Fierceland, page 1
ABOUT THE BOOK
How do you mourn your father when you know his secrets?
After many years abroad, Roz and Harun return to Malaysian Borneo for the funeral of their father Yusuf – and to reckon with their inheritance. A renowned palm-oil baron, Yusuf built the family’s immense wealth by destroying huge tracts of rainforest. What his children know is that he was also responsible for the violent disappearance of a man who stood in his way.
Harun has become a successful tech entrepreneur in Los Angeles, Roz is an artist struggling to stay afloat in Sydney. Now they want to return something their father stole from the forests of their homeland. In their quest for redemption they grapple with the legacy of power and corruption, dreamers and exiles, thugs and zealots. Most dangerous of all, they are haunted – by the ghosts of colonialism, the ghosts of family, the ghosts of language, and the ghosts of the forest itself.
A trailblazing journey across the globe, Fierceland weaves the past and the present into an emotionally powerful family saga that plays out at a mythical scale.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Omar Musa is an author, visual artist and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He has released two novels, three books of poetry (including a book of woodcuts and poetry, Killernova), five hip-hop records, and an acclaimed one man play, Since Ali Died. His work has appeared in The Best Australian Stories and Best of Australian Poems.
His debut novel, Here Come the Dogs, was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Miles Franklin Award. He was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015.
He has had several solo exhibitions of his woodcuts, including his most recent collection All My Memories Are Mistranslations.
He is based between Borneo and Brooklyn.
Books by Omar Musa
Parang
Here Come The Dogs
Millefiori
Killernova
CONTENTS
COVER
ABOUT THE BOOK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BOOKS BY OMAR MUSA
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
PART ONE: THE RIVER
I AM FOREST –
ROZANA
ROZANA
HARUN
BENIN CITY, NIGERIA
I AM FOREST –
HARUN
ROZANA
PART TWO: THE JOURNEY OF THE MURRINA
VENICE
PART THREE: DARKNESS UPON DARKNESS
ROZANA
HARUN
ROZANA
JIBRAIL
I AM FOREST —
ROZANA
PAKCIK ABDUL HAMID
ROZANA
CRAZY AUNTIE
ROZANA
HARUN
ROZANA
ROZANA
CRAZY AUNTIE
ROZANA
I AM FOREST.
ROZANA
HARUN
ROZANA
HARUN
ROZANA
PART FOUR: THE SONG OF THE WOOD
PART FIVE: I AM FOREST
THE OWL KEEPER
ROZANA
ROZANA & HARUN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS AND ‘THE SONG OF THE WOOD’
AUTHOR PHOTO
IMPRINT
POWERED BY PENGUIN
For my komrads & keluarga.
For Nenek, Atok & Abdul Razzaq Bin Bakri –
terima kasih banyak,
ada sungai cerita yang tak berpenghujung.
In memory of B –
I miss you every day, my friend.
Your wholeness cascades into many shapes.
You run like a herd of luminous deer
and I am dark, I am forest.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
PART ONE
THE RIVER
I AM FOREST –
unstitch my mist, open me inside-out, bare my rivers to
moon & matahari,
mud-gravy & gizzard stones, steeple my long luminous bones & carnal green – the unseen seen – green is God naming itself, green is the sprawl, rot & fern-tickle of time – my steaming velvet a sprung floor for trickster tango – orang, hutan, orangutan, mousedeer, leopard, vampire ghost – black loam & clay blue-grey, sequinned by skulls, I wear my sapblooded heart on sleeve – slink, snuffle, snout, snot – gabble, growl, fart, wheeeeeze – kiss mangrove mouth, lick tendril tongue, jujitsu rhizome & root, silat smoke, substrate slang in lightning bolts – mushrooms festoon my shadows – bloop bloop bloop! – weave birdsong with smoke where the canopy fallows – chant bul bul, kingfisher, hornbill, eaglet, egret, owl – hoot hoot hoot! – chant falling fruit – duku, tarap, bambangan, mangosteen, langsat, red durian – chant trillion-fold feet – centipede, cik cak, crab cadenza – chant inflorescent fires – orchid, begonia, pitcher plant, corpse flower, lily, bunga kantan – now chant rain – rain rain rain – in many names – hujan darun uran dasum rasam moris-poris – milk from the udder of a drunkard cloud, falling shawl of needles, mercury grenades – now chant long fathomless days – languor, langur, langsuir, language & all its bastard kids – now blend my borders with the edge of your thumb, make maps overlap, make drums from my hollows & hallow my sap, loop vine into noose or bubu trap, read murder in my burl & bole, rejoice in my riddles & rank rejuvenation! I give birth to myself, devour myself, I am eternally starving – feed me floods, feed me fires – or maybe just a man will do! – oh feed me the wraiths that are tormenting you.
I am forest. I am forest.
Face your fears & name where you find me – North Borneo – spell it in emeralds & magma.
Now name a year – 1998 –
polish it like black volcanic glass.
Let us dally no more, sayang. Let us name this thing a ghost story –
ya, the games begin here.
ROZANA
1998
Crazy Auntie says that all human beings were created to play games, that’s what makes us human lah. Play is freedom, she says, and our minds are the greatest playgrounds of all. I dunno about all that. What I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that the best video game ever is Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Hands down. Even though me and Harun don’t know anyone who has actually played it yet, the world knows it bah, everyone knows it, and if Abah truly loves us, he’ll bring it back for us from his business trip to Kuala Lumpur.
Me and Harun will be the first kids in all of Kota Kinabalu to own it, and I’ll definitely be the first girl – everyone at school is gonna be so jealous, oh. We’ve nagged Abah so much, I’m worried he won’t buy it for us, just to prove a point, so sometimes I have to drag Harun away from him. Harun, with his big black eyes and wavy black hair and triangular face, like a pretty little alien, always wearing the same No Doubt t-shirt. Gross. We go out together onto the balcony to count boats on the hazy bay, green-blue, or into the kitchen to steal kumquat sticks and Ring Pops while our maid Siti isn’t looking, or crumple up balls of paper for our little cat Jiji to play with, or sit on the lounge-room floor drawing with oil pastels while Mak flicks between channels.
But Zelda’s never far from our minds.
A week ago, before Abah left KK (that’s what everyone calls Kota Kinabalu), we were mooching around, hanging in the doorway of his and Mak’s bedroom, watching him get ready to fly to the peninsula for his big meeting. The air con was blasting. Abah kept adjusting the knot in the silk paisley tie he’d bought in Italy, picking Jiji’s white fur off his crow-coloured suit, preening goatee and moustache, twisting his head side to side to observe himself. Abah, skinny and straight-backed, hair brilliant with Brylcreem, six-foot-one – tall for a Malay man – with a head slightly too big for his neck. He looked handsome that day. And knew it.
—Abah, we’ll never ask you for anything again bah, I pleaded, trying to catch his eye.
Harun nodded hard.
—Ya, Abah, pleeease. It’s the best game in the world.
—Astaga! Abah replied in his deep voice, lighting a Davidoff cigarette, not taking his eyes off the bedroom mirror. Kids, you said that about the last one, and the one before that. Can’t you see I’m run ragged? This deal is crucial. Beyond crucial.
But Harun’s big black eyes are a skeleton key. And me, Rozana Binti Yusuf, who everyone just calls Roz, with a nose as big as a garlic bulb – I’m persistent when I wanna be. When he turned away from the mirror, we caught his eyes and his stern pout melted into a quarter moon smile:
—I’ll see what I can do, sayang.
So, we’re up late tonight, waiting, stifling yawns and trying not to doze off, watching an old ghost movie with Mak. The fan creaks and grumbles and the KK evening simmers outside. We’ve begged her to let us watch Princess Mononoke, but she says there’s no way, she doesn’t want to watch it for the fiftieth time. Mak says ghost movies have been banned, but it’s easy enough to get them from Indon, so she puts on The Queen of Black Magic, which she herself has watched about fifty times.
—They accused you of using black magic? says the man on screen. Then just practise it. Curse all those people in that village.
After a while, Mak seems to get bored and changes to the news, and we groan in unison and try to wrestle the remote control from her, but she slaps our hands away. On the TV, Dr Mahathir is giving a speech, and Mak fidgets with the gold rings on her fingers. Even up this late, at home, she’s well made-up, hair in a high bun, eyelashes so thick it seems impossible for her eyelids to hold up. But her eyes take in everyt
Mak catches me watching her.
—Eh, watch lah the screen and not me!
Harun giggles.
—Roz, you’re so random sometimes.
There’s not much me and Harun agree on. I like Nirvana and Pennywise, he likes No Doubt and TLC (teenybopper). He likes fiddling around with gadgets and electronics and his hair (like Abah), I like manga and drawing in my art book (obsessed). I like Filet-O-Fish, he dips french fries in his chocolate thickshakes (gross). But we both believe in ghosts. We both think Princess Mononoke is the greatest movie ever, and second is My Neighbor Totoro, and third is Kiki’s Delivery Service. That’s why we called our cat Jiji. And, yep, we know we’re both going to love Zelda, we can agree on that too. Hands down, best video game ever. Did I say that already? Hm. Like Crazy Auntie says:
—Never hurts to tell the truth twice.
We’re ten storeys up. From time to time, I go out onto the big balcony and look out towards the islands, winking with light, and push Abah’s red boxing bag, back and forth, back and forth. It’s so heavy! I saw Siti filling it with sand. Siti is from the Phillipines originally, but she’s been with us as long as I can remember.
Geckoes scramble mazes across the ceiling, the boxing bag swings back and forth. Abah’s never coming back, ever, and I’m never going to play Zelda. I hear Harun sigh, and Mak is lightly snoring now, and so is Jiji the cat. On the TV, silent, race cars are zooming around a track. What did Abah mean by his meeting being beyond crucial? I count the islands I can see – Gaya, Sepanggar, maybe even Manukan and Mamutik. Lights are twinkling on all of them, water villages and boats and resorts. Far to the left, somewhere in the darkness, is the scary one, Sulug Island, which people stopped living on after the war and has no lights on it. I’m trying to count, but I swear all the lights on the islands start to fade and go out, one by one.
Just as I’m sloping inside, towards bed, I hear the front door unlock, and in comes my Abah, with a tired but playful smile, hair ruffled, tie loose. We’re immediately all over him, unzipping his suitcase and rummaging through his toiletries bag and pressed shirts, fruitlessly, until he conjures the game from his suit jacket like a magician. Siok! Hooting and bouncing, we grab it from his hands, peppering him with kisses and hugs. As we bounce around with it, holding it up in triumph, Mak wakes up blearily and Abah kisses her on the top of the head from behind the couch. He goes out to the balcony, pauses to stroke Jiji behind the ear with the back of his index finger, then lights a cigarette. He leans back and pokes the boxing bag with his toe, smoking contentedly, looking out over the lights, glowing bright again now.
We scramble off to our games room to throw Zelda into our Nintendo 64.
We hear him call out:
—Eh, tidak syukur ka? Kurang ajar kah anak anak saya.
Harun giggles and calls back in a fake American accent:
—Thanks, Daaad!
As soon as the title appears – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – and the theme song plays, a flourish of piano and wistful ocarina, my eyes get wet, with happiness, cos we’ve been waiting soooo long, but also something else, like a happysadness, like I’m remembering something beautiful I haven’t even experienced yet. A figure gallops on horseback across the screen – clop clop clop – then, with a sparkling sound, we’re in the game. And immediately in love.
—Gilaaa! So awesome, oh, this. It’s like I’m inside the screen, says Harun, bouncing his cross-legged knees. I bet one day you won’t be able to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not.
—Shh, I say, I wanna hear the story.
Harun ignores me.
—You know it’s got a contaxt … ahem … a contrakt sensing … wait … He’s obviously been rehearsing the words so he can show off, and takes a deep breath before trying again. A contraxt sensing controlling sistam …
—What’s that even mean? I say.
—Pff, don’t you know?
—Haiya, need a dictionary to understand you two lah, says Mak, appearing at the door, twisting her rings.
—Read it on the internet, sniffs Harun.
—Handsome and smart. Mak pats him on the head, looking at me. So what’s the game about, Roz?
—Don’t get them started, calls Abah.
—Well, I say, before Harun can intrude, it’s about a boy called Link who’s trying to save the world from being destroyed by an evil sorcerer. Link’s being helped by a little fairy on his shoulder, called Navi. He’s trying to help this princess, Zelda, and along the way he fights using his sword and shield. She’s given him a magical ocarina —
—What’s that? says Mak.
—It’s a type of flute, says Harun, as if it’s the most common knowledge in the world.
—Never heard of it, says Mak. Waste of time. Sitting in front of a screen all day.
She leaves the room to turn The Queen of Black Magic back on.
—Good versus evil, eh? says Abah, walking in, grinning. Sounds like a lark.
—Lark! me and Harun repeat simultaneously, falling about. We love when he uses the Aussie-isms he picked up at university.
—Back when I was a kid, he says, we didn’t have any of these gadgets. We had to make our own fun. You know I was already seven when I got my first toy.
Our ears prick up. It’s rare that Abah talks about his childhood in Sandakan, which we know was one of real hardship. To our disappointment, he continues onto his next thought without elaborating:
—Your Mak’s right. Just because I got you the game doesn’t mean you can waste your time playing all day, every day. It’s late lah.
—We’re not playing all day, says Harun, always locked and loaded. We only just started bah.
—I know what you’re like, says Abah, then turns to me. Roz, you’re twelve already! Time to focus on your studies.
Me and Harun groan as one and Abah grins indulgently, looking across at Mak.
—Okayyy, we’ll let you stay up late, just this once.
—Yeah, yeah, whatever, says Harun, turning back to the game.
Abah’s words about my age have stung. I wander out to the lounge room to listen to my parents talk about grown-up things, even though there’s nothing more I’d rather do than stay with Harun and Navi and Link as they’re wandering around the game. Abah and Mak are immediately into a serious conversation, and she’s suddenly alert, leaning forward to engage.
—So the meeting was worth it?
—Those blasted Kuala Lumpur politicians and businessmen … Ish, so sombong bah, sometimes they really talk down to us like we’re idiots. Like in Sabah we live in trees with orangutans. What do they know about how things really work over here?
He blows out a puffy cloud of smoke, like something from an anime movie.
—Best to work with, not against them, says Mak. They own the air we breathe.
—Betul juga. We have to be careful. And smart. Abah scratches his goatee. But I think all parties can benefit. Everyone was impressed by the evidence the scientist put forward about the volcano.
Mak smiles. Siti comes in carrying a silver tray, with a scotch for Abah and a watermelon juice for Mak, who doesn’t drink alcohol. She looks at him askance and then changes the topic.
—You hear about Anwar Ibrahim getting locked up?
—He got too big for his boots. Dr M saw the threat and dealt with it – the big man isn’t ready to let go of being prime minister. Anwar probably is a poof, anyway.
—Reformasi. Fat chance lah, Mak sniggers, before returning to the start of the conversation. So the meeting was worth it, then?
—Went as well as it could have, truly, says Abah, sinking back into the couch. I just wish I’d got into the game earlier.
So boring ni. They’re not even paying attention to me, anyway. I slink off to join Harun. Wind starts to huff across the South China Sea, and that means rain will soon follow.
We’re lost in the magical forest, inside the Great Deku Tree, with Navi the fairy glowing on Link’s shoulder. The forest hums with danger and enchantment, the music ripples over us. Link clambers, climbs, dives and slices with his sword. We gasp together as a treasure chest opens and light beams out with a triumphant sound. We shout together at the top of our lungs as Link slashes at a Skulltula, an enormous spider with a skull marking on its back, pouncing down from the ceiling to attack us.
