I returned to the house. For a long time I tried to light the kerosene lamp. When I succeeded, I discovered that Trunodongso’s two sons had also gone. So too had their machete and sickle, which usually leaned against the wall. Only their hoes were left, lying side by side near one of the roof supports.
That morning only the smaller children were at home. Little Piah quickly brought water into the kitchen, aided by her younger sisters. I befriended her while she cooked, and she became restless as a result. I fetched a hoe from its place and went out the back. In bare feet, chafed by the cold, dirty ground, I began to hoe where the boys had finished yesterday. After only five minutes I had to stop. I was panting. I was ashamed of myself. Those boys were far younger than I, and they could hoe the ground for four hours without stopping.
There were no witnesses to my condition. How embarrassed and ashamed I would be if someone saw me out of breath like this. I began to hoe the ground again, but this time more slowly. Then little Piah arrived.
“Ndoro, don’t work like that, you’ll get dirty, you’ll fall ill. There’s coffee ready back at the house. Let me carry the hoe.”
I was lucky the offer of a drink arrived, otherwise I would have been obliged to continue that voluntary but murderous work.
“Don’t keep on hoeing, Ndoro,” forbade Piah politely. “If you blister your hand, you won’t be able to write.”
I didn’t even have a blister yet, but already I was unable to write; my hands shook uncontrollably. Still I had now, at least once in my life, hoed the ground. Clearly I would never be a farmer like them.
That afternoon I took my leave. I considered that I had enough notes. But the main thing was that I could not live any longer in these conditions. I now understood that these people were far stronger than I. They had the strength of iron; they were tempered by suffering. It was strange. Why should such a class of people, made so strong by their suffering, just keep on suffering?
Trunodongso stood bowing with hands folded before him and said how he regretted not being able to show me the kind of hospitality that was proper. His eyes were red from lack of sleep.
“If Bapak is ever in Wonokromo, come to our house. Make sure you visit us,” I told him.
The whole family escorted me. I groped in my pocket. There was still one rupiah and fifteen cents, and I gave it to little Piah.
“Don’t forget to visit us at Wonokromo. Look for the house of Nyai Ontosoroh. Remember it, Pak: Nyai On-to-so-roh.”
His wife’s and sons’ eyes were also red.
Now only Trunodongso was left to escort me. He carried my bag respectfully, as if he were my servant. In the middle of the cane I stopped and said to him: “Pak Truno, by Allah, I am not a spy.” He glanced at me for a moment, then bowed his head. He must have guessed that I had heard the conversation on that dark night.
“I respect Pak Truno and all those suffering the same fate. Through my writings I will try to lighten your burden. More than that is beyond me. Let’s hope my help may produce some results. Troubles such as these can’t always be overcome with machete and anger. It’s all right, go home, get some sleep, you’re exhausted. Here, let me carry my bags.”
He handed them over. I walked along without looking back. Yet somehow I could tell he was still standing there. All of a sudden he shouted out and ran up to me: “Forgive me, Ndoro; may I ask what is Ndoro’s name?”
9
On our tenth day in Tulangan, Kommer arrived with a cut of venison. His face was tanned and he looked happy.
Mama went out to meet him. I still had to add a few lines more about Trunodongso. I paid no heed to the chattering of the newspaperman, but the sound of his voice was loud, joyful, full of hope.
After finishing my writing, I went out to meet him.
“How’s your panther, Mr. Kommer?”
“Haven’t caught it yet. I’m going to have to go home first. They’ll pull up the traps themselves,” he answered. “What can one do? The paper is also important.”
I spoke again. “You look very well.”
“Nyai also looks very well,” he answered, “but you seem a little pale yourself.”
“He has spent too much time inside, Mr. Kommer,” said Nyai.
“What a pity,” said Kommer. “If all you do is write, Mr. Minke, life will be short. You must engage in some outdoor activities as well. It’s a shame you didn’t want to come hunting with me. Perhaps you have never seen how a deer runs along, jumping and constantly turning to look back to glimpse its hunter. Its beautiful many-branched antlers can’t save its skin and its life. How beautiful they are, those antlers, especially if the deer is running with its head thrust towards the sky. A futile beauty: Those antlers prevent it from hiding in the brush and running through the jungle. Because of the antlers, Mr. Minke, only because of its antlers, that animal is cursed with the fate of having to live always in the open, on the plains, and is therefore open also to the hunter’s bullets. Just because of its beautiful antlers!”
“Perhaps you are engaging in some satire.”
“If you want to take it that way, you may. Look, the beauty of your life is your writing. So you seclude yourself in your room, and that indeed is a suicidal kind of activity.”
I laughed disparagingly.
“I’m totally serious, Mr. Minke. At the moment you are still very, very young. You are healthy; you’ve never been ill. If you keep on staying indoors like this, you will lose much of life’s richness.”
“Well, as far as that goes—”
“Five years indoors like this, stuck in your room, will use up the health and strength of ten years. What a pity if all of a sudden you feel dried up and worn out.”
I told him how I’d finished two articles, one of them being the best thing I’d ever written.
“I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Minke; may I read that one?”
“You can read it in printed form later. But you are welcome to read the other one if you like.”
I handed him the manuscript of “Nyai Surati” and watched his face. Mama went out the back.
“You can comment on it now too, but don’t mention any of the names I’ve used,” I warned him.
The manuscript was quite long. Kommer had not finished it by the time Mama came back with food. He was submerged in the story. Letting out a great breath, he placed it down on the table carefully, as if it would break, stared at me with shining eyes, and commented: “It’s becoming clearer from your writing.”
I was afraid he might mention Surati’s name; but he mentioned no name.
“What do you think?” I asked coolly.
“Your unique characteristics are becoming more and more evident. It’s true what people say, that you’re going further and further in the direction of humanism, expanding its scope. If people like us say ‘expanding its scope’ then you must look for the aspect that isn’t mentioned.” He didn’t explain what that unmentioned aspect was. “Your writings cry out to people’s sense of humanity, rejecting barbarism, cheating, libel, and weakness. You dream of human beings who are strong and whose humanity is strong also. Indeed, sir, only when all people are strong like that will we have true fraternity. You are truly a child of the French Revolution. As long as you retain these personal characteristics of yours…”
Mama listened with great seriousness, not involving herself. I saw Kommer sweep his gaze across to Mama, inviting her opinion. His request wasn’t answered, but, as though he’d received some encouragement, the journalist continued: “Have you studied many of the French writers?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s why your outlook on life is so heavy, so serious, just like Multatuli. You have no sense of humor. If you started reading the French writers, you might be able to change.”
“So the piece isn’t any good?”
“Good, very good indeed. There’s no grounds for doubting how good it is. I’m talking about this outlook of yours. No humor, no sense of fun, heavy like a one-ton weight. You take
life and mankind too seriously; you are tense, as though you’d never experienced any pleasure, never played.”
“Is it wrong to be serious?”
“No, not at all. But you don’t mix with enough different kinds of people, from different classes. This constant tension and seriousness could kill you. Have you never had any interest in the lighter side of life?”
“Yes, Minke, you’re always gloomy and serious, Child,” Mama intervened.
“Yes, Nyai, gloomy. That’s exactly the right word,” Kommer flashed.
“I haven’t seen any happy side to life yet,” I defended myself. Now the newspaper man listened with his full attention.
“The situation is still not very happy for many people, Mr. Kommer, and that story is about maltreatment, oppression. Where is the light side of it? If I agreed with that kind of treatment of other people, perhaps I could see something funny in the grimaces of others’ suffering,” I went on. “But I’m not among those who oppress others, Mr. Kommer.”
“True, it’s all true. You’ve brought it all to life within you as it has brought you to life. You have become one with your material. That is a matter of intellect and emotion. You are right on every point, isn’t that so, Nyai?”
“Ah, I don’t understand this sort of thing.” Mama was washing her hands of the whole thing.
“Life is a matter of balance, Mr. Minke. A person who concerns himself only with the light side of things is a madman, but someone who is interested only in suffering is sick.”
“So you count me among the sick?”
“If you keep on this way—yes. You will lose your resilience, your adroitness will be suffocated by all the suffering you concern yourself with. It would be best if you learned to change, if I may make a suggestion.”
Kommer seemed so sure of his words, as if there were no other possibility.
“He only needs a change of atmosphere, Mr. Kommer,” Mama interrupted. “I think you exaggerate a bit.”
The journalist was silenced by her reprimand. He turned to face Mama, and listened intently.
“If he sees suffering about him, then it’s only proper and natural that it colors his writing. He sees all those who suffer as his friends, and all injustice as his enemy. People don’t have to see merriment and suffering as being in some kind of balance. Isn’t reality itself more real than anybody’s opinion about reality?”
A debate then ensued. All in Dutch. Mama proved to know a lot about life. As a child, a latecomer to life, I listened more than I took part. Abruptly the debate stopped. Kommer’s question came at me like the point of a cutlass: “You write quite well. I think everyone would agree with me. This last article of yours is your best piece so far. If you continue like this, you won’t be able to write stories. You will be making speeches, and you will stop being a writer. Do you want to be a writer or a speechmaker?”
That question hurt me greatly, partly because I couldn’t understand his argument properly.
“Why does he have to choose between these two things?” Mama protested. “He has the right to grow and develop. He has the right not to choose between those two things. He is still young; at the very least he still has twenty years in which to develop. Have you been more successful in your career than Minke?”
“Don’t get me wrong, Nyai.” Kommer began to soften his line. “Minke is the hope of his people. What other Native is there like him? If Minke doesn’t accept this challenge, it will be difficult later for him to possess the resilience, the toughness he’ll need. He’ll be quickly discouraged and won’t finish the work he began. Look, Nyai, even in this piece I have just read, already he has begun, although in a disguised manner, to speak out on behalf of his people—”
“Now you’re making a speech,” Mama said.
“What do the Natives hope for from me? Nothing. But much is expected of Minke, with all his talents—too much. I have already urged him to acquaint himself with his people and their lives, a source of material that will never dry up. With this latest piece, he has started on that road. Isn’t that so, Minke?”
“Yes,” I ansered.
“Nyai, if Mr. Minke here is unable to see the happier side of life, how is he going to be able to show his people what happier future they might build? Suffering is a narrow window through which to look on life, Nyai. And there are many ways to overcome it. Without some joy, some merriment, even in the defeat of suffering, people will only go round and round in circles inside that suffering.”
Mama was silent. She seemed to be groping, not knowing what to say.
“Twenty years, Nyai. We have both experienced it ourselves—twenty years is not all that long. Twenty years can pass by and see a person no cleverer than he was before. There are many who become more and more unable to learn from their experiences. These are indeed harsh words, these words I direct at Mr. Minke, and also to myself. But they are better than the flattery so generously handed out by Maarten Nijman. Minke here has been flattered too often. But the seeds that will grow within him, Nyai, where will he get them if not from those of his friends who are honest with him?”
“In twenty years, Tuan, he will have had much greater success, I am sure, than you, Mr. Kommer.”
I turned the other way, embarrassed to hear my mother-in-law defend me and boast about me like that. She would rather see me victorious than see the truth.
“That is exactly what I hope will happen. Let me explain. Recently there has been a lot of talk in elite circles about those letters of Kartini, which have been read again for the umpteenth time before the conference of the League Against Moral Corruption in the Netherlands. She talks about the coming of the modern era in Europe, which she only knows second-hand. But in these Indies there is only the darkness of night. The modern era? Ha! Not a single spot of light is yet to be found. The Natives live in pitch darkness. In their ignorance, they make themselves the laughing stock of everyone for their stupidity. One of the lines of her letters—as I understand it from what others have reported—reads: How happy people would be if they could sleep for who knows how long and then wake up to find that the modern era had already arrived. Nyai, many people have interpreted this sentence as a sign that she has given up, lost all hope. And in my opinion, she has indeed given up.”
“Now it’s you, Mr. Kommer, who have become the speechmaker.”
“Indeed I am a giver of speeches. I speak a lot, Nyai, in many places.”
“But you too write like Minke.”
“True, Nyai.”
“Nah, well then, what is wrong with doing both things?”
“It would be a dangerous thing if Mr. Minke made speeches in his writings instead of confining them to his conversations. Mr. Minke doesn’t seem to be as clever in nor as inclined to talking as me. And a speech-dominated story is the very worst kind of writing.”
“What’s all this got to do with Kartini?”
“What’s it got to do with Kartini, Nyai? Kartini has given up hope. She no longer knows what to do for her people. So she feels tired, because she always sees suffering and suffering alone. She longs to sleep, and then to wake up and enjoy the bright modern era. The modern era is not being built in people’s sleep, by their dreams. Mr. Minke, I, and many others—and indeed your own people themselves—do not hope that it will be like that.”
“You deliver a clever speech,” Nyai praised him.
“I will do anything, Nyai, if it will be of use. And whatever else might be said about this Kartini, she is the only Native girl to speak out like this, in her letters and articles.”
“Child,” Nyai said finally, “you have to decide what is best for yourself.”
“Mr. Kommer,” I began, “I don’t really understand what you’re getting at. What exactly is it you object to in my writings?”
“The piece is very good; I said so just now. But there are signs that you are turning your story into a speech. And that tendency will become more prominent in your writings if you are not warned. In these Indies ther
e has been what we might call criticism. Criticism can be rejected, but it has to be listened to first, reflected upon. If it isn’t necessary to reject it, then it can be taken as a suggestion. No one need be angry just because they have been criticized.”
That was the first time that I had come across what Kommer called criticism.
Lunch brought a halt to the conversation. Afterwards listlessness conquered us all. Kommer’s enthusiasm for speech-making dwindled away. He sat sleepily in his chair, but didn’t want to go home either; he enjoyed displaying his knowledge, and the opportunity to sit near Mama. As the day wore on our heads became heavier from the heat and humidity.
In a voice that had lost its spirit and enthusiasm, Kommer began again: “A good author, Mr. Minke, should be able to provide his readers with some joy, not a false joy, but some faith that life is beautiful. While suffering is man-made, and not some natural disaster, then it can surely be resisted by men. Give hope to your readers, to your fellow countrymen. Haven’t I already advised you to learn to write in Malay or Javanese? Give your people the best that you are capable of.”
“I will not forget, Mr. Kommer.”
“Between my two suggestions there are reciprocal connections.”
“I still need time to understand all of what you’ve said.”
“Of course, and you are still young, with plenty of time for that.”
“That’s why I have brought him here, Mr. Kommer,” said Mama, “so he can get some fresh air. A new atmosphere, a new environment, new ideas, a new vigor. It’s clear he has found much new material.”
“Exactly, Nyai, new material. But the way he approaches the material is exactly as before. Pessimistic. Suffering and gloom are his horizon. But the horizon itself is the base of the sky, where the sun sinks and then rises again, the place where boats and ships disappear from sight, and also the place where they emerge into view as they approach the shore.”