CHAPTER 3 — BOOK III
Learning Without Authority
Work entered their lives quietly, without the drama they had once imagined adulthood would require.
For Embong, hospitality was not a leap so much as a recognition. He had grown up watching how spaces were held together — how order mattered, how comfort was deliberate, how people remembered places where they had been treated well. Formal study only named what he already understood.
He did not romanticise it.
Hotels were not stories. They were systems.
Through family, he encountered those systems early. His father spoke about acquisitions the way other men spoke about weather — important, but never theatrical. Expansion was discussed in terms of regulation, compliance, and capital discipline. Not prestige.
Sydney had begun to feel less provisional.
The George Street project was conceived as strategy. Proximity to Central Station. Steady foot traffic. A halal Malaysian restaurant integrated below. Close enough to Surry Hills Mosque to serve community without isolating it.
Joko Narawangsa offered to help.
He was well-known in Sydney’s Indonesian circles — a restaurateur in Newtown, a connector, a man who filled rooms easily. He spoke with confidence that rarely paused for correction. Laughter often followed him, not always because the joke warranted it, but because momentum made dissent inconvenient.
Where others waited, Joko occupied.
Where others measured, he embellished.
It was not hostility.
It was habit.
Ustaz Hamidin moved differently.
An Acehnese graduate of the University of Malaya, he and his wife, Ustazah Dahlia, had established a modest Islamic school in Sydney inspired by the disciplined Qur’anic institutions already present in the city. Their classrooms were structured. Their explanations careful. Dahlia spoke as softly as her husband. Correction was offered without humiliation. Clarification came before criticism.
Hamidin explained Islam at the level of his listener.
To Geoffrey, he spoke of
precedent and reasoning.
To Hijau, of amanah and accountability.
To Lachlan, of structure and obligation.
To Embong, of separating creed from custom without dismissing either.
He did not lecture.
He clarified.
Understanding, he believed, reduced the need for volume.
The contrast between the two men was visible long before it was consequential.
At a community gathering one evening, Joko remarked that Ustaz Hamidin’s recitation of the adhan sounded “unusual,” comparing it dismissively to other regional cadences he implied were less refined. The comment was delivered lightly, as humour.
A few uncertain smiles followed.
Hamidin did not respond publicly. He had never relied on performance for authority. He inclined his head and continued the conversation.
Later, when asked privately about differences in recitation, he explained calmly that the obligation of the adhan lay in clarity, not accent. Tajwid was precision. Culture was inheritance. The two were not adversaries.
The matter required no defence.
Only understanding.
The George Street development moved forward.
Plans were submitted. Consultants engaged. Drawings approved. The building rose — though not as high as first projected. Eight storeys instead of the ambition originally discussed.
Explanations were provided.
Revisions justified.
Costs adjusted.
Funds allocated for preparatory works passed through channels Joko had recommended. Documentation appeared in fragments. Authorisations arrived without sequence. The discrepancies did not surface at once.
They thinned.
Invoices arrived late. Variations multiplied. Commitments extended beyond their mandate.
They operated in the spaces where familiarity blurred accountability.
By the time clarity replaced optimism, escalation was unavoidable.
The matter proceeded to the Supreme Court of New South Wales at the beginning of 2003.
There was no spectacle.
Findings were made. Compensation was ordered and paid. The language of the judgment was measured, technical, final.
Hijau was called as a witness.
She did not embellish. She did not defend. She answered precisely, calmly, without volume. Cross-examination did not unsettle her. Facts required no theatrics.
Within the Indonesian community, the shift was subtle but perceptible. Invitations slowed. Conversations shortened. Deference recalibrated itself quietly.
Rusmawati did not address the proceedings directly.
When Delima encountered her weeks later, the greeting remained intact. There was no public grievance, no rehearsed justification.
Instead, Rusmawati said softly,
“Hidup ini hanya
pinjaman, kain kapan sehelai.”
(“Life is only a loan; the burial shroud is but a single cloth.”)
The room remained still.
They parted without further discussion.
The Narawangsa family relocated north later that year.
The move was described as opportunity.
No one challenged the phrasing.
After the ruling, Mr Musang did not withdraw.
He recalibrated.
The first sign arrived without warning — a caveat lodged against the Vaucluse property. The documentation cited claims that were technically framed yet substantively hollow. It relied on ambiguity more than entitlement.
The application did not survive scrutiny.
The judge dismissed it without ceremony.
At home, Awan’s patience thinned.
“Dia fikir dia bijak,” he
said quietly once. “Padahal dia cuma berani atas kertas.”
(“He thinks he’s clever. In truth, he’s only brave on paper.”)
Hijau had seen the filings. The confidence was procedural, not factual.
Tax concerns followed next — broad insinuations framed as administrative irregularity. Letters were sent. Queries raised. The language was formal but imprecise, crafted to intimidate rather than clarify.
Delima closed the door to the study and spread the documentation across the table.
“Kalau betul, kita jawab.
Kalau tidak, kita susun semua.”
(“If it’s valid, we answer. If not, we organise everything.”)
They assembled the records in order. Filings. Assessments. Receipts. Correspondence. Their accountant reviewed each page twice.
The auditors found nothing irregular.
The matter closed.
Then came the personal claim — reimbursement for services never formally commissioned, travel undertaken without instruction, expenses recorded retroactively. The figures shifted between drafts. Justifications evolved.
It was not confusion.
It was construction.
In private, the language inside the house sharpened.
“Memang dia gila kuasa,”
Awan muttered once. “Semua nak kawal.”
(“He’s obsessed with power. Everything has to be under his control.”)
The frustration was not about money.
It was about entitlement.
Neither man considered himself dishonest.
They considered themselves clever.
This time, the response held steady.
Then Musang stopped responding altogether.
It emerged later that his own legal representation had not been paid. Assurances had replaced settlement. Confidence had replaced structure.
“Dia selalu fikir orang
lain akan sabar,” Hijau said quietly. “Sampai satu hari orang berhenti.”
(“He always assumes others will be patient. Until one day they stop.”)
Representation was withdrawn. Notices unanswered. Contact sporadic.
Then nothing.
By the time anyone looked properly, Musang was no longer in Sydney.
His absence did not feel dramatic.
It felt inevitable.
There was no satisfaction in it.
Only confirmation.
Those years taught Embong how to read people.
He learned that volume
was not authority.
That humour could conceal insecurity.
That procedure could protect dignity.
That silence, when disciplined, carried more weight than rebuttal.
He had seen power exercised loudly.
He had also seen it exercised without force.
He did not yet know which one he would become.
But the threshold had moved.
Learning the business did not begin with ambition or inheritance.
It began with watching what happened when boundaries were left unenforced — and recognising how easily confidence collapsed when structure failed.
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