House of Glass

  And I was still not assigned any assistants, nor did I ever get a more expert boss.

  My new boss, the replacement for the Frenchman, was already distancing himself from me. He began to behave very formally toward me and was soon treating me as if I was just chief message boy. Very well, that is exactly the kind of behavior to expect of colonial officials. They became very pretentious under the protection of their position and power, believing that this would prevent their stupidity and incompetence from being exposed. They put on a fearsome and superior face. But Pangemanann with two ns knows all about this, gentlemen. And perhaps you gentlemen on the other hand do not realize that Pangemanann will be replying in kind, only pretending to do great work, pretending to work diligently.

  One of the attendants, Herschenbrock, was just putting another pile of letters and telegrams on my desk, when my new boss, along with my old boss, the Frenchman, came in. My boss got rid of Herschenbrock as if he were kicking out a cat. He was suspicious of his lesser subordinates. And there were no doubt good grounds for these suspicions. Herschenbrock’s eyes wildly surveyed the scene, grasping for any information that could be sold outside.

  But Herschenbrock was back again a few minutes later. The adjutant-general had summoned my boss. I was left alone with my former superior.

  We sat opposite each other, divided only by my desk. And that was the first time that I saw clearly how my guest’s eyes drifted about everywhere, full of anxiety and nervousness, as if he could no longer maintain his gaze on any object or spot. His nervous problem is getting worse, I thought to myself. I studied him again. Yes, it’s the same nervous problem he was suffering before.

  “Are you happy working outside Java?” I asked, being polite.

  “Who can ever be happy in this trouble-ridden world?”

  “So how do you plan to get away from it all then, Meneer?”

  He shook his head in confusion, took something out of his coat pocket, then put it back. Then he fumbled around in his trousers pocket.

  “What can I do for you, Meneer?”

  “Who else is on the list to be exiled?” he asked suddenly.

  There was a tightness in my chest as I was assailed by so many different feelings. Yes, that’s right, the exile of the Indische Partij triumvirate was indeed the idea of this mentally unbalanced man. I copied out and improved his submission with my own hand, crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s, and then I signed my name to it. I don’t know what other letters from my boss or others accompanied that submission to the adjutant and then on to His Excellency. Then came the implementation of the recommendations with me in charge of supervising everything.

  The knowledge that the triumvirate’s exile was the idea of a mentally unbalanced person disturbed me greatly. And how many other cases, how many other ideas from unbalanced people have become part of colonial policy and its implementation?

  I began to doubt myself too. Have I lost my reason as well, or lost most of it anyway? My former boss had forced me to look at myself in the mirror. And I knew that I needed to use all my determination to keep a constant eye on how my mind worked and how I behaved.

  Herschenbrock entered again and informed the Frenchman that he was wanted elsewhere. I said good bye to my old boss but told Herschenbrock to stay.

  “You are an Indo?” I asked.

  “Yes, Meneer, my father was an Indo.”

  “Are you a member of Insulinde?”

  He immediately became vigilant.

  “As it happens, no, I am not,” he answered hesitantly. “Is this an official interrogation?”

  “Do you have any objections?”

  “No, not at all,” he answered nervously.

  “Is your father a member of Insulinde or Indische Partij?”

  “No. Neither.”

  “A member of the Sarekat perhaps?”

  He laughed contemptuously.

  “Why do you laugh?”

  “We are Protestants, Meneer.”

  “You’re no doubt an honest man.”

  He grinned.

  I pulled across a pile of papers before him. I asked: “When you see a pile of papers like this, how much are you able to remember? What do you think?”

  He looked the other way. His face went suddenly pale. But he didn’t answer. There was something on his mind.

  “Whiskey!” I called out loudly, turning around to check the look in his eyes. And there was a moment when I saw a bit of a glint.

  “You want me to get you a drink?” he pretended.

  “You are the one with whiskey on his mind. What kind of whiskey do you like?”

  He became cautious again.

  “You haven’t answered any of my last three questions.”

  He shook his head. “I am confused, Meneer.”

  “What are you confused about? Whiskey?” He wasn’t going to answer. “Matches!” I ordered.

  He rose from his chair and went over to the corner. He fetched a tin can, brought it across to me, picked up all the papers on the floor, and put them in the tin. They were set aflame with the matches. He carried the tin across to the window, fanning away the smoke. A few moments later the papers were ashes and the smoke was being blown out the window.

  This work took less than half a minute. But I had been able to prove to myself during those seconds that I still had my reason. I had been able to see into Herschenbrock’s character with just a few questions. Yes, he did like to browse through any papers that he found, and perhaps he did indeed sell information outside for money to buy himself a good time.

  He came back across to me, opened the bin to show me that all the papers had indeed been destroyed by the fire, turned into ash, with nothing left.

  “You can go now!” I said.

  He put the bin down under the small table in the corner, nodded at me, and headed for the door. Just as he was about to turn the handle, I called him back. He came back across but I didn’t invite him to sit down. I needed this game of cat and mouse to consolidate my self-confidence.

  “Meneer Herschenbrock, do you prefer to drink by yourself, with a group of friends, or together with a single good friend?”

  “Let me invite you, Meneer, to come and drink with me,” he challenged me, refusing to be the mouse to my cat. His eyes gleamed.

  He left under my continuing gaze. I studied the way he walked, the way his waist and hips moved, his neck and his elbows. It was true, I thought, I still have my reason. I was able to make him realize his dignity and mine as well. No, I would escape the terrible fate of my former boss.

  And you, Siti Soendari, do you know that Pangemanann, the man drawing up all the government’s plans for you, is as sane as sane can be?

  9

  The political exiles from the Netherlands, Sneevliet and Baars, were becoming more and more active in East Java, especially in Surabaya. They were making speeches everywhere, as if their throats would never grow dry. Having run from internal divisions in the Netherlands and now arrived in the Indies, they seemed to think they were the acme, the best there was, without rival or opposition, as if the Indies were the same as back home in the Netherlands where political activities were protected by democratic laws. It was lucky for them that they mixed only with Dutch-speaking groups, usually of low status and living very discontented lives.

  Because they were Europeans, it was not my task to deal with them. Even so, their contempt for colonial authority also offended my own sensitivities. If they were Natives, they would be in my hands and I would have prepared a hangman’s rope as the most appropriate tie for them to wear. Their speeches turned the best European values on their heads, and they did that here in the Indies where people were not even acquainted yet with those great European values. They were from among that accursed group of people called nihilists. They were very capable and logical speakers and thinkers and they were able to argue people into a corner where they were helpless to argue back. It was clear they were from a school of philosophy with which I was not yet fam
iliar. Or more accurately, a school of philosophy that I had heard of but had since forgotten.

  It was not only their daring and their brazen and outrageous activities that amazed me but also that so many people were willing to listen to them. And the numbers kept growing all the time. Without even bothering about legal status, they set up an organization. Perhaps they were deliberately showing their contempt for Indies law. They made Surabaya famous by setting up their headquarters there. The Indies had no law that withdrew the right to organize or to freedom of assembly. These men knew this very well. Also, as Europeans they did not have to worry about being brought before the Native Court. They had the right to defend themselves and be defended before the White Court. And I had no doubt at all that they would not hesitate to hire a defense lawyer from Europe if necessary. That prospect alone had the legal authorities here shaking in their boots. They had never had to deal with a European-style political trial. Sneevliet and Baars were exploiting this situation to the maximum, full speed ahead.

  Even though they were Europeans and did not fall within my bailiwick, it was inevitable that in the end they became involved in my business as well. They had chosen Surabaya as their base because that was where the Sarekat Islam had its headquarters. They wanted to influence, directly or indirectly, the Sarekat. And it was my job to ensure that Mas Tjokro, the “emperor” with the childish politics, was immune to their influence.

  I had to make sure he would lean more toward his own religion than to the radicalism of these secular Europeans.

  After being harassed in various ways by my boss, I finally prepared a detailed plan as to how to immunize his majesty the emperor. And in fact it went beyond just normal harassment. My boss even started shouting and threatening me, as if I had some plan to deceive and trap him.

  “How do you know they are trying to influence the Sarekat? Where is your proof?”

  These pronouncements of his which questioned my abilities in these matters offended my dignity. He should have been able to be a little more diplomatic.

  “Actually,” I said, emphasizing my words so as to return the pressure, “you are the one, and not I, who should be doing the analysis and putting forward the evidence. They are Europeans, not Natives.”

  “But you are the one submitting this plan.”

  “I should withdraw it, then?”

  “Such a project must have some kind of starting point. That’s what I am asking about.”

  “So Meneer hasn’t had time to read it? Well, if you had said that to begin with I wouldn’t have been so startled.”

  “Get to the point, Meneer Pangemanann.”

  “Everything is explained in the proposal.”

  “What is your objection to answering my questions?”

  “I have answered that question in my proposal. I am not going to repeat it.”

  He glared at me, full of frustration. And I stood firm. Just this once I would smash his colonial head and brain, which only seemed to get bigger every day, almost as big as a coconut. He said he was sorry and left my office. That wasn’t very colonial behavior on your part, I said to myself. But I didn’t care; in fact I felt quite good that I had done it.

  If he had done just a little of the work he was supposed to do, he would have known that these European scallywags had never pointed an accusing or critical finger at the Sarekat and its emperor. They had never done anything to cause it any trouble. Yet it was impossible that these European rascals were not aware of its existence. It was the biggest organization in the Indies, perhaps in the world. They should have been attacking it. But no, they didn’t. Rather, they pretended not to know it existed.

  My proposal was concerned only about how to keep them away from the Sarekat, far enough apart so that the Sarekat would avoid their influence. I found out later that my suggestions were implemented a few days later without my knowledge. But then came a memorandum from my boss. He was not satisfied with just keeping them apart. He wanted to see them drawn so far apart that they would start fighting each other.

  It is such an easy task to find a way to get two groups to fight each other when their ideas and way of looking at things are already different. But there were likely to be troublesome consequences. Any hostility on the part of the Sarekat to Sneevliet and Baars would have a strong anti-European character to it. This would flow on to strengthen anti-Dutch feeling as a whole. In addition, the Marco wing, which so far had been denied an arena in which it could show its strength, would use this opportunity. If he broke away from Mas Tjokro’s leadership, he and his followers could become a dangerous force. Such a rapid development in that direction was not what we desired.

  I replied to my boss’s minute on the same day as it fell on my desk. He was soon in my room, spraying his anger and frustration all over the room: “Are you refusing to carry out orders?”

  Because I knew that his initiative could not be implemented without a supporting submission and signature from me, I had a way of confronting him.

  “If you arrange first for my title as ‘Official Expert’ to be rescinded by the government, then I will carry out these orders immediately, Meneer. Meanwhile, I have the right to reject them.”

  His face was scarlet red with anger. Yes, yes, that’s right, Meneer, I am mucking you around. Let’s see which of us can hold out the longest.

  But he didn’t press me further and left grumbling. Then another memorandum arrived, this time raising suspicions that I was a sympathizer of one or another of the two organizations concerned.

  He obviously didn’t know who this Pangemanann was. Once Pangemanann was appointed an official of the Algemeene Secretariat, it would not be easy for anybody to budge him even the tiniest bit away from his duties. I stored his memorandum safely away and did not reply to it.

  The time had at last arrived when he would busily set out to find fault with me. I began to go through in my mind everything I had done between 1912 and 1915. There was only one thing that I could be charged with doing incompetently—my analysis of Raden Mas Minke’s manuscripts. I had written that they were valueless. I kept the manuscripts at home and made them my personal possessions. The shoddy papers I wrote about them might provide him with the opening he needed to accuse me of covering up facts or hiding my views.

  Well, what could I do, anyway? I decided I would continue to preserve the manuscripts as my private property. They were not for public view. If anybody ever asked, I would say I burned them in my wastepaper bin. Even so, from now on I must be prepared for anything.

  Malay translations of Sneevliet’s speeches began to appear in the papers in Solo, Semarang, Madiun, and Surabaya. Baars’s speeches began to appear also. He was fluent in both Malay and Javanese. But the West Java and Betawi papers continued business as usual. These two men’s influence could now be easily discerned in Native drama. Their influence spread in a way somehow similar to the way the use of the wheel might have spread. Once people became acquainted and familiar with their ideas, they began to become a necessary part of their lives.

  In Solo their influence on Native drama performances was very obvious. The play that was being performed at the time was Surapati. And who was it who played the leading role of Surapati? Yes, from the same old gang—Marco!

  I prepared a map showing where their influence was growing. Within a week, it became clear that their influence was spreading like an ember crackling and sparkling its way from port town to port town throughout Central and East Java, finally scattering more embers into the hinterland, the regions of the sugar mills—into every place where there were sugar mills.

  These developments caused the Indies Council, so people were saying, to ask the governor-general to formalize the status and role of those police who had developed an expertise in monitoring and dealing with Native politics. They asked that wherever the local police had formed a section to deal with these matters, it now be given official status. They also asked that a coordinating body be established that could help in the consolidatio
n and formation of such sections. The justification for this request was the increasing level of Native political activity, which was growing during a period of weak relations between the Indies and the home government in Europe. Even if there were some plans to send military assistance from back home, it was impossible that it would ever actually be implemented because of the war. So the council also recommended that the Indies armed forces be expanded so as to be able to cope with any unforeseen developments.

  The recommendations about the military had no important implications for me. In fact, it wasn’t really any of my business. But the proposal for a special branch in the police force clearly threatened my position in the Algemeene Secretariat. If such a special branch was established, then it could well be that my service here might come to an end. I would be kicked off one of the top rungs of the colonial ladder, where mighty power was located, falling from a great height.

  I could expect my boss to come to see me about this development anytime now. Or he would send me a memo with the Indies Council proposal attached. Or he would turn up ready to blast me again, knowing that these proposals severely weakened my position. He certainly had an interest in getting rid of me. My recent defiance was obviously undermining his standing here. He would, of course, get rid of me in his capacity as a loyal and dedicated colonial official. Huh!

  Very well. I was ready to face him and I would not be yielding. And this was not just because I had come to love this work—there was no work in the world as interesting as this. There was another reason too. I dreamed that despite having lost so much to this job, I would one day be able to write for the public about all these colonial issues. And not just memoirs like these I am writing now and something different too from Francis, Tan Boen Kim, and Pangemanan (one n), all of whom only wrote crime stories. Yes, it is only proper that Pangemanann too be read by the world!

  But during the first week after the proposals surfaced, there was no visit from my boss at all. And there was no memo either. But among the Indies elite there was a great discussion of the idea of a special branch within the police. It was possible that my boss was busy lobbying for the successful formation of such a special branch. And Pangemanann was the only person available to be stabbed in the back by my boss. But if that’s what you are up to, then you’d better be careful. You don’t know what it’s like to confront me directly.