by Brian Aldiss
The taxi driver had become very partisan on my behalf. He violently wished that I should find ‘my old home’.
‘This is yours, sir? Your old home?’
Thirty years had gone by. ‘This is it,’ I said.
He immediately took charge, marching past the gate and up to the front door. He rang the bell. The garden was pretty, with plenty of flowering shrubs. Back to me in a rush came the memory of how happy I had been in Sumatra. And what a situation I was in now.
A young woman answered the bell. While she listened to the driver’s explanation, which was helped out by plentiful gestures towards me, the rest of the family joined her at the door, their faces bursting out on either side of her hips, her knees, her shoulders, dependent upon age and size.
The woman and a man I assumed to be her husband now came forth and beckoned me inside with welcoming smiles. There was nothing for it but to smile in return and enter the house.
Of course, this was the front. I had always entered by a door at the back, where a staircase led straight up to my room. I had almost never come in by this door … But, wait, surely there had been a modest washplace just inside this door, with a stoup where you squatted and poured cold water over yourself. It wasn’t there; this could not have been the house.
The family was friendly and inquisitive. There were the young couple, an older woman, a granny, and several children of radiant looks.
Through the driver, I explained that I had once lived here, that the British had once occupied Sumatra and got rid of the Japanese.
The young couple, who did most of the talking, looked confused. They knew that the Dutch had once occupied the island. They had never heard of the British or Japanese being here.
In the modern tropics, most of the population is young. The sense of history is something that belongs to chilly northern lands. They had only the present tense.
I had lived in a part of the house, I explained as Sumatran coffee was brought. Upstairs. I had two rooms at the top of the stairs.
Would I care to see the rooms again?
Well, I would. That should prove definitely whether or not I was in the right house.
Grandpa was in the rooms upstairs, sleeping.
Then I could not possibly disturb …
No, no, they would send the children up first.
So I found myself in the hall and – escorted by the whole family, climbing the stairs. Conviction came over me. The stairs, the turn in the stairs, were familiar. This was the very place where I had been so tortured, so madly happy.
Children came out on the landing to greet me, dragging Grandpa with them. We gravely gave each other greeting. I entered the room.
It was after all only a faded eroticism which had got me to that room; nothing particularly noble. I felt I had arrived under false pretences. Yet, no matter what, I had arrived. This was the room. It smelt right. And I had travelled through the years and miles to return here. There was a certain triumph to the moment.
And as they all stood back to have a good look at me, I remembered a story about Flaubert, and the erotic enjoyment he had had with a woman in a little hotel in Marseilles. Years later, when on his way to Tunis to collect material for Salammbô, he went in search of that little hotel – from motives exactly the same as mine, I suppose – and could not find it. He hunted all over, and finally discovered that it had been turned into a toyshop, with a barber’s shop above it. Flaubert went upstairs and asked for a shave. He recognized the wallpaper. It was the wallpaper of his old bedroom, where he had made love.
Now here I was, in a room where I had been with Mandy. And in that flash of remembrance, as I walked towards the window – even as I said, ecstatically, ‘Yes, yes, this is my old room’ – I knew it was nothing of the sort. It was merely a similar room. For my old bedroom had a balcony, and this room had no balcony.
Yet the view out of the window – something there, the disposition of the house next door, remained familiar. No, no, I was mistaken. I remained smiling out of gratitude, and made for the door. There I drew up short. A cupboard stood on the landing. I had forgotten the cupboard but surely in my time there had been a cupboard just there … hadn’t there?
As I went down the stairs with the children hopping about me, I thought, well, of course they would have pulled down that old-fashioned bathroom beside the door. They must have a newer bathroom elsewhere. This must be the house. How could I forget?
And as for the balcony … Well, in the tropics things fall down, balconies fall off …
I gave them all a grateful farewell. The driver drove me back to the hotel.
Had I been where Mandy and I once had been? I could not tell. Since the doubt still remains it is as well that I enjoy the mists of uncertainty.
Everything was different when we arrived in Sumatra in 1945. Everything there seemed fresh and pleasant after the wastes of India. From the start, we had a more romantic view of the tropics, with small islands green in blue water and the surf white where it beat against the sand. The jungle grew down to the edge of the water, where palm trees canted out over the breaking waves.
We had been warned that the island was occupied by head-hunters and cannibals. We saw neither; it was the nationalists we had to worry about – a more urban breed. Another breed was present on the quayside, to disconcert us as we disembarked: the Japanese.
After the encounters with the Japanese in Burma, we still felt vengeful towards them. Here were these men of the 25th Japanese Army in smart uniforms and polished boots, marching about and guarding our stores. Their arrogance, however, had disappeared, and they were under the surveillance of a single Indian soldier, his rifle slung casually over his shoulder.
At this period, very few Dutch had come ashore, while British and Indian troops were also thin on the ground. Japanese troops were used for policing duties, and sometimes permitted to keep their weapons. This ordinance from On High seemed bizarre if not downright mistaken to those of us who had seen active service with the now-disbanded Forgotten Army. On one occasion, two friends and I sat down to coffee in a little Chinese teashop in Padang. We were armed with sten guns, which we carried over our shoulders. Some Indian troops belonging to the Rajputana Rifles sat at another table. At a third table was a party of Dutch, also armed. At a fourth table sat a group of Indonesians, while two Japanese in uniform sat huddled at the rear at a table for two. We were all being served by patient Chinese, who sensibly devoted their talents to making money. But for them, one felt, shooting might break out at any time.
Partly because of such paradoxes, the port of Emmahaaven and the town of Padang pleased us. The Indonesians pleased us immediately, with their light brown skins and sophisticated air – as it seemed to those weary of that Stone Age poverty which makes India the capital of Beggardom. After India, the variety of clothes was impressive, with men sometimes in silks and sarongs instead of the ubiquitous shorts, and women in long skirts with blouses and waistcoats. The many Chinese women wore either a cheongsam or provocative pyjamas. Everyone looked clean, and their general air of mild prosperity was echoed in the pleasant houses, many of them timber-made and raised off the ground. The hovels which cluster round Indian towns like soiled skirts were missing. One could observe solid tables in rooms, spread with a cloth, and rugs on the floor. Outside some houses were dovecotes; more frequent were cages with pretty birds singing away their captivity.
On our arrival, everyone appeared friendly, waving and smiling – but tact is a virtue with which to greet any visiting army. Why should they not appear easy? At least the Japanese were going, and the population lived in a climate where fruit and vegetation could not but continue to grow.
Although we had our duties to do, like any other army we took what pleasure we could in our spare time. There was an old semi-derelict swimming pool by the coast, just outside Emmahaaven. The trees had grown in the years of Japanese neglect, so that the water was generally shaded and cool. I often borrowed a Jeep and swam there with two fri
ends who were willing to make the effort and travel this far from Padang – I should explain that baking days and stifling nights meant that many of us had little energy, and spent the days resting when not working. I was fortunate in that the heat gave me energy.
Pleasant though it seemed, the swimming pool was ill-fated. One day, we met two orderlies from the Medical Corps, pale of body and just out of England. After a swim, we set out to explore the little stream which, feeding the pool, meandered among trees and moss-covered rocks. We came on a nasty-looking snake, preparing to strike at eye-level from the branch of a tree. One of the medics exclaimed with delight. It was a green horned viper, he said.
Pulling off his neck-rag, he gripped it between his fists and thrust it at the viper. The creature struck. Quickly, the medic dragged it from the tree and knotted the fabric about its head, so that the snake was a helpless prisoner. We were naked. He hurried back to his clothes and thrust the imprisoned reptile into a trouser pocket. The rest had had enough of snakes, and returned to the safety of the pool, while the medic and his friend, with shrieks of delight, looked for more snakes.
Next day, we learned that the orderly was dead. While he was taking the viper back to his quarters, it had somehow escaped and bit him through the fabric of his trouser pocket.
Only a few days later, another escapade ended in grief. A sergeant in Intelligence took a Dutch girl friend to the swimming pool. They drove in a Jeep after sunset – at a time when the curfew was about to come into effect. They parked the Jeep so that its lights shone on to the surface of the pool, an area of brightness among the surrounding shadows. They dived in and swam. A few moments later, they were fired on by a machine gun. Both were killed. A patrol of South Wales Borderers dragged their bloody bodies out of the water.
From then on, the swimming pool was placed out of bounds.
I remained in Padang only three months. My travels in the East left me strangely restless. I wanted more travel. I wanted I knew not what. I had applied for a posting to China, for China to me represented the grand epitome of things Eastern and exotic; the application was turned down. I then applied for a posting to Intelligence, to replace the dead sergeant. I was accepted. Such a posting was possible only in an out-of-the-way spot like Sumatra, where reinforcements were almost impossible to come by. Intelligence was down in strength; they took me on and promoted me to sergeant. A week after transfer, I was posted to Medan.
It is Medan and how I met Mandy there on which I want to concentrate, so I will pass over that marvellous overland journey of five hundred miles which took me across the highlands of Sumatra to the capital city. I have never forgotten it, though I have forgotten the names of the driver and cook who accompanied me. We travelled in a Dodge truck up into the wild mountains which form the backbone of the island, sleeping overnight near Lake Toba – taking sentry duty turn and turn about during the night.
Toba was like a miracle, a lake fifty miles long, lying peacefully in the crater formed by a volcano which had erupted a million years BC. In the lake was the island of Samosir; what its history could have been, if it had any, I could not guess. Although the dawn was chilly, the driver and I enjoyed a brief swim in the lake’s clear waters, while the cook stood guard.
‘You buggers must be mad,’ he said, as we emerged.
But on me was the madness of exhilaration.
We were fired at in Parapat, where we rashly tried to buy a chicken, but escaped unhurt, to arrive in Medan, hot and filthy, some thirty-two hours after we had left Padang. A month later, another truck taking the overland route was ambushed. From then on, nobody drove between Padang and Medan. British forces kept to the towns.
Medan impressed as being nearer civilization. Despite the emergency and an early curfew, shops were open and had glass in their windows – a sophistication not achieved in Padang. Many were run by Indians (especially Sikhs) and Chinese.
Again there was the familiar task imposed by an unfamiliar city: to learn the way around, to learn the names of the streets, to learn how to get to the more desirable nooks. And again the romance of geography overcame me. Here was a distant place – and I was living in it, on a day to day basis, in danger of taking it for granted.
I was given two rooms in the upper floor of a pleasant house, once in Dutch hands, then Japanese. My main room had a balcony with an agreeable open view, jungle visible in the distance. I entered by the rear door, along a path fringed by pleasant flowering bushes. The rear staircase – once presumably a servants’ stair – led directly up to my rooms. The rest of the house was occupied by assorted sergeants.
My travel documents instructed me to report immediately to a Captain Zajac, a tall demented-looking Pole with ferocious moustaches. It was said of him that when the Germans invaded Poland, where the Zajacs held vast estates, he and his elder brother had set fire to their mansion rather than let it fall into enemy hands and had walked south to join the British in India. On the way, they had been joined by other Poles. Over one hundred of them had finally gathered at the frontier.
By then, Zajac’s elder brother was dead.
Zajac had collected a medal in the Arakan while losing most of his left ear in a fanatical attack on a Jap bunker. Hatred seemed to be his chief motivation. In consequence, I discovered, he was beloved by his group of men. But he hated me because I was a replacement for the sergeant, his old comrade, who had been killed in Emmahaaven swimming pool. He gave me a complicated order involving Allied war graves. I was forced to admit that I had had no Intelligence training and, in consequence, could not carry out the order.
He gave me a furious bollocking. I ought to be on a charge. I had no business volunteering for a job I could not carry out, etc.
The telephone interrupted his raving. At the end of the call, as he replaced the receiver, he said to me, in a mild tone of voice as if losing his temper was beyond his capacity, ‘Dismiss now, sergeant, and I will send for you when I need you.’
I saluted and dismissed.
While I waited to be sent for, I made it my business to understand the local situation. The troops were showing their civilian dispositions, and had settled as well as might be into situations best suited to them. Since there were no facilities provided by the over-stretched S.E. Asia Command, of which we were an outpost, small private enjoyments had been carved out, many of them centring round the RAPWI camp and the Dutch women there. RAPWI stood for Repatriation and Aid (Prisoners-of-War Indonesia), and therefore embraced all Dutch and foreign nationals who had fallen into Jap hands during their swift advance through the N.E.I. in 1942.
These unfortunates were largely displaced persons, unable to take up their old tasks on plantations and so on while the Emergency prevailed; many wanted nothing better than to get on the little steamer, the Van Heutz, which called at Belawan Harbour twice a week, ferrying people to Singapore for the commencement of the long voyage back to Holland and Europe. Meanwhile, most were prepared to celebrate their comparative liberty in the commonplace ways.
Eedie was a large cheerful girl. It was her height that first won my interest. I was six foot one and she was six foot two. I had never had a girl friend bigger than I before. She was going about with a handsome Irish corporal in the RAOC, but a couple of dances was enough for her to change her mind. She found I had a Jeep at my command, and that was sufficient. We drove all round Medan that night, drinking in the few bars that were open, talking and laughing furiously, pouring out personal histories of the war to each other – therapy of a necessary kind. Driving her back to the RAPWI camp, I was cut off by the curfew and spent the night on her bedroom floor. But only for about ten minutes. After that, Eedie relented and allowed me into a much more comfortable place.
Medan was an unruly town. Discipline tightened up only when the ‘extremists’, as we called the nationalists of Soekarno’s Liberation Army, went on the attack. Otherwise, morale was low enough to permit a certain amount of individuality. The Irish RAOC corporal went gunning for me, weeping and cu
rsing in semi-public places over my absconding with his Dutch lady friend. In some respects, Medan resembled the Wild West.
It was a difference of opinion between Eedie and me, rather than any of Corporal Paddy’s threats, which spoilt our harmony. The Dutch had reason to be grateful to the British, and were in fact more friendly towards us than vice versa. They also had cause to dislike us, since they depended on us and the British were reluctant to allow Dutch reinforcements into the country. Any such move was greeted with reprisals from Soekarno. Merdeka! (Freedom) was scrawled everywhere, and bullets flew. In Java, pitched battles were fought at Surabaja and elsewhere. The British were more prepared than the Dutch to play a waiting game.
Intelligence was under pressure to discover how news of pending arrivals of Dutch troops reached Soekarno, and the Port Authority at Belawan was tightened – to no effect. The Van Heutz reached Belawan from Singapore. Forces there sympathetic to Soekarno radioed the news ahead.
This matter of politics came between Eedie and me.
‘You’re pigs, all of you, worse than the fucking Germans,’ she told me one evening as we sat smoking outside the RAPWI hall. ‘We know that you want to have Sumatra under the Union Jacket, just like in India and Burma.’ She always called it the Union Jacket.
‘Why do you think we want this stinking dump? We’ve got enough on our bloody hands. We wouldn’t have it if the Dutch gave it to us.’
‘Oh, yes, you would. How much of the globe is already inside your greedy hands? You’d have it okay, you bet.’ She laughed scornfully. We were partly drunk.
‘Oh? Well then, it isn’t yours to give, is it? You rely on us, don’t you? Otherwise, if we weren’t here, you lot would be kicked out, lock, stock and barrel.’
‘That’s only because—’
‘And another thing. You don’t call us Germans. You Dutch are nearer the fucking Germans than we are, aren’t you? You live next fucking door. Who do you think freed the fucking Netherlands?’
