Footsteps (3 page)

Delmans, bendís
, landaus, victorias, dog carts—all offerings from the immigrant civilization—passed each other in every street. People in all kinds of clothes rode along on their horses. Bicycles too! And no one took any notice of them! I’ll get myself a bicycle! How much would it cost? Hey, aren’t they nimble, all those bike riders! They move slowly, and can see everything as they move along.

The tram left downtown Betawi and passed through the forest and swamp on the way to Gambir. It wouldn’t be long before it stopped to spew out and suck up passengers. But still there was no face that lured me.

“Not yet,” said a Chinese man next to me. “Gambir’s quite a way. About a quarter of an hour more.”

In third class the bedlam never abated.

“What do you expect?” the man prattled on. “They’re gambling on the horses. This is your first time to Betawi? I thought so. People here, men and women, they’ve all become possessed. The races, cockfighting, dice, even lizard fights. When Gambir Markets open, every gambler in the country comes. You must see Gambir Markets.”

“Are there any good shows to see in the villages?”

“There’s no one crazier about watching performances than the men of Betawi. What about Solo, you ask? No. In the villages here there is
cokek, dogar, gambang kromong
, and
lenong.
Do you like
kroncong
? Wah-wah,
Meneer
Longsor, he’s the king of kroncong.
A great, thick mustache, a beautiful voice. They say he’s got real Portuguese blood. And he lives near the Portuguese Church too.”

My neighbor alighted. Prattling over, lecture over. And I myself was amazed. I’d spoken Malay quite fluently, and not only had he understood me, I had understood him too.

The Eurasian grandmother looked at me. In Malay: “Where is Sinyo from?”

“Surabaya.”

“Your first time to Betawi?”

“Yes,
Oma
.”

“Nah,” she said, pointing out the window. “That’s the Harmoni Club, where all the big people enjoy themselves. An old building,
Nyo.
Not just anyone can get in there. You’ve got to have a wage more than four hundred guilders. But even if you and I had two and a half times that, we would still never see inside.”

Four hundred guilders! And my total wealth came only to one hundred and seventy guilders and so many cents, put away over years. Anyway, what would you need four hundred guilders a month for? You could buy at least three bicycles every month! And you’d still have enough left over to live well!

Straight, solid, and large buildings everywhere, beautiful carriages, all crowded my view. My old bendi was just a heap of timber compared to these. Big broad streets like soccer fields. And the Harmoni bridge, like a wax molding, was even adorned by statues. Cupid and Venus?

“We’ve arrived at Weltevreden, Nyo. Gambir, the Betawi call it. The last stop. Where are you going from here, Nyo? Ah, that’s Koningsplein—the Betawi say Gambir Square—where the Gambir Market is set up. The tram will stop in front of the station. If you want to go on, you’ll have to change trams. Or take a delman.”

I gazed out across Koningsplein field, the pride of the Indies. About two hundred acres, beautifully tended lawns, no flowers, where the people of Betawi met and played, whether or not the Gambir Markets were on, whether or not they had money. This was, of course, their cure for the boredom of being stuck at home.

“Weltevreden! Last stop!” cried the conductor, first in Dutch, then in Malay.

Look at how big Gambir station is! A whole village under
one roof. What is it that the trains off-load here? No doubt the same as in Surabaya, the prosperity and happiness of the villages—for export. And imports too—things to make you forget where you are, prosperity and happiness that have been put in hock. You must always remember the nature of the modern cities. They stand upon the traffic in happiness and prosperity.

A horse cart took me toward my destination.

Even if that were the truth about modern cities, I still considered myself a modern man, among the most advanced of the age. You don’t want to be involved with progress? Then you must accept being trampled into dust.

In my shirt pocket were two neatly folded pieces of paper—my graduation diploma and a summons from the Batavia medical school—
STOVIA.
Fantastic! Not just Betawi, but the medical school too must open its doors to me.

Fantastic! Incredible!

Fortress Betawi had been breached.

A school coolie took down my suitcase, bags, and Annelies’s portrait, which was wrapped in velvet. They were all placed neatly in the office.

I handed over my papers.

“Good day! We have been waiting for you a long time, sir. You should’ve been here last year, yes? Even now you’re late. One week late. I hope you understand that it is only because of your high marks that we have pardoned your tardiness.”

I was offended. I was already feeling uncomfortable. That wasn’t the way I should be spoken to. I wasn’t even studying yet, and they were already trying to box me in.

“Javanese, aren’t you?”

Even more offensive. Seeing I wasn’t answering and that my eyes were challenging him, he didn’t ask again. He pulled out a piece of paper. He wanted me to study it.

“Can you follow that?” he asked. “The rules apply from the moment you are accepted as a student, from the moment you enter the school grounds. They are mandatory.”

I looked him in the eyes again. It seemed that he understood my heart was rebelling against the rules. He hurriedly added: “I am only showing you. It’s up to you if you want to stay on as a student or not.”

I sat there on the couch, playing with the felt hat in my
lap. There was only one place I was going. I knew only one destination—the School for the Education of Native Doctors. How painful all this was.

He seemed to be losing his patience and wanting to get on with his work.

“There’s a room through there.” He pointed. “Before you sign the agreement you
must
conform with the rules.”

Everywhere there are rules. Why are the ones here so offensive? As a Javanese, as a pupil, I must wear Javanese dress: a destar, a traditional buttoned-up top, a
batik sarong
, and even go barefoot! Shoes are banned!

“Do you have Javanese clothes?” he asked.

I did, except for a destar. How humiliating it would be to admit I had no destar.

“No,” I answered.

“Do you have money?” The questions were getting even more insulting. He probably wasn’t earning much more than seventy guilders a month. “If you haven’t any, we can advance you some to buy whatever you need.”

Very well. I will be a student. I took leave to go and buy what I needed.

“Your things will be safe here. We will wait for you,” he said. “About three hundred yards from here, there are markets. Senen Markets, they’re called. You’ll be able to get everything there.”

I left feeling quite annoyed. It was easy to find someone selling destars. The stall was run by an Arab. He had deep, small eyes and wore a big, thick and grimy fez. He asked a terribly high price but I got it for half that. It was probably still too expensive.

To me, this was all a form of oppression. All in order to become a doctor—a cog in the machines of the sugar industry, according to my new friend from the boat on which I first tried to leave Surabaya—I have to put up with all this trivial aggravation. Will I be able to put up with it all? Amazing, but here I was indeed carrying out these humiliating, degrading orders.

Back at the school, angry and offended, I went into the room and…farewell to you all, my European clothes! First my shoes, my trousers, my stockings. In place of my felt hat was the destar. I hadn’t worn a destar for years. My honored feet, once clothed in shoes and stockings, were now chicken claws in their nakedness. And the floor felt cold as it sucked up the warmth of my blood.

Like a bird caught in the rain, I signed my contract as a pupil at the school. I would receive an allowance often guilders a month and free board. In return, I would be bonded to work for the government, either on land or sea, for a period equal to the length of my training.

A Native office employee took me into the dormitory. The air smelled of alcohol and creosote. Across the way was the Ambon hospital, for the Ambonese soldiers and their families.

My bags had hardly touched the ground before we were surrounded by a milling group of students. On the bed opposite mine, I saw a suitcase with a newspaper clipping stuck on it that set my blood boiling.

Before I could collect my wits, a big youth examining my dented and bruised old brown tin suitcase, shouted in
Indo
Dutch: “Look at this! Only the rottenest village boy would bring a rotten case like this!”

He seemed to be the only one wearing shoes. He was obviously not Sundanese, Javanese, Madurese, or Balinese, and he wasn’t Malay either. Yes, he was probably Eurasian.

Then, catching me by surprise, his big shoes flung out at my case. I felt as if he were kicking my pride and my dignity as well. The case shimmied across the floor. The office clerk tried to stop the second and third kicks. Then everyone started jockeying for a turn at giving it a kick.

Hey, you, I said to myself, are you going to take this treatment?

“Gentlemen,” I shouted in a rage, “forget the case. Here I am. Come on, one by one, or all together, it’s the same to me.”

I had never been in a fight in my life; I had never experienced such violent behavior as this. But I was ready. I snapped into position. My thighs pushed open the split in my sarong. My left hand undid the buttons on my shirt. And my eyes challenged them all.

They took no notice. They laughed! They were laughing at me! At me!

And then the boy in European clothes calmly tried to punch me on the nose. How dare he! My left hand shot toward his face; my right was ready to go for his chest. He stepped back. I took a step forward and my right hand advanced, and…I collapsed on the floor in the midst of tumultuous laughter.

I wanted to jump up, to attack again. But I couldn’t.
Couldn’t
!
It was as if a mountain had fallen on my body. They were all holding down my legs. My sarong had been torn away and my underpants glared in their whiteness. I had been overcome so easily.

And it wasn’t over. In just a few seconds they stripped me naked. Except for a leather belt and my destar. Like a workhorse without its harness.

“Come on, big man, hero, start crowing again!” the Eurasian challenged me.

They let me go even while shouting and cheering. And like Adam chased out of Eden, I ran to my bed to get something to cover my nakedness.

“Don’t give him any clothes!” someone cried out in Malay to the office boy, who wanted to help me. “Let him run around like a buffalo in the fields.”

Everyone laughed again.

“Ayoh, start braying, come on, hero!”

Don’t think I’d ever bray for the lot of you.

Everyone crowded round, pulling me into the center of the room. And naked in front of everyone, I lost my strength. Perhaps that’s how a fighting cock would feel if all his feathers had been plucked. Naked, all I could do was stand there using my two hands to cover my private parts.

“A Javanese knight with just a leather belt and destar!”

“A fighting cock who can’t crow!”

“Let him stay here like this until tomorrow, until the director makes his inspection. Everyone agree?”

“Agreeee!!!!” they all shouted.

The lone European-dressed boy came up to me and tried to grab my hand. That was too much. Then I thought I saw the early signs of an impending attack. I dived, flinging my legs upward. I felt my toes jab into his throat. He swayed, spitting onto the floor. Two teeth and some blood came out.

The shouting got wilder and wilder.

“Adam’s run amok!”

I suddenly decided to fight rather than be ashamed. I excused my two hands and began my attack.

“Come on, gentlemen, that’s enough,” the office clerk cried out. “No more, that’s enough. Otherwise I’ll call in the director.”

“Report! Yes, go on and report! Our hero has gone wild.”

“Yes, report him!”

They began to surround me.

“Ayoh! try it!” I shouted.

And they didn’t jump on me. It appeared they didn’t mean me any real harm, they were just playing around with me. No one came forward. They just laughed. And the now-tested rooster, myself, began crowing again: “So this is how educated people behave?” And they went quiet. “Is this what your ancestors taught you?”

“Shut up! Leave our ancestors out of it.”

“Do you all think you’re better than they were?”

Someone threw me my batik sarong. I slowly wrapped it around my waist, my eyes vigilant.

“In front of villagers you all behave like intellectuals. But villagers are more civilized than you!” I kept on crowing.

Remaining vigilant, especially as regards the now toothless Indo, I walked over to my bed. No one tried to stop me. The tumult had died down.

“God’s own Satan isn’t as big a bastard as any one of you,” I kept on crowing, egged on by their silence, “go on, get away, all of you.” By now I was growling.

No one said anything. They just stood there watching me, amazed at my outrageous behavior. But they didn’t go away.

I dressed again, acting as if I were some kind of aristocrat. I pushed all my things under the bed. I set the painting in its wine-red velvet cover, and wrapped in turn in calico, on my pillow.

The office clerk had disappeared. He was probably used to these kinds of goings-on. He won’t report anything. Except to the people in his village, and to his wife.

I sat on my bed. I looked around at them with a challenging gaze. But they were all smiling now. One by one they told me their names. It was clear there’d be no more fighting. It seems it was all some kind of crude initiation game. And they were sorry they’d gone too far.

Don’t try playing rough like that again, I challenged them in my heart. Don’t try humiliating this crummy-looking old dented tin suitcase. Its contents are worth more than all of you put together, you candidate doctors! You must get to know me first, as I must get to know you. Inside that suitcase are stored my best thoughts: notes, letters, including letters from friends and love letters, newspaper clippings, my two manuscripts about the loss of my wife, Annelies, and the experiences Nyai Ontosoroh and I
had with the Dutch authorities—perhaps more than four pounds altogether. Have any of you ever owned a treasure as weighty as that? And important letters from other people too—will you ever own anything like this? And then there are the letters from Mother. I don’t believe any of you have a mother like my mother. And I don’t believe any of you have had experiences such as I have experienced and have summarized in my writings. All of you, candidate gobblers-up of government wages, candidate
priyayi
…