The Azure Keris: The Ride Home (4)

Pensive. That’s how Pak Din described me in the drive home from Ulu Tiram. I moved back to my kampung only a few days ago and already I get three surprises, none of them pleasant.

I discovered that the only man closest to me other than my father has kept a scandalous secret. The man who almost killed me when I was a child is now hale and healthy and married to Azizah, the very woman whose wedding he crashed. Surprise number one.

I discovered that Kak Azizah was Pak Din’s training partner in the mysterious silat style known as Silat Tapak Sendeng in 1969. She was 14 years old at the time while he was 24. They were the only two students accepted to study the art, or so they say. Surprise number two.

I discovered that Pak Rashid and Kak Azizah had been married for almost 20 years but never had any children, even though doctors agreed there was nothing wrong with them. They were now too old to conceive, but the third and biggest surprise is what Pak Din said about it to me.

“Rashid had always wanted to apologise to you, come and find you in Kuala Lumpur, but he was too afraid of your father. Rashid heard about what your father swore after he was put away. That’s why he never came back to the kampung. He knew that your father would make him pay for what he almost did to you,” Pak Din explained.

“But most importantly, Rashid believed that their childlessness was his fault, that your family, your father, had cursed him and his lineage. Azizah never knew he felt this way, only that he was remorseful,” he continued.

“What? That’s rubbish,” I cried. “My father isn’t a… wasn’t a… bomoh or something. I mean… what kind of…,” I stopped and looked at Pak Din.

“It’s not true, right? All this mumbo-jumbo is just fantasy, right?” I asked for reassurance.

Pak Din looked sympathetic. Maybe he felt that he had just burdened me with the responsibility of the couple’s unhappiness.

“I’m not a bomoh, nor am I a doctor. All I do know is that, he carried around a mountain of guilt for two decades, and for me, that can mess up a man’s brain and his biology. When I married Mak Jah, my business wasn’t doing too well, and we could never seem to conceive. But a couple of years later, when the business picked up, then we got Aminah, and then Amran. Less stress, I suppose,” he said, trying to calm me.

“Anyway, it’s a moot point now. Thanks to you, Rashid is now a happy man. Just be content in the fact that just by standing there, you gave a man his life back”.

I sighed and just drove the rest of the way home in silence.

The Azure Keris: The Sparring Partner (3)

Pak Din sipped his tea as daintily as any Englishwoman would. I never understood that. He was as Melayu as the next Tuah, Din and Harun, but his mannerisms and sense of humour sometimes seem hardly local.

He loved his tea and biscuits, but often complained of the difficulty in finding crumpets and scones in the kampung. Other than that, he never actually talked to us, making Pak Din a mysterious silat-teaching figure who loved English culture.

“How’s the tea? You haven’t touched it,” Pak Din inquired, his right index finger and thumb pinching the handle of the teacup, while his three other fingers extended outwards. His left hand carried the edge of a saucer.

“Never fostered a liking for tea,” I whispered.

“Your loss, then.”

I sat on my hands, not knowing what to do. Pak Din had just today revealed to me a secret that he had kept for the last, what, 20 years? As we made small talk there, waiting for our hosts to prepare lunch, I wondered what it was I felt.

Shock? Surprise? Horror? Something inside of me cringed, not at the fact that Pak Din kept the secret, and not even at the discovery that Azizah’s whereabouts was known to Pak Din, but by the vision of the amuk that was Rashid, Pak Rashid Hamzah, extending his hand to greet me just several minutes ago.

I was speechless as Pak Rashid and his wife, Kak Azizah ushered Pak Din and I into the house and sat us down to tea and biscuits. They took our leave to the kitchen for a few minutes and left me to stew in my own santan, wondering what in the world we were doing there?

“What in the world are we doing here?” I whispered, concerned, to Pak Din.

“To make things right,” he replied.

As I was about to continue my line of questioning, Pak Rashid walked out of the kitchen, with a tray full of food and set it down on the dining table. He smiled at us and looked set to invite us to lunch, when Pak Din piped up.

“Rashid, before we eat, I think we had better get the purpose of our visit out of the way,” he said in a formal tone.

Pak Rashid nodded solemnly. He wiped his hands on a pink cloth and indicated to his wife that us boys wanted to be left alone. I was struck dumbfounded. It’s obvious Pak Din has been here many times before. He didn’t need me to drive him, unless he wanted to save on bus fare. The purpose of this visit had my inclusion a big part of it.

Pak Rashid sat down on the rattan settee opposite us and clasped his hands together, his head bowed slightly. Pak Din brushed off the biscuit crumbs from his hands and began.

“Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Rashid, thank you for having us here, and Saiful, thank you for coming. I apologise to the both of you for not telling you why I brought you together. But, I think the moment you saw each other, you had some idea what I had in mind”.

We kept silent.

“Rashid, twenty-three years ago, you did something that you weren’t proud of, and you’ve paid the price for that mistake. However, there is still one matter that you need to resolve. I’ve brought Saiful here to help you rectify that matter,” Pak Din indicated by turning to me.

“From the time I met him, Saiful has never talked about you. But his mother has told me several times that the incident never left him, that he often had nightmares about you. You owe him something, and I want you to repay that now,” Pak Din said in a chastising tone.

Pak Rashid kept his head bowed, but I could hear him sniffing. He was on the edge of tears. What Pak Din said struck a chord. I wondered, why would Pak Rashid care so much? I doubt he even remembered me, him being in an amuk state at the time. After what seemed to be an eternity of silence, the old man suddenly raised his face, and looked me straight in the eye.

“Yes. I was wrong. It’s been so long. I… I don’t know what to say now,” he stuttered.

“Say what you feel,” Pak Din said blankly.

A deep regret seemed to well up from within him. His shoulders shuddered and his tears flowed. It’s obvious, he was searching for the right words, but sometimes no amount nor choice of words can truly make the message. As he was about to burst, he let out a most emotional, “I’m sorry”.

Suddenly, my eyes started tearing. A surge of emotion came over me, from somewhere. All the spite, the hate, the fear, I felt for him just washed away. It was at that exact moment, I noticed Pak Din. He was reciting something, but I couldn’t hear what it was. He caught me looking in his direction, stopped immediately, and smiled at me. The moment passed.

It was an amazing feeling. The past seemed to be recoloured in a brighter hue. Over lunch, we joked over how the locals reacted when Pak Rashid decided to play madman. Apparently, Kak Azizah’s husband peed in his pants. He called off the reception and pronounced talaq (divorce) upon her, a moot point since she went missing immediately after.

What I didn’t know was that Pak Rashid was never sent to prison, but was interred at the Bahagia psychiatric hospital in Tanjung Rambutan, Perak for two years. It was less embarrassing to tell the kampung folk that he was in prison. Being gila (crazy) carried a very negative stigma back then, as it still does now among the Melayu.

After Pak Rashid was discharged, it was none other than Pak Din who fetched him from the hospital and brought him to the Johor Fisheries Department to set him up with work, which he did well enough to establish his own fisheries training centre.

But the coup de grace came when Kak Azizah revealed that it was Pak Din who, through his many contacts, traced her whereabouts to Kuala Lumpur and persuaded her to come back to meet Datin Mariesa, her mother, to seek forgiveness. It took several months, but finally, with Pak Din’s silver-tongue and the help of Kak Azizah’s own grandmother, the old woman’s heart softened.

However, her mother insisted Azizah marry, even if it be Pak Rashid, who unknown to her and the rest of the kampung, was already a successful man living in Ulu Tiram. When Rashid, with Pak Din’s help, came to ask for Azizah’s hand in marriage, Datin Mariesa found herself trapped by her own words and decided to forgive them.

There were smiles all around at the table and something seemed to have come full circle for Pak Rashid and Kak Azizah. Once again, thanks to Pak Din.

“Din, for old times’ sake? See if I can still get the better of you?” Pak Rashid suddenly challenged. Pak Din washed his hand in the bowl of water on the table and ceremoniously stood up, his face smirking cheekily. Pak Rashid smiled and got up, leaving Kak Azizah sighing, knowing she would have to clean up alone.

She saw that I felt uncomfortable, stuck between helping her clean up and actually watching what the two old boys were up to. She shooed me with her hand, literally telling me to get lost and not bother her. I nodded and thanked her, running off outside to join Pak Rashid and Pak Din.

When I got there, they were already standing facing each other, hands meeting at their chests to salute the other. A beat-up cassette player sat in the corner of the yard playing a strain from the collection of the late Pak Din Lambung, a champion gendang silat player from the last few decades. Lack of a live band didn’t stop this duo from playing pulut with one another.

Pak Din launched into an interpretive bunga which never looks the same every time I watch it. Pak Rashid on the other hand, did something familiar, the standard sembah salam Pak Din taught me when I was very young. They stepped gracefully around an invisible circle in the very small yard and once they had completed 360 degrees and returned to their original starting point, they approached each other in the middle of the circle.

Both of them in a crouch, their hands crossed but didn’t meet, as they waited for who would make a move first. Pak Din didn’t have to wait long. Pak Rashid slowly parried his hand and sent a left fist towards his ribs.

Slowly but surely, Pak Din turned on the balls of his feet clockwise and pressed down on Pak Rashid’s right wrist, simultaneously parrying and moving out of range. He followed this up with a backfist to the stomach. He let out a faint laugh.

Pak Rashid was in a pinch, but not for long. With a wink, he pulled his right foot back and swept Pak Din’s right wrist with his left while his right hand parried the backfist. They were now facing square, with both arms spread wide.

This friendly pulut play went on for several minutes, with either of them getting the better of the other but quickly recountering. Sometimes, they played selangkah, where they avoided stepping but only used gelek to parry, lock or punch. However, when pressed, like in Pak Rashid’s case, they were forced to use an extra step to create leverage. They even rose and descended along the vertical whenever they needed to open a lock or unpin themselves.

It was a wonderfully entertaining sight to watch, something I myself hadn’t trained in in a long time. I almost wished I had a partner, but I had put silat behind me a long time ago. I appreciated Pak Din’s effort these last few days to persuade me to train again, but I wonder if I would truly ever fall in love with it like I did before.

“Go very far?” Kak Azizah asked. I was startled and a little embarrassed, not because I failed to notice her sitting next to me, but that she caught me in a slightly reminiscent mood. At that instant, a stark ‘Aduh!’ came from the men.

Pak Rashid had Pak Din in a particularly painful lock and Pak Din had cried out. I was surprised and a little disappointed. I knew that lock well, because Pak Din had taught me many a time to release myself from it. To watch him now immobilised by the same made me wonder if the release was even effective.

Pak Din indicated defeat and Pak Rashid gamely let go. The pair stood up, saluted one another and hugged as tennis players who congratulate each other do after a good game. They were drenched in their own perspiration and decided to walk around the neighbourhood for a smoke. Kak Azizah told them not to be too long for the tea was almost ready. They just waved at us as they left.

As she was about to go inside, Kak Azizah saw the look on my face. She quickly discerned the cause.

“He didn’t lose, you know,” she quipped.

“What?” I asked, surprised.

“Din. He didn’t lose the game. He just made it seem that way,” she explained. I looked at her, astonished.

“Rashid and Din have been playing like that for years. And Rashid always lost. He’s never been a good silat player anyway. I mean, Din’s been doing this all his life. Rashid only just picked up silat a few years ago.

“But Din noticed Rashid’s dejection every time that happened, so every once in a while, Din would throw the game. He was good, I suppose, Rashid never noticed. That way, Din could help Rashid save face, and potentially still be his friend every time he came around here,” she laughed.

“How do you know this?”, I asked.

“I studied Silat Tapak Sendeng when I was a young girl. Saving face during pulut was a big part of what I learnt. It’s exactly what Din did for Rashid.”

“Hey, that’s the same style that Pak Din studied,” I cried, only now realizing the significance.

“Yes, that’s where I met Din. He was my sparring partner,” she revealed, as she disappeared into the house.

The Azure Keris: First Contact (2)

“Remind me again. We’re driving all this way to Johor to meet who?” I asked.

“It’s my old sparring partner. We trained in Silat Tapak Sendeng together in the 60’s,” replied Pak Din, as he fixed his songkok.

“I thought you said you studied that style alone. You never mentioned a training partner,” I huffed.

“That’s because I couldn’t trust any of you kids. You’d have got me into trouble,” he said, referring to the first batch of 20-odd students he had when I was younger, one of whom was me.

Trust us? What secret lay so great in the knowledge of a training partner that would get him in hot soup? Now I was curious. Pak Din was never very talkative when I was a child, but maybe that’s because we had nothing to talk to him about. Twenty-four years ago, we were just snot-nosed kampung kids whose parents sent us to study silat to keep us out of trouble.

I still remember that first day I saw Pak Din. It was 1984. My mother had taken me to Datin Mariesa’s house to attend her daughter’s wedding; my first ever. It was held in a grand compound in her late husband’s home. Back then, it was an impressive sight; the only house in the village made fully of bricks. It was a single-storey, bright blue building with a dark red roof and cream-coloured grills on the main door and windows.

The midday sun bounced off the white tents in the yard, which shadowed long tables laid out with crockery and cutlery for the lunch guests. The yard was filled with adults and children in multi-coloured baju melayu or baju kurung; chattering away, greeting one another, or just running around.

The kugiran (music band) were oblivious of the crowd, and just spent the time tuning their guitars and violins, while the accordion player found activity in gossip. The female elders were seated inside the house around the pelamin (wedding dais) where the raja sehari (king and queen for the day) would sit on decorated chairs resembling thrones.

The owner of the house, the late Datuk Rahman, was the Kampung Tanah Budi headman before he passed away just six months before. It was his dream to see his daughter married, but she always turned down any potential suitors her father introduced, most of them obscenely wealthy. She became known as a bringer of bad luck, of being accursed.

A man of high standing, her father was ashamed that he had a 30-year old virgin in the house and decided to take matters into his own hands. He found a man of comparable status to marry her. But cancer took him before he could complete his work.

I was seven, but even I could see that the bride found it a less than perfect situation for herself. She sat on the dais next to the empty throne her husband would sit in after his entourage arrived. She wore a beautiful form-fitting white kebaya dress, with beading and sequins shimmering all the way down. Sparkling earrings hung elegantly, giving her neck length, while a golden necklace made of various-sized brooches adorned her bosom.

Her hair was braided and coiled and upon that, the mak andam (traditional beautician) added a bun wig with various cucuk sanggul arranged fan-like, forming a metal halo around her head. Her fingertips were dyed in henna and her hands were placed daintily on a small embroidered pillow. The colour of her dress matched the platinum dais and the lace that covered the curtains behind her.

She looked every bit the queen, if not for the mascara running down her cheeks.

“Is she crying, mak?”

“Shhhh… She’s just happy,” my mother chided. I knew she didn’t like doing that, because she often encouraged her children to be real. I was being real. I just stated the obvious, something no one else in the party seemed to be acknowledging. But my mother also understood social politics and saving face, something she had to assimilate quickly after marrying my father and moving away from the city.

Then, I heard it. A low roar that wafted over the trees, eventually increasing in volume; the sound of kompangs beating to the singing of salutations to the Prophet. The rhythm was mesmerising. I had never heard it so powerful before; so powerful that I ran from my mother’s side to join the other children who had rushed forward to see.

The entourage was huge, even by city standards. At that age, I still couldn’t count well, but I remember the feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer number of kompang players that led it; forty in all. Behind them, the party was headed by a white satin umbrella, under which walked the groom and the best man. I wasn’t sure if I was sure, but I could have sworn the groom looked too much like my grandfather.

He walked with a cane, and seemed to be afflicted with a backache while the best man kept dabbing his perspiring forehead with a handkerchief. The rest of the 200-strong throng seemed to stunt their step, to keep down with the old man’s pace, which, to children awaiting an entourage, is a grueling one.

Eventually, the group reached the porch of the house, where the mak andam and gang were already waiting. This was what everyone was waiting for, the pantun exchange.

“A pair of cenderawasih adorn the skies,
With songs of paradise they do sing,
If a flower blooms not before it dies,
Would a beetle sacrifice its wing?” inquired the mak andam to the male representative.

To which the master rhymer deftly replied:
“Songs of paradise they do sing,
Bringing calm to the realm thus wide,
Would a beetle sacrifice its wing?
Verily, body and soul we’d gladly provide”

The mak andam smiled and gestured to the groom to pass.

The old man and his best man parted from the entourage, which promptly scoured the tents to search for seats. The two men walked toward the front of the house, where the bride had already been ushered out; to meet her husband.

Her bridesmaid shielded her face with an embroidered cloth fan, both as a sign of chastity, and to hide the mascara scars she had self-inflicted. Both of them sat down on two chairs in the yard, almost as finely decorated as the thrones inside the house.

And, at that very instant, a man, probably in his forties, stepped forward. The chattering crowd went silent. He was dressed in a black baju melayu, and a black samping with gleaming gold threading, while his tengkolok, also of the same material, was tied in a fluid lang menyusur angin knot. A brush of well-groomed jet-black mustache covered his upper lip. He looked every bit the warrior. He had no keris by his side, but his eyes were piercing.

The warrior took several measured, polite steps towards the couple and raised his hands, palms together, to salute the groom, which he returned graciously, if lazily. The warrior took two steps back and folded his arms across his body, akin to the position in Muslim prayer. And he waited.

The sudden screech of a serunai broke the calm and the eerie strain of the tune seemed to inspire the warrior. His face turned from calm to concern. He closed his eyes, and when the percussion of the gendang ibu and gendang anak drums began, his fingers started to move. There was an energy that started from his fingers and seemed to radiate visibly through the elbows, the shoulders, the neck, the face.

He slapped his thigh and stepped back, while his hands made wondrous circular movements in the air. He seemed to be putting on a show for himself, as he watched his hands dance. He gestured to the left, to the right, up and down; all the time his hands mimicking birds on the wing, playing with each other.

Then, the strain of the serunai became harder, more violent, more inducive and the drums, from a lazy rhythm, jumped to a marching bang-bang-bang, like machine-gun fire, which startled the children. The warrior worked himself into frenzy, launching punches and parries, as if he was fighting an invisible foe.

I was wide-eyed. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. At one point during the mock fight, the warrior seemed to be pinned down by his foe, and the children gasped. Was it a phantom? A ghost? A little girl I’d never met clung to my arm, which was disconcerting, because I was about to jump in the ring to help. The drum crescendo kept us on the edge.

Then, he lunged from the pin and jumped up, did a mid-air spin before landing on the sand, with one hand on the enemy’s throat. He crushed his windpipe, and it was over. We cheered, much to the surprise of the adults.

The warrior stood up, as if nothing had happened, saluted the groom again, and took several steps back. But, as he turned to walk away, I spotted a shoeless man walk past him. He wore a pair of scruffy jeans, which matched the scruff on his face. His once-white t-shirt told me that he had only a few of them to his name, and nothing more.

I would have paid him no more attention, but for his arm. His arm! Beneath the telling rust of a carelessly-used implement, I saw the gleam of a sharp parang hidden in a reverse-grip behind his forearm. His eyes had a wild look to them, and I followed his gaze to discover, he was looking at the bride. Her mascara-smudged eyes widened in horror and she tried to scream, but no voice came.

“I waited for you! You promised it would be me!” the wild man screamed, as he revealed the judge that he had brought along. The household seemed to be frozen. The men stood up, but everyone wondered who would make the first move, weaponless, against an amuk.

He spat obscenities at her husband, most of which I didn’t understand. All the men could do was shout ‘Hoi!’ or ‘Woi!’ or ‘Run!’ to their families, which didn’t help the bride at all. I felt a gentle but firm grip tear me away from the scene. It was my hero, mak.

“Come away!” she shouted. I couldn’t disobey, but the man in me wanted to do something. It’s what my father would do. As she pulled me away, I picked up a fist-sized rock and launched it overhand. I didn’t see where it landed, but just as I picked up another, I heard a loud crunch, and the crowd went silent.

Blood ran down the amuk’s hair and the crimson stain on his shirt grew. He turned his face and saw me. His eyes narrowed and he started to lunge towards me. I looked at the rock in my hand, and I looked at him. A growth seemed to fill my throat. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t run. My legs melted beneath me as my mother dragged me across the yard, which ripped across my skin. I was bleeding into the sand.

In the haste, my mother’s grip loosened and I fell to the ground on my back, just as I smelled the stench of the wild man’s breath envelop me. My mother screamed something, but I was in a soundless void. The amuk raised the parang above my head and I saw it cleave the sky. I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

Then, from a distance, I heard something rip through the wind, and a loud snap, like a breaking branch. I dared to open my eyes and found the parang embedded in the earth, barely three inches away from my right shoulder. The wild man’s knee had fallen dangerously between my legs. I could still smell his breath, but something was wrong. He wasn’t looking at me.

His head was turned over his shoulder, and I saw what caught his evil stare. Standing there in a half crouch, was the warrior, still in full dress. He was holding one end of a taut sarung in his hands, while the other end was wrapped around the amuk’s weapon arm. It was so tight, it tied his hand to the blade.

If he was angry before, now the amuk was insane.

“You! Not you, too! She promised! You’ll die with them!” he cried as he got up and tried to rush the warrior with his sarung-wrapped parang, accidentally kicking my ribs along the way. My eyes welled up with tears, but it hurt too much to move. My mother was screaming hysterically as she was held back by several women who tried to keep her out of the melee.

The amuk shot past the warrior and in the process, the sarung fell away from his arm. The parang was free again. The warrior, who evaded his lunge, had repositioned himself to face him. As the amuk turned around, the warrior gracefully skated across the sand and threw his hand across the wild man’s face, violently slapping his cheek with the sarung.

But as he fell, the parang continued its downward arc towards the warrior’s skull. Without even stepping, he shifted his hips and slammed a left tiger fist into the amuk’s armpit, which forced the weapon free. As it fell, the blade bounced off the warrior’s right thigh, and made a bloody gash; nearly slicing my ear off. The warrior grimaced for a split second, but just as suddenly regained his calm.

A look of resolve came over his visage. He stepped behind the amuk and swung the sarung across his jugular. The amuk suddenly realised the precarious situation he was in; he struggled feverishly and tried to stab his elbows into the warrior. But it was too late. He felt the sarung tighten, as the warrior screwed it from behind. A foot placed squarely on his tailbone ensured that his hips were firmly pinned to the ground.

The amuk’s eyes went wide as he choked on his own saliva. His head was now on the ground and as his gasps became quieter, he looked at me contemptuously and mouthed: “Wait for me…”

As the crowd cheered wildly and my mother scooped me up in her arms, no one noticed that the bride was no longer where she sat. In the commotion, her husband had failed to see her slip away. People rushed forward to congratulate the warrior, but he was busy tying up the amuk with some weaved rope. What for, I thought. Isn’t he dead?

I saw the warrior turn the man over and place his thumbs on either side of his jugular. He massaged rhythmically for several seconds and almost immediately, the man started growling. The shocked crowd backed away a little, but came back when they saw that he was immobilised. The warrior turned him over to several village committee members, who probably found courage in numbers.

My mother turned to me, checked the scratches on my legs, dusted me off and fretted the whole time with tears streaming down her face. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, because I was staring. Staring at the warrior who stood there, looking at me. My mother noticed my swayed attention, and she got up and walked us over to him.

“Thank you very much. You saved my son’s life,” she offered, sniffing.

“It’s all right. Just get his wound cleaned quickly. And give him some water to drink. He’s had quite a shock. He still looks shocked,” the warrior remarked. My mother nodded, and turned us to leave, when I spoke.

“I’m not shocked”.

Both of them, surprised, looked at me, waiting to see if I would say anything else. It was a few seconds before I finally decided on my choice of words.

“I want to be like you,” I said. “I want to be a warrior”.

A smile crept onto his face.

“What’s your name, young man?” he asked.

“My name is Saiful, sir,” I replied.

“My name is Haji Mokhtaruddin, but you can call me Pak Din”.

A sudden police road block brought our reminisces to an abrupt halt. Pak Din quickly put out his self-rolled cigarette and stuffed it into his pouch. I chuckled to myself.

“I’m the one driving. You don’t have to do that,” I said.

“It’s a sign of respect. They’re doing their job, day in day out in the sun to protect us. They deserve our respect,” he retorted.

“Yeah, like they respect us when they ask us for money,” I grumbled.

“Nobody likes to lower themselves to ask for bribes. It’s not in human nature. They always do it out of necessity or weakness. We have to accept that. But one thing is for sure. Everyone deserves respect, even those who would kill us. If we are able to stop our enemies, why go all the way and kill them?”

The amuk, I thought. Pak Din let him live. True, he was sent to jail, but after he left, he moved to Johor and lived a fruitful life. He opened up a youth training centre for the State Fisheries Department. If Pak Din had dealt the killing blow back then, hundreds of young men would have nowhere to go.

“You know, because of you, I had to try and recall what my masters taught me? I think I forgot more than I remembered. You started a freak trend in the kampung, calling all the local kids to come study silat at my house. Mak Jah was furious. She never got a quiet night since. Neither have I,” he laughed.

“But after your batch left, the younger ones didn’t seem to have the same drive,” he half-sighed, then caught himself. Sighing is taboo in Melayu culture. It indicates a sense of giving up. It was clear, however, that Pak Din was disappointed. And most of it had to do with me.

“Do you remember the bride on that day? The one who ran away?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes. Azizah, I think. They never found her. I heard later that she was in love with Rashid, the amuk, but he was too poor to ask for her hand in marriage. It didn’t help that her father’s dying wish was for her to marry a decrepit old man,” I said, then laughed, remembering Pak Din’s crack about decrepit chain-smoking old men.

“We’re here,” he quipped, as we stopped in front of a cream-coloured terraced house with a brown roof. A woman was in the fenced-in garden watering her plants. Pak Din got out of the car and said, “Assalamualaikum”.

The woman stopped her gardening and walked to the fence while an old man came out of the house. She smiled at both of us, but when she looked at me, she smiled even wider and said, “Hello Saiful, you’re a grown man now. Long time no see.”

My brow furrowed for a couple of seconds, until the face became familiar. The old man came into view, and suddenly, I froze.

“Azizah? Rashid?”

Pak Din turned to me and smiled cheekily.

The Azure Keris: Coming Home (1)

I had arrived later than I said I would. Pak Din, as always, accepted my apology as soon as I gave it. I sat down next to him on the pangkin (raised platform) after we exchanged greetings. It was a long drive, but I didn't mind it. It was time for me to finally visit him.

"How is your wife?," Pak Din asked.

"Alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah), she's recovering well. She was initially worried about the birth, but I guess the baby makes up for all the suffering," I told him.

"You know, when I was younger, all babies born in this kampung were natural births. And the midwives never had to make any incisions on the mother," he proclaimed proudly.

"I know. Mak (Mother) told me that too. But I asked a doctor friend. He says, that's because back then the babies born were much smaller. The food they ate was different, less nutrition," I replied.

"Hmmmm...," he shot a cynical glance from the corner of his eye. "Still the same, you are. Always have something to say. If I remember right, Mak Jah named you the student from hell".

I laughed, remembering how I first got that name. I professed innocence, and I still do. It was the other students who convinced me that one of the shows of skill of a pendekar was how many chickens you could pluck while chasing it. And I plucked them all. All of them belonging to Mak Jah, my teacher's wife.

"You know that..." I began.

"I know, I know. It wasn't your fault. You've said that already," he cut me off.

"Besides, I paid for them in full, didn't I?"

"That, you did," he said while reminiscing the time I helped out with Mak Jah - and her lady friends after school - to weave mengkuang leaves into mats to sell at the weekend markets. I swear, by the time I had finished my two month job placement with those gossip mongers, I knew everyone who was doing who, or who wanted to do whom in the whole kampung. I was never the same again.

"Still practicing?" Pak Din suddenly asked.

Oh dear, I thought. I was afraid this would come up.

"It's been awhile, Pak Din. I've been terribly busy with work, the wedding and now the baby. You know how it is," I managed feebly.

"You can do better than that! You used to have such vibrant excuses everytime I ask you to train. This is what you've come to?" he smiled thinly.

"I'm sorry. I know I've disappointed you. But, silat just hasn't been that big a part of my life for awhile now. Kuala Lumpur is a dangerous place, but it's not like I have a big 'Rob Me!' sign on my back. I have no one to train with, and I can hardly use it either."

SLAPPPPPPPP!!!!! A tight one finds its way across my cheek. Reflexively, my hand comes up too late to parry but catches his wrist just as Pak Din's palm leaves my face. Then I realise the mistake I made. I feel my wrist buckle, and I try to order my fingers to let go, but it was too late. He had started his rotation and the rest of my body got caught in the spin. It was going to snap.

Whattodowhattodowhattodo??? A thought occured to me. My college roommate, Zakaria, once taught me a flip he learned in a Japanese martial art. Can't even remember the name. Maybe I can do that! No! Pak Din already has his knee out. I'd snap my back on if I land on that.

Another thought! Shoulder? Shoulder! Suddenly I see the flow. I follow Pak Din's rotation and force myself past his grip. There's slack! I rotate my shoulder and the energy snakes across my biceps, through the elbow into the wrist. I have leverage! I have control!

Then, as soon as the feeling came, it left, as I heard the word "Impressive!" blow pass Pak Din's lips. He reversed his motion into my flow, slid his whole weight into my hip and I lose traction. I saw the night sky and I saw my foot pointing at the moon. A split second later, my spine met the earth, with a thud.

I stared up at the old man.

"As long as irate slap-happy women and decrepit, chain smoking old men don't attack you, I guess you're safe, then," he said as he stood over me, fixing his kain pelekat (sarong), which was dangerously ready to come undone.

"Yeah," was all I could manage.

"But you still have it. A little bit," he backhanded. I got up and dusted myself off before manually searching for broken bones. I sat next to him again, but this time, slightly out of reach of the old tiger.

We sat together on the pangkin and just stared at the gelanggang. No one was left to train. All the kids grew up and moved out of the kampung. Like I did. The new generation had their PlayStations (albeit pirated copies) and Wiis. The Pak Dins of the world had their pangkins to sit on.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Pak Din asks, "So, what's this visit for?"

"I'm moving back here," I declared quietly.

His eyes widened, his mustache stiffened and suddenly the thin lips became a wide smile. I know that smile. It's one of purpose. And that purpose has probably got something to do with me. I sigh resignedly, and he laughs heartily, knowing that I know.

The Azure Keris: Prologue

It's been two weeks, and yet, my tears still flow unbidden. It's a strange feeling, to realise that someone who was there for so long, is now no longer. Every morning, I'd wake up and try to remember if it was just a dream and it always comes back to me.

It's real. My father is dead.

The Melayu use the term salin bantal (replacing a pillow cover) to describe what happened to him. He had diabetes for such a long time, but it was always in control. Strangely, his condition suddenly took a turn for the worse and in the end, he succumbed to renal failure, just as he started his COPD treatments. Then, a week after I buried him, my daughter was born.

Generations past consider it an omen. A switch. My daughter's life for my father's. She was in a dangerous breech position and doctors predicted complications in the birth. But when everything pulled through, people started talking. They said, Allah took my father in exchange for my daughter.

My mother said it was nonsense. Mak spent most of her life studying religion and told me matter-of-factly, "Allah takes whom He wills. No exchange, no barter."

"Put your faith in omens, and you put it in the unsure. Allah is always sure. Never forget that," she said, even as she fought back tears.

I nodded, wondering what my and wife daughter were doing now. As part of custom (and necessity), they had gone back to her kampung in Ipoh for her 40-day confinement period. There, her mother would care for her the way no husband can. Which basically left me a bachelor.

But I had issues to work out. So, I guess I could occupy myself with that. I had just rolled off a project in Kuala Lumpur and was deciding what to do next. My firm might allow me to post overseas, but with the baby here, I was now more reluctant to do so.

With my father gone, I now had to oversee the distribution of his property, and more importantly, the repayment of his debts. In Islam, the responsibility of a parent's debt repayment automatically falls to me. It was going to be difficult, since I didn't know who he owed, but I was determined to ensure his life in the hereafter was a peaceful one.

Then, I stumbled upon a project no one wanted to touch, a community development partnership in Kampung Seri Nusantara in Melaka. It was 'cold' because there were no amenities and very possibly mosquito-infested. Maybe so, but it's next door to Kampung Tanah Budi, my kampung, where we came from.

My father still had land and houses there to manage, and I'd have to make sure they were maintained or distributed amongst his employees according to his will. In that, I saw the opportunity to catch some recuperation of my own.

Within 30 minutes, I persuaded my wife of the change, persuaded a bewildered boss to give me leadership of the project, and persuaded my mother to let me do it. It was time to go home.