Rain

To make the seven o’clock meeting, Mo had prepared the materials well past midnight. He slept a little before one, rose before dawn, checked the shoulder bag that held his laptop, nail clippers and umbrella, managed a quick breakfast of bread and coffee, caught the 5:30 train and reached the office forty-five minutes later.

He was among the first five to arrive, as usual—after the cleaners who had been there since 5:50, the technical director who came soon after, and the purchasing staff who appeared at 6:10. The HR manager arrived just after him.

The meeting that should have begun at seven was delayed fifteen minutes while they waited for the finance manager, stuck in traffic on the toll road. Mo, the focus of that morning’s session, explained how updating the programs in every department would cut paper use and overtime. The directors sat up straighter when he named the yearly savings. At the end of the presentation he submitted the list of vendors who would handle the project, together with the budget. Seeing the size of it, the finance director asked, “Why no local vendors?”

Mo, who had expected the question, said, “There are, sir. But they’re far more expensive.”

The meeting ended at half past ten. Mo stayed behind to clear the papers and finish his share of the meeting snacks. The finance manager, apparently remembering something, returned to the room. From the doorway she said, “Mo, come by my desk later. My printer won’t print.”

“All right, Bu.”

At eleven, after fixing the printer, Mo and the purchasing manager met a vendor about installing CCTV at a branch office. Lunch was pushed to three o’clock when the finance director called him in to discuss a new tax application. Near the end of the day he was still occupied teaching a new underwriting clerk how to enter data. He wasn’t back at his own desk until after six.

At the sound of thunder, Mo stopped typing. The clock in the lower right corner of the screen showed 7:48 and there was still a great deal left to do. Unwilling to be caught in the rain, he shut the laptop. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned. Udin, the cleaner, was turning off the corridor lights. They passed each other near the pantry.

“Heading back to Bogor, Kang Udin?”

“Yes,” Udin said, switching off the pantry light. All that remained was the rubbish. He was glad the work had lightened since the finance manager’s notice that anyone who ate in the pantry must wash their own dishes. The notice was taped to the cupboard door.

Mo took a fifty-thousand note from his wallet and held it out.

“For the children.”

He had heard from Yuni, the office assistant, that Udin’s wife had suffered a stroke three months earlier. The right side of her body was paralyzed. Even so she still sold nasi uduk from the house, helped by their eldest daughter, who had only just finished primary school. Mo never said the money was for the wife’s treatment. He always found another reason so that Udin would accept it. The month before he had given a hundred thousand for the fare home.

The rear lobby walls were done in a classical traditional style, carved wood and landscape paintings. Most of the lights were already off, leaving only the glow over the marble floor that was being polished. Wind rushed in when Mo opened the glass door. The hairs on his arms stood on end; he rubbed his palms together for a little warmth.

He walked the garden path lit by soft lamps. People sat on benches or on the grass, smoking or talking or both. Occasional bursts of laughter. Sometimes Mo came here at lunch or late in the day when he was working overtime, sat on the grass with a book. To him the place looked better in daylight, when the no-smoking signs were clearly visible.

A row of closed food stalls lined the fence. Across the way two minimarkets side by side stayed open until ten. He trudged up the hundred-metre slope to the main road. His short breath reminded him he was meant to go jogging on Saturday. It had been a long time since he had done any real exercise. The last time was a month and a half ago—two full hours of badminton. He was putting on weight; his belly had started to stick out.

A pregnant woman sat at the far right end of the bus shelter. Mo took the other end. They worked in the same building. She was on the twenty-second floor, he on the eighteenth. He had shared the lift with her a few times, but she never recognised him. He had first seen her four years earlier. She had stood beside the lift, joining the queue yet never stepping inside. Each time the doors opened and people stepped in, she only watched. When a new line formed she stepped back. Mo, waiting for the neighbouring lift, had not gone up either.

“Which floor?” he had asked.

“Twenty-two, Mas,” she answered, her Javanese accent strong. She was small, in a black blazer and black trousers.

“The lift’s over there,” Mo said, pointing across. “Not every one stops at every floor. This one only goes to twenty.”

While she turned to look, he noticed her pretty face. Twenty-two, Mas. He still recognised the voice.

Now the young woman was a wife, waiting alone to be collected. Several times she tried to call; no one answered. Her face tightened. Mo felt sorry for her.

She kept glancing to her right, checking her phone, then stood when a black BMW she knew pulled up. A man got out, smiling as he approached. She looked sulky. A few words passed that Mo could not catch. Then the man put his arms around her, kissed her forehead, and they both got into the car. Mo thought he would never kiss anyone in public.

Lightning and the rumble of thunder made him restless. If no direct bus to Bekasi came within five minutes, he decided, he would take the one for Cawang. The journey would be longer without the toll road, but at least he would not have to wait at the Jati Bening exit. He hated that stop in the rainy season.

The bus arrived in under five minutes. He took a seat on the left, his usual side.

The streets were still full of people waiting for buses, street vendors, buskers, and the tangle of traffic with horns answering one another. Office towers remained lit, showing the silhouettes of people still at work. Someone—on whatever floor—looking out reminded him of himself on those nights when he had stayed late and stood at the window, watching the road below and thinking the same thoughts he was thinking now.

For six years he had taken the same route every day, occasionally the train when he managed to leave on time, which was rare. The same road, the same stop, the same work, a salary that barely moved. Sometimes it struck him as strange that he was still the same person who rose before dawn and left the house before sunrise. He wanted to step out of the cycle, yet there was always a reason he felt he had to stay inside it. Perhaps he had grown too comfortable. Perhaps he was simply afraid to leave.

Then the rain came down hard.

Drops leaked through the narrow gap in the window and touched his face, waking him from the reverie. He pulled at the sticky pane but could not close it fully—something was jammed. He moved to an empty seat across the aisle, beside a heavy man who was sound asleep. Mo was exhausted and sleepy, yet he did not want to drift off completely or he would miss his stop.

He was the only passenger to get off at the Jati Bening toll gate. He took the yellow umbrella from his bag and opened it as he stepped down. There was no shelter. A wooden post was crowded with people waiting out the rain. On the central barrier an elderly man in a red hat and a cheap raincoat stood alone, watching for a bus.

“Where are you headed, Pak?” Mo asked, holding the umbrella over him.

“Purwakarta.”

The man was in his late fifties. His trousers were rolled to the knees, showing thin legs. He squinted each time a bus approached—the glare of the headlights made the destination hard to read. Without the conductor’s shout he would not have known.

“This one’s for Purwakarta,” Mo said after three buses had passed. He waved until it stopped, then sheltered the old man as he climbed aboard.

Mo waited alone again. A bus that was not his pulled up a little way off and let a woman out. She slipped off her shoes, carried them, and ran towards him.

“Mind if I share?”

She was fairly tall, wearing a white T-shirt tucked into jeans, with a shoulder bag slung across her body. Mo recognised her but deliberately did not greet her. He shifted to make room under the umbrella. She put her shoes back on—the wet shirt clung to her back, outlining the bra straps. She straightened, thanked him, adjusted her hair-tie, then squinted at him.

“Marmo?”

“Nina?”

They asked after each other and their work—Nina in marketing at an advertising agency in Kuningan, Mo at a general insurance company on Sudirman. When he was about to ask where she lived now, she said,

“That’s my bus.”

They were going the same way. On the bus they sat side by side. Mo wanted to talk more, but Nina was busy with herself: drying her hair, wiping her face, neck and hands with a small white towel, then phoning someone. When the chance still did not come he rested his head against the seat, closed his eyes and dozed until another leak woke him. How was it possible to catch two leaking buses in one journey? He shifted closer to Nina.

They got off before the traffic lights at Metropolitan Mall. Mo took Nina’s hand as they went down the steps, then held the umbrella over her. Wind drove the rain and cold air. They walked close together along the narrow, uneven pavement, avoiding the puddles.

“I might leave my job next year,” Mo said.

“Business?”

“Writing. I’m going to be a writer.”

“Oh? Writing what? Novels?”

“Writing programs. And learning Javanese while I’m at it.”

“What kind of programs? What’s that got to do with Javanese?”

Mo laughed, realising not everyone knew the IT side of things.

“The English for Jawa is Java. In computers Java is a programming language. You’ve heard of it.”

“Yes. Just now.”

Then they talked about old friends and teachers, the school reunions they had missed, and small things that made them laugh. After that there was silence. A truck threw up water and mud towards them.

Nina was unharmed. Mo was not.

“Let me clean your face,” she said, taking the little white towel from her bag. As she reached to wipe him he caught her hand. For a moment they looked at each other.

“Just an employee,” Mo said, breaking the silence.

And they both laughed.

Nina was glad of Mo’s company. It was a relief after a draining meeting at the office, the heavy rain, and her brother borrowing the car so that she had had to take the bus without an umbrella—her favourite one was still in the car. Luckily she had met someone willing to share. A reasonably good-looking man. Yet his face had seemed familiar. Then, like popcorn, the name Marmo had popped into her head. That shy boy.

On the bus she had hoped he would start a conversation, but he had fallen asleep instead. The man’s manner irritated her. Fine, she thought, she could do the same. She closed her eyes too, though she had no wish to sleep. She was still annoyed that he had ignored her. Why wouldn’t he talk? Weren’t they old friends? She kept turning it over until he moved closer and their arms touched. She opened her eyes, glanced at him still asleep, and quietly laid her hand on his. She was surprised when he closed his fingers around it. Neither of them said another word. There was only warmth between them.

They stopped at a quiet shelter and sat. Nina drew Mo’s hand onto her lap, and he stroked the back of it with his thumb.

“Just so you know,” Mo said, “I used to watch you a lot at school.”

“Why didn’t you ever speak to me, Mo?”

“You were too… out of reach.”

“Out of reach?” Nina liked the phrase. Like a star in the sky. Like a celebrity.

“You were pretty, clever, liked by everyone. You knew that.”

Nina smiled. She did not deny it.

“Before the farewell at Taman Safari,” Mo went on, “what did you know about me?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“I knew nothing. Only your name and your class. Strange, isn’t it—three years in the same school and we only properly met on the last day. And even then only because your friends dragged you over. You were shy, Mo. That’s why I was the one who offered my hand first. Remember?”

Mo nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

“But you’ve changed. You’re not the shy Marmo any more. You’re funny.”

“I think I’ve always been like this. You’ve only really known me for one day. Not even an hour.”

“Then we should spend more time together.”

Mo smiled. He hoped so.

They stayed long enough for Nina’s younger brother to arrive in a silver Honda Jazz. Long enough to talk about life after junior high, the friends they still saw, news of the teachers, exchange numbers, kiss, and touch lightly on their plans—Mo looking for new work, Nina wanting a boutique of her own.

“We’ll see each other again, won’t we, Mo?”

“Of course.”

“See you, Mo.”

Mo remained sitting for a while after she left. The rain had eased, but the memory of Nina had not. Her face, her hair, her nose, her mouth, and the kiss that left him feeling guilty. He folded the umbrella, wrapped it in a plastic bag and put it away. He crossed the quiet main road, waited fifteen minutes for an angkot outside the petrol station, and sat beside an elderly driver. In the back three waria passengers talked and giggled. Lightning and thunder accompanied the ride; then the rain began again, softly.

He got off at the junction, walked a short way and turned into the housing complex, past the security post and the dark mosque, along the edge of the road under the tall trees and the sound of water in the drains.

Suddenly the rain grew heavier. He took shelter under the eaves of a closed soto stall. His house was not far; he could see it from where he stood. He looked at it with quiet pride—the house he had finished paying for three months earlier after five hard years of instalments. He smiled, satisfied with the renovations he had done himself: cream walls, part of the sitting room turned into a study, a new kitchen, a new fence. Those small achievements were enough; he never envied the friends others considered more successful.

After ten minutes the rain still had not lessened. He ran the last thirty-five metres without stopping. He opened the gate and closed it, set his bag on the terrace chair, took off his shoes and placed them on the rack. Light from the sitting room slipped out as the door opened. His wife, pregnant with their first child, stood on the threshold.

“You’re soaked,” she said. “I’ll get you a towel.” (AR)