This Earth of Mankind

  “Tuan Minke?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have an order to take Tuan with me. Straight away.” He held out a letter. What he said was true. It was a summons from the police station at B, a town near the town of my birth, approved by the police station at Surabaya. My name was clearly stated there. Mama too had read it.

  “What have you been up to, Nyo?” she asked.

  “Not a thing,” I answered nervously. Yet I began to have doubts about my own actions. I searched and searched my memory; I lined up everything I’d done over the last week. I repeated, “Not a thing, Mama.”

  Annelies came. She wore a long, black-velvet gown. Her hair was a mess. She was still bleary-eyed.

  Mama approached me:

  “The officer hasn’t said what you’ve been charged with. It’s not in the summons either.” And to the police officer: “He has the right to know what is the matter.”

  “I have no such orders, Nyai. If it is not stated clearly in the summons, then indeed no one may be told, including the person involved.”

  “It can’t be done like that,” I retorted. “I’m a Raden Mas, I can’t be treated in this way,” and I waited for an answer. Seeing that he didn’t know how he should answer, I resumed, “I have forum privilegiatum, the right to be tried under the same laws and in the courts of the Dutch.”

  “No one can deny that, Tuan Raden Mas Minke.”

  “Why are you doing things in this manner?”

  “My orders are only to fetch Tuan. Even the person who issued the orders would not know anything more, Tuan Raden Mas,” he said, defending himself. “Please get ready, Tuan. We must leave quickly. We must be at our destination by five o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Mas, why do they want to take you?” asked Annelies, afraid. I sensed a shiver in her voice.

  “He won’t say,” I answered briefly.

  “Ann, fix Minke’s clothes and bring them here,” ordered Nyai, “Who knows how long they will detain him. He can bathe and breakfast first, can’t he?”

  “Of course, Nyai, there’s still a little time.”

  He allowed half an hour.

  I found Robert watching the event from his room at the back. A yawn was his only greeting. Once in the bathroom, I began to mull over the possibilities: Robert is the cause of this trouble, passing on false and fanciful reports. He didn’t appear for dinner last night or the night before. One by one his threats came back to me. All right, if it’s true you are the one who has caused all this disturbance, I will never forget you, Rob.

  On my return to the front room I found coffee and cakes ready. The police officer was enjoying his breakfast. He looked more polite after receiving his food. And he didn’t appear to have any personal enmity towards us. On the contrary, he chatted to us, laughing all the time:

  “Nothing bad is going to happen, Nyai,” he said finally. “Tuan Raden Mas Minke will return, at the very latest, within the next two weeks.”

  “It’s not a matter of two weeks or a month. He’s been arrested in my house. I have a right to know what it’s all about,” pressed Nyai.

  “Really, I don’t know. Forgive me. That’s why I’m fetching him so early in the morning, Nyai, so no one will know.”

  “So no one will know? How? You had to meet with my watchman before getting to see me, didn’t you?”

  “Then arrange so that your watchman doesn’t talk.”

  “You can’t do this to me,” said Mama. “I’m going to ask the police station for an explanation.”

  “That’s a good idea. Nyai will get an explanation quickly. And it will surely be a truthful one.”

  Annelies, who was standing holding my suitcase, approached me, unable to speak. She put the suitcase and bag down. She grabbed hold of my hand and held it. Her hand trembled.

  “Breakfast first, Tuan Raden Mas,” the officer reminded me. “Maybe there won’t be any breakfast as good as this at the police station. No? Then let’s leave now.”

  “I’ll be back soon, Ann, Mama. There must be some mistake. Believe me.”

  And Annelies wouldn’t let go of my hand.

  The police officer picked up my things and carried them outside. Annelies gripped my hand tightly as I followed him out. I kissed her on the cheek and freed myself of her hold. And she still didn’t speak.

  “Hopefully all will be well, Nyo,” Nyai prayed. “That’s enough now, Ann; pray for his safety.”

  The carriage that awaited us proved not to be a police carriage but a hired one. We climbed aboard and left in the direction of Surabaya. The officer was taking me to B. And in the early morning dark I conjured up in my mind all the buildings I’d ever seen in B. Which one among them was our destination? The police station? The jail? An inn? It didn’t even occur to me to think of private houses.

  Our carriage made up the only traffic on the road. Oil wagons, which usually started moving out of the D.P.M. refinery at dawn, twenty or thirty in a row, were not yet to be seen. One or two people were carting vegetables on their backs for sale in Surabaya. And the agent kept his mouth closed as if he’d never, in all his life, learned to speak.

  Maybe it was true that Robert had slandered me. But why was B our destination?

  Our oil lamps were reluctant to pierce the darkness of the misty early morning. It was as if only I, the policeman, the driver, and the horse were alive upon that road. And I imagined Annelies crying unconsoled. And Nyai confused, concerned that my arrest would give her business a bad name. And Robert Mellema would have reason to cackle: See! Isn’t it true what Suurhof said?

  The carriage took us to the Surabaya police station. I was invited to sit down and wait in the reception room. I wanted very much to ask questions about my case. But I got the impression that in the misty, early-morning air no one was in the mood to give explanations. So I didn’t ask. And the carriage still waited in front of the police station. The officer just left me there alone with no orders.

  It was a long time. The sun still hadn’t risen. And when it did rise, it was unable to dispel the mist. Those gray particles of water reigned over everything, even the inside of my lungs. The traffic in front of the police station was beginning to get busy: carriages, carts, pedestrians, hawkers, workers. And I still sat alone in the waiting room. Finally, at a quarter to nine, the police officer appeared. He looked as if he’d had an hour’s sleep and had had a hot bath. He looked fresh. On the other hand, I felt weary, exhausted by waiting. And still I had no chance to inquire.

  “Let’s go, Tuan Raden Mas,” he invited, in a friendly manner. We climbed back aboard the carriage and headed off to the railway station. Once again it was he who carried my bags, and unloaded them and escorted me to the ticket window. He pushed a letter inside and obtained two tickets—first class. This was not the time for the express train. We were traveling on a slow train too. Yes, it was true, we climbed aboard that boring train on the western line. I’d never been on a train such as this. I always went by express if there was one. Except, yes, except from B to my own town T.

  The officer returned to his state of muteness. I sat next to the window. He sat facing me.

  There were just a few passengers in the carriage. Besides the two of us, there were three European men and a Chinese man. They all seemed bored. At the first stop two passengers got off, including the Chinese man. No new passengers came aboard.

  I’d traveled that distance dozens of times. So there was nothing in the sights along the journey that interested me. In B I usually stayed at an inn until the next morning, when I would continue the journey on to T. This time I wouldn’t be heading towards my usual inn. Most probably I would end up at the police station.

  The view became more and more dreary: barren land, sometimes gray, sometimes a whitish-yellow. I fell asleep with a hungry stomach. Whatever was going to happen, let it. Ah! This earth of mankind. Sometimes a tobacco plantation would appear, shrink, and disappear, swept away in the train’s acceleration. Appear again, shrink again, disapp
ear again. And paddy fields and paddy fields and paddy fields, unirrigated, planted with crops, but no rice, almost ready to be harvested. And the train crawled on slowly, spouting thick black and dusty and sparking smoke. Why wasn’t it England that controlled all this? Why Holland? And Japan? What about Japan?

  The touch of the police officer’s hand woke me. Laid out beside me were the things he’d brought with him: the wrapping cloth was opened out as a kind of tablecloth. On it was fried rice shining with oil, adorned by a fried egg and fried chicken, plus a spoon and fork, all in a banana-leaf container. Perhaps it had been specially prepared for me. An agent would think twice about serving food like this for himself—it was too sumptuous. A white bottle containing chocolate milk—a drink not yet widely known by Natives—stood beside the banana-leaf container.

  And that gloomy town, B, finally, as the time approached five o’clock in the afternoon, appeared before our eyes. The agent still didn’t speak. But again he carried my bags. And I didn’t stop him. What was the significance of a police officer, first-class, compared with an H.B.S. student? At the most he might have been able to read and write a little Javanese and Malay.

  A carriage took us away from the station. To where? I knew those white, rocky streets that were such an eyesore. Not to the hotel, not to my regular inn. Also not to the B police station.

  The town square looked deserted with its brownish grass carpet, balding and tattered in places. Where was I being taken? The hired carriage headed for the bupati’s residence and stopped a distance from its stone gate. What was the link between my case and the bupati of B? My mind began groping around madly.

  And the police officer alighted first, looking after my bags as before.

  “Please,” he said suddenly in high Javanese.

  I accompanied him into the regency office situated diagonally across from the bupati’s residence. An office stripped of wall ornaments, devoid of appropriate furniture, without a single occupant. All the furniture was rough, made from teak, and unvarnished, with the appearance of not having been measured for need and without any plan of use, just thrown together. Coming from the luxurious house in Wonokromo into this room was like making a visit to a produce house. It was, you might say, just slightly more luxurious than Annelies’s chicken coop. This, presumably, was the interrogation room. Just some tables, a few chairs, and some long benches. On the other side, there were shelves on which were piles of papers and several books. There were no instruments of torture. Just ink bottles on all the tables.

  The police officer left me by myself again. And for the second time I waited and waited. The sun had set. He still didn’t appear. The grand mosque’s drum began its beating, followed by that sad call to prayer. The street lanterns were being lit by the lamp men. The office became darker. And those demonic mosquitoes, they ganged up and attacked the room’s only occupant. The insolence! I swore. Is this how people treat a raden mas and an H.B.S. student too? An educated person with the blood of the kings of Java running in him?

  And I could feel my clothes sticking to my body. And my body was starting to stink of sweat. I’d never experienced such maltreatment as this.

  “A thousand pardons, Ndoro Raden Mas.” The officer invited me to leave the mosquito-filled, dark office. “Allow your servant to escort you to the visitors’ gallery.”

  Once again he carried my bags.

  So I’m being brought before the bupati of B! God! What’s it all about? And must I, an H.B.S. student, cringe in front of him and at the end of every one of my sentences, make obeisance to someone I don’t even know? As I walked along the path to the visitors’ gallery, already lit up by four lamps, I felt like crying. What’s the point in studying European science and learning, mixing with Europeans, if in the end one has to cringe anyway, slide along like a snail, and worship some little king who is probably illiterate to boot. God, God! To have audience with a bupati is to be an object of humiliation without being able to defend oneself. I’d never forced anyone to act like that towards me. Why did I have to do so for others? Thundering damnation!

  Ah, see, it’s true? The agent was already inviting me—the impudence!—to take off my shoes and socks. The beginning of a great tyranny. Some supernatural power forced me to follow his orders. The floor felt cold under my bare soles. He signaled me and I went, step by step, to the top. He pointed out to me the place where I must sit, eyes towards the floor, before a rocking chair. One of my teachers had once said: The rocking chair is the most beautiful thing left behind by the Dutch East Indies Company after its bankruptcy. Oho! Oh rocking chair, you will be a witness to how I must humiliate myself in order to glorify some bupati I don’t even know. Damn! What would my friends say if they saw me traveling on my knees like this, like someone without thighs, crawling towards the relic of the company at the time it approached bankruptcy—that unmoving chair near the wall of the visitors’ gallery.

  “Yes, walk on your knees, Ndoro Raden Mas.” The officer was herding a buffalo into a mudhole.

  And I covered the almost ten meters distance while swearing in three languages.

  To my left and right clam-shell ornaments were spread out. And the floor shone from the rays of light from four oil lamps. Truly, my friends would ridicule me if they could see this play, where a human being, who normally walks on his two whole legs, on his own feet, now has to walk with only half his legs, aided by his two hands. Ya Allah! You, my ancestors, you: What is the reason you created customs that would so humiliate your own descendants? You never once gave it any thought, you, my ancestors who indulged in these excesses! Your descendants could have been honored without such humiliation! How could you bring yourself to leave such customs as a legacy?

  I stopped in front of the rocking chair. I sat, legs tucked under and eyes towards the floor, as custom decreed. All I could see was a low, carved bench and on top of it, a foot-rest cushion of black velvet. The same velvet as Annelies’s dressing gown earlier that morning.

  Good, now I had sat down cross-legged before that damned rocking chair. What business did I have with the bupati of B? None. Neither kith nor kin, not an acquaintance, let alone a friend. And for how much longer would this oppression and humiliation continue? Waiting and waiting while being oppressed and humiliated in this way?

  I heard the creaking of a swinging door as it opened. Then, as the seconds passed, the sound of footsteps made by leather slippers became clearer. And I remembered the scraping footsteps of Mr. Mellema on that other frightening night. From where I was seated, the striding slippers slowly began to come into view. Above them a pair of clean legs. Still further above a widely pleated batik sarong.

  I raised my hands, clasped in obeisance, as I had seen the court employees do before my grandfather, and my grandmother, and my parents at the end of Ramadan. And I did not now withdraw my pose until the bupati had sat himself comfortably in his place. In making such obeisance it felt as if all the learning and science I had studied year after year was lost. Lost was the beauty of the world as promised by science’s progress. Lost was the enthusiasm of my teachers in greeting the bright future of humanity. And who knows how many times I’d have to make such obeisances that night. Obeisance—the lauding of ancestors and persons of authority by humbling and abasing oneself! Level with the ground if possible! I will not allow my descendants to go through such degradation!

  This person, the bupati of B, cleared his throat. Then slowly he sat down on the rocking chair, kicking off his slippers behind the foot bench, and placed his honorable feet on the velvet cushion. The chair began to rock a little. Damn! How slowly time passed. Some object, by my reckoning fairly long, gently tapped upon my uncovered head. How insolent was this being that I must honor. And every tap I must greet with a sign of grateful obeisance.

  After five taps, the object was withdrawn, and was now hung beside the bupati’s chair: a horse whip made from a bull’s genitals, with a shaft of thin, choice leather.

  “You!” he addressed me weakly,
hoarsely.

  “Yes, I, my master, Honored Lord Bupati,” said my mouth, and like a machine my hands were raised in obeisance for the umpteenth time and my heart cursed for I don’t know how many times now.

  “You! Why have you only come now?” His voice now emerged more clearly from his throat, which was suffering the end of a bout of influenza.

  It felt as if I had heard that voice before. It was also his cold which prevented me from recalling the voice easily. No, no, it could not be him! Impossible! No! I still didn’t know what this was all about, so I kept silent.

  “The honored government does not run a postal service for nothing—capable of getting my letters safely to you at the proper and exact address.”

  Yes, it was his voice. Impossible! It couldn’t be! Impossible. I was just guessing.

  “Why are you silent? Now that your schooling is so advanced, is it that you feel humiliated to have to read my letters?”

  Yes, it was his voice! I raised my hands in obeisance once again, deliberately lifting my head a little and taking a peep. Ya Allah! It was indeed he.

  “Father!” I cried. “Forgive me, your servant.”

  “Answer! You feel humiliated to have to reply to my letters?”

  “A thousand pardons, my father: no.”

  “Your mother’s letter, and why didn’t you answer that either?”

  “My father, a thousand pardons . . .”

  “And the letter from your elder brother?”

  “Forgive me, my father, a thousand pardons, I was not there. I’m no longer at that address, forgive me, a thousand pardons.”

  “So you were educated as high as a coconut tree to learn to deceive?”

  “A thousand pardons, my father.”

  “You think we’re all blind, ignorant of the date you moved to Wonokromo? And do not know that you took with you all our letters still unread?”

  The horse whip made from bull’s genitals swayed to and fro. The hairs on my back crawled, ready to receive the whip as it fell upon me, as a rebellious horse.