The Interpreter from Java

by Alfred Birney

  I took the takeyari from my bike, put on my armband and strapped the sheath of my fighting knife to my right leg. I told Ernst to put on a hat to cover his blond hair. He whined about not having a Japanese armband and not being a tonarigumi member, but that did not stop him running inside and returning with a hat, a knife and a revolver. Without an armband, he was forced to slink along the bushes that lined the streets and take cover in gardens from time to time. I was able to walk openly down the street brandishing my bamboo spear.

  A few streets away we saw a white, fair-haired woman among the trees, firing red flares in the direction of Wonokromo and the industrial sites of Ngagel as a flight of four-engine bombers approached. Ernst walked on. Then I heard bellowing in Japanese. A Kenpeitai officer was charging towards the woman, samurai sword drawn. He ran her through with his blade and, when she collapsed on the ground, severed her head from her body with a single blow.

  At first, I stood there in shock. Then I slowly began to walk in his direction. I no longer remember exactly what I was feeling. The officer shouted at me, citing the ancient bushidō on which he had acted. I understood most of what he said. ‘The same fate awaits anyone who commits acts of resistance or treason against Nippon!’

  He wiped his bloodied sword on the dead woman’s clothes and, as he was sliding it back into its scabbard with a proud samurai flourish, I attacked. I was on him in seconds and drilled my takeyari deep into his side. The tip was so sharp, it pierced his body with ease. The officer grabbed the bamboo spear with both hands. I heard a rattling in his throat, saw him shake and then witnessed the terrifying death throes in his eyes. My stomach was churning like mad. I let go and the Japanese officer fell back slowly. My God, he took an age to die! Not daring to pull the spear from his side, I ran.

  Ernst knew nothing of what I had done. All he had seen from his hiding place in the bushes was people firing flares into the night sky. It dawned on me that if he had been arrested and tortured, he would surely have mentioned my name. And then the Japs would have come for my head too.

  Ella’s lover is sent to hell

  In mid-May 1944, Surabaya came under attack from large formations of Grumman Avenger and Douglas Dauntless dive bombers, escorted by Chance Vought Corsair and Grumann Hellcat fighter planes. Down at the Tanjung Perak docks, ships and buildings vital to the Japanese war effort were hit. The first raid targeted the port, the second the oil installations at Wonokromo. I was near Pasar Turi and looked on with satisfaction as the aircraft went about their deadly mission. They met with hardly any resistance, as the enemy had been weakened considerably. But in the days that followed, a swarm of Japanese planes landed at Morokrembangan airfield, among them a large number of ‘flying cigars’. One of those bloody machines was being manned by Kamei, my sister Ella’s so-called sweetheart.

  In the meantime, I had heard from Uncle Soen that formidable Allied naval units with aircraft carriers were heading for the waters near the Philippines.

  One evening Kamei came to our house to say his goodbyes to Ella. Afterwards he took me out to Shanghai Restaurant on Palmenlaan. When we arrived, I saw my pal Jopie Reuben with his becak and went over to see him while Kamei was paying our driver. Keeping my voice low, I told Jopie to come back in an hour to take me down to the port. He listened in silence and nodded.

  Kamei had organized an inkai, a farewell dinner with five of his fellow pilots. We took off our shoes at the door to a side room and sat down on carpets which had been laid specially. Each of us was assigned a hostess. A whole range of Japanese dishes were served, washed down with plenty of alcohol. I pretended to drink but was careful to down no more than one jug of sake. The more they drank, the more talkative the Japanese pilots became, letting details slip about their targets, their weapons and the bombload of their aircraft. Soon they were undressing the hostesses and gradually shedding their own clothes. My hostess was offended by my lack of attention. I apologized for my behaviour, gave her a peck on the cheek and told her I needed to go to the toilet first. Creeping out of our side room, I put on my shoes and hurried outside.

  Jopie was ready and waiting. I had him take me to Soedjono’s house in Krembangan, since he knew the whereabouts of our Makassar friend and his boat. We rode there together and when we arrived I told them everything I had heard from the drunken pilots. The Makassar boy transmitted the details to his contacts. We thanked each other and Jopie cycled us back home.

  Two days later, a Japanese serviceman came to our home. Partly in Japanese, partly in English, he announced that Kamei had been killed in action. Tears welled up in Ella’s eyes. I went to my room and gave thanks to God.

  And forty years on, your first-born son would travel to Java in search of his roots. There, at Aunty Ella’s house, I made the acquaintance of Kamei’s grandson. Kamei’s daughter, born to Ella after his death, was living there too. The boy was called Jongky and had a calendar full of Japanese girls pinned to the wall above his bed. He dreamed of marrying a Japanese beauty one day, dreamed of walking the streets of Tokyo, where his grandfather had walked as a young man. I understood my little cousin’s yearning for Japan. I kept your secret from that boy, half-hoping you had made it all up. War between countries is one thing, but war within the family… What the hell is a human being supposed to make of that?

  A few days later, on Tunjungan, I bumped into a friend of Kamei’s, a fellow bomber pilot. We went to a Chinese restaurant that served Japanese food and he told me how Kamei had met his end. On a mission to Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, his squadron of bombers and fighter-plane escorts had come under attack from US aircraft. The entire squadron had been shot down. I feigned compassion in polite Japanese but inside I felt only contentment. I nearly gave myself away by tucking into our meal with too much gusto, washing it down with the occasional swig of warm sake. The Japanese pilot was knocking back the sake far quicker than I was. He boasted of missions to come and a glint of fighting spirit returned to his eyes. Leaving the restaurant after our meal, the pilot threw an arm around my shoulder. Swaying drunkenly, we walked along and bumped into more pilots, to whom I was introduced. We were joined by a bunch of Japanese nurses and all twelve of us went to another restaurant.

  One of the nurses turned out to be a girl I had gone to school with. She had clearly sided with the Japanese. When she came and sat next to me, I whispered sweet nothings in her ear in the hope of extracting some new information. The sake was flowing and once again my fellow diners began to say more than they should. I excused myself and left their company. Again I took a becak to Soedjono’s and we went in search of our Makassar friend and his transmitter.

  On his boat, surrounded by crates of stinking fish, the three of us sat and pored over a map of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Philippines. I passed on all the information I could remember about the bomber squadrons, their fighter escorts, and possible dates and times. As soon as I told them what I knew, I left. I did not need to know how the messages were sent and the last thing I wanted was to be arrested and endure more torture. I later found out that the pilots I shared a meal with had been shot down in action. Every last one of them.

  My Indonesian friends

  Many of my good friends during the Japanese occupation were Indos. But any resistance put up by Indo boys tended to be passive. They were caught in the middle, between the Dutch, the Japs and the Indonesians. When it came to active resistance, I could rely on my Javanese and Madurese friends from Queen Emma School: Soedjono, Soenarjo, Soetopo, Soemarsono, Soetjipto and Soemarno. Knowing they had an entire people behind them, they were more inclined to risk acts of violence. I often went down to the port with them, armed with knuckledusters and fighting knives. With the curfew approaching, we would roam the docks in groups of four and pick a fight with Japanese soldiers on their way back to barracks. As soon as the Japs drew their swords in anger, we pounced. The Madurese among us slit their throats with crooked little knives. When the fighting was over, we would scatter and regroup at a se
cret address in Krembangan or Dapuan. There we tuned into the radios we had stashed away and caught up on events in the Pacific. News of Allied victories made us rowdy and we would head out again to hunt down any lone Japanese soldiers we could find.

  When the Kenpeitai began to raid our neighbourhoods, we became more careful, dragging our victims’ bodies off to rubbish tips or burying them in places no Kenpeitai thug would think to look.

  Sabotage at the bicycle factory

  Towards the end of 1944, I was put to work in the welding shop of a large bicycle factory on Pasar Besar. The chief welder was a shady character called Liem, a bootlicker on very good terms with some of the Japanese foremen and the directors. It was my job to make bike frames to Japanese specifications. The storeroom behind the welding shop was piled high with old, half-rusted European frames and I had to loosen the couplings and saw the tubes down to size so that Liem could weld them into new frames. We worked with carbide blowtorches, copper welding rods and borax powder with a petroleum burner. This massive job was left to the pair of us, and sometimes we swapped duties. Liem and I were not exactly a winning team. In fact, I loathed the man.

  A handful of Indo lads worked on the assembly line, but most of the workforce was Indonesian, every last one of them a nationalist with an undying hatred of anything that smacked of Holland. This included the Indo colleagues they were forced to put up with. They often eyed me with suspicion too, not sure what to make of my Indo looks and my Chinese ID card. I showed the necessary tact and diplomacy in my dealings with that Indonesian rabble, and avoided talking war and politics whenever I could.

  I began a one-man sabotage operation, deliberately overdoing the blowtorch when I welded the tubes into the couplings; this made the joints brittle and ensured the frames wouldn’t last long, certainly not on bumpy roads. The bikes were intended for Japanese infantrymen and heihos, Indonesian auxiliaries sent into battle against Allied forces in Malacca and Burma. The frames went from the welding shop straight to the paint shop, where they were painted by hand, a time-consuming process. Even so, dozens of those rickety bikes were loaded onto trucks every other day and transported to the docks at Tanjung Perak. From there, they were shipped to Malaysia and Burma. For at least six months, my scheme went without a hitch.

  Never miss a chance to big yourself up, do you Pa? I have another take on this story. If you ask me, you were just a lousy welder…

  One fateful day, Liem and I were summoned to the boardroom. We walked in to find an army officer and a big shot from the Kenpeitai standing there. Both factory directors were sitting behind their desk, sporting the sakura – the cherry blossom emblem – on their shirts. In a mixture of Indonesian and Japanese, we were told that soldiers on their way to combat zones in Burma had seen their bikes collapse under them. The army officer lambasted us for doing a poor welding job on the crankshaft and the steering, and began to slap us in the face. Since Liem was on good terms with the bosses, he got off lightly with a slap or two and a barrage of insults. But the Kenpeitai bruiser grabbed a truncheon and started to beat me mercilessly. He hit me hard on my lower back, still painful from the torture I had already endured. In agony, my legs buckled under me. I was ordered to stand up and lay my hands flat on the desk. He brought his truncheon down hard. By some miracle no bones were broken, but in no time my hands were severely swollen. The pain was excruciating.

  I can’t help wondering when you wrote this episode, Pa. Was it before or after what you did to me that day? I was seven years old and you decided it was time I learned to tie my own shoelaces instead of getting Ma or Phil to do it for me. It was Easter Sunday. The previous day, I had volunteered to run to the shops just before closing time to buy a bottle of sweet white wine so that we could raise a family toast to Easter. You even promised me an extra glass by way of a thank you. That Easter morning, we were all going out for a walk. I was in the kitchen fumbling with my laces. Ma and Phil were ready to help me while you stood seething in the hall. You came storming in, sent Ma and Phil out of the room, and ordered me to tie my laces. I made a few more clumsy attempts. Then you went to the hall cupboard and came back with a bamboo cane, the thin end of a three-part fishing rod that made a wonderful swishing sound.

  ‘Have you tied your laces?’

  ‘Not yet, Papa.’

  ‘Get up. Lay your hands flat on the kitchen counter.’

  The counter was granite. I curled my fingers around the raised edge to soften the slashing blows. The granite cooled the sting. You gave me a second chance. I was even less able to tie a decent bow.

  ‘Get up.’

  I tried to curl my fingers tighter around the counter’s edge. The granite lost its coolness, the pain grew fiercer, welts appeared. You gave me another chance. My swollen fingers trembled and it was all I could do to hold the ends of my laces. How do you tie a bow? How on earth did my brother do it? My swollen fingers could no longer claw the edge of the counter. I clenched my teeth, bowed my head and stared helplessly at the stupid kitchen lino. It was yellow, dirty yellow, with an orange pattern. You walked out of the kitchen saying, ‘By the time I come back, you will have tied your laces. Understood?’

  You left the door ajar. Phil slipped into the kitchen and tied two quick bows. Minutes later you were back, nodding your approval. You had given my brother the chance to help me. It was either that or chop my fingers off, right Pa?

  ‘No walk for you. And no wine tonight. Understood?’

  I nodded, lowered my head and looked at the miraculous bows on my shoes.

  Who did you see, that Easter Sunday in the kitchen with your first-born son? Was it that Japanese thug?

  Our punishment over, we were sent back to work in the welding shop. Hands badly swollen, I tried to operate the torch. I bit my lips till the tears rolled down my cheeks, but I did not utter a word of complaint.

  Nor did I. In case you’ve forgotten, Pa. No tears either, come to that. I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.

  Liem looked me up and down, then asked, ‘Hey, did you really mess with those frames?’

  A moment’s silence, then I snapped, ‘Shut your face, you filthy traitor! The Japs will be driven out of this country before long. And when that time comes, I will murder you and every last one of your family. Understood, Liem?’

  The bootlicker turned pale and held his tongue.

  I wasn’t finished. ‘Liem, I know all about your pro-Japanese tendencies. Traitors like you will get no mercy from me. Say one wrong word to the bosses or the Kenpeitai and I will cut you down on the spot.’

  Redjo, the foreman and chief mechanic, had been watching us. He had a formidable reputation as a pendekar, a first-class pencak fighter. Not only that, but he headed a section of the notorious Indonesian political movement led by Sutomo, also known as Bung Tomo, who would go on to lead a bloody campaign in Surabaya during the Indonesian Revolution. Once Liem had slunk off with his tail between his legs, Redjo called me over.

  ‘Hey, Si-Arto, I know that your real name is Nolan and that you are an Indo-Peranakan, but don’t worry, I can keep a secret. Many of my Javanese friends are your friends too, and have worked with you against the Japs. That is why I am warning you about chief welder Liem and his forked tongue. Watch your step and never talk politics with him. The bosses have spies everywhere, even here in the workshop.’

  I studied Redjo’s face and replied, ‘All well and good, Redjo, but how do I know I can trust you? This is bound to offend you, but first I need to contact my Javanese and Madurese friends from the resistance.’

  ‘You do that, Si-Arto,’ Redjo snorted. ‘Ask around about me. You’ll soon see how right I am. You count Soedjono, Soetjipto, Soenarjo, Soetopo, Soemarsono, Soemarno and Soekaton among your friends. They live in the neighbourhoods of Krembangan, Dapuan, Pacar Keling, Bubutan and Baliwerti. Isn’t that right?’

  All I could do was nod.

  Another round of torture

  Despite my threats, Liem went to straight to the bosses the next day
and told them I had deliberately tampered with the bicycle frames. I was tipped off by Soedjarwo, Redjo’s assistant and close friend. I managed to hide my anxiety and fear, but I knew what was coming. This did not stop me using the blowtorch to weaken the ends of the tubes.

  It was high noon and the burning sun beat down mercilessly on Croc City. A pair of Kenpeitai officers came into the workshop and ordered me to accompany them. I left my welding for what it was, stole a glance at Soedjarwo and Redjo and followed the two thugs to the boss’s office. Soedjarwo and Redjo gave me a thumbs up to wish me courage.

  In the office, the boss asked me, ‘Did you really tamper with the welding on those frames?’

  I looked that shifty Sakura Jap in the eye and shook my head. He flew into a rage and barked one order after another at the Kenpeitai officers. I was taken down to the courtyard of the office complex and made to strip to my underpants. One of the Kenpeitai officers unfastened the metal scabbard from his belt, drew his samurai sword and laid it on a table. Then he raised the scabbard and began to beat me with it. Blows rained down on my whole body: my head, shoulders, arms and legs, my stomach, my ribs and my chest. The pain was so intense that tears poured down my cheeks, but I bit my lips to stop myself crying out. I was not about to give my torturers the satisfaction. Everything went black and I passed out. I came to when a bucket of water was thrown over me. The clerks and kitchen workers were made to watch. Anyone who turned away took a beating of their own. Here and there I could hear cries of sympathy, women sobbing and begging them to take pity on me. I was ordered to stand up. They placed a thick wooden beam on my shoulders and bound my arms to it. A broomstick was tied across the backs of my knees.