Twilight in Djakarta

by Mochtar Lubis

  Suryono laughed.

  ‘By Allah!’ he said. ‘I’ve never met a woman like you!’

  Fatma laughed, too. Took a cigarette from the table and lit it. She puffed the smoke into Suryono’s face, and said,

  ‘I’m still young, but I’ve had my lessons in life. Listen to this. I’ve told you once before how I came to marry your father. But you don’t know the whole story. Before I married your father I was already a widow. My husband was killed during the revolution. He was a lieutenant. I loved him, and with his death my love died too. Unfortunately his rank was too low for him to be remembered by the government, and he was not included among the “great heroes to be remembered by the people”. Naturally no one paid any attention to me as his widow, either. I wasn’t given a single penny of support after his death. I had to live. I moved down to Djakarta where my aunt put me up in her house. Believe me, a young and pretty woman has no trouble making money if she’s prepared to use her body and beauty. But I was very cautious. I chose the men with whom I would sleep very carefully. That’s the only way to take good care of your body, protect your reputation and see to it that your price stays high. It’s always like this with men, the more difficult it is to get a woman the more they desire to possess her. That was how I met your father, Raden Kaslan. I was not attracted to him. He was too ostentatious about what he could get with all his money. As though just having money let him do anything he pleased, even buy a person entirely. The more I withdrew from him the more he longed to dominate me. So I told him that I would submit to him, but only on one condition; that he would marry me. And so he married me. He married me not because he loved me or cared for me, or because he really desired me passionately. No, the first night after our wedding he just slept through it, snoring – he’d drunk too much. After that he didn’t come to me very often because I didn’t like to do what he asked. But it seems that your father gets satisfaction from having a young and good-looking wife, is pleased to hear his friends admire her beauty and to see how other men are trying to approach me. Your father is satisfied; he knows that he owns something that many others would enjoy having. That is what I mean to him. Why should I try to be moral as far as he’s concerned if he’s completely immoral himself? Besides, as we sit here talking, he may be playing around with another woman!

  ‘I’ve learned from life that you must seize whatever you desire, and whatever makes you happy, quickly and without hesitation. And that there’s no use worrying about what might happen later. Our fate is in the hands of the Lord.’

  Suryono smiled at the contradiction in Fatma’s statement which mentioned the Lord. Inwardly he wished he could be as free of doubt as Fatma was in facing life.

  ‘There are three women in my life now,’ Suryono told Fatma, answering her story about herself with one about himself. ‘You, someone called Dahlia, also married, and Ies, an unmarried girl. I care for all three of you, I love you all and each time I am with one of you I feel happy and at peace, satisfied and pleased with life. I’m happy to be alive right now, and feel no need to think about tomorrow or the day after. With Dahlia I experience another kind of joy, though it’s somewhat like the feeling when I’m with you. With Ies my feeling of joy is different, it’s full of hope and promise for the future and I feel as though, if given the opportunity, I would not hesitate to face life with Ies for ever.’

  ‘Have you slept with both of them yet?’ asked Fatma, the woman.

  But Suryono did not notice the jealousy in her face.

  ‘With Dahlia, but not with Ies.’

  ‘What is Dahlia like?’

  ‘Like you.’

  Fatma laughed.

  ‘To speak like a mother to her son, it would be good for you to forget Dahlia and concentrate on Ies. But apparently the girl does not fully respond to your feelings towards her?’

  ‘Could be,’ Suryono said. ‘Sometimes it seems as though my own doubts are mirrored in her.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Fatma. ‘Everything will come out all right by itself. The fire that now consumes you and Dahlia will stop burning some day, and, when the time comes, between the two of us too, maybe, but it won’t matter. I’m not dreaming of living with you as husband and wife, though it’s quite an attractive possibility.’

  Fatma smiled, and quickly added, ‘But I suppose it’s impossible, isn’t it? Or maybe if your father dies? I know the way a man must act to overcome a girl’s hesitation,’ she said, after a pause, ‘but I’m not going to tell you. I’ll lose you too soon. So you’ll have to find out for yourself.’

  Fatma stood up, pressed her cigarette-butt against the ashtray, bent over, kissed Suryono and went to the door.

  ‘Sleep well!’ she said, and closed the door behind her.

  Yasrin had just finished informing Pranoto that, starting today, he was leaving the journal Pranoto was promoting to work for a people’s cultural periodical which would be launched by a group of his communist friends.

  Pranoto had listened in silence while Yasrin talked.

  ‘Well, what can I say, my friend?’ Pranoto said finally. ‘I fully respect your new convictions. But I’m also deeply sorry that you’re leaving us. Our struggle is certainly far from over – we’ve still a long way to go.

  ‘I suppose I have explained everything clearly enough,’ said Yasrin.

  ‘Oh, yes. I don’t want to quarrel with your decision. But there’s still something I can’t help telling you. You’ve said that our group is nothing but a salon whose members talk about the people in a purely academic way without doing anything about it. Much talk and no action. In contrast, the communists, you say, work among the people. Don’t you see that once we’ve chosen democracy it just can’t be otherwise? We’re not going to force the people to swallow our ideas. We can only inform them of these ideas and hope that people will gradually understand, accept and make these ideas their own. Therein lies the strength of democracy, but its weakness as well. But once we are determined to follow the democratic way we must have the courage to accept both its strengths and its weaknesses.’

  ‘That’s where I disagree with you,’ said Yasrin. ‘As I see it, all this is merely a pretence to cover up your incapacity to work among the people.’

  ‘Look!’ said Pranoto. ‘What do the cultural activities promoted by the communists amount to? They send our young painters and writers to all sorts of festivals in communist countries, and when they come home they write glowing reports about the cultural activities there. What good does this do our people?’

  ‘That’s because, unlike the bourgeois clique, we’re not in power yet,’ Yasrin answered.

  Pranoto smiled.

  ‘Well, there’s no use in our arguing about it here,’ Yasrin then said.

  Yasrin’s leaving their club created a little stir among Pranoto’s friends. Some denounced him, some approved his action. One comment was, ‘At least he has the courage to choose sides.’ And someone else observed rather cynically, ‘Ah, all he wants is the thousand-rupiah salary. It’s all the same to Yasrin whether it comes from Indonesia’s pocket, from Peking, from the Kremlin or from Washington. All he sees are ten hundred-rupiah notes.’

  City Report

  ‘I suggest, gentlemen, that you settle it amicably between yourselves. Why make a case of it?’ said the police commissary to the two men who sat at his desk.

  ‘But I have the proper permit for the house,’ said Abdul Manap. He took a housing-bureau certificate from his briefcase. ‘Brother Suparto here had already occupied the house before I had a chance to move in, though he has no housing permit at all.’

  ‘Our problem is that you’ve been fighting, brothers,’ said the police commissary. ‘But I hope that you’ll be able to make peace.’

  ‘I am willing to make peace if brother Suparto, who has no permit, is prepared to move out,’ Abdul Manap replied.

  ‘I am willing to move out, provided that I am given another place to live,’ said Suparto.

  ‘That’s not my respons
ibility. It must be arranged by the Housing Bureau,’ said the police commissary.

  ‘It’s not my responsibility either,’ said Abdul Manap. ‘So what about the order-to-vacate which the Housing Bureau has issued to brother Suparto? Aren’t you going to enforce it?’

  ‘I’m not going to move out unless I have another place in exchange, even if you shoot me dead,’ said Suparto.

  ‘Ah, don’t talk like this,’ said the police commissary. ‘I didn’t ask you to come here to start fighting again, but to make peace.’

  ‘All I know is that I’ve obtained a legal housing permit, and that I’m going to occupy this house legally. And, if it comes to dying, I’m not afraid of dying either.’

  ‘Easy, easy,’ the police commissary said. ‘I see that both of you gentlemen are still equally excited. There’s no use our continuing this discussion any further as long as you’re in this state. I suggest that you go home now, and that neither of you trespass on the place now occupied by the other until a final decision has been made.’

  ‘Does this mean you’re not going to enforce the order-to-vacate issued by the Housing Bureau?’ asked Abdul Manap.

  ‘Have patience, sir. I’ll take care of it myself. Everything will come out all right.’

  The police commissary stood up, forcing the other two to rise as well, and ushered them out of his room, saying,

  ‘Now let’s all be friends. We’ve all of us got families. Let’s be patient.’

  When the two visitors had left, the commissary took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, wiped his forehead and sighed to the inspector who sat at a desk in one corner of the office,

  ‘I’m sorry, but this is the responsibility of the Housing Bureau. Why don’t they just abolish it?’

  1 Goldfish.

  1 Chinese boss.

  2 Chauffeur.

  3 Organisation to combat illiteracy.

  4 Irrigated rice-fields.

  1 Short for abang, elder brother.

  1 In Indonesian = Gerakan Kebudajaan Rakjat, hence the abbreviation GEKRA.

  1 Sekolah Menengah Atas = ‘Higher Middle School’.

  2 Abbreviated adik, younger brother or sister.

  1 Indo-European, i.e. Eurasian.

  2 Miss, damsel.

  3 Boy, in Dutch.

  December

  HASNAH SAT sewing clothes for her child. According to the doctor she could expect it by the middle of February. She had asked Sugeng to choose two names for the new baby – one in case it were a girl, and the other in case a boy were born to them. They both wanted Maryam to have a baby brother.

  But her joy at the coming of the new child was now often clouded when she thought about her husband and the great change which had taken place in their family life. Their luck in getting a house of their own had not brought all the happiness they had hoped for. On the contrary, doubts kept assailing her. She didn’t enjoy the refrigerator, the large radio set, the electric record-player Sugeng had bought for them. They stirred up all sorts of feelings and questions in her mind. And these feelings and questions were far from comforting.

  She felt more keenly than anything that a kind of estrangement seemed to have grown between her and Sugeng. It had started when Hasnah had asked Sugeng where he had obtained so much money. At first he’d evaded giving her a direct answer, but later, when pressed by Hasnah, he had said that he was now a partner in an import business run by a friend. Hasnah’s uneasiness had been further aggravated in recent months, seeing Sugeng more and more often leaving the house in the evening. When he was still an ordinary official with a rather meagre salary he’d almost never acted this way. Sugeng had of course gone out sometimes in the evening by himself; but then Hasnah knew precisely where he was going – usually to a friend’s house, to chat and gossip while playing chess or bridge. But now Sugeng was gone as early as seven o’clock, sometimes even before having his supper and didn’t get back till midnight or even one in the morning. Considering the advanced stage of her pregnancy, Hasnah suspected that Sugeng’s frequent absences were not necessitated, as he said, by urgent work or the need to attend to some business transactions, but that there was probably a woman. But she carefully concealed these suspicions from Sugeng.

  Hasnah heaved a long sigh, hearing the big clock in the middle room strike one. So it was already one o’clock. In a few minutes Sugeng would be back from the office. The clock was a large upright piece which had cost six thousand rupiah. Hasnah didn’t really like it. She had been quite satisfied with their old bedside alarm-clock. She felt it was just showing off how rich they were to have this useless big clock. But Sugeng had been set on buying it. He had seen one like it in Raden Kaslan’s house – and it looked very beautiful there. Hasnah herself had met Raden Kaslan only once; two weeks ago she and Sugeng had been invited to a party at his house. She had seen Raden Kaslan’s wife – still quite young – had met his son, Suryono, and with her sharp feminine intuition had immediately sensed that things were not right in Raden Kaslan’s family.

  Back home, after the party, Sugeng was just telling her gaily about Raden Kaslan and Suryono, when Hasnah suddenly dampened his animation by observing, ‘I don’t know why, but I didn’t like Raden Kaslan or his family. That hard old man’s a bit too slippery. His tone of voice and laughter don’t ring true. His wife doesn’t seem to pay any attention to her husband at all. And his son is woman-crazy, I think!’

  Hasnah put her sewing down on the table and went into the kitchen to see to the food. In the old days she used to cook on charcoal braziers and sometimes her eyes smarted from the smoke while she fanned the flame; but now she had a modern gas-cooker, costing no less than seven thousand five hundred rupiah, complete with oven. But Hasnah didn’t enjoy cooking in her modern kitchen as much as when she had to squat down to fan the fire. Now two babus were working in the kitchen, and all she had to do was to give orders. And of course to light the gas, you didn’t need anyone to blow! After making sure the meal would be ready in time for Sugeng when he got in, Hasnah went back to the middle room and then into her bedroom.

  All the furniture there was new. But Hasnah’s sadness at parting with their old familiar furnishings had far outweighed her pleasure in getting this new elegant bedroom-set. And now Sugeng kept saying that as soon as he could afford to stop working as an official he’d buy a car immediately.

  ‘If I should buy a car now, while still a civil servant, people would be saying all sorts of nasty things,’ Sugeng had said.

  Hasnah had made no reply then; she didn’t want to tell Sugeng that among themselves his friends had been discussing their new prosperity for quite a while now. Even Hasnah’s friend Dahlia, when she’d visited them in their new home, had said to her,

  ‘Aduh, your husband’s got very smart at making money. Not like my husband, Hasnah. He keeps telling me that a government official must be honest. And no matter how many examples I show him of honest officials living in misery nowadays, he still wants to stay honest. He says the time will come when righteousness will come to our country and those who stay honest will have their reward. Isn’t he stupid, though? If I weren’t smart enough to make some money on my own …’

  Hasnah had felt as though Dahlia was beating her, blow after blow, that her heart was almost breaking with mortification. She couldn’t say a single word. For quite some time she had felt sure that Sugeng must be doing something wrong to get that much money. But she hadn’t had a chance to broach the question to Sugeng again. The last time she had asked him how he made the money Sugeng had said,

  ‘Why do you keep on asking, Hasnah – what’s the use? Isn’t it enough for you to be getting so much every month now?’

  And when Hasnah had insisted further,

  ‘Hasnah, if you think that I’m making this money in some improper way, you must realise that I’m doing it for you. You yourself begged me to do it. Don’t you remember giving me a sort of ultimatum, that if you were to have the child we must have a house of our own?’

/>   So she had been silent, unable to answer. Deep down in her heart she admitted the possibility that it was she who had been at fault pushing Sugeng into doing something that was wrong. Perhaps she had insisted too strongly on having a house to themselves. But she’d never expected that Sugeng would get in so deep. And besides, even when she begged for a house, she’d never asked to live in luxury. What she’d imagined was just a house all to themselves, not shared with anyone else, no matter how small, no matter where – even in an alley. A table and chairs bought from a roadside pedlar would have been quite good enough. And she’d have made the little house beautiful just with the radiance of her love as a wife and a mother.

  Hasnah had decided then to pray to the Lord that He might protect Sugeng and save their family. Forgive me, oh, Lord, she had prayed in her heart. And then she began blaming herself. Aduh, what have I done to Sugeng to make him like this? I’m to blame, I am the guilty one.

  She was startled as she heard the sound of a car horn blowing in front of the house. She stepped outside, and what she had guessed in a flash proved true. With a broad smile, Sugeng, sitting in a car, was pressing the horn and opening the door for Maryam who had come running, dropping her toys. Hasnah forced herself to smile.

  ‘Has, you may congratulate me now. I’ve been given permission to resign from the service starting with the end of the month, but from tomorrow I won’t have to go to work any more. I was expecting this, and picked up this car at once. Now we’re importers. I’m a director of the Mas Mulia1 Corporation. Ayoh, step in, let’s try it out!’

  Hasnah got into the car and Sugeng drove out of their yard. Maryam was squealing with pleasure.

  ‘Aduh, Lord, protect my husband,’ Hasnah prayed in her heart as the car swung on to the roadway. ‘I am the guilty one, it’s me that made him become like this!’