Footsteps (67 page)

The hand-over took place that night after I had edited and improved the text of the mandate that had been agreed to by the little gathering. From the moment the mandate was signed, the Central Leadership was transferred from Buitenzorg to Solo.

The conference, having also discussed the countries that I would visit, which included Singapore, Malaya, Siam, and the Philippines, finally adjourned. All the delegates from the branches returned to their respective regions.

Sandiman and Marko, with Frischboten’s help, would continue to publish
Medan.

But I would not be completely honest if I did not explain here the personal reasons I had for taking on the propaganda tasks that would take me outside Java and even outside the Indies. The shooting of the Zweep had been worrying me for some time. If it was true that the assassinations were carried out by those close to me, then it was likely that there would be some kind of revenge—open and through the law, or outside the law, perhaps
open, perhaps not. If it was done through the law, then the whole affair could also be used to destroy the Sarekat.

Once I was traveling outside Java and the Indies, and with full authority over the Sarekat now with Haji Samadi, the integrity of the organization would be protected if I or any of those close to me were charged.

I did not dare discuss any of this with Frischboten. He should not know anything of this, even if I guessed he might know anyway. Even those involved were not prepared to open up to me about it. I had no real evidence. As busy as I was with all kinds of activities and ideas, I could not overcome my anxiety about this.

“Princess,” I called to her one afternoon after telling Sandiman, Marko, and their friends that they would have to run
Medan
themselves from now on, “we are going on a long journey.”

“You mean together with me?”

“Of course. You are my wife, aren’t you?”

“But will I be allowed to leave Java?”

I was stopped in my tracks. I had never thought about that.

“Ah, you forgot about that, didn’t you, Mas?”

“We needn’t mention that you are a princess, the daughter of a king. We will just list you as my wife. We will try that if you agree.”

“Do you need my agreement?” she asked. “I will always do everything that you want, Mas.”

“You are not a doll, Princess,” I said. “You are my wife, whom I respect fully, as I do myself. I need your agreement.”

“Of course I agree, Mas. Take me wherever you like and for however long you like.”

“No, that’s not the kind of answer I want, even though I am grateful for such a selfless statement. I need your answer as an individual in your own right.”

“I agree,” she answered seriously.

I looked at her face. There was no joking smile. Her lips were relaxed and her eyes calm. She did not look me in the eyes. She sat straight in her chair. Her unblinking gaze was fixed on the door.

For the umpteenth time I found myself convinced again that this obedient woman had been trained since childhood to be a fighter. Had her father, the king, not been exiled and separated
from his people, perhaps she would already have strode the battlefield and have been defeated or killed.

“Can you ride a horse, Princess?”

She smiled. She was obviously remembering past times back home in Kasiruta. “We all had to learn to ride horses, across the fields, and through the scrub and forests.…”

“Who made you do this?”

“My teacher, of course. Can you ride a horse, Mas?”

“No doubt not as well as you. I have ridden one.”

She laughed happily, held my hand, and suddenly kissed it. I pulled it away and corrected her: “It is I who should kiss your hand.”

“I am not a European woman, Mas. I am your wife. I have no desire to be praised by men, not even by my husband. But you are the husband of a Moluccan woman.”

“And what does that mean for a woman of Molucca?”

“Her husband is her star, her moon, her sun. Without him, nothing will exist, including herself.”

“They have all sorts of strange ideas, these women from Kasiruta,” I interrupted. “So you give your agreement in your own right and not just as my wife?”

“I agree.”

“Then let’s start making preparations.”

And she began to prepare things for our departure.

One of the first things that we had to do was get all our travel papers and documents. While we were doing this, Sandiman and his friends had taken over the complete running of
Medan.
Hendrik Frischboten still acted as legal adviser.

Then suddenly something happened. I found out about it one day when I visited Meneer Meyerhoff’s place.

“I’m sorry, Meneer. I can’t provide you with a car today. All the taxis have been hired. You will have to take the train.”

“Twenty-five taxis all hired at once! Never has such a thing happened before. May I ask who was it that hired them?”

Meyerhoff just laughed.

When I arrived back at Buitenzorg, there was more news. All the best taxis in Betawi had also been hired out. All the taxis from Bandung and Betawi that were in good condition were being checked over in a workshop in Betawi. The best mechanics in all Betawi and Bandung had been mobilized. Then things became
clearer. Eighty taxis had been hired by the State Secretariat. His Excellency the governor-general was going on an outing.

I cabled the news to Bandung and asked them to try to find out where he was going. It wasn’t clear. No one knew what were his destinations. What we did know was that the taxis had been hired for a week.

Such major preparations were very suspicious when there were no major events coming up. But no one would say what all the preparations were about.

The next morning I found Sandiman and Marko hotly debating a report that Marko had prepared. The governor-general’s entourage, comprising eighty taxis and ten private automobiles, had departed and was heading east, steadily eastward.

By the afternoon the news began to spread. Governor-General Idenburg was heading for Rembang, accompanied by several hundred high officials and their guards.

By the evening things were even clearer—they were going to Rembang to attend a funeral.

The governor-general himself, with a huge entourage, going to attend a funeral! Who had died in Rembang?

That night I stayed in Bandung so I could obtain a more complete picture of what was going on, and this is what emerged—the Bupati of Rembang had died. The Bupati of Rembang, the husband of the girl from Jepara, may her soul rest in peace!

The very next morning, the press, especially the journalists who supported the Ethical Policy, were all abuzz. They were amazed that the governor-general should go to so much trouble to travel so far to attend the funeral of a Native official who had been the object of so much public criticism. But they also realized that Idenburg was making a political statement: It was an illusion on the part of the supporters of the Ethical Policy to think that van Aberon could become governor-general!

With the news that the governor-general was attending the funeral, all the bupatis of Java made sudden preparations and headed off in that direction. Several journalists hired second-or third-class taxis and sped off to Rembang too. I could imagine what it would be like in that little town that had probably never seen a single automobile, when perhaps more than one hundred turned up. Everyone would throng to the main square to attend the funeral, and also to get a look at the automobiles. And they
could fly along without horses! They could all spew out smoke and dust! They could all growl and roar. And they were all equipped with shiny copper carbide lamps.

And in the
Medan
office, people were no less busy. In the discussions it was none other than Marko who insisted: “We cannot let them get away with this without saying something.”

“The governor-general is trying to rehabilitate the name of the Bupati of Rembang,” followed on Sandiman, “and we cannot let it pass without comment, but we don’t need to go overboard.”

I just listened to them debate.

“We were among those who attacked him, the bupati, even if not directly. Not he himself personally, but his behavior. We shouldn’t be cowed just because the governor-general is attending his funeral.”

“Yes, but we shouldn’t be too extreme!”

“The governor-general is using money taken from the people—their tax money—to defend the Bupati of Rembang. Just think how much it cost for eighty taxis. And the other costs would probably amount to ten times the cost of the taxis. And even if he were paying for it out of his own pocket, we should still be objecting.”

The governor-general’s attendance at the funeral was surely a political act. Only a few people, so simple that they can be easily deceived, really thought that the governor-general was honoring the man who had died. He wanted to demoralize the Liberals who had got carried away with their illusions. He wanted things to be as they had been before, with none of this activity and movement. He was also sending a message to the Sarekat that the government of the Netherlands Indies honored and defended its officials and that the Sarekat therefore should not get too disrespectful toward them. Be careful! he was warning us.

On that day I had to say good-bye, as our departure was now only three days away. I handed over the publication of the newspaper and all the magazines to my two friends. They would now be totally in charge of editorial and all other policy. How to deal with this initiative of the governor-general was also up to them now.

Back in Buitenzorg there was a letter from Princess. She asked forgiveness a thousand times over that she had gone to Sukabumi to stay with her father for the next two days. She asked that I follow her there later.

I will be down in two days, Princess. In the meantime I will use these two days to say good-bye to others of my friends, especially Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie. I would say good-bye to him while making a visit to Betawi.

I saw that the suitcases were packed and ready, all locked. We were indeed planning a long journey. If possible, we would travel on to Europe.

It was late evening and I was very tired by the time I had finished saying my farewells to all my friends in Buitenzorg. I went to bed and slept, overwhelmed by a feeling of being at ease and safe.

At nine the next morning a young boy arrived with a copy of
Medan.
Lazily I unfolded it. Eventually my eyes hit on a headline and suddenly my whole nervous system went into shock. I jumped up. My eyes popped out and a scream uncontrollably came from my mouth, like a monkey shot with an arrow: “The fools!”

The Banten guards outside all came running. My hands, which held the paper, were shaking.

“Master!” the chief guard reported.

I waved them away and they moved off.

My legs moved and I stalked back and forth like a bear in a cage. I tried to calm myself. I couldn’t. My hands quivered with tension. As I strode back and forth, I read the paper again. I wasn’t wrong.

“Idiots! Donkeys!”

Those children had launched a crude attack on Governor-General Idenburg himself. It was now in print and being circulated. There was no way to stop it now. What did they want to achieve with such a crude attack as that?

“Idiots!” I roared in pain, as if it were my body that had been struck by an arrow.

I ran to the back and bathed. I went into the room and put on my clothes from yesterday. Everything else was locked away in the suitcases or wardrobe. The key box was also locked. The master key had been taken by Princess. God knows what I looked like. I put on my destar, not bothering to check how it looked. And my other shoe…ah, shoe where are you hiding? Why are you too trying to annoy me like this? It looks as if the neighbor’s dog has hidden it, or taken off with it.

“Piaaaah!”

Our maid came running in, her hair still in a mess.

“My shoe! Where is my shoe?”

She crawled about looking under everything but couldn’t find it. She ran out the front and out the back. Nowhere to be found.

Exhausted from the tension of it all, I finally flopped into a lounge chair. The noise outside wouldn’t have caught my attention if it hadn’t continued to get worse and worse. Why did they launch such a crude attack on the governor-general over his attendance at the funeral? They didn’t even mention his title or position, they referred to him sarcastically as
kyai-ne
, “his holiness.” As I angrily asked myself this question once more, I glanced out the front window.

It was as if I were nailed to the lounge chair.

A detachment of police had rounded up all the guards, the men from Banten. I could hear shouted threats.

“Where are the others?” in Malay. “Come on, don’t lie. There are fifteen altogether, aren’t there? Watch out.”

The fighters were huddled under a tree guarded by three police with carbines.

I saw a police official, escorted by six of his men, head toward the house. Outside the fence there were scores more lined up, arm’s-length apart.

So, they are going to arrest me.

I could hear their footsteps more clearly now. The police officer climbed the veranda steps and entered the room without waiting for my permission.

I remained seated.

A man in civilian clothes stopped in front of me and paid his respects. Then: “In the name of Her Majesty, and of justice, I place you under arrest, Meneer.”

He took out a piece of paper and gave it to me.

The paper was from the Office of the Court, an order for me to be detained in lieu of nonpayment of debts. For nonpayment of debts!!! The debts of my people perhaps, held under my name. This is worse than what they did to Teukoe Djamiloen.

After reading it, I looked up at the officer.

“Do you understand?” the officer asked.

I saw his eyes, his nose, his cheeks. Yes, it was none other than Pangemanann with two
n
’s.

I nodded.

“Don’t be angry, Meneer. You have a pistol, do you not?” “Not a pistol. A revolver.”

“Yes, revolver.” Without looking at his subordinates, he ordered one to search me.

I still did not rise from my chair. And they did not find the weapon on me.