The Shark with Legs

Tuesday

Selasa

The shark had legs. That was the first piece of news this week, and Kwabena Asare, who had been painting film posters for thirty-one years, took it in the way a carpenter takes the measure of a board: without surprise, with a nod, the pencil already behind his ear. “Two legs,” he repeated. “Not four?”

Hiu itu memiliki kaki. Itulah kabar pertama pekan ini, dan Kwabena Asare, yang telah melukis poster film selama tiga puluh satu tahun, menerimanya bagai seorang tukang kayu yang mengukur sebilah papan: tanpa rasa heran, dengan sebuah anggukan, pensil sudah terselip di balik telinganya. “Dua kaki,” ulangnya. “Bukan empat?”

“Two,” said Grace Tetteh. “A shark with four legs would be an animal. With two he is a man who has something in mind.” She sat, as she did every Tuesday, on the upturned paint bucket beside his easel, her handbag on her knees, and told the film for the coming week the way she always told it: not with words alone but with both hands, with her shoulders, with a voice that went deep for the captain and high for his wife, and with pauses in which you could hear the surf. The film was called Deep Water Terror . The DVD lay between them on the table, next to the tubes, and neither of them looked at it.

“Dua,” kata Grace Tetteh. “Hiu berkaki empat hanyalah seekor binatang. Dengan dua kaki, ia adalah seorang pria yang punya rencana.” Seperti biasa setiap hari Selasa, ia duduk di atas ember cat terbalik di sebelah kuda-kuda lukis Kwabena, tas tangan bertengger di pangkuan, lalu menceritakan film untuk pekan depan sebagaimana biasa: tak hanya dengan kata-kata, melainkan dengan kedua belah tangan, dengan bahu, dengan suara yang merendah untuk sang kapten dan melengking untuk sang istri, serta dengan jeda-jeda hening yang membuat deburan ombak seolah terdengar. Film itu berjudul Deep Water Terror . DVD-nya tergeletak di meja di antara mereka, di samping tabung-tabung cat, dan tak seorang pun dari mereka sudi melihatnya.