CHAPTER 6: The Coffee Going Cold
Ninda didn't believe in coincidences, but she was starting to suspect that Wringin Anom Alley had a habit of arranging meetings.
Wira appeared every time she wasn't ready to ask questions.
That day, Ninda sat at the farthest table at Mbak Rara's food stall, facing the alley with her notebook open and an untouched cup of kopi tubruk. The sun had already dipped a little. The banyan's shadow stretched across the sidewalk, passing beyond the roots and stopping right in front of the stall's table.
She had been there for almost an hour.
Mbak Rara pretended not to notice.
“If you want to keep watch, don't order a second coffee,” she said as she arranged the glasses. “The person you're watching might figure out you've run out of excuses.”
“I'm waiting for a source.”
“Your source is tall, quiet, and never pays for fried snacks.”
“So you watch him too.”
“I run a food stall. I watch everyone who doesn't pay me.”
Ninda wrote down Wira's arrival times over the past three days. Always sometime in the afternoon. Never via the main road. Sometimes he appeared from the direction of the abandoned house at the end of the alley, sometimes from the banyan's side, and sometimes he was already sitting on the bench near the stall before Ninda saw him arrive.
He never held a phone.
He was never in a hurry.
And he always knew who was walking through the alley, even when his back was turned to the road.
At six eleven, two men came from the direction of the market.
They weren't so drunk they couldn't walk. That was exactly what made Ninda more wary. Both moved confidently, laughed too loudly, and kept bumping into each other like people looking for an excuse.
A young woman came out of the convenience store across from the alley. She looked about twenty. She carried a plastic bag filled with soap and instant noodles.
One of the men whistled.
The woman quickened her pace.
The second man shifted to block her way.
Mbak Rara set down the glass she was washing.
“Move,” she said.
The man blocking the way laughed. “We're just talking, Mbak.”
“If you're just talking, don't use your mouth to stand in front of someone.”
The young woman stopped. Her eyes moved from Mbak Rara to the way out, counting her options.
Ninda recognized the movement. When people know they're somewhere unsafe, they don't look at the harasser's face first. They look for an exit.
Ninda stood.
“Mbak, should I call the police?”
One of the men turned toward her. “The reporter's getting involved?”
“No. Just someone who's bored.”
Mbak Rara snorted. “Don't help me in a way that makes me clean blood off the floor.”
“I haven't done anything.”
“That's exactly what I'm worried about.”
The first man stepped halfway forward. The smell of alcohol and cigarettes clung to his breath.
“Pretty lady, stay out of it. We know people around here.”
“I know someone around here too,” a voice said from behind them.
Wira stood at the mouth of the alley.
Ninda hadn't seen him arrive.
The two men turned. Their expressions slowly changed. It wasn't immediate fear, but the memory that they had once been warned and had deliberately chosen to forget.
Wira walked closer.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't clench his fists. He didn't display any weapon.
“Leave,” he said.
The second man laughed nervously. “What if we don't?”
Wira stopped three steps in front of them.
The afternoon light fell across his face. For a moment, Ninda saw the shape of his eyes change. Those dark irises caught a golden hue. It wasn't reflected lamplight. The color came from within.
Wira simply stood there.
Yet the man who had whistled backed away.
His friend followed.
“We were just kidding,” he said.
“No,” Wira replied.
One word.
The two men left without looking back. They hurried past the market, leaving the young woman still standing there with the plastic bag in her hand.
Mbak Rara fixed her gaze on their backs.
“It's a joke when everyone laughs,” she said. “When it's just the two of you, that's called asking to die.”
The young woman bowed repeatedly.
“Thank you, Mbak.”
“Not me.”
She pointed at Wira with her chin.
Wira had already turned his back on her and was staring toward the banyan.
The young woman walked past Ninda, then paused.
“He always comes when someone means to do harm,” she whispered.
Ninda turned. “Always?”
The woman nodded without looking at Wira.
“When there's a drunk person, when someone gets pushy, when someone is chasing somebody. He always shows up.”
“Then where was he when the seven people disappeared?”
The question made the woman go pale.
She left without answering.
Wira was still standing near the banyan.
Ninda slipped her pen into her notebook and approached him. She stopped at a reasonably safe distance, but Wira turned before she could say anything.
“Don't ask.”
“I haven't asked anything yet.”
“You've already prepared the question.”
“Can you read minds?”
“No. You're too easy to read.”
Ninda crossed her arms. “Your eyes changed just now.”
Wira looked at her.
“Afternoon light.”
“Afternoon light doesn't make people leave with a single word.”
“They left because they realized.”
“Realized what?”
Wira didn't answer.
Behind him, the banyan's roots gave a small cracking sound as the soil dried. Wira turned toward the sound, as though he were more interested in the tree than in their conversation.
Ninda watched the way he stood. He never fully turned his back on the alley. He never crossed a certain boundary of shadow. When a child ran too close to the roots, Wira shifted half a step to block the child's path without touching him.
A small movement.
Almost imperceptible.
Yet he was always there before danger had a chance to become dangerous.
“You know something about those seven people,” Ninda said.
“Yes.”
The answer was so direct that Ninda lost her next sentence.
“What do you know?”
“They came after Maghrib.”
“I already know that.”
“They heard something.”
“What?”
Wira looked up at the sky, which was beginning to turn yellow.
“A call.”
Ninda waited, but he fell silent again.
“From whom?”
Wira shifted his gaze to the banyan.
“Not from me.”
Then he walked toward the end of the alley.
Ninda watched until his shadow merged with the tree's shadow. The coffee on the table had gone cold. A thin film had formed on its surface, reflecting the twilight sky.
Mbak Rara picked up the glass and poured its contents into the gutter.
“Don't stare at him like that too often,” she said.
Ninda turned. “Like what?”
“Like someone trying to decide whether a person is a monster or a man.”
“I haven't decided.”
“Good. Monsters are sometimes men. Men are sometimes monsters. Life would be easier if everything had a label, but unfortunately, it doesn't.”
Ninda looked at the alley as darkness began to settle.
Wira had disappeared.
She wrote in her notebook:
Wira protects people from visible danger.
She wrote the next question in smaller letters.
Why did he fail to protect the seven people?