Child of All Nations

  “And what do you mean by ‘know’?” I grabbed at whatever straw I could to save myself from the surging wave around me.

  Perhaps because he saw that my blood pressure was rising, Kommer headed off in another direction: “I have another appointment. Mr. Marais, where is the design for that panther trap?”

  Marais pulled out the desk drawer and extracted a sheet of paper. “This is the best possible, Mr. Kommer. You will get that black one, if the animal does indeed exist.”

  “Mr. Minke, this is a trap to catch a panther. Please drop in to my home from time to time. I keep a number of different animals: Tigers, crocodiles, snakes, monkeys, all kinds of birds… I like to watch their antics.”

  “We will finish our discussion?”

  “Another time, all right? Perhaps this isn’t the right time. Yes, Mr. Marais?”

  “You catch these animals yourself?”

  Kommer nodded.

  “The panther is to be an addition to the collection?” I asked, relieved to be free of the wave’s pounding.

  “No, the German consul has ordered one for the Berlin zoo. The wild black panther is the most dangerous of them all. It lives on the ground, amongst the brush, the tall grass, and the trees. They can only be caught while asleep or if they are still cubs.”

  “Where will you trap it?”

  “In the forests around Sidoarjo. The panther is famous because of its black fur, which is bluish like hardened steel. With this design, I will get the carpenters of Sidoarjo to make a trap. Mr. Marais, aren’t these wheels too small?”

  “No, the thing is that the trap mustn’t be too far off the ground. The measurements of these wheels are such that they will still be able to cope with uneven ground and channels or low embankments.”

  “Right!” Kommer agreed. “Minke, I would be honored if you would join me in trapping this animal. You will have an opportunity to mix with your own people. Believe me, sir, I know these people better than you do. You will realize that there is too much that you don’t know about them.” His words were confident and challenging, almost insolent.

  Perhaps he was right, but his words weren’t friendly. They offended, yet I was unable to refute them. I would test the truth of his boast. I would ask him whether he read Javanese writing or not. If he answered yes, I would ask which books he had read. If he answered no, I would have him cornered. But I hesitated, and he spoke first: “Once you have come to know your people, sir, you will discover a source of material for your writings that will never dry up, an eternal source of material. Didn’t Kartini, in one of her letters to her friend, once say that to write is to work for eternity. If the source is eternal, maybe then the writing will be eternal also.”

  “You know a great deal about Kartini.”

  “What can one do, sir—someone as important as she is, her letters are being read everywhere.”

  “When do you leave for Sidoarjo?”

  “You are accepting my invitation?”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Good. Tomorrow we too are going to Sidoarjo.”

  Kommer frowned on hearing the word we. Then his eyes twinkled: “A coincidence,” he said.

  “If possible I will join you, Mr. Kommer. If possible. And you, Jean?”

  “I must finish this painting. Who knows, perhaps one day it will end up in the Louvre. What do you think I should call it, Minke?”

  “‘The Flower that Closed the Century,’ Jean.”

  Jean Marais went silent. Then his eyes shone with life: “That gives me a new idea. The background, and the sparkle in her eyes must be adjusted. Also her lips, Minke; they must be able to talk about the century that has passed, and speak about the hope of the future.”

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about. “You’re the painter. It’s up to you.”

  “A painting has a language of its own, too, Minke.”

  “Indeed your wife was too beautiful, Mr. Minke, like the beauty we dream about,” Kommer said spiritedly.

  “That is its form, Mr. Kommer,” interjected Jean. “Appreciation of a painting must not stop with the form. It must include the story contained in the brush strokes, the mood, the character, and the life created through the integration of the colors.”

  Kommer gazed, head forward in incomprehension, like me, before this copy of Annelies. Jean Marais’s eyes came alight as we listened to him. Though his Malay was limited, he was able to explain with the help of his eyes and the movements of his hands.

  The longer he went on, the more I came to understand: The art of painting is a branch of learning all of its own, whose language cannot be understood by everyone. Better just to be quiet and listen. For the umpteenth time now, I thought: To graduate from H.B.S. only made you realize your own ignorance. You must learn to be humble, Minke! Your schooling doesn’t amount to much after all.

  Before setting off for the station, Darsam reminded me: “Be careful, Young Master, guard Nyai well. This time I am not escorting her. Her safety is your responsibility now.”

  “I will look after her, Darsam.”

  Marjuki wanted to get the carriage moving. Mama stopped him and called Darsam. From on top of the carriage, she reminded him, “You’re in charge now, Darsam; be careful.”

  Darsam smiled proudly, his mustache spreading: “All under control, Nyai!”

  “You’re always saying ‘all under control, all under control.’ You haven’t even got your mustache under control.”

  It was true too. That great mustache of his wasn’t symmetrical: One corner was drooping. Darsam’s hand immediately went to his mouth, brushing back the mustache.

  “Now tell me, all is under control.”

  “Yes, Nyai, I forgot to tidy it up this morning, everything was done in such a hurry.”

  “‘Yes—yes—yes’ is all you ever come out with when spoken to. Must I be the one who has to check things every day? If even your mustache isn’t looked after properly…look, what am I always telling you?”

  “Yes, Nyai. If you feel good, then…”

  “So you haven’t forgotten. Perhaps because you weren’t in such a big hurry. Marjuki, get going!”

  The carriage left the front grounds. As we moved onto the main road, my mood changed. You don’t know your own people! You don’t know your own country! I felt shame and knew that it was deserved. I would redeem myself from these accusations which I could not deny. How much weight do you reckon that man with the scruffy black pants over there is carrying on his back? I don’t know. He was carting a tall basket of peanuts. To whom will he sell it? I don’t know. Where? I don’t know. What is it worth? I don’t know. Will it bring in enough money to provide food for, say, a week? I don’t know. Don’t know! Don’t know! Is he strong and healthy enough to carry such a load? I don’t know that either. Has he been forced to cart it? My ignorance showed its depths. What was the harvest from each hundred square yards? Crazy! These questions tormented my mind. Yes, and they all stemmed from observing just one man carting peanuts—you arrogant-hearted ignoramus! If your ignorance is so great that you can’t answer any of these questions about this man, then all you must see is his body and his movements. It would be so embarrassing if you tried to write about him, you arrogant writer!

  Kommer was waiting at the station. I knew he had proposed to Mama. And would never get a reply. She hadn’t even bothered to read his letter. He already had a wife and children. I had heard that his wife was also a Mixed-Blood. How he had got up the courage to propose was something I could hardly understand. Wasn’t he younger than Mama?

  He ran about making sure he bought first-class tickets, as if he were richer than Mama. He stood with his back to me at the ticket window. I shifted my gaze from it—that back, which accused me of not knowing my own people and country! The platform was quiet, as usual. Several people sat on benches. Mama went into the first-class waiting room. I walked slowly along the platform. From one of the benches a woman could be heard r
eminding her husband that he should hide his white haji cap, which signified he had been to Mecca; it would attract attention. There was a railway regulation: Europeans, Chinese, and haji were forbidden to travel third class. They had to travel first or second class. The man put his cap into a basket of souvenirs. His wife went off to buy their tickets. Her husband watched from his seat.

  Was this the way to come to know your people? I laughed in my heart. I reckoned there must be more to it than this.

  Once Kommer obtained the tickets, we quickly boarded our carriage. I sat next to Mama; Kommer sought a place opposite us.

  “It’s been more than twenty years since I’ve seen the villages,” Mama began. “Perhaps nothing has changed in all this time.”

  “Nothing has changed, Nyai; it is just the same,” Kommer responded, and then asked: “People say Nyai comes from Sidoarjo. Is it true, Nyai?”

  And so Nyai and Kommer became engrossed in conversation. You could tell the journalist was trying hard to find things to talk about, wanting to chat forever while the creaking train rocked on. He was trying to impress Mama with his education, with his interest in commerce, reading, and agriculture, hunting, folklore, and especially colonial politics.

  I woke up because I heard my name mentioned, I didn’t know in connection with what.

  “I have suggested to Mr. Minke that he write in Malay or Javanese. It seems he still has his doubts,” said Kommer.

  “His own mother longs for him to write in Javanese,” Mama explained.

  “Nah, Mr. Minke.” Kommer attacked as soon as he saw my eyes were open. “Your own mother! None other than your own mother!”

  His voice seemed to condemn my sleepiness. I wasn’t even given a chance to yawn.

  “Perhaps he’s right, Child,” Mama joined in. “When I read the works of Francis or Wiggers—senior and junior—and also those of Mr. Kommer himself and Johannies, I feel Malay has a deliciousness of its own. You should try, I think.”

  “There’s no point in ending up being forced to write in Malay; why not start of one’s own accord?” Kommer was getting carried away again.

  “Why forced, Mr. Kommer?” asked Mama.

  “Forced, Nyai. Sooner or later, Native people will be greatly disillusioned by the Dutch colonial press, and they will be forced to write in their own language. The Dutch papers never discuss matters of concern to Natives, as though the only people in the Indies were Europeans. I reckon every honest writer will, in the end, be disappointed by them.”

  I watched them and watched them. They didn’t talk about me anymore. I think I fell asleep—giving Kommer a chance to show off his cock’s plumage. He wouldn’t ask about the fate of his proposal, I thought. And when I awoke again, he was asleep, propped up against the wall in the corner. Mama was looking out at the view. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but this was really the first time I ever took a proper look at my mother-in-law in her own right, not in relation to Annelies. Her grace and beauty now revealed themselves in their full naturalness. Nobody could say she looked old. Her cheeks were still full; there were no crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. She always dressed up as a businesswoman should. Her hair was always shining and the creases in her kain were never untidy. From the side she looked exactly like Annelies, only not quite as white, and her nose wasn’t as pointed. Her eyebrows were dense, which gave her eyes a sinister look.

  Kommer was sleeping with his mouth open. One gold tooth sparkled at the corner of his lips. My heart beat anxiously: I hoped this courageous newspaperman would not let saliva drip from behind his gold teeth. If Mama saw that, he might never get a reply to his proposal.

  The train was very slow and stopped every other minute. First class and second class shared one carriage. All the passengers wore shoes or slipper-sandals. The second-class compartment carried passengers wearing slippers or sandals, no shoes. The third-class carriages were all barefoot. Peddlers going either to or from the markets walked up and down the carriage, accompanied by every kind of market smell, as well as flies. In first class there were only the three of us. In second class there were maybe ten Chinese and a haji who hadn’t taken off his white haji cap.

  There was so much dust and soot, it was certain that passengers from all classes would leave the train with dirty clothes. In a number of places, when the train traveled slowly, I would see a gang of laborers repairing the railway tracks and a Eurasian seated on a horse, with a sword, keeping watch over them. The gangs were mobilized by the Native Civil Service and village heads, and the village heads also mobilized the farmers who worked on government-owned lands. Nobody was paid for this forced labor. They never received food, or money for transport. They even had to provide their own water for tea.

  Had I been born a landless farmer, perhaps I too would have been among those being supervised by the Mixed-Blood on his horse. And perhaps his knowledge wasn’t any better than that of a village child who looked after the buffalos. Perhaps too I would have been spat upon by one of the overseer’s assistants, a village official in his black shirt, his batik kain, with his destar on his head and his keris at his back. But I was not a tenant farmer working government land. The comparison made me feel fortunate, and also made me feel that I had the responsibility to be compassionate towards them. Responsible because these feelings of mine arose not from the heart, but from the mind. You are right, Kommer; as soon as I start paying them attention, all kinds of ideas and thoughts, and not just material for later, arise before me. It is likely that among that work gang there are people with skills that neither the overseer nor his assistants have. Perhaps there are gamelan makers or experts in making wayang shadow puppets, perhaps experts in Javanese literature. At the very least, they are all master farmers. Their miserable fate is caused only by the fact that they have no land of their own.

  I knew for certain that besides being liable for forced labor, they would also be conscripted to take part in night patrols and guarding the village, and in emergency collective labor if something had to be done in the public interest. They would have to pay tribute to their chiefs. Their chickens and eggs could be confiscated whenever some chief they had never seen came visiting their village.

  I had known all this since I was small. But only now, traveling along in the train, did they abruptly become real inhabitants of my thoughts. From Multatuli’s novel Saidja and Adinda, I knew about the suffering of these peasants, but that knowledge had never lived in my mind as it did now. People also said that the peasants had to pay eggs and chickens and coconuts and fruit and herbs, which the village head would take with him each time he sought audience with the Native district chief. Sometimes the chiefs would voice the need, and the village officials would collect special tribute from the peasants to buy a cow or goat on his behalf. It all came from the peasantry, who owned nothing except their hoes and their labor.

  The anonymous tract Magda Peters had given me spoke about them as the cork upon which the kingdom of the Netherlands floats. And what kind of cork-float? The pamphlet said it was a cork that will be forced to sink one day when its buoyancy has been soaked up. The whole of the kingdom’s and the colony’s life floated upon that cork. Any and every foot could step upon its head and shoulders, just as Governor-General Daendels had literally done long ago; they, the peasants, would accept every burden without protest. They would not complain, it went on to say, because for centuries they had known only one kind of fate: the fate of a peasant.

  As soon as we entered the area around Sidoarjo, sugar cane enveloped the train, nothing but sugar cane, rippling in waves like a green sea upon purple-green sands. All of it would be cut and carried off to the sugar mills. This, it seemed, was the land where Nyai Ontosoroh was born. Everything centered on sugar. Even so, not everything tasted sweet. Mama’s own experiences had already proved that. Perhaps I shall be able to discover other things.

  Our destination was the family of Sastro Kassier, Mama’s elder brother. I did not know much about him. From what I knew I wrote up t
hese notes:

  The plague had attacked the village of Tulangan. Every day people fell down, sprawled out dead, including Dr. Van Niel, who was brought in from Surabaya. The Tulangan clinic, just a ten-by-thirteen-foot room, could do nothing. After burying their neighbors each morning, people would roll over and join their friends in death.

  Sastrotomo, Sanikem’s father, died; his children too, except for Paiman, Sanikem’s elder brother. (Nyai Ontosoroh was originally called Sanikem.) Paiman ran away from the house to escape the epidemic that was sweeping away all around him. He knew his father and the brothers and sisters who had died had not been buried yet. He ran. Ran.

  He didn’t realize it then, but the plague bacteria had already begun to multiply within him.

  He wandered aimlessly. In the evening he collapsed in the darkness far outside the sugar-factory complex. He knew he must keep walking but his strength was gone. He rolled his body under a tamarind tree. He remembered that the tree stood at an intersection. The narrow road to the right led to the graveyard. He did not want to end up there. He must live. He did not want to die just yet.

  His body was burning with fever. Pain tormented his extremities. The night was dense with darkness; there was no wind. Those eyes, ah, why are those eyes always pulled towards the graveyard? How many of his acquaintances had been planted there like mandarin seedlings? and mangos and guavas?—seedlings that would never grow or sprout, vanishing, sucked up by the earth. Twenty people? Twenty-five? He could not count. His head was aflame.

  In the darkness and stillness of the night, from time to time he could see tongues of fire leaping up from the graveyard, as if blown up into the sky to pierce the darkness of the windless night. They reached their peak, then fell back in a long curve, so long—as if they were flying away to vanish into nowhere. He saw other fiery flames pointing back down towards the villages, including Tulangan.

  He was afraid. And his body could not carry his longing to be away from this frightening place. There was only one thing that proved he was still alive: the never-subsiding shout in his heart—live, live, I must live, live, live!