From the very beginning of the trip a young man returning from a religious school in Pariaman had been loudly chanting Koran verses. The near-murder was even more distracting. Still, such incidents kept one a little tense. Rut the driver seemed to be used to this, and indeed had quite a supply of new axles in the back of the bus. Not that we had grave accidents, though twice the axle of the bus broke, and we skidded to a stop a few feet from the gaping mouths of deep ravines. But the trip from the beginning proved to be everything I had expected. Myny big rivers must still be crossed by pontoons, and the road goes through dense wild jungles, up and down great mountains. I had not liked the idea of this trip, because I knew that the motor road from Padang to Sungai Penuh, its terminus in Kerinchi, was in the worst possible condition. And there I was to stay in the house of Haji Zakaria.Īt first there was no chance to think of anyone or anything except the bus. One of them was this trip I had to make to Kerinchi, where he had a little rubber estate. My father had recently died in our little village in Sumatra, and I had had to return home to console my mother and look after alt the affairs that need handling when one’s father dies. I had not seen him for more than fourteen years. IT WAS on the bus going to Kerinchi that I began thinking about Haji Zakaria.
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