This Earth of Mankind

  “I’ve heard that often.”

  “Ya. And there’s more than that: I’ve never felt happy with the name Dapperste.”

  The Preacher Dapperste’s family had no children. They had taken care of Jan since he was small, baptized him, and given him their family name, Dapperste. Since then he’s been called Jan Dapperste. He didn’t know what his name was before all that. The preacher had tried to adopt him through the courts. He never succeeded because Dutch law didn’t recognize adoption. So his name was something recognized in the community, but not by the law.

  “Since I was small I have always been a coward. You know that too. The name Dapperste—the courageous one—has always tormented me.”

  Yes, all our fellow school students knew. Some even changed Dapperste to Lafste—Jan de Lafste—the coward. And if his story was true, then for no other reason than to free himself of that name he had changed into a brave person indeed: diving into the sea and running away from his parents. I still didn’t really believe him.

  “So who are you living with now?” I asked.

  “Here and there . . . I want to get a job here in Surabaya with my H.B.S. diploma. The only problem, Minke, is that the name Dapperste is on that diploma too. Must I go through life carrying that name to the very end?”

  “You can change your name.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve spent the last year seeking explanations of how to go about it.”

  “And?”

  “You put forward a letter to the resident, who sends it on to the governor-general.”

  “Why haven’t you done it then?”

  He gazed at me with dull eyes, as if he weren’t an H.B.S. graduate. He made a noise with his mouth and looked away.

  “You can’t write a letter? Come on, you can use other examples of official letters?”

  “It’s the duty-stamp, Minke; it’s too expensive to get free of this name. Just the application alone costs one and a half guilders. For the letter of determination that I need there is another one-and-a-half-guilder stamp. I’ve thought and thought . . .”

  “And why haven’t you done it yet?”

  “Come on, Minke, don’t tell me you don’t understand. Where would I get three guilders? And then there are still the postage stamps.”

  “Why didn’t you just say you didn’t know where you could get the money? Wouldn’t have that been easier?”

  “I’m sorry. Forgive me, Minke, it’s so embarrassing speaking to you like this on this day of happiness for you.”

  “You don’t regret my happiness.”

  “No, of course not. I thank God too with all sincerity and honesty.”

  “Then share too in my happiness.”

  “That’s why I have come.”

  “Listen, Jan, Mama is going to expand the business. She’s going to move into spices. You can try working there. You’d like that, yes? While waiting for the determination about your name to be issued?”

  “Thank you, Minke. You’ve always been good and generous. It’s a pity the governor-general’s letter has to be preceded by an application—I haven’t even made it out yet.”

  “The new company is being headed by an Indo, van Doornenbosch. I’ll introduce you to him later. I’ll look after everything myself.”

  He took my hand. His head was bowed down. He didn’t speak.

  “Don’t just be silent. Talk with me while there’s still some time.”

  “Thank you, Minke. That’s not all. You yourself can guess my situation. My accommodation, Minke, and the cost of traveling around Surabaya?”

  Mother entered my room to prepare my adornment. That noble woman had struggled hard to make sure she would get this job. No one else would adorn her child, of whom she was so proud, now that he was to be a groom. In her right hand she carried a paper bag and in her left, a basket of flowers, some untied and some in bunches.

  On seeing Jan Dapperste, who looked at her in a demeaning way, she hesitated.

  “This is my Mother, Jan,” I said.

  Only then did my friend force a smile and bow in respect.

  “Mother doesn’t speak Dutch,” I reminded him.

  And Jan Dapperste began to speak in fluent High Javanese. I was quite dumbfounded to witness it. And I explained to Mother that he was a fellow graduate, the son of a preacher.

  “The former picked-up son of a preacher,” he corrected me.

  “Child, Mother wishes to adorn her son now. Excuse us.”

  “Allow me to help, Mother.”

  “A thousand thanks, child. But no. This is the last job his mother will do for her child. I must do it myself. Do you think you could move to another place?”

  Jan looked at me, his eyes shouting out for help. I knew he was tired. And more than that: hungry. I knew his behavior by heart. I took a piece of paper and wrote an order to Darsam to look after Jan.

  “Find Darsam.” He took the letter and went.

  I could now light the gas lamp in my room, a sign that it was exactly six o’clock. The gas mains, which Darsam himself looked after, and which were located in a small stone house behind the main building, were now opened. The room lit up.

  Mother scrubbed my face, neck, chest, and arms with a liquid whose name I didn’t know.

  “In the bygone ages,” Mother began, just as she had when I was still small, “countries would wage all-out wars to win a maiden like my daughter-in-law, mbedah praja, mboyong putri was our ancestors proverb: Victory over kingdoms, possession of its princesses. Today things are more secure. It’s not like it was when I was little, let alone when your grandfather was little. Even though the Dutch are so very powerful they have never stolen people’s wives or daughters like the kings who ruled our ancestors. Ah, child, had you lived in those days you would have been constantly called to the battlefield to be able to keep possession of your wife, that angel. Maybe she’s even more beautiful than that. Her cheeks, her lips, her forehead, her nose, even her ears—all are as if formed in wax, shaped according to all men’s dreams. How proud I am to have her as my daughter-in-law, Gus. You have made me so happy.”

  “She, Mother, this daughter-in-law of Mother’s, there’s not enough Java in her.”

  “You are happy with her, aren’t you? Be happy in the beginning, Gus, but then be ever vigilant—a child as beautiful as that . . . the gods will not be still.”

  Mother kept on looking to my body, and keep on talking too, and talking.

  “You are lucky you don’t have to be always fighting like your ancestors.”

  “Mother.”

  “Ah, if only I could take her to B, Gus, everyone would come out of their houses to greet her. What about it? Will you both later come to B or not?”

  “No, Mother.”

  “Ya, ya, I understand, Gus. So your mother must be the one to come here to see you, and my daughter-in-law, and my grandchildren.”

  “It would be Father who would object, Mother.”

  “Sst. Silent, you. So you’ve forbidden your wife to have her teeth filed? Don’t her sharp teeth disgust you?”

  “Let my wife’s teeth remain as they were given to her, Mother.”

  “Like Dutch teeth, like the unfiled teeth of an ogre.”

  “Why are you scrubbing me like this, as if I’ve never bathed?”

  “Hush! On this your wedding day I want to see you look like the child of the gods. So neither you nor I will look back on this day with any disappointment.”

  “What’s the use of being the child of the gods?”

  “Hush! It is not for yourself that you must be like the child of the gods. Today, all your ancestors will come to witness your wedding and give their blessings. I would never miss an opportunity to see one of my descendants. Imagine how I’d feel to see my son ascend the wedding throne looking like anything but a Javanese knight? And what will I say when I’m dead and see my grandchildren fail to be Javanese only because their parents did not look to things properly?”

  “Do the ancestors of the Dutch
also attend the wedding of their descendants?”

  “Hush! Why are you concerned with the Dutch? You’re still not Javanese enough yet. You don’t obey your own ancestors enough. People say you’ve become a man of letters, but where are your poems that I can sing at night when I miss you?”

  “I cannot write in Javanese, Mother.”

  “An, if you were Javanese, you would be able to write in Javanese. You write in Dutch, Gus, because you no longer want to be Javanese. You write for Dutch people. Why do you honor them so greatly? They drink and eat from the Javanese earth. You do not eat and drink from the Dutch earth. Why, why do you honor them so greatly?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “What are you yessing? Your ancestors, the kings of Java, all wrote in Javanese. Are you perhaps ashamed of being Javanese? Ashamed that you’re not Dutch?”

  It would have been stupid to answer Mother’s words, spoken so gently but containing an unanswerable harshness. Yes, everybody makes demands on me. Now Mother too. Mother knew and I knew I would not answer. She was speaking more to her ancestors, pleading that they forgive me, her favorite child. The ancestors must not be furious at me. Ah, Mother, my beloved Mother, a mother who has never tried to force her will upon me, has never hurt me, not even with only a little pinch, no, not with words, not with her fingers.

  “Put on this batik kain. Now. Mother made this batik for you herself, and for this occasion. Four years I have stored it in a special box; every week I sprinkled it with jasmine flowers, Gus. After I heard people’s stories about the newspaper reports of the trial, I sacralized the kain, Gus. One for you, and one for my daughter-in-law. Inspect your Mother’s batik work and smell the aroma of the years and years of jasmine.”

  So I inspected it and I smelled it.

  “Beautiful, Mother, wonderful. So sweet-smelling. And that delicious aroma has been absorbed right down into the threads.”

  “Aah, what do you know about batik,” and deliberately she didn’t look at me, knowing that I’d be grimacing from the pain. “I dyed it red and blue with my own hands, Gus. And the dyes I made myself also. Smell its aroma again, the perfume of the dye is still there,” and the kain was pushed under my nose.

  “Delicious, Mother.”

  “Ah, you! I’m happy, Gus, to see you so clever at pretending, so as to please the heart of this old woman,” and once again she didn’t look at me as I grimaced with the pain. “I could tell that my future daughter-in-law and her mother would not be able to make batik. So it had to be me who carried out this task. When I was a child, Gus, a woman who couldn’t make batik was considered a poor woman indeed.”

  “Mother’s batik is so fine. It must have taken you at least a month to finish?”

  “Two months, two batiks. Specially made to be worn on this day. If you both throw them out after today, that is up to you.”

  “I will save them until I die, Mother.”

  “How clever you’ve become in pleasing me. Those are the words of a devoted son. These chains of flowers have also been made by your mother. This keris, this curved ceremonial sword, was left to you by your grandfather. It is hundreds of years old, from before the time of Mataram, from before Pajang. From the time of Majapahit, Gus.”

  “From where does Mother know this?”

  “Hush! Don’t be silly, Gus. Don’t you remember hearing the family tree explained in your grandfather’s house? You never listened to him. That is your fault. Maybe you only value what the Dutch say. This keris has been used by all your ancestors except your father. This keris was prepared for you, Gus. Ah, how must I speak to you? Truly, Mother no longer knows, Gus. Excuse this old woman who knows nothing, Gus.”

  “Mother!”

  “There is no Dutchman who can make a keris, Gus. None are or ever will be able to make one. Open it and you’ll see the thumbprints of the craftsman sage who made it.”

  At that time I was putting on my batik kain, so I said:

  “Sorry, Mother, could Mother pull the keris out of its scabbard for me so I can see it?”

  “Hush! You’re indeed no longer of Java. Do you equate this with a kitchen knife?”

  When I saw teardrops on her face I quickly tied up my kain and knelt down before her:

  “Forgive me, Mother, it was not my intent to hurt Mother. Forgive me, Mother, a thousand pardons, Mother.”

  Mother turned away and wiped away the tears from her face.

  “Don’t go too far, Gus, don’t go too far with your non-Javaneseness. Since when has a woman been allowed to pull out a keris from its scabbard? A keris is only for a man. That which is for a woman is not called a keris. Don’t be so disrespectful. You too could not make the likes of this. Respect those who can do more than you. Later you can look in the mirror. When you have slipped the keris onto your waist, you will change. You will look more like your ancestors. You will be closer to your origins.”

  And mother talked and talked. And finally my adornment was finished.

  “Sit down there on the floor. Bow down your head,” and I knew what would follow on such an occasion as this: the advice before the marriage ceremony. It could be no other way. The advice was beginning. “You are a descendant of the knights of Java . . . the founders and destroyers of kingdoms. . . . You yourself have the blood of a knight. You are a knight. What are the attributes of a knight of Java?”

  “I don’t know, Mother.”

  “Hush! You who believe only in everything that is Dutch. The five attributes of the Javanese knight are: house, woman, horse, bird, and keris. Can you remember that?”

  “Of course I can, Mother.”

  “Do you know the meanings of the words?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “And do you know what they symbolize?”

  “No, Mother.”

  “Child who doesn’t know his own origins, you! Listen, and pass it on to your children one day.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “First a house, Gus. Without a house a person can never be a knight. He can only be a tramp. A house, Gus, is where a knight departs from, and the place to which he returns. A house is not just an address, Gus, it is a place trusted by he who lives there. Are you bored?”

  “I’m listening.”

  She pulled my ear:

  “You have never listened to your parents.”

  “I’m listening, Mother, truly.”

  “Secondly, a woman, Gus—without a woman, a knight goes against his nature as a man. Woman is the symbol of life, and the bringer of life, of fertility, prosperity, of well-being. She is not just a wife to a husband. Woman is the center around which circles and from which comes the giving of life, and life itself. This is how you should look upon this old mother of yours, and what should guide you in bringing up your daughters.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “The Dutch know none of this, Gus. But you must know, because you’re Javanese.”

  “Yes, Mother, they know none of this.”

  “Third, Gus, a horse. The horse will carry you on your journeys: after learning, knowledge, ability, skills, expertise, and finally—advancement. Without a horse, your strides will not be long, your vision will be short.”

  I nodded in agreement, understanding too that this was wisdom that had been born out of centuries of experience. Only I didn’t really know for sure whose wisdom it was, the ancestors’ or Mother’s own.

  “The fourth, the bird, is a symbol of beauty, of distraction, of everything that has no connection with simple physical survival, of only the satisfaction of one’s soul. Without this, people are only lumps of soulless stone. And the fifth, the keris, Gus, the keris is the symbol of vigilance, of preparedness, of courage, the weapon with which to defend the other four. Without the keris, the others will vanish. They will be vulnerable to any attack. You, H.B.S. graduate, your teachers have never taught you any of this? Those Dutchmen? Now you know all that a knight need know. Never be without even one of these things. Do not scoff at the knightly attributes. Eac
h of them is a sign of yourself. You must listen to your ancestors. If you can’t obey in the other things, then at least complete the attainment of these five. You hear, Gus?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Now meditate. Ask for the blessings and forgiveness of your ancestors, that they may guard you from the oppression, slander, and malice of others.”

  I remained seated on the floor, head bowed.

  “Not like that. Sit properly, cross-legged. Your arms relaxed and placed on your lap. Be a good Javanese, even if only for a moment and just this once. Bow down your head more deeply, Gus.”

  I had carried out all her orders and her wishes. And indeed I did seek forgiveness from those unknown ancestors of mine, ancestors whom I could not even imagine. Instead, just for a moment, Fatso flitted through my mind.

  Mother knelt before me, placing a necklace of jasmine flowers around my neck. She was sobbing. Then she placed a small chain of flowers in each of my hands. With her hands, and without speaking, she moved each of my fingers into gripping the chains. She kissed my forehead under the curved edge of my batik blangkon, the sign of Javanese nobility. And her sobbing became worse. I felt her tears drop onto my cheeks. And all of a sudden I too began to cry.

  And those images of my ancestors, which had not yet had the chance to even take on faces, faded away, replaced by churning emotions inside my breast, squeezing the tears out in an ever more abundantly flowing stream.

  “Bless this child, the child of your blood, my ancestors, your most-favored child. Protect him from disasters, from oppression, slander, and malice, because he is my beloved child. I gave birth to him in suffering, almost dying . . .”

  “Mother!” I flung my body to the ground and embraced her knees.

  “. . . I have lived until today only so that I may witness this event. This is the child of my own blood. Bring him closer to greatness and triumph.”

  I felt Mother’s hands on my back. And Mother ceased her sobbing. She corrected the way I was sitting, the position of the jasmine necklace and the chains of flowers gripped in my hands. With the corner of her kabaya she wiped away my tears. She put right the way I held up my chin, it being too high.