Complete humiliation—that is the condition that befell me as soon as I was away from you, my Mama. I could do nothing to resist what befell me. I had to stay alive. And what kind of life is it, Ma, crawling around people’s toilets like this?
I was only a few days in Manila. Attacks by bandits threw the whole harbor into confusion. Many sailors disappeared without a trace. From Manila I traveled on board a small ship to Hong Kong. In that small, crowded city I got a job as a gardener in the house of an English officer. Soon after, he found out that I had caught a certain disease and he threw me out.
Yes, Ma, I am ill. The easiest thing for me to do was to visit a sinshe, a Chinese medicine man. He said I had caught a “dirty disease” and that it was getting worse. I handed myself over to him. He treated me with potions and acupuncture until I looked fresh and healthy again. In the meantime I had become a vagabond, owning nothing at all. All I had was the clothes on my body. This is all a punishment from Mama, so I must accept it.
Because I could no longer pay the sinshe, I had to find another job on a ship. I was amazed that I was still allowed to live. I sailed all over the world, going from ship to ship. No one recognized or knew me, because I always used different names. People didn’t care whether I was human, animal, or devil.
But then the symptoms returned. I did everything I could to avoid destruction. As soon as I was in Hong Kong again I looked up the man who had treated me before. Treat me until I am cured, I begged. But he told me something new: The disease can only be controlled; there is no real cure. I knew I would be tied to him forever. It’s not that I didn’t try the doctors. None of them were able to help me, not even to ease the suffering a bit. My heart shriveled up—all I could see hovering before me was death. Mama, it was you, Mama, that I then remembered. Nothing can help me except your forgiveness.
My illness meant I had to stay close to my sinshe in Hong Kong. I had to have more money. He said I would have to visit him at last once a month. My livelihood was not so generous to bring me to Hong Kong every month. And to work in Hong Kong itself was not easy for me, because I didn’t want to be known to anybody as the child of anybody, the citizen of any country. I had no address and did not want to have an address.
Mama, I know my disease is a death sentence for me.
I talked to another medicine man and his words frightened me: There is no cure, he said; there is no one strong enough to survive for more than two years. How frightening, Ma, two years for someone as young as me. Mama, my Mama…
Nyai Ontosoroh stood up and left. Before leaving the room, she turned to me and said:
“There are some other letters. For you.”
I didn’t go on reading Rob’s letter. I picked up the other letters from Mama’s desk. From Betawi, from the Stovia Medical School: I had been accepted as a student beginning the next academic year; details were to follow.
Was it Robert’s letter or the one from Stovia that made Mama so unhappy that she had to leave the room? I didn’t know.
There was a letter from Robert to Annelies. Suddenly I realized that he knew nothing of what had happened to the family. The letter carried the same stamp as the first one. There was no date nor mention of place.
Ann, Annelies, my little sister. I have now traveled around the world as I once dreamed of doing. More than twice, Ann. I have set my feet down in all the great ports of the world. And I have met with too many people. Not one has ever invited me to visit their house. They all look upon me as being not of the same species, from a people too far away and too strange, perhaps like a race of animals.
I had wanted to be a sailor. Now I am a sailor. But I am not happy. Even in the most meaningless of jobs, I am still considered incapable. My thoughts are always going back and forth between Mama and you. You know the reasons. Until now you have refused to talk to me. Yes, Ann, I understand, understand only too well. And I know too why people never invite me to their houses. Your brother is indeed not worthy of being spoken to by you. He is only an animal, lower still than the horses you ride.
The incident in the reed-marshes continues to haunt me. Forgive me, Ann, forgive me.…
At that moment I had to stop reading a moment and reflect again on Annelies’s story. So it was true, what she’d told me, that she had been raped by her brother. I read on.
I pray always that you may be happy, Ann. Perhaps indeed Minke is the right man for you, despite Suurhof’s making fun of him. I think Robert Suurhof will turn out to be no better than me.
I have seen all kinds of people now, Ann: Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Japanese, Arabs, Hawaiians, Malays, Africans…and Ann, there is none among their women, young or old, as beautiful as you, as glorious as you. You are a pearl among women. Your husband will be such a happy man.…
I shoved the letter quickly into my pocket. No, I must not think about Annelies anymore.
When Mama came back in, she did not ask anything. She sat down and continued her work. I went on reading Robert’s letter to her.
My contract with life is for two years, Ma. Who knows whether the sinshe’s prediction will turn out to be right. When I left him, I swore that once I boarded a ship, I would never set foot on land again. I will stay on board until I receive your forgiveness.
The letter ended.
“Where should I put the letter, Ma?”
“Burn it. What’s the use of saving such a letter?” she said without lifting her eyes, without diverting her attention from the papers before her.
So I put it in my pocket as well. There was indeed an extraordinary amount of mail that day. There was a letter from Panji Darman addressed to me:
Minke, my good friend,
There is something I must tell you; I think you should know it. But first, forgive me, as I don’t know whether this is the right time to tell you or not.
I was walking one day in the Java Docks at Amsterdam harbor. I saw a young, strong worker, and he clearly wasn’t a Pure-Blood Dutchman. He was pushing a cart. Do you know who he was? Robert Suurhof! He stopped, startled at seeing me. He pulled down his hat to hide his eyes. He was ashamed of his work. Then he went back to pushing the cartload of goods. I called out to him. He kept on going.
I followed him and called out again: “Rob! Rob Suurhof! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already?”
He stopped, turned, greeted me: “You? When did you arrive? It’s a pity I’m working just now. Come to my place later. After seven in the evening, all right?”
He gave me an address. And I never found that address, let alone the person. I went again to the wharves. I asked several people whether they knew a harbor worker, a young Indisch. I knew Suurhof was registered as a Dutch citizen, but his citizenship could be of no use for identification here. They didn’t know what I meant by Indisch or Indies Native. A laborer, a youth, and dark, I said. They mentioned several names but none of them was Robert Suurhof. There is no one by the name of Robert Suurhof known here, they said. There was one worker from the Indies, someone said, dark, not called Suurhof, but he was arrested about three days ago by the police. He was working in the Java Docks at the time.
I went to the Harbor District Police Station. It was true; Suurhof had been arrested and was being returned to the Indies. They said he was suspected of assault and robbery in Surabaya.
He may already be back in Surabaya by the time you receive this letter, Minke.
I have also met Miss Magda Peters. I will tell you about it another time. I will write to Mama about things to do with her new company, Speceraria.
My greetings and respect to her and to you too.
The letter from Miriam de la Croix was from the Netherlands. There was also a letter from Herbert de la Croix with it. Here is what it said:
My dear Mr. Minke,
With this letter, both Miriam and I, even if somewhat belatedly, take our leave of you. We have left the Indies and are now in the Netherlands. We are truly saddened by all that has befallen you and your family. We ourselves are ver
y much to blame for what happened to you all, though our intentions were good and honorable.…
I stopped reading and thought over each incident again. There were no grounds for Herbert de la Croix and his daughter to feel they shared any blame. Why, they had gone as far as sending us a famous jurist, even though he had failed. And why was their letter so excessively polite? They had defended me when I was dismissed from school, they had helped me to obtain a place in the Civil Service Academy at Stovia. They had kept up correspondence with me all this time. Mr. de la Croix himself had even put his position on the line over my case. They had no reason to feel guilty.
Mr. Minke, the governor-general very quickly issued my discharge papers; we then left for Europe. The three of us are together as one again. Whatever has happened, my dear Mr. Minke, whatever I have experienced, it is nothing and indeed means nothing compared to what you have suffered, or what was suffered by your beloved teachers, Multatuli and Roorda van Eysinga.
All these events have come and gone so quickly. There has been almost no opportunity to follow them properly or reflect upon them.
Before we finish this letter we need to let you know that the request for a place for you at Stovia has been approved. You may start there next academic year. If you don’t wish to do so because you are still upset by the events of recent times, you only need to write to the school and cancel your enrollment.
Greetings and respects from Sarah, Miriam, and myself. May you triumph in life. Adieu.
There was a letter from Mother but I pocketed it too. I would read it later.
Miriam’s letter was different again:
Minke, I don’t feel right writing to you about serious issues while you’re still in mourning. But at a meeting of housewives in my neighborhood, someone read out one of Raden Adjeng Kartini’s letters to Miss Zeehandelaar. People were dumbfounded to hear her reports of life among the Javanese. Relations between men and women seemed so strange and tense. In the discussion that followed, I concluded: Javanese women were living in darkness. Kartini’s version did differ from what I knew of the life of Javanese village women, though, of course, I never witnessed it myself. Our servants used to tell how the women would sing while planting or harvesting, and how their men would carry off the harvested paddy. And how the little children would play under the full moon singing praises to the rice goddess.… Perhaps Kartini knew nothing of all this.
But I didn’t say anything that would change the women’s response to Kartini’s letters. The gloom of the letters might make it easier for them to sympathize with the plight of Javanese women, and with Kartini herself.
Actually I had planned to bring up your case for discussion at the meeting. Father also agreed, as did Sarah too. Yours was the only such case during the whole of the nineteenth century. They would be interested. The story of the love between an educated Native and a Mixed-Blood girl, which proved to involve many issues that could just as easily have taken place in Europe itself.
I was determined to call out their Christian and European consciences. I was convinced I would succeed. I must admit: It wasn’t the time or place to divert people’s attention from Kartini and her problems.
The ladies were completely amazed to hear of a Native Javanese woman writing in their language. They had always thought of Native woman as still living in the Stone Age.
And you, my friend, how are you? Someone like you—young, strong, educated—will surely be able to face all things with great resolve. We all have faith in you. And we all believe we will meet with you again one day in circumstances much, much happier than those of today. We believe this, Minke. In the end, all was created by God for us to share. And there is no happiness without testing.
And for Kartini too, I pray that she will pass all her tests, because beyond those tests lies the garden of happiness.
You’re not bored with my letter yet, are you? And can you sense how the length of this letter is a symptom of how I miss the Indies, how I miss Java? You can, can’t you? You surely must be able to sense it.
If I may make a suggestion, Minke, you should correspond with that extraordinary girl Kartini. It would not be difficult to find out her address, because she is the daughter of the Bupati of Jepara. I am also going to try to write to her.
Our new life in the Netherlands, just as in Java, has its ups and downs, as is the case with people’s lives everywhere. Do you know, Minke, the Germans and English and French are racing to make all kinds of machines that will help make life more comfortable for people? There are people racing to make a machine that will replace the horse carriage, not so huge as a train, and it will be able to travel on ordinary roads.
It seems that the fever to discover new things, new tools, will not allow people to be satisfied with how things are. People are entranced and possessed by everything that is new; new etiquette, new behavior. Women are beginning to lose their shyness and are riding bicycles in the evenings. New, new, new, new! People forget that life basically stays the same, the same as yesterday. New, new, new—anything that is not new is looked upon as a remnant of the Middle Ages. People have become so childish, like little schoolchildren, thinking that with these new things life will be better than yesterday. This is the modern age! Anything that is not new is looked upon as being out of date, suitable only for peasants and villagers. People have been so easily lulled they ignore the fact that behind all these shouts, these urgings, this madness for what is new, there stands a supernatural power whose appetite for victims is never satisfied. This magical power is the columns of protozoa, of figures, which are called capital.
In the Indies, Minke, it is different than in Europe. In the Indies people stand helpless before the might of authority. In Europe people collapse before these rows of constantly multiplying protozoa called capital. Under the banner of furthering science and service to humanity, there are people racing to discover how to make a machine that, together with its passengers, will be able to traverse the heavens, physically overcoming all distance. There is a report from another country that there are others who have caught a fever to make a vessel that can take people to the floor of the oceans. There are even predictions that it will not be long before mankind not only has control over new sources of power but will have mastered vibrations to reach a certain destination.
You were right, Minke, the nature and countenance of mankind stays the same, no better than what it was before. The sermons in the churches continually remind us of that. Man remains a being that does not really know what it wants. The busier people become with their searching and their discoveries, the clearer it becomes that they are in fact being pursued by the anxiousness of their own hearts.
You still blame Europe. Naturally I could not bring myself to fault you for this after your recent experiences. If you lived in Europe for one or two years, though, perhaps your views might change. The percentage of those who are evil is probably the same as among your own people. Only the conditions of life are different. When I listen to Papa’s stories from the Babad Tanah Jawi, it is not rare for me to shiver in horror at the viciousness, barbarism, and cruelty: all a luxury, Minke, and all only to achieve control of that small island called Java. I am of the same opinion as Papa: There was indeed a time and an era when Europe was no different from what is described in the Babad. Only I hope you don’t forget one thing, Minke. At the time the Babad was being compiled, your people were still worshipping individual all-powerful rulers, while the European nations were gradually forming world empires. The world for your people is Java. Take a look at the names of the kings of Java, even those who still live today. Inscribed in them is always a sense of them constituting the whole universe.
What I am getting at, Minke, is that the Javanese view of things, from the very first time foreigners set foot in your country, had already been left far behind in Europe. It is not true that Java and the Indies were taken over by Europe purely because of Europe’s greed. The problem in the first place was the warped attitude of the peopl
e of Java and the Indies towards the world. I, of course, worry that all this stems from Papa’s opinions, because he is more accomplished in reading classical Javanese literature, but I agree with what he says.
If, for example, the Javanese and the Indies peoples had been more advanced than Europe and had sailed to Europe and conquered it, do you think Europe would have been a happy place? I really believe, Minke, no one could doubt that any occupation of Europe by the Javanese would have been far more brutal than what you are experiencing now. The European nations have studied the character and capabilities of the Indies Natives, while on the other hand the Natives hardly know anything about Europe. Come to the Netherlands, Minke; you will be astounded to see the collection of material we have about the thinking of your ancestors, beginning with what was chiseled onto stone up until what was inscribed onto palm leaves. And none of it, not one thing, was saved by its heirs, your people, but by Europeans, Minke, Europeans.
I don’t know whether these notes of mine are representative of European thinking or not. Even so, allow me to consider them a European girl’s ideas about the Indies Natives. So, Minke, let us work together to do whatever is good for Java, the Indies, Europe, and the world. We will fight European, Javanese, Indies, and the world’s evil together. Let us provide Europe, Java, the Indies, and the world with a healthier understanding as was struggled for by the great humanists, and particularly Multatuli, who suffered so much in life.
I am now throwing myself into social and political activities. Sarah has gone on to Teachers’ College. In other letters we will discuss new issues. Like Papa, I call out to you: Be triumphant in your life! From Miriam far away near the North Pole…
How adroit was this girl. I didn’t really know what her situation was like, but I was sure life in the Netherlands would not be as easy as it was here. The three of them would have to struggle to keep their heads above water. Yet she still possessed her adroitness as well as her faith in the gloriousness of the future. She accepts all of life’s difficulties and tries to overcome them. Maybe, in that way, all troubles become a sport to exercise brain and muscles. Difficulties make her stronger, not weaker. Her resilience aroused me from my depression. She was truly clever to be able to sweep the cloud from my mind. Very well, I will accept that you represent Europe, Mir, represent Europe’s view of the reality of the Indies today. You represent the good side of Europe, Mir. Perhaps—and this is closer to the truth—you represent your own idealization of Europe. I will answer your letter, Mir.