This Earth of Mankind

  The Dutch generals almost gave up. The Dutch were only ever able to destroy the children, the grandmothers and grandfathers, the ill, the pregnant women. And these helpless people, Jean said, felt fortunate if they died at the hands of the army. Jean’s superiors spread rumors that the casualties amongst the European soldiers never reached the three thousand that they did in the Java War; but everyone was still afraid with every square of land that they stepped upon.

  And Jean Marais began to admire and love these noble, heroic Natives, with their strong character and personality. For twenty-seven years they had waged war, confronting the most powerful weaponry of the age, the product of the science and the experience of the whole of European civilization.

  Love is beautiful, Minke, very, very beautiful, he had said. But he never told me how he came to love the enemy he captured or how she may have come to love him, and to give him a beloved child, May, now sitting in my lap prattling.

  I stroked her hair. For how many months was your mother able to feed you from her breasts, sweet one? You have lost something that nothing and no one can ever replace.

  “Look over there, Uncle,” she called out in Dutch, “above those clouds. Kites shouldn’t be like crabs!”

  “Yes, crabs shouldn’t be flying in the sky. The clouds are getting darker, May, let’s go home.”

  * * *

  Jean Marais was still crouched over his drawing table. He looked up when we entered. May quickly went to him and told him about the crab kites over the clouds. Jean nodded attentively. I moved about looking at the finished pictures that tomorrow or the day after I’d have to deliver to customers.

  Jean would never had been able to stand up to their argumentativeness. There was always something they wanted changed more to their own liking. And that was my job—a heavy job certainly—to convince them: The artist is a great French painter, and that alone is enough to guarantee the eternal appeal of the work, to make it more eternal than the customers themselves. If it’s changed, that eternal appeal will be destroyed and it will become an ordinary chemical photograph. The most determined querulousness came from the female customers. It’s lucky I had been able to learn a lot from listening to Jean: Women prefer to serve the present and are afraid of age; they are in the grip of dreams about their fragile youth and want to hang eternally to the youth of their dreams. Age is truly an oppression for women. You must reply to their arguments in kind: This painting will make an excellent inheritance for Madam’s children, not just for Madam. (Luckily our women customers aren’t all sterile.) Usually my tenacity wins out. If not, I’m forced to make threats: Well, if Madam doesn’t like it, I’ll pay it off myself and hang it in my room. Usually this threat arouses their curiosity. They quickly answer: What for? And I answer: If it becomes my property there are no obstacles to stop me doing anything I like to it. Doing what for example? Yes, well I could give it a mustache . . . (but I’ve never actually said that). In short, until now I’ve never been defeated, especially after I realized women look upon argumentativeness as a measure of one’s shrewdness.

  “It’s getting late, Jean, I’m off home.”

  I climbed over the hedge into the front yard of my boarding house. Darsam had long been waiting for me with a letter.

  “Young Master.” He offered his respects, then he spoke in Javanese. “Nyai awaits a reply. Darsam will wait, Young Master.”

  The letter reported that the family at Wonokromo was waiting for me and that Annelies had fallen into daydreaming, did not want to eat, and also that much of her work was unfinished, or incorrectly done. “Sinyo Minke, how grateful would I be, a mother with so much to do, if Sinyo would consider her difficulties. Annelies is my only helper. I cannot handle all the work myself. I’m worried about Annelies’s health. It would mean so much to us both. Come and visit, Nyo, even if only for a little while. One or two hours would be enough. Though we hope very much that Sinyo will want to stay with us. Lastly, let me express our unbounded gratitude for Sinyo’s cooperation.”

  The letter was written in correct and proper Dutch. There was no way it could have been written by an inexperienced primary school graduate. I thought it might have been written by somebody else. At least I knew it was not written by Robert Mellema. But who cares who wrote it? I gave me courage, gave me back my character: If I was in their grip, they were also in mine. In each other’s grips, if you couldn’t actually say under each other’s spells. A wise mother, naturally emanating authority like Nyai, is needed by every child. And a maiden whose beauty is beyond compare is needed by every youth. See, I thought: They need me in order to save their family and their business. So I was pretty remarkable too, heh? How many arguments could I now assemble to justify myself in my actions.

  Good. I will go.

  4

  Nyai’s letter certainly didn’t exaggerate. Annelies looked gaunt. She greeted me on the front steps. Her eyes shone, bringing her face to life again; she had been so pale before she shook my hand.

  Robert Mellema wasn’t to be seen. And I didn’t ask after him.

  Nyai emerged from the doorway at the side of the front parlor.

  “You’ve come at last, Nyo. Annelies had to wait so long for you. Look after your friend, Ann; I’ve still a lot of work, Nyo.”

  I was able to steal a glance into the room next to the front parlor. It turned out to be nothing other than the business office. Nyai closed the door, and disappeared behind it.

  There arose that same feeling I had experienced the first time I came: foreboding. Something strange could happen at any moment. Be careful, this heart of mine reminded me. Be vigilant. As before, now too a voice asked me: Why are you so stupid as to come here? Why don’t you go home to your own family if you’re tired of boarding? Or find somewhere else to board? Why do you follow the pull of this forbidding house, not resisting, but surrendering unconditionally?

  Annelies took me into the room where I had stayed last time. Darsam lifted down my suitcases and bags from the buggy and brought them into the room.

  “Let me put your clothes into the wardrobe,” said Annelies.

  I handed over the suitcase keys and she began to busy herself. She lined up the books on the table; the clothes went into the wardrobe. Then she unpacked my bag. Darsam put the empty suitcase and bag on top of the wardrobe. And Annelies now fixed up the row of books so they looked like a column of soldiers.

  “Mas!” That was the first time she had called me thus—a call that made my heart pound, making me feel as if I were in the midst of a Javanese family. “Here are three letters. You haven’t read them yet. Why don’t you read them?”

  It felt as if everyone was demanding I read the letters I received.

  “Three letters, Mas, all from B.”

  “Yes, I’ll read them later.”

  She brought them over to me, saying:

  “Read them. They might be important.”

  She went to open the outside door. And I put the letters on the pillow. I followed after her. In front of us a beautiful garden opened up, not big, you could almost say tiny, with a pool and a few white geese chatting away—like in pictures. A stone bench stood at the edge of the pool.

  “Come on.” Annelies took me outside, along a cement path hemmed in on either side by the green lawn.

  We sat down on the stone bench. Annelies was still holding my hand.

  “Does Mas prefer I speak Javanese?”

  No, I didn’t want to oppress her with a language that would force her to position herself according to the complicated Javanese social order.

  “Dutch is fine,” I said.

  “We had to wait so long for you.”

  “I had a lot of schoolwork, Ann; I must pass.”

  “Mas will surely pass.”

  “Thank you. Next year I must graduate. Ann, I think of you all the time.”

  She looked at me with a glowing face and pushed her body closer to mine.

  “Don’t lie,” she said.

  “Who would
ever lie to you?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Of course. Of course.”

  I held her around the waist and heard her shallow breathing. Oh Allah, You have given me the most beautiful maiden in the world. My heart raced too.

  “Where is Robert?” I asked in an attempt to tranquilize my heart.

  “Why ask that? Even Mama never asks where he is.”

  There was something the matter here, but I didn’t feel it was right for me to interfere.

  “Mama feels she can’t do all her work anymore, Mas.” She bowed her head and her voice contained sorrow. “These days I have to carry out all her duties.”

  I observed her pale, waxen lips.

  “Robert doesn’t like Mama. He doesn’t like me either. He’s hardly ever at home. He hates everything Native, except the pleasure he can get from them. It’s like he’s not Mama’s firstborn son, not my brother. He’s like a stranger who has wandered off the road into our house.”

  She obviously thought a lot about her brother, and thought about him with compassion—and she was still so young.

  “I haven’t seen Mr. Mellema either,” I said, looking for something else to talk about.

  “Papa? Are you still afraid of him? Forgive that horrible night. You shouldn’t think about him anymore. Papa has become such a stranger. Sometimes he only comes home once a week, then leaves again the same day. Sometimes he sleeps a while, then vanishes, I don’t know to where. That’s why Mama and I have to look after everything now.”

  What sort of family was this? Two women, mother and daughter, working silently away to maintain a family and a business as big as this?

  “Where does Mr. Mellema work?”

  “Don’t pay any attention to him, I beg you, Mas. No one knows where he works. He never speaks; it’s like he’s mute. And we never ask. No one talks with him. This has been going on for five years now. It feels that’s how it’s been for as long as I can remember. He used to be so good and so friendly. Every day he put aside time to play with us. All of a sudden, when I was in fourth class at E.L.S., everything changed. The business closed down for several days. Red-eyed, Mama came to the school to pick me up, to take me away from school forever. Beginning that day I’ve had to help Mama with her work in the business. Papa never appeared again, except for a few minutes every one or two weeks. Since then, Mama has never really spoken to him, or wanted to answer his questions.”

  An unhappy story.

  “Was Robert also taken out of school?” I asked, turning the conversation.

  “When I was taken out of school he was in seventh class—no, he wasn’t taken out.”

  “Where did he continue his schooling afterward?”

  “He passed that year, but didn’t want to go on. He didn’t want to work. Soccer and hunting and horseback riding—that’s all he was interested in.”

  “Why doesn’t he help Mama?”

  “Because he hates Natives, says Mama. For him there would be nothing greater than to become a European and for all Natives to bow down to him. Mama refuses to bow down. He wants to control the whole business. Everyone would have to work for him, including Mama and me.”

  “He looks on you as a Native too?” I asked cautiously.

  “I am a Native, Mas,” she answered without hesitation. “You’re surprised? Yes, I could call myself an Indo. I love and believe in Mama, Mas, and Mama is a Native.”

  A puzzling family indeed, each member playing their part in this fearful play.

  Annelies kept on talking and I just listened.

  “If that’s what you want, that’s easy, Robert, said Mama. You’re an adult now. When your papa dies, go to a lawyer; perhaps you could get control over the whole business. Mama also said: But you must remember, you still have a stepbrother from a legitimate marriage, an engineer called Maurits Mellema, and you would never be able to stand up to a Pure European. You are only a Mixed-Blood. If you really want to own and run this company properly, learn to work like Annelies. You can’t even govern workers, because you have never worked yourself.”

  “Look at the swan, Ann, white, like cotton wool.” I wanted to change the conversation. But she kept on talking. “Why are you telling me all your family secrets?”

  “Because you are our first guest in five years. Our guest, a family guest. There have been some visitors but they’ve all been business contacts. There was one man, a family guest, but he was our doctor. So you’re our first real guest. And you’re so close to us, so good to Mama and also to me.” Her voice faded into quietness, no longer childlike. “See, I’m ready to tell you everything, Mas. And you mustn’t feel restrained about anything here either. You’ll be the good friend of us both.” She became very sentimental. “Everything I own is yours, Mas. You are free to do as you wish in this house.”

  How lonely were the hearts of this girl and her mother in the midst of this abundant wealth.

  “Rest now. I want to do some work.”

  She stood, ready to leave. She looked at me for a moment, hesitated, kissed me on my cheek, then quickly walked away, leaving me by myself, alone.

  * * *

  How long had she been saving up all her feelings? I became the receptacle into which they overflowed.

  I could hear the racket from the rice factory from where I was sitting. And the sounds of the milk carts coming and going. The bang and clatter of the buffalo carts as they took things to and from the warehouse. The threatening pounding as peanuts were broken from their shells. The noise of workers joking.

  I entered the room, opened up my notebook, and began writing about this strange and frightening family that, by sheer accident, had now involved me too in its affairs. Who knows, I thought, some day in the future I may be able to produce stories like When the Roses Wilt, that remarkable serial by Hertog Lamoye? Yes, who knows? So far I’ve only written advertisements and short articles for the auction papers. With my own byline and read by the public? Who could tell?

  I wrote down all of Annelies’s words. And what about Darsam, the fighter? I still did not know much about him. With which of this forbidding family’s three factions did he side? Wasn’t he precisely the closest danger to all three? Danger? Is there really any danger? If there is, then I too must be under threat. If it’s true there is danger, why am I staying here? Isn’t it better I leave?

  The knock on the door startled me. Nyai was standing in front of me.

  “We can’t tell you how happy we are that Sinyo was prepared to come. See, Nyo, she is beginning to work again, she has got back her liveliness. Sinyo’s arrival is not only helping the company, but more importantly, Annelies. She loves you and she needs your attention. Forgive my frankness, Minke.”

  “Yes, Mama,” I answered respectfully, more respectfully, it felt, than to my own mother. And I felt again her black magic gripping me.

  “All right, stay here for the time being. I will set aside buggy and driver for Sinyo’s use.”

  “Thank you, Mama.”

  “So Sinyo is willing to stay here? Why are you quiet? Yes, yes, think it over first. Anyway, Sinyo’s here now.”

  “Yes, Mama,” and her hold on me made itself felt even more.

  “Good. Rest. Even if a bit late, there’s no harm in me congratulating you on doing so well at school.”

  And so I became a new member of this family. I noted, however, that I must remain vigilant, especially towards Darsam. I will not get too close to him. On the contrary, I must always be polite towards him. There’s no doubt that Robert will hate me as a worthless Native. Mr. Herman Mellema will, for sure, spit abuse at me whenever the opportunity arises. In short I must be vigilant—the price to be paid for the happiness of being close to Annelies Mellema. And what can be obtained in this life without payment? Everything must be paid for, or redeemed, even the shortest happiness.

  * * *

  Robert didn’t appear at dinnertime. Nor did the shadows and scraping strides of Mr. Mellema.

  “Minke, Nyo,”
Nyai began, “if you like to work and strive, you’ll be happy here with us. We also will feel safer with a man around the house. I mean, a man who can be relied upon.”

  “Thank you, Mama. That is all good and very pleasing, although I still must give it some thought first,” and I told them about the situation of Jean Marais’s family and how they still needed my services.

  “That is good,” said Nyai. “It’s proper that people have friends, friendships without self-interest. Without friends, life is too lonely.” Her words were directed more at herself. Suddenly: “Aha! Ann, Sinyo Minke is now close to you. Look well. He is already close to you. Is there anything else you want?”

  “Ah, Mama,” Annelies murmured as she glanced across at me.

  “Ah Mama! Ah Mama! That’s all you can ever say. Come on, speak now, while I can hear too.”

  Annelies glanced at me again and her face was scarlet. Nyai smiled happily. Then she stared at me, and said:

  “Nyo, this one here . . . is like a little child. And what about yourself Nyo, what do you have to say now you’re close to Annelies?”

  Now it was my turn to be embarrassed into silence. And there was certainly no way I would be calling out “Ah Mama” like Annelies. This woman thought quickly and sharply, able to reach straight into people’s hearts, as if it were easy for her to know what lived inside people’s breasts. Perhaps there lay the power with which she held people in her grasp, and bewitched them from afar. Let alone from nearby.

  “Why are you both silent like kittens caught out in the rain?” She laughed, pleased at her own turn of phrase.

  Indeed this was no ordinary nyai. She faced me, an H.B.S. student, without any feeling of inferiority. She had the courage to state her opinion. She was aware of her own strength of character.