WOMEN IN GROUP SHORT STORY

2. Paddy Serunai

#SP-1

“Puti, I go home first,” I said as I tidied up the clean clothes I had stacked on a big river rock into a bamboo basket.

“Why is it fast?” tanya Puti who is still busy washing clothes in the small river behind our hamlet.

“Day is high. I have to go to Angku Leman,” rice fields I said.

I had finished covering my entire body and head with a large long cloth, on top of the soaked clothes. The bamboo basket full of wet clothes dripped water as I lifted it overhead. My face was watered by the cold water of the foot of the mountain.

“Aren't you going to slow down a little? Soon the people of the city will pass on the road up there,” persuaded him to hold my step.

“Ah, you want to see them. Why take me?”

I've stepped up. Stepping stone after stone upon which we were focused the women went up and down into the river. I have to go back and prepare some coffee, before you wake up.

I tightened my jaws considering the father's nature that had turned rough in the past few months. All because he lost betting in horse racing. And most surprisingly, the father mortgaged a patch of rice fields and a small garden that had been the hangers of our lives.

Amak has fallen ill since the news was delivered by a debt collector who previously held the father with promises. My family is not rich, but by relying on the rice fields and heritage gardens, our family did not go hungry all this time.

The oldest Uda who is the hope of the family has been very dizzy thinking about the habits of the father who has never changed since young. He was very angry, but words no longer worked.

Uda Asrul's lecture is one year away from completion. Not an expensive department either. Even so, it was already very heavy. Because he had to work to finance his own life and college in the city.

Now plus Sayid, my younger brother reports and asks for school fees, because the stockpile of amak trade is up for medical expenses.

My feet rushed past the grips of the rice field, which used to be our rice field.

Tears imagine the yellowing rice and I try with sweat, it is no longer possible to get.

A shout that I was getting used to hearing lately, re-echoed and sounded throughout the hamlet that morning. I wiped the tears on my cheek.

“Renooo ..!” He screamed for me.

“Yaaa ..!” sahutku while half running, while holding a large cloth basket that I visited on the head.

My steps were shuffled to balance the footing so as not to fall to the ground.

With gasps I reached behind the house. I put the cloth basket on the edge of the firewood pile. Then push the kitchen door.

I saw a big pot of water I had put on the stove before I went to wash, it was bubbling. I looked for a coffee place to make my father's coffee, so that his anger subsided.

My heart feels wry. Coffee powder there is not up to a spoon. But I put it in a glass too. Then a cup of boiling hot water I poured into the glass. Scattered coffee filled our simple kitchen.

“This is coffee, Sir,” I said. The bitter coffee I put on the living room table. It's not that I like bitter coffee, so I made it. But because it's been a week of sugar.

He got up from his half-lying seat in a long chair. He must have been intrigued by the smell of coffee. But his eyes are looking at me sharply.

“Is there still no sugar?” the question is full of demands.

I'm shaking. There's nothing more I can do. I've been working my way into every neighboring garden and paddy field, just so we could have a grain of rice to eat every day. My efforts are only to make amak and my sister not to go hungry!

“What can be eaten?” ask her with a high voice.

“Reno just got home from the river, sir. There is nothing to eat yet,” I replied as I left him and saw the rampage in the room. I brought warm water to fill my stomach in the cold air of our village.

“Should, cook first before going to the river!” yelled from outside.

“Nothing can be cooked, Sir!” my reply began to be irritated at his insensitivity to the state of his wife's child.

Weak hands, patting my hands, so that I may be patient and not reply to your words. I sometimes get annoyed at Amak who is so patient in dealing with the bad habits of the father since young.

My tears are falling. It was so bad to see a father like that. Me, Amak and my little brother, no one had breakfast.

We've been throwing away that habit ever since we didn't have any more rice supplies. Sometimes, if in the afternoon I get a sweet potato or cassava, I will set it aside a little for the morning. So Sayid doesn't need to go hungry at school.

I heard the motorbike leaving. I'm out of the room. The bitter coffee on the table had already been gulped. Now, it's time to dry the cloth and go to the neighboring rice fields. The harvest season has begun. It takes a lot of additional labor for the harvest to be completed immediately.

“Mak, Reno go to Angku Leman rice field first. Yesterday it was called to help harvest the rice pulp there,” I said with a smile. “Pray many results today.”

Amak nodded and smiled as I kissed the back of his hand before leaving the room. I left with a heart full of hope. Hopefully we can bring home a little bit of rice to eat our family.

In the fields of Angku Leman, many people have gathered. I became discouraged when I saw some cutting machines there. I think my schedule is a little bit narrow today.

So I just sat in the tampang, saw some KKN students from the city demonstrating how to sow rice with the cutting tool. It was really fast. As fast as the lawn mower I've seen in the village hall yard.

I sighed, throwing away the fret that squeezed the chest. Then got up from the edge of the batter and walked past some people who seemed interested in seeing the show.

“Ren, where are you going?”

I'm turning. There is Siti and Puti also on the edge of the ripener.

“You can find other rice fields only. They wear tools like that. Won't need much energy,” I said keep going.

Siti and Puti looked at each other and clenched their lips tightly. They understand my situation.

My feet are steady down the rice fields that connect to each other in our village. Looking for a place that is harvesting. I believe that the windfall of each creature has been prepared. I just need to find and try.

And indeed my path is in another field. In the place of Angku Amran not many daily workers come. Most of the workers gathered at Angku Leman's place to see how to use the new harvester.

I work hard. My brown face was stroked by the sun with a friendly, as if encouraging. My skin care mask is the mud of the rice fields that sometimes have pacatnya. The vast paddy field was only done by ten people.

In the middle of the day we rest. The result of half a day was me, getting a liter of rice. I came home cheerfully. More carefree again because seeing the lompong plants on the roadside hamlet many can be picked. We could eat some good vegetables today.

Two-thirds of the moustached rice with more water than usual, to be enough for everything. Then in another furnace I sauteed vegetables.  Then eat with amak.

“Do not forget to pray,” order amak. I'm nodding. Go clean the body in a small bathroom where the water is flowed with bamboo gutters from a water stem that flows profusely in front of the house.

“Reno departs again, Mak,” pamitku after finished praying.

“Unni!”

Sayid who is Junior High School has returned home. He looks tired. I'll get you a glass of cold water to quench his thirst.

“This is cooking vegetables, eat fast, before you spend father,” I said.

“His eyes sparkled hearing me cook well that afternoon. I smiled and my steps lightly headed towards the Angku Amran rice field. There is still a lot of work to be done that day.

The fortune of the sholeha child. That evening I came home with rice and three eels tied up with rice stalks. All the rice in one large rice field is finished we harvest. The still somewhat watery rice field kept a delicious animal under its pile of mud.

We searched for eels and fish that afternoon. Then divide it evenly.

That night amak and Sayid was very happy. I still leave a few pieces of eel for breakfast raven and Sayid tomorrow morning. How happy it was so simple for our family.

I lay a tired body next to the amak. Closing his eyes while enjoying a hand clap that was in rhythm with the sound of the Quranic tadarus from his lips. I hugged the increasingly frail body of amak.

“Mampukan me happy amak, O Allah,” whispered me in heart.

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