The year Mak went to Mekah

The year Mak went to perform her Haj was the year of rites of passage for me and my siblings. The night before she left, I remember sitting on the bench outside the bungalow in Penang that Pak rented for three days, feeling the cold wind from the sea, on my face. And I remember with sadness that Mak would be gone in that big ship that would take her out into the vast unfriendly ocean for months and months. Before her Haj, the furthest ‘oversea’ land Mak had been to was Singapore, to visit her brother – Pak Lang. And that was with family members. And now, she was travelling alone – with just some friends from the surau and it will be the longest we had ever been separated from her. It was heartbreaking.

I remember the family photograph that we took the morning she left. I was wearing the batik pinafore that Ah Gek made for raya. So was Kak Cik but my eyes were swollen because I cried so much. Mak was wearing, what I thought was a jubbah that was way too big for her.

We said our tearful goodbyes, along with hundreds if not thousands of other families at the port and I watched Mak disappear into a sea of white jubbahs heading towards the Bunga Raya which swallowed them into her bowels. And with a final hoot – sailed off into the distance.

I didn’t want to go home cos I knew Mak was not there. I felt the same kind of emptiness I always felt when Mak went to visit Kak in KL or anywhere. But we did – we headed for our home in Yan after which we began a new chapter in our life. We were soon despatched to Alor Star to live with Tok while Lilah, our youngest sister went to stay with Abang Man and family. Pak couldn’t take care of us as he needed care as well. Abang and Nyak were there to look after him in that government bungalow in Jalan Tungku Mahmood.

Kak Cik and I shared the same fear and trepidation at the thought of living with Tok. The very mention of the word Tok would bring shudders – she never needed to live with anyone before and sending off two young girls, never educated in culinary skills to live with her, was like despatching them off to some charm school ready for the kill. The only reason I looked forward to the ‘stint’ with Tok was because we were to be schooled at the St Nicholas Convent. We were very impressed with those boxer pleat blue uniform that convent girls wore. I was to learn about the disciplines much much later.

Tok sewed baju kurungs for a living and sold bunga melur from her garden to an Indian guy who came every morning to collect them. Thus our chores before school would include picking those scented flowers after subuh. Tok would measure them in cupaks. Rumours had it that Tok went several times to Mekah using her ‘duit bunga’!

After school, we were taught the art of cooking – starting with the introduction to the various spices and herbs. Tok was not impressed with our lack of skills and knowledge. I was sent off to the garden to look for daun kesum and never to return until I found it. My hands blistered for days because I had to use the parang to peel the coconuts, crying as I did so – not unlike the anak tiri scenes in Malay movies. We were rewarded then, with trips to Mak Jah’s house down the road whenever there were Malay or Hindi movies on TV.

Tok was not the orge that she was made out to be. We learnt a lot from her – not least the tulang belud for the baju kurungs that she made. She was a tough master to learn from though and a perfectionist. Any imperfections and the air would turn blue. It took me a long time to figure out some of the similies that she used to describe our shoddy work. Anyway, we did learn. And she would reward us with blouses made from cloth remnants – patchwork to make a-go-go blouses, complete with a peek-a-boos around the neck, that were the in thing in those days, worn with tight fitting jeans that Kak bought from Singapore.

We also learnt to make patchwork, again from remnants.

But we looked forward to the weekends to go home to Yan. We soon became experts taking the two hour bus ride to the house with the Jerai as its backdrop. So peaceful, serene and beautiful compared to noisy and rowdy Alor Star. The only excitement in Yan was when the two local drags paraded in their new clothes. The small town would slowly stir to life as people peeked out of their windows, twitched their curtains and made catcalls from behind their net curtains. Or when Indonesian magicians cum medicine men pulled the crowd with their brilliant orations at the square near the market.

Pak and Abang were coping alright under the care of Nyak – someone we adopted during our stint in Yan. Pak complained that Abang made jemput pisang as big as the fist but the house was always full. Abang’s friends would congregate there in his small room and they’d be playing songs by the Beatles on the small record player. On nights when Malay movies were showing on telly, Pak would buy packets of kacang goreng for those people who came to watch. The whole village, it seemed, would turn up.

Lilah, our youngest sister was coping alright too with our cousins down the road. I supposed she too acquired the art of cooking from our aunty who was a caterer of sorts.

The highlight of our visits back would be letters from Mak. They were not really written by her but for her by someone. She was well etc, etc. Letters used to take weeks if not months.

Mak, it would seem, went on the pilgrimage with several missions. Pak had been unwell and from the moment I could speak and was able to go to the shop by myself, I knew that he was taking a kind of tonic with the picture of the tiger on the dark coloured bottles. We were always told to wrap the bottles from Ah Leng’s shop and Ah Leng knew this was the ritual. Why, we didn't know – and we didn't ask. Pak said, the tonic eased his pain in the joints, especially after the accident. Mak wasn't very happy but kept her silence. But everytime we had visitors, like a ritual, we would collect all the bottles and hid them. When there were too many, we’d sell them to the keling botol and made quite a tidy sum for ourselves.

Abang, as the eldest son, wasn’t doing too well with his studies but would rather while his time by the sea, painting pictures of the sunset. Mak wanted more for her eldest son – her only son then. One son died after birth and another son at the age of three.

Time flew fast, what with perfecting tulang beluds, the forays into Tok’s garden searching and identifying all kinds of ulams, and then Mak retuned. Almost all of her hopes and prayers were answered. Abang got into high school and later to ITM and then studied in Ireland. He was to become DG of a very big organisation. We gradually stopped having to buy those ‘tonics’ in the dark bottles with the tiger on the labels. Alhamdulilah. And most importantly – she brought us back a gift for the family. She brought back another little brother – so fair and cuddly and smelling of the minyak attar. Mak in her big white jubbah had unwittingly fooled us and the authorities that she was only a few months pregnant. She went into labour in Padang Arafah and it was on that sacred land that she gave us our brother – Mohamad Arafah – who until today is known to all as Ajie.

So that was the year that Mak went to Mekah when all her prayers were answered. We now need all our prayers to be answered for her.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha to all. Maaf zahir dan batin.