Clove Smoker

Clove Smoker is the unnamed policeman who assists Scarface in assaulting Scarlet Blush and who holds Ajo Kawir at gunpoint when the boy is caught watching. The scene defines him less through a personal history than through the contrast between his unhurried domestic gestures and his sudden use of armed authority: he smokes, whistles, cleans the room, and then makes a terrified child witness an assault. The officers’ later disappearance leaves Ajo Kawir without a clear route to seek them out, and the episode remains part of the violence he carries into adulthood.

Identity and Introduction

Clove Smoker appears as one of two uniformed policemen whom Ajo Kawir and Gecko do not recognize. The narrative identifies him by his habit of smoking clove cigarettes, not by a personal name or biography. His partner, Scarface, is recognizable by a scar across his chin; the two men’s uniforms suggest official standing, but the boys cannot establish who they are or where they come from.

The distinction between the officers matters. Scarface directs his attention toward Scarlet Blush, while Clove Smoker initially sits apart in a corner, smoking and watching the ceiling. The division is not a division of responsibility: when Ajo Kawir falls and is caught, Clove Smoker becomes the officer who physically restrains him and prevents him from leaving.

Conduct in Scarlet Blush’s House

Before Ajo Kawir is discovered, Clove Smoker’s actions create an unsettling impression of ordinary routine inside a coercive situation. He sits with a boot propped against the wall, smokes, and lets ash fall to the floor. He twirls the cigarette without burning himself, whistles, and sings softly in an off-key voice. The narration likens the song to a Malaysian song from the sixties, perhaps one by P. Ramlee. He appears bored, with little to do while Scarface mistreats Scarlet Blush.

That apparent idleness does not make him a bystander. After discarding and crushing his cigarette, Clove Smoker sweeps up the butt and ash, gathers the remnants of Scarlet Blush’s meal, carries dirty dishes to the kitchen, and arranges scattered chairs. He does not wash the dishes, but he sets them aside. These small acts of cleaning and ordering sit beside the officers’ abuse of the woman in the same room: he tends to the space while participating in the violence that makes it unsafe.

When Ajo Kawir loses his grip on the windowsill and crashes to the ground, Gecko escapes into the bushes and Clove Smoker springs from his chair. He reaches Ajo Kawir before the boy can get away and seizes him. The scene turns quickly from concealed observation to direct confrontation: Ajo Kawir is brought beside the table where Scarlet Blush lies, while Clove Smoker keeps hold of him.

Ajo Kawir and the Assault

Scarface asks Ajo Kawir whether he wanted to watch. Ajo Kawir shakes his head in terror and tries to escape. Clove Smoker draws his pistol, presses it to the boy’s head, and orders him to stay and watch. Under that threat, Ajo Kawir cannot leave or intervene; the officers take turns assaulting Scarlet Blush while he stands beside her, trembling and unable to speak.

Clove Smoker’s role is therefore not limited to helping his partner control the scene. His weapon makes Ajo Kawir a captive witness. The immediate consequence is fear, but the scene also joins the officers’ assault on Scarlet Blush to Ajo Kawir’s lasting trauma: he is made to watch, under threat, rather than merely encountering the violence from outside. Gecko sees the gun at his friend’s head and stays away, overwhelmed and unsure whether seeking help would make matters worse.

Disappearance and Narrative Significance

Years afterward, Ajo Kawir says that he and Gecko searched for the two policemen when they thought they could fight them, but the men had disappeared. He does not know where they came from and supposes that they may already have been stationed elsewhere. Policemen, he observes, move from one territory to another like soldiers. The recollection offers no reunion, reckoning, or confirmed account of what became of Clove Smoker; it establishes only that the officers were no longer where Ajo Kawir and Gecko could find them.

The character’s narrative force comes from this conjunction of official appearance, domestic normality, and coercion. Clove Smoker’s cigarette, whistle, and brief tidying of the room do not soften his conduct; they make the transition from routine to armed threat seem almost effortless. The episode also places the boys’ later thoughts of fighting the officers against the uncertainty of pursuing men who can move between territories. Clove Smoker remains an unnamed face of that impunity, remembered through what he did to Scarlet Blush and through the fear he imposed on Ajo Kawir.