“And why were you suspicious of Jan Tantang?”
The convoluted questioning finally made its way to me. I told the story of being followed from Bojonegoro railway station to Wonokromo. My suspicions, I said, were passed on to others as well. Jan Tantang confirmed what had happened as a result, in front of the Telingas’ house.
The trial had been going on a week already. Medical school would be starting in only six weeks’ time. The questions and answers went on as if they would never end. I waited expectantly for Robert Mellema’s letter to be read in court. It seemed I would have to wait even longer for that hoped-for event.
Days came and went. Still there was no sign that the trial was nearing an end. The whole issue of Herman Mellema’s death was still not getting closer to any kind of resolution. Instead the court headed off once again in the direction of the internal affairs of Nyai Ontosoroh’s family: How did she treat her children? Straight away Mama refused to answer all such questions and proclaimed that how she brought up her children was her own affair.
Then abruptly there came a question like a clap of thunder: “Mr. Minke, what are your feelings towards Nyai Ontosoroh alias Sanikem?”
My blood boiled. Mama went red as she watched my lips. But they did not succeed in making us the object of more laughter. The trial seemed to be trying to paint a certain picture: There was indeed no connection between Jan Tantang and either Robert Mellema or Ah Tjong. And so, precisely because of that, the questions were now being fired off in our direction. And Robert Mellema’s letter still did not appear. The prosecutor did all he could to discover what orders Nyai had given to Darsam.
Mama steadfastly refused to answer any questions that were intended to reflect upon her policies as manager and owner of the business. She restricted herself to answering that she had never given any orders to anyone to act against people, and she certainly had never ordered that trespassers into the villages on company land be killed.
A month had passed. Then a month and a week, two weeks, three weeks. I would not be able to start medical school that academic year.
Then I was asked: whether I had ever received an order to take action against someone I was suspicious of while working for the business.
“What does the prosecutor mean by ‘someone suspicious’?”
“Someone who was going to do harm to Nyai and you yourself.”
“So far I have never seen the person who has done harm against us,” I said.
“So there is such a person?”
“Yes, there is.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what harm has he caused you?”
“He took my wife away from me.”
It was becoming clearer. They were trying to prove that Nyai and I and Darsam were involved in a conspiracy against someone. Against whom, I didn’t know. But I concluded definitely that the court was out to get us.
At home I told Mama what I was thinking.
“Yes, they’re pressuring us and deliberately wasting time. Your suspicions are right.”
“But why are they doing it?”
Mama began to explain. The day before I was brought back from Semarang, there had been a visit by three people: the government accountant, who was a Pure, and two assistants, Mixed-Bloods. They inspected the business’s books, as well as the stables, rice lands, and fields, and the dairy too. Mama showed them the audit certificate from Mr. Dalmeyer, but they ignored it.
“Is there something wrong with the examination made by Mr. Dalmeyer?” Mama asked, and the government accountant just replied by giving her a new audit form. “So, Child,” Mama went on, “it seems the business will soon be taken over. Perhaps Engineer Mellema will be here shortly or, if not, at least the person he appoints to carry it out.”
“But what’s that got to do with the trial, Ma?”
“If they can make us look bad in the public’s eye, then people will think the business has been run badly as well—run by bad people. So it will seem right that someone like me should be kicked out. Engineer Mellema will be able to take over much more easily. The public will be on his side. They will think it’s right that we be gotten rid of.”
“Could somebody with education behave as deviously as that?”
“The more educated the person, the more educated the deviousness.”
Yes, I had to learn to think like that. Before it had been a kind of hidden knowledge I had. Now it seemed I was going to see the final proof.
“Yes, Minke, you’ve got to learn to think as daringly as that. They can even do worse things than that, Child.” Her words were pronounced slowly, as if nothing had happened at all. “In the ins and outs of this life, Child, what you studied at school was just children’s games. You are adult enough now to understand that the law of the jungle rules our lives, amongst them and amongst ourselves also. Soon you will see, Child, that what I am saying now is on target.”
I was coming to understand better and better: For the thousandth time and for always we have to keep on fighting back. Just like the Filipinos, who did not know what the future held for them, yet still knew there was something that had to be done. And what was it that had to be done? Yes, they had to fight back.
That night I went off to see Kommer and Maarten Nijman to show them Robert’s letter to Mama—the copy made and approved by the prosecutor’s office. I even helped Kommer with the task of putting into Malay the bit that concerned Robert’s plotting with Ah Tjong. That night, also, the two men wrote commentaries and published them in special editions, separate from their newspapers, which were distributed before dawn.
Kommer’s comments were very courageous: The court should not keep pursuing and persecuting the witnesses, especially when it was clear that they were only witnesses and not the accused. The court should return to the crux of the matter, namely the role of Ah Tjong and Robert Mellema in Herman Mellema’s death on the one hand, and the Jan Tantang incident on the other.
At the next session of the trial Kommer and Nijman were called as witnesses. They were each asked where they got the quotes from Robert Mellema’s letter. Both refused to give an explanation. Kommer was pressed harder: “Was Robert Mellema’s letter written in Malay?”
“Dutch.”
“If in Dutch, where did you get the right to translate it into Malay and publish it without using a sworn translator from the court, because that letter is presently evidence in this trial.”
“As far as I am aware,” answered Kommer, “that letter was not written for the court but addressed to Nyai Ontosoroh. It is obvious then that it is not the sole prerogative of the court to possess and control the letter, let alone translate it. As long as I have been a journalist I have never seen a law saying otherwise.”
“Do you not understand that the contents of your special edition could influence the course of the trial?”
“It is up to the court whether or not it wishes to be influenced. Everyone is free to reject or accept such influence. And anyway, it is clear now that the letter does in fact exist.”
“Where is the original of the letter now?”
“With the prosecutor.”
The judge asked the prosecutor whether he did have such a letter. The questions and answers now revolved around the letter.
Mama became involved and explained that she had earlier gone to the police to ask their help in contacting Robert Mellema in Los Angeles. It turned out that the sender of the letter had since died.
The bench felt the blow of the judge’s gavel again and again as Mama had to be reminded to restrict herself to answering the questions.
The proceedings became tense. So many issues came and went so fast. One witness after another was called. I was almost left behind by it all.
“Where is the letter? Why was the trial resumed if there was no new material such as the letter? And why was no more evidence brought forward in Jan Tantang’s case?” So shouted Kommer from the pages of his newspaper.
Nijman’s comments were almost the same. My dislike for him turned into vigilance. I viewed his involvement in all this as totally commercial. But as long as what he did helped us, there was no reason to hate him.
Both were trying with all their might and with great risk to themselves to ensure that the trial was not diverted from its true purpose. Who, after all, was the accused?
The comments aroused great interest among the more hot-blooded newspaper readers of Surabaya, and among all races. The courtroom became more and more crowded. On the day that the courtroom was at its fullest, the trial was adjourned for several days.
Medical school started without me.
When the trial resumed again there was a new judge, a tall, slim man, Mr. D. Eisendraht. It wasn’t clear why Mr. Jansen was replaced. Perhaps he was sick.
The trial now proceeded smoothly, and on a straight course, as though rocketing along a railway line.
The new chief judge asked to see Robert Mellema’s letter. Someone was appointed to read it out. Then the policeman who had contacted Los Angeles was summoned. He read out the telegram that was previously received from the Los Angeles police authorities, which confirmed that there had been “a patient called Robert Mellema, a subject of the Netherland Indies, who had died four months and two days ago.”
Based upon the letter, new questions were asked about the motive, but again the trial had to be adjourned because Ah Tjong was sick. And when he reappeared again, looking paler, thinner, and broken, he surrendered and confessed to murdering Herman Mellema. He was sentenced to death by hanging. He died before the sentence could be implemented.
The Ah Tjong-Herman Mellema affair had been cleared up, with the aid of Kommer and Nijman.
And the Jan Tantang affair turned out to be a melodrama. This is the story:
Jan Tantang was a police agent, first class, from Bojonegoro. One day he was summoned before the assistant resident of Bojonegoro, Herbert de la Croix. Jan Tantang could give both the date and the time that the meeting took place. As an orderly servant of the state, he had indeed noted everything down.
As soon as he received the summons, he attended.
It was eight o’clock at night. The assistant resident was sitting in his rattan armchair. Tantang stood before him.
“You are the police agent first class that the district chief has sent me?” asked Herbert de la Croix.
“Yes, Tuan Assistant Resident: agent first class Jan Tantang.”
“Can you speak Dutch?”
“A little, Tuan.”
The assistant resident seemed disappointed that he could speak only a little Dutch.
“Can you read and write?’ He looked happy when Tantang said yes. “Who can speak proper Dutch among the police agents?”
“As far as I know, Tuan, no one.”
“I need a clever man for a special assignment. Are you willing?”
He admitted to the court he was hoping for a promotion. He had answered: “Ready and willing, Tuan Assistant Resident.”
“Good. Tomorrow you leave for Surabaya. You must keep under surveillance the son of the new bupati. His name is Minke. Do you know him, what he looks like?”
“Not yet, Tuan Assistant Resident.”
“Wait for him before he leaves for the station. An H.B.S. student. You’ll know him.”
De la Croix ordered him to report on all Minke’s habits: his schooling, his diligence in study, how he mixed with other people, and with whom, outside school as well.
“Why did Assistant Resident Herbert de la Croix give you this task?”
Jan Tantang answered that he didn’t know. He had explained what his job was. He sent back reports by letter and telegram.
“Why did you behave so suspiciously? Was that the only way you could carry out your orders from Tuan de la Croix?”
“I was given no guidelines on how to carry out my task.”
“Was acting suspiciously the only way you could have done it?”
“No.”
He went on to explain that he really wanted to become acquainted with Tuan Minke and so be able to converse and mix with him. But Tuan Minke was a student and Jan Tantang was embarrassed, and felt awkward about approaching him. He felt inferior and so kept his distance.
There was almost a disaster when he asked about my relations with Nyai Ontosoroh. He remained resolute with his answer: “I don’t know.” Several times the question was put to him in other ways, veiled, but he remained steadfast in his answer.
I reckoned he knew a lot about my relations with Mama. He was deliberately avoiding talking about our private affairs so as not to cause us harm. This moved me. Sometimes I thought he was indeed our friend, as he had told Darsam.
He sat calmly on the accused’s chair, always polite, his two hands clasped in his lap. I didn’t see his fatness so much anymore, but rather his humanity. His answers were always polite, orderly, and direct. He won my sympathy.
It was he who had been given the task of reporting on me for de la Croix’s study of educated Natives. In his race to understand the Native psyche, Herbert de la Croix did not want, it seems, to be left behind by Snouck Hurgronje. He had become a victim of his studies, and had also gotten many people involved in all kinds of problems. He himself had lost his position, and perhaps had to live off uncertain earnings in Europe.
One of the witnesses was Minem. She decided to sit next to me, so I was hemmed in by two women. Among the other witnesses was Darsam.
The questioning went on to Minem. The girl answered in Javanese.
One afternoon a fat man leading a horse passed in front of her house. “That man smiled at me. He stopped and offered me some perfume. Without even asking me, he rubbed a little on my neck. It smelled so nice.” Minem spoke fluently, completely unembarrassed and unafraid. “I asked him to come in.”
The judge asked Jan Tantang: “Why did you say your name was Babah Kong?”
“The one thing I knew I must not do was to give my own name.”
“You were no longer carrying out a task for an assistant resident.”
“I was still working for Tuan Herbert de la Croix, even though he was no longer an assistant resident.”
“And what were you doing still taking orders from him? You are an employee of the state.”
“I only used my own spare time.”
“You were paid for your services?”
“No,” he said without hesitating.
“Why were you willing then?”
“I slowly came to understand what de la Croix was trying to do, and I wanted to help him.”
“And how did you and Tuan de la Croix communicate after he was no longer an assistant resident?”
“Letters.”
“And what did he say in them?”
“They were addressed only to me, not to the court or the public.”
It looked like Jan Tantang was a man with principles. He deserved to be honored and respected.
Minem continued, “Babah Kong kept asking me about my child, where he was and who he was. I answered that his father had disappeared to parts unknown almost six months before. He asked if we were divorced. And I asked how could we be divorced if we hadn’t even been married? Babah Kong took out a little bottle of perfume, poured out a little, and rubbed it on my cheeks, pinching them too.”
The courtroom was filled with laughter. Jan Tantang bowed his head. Minem glowed happily at receiving so much attention. That young mother didn’t hide anything. Her red, thin lips kept on talking without being stopped by either judge or prosecutor. It seemed they too enjoyed looking at this pretty village girl who spoke so frankly.
Without concealing anything, Minem announced that the child she was now suckling was the son of Robert Mellema, the son of her employer, and so was the grandchild of Nyai Ontosoroh.
Then: “It seemed Babah Kong was jealous of the father of my baby, Rono, Ndoro Judge. He kept on pressing me as to who was the baby’s father.”
“Did Babah Kong
alias Jan Tantang ever propose marriage to you?”
“Babah Kong did once ask me to become his wife.”
“And why were you unwilling?”
“My child had to be taken care of first.”
“Did not Nyai acknowledge him as her grandson?”
“She has now,” she stated with energy.
Nyai was frustrated, annoyed by Minem. Once again her private family affairs were being paraded in public view. The prosecutor didn’t allow such an opportunity to go unused, and it became even more obvious that the prosecutor was out to confuse the course of the trial. Question after question was addressed to Nyai.
But the chief judge finally moved to bring a halt to the public’s pleasure in these private affairs. The questioning shifted to Darsam: “How may times in twenty-four hours would you meet Minem, Darsam?”
“I never counted,” answered Darsam, frowning sullenly.
“And you have never tried to seduce her?”
“A woman like her doesn’t need to be seduced,” he answered furiously.
“And whom would you have preferred to seduce?” asked the prosecutor, glancing at Mama.
Now it was I who as about to explode in fury.
The chief judge used his gavel again.
“This is important, to fill in the background, Your Honor Chief Judge,” objected the prosecutor. “Answer truthfully, Darsam. Why did you never try to seduce her?”
Darsam did not answer.
“You have never touched her?”
“No!” Darsam gnashed his teeth.
“Is he telling the truth, Minem?”
“Yes.”
“Did Tuan Minke ever visit you house?”
“No,” answered Minem.
“Have you ever spoken to him?”
“A few times, Ndoro Prosecutor.”
“And he never tried to seduce you?”
A tear of humiliation, of anger, dropped from my eye.
“A pity, but no, Nodor Prosecutor.”
“Why a pity? Did you have hopes in that direction?”