House of Glass

  Finally, on the tenth day, he came to see me. He wore new clothes of white drill with a bow tie. His face glowed with victory. It looked as if his conspiracy with the colonial press might be about to succeed. He was fully confident that I was about to be kicked out. He held out his hand to me.

  “Meneer Pangemanann, let’s forget our past quarrels,” he said.

  “I have no quarrel with you, Meneer,” I answered.

  “That’s even better,” he went on.

  A moment later Herschenbrock came in carrying a pile of newspapers. Some parts had been underlined in red. I was being asked to study those. And my boss also placed on my desk a memo, along with a copy of the Indies Council request to the governor-general.

  So it was about to begin, I thought.

  “This task will have a big role in determining the future of the Indies, Meneer. I am sure you will be more careful and thoughtful this time. Many of our newspaper editors support the Indies Council proposal, even though they haven’t made their views public yet. Good luck.”

  I did not care what people said, whether privately or in print: I would not be dislodged from my position here as an expert. I prepared quite a long submission, arguing that it was not at all necessary to form such a special branch. There was not all that much work involved in monitoring Native politics and there were no grounds for a special force to carry it out. The establishment of such a special force would mean a considerable expansion of the police budget at a time when the State’s finances were in a parlous state and were likely to get worse as long as the war in Europe continued. The Indies was totally dependent on Europe for trade.

  Also, I wrote, the increase in political activity in the Indies was a direct result of the government’s own Ethical Policy and therefore there was no case for the government to arbitrarily decide to eliminate this activity. It would be more appropriate for the government to hold out its hand so as to offer guidance, rather than attempt to destroy this activity.

  With the correct guidance, all these new Native organizations need not cause any trouble for the government. In fact, they could become a help to the government, as was clearly the case with Boedi Oetomo, Tirtajasa, and the Association of Government Priyayi. The only action that could be justified was that aimed against extremist individuals. And these extremists, that is, those who are politically conscious, could be counted on one’s fingers.

  I knew my boss’s eyes would pop out when he saw this. But there was nothing he could do about it.

  That evening, just as I was about to go home, I was fetched by one of His Excellency’s adjutants. And this was the first time I had been brought before the governor-general himself.

  I was taken to the library. My boss was there alongside the director of the Algemeene Secretariat.

  His Excellency entered wearing his civilian clothes. We all stood to honor him. His fingers were ornamented with diamond rings. An adjutant followed along behind as well as a secretary.

  “Let us begin, gentlemen,” His Excellency took charge.

  And so my trial began.

  Both the director and my boss tried to box me into a corner. His Excellency just listened while all the time studying me. I myself remained fully confident in my abilities as an analyst of Native affairs and politics. And indeed that was the reason I had been appointed, on oath, as the Algemeene Secretariat’s sworn expert.

  The two of them, with obvious intent, kept referring to my Menadonese origins. And so, yes, it’s true, my ancestors were not European.

  Just when the tension was at its worst, His Excellency asked: “What education do you have, Meneer?”

  Just one question, and the whole atmosphere changed.

  “The Police Academy, Your Excellency.”

  He nodded.

  “What high school?”

  “I went to high school in Lyons, Your Excellency. And also spent two years at the Sorbonne.”

  “Your last position was as a police commissioner, yes?”

  “Quite correct, Your Excellency.”

  “And how is that you have rejected such an important suggestion from the Council of the Indies?”

  I repeated all the arguments from my earlier papers. Then I added: “Such are my views as a sworn expert, Your Excellency. If Your Excellency has other things to consider, then, of course, my views as an expert can be put aside.”

  “You are not likely to change your opinions?”

  “No, Your Excellency. None of us knows when the world war might end. Perhaps it will even get worse. The Dutch businesses do not want to risk making big shipments to Europe. The insurance costs are too high, and meanwhile the decline in the worth of government employees’ wages is undermining their loyalty. And there are signs that the government is planning to reduce the number of its employees. The plantations have already begun.”

  My director was immediately ordered to check with the Algemeene Landbouw Syndicate and the Sugar Syndicate to see whether the plantations were laying off workers. As soon as he put down the telephone, he reported that 6 to 7 percent of laborers had been let go, and about 0.1 percent of administrative staff.

  The director was ordered to collect statistics on the number of criminal and political cases the police had dealt with this year in comparison with last year. Meanwhile: “Meneer Pangemanann, you are aware, are you not, that there is going to be an increase in disturbances to public order and security over the coming period? Have you taken this also into account?” asked His Excellency.

  “Indeed I have, Your Excellency.”

  The director reported that there had been a very obvious increase during the first half of the year.

  “Ah, now, Meneer Pangemanann, what do you have to say to that?”

  “This increase has occurred because the Indies is experiencing social phenomena that are completely new for us. And every time such a thing happens, criminals always try to take advantage of it. So if the figures are going up, it is not because of the larger number of organizations but because of the increased opportunities for criminals. The thing then is not to increase the power of the police or give them an even wider range of matters to look after. Their ability to control these developments will improve with experience. Perhaps the best response to these new developments would be a police school.”

  I couldn’t tell what His Excellency was thinking. I guess he was mainly interested in seeing how firmly my views were held and not so much in what they actually were. And the audience was over. In the end, they depended on my signature. The special branch must not be established. I must retain my position, and I would be in a stronger position as well.

  There were no signs that the fighting in Europe was lessening, rather the contrary. More and more European countries were becoming involved and their soldiers descending into battle. All the European countries with colonies were betting the future of their colonies on the outcome of this war. The British increased the size of their fighting forces many times over, especially their navy. On the other hand, the Netherlands, which had no chance of being able to defend itself against attack, strained with all its energy to remain neutral.

  It didn’t seem there was much likelihood that the Indies would be a second Philippines. The transfer of a colony from one colonial master to another was no longer possible without the assistance of a native educated elite which had some mass support or at least influence. And the educated Natives of the Indies, those with mass support or influence or both, had not developed any interest in other colonial powers. What interest they did have in the outside world was limited to the Netherlands. Unlike their counterparts in the Philippines, the educated Natives of the Indies were still preoccupied with matters of sex. There was plenty of evidence that they were busy working out ways to win European women, or their Eurasian descendants. For most of them, organizations were a new toy. It was a new realm for them, where they could follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, who for centuries spent their time clawing at each other, killing each other, and s
landering each other in order to obtain a woman.

  So I was as convinced as I could be that there was now no chance of the Indies changing hands. Both the Royal Netherlands government and the Netherlands Indies government went out of their way to make sure that no other power was given any pretext to intervene to replace the Dutch. And for Europeans it was always a necessity to be able to use a pretext. To act otherwise was immoral.

  A little while ago the question of the Indies becoming a second Philippines had been a major concern for me. Now the idea seemed a load of rubbish. The Indies would survive the war as a Dutch colony.

  I had a second audience with His Excellency. I remained firm in my opinion. And I was victorious. The proposal for a special branch was dropped. The proposal to strengthen the army was also dropped. Meneer Director and my boss would now understand that my appointment as a sworn expert still meant something. All this gave me time and freedom once again to return to my surveillance of the two stars in the house of glass on my desk—Marco and Soendari.

  Together they were the very incarnation of the Native organization epidemic. Marco was in a whirl, just like a propeller, and the busier he became, the less substance there was to what he was doing and the cruder his methods became. Perhaps this was a result of the poverty of culture he carried or because he was preoccupied with the challenges from both his friends and enemies. And it was the crudeness of his methods that made him the object of dislike, even hatred, among all the officials and priyayi. And so he often found himself in jail for a few days just because of very trivial incidents. And, Marco, you should know that it has not been me steering you off to jail. You are doing it to yourself because you refuse to learn from experience. And you are getting wilder and wilder too, teaching all sorts of ridiculous things to your friends. Is it true that it’s empty talk to say that you love your country, empty talk to say that you’re leading your people, if you have never been in jail.

  The rise of Marco in Solo amazed me quite a bit. And it was precisely because he was a village school graduate that all the other village school graduates followed him. They too started appearing in public and in and out of jail they went, always ready to become heroes, whenever and wherever. They were more adroit and energetic than their European-educated compatriots, and were more willing to risk making mistakes. Then they joined the other epidemic. They all started using European terms and concepts even though they did not really understand what they meant or when and where they should be used.

  The educated Natives enjoyed humiliating and making fun of their ignorance. The educated Europeans and Indos just sneered. Neither of these two groups realized that all this was in fact a real process of Europeanizing people’s way of thinking. These new terms and concepts were something new altogether, products of a civilization that they had never experienced in their villages. And like gold and diamonds these new products of civilization were worn like jewelry around their necks. They wore them to bed, when they ate, when they bathed, and they freely handed them out to whoever was willing to take them and use them. They forget that every new word that people pick up along life’s road fills their mind with many new concepts, bearing them gradually further and further away from their place of origin. And perhaps the day would come when such people would leave behind both the educated Natives and the educated Europeans and Indos.

  As the month passed by, more and more people went to jail. I saw that this was a new fad. People wanted to “attack” the jails. And I saw too that these people consciously went about trying to influence the criminal prisoners. It was possible that some new relationship of mutual influence might develop between the criminal and political worlds—a new danger emerging from today’s prisons. It was true that some local authorities were already separating the political prisoners from the criminals. But this was no guarantee that they were not getting in contact with each other. And when a political player consciously sets out to take over the leadership of criminals, you can be sure that some transgression is bound to take place. And a criminal who consciously absorbs political skills and experience can be even more dangerous. It was the Malay newspapers that did best out of all this. Their reports about the activities that ensued were very popular.

  But this was none of my business, and I did not intend to make it my business either. If I were to set out all the background to this here in these notes, then one day people would be sure to remember what I wrote here, namely, that this society was bound to witness political games being played out by criminals, and criminal ventures carried out by politicians.

  It is true that you shouldn’t find criminal activities going on in the jails. But jails, no matter where they are to be found, are always universities of crime. Or also politics?

  The thing was that the nationalists came to think of jail as some kind of stopping-off station where they could expect to be visiting and leaving on a regular basis. They began to look upon time spent in jail as no longer a humiliation but, on the contrary, a place where national dignity could be restored. And I could fully understand this. And this was a different attitude from that of the corrupt officials who preferred to hang themselves rather than suffer the humiliation of being sentenced to do public community work. These were greedy people who were frightened stiff of losing all they had, and especially their fake honor and dignity.

  The strange thing was that none of the relevant authorities realized what was going to happen. After their release, those criminals influenced politically while in jail would start to be more choosy when selecting their marks. Now they would make sure they hit the government and the European plantations.

  Siti Soendari traveled a different road.

  Unlike Marco, who liked having his photo published in all the magazines, she seemed afraid to be recognized. I had one picture of her, but it was of poor quality and she was too young. I had issued instructions that a photo be obtained from the local photographer where she lived. But it turned out that she did not like having her photo taken.

  In one of the reports I received she was described something like this. She was always dressed neatly, in a kain and kabaya, with black velvet slippers, embroidered with flowers. She wore her kain down to her ankle, nothing higher or lower. She wore her hair in a traditional bun, decorated by an ivory hairpin, as well as a silver keris-shaped pin. Her kain was always from cotton and made in the Netherlands. As was proper for a Javanese woman, she always wore rather expensive gold jewelry. She even wore sapphire earrings.

  She was always well dressed, whether at home or in public. She was always very polite and genteel.

  The report was rather detailed. They were the orders that I had issued. Five agents had been employed to gather the necessary information, including the opinions of the local people of Pacitan who knew her.

  I’m sorry for you, Soendari. You perhaps do not realize that even your bathroom walls have ears and eyes.

  The report continued to tell how the people viewed her as the ideal Javanese woman, a model for others. She was able always to dress properly and was so gentle and refined. She was very adroit in all company, was always ready to help people in difficulty, never shirked either rough or refined work, was very able to cope with anything that she had to do either in public or at home. But all this praise came mainly from the young nationalists. And if what they were saying was true, then it meant that some big changes in social values had taken place. Because it was the young nationalists who had taken the European woman as the ideal woman for the coming period.

  Women among the priyayi held another view—Siti Soendari was a delinquent young woman who didn’t know what was proper, a Dutch woman in Javanese clothes, an old maid who was all in a dither because she couldn’t find a man. They refused to have anything to do with her, afraid that she might steal their husbands. They weren’t even interested in speaking to her. And after all, they didn’t have anything in common to talk about. And they were all of one opinion—that’s what happens when a girl gets too high an education
; the cleverer she gets, the more likely to turn out a sharp-tongued squirrel.

  The santri of Pacitan looked upon her as no better than a prostitute or street woman, showing off her wares while on a constant prowl for victims. She was very pretty and very alluring, they said, but that was unimportant while she did not have the qualities needed to make a good wife.

  When she walked down the street, said the report, both men and women could not but be dazzled by her appearance. Rarely did any of the men goggling at her even dare bother her, as if she were an angel just descended from heaven. Whenever one of them tried, her reaction was always the same. She would walk up to her molester and ask firmly: What is it that Meneer wants from me? Usually this question left him rudderless. And if he continued to bother her, she would speak again, just as politely but in a loud enough voice for people around her to hear.

  There were a number of educated Natives who said that most men were afraid of her. Who would want to take as a wife someone as well educated as that? And, they said, the real motive behind all her extraordinary activities was her desire to catch a high official for a husband. Others rebutted that view. She would never find any high officials among movement people.

  Wearing a hypocritical smile and pretending to be polite, my boss asked jokingly why I needed so much information about her. She’s just a girl, he said.

  What an idiot, I thought. She was the first educated Native woman to appear on the public stage in the Indies, a very important social phenomenon absolutely worthy of study. I pitied my boss. Colonial power had blunted his mind and dulled his vision. His humanity and scientific instincts had been pushed aside by the glory of being a colonial ruler.