Mpok Lela’s food stall sat between two semi-permanent buildings.
Half the walls were real, the rest were still plywood.
Tin roof, packed dirt floor.
The wooden table out front had turned black from years of cooking oil, soot, and spilled coffee.
A small fan in the corner spun slowly, its sound creaking, just stirring the stuffy air without really cooling it down.
That afternoon, the stall was quiet.
A few flies patrolled over plastic plates containing cold fried bananas that had hardened.
Mpok Lela sat behind the table.
Her chubby hand took out a notebook with a brown cover.
The corners of the book were curled and darkened.
This was the debt book.
The holy scripture of her stall.
Inside those faded pages were the names of everyone living in plywood shacks along the train tracks and under the toll road.
Mpok Lela opened the first page.
The name ANOM was written in faded pen ink.
The row of numbers under it was long and crowded.
For years, Anom’s name was the saddest record in this book.
Anom owed five thousand for one pack of rice without any side dish.
He paid two thousand when he managed to sell low-quality plecostomus fillets.
That number was crossed out.
Then a new number appeared.
Bigger.
The catch rotted.
Bad weather.
Anom couldn’t go down to the river.
And so on.
Mpok Lela had long considered Anom’s debt as charity.
She accepted it.
Because she was sure Anom would never be able to pay it off.
But this afternoon Mpok Lela was stunned.
Her fingers swept over the new row of numbers in the book.
Anom had already come twice this week.
Paying in large amounts.
Anom brought ten-thousand and twenty-thousand bills.
New paper money.
Still stiff.
As if fresh from a bank ATM in the city.
Mpok Lela took out her business calculator.
She pressed the buttons carefully.
Added up the latest installments.
Subtracted them from the total balance.
She frowned.
Counted again.
Same.
“Only a quarter left,” Mpok Lela muttered.
Her voice was soft, almost a whisper.
But it carried deep disbelief.
Anom, the fish catcher with those slumped shoulders, was almost free from the grip of her debt book.
Technically, Anom’s status at this stall had changed.
From chronic debtor to regular customer.
A customer with financial dignity.
Mpok Lela closed the book.
She stood up.
Walked to the front door of the stall.
Her bulky body leaned against the wooden frame, already rotten from termites.
Her eyes looked toward the toll road.
About two hundred meters away.
…
In the distance, under the massive concrete shadow, she saw two human figures.
Anom and Inem.
They sat on the concrete edge of the canal.
Anom wasn’t in a hurry to skin the fish.
Inem sat still with her back straight.
A back that looked very elegant even though she only wore ragged clothes.
Mpok Lela narrowed her eyes.
She observed Inem’s figure more carefully.
At first, when Anom first brought that girl, Mpok Lela thought this was extra burden.
She thought Anom was making a big mistake.
Taking care of another homeless person when he himself could barely eat.
But that perception crumbled.
Inem started to look different in Mpok Lela’s eyes.
The way that girl moved.
None of it matched the poverty around her.
Inem didn’t look like someone who had ever starved.
She looked like a woman waiting for something.
The sunlight that reached under the toll road reflected differently when it hit Inem’s skin.
An aura of calm.
Contrasting with the deafening noise of the trains.
“She’s his charm,” Mpok Lela whispered to herself.
Mpok Lela remembered how the atmosphere at her stall had changed since Anom started bringing Inem around.
Male customers hung out more often if Inem was there.
They ordered more coffee, sat longer.
Their eyes never left Inem’s figure.
Inem was unintentional visual “service.” But it was effective.
Inem’s presence made Mpok Lela’s stall feel like it had a different class.
A natural money magnet.
Sales went up.
Every time Inem was at her stall, Mpok Lela felt a cooler atmosphere.
The usual stench of trash was covered by a faint refreshing scent every time Inem passed by.
“She’s not an ordinary girl,” Mpok Lela muttered.
She didn’t believe in magic.
But she believed in luck.
And for her, Inem was the biggest source of luck she had ever seen.
This was the reason Anom could get super-quality fish.
Anom had someone who kept his morale and spirit up.
A woman who made a man like Anom want to prove himself.
That he could be a decent provider.
Mpok Lela went back inside the stall.
She walked toward the pot of rice that was still steaming.
Usually she was very calculating.
Scooping the rice carefully so she wouldn’t lose money.
But today she had already decided.
If Anom and Inem came later in the afternoon, she would give them a special portion.
She wanted Inem to feel comfortable at her stall.
As long as Inem was there, male customers would keep coming.
Money would keep flowing.
…
But behind her happiness, there was a flicker of worry.
Mpok Lela looked outside where Ali and some other fish catchers were hanging out at the stall next door.
Their faces were sour, and they were talking about Anom now emerging as competition.
They said Anom had an advantage and was using unfair methods.
They certainly didn’t see all the hard work Anom had done all this time.
They only saw the final result, and they even started wanting what Anom had.
Especially the figure who accompanied Anom.
Yes, that woman.
Mpok Lela sighed a little.
Her chubby hand wiped the table with more force than usual.
She knew that Anom’s sudden change of fortune would stir up a storm.
In a place where everyone was suffering, one person’s happiness was an insult.
“This world really is never fair to honest people,” Mpok Lela muttered.
Mpok Lela put the debt book into the drawer.
She locked it tight.
As if keeping a big secret.
Mpok Lela then prepared the spiciest chili paste.
She waited for Anom’s arrival.
The man who had managed to change his own fate under those silent concrete pillars.