Footsteps

  And her other letter: What? We all know that you began this endeavor with the best intentions. You think that is enough? A pure heart and good intentions, and the ability to carry out your intentions, are exactly the qualities sought by bandits. A pure heart, good intentions, and the capability to carry them out, Nyo, Child, are not enough. No, nowhere near enough. There has never been a lack of people willing to use Jesus to oppress, has there? Be careful!

  The majority of our subscribers were those who wanted to know the laws and regulations better so that they would not make mistakes and would be promoted more quickly. Now there was a new challenge from Mama. More letters arrived asking for explanations about new or different laws. Mama challenged me again: It can’t be avoided? There’s nothing else to do but service these requests? Ah, there are many things more important than these laws and regulations.

  Our subscribers’ need for legal explanations kept growing and growing. The Patih of Meester Cornelis couldn’t handle all the work anymore. We had to hire a European lawyer for two hours a week. Sandiman worked himself half to death noting down lawyer Mahler’s answers to all the questions that came in. Luckily he was a friendly and helpful person.

  My husband is interested in the work you are doing, wrote Mir Frischboten. If we were in Betawi he would very much like to help you out of the troubles you’re having in keeping up the flow of advice. He would be so happy to help, con amour, and not just two hours a week but whenever he could.

  And Mahler’s fee came to one third of the business’s profit.

  The equivalent of one third of your profits? wrote Mama. You’re crazy. The government wants its officials to implement its laws properly, to carry out its own regulations as they should, so why should you be paying out one third of your profits? It seems like a joke to me, even though I don’t know all the details. Or is it you that is becoming the joke? This is the government’s business.

  It should pay, not you.

  In the meantime Medan’s circulation spread farther and farther throughout Sumatra and to the big harbor towns of Borneo, the Celebes, and the Moluccas. The subscribers from outside Java brought their own demands. They wanted us to use the kind of Malay they had learned at school. They wanted a language that knew where heaven and earth were, not a bazaar language that floated about without roots, disoriented.

  With much effort the printers were able to meet our demand for a larger print run. The circulation reached over two thousand. The new subscriptions took it over three thousand and the printer was unable to handle the order. And the new subscribers were not coming from among the priyayi. That market seemed to have become saturated. They came from Native traders and businessmen who had picked up Malay in their business dealings.

  Thamrin and Patih refused to switch to school Malay, especially seeing that the new subscribers were traders and not priyayi. And then the village heads began to subscribe and the Eurasian employees on the private plantations. Finally the Europeans were forced to start subscribing.

  Then people began referring civil cases to us. Mahler had to be paid even more because he was now working four hours a week instead of two.

  I have telegraphed our company in Amsterdam, wrote Mama from Surabaya, to ask them to check out this Mr. Frischboten. Perhaps he can replace Mahler. But you need a bigger publication. Have you thought about publishing a newspaper?

  Our own newspaper! Like in a fairy tale. Publishing every day! We were being run off our legs just trying to get a magazine out.

  There’s more and more work to do? A good sign. Hire more people. Or is your aim to make yourself rich from this endeavor? wrote Mama again. Attend to all the cases that involve injustices. You’re the only one that they dare trust. You’re being honored, Nyo. But if you continue your work explaining these laws, you’ll just be working for the government free of charge. It will no longer be a joke. For a person like you, it will be a tragedy. A newspaper! There is more to life than just laws and regulations.

  Most of the requests for help concerned abuses carried out by the railway, the plantations, and government officials, as well as the abducting of wives and girls by officials who abused their authority. Mahler began working six hours a week. And Medan became an angel of mercy for the Natives of the Indies.

  We took on new people, including an old friend, Wardi. Even so, work piled up higher and higher.

  Thamrin kept coming and asking about our program for establishing schools and hostels. We convened a meeting of the council. The decision—the establishment of a special body to carry out these tasks and another to administer financial assistance to qualified students who could not afford to pay for more schooling. These three bodies were to be administered by a Funds for Advancement Foundation, which was registered a week later in the office of the solicitor Mr. Willhelmsen. Thamrin donated from his own pocket an amount equivalent to the cost of two pilgrimages to Mecca as well as five acres of agricultural land.

  A month later those in charge of the foundation were arrested by the police for losing on the gambling tables of Gambir Market the money that had been entrusted to them.

  I kept on with my work. And as time went on I learned from all the letters just how much people needed help to cope with the injustices done to them. There were even such letters from government officials themselves, who held some power in their hands. It was just like it was half a century ago in the time of Multatuli. I began to understand more fully just how persecuted the Native people were, by the government and its officials, by other criminals, and by dishonest traders.

  Mei, how wonderful it would be if you were alive today!

  I think 1907 would have flown by, except for something that happened that I will always remember.

  That afternoon I was sprawled out, exhausted, lazily enjoying a cane rocking chair. There was a small table beside me. Sandiman was just putting on a recording of Verdi’s opera Rigoletto. I’d started the practice of setting aside three hours a week to listen to European music, copying what had been the practice of Mama and her children.

  Perhaps because this had been our practice in Surabaya, Verdi always took me back to old memories, to Mama and her business, to Annelies and to all the happiness that had ended with tragedy.

  It was true that I didn’t yet appreciate European music as fully as I did gamelan. European music stimulated in me many different thoughts. Gamelan music instead enveloped me in beauty, in a harmony of feeling that was without form, in an atmosphere that rocked my emotions to an eternal sleep.

  Just as the phonograph was playing “The Last Rose of Summer” and I had, by coincidence, opened my eyes, I saw a two-horse carriage pull up in front of the house. A young Eurasian girl alighted and then helped out a young boy. Then a Native woman descended who, in her turn, helped down a European. And the European man used a crutch.

  Marais! Jean Marais! He had come from Surabaya to visit! And that Native woman—wasn’t that Mama? I jumped up out of the rocking chair. Mama! Yes, it was. I ran out to welcome them.

  “Mama! Ah, Jean! Who would ever have guessed you were coming? No letter, no news of any kind!”

  A touch on my back made me turn around.

  “Uncle,” the Eurasian girl greeted me. “Have you forgotten me already?”

  “Ai, is this Maysoroh? Oh, it is you, May!” I shouted out. “You’ve grown into such a young lady!” And she kissed me on the cheek as was the custom among Europeans.

  “This is Rono. You’ve probably forgotten. Rono Mellema.”

  I stopped for a moment, trying to remember who Rono Mellema was.

  “Rono!” I cried. “I remember now.” I lifted him way up above my head and took note of his eyes. His eyes were somewhat bluish, like Robert’s.

  “And what about you, Child? It looks as though things are better for you now,” said Mama.

  “No complaints, Mama. No complaints.”

  She spoke so sweetly and gently. I don’t know why I was so moved by this great woman, whom I had been fortuna
te to meet during my life, a goddess always extending her hand and helping with her wisdom in times of trouble.

  Limping along, Jean Marais spoke his words of friendship in French: “You’ve become a great man now.”

  “Ayoh, come on in,” I invited them, while putting down Rono.

  Sandiman ran about back and forth bringing in their things. And I didn’t understand why the two families were both visiting Batavia together. Mama perhaps wanted to get back her loans to me? But Jean Marais? Perhaps he was going home to France?

  “You’ll stay here, of course?” I asked.

  “Where else if not here with you?” replied Mama in Dutch as usual.

  We all went inside. As we entered the living room, everyone stopped, except Rono Mellema who flopped himself down on a chair. They were all nailed to the floor before Flower of the Century’s End. I too stood there silently, joining with them in their feelings.

  “It’s a pity she could not be here with you, Child,” said Mama, her voice filled with sadness. Then she looked away from the picture.

  “Enough, Ma.”

  “You put up her picture even now? Doesn’t it torment your thoughts?”

  Jean Marais came up to me and put his two hands on my shoulders. He spoke in a deep voice: “We are so happy now, and you…why don’t you put the painting away?”

  “I’m happy too, Jean, truly. Come on, these are the rooms. You choose for yourself.”

  Sandiman put their things in their rooms. Mama examined the house and its furnishings, the paintings and other wall decorations, and then went into the kitchen to talk with the housemaid. I didn’t know what they were talking about.

  Back from the kitchen, she asked straightaway: “So you’re still single? How come? You’re in good condition. You need a wife and children, at least two or three. Or perhaps you’re keeping a mistress somewhere?”

  “No, Ma.”

  “Enough. Forget that picture. Get married. It’s not right for people to live alone. They should live together with someone.” Then she went into my room to continue her inspection.

  My heart started pounding. She would see the picture of Ang San Mei! And, yes: “Come here, Child!” she called out from inside my room.

  I hurried in. Mama was standing in front of the picture.

  “Who is this Chinese woman?”

  “My wife, Ma.”

  “I have never seen her. You never told me about her.”

  “She died, Ma.”

  “Child!” she cried out, “you always have such evil luck. You must marry again quickly. Such a pretty child, even though narrow-eyed and skinny.”

  “She left me no children, Ma.”

  “And why didn’t you ever tell me about her? Did she die or did she leave you? Don’t hide anything from me, Child.”

  “What is there to hide, Ma? She died without children.”

  I began to recognize again the voice, the look in her eyes, the loving expression of her face. Seven years had aged her slightly, but her energy and friendliness had not changed.

  “Be frank with me, Child, don’t hide anything from me—she ran off and left you?”

  “No, Ma, truly she didn’t. She died.”

  “She wasn’t faithful to you?”

  “She was more than faithful, Ma.”

  “There is something you’re hiding from me.”

  “What is there that I must hide from you, Ma?”

  “There’s something. You hang the other picture in the sitting room. You hang this in your own room. There is some secret between you and her.”

  I didn’t understand what she meant. And I was at an even greater loss as to how to answer. But Mama’s sharp eyes never missed anything. So I told her everything. She listened attentively to every word while keeping her eyes on Ang San Mei’s picture. Then: “So she was the fiancé of the young Chinese man? What an amazing girl! To leave her own country to die in another people’s. Of her own free will. So what makes you so downcast, Child? You did everything you could for her.”

  “I’m not downcast at all, Ma. And anyway, I have something else now.”

  “So you’ll be marrying soon?”

  “No, Ma, but I’m very happy now with my new work.”

  Like a mother with her child, she rubbed her delicate head up against mine.

  “You mean you want to follow my example, work and do nothing else, without rest? You think I was happy in my work? You were wrong, Child. You didn’t see everything. I had two children. Both are dead now. And now I have a grandchild. No one can say I have not worked hard enough. Even so, Child, for a woman without a husband, without a partner-in-life who is beside her always, life begins to seem more and more empty.”

  Then I understood. Mama was talking about herself, using my case as the opening. She had married Jean Marais.

  “Congratulations, Mama!” I offered my hand to her.

  Her eyes shone with happiness.

  “So you understand, Child. Don’t get the wrong idea.”

  I went out to congratulate Jean Marais. He was sitting in the lounge, scrutinizing the painting, his own work of several years ago.

  “Even now I feel that the painting needs nothing changed or added to,” he said, when he saw me entering.

  “You two didn’t tell me. Congratulations, Jean.”

  Mama came in and sat down too. She righted her husband’s crutch, which was leaning across the arms of one of the chairs.

  Maysoroh came back into the room after having tidied up and also sat down with us.

  “You have such a big mustache now, Uncle,” commented May in French.

  “Yes, May, I’m an old man now.”

  “Old? You’re handsome with that mustache, Uncle. Who said you’re old?”

  “So, should I propose to you then?” I asked.

  She let out a little cry and pinched me on the thigh. She was blushing with embarrassment. Mama was laughing elatedly. Jean just bowed his head shyly.

  “And what would be wrong if you did?” asked Mama.

  May’s father, Jean Marais, looked the other way.

  “I’m going home, Uncle,” said May, continuing in French. “To Paris.”

  “Is that why you won’t speak Javanese, or Dutch or Malay?” pressed Mama.

  “You’re going home to Paris, May?” and I looked back and forth between Mama and Jean.

  “Yes, Child, we have married and now we are going.”

  “So Mama will be honeymooning in France?”

  “No, Child, it’s not for a honeymoon. You see, for so long now I’ve read and I’ve heard about a country where all stand equal before the law. Not like here in the Indies. And the story also tells that this country holds high the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. You know the story. I want to see the country of that story, in reality. Does there really exist such beauty on this earth of mankind?”

  Mama knew, of course, that French imperialism was just as evil as any other. France too had betrayed her own revolution over and over again. But I didn’t want to spoil the atmosphere.

  “Mama!” I cried.

  “Yes, Nyo, we four will be moving to France.”

  “See, Uncle, you heard for yourself.”

  Rono Mellema was secretly watching me—perhaps enthralled by my mustache—as if I was some freak at the night market. Or perhaps he was just lost in thoughts of his own.

  “And why are you so quiet, Rono?” I asked in Javanese.

  “I’m going too,” he answered in Madurese.

  How happy and contented this family seemed. And their departure for France was made possible by Mama’s business success.

  “Wouldn’t you also like to go to France, Child? And marry May there?” asked Mama.

  “Oh, Mama, you!” cried May, giving her a pinch.

  “See your daughter, Jean, how happy she is to be near her boyfriend.”

  “Who said he’s my boyfriend?” parried May, pinching Mama again and again. She was blushing again.

 
Jean Marais didn’t say anything, as if his mind were off far, far away. And I too suddenly became shy when I saw this very pretty girl steal glances at me.

  Her skin was not too white, perhaps a legacy from her late mother. Her hair was long and wavy. The front wave in her hair was fixed with an emerald-studded gold comb. Her earrings and pendant were diamonds and emeralds in a gold setting. They were once worn by…ah, what’s the point in bringing all that back? She was also wearing the perfume that Annelies used to wear. Perhaps this had all been arranged by Mama to bring back certain memories.

  I knew then that Mama had dressed her before leaving the ship to come here to my house so that I would see her as…

  “Say something, Jean,” Mama said in Malay and then repeated it in rather awkward French.

  Mama was learning French!

  Jean Marais didn’t answer.

  “We’ve talked about you often, Child,” Mama began again. “About you and May.”

  “Those concerned have never said anything,” said Marais. “You’re the one making all the fuss.”

  Maysoroh stood and ran off to her room, slamming the door behind her, like someone wanting to hide from the world and secrete herself away.

  “She’ll be trying to listen from behind the door,” said Mama.

  Mama wanted me to marry Maysoroh, and May knew about this. Marais didn’t seem to want to take sides.

  When I glanced across at Jean, he had turned to look at the door.

  “I’m too busy with my work, Ma. I’ve never thought about getting married again.”

  “Listen, Child. We’ll be leaving soon. We don’t know when we’ll be back. If you truly have no desire for this, fine. But if you do, then Jean is here now. Don’t waste this opportunity.”

  “Give me time to think about it, Ma.”

  Mama seemed disappointed. She was well-intentioned. I myself had no objections to marrying Maysoroh. May would do whatever her father asked her. It would all depend on what I decided. But my thoughts wouldn’t keep on this track. I was worried Mama would ask me to repay the money she had sent me. And I knew better than anyone that my reserves were just about depleted.