I REMEMBER the couple well – the man and his wife – whose lives were eventually shattered by a tangle of wants and needs, desires and demands, pride and frailties that never could find harmony.
I knew them both before they married – Usep, the man, and Liris, the woman. His full name was Joseph, though no one ever called him that. Her given name was Clarice, but everyone preferred Liris. That was simply the way of our village; names tended to become what the villagers decided they should be.
Though I was just a child at the time, I remember the day Usep and Liris got married in the late 1950s.
When the village priest presided over the ceremony, he spoke the solemn words, “Till death do us part”. Of course, they meant nothing to me then, and for many years after.
Still, I remember how joyful they both looked during the reception – all smiles and laughter as they greeted visitors and well-wishers. Their eyes were alight, their faces bright with a kind of happiness and hope that, even as a child, I somehow understood was precious.
For months afterwards, long after the decorations had been taken down and the songs had stopped, Usep and Liris still carried that same gentle glow. Each time they passed our farmhouse on their way to their paddy field, several miles from the village, they seemed lost in their own private world.
In those days, our people divided their year between the village and the farms. During the paddy season – from September through to March – most families lived on their plots, sparing themselves the daily trek to and from.
It was then, along the narrow jungle path that wound past near our farmhouse, that I often saw them. Many villagers also used that track, but when Usep and Liris came by, it always seemed livelier somehow.
My parents would banter with them, teasing them gently as newlyweds — the sort of friendly remarks people made in those days. There was laughter, easy and sincere. They looked so happy that I couldn’t help but feel happy too, though I didn’t understand why. Perhaps, even then, I simply loved seeing kind faces light up.
But by the early 1960s, when I had begun attending the mission primary school in our village, they no longer always walked together when they passed our farmhouse.
Something though I couldn’t name it then – had shifted.
The first time I noticed the change, it was subtle – a small thing, really. Usep walked alone that morning. His machete swung in his hand, catching the morning sun as he made his way down the jungle path toward the paddy fields. He looked up briefly when my mother called out her usual cheerful greeting, but his response lacked its former buoyancy. It was clipped, almost distracted.
“Where’s Liris?” my mother asked, her voice tinged with curiosity.
“She’ll come later,” he replied without slowing his pace. There was no jest, no playful laugh – just plain, unadorned words, like a man stating the weather.
I didn’t think much of it at the time. People had their reasons for walking alone, I supposed. But the days turned into weeks and months, and the sight of Usep walking alone became a pattern, not an exception. Liris, when she passed by, did so with hurried steps. She stopped less often to chat with my parents, offering only brief smiles that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
The Cracks Beneath the Surface
By the time I was old enough to grasp the weight of what had transpired, the village was already thick with speculation. Gossip in a close-knit community like ours was like loose threads – impossible to untangle once it got messed up.
“They argue all the time now,” whispered one woman visiting our farmhouse.
“Someone said it’s about money,” offered another, her voice low but eager.
“Money? No, no. It’s the children. Or, rather, the lack of them,” a third chimed in, her words laced with pity.
I didn’t know what to believe, but I began to notice the signs. Liris’s voice, once lively and melodic, now carried a sharp edge when she spoke to Usep. His shoulders, once broad and proud, seemed perpetually hunched, as though weighed down by invisible burdens.
Communication’s Quiet Death
It started with silence. Usep and Liris stopped talking — not entirely, but enough for it to matter. The daily chatter about the crops, the weather, or the little joys of their shared life dwindled to curt exchanges and monosyllabic replies.
“Did you harvest the west field?” Liris would ask, her tone clipped.
“Yes,” Usep would reply, without looking up.
And that would be the end of it. No laughter, no shared smiles. Just words exchanged out of necessity, like strangers conducting a business transaction.
The Weight of Money
The whispers about financial troubles turned out to be true. Usep and Liris had always lived modestly, but a failed harvest had left them in debt. The strain of trying to make ends meet gnawed at them both in different ways.
Usep, ever the traditionalist, believed it was his duty to provide. He worked himself to exhaustion, taking on extra work for other farmers, but it was never enough. Liris, on the other hand, resented the long hours he spent away. She saw his absence as neglect, not sacrifice.
The arguments grew louder, more frequent. “You think I don’t work hard enough?” Usep would shout, his voice echoing through the jungle.
“It’s not about that!” Liris would snap back. “It’s about us! What’s the point of all this if we’re not even a family anymore?”
Dreams That Diverged
As time wore on, it became clear that their visions for the future no longer aligned. Liris dreamt of leaving the village for another place where, she believed, opportunities awaited. Usep, however, was tied to the land. The paddy fields were more than just a source of income to him — they were his identity, his legacy.
“I can’t leave this place,” he told her one evening, his voice tinged with quiet desperation.
“And I can’t stay here,” she replied, her eyes brimming with tears.
Neither was willing to compromise, and so the chasm between them widened.
The Breaking Point
The final straw came during a festival. It was a rare occasion when the entire community gathered, a time for joy and celebration. But Usep and Liris barely spoke to each other throughout the evening.
At one point, Liris got up to dance with a group of friends. Usep, sitting alone in the corner, watched her with a look of defeat. When she returned, they exchanged harsh words. No one knew exactly what was said, but it was clear that something had shattered irreparably in that moment.
Till Hate Do Us Part
The divorce, when it finally came, wasn’t merely the ending of a marriage — it was a breach, a small earthquake that broke the connections between the people involved and those related to them. For Usep and Liris, it wasn’t just personal; it was public, a small theatre of failing love for all to witness.
Usep retreated to his farm. His days followed the rhythm of nature — planting, weeding, and harvesting. He bent his back to the soil as if, by keeping his head bowed, he might be absolved of his failures. We saw him often on his farm, his figure hunched against the horizon.
As for Liris, she left the village for a place where the pulse of life matched the restless beat of her heart. No one knew why, but she wrote to him. The letters, delivered by a Chinese hawker who often braved the long, winding jungle path to the village, were utterly devoid of substance, with sentences that spoke without saying anything at all. Then, even those stopped.
As an adult years later, I often wondered if things could have turned out differently if they had spoken more often, listened more deeply, or allowed their stubborn edges to soften. But life, as I’ve come to understand it, is rarely a story of what-ifs. It is a river with a current all its own, dragging us forward regardless of whether we wish to go. Their dreams, once intertwined, had diverged — Usep’s rooted firmly in the soil of home, hers seeking new places to put down roots.
Their story lingered long after they had gone their separate ways. It became a cautionary tale about the dangers of pride, the fragility of love, and the folly of wanting more than one already has. People spoke of them not with malice, but with that peculiar blend of pity and self-assuredness that such misfortune would never happen to them.
Usep never remarried. Some said he was waiting for her, though he’d never admitted it. Others claimed he had buried his heart in the fields among the crops he tended. Whatever the truth was, the villagers eventually stopped asking about them.
The vows they had spoken to each other in the beginning had withered over time, eroded by resentment and silence. Their love, like the journeys they had chosen, was shaped by forces beyond their control. So, in the end, their vows, “Till death do us part”, turned into “Till hate do us part”.
quote photo:
Khalil Gibranquote:
‘Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.’ — Khalil Gibran (1883–1931), a Lebanese-American writer, poet, and philosopher.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at www.hayhenlin@gmail.com
