Di Lorong-Lorong Kesepian
untuk wajah-wajah di jendela
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XXXVI
The waiting was interminable. I do not know how much time passed on the clock, that nameless and universal time of clocks that is alien to our emotions, to our destinies, to the inception and ruin of love, to a death vigil. But by my own time it was a vast and complex temporal space filled with figures and turnings back, at times a dark and tumultuous river and at times a strange calm like a motionless, eternal sea where Maria and I stood facing each other with ecstatic happiness; then again it was a river pulling us back as if in a dream to our childhoods, and I saw her galloping her horse wildly, her hair streaming in the wind, her eyes hallucinated, and I saw myself in my small town in the south, in my sickroom, with my face pressed to the windowglass, watching the snow, my eyes, too, hallucinated. And it was as if the two of us had been living in parallel passageways or tunnels, never knowing that we were moving side by side, like souls in like times, finally to meet at the end of those passageways before a scene I had painted as a kind of key meant for her alone, as a kind of secret sign that I was there ahead of her and that the passageway finally had joined and the hour for our meeting had come.
The hour for our meeting had come! As if the passages had ever joined as if we had ever really communicated . What a stupid illusion that had been! No, the passageways were still parallel, as they had always been, only now the wall separating them was like a glass wall, and I could see Maria, a silent and untouchable figure... No, even that wall was not always glass; at times it again became a black stone, and then I did not know what was happening on the other side, what had become of her in those unfathomable intervals; what strange events might be taking place. I was even convinced that during those moments her face changed, that her lips curled with scorn and she was perhaps laughing with some other man, and that the whole story of the passageways was my own ridiculous invention, and that after all there was only one tunnel, dark and solitary: mine, the tunnel in which I spent my childhood, my youth, my entire life. And in one of those transparent sections of the stone wall I had seen this girl and had naively believed that she was moving in a tunnel parallel to mine, when in fact she belonged to the wide world, the unbounded world of those who did not live in tunnels; and perhaps out of curiosity she had approached one of my strange windows, and had glimpsed the spectacle of my unredeemable solitude, or had been intrigued by the mute message, the key, of my painting. And then, while I kept moving through my passageway, she lived her normal life outside, the exciting life of people who live outside, that curious and absurd life in which there are dances and parties and gaiety, and frivolity. And sometimes it happened that when I passed by one of my windows she was waiting for me, silent and anxious (why waiting for me? why silent and anxious?); but at other times she did not come in time, or she that poor caged being, and then I, my face pressed against the wall of glass, watched her in the distance laughing or dancing without a care in the world or, which was worse, I did not see her at all, and imagined her in obscene places I could not reach. At those times I felt my destiny was infinitely more lonely that I had ever imagined.
Berbeza dengan orang lain, saya memerlukan jarak dan ruang untuk berbicara dengan diri saya. Mungkin sebab itu saya tidak boleh menulis puisi kerana jarak antara saya dan bahasa terlalu dekat. Apabila saya menulis novel, saya mencipta ruang dan saya membina jarak. Perasaannya adalah seperti berada di balkoni sebuah apartmen pada waktu malam, dan di depan anda adalah jalan menuruni bukit, anda melihat kembar anda berada di situ, dia menyandar pada tiang lampu, membahagikan nafas dan kesunyian. Apa yang ditunggunya? Anda tidak tahu atau pasti. Lalu dalam diam anda berbicara dalam hati kepadanya.
Sepanjang hidup saya, lorong gelap yang diceritakan oleh Sabato dalam novelnya ialah tempat saya berada untuk melihat dunia di luar jendela. Malah cerpen pertama saya pernah tulis berjudul Warna-Warna di Lorong. Saya tidak pernah tahu sampai sekarang kenapa saya tulis cerpen itu. Ia berlaku pada suatu hari yang agak panas di dalam bilik tidur emak saya. Permaidani hijau, tirai lusuh, dan mesin jahit emak menemani saya dalam kesepian bilik itu ketika tangan saya begitu leka mengatur kata di atas buku nota bergaris saiz A4, tanpa mengetahui jumlah perkataan atau halaman yang sesuai untuk sebuah cerpen. Cerita saya selesai ditulis petang itu juga dan ia menjadi bekalan saya untuk dibawa ke bengkel penulisan di Kuala Lumpur.
Enam tahun telah berlalu. Membaca The Tunnel membuka kembali banyak emosi lama yang sudah semakin dilupakan. Atau tidak wujud lagi? Saya percaya ada bahagian daripada diri kita yang tidak pernah berubah dan menjadi dewasa. Saya percaya kita tidak pernah meninggalkan padang permainan atau bangku sekolah atau buaian gantung di bilik ibu bapa kita. Saya percaya kita mencipta ruang bukan untuk meluaskan ruang, tetapi untuk merapatkan lagi jalan kembali ke lorong-lorong ingatan.
Saya sentiasa melihat ke luar jendela dan saya tidak pasti adakah saya masih menunggu bayang datang berkunjung atau saya hanya ingin duduk di situ seorang diri.
Seorang diri.
The hour for our meeting had come! As if the passages had ever joined as if we had ever really communicated . What a stupid illusion that had been! No, the passageways were still parallel, as they had always been, only now the wall separating them was like a glass wall, and I could see Maria, a silent and untouchable figure... No, even that wall was not always glass; at times it again became a black stone, and then I did not know what was happening on the other side, what had become of her in those unfathomable intervals; what strange events might be taking place. I was even convinced that during those moments her face changed, that her lips curled with scorn and she was perhaps laughing with some other man, and that the whole story of the passageways was my own ridiculous invention, and that after all there was only one tunnel, dark and solitary: mine, the tunnel in which I spent my childhood, my youth, my entire life. And in one of those transparent sections of the stone wall I had seen this girl and had naively believed that she was moving in a tunnel parallel to mine, when in fact she belonged to the wide world, the unbounded world of those who did not live in tunnels; and perhaps out of curiosity she had approached one of my strange windows, and had glimpsed the spectacle of my unredeemable solitude, or had been intrigued by the mute message, the key, of my painting. And then, while I kept moving through my passageway, she lived her normal life outside, the exciting life of people who live outside, that curious and absurd life in which there are dances and parties and gaiety, and frivolity. And sometimes it happened that when I passed by one of my windows she was waiting for me, silent and anxious (why waiting for me? why silent and anxious?); but at other times she did not come in time, or she that poor caged being, and then I, my face pressed against the wall of glass, watched her in the distance laughing or dancing without a care in the world or, which was worse, I did not see her at all, and imagined her in obscene places I could not reach. At those times I felt my destiny was infinitely more lonely that I had ever imagined.
* * *
Berbeza dengan orang lain, saya memerlukan jarak dan ruang untuk berbicara dengan diri saya. Mungkin sebab itu saya tidak boleh menulis puisi kerana jarak antara saya dan bahasa terlalu dekat. Apabila saya menulis novel, saya mencipta ruang dan saya membina jarak. Perasaannya adalah seperti berada di balkoni sebuah apartmen pada waktu malam, dan di depan anda adalah jalan menuruni bukit, anda melihat kembar anda berada di situ, dia menyandar pada tiang lampu, membahagikan nafas dan kesunyian. Apa yang ditunggunya? Anda tidak tahu atau pasti. Lalu dalam diam anda berbicara dalam hati kepadanya.
Sepanjang hidup saya, lorong gelap yang diceritakan oleh Sabato dalam novelnya ialah tempat saya berada untuk melihat dunia di luar jendela. Malah cerpen pertama saya pernah tulis berjudul Warna-Warna di Lorong. Saya tidak pernah tahu sampai sekarang kenapa saya tulis cerpen itu. Ia berlaku pada suatu hari yang agak panas di dalam bilik tidur emak saya. Permaidani hijau, tirai lusuh, dan mesin jahit emak menemani saya dalam kesepian bilik itu ketika tangan saya begitu leka mengatur kata di atas buku nota bergaris saiz A4, tanpa mengetahui jumlah perkataan atau halaman yang sesuai untuk sebuah cerpen. Cerita saya selesai ditulis petang itu juga dan ia menjadi bekalan saya untuk dibawa ke bengkel penulisan di Kuala Lumpur.
Enam tahun telah berlalu. Membaca The Tunnel membuka kembali banyak emosi lama yang sudah semakin dilupakan. Atau tidak wujud lagi? Saya percaya ada bahagian daripada diri kita yang tidak pernah berubah dan menjadi dewasa. Saya percaya kita tidak pernah meninggalkan padang permainan atau bangku sekolah atau buaian gantung di bilik ibu bapa kita. Saya percaya kita mencipta ruang bukan untuk meluaskan ruang, tetapi untuk merapatkan lagi jalan kembali ke lorong-lorong ingatan.
Saya sentiasa melihat ke luar jendela dan saya tidak pasti adakah saya masih menunggu bayang datang berkunjung atau saya hanya ingin duduk di situ seorang diri.
Seorang diri.
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