The Hidden Force

by Louis Couperus

  “Oh yes… more jealous, more superstitious, more nervous… What more do you want?…”

  “Physically… haven’t I changed physically?…”

  “No.”

  “Haven’t I aged… Aren’t I getting wrinkles?”

  “You? Never.”

  “Do you know… I think I’ve got a whole future ahead of me… Something completely different…”

  “In Paris?”

  “Perhaps… Tell me, aren’t I too old?”

  “For what?”

  “For Paris… How old do you think I am?

  “Twenty-five.”

  “You’re fibbing: you know perfectly well that I’m thirty-two… Do I look thirty-two?”

  “No, no…”

  “Tell me, don’t you think the Indies is a rotten country… You’ve never been to Europe, have you?”

  “No…”

  “I only between the ages of ten and fifteen… Actually you’re a brown colonial and I’m white colonial…”

  “I love my country.”

  “Yes, because you think you’re some kind of Solo prince. That’s your absurd delusion in Pajaram… I, I hate the Indies… I spit on Labuwangi. I want to get out. I have to go to Paris. Will you come with me?”

  “I’d never want to…”

  “Not even if you consider that there are hundreds of women in Europe that you’ve never had?…”

  He looked at her: something in her words, in her voice made him look up, a deranged, hysterical note, that had never struck him in the past, when she had always been the silently passionate lover, eyes half-closed, who immediately afterwards wanted to forget and become propriety itself. Something in her repelled him: he liked the supple, soft yielding of her embrace, with something indolent and smiling—as she used to be—not these half-crazed eyes and purple mouth, ready to bite. It was as if she could feel it, because she suddenly pushed him away, and said brusquely: “You bore me… I know you inside out. Go away…”

  But he didn’t want to; he didn’t like a rendezvous that led nowhere, and he embraced her and asked…

  “No,” she said abruptly. “You bore me. Everyone bores me here. Everything bores me…”

  On his knees, he grasped her waist and pulled her towards him. She, laughing slightly, gave way a little, running her hand nervously through his hair. A carriage pulled up outside.

  “Listen,” she said.

  “It’s Mrs Van Does…”

  “She’s back very early…”

  “I don’t suppose she’s sold anything.”

  “Then it’ll cost you ten guilders…”

  “I expect so…”

  “Do you pay her a lot? For our rendezvous?”

  “Oh, what does it matter?…”

  “Listen,” he said again, more attentively.

  “That’s not Mrs Van Does…”

  “No…”

  “It’s a man’s footstep…”

  “It wasn’t a dos-à-dos either: it rattled far too much.”

  “It’s probably nothing…” she said. “Someone who’s got the wrong address. No one will come in here.”

  “The man is coming round the back,” she said, listening.

  They both listened for a moment. Then suddenly, with two or three steps through the narrow garden and on to the small back veranda, his, Van Oudijck’s figure loomed at the closed glass door, visible through the curtain. He had wrenched the door open before Léonie and Addy could change position, so that Van Oudijck saw the two of them: her, sitting on the divan, him kneeling in front of her with her hand, as if forgotten, still resting on his hair.

  “Léonie!” thundered her husband.

  The blood coursed and seethed through her veins with the shock of surprise, and in a single moment she saw a whole future: his fury, a divorce, a court case, the money that he would give her, everything jumbled together. But, as if through the force of will-power, the rush of blood immediately subsided and evened out, and she sat calmly, with terror visible in her eyes for only a further moment, until she could direct her steely gaze at Van Oudijck. And pressing Addy’s head with her fingers she signalled to him to stay as he was, kneeling at her feet, and as if in a state of self-hypnosis, listening in astonishment at the sound of her own, slightly hoarse voice:

  “Otto… Adrien de Luce is asking me to put in a good word with you… for him… He is asking… for Doddy’s hand…”

  She was still the only one speaking. She continued: “He knows that you have some objections. He knows that you are not very fond of his family, because they have Javanese blood… in their veins.”

  She spoke as if some other voice were speaking inside her, and she had to smile at the phrase “in their veins”. She did not know why; perhaps it was because it was the first time in her life that she had used it in conversation.

  “But,” she went on, “there are no financial objections, if Doddy wants to live at Pajaram… And the young things have known each other… for so long. They were afraid of you…”

  Still no one else spoke.

  “Doddy’s nerves have been bad for so long, she’s been almost ill. It would be a crime not to give your consent, Otto…”

  Gradually her voice became melodious, and the smile appeared around her lips, but her eyes were still steely, as if she were threatening some mysterious wrath if Van Oudijck did not believe her.

  “Come…” she said very softly, very sweetly, tapping Addy gently on the head with her still trembling fingers. “Get up… Addy… and… go… to… Papa…”

  He got up mechanically.

  “Léonie,” said Van Oudijck, hoarsely. “Why were you here?”

  She looked up in complete astonishment and gentle sincerity.

  “Here? I came to see Mrs Van Does…”

  “And him?” said Van Oudijck pointing.

  “Him?… He came to see her too… Mrs Van Does had to go out… Then he asked to speak to me… and then he asked me… for Doddy’s hand…”

  All three of them were again silent.

  “And you, Otto?” she asked, more harshly this time. “What brings you here?”

  He looked at her sharply.

  “Do you want to buy something from Mrs Van Does?”

  “Theo said you were here…”

  “Theo was right…”

  “Léonie…”

  She got up, and with her steely eyes indicated to him that he had to believe, that all she wanted was for him to believe.

  “Anyway, Otto,” she said, once more gentle, calm and sweet, “don’t keep Addy waiting for an answer any longer. And you, Addy, don’t be afraid, and ask for Doddy’s hand from Papa… I have… nothing to say about Doddy: I’ve already said it.”

  They now stood facing each other in the cramped central gallery, stuffy with their breath and bottled-up feelings.

  “Commissioner,” said Addy at that point, “I wish to ask you… for your daughter’s hand…”

  A dos-à-dos drew up outside.

  “That’s Mrs Van Does,” said Léonie hurriedly. “Otto, say something, before she comes…”

  “Very well,” said Van Oudijck gloomily.

  Before Mrs Van Does came in, he made his escape round the back, not seeing Addy’s proffered hand. Mrs Van Does came in, shivering, followed by a maid carrying a bundle: her merchandise. She saw Léonie and Addy standing there, stiff, as if in a trance.

  “That was the Commissioner’s carriage…” stammered the Indies lady. “Was that the Commissioner?”

  “Yes,” said Léonie.

  “Good Lord!… And what happened?”

  “Nothing,” continued Léonie, laughing.

  “Nothing?”

  “There was something…”

  “What then?”

  “Addy and Doddy are…”

  “Are what?”

  “Engaged!”

  She burst out laughing with a shrill laugh of irrepressible joie de vivre, whirling the flabbergasted Mrs Van Does round, and kicking
the bundle out of the maid’s hands, so that a pack of batik-dyed bedspreads and table runners tipped onto the floor and a small jar, full of glistening crystals, rolled out and broke.

  “Astaga!… My diamonds!”

  Another exuberant kick and the table runners flew in all directions; the glistening diamonds lay strewn among the table and chair legs. Addy, the terror still in his eyes, was crawling about on his hands and knees collecting them. Mrs Van Does repeated:

  “Engaged?”

  2

  DODDY WAS EXCITED, in seventh heaven, ecstatic, when Van Oudijck told her that Addy had asked for her hand, and when she heard that Mama had spoken on her behalf, she hugged her impulsively, with her spontaneous, mercurial temperament, again surrendering to the attraction that Léonie had exercised over her for so long. Doddy immediately forgot everything that had upset her in the excessive intimacy between Mama and Addy, when he hung over a chair and whispered to Mama. She had never believed what she’d occasionally heard at the time, because Addy had always assured her that it was not true. And she was so happy at the prospect of living with Addy, as man and wife, at Pajaram. Because, for her, Pajaram represented the ideal of domesticity: the big house built next to the sugar factory—full of sons and daughters and children and animals, to whom the same good-naturedness and cordiality and boredom had been handed down, those sons and daughters with their aura of Solo descent—was her ideal dwelling place, and she felt an affinity with all those minor traditions: the sambal pounded and ground by a crouching maid behind her chair at lunch was the acme of gastronomic pleasure; the races at Ngajiwa, attended by the languid procession of all those women flapping their arms by their sides, followed by maids, carrying their handkerchief, perfume bottle, binoculars, was for her the height of elegance; she loved the old Princess dowager, and she had pledged herself to Addy, fully, unreservedly, from the very first moment she had seen him: when she had been a little girl of thirteen, and he a lad of eighteen. Because of him she had always resisted Papa’s attempts to send her to Europe, to a boarding school in Brussels; because of him she had never wanted anything else but Labuwangi, Ngajiwa, Pajaram; because of him she would live and die in Pajaram. Because of him, she had experienced all the minor fits of jealousy when he danced with someone else; all the major fits of jealousy when her girlfriends told her he was in love with so-and-so and going out with someone else; because of him she would always experience those feelings of jealousy big and small, as long as she lived. He would be her life, Pajaram her world, sugar her interest, because it was Addy’s interest. Because of him she would want lots of children, who might be brown—not white like her papa and mama and Theo, but brown because their mother was brown, a faint dusty brown, as opposed to Addy’s beautiful bronze Moorish brown; and, following the example given at Pajaram, her children—her many, many children—would grow up in the shadow of the factory, living from and for sugar and later would plant the fields, and mill sugar cane, and restore the family’s fortunes, so that it would be as resplendent as in the past. And she was as happy as she could possibly conceive of being, seeing her lovelorn girl’s ideal so attainably close: Addy and Pajaram; and not suspecting for a moment how her happiness had come about: through a word spoken almost unconsciously by Léonie, in a moment of self-hypnosis in a crisis. Oh, now she no longer needed to seek out the dark recesses, the dark rice fields with Addy; now she constantly embraced him in the full light of day, sat radiantly close to him, feeling his warm male body that belonged to her and would soon be hers completely; now her adoring gaze was focused on him, for everyone to see, since she no longer had the chaste strength to hide her feelings: now he was hers, now he was hers! And he, with the good-natured resignation of a young sultan, allowed his shoulders and knees to be caressed, let himself be kissed and his hair be stroked, let her put her arm round his neck, accepting everything as a tribute due to him, being used as he was to the tribute of women’s love, cherished and cuddled, ever since he was a chubby little boy, since he was carried by Tijem, his nurse, who adored him—since the time when he frolicked in a smock with his sisters and cousins, who were all in love with him. He received all those tributes good-humouredly, but deep down astonished, shocked by what Léonie had done… And yet, he reasoned, perhaps it might have happened anyway, since Doddy loved him so much… He would have preferred to stay unmarried; as a bachelor he had plenty of family life, while retaining the freedom of giving much love to women out of the goodness of his heart… Naively, it occurred to him even now that it wouldn’t work, would never work, staying faithful to Doddy for long, since he was so good-natured and women were all so crazy. Later Doddy would simply have to get used to that, come to terms with it, and—he remembered –in the palace at Solo it was just the same with his uncles and cousins…

  Had Van Oudijck believed them? He did not know himself. Doddy had accused Léonie of being in love with Addy; that morning, when Van Oudijck had asked where Léonie was, Theo had replied tersely:

  “At Mrs Van Does’ house… with Addy.”

  He had given his son a furious look, but had not asked any more questions: he had just driven straight to Mrs Van Does’ house. He had actually found his wife together with young De Luce, and him at her feet, but she had said so calmly to him:

  “Adrien de Luce has asked for your daughter’s hand…”

  No, he did not know himself whether he believed her. His wife had answered so calmly, and now, in the first few days after the engagement, she had been as calm and smiling as ever… He now saw for the first time that strange aura of hers, that sense of invulnerability, as if nothing could affect her. Did he suspect behind this ironic woman’s wall of invulnerability her secret, passionate sensuality? It was as if in his later nervous suspicion, in his restless mood, in his phase of superstitious prying and listening to the haunted silence, he had learnt to see things around him to which he had been blind in the tough strength of a dominant and arrogant senior official. And his desire to know for certain the things he guessed at became so intense in his morbid irritability that he became increasingly friendly with his son, but no longer because of spontaneous paternal feeling, which he had always had for Theo, but out of curiosity, to sound him out and make him reveal everything he knew. And Theo, who hated Léonie, who hated his father, who hated Addy and Doddy—in his general hatred of everyone around him, hating life in his obstinate, blond Eurasian way, longing for money and beautiful women, angry that the world, life, fortune, as he imagined them in his petty way, did not seek him out and fall into his lap and take him in their arms—Theo was only too happy to squeeze out his few words like drops of gall, silently rejoicing when he saw his father suffer. Very gradually he let Van Oudijck suspect that it was true about Mama and Addy. Still Van Oudijck couldn’t accept it. In the intimacy between father and son that was born out of suspicion and hatred, Theo mentioned his brother in the native quarter, and said he knew that Papa gave him money. Van Oudijck, no longer sure, no longer knowing what the truth was, admitted that it was possible, admitted it was true. Then, remembering the anonymous letters, which only recently had ceased to arrive since he had sent money to that half-caste who had the presumption to use his name—he also thought of the smears he had so often read in them and at the time had rejected as filth—he thought of the names of his wife and Theo, which were so often linked in them. His distrust and suspicion flared up like an unquenchable fire, burned away all other feelings and thought in him. Until at last he could no longer contain himself and spoke to Theo openly about it. He did not trust Theo’s indignation and denial. And now he no longer trusted anything or anyone. He distrusted his wife and his children, his officials; he distrusted his cook…

  3

  THEN, LIKE A THUNDERBOLT, the rumour spread around Labuwangi that Van Oudijck and his wife were to divorce. Léonie went to Europe, very suddenly, in fact without anyone knowing or without saying goodbye to anyone. It was a huge scandal in the town, the only topic of conversation, and people talked o
f it as far away as Surabaya and Batavia. Only Van Oudijck said nothing and, just a little more stooped, he soldiered on, went on working, lived his normal life. Ignoring his own principles, he had helped find Theo a job, in order to be rid of him. And he preferred to have Doddy stay at Pajaram, where the De Luce ladies could help her with her trousseau. He preferred that Doddy should marry soon, and at Pajaram. All he wanted now was solitude in his big, empty house—vast, cheerless solitude. He no longer had the table laid for himself: he was just brought a bowl of rice and a cup of coffee in his office. And he felt ill, his professional enthusiasm waned, and a dull indifference took root in him. The whole brunt of the work, the whole district, fell on Eldersma, and when Eldersma, after not having slept for weeks and at the end of his tether, told the Commissioner that the doctor wanted to send him to Europe on emergency health grounds, Van Oudijck lost all heart. He said that he, too, felt ill, exhausted. And requested leave from the Governor General and went to Batavia. He said nothing about it, but he was certain he would never return to Labuwangi. And he went away quietly, without a backward glance at the scene of his great labours, where he had once created a coherent whole with such devotion. The assistant commissioner in Ngajiwa was entrusted with the administration. It was generally thought that Van Oudijck wished to speak to the Governor General about some important matters, but suddenly news came that he wanted to resign. At first people were sceptical, but the rumour was confirmed. Van Oudijck did not return.

  He had gone, without a backward glance, in a strange mood of indifference, an indifference that had gradually infected the very marrow of this once so strong, practical, ageless worker. He felt indifferent towards Labuwangi, which he had once thought he would never have to leave without the greatest homesickness—if he were promoted to commissioner, first class; he felt indifferent towards his family life, which no longer existed. His soul seemed to be gently wilting, weakening, atrophying. He felt as if all his strength were melting away in the lukewarm stagnation of that indifference. In Batavia he vegetated a little in a hotel, and it was generally thought that he would go to Europe.