Child of All Nations

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  Once more she quizzed her father with her sleepy eyes. Her father answered with a little bow of the head. Her voice was very, very polite: “Of course, Ndoro, I would be very happy to cook for Ndoro, but it’s sure to taste terrible. A village child, remember, that’s what I am.”

  “So we’ll eat together tonight. How many altogether? Seven?”

  “Then I must get some firewood,” Trunodongso excused himself. “But Ndoro won’t be ashamed to eat here?”

  How happy was my heart to feel this family was beginning to lose its suspicion of me. I added quickly: “Is the market far from here?”

  “No, Ndoro, it’s quite close,” answered Piah, the little girl. I knew in fact that the market was near Tulangan.

  “Here is some money. Go and buy something. It’s up to you what you cook,” and I handed Piah two coins.

  Once more the child looked up at her father. Trunodongso glanced around, pretending not to see. I put my bag down on the bench and went outside the house.

  I felt a happiness blooming in my breast. I drew the free air deep into my lungs and threw out my two arms like a garuda about to fly into the sky. What Kommer had said indeed seemed true: If you’re willing to pay a little attention, a whole new continent arises, with mountains and rivers, islands and waterways. I will stay upon this new continent for a while longer. Columbus was not the only person to discover a new continent. So too have I.

  I strolled around outside the house. At the back, clothes were drying—clean rags, really. And he was a farmer with five bahu of his own land, including three bahu of first-class paddy fields! If he’d been able to refuse surrendering his dry fields, why hadn’t he been able to refuse handing over his paddy? His remaining dry fields were the last bastion of his livelihood. He had to defend it to the end. If he didn’t, his whole family could be turned into vagabonds.

  The air streaming through the thickets of trees was truly refreshing. The freshness of the air was present, but also the staleness of life—a continent with great mountain peaks, deep chasms.

  A drain carrying the dirty water from the well wound aimlessly about; ducks were scratching in the mud looking for worms. Under a bush, three chicks fought over who was the eldest. A pregnant cat—yellow-colored—slept in the sun on a pile of old leaves. A row of banana trees, not one of which had an upright trunk, leaned sleepily to one side. In the distance, Trunodongso was cutting down a tree with his machete. He chopped it up and piled the wood together in the middle of the thicket.

  As I moved farther away from the house, I could see more closely the nature of the tidily farmed corn and sweet-potato fields. The border between the back-yard garden and the fields proper was marked by a row of coffee trees, thick with fruit, and protected by the umbrella of closely planted coconut palms. It seemed that this family could live off their own fields—except for clothes and sugar.

  Trunodongso had disappeared into the house carrying a hand of bananas. No smoke came from the kitchen yet. At the edge of the field, where it met the mill’s cane, I found two of Trunodongso’s sons hoeing the ground. They stopped working as soon as they saw me and laid down their hoes. They showed me great respect, yet were also obviously surprised and afraid. More than that: suspicious.

  “Are you Pak Truno’s sons?”

  “Yes, Ndoro.” They took off their bamboo hats and threw them on the ground. They were aged sixteen and fourteen. There were no pictures of Queen Wilhelmina back in their house—neither had finished primary school.

  “This is the border with the factory’s cane?”

  “Yes, Ndoro.”

  “Aren’t they suspicious of you two if any cane goes missing?”

  The two of them consulted with their eyes. I saw suspicion in those consultations, and fear.

  “No, I’m not from the factory,” I said. Still they didn’t seem to believe, and were afraid. “I’m staying at your house at the moment. Later on we’ll eat together.” They glanced back and forth at each other again; then without answering dropped their gaze to their feet.

  “You’ve never been accused of stealing cane?” I asked again.

  They shot a look at me from the corners of their eyes, then their eyes consulted once more.

  “Don’t really know, Ndoro,” the eldest answered.

  They were still suspicious and afraid; that’s how all farmers felt towards nonfarmers. The anonymous pamphlet that my exiled teacher Magda Peters gave me had said: The peasant farmers of Java were afraid of all outsiders, because their experiences over the centuries had shown them that outsiders—individuals or groups—would thieve everything they owned. These two young boys, with hoe in hand, sickle at their feet, were afraid of me for no other reason than because I was not one of them. Because my clothes were not the kind they wore.

  What that pamphlet said was exactly right. A European had written it. He knew about the Javanese peasants. And I was just now discovering this continent. I was now witnessing that bottom point in their lives: being under the sway of fear and suspicion.

  If one day they should cross the limits of their fear and suspicion—so that brochure said—this group of people living under God’s sun, who aren’t used to thinking rationally, will rise up in an explosion of blind fury; they will run amok. They could explode individually or in a group. And their targets would be anyone who was not one of them, who wasn’t a peasant farmer. Such indeed was the condition of these pitiable beings who had never known the learning of the world: In no time at all their fury would be suppressed by the army, and they would be broken forever. For three hundred years! So that anyone from whatever group who can humor and capture their hearts they will follow—in religion, to the battlefield, or to annihilation.

  I remembered the pamphlet’s words well, and so as not to arouse any more fear in these boys’ hearts, I moved away. I walked back towards the house, thinking to myself along the way: Perhaps if I had not come and shown my sympathy to Trunodongso, he might have wielded his machete, cutting down whomever he could. The pamphlet had also said: They would run amok not really in self-defense, nor to attack or to take revenge, but only because they no longer knew what else to do once their last opportunity of life had been stolen.

  That pamphlet’s author, Anonymous, I had to admit, was very knowledgeable. It was clear that the peasants themselves did not understand their own condition. But in that other corner of the world, in the Netherlands, people did know; they knew exactly what the situation was. They even understood the psychology of the peasantry as a class. And all this was in a pamphlet written by a Dutchman living in the Netherlands. It was true what Jean Marais had said: You study the languages of Europe to understand Europe. Through Europe you can learn to understand your own people. To study the languages of Europe does not mean you cannot speak to your own people, and that you should speak only to Europeans.

  I went on towards the bamboo house. It was not only from Europe that so much could be learned! This modern age had provided many breasts to suckle me—from among the Natives themselves, from Japan, China, America, India, Arabia, from all the peoples on the face of this earth. They were the mother wolves that gave me life to become a builder of Rome! Is it true you will build a Rome? Yes, I answered myself. How? I don’t know. In humility, I realized I am a child of all nations, of all ages, past and present. Place and time of birth, parents, all are coincidence: such things are not sacred.

  Back in the house I went on with my writing. But the first sentence was not what I had been thinking as I walked back: “And evil too came from all nations, from all ages.”

  I wrote and wrote until all that I wished to write was finished. I flopped my body down upon the bamboo sleeping bench and fell asleep, forgetting all that had been happening around me.

  Who knows how long I slept. Indeed I hadn’t had enough sleep the night before. I had been overcome by my passion to finish the notes about Surati. Shouting startled me and my eyes flew open, but I still lay there on the divan-bench.

  “I only
got five coins for the chicken. Not enough to buy any clothes for you, just some pants for your father.”

  Realizing that the voice was that of an adult woman, I quickly got up. No doubt it was Trunodongso’s wife, home from the market. Her smallest daughters followed behind. On seeing me Truno’s wife stopped in front of the house, bowed down again and again, then walked off around the side of the house to the back.

  It appeared that Piah had begun cooking in the kitchen. I could smell the aroma of frying chicken. All of a sudden my stomach was calling out for food.

  Now I could hear Piah speaking in low Javanese to her mama: “When will I get some clothes, Ma?”

  I couldn’t hear the answer. I took out the gold pocket watch my mother had given me for a wedding present. It was four o’clock, and my stomach was making wild demands.

  Trunodongso came outside to the bench and invited me in to eat. He apologized for not daring to awaken me earlier. Inside there was a woven bamboo mat with the food laid out on it. There was only one plate. The curry was in an earthenware bowl and the rice in a bamboo basket. Ground chili and dried fish lay crushed in the earthen bowl. The stone pestle stood in the bowl on top of the chilied fish.

  “Please, Ndoro.”

  “Let us eat together, Pak, with all the children and Ma Trunodongso.”

  “It’s all right like this, Ndoro; there’s only one plate.”

  “Then we can all eat from banana leaves.”

  An argument started. Finally Trunodongso gave in. Everybody was mobilized to eat together off banana leaves. More food was brought out from the kitchen. I did not regret doing this, even though I knew it was torture for them to eat with me. They were so afraid of taking any of the chicken, especially the fried chicken. It turned out to be as hard as wood. So then I knew: This family had never cooked chicken before, not even the ones they owned themselves.

  Seeing that they were hesitating to start, I finished my meal quickly and went for a stroll outside to get some fresh air.

  After dinner the following conversation took place.

  “If Bapak worked that land yourself, would you be much better off?”

  For the first time Trunodongso laughed. “When my parents were still alive, heaps of paddy surrounded this house. There were many chickens and ducks. A few years before they died, the factory started pressuring them to give over the land. My father refused. Then the village chief came, then his second-in-command. My father still refused. Then the paddy-field water canals were blocked farther up, on factory land. There was no more water. My father—”

  “Weren’t the canals built by the farmers themselves? Not the factory?”

  “Sure, Ndoro. I myself helped build them. A week it took, I remember it well. At the end of clearing my section of land there was a great pile of fallen leaves. There were many snakes—no less than seven.”

  “No one was bitten?”

  “Ah, just little lizards really, Ndoro.”

  “How much were you paid?”

  “Paid? No one paid us.”

  He liked to watch me write down his answers. And I was certainly not going to disappoint him. I would pour it all out in the newspapers. I could already guess that there would be a great commotion. Perhaps this man before me now would become the main figure in some great story about the farmers of the sugar-cane regions. He was becoming more and more interesting. The more marks I made on the paper, the more he trusted me, and the easier it became to enter his mind.

  I recalled again my grandfather’s warning about people with the name Truno. Such people, my grandfather told me, would fight the government or become rebel bandits. Uh! the names of Javanese! As a writer of newspaper advertisements, it was my view that if grandfather’s words were true, the names that the Javanese took were no different than advertisements, whose messages were by no means truthful.

  Very carefully I asked him: Did he like to fight?

  “No,” he said, “but indeed I did study martial arts when I was young.” So he was a fighter; my grandfather’s words were right. “Have you been involved in fights?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed, as if defending themselves from an attack. Realizing that the question had aroused his suspicion again, I quickly added that my grandfather had made me study martial arts too. I studied for three years before graduating. But, I said, I had never been in a real fight.

  He listened to my story with eyes full of life—the narrowness disappeared. He was indeed a fighter. No wonder the factory people didn’t dare any reckless attempt to throw him out.

  I quickly turned the conversation away from fighting. He must not become suspicious again. Issue after issue emerged. I wrote and wrote. This person was interesting: Unlike other peasant farmers, he dared state his opinion, even though his approach was roundabout and he never went directly to the issue. And the more questions I asked him, the happier he was giving his answers. I thought he might have been a laborer in a town once. But I didn’t ask.

  “Might I stay here tonight?” I asked.

  He was surprised at my request. I wanted to stay overnight so I could study a little about how he lived. As expected, out came excuse after excuse. But I was unyielding. With great reluctance he finally gave his agreement. His youngest child was sent off with a letter to Mama in Tulangan.

  So it was that I stayed the night.

  That night the fireplace was lit, as was the custom if you kept livestock. Smoke filled the windowless space. My lungs were hot and tight. As the evening wore on, the silence was broken by the croaking of the tree frogs. I was given a place on the edge of the big sleeping bench. The other children, boys and girls, slept on my left. Their breathing seemed to speak to each other; they took turns in coughing. The fire finally went out. Then the mosquitoes attacked from above, the bedbugs from below. Ya Allah, how peaceful they all were in their sleep, and I could not even keep my eyes closed in my torment.

  For how many hundreds, thousands of years, generation after generation, have they slept like this? Human beings with great resilience, great strength. Every other moment, my hand moved to get rid of a mosquito or bedbug. My eyes still wouldn’t close. Slowly my irritation increased. I sat up in the dark. But the mosquitoes and bedbugs took no notice of my irritation; they were just as bloodthirsty as ever, as if they were the only beings who had to live. How high was the price I had to pay so that no one might ever accuse me again of not knowing my own people! Perhaps if I had not given them shopping money, I would not have eaten at all that night. What did they really eat each day? I still didn’t know.

  I had just rested my head back on the sheaf of dried paddy stalks when I heard singing outside the hut. Who would be singing on this insect-ridden night? The voice seemed to hesitate. Before even one verse was finished, I heard the scrape of a door being opened quietly. I listened carefully. I could make out the shuffle of a long sarong on the floor. Obviously Ma Trunodongso. Then another scrape of an opening door. So husband and wife were up and going outside.

  They wouldn’t be going out to relieve themselves. It was the midnight village song that called them. This was interesting material for my story.

  Before I knew it, I was groping my way through the darkness to the door. I must add to my knowledge about them. Not long after, there was another sound of a door scraping open, but this time it was my hand that did the opening. I was now outside the house, with the mosquitoes but without the bedbugs. A black starless sky. My eyes tried to locate any human movement. Nothing but blackness. Where had the husband and wife gone? I tried to remember from what direction the singing had come. My arms and legs groped in that direction. I reckoned I had reached the jackfruit trees. The singing had long since died away.

  “Impossible.” I heard a warning spoken emphatically.

  There were several people under the jackfruit tree—at least three. The voice dropped to a soft whisper. Of course I was drawn in that direction.

  “The priyayi staying with you is a factory spy for sure!” I heard. “A
nd you haven’t the courage to kill him.”

  “No, in the name of Allah, he is not a spy.”

  “He’s Sastro Kassier’s family!”

  “Even so, he is not like the factory people; he’s not arrogant like them. From Surabaya, writes for a newspaper, he says. He’s going to write for the papers about how we’ve been cheated all this time.”

  “Rubbish. As if you didn’t know what they’re like. Kill him and get it over with.”

  “No blood shall be spilled in my house,” came the voice of Trunodongso’s wife. “Factory spies aren’t like that.”

  “Very well, I will tell all this to the Kyai. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll be back again.”

  I rushed back to the house while they were still talking. My hands and feet began to grope around again. Now it felt as if the house was far away, another mile or so. They must not find me outside.

  Suddenly my feet slipped into a drain. I must be on the wrong path. The foul-smelling drain mud became my second layer of clothes. I must be near the well. I had indeed come the wrong way. The humiliation of it! For the first time in my life I had to bathe at night. And for the first time in my life I had to wash my own clothes, in the darkness and the cold.

  With my teeth rattling, I finally reached my sleeping-bench. I had no dry clothes. I lay down but now pulled the bedbug-ridden mat over me as a blanket.

  Even so I did not feel any more tormented than before. Rather I felt thankful to God: Trunodongso and his wife’s trust in me was a far greater blessing, overcoming the cold and torment.

  In the morning, wearing only my underclothes, I washed my pants and shirt again and dried them. Then I wrote and wrote. It was clear they were involved in some kind of conspiracy. My guess was that they were banding together to fight against the factory. Perhaps I was mistaken. I must stay here perhaps another day.

  Once again I strolled out the back to get to know my new field of action better.

  That night I heard the singing again. I awoke and waited for the husband and wife to leave. The sky wasn’t as dark as the night before. The stars lit up the earth. The two figures before me made their way quickly to the jackfruit thicket. This time I didn’t dare go so close. From behind the bushes I could make out the silhouettes of several people. They didn’t stay long, but left for who knows where.