Jean Marais! Wasn’t he a student one class below me when I was at the Sorbonne? Perhaps it was just someone else with the same name. Minke probably just chose a name at random.
European influence is an interesting topic. I will make a special study of this one day. Not as an official, not simply as an office assignment. His Excellency the governor-general had sent the letter to the Indies Council asking them about the costs and benefits of giving Natives a European education. The council had not yet given an answer but voices for and against were already making themselves heard in every big town. Luckily I wasn’t overwhelmed with this work. And all that was left of these voices were meaningless echoes. All that people needed to do was read the writings of the Jepara girl, Minke, Wardi, Tjipto, and as a side effect of European education, the writings of Marco. Perhaps, indeed, it should be Marco’s writings that decide the matter for them.
Modern Pitung did not publish this article by Mas Marco Kartodikromo. I could see that there might have been two reasons. First, the situation was not ready for something like this. Second, Minke was known to be very averse to receiving praise and flattery and it was unlikely that he would want to broadcast new flatteries and praise.
But in reality it was a waste of time joining in beating the drum either for or against more such education. All the arguments were irrelevant to the essence of the problem. The reality was that the more European companies set up in the Indies, the more need there would be for educated Natives. I found it more worthwhile to follow the activities of one of the products of this European influence—Mas Marco Kartodikromo.
This European influence, which he did not receive directly from school and family, and which he received suddenly when he was already an adult, made him a rather strange kind of hybrid. I don’t mean to say that this influence did not work good changes within him. It was just that it affected rather different aspects of his personality, while others weren’t touched very much or were even completely untouched. His development was unstable and uncertain.
Just recently his photo had appeared for the first time in a magazine published in Solo and Semarang. He was wearing an open coat and a tie! This was something none of his teachers or friends had ever done! It was quite possible that these European clothes, from tie to shoes, were hired or borrowed from somebody. It was quite likely. But the strange thing was that he was already striking a European pose. He stood straight and stiff with his eyes blazing, so he looked quite frightening. The free and easy American style of posing for pictures was not generally known in Europe, let alone in the Indies.
Marco was making a statement through his choice of clothes—he was a European Native. Nobody could tell him from an Indo. If he took off his shirt and trousers, no doubt we would find many signs of his having suffered yaws. But that wasn’t important either. Yet it was precisely because of the strange hybrid character of this European influence and the fact that he had developed extreme characteristics of both the Natives and Europeans that he was potentially very dangerous to the government. Eastern brutality and viciousness could fuse with Western rational thinking, and suddenly we could have a frightening new devil.
This prediction was not far from what happened. He himself was already beginning to announce that he was heading in that direction. He discovered and began to trumpet the slogan Sama rata sama rasa! Equality for all! which began to spread throughout the Indies, even to the jungles of Borneo. With this slogan he had succeeded in arousing a new attitude among the mass of the people. They began to challenge all rich people and State officials, no matter what the color of their skin. He had planted the seeds of anarchy. He took the masses back to the ancient idea of village democracy that was part of the village republic.
And that slogan took him to new heights of fame, unrivaled since the time his teacher was forced to depart Java.
Now he began to spread on the wind two new code words—MTWT I and MTWT II. The first meant: MoTro WuTo, the blind comrades. The second meant MuTo WaTiri. Both these messages were meant for the young generation of the Sarekat. They were a message to purge themselves of those among them who were blind (to their own friends) and were a cause for worry (as regards the safety of their own friends).
This had quite a significant effect. All those members who were close to the government were pushed aside. They were isolated and their rights as members were taken away. Now Marco’s influence spread throughout the area as if he were already armed with a real strike-force.
He was actively getting in touch with the silat and other fighters around Solo and Jogja.
And the Sarekat leadership itself, both in Solo and Surabaya, did nothing about this at all. In fact, they didn’t bother about it.
Then his activity moved northward—Salatiga, Magelang, Ungaran, and Semarang. In Semarang he succeeded in convincing the Sarekat leadership to form a platoon of fighters. And Mas Tjokro went on happily as ever ignorant of the cancer in his organization.
I had prepared a report for my boss recommending how Mas Tjokro might be woken from his imperial slumber. And so telegrams started to fly to and from and between Semarang, Solo, Jogja, and Surabaya. Mas Tjokro held fast to his belief in his own authority and in the Sarekat’s dependence on himself. He seemed to be intoxicated by his new car. He was perhaps the only Native who was not a raja, not a sultan and not a prince who owned a car. As a Borsumij clerk he would never have been able to own a car, no matter if he waited until he was bent with age.
Marco too carried on calmly as if there were no such person called Mas Tjokro in the Sarekat. He continued to build up his own base in Semarang, Solo, and Jogja. If no action was taken to stop him, then it was possible he would soon be able to wield real power in other towns as well. Would this be the way the Natives struggled for leadership? Very interesting.
But hold on, Marco! Don’t grow too fast. I need time to follow what you are doing.
I understand you now. You should stop your activities, inflaming yourself and your supporters. You should be setting aside the next four years or so for study so that you can overcome your weaknesses. You might be a brilliant success then! But be careful, because for the moment you are under my close observation. You too are in the house of glass on my desk.
Or was it I who was going backward? Here I was forced to study closely the every action of a village boy. Or was it Marco who was the extraordinary one, a village boy who had captured the attention of an official of the Algemeene Secretariat?
* * *
The answer from the Civil Registry Office in Surabaya was exactly as I predicted. No Monsieur Jean Marais, as mentioned in Minke’s This Earth of Mankind manuscripts, had ever been registered. There were forty-two Frenchmen who had lived in Surabaya between 1898 and 1918. It was clear that Jean Marais was not his real name. This was obviously also the case with the family name de la Croix, which he used for the former assistant resident of Bojonegoro.
It was true, however, that there was a Frenchman who had been a veteran of the Aceh War who lived in Surabaya from 1896. He had been a corporal and his name was Antoine Barbuse Jambitte. He lived in Jalan Kranggan, opened a furniture workshop, and lived with his daughter, Madeleine Jambitte. In 1905 he married a former concubine. But the registry had no information on the concubine.
But I was able to get some additional information from the Kapanjen church in Surabaya. It was true that Antoine Barbuse Jambitte had married a Native woman there called Sanikem. But he had used the name Jean Le Boucq, so it was probable he had registered in the army as Antoine Barbuse Jambitte. Many people hiding themselves away did this.
They left Surabaya after they married. The Registry Office listed them as leaving Surabaya for France in 1907, taking with them two children, Madeleine Jambitte and Rono Mellema.
I shook my head in amazement.
I sent a telegram asking how old Meneer Jambitte and Nyai Ontosoroh were in 1905. They answered that Meneer Jambitte was thirty-seven years old at the time of his marriage. They had no infor
mation about his wife.
So Jean Marais alias Antoine Barbuse Jambitte alias Le Boucq was not the university student in the class below me. I had only been guessing anyway. Sanikem was thirty-seven years old at the time of her marriage came a reply from the Kapanjen church. So they had really existed and had been in Surabaya.
Had there ever been people living in Surabaya by the names of Robert Mellema, Annelies Mellema, and Engineer Maurits Mellema? I asked again.
The answer returned even more quickly. Robert and Annelies Mellema were the acknowledged children of Meneer Herman Mellema, the owner of a farming business in Wonokromo. We have no information on Engineer Maurits Mellema, they said. There was a Robert Mellema who was listed in 1899 as missing. Annelies Mellema had left Surabaya for the Netherlands, and had not returned to the Indies to this day. The documents gave the number of the birth certificate and the acknowledgment of paternity from Herman Mellema.
Before she left for the Netherlands, had Annelies Mellema married or been married to a Native?
The registry couldn’t give an answer. And that was to be expected. If they had married according to Islam, they would not have reported the marriage to the Registry Office.
The letter I had sent off to the Surabaya HBS got a less than satisfactory answer. There had not been a teacher at the school from the end of the last century for over fifteen years. Documents over five years old were destroyed. Perhaps, they said, I could get some more information from the Ministry for Education and Culture.
I went to the ministry hoping they might have some more information about Raden Mas Minke. The answer I received was not very satisfactory there either—we keep only internal correspondence, or very important documents. Everything else is handed over to the State archives.
In one of Minke’s manuscripts, he said he lived in Tuban and went to an ELS. According to a list of all the ELS schools in the Indies, there was none in Tuban, only in the neighboring towns of Jepara, Rembang, and Bojonegoro.
It seemed that in all three of his writings—This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, and Footsteps—Minke, as the narrator, did not try to portray himself but rather wrote as an intellectual witness to the events of his time. There was nothing revealing about his younger life among the papers in the State archives, except the information that he was a son of the Bupati of Bojonegoro. I didn’t really need anything about his life after he left STOVIA.
His father was later moved to Blora. This year he had founded a school for girls, Darmo Rini, meaning “women’s duty.” Perhaps this was done in memory of his son, who was now in exile. Perhaps it was established as a mark of respect for his brave and courageous daughter-in-law, about whom there was no longer any news.
Very well. It was clear to me now just who this Raden Mas Minke was and from whence he came. He came into the world in the midst of many different situations as the Modern Pitung, the defender of the weak and powerless. He acted as a witness to the times. He was far more concerned with the world around him than with his own situation. It looked as if it was true that he had obtained the nickname Minke while he was at HBS and had used it all the while as a journalist and writer and in all his activities in society. That was not the name that his father gave him. The initials of his real name, as far as I knew, were Raden Mas T— A— S—.
In 1915 I was on my way to Surabaya. When the train arrived at Bojonegoro, it was my intention to get out and stay for two or three days so that I could speak to the family of this Modern Pitung. But intention remained just that, an intention. The stationmaster in his new red cap came running along the platform: “Who is the one named Meneer Pangemanann?”
He was a Pure-Blood European, and did not seem to be pleased to have this extra duty.
I descended from the first-class carriage and found him at the ticket gate.
“Are you Meneer Pangemanann?” he asked, and I could tell from his pronunciation that he was not Dutch, perhaps German.
He gave me a telegram that had been sent over the railway wires.
“I will wait for your reply,” he spoke again.
It was instructions in code from my boss. I was to interview Mas Tjokro to find out what he knew about Mas Marco and the activities of the Semarang-Solo-Jogja axis. I was also to investigate the emergence of a surprising new figure—Siti Soendari, a young woman. I was to find out whether this person was really a woman or somebody using a pseudonym.
The stationmaster took me into his office. He was very polite but it was obvious he did not enjoy looking after a Native like this. He patiently waited for me to write my reply in code. He took my note and copied it out letter by letter to make sure he had understood it all properly.
“It will be sent to Buitenzorg within the next half hour, Meneer.”
“Thank you for all your help, Meneer,” I answered.
Knowing that I was an official of the Algemeene Secretariat, he, of course, had to tell me his name: “If you need anything else, Meneer, my name is Melvin Manders.”
Out of politeness I took out my notebook and wrote down his name. Then I returned to my carriage. My new assignment meant that I would not have time to stay over in Bojonegoro.
He escorted me back to the carriage, excused himself with a polite salute, wished me a safe journey, and alighted. Not long after, he blew his whistle and raised up his signal stick. The train moved off and he waved to me as my window passed him by.
His quite pleasing politeness could not, however, lessen my distress at the thought of having to follow after someone called Siti Soendari. How low would I have fallen if it did turn out that it was a woman, and a young maiden at that? What was going to become of me in the end? The next thing I’ll be chasing after some street corner soup seller because he could write well in the newspapers and magazines! And there were so many newspapers and magazines now and more and more all the time. The government had never issued any controls or bans on them. Everybody had the right to announce how they felt and what they thought. I was lucky, I thought, that not every student could afford to buy stamps. Otherwise, the newspapers and magazines would be full of the writings of these students as well. I would go crazy if I had to follow all that.
An official of the office of the governor of East Java met me in Surabaya with a car. The governor did not want me to stay in a hotel but at the governor’s residence. I would use this opportunity as best I could. He was not at home when I arrived. His wife welcomed me very warmly, so warmly I became suspicious. After I had bathed, she invited me to sit outside in the garden.
Her first question: “Is it true that you were educated in France, Meneer Pangemanann?”
“It is true, Mevrouw.”
“Unfortunately I have forgotten how to speak in that language. And you studied at the Sorbonne?”
“Yes, Mevrouw.”
“You were very lucky, Meneer, very lucky.”
The governor’s wife was about thirty-two years old. She was a bit too fleshy around the body, a sign that she was not really looking after herself, no sport or exercise. In a few more years this excessive flesh would become a burden for her. She would have no waist and every movement would be accompanied by panting breath. Meneer the governor of East Java would not be happy with a wife like that.
“I have heard that your wife is also French,” she continued. Seeing me indicate a yes, she went on. “No doubt slim, handsome, and attractive,” she said in an envious voice. “How many children have you had with this French wife of yours, Meneer?”
“Four, Mevrouw.”
“A Frenchwoman! With four children?”
I wished Meneer Governor would arrive soon so that I could escape these idiotic questions.
“And what do you eat at home, Meneer, European food or Native?”
“European, Mevrouw. Sometimes Native.”
“Your wife can cook Native food?”
“There are a few dishes that she likes, Mevrouw.”
“Does your wife like champagne?”
?
??My wife is a teetotaler, Mevrouw.”
“A teetotaler! From France!”
The evening wore on. When I heard a car, I knew the governor had arrived.
“Aha, here is my husband,” said the governor’s wife. “Would you be willing to help me a little, Meneer?”
“Of course, Mevrouw.”
“I hope you will avoid discussing anything that might make him lose his temper.”
“Does Meneer Governor lose his temper?” I asked, surprised. As someone who has to deal with many different people, it was not appropriate that he have that kind of weakness, I thought.
“No, no, he doesn’t lose his temper very often. But he doesn’t like to get extra work once he is at home.”
And so I understood that they did not have a happy marriage.
As soon as he arrived, the governor sought me out and welcomed me as warmly as if I were not a Native. He sat next to me and told me of the many interesting things that had happened that day. He took me inside to his office, which was bathed in electric light.
We sat down on a European-made divan. Meneer Governor signaled his secretary, who stood up, excused himself, and left the office.
My dealings with the governor went much more smoothly than I had imagined. He was a very amicable man with not the slightest trace of racist arrogance. I was able to get a very complete picture of the structure and the essence of the life of all the Native organizations in East Java. His opinion of Mas Tjokro did not differ much from mine. “You can talk to him. He gets a bit puffed up sometimes. And he knows how to be cautious. He has never shown a hostile or cynical attitude toward us European officials. On the contrary, when he speaks to us he often likes to speculate about the meaning of different verses from the Quran. Perhaps he thinks that there are no Europeans who know anything about Islam,” said the governor. “It’s true, he has a lot of pretensions, but I think that is just a result of his great success as emperor of the Sarekat, emperor without a crown. He is not able to cope with his success. I suppose I mean that his own development has not kept up with the extent of his success.”