I have stories, only good stories to tell about my older sister, Biru. She is a very loving person. My first memory of her was when she held me as a three years old, and told me stories. I could not remember what the story was about. Later on, when I was ten years old, and she was sixteen, I asked her about it. Turned out, the stories is a folktale about three mountains in our little town, Genta town.
I would tell you everything about Genta before telling you the stories she told me.
The small town, the place where my parents started their new life after their wedding, located in a small island called Genta island, four hours from Flores Island by ship. This little island, and the small town always surrounded by a thick fog, therefore you would not find it in a map. People who travel around could not see the island either. It is not their mistake. The fog veiled the island, so no outsiders could see it but the people who live there or getting invited to live there, like my father who was invited by Ambu Kuhuru, the mayor of the town. He invited him because the town needed a man who can speak English to teach the children at the senior high school. My father was not a teacher, and has zero teaching experience. He studied physics at the university, and had been working for six month as a physicist in a small lab in Jakarta. But, here in Genta, a person's background is unnecessary. Ambu Kuhuru chose whoever he wanted by looking at the real talent lies deep within a person. The butcher man was once a politician. The owner of a cosmetic shop was once a striptease dancer. The only person who has a background matching to his job is our local parish priest, Father Pablo, whom as old as Ambu Kahuru himself, went to a catholic seminary in Lisbon before being the first missionary who found this island and baptized all 99 natives to be catholic. Later on, he and Ambu Kahuru, recruited many outsider to work on the island. Now, there were 2.500 citizen, schools, electricity, the internet, and one small harbor with a boat belongs to Ambu Kahuru, in order for him to go to the nearby island if he needed to find a new citizen for a new job position to be filled.
All of us who live in Genta island, in Genta town, away from the forest and its wild animal, never went outside the island just as the outsider could not come and go to this island as they please. Everything is available here. So there is no need to go outside. Sometimes…i want to see the outside world to check whether or not it is as beautiful and brutal as the world i saw on television. My parents said there is no need to even think about that. Whatever happened on the outside world, also happened in Genta. People live, laugh, get into argument, go to work, and will eventually kissed by the death itself.
"People seek outside what they should find within themselves. Here, in Genta, we already found a settled life, why would you seek for whatever it is outside?"
My father always speaks the same words everytime he finds me stare into an empty space while speaking about how fun would it be if I could go to see the world. This must be the reason why Ambu Kahuru hired him as an English teacher. First, he teaches the language so there is no need for the students to go outside using the reason that they need to study English. Second, he is very good in telling young people not to go outside because "all we need is already available here. Trust me, i came from outside world, and has traveled to several countries, but there is no place as beautiful as this island that provided us with the same amount of sunshine to everyone… This is Eden, this is paradise." Father Pablo agreed with him, everytime! And that must be the European blood they shared.
But, although I opposed his view about not leaving the island, I agreed that Genta is an Eden. The town itself surrounded by three mountains. La Tana, La Inya and La Langi. The mountains also serve as borders between the town and the forest outside of it, where no one supposedly not to go nearby. Rumor has it that the forbidden forest is a place for ancestor spirits, and so many other spirits that protect this island. Therefore, the island is surrounded by a fog, all the time.
"The mountains were actually three human beings."
I looked my sister's face carefully. She is not beautiful. Her dark complexion makes her looks different because she is the only one human being with that skin tone existed in this island. Everyone else has a brighter skin. Some people has a curly hair, but not in Nika Nachtnebel family. Sometimes, I believe she is an alien. My father used to say that she probably was exchanged with another baby in the hospital. Everyone laughed at that. It is a joke. Or, is it a joke?
"La Tana is a good young man, La Inya is a good and beautiful young woman. They fell n love. But, there is La Langi, a rich and handsome man who has been into La Inya since they were just a child."
"What he did then? Why they are all mountains now?"
"That is a very brilliant question. Did you ever think how a human being could turn into mountains?"
"It would never happened. A human being could not just turned into things, just like a dog could not turn into table, or a chair into a cat! It is just a story."
She stared at me, than laughing.
"You smart cookies. But, I know the story from Father Pablo, and he got his story from Ambu Kuhuru himself. Do you think Ambu Kuhuru would lie about his ancestors, about the story of ancient Genta people?"
"No."
"Then, listen to this story carefully…"