Footsteps (64 page)

I covered my face, as I knew I was now among the Zweep. There may have been more than just these three.

The one who didn’t seem to be wounded was thrusting his legs about.

Pangemanann called out for people to help. A few people then came across, and he told them to find something for stretchers. He told others to fetch the police. Then he examined the one who didn’t seem to be wounded. He opened up his shirt. It was only then we would see that there was a knife buried in his waist. Buried right up to its hilt. There was only a small ring of blood visible.

I walked away quickly. My eyes roved about wildly looking for that black umbrella. Or a bicycle with Sandiman on it. Neither was there. About sixty yards away from the site of the killings there was a man squatting, with his sarong pulled up covering the top half of his body, except his face. No one who had just heard shooting nearby would still be hanging around like that. He was turned away from me so I could see his face from the side. I knew that profile—Marko! He turned away to avoid my gaze, then stood up, wrapped his sarong around him, and moved to sit down at a stall selling snacks.

Good. I know where you are. But where are the black umbrella and Sandiman?

I walked and walked. I was bathed in perspiration. I couldn’t keep going like this. I went into a taxi depot. The office was in
the back corner, on the right behind the garage, which had places for nineteen automobiles.

I already knew Meneer Meyerhoff, the owner.

“Need a car, Meneer?”

“Yes, Meneer.”

“You can use whichever one you like. You can keep it for a week, as long as there is a driver available.”

“I see you’ve rented out five already.”

“A quiet day today.”

“Some were hired to go to Betawi perhaps?”

“Yes, Meneer, three. One very early this morning. Another one three hours or so ago. And one more just now.”

“Oh, perhaps Meneer Helferdink has already gone then?”

“Yes, Meneer Helferdink, and a Native too. Hired the car for five hours, he did.”

The taxi was brought out onto the road and I excused myself.

The driver was a middle-aged Indo. I told him to drive all around town. And the black umbrella was still nowhere to be seen. I stopped at the assistant resident’s place for a minute but his gate was locked. Then we went to the Frischbotens’. But they had left. It wasn’t clear where they had gone. Then I stopped at one of the bigger shops. I hurriedly alighted and went in to buy myself a hunting knife. I slipped it into my belt.

“Buitenzorg,” I ordered the driver. “What’s your name?”

“Botkin, Meneer.”

“Russian descent, perhaps?”

“You’re not mistaken, Meneer.”

I offered him a cigarette. He took one without looking, nodded, mumbled, and put it in his mouth. I lit a match. Smoke soon billowed forth from his nose and mouth.

You can try something with me if you like, Botkin. And I sat there watching him vigilantly. This taxi must travel straight on, without stopping, until it gets to my home. If it stopped in the middle of the journey, nah, that meant danger.

That journey, which wasn’t all that long, was a very tense journey. And Botkin did indeed take me straight to my house. I told him to stop in front of the main gate. After I gave him a tip he departed for I don’t know where.

I examined the ground around the front gate. There were no tire tracks or other signs of a car stopping there. There were no
tracks either in the front grounds. As I climbed onto the veranda I heard a lot of shouting. I looked up. There were many people in the front parlor—Hendrik and Mir Frischboten, a Native man and a woman, perhaps his wife, that I didn’t recognize. And children.

My wife came out, greeting me with a reprimand: “There are many guests waiting, Mas. They’ve just arrived!” She smiled so sweetly, as if everything’ was as usual. She brushed off the imaginary dust from my shirt—just as she always did.

I looked deeply into her eyes, and she avoided mine. That was not normal. I quickly put on a happy face and went in to greet my guests. But who were the Native man and his wife and children?

“Have you forgotten me?” he asked. “Panji Darman.”

He embraced me and we embraced each other.

“This is my wife. Look, already four children.”

His wife was an Indo woman. She had become fat after giving birth to four children. Perhaps she had been slim and pretty before.

Panji Darman sat down again. His wife took my hand, and nodded as we shook hands, smiling.

I excused myself for a moment to change clothes.

As soon as I was in the bedroom I opened the wardrobe. I examined the shoes and slippers at the bottom. There was one pair of Princess’s slippers that were covered in dust. Yes, the velvet slippers! The black leather bag, with the picture of the rose, was indeed the one I had seen earlier. I smelled inside and there was a strange smell there—gunpowder! Perhaps it was just my imagination. And where was that black umbrella? It wasn’t hung in the corner wardrobe where it usually was. I closed the door. And I found the umbrella on top of the wardrobe.

I examined the object. There were three holes in it.

I opened the key box. And with one of the keys, I unlocked the dresser. The revolver was there. But not in its right place. And there was only one bullet left!

I sat down on the bed. My wife, Princess of Kasiruta, was a…No, I had no right to make accusations.

Princess entered and came across to me. “We’ve got many guests. Are you ill, Mas?”

I looked her in the eyes. Again she avoided my gaze.

“Where have you been, Princess?”

“To the markets.”

“You don’t usually go to the markets.”

“No. But I just felt like it this time. Why? You seem to be very suspicious today?”

And indeed, I was becoming more and more suspicious because of how calm she was.

She took me by the arm and brought me to the door. As soon as I sat down I realized that I had neither changed clothes nor locked the door of the dresser where the revolver was kept. I wanted to go back to the room, but Princess hadn’t come out yet.

“What time did you all leave Bandung?” I asked the Frischbotens.

“We didn’t look at the time. As soon as all the
Medan
workers started flocking to the house, we set off for here. There was nowhere left for us at home!”

“About four hours ago,” added Mir.

My wife came out and then announced to everybody that their rooms were ready. They all went in to change clothes and have a rest.

I too went back into my room. I repeated my examination. Now the umbrella was back in its proper place. The slippers were no longer covered in dust. And now the number of bullets with the revolver was the correct number, not more or less. Did I count them wrongly before?

Perhaps Princess was already suspicious of me. She rushed back in the room. I saw her glance for a moment at the wardrobe and then at the dresser.

“I am very tired, Princess,” I said.

“How would you like some jeruk juice? I’ll make some.”

And so I sat on the edge of the bed. She stood just a little way from me.

“I’d prefer it if you massaged my neck. It feels so stiff and it aches.”

She came closer.

“Put your legs up here, so I can massage from behind.” I did what she wanted and she began to massage me.

“Did you come home by yourself just now or with Sandiman?

“Sandiman? Is Sandiman in Buitenzorg?”

“Oh, yes, he’s in Bandung. Why am I so forgetful today?”

“Yes, you’re too tired, Mas. Your throat is all hot. Go to sleep, I’ll explain to the guests.”

I lay back on the bed. Before she left, I grabbed her arm. And I saw there was a cut, about eight inches long, on the back of one of her arms.

“What did you do to your arm?”

She smiled at me sweetly as if she was trying to seduce me. “A nail at the markets.”

“And in what part of the markets is there a nail that is allowed to wound my wife? And you haven’t tended to it yet. You seem to be in such a rush with everything this afternoon.”

“Heh, you’re becoming so suspicious these days.”

She embraced me and held herself up against me. And I whispered into her ear: “Where did you get the three bullets?”

“There are no three bullets. There is no cut on my arm. And no one has been in a rush this afternoon.”

I pulled her body down harder onto mine until I could hear her gasp for breath. “So what is there then?”

“All there is for me is my husband, my leader. And I am not prepared to let anyone leave any wound upon him, let alone to his mouth and eyes, and his face.”

“So it was you who killed them?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she was gasping more now. “All that matters is my husband. Let me go.”

“No, not before you answer.”

“Do you want me to shout it out aloud—that all that matters is my husband? Oh, you, Mas, you have married a woman of Kasiruta, but you do not understand how they feel about their husbands.”

I lifted her up onto the bed. “And how do they feel?”

“They will kill an evil husband. And they will also kill those who do evil to their husbands whom they love.”

“So you killed them.”

“I don’t know anything. All I know is my husband. Don’t ask me again.”

She pulled herself free from my embrace, hopped down off the bed, and left the room.

I didn’t have another chance to get near Princess for the rest of that day.

In the evening everyone gathered together in the front parlor. The reunion with Panji Darman was not as merry as it might have been because of the Frischbotens’ presence. I could tell from his eyes that there were many things that Panji Darman wanted to talk about.

Frischboten also seemed to have things he wanted to discuss, but he held back because of the presence of Panji Darman and his family.

That evening we talked late into the night, but no one was able to discuss any of the personal or important things that they actually wanted to discuss.

It was only in the quiet after everyone had retired that I had Princess to myself again. Lying beside each other, out of everybody’s hearing, with the wind blowing loudly outside, all doubt disappeared.

“Now, tell me all about it,” I proposed the program.

“I have told you everything,” she answered in a yawning voice, pretending to be sleepy. “May I go to sleep now?”

“Not yet. I have only realized now that you are so stubborn.”

She laughed, happy. “And my husband doesn’t love me any less for it, does he, Mas?”

She didn’t want to know how disturbed her husband was to sleep next to a murderer.

“You shot people who were not ready to defend themselves.”

“I only have one husband. My husband’s work involves taking care of many things. My main work is to look after my husband. They were preparing to attack when I shot. They were just about to attack. It is their business to know how to defend themselves. I do not want to lose my husband, my one and only husband.”

My wife, it turned out, was indeed someone who knew how to fight. Her father had begun training her when she was a child in Kasiruta to face the armies of van Heutsz. It was clear as day why my friend the former governor-general had refused her permission to return home to her island. And I understood too why she had wanted to take back an understanding of the boycott as a souvenir for her people.

For one or two seconds then memories of my two late wives shone before me—the
Flower of the Century’s End
and Ang San Mei. The two of them were people of impressive qualities. And the further I moved away from them in time, the stronger their qualities shone. It was only after she died that I found out that
Mei was color blind. And this my present wife was a person of great quality. I should get to know and understand her better. I must not be too late as I was with Mei, I must love her more than those I loved who went before. But the other thought, that she was a killer who one day would not shrink from killing another victim, whoever it might be, turned me away from my desire to get closer to her.

This battle within my mind had to be brought to a quick end. I had to honor and respect her opinions and the way she viewed things.

I held her and stroked her hair, whispering: “Do you love your husband so much?”

“It is said that an egg is perfect in its totality,” she whispered back onto my throat. “So the people of Kasiruta say. In such perfect totality is to be found the essence of living.”

I don’t know whether that all came from her people or whether she made it up herself.

“And life means two bullets,” I said, ending this discussion.

“What about the closing up of
Medan
?”

And with that question, all this effort at love and romance dissolved. A truly terrible image appeared before me—Princess stalking through some trees aiming the revolver straight at the heart of the assistant resident of Priangan.

“I’ll look after that myself tomorrow, Princess.”

“I think that’s the best thing. You’re worrying that I might decide to look after it myself.”

She was not at all disturbed by what she had done, as calm as ever as if nothing had happened. Perhaps this was not the first time she had killed someone. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Had I all this time had a killer as a wife? And I never knew?

“I have a headache, Princess.”

She got out of bed and went to get water and aspirin. I took them and gulped them down, buried myself under the blankets and pretended to sleep. I had failed! There was a distance that now separated me from her, because of her love for me, because it was so deep, so unconditional.

Panji Darman returned to Surabaya without being able to revive the old intimacy.

Princess and I, together with the Frischboten family, went
back up to Bandung. I went back again to the assistant resident’s office, only to be told that he was not receiving any visitors that week. I then went to the resident’s office. There everyone pretended not to know who I was. And they also pretended never to have heard of a paper called
Medan
that was published in Bandung.