Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan

father’s life was over. Mameh could see he was exhausted from fighting himself. But Komar bin Syueb would not die at Margio’s hands or from the fangs of his pet tiger. That night, after flicking his cigarette butt into the yard, Margio said to Mameh, “I’m leaving” He added, “Otherwise I’ll end up killing that man.”
    Mameh didn’t take his words seriously. To her, he seemed to be saying, “I want to leave.” In truth, he had gone long ago. These last few years, Margio had clearly grown unhappy at home, and his true permanent residence had become the nightwatch hut and the surau. He might not come back again to the family house, but he would still be found at his usual places. Mameh later saw how wrong she had been.
    One day, on a morning like any other, they suddenly lost Margio. His friends were the first to realize he had gone. They hadn’t seen him all day. Someone said he’d been at the circus, but that was its last night in the village, and the whole crew had packed up and left, and no one knew where they were heading. The entire village was certain that one of the circus girls had lured Margio into joining them. Everyone was sure he would return to his birthplace and his true love, who they felt confident was Anwar Sadat’s daughter Maharani. Eventually, when some of his friends dropped by the house to ask after him, Mameh realized Margio really had run away.
    His disappearance made a lot of people sad, particularly Major Sadrah, who was all set to kill some boars; and also Komar bin Syueb, it seemed. For a week he tried to ignore his eldest child’s absence, returning to a familiar routine, feeding the remaining chickens and the three pairs of rabbits. Every morning Komar took out his old bicycle, worn thin with rust, its chain creaking, and like most bikes in the village without brakes or lights. Komar went to the market to gather rotten carrots and cabbages from the vegetable vendors’ garbage, and returned home after stopping by the rice mill to get some bran. All this went to his animals. The bran had to be mixed with warm water, stirred and served in several coconut leaves to prevent the chickens from getting in each other’s way, while the rotten cabbages and carrots would simply be thrown into the rabbit hutch. Komar busied himself, especially with his extra chores, to make it seem as if he didn’t care about Margio’s disappearance. But Mameh knew how he really felt.
    One morning Komar asked, “Is Margio back yet?”
    â€œNot yet,” Mameh said quietly. “Believe me, he’ll be back when it’s time for him to get married.”
    This was no comfort to Komar, and soon his health declined with the onslaught of various illnesses. The sense of loss he felt was severe; he was back to spending whole days in bed, became dreadfully thin, and muttered in delirium. He gave up on cutting hair, and instead trimmed away at his own soul, snip by snip. Komar complained about a nail inside his stomach, later verified when he vomited blood. His skin turned blue and his body swelled. Mameh went to fetch a hospital orderly, who told her to drag him to the hospital. Mameh called on her mother’s two younger brothers, who carried Komar on a stretcher. He had more diseases than the doctors had time to discuss, and was left to sleep in a cold and haunted ward.
    His wife didn’t want to take care of him in his final decline, and Mameh had to shoulder the burden. She could see the final moment was near. As the ylang-ylang rapidly blossomed, so did the champak, and ravens cawed in the distance. After two days in the hospital, Komar asked to be taken home and said firmly to Mameh, “Don’t call for any more doctors. I’m healthy enough to wait for my grave to be dug.”
    That was when Komar could still talk. A morning came when he couldn’t open his mouth anymore. It shut in defiance of its master, his jaws