Footsteps (31 page)
We had a merry evening that night once the question of May and me had been attended to. Mama as well as Jean, and I also, all wanted to talk only about the future. May stayed silent most of the time.
The evening ended with these words from Mama: “So don’t worry about anything, Child. I’m looking forward so much to reading your paper—a paper that will defend your fellow Natives, your people. You can’t just close down the weekly, of course. It has built up a good name among those looking for explanations of all the laws and regulations. But I don’t consider that to be your real work. A daily, Child, a daily! I will look for a lawyer to help, someone who isn’t two-faced. What I’ve found out about Frischboten is quite encouraging. Perhaps he’d be willing. And, Child, remember this. You must telegraph me in Paris if three thousand guilders are not enough.”
It was midnight when I went to bed. I was filled with happiness. So many good things seemed to be flowing in my direction. And all because I had dared to begin. Everything else would come
my way too. All things need a beginning. And I had set off on my beginning.
Even so I was ashamed of myself. Near this woman I had once again become just a shadow of a personality. Perhaps Mr. Mellema had also been bowed down and subjugated by her iron will. Maybe he too had just become a reflection, unable to resist. Mama should have been a man. I understood, too, that Jean Marais had become putty in her hands.
As was my habit in the evening, I stopped to look at Mei’s portrait before I went to bed. And the picture wasn’t there. I looked under my bed. It wasn’t there. I found it lying on top of the wardrobe wrapped up in cloth. Mama had done it. Not under my bed. On top of the wardrobe!
Mei, you replaced Annelies,
The Flower of the Century’s End.
Now you would be replaced by Maysoroh Marais. Don’t be angry…. You were never the sentimental type anyway, were you?
And I put her picture back in its place. I examined her face. Like a being from another universe. Her smile (I had asked the artist to paint her with a smile), the way her eyes shone out from the corners of her eyes, it was as if all her life she had never confronted the world clearly, as if she were just glancing out at it halfheartedly. Everything seemed to be enveloped in a pallid morbidity.
I felt ashamed as I examined my heart. Had I really loved her—in the way people and the stories talked about love? Do you have to study how to love too, love in the way that everyone talks about but never has been clear to me? Can a wife die because of a lack of this kind of love, and then become just a picture which is worshiped like an idol, as I have done with the
Flower of the Century’s End
and now Mei?
Oh, God, teach me to understand love as other people understand it. Because, it is said, love is the source of everything.
They had left: Jean Marais, Mama (now Sanikem Marais), Maysoroh Marais, and Rono Mellema. To France!
My house and my heart felt empty.
Sandiman and Wardi agreed with the proposal to publish a paper. Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie wasn’t talking with anyone. He was still very upset about the embezzlement of the foundation’s funds. So was the Patih of Meester Cornelis.
This scandal had eroded many members’ faith in the Sarekat Priyayi. People started to say that the organization had been established simply to enrich certain individuals. We issued a special statement, inserted in the magazine, presenting an account of the use of the funds—almost all anyway. We could not state how much we were paying Mahler. But people didn’t care. They needed and wanted to read
Medan.
They weren’t interested in the explanations we gave about our financial situation.
I suggested we hold a conference. But no one ever supported me. We found it impossible to get people to pay their membership dues anymore. Quite a large number of people stopped sending in their payments for shares. I had to start to pay for expenses out of my own money. The organization was in trouble. And most of the priyayi showed more interest in dancing girls, dance parties, and gambling. The dues stopped coming in altogether. Our priyayi members all returned to their old ways.
On the other hand
Medan
was spreading rapidly. It had plenty of life left in it. People referred more and more of their problems to the magazine. People demanded we cover more matters, and still more again. People wanted to learn more about the world, as well as hoping that we would struggle for their interests. Not through an organization anymore but by trying to rally public opinion behind them when they were confronting exploitation and oppression by either white or brown colonial authorities. To do this they needed a publication that would tell the truth.
The people did need a Native daily.
“The time to publish a daily has arrived,” I told Wardi and Sandiman. “It’s a pity we can’t get the organization involved. It has lost its ability to act. I will publish the paper myself.”
Wardi agreed, but didn’t think it was possible. He didn’t really respond too much to the proposal except just to smile.
“Actually I might not be able to keep helping the weekly for much longer either,” said Wardi.
“I understand. The weekly can’t provide anyone with a decent livelihood. It’s just a labor of love.”
He didn’t stop helping me but he wasn’t as active as before.
Things kept moving along. The reading public of the Indies was following another major development.
Governor-General van Heutsz had announced openly his
intention to bring into the Indies all the independent territories of the archipelago. He was demanding that the independent principalities in Aceh, the Celebes, the Moluccas, and the Lesser Sundas sign what he called the Korte Verklaring, the “short agreement.” This document was an agreement that they would all accept the authority of the Netherlands Indies government. These pockets of independence were called
landschap.
The newspapers were all saying that the barbaric and uncivilized practices going on in these territories could no longer be tolerated by the Netherlands Indies authorities, who represented Christian and European civilization in this region. The laws of the Netherlands Indies must be enforced in these territories, and this would also bind their people and their leaders to the Netherlands Indies.
Behind the Korte Verklaring, which indeed comprised only a few sentences, stood the ranks of the army with their rifle and cannon and sword. War would soon be ravaging these countries that had not yet bowed down before the Dutch. The military graveyard in Kotaraja, Aceh, was a reminder of how terrible a colonial war could be. Now there would be more such wars in the Celebes, Moluccas, and Lesser Sunda Islands.
Van Heutsz wanted to see his dream of a united Indies become a reality before his term as governor-general expired the following year—even while the Bali War, which he had started in 1904, the first year of his term, had not yet ended! Though, of course, the kingdom of Klungkung was starting to break up from within. But the king of Klungkung himself stood firm.
Ter Haar had been able to write five more letters to me before news reached me that he had died of heavy wounds incurred while accompanying the army in one of its attacks on the Toh Pati fortress. I don’t know what kind of weapon killed Ter Haar. It must have been a Balinese blade or spear that killed him. He had a great sympathy for the Balinese people, but he was never able to get close to them. And he always accompanied the army. It was hard to know exactly how to classify his death. He clearly wasn’t a hero. Neither was he an oppressor. He died only because he wanted to know the outcome of the Balinese fight to defend their nation and people! Just because he wanted to know!
One of his letters gave a little background to what had happened in Bali:
During the time of the great Empire of Majapahit in Java, Prime Minister Gajah Mada appointed four rulers. The first, Sri Juru, was crowned the king of Blambangan in East Java. The second, Sri Bhimacali, was crowned king of Pasuruan in West Java. The third, Sri Krisna Kepakisan, was crowned king of Bali. The fourth, Princess Kaneja, was crowned queen of Sumbawa, in the Lesser Sunda Islands.
Sri Krisna Kepakisan, king of Bali, had originally been the main adviser of Prime Minister Gajah Mada. Following his coronation, he left for Bali with one hundred and fourteen Javanese knights, including Arya Wang Bang and Arya Kutawaringan.
The area called Gelgel was chosen to be the center of the new kingdom. They built a palace, Swecapura palace. That kingdom has continued on down to the current king, I Dewa Agung Djambe, who held court at Asmarapuri palace in Klungkung. Four hundred and fifty years! Asmarapuri itself had become the capital in 1710 and governed over the eight smaller principalities of Bali, each of which had its own king as well.
But in 1892 the Dutch managed to incite the principality of Buleleng to break away from Asmarapuri. Buleleng was soon Klungkung’s enemy. Now, in 1908, the Dutch had managed to persuade another king, the king of Gianjar, to join the opposition against Klungkung. It was his soldiers who surrounded and overran Toh Pati fortress. And so now, with Toh Pati taken, the Dutch were in a position to march on Klungkung itself. Dutch soldiers were landed on Kusamba beach. Klungkung was attacked from three directions. And Gianjar, which had betrayed the mother kingdom, also took part in the attack.
The Colonial Army and Gianjar’s soldiers had to march four miles to reach Klungkung. Meanwhile, the king of Klungkung issued orders that every man, woman, and child, weapon in hand, must fight until no one was left standing. The sound of the gong that had been named Ki Sekar Sandat reverberated over and over again. And the sacred keris, I Pacalang and I Tan Kadang, both of which had for so long protected the kingdom,
were drawn from their sheaths. The kingdom was ready to fight.…
In his later letters, Ter Haar had written:
Van Heutsz was growing impatient with Bali’s refusal to accept defeat. If Bali was nearer to a foreign country, as Aceh had been, this war would be able to go on for ten years, and still the Dutch would not be guaranteed victory. This courageous and isolated people received no outside help at all. I’m not sure that van Heutsz will see his dream realized. The Balinese on the island of Lombok remain loyal to the king and they will not surrender so easily as their brothers of Javanese descent.
The war would go on. One by one my fellow countrymen would fall on the field of battle, unable to resist the steel of colonial bullets. How different was van Heutsz from that other colonial hero, van der Wijck. In order to conquer North Celebes, he set village against village. Each village usually had between fifteen and forty men armed to defend it. Bribing the village chiefs with cigars, he bred enmity and conflict among them. Village after village fell into his hands without his having to use more than a few score middle-level army troops. And so he obtained fame and glory as the man who conquered North Celebes.
Van Heutsz with bullets and the Korte Verklaring, van der Wijck with cigars. There were many ways, it seemed, to steal someone’s country. And the objective was always the same—to win the race being run by all the colonial powers of the world to see who was the greatest thief, the greediest, the best at sucking up the riches of the earth and of its peoples.
It made me sick.
Then one day: “It would be ideal, of course, if the Indies were unified,” said a journalist, “but won’t it mean a greater burden for the government?”
Van Heutsz didn’t answer. Instead he made the following pronouncement: “Those who resist will pay dearly for their resistance.”
“What do you mean ‘will pay dearly’?”
“As it was after the Padri War and the Java War. West Sumatra and Java were subjected to a system of Forced Cultivation.”
“But the people of the Sunda Islands, and of the Moluccas and Central Celebes, and of Sangir and Talaud are not known as farmers.”
“They will soon learn to be very fine farmers.”
Then came another idea, no less sharp than the first: “If the Korte Verklaring was inspired by Christian values, then why was it military methods that were used? Why weren’t they helped instead with priests, teachers, engineers, and money?”
But the government knew only the methods it had used ever since first setting foot in the Indies.
“This is the only way they will come to understand the good and honorable intentions of the government. Crime and sin must no longer be allowed to flourish in these small states, which have not yet subjected themselves to the authority of Her Majesty. Financial help? The people of the Indies have always been corrupt. Corruption is a part of their mentality, whether dukun or trader, whether peasant or king. They do not understand the value of money. They only understand the needs of their own lust. Only the power of the Netherlands Indies can educate them. Only the army understands their character.”
These were the words, such impressive words, that were on everybody’s lips—in official discussions and over coffee. Sometimes spoken out in the open, sometimes whispered as a rumor. Once, when van Heutsz was speaking to the press, I was the only journalist—and the only brown one also—who did not ask a question of van Heutsz. I was taking notes when the interview had finished.
Then the governor-general turned to me: “Ah, Mr. Minke. I’m glad you didn’t fire any questions at me. I was worried.” He laughed. “It’s usually the last question that is the most difficult to answer!”
Seeing that I wasn’t going to ask a question, he reached out with his eyes to the white journalists. He spoke again: “Gentlemen, this is Mr. Minke—writer, journalist, failed medical student—and now helping the government with his weekly paper,
Medan
, which has been explaining and strengthening our legal system here. I almost didn’t recognize you with that handsome mustache.”
His friendly laugh was overdone. His voice struck me like a bolt of lightning. Mama’s warning had been affirmed by none
other than Governor-General van Heutsz himself. In my heart, I felt so ashamed and humiliated.
“Thank you, Your Excellency.”