The Hidden Force

by Louis Couperus

  Finally Van Oudijck himself arrived, his resolute step approaching swiftly, as if he were eating briefly before returning to work. All three sat down without a word and spooned up their soup.

  “What time is Mama arriving tomorrow?” asked Theo.

  “At eleven-thirty,” replied Van Oudijck, and turning to his personal servant behind him, said: “Kario, don’t forget that the mistress must be collected from the station at eleven-thirty tomorrow.”

  “Yes, kanjeng,” whispered Kario.

  A fish dish was served.

  “Doddy,” said Van Oudijck. “Who were you at the gate with just now?”

  Doddy, taken aback, slowly looked at her father, her eyes sparkling.

  “At… the gate?… No one… With Theo maybe.”

  “Were you with your sister at the gate?” asked Van Oudijck.

  The young man’s thick blond brows creased.

  “It’s possible… I don’t know… can’t remember…”

  All three were silent. They ate their way hurriedly through dinner in an air of boredom. Five or six servants, in white jackets with red linen facings, moved about softly with their flat-toed gait, serving quickly and silently. The meal continued with steak and salad, and pudding and fruit.

  “Nothing but steak…” grumbled Theo.

  “Yes, that cook!” said Doddy with her throaty laugh. “She always serves steak when Mama’s not here; she couldn’t care less when Mama’s not here. She has no imagination. It’s too bad…”

  Twenty minutes later they had finished eating, after which Van Oudijck went back to his office. Doddy and Theo strolled to the front of the house.

  “Boring…” said Doddy with a yawn. “Come on, shall we have a game of billiards?”

  In the first inner gallery, behind the satin curtain, was a small billiard table.

  “Come on then,” said Theo.

  They began to play.

  “Why was I supposed to have been with you at the gate?”

  “Oh… really!” said Doddy.

  “Well, why?”

  “Papa don’t need know.”

  “Who were you with, then? Addy?”

  “Of course!” said Doddy. “Is band playing tonight?”

  “I think so.”

  “Come on, let’s go, yes?”

  “No, I don’t feel like it.”

  “Oh, why ever not?”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Are you coming?”

  “No.”

  “With Mama you would, no?” said Doddy angrily. “I know that very well. You always go to band with Mama.”

  “What do you know… you little madam!”

  “What do I know?” she laughed. “What do I know? I know what I know.”

  “Eh?” he said teasingly, with a crude attempt to catch her on the rebound. “You and Addy, eh?”

  “Well, and what about you and Mama…”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “You’re crazy,” he said.

  “No need hide from me! Anyway, everyone says.”

  “Let them say.”

  “It’s really bad of you, though!”

  “Oh, go to hell…”

  He threw down his cue angrily and marched off. She followed him.

  “Look, Theo… don’t be angry. Do come with me to band.”

  “No.”

  “I won’t say any more,” she cajoled sweetly.

  She was frightened that he would stay angry, and then she would have no one at all; then she would be bored to death.

  “I promised Addy, and I can’t go alone…”

  “Well, if you don’t say such stupid things again…”

  “Yes, I promise. Theo dear, come on then…”

  She was already in the garden.

  Van Oudijck appeared on the threshold of his office, the door of which was always open, but which was cut off from the inner gallery by a large screen.

  “Doddy!” he called out.

  “Yes, Papa?”

  “Would you make sure there are some flowers in Mama’s room tomorrow?”

  His voice was almost embarrassed and he was blushing.

  Doddy suppressed her giggles.

  “All right, Papa… I’ll make sure.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  “With Theo… to hear band.”

  Van Oudijck flushed with anger.

  “To the band? You might ask me first!” he cried in sudden fury.

  Doddy pouted.

  “I don’t like your going out without my knowing where. This afternoon, too, you had gone out when I wanted to go for a walk with you.”

  “Well, suda, that’s that then,” said Doddy, crying.

  “You can go,” said Van Oudijck, “but I want you to ask me first.”

  “No, I don’t feel like going any more!” Doddy wept. “That’s the end of it. No band.”

  In the distance, in the garden of the Concordia club, they could already hear the first sounds.

  Van Oudijck had go back to work. Doddy and Theo threw themselves into two rocking chairs in the front garden and rocked madly, gliding across the smooth marble in the chairs.

  “Come on,” said Theo. “Let’s get going. Addy’s waiting for you.”

  “No,” she sulked. “Don’t care two hoots. Tomorrow I shall tell Addy. Papa so horrid. He’s spoiling my fun. And… I’m not putting any flowers in Mama’s room.”

  Theo sniggered.

  “Say,” whispered Doddy. “That Papa… hey? So in love, always. He was blushing when he asked me about those flowers.”

  Theo sniggered again, and hummed along to the distant music.

  3

  THE NEXT MORNING at eleven-thirty Theo went to collect his stepmother from the station in the landau. Van Oudijck, who at that time usually dealt with police business, had not said anything to his son, but when, from his office, he saw Theo getting into the landau and driving off, he thought it was nice of the lad. He had adored Theo as a child, had continued to spoil him as a boy, and had often clashed with him as a young man, but still the old paternal passion often flared up. At this moment he loved his son more than Doddy, who was still sulking that morning and had not put any flowers in his wife’s room, so he’d had to instruct Kario to provide some. He was now sorry that he hadn’t spoken a kind word to Theo for days and resolved to do so in the very near future. The lad was volatile: in three years he had been employed by at least five coffee companies; at present he was again out of work and was hanging around at home looking for something to occupy him.

  At the station, Theo waited only a few minutes before the train from Surabaya arrived. He saw Mrs Van Oudijck at once, with her personal maid Urip and the two little boys, René and Ricus, who unlike himself were dark-skinned, and whom she had brought with her from Batavia for their long holidays.

  Theo helped his stepmother off the train as the stationmaster stepped up to greet her respectfully. She nodded in reply with her unique smile, like a benevolent queen. With the same ambivalent smile she allowed her stepson to kiss her on the cheek. A tall woman, white, blond, in her thirties, with the languid elegance of women born in the Indies of European parents, she had a quality that immediately attracted attention. It lay in her white skin, her milky complexion, her very light blond hair and her eyes that were a strange grey colour, and which sometimes narrowed momentarily and always had an ambiguous expression. It lay in her eternal smile, sometimes sweet and engaging, and often intolerable, irritating. At first one couldn’t tell whether there was anything hidden beneath that look and that smile—any depth, any soul—or if it was nothing but looking and smiling, both with the same slight ambivalence. However, one soon noticed her smiling, non-committal indifference, as if she didn’t care even if the heavens fell, as if she would greet such an event with a smile. She walked slowly, dressed in a pink piqué skirt and a bolero, a white satin ribbon around her waist, and a white sailor hat with a white satin bow; her summer travel outfit was very smar
t compared with that of some of the other ladies on the platform, strolling along in stiffly starched wrap-arounds—like nightdresses—and tulle hats topped with feathers! The only touch of the Indies in her extremely European appearance that distinguished her from a woman newly arrived from Holland was perhaps her slow gait, that languid elegance. Theo had offered her his arm and she allowed herself to be conducted to the carriage—“the coach”—followed by the two little dark-skinned brothers. She had been away for two months.

  She had a nod and a smile for the stationmaster, a glance for the coachman and the groom, and took her seat slowly, languidly, still smiling, like a white sultan’s wife. The three stepsons followed her; the maid travelled behind in a cart. Mrs Van Oudijck glanced outside and felt that Labuwangi looked exactly the same as ever. But she said nothing. She withdrew slowly and leant back. She exuded a certain contentment, but most of all a glowing, smiling indifference, as if nothing could affect her, as if she were protected by a strange power. There was something strong about this woman, whose power derived from her pure indifference: she had an invulnerable quality. She looked as if life had no hold over her, not over her appearance and not over her soul. As if she were incapable of suffering, her smile so content because for her there was no such thing as disease, suffering, poverty or misery. She had an aura of radiant egoism. And yet she was mostly amiable. She generally charmed, won people over because she was so pretty. Whatever else people might say about her, this woman, with her glittering self-satisfaction, was loved. When she spoke, when she laughed, she was disarming. Indeed, she was engaging. This was despite and—perhaps—precisely because of her unfathomable indifference. She was interested only in her own body and in her own soul; everything else, everything else was indifferent to her. Incapable of giving anything of her soul, she had never felt for anyone but herself, but she smiled so harmoniously and winningly that people always found her amiable, adorable. Perhaps it was because of the line of her cheeks, the strange ambiguity in her look, her indelible smile, the grace of her figure, the sound of her voice and words, always so appropriate. If people at first found her insufferable she seemed not to notice and, on the contrary, became even more engaging. If people were jealous, she again seemed not to notice and was full of praise; whether intuitively or indifferently she couldn’t care less what someone else considered a defect in themselves. She could admire with the sweetest expression an outfit that she considered ghastly, and from pure indifference she did not change her opinion later but stuck by her admiration. Her boundless indifference was her main source of vitality. She had become accustomed to doing whatever she felt like doing, and she did it with a smile. However people talked behind her back, she remained so proper, so enchanting, that people forgave her. She was not loved while she was not present, but the moment people saw her, they were completely won over again. Her husband worshipped her, her stepchildren—she had no children of her own—couldn’t help loving her, involuntarily, despite themselves; her servants were all under her spell. She never raised her voice; she gave a brief order and it was carried out. If something went wrong, if something got broken, her smile would fade momentarily… and that was all. And if her own spiritual and physical interests were in danger, she was usually able to avert it and settle things as advantageously as possible, her smile barely fading. She had wrapped her personal well-being so closely around her that she was usually in full control. Nothing seemed to weigh on this woman. Her indifference was utterly radiant—without contempt, without envy, without emotion: her indifference was, simply, indifference. And the seemingly effortless tact with which she lived and controlled her life was so great that if she were to lose everything she now possessed—her beauty or her position, for example—she might still perhaps have retained her indifference, her inability to suffer.

  The carriage drove into the District Commissioner’s compound, just as the hearing of the police cases began. The Javanese magistrate was already in Van Oudijck’s office: the magistrate and the police attendants led the procession of the accused. The natives held on to each other by the hem of their jackets and tripped along, but the few women among them walked by themselves; under a banyan tree, at some distance from the steps leading to the office, they all crouched down expectantly. An attendant, hearing the clock on the front veranda, rang twelve-thirty on the large bell at the attendants’ lodge. The loud stroke reverberated through the scorching midday heat like a bronze organ reed. But Van Oudijck had heard the carriage trundling along and made the magistrate wait while he went to meet his wife. His face brightened. He kissed her tenderly, effusively, and enquired how she was. He was happy to see the boys again. And, remembering what he had been thinking about Theo, he had a kind word for his eldest child, too. Doddy, still sulking, kissed her mama, who allowed herself to be kissed, while smiling with equanimity and calmly returning the kisses, without warmth or coolness, but just doing what was required of her. It was plain to see that her husband, Theo and Doddy all admired her. They told her how well she looked; Doddy asked where she had got her nice travelling outfit. In her room Léonie saw the flowers and, knowing it was Van Oudijck who always ensured they were there, she stroked his arm briefly.

  The Commissioner went back to his office, where a magistrate was waiting; the hearing began. Pushed along by a police guard, the accused came and squatted on the threshold of the office, while the magistrate squatted on a mat and the District Commissioner sat at his desk. As the first case was being heard, Van Oudijck continued listening to his wife’s voice in the central gallery, while the accused defended himself with a loud cry:

  “No, no!”

  The Commissioner frowned and listened attentively…

  In the central gallery the voices fell silent. Mrs Van Oudijck had gone to change into a sarong and a loose jacket for the rijsttafel lunch, consisting of mixed dishes served with rice. She wore the garments coquettishly: a sarong from Solo, a transparent jacket, jewelled brooches, and white leather slippers with white bows. She had just dressed when Doddy came to her door and said:

  “Mama, Mama… Mrs Van Does is here!”

  The smile faded for a second: the soft eyes darkened…

  “I’ll be right there, dear…”

  `But she sat down and Urip, her personal maid, sprinkled perfume on her handkerchief. Mrs Van Oudijck stretched out and mused a little in the languidness that followed her journey. She found Labuwangi desperately dull after Batavia, where she had stayed for two months with friends and family, free and with no obligations. Here, as the Commissioner’s wife, she had a few, even though she delegated most to the secretary’s wife. Deep down, she was tired, out of humour, discontent. Despite her complete indifference she was human enough to have her spells of depression, in which she cursed everything. Then she longed suddenly to do something crazy, she longed, vaguely, for Paris… She would never let anyone see that. She could control herself, and now, too, she controlled herself before she reappeared. Her vague, bacchantic longing melted into indolence. She stretched out more comfortably, her eyes almost closed. Through her almost superhuman indifference there occasionally wound a strange fantasy, hidden from the world. What she most wanted to do was to live a life of perfumed imagination in her room, especially after her time in Batavia… After such a period of perverse indulgence she needed to give free rein to her wandering imagination and let it curl and float cloudlike before her eyes. In her otherwise entirely arid soul it was like an unreal blossoming of blue flowers, which she cultivated with the only sentiment she would ever be able to feel. She had no feeling for any human being, but she felt for those flowers. She loved daydreaming like this. What she would have liked to be, if she didn’t have to be who she was… The clouds of fantasy rose: she saw a white palace and Cupids everywhere…

  “Mama, do come on! It’s Mrs Van Does, Mrs Van Does with two jars…”

  It was Doddy at the door. Léonie got up and went to the rear veranda, where the Eurasian lady, the wife of the local postmaster, was
sitting. She kept cows and sold milk. But she also dealt in other goods. She was fat, with a brownish complexion and a protruding stomach; she wore a very simple jacket with a narrow piece of lace over it, and her podgy hands stroked her paunch. In front of her, on the table, she had two jars in which something was sparkling. Mrs Van Oudijck wondered vaguely whether it was sugar or crystal, when she suddenly remembered…

  Mrs Van Does said she was glad to see her back. Two months away from Labuwangi. “Too bad that, Mrs Van Oudijck, wasn’t it?” And she pointed to the jars. Mrs Van Oudijck smiled. What was it?

  With an air of mystery Mrs Van Does placed a fat, limp, backward-curling forefinger against one of the jars and said in a whisper:

  “Diamonds!”

  “Are they?” asked Mrs Van Oudijck.

  Doddy stared wide-eyed and Theo looked on in amusement at the two jars.

  “Yes… You know, from that lady… I told you about… She won’t give her name. Kassian, poor soul. Her husband was once a big noise, and now… she’s so unhappy; she hasn’t a penny. All gone. All she has are these two jars. She had all her jewels removed and keeps the stones in here. They’ve all been counted. She’s entrusting them to me, to sell them. Because of my dairy business I have lots of contacts. You’d like to see them, wouldn’t you, Mrs Van Oudijck? Beautiful stones! The Commissioner will buy them for you, now you’ve come home… Doddy, give me a black cloth, velvet would be best.”

  Doddy got the seamstress to look for a piece of black velvet in a cupboard full of sewing clutter. A boy brought in tamarind syrup and ice. Mrs Van Does, with a pair of tweezers between her double-jointed fingers, placed a few stones carefully on the velvet…

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I ask you, look at that quality, Mrs Van Oudijck! Magnificent!”

  Mrs Van Oudijck looked. She smiled sweetly and said in her soft voice: “That stone is imitation, dear lady.”

  “Imitation?” screeched Mrs Van Does. “Imitation?”

  Mrs Van Oudijck looked at the other stones.

  “And those others, Mrs Van Does…”—she bent over intently, and then said as sweetly as possible, “Those others… are… imitation, too…”