Last Word

I
“What is the Malay word for begging?” asked Pak Suherman this morning while we were invigilating an exam – my last paper for the semester. He was looking at a picture of Buddhist monks begging for alms in the newspaper. It caught me off guard. Begging is mengemis.

“Do you know the origin of the word mengemis?” he continued. I gave up. Mengemis comes from Khamis –Thursday. People give away charities on Friday, the Muslim holiday like Sunday is to Christians, so the poor beg on Thursday, hence meng-Khamis – mengemis.

I swear I heard it before. Pak Suherman leaves for Surabaya tomorrow.

II
It is finally the end of the semester, though I have four miserable piles of exam scripts to mark before the semester is really, truly, over.

Already someone came to see me yesterday. He sat for the exam on Friday – my other paper. This semester is supposed to be his last, he said, and he is looking forward to returning to his home country. He already told me this two days before the final exam.

“So?”

“I forgot to answer one essay question” he said. It was unbelievable. I told the class many times, I told him himself directly a few times more I’m sure of it, and the instructions were clearly written on the question paper – ANSWER ALL THREE QUESTIONS. He only did two.

“Can you help me?” he asked with a phony sad face. The ship has sailed.

“You’ll get the marks you deserve” I said.