This Earth of Mankind

With a clear voice and in flawless Dutch—defying the judicial order that she use Javanese, and ignoring the pounding of the gavel—like the flood waters released from the grip of a hurricane, she began: “Honorable Judge, Honorable Prosecutor, seeing that you have already begun to make public my family affairs [hammer of the gavel; a reminder to answer questions directly], I, Nyai Ontosoroh alias Sanikem, concubine of the late Mr. Herman Mellema, look upon the relations between my daughter and my guest in a different light. I, Sanikem, am only a concubine. Out of my concubinage my daughter Annelies was born. Nobody ever challenged my relationship with Herman Mellema. Why? For the simple reason he was a Pure-Blooded European. But now people are trying to make an issue of Mr. Minke’s relationship with Annelies. Why? Only because Mr. Minke is a Native? Why then isn’t something said about the parents of all Indos? Between Mr. Mellema and me there were only the ties of slavery and they were never challenged by the law. Between Mr. Minke and my daughter there is a mutual and pure love. Indeed there are no legal ties between them. But when my children were born without any such ties, no one was heard objecting. Europeans are able to purchase Native women just as I was purchased. Are such purchases truer than pure love? If Europeans can act in these ways because of their superior wealth and power, why is it that a Native must become the target of scorn and insults because of pure love?”

  There was turmoil in the courtroom. Nyai kept on speaking, paying no heed to the judge’s gavel. She was forced to admit that Annelies was not a Native, but an Indo. And the prosecutor’s voice thundered furiously: “She is an Indo, an Indo, she’s above you! Minke is a Native, though with forum privilegiatum, the right to appear before this court, meaning he’s above you, Nyai, but his forum can be canceled at a moment’s notice. But Miss Annelies remains above Natives forever.”

  “Annelies, my daughter, sirs, is only an Indo, so is that why she may not do the things her father did? It was I who gave birth to her, who reared her, who educated her without a single cent of aid from you honorable gentlemen. Or perhaps it wasn’t I who have been responsible for her all this time? You gentlemen have never worked for and worried after her. Why all the fuss now?”

  Nyai no longer heeded the court’s authority. A police officer was ordered to remove her from the courtroom. She was dragged from her place, unable to resist. But her tongue did not stop letting fly words, bullets of revenge:

  “Who turned me into a concubine? Who turned us all into nyais? European gentlemen, made masters. Why in these official forums are we laughed at? Humiliated? Or is it that you gentlemen want my daughter to become a concubine too?”

  Her voice rang throughout the building. And all present were silenced. The police officer dragging her away moved faster to finish the job. She, this Native woman, had now become the unofficial prosecutor, plaintiff against the European race—a race now ridiculing their own deeds.

  She went on speaking all the time they were dragging her away.

  * * *

  And now the buggy traveled slowly along roads already showing signs of the early morning traffic. And at the school court too the gavel had struck: I was no longer the same as my fellow students. I was a danger to the girls, dismissed dishonorably from school. If, for example, the secrets of the teachers were to be exposed in public, cut open without mercy, who could guarantee they wouldn’t turn out to be more corrupt? Doesn’t everyone have their personal secrets, which they carry with them until death? And that prosecutor and that judge, both of whom showed me no mercy—who knows, might they themselves be keeping concubines, openly or secretly? Perhaps if there were no public or legal controls, their behavior might be even more rotten than that of Herman Mellema towards Sanikem?

  Traveling along in the buggy I felt that every person I saw was pointing accusingly at me: That is Minke, who sleeps in the same room as Annelies, a woman he hasn’t yet married.

  That is a Minke now different from all his friends, different from everybody else—his situation was exposed in court, wasn’t it? While the others weren’t? And the judge and prosecutor didn’t expose themselves either?

  What I was feeling then, such very depressed feelings, my ancestors called nelangsa—feeling completely alone, still living among one’s fellows but no longer the same; the heat of the sun is borne by all, but the heat in one’s heart is borne alone. The only way to obtain relief was communion with the hearts of those of a similar fate, similar values, similar ties, with the same burdens: Nyai Ontosoroh, Annelies, Jean Marais, Darsam.

  So I went to Jean’s house.

  “You’re dispirited Minke. Expelled from school? Chin up!”

  And he whose chin was always buried deep could now say chin up! It felt as if all things joyous had been eliminated from my heart.

  “Your school is too small for you now, Minke. If Minke has been broken like this, there’s still Max Tollenaar, isn’t there?”

  He looked at me as if I had some secret store of spirit. He didn’t realize that my humiliation meant it would now be more difficult to find orders. I told him. He was silent for a moment. Suddenly he burst out laughing. And I was somewhat hurt.

  “Do you know, Minke, I see a joke in all this.”

  “There’s nothing funny,” I said, annoyed.

  “There is. Do you know what? There is only one medicine that can cure you. Get married, Minke. You must marry Annelies. Show to the world that you’re not afraid of confronting even the eye of Satan. You’ll become like the others. They’re not asking much, only that you return to their fold—stupid, uncultured people. Marry, Minke, just marry.”

  “Magda Peters said she thought the court was unjust towards us, even insolent.”

  “Yes, it was uncivilized. That’s the most apt way of describing it. There are some Malay-Dutch papers that have said the same thing. Only not as strongly as that. Those sorts of questions should only be asked in closed court.”

  “Yes. But there was one Dutch paper that called Mama insolent, said that she created turmoil in the court. But they didn’t even print her words.”

  “Read Kommer’s article. His anger was like that of a wounded lion. He’s on your side.”

  “Tell me. I don’t feel like reading.”

  “He wrote that the actions of the judge and prosecutor were insults to all Indo-Europeans born out of concubinage, out of a relationship with a nyai. Their children, if acknowledged by the father, are not considered Natives. If the father doesn’t acknowledge them, they become Natives. It means: Natives are the equivalent of children born of a concubine whose father won’t acknowledge them. He also condemned the court’s exposure of your private affairs. Kommer said that the prosecutor and judge did not have European morals; it was worse than the Native court set up by Wiroguno to try Pronocitro almost two hundred and fifty years ago. Who were they, Minke? I don’t know.”

  “I’ll tell you another time,” I said, and left.

  As soon as I arrived home, I went straight into the office to report on the new disaster.

  “Mama, what do you think about the idea of Annelies and me marrying?”

  “Wait a while. What’s the hurry?”

  I told her about the troubles that had befallen my attempts to obtain orders. Troubles that might also befall Jean Marais.

  “What can one do, child? Regrets don’t achieve anything. The days at court have brought considerable losses to the business, and my position could deteriorate to that of any ordinary nyai, to be humiliated in public, to be sneered at out of the corners of people’s eyes. We have to make up those losses first, child. Because without this company doing well, this family will lose its honor. I hope you can understand.”

  I observed Nyai’s lips as they spoke so calmly. She hoped so much for my understanding.

  “Minke, I have reflected on the strangeness of life for a long time now. If I can’t save this business, my position will fall to that of any ordinary nyai. Annelies would suffer greatly. I will have been a complete loss as a mother. She must be respected more tha
n an ordinary Indo. She must become a Native honored among her own people. Such honor and respect can only be obtained through this business. It’s strange, child, but that is what the world demands.”

  Annelies herself was working out at the back.

  As I sat on the chair in the office, the question of Pures, Indos, and Natives hovered before my mind’s eye, clearing away that humiliating self-pity. Everything formed a network like that of a spider’s web. And in the middle of the web were the concubines and nyais. They don’t catch all the victims that come to them. On the contrary, the net catches up all possible humiliations that they then must swallow. They aren’t employers even though they live together in the same room with their masters. They are not included in the same class as the children they themselves have borne. They are not Pure, not Indo, and can even be said not to be Native. They are secret mountains.

  And my hand moved fluently across the page. Kommer’s ideas were the backbone of my article this time. And the sun set. And my article began to take form.

  Ya Allah, even out of such humiliating self-pity can come greater understanding about Your people. It was You too who ordered humanity to form nations and multiply. You have blessed relationships between men and women of different social and economic levels. Why have You not blessed this relationship between people of the same social and economic level and formed of their own free will—only because it has not been carried out according to Your rules? And You have allowed all this to occur, so as to give birth to the Indos, who have so much power over those born with Your blessing.

  I turn to You now because those nearest to You will not answer me. You must answer now. I am writing only what I know and what I think I know. Does not all knowledge and learning originate, in the end, from You Yourself?

  * * *

  Ten days after Max Tollenaar’s article about the issue of Pures, Indos, and Natives was published, Magda Peters came to Mama’s house during school hours. The school director wanted to see me. And I refused to go on the grounds that I no longer had any connection with the school.

  Nyai also objected to my going.

  Annelies ran away into her room.

  “Something has happened,” said our guest. “No matter how you feel, you must come. But first of all accept my congratulations. Your last article was a true call to humanity, a powerful incentive to people to think more wisely. And you’re still so young. . . .”

  So in the end I went.

  All along the journey, Magda Peters twittered about how good it was to have a student of whom she could be so proud. After all my recent experiences I felt soothed by this.

  The director received me with a friendly smile. All the students were given the rest of the day off. All the teachers were called together. A kangaroo court? Why was all this being done just for one person? Why was I so important?

  The director opened the meeting.

  “It has now become a European tradition to make judgments on people based only on their achievements. Even on this spot of land called Surabaya that tradition must be maintained. We are not going to ask: What is this man like? No, because that is a private affair. He is valued because of his achievements, because of what he has contributed to his fellow human beings.”

  And this beginning soon brought him to my latest article.

  “Moving. Touching upon our sense of sanity. More than that: true. It seems that the humanist conscience of Europe, for so long absent among the Indies Natives, has begun to grow within Max Tollenaar, one of our own students . . . Minke.”

  I didn’t understand at all what was meant by European humanism.

  “There have already been seven letters, two from graduates, which protested against our decision to expel Minke. One said this person must be helped, not expelled, even if it means taking some kind of special measure. The assistant resident of B even felt it necessary to come to Surabaya to see the resident of Surabaya to discuss the matter. The resident had no view on the matter, but the assistant resident offered to be Minke’s guardian while he was at H.B.S. He was even going to seek a meeting with the director of the department of teaching and religion if his efforts in Surabaya were not successful.

  “So, for the first time, one of our decisions is being tested and challenged, though it is not because of those tests and challenges that we must review our decision, but because of what we call our European humanistic conscience, in the name of our ancestors, and European civilization today.

  “Now, here is Minke, Max Tollenaar, standing before this respected council of teachers. This council will review its earlier decision and decide on some new policy.”

  Like a lioness who has lost her child, Magda Peters roared, clawed, attacked in the interest of her lost child. Her freckles stood out more sharply. Her eyes blinked more quickly. Finally, in a low voice, slow and halting, she closed with:

  “Education and teaching are nothing if not works of humanity. If someone outside school has developed into an individual with a sense of humanity, like Minke, we should be grateful and thank God, even though our part in the forming of this individual is so tiny. Such an outstanding individual can only be born out of extraordinary conditions and circumstances, as is the case with Minke. So I propose: Let us accept him back in school so that he can be given a stronger foundation on which he may build his future.”

  The council continued, with myself as the mute accused who did not know why he was being obliged to witness it all, and finally it was decided that I would be accepted back as a student. But with special conditions: I must sit at a special desk set apart from the others, and whether in class or out, I must not talk to fellow pupils, either to ask a question or to answer one.

  “What is your opinion, Minke, now that you’ve heard all this?” asked the director, who appeared to want to wash his hands of any past sins.

  “While ever there is the possibility, I will continue my schooling as I indeed originally desired. If the door is open to me, I will certainly enter. If it’s closed to me, I have no objections either if I do not enter. Thank you for all your efforts.”

  The meeting closed. With dark faces, except for Magda Peters, all the teachers shook hands to congratulate me. My Dutch language and literature teacher was so satisfied with herself and considered all that had occurred her own victory!

  As a closing ceremony the school director handed me unstamped letters from Miriam and Sarah de la Croix.

  The school was still. The H.B.S. building, compound, even the gravel all seemed foreign to me as if this were the first time I had seen the school. The teachers’ looks could be felt tickling my back. I walked straight to the buggy without turning to look back again.

  “Go slowly,” I ordered the driver, Marjuki, in Javanese. “Straight to the newspaper office.”

  Halfway there the driver said shyly:

  “Master looks so pale and thin.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you take a holiday, seek a cure, Master?”

  “Yes, later, when I’ve graduated from school.”

  “Three more months, Master?”

  “Yes. Still three more months.”

  “What’s the use of school, master, if you already have enough of everything?”

  “Yes, what is the use? But if I don’t succeed in school, Juki, I’ll feel like I won’t succeed in anything else later.”

  “Master has already succeeded in everything.”

  “Succeeded, how?”

  “That’s what people say, only what people say, Master. Noni . . . wealth, cleverness, you know important people, Dutchmen, not just anybody. . . .”

  “Is that what people say?”

  “Yes, Master, and so young, handsome; and in a little while you’ll become a bupati.”

  “Ah, forget it, Juki, forget it.”

  At the office of S.N. v/d D., Maarten Nijman offered me a full-time job with his paper if I was expelled from school. The work would be very interesting, he said, even if the wages somewhat low, on
ly twelve and a half guilders. I told him all about the teachers’ council meeting and the decision it had just taken.

  So Miss Magda Peters defended you with such great spirit? Ah yes, Magda Peters. Are you close to her?”

  “The wisest of my teachers, sir.”

  “Hmm. I think it would be wise if you distanced yourself from her somewhat.”

  “She is so kind.”

  “Kind? Yes, that’s her way of leading people astray, I think.”

  “Leading people astray?”

  “You must have heard at one time or other: People can be led astray with kindness too.”

  “Led astray how?” I asked, amazed.

  “She is a fanatical radical. She’s one of those busy with the ‘Indies for the Indies’ movement. Have you heard of it?” I shook my head. “They say the Indies should be equal with the Netherlands. She and her kind don’t want to know about all the limitations that exist in the Indies. Only disaster will befall those who dare fight against, let alone defy, those limitations. And among all those limitations the most numerous are the unwritten limitations. In the Netherlands, of course, there is total freedom. Here no such thing exists. There is nothing wrong with being a liberal as long as the limitations here are recognized and no one causes any commotions. That’s something you should know. It’s fortunate that no Natives have joined that movement. Imagine if you had joined it! If a liberal is condemned by the government—no matter what he did wrong—if he’s a Pure-Blood, exile from the Indies would be his most severe punishment. If he was an Indo, punishment would be more bitter: dismissal. If a Native, I think that he’d lose his freedom altogether; he’d be locked away without any trial—because there’s no law dealing specifically with this sort of thing. Be careful you don’t end up the one who gets in trouble. Your country is not the Netherlands, not Europe. If you get in trouble no one among the liberals will be able or willing to help you.”

  “She’s my teacher, Mr. Nijman, my teacher.”

  “Look, Mr. Minke, the Netherlands Indies runs on rumors. And it’s worth listening to those that come down from above. There have already been rumors about Miss Magda Peters. You’ve already experienced a lot of trouble lately. Don’t add to it, Mr. Minke.”