Footsteps (46 page)

The automobile roared on its way.

I stood paralyzed at the door. Mir Frischboten stood before me in her evening dress.

“I’m staying in my old room tonight,” she said.

Hendrik had not mentioned anything about Mir coming down to stay when I spoke to him in Bandung. Perhaps they had had a fight.

“Why do you look so surprised? Didn’t you see Hendrik before you left?”

“He didn’t say anything about you coming down,” I answered as I hesitantly walked in through the door. And I had even more doubts about what was going on, because she was dressed up more than I had ever seen before. “Everything’s all right at home?”

“Yes, of course.” She looked at me with shining eyes and smiling lips, both of which served only to confuse me more.

“Did you tell him that you were coming down here?”

“Of course. You seem to be really worried.” She went into the kitchen and brought out a tray with a cup of coffee and a dish of my favorite crackers. She set them out on the table and went inside again.

Usually I drink my coffee as soon as I get home. But this time I hesitated. So I just sat back in the lounge chair, letting go of my tiredness as my thoughts groped about trying to solve this new mystery.

“You’re too tired.” She came out again, pulled up a cane chair, and sat down beside me. “Whose car was that? The governor-general’s?”

“No. It was a hired car. Haji Moeloek hired it.”

“He must be very wealthy. Why aren’t you drinking your coffee?” She picked up the cup from the table and offered it to me. She took it back from me after I had drunk a quarter of a cup. She put it back on the table. “You came straight from Bandung, of course.”

“I’m meeting your husband at the station later. The last train.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself. He won’t be coming.”

“So you’re really by yourself here.”

“Maybe for a few days. I’ve been under some stress lately.”

“Have a good rest then. I’m going to bathe.”

After bathing I found her reading a book. She spoke in a voice that was just as friendly as before: “Dinner is ready. Let’s eat.”

We went into the dining room. She was behaving like a new-lywed.

Suddenly, in the middle of dinner, she spoke out: “Perhaps because I was brought up on Indies food, I become hot like this. All the Natives always look hot. I prefer Indies food.”

“Do you eat local food or European at home?”

“It depends on Hendrik. He prefers European. It’s more practical. You don’t have to cook different dishes,” she said.

“You’re not meaning to say that Hendrik is cold, are you?”

“How is Hendrik going? Does he like his work?” She moved quickly to turn the conversation.

“He more than just likes it, he’s completely absorbed in it.”

“That’s what I thought. It was like that in the Netherlands too. He never took a holiday. At home he never stopped working either. Sometimes it made me angry inside. A bit angry from time to time doesn’t matter, does it? We always got on well together; we never argued.”

And so it became clear to me that there was something not quite right with their marriage. That was the impression I had got when I had first met her husband. European women, and especially men, did not usually discuss their personal affairs openly like this. Mir wanted to talk to me about something.

I finished my dinner quickly. And Mir copied my example.

I hadn’t sat down in the lounge chair for more than a few moments before Mir had sat beside me again in the cane chair.

“I would like to talk to you, Minke, as a friend that I knew even nine years ago. You’ll listen, won’t you, Minke.”

“If it’s to do with any argument with your husband, I can’t, Mir, I’m sorry, forgive me.”

“We haven’t fought. Truly. What is there for us to fight about?”

“What’s the trouble, Mir?”

Slowly Mir Frischboten raised her head, and looked at me nervously, then she spoke slowly, also nervously: “The trouble started a year after we married.”

“It couldn’t have been money troubles, Mir?”

“No. The problem was with Hendrik. He worked like a horse. There was no way of stopping him. It seemed as though work and study were the only things in his life. He no longer looked after himself or his health. He was working beyond what his body was capable of.”

She stopped. She looked at me with her big eyes as if anticipating some response from me. Seeing that I was waiting for her to continue her story, she shook her head, bit the lower right corner of her lip, and then wiped it with a handkerchief.

“You don’t know if you want to go on, Mir?”

“Yes, all of a sudden, I’m not sure anymore,” she answered softly.

“Do you want me to leave the room for a few minutes?”

“No, no need for that. I’ll continue. One night I found him sitting at his desk. His hands were lying on his thighs. His eyes were closed. He wasn’t thinking, or working. His body was empty of any strength at all. You’re too tired, I told him, go to bed. He turned his face toward me, and stared at me with a hopelessness in his eyes, and he said: ‘Go to sleep, Mir.’ Then he got up and left. He went outside, and probably spent all night, until morning, wandering around.”

“He had some problem that he wasn’t telling you about, Mir.”

“He didn’t need to tell me. It was I who knew it best. He had lost confidence in himself. He felt humiliated whenever he was near me. I had tried to encourage and support him so that his confidence would return. But he just turned in on himself more, and drowned himself in his work and study.”

“You didn’t take him to a doctor?”

“There were four doctors; none of them could help.”

From her rather roundabout story, I guessed that Hendrik had become impotent. But I pretended I didn’t understand.

“Look, I’m thirty years old already, probably the same age as you.”

So my guess that she had been three or four years older than I had been wrong.

“I married late,” she went on. “My husband wants to have children, but he has already given up all hope. He no longer believes that he will ever have any children. Twice he has offered to divorce me. But that is impossible. I love him. He is such a kind and simple man. He believes that his work is for the good of others and he loves his work. And too, he loves me with all his heart.”

“You must tell me more clearly, Mir, just how can I help?” “Perhaps you know a dukun who can help cure his trouble.” “You mean his losing confidence in himself?”

“It’s so terrible happening to such an honest and pure person. Even if it were someone else, it would also be a very sad thing.”

“A dukun?”

“Or some herbal medicines, perhaps you know of them?”

“Are you telling me that your husband is impotent?”

She turned the other way, then nodded: “You must know, Minke, it’s not only he who suffers, but me even more so.”

“I understand, Mir. As for the dukun and the herbal medicines, I’ve never even thought about those things before. It will take a little bit of time to find out what’s the best thing to do. How badly is he afflicted?”

“Totally.”

“Totally! That means you will never have a child by him.”

“You know better than I. You were a student doctor.”

“I’ll find out about the dukun within the next fortnight, Mir. You go to bed now. Good night.”

I went outside and shut the front gate, then came back in and went around closing the window shutters and locking the doors. Miriam was no longer to be seen in the sitting room. I put out the lights and went into my room. Tomorrow was Sunday and I would visit the palace. Perhaps the governor-general would not be in Betawi tomorrow. Suddenly I heard a rustling noise. I quickly turned the electric switch behind the door.

Good God! It was Mir standing before me in the middle of my room.

“You’ve come into the wrong room, Mir.”

“No. I have come to the right room,” she said firmly.

“I will try to find out within the fortnight, Mir. Be patient. Go back into your room. You are the wife of my friend.”

“I don’t believe in dukuns or herbal medicines, Minke. And that’s why I have come to you!”

“Mir!”

“Give me what my husband cannot give me. Give me your seed!”

“Mir Frischboten!”

“Do you have the heart to refuse to help a friend?”

“I understand your problem, Mir. But is this the answer?”

“I am not leaving this room. I’m staying.”

“I will move into another room.”

She jumped forward and grabbed my hands. “Don’t shame me. We have been friends for a long time.”

“Why me, Mir? There are many Europeans in Bandung.”

“I’d rather die than suffer the shame. You can kill me now. Or I will kill myself. What’s the difference?” I could hear her panting breath, gasping; her face was white, and through her grip on my arm, I felt her hands shivering. Spots of sweat began to soak through her evening dress despite the coolness of the evening.

“Mir, don’t do this. What will people say?”

“No one will ever know unless you tell them.”

I shook her shoulders: “Get hold of yourself, Mir, for heaven’s sake.”

“I’ve thought this through fully. I would come only to you.” She stared at me with glassy eyes. “You are my friend. If you don’t agree, it will be the same as sending me to my grave.”

“You haven’t given me any chance to think about it.”

“If you go through that door, if you leave me here, you will be humiliating me.” Her hand would not let go its grip on my arm. Her eyes shone with fear and tension.

And in my mind’s eye, I could see Hendrik Frischboten, who had been so good to me, and to all the people who needed his help. And before me I saw my good friend from nine years before.

“You’re afraid.”

“Yes, I’m afraid,” I answered.

“I’m afraid too,” she said.

“You’re not afraid, Mir, you’re frightening.”

“You don’t appreciate my openness with you. I don’t believe you want to humiliate me.”

“That’s never been what I intended, Mir.”

She hugged me with her body, refusing to let me go, shivering with fear of the humiliation that might yet befall her. The hissing of her gasping breath deafened my ears.

“You mustn’t think I am some kind of cheap street woman. Far from that. Am I so low in your eyes?”

“No, Mir. You are a very courageous person.”

“But you hesitate, as if I am a woman without any honor.”

I almost told her that Douwager was in Bandung. But I didn’t. Then I thought of telling her some beautiful story that might get her to think about something else. But no such story came into my mind. I tried to pull her out of the room, but she wouldn’t yield at all: “Don’t throw me out. Don’t shame me.”

And now I faced one of the more complicated problems of life, one that lived below the surface: The real physical desires of a person are known only to the person involved. She had come in honesty and with bravery. I was dazed and silenced.…

“Mir!…” I couldn’t finish what I was saying.

The next afternoon I was received by van Heutsz under a pergola in the middle of the lush green lawns.

“You haven’t written any short stories for a long time now,” he reprimanded me. “Your short stories are a much more valuable and long-lasting contribution to writing in the Indies than your piece on boycotts, for example, will ever be. Are you going to let your pen name disappear forever?”

“Managing the newspaper takes up all my time and energy, Meneer. Things are always happening, day after day. I never get the chance to properly digest everything that is going on.”

“Yes, I can understand that. Do you really think, Meneer, that your piece on boycotts was necessary? But, of course, you did think it was necessary—that’s why you wrote it and published it. In any case, it seems that you have come here with something you wish to discuss?”

“Only a question that I wish to ask.”

“You have run into trouble because of that piece on boycotts?”

“No, Meneer.”

“No or not yet?”

“No, and I hope never, Meneer.”

“Yes, let’s hope you haven’t sown the seeds of some new kind of chaos. What is your question?”

I told him of the Princess of Kasiruta’s wish to return to her homeland. He listened intently and watched me without blinking even once. Perhaps this wild beast was angry. But it was he who had invited me to be his friend. He would not swallow me up, at least not yet.

Suddenly van Heutsz clapped his hands. An adjutant arrived, dressed in uniform, all white with gold braid. “Summon Mr. Henricus.”

The adjutant saluted, then left.

I knew exactly where Mr. Henricus lived. It was just a few houses away from my house. If he was already dressed, he could be here in just a few minutes.

“Why does the Princess want to go home? Isn’t Java a much more pleasant place for her than back home? Meneer, this is actually an issue that is the governor-general’s personal concern. It truly surprises me that you have brought this matter to me.”

“So I should withdraw the question.”

“It’s best that you don’t continue with it. Do you remember the time at the Harmoni Club? The territorial integrity of the Indies! Not even the tiniest island can be left out!”

“I am sorry, Meneer.”

“It’s best that you should know what are the limits, Meneer. In a little while, in a few more months, my term as governor-general will end. There will be a new governor-general. Perhaps he will be better than I. Let’s hope so. But perhaps instead he will be worse. If that happens, you will have a lot of difficulties. What seems to you to be a very simple matter, and then flows out of your pen, could be taken very seriously by my replacement. I hope you will remember that?”

“Of course, Meneer,” and I fully understood that he was giving me quite a serious warning.

“It’s important to know the limits. Simple people can become incurable drunkards just as a result of not knowing how far they should go. And tell me, Meneer, where did you get to know the Princess?”

And I told him how one day she had visited the office to ask for help. And as time went on I began to realize that I was being interrogated.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “And, tell me, what do you think of her? I mean as a bachelor. Attractive?”