Child of All Nations

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  The first to die was Tuan Besar Kuasa Manager, Frits Homerus Vlekkenbaaij, alias Plikemboh.

  Surati was still prostrate on the bed when the heavy corpse was taken from beside her to be burned. Only then did people find out that the maiden had already begun her life as a nyai. And hadn’t died.

  Even while facing the threat of death by smallpox, all the people of Tulangan, regardless of race, Native, Pure, or Mixed-Blood, stopped to thank God for the death of Tuan Besar Kuasa Manager. To them his corpse was a talisman that would protect Tulangan from disaster. But no one ever found out who it was that had really killed him.

  The young mistress was carried home by her mother, whose insults and abuse of Sastro Kassier never silenced.

  Sastro Kassier himself did not stay silent. The death of his boss gave him the chance to make his accusations. Witnessed by local officials, a search was made of his late employer’s things. There, in a cupboard, they found the missing money, still intact. Sastro Kassier remained triumphant as the honest paymaster, but his honor as a husband and father was gone, and would never return.

  So, too, was Surati’s beauty gone forever.

  And the sugar mill of Tulangan remained grand in its command over all of Tulangan: humans, animals, and growing things.

  8

  For three days we had been resting in Tulangan. The new manager who had replaced Plikemboh sent a letter to Mama, inviting her to come and have a look around the factory. Mama turned down the invitation. He then came to Sastro Kassier’s house to invite her in person. He was very young, about thirty years old. Mama refused the invitation again.

  I don’t know why the master of that sugar mill felt he had to invite Mama. Mama herself had never mentioned having any special business with him.

  Kommer also sent us a letter: He would not be able to visit us. He couldn’t leave the carpenters while they were making his trap. It was proving to be quite difficult to make.

  Every day Mama and I went for a walk through the paddy fields, plantations, and villages. She was really changed; the dark, eerie aura about her had vanished. She was truly enjoying her holidays. She didn’t look at all like a widow, nor like someone out walking with her son-in-law, himself a widower. She looked like a young maiden, not yet married.

  Her walk was confident and free like that of a European woman. She always wore the kebaya that for a century had been the fashion for Indos, nyais, and now for Chinese women to wear. Very few Native women wore them, at most a few from the elite classes, and perhaps their children. Most wore a simple cloth wrap or even went totally bare-breasted.

  Nyai Ontosoroh’s beautiful and delicately embroidered kebaya became the focus of everybody’s attention. Such a kebaya was still rare in the villages, and its whiteness and the brightness of its embroidery shone out in the middle of all this greenness, drawing all eyes to it.

  On the fourth day she wouldn’t go for a walk and sent me out by myself.

  So on that day, in European clothes (people called them Christian clothes), carrying a bag containing pen and paper, a bottle of water, and a little dried food, I set off alone in a southerly direction. My plan was to visit the village that the government had burned down, the one that Surati had visited.

  In the middle of the ocean of sugar cane I saw something odd: the tiled roof of a house. Whose? Somebody’s home, or a place for workers to take shade? The trees behind it showed that cane did not grow around it. Probably somebody’s house-garden.

  It wasn’t out of mere curiosity that I set off in the direction of the house, but because I wanted to accustom myself to taking an interest in everything that was related to the lives of the Natives, my people.

  The path, hemmed in on either side by the cane, was still and quiet. Not a single person passed me. But from the direction of the tiled house came the sound of muffled shouts, roughly spoken words.

  The sun radiated shafts of heat. Sweat soaked my back. The air was fresh and invigorating. My body felt unconstrained by the etiquette required when escorting Mama. I walked along, enjoying it all to the full, savoring how healthy I was. I felt fortunate to be alone in the middle of this greenness. I had never in all my life gone for a hike alone and so far. Perhaps I had already traveled more than three miles.

  This was the same road that Surati had once traveled, not in the midday heat like this, but in night’s pitch darkness, before the moon had risen.

  The cane to my right and left would ripen in a few months’ time. It would become sugar, helping to make Java the second biggest producer of sugar in the world. The sugar would be dispersed over the earth to many countries and give enjoyment and health to millions of people. And the name Tulangan? No one would ever hear of it.

  There were those shouts again.

  The path I was following branched out. A lane led to the suspicious-looking house.

  A farmer with a hoe at his waist passed me. He raised his bamboo hat, bowed without looking at me—only because I was wearing European clothes, Christian clothes. He was heading towards the main road. Perhaps he was a cane cutter.

  “What’s all the shouting about?” I asked in Javanese.

  “The usual, Ndoro. Old Truno is not like everyone else.”

  “Who is this Truno?”

  “The one who lives there, Ndoro.”

  “In that house?”

  “Yes, Ndoro.”

  “Why are they shouting at him like that?”

  “He won’t move out of his house.”

  “Why must he move?”

  My barrage of questions scared the peasant. He shrank back, bowed, raised his bamboo hat again, excused himself. Perhaps he had been among those shouting just now.

  The shouts came again. Now it was clear what they were saying, in crude Javanese: “When are you getting out of there?”

  Other shouts followed from several mouths at once, but I was unable to pick up what they were saying. Then there were further angry exchanges and cries for Truno to get out. What was happening in the middle of this ocean of cane?

  Because I had been accused of not knowing my own people, yes, and because of curiosity, my legs took me closer to the location of the quarrel. Perhaps I could learn to understand their problems. Without my realizing, my feet were now carrying me more quickly. I no longer took any notice of the foliage above me as the branches and twigs squeaked against each other whenever the wind blew.

  In this very lane the tile-roofed house stood. It was made out of thick bamboo. In front of the house stood a mustached man with a thick beard, bare-chested, wearing black trousers down to just below his knee. In his hand was a machete with that just-honed shine about it. His eyes were wild. He was now standing alone. On seeing me, his eyes popped out in challenge.

  “Pak!”I shouted, in friendly Javanese. “Who was making all the noise just now?”

  He still stared at me wild-eyed as if I were his enemy. I stopped in front of the bamboo gate.

  “What?” he hissed in low Javanese. “You too?” I was offended. I could feel the blood rise into my face. A Javanese had never spoken so roughly towards me, let alone used the familiar form for you. No doubt he was that kind of insolent Javanese, hadn’t been properly educated, I thought. Then quick as lightning came the voice of Jean Marais, accusing me: You are not fair, Minke; what right would you now have to abuse him? What have you done for him? Just because you are the grandson and the son of a bupati? You say you understand the great call of the French Revolution? What’s the use of having graduated from H.B.S.?

  A smile of awareness crept onto my lips. I must remain friendly.

  “Don’t be angry with me, Pak. I’m not your enemy.”

  “Every single day…” The man frowned, yet my friendliness did relax him a little.

  “What is it, Pak?”

  “…like a pack of barking dogs!” It poured out in sharp tones.

  “Who, Pak,” I asked affably, “is like a pack of barking dogs?”

  He observed me with suspicion. It was
unusual for a Javanese peasant farmer to be suspicious of his superiors. Peasants had no right to be suspicious. It was clear that this one peasant had “escaped the prongs of the rake,” had turned his back on the proper way of behaving. Like an elephant that had left its herd, as Nijman had said about Khouw Ah Soe, a Javanese peasant who refused to fit himself to the old mold was also dangerous. Machete in hand, loud voice, not listening to orders: All this was evidence.

  “Don’t get me wrong, Pak, I’ve only just arrived.”

  He wouldn’t give up his suspicions. His smallish eyes stood out as if they were not interested in ever blinking again. Indeed they seemed ready to hurl themselves out of their sockets at any minute. I must try to win his trust. Must! Must! There’s no way of getting close to somebody without first making contact with his heart.

  Daring myself to go on, I took a step forward, passing through the gate, not without having to suppress my fear.

  “What’s really going on here?” I asked affably.

  “Is Ndoro a priyayi from the mill?” he suddenly asked in high Javanese, a question that also struck me as insolent.

  “No. I have just arrived from Surabaya. I am not an official from the mill. I’m still at school, Pak. I write for newspapers, that’s my work.”

  With savage eyes—not normal either for a Javanese peasant—he looked me over from the top of my head to the tips of my shoes.

  “This machete is not just good for cutting down banana trees,” he growled threateningly in low Javanese. “One more time, and someone will cop it.”

  “What is it? What is it?” I asked, in the politest of ways.

  “I don’t care who he is, Javanese, Madurese, Dutch soldier, one more howl from them…”

  His anger passed its climax with these growls and threats.

  “Is Ndoro one of them or not?” He turned abruptly, interrogating me. More insolence.

  “Who do you mean by them?”

  Once more he challenged my eyes, and looked at my bag. “They,” he said savagely, “are those factory dogs who just left. This is my own land. What business is it of theirs what I do with it.” He wiped sweat from his back.

  Unease squatted in my heart; he had gone back to speaking in low Javanese. He had forgotten what class he belonged to. So why should I treat him so well? But you have resolved to become more familiar with your own people! You must understand their troubles. He is one of those fellow countrymen of yours about whom you know nothing, one of your own people, a people you say you want to write about, once you have begun to understand them.

  “Of course this is your own land,” I encouraged him, and myself too.

  “Five bahu, inherited from my parents.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “I saw it noted down in the Land Office.”

  “Yes, it’s registered in the Land Office.” He spoke to himself. The tension began to recede. Slowly he was returning to being a humble Javanese peasant.

  “Can I visit you, Pak?” I said in an even more friendly way. His grip on the machete began to relax. I took another step forward. “If you aren’t angry with me, I’d like to know what this is all about. Who knows, perhaps I can help?” I took another step.

  He didn’t answer, but turned around and headed for the house. I followed. He threw his machete down inside the house. He fetched a straw broom and swept clean the bamboo bench at the entrance.

  “Please, Ndoro, this is the best I can offer.”

  So I sat on the bamboo bench, adorned with a bamboo mat. He stood with hands clasped before me. He was beginning to trust me, I hoped. “All right, tell me why you are so angry,” I asked.

  “Yes, Ndoro, I have already been very patient. My inheritance was five bahu—three paddy fields, two dry fields—and this house garden. Three bahu are being used by the mill. I didn’t happily rent them out but was brutally forced to do so by the mill priyayi, the village head, all kinds of officials, and God knows how many others! The land was contracted for eighteen months. Eighteen months! But now it has been two years! You have to wait until the cane stumps have all been dug out. Except if you want to put your thumbprint to another contract for the next harvest season. What’s the contract money worth anyway? You can count it up as much as you like, they never pay in full anyway. Those dogs, Ndoro…now even my dry fields—they want those too. The trees will be torn down to make way for the cane!”

  “How much do you get for one bahu?” I asked, as I took my writing implements from my bag, knowing that all of Java’s peasants respected a pen. I was ready to take notes.

  “Twenty-two, Ndoro,” he answered fluently. Amazing.

  “Twenty-two perak for every bahu, for use for over eighteen months!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, Ndoro.”

  “How much did you receive?”

  “Fifteen perak.”

  “Where did the other seven go?”

  “How would I know, Ndoro? Put your thumbprint down, they said. No more than fifteen perak a bahu. Eighteen months, they said. In reality, two years, until the cane stump and roots were dug out.”

  “They dig out the roots themselves?”

  “Of course, Ndoro. They don’t want to see the stumps grow and ripen again, become new cane fields again. They don’t want the farmers around here to get any leftover cane without paying, without working.”

  I wrote and wrote; and it seemed that he was beginning to respect me. But I didn’t know what he really thought of me.

  “Now you must listen; let me read out to you everything that you have just told me. Eh, what’s Bapak’s name?”

  “Trunodongso, Ndoro.”

  I stopped a moment on hearing that name. My grandfather had once warned me against peasants who use the name Truno. Such people, he said, are usually quick-tempered, especially when young. And sometimes they are even quicker-tempered in their old age. People choose that name hoping they will be able to maintain the spirit of their youth, to keep their strength and health right to the end. And, said my grandfather, such people usually study the martial arts before they marry. I didn’t know whether he was right or not.

  “So Trunodongso is your name. Good, let me read this to you.”

  I read out in Javanese what I had written and he nodded at the end of each sentence.

  “This will be printed in the newspapers. All the clever and important people up there will read it. Perhaps Tuan Besar Governor-General, bupatis, residents, controllers, all of them. They will investigate all this. They will then know that there is a farmer named Trunodongso who is being forced from his land and his paddy, and is recovering only fifteen perak for each bahu that is rented by the sugar mill.”

  “Wah, Ndoro.” He freed his hand from its polite clasp, ready to protest. “It’s not like that,” he began.

  “You’re taking back what you’ve told me?”

  “No, Ndoro, it’s all true. But I am not the only one who has received only fifteen perak. That’s all any of the farmers around here have received, Ndoro.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone, except the village officials.”

  “How much did they get?”

  “No one knows, Ndoro. But we do know that none of them are complaining. Never!”

  “But people have the right not to rent their land if that’s what they want.”

  “Yes. That is my situation, Ndoro, I don’t want to rent out my land but every day I’m threatened, taunted, insulted. Now they threaten that the lane to my house will be closed off. If you want to get to your house and land, they say, you’ll have to fly. They have already closed the channels bringing water to my paddy fields. I couldn’t farm the paddy, so I had to rent it out.”

  This kind of thing was something I had never come across before. I wrote everything down. Trunodongso went on and on. All that he had been unable to say for so long was now poured out to me. I was no longer noting down just words, but the fate of who knows how many thousands, how many tens of thousands of peasant farmers like him. Perhaps this
was the fate of all the sugar region’s farmers. And he was not facing just Europeans, but Natives too: village officials, civil officials, the factory officials, including Sastro Kassier no doubt. My note-taking became even more enthusiastic. And Trunodongso became even more open with me.

  A girl appeared, carrying a bamboo basket, walking towards a well beside that bamboo house. She pulled up the water using a bamboo scoop and started washing some clothes in an earthenware dish.

  “Is that your daughter?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “How many children do you have altogether?”

  “Five, Ndoro. Two boys—they’re out hoeing in the field now. The others are girls.”

  “Five. May I come in and have a look around Bapak’s house?” I asked politely.

  “Please come in, but it’s very dirty.”

  I went inside the house. There were no windows. There was no cow or buffalo inside, but a tethering post standing in the corner indicated that a large animal had lived with the family at some other time or other.

  “Where’s the cow, Pak?”

  “What’s the use of a cow if you have no paddy, Ndoro? I’ve sold it.”

  There was no furniture except for a big bamboo bench and a kerosene lamp hanging from a bamboo pole. In the corner lay a hoe with lumps of fresh dirt clinging to it.

  I thanked God that this quick-tempered farmer had been restored to the original Trunodongso, friendly, generous with his smiles, polite, and humble, no longer hiding evil feelings.

  “Where’s your wife, Pak?”

  “Just left for the market, Ndoro.”

  I called to the little girl doing the washing. She ran to her father. Her eyes were tired, as though she had never had her proper fill of dreams—or perhaps because she had ringworm.

  “What are you cooking today.”

  “Depends what Ma brings home, Ndoro, from the market,” she answered, looking into her father’s eyes.

  “Look, I want to eat here tonight, yes; would you like to cook for me?”