The Threat
A Short Story by HG Ugati (1969)
He edges the door open slowly and the night breeze follows him inside. The two children stop chasing each other around the chairs.
“Mommy isn’t home yet,” the two-year-old girl reports. He glances at the clock, closes the door, then walks over to the children.
“She’ll be home soon,” he answers, sitting down and touching the child’s arm as it rests on the arm of the chair she is sitting on. He strokes her head.
“It’s already dark, but mommy isn’t home yet,” adds her older brother.
“She’ll be home soon, wait in the bedroom and get some sleep. She’ll come home with some cakes,” he encourages. The two children gaze up at him, but they do not say a word.
“Go lie down,” he says again watching the pair, a year apart in age, trudge off to the bedroom.
Stretching out in the chair, he looks up at the hands of the clock again. “Seven-fifteen. It’s been one and a quarter hours,” he reflects to himself. “What are they going to do?” he wonders to himself.
He removes a cigarette from his pocket, lights and slowly draws in. Soon he hears the door open and then close roughly. A few moments later his wife is seated across from him on the other side of the table.
“So how is it?” she asks sharply.
He sits up in the chair, flicking ash into the ashtray. His wife is very upset to see his attitude.
“Where did she go?” she asks next.
“I’m not in charge of where she’s going. You’re the one who now has to make a decision quickly before it’s too late.”
“I already told you this morning-I do not want to tell her to go. What else?”
“We are going to die. This house is going to be burned down,” his wife shouts in frustration.
“I told you before we brought her here, threats like the one we got this morning are real possibility. You and I were aware of that before we did it.”
“You are risking your life for this. If it’s going to be like that, I’m walking out right now,” says his wife, standing up and rushing to the bedroom. He extinguishes his cigarette and follows his wife.
He sees his wife has opened the cupboard, a leather suitcase lies sprawled near the open cupboard door.
“Listen,” he says, approaching his wife. He looks at her two lips, pushed tightly together and protruding slightly.
“I’m asking for your understanding,” he says gently.
“No, no. There’s no point you saying anything else. I’m leaving now.” He cannot say a word and just watches his wife as she continues to push clothes into the suitcase.
“What is making you leave? Are you frightened?” His voice is full of authority. His wife takes a kebaya hanging from the doorknob.
“I don’t want to die for nothing,” she replied, lips pursed again.
“Nobody wants to die for nothing. I’ve been busy all day looking for a solution. This afternoon I contacted the village head and showed him the threatening letter. I told him too this isn’t the first one. He promised he would resolve it.”
“Well, you go right ahead and wait for him to do what he’s promised to do. I do not want to live forever under a threat.”
He watches his wife close the suitcase. But then the woman stands up and opens the cupboard again, rummage for something through the pile of folded linen. She finds a gold necklace and quickly puts it on. She sorts through for a few more pieces of fabric and places them in her suitcase. When she looks down, at the necklace hanging swinging. She removes it, holds it for a moment, and then slips it into the corner of the suitcase.
He watches his wife as she continues busily.
“Before, we were threatened because I opposed the pee-kay-eye. Now you’re defending the thing you once opposed. We’re being accused of being communists.”
“Who’s defending it?” he snaps, not waiting for her to finish what she’s saying. “I’m not defending the pee-kay-eye; I am helping the victims they have created. That incident has planted the seeds of revenge. We have to do everything we can to prevent those seed growing.”
“Before, her husband really hated you and threatened you. Now that he’s dead, you are feeding his wife and children.”
“The problem is finished. We have an obligation to the children he left behind. It isn’t right for us to pray and then after that everyone just watches the starving orphans. She doesn’t know anything about her husband’s ideology. She is just a victim.”
“It’s her own fault, why should we help her?”
“Everything they owned has been destroyed by the uncontrollable anger. They don’t have anything left now. If we don’t manage this carefully from now on, in decades to come their children will grow up and take revenge. A disaster worse than what we’ve experienced is going to happen.” He goes on trying to explain, but it’s as if his wife does not hear him. He explains this to other people too, but it is very rare for anyone to accept what he says.
He watches his wife squeeze the suitcase lid to shut and fasten it. But she cannot. The suitcase is too full. She opens it again and rearranges some of the pieces of fabric that are in it. She removes a few of the pieces of fabric and refolds them, uses fewer folds.
“I’ve found her a job. Maybe she can work as a domestic worker, as a housemaid,” he says suddenly.
“What is the point of finding her a job? It would be better to just marry her. She was your girlfriend once, wasn’t she. You’re making it so hard.” He looks at his wife for a moment, hears those words. He never imagined that his wife would think something like that.
“I have never meant that, Ida… in God’s name.”
“What is the point of swearing… You don’t have to!”
“She left me before because she thought I was too poor to be her husband. She married Jamal, the son of a wealthy man. But unfortunately, Jamal wasn’t left his inheritance by his parents because they thought he’d renounced Islam, that he was an apostate. I explained all of this to you before we were married.
“Now that Jamal is dead, you can marry her.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“What you want is the mother. And the easiest way to do that is to pretend to help her children. It’s embarrassing… Embarrassing…
The neighbors mock me every day,” he hears her voice trembling.
“You’re being smeared…”
“Smeared…? People next door see you two in a trishaw. Smeared?”
“I have told you. I found her a job. I took her to the house of a friend who can help her. Maybe that’s where she is now.”
“You two made an arrangement while you were at home, but then you leave separately and meet there in the street and then you go by trishaw together. If you were being honest why would you do that? Why would you do that?”
“You’re right, Ida… I did the wrong thing. I was embarrassed to be seen by the neighbors too.”
“Why be embarrassed if both of you want to get married…?”
“No, Ida… Believe me.”
His wife is not able to close the suitcase. He stands on the suitcase lid with one foot and pulls the leather strap holding it closed. He watches his wife use all her strength to pull on the strap. But her efforts are to no avail. The woman’s face grows even more despondent. Beads of perspiration are visible on her forehead.
He approaches his wife, takes hold of the leather strap, and easily pulls on it until the pin slips through the last hole along the end of the strap. He smiles at his wife. But his smile quickly disappears as he watches her lift the suitcase and gather her head scarf from the back of the chair.
“So you really want to leave, Ida…?” he asks. She is starting to walk away.
“So you think I’m just playing games?” He watches her move to leave the room, but as he is about to open the door with his left hand, he stops.
“Tell the young widow that I am gone…” As he stares deeply at his wife, their gazes meet for a long moment. He looks at his wife and sees that she has not left yet.
“Okay, if that is really the decision. I can’t force another person, drag them along to uphold a belief that I have. Even if that someone else is my wife. But I will always try to explain.”
He sees that his wife has not left yet. The suitcase still dangles from her hand. He moves closer to his wife. Suddenly she looked up at him.
“I won’t pass on your message. I have never intended to marry her.” Both are silent. His wife lowers her head again. She is still holding the suitcase. Suddenly, his wife raises her eyes and for a few moments their eyes meet. They do not know what has happened, but suddenly they are embracing tightly. She is sobbing into his chest. He carried her to the bed and strokes her head.
“We have been married for six years, but I still haven’t been able to give you a child,” he hears her voice break between sobs.
“Come on. Don’t think about that all the time.”
“We’re ridiculed and ostracized by the neighbors, but you keep her in this house. I always thought differently. I was jealous because she was once your girlfriend.”
He rubs his wife’s back, she continues to sob.
“I know the neighbors hate us, they don’t understand. But I’m sure God smiles happily upon us.”
Before he can continue speaking, suddenly he hears a woman scream outside, then there are people shouting.
“Pee-kay-eye! Pee-kay-eye!” There is the sound of a crowd.
He leaves the room quickly and runs to the guest room at the front. He wants to look through the curtains, but before he can open the curtains a rock smashed through the window. He lies face down on the floor and hears more rocks smash into the window and wall. He can still hear yelling outside. He gathers the courage, takes cover against the wall, and crawls towards the door. He tries to open it.
“Listen… I will explain,” he shouts.
“Pee-kay-eye!” comes another scream. Rocks continued to hit the wall.
“Hold on before you throw anything. I want to explain, friends.”
“Pee-kay-eye!”
He opens the door and as he is about to step outside his wife yanks his hand. He pulls his hand away but she catches it again.
“Do you want to die? Do not go out there!” She hugs him. He tries to break free of her embrace.
“Let me go…” he says as he pulls his hand away from her grip. “I want to explain to them, that we’re Muslims, not communists.”
“They’re all gone crazy. What kind of crazy person’s going to listen to somebody explain?” Suddenly a large rock smashes into door post. Together they both dive for the floor. They hear several more rocks hit the wall, followed by more wild shrieks. The two children in the bedroom cry in fear, hearing the screams and commotion outside.
His wife slowly crawls away from him. A moment later it is quiet. The screams have stopped, but he hears a woman yelling and cursing. A group of people are laughing. His heart is burning as he listens to the screams and laughter. He has the urge to go straight out to the woman.
Crouching, he creeps to the back towards the kitchen. From there he goes outside and tries to approach the location of the women. In the darkness he can make out four men milling around him. He gives up the idea of moving any closer.
“Pee-kay-eye,” someone suddenly shouts. The shout is joined by others shouting together. At the same time, rocks can be heard striking the wall of the house. Among the screams, the woman can be heard shrieking and cursing. There are people laughing happily. His chest burns more strongly, especially when he then hears one very loud painful scream. Then there is silence. Now and then rocks continue to crack into the wall. Then eventually he can see no more people in the darkness of the night at the front of his house. He stands up out of his hiding place and approached the women. He watches her try with difficulty to climb up out of the ditch.
“Ani…” he calls out in a whisper.
“Oh…” He hears the woman’s voice as she stands up in ditch, struggling to climb out. He helped her out, embracing her. In the darkness, they look at each other for a moment. He remembered his wife’s words.
“Did they beat you?” he asks. The woman is silent, she does not answer.
“Come on…” he says, supporting Ani as they walk towards the yard. As he walked, he can hear that a large group of his neighbors have come outside and are talking out front of their houses.
He sits Ani down on a chair. Her cheeks are bruised and her kebaya is torn. Then he notices his wife coming out of the house carrying the two children. The little one cries loudly when she sees her mother. Ida tried to reassure her, but she struggles and asks to be let go. The two children run to their mother as she sits on the chair. Ani cries and hugs them. He and his wife watch them full of sadness. Then Ani suddenly looks up, first at Ida and then at her torn kebaya.
“It would be better if we go tomorrow… staying here will cause trouble for you.”
“Where will you go?” Ida cuts her off, voice trembling in her throat. Ani does not answer. She wiped her tears again. Her two children stare at her wondering. Tears roll slowly down her son’s cheeks.
“There are still plenty of bridges in this city. The three of us can sleep there,” Ani replies as she starts to sob like a child. She hugs her two children. Ida comes over to her and holds her shoulders.
“Come back to your room. We’re not going to let you leave. It would be a sin for us to let you live under a bridge. Stay with us in your room.” Ida helps Ani to her room as she wipes away her tears.
She looks up at the hands of the clock again. The clock shows eight-fifteen. She gazes around the house. Under the window there is a pile of broken glass. The neighbors talking outside are becoming louder. She walks over to the door and nudges it closed. She does not feel safe yet, even though the deadline for Ani to leave has passed two and a quarter hours ago. She looks outside. In the black of the night, she can still see some stars twinkling in the sky. In her heart, she praised the greatness of God. She decides not to report the incident to the village head, who lives two houses away, because she feels that it’s better to report what happened directly to God and to ask for forgiveness. Even though she knows, God has seen the whole incident.
Bna. Dec. 1968
The short story “The Threat” (Ancaman) was first published in Sastra magazine, Issue 6/V11, 1969. According to Aveling (1975:109), H.G. Ugati was born in Banda Aceh and no other information is available about the author.
Aveling, H. (1975). Gestapu: Indonesian short stories on the abortive G30S coup of 30th September 1965. Southeast Asian studies working paper, no. 6. Honolulu: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/19379 [Accessed 30 Dec 2022] or https://storiesfromindonesia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/gestapu.pdf.
Featured image credit: “Temple of hope: Door to Nirvana,” Created by Entang Wiharso, 2018-2019, NGA, https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/artist/49471/entang-wiharso.
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