The Password on the Pole

Halima pushed open the heavy door and stepped onto the roof. The basketball court lay flat and grey in the early light. Tall buildings stood all around it, and their windows shone like small mirrors. It was six in the morning. She had forty minutes before her shift at the laundry began.

Halima mendorong pintu berat itu dan melangkah ke atap. Lapangan basket terbentang datar dan kelabu dalam cahaya pagi. Gedung-gedung tinggi berdiri di sekelilingnya, dan jendela-jendelanya berkilau seperti cermin-cermin kecil. Saat itu pukul enam pagi. Ia punya empat puluh menit sebelum shift-nya di binatu dimulai.

She had played here every morning for three months. Nobody else came so early. She liked the quiet, and she liked the sound of the ball on the concrete. The ball was old and had a strip of tape around one seam.

Ia sudah bermain di sini setiap pagi selama tiga bulan. Tak ada orang lain yang datang sepagi ini. Ia menyukai kesunyiannya, dan ia menyukai bunyi bola di beton. Bola itu tua dan ada selotip melingkari salah satu jahitannya.

Halima had come to the city a year ago, and her English was still growing. She kept a small notebook in her jacket pocket. Every time she met a word she did not know, she wrote it down. Later, at home, she looked it up. Her neighbours teased her kindly about the notebook.

Halima datang ke kota ini setahun lalu, dan bahasa Inggrisnya masih terus berkembang. Ia menyimpan buku catatan kecil di saku jaketnya. Setiap kali bertemu kata yang tak ia kenal, ia menuliskannya. Nanti, di rumah, ia mencarinya. Tetangga-tetangganya menggodanya dengan ramah soal buku catatan itu.

Today she was not alone. A young man sat on the low wall at the far end of the court. He wore a delivery jacket with a bright yellow badge, and he held his phone in both hands. He looked at the screen, then at the sky, then at the screen again.

Hari ini ia tidak sendirian. Seorang pemuda duduk di tembok rendah di ujung lapangan. Ia memakai jaket kurir dengan lencana kuning terang, dan memegang ponselnya dengan kedua tangan. Ia menatap layar, lalu langit, lalu layar lagi.

Halima started her usual warm-up. She dribbled to the line and shot. The ball hit the rim and bounced away. Behind her, the young man stood up and walked closer.

Halima memulai pemanasan seperti biasa. Ia menggiring bola ke garis dan menembak. Bola menghantam cincin dan memantul pergi. Di belakangnya, pemuda itu berdiri dan berjalan mendekat.

"Excuse me," he said. "I'm sorry to bother you. Do you speak English?"

"Permisi," katanya. "Maaf mengganggu. Apakah kamu bisa berbahasa Inggris?"

"A little," she said. "I am still learning. Why do you ask?"

"Sedikit," katanya. "Aku masih belajar. Kenapa kamu bertanya?"

"Because you're the first person I've seen all morning," he said. "My name is Dax. I'm locked out of my work app, and I'm in trouble."

"Karena kamu orang pertama yang kulihat sepanjang pagi ini," katanya. "Namaku Dax. Aku terkunci dari aplikasi kerjaku, dan aku dalam masalah."

Halima held the ball against her hip. In her first months in the city, strangers had always helped her. They had pointed at maps, and they had read forms for her. Nobody had ever asked her for help before. It was a strange and pleasant feeling.

Halima menahan bola di pinggulnya. Pada bulan-bulan pertamanya di kota ini, orang asing selalu membantunya. Mereka menunjuk peta, dan membacakan formulir untuknya. Belum pernah ada yang meminta bantuannya. Rasanya aneh dan menyenangkan.

"What is the trouble?" she asked.

"Masalahnya apa?" tanyanya.

"I changed my password last week," Dax said. "The app made me. It had to be long, with capital letters and numbers and symbols. So I wrote it on a sticky note, because I knew I would forget it."

"Aku mengganti kata sandiku minggu lalu," kata Dax. "Aplikasinya memaksa. Harus panjang, dengan huruf kapital, angka, dan simbol. Jadi aku menulisnya di sticky note, karena aku tahu aku akan lupa."

"That is a good idea," said Halima.

"Itu ide bagus," kata Halima.

"It would be, if I still had the note," he said. "I come up here between deliveries to rest my legs. I think I stuck it somewhere on this roof. If I don't log in by seven, I lose my whole morning."

"Seharusnya begitu, kalau aku masih punya catatannya," katanya. "Aku naik ke sini di sela-sela pengantaran untuk mengistirahatkan kaki. Kurasa aku menempelkannya di suatu tempat di atap ini. Kalau aku tidak masuk sebelum pukul tujuh, seluruh pagiku hilang."

Halima looked around the court. She knew every corner of it. There was the metal fence and the old bench. There was the water tank with its green door. Sticky notes lived on this roof. The players left them for each other. They wrote things like "Please close the door" or "Whoever took my blue towel, thank you anyway."

Halima memandang berkeliling lapangan. Ia mengenal setiap sudutnya. Ada pagar logam dan bangku tua. Ada tangki air dengan pintu hijaunya. Sticky note memang sering ada di atap ini. Para pemain meninggalkannya untuk satu sama lain. Mereka menulis hal-hal seperti "Tolong tutup pintunya" atau "Siapa pun yang mengambil handukku yang biru, terima kasih juga."

"What colour was your note?" she asked.

"Warna catatanmu apa?" tanyanya.

"Yellow. Like every sticky note in the world," Dax said, and he laughed without much joy.

"Kuning. Seperti semua sticky note di dunia," kata Dax, dan ia tertawa tanpa banyak kegembiraan.

They searched together. Dax looked under the bench and behind the scoreboard. Halima walked along the fence, where six or seven notes still hung from the wire. One had a drawing of a cat. None of them belonged to Dax.

Mereka mencari bersama-sama. Dax melihat di bawah bangku dan di belakang papan skor. Halima berjalan di sepanjang pagar, tempat enam atau tujuh catatan masih tergantung di kawat. Salah satunya bergambar kucing. Tak ada yang milik Dax.

"Maybe the cleaners took it," Dax said. He sat down on the bench and put his head in his hands. "They come every few nights and throw everything away."

"Mungkin petugas kebersihan mengambilnya," kata Dax. Ia duduk di bangku dan menaruh kepala di tangannya. "Mereka datang setiap beberapa malam dan membuang semuanya."

Halima stood still. Something was moving at the back of her mind. A yellow note. A long line of strange letters and numbers. She had seen it on the green door of the tank about ten days ago. She had not understood it at all.

Halima berdiri diam. Sesuatu bergerak di sudut pikirannya. Sebuah catatan kuning. Deretan panjang huruf dan angka yang aneh. Ia pernah melihatnya di pintu hijau tangki sekitar sepuluh hari lalu. Ia tidak memahaminya sama sekali.

"Wait," she said. "Wait, please."

"Tunggu," katanya. "Tunggu, tolong."

She took out her notebook and turned the pages quickly. Words flew past her eyes: "deadline," "borrow," "overdue," "elbow." Then she stopped. Near the bottom of one page, in her careful handwriting, she had copied a line of letters.

Ia mengeluarkan buku catatannya dan membalik halamannya dengan cepat. Kata-kata melintas di matanya: "deadline," "borrow," "overdue," "elbow." Lalu ia berhenti. Di dekat bagian bawah satu halaman, dengan tulisan tangannya yang rapi, ia telah menyalin sebaris huruf.

"Look," she said, and she held the page out to him. "I saw this on the tank door. I thought it was a word. A very long English word that I did not know. So I copied it."

"Lihat," katanya, dan ia mengulurkan halaman itu kepadanya. "Aku melihat ini di pintu tangki. Kukira itu sebuah kata. Kata bahasa Inggris yang sangat panjang yang tak kukenal. Jadi aku menyalinnya."

Dax read the line, and his mouth opened slowly. "Cloud, something round, Ladder, exclamation mark, five, eight," he said. "That's my password. You copied my password into your vocabulary notebook."

Dax membaca barisan itu, dan mulutnya perlahan terbuka. "Cloud, sesuatu yang bulat, Ladder, tanda seru, lima, delapan," katanya. "Itu kata sandiku. Kamu menyalin kata sandiku ke buku catatan kosakatamu."

"Is it the right one?" she asked.

"Apakah itu yang benar?" tanyanya.

"I think so! I can't remember it, but I remember the word 'ladder.'" He lifted his phone and laughed again, and this time the laugh was real. "You are a genius."

"Kurasa begitu! Aku tak ingat isinya, tapi aku ingat kata 'ladder.'" Ia mengangkat ponselnya dan tertawa lagi, dan kali ini tawanya sungguhan. "Kamu jenius."

"I am only a person with a notebook," said Halima. She looked at the page again, and her face changed. "But there is one small problem."

"Aku hanya orang dengan buku catatan," kata Halima. Ia melihat halaman itu lagi, dan wajahnya berubah. "Tapi ada satu masalah kecil."

"The sixth character," she said. "It is round. It could be the letter O. It could also be the number zero. I wrote very quickly, because a man was shouting for the court."

"Karakter keenam," katanya. "Bentuknya bulat. Bisa jadi huruf O. Bisa juga angka nol. Aku menulis sangat cepat, karena ada seorang pria berteriak memanggil untuk lapangan."

Dax looked at the clock on his phone. It was 6:41. "All right. The app says I have three tries before it locks me out for a whole day. So we have to think."

Dax melihat jam di ponselnya. Pukul 6.41. "Baiklah. Aplikasinya bilang aku punya tiga kali percobaan sebelum dikunci sehari penuh. Jadi kita harus berpikir."

He typed the letters with a round O. The screen shook from side to side. Wrong password, it said. Two tries left.

Ia mengetik huruf-huruf itu dengan O bulat. Layar bergetar ke kiri dan kanan. Kata sandi salah, katanya. Sisa dua percobaan.

Halima closed her eyes and tried to see the yellow note on the green door. She remembered a thick, black pen.

Halima memejamkan mata dan mencoba melihat catatan kuning di pintu hijau itu. Ia teringat pena hitam yang tebal.

"Wait," she said. "On the note, the round letter was narrow. Like an egg, not like a ball. The letter O would be wider, I think."

"Tunggu," katanya. "Di catatan itu, huruf bulatnya sempit. Seperti telur, bukan seperti bola. Huruf O akan lebih lebar, kurasa."

"A narrow one," said Dax. "That's the zero. Of course. I always write my zeros that way, long and thin. I learned it from my father, who worked with numbers."

"Yang sempit," kata Dax. "Itu nol. Tentu saja. Aku selalu menulis nolku begitu, panjang dan tipis. Aku belajar dari ayahku, yang bekerja dengan angka."

"Then try the zero," said Halima.

"Kalau begitu coba nolnya," kata Halima.

Dax's thumb hung over the screen. "If this is wrong, I lose the whole day."

Jempol Dax menggantung di atas layar. "Kalau ini salah, aku kehilangan seharian."

He typed slowly, saying each part aloud. Halima said the numbers with him, one by one, like a child learning to count. When he pressed the last key, nothing happened for a moment. The little wheel on the screen turned once, twice, three times.

Ia mengetik pelan-pelan, menyebutkan tiap bagian dengan suara keras. Halima menyebutkan angka-angkanya bersamanya, satu per satu, seperti anak kecil belajar berhitung. Ketika ia menekan tombol terakhir, sesaat tak terjadi apa-apa. Roda kecil di layar berputar sekali, dua kali, tiga kali.

Then the screen turned bright green, and a long list of orders appeared. Dax shouted, and the sound went out across the empty roof. Halima laughed so hard that she had to sit down on the bench.

Lalu layar berubah hijau terang, dan daftar panjang pesanan muncul. Dax berteriak, dan suaranya melayang melintasi atap yang sepi. Halima tertawa begitu keras sampai harus duduk di bangku.

"Six forty-eight," Dax said. "Twelve minutes to spare. You saved my morning. But tell me, what are you doing with this notebook?"

"Enam empat puluh delapan," kata Dax. "Sisa dua belas menit. Kamu menyelamatkan pagiku. Tapi katakan, kamu mau apa dengan buku catatan ini?"

"I write words I do not know," said Halima. "You said it is not a word. So what do I write?"

"Aku menulis kata-kata yang tidak kukenal," kata Halima. "Kamu bilang itu bukan kata. Jadi apa yang kutulis?"

Dax thought about it. "It's called a password," he said. "Pass, like passing through a gate. And word, like any word. It's a word that opens a door."

Dax berpikir. "Namanya password," katanya. "Pass, seperti melewati gerbang. Dan word, seperti kata apa saja. Itu kata yang membuka pintu."

"A word that opens a door," Halima repeated. "That is a beautiful meaning. And today it is also true."

"Kata yang membuka pintu," Halima mengulang. "Itu arti yang indah. Dan hari ini juga benar."

Dax stood up and zipped his jacket. He picked up his helmet and walked to the door. Then he turned around. "I'll never leave one on a wall again," he said. "From now on, I'll learn it by heart."

Dax berdiri dan menarik ritsleting jaketnya. Ia mengambil helmnya dan berjalan ke pintu. Lalu ia berbalik. "Aku tak akan pernah menaruhnya di tembok lagi," katanya. "Mulai sekarang, aku akan menghafalnya."

He waved, and the heavy door closed behind him. His footsteps went down the stairs, quick and light, and then the roof was quiet again. The sun was higher now. It turned the windows around the court from grey to gold.

Ia melambai, dan pintu berat itu menutup di belakangnya. Langkah kakinya menuruni tangga, cepat dan ringan, lalu atap itu sunyi lagi. Matahari sudah lebih tinggi. Ia mengubah jendela-jendela di sekeliling lapangan dari kelabu menjadi keemasan.

Halima sat for a moment with her notebook open on her knee. She took her pen from her pocket and turned to a clean page. She wrote the date at the top. Then she wrote one new word in big, careful letters, and she underlined it twice: password.

Halima duduk sejenak dengan buku catatan terbuka di lututnya. Ia mengambil pena dari sakunya dan membuka halaman kosong. Ia menulis tanggal di bagian atas. Lalu ia menulis satu kata baru dengan huruf besar yang hati-hati, dan menggarisbawahinya dua kali: password.