Below is my translation of an excerpt from Harimau! Harimau!, a novel by Mochtar Lubis. Born in 1922 in Sumatra, he was a journalist, painter, and nationalist, as well as a fierce antagonist of Indonesia’s post-colonial governments, incarcerated by both Sukarno and Suharto. The book is a moral tale of hunters who find themselves stalked by a tiger. As one of the men is dying, in a moment of revelation, he says, “You are still young. Take a lesson from what has happened. Now I see [. . .]. Before you slay the tiger in the forest, slay the tiger in your own heart.” I bought the book during a visit to the publisher (Obor) in Jakarta.
Translation:
The tiger had already suffered two days of hunger. He was losing his strength, and could no longer run fast enough to catch his usual prey, such as pigs and deer. Previously he was a powerful and dashing tiger, the long-reigning monarch of the forest. Never before, as long as he could remember, had he suffered such hunger. His body was large and tall. In youth he could easily chase and catch a large deer. And several times he had caught and killed and dragged into the forest cows from the edge of the village. Now for two days he had chased a pair of deer, one male and a young female. But the deer were very cautious, and able to escape before he could catch them. He was beginning to feel weak.
This morning, as he approached the doe, drawing very close, his hunt was disturbed by a great noise, which tore through the air of the forest. The doe had moved close to the buck, but then quickly fled, in great leaps, as the buck fell. The tiger also ran away, frightened by the sound that filled the air. Then, hours later, driven by hunger, he returned cautiously to the place where the buck had fallen. Only traces of blood remained, dried and hardened on the earth. He licked the dried blood, but it only inflamed his hunger, and this hunger drove him to follow the men’s footprints which were now mixed with the smell of deer. So easy it was for him to follow their trail. He found the place where they skinned and butchered the deer, and there he found bones, and the deer’s viscera, which he ate greedily. But this did not ease his hunger. Rather he became more hungry.
Throughout the day, keeping a distance, he followed the men and deer-flesh.
This time the tiger was increasingly sure that his hunt would be successful. He hid and waited patiently at the edge of the river, watching the men set up camp and build a fire. The smell of roasted meat intensified his hunger, and with great difficulty, not wanting to frighten his prey, he restrained his roar. He waited for a chance to attack.
Suddenly the tiger moved, feeling ready, when he saw one of the men leave the light of the fire. The man stepped towards the darkness of the river, and then sat in the water.
The tiger tensed his entire body, all of his muscles, ready to jump. And then with a terrible roar he sprang from his hiding place. When Pak Balam heard the tiger’s roar, he realized, like a bolt of lightening through his mind, that it was he who had become the tiger’s prey. He leaped to his feet, wanting to run, but slipped, and his body fell into the water. And before he was able to rise again and run, the tiger had arrived, catching him by the leg. If he had not fallen, the tiger would have taken his head or neck, but now the tiger’s mouth with strong, sharp teeth had caught his left calf, and then the tiger dragged him into the forest. Insects and animals were silenced by the roar of the tiger.