Map of the Invisible World. Tash Aw

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       6

      One day, not long after he turned thirteen, Adam ran away from home. He woke up that morning and decided he would look for his mother.

      For some weeks before this he had been feeling strange, not at all himself. He would be agitated by the smallest thing: the mewing of the fat white cat outside his window, or the squeaking of his bed-frame every time he turned over on the too-thin mattress, or his cupboard door that never closed properly – things he would not normally have noticed. He was irritated by Karl, too – by his uneven club-footed gait, by the pinky-whiteness of his skin which seemed obtrusive against the dull green landscape and, above all, by the way Karl sometimes mumbled to himself: indistinct words in an indistinct language under his breath without even realising he was doing it. ‘Was I talking to myself again?’ Karl would say, clearing his throat and attempting to laugh whenever he noticed Adam glaring at him. ‘Just a silly poem I remember from a long time ago.’ But it did not matter what he said, for Adam would try to ignore this, but as soon as the dreadful half-whisper started, Adam felt a curious sensation in his head, a pinprick that welled up quickly into a hot, almost burning feeling that filled his skull, pressing especially insistently behind his eye sockets. He would no longer be able to read or concentrate on what he was doing and would be so overcome by this pressure in his head that he would have to retreat to his bedroom. There, on his bed with his pillow over his face, he would still be able to hear Karl’s voice.

      As if guilty by association, Karl’s music soon began to annoy Adam too. It made no difference what it was: the moment Karl moved towards the record player, Adam’s back would stiffen. Violins that had previously thrilled him now sounded harsh and screeching; operatic voices, amusing before, were suddenly ridiculous. Adam took to leaving the house altogether. Heading for the sea, he would clamber over the rocks and make his way as far up the shoreline as possible until even the faintest strains of Karl’s dying heroines were drowned out by the hush of the waves. One or two outrigger canoes would be floating on the steel-blue sea, their sails trembling gently in the breeze; small nets would be flung from the boats, the fishermen hauling in meagre catches of mackerel and skipjack and anchovies. Adam would sit watching until his head felt clear and calm once more, the anger draining from his body.

      ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you so angry?’ Karl called out after him the first time he got up and left the room, mid-aria, and ran down to the sea. That was what it was, this thing that filled his head: anger. Until this moment, since beginning his New Life with Karl, Adam had never truly known what it was to feel angry. He wondered whether this anger meant that he was somehow changing, and if so, how. He would lie awake in bed thinking, Why am I angry? and, finding no answer, would become angrier still.

      At school he suddenly became conscious of what he was: an orphan. He had never been aware of this status, for many of his classmates seemed to be orphans too. Every so often someone would drop out of school to work in the ricefields or help with the nets, and Adam would learn that their father had drowned at sea or their mother had died in childbirth; now they were an orphan. On this island it seemed entirely normal to have lost at least one parent. But one day they had a new teacher, a young Sasak who had studied at the Universiteit van Indonesie. He taught them the difference between orphans who had lost one parent and those who had lost both. There was a word that distinguished the two: piatu. It was important to be precise with our Indonesian language, the teacher said; we have to use it carefully and with pride. This revelation troubled Adam greatly. Had he been orphaned once or twice? Was he a true orphan, more pitiful than the others? He went home and consulted Karl’s dictionary, kept on the highest, dustiest shelves like some forgotten, forbidden relic. Perhaps he would be less of an orphan in Dutch. He would discover that in every language but his own he would be an ordinary, unremarkable orphan. He remembered the Dutch for ‘orphan’ and found it quickly, but the definition was full of words he did not understand and left him more frustrated than ever.

      One evening, just before dinner, Karl put on some music – a Keroncong song’s repetitive stringy notes. They sat down to their meal: over-cooked mutton curry and rice.

      ‘Not hungry, son?’

      Adam did not answer; СКАЧАТЬ