Child of All Nations

  “You did it?” Nyai Ontosoroh asked.

  “I was just a low-level employee then, Nyai. I did what I was told.”

  “What else were you ordered to do?”

  “Just to report back on his habits and so on. I reported everything to Mr. Mellema.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all. I returned to Surabaya and continued with my work at the paper. Then I received news: The camat had been replaced. It’s not clear where the old camat was moved to. All his land went to an executor and from there across to the sugar mill.”

  “Did the camat die?” Nyai asked, upset.

  “No one knows, Nyai.”

  “You’re not being honest with me,” Mama pressed.

  “After the camat disappeared, I felt I had been part of something evil too. I was disappointed in my paper. I left it and went to work for the Surabaya Star. The paper I left behind grew, coming out twice a week. Once it became a daily it changed its name to Soerabaiaasch Nieuws. But it was the same paper it is today: a creature of the sugar lobby. It must defend the interests of sugar. Anything can happen, so long as sugar remains safe! Your writings delivered you into a trap, Mr. Minke. A sugar trap!”

  “Just a minute, Mr. Kommer,” Mama intervened, “I once heard of a body that was found in the paddy fields. Gored by a buffalo, the rumors said. The Camat of Sidoarjo…?”

  “I don’t know about that, Nyai; the papers never reported it.”

  Mama was silent. Perhaps she was asking herself what other things there were that she didn’t know about Herman Mellema. Her face showed the signs of an unsettled heart.

  “It wasn’t my intention to remind you of the late Mr. Mellema,” said Kommer, asking forgiveness.

  “I understand, Mr. Kommer; excuse me,” she answered, arose, then withdrew.

  We all watched Mama as she went out.

  “Was she angry, do you think, Mr. Minke?” asked Kommer.

  “There have been too many shocks just lately, Mr. Kommer,” I answered. “So many deaths, so many injustices, and now you bring up another matter. Too shocking—to find out that Herman Mellema did such things. I am shocked myself. It’s understandable.”

  “That wasn’t my intention, Mr. Minke, truly.”

  “You have only told us what you know. We should be thankful for your frankness.”

  “It disappoints me too, Minke, it saddens me; not that there is such a good explanation for Nijman’s actions, but that it should bring so much hurt and bitterness with it,” Jean Marais added.

  “There is nothing to regret, Jean. We would have been even more disappointed if nobody had told us. Eh, Mr. Kommer? We are truly grateful you have been prepared to tell us all this. It must have taken a lot of courage. And it was all brought about by my writings. Indeed that story of mine, the one I considered the best of all, I tore up and scattered along the road even before you had a chance to read it. But this other one, Mr. Kommer”—I opened my bag and took out the story “Nyai Surati”—“would you accept this manuscript as a souvenir of this dark day?”

  “Why, Minke?” asked Jean Marais. “Do you mean for it to be put into Malay and published by Mr. Kommer?”

  “No, Jean. It’s for Mr. Kommer himself. Who knows, perhaps one day Mr. Kommer will have time to go through it and change it, rewrite it, as a remembrance of our friendship, and of this day too.”

  Kommer was unsure, but accepted it.

  “You often go to Sidoarjo,” I added. “You can do some more research, and won’t be in a hurry, as I was. You did say you thought the story had merit, even if written like a speech?”

  “Why don’t you perfect it yourself?”

  “Beginning this day, Mr. Kommer, I close one book. I accept your suggestion. I will learn to see the brighter side of life. The way I am now, all my strength is being sucked away.”

  “Close one book, Minke? What do you mean? You mean you’re not going to write again?”

  “Yes, Jean. I must stop writing, at least for a while.”

  “You’re tired, Minke,” said Marais gently, “your soul, not your body. You need a new environment, a new atmosphere.”

  “Yes. I must go.”

  “Go where, Minke? You’ll leave Nyai alone, by herself?”

  I couldn’t answer. What Jean had said made me realize just how tired and dispirited I was.

  “Good, you must get some rest,” Kommer proposed. “You have the right to a rest. We only came to let you know about Maarten Nijman and his paper, a sugar paper. You musn’t be discouraged. Come, Mr. Marais; we’ll go now. Pass on our goodbyes to Nyai.”

  They left. I escorted them to the front steps and watched as their carriage left our property. Farther and farther away they moved, finally disappearing from sight.

  However unrefined Kommer might be, he’s proved to be a good and reliable friend. And Jean Marais too. What would happen to me if I had no friends? They have felt all that I have felt over the last months. I will write a letter to Mother and tell her of the beauty of friendship—something she always advised me about but which I never thought about seriously until now.

  Back inside the house, I remembered Mama. The news Kommer brought had shaken her greatly. She had lost something which she had always been able to hold on to. I should be with her now.

  Slowly I made my way up the stairs. I didn’t knock. The door wasn’t locked; indeed it was open a little. Coming from inside the room were sounds of crying, almost inaudible. That a heart as hard as hers could shed tears! How much she had suffered already. Still, Kommer’s information about De Evenaar and Soerabaiaasch Nieuws and their connection with Herman Mellema had deeply shocked her.

  11

  But the book wasn’t completely closed. Unpleasant matters still pursued us.

  That night I sat beside Nyai in the front parlor. Her eyes were still swollen, though she seemed more lively. The look in her eyes showed that she was still meditating on things; then her eyes would change and you could see she was becoming anxious again.

  “Yes, Minke, Child, you should look for a new environment. How I too would like to leave here, leave for some distant place and rid myself of all this. Kommer is right. We will petrify like rocks if we keep getting knocked around like this.”

  “Where does Mama want to go, so far away?”

  “I’m bored with Wonokromo. Perhaps I’m bored too with this kind of life. Wherever we go, it is always bandits that we find.”

  “To Europe? Or Siam maybe?”

  “Perhaps one day I will leave the Indies. This country becomes more and more foreign to me with every day.”

  “Europe or Siam would be even more foreign, Ma.”

  She didn’t answer. All I could hear was a sigh of complaint. And that was the first time I had ever heard her complain. She was much disturbed by Kommer’s news; I knew what was troubling her. Nijman had snidely hinted to me that Herman Mellema was also involved in the conspiracy to cheat people of their rents. While I had not passed on Nijman’s remarks to anyone, especially not to Nyai, a woman so clever could easily work out her late master’s involvement in the crimes.

  “If I had known before that his capital was obtained by deception, blackmail…murder…” Mama said.

  “We only know now, Ma.”

  “It’s lucky you wrote about Trunodongso. If you hadn’t, I’d still feel…feel clean. Even after his death that damned man still deceived me. Devil! Barbarian!” She began to burn with fury, exploding into insults and curses. “Acting like a man of honor—in reality just a deceiver of powerless peasants!”

  In my mind’s eye I saw the young administrator of the mill at Tulangan who had twice invited Mama to his house. He would be no different from Plikemboh and Mellema, my father-in-law.

  All of a sudden Mama lost control and began to cry.

  “Let me take you upstairs, Ma.”

  “Let it be, Minke, let my heart speak now. Listen to me. Listen. If you will not, then who will listen to me?”

&nbs
p; Her wave of weeping reached a peak, words held back by sobbing, the crying of a strong-hearted woman, courageous, experienced, educated, and intelligent—the weeping of someone who realizes she has built her life on top of mud.

  All I could do was bow my head. This woman who was used to standing straight and firm needed no crutch.

  As the weeping ebbed her words came, one by one, the sentences broken by sobs: “I have never felt such regret as I feel now, that I was soiled by the touch of his body. That I gave birth to his children. Bastard, bandit, scum! That I ever served him: cheater of peasants, creator of poverty, oppressor, blackmailer.”

  “Ma, forgive me for writing that story.”

  “Murdered. That camat was murdered on his orders. They said he was gored to death by a buffalo, but it was Mellema who killed him. Mellema!”

  “Ma.”

  “Surati did the right thing, killing that man. She killed him. That’s what I should have done, not with smallpox, but with my own hands. Dog! Crocodile!”

  “If I hadn’t written about Trunodongso—”

  “You have done nothing wrong at all, Child. Mellema is lucky he is dead.”

  “Ma.”

  “Otherwise, I could do the worst and have Darsam kill him, so that he would die before my very eyes!”

  Nyai Ontosoroh covered her face with both hands.

  I could see Darsam out at the back, walking about with his arm in a sling, wanting to come inside and report. I signaled to him to go. He turned off to the right and disappeared from view.

  “What is my situation now? For twenty years I have developed our capital, evilly gained capital, won by cheating those without power.”

  “It’s not all from deception, Ma.”

  “Who knows? I don’t dare have such hopes. How dare he! How dare he! Barbarian! Animal!” Once again she burned with fury and disillusionment.

  “I’ll get something to drink.” Without waiting I went off to the kitchen.

  I found Darsam sitting at the table. A cook was making coffee for him.

  “Cold water, please, cook, one glass.”

  “Good, Young Master, let me take it to her.”

  “I’ll take it myself, cook.”

  Darsam stood up, paid his respects, and asked: “Is there still something important being discussed, Young Master?”

  “Perhaps you won’t be able to make your report tonight, Darsam.”

  “Perhaps or definitely not?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Let me take the drink in, Young Master.”

  “No.”

  I took the water in myself, leaving the two in the kitchen staring at each other in amazement.

  Mama took the glass and drank it all down at once. She seemed to have calmed down.

  “Life seems so empty, futile, knowing where all our money has come from.”

  I could understand her feelings: She had devoted herself to the business, always doing things the honest way; now it turned out that the business itself was born of tainted capital.

  “Have you ever heard of or read about anyone having to go through what I have? Accursed experiences like these?”

  “No, Ma.”

  “Don’t write about this last thing. Now talk to me. How lonely it will be if you’re not here, Minke.”

  “Ma, even if there had been more capital, if Mama hadn’t worked, this business would never have grown.”

  She looked at me for a moment. Her lips were taut as she held back another explosion of anger. Then slowly the tension disappeared, and she was calm again.

  “What do you really mean, Minke?” she asked, seeming unsure of herself.

  I told her what I had been taught about Robinson Crusoe.

  “Yes, I’ve read that book,” she cut in. “He was marooned on an island by himself.”

  “True, Ma. It wasn’t his money that enabled him to live, but his labor. Gold and coins were of no use to him on an uninhabited island. A mountain of gold and three mountains of coins would have been of no use to that Robinson, Ma. Without the labor of humans, nothing has value. Under the ground, under our feet, Ma, there are many things to be found: gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, salt, and gas—wealth beyond our imagination. But it is all useless without the labor of human beings; valueless, until people dig it out from the womb of the earth, to use it.”

  “You mean you value what I have done, Child, rather than that accursed capital?” she asked, somewhat comforted, a little childlike.

  “I value all that you have done rather than the things you have accumulated as your property.”

  She let out a long breath. She was confused as to how she should look upon all her successes.

  “Everything that you have come to own,” I said, daring to offer her advice, “is not tainted. Not all the capital came from conspiracy and deception.”

  “That’s where the problem lies, Child. We don’t know how much of the money is tainted and how much isn’t. If I knew, then it would be easy enough to separate them.”

  “There’s no need to know now, Ma.”

  “It must be returned to them, to those peasants and farmers. And even that is not possible. We only know Trunodongso, and it would not be right to give it just to him. To share it out isn’t really a possibility either. To hand it over to the government would be folly. And how much each farmer has a right to—that isn’t clear either.”

  “You don’t have to think about it now, Ma.”

  “Yes, it doesn’t have to be resolved now. But then again at any moment now, Engineer Maurits Mellema could turn up to take over the business. Everything must be arranged before he arrives.”

  Then I remembered what a teacher had once said about the differences between rich Europeans and rich Natives. The Natives collected wives with the excuse that they were doing it to help out the women they married. Europeans gave a part of their wealth to help with projects in the public interest: schools, hospitals, publishing, meeting halls, research.

  “You have an idea, Child.”

  “Yes, Ma,” but I was unsure.

  “If there were teachers…” began Mama.

  “Yes, Ma,” I agreed, “we could found some schools for the children of those who were cheated.”

  That idea of using her own wages from the business, which she had saved, became a medicine that settled her spirits. Her anger began to subside, as did her regret and melancholy.

  “Darsam!” she called out suddenly. She had recovered herself.

  Darsam was already waiting between the back and front parlors. His unslung hand twiddled his mustache. I waved, signaling him to come closer. He saluted Nyai with his good arm.

  “If Nyai isn’t too tired, I want to make a report tonight,” he said.

  “Fetch a chair!” Nyai ordered.

  He pulled a chair across with his left hand. With his left hand too he apologized for sitting on a chair that made him higher than Nyai. He let out a long breath, releasing the tension within.

  “What must you remember when reporting?” Mama asked in Madurese.

  “Smoking is not allowed, Nyai.”

  “Good. You may begin.”

  “Not just yet, Nyai. There is one other thing.” He took a thick wad of paper from his pocket, a letter, and handed it over to his employer.

  Mama read it for a moment, then pushed it over to me.

  “I can’t understand it. Read it,” she said.

  The letter was in English, badly written in large, round letters. The address wasn’t clear. But from the first lines it was clear that the writer was Khouw Ah Soe. I translated it into Dutch for Mama.

  My beloved and honored Mama, I began.

  “He calls me Mama?” asked Nyai. “Your translation isn’t wrong?”

  “Exactly as written, Ma. I’ll read on.”

  I cannot tell you how grateful I am for all the help you have given me. And that help means even more because it was given at a time when your own child was in such great difficulties. In the end, in all o
f Surabaya you were the only person to hold out your hand in aid, while my own people cursed me, abused me, derided me. They let themselves go on embracing the old beliefs that the Heavenly Kingdom cannot fall into the hands of foreigners. They forgot that Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macao have already long been in the hands of foreigners. Canton, and even Shanghai itself, the biggest city in China, in the world, has been cut up into concessions for the foreigners. More than ten foreign nations, Ma. And their rotten influence makes itself felt more and more as every moment passes. In those cities my people are abused and insulted in their own country. They blind themselves to reality. While you, my beloved and honored Mama, a foreigner and stranger, not understanding my language, it was you who were able to understand what I wanted to do. In you I found a true mother.

  For the past few days I have been staying here. Darsam looked after me very well. He always left the door open for me whenever I came home around dusk. I lacked nothing, and I was able to lay my body down in its weariness and get rest without ever being disturbed. He looked after my safety, and took care of my every need. He did not understand at all what my secret was, nor did I understand him. We spoke to each other with nods and shakes of the head, but our hearts spoke much.

  I shouldn’t really be writing such a letter. But other considerations have forced me to do so, Mama. Over these past few days my room to maneuver has been getting smaller and smaller, even smaller and narrower than the freedom allowed by the identity and residency regulations enforced among the Chinese of Surabaya. And it is only Mama’s house that has provided me with protection and sustenance. It is because of the ever-narrowing room to move that I write this letter.

  Yes, the thanks I wish to pass on to you should not be in a letter but should be spoken to you, face to face, coming straight from a clear heart. But who knows, my beloved and honored Mama, I may not have the chance to speak to you again.