On that day I had to say good-bye, as our departure was now only three days away. I handed over the publication of the newspaper and all the magazines to my two friends. They would now be totally in charge of editorial and all other policy. How to deal with this initiative of the governor-general was also up to them now.
Back in Buitenzorg there was a letter from Princess. She asked forgiveness a thousand times over that she had gone to Sukabumi to stay with her father for the next two days. She asked that I follow her there later.
I will be down in two days, Princess. In the meantime I will use these two days to say good-bye to others of my friends, especially Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie. I would say good-bye to him while making a visit to Betawi.
I saw that the suitcases were packed and ready, all locked. We were indeed planning a long journey. If possible, we would travel on to Europe.
It was late evening and I was very tired by the time I had finished saying my farewells to all my friends in Buitenzorg. I went to bed and slept, overwhelmed by a feeling of being at ease and safe.
At nine the next morning a young boy arrived with a copy of Medan. Lazily I unfolded it. Eventually my eyes hit on a headline and suddenly my whole nervous system went into shock. I jumped up. My eyes popped out and a scream uncontrollably came from my mouth, like a monkey shot with an arrow: “The fools!”
The Banten guards outside all came running. My hands, which held the paper, were shaking.
“Master!” the chief guard reported.
I waved them away and they moved off.
My legs moved and I stalked back and forth like a bear in a cage. I tried to calm myself. I couldn’t. My hands quivered with tension. As I strode back and forth, I read the paper again. I wasn’t wrong.
“Idiots! Donkeys!”
Those children had launched a crude attack on Governor-General Idenburg himself. It was now in print and being circulated. There was no way to stop it now. What did they want to achieve with such a crude attack as that?
“Idiots!” I roared in pain, as if it were my body that had been struck by an arrow.
I ran to the back and bathed. I went into the room and put on my clothes from yesterday. Everything else was locked away in the suitcases or wardrobe. The key box was also locked. The master key had been taken by Princess. God knows what I looked like. I put on my destar, not bothering to check how it looked. And my other shoe…ah, shoe where are you hiding? Why are you too trying to annoy me like this? It looks as if the neighbor’s dog has hidden it, or taken off with it.
“Piaaaah!”
Our maid came running in, her hair still in a mess.
“My shoe! Where is my shoe?”
She crawled about looking under everything but couldn’t find it. She ran out the front and out the back. Nowhere to be found.
Exhausted from the tension of it all, I finally flopped into a lounge chair. The noise outside wouldn’t have caught my attention if it hadn’t continued to get worse and worse. Why did they launch such a crude attack on the governor-general over his attendance at the funeral? They didn’t even mention his title or position, they referred to him sarcastically as kyai-ne, “his holiness.” As I angrily asked myself this question once more, I glanced out the front window.
It was as if I were nailed to the lounge chair.
A detachment of police had rounded up all the guards, the men from Banten. I could hear shouted threats.
“Where are the others?” in Malay. “Come on, don’t lie. There are fifteen altogether, aren’t there? Watch out.”
The fighters were huddled under a tree guarded by three police with carbines.
I saw a police official, escorted by six of his men, head toward the house. Outside the fence there were scores more lined up, arm’s-length apart.
So, they are going to arrest me.
I could hear their footsteps more clearly now. The police officer climbed the veranda steps and entered the room without waiting for my permission.
I remained seated.
A man in civilian clothes stopped in front of me and paid his respects. Then: “In the name of Her Majesty, and of justice, I place you under arrest, Meneer.”
He took out a piece of paper and gave it to me.
The paper was from the Office of the Court, an order for me to be detained in lieu of nonpayment of debts. For nonpayment of debts!!! The debts of my people perhaps, held under my name. This is worse than what they did to Teukoe Djamiloen.
After reading it, I looked up at the officer.
“Do you understand?” the officer asked.
I saw his eyes, his nose, his cheeks. Yes, it was none other than Pangemanann with two n’s.
I nodded.
“Don’t be angry, Meneer. You have a pistol, do you not?” “Not a pistol. A revolver.”
“Yes, revolver.” Without looking at his subordinates, he ordered one to search me.
I still did not rise from my chair. And they did not find the weapon on me.
“Where do you keep the revolver, Meneer?”
“In the bedroom. Under the pillow.”
“Fetch it,” he ordered one of his men in Malay.
“Do you still remember me?” he asked in Dutch.
“Pangemanann,” I answered, standing up.
He saluted me, held out his hand, and greeted me: “I carry out an unpleasant task against a human being I much admire and respect,” he said, “a person who has begun to change the face of the Indies.”
My spittle fell and splattered on the floor.
“That is right, Meneer. It is right for you to humiliate me. And it is also right that I still respect and admire you.” He turned to his men. “Get outside, all of you,” he ordered in Malay. “I am taking you away from here today, and you will not return.”
“I cannot go today. I am waiting for my wife.”
“Your wife? Yes. The Princess will not be accompanying you. She is not allowed to leave Java.”
“So I will be taken off Java?”
“Not yet, not now. Get whatever things you need. Do it now.”
The policeman who had gone into my room came out with the revolver and handed it to his superior.
Pangemanann examined the papers with it and counted the bullets.
“None of the bullets have been used,” he spoke aloud to himself. “Good. There will be no additional complications. Why have you not asked the reason for your arrest, Meneer?”
I shook my head.
“You have been detained for not paying your debts.”
“Debts?”
“You have received reminder letters several times now and you have never replied.”
“Reminder letters?”
He showed me the letters demanding payment and pointed out that they had been signed as received by one of my clerks—Dolf Boopmjes, that child whom I had taken off the streets. But even if there had been no such letters, I would never have been able to pay the debts that now fell upon me.
Pangemanann dropped his gaze. He whispered: “The debts of your people, Meneer, which you will have to pay yourself.” He cleared his throat. “I am not saying that just to humor you, Meneer. Nobody could have done more than you have done.”
His voice made me bow my head. Without realizing it, my hand had reached into my pocket and taken out a handkerchief. I wiped my face. He looked the other way.
“Yes, power has its own kind of face and heart. It can peel off its morals according to need. Please forgive me, Meneer. I understand that you will not be able to forgive me. But I have asked forgiveness all the same.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Oh, don’t forget, Meneer. I respectfully request that you return to me my manuscript of Si Pitung. You have not had a chance to publish it yet.”
I opened the bureau where I kept all my papers. I pulled out his manuscript from among the others. I gave it a brush in case there was dust on the packet. I put it on the table and inspected it page by page.
“Please return the receipt I gave you,” I said.
He took out a piece of paper from his top pocket and gave it to me.
“Check the pages again,” I requested, and I studied and then tore up the receipt. “There is not a single mark on them.”
I left the two of them standing there. I sat down at my desk and wrote a letter to my wife. I stole a glance at them and saw that Pangemanann had sat down in the lounge chair without even asking first.
Princess, the moment of our separation has arrived at last. You are still my wife, so it is your duty to listen to what I say. All that I have built has been destroyed. You will find out for yourself about those who have pierced me from the front and stabbed me from behind. Your life, which has just started, need no longer be devoted to your husband. My future now is very uncertain. Thank you for all your love and all your sacrifices. Thank you for the happiness I have enjoyed as your husband. I will take the memories of that happiness to wherever it is that I go now. Consider this letter as a valid and legal divorce. Marry a man who will not demand of you so much sacrifice. You are still very, very young, beautiful, charming, educated, patient, and courageous. You are not yet twenty years old.
You are still my wife. Do this which I tell you. Take this letter to a penghulu as proof of talaq. Good-bye, my darling, drink of life to the very dregs of the cup. Make sure you achieve all of your youthful dreams, be they ones that reach up to the heavens. Seize from life all that is rightfully yours. Give my greetings to Mir and Hendrik. My respects to your father, the Raja. All from the bottom of my heart. And to Sandiman, Marko, Djamiloen, Wardi, Douwager, Tjipto, all the branches and sub-branches and members of the Sarekat.
Pangemanann has said that I will never return to this house and that I will be leaving Java. So do not be emotional over this separation. Things will go hard for me now. I have always been hard with the world. You too must be hard with the world, so that your sleep will not be disturbed by bad dreams.
Tomorrow, when you enter this house, know that your husband will be in some place and time unknown. All that I own is now yours. With this letter, I also attach an authority for you to withdraw the little savings we have in the bank. I hope the bank has not frozen the account. Princess, go now into the world and face life without tears, and do not think of your husband, because, as soon as you read this letter, your husband will then be only an ex-husband. May peace be with you, Princess. Good-bye.
“Piaah!” I called.
The maid appeared in the distance. Her whole body shook with fear.
“Over here. Come closer!” She shook even more, even though she moved no closer. “Listen, I am going off, I don’t know where, perhaps far away, very far away. You stay in this house until your mistress returns.”
“I will do as you say, Master.”
“Tell the men from Banten to return to their homes. Tell them thank-you from me. And I thank you too, Piah. Bring me the suitcase in the storeroom.”
“The old dinted and dented suitcase that’s used for the rice, Tuan?”
“Used for the rice?” I put aside my surprise. “Fetch it.”
She almost ran as she left the room. When she came back, she was shaking less. In her hand she was carrying an old suitcase, brown, with even more dints and dents in it now, and with the rust around it even merrier.
“Stand there, Piah, I will still need you.”
“Yes, Tuan.”
I shifted my papers from the bureau into the suitcase.
“Fetch me a towel, toothbrush, and toothpaste, Piah.”
She ran out the back again. She returned, no longer shaking, carrying all that I had asked for as well as some unironed underclothes and Princess’s towel.
“Why have you brought me mistress’s towel?”
“Take it, Tuan, so that you can take with you at least one thing of my mistress’s.” Her voice suddenly broke; she was sobbing. Without saying any more, she put the towel in my suitcase.
“Don’t cry, Piah, don’t leave here before the mistress returns. Don’t let in any guests.”
“I will not leave, Tuan.”
“Even so, Piah, I want you to swear before me and these others that you will not leave.”
Suddenly she squatted at my feet. In a very gentle voice, but pregnant with protest: “How can you demand an oath from me, my master? An oath for my master, for my leader? Is it not enough that I am a member of the Sarekat?”
“Piah!” I could not hold back my tears. Piah, my servant, a member of the Sarekat! The second woman member out of fifty thousand men. I stood and raised her up: “Why do you, a member of the Sarekat, kneel before your leader?”
“I feel that you are going far away, Tuan, and will not return.”
“Very well, Piah. I will not demand an oath from you. Stand up. Tomorrow give this letter to your mistress.”
“Yes, Master.”
“If you love your mistress, then stay with her always.”
“Do not forget or neglect my mistress’s towel, Master. It is Tuan’s duty to always look after it and to remember the wife of my leader, who is also my leader.”
“I will always remember, Piah.”
I glanced at Pangemanann and he was wiping his eyes. When he noticed me looking at him, he brought himself under control, and asked: “Are you ready?”
“Piah, I cannot go without leaving you something. All the keys are with your mistress. All I have is…I searched around in my pockets. There were only some coins, about three guilders or so. I grabbed them all and held them out for her. “For you, Piah, take them.”
She took them and then put them back in my pocket.
“You will need them on your journey.”
“No.”
“You will need them.”
“Then give them to the men from Banten.”
“No, it is we who should be helping you, Tuan. Leave me behind some words, Tuan, good words that I may remember all my life.”
“Very well, Piah. Become a propagandist for the Sarekat. Call upon all women to join. Become their leader.”
“I will remember, Tuan, and I will do what you ask.”
“I must go now, Piah.”
“You will always be in our hearts, Tuan.”
As I walked down the front steps of the house, I couldn’t help but turn and look back at her—Piah, a pearl whom I had never got to know all this time. Princess had taught her.
And I didn’t notice that I wore no shoes.
Buru Island Prison Camp, 1975
GLOSSARY
assistant resident For each regency there was a Dutch assistant resident in whose hands power over local affairs ultimately resided.
bahu A measure of area, equivalent to about one and three quarters acres
Bandung Bandung was, and still is, the major town in West Java outside Batavia (now Jakarta).
Bandung Bondowoso A figure in folk mythology who built one of the Prambanan temples in one night
bapak Literally “father,” used to indicate respect
Bathara Narada A figure in wayang, a messenger for the gods
batik A Javanese process for decorating cloth by using wax to prevent some areas from absorbing dye; material made by this process
bendi Vehicle similar to a surrey
bendoro A term of address equivalent to “master” or “lord”
benggol A 21⁄2 cent coin
Betawi The Malay name for Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies, now Jakarta.
Bharatayuddha A famous Hindu epic, depicting a great war between two families of nobles
Boedi Oetoma Organization formed in 1908 which drew support from priyayi, officials, and students to promote education and social reform among Natives. This organization collapsed in 1935.
brahman The priestly Hindu caste; the highest caste
bupati The title of the Native Javanese official appointed by the Dutch to assist the Dutch assistant resident to administer a region; most bupatis could lay some claim to nobl
e blood.
canting A small tool used in “writing” batik on cloth with hot wax
cokek, dogar, gambang kromong Forms of folk drama and dance Culture System The system of forced cultivation of certain crops enforced by the colonial authorities; under this system, Javanese peasants had to grow export crops such as coffee and sell them to the Dutch authorities at extremely low prices.
dalang The puppet master who recites the stories and manipulates the puppets at wayang performances
delman A kind of horse carriage
denmas Short for the title “raden mas”
destar An East Javanese form of headdress; a kind of headband
dokar A two-wheeled horse cart
dukun Traditional Javanese magician and/or healer
durian A highly aromatic and popular tropical fruit
Dutch East Indies Company (VOC); the Company Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie, United (Dutch) East India Company; the major power in the Indies until 1798 when it was taken over by the Dutch government.
ELS Dutch-language primary school
encik Term of respect for a woman by a younger person; “aunt”; used by Chinese Javanese
engkoh (abbreviation koh) Chinese for “uncle”
Ethical Policy A liberal concept dating from 1899 that called on the Dutch government to accept greater responsibility for the welfare of Native people. Also associated with policies of reduction of the government’s role in the economy and the encouragement of private investment.
Roorda van Eysinga A writer (1852-1887) expelled from the Indies in 1864 because his writings were regarded as harmful to the colonial government
forum privilegiatum The right to appear before the “White Court”
Francis, G. Eurasian author of the early Malay-language novel Nyai Dasima
gamelan Traditional Javanese percussion orchestra