E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten
Kurniawan Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78227-276-2
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-78227-276-2
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Eka Kurniawan was born in Tasikmalaya, Indonesia in 1975. He studied philosophy at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta and has since published several novels and short stories. He was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2016 and his books have been translated into 33 languages. His highly acclaimed, epic work of magical realism Beauty is a Wound is also available from Pushkin Press.
Weitere Infos & Material
AJO KAWIR WENT to the kitchen and found some red chili peppers sitting among the spices. He looked into the main room. Nobody was around. I’m acting like a common thief, he thought. He first took a few peppers but then decided on just the plumpest, freshest-looking one. It was red, tinged with green. He chopped off its tip with a knife. He could see the seeds inside, white and oozing. It would be delicious with shrimp crackers or hot fried tempeh, he thought. But he didn’t have any shrimp crackers or fried tempeh, and this wasn’t the time to think about food. He peered around again—the house was still deserted. He looked back at the chili pepper.
Ajo Kawir unzipped his jeans and pulled down his underwear. His pecker was hanging there, still sleeping, as lazy as could be.
If you don’t want to get up, he thought, then I will make you get up.
He rubbed the chopped chili pepper across the surface of his genitals, making lines and circles. He cut a bit more off the chili and rubbed again. Get up, he mumbled. Get up, you deadbeat. He had already applied the chili pepper to the entire surface of his privates and the seeds were sticking here and there, like sesame seeds. At first it just felt cold, a very suspicious cold.
But after a while, it began to feel warm. And then hot. And then it began to sting.
He started howling in the kitchen, and then he moved to the bathroom, yelling and screaming, until his voice could be heard eleven houses away. They found him there, soaked to the bone. He was dousing his crotch with pail after pail of water, howling and screaming and flailing about.
“It burns! It burns!”
“Of course it burns, you idiot!”
There was nothing anyone could do. They dragged him from the bathroom and gave him a towel and left him to scream on his bed. He rolled back and forth on the mattress. He wept. His tears poured onto his red face. People wanted to laugh at him, but nobody did. Or at least, they laughed later when he wasn’t around. Nobody knew where he had gotten the idea, but one thing was clear: chili peppers would not make your dick stand up. They wouldn’t even make it twitch. All they’d do was make it red, and make its owner suffer for practically half the day.
“Unbelievably stupid,” Gecko pronounced two days later. He had once accidentally dribbled some toothpaste out of his mouth onto his privates and the heat had been merciless. He couldn’t even imagine what a red chili pepper must feel like—he’d never be that dumb.
“But I have to try whatever I can,” Ajo Kawir explained, “to save my own life.”
You idiot, Gecko grumbled in reply, your soul doesn’t reside in your penis.
At that time, nobody knew that his dick couldn’t stand up except Gecko. Of course, people wondered why he had done something so ridiculous, but he didn’t tell them anything. They thought maybe Ajo Kawir had heard some mistaken advice about virility. Kids these days wanted a penis that was strong and big, and they’d try anything to get one, without even knowing with whom they’d ever put it to use—boys just thought that a big strong penis was the best thing that they could ever have.
No, people didn’t know yet that Ajo Kawir’s dick couldn’t stand up.
Gecko wondered whether he should tell his father about it or not. Someone has to know, he thought. Someone has to help Ajo Kawir. He looked at Iwan Angsa, feeding his hen and her nine chicks in the side yard. It was morning and he was carrying his school bag but finally he decided to talk to his father. He approached a bit hesitantly and then stood behind Iwan Angsa, watching him stir the wet bran before giving it to the chicken, who’d share it with her chicks.
“What is it?” asked Iwan Angsa when he saw his son hovering there. “Do you want some money?”
“No.”
“So why haven’t you left yet?”
He wondered whether he should say anything. He looked at his father. He thought of Ajo Kawir. If he was going to tell, what exactly should he say? Iwan Angsa returned his gaze for a few moments. The chickens were waiting and he gave them another spoonful of wet bran. Gecko still just stood there with his busy thoughts. Finally, he said:
“Ajo Kawir’s dick can’t stand up.”
Iwan Angsa looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Ajo Kawir’s pecker can’t stand up. Even if he’s looking at a naked woman, it doesn’t stand up. The thing is, it won’t stand up, no matter what.”
Not far from their house, there was a farmer who was trying to keep bees. Gecko would go there to buy honey. It wasn’t very good honey, and the farmer knew it, he just did it because he enjoyed it. And Ajo Kawir had gone there once with Gecko, and a bee had stung him, making his hand swell up.
Then he read something about bee therapy in an old newspaper. Bee stings could cure all kinds of illnesses, the article said. Beriberi, rheumatism, gout. He didn’t know what those illnesses were, but he knew that a bee sting could make his hand swell up.
Ajo Kawir thought about his penis. He imagined it getting bigger. Standing up. Erect.
He went to the farmer and bought a bottle of honey, and asked for a few bees too, although he didn’t say for what. He went home and purposefully let his penis get stung three times. And it did in fact get bigger, it swelled almost as wide as his fist, but it could not be considered erect. You could say it was more like a sleeping python. And so he was left to howl and moan for the second time, and he couldn’t wear pants for the rest of the afternoon.
A few days later Gecko brought the subject up again with Iwan Angsa. He was on the verge of tears as he spoke. “Dad, you have to do something,” he begged.
“But what’s really wrong with it, exactly?”
“I already told you, Ajo Kawir’s dick can’t stand up. Even if he sees a naked lady it can’t. He already tried rubbing it with a red chili pepper, and now he’s let bees sting it, but he still can’t get hard.”
“What do you guys know about dicks, anyway?”
Iwan Angsa brought Ajo Kawir into his room, and told him to take off his pants. Ajo Kawir sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes welling up. Iwan Angsa squatted and examined it. Pinched it and tweaked it. Ajo Kawir wiped away his tears, and begged that no one tell his mother or his father. He didn’t want them to know about this.
“But how did it all start?” Iwan Angsa asked.
Ajo Kawir looked over at Gecko. Gecko looked back at him. We don’t know, Gecko blurted out. He didn’t want Iwan Angsa to know what they’d done. He didn’t want to add on to all their problems. He didn’t want to talk about how the two policemen had gone into Scarlet Blush’s house, and raped that crazy woman. We just don’t know, he said again.
Iwan Angsa looked at Ajo Kawir.
“I don’t know,” Ajo Kawir repeated. “All of a sudden, it just didn’t want to stand up. But it used to stand up, like if I was looking at a picture of a half-naked lady.”
“Or if he rubbed it with soap,” Gecko added.
Iwan Angsa gave him some thin adult books by Valentino, which he occasionally bought for himself at the bus terminal. He had a few stashed away in a locked cupboard in his bedroom. He hadn’t wanted the kids to find them, but now he gave them to Ajo Kawir and told him to read up. They were about nothing but intercourse, filled with the snorts of lusty women and the howls of men in orgasm. Sometimes there were sepia photographs of people doing it slipped in between the pages, or of women showing off their genitals.
Iwan Angsa had read those books again and again as entertainment before getting into bed and waiting for Wa Sami. Those books were always able to make his dick hard, sometimes even until he came. And now he hoped those books would offer that same miraculous gift to Ajo Kawir.
He left the kid to read the books in his room. Ajo Kawir sat on the edge of the mattress just like before, but this time without wearing any pants. His hands were busy flipping through the pages. Of course he really enjoyed them—there’s no one who doesn’t enjoy a book like that.
Every couple of minutes, Iwan Angsa would spy on the kid through the air vent above the door.
“How’s it going?” asked Gecko, waiting nearby.
Iwan Angsa didn’t say anything. He saw that Ajo Kawir was still sitting there on the edge of the mattress. He had already read four books. And his penis was still sleeping soundly, looking exactly like a lump of ginger root.
It was past eleven o’clock at night. Iwan Angsa was leading Ajo Kawir along a footpath that stretched out next to the railroad tracks. Only a pale streetlight lit their way. They arrived at a place with small huts and a few people visible in silhouette...
