A Short Story by Anto Narasoma
Translated (Indonesian-English) by Leni Marlina
–
PAK Momo’s aged face looked sallow and drained. Weariness clung to him like a long shadow.
At seventy, his dim and ashen features were carved with deep creases, framed by a thinning white mustache. The past few days he had been stricken with relentless diarrhea, and the illness had stripped his already frail body of what little weight it still carried.
What made life even more unbearable was that, in this sorrowful autumn of his years, Pak Momo lived entirely alone in a cramped shack of rusted zinc—barely two and a half by three meters.
The air was thick and stifling. His only neighbor was Bu Siti, a woman who survived each day by scavenging trash. Beside their makeshift rooms stood a garbage trailer whose foul odor rose endlessly into the air.
The land had once belonged to a wealthy businessman of Chinese descent who dealt in automobiles. He had allowed the homeless to erect shanties there on one condition: whenever he reclaimed the land, they were to clear out without complaint and without compensation.
And so, in such an unhealthy, suffocating corner of the world, Pak Momo spent the remainder of his days. To the people in the neighborhood, he was known as a poor and luckless musician—a man whose misfortunes had pushed him into deprivation so severe he rarely had proper food, let alone vitamins.
Yet in his youth, he had once been called Momo Kelana, the Wanderer, master of the “death violin”—a nickname bred from awe. His bowing was tender, tremulous, addictive. The glide of his fingers from note to note was swift as a startled bird, and equally enchanting.
Mozart, especially—ah, Mozart soared under his touch.
No one could have imagined that a man of such brilliance would live out his twilight in such harsh poverty.
In the last three days, the diarrhea had worsened. Yesterday, returning from the communal well at the end of the alley, he had inadvertently left traces of excrement along the dirt path beneath his sarong.
“Filthy old fool,” people snarled, pinching their noses.
“He’s probably nyusu—senile,” another muttered.
Bu Siti quickly stepped in. “Ssst, don’t speak like that. He’s old; he has no family. There’s no one to care for him, and he’s sick. Please, don’t curse him. Have mercy.”
—
One stifling noon, Pak Momo lay sprawled upon a sheet of last month’s newspaper. The zinc walls and roof, shimmering with heat, worsened his illness. His face was ghostly, his body limp. Bu Siti had urged him to go to the clinic.
“I’m sorry, Pak Momo,” she had said, “I can’t take you there today. I have to go scavenging. I heard they dumped a lot of new rubbish at the landfill. If I’m lucky, I might find enough to feed my children.”
He had merely nodded weakly, answering with a faint flutter of his heavy eyelids behind thick, fogged glasses. Before leaving, she placed some boiled cassava and a cup of coffee by his door.
“Thank you, Bu Siti,” he whispered, his voice as thin as thread.
An hour after she left, silence sealed the neighborhood. Bored and restless, Pak Momo forced himself up. He opened the cloth bag that held the only treasure he had left: his violin. For a long moment he gazed at it, a sad smile tugging at his lips. He tightened the strings, rosined the bow, and held the instrument as though touching a long-lost lover.
When the bow finally met the strings, the violin’s cry pierced the stillness. Its trembling voice carried the weight of his suffering—its grief, its loneliness, its slow unraveling. When he played the classic jazz tune “I’m in the Mood for Love,” the melody seemed to pulse like a wound, stirring even the most hardened listener.
Even in his frailty, his skill was astonishing.
That very tune had once launched him into the world of inlander music. Among the elite Dutch musicians, he was a cherished protégé of Hermaan van De Brink. Whenever the Van De Brink Orchestra performed at Initium Ballroom, Momo was the star.
He was the one who proclaimed to the world: I am Momo Kelana, the slayer of strings.
In those days he had been strikingly handsome, and many young women willingly surrendered themselves to the warmth of his arms.
“Godverdomzeg!” Van De Brink had once exclaimed.
“You are truly the pride of this orchestra, Momo. Your talent is extraordinary. Look—those girls are waiting for you. Go meet them.”
Fortune favored him then. His days were filled with gigs—performances for Dutch officials, glamorous Oriental Music soirées, respectable banquets. His life glittered with money, liquor, women, applause.
During that intoxicating period, he married Chen Lie Moy, a Chinese-Indonesian woman he met while playing with an Oriental ensemble at Initium Ballroom. She bore him two children.
But glamour has its shadows.
Unable to resist liquor, gambling, and women, he squandered everything he had earned.
“Momo, please,” Chen begged one night, tears streaming down her face. “Think of our children. If you continue like this, what will become of us?”
Drunk and offended, he struck her. Her lip split; her cheek bruised.
“Stop lecturing me. I provide for this house. That’s all that matters,” he growled.
Chen Lie Moy cried silently, her heart bruised beyond repair. Soon after Indonesian independence reshaped the political landscape, Van De Brink returned to the Netherlands. Chen fled too—taking their two children with her. Momo, left behind, collapsed into a darkness from which he never fully emerged.
More than thirty years passed.
He had nothing left. He was like rotting wood, waiting to collapse onto damp earth.
“Chen Lie Moy… forgive me…”
The words fell from his wrinkled, toothless mouth—fragile, breaking.
A sharp wave of pain tore through his stomach. He stopped playing. Cold sweat drenched him.
“Ya Allah…” he gasped.
Astonishing—never in his life had he spoken that name aloud.
And then he fell silent.
—
Three days had passed since Bu Siti last saw him. Concerned, she asked the neighbors—mostly scavengers and pedicab drivers, too preoccupied with survival to notice one another.
“I haven’t seen him for a week,” said Pak Mamat, sorting used plastic bags to be sold at the market.
“Try calling him. His room is right next to yours.”
“I have. Several times. No answer. And the door’s locked from inside.”
Pak Mamat froze. He stared at her intensely.
“What is it, Mat?” she asked nervously.
“That’s the problem.”
Without another word, he dropped the plastic bags and hurried toward Momo’s shack. Bu Siti followed, dread sinking in her chest.
Mamat called out again and again. Still no answer.
He kicked the flimsy door until it burst open.
Masya Allah…
The stench hit them first. They covered their noses.
In the dimness of the cramped room, they saw him—his body swollen, bluish, stiff. A swarm of green flies clouded the air. Maggots crawled across his arm and into his gaping mouth.
Beside him lay his beloved violin.
No one in the neighborhood had noticed his death.
The smell of decay was nothing unusual in that place; the garbage trailer nearby had long numbed them to rot.
Soon the neighbors gathered, buzzing with shock and whispers.
The police were called.
(*)
Palembang, South Sumatra, INDONESIA
January 11th, 2008
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About the Author & the Translator
Anto Narasoma is an Indonesian poet, short story writer, essayist, senior journalist, theatre performer, and literary speaker whose creative odyssey has stretched from 1975 to the present. Across nearly five decades, he has established himself as one of Indonesia’s enduring literary voices—an artist who navigates with ease between the written word, the stage, and the realm of public discourse. His works interlace philosophical depth, emotional resonance, and cultural insight, reflecting a lifetime dedicated to literature, expression, and the search for meaning.
Both Anto Narasoma & Leni Marlina are Indonesian writers and poets who are active in PPIPM-Indonesia (Indonesian Poetry Readers & Writers Community) & PPIC (Poetry Pen International Community.
In 2025, Leni Marlina was appointed Indonesian Poetry Ambassador to the ACC Shanghai Huifeng International Literary Association (ACC SHILA) and further entrusted with the role of ASEAN Director for ACC SHILA Poets. In that same year, the Capital Writers International Foundation named her National Director (Indonesia) for the International Panorama Literary Festival (IPLF) 2026, scheduled for January–February 2026 (www.panoramafestival.org).
