Then there was a visit from a merchant who traded in produce.
“Excellency, I have come here as the representative of many of my friends, all produce merchants like me,” he said, also in Sundanese. “We are unable anymore to hire wagons to transport our produce. We can’t get our produce on the train. All the wagons and space on the trains has been contracted by the SDI members. All of us are willing to become members, Excellency: two of us already are members. But are these others acting on your orders, Excellency? And if so, what about our livelihood?”
I was quite worried by this new development. The whole purpose of the SDI was to encourage trade and commerce, but the reverse seemed to be happening. I was buffeted by feelings of guilt. And once again all I found was a locked gate at Badjened’s house. I didn’t know where he had gone.
The next day several members of the Leadership Council hired a carriage and traveled down to Betawi to see Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie. No Badjened came along with us. Our discussions that day went on deep into the night. Eventually we had to stop. We all had to work the next day.
The decision—the Buitenzorg problem would be resolved by holding a conference of the Buitenzorg branch after a campaign to increase many times over the number of non-Arab members. If this test could not be passed, then the whole SDI project would fail.
We didn’t have too many propagandists. I too went down among the villages. But we succeeded. People from the branches outside Buitenzorg also helped explain what the Arab merchants were doing. People flocked to join the SDI.
The theory was formulated in some circles that it was the Arab merchants’ long-term plan to use the SDI to fight the Chinese. The Natives were being used as pawns. All this could be traced back to my writings on the boycott. The weapon was being turned against its creator. This had to be stopped. It couldn’t be allowed to continue. The Indies did not belong just to the Arabs. It was by no means certain that the Arabs would remain loyal to the Indies as their motherland. They might very well decide to go back home after they became rich or even half rich. That was what the Europeans and Asians often did.
We were able to hold the Buitenzorg Branch Conference. The Native delegates were in a majority, but the Arab delegates were such good speakers, it was impossible to refute their logic. The conference began at five in the evening and went all night, stopping only for magreb and the other Moslem prayers. It went on until nine the next morning, and still there was no decision.
What was going on? What was this all about? Could I cope with all this? Did all organizations have to go through experiences like this? I had never heard of anything like this happening in the Boedi Oetomo. In the SDI, the members all shared the same interests. But apart from these general interests that we all shared, it seemed there were other, private and often hidden, interests among us. It seems that among all peoples there are special interests that flow from our specific situations. This is true even when we come from the same house, let alone when we come from different peoples and nations. And besides this, there are also the private dreams that everyone carries with them.
I had committed myself to the task of building an organization. I was to be a dalang whose story would be written by building a multi-peoples organization as the first step toward the creating of a single people, a nation—I was brahman and sudra at one and the same time. In my imagination I had often worked out and mulled over all the things I would have to do. But it was turning out that there was no work more complex under the sun. My wayang characters were not made of dead leather that could be painted and decorated however I liked. They were alive, indeed a part of life, all reacting and responding to each other. I had merged the work of brahman and sudra, teacher and student, speaker and listener, messenger and propagandist. I was a peddler of dreams for the future, a psychologist and psychiatrist without a diploma, someone who tried to organize things while being out among those being organized. And all this in my own country, among people who ate and drank from the same earth. It felt, even so, that I was about to fail. I bowed my head in respect to those organizers who had succeeded, especially those who had worked successfully away from their homes, in other people’s countries.
The Islamic Traders Union was meant to advance Native commerce as a means of strengthening the position of the Natives. Now there was this power emerging within the SDI itself that wanted to push aside the interests of the Natives. Having Islam as the basis of SDI was turning out to provide opportunities for dispute. Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie’s only advice was that we continue the discussions until we reached consensus. But both sides were there precisely to refuse to unite in purpose and instead to defend their different interests.
Was it going to be necessary to freeze the Buitenzorg branch and set up a new one? Wouldn’t that set a bad precedent for the future?
A member of one of the other branches—from Banten—came to see me after the conference had been going for a full week.
“Sudara…” and to be honest I was amazed to be called “brother.” It had never happened before.
“Are you offended to be called sudara? We in Banten always use sudara to speak to each other.”
“It is a good word, sudara,” I said and immediately started using it myself.
He nodded happily.
“My name is Hasan.”
I grew wary as soon as I heard his family name. It must have shown in my face.
“It is true that I am from the family of the bupati who so disappointed you that time. I myself hold different views from his. I myself was also extremely disappointed when I heard of that incident three years ago. It was a pity that I didn’t hear about it sooner. I am here to offer an opinion on the troubles here, if I may.”
“Every suggestion, and especially those from members, is especially welcome. Please.”
“Our organization is a Native organization, Sudara,” he said, as if he were standing before the conference, which it seemed was never going to end. “Indeed, it is based on Islam, where everyone is a brother to the other. Which means that no Moslem should make things difficult for another. I don’t know exactly what the law is if one Moslem causes trouble for another. It is a difficult problem. And it will always be so. Brothers with the same mother and father are often at each other’s throats until their dying day. This has been so since the days of the Prophet Adam, may peace be upon his soul. If one Moslem fights with another, therefore, we cannot claim that they are no longer brothers in Islam. But we have another measure—this is a Native organization.…”
I took him into the conference and introduced him as a delegate from the Banten branch who wanted to make a suggestion as to how we might proceed. In a clear and challenging voice, and in beautiful Malay, he challenged the conference like a lion in the desert: “This organization arose upon the earth of the Indies as a Native organization, not as an organization of all those peoples who wanted to do their worst for the Natives. There is no one, no matter of what race, whether a member of the SDI or not, who has the right to exploit or do harm to the Native people, be they trader, farmer, or craftsman. If any branch sets off in its own way and deliberately starts taking action causing harm to the Natives, it is not a branch of the SDI because it is violating the Constitution of the organization which we all have agreed to. The central leadership has the right to withdraw all recognition from such a branch. Indeed, all the SDI branches around the country would have the right to take common action against such a wayward branch. I am sure, my brothers, that the central leadership will not hesitate to take whatever action is necessary.”
The Arab rebellion from within weakened and finally died out. This incident taught me a very simple but fundamental lesson. Finding a compromise and achieving consensus were not the only things that might be necessary—sometimes it was necessary to fight for the implementation of basic principles without being afraid that you might lose a member, a brother, or even a branch or two!
We had passed our first test successfully. And all the Badjene
ds left the organization. Just in the way that I, Wardi, and Tjipto had left the BO.
Medan’s circulation continued to grow. Our imports of paper and writing utensils increased as well. The incident over the Arab members of SDI monopolizing the hiring of freight space on the trains accelerated the implementation of our plans to publish a magazine for the rail workers. And it turned out that its readers were very loyal, clever, and critical, rich in experience and full of interesting suggestions.
Our magazine for teachers was also warmly welcomed. They used much of their spare time to read and to write for the magazine. This meant that whether we liked it or not the magazine used school Malay. The material we published about the experiences and theories of educationists from around the world gave our teachers an idea of how the advanced peoples had been molded and how they molded themselves, how the younger generation was made aware of the nation’s concerns and of the problems and challenges of the future, how the sciences were taught and practiced in and out of school, how the forms and content of social intercourse changed as science and industry developed.…
The women’s magazine had begun publishing even earlier. This was something we were especially proud of. It was the first of its kind. When Queen Mother Emma awarded it a medal, how the stupid ones who had missed the train growled! They united to oppose us, to try to sabotage us at every turn. This was no surprise. Success always caused the backward types to unite against those who were succeeding. Princess, along with three other women, helped with its publication. She often headed off to Bandung to oversee things at the print shop herself. So we more often than not stayed at the Frischbotens’ house in Bandung. Princess and Mir were soon the closest of friends, although she never knew about the problem that the Frischbotens were facing. She never knew what had occurred between Mir and me. Mir on several occasions wrote short articles for Princess.
In the midst of this activity and expansion, Mir Frischboten and I were constantly worried by a gnawing question: Whose child was it growing now in Mir’s womb? How would the baby turn out? Who would it look like? Me, Mir, or Hendrik? Would it be Native, Eurasian, or White?
I sometimes caught Hendrik stealing glances at his wife and sometimes at me. Why? Were these suspicions of mine just that, unjustified suspicions? I could tell from the look in Mir’s eyes that she was worried and I often found her too gazing at Hendrik and me in turn. As for my own anxiety, my heart could vouch for that.
And Princess? There were still no signs that she bore within her any seed from the love between us. Every day she drowned herself in her work. And she enjoyed it. In facing all the paperwork around her, it was as though she disappeared into some other dimension, becoming blissfully ignorant of the world around her. Sometimes she even forgot that she was my wife and that as my wife she occupied a specific place in society. When she was concentrating all her thoughts on some problem or other and all her ideas and hopes on succeeding with it, her forehead would cloud over, and her eyes, though wide open, would see nothing that was before them. It was just her inner eye that was trying to capture the essence of something that was there in that other dimension. And if you heard a deep sigh and saw her breast heave, you knew that she had been unable to penetrate that high wall that stood arrogantly before her mind’s eye. Then she would look around with her big eyes for her husband. And if she found him, I would hear her quick but gentle voice: “Mas, I can’t seem to solve this problem.”
So I would go over to her. And she would then set off explaining what the problem was. We would become involved in a discussion. But I would be more caught up in admiring the perfect proportions between her big eyes, her sharp pointed face, her pointed nose, and her full lips.
“Mas, you’re not listening!” she would accuse me in Dutch, which was the language we always spoke.
If I squeezed those full lips of hers, she would reply with a pinch. “That’s a bad habit, squeezing people’s lips!”
People said that full lips were a sign that their owner enjoyed the sensual pleasures. What about thin lips? I’ve never heard anyone comment about that.
And she knew that I wasn’t hearing anything of what she was saying. All I could hear was the sound of my passions inside me. Only after the pinching had gone on for some time could we actually get back to the discussion.
One day, or one evening actually, the following conversation took place.
“Here is a strange article, Mas. It’s completely different from what you’ve always said. It says that the Sarekat Priyayi was not the first Native organization in the Indies. It says that the first was called Tirtayasa and was founded in Karanganyar at the close of the last century. It already runs a school for girls, a cooperative, and a mutual credit group.”
I explained to her the differences between modern organizations and traditional associations. Tirtayasa had indeed been founded at the end of the last century by the Bupati of Karanganyar, Tirtokoesomo. Its members were his own subordinates. It was not founded on the basis of a common decision and common interests, but on the basis of the authority of the bupati. It was he who was now president of the Boedi Oetomo.
I continued that the key feature of modern life is the emergence of responsible individuals capable of making their own decisions and not simply acting all the time on the instructions of their superiors. Individuals now stand as autonomous persons in society. They are not just a component of society, as an arm or a foot is to a body, but a part of society that actually participates in deciding what will happen, and this lecture, which, if the truth be known, was meant as much for me as for her, went on and on and became more and more involved. And she bowed her head, listening attentively, aware of her ignorance before her teacher, who was no less attentive and no less ignorant.
These convoluted discussions became more and more frequent as well as longer and longer. And it wasn’t long before it was no longer a situation of an ignorant student and a bossy teacher. We became comrades in discussion and debate. At first she just asked questions, then went on to rejecting some of my notions, and soon we had real debates taking place. In the end, however, it had the same outcome—she had to acknowledge the supremacy of her husband. And she was always willing to surrender, not to a bossy teacher but to her husband who loved and cherished her—to a husband who was always full of passion for her.
Life was beautiful. Love, work, passion, and debate seemed to form a never-ending chain into the future. Month after month passed by unnoticed.
Then one day I was visiting the Frischbotens in Bandung. I found Hendrik pacing up and down nervously in the front room.
“What’s the matter, Hendrik?” We no longer used meneer or sir.
“This way,” he said, and he guided me by the shoulder into the house.
We came into a room that was divided in two by a white sheet curtain.
“Is that you, Hendrik?” came Mir’s voice from behind.
“Yes, and Minke’s here too.”
“Is it you, Minke?” came Mir’s voice again.
“It’s me, Mir. Good evening.”
“Sit down there, both of you. Don’t go.” She was silent. I could hear her panting and gasping. Silence. Then there came a piercing cry. Why did Hendrik bring me into his wife’s labor room?
“Don’t lift up your hips, Mevrouw,” came the voice of another woman. “The baby could tear you. Be careful, don’t move your legs. Keep them still and they will stay beautiful, no varicose veins.”
Then came the panting and gasping again, then the cry. Then came Mir’s voice calling out: “Are you two still there? Oh, God!”
“Patience, Mevrouw,” came the other female voice. “Isn’t that better? Ah. Take a deep breath. Concentrate all your strength for the push.”
Suddenly: “Minke, is your wife pregnant yet?”
“No signs yet, Mir.”
I glanced at Hendrik, and he was obviously anxious. Then I thought those unanswered questions again.
“Why don’t you talk to me, Hendrik
?” Then suddenly Mir stopped and let out a groan.
The normally large room became claustrophobic with groans and cries. The white ceiling with its green ornamental iron flowers seemed to be moved by her cries.
“Can you imagine how painful this is, Hendrik?”
“More than you think, darling. Hold on.”
But Hendrik wasn’t as in control here as he was when as a lawyer he was dealing with all the cases of injustices and abuse of power that he confronted in his work. He was at a total loss at how to deal with the birth of his child. His child? Whose child? His child or mine? Perhaps within me, my manhood was crying out that it would be mine, my seed, my flesh and blood.
“The pain is more frequent now, yes, Mevrouw?” asked the woman in a rather mumbled Dutch. It was the voice of a recently arrived Pure-Blood. “Yes, yes, it’s every ten seconds now. Come on, take another deep breath—get ready to push with all your strength. Come on, Mevrouw, now!”
“Oh, God!!”
“Keep going, Mevrouw, don’t stop. Don’t lift up your hips or legs.”
The groans, cries, and the gasping for breath stopped.
“Don’t, Mevrouw, don’t lift up your hips. Take another breath. It won’t be long now, Mevrouw.”
“Hendrik!”
“I’m here, darling.”
“Minke, are you there too?”
She didn’t know that I couldn’t breathe either because of the way I too was feeling her pain.
“I’m praying for you and your baby, Mir.”
“You’re not praying for me, Hendrik?”
“Of course I am, darling.”
Her voice could no longer be heard from behind the curtain.
“Yes, that’s the way, Mevrouw. Good, good, don’t speak now. Concentrate all your strength on pushing down. Don’t hold back now, push, Mevrouw, that’s it, push, push, push.”
I knew that Mir was now biting her lips, holding back the cries of pain. It is with pain that women give birth to new life on this earth. I thought of my mother giving birth to me, no doubt the same as Mir was experiencing now. Woman, you risk your life for a baby that for nine months now you have been waiting and longing for. Mother, forgive me for all my sins. Bless the birth of this new being. Accursed are all those who say that mothers who die become ghosts with no real name of their own. Accursed are they. They are low indeed, those people who are unable to appreciate the pain and suffering and risk of death their mothers went through to give birth to them. Ah, you, Mir, parts of your body will be torn and bruised by this birth. You will lose the beauty of your years of maidenhood, you will perspire the sweat of pain, cry out in pain, almost unable to breathe, all for your baby. Ya Allah, keep her safe and forgive her all her sins. Forgive her all her dreams, the unworthy ones and the grandiose ones. Without woman there would be no humankind. Without humankind there would be no one to praise your greatness. All the praise that reaches You, Allah, does so only because of the blood, sweat, and cries shed by woman who, with body torn, brings new life into the world.