Pak Har, a village worker, had been stirring cement for two days in the village. He said that the water in the local well never ran dry, even during the eight-month dry season, and the village office said it was dangerous.
The residents gathered around the well. Bu Sum, an elderly woman with a still-sharp voice, told her neighbours that they were fortunate someone had witnessed what happened, a man named Rojak whom the community considered strange.
Decades earlier, when the writer was nine years old, the well had been a favourite place for the village children to play and bathe. The writer was flying a kite with her friend Sohib when her two-year-old brother fell into the well. Mat Rojak, who happened to be near the well, quickly rescued the writer's brother from the water.
The writer's family never discussed the incident afterwards. Her mother only told the writer to help her father at the fishpond the next day, without explaining further. Her father ate dinner in silence, the only evening the writer remembers when her father did not comment on the food at the table.
The incident left a deep impression on the writer, who still remembers every detail of that day. Her brother survived, but the incident never became a family conversation, only a lengthy silence that was not forced by anyone.
