MENJADI ISTRI USTADZ KAMPUNG

“I am sorry daddy, but please let me be with him.” The words trembled out, barely a whisper, but in the silence of the courtyard they seemed to echo through the house. The woman's knees were pressed into the stone tile as she screamed out to her father.

The Clarke utilized more than a hundred employees accommodating them in the staff living quarters within the estate that occupies nearly hundred acres. The individuals residing under the Clarke estate lived comfortably and they had specific regulations which needed to be adhered while dwelling with the Clarke's. To work for the Clarke's was to follow the same early-morning routine of odd jobs, the same dull dietary regimen, and the same weekly self-improvement clinics. There were unwritten rules regarding eye contact and everything had to be executed in an orderly manner. There were even regulations concerning the discussion of the rules. Only a few survived over one year; others were the ones who were serious in their works.

This morning, though, the well maintained composure of the Clarke's was broken as the whole staff was hiding in the bushes or large pillars to see the heart touching spectacle as the Clarke's only child knelt outside the mansion for the whole night.

Emily Clarke, only surviving child and long-announced heiress of all her father's property sank to her knees in the open, ignoring the bite that pierced through her white silk stockings into her bones. She was not designed for kneeling; her mother had instructed her to sit back as stiff as an icicle, chin held like a compass pointing to the family's ultimate glory. But now she knelt, the rocks nipping at her skin through the fragile material, a red line already forming on her left shin. Her hands extended to her fathers who had walked right at that time towards her but was standing further away from her. He did not glance down at his daughter, but over the garden at the staff who were hiding behind every possible thing available in the property.

 The heavy wooden doors had been opened early in the morning for the staff to start working but now they were grouped in the background behind the French windows and the whole attendants of the Clarke home waited in anticipation for what was about to come. The doorman, the housekeeper and a group of gardeners with caps in their hands, faces as white as mashed potatoes in the sunlight. Each spectator silently understood that to be observed was taboo but they couldn't help but feel sad for their mistress. The entire estate was holding its collective breath.

Desperation cracked in Emily's voice when she spoke to her father who was looking at her sternly . Her voice was not pleading but something more of a firm resolve. It seemed she was entirely a different person, not the one who had committed the codes of law to memory in her father's library, who had gone to bed with books by some great men under her pillow. Her father's face, normally expressionless, flashed for an instant with something akin to helplessness.

The servants stood by, frozen, as she leaned her forehead to the floor and Emily was doing it continuously. It disturbed the butler more than any mischief he had seen his mistress get into after knowing her from her birth and the old housemaid, Mrs. Evans, began to cry, though she could not have explained why.

Emily was still on her knees, the flesh at points of bone showing brightly raw where fabric and skin had rubbed away against the marble. Her damp hair stuck to her face. She wasn't crying but her eyes were wide with anticipation.

Her father, a man whose voice never rose much above polite boardroom and political dinner parties, finally broke his silence. His initial words poured out with a calm voice but then echoed throughout the courtyard as he came to realize that his daughter was not going to give up that easily. He knew where her stubbornness came from and could only sigh helplessly.

"Emily." He called her name with great difficulty as if trying to pour out his innermost thoughts but not being able to control his emotions. "Are you attempting to defy your father?" His voice was shaking not with anger, but with tiredness and something deeper. "You wish to marry a man who lives in the shadows. You wish to go with him into that lie. Is this what you truly desire to sacrifice everything for a life that is no life?"

He glanced at his wife, who had pulled back from the fight and now placed a hand over her mouth, hiding not tears but the danger of them. They had lost their friends and family. But they had never prepared themselves for the loss of a child who would opt to vanish herself, to have her own name reduced to nothing for the convenience of a cause her parents could not believe in. Emily's mother tried to move forward, but her knees gave away it was as if she was frozen at the spot and she couldn't think rationally. She remembered how she had always taken care of her daughter whenever she was hurt but when she saw her being stubborn with the whole matter it broke her heart.

She'd believed, then, that motherhood was a matter of leading a child into the world and doing whatever was best for them. She’d never considered that her own daughter might be the one to teach her how to endure the pain of a stubborn will. “Is this about him?” her father asked. “Or is this about you defying us?"

Emily glared at the ground, water collecting in puddles at her feet turning rosy where blood had started to trickle through the knees of her pajamas. She wasn't fighting the rain or the cold. She wasn't fighting her parents, either. She was merely refusing to give in to them as she had already made her choice and she didn't feel any pain but only determination.