“No. Waiting inside and outside is the same. It’s better in the front room with Mama.”
Nyai supported Annelies and they sat together on a chair.
And still Robert didn’t come. The sound of the pendulum clock disturbed the expectant atmosphere. Every now and then Nyai checked the yard. Her eldest still hadn’t appeared.
“How could this happen, Ann, you falling so madly for him after just a few days? He should be the one falling madly in love with you.”
Annelies didn’t answer. Mama’s words seemed to hurt her.
“I’ll fetch some food, yes?”
“No need, Mama.” But Nyai went anyway and fetched two plates of rice, meat, and vegetables, spoon and fork and drinks.
Nyai ate, spoon-feeding Annelies at the same time.
“If you don’t want to chew, then just swallow,” she ordered.
And Annelies didn’t chew anything, just swallowed. Still no sign of Robert.
Twice Nyai called Darsam to serve customers. And Annelies sat silently gazing into the far-off distance—very far off.
Two hours passed.
“Ah, the crazy child is back at last!” exclaimed Nyai.
Only then did Annelies focus her vision on the main road.
“Darsam!” Nyai called out from her place. When Darsam came, she continued: “Lock the office door. You stand here.” She pointed to the door that joined the office with the front room.
Robert rode in on his horse, calmly, unhurriedly. He stopped in front of the steps, let his horse go free without tying it up, walked up the steps, and stood before Nyai and Annelies.
Nyai raised her eyebrows when she saw her son’s haircut with the new part in the middle. She noted that he wasn’t perspiring. There was no dust on him either. The horsewhip was gone. He wasn’t wearing his hat. Who knows where they were.
“That part in the hair,” whispered Nyai. “That paleness. . . .” She covered her mouth with her hand. “See Ann, see what sort of brother you have. Your Papa was like this when he came home from his wanderings, just like this. That smell of perfume . . . the same. If he opens his mouth, perhaps there will be that same smell of palm-wine as five years ago.”
And Nyai didn’t say a word to Robert.
Annelies looked at her brother with unfocused eyes. Darsam stood silently. Seeing that no one else was beginning to speak, the fighter from Madura cleared his throat. And as if he’d received an order, Robert looked up at Darsam, then shifted his look to his mother.
“The police don’t know where Minke was taken. They don’t recognize that name at all.”
Nyai stood up, enraged. Her face was scarlet. She pointed her finger at her eldest son and hissed:
“Liar!”
“I’ve been everywhere seeking an explanation.”
“All right, enough. You don’t need to say anything. The smell on your breath, your perfume, that hair-part . . . the same as your father five years ago and ever since. Look well, Ann, that was the beginning of your father losing all his sense of direction. Go, get out, you liar! I have no son, a cheat and liar.”
Darsam, standing before the office door, coughed again.
“Never forget this day, Ann. This was how your father arrived that time, and from then on I had to think of him as gone from my life. So today it is the same with your brother. He is following in the footsteps of Master.” Annelies did not respond. “So be it. Because of this, Ann, you must be strong. You must be strong, otherwise you will become a plaything, and will be played with by people like him. Stop crying. Do you want to follow your father and brother?”
“Mama, I want to be with you, Mama.”
“So don’t indulge yourself. Strengthen your heart.”
Annelies was struck silent on seeing Nyai suffer her greatest disappointment.
The horse in front of the house neighed. Robert came out of his room in clean clothes, neat and dashing. He walked out of the house quickly, paying no attention to his mother, sister, and Darsam.
He made no attempt to tie up the horse either. He just walked away.
Since that day Nyai’s eldest son hardly ever set foot in his family’s house.
11
I woke up at nine o’clock in the morning with my head aching. There was a throbbing and pounding above my eyes. It was as if a palakia tree seed had, unbeknownst to me, penetrated my skin, and was now growing roots in my brain in order to turn itself into a tree inside my head.
And I remembered the newspaper reports hailing the most powerful medicine discovered in the history of humanity, a medicine that would do away with headaches forever. They said the Germans had discovered it, and it was called aspirin. But so far it was no more than a report. It was not yet to be found in the Indies, or at least I didn’t know of it. Indies, a country that can do nothing but wait upon the products of Europe!
Mrs. Telinga had compressed my head several times with brown-onion vinegar. The whole room smelled of vinegar.
“Perhaps there’s a letter for me, ma’am?”
“Ha, only now Young Master asks about letters. Before, you were never interested in reading them. You’ve changed. Perhaps, though, there is one. The person was here a while ago. I said you were sleeping. I don’t know his name. Perhaps he has gone. I said to him: Young Master Minke is now staying at Wonokromo, isn’t he? He didn’t seem to take any notice, but rather took leave to visit next door for a moment, to Marais’s house.”
The boarding house was still. The other boarders had all left for school.
And that good-hearted woman pulled the table over close to my bed, then put some hot chocolate and fried coconut patties on it.
“What would Young Master like to eat today?”
“Does ma’am have shopping money?”
“If I run out, I can always ask Young Master for more, yes?”
“Perhaps a police officer has recently been here asking about me?”
“There was somebody. Not a police officer. A young man of Young Master’s age. I thought he was a friend of yours, so I told him what had happened.”
“Indo, Pure European, or Native?”
“Native.”
I didn’t question her further. I reckoned he was none other than that same police officer.
“So what will Young Master eat tonight?”
“Macaroni soup, ma’am.”
“Good. This is the first time you’ve wanted macaroni soup. Do you know how much one packet costs? Five cents, Young Master. So . . .”
“Two packets will be enough, no doubt.”
She laughed, relaxing when she received the shopping money of fifteen cents, then rushed hurriedly back to her kingdom: the kitchen.
That morning everything was still. Occasionally the bell of a passing buggy could be heard. It was only within my mind that there was great activity: Murderers and future murderers formed long lines with all sorts of faces, all sorts of figures. Even Magda Peters appeared in my mind with a threatening, unsheathed dagger. Magda Peters—my favorite teacher! It was as if I had gone mad, just because of what someone had said. Come on, I shouldn’t be so afraid of something whose truth and real context are so uncertain! I, an educated person? Even if the report was true, is it proper that I surrender to this accursed fear?
You will have suffered twice, Minke, if this report turns out to be true. First of all, you’re already afraid. Secondly, you’ll be killed. It’s enough to suffer once, Minke. Once is enough. Get up then. Why must you suffer twice? You’re too stupid to be called educated.
These thoughts made me laugh at myself. So I got up from the bed, stood tottering for a second, and started walking to the back of the house. Everything seemed to be moving. I grabbed for the back of a chair. I got my vision under control again and left the room. I didn’t end up going out to the back but sat in the front room and began to try to read the newspapers.
My headache subsided somewhat, but the smell of the onion vinegar continued to be a real annoyance.
A
pampered body, I said to myself.
Finally I did go out to the back and had a hot bath despite the protests of the garrulous Mrs. Telinga. How fond she was of me, that childless lady. She was an Indo who was more Native than European, without a single remaining trace of beauty, fat like a pillow. Even though her Dutch was terrible, it was still her day-to-day language; it was the language used by her family. She had never set foot in a school: illiterate. Her adopted child was a male mongrel dog. It was very clever at stealing fish from the market, which it would do two or three times a day. It brought the fish home to its adopted mother and she would grill it for the dog. After eating, the dog would go to sleep in the middle of the door, only to wake up and set off to steal again. This adopted child never barked at strangers, but would look them over with slowly blinking eyes as if waiting to be barked at first.
After getting dressed and combing my hair, I went to Jean Marais’s house. The picture of May’s mother fighting the soldier wasn’t finished. He was putting an all-out effort into it. He wanted it to be his best work.
May sat on his lap enjoying being spoiled. She had missed me over the last few days. I usually brought her some sweets. This time there wasn’t anything in my pockets.
“We’re not going for a walk, Uncle?”
“I’m not feeling well, May.”
“You’re pale, Minke,” Jean Marais admonished me.
“I didn’t notice,” May said, using French too; then she got up from her father’s lap and looked at me. “Yes, Uncle, you’re pale.”
“Not enough sleep,” I answered.
“Since you moved to Wonokromo all sorts of things have been happening to you, Minke,” Jean reprimanded. “And you haven’t been out looking for any new orders since then either.”
“If you knew what I’ve been through recently, Jean, you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to talk like that. Truly.”
“You’re in trouble again,” he accused. “Your eyes aren’t calm as they usually are.”
“Come on, can you really know what’s happened to somebody from their eyes?”
“May, buy some cigarettes for me, please.”
And the little girl went outside.
“Now, Minke, tell me what troubles you now.”
Naturally I told him of my suspicions about Fatso. That I felt there was somebody waiting for the opportunity to kill me (and there is only one of me!). That I felt that everywhere there were people spying on me, ready to swing their machetes into action against my body.
“Just as I expected. This, of course, is the risk you face when you go to live in the house of a nyai. You once joined in condemning the nyais and their morality. And what did I say? Don’t sit in judgment over something about whose truth you are uncertain. I suggested you visit there two or three times, to observe things as an educated person.”
“I remember, Jean.”
“Well, you have been there. But you didn’t just visit, you stayed.”
“Yes.”
“You lived there not just to investigate how the common view of nyais matches with reality; you decided to act out that common view yourself—dragged down to a low and shameful level of moral behavior. Then you receive threats, who knows from whom. No doubt from that quarter with the most at stake: and whom you have now challenged. Now you fear someone is out to get you, Minke. But it is your own guilt that is pursuing you.”
“What else Jean.”
“Am I wrong?”
“It’s very possible you are right.”
“Why only possible?”
“That is, if it were true I had acted in the shameful manner you imply.”
“So you haven’t?”
“No, not at all.”
“At the very least I’m happy to hear that, Minke, my friend.”
“And it’s also clear that Nyai is no ordinary woman. She is educated, Jean. I think she’s the first educated Native woman I have met in my life. Wonderful, Jean. Some day I’ll take you there to meet her. We’ll take May. She’d like it very much there. Truly.”
“So why does someone want to kill you if you have done nothing wrong? You’re educated, try to be true to your conscience. You are among the first of the educated Natives. Much is demanded of you. And if you can’t deliver, the educated Natives after you will grow up more rotten than you yourself.”
“Quiet, Jean. Don’t talk such nonsense. I’m in trouble.”
“It’s only your imagination.”
May returned with a packet of corn-leaf cigarettes and Jean quickly started smoking.
“You smoke too much, Jean.”
He only laughed. On that day my French friend did not make me happy at all. He was wrong. And I was being reproached with unfounded allegations. Father too had made similar accusations at the beginning of our meeting. Now Jean Marais seemed not to believe the truth of what I was saying: He too, in the end, suffered the old prejudices. He thought I’d been defeated, dragged down to shameful behavior. It felt as if there was no use in continuing the conversation.
I took May’s hand and we went home together. We sat on the long bench on the front porch.
“Why don’t you go to school, May?”
“Papa likes me to wait on him while he paints.”
“So what else do you do?”
“Watch Papa paint, just watch.”
“He doesn’t talk to you?”
“Of course he does. He said that under the clump of bamboo it should be cool because the wind whistles through all the time. But that poor person being stamped on by the soldier, Uncle!?”
She didn’t know that the woman being trodden upon was her own mother.
“Come on, May, sing!” The child straight away started singing her favorite song. “A French one, May. I already know all the Dutch songs.”
“French?” She tried to remember. Then: “Ran, ran pata plan! Ran, plan, plan,” from “Joli Tambour.” “You’re not listening, Uncle, come on!”
My eyes were observing a fat man wearing a sarong and sitting under a tamarind tree on the other side of the road, next to a chilled-fruit seller. He wore a peci, but wasn’t wearing sandals, let alone shoes. His shirt was made of calico, and he wore loose, black trousers and a wide, leather belt. His shirt was unbuttoned. His figure and skin and his narrow, slanted eyes meant he could not fool me. Perhaps he was to be my future murderer. Fatso! Robert’s man, now that he had failed in enlisting Darsam.
Every now and then, while eating his fruit, he glanced over at the two of us.
“Call Papa, May.”
The little girl ran off. And Jean appeared with his tall, thin body, walking lamely on his armpit crutch. He sat down beside me.
“I don’t think I’m wrong, Jean, that’s the one. He followed me from B. Only his clothes are different now.”
“Ssst. It’s just your own imagination, Minke,” he scolded me instead.
Just at that moment Mr. Telinga arrived from somewhere. In one hand he was carrying a basket—who knows what its contents were—and in the other hand he held a length of steel pipe, obtained from who knows where.
“Jean, Minke, what’s going on? You two sitting out here together so early in the morning?” He greeted us in Malay.
“It’s like this.” Jean Marais began the story about my fears. Then he pointed with his chin to the man I reckoned was Fatso.
The new arrival put his basket down on the ground: It proved to be full of young kedondong fruit. The steel pipe remained in his hand. His wild eyes were aimed across the road.
“Let me have a close-up look. Come on, Minke, you’re the one who knows him. Perhaps it is him. Let me bash in his head if need be.” I walked along behind him and Jean Marais followed us, limping.
It became clearer as we approached that it was Fatso. He was no doubt spying on me that very moment. And he was pretending not to notice us coming closer. He went on enjoying his fruit, though I could see his eyes glance about vigilantly. That he was disguised only strengthened my suspi
cions.
“It’s him all right,” I said without hesitation.
Telinga approached him threateningly, the steel pipe still in his hand. I myself no longer knew what I wanted to do. Jean Marais was still limping along behind us.
“Hey, man,” Telinga snapped in Javanese, “are you spying on my house?”
Fatso pretended not to hear and continued eating.
“So you’re pretending not to hear, eh?” snapped the pensioned Indies army soldier, this time in Malay. He grabbed the plate of fruit and threw it on the ground.
It appeared that Fatso was not scared of Indos. He stood up, wiped his chili-paste-covered hand on a piece of tamarind trunk bark, swallowed down the remains of his fruit, bent over and washed his hands in the fruit-salad seller’s bucket of water, and only then spoke, calmly, in High Javanese:
“I am not spying on anything or anyone.” He tried to glance across at me and smiled.
What did he think he was doing? The impudence! He smiled at me. My future murderer! He smiled!
“Get out of here,” shouted Telinga.
The fruit seller, an old woman, frightened, moved away. Some distance away people began to congregate, no doubt curious to know why a Native dared confront an Indo European.
“I eat here almost every day, Ndoro Tuan.”
“I’ve never seen you. Go! If not . . .” He swung the steel pipe about.
And Fatso was still not frightened. He didn’t lift up his head and just bowed, his eyes wary.
“There has never been any ban on eating here, Ndoro Tuan,” he retorted.
“You dare argue back? Don’t you know I’m Dutch and was in the Indies army?”
Fatso was no doubt a fighter. He wasn’t afraid of an Indies army Dutchman. Perhaps he was a Malay-style fighter, or skilled in Chinese martial arts.
“Even so, there is no police ban. There has not been any public announcement of any ban, Ndoro Tuan. Allow me to just sit here and eat my fruit. I haven’t paid yet, either,” and he was about to sit down again.
I became suspicious when I heard him talk about bans. He knew about regulations. Telinga must be more careful. But the former Indies army soldier, who only knew of violence, had already swung his arm, striking towards the side of Fatso’s head. Fatso parried the blow, but did not return the attack.