old. It was no matter of time for him. He sang it until he went up the river to the home. Try as I might I could not picture me hanging from a scaffold in some quiet room of the prison. When you come to think about it there was a distortion on what the judgement was based upon and the sequence of events that ran up to it before the verdict was delivered. I did not mean to kill anyone when we set out that day. What happened was that I found myself in the middle of something outside my own actions like a small wooden doll. History suddenly washed me along its broken path as if a bottle was suddenly dancing on the tide; fated more than premeditation; chance rather than deliberation. The fact that the verdict was read out so late in the afternoon when it might have been done just after lunch, when the sky was different, the clouds softer, the possibility of sun; all of this would have had a bearing in making it seem better, easier for a man like me. At some point of the day we are all naked. Why make such a fuss of this Malaysian federation stuff when everyone knows we hate each other. We just want to get on with our own lives. All of this cultural stuff surrounds us like clogging weeds. It deprives us of that certainty.

Dada 160

They don’t like to see the face of the condemned man but the executioners will see me. Surely there must be cases when the rope has slipped or the drop is blocked or that chance or luck has played a happy part. It was easier to think of the pirates. Just a slip in the normal processes of justice would have done me. My emotions would have taken care of the rest. The papers often talked of a debt to be paid to society and the debt that must be paid to the one offended. But that sort of talk does not fire the imagination. No, the one thing that counted for me was to make a dash for it and defeat their rules, a mad stampede to freedom along the docks and quays and into the water, shark filled or not; a gamblers last throw. Naturally when the pirates caught you it would be no fun and games but at least there was the chance, kill or be killed rather than this slow and brutal wheel of justice. They deprived you of sex and cigarettes but not of time. Time on the anchor was time on the nail, Dada used to say, a curious in between world of being neither here nor anywhere, not at sea nor port. When a ship’s engines stop beating it loses its soul. But they could not deprive me of his song. I remember him shouting from his balcony and the constant visits from the police. ‘Brothers and sisters’ he would sing, ‘our time grows short and those who own the ships own much. Those who have wives should live as though they had none. Those who mourn for our impending loss should live as if they had nothing to mourn; those full of abundance who are enjoying life should live as though there was nothing to laugh about. For truly now, we have only ourselves to offer this State but only when we have our freedom; a demand from neither Dayak, Malay nor Chinese but from the Borneo seamen ‘

Sixteen

I have just refused for the third time to see any of the Holy men. I have nothing to say to them. I don’t feel like talking. I shall see them soon anyhow. They will still be sniveling around after I’m gone since they don’t do executions in public any more. The only thing that interests me now is the problem of getting around the procedures to see if there is a loophole in all that tight moral armoury of their precious law. They have moved me to a different cell. It’s more comfortable in this one, lying on my back; I can see more than a portion of the sky. Maybe that is the reason they move you here. To give you those last looks at what you are going to lose. Seeing the soft underbelly of the clouds sending the City pink and black in the last of the sunset is worth a lot to a condemned man. There is nothing much else to see but I can construct a whole world from those clutches of nimbus cloud. All my time is spent in watching the slowly moving colours of the day and even of the night. It would surprise you if you gaze up and wait. I do not care when I sleep or wake. The problem of a loophole obsesses me. I am always wondering if there have been cases of condemned prisoners escaping from the implacable machinery of justice. At the last moment they break through the police cordon and vanish to the jungle in a nick of time just before the noose is coiled. There would have been more chance if they held the hangings in public like they used to. I blame myself for not paying attention to executions. I used to read about them in the history books or scattered papers and that would be that; of prisoners jumping the scaffold and then being shot if they ran. That would be something. When you are on the move there is always a chance. It is like a thief running away down the dockside with a basket of fish, running for his life, looking ahead but waiting for the shot to gouge open his back; all of his life contained in that one moment.. You should always take account of such matters. I let them go missing. I suppose that if something doesn’t concern you, you don’t bother. I’d read descriptions of hangings but they hadn’t stayed with me long, but now facing my own, it is surprising what the mind stores up. What it brings together between your own circumstances and history.. Technical books that deal with the placing of the knot must certainly exist but I had never felt interested enough to look them up. If they were dealing with pirates or hanging them on a ship, of huge lashings or keel hauling and walking by lanyard in chains , there was always the chance of jumping over and taking your chance. This appealed to me more. ‘Hanging is the white man’s way, the civilized way;’ Iskra once told me. ‘Even the hood they use puts you at a distance. They don’t want to see your eyes’.

Dada 159

‘Corrective Service like my Dada had to endure. This is what really killed him even after his friends got him away to sea again’. I said this to him. He nodded but said he did not know. I asked what were the chances of getting the sentence quashed as it only a seemed to be bad luck that my history rose before me just when the white boys were having their argument. I reminded him of the slap snaking towards my face. ‘It carried the history of all this island’ I said. ‘No chance’ he said. He had not raised any particular points of law as this might prejudice the jury one way or another. It was difficult to get a judgement quashed on anything but technical grounds and there was none of that here. I saw his point and in a way, I agreed. Looking at the matter dispassionately, I shared his view. ‘In any case,’ the lawyer said, ‘You can appeal in the ordinary way but I’m convinced the verdict will be favourable’ We waited for quite a while, about three quarters of an hour. The policemen offered me another cigarette but I refused. It was strange but I wanted to get back to my cell. I had missed my two breaths of freedom beneath the evening sky. I could feel the rain coming with the night. A bell rang and the lawyer took his leave. Over his shoulder he said, ‘the foreman of the jury will read out all of the answers. You will be called on after that to hear the judgment.’ Some doors banged. I heard people hurrying down flights of steps and certain coolness when I knew the rain must have come. The heat was diminished but still hung in the air like a damp towel that draped everywhere like that moment on the beach. I could not tell if voices were nearby or distant. When I heard them still droning away in the courtroom I knew something was up. Then the bell rang again. I stepped back into the dock. The silent court room wrapped itself around me. Even the lighting seemed somehow dimmed. With the silence came a strange sensation. I noted that even the young smartly dressed journalist with the angular features, the who had originally eyed me with such fascination, had now turned his head to one side. I did not look at Mo. I had no time , even if I wanted. The presiding judge started with his pronouncements. I noticed he was wearing his cap. In short I was to be hung by the neck until death overcame me in some secret a site of the prison; a place the state reserved for people like me. I felt like sitting down but pirates don’t sit. They stand and stare. My sentence was no different from the thousands of stateless ones born to the undocumented, men and women, who all have to hustle their lives from fishing boats. My life was no different. My father said he wanted to help me face up to the chaos . I was not the only lost soul within his acts of contrition. When they burn wood in Kalimantan it permeates through all the sad moments of this island. What a good citizen he is, my father. My death shall be his honour. I couldn’t interpret the looks on the faces of the people present. The mood seemed to be one of respectful sympathy. Sobs were coming from Mo’s direction but I did not look up. The policemen handled me very gently too. The lawyer placed his hand on my wrist. I had stopped thinking. I was merely being kept afloat through the water with the sky above me. I heard the judge ask me if I had anything to say. After considering for a moment my mouth started to open and I was about to recite a string of curses that any pirate would utter at the moment of containment. ‘The Sea Dayaks are my people ‘I wanted to shout.’ Instead I uttered a decisive ‘no’.

Dada 158

The day was ending and the heat not as intense. The evening rains would arrive before dark and soon be here. By the sounds that reached up from the street, I knew that the cool of the evening would not be slow in arriving. We waited. I expected the arrival of the Police van of for some signal. Everyone seemed to be waiting. I looked around the courtroom. It was exactly the same as the day that I had first arrived. I met the eyes of the journalist but he did not return my gaze. It reminded me that not once during the whole hearing had I tried to catch sight of Mo nor share a message through our eyes. It wasn’t as if I had forgotten him. I was just too pre occupied with other matters. I saw him now. He was not seated by Srino or Iskra or Shabela but by himself. Two policemen sat at each side of him. He gave me a little wave as if to say, ‘At last’ He was smiling but I could see he was anxious. My heart had turned to stone even without his damning testimony. I could accept him with a certain disregard now. I returned his smile but it was an empty one. The judges came back to their seats. Someone read out to the jury a string of questions. I caught a word here and there, malice or murderous forethought, provocation, extenuating circumstances. The jury went out and I was taken to a little room where I had already waited before. My lawyer came to see me and sat near. He was very talkative. I wished he would shut up. He showed me more cordiality and confidence than he had done before. He assured me that everything would go well and that I would get off with a few years. The following corrective service would rid me of the stain.’

Dada 157

Only one incident stands out. Towards the end while my counsel rambled on, I heard the thin tunes of an ice cream cart in the street, a small jangling sound of bells and chimes that cut across his flow of words and empty paraphrase. A rush of memories went through my mind of the red sunsets in the dry season, memories of a life that was mine no longer but was dissolving in the actions of these puppets of the State. Memories that had once provided me with the surest, humblest pleasures, the warm smells of summer, my favourite streets, the space by the water where the sky hung low at evening, even the rain that brought a deeper green to the trees and a cooling balm like sandalwood to the air by the river; Mo’s clean clothes and his laughter bubbling up and singing through those bright teeth with his hair swept back. How beautiful it was. How beautiful he was. The futility of what was happening here seemed to take hold of me by the throat and slowly throttle me. I had only one thought, to get it over as soon as possible. To get out and be in the space between the court and the police van when I could take my two breaths of freedom under the unmoving sky. This was my aim before the return to my cell and to sleep, sleep, sleep. My lawyer was finished, only one verdict possible he declaimed, that of homicide with extenuating circumstances. His voice drained away. The court rose and he sat down and looked exhausted. Some of his colleagues came up to him and shook his hand. ‘A magnificent fight, well done’ one of them said. Another even called me to witness the performance. ‘Fine wasn’t he’ he indicated. I nodded my head but said nothing. I had nothing to say. I was far too tired to judge whether the performance had been good or otherwise. To my mind it was all the same.