The Lottery Syndicate

The office syndicate had existed for nine years, and its record was four small wins, two refunds and a voucher for a restaurant that closed before anyone used it. So when the numbers matched on a Wednesday in March, and the website produced a figure with a comma in it, Tilde, who kept the records, assumed she had misread the page. She read it again, slowly, with her finger on the screen. It was not a fortune: divided twelve ways, it came to just under two hundred each. But it was the most the syndicate had ever won, and she had, to her private horror, only eleven payments on the sheet.

Arisan lotre kantor itu sudah berdiri sembilan tahun, dan rekornya empat kemenangan kecil, dua kali uang kembali, dan satu voucher restoran yang sudah tutup sebelum ada yang sempat memakainya. Jadi ketika angka-angkanya cocok pada suatu Rabu di bulan Maret, dan situs web itu menampilkan jumlah yang memakai tanda pemisah ribuan, Tilde, yang memegang pencatatan, mengira ia salah membaca halamannya. Ia membacanya lagi, pelan-pelan, dengan jari menempel di layar. Itu bukan kekayaan: dibagi dua belas, tiap orang kebagian kurang sedikit dari dua ratus. Tetapi itu kemenangan terbesar yang pernah diraih kelompok mereka, dan, yang membuatnya ngeri dalam hati, di lembar catatannya hanya ada sebelas pembayaran.

The missing one belonged to the man from logistics who sat beside the printer. Never once in nine years had he been late with his stake, an envelope of exact change handed over by noon on Friday with a small bow that nobody had ever mentioned. It was precisely that reliability that had kept Tilde from noticing until she ran the totals. In the column for the week of the draw, next to his name, the cell was empty. She stared at it the way one stares at a smudge on a clean window.

Yang tidak tercatat itu milik pria dari bagian logistik yang duduk di samping mesin pencetak. Tak sekali pun dalam sembilan tahun ia terlambat membayar taruhannya, sebuah amplop berisi uang pas yang diserahkan sebelum tengah hari setiap Jumat dengan bungkukan kecil yang tak pernah dibicarakan siapa pun. Justru kebiasaan yang bisa diandalkan itulah yang membuat Tilde tidak menyadarinya sampai ia menjumlahkan totalnya. Di kolom untuk minggu pengundian, di samping namanya, selnya kosong. Ia menatapnya seperti orang menatap noda di kaca jendela yang bersih.

The rules, which predated her by a decade and were pinned above the kettle, were unambiguous. Article Four: no payment, no share. It had been drafted by an accountant who had since retired to the coast, and it was the only article anybody had ever bothered to memorise. By Thursday morning the news had crossed the office faster than a fire drill. Opinion divided in the usual way, along the line between those who had always paid on time and those who might one day forget. "Rules are rules," said the woman from procurement, who had not forgotten anything since the previous decade. A man in the next row wondered aloud whether a half share would be "a reasonable compromise," and was told that there was no such thing as a reasonable half in a syndicate.

Aturan-aturannya, yang sudah ada sepuluh tahun sebelum ia datang dan ditempel di atas ketel pemanas air, tegas. Pasal Empat: tidak bayar, tidak dapat bagian. Pasal itu disusun oleh seorang akuntan yang sudah pensiun ke tepi pantai, dan satu-satunya pasal yang pernah repot-repot dihafalkan siapa pun. Pada Kamis pagi, kabar itu sudah menyebar ke seluruh kantor lebih cepat daripada latihan kebakaran. Pendapat terbelah seperti biasa, mengikuti garis antara mereka yang selalu membayar tepat waktu dan mereka yang suatu hari mungkin lupa. "Aturan tetap aturan," kata perempuan dari bagian pengadaan, yang tak pernah lupa apa pun sejak dasawarsa sebelumnya. Seorang pria di baris sebelah bertanya keras-keras apakah setengah bagian bisa menjadi "kompromi yang masuk akal," dan diberi tahu bahwa tidak ada yang namanya setengah yang masuk akal dalam sebuah arisan lotre.

Tilde, who had wanted to be neither judge nor jury, found herself both. She went back to the ledger and, for want of anything better, began to count. Nine years, four hundred and sixty-eight weeks, and in four hundred and sixty-seven of them his envelope had been on her desk before lunch. Had he skipped any other Friday, the syndicate would have won nothing and nobody would ever have known. It struck her as an extraordinary piece of timing, and also as the kind of thing that should not, in a fair world, be allowed to decide anything.

Tilde, yang tak ingin menjadi hakim maupun juri, mendapati dirinya menjadi keduanya. Ia kembali ke buku catatan dan, karena tak ada hal lain yang bisa dilakukan, mulai menghitung. Sembilan tahun, empat ratus enam puluh delapan minggu, dan dalam empat ratus enam puluh tujuh di antaranya amplop pria itu sudah ada di mejanya sebelum makan siang. Seandainya ia melewatkan Jumat yang lain, kelompok itu takkan memenangkan apa pun dan takkan ada yang tahu. Itu terasa seperti kebetulan waktu yang luar biasa, sekaligus jenis hal yang, di dunia yang adil, tak semestinya dibiarkan menentukan apa pun.

She found him on Friday, standing by the printer and pretending to clear a paper jam that did not exist. "I should tell you," she said, "that we won last Wednesday."

Ia menemukannya pada hari Jumat, berdiri di dekat mesin pencetak dan berpura-pura membereskan kertas macet yang tak ada. "Aku harus bilang," katanya, "kita menang hari Rabu kemarin."

"I heard." He did not look up. "I also heard about Article Four."

"Aku sudah dengar." Pria itu tidak menengadah. "Aku juga sudah dengar soal Pasal Empat."

"Article Four says no payment, no share," Tilde said. "It says nothing about someone who has paid four hundred and sixty-seven weeks out of four hundred and sixty-eight."

"Pasal Empat bilang tidak bayar, tidak dapat bagian," kata Tilde. "Tidak ada yang disebut soal orang yang sudah membayar empat ratus enam puluh tujuh minggu dari empat ratus enam puluh delapan."

He straightened at last. "I did forget," he said. "I've spent the week being reasonable about it."

Akhirnya ia menegakkan badan. "Aku memang lupa," katanya. "Seminggu ini aku berusaha bersikap masuk akal soal itu."

"How is that going?"

"Bagaimana hasilnya?"

"Badly."

"Buruk."

Tilde put an envelope on top of the printer. "The committee met at lunch," she said, which was not strictly true, since the committee was herself and a vending machine. "Article Four has been amended. No payment, no share, except for members with nine unbroken years. It's a very narrow exception."

Tilde meletakkan sebuah amplop di atas mesin pencetak. "Panitia rapat saat makan siang tadi," katanya, yang tidak sepenuhnya benar, karena panitia itu hanya dirinya sendiri dan sebuah mesin penjual otomatis. "Pasal Empat sudah diubah. Tidak bayar, tidak dapat bagian, kecuali bagi anggota dengan sembilan tahun tanpa putus. Pengecualian yang sangat sempit."

"How many members does it apply to?"

"Berlaku untuk berapa anggota?"

"One."

"Satu."

He counted the notes with a grave attention that suggested he had been doing the arithmetic all week. Then he asked whether the revised rules allowed a person to buy the first round.

Ia menghitung lembaran uang itu dengan perhatian serius yang menandakan bahwa ia sudah berhitung sepanjang minggu. Lalu ia bertanya apakah aturan yang direvisi itu mengizinkan seseorang mentraktir putaran pertama.

"Article Five covers that," Tilde said. There was no Article Five. She wrote it that afternoon.

"Pasal Lima mengatur itu," kata Tilde. Tidak ada Pasal Lima. Ia menulisnya sore itu juga.