Ajo Kawir and Iteung’s wedding makes their commitment public while leaving one of Ajo Kawir’s defining difficulties unchanged: the “Bird” remains asleep. Their marriage is celebrated by both families and friends, and the couple’s happiness does not depend on his body conforming to an expectation of sexual function. Instead, the wedding establishes a shared future through affection, forgiveness, and the practical decisions they make together.

The Wedding and Its Guests

The ceremony took place a few months after Ajo Kawir’s twentieth birthday and a few days after Iteung turned twenty. Both sets of parents were pleased, and Iwan Angsa and Wa Sami were moved to see Ajo Kawir as a groom. Gecko joined the gathering with a smile, helping welcome the guests. The celebration mattered not only to the couple: people who had watched them grow up and face danger were present to recognize their new life together.

Good Budi also attended. He embraced Ajo Kawir, wished the couple well, and asked to be forgiven for something he had done earlier. Ajo Kawir accepted the apology, returned the embrace, and patted him on the shoulder. Their exchange brings an earlier conflict into the wedding without letting it define the day: the celebration makes room for forgiveness and mutual understanding as well as happiness.

A Marriage That Does Not Depend on Recovery

The narration presents the couple as belonging to one another and as the happiest people there, beyond the reach of anyone who might try to spoil their wedding. That emphatic account of their union contrasts with the continuing silence of Ajo Kawir’s “Bird.” It has not awakened for the ceremony and remains asleep while the other guests celebrate. The wedding therefore does not resolve his impotence or treat recovery as the condition that makes marriage possible.

Instead, the account turns to Ajo Kawir’s fingers as a way of expressing intimacy between the newlyweds. When he asks whether Iteung has washed her hands and she says she has, their wedding night is described as pleasurable finger play. The scene keeps the focus on their mutual closeness without making the sleeping Bird the measure of whether their relationship can be fulfilling.

Ajo Kawir’s own view of his circumstances joins acknowledged limitation to expectation: he knows his penis cannot become hard, yet he has had a beautiful wedding and believes he can have a happy family. At twenty, after what he has suffered, he is described as having become a wise philosopher. The wedding does not erase hardship; it marks the possibility of family life alongside it.

Their Shared Plans and the Unsettled Future

The couple’s immediate future is discussed in practical terms. Ajo Kawir says they will eventually need to leave the family home and find a place of their own. Iteung answers that they need not hurry: her parents are content to have them stay, and the couple do not have much money. Their exchange shows the marriage taking shape through shared decisions rather than through ceremony alone.

Iteung also links their hopes to the prospect of the Tiger appearing. If he does, she says, they will have enough money to buy a house and open a small store. The plan gives the wedding an unresolved edge: the couple imagine domestic independence, but part of that imagined future still depends on a dangerous confrontation and its possible financial reward. Their joy is complete in the moment, even as the means of securing what comes next remain unsettled.

Narrative Significance

The wedding gathers reconciliation, bodily difference, and plans for an ordinary household into one turning point. Good Budi’s apology allows a past injury between men to be met with forgiveness; Ajo Kawir’s still-sleeping Bird shows that marriage has not cured his impotence; and the couple’s discussion of housing and money gives their happiness a concrete future to inhabit. Together, these details make the wedding more than a happy ending: it is a commitment to build a family and intimacy without waiting for Ajo Kawir’s body to change, while the possibility of conflict with the Tiger remains ahead.