Antara Darah dan Hati: Dream Reality English Translation

Chapter 28 Part 2 "The Dark History of the Former Candidate for the Throne"

POV Karim

The car that I was driving arrived in front of my parents's modest house. After I parked my car, my wife and I got out from the car, walked to the gate then I pressed the doorbell a few times. A few moments later, I heard the sound of the front door being opened and from behind the fiber plastic sheet that is covering the gate of my parents's house, I could see a silhouette of someone approached the doorknob of the house.

When the gate of the house opened, the maid who I hired to took care of my parents and serve them greeted me and my wife and then she escorted us into the house's living room, where my parents who have waited for our arrival sat on the sofa.

We greeted my parents then give our respectful gesture by putting the hands of my mother on our forehead then after that we did the same to my father then after we finished giving our gesture of respect to them, we sat on the sofa at the opposite direction to the sofa where my parents sat and without further ado, my father whose face looked pale exhaled slowly while closing his eyes for a long time which made my mother rubbed my father's back and shoulders gently. I don't know what he really wants to talk about but, it seems that this is something quite heavy for him to unravel. In the end, after my mother managed to calm him down, he slowly opened his eyes again and started the conversation with me.

"Karim, there's something I want to tell you, regarding the identity of your father, in which I have kept secret from you and your mother's family. Do you remember when I told you that I, your father is an orphan?"

"Yes father, I remember."

"Yes, I am indeed an orphan, but that doesn't mean I don't have a family. The people who came to your house recently, they were indeed envoys from the Sultan of the Sucilangkung Palace and they came here begging me to be crowned as the next Sultan but, I refused their request because those who begged me to become Sultan were the same people who took away my right to be the Sultan in the palace after my father, a.k.a your grandfather died and because I refused their request, they came to your house so that you could be crowned as the next Sultan. "

"Why do they want to crown me as the next Sultan instead of the son of the Sultan who is still reigning in the Keraton?"

"My little brother, he has no children and currently he suffered from cancer and is still being treated at the hospital so, maybe because he has no children, the administrators in the Keraton are busy looking for a new successor to the throne even though it seems that the only ones left are only you and your father."

"Doesn't a Sultan can have more than one wife?"

"Yes, that's true, but maybe one of the reasons of why my little brother doesn't have more than one wife is because the norms and customs in this current era has changed and he wants to maintain his image as a Sultan who embraced modern customs and values, even though he's actually an asshole."

"Father, why do you seem to hate your own little brother so much and what does it mean that only the two of us are left as the legitimate candidates for the successor to the throne of the Sucilangkung Keraton?"

"In short, one of the descendants of Ka Hiyang Jati, the first founder of the Sucilangkung Sultanate had studied Islamic religion in the Sultanate of Cirebon which at that time was one of the centers for the Islamic education in West Java.

After studying Islam in Cirebon, he and his followers spread Islam here and built this area and then later built the Sultanate of Sucilangkung but, because the area of the Sucilangkung Sultanate is very small, the offcials of the Sucilangkung Sultanate at that time asked for protection from the Sultanate of Cirebon and a pact was made which stated that Sucilangkung Sultanate is the protectorate of the Cirebon Sultanate. After the pact was made, some unit of the Jagabaya troops that were belonged to the Cirebon Sultanate's army were sent to the Sucilangkung Sultanate to protect Sucilangkung Sultanate from being attacked by other kingdoms.