“Yes, that’s children for you, Nyo,” Mrs. Suurhof added. “If Sinyo has many children later on, you’ll find out. They eat out your heart. Don’t pay them any attention now, Nyo.”
It was pathetic to see how these two parents tried to defend their family’s good name by refusing to admit anything to the world, and by painting for their other children a flawless picture of their eldest son.
And what of the ring in my pocket? What must I do with it? Must it smolder forever in my pocket and my thoughts? These people will be even more tormented if I return it and tell them it came from Robert. Look: Both of them are waiting to see what will come out of my mouth next, like the accused awaiting the judge’s verdict.
Seeing I was hesitating, Mr. Suurhof began: “You must know yourself, Nyo, what Robert was like. I myself don’t know what he wants, Nyo. He has never given any thought to the troubles he causes his parents.”
“Tuan, where is Robert now?”
“No one knows, Nyo.”
“I know he set sail for Europe on board an English ship,” I said.
Both husband and wife looked at me with hopeless eyes. The approach of one of the younger children, crying, from the direction of the house, saved them. The child complained: “Someone’s stamped on my foot, Ma.”
“Nah! Nyo, this is how it is. Fighting every day. If God permits, you’ll end up thin and dried up! Even when they’re grown, there’s no guarantee they’ll be of any use to you,” Mrs. Suurhof advised. She spoke to the child and led him back into the house.
Now, left with only Mr. Suurhof’s eyes on me, I at last felt more at ease. Yet still there was not enough resolve in my heart to act on my intentions. The ring began to burn again in my pocket. The gaunt man before me was still trying to guess the reason for my visit.
“So how is your wife, Sinyo?”
His question gave me an opening: “I am here precisely on my wife’s behalf, Tuan.”
“Ha? She had no business with us.”
Pity returned to erode my resolve. No, you must not be weak! Do what you must, I encouraged myself.
Tuan Suurhof searched my face.
“Yes, Tuan,” and I reached down into my trouser pocket. But once again I became unsure and couldn’t do it. “My wife, yes, Tuan, my wife…”
“We’ve never had anything to do with Sinyo’s wife.” Old Suurhof was beginning to feel boxed in.
“…is returning something that she received from Tuan’s family, the Suurhof family.”
“Returning something? We’ve never lent anything to your wife.” He was becoming more and more guarded.
Before I lost my nerve again I reached into my pocket and drew out the handkerchief in which the ring was wrapped. I put it on the table, explaining, “Yes, Tuan, only a small object. On the day we were married, my wife received this gift from Robert. We felt it was too valuable. We wanted to return it.”
“We never agreed with Robert about any present.”
I opened the handkerchief. The diamond glistened in the bright twilight, lying there like an eyeball gouged from its socket.
Tuan Suurhof was abruptly seized by a coughing fit, turning his face away and bending over. His right cheek quivered uncontrollably. He waved the object away: “Wrap it up again, Nyo. I know for certain that Robert had gone before Sinyo was married. Robert, and even we ourselves, have never owned anything like that.”
“It is indeed a very expensive ring, Tuan, perhaps worth more than four hundred guilders, but it did come from Robert.”
“No, Sinyo is mistaken. It couldn’t have been from him. He had long gone.”
“Yes, he was indeed gone, Tuan, but not before our marriage. Even now he is sending letters.”
“How is that possible, Nyo? He doesn’t even write to us. They must be fake.”
“No, Tuan, I know his handwriting well. So what about the ring?”
“No, Nyo, Robert never owned a ring like that. Put it back in your pocket, before anyone sees it,” he said nervously.
“Robert himself put this ring on my wife’s finger. I thought that if we gave it back to you, you could use it for something.”
“No, Nyo, I am happy enough as I am, a clerk in the post office.”
“But we don’t want it,” I persisted.
“Neither do we, Nyo. Indeed we don’t have any right to it.”
The haggard man’s eyes darted everywhere, even behind himself, steadfastly refusing to look at the ring on the table.
“If that is the case, let me take my leave of you.” I stood up.
He too stood up. I walked away but he jumped up and blocked my path. He pleaded: “Take the thing back, Nyo. Don’t be angry with me. Don’t make things even more difficult for us.” He held my hand, pleading.
“It’s up to you, Tuan; you can throw it away. You can burn it.”
“Don’t, Nyo. I don’t even dare touch it.”
I kept walking away. He tugged at me to stop me from going.
“Why are you afraid? It’s Robert’s. If you don’t like it, then keep it and give it back to him when he returns.”
“Don’t, Nyo, don’t cause us more trouble, Nyo. Sinyo knows how many children we have.” His tugs grew stronger.
I stopped, unsure. Indeed I had no right to make trouble for him and his family. They had already suffered enough because of Robert. Victor Roomers was right after all. I shouldn’t be adding to their troubles. Mama’s teachings about principles were being tested. But it wouldn’t be right to go on with this.
I allowed myself to be pulled back, and sat again under the mango tree. I listened to his pleas: “Take it back, Nyo,” he said, pointing with his chin to the ring, which still lay on the handkerchief.
I wrapped up the ring and put it back into my pocket. For the second time, I took my leave. He seemed relieved. All of a sudden, he asked: “Where to now, Nyo?”
“To hand this ring over to the district police officer, Tuan.”
“God, Nyo, is there no other way?”
“No, Tuan,” I answered firmly.
“If that’s what Sinyo wants.” He paused momentarily, then didn’t go on. He escorted me back to the buggy. Before climbing aboard, I felt I had to ask his pardon: “I’m sorry, Tuan. There is nothing else I can do.”
The buggy took me to the district police chief’s office. Along the way I couldn’t help but marvel at the presence of the police in this world. In troubles such as these, they appear as a kind of godfather—able to solve almost any problem. The civilized world could not continue without them. People say they began as groups of private individuals in Spain, hired to protect the wealthy and powerful from criminals and from the poor. Later they were taken over by governments. As in other places, the police had not been around long in the Indies, only for the last few decades. Imagine if criminal cases had still been in the hands of the officers of the Dutch East Indies Company. There would be even more trouble before I could get rid of this ring.
The district police officer received me politely, listened to my story, took the ring, and examined it. He seemed to know what he was doing. It was not fake, he said, and was about two carats, but he called someone else in to examine it more closely.
He handed me a receipt to sign which gave details of the ring’s diamond-carat value, its gold-carat value, and weight.
“Can you get witnesses that this was a gift from Robert Suurhof?”
He took down the names I gave.
“Do you know where Suurhof is now?”
“I do know, Tuan, from his letters.”
“Can we borrow those letters?” he asked politely. “No? Very well. If you have no objections, could you give us his address?”
“His actual address isn’t written there, Tuan. But the stamps on the envelope were postmarked Amsterdam Post Office.”
“Good. Then let us borrow the envelopes. The more the better.”
“Just the envelopes?”
“If you have no objections, Tuan. Otherwise, please
just write out a declaration giving the details.”
I wrote out the declaration he asked for.
On the way home I felt freed from the disturbances caused by that accursed object, as though freed from some thorn stuck in my throat.
“Only rich people like going to the police, Young Master,” Marjuki suddenly said. “Little people like me are afraid. If I weren’t your driver, I swear I’d never have entered that yard, Young Master.”
“Yes, Juki,” I answered. Indeed they had no need of the police. They had little interest in the security of their wealth, selves, and name; in fact, they owned nothing. These thoughts, emerging so suddenly, aroused feelings of sympathy for them—those who had nothing, who had no need of the services of the police. To them a ring, especially a two-carat one, was like a legend from the heavens, not something of this earth. What need did they have of the police?
On arriving home, I went straight to my room. Once inside, I began to relax. The wardrobe no longer housed any accursed object. The police would do their job and search out Robert in the Netherlands. The Suurhofs would have to understand; their son would have to accept the consequences of his actions.
If I had not acted, perhaps those old people and their children would still go on living in a fantasy world forever. It would only hurt them all in the end. And me? I had been able to resolve quite a difficult problem, to balance pity and justice—and still ensure triumph of principle.
And more than that: I had overcome my own weakness of heart, overcome out-of-place sentimentality. I saw all this as a personal victory.
2
It was none other than Mama who said: A name can change a hundred times a day, but the object itself stays the same. The bureaucrats and aristocrats of Java, my people, liked to give themselves wonderful names as adornments to impress everything and everyone around them, including themselves, with the beauty of these names. Shakespeare, that English dramatist, never knew the powerful men of Java who liked to wax lyrical with names, to ensconce their positions and offices in the security of names. A clerk likes to use the name Sastra, meaning “of letters,” so Sastradiwirya will mean a clerk who is good and firm of will. A bureaucrat priyayi in charge of irrigation will strengthen his standing with the name Tirta, meaning water, so Tirtanta will mean an official who administers irrigation.
What’s in a name? People called me Minke. Perhaps it was indeed a mispronunciation of the word monkey. But it is a name, and it will still make me respond if I hear it called out.
Is it true that a name cannot change the subject of a thing? Was Shakespeare right? For the time being we’ll have to reject that theory. Take, for example, Robert Jan Dapperste, the Native child who was adopted by the preacher Dapperste. His body was thin and weak. He always needed protection and support. Every day he was the object of insults; he was called de Lafste, the most cowardly. The more people he came to know, the more he became the object of insults and laughter. Because of a name, just a name, he developed into a shy, introverted person, full of resentment and cunning.
Yet he was loyal to people who helped him and protected him, who didn’t insult or torment him. He ran away from his adoptive parents because of that name too. Now he had obtained a determination of the governor-general of the Netherlands Indies. He had a new name: Panji Darman. And he himself had indeed changed. Imagine: Only three weeks after obtaining his new name, he had already become happy, free of the name Dapperste, free of any burden, with his good characteristics unchanged. And he turned out to be a very courageous person.
While still so young, two years younger than I, he was ready to carry out Mama’s order to escort Annelies to the Netherlands or wherever else she might be taken.
I will not say much about him. It will be enough if I show you his letters. They are in the order in which they were written.
I write this letter on board a ship heading for Betawi, on the Java Sea, this calm and windless day. Mama and my good Minke, this is the first time I have sailed on a ship. Even so I have had no chance to dwell on my own feelings.
Before boarding the ship, my carriage waited at the edge of the road, waiting for the carriage that was bringing Madame Annelies. I saw several other people sitting along the side of the road also waiting to see Annelies pass. It seems that newspaper reports about Madame Annelies being taken away from Mama and Minke and being sent back to the Netherlands had spread by word of mouth, and had reached right down into the villages. There were many people who felt they must come and express their sympathy by standing for hours along the side of the street.
Then there appeared a military carriage escorted by a troop of Marechausee in other carriages. That particular carriage was closed. In there was Madame Annelies. She must have been there. I ordered Marjuki to follow them after the troop escort had passed by. I couldn’t help but watch the faces of those who were standing along the road. They were all disappointed that they couldn’t see inside the carriage. Many of the older women, Natives, were wiping away their precious tears with handkerchiefs or the corners of their clothing.
The closer we came to Tanjung Perak harbor, the bigger were the crowds along the road. In some places people threw stones at the Marechausee. Even some little children showed their sympathy with catapults and small slings. I could not but be moved by all this. They were enveloped in a sense of justice—a sense of justice that had been outraged. It was as if Madame Annelies had become one of them, a member of their own families.
I had never seen so many people come together to express their sympathy and solidarity for another person.
The Marechausee rode on, ignoring the flying stones. But some soldiers were actually hit and bleeding. They rode on as if nothing had happened. How resolved were their hearts in carrying out their evil orders! I worried, worried very much: It mustn’t happen that any of these stones hit Madame Annelies’s carriage. But no, neither her carriage nor its driver became targets.
The closer we came to Perak, the greater the number of people waiting along the road. And now they weren’t just throwing stones, they were shouting out too: “Infidels! Infidels! Thieves!”
About two thousand feet from the harbor, across a road hemmed in on either side by mangrove trees, a string of Madurese buffalo carts were lined up, blocking the way. The carriages of Marechausee stopped, as did Madame Annelies’s. My heart pounded anxiously as I watched the incident from a distance. Would there be another fight?
“Oh no! It’s terrible, Young Master,” said Marjuki, “Miss Annelies is in that carriage.”
It was indeed a tense moment, and neither of us could do anything. The Marechausee were all jumping down from their carriages, blowing on their whistles. They charged the Madurese buffalo-cart drivers. The fight was over quickly. The Marechausee were quickly in control of the situation. The now driverless buffalo carts were pushed aside; many tumbled over into deep channels along the side of the road. Injured cattle and damaged carts filled the channels.
I’m not really sure whether all this is the proper subject of my letters to you. Marjuki must have told it all to you already. My intention is to let you know just how many people came to express their sympathy in their own way, perhaps in a way that is unknown in Europe. But maybe it too is a European way, if we remember how people expressed their anger against Louis the Sixteenth in France.
Madame Annelies’s carriage now went straight on to the harbor without stopping at customs. We arrived not long after. When I went into customs, I suddenly realized: Mama and Minke were not accompanying Annelies. You must have been forbidden from doing so, I thought. And because of that thought, a great, deep anger arose within me: Mama and Minke weren’t even allowed to come with her to the ship. And these Dutchmen professed themselves the servants of Christ in the Indies. My feelings were outraged by this. Christ would never have become involved in an abomination such as this. Mama, Minke, let alone Madame Annelies, had never slapped anybody’s cheek, but now you were being forced to put forward your right cheek, I t
hought. Those Dutchmen were not following the Christianity I was taught, yet your own behavior had been Christian enough.
Perhaps it is also because of that great anger that I am able to write such a long letter as this. Forgive me, Minke, if this letter is not well put together, because, of course, I cannot write as you can. I write this because of my responsibility to report to you both everything that you should know.
I waited on the wharf as the skiff took Madame Annelies out to the ship. My turn to be taken hadn’t yet arrived. Forgive me for not being able to keep close to Madame Annelies. But I could see from a distance that she was being watched over by a European woman dressed in white, perhaps a nurse.
Even as I boarded the ship, I heard someone discussing the decision of the White court, saying that it was not very wise or just and was too harsh, and that the court had treated Mama’s family as if they were criminals. I pretended I knew nothing about it so I could get to hear more. But, a pity, the talk went no further than that.
I saw several Marechausee disembark from the ship. And with that I judged that the incident was over.
Two hours later, the ship blew its steam whistle and departed.
Through the efforts of the shipping agent, I have been given the cabin next to Madame Annelies’s. But from the beginning, she has never used it. It appears that she is in a special room under the care of the ship’s doctor. I have tried to get close to her: She might feel I am a friend, or at least an acquaintance. But she is never to be seen. I don’t know exactly where she is being kept. And I don’t yet dare ask about her; being afraid that such inquiries may give away my true purpose. Forgive my stupidity and clumsiness.
But I am still trying to find out which is her room. Don’t be disappointed, Mama and Minke, if this is all I am able to tell you now. I will write again soon, and please pray that my efforts might bear fruit, just as we all hope.
My unbounded respects, Panji Darman
Several days later, eight days to be exact, his second letter arrived. This time it was postmarked Medan.