Twilight in Djakarta

by Mochtar Lubis

  Laughing, Sugeng said to Maryam,

  ‘Isn’t your papa’s car beautiful?’

  Murhalim was looking out of the window of a G.I.A.2 plane flying over Sumatra on his return trip from Padang to Djakarta. He had spent a week organising meetings of the newly established Indonesian Islamic Youth Corps. He felt very satisfied with the whole trip. Especially with his meeting with Achmad, who, as a communist activist, had come from Djakarta to strengthen communist influence in Central Sumatra. They had spent a night in the same hotel. And Achmad had boasted that the meeting he was organising on the same day as Murhalim’s would draw a far greater crowd. For the fun of it, they made a bet of twenty-five rupiah. And Murhalim smiled, remembering how Achmad laid down his twenty-five rupiah, admitting defeat. The communist meeting had been a complete flop. Only about fifty people at most had turned up. On the other hand, according to a newspaper estimate, the meeting Murhalim had organised had attracted no less than eight thousand. This event had caused such a stir that several newspapers had carried the news, comparing the attendance of the two meetings.

  Murhalim remembered how that evening at supper-time Achmad had said, after paying his debt,

  ‘But all this still doesn’t prove that the people understand what you’re telling them.’

  Murhalim laughed.

  ‘Achmad,’ he said, ‘you communists always make the same mistake. You look at people as though they were cattle, or machines you can manipulate any way you want. It’s not enough for men to have a full stomach every day. They also have a soul. You don’t admit that the human soul has a life of its own. The communist is an incomplete human being, because he’s trained and conditioned to live only in a materialistic world. Human life is rich and varied, it’s like a woven fabric with multi-coloured designs: man can love God, he can love his family, he longs to create eternal values – beauty, justice, truth and so forth.’

  ‘Ah, that’s a lot of nonsense,’ Achmad replied. ‘These are the ideas of your decadent bourgeoisie. It seems as though you just won’t admit that religion is a socio-political factor, and that the history of religion, whether Christian or Moslem, has demonstrated its essentially reactionary and anti-popular nature. All through human history, religion has always been inseparably connected with enslavement and exploitation by the feudatory and capitalist classes. Look how the Spaniards in spreading the Catholic religion plundered, burnt and ravished the Indians in Mexico, for instance; and how in our own country the Dutch came bringing priests and the cross to help them consolidate their domination.’

  ‘If your communist theory is true, how do you explain so many adherents of Christianity and so many Islamic leaders joining the vanguard of our revolution …?’

  ‘Ah, but what are they doing now for the people? Nothing! Don’t you see?’ parried Achmad. ‘And as for Islamic religious leaders, don’t you know that Islam is a faith invented by bourgeois Arab traders – you can see for yourself what Islam means in the Arab countries. All through the ages the masses have always been maltreated, while the feudal cliques lived in extravagant luxury, and now look how many of our own Islamic leaders are in the race to get rich.’

  ‘Ah, there’s no use our debating this now, it’ll lead us nowhere,’ Murhalim answered, smiling. ‘You will never accept the fact that God exists, that the evils perpetrated in the name of religion do not mean that the religion itself is either evil or wrong, but that it’s men who commit wrongdoings and evil, and that there’s no connection between their behaviour and the religion they profess to follow. Religious people who perpetrate deeds forbidden by the Lord break the prescriptions of their own religion, and they deceive themselves if they continue to claim to be religious.’

  ‘That’s an easy way out, to dissociate religion from the corruption we see all round us nowadays,’ Achmad retorted.

  ‘Many Moslems feel the need to renew and purify the spirit of Islam, to bring it into harmony with the teaching contained in the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith of the Prophet Mohammed,’ Murhalim answered.

  ‘Ah, you’re still the same,’ Achmad replied. ‘You don’t believe in the progress of human thought.’

  ‘The greater the progress in human thought, the stronger man’s conviction that God exists,’ Murhalim retorted. ‘Look at the history of man’s development – at first he had no belief at all; then he began to worship fire, then trees, stones, spirits, gods and finally the one and only God.’

  Achmad only laughed.

  Murhalim looked out of the window again. Below him spread tall and steep mountain ranges, valleys in greens and yellows, and from time to time the brilliant light of the sun flashed on the surface of streams which gleamed in their winding course below. A yellowish-white road stretched through the countryside. From above it looked like a fine, smooth road. But Murhalim knew how it was in reality: murderous for vehicles, full of pot-holes, deteriorating with every passing year, never repaired and like a thorn in the people’s flesh penetrating deeper and getting more painful all the time. And Murhalim recalled the typical resentment of an inhabitant of the region just back from Java who had told him that he had seen how the excellent paved highway between Bogor and Tjipanas was being further widened and improved, while the roads in his region were not being repaired at all. Let alone reconstruction of completely ruined roads, he complained, there isn’t even any maintenance to speak of on the passable ones.

  He’d experienced it himself as a passenger in a car which took over twenty minutes to cover a distance of five kilometres because the whole road was full of holes. Murhalim felt strongly what terrible mistakes the government leadership of Indonesia had been making. The sources of Indonesia’s strength lay with the people of the regions outside of Java. And yet they were the most neglected and maladministered of all. Hundreds of millions were divided up at the Centre among the party big-shots for buying or setting up some large enterprises, but year after year a few pitiful tens of thousands for a small clinic ‘couldn’t be spared’. He recalled the words of a bupati1 who had said to him, ‘We regional people are treated like beggars. All we can do is beg from the central government. If the Centre has pity on us we get something, if not, well – it can’t be helped!’

  Murhalim had also heard younger people voicing their dissatisfaction with the Centre with much greater vehemence. There were some who were plainly threatening rebellion, they were just going to establish their own republic. And because the Centre was located in Java, many showed anti-Javanese feelings.

  ‘It’s our people who earn the foreign exchange, but it’s spent by the Javanese,’ someone had said. And Murhalim had answered that it was not the Javanese, or the people in the island of Java who were the enemies of the regional people, but the leaders now in power who were mismanaging the country. And though some of these leaders were Javanese, they also included some local leaders from their own region. The problem was not one of the outer regions versus Java, but of getting a responsible leadership for the state, one capable of furthering the country’s development.

  But, as he’d seen, it was difficult to convince his friends in Sumatra that this was the basic problem. Murhalim had promised to transmit their feelings and opinions to the leaders in Djakarta, even while he knew that he could not persuade them to attend seriously to these regional problems. At most, he thought, it would go in one ear and out the other.

  And suddenly Murhalim felt as though he were utterly powerless, no more than an ant. Here I am, he thought, already thirty-four years old, still unmarried, with no permanent occupation. He began to think about the divisions among the Islamic groups, how backward they were, and how important it was for the Moslem community in Indonesia to be stirred by the dynamism of true Islam. There was too much to do and too few people capable of doing it. Murhalim remembered that he had often been disturbed by a dream of a solitary man in a boat, straining at the oars until his strength gave out, overcome by weakness, unable any longer to fight the rushing current and his boat beginning to drift dow
nstream ….

  And Murhalim uttered, ‘Ashadu allah illa haillallah waashaduana Muhamadrasullullah!…’2

  Suryono leaned back on his seat in his car, closed his eyes and held Iesye’s hand. At his side Iesye leaned on his shoulder, looking out over the sea, its rolling black waves breaking into whiteness on the dark-brown sand. The strong wind felt fresh on Iesye’s cheek, and the sky above was studded with stars. ‘Mood music’, as Suryono called it, had been streaming from the car’s radio for some time now. Momentarily the interior of the car was lit up by the headlights of another car which was turning round to park nearby. The end of the road leading from the Tandjong Priok Yacht Club was crowded with cars that night. In some of them couples kept embracing and kissing, paying no attention to the cars close by and stopping only when the headlights of a passing car suddenly shone in on them. The saté1 vendors were doing a brisk business on the beach. And the night wind was heavy with the scents of saté spices.

  Iesye looked at Suryono’s face. He attracted her strongly at that moment. She had an impulse to discard all her doubts and plunge into bliss with Suryono. His face was handsome. The thin moustache accentuated his full lips, though upon closer examination the lines of that well-shaped mouth also showed weakness; it was not the mouth of a strong man, but the sensuous mouth of a man enslaved by his passions.

  But neither the lines of that weak mouth nor the shape of Suryono’s chin, which was rather pointed, disturbed Ies at that moment. Unconsciously, her hand slipped out of Suryono’s and her fingers sank into his wavy hair, slowly winding and unwinding it. Suryono growled as though he were a satisfied tiger.

  ‘If only you’d do this with my hair every day,’ he said, without opening his eyes. ‘Aduh, I’m really happy tonight.’

  He took Ies’s neck, drew her head towards his own until their mouths met and Ies, forgetting herself for a moment, let Suryono kiss her mouth, answered his kisses. But the next moment she pulled herself up, deftly withdrawing her lips from Suryono’s kiss.

  ‘Why, Ies? More!’ Suryono begged.

  ‘There’s a car coming,’ Ies said, as an excuse.

  Suryono, giving in, removed his hand from Ies’s neck, embraced her shoulder with his left hand and then his hand slipped downwards and his fingers pressed her breast.

  Ies pulled his hand away, saying,

  ‘Don’t, Yon!’

  ‘Ah, why are you like this tonight?’ Suryono asked, opening his eyes. ‘Such a romantic night, romantic music, you can hear the waves whispering on the beach, and I’m here, and you don’t want to. Why?’

  Suryono sat up and looked at Ies.

  ‘I don’t understand you, Ies,’ he then said. ‘Sometimes you want to and let me do it, but sometimes I feel you don’t want it, as though you really disliked my holding or kissing you.’

  Suryono looked at Ies with a peeved expression, displeased but restraining his annoyance.

  In such moments his mouth seemed to droop, and his face betrayed more clearly the weakness of his character. And suddenly, as though a pitch-dark place had been lit up in a flash by a bright lamp, Ies seemed able to see deep into the recesses of Suryono’s soul, see through his face, through his wavy hair, through his love-filled words and what she saw made Ies shiver as though she were gripped by a fever. And at the same time she was overcome by pity for Suryono. Now she knew why she’d been wavering all this time, back and forth, and she now knew what her answer would be were Suryono to speak. With her feminine intuition she had sensed Suryono’s state of mind and knew that tonight he would propose to her. And Ies now felt relieved, strong and confident in herself. All her doubts were gone. And for some unknown reason she suddenly thought of Pranoto. But she could not keep her thoughts on Pranoto because Suryono spoke.

  ‘Ies, I want to tell you something!’

  Knowing what she would have to tell him, Ies felt sorry for Suryono, and so she said gently,

  ‘Yes, Yon?’

  The softness in her voice conveyed something different to Suryono, and sure of his victory he embraced Ies’s shoulder, saying,

  ‘Ies, I love you. Let’s get married!’

  Suryono tried to draw Ies to himself and kiss her, but Ies, freeing herself of his embrace and moving away a bit, said gently,

  ‘I am sorry, Yon, but I cannot!’

  Suryono, completely surprised by her refusal, did not believe what he had heard. He put his hand back on her shoulder, and again trying to draw Ies close to himself said,

  ‘You’re joking! It’s not true that you don’t want to. Don’t you love me?’ The possibility that Ies didn’t love him was inconceivable. After all this time of intimacy … after the embraces and kisses … and now Ies saying that she didn’t want to marry him, didn’t love him ….

  ‘Forgive me, Yon,’ Ies said, ‘but I’ve pondered it deeply. You and I – we don’t suit each other. Be friends – yes; but marry … I’m not convinced we’d be happy together.’

  Suryono abruptly pushed a radio button and a voice resounded in the stillness of the car, a voice telling of a bewildered heart, not understanding, having lost everything it had believed till now to be true.

  ‘I don’t understand!’

  And then, deep below his consciousness, his male pride, hurt by Ies’s repudiation, began to smart, and as it rose to the surface Suryono felt that now more than ever he loved Ies, even infinitely more than before; that without Ies he couldn’t live, and that he would gladly do anything at all if only it would get him Ies. And all these feelings led him to cunning. He felt that Ies would withdraw further were he to press her more strongly, so he changed his tactics.

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Ies,’ he said. ‘Forgive me if I’ve hurt you. I’ve offended you. I know that I’m nothing, a man without any status, as a merchant a mere beginner, there’s nothing I can offer you but my love.’

  ‘Ah, it’s not because of status or wealth that I refuse ….’

  ‘I love you, Ies, without you I cannot live. Give me some clue – why won’t you have me?’

  Ies looked at Suryono. Were she not as fully aware of Suryono’s true character as she was, this was the moment when she’d have surrendered to him. His face gave the impression of absolute honesty, as though he really meant what he was saying – that without Ies he really couldn’t live on, as though without Ies his life would remain empty for ever, and that never again would he relish good laughter or have any zest for life.

  ‘Without you my life will be utter desolation for ever,’ he was saying.

  ‘Do you want me to be quite frank?’ Ies asked.

  Still hoping to win her, Suryono said,

  ‘That’s what I want. Out of love I can bear whatever you may say.’

  ‘Yon, I’m full of doubts about you because you are full of doubts yourself. One moment I see one kind of Suryono, the next another Suryono appears, and later there is still another Suryono. I really don’t know with which of these Suryonos I’m dealing. Also, the quick way you get rich scares me.’

  Suryono was quiet. Inwardly he admitted that what Ies had said was right. For hadn’t he recently been increasingly driven by doubts and premonitions, as if a disaster were to overtake him any minute? And his sleep was filled with frightful nightmares. In his dreams he would drive a car, alone or with Ies, or with Fatma, or with Dahlia, and while going at top speed he’d suddenly feel that the car was out of control. He’d try to step hard on the brakes but they wouldn’t function and the car would keep rushing onwards; his heart would be gripped by terror as the car headed either for an abyss, or towards an inevitable collision with another car, or into a crowd … and he would scream, and wake up bathed in sweat. And when he realised that it had been only a dream, that he was in his bed at home, he would be filled with relief and glad of his safety, only to be beset the next moment with doubts and questions as to the meaning of the dream.

  While remembering all this, the expression of his face was like that of a child who’d lost his way, so that
Ies, who was watching him, felt great pity. And if Suryono had stayed quiet just a few minutes longer Ies might easily have changed her mind, her emotion getting the better of her reason. But Suryono decided to strengthen his case by making use of what Ies had said about himself.

  ‘What you’re saying is true, Ies,’ he said. ‘I’ve been bewildered for quite some time now, full of questions and doubts as to where I belonged in the struggle our people are waging. Sometimes I hear the ringing call of 1945, but then I’m filled with disgust watching the doings of those who claim to be our fighters and I am seized by indifference. Wouldn’t you help me find myself again?’

  The last phrase struck Ies as empty, meaningless, and strengthened her resolve to refuse Suryono.

  ‘Yon,’ she said, ‘it’s no use.’

  From the tone of her voice Suryono at last understood that whatever he might say or do would not reverse Ies’s decision. Resentment, anger and spite rose in him and, looking at Ies, he was gripped by an irresistible desire to subject her, to avenge her repudiation of him. He looked at Ies, and her whole body excited his passion beyond control. He threw his arms around the girl, pressed his body against hers, his mouth seeking her lips.

  Ies shook her head, and said,

  ‘Don’t, Yon, don’t, I don’t want to!’

  But Suryono didn’t listen. His hand reached for Ies’s breast. Ies tried to resist. They wrestled silently in the car. Ies was about to scream when Suryono suddenly released her, sat up behind the wheel, started the motor, backed up a little and swung the car towards the highway.

  ‘All right, I’ll take you home,’ he said abruptly.

  Ies didn’t know it, but while they were struggling Suryono had spotted a patrol of three policemen on bicycles who were admonishing people who were making love in the other cars.

  They were both silent during the whole trip to Ies’s home. In front of her house Suryono cried,