Several dozen Special Service Employees came to the Netherlands. Others went to New Guinea and wound up God knows where. In any case they were scattered to the four winds and their history was never told. The rest were dead.
Read the history books and you’d swear the war in Indonesia was all about the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army: the KNIL, the whole KNIL and nothing but the KNIL. Who in the Netherlands has ever heard of the interpreters who worked with the Marines? Pa tried to shine a light on them. So from now on you can shut up about it. Case closed.
Philip Noland
No virus found in this message
Arto, come unto us
Arto, my anak mas, this is your mother. Prepare yourself, my son. The time has come for us to release you from your hell on earth. Things will be better for you here than in Malaga, where you have retreated into solitude, as so many old soldiers have done in the world I left some fifty years ago. The heat in Malaga appears to be as fierce as it was back home in Surabaya. Here we reside in the cool of the mountains, the same mountains your first-born son can see in the motif on the Chinese vases I sent you care of a naval officer, a farewell gift when you had to flee Indonesia. Your first-born is burdened by your memories of the war; he bears part of your cross. Not long ago he had another nightmare about you. It was full moon, rabbits were asleep on the beach and your son saw one of those long-eared creatures wake up. Then you were in the jungle and he had to find you. Your son felt no fear – this was a game, nothing more. He wandered, searched and found you in an open meadow. But then the game was over. You wanted to fight and his fear of you returned. You laughed at his lack of practice, you jeered at him because you were young and nimble once again, dark eyes shining above your sneering mouth. Your son fell on the warm earth and his scream echoed through his bedroom. There was no one to calm him. He hurried downstairs in his dressing gown and drank a glass of water. Beside him on the couch lay a gramophone record with an army of rabbits on the cover. Multiplication. Your son placed the record on the turntable to listen to the guitarist. But your spirit continued to fill the living room while your son murmured to himself:
‘When will you die and be damned, man? You have tormented me long enough, just as your victims have always tormented you from beyond the grave. One day they will rise up before your dying eyes, led by the first dead man on your conscience. Who was he? An old schoolfriend perhaps who sided with the enemy, who did not want to fight for the Hollanders you saw as the brothers of a neglectful father who had refused to recognize you. Perhaps your sleepless nights are filled with endless repeats of the moment when you felt your blade slide into your old friend’s body as you lay retching on top of him because he had grabbed you in the panic of his death throes and would not let you go. You tore yourself away, looked around and ran from him as fast as you could. And no one except your mother saw that the innocence had gone from your eyes. One year later, at that same dark hour, your old schoolfriend appeared at the foot of your bed, elusive as a cockroach and about to multiply. The next year, he returned as two apparitions who divided into four. And the year after that, the four divided into eight. And so, after years of unfettered multiplication, a whole army inhabits the kingdom of the dead that is about to receive you and they sing in chorus: Welcome home, Surabaya hardman, welcome into our midst! We are many now, and still we fear you. Tell us what we did wrong, other than fight each other in a colonial war. When our war was over, we continued to pray for you as you hacked a hopeless path through the brick-and-mortar jungle of distant Holland, where closed doors can never be kicked down because a baffling power is in place to prevent such things, a power infinitely stronger than the magic of the smartest man from our youth in the Indies, the dukun who only welcomed death when he knew the Belandas had finally gone for good…’
Arto, I, your mother, can no longer bear to look on as my grandson is visited by visions of your old enemies feeding you to the crocodiles. The crocodile no longer swims in the kali of the city where you were born. Now it is only found with the shark in the Golden River on Surabaya’s coat of arms. Your son has been to the river on a pilgrimage, and perhaps he will return to scatter your ashes on the water. Your friends are among us too, those who sided with the Dutch but saw the error of their ways and later fought for Indonesia. Like all of us here, they know no rancour or hatred. There is no more reason to ward off death as it rattles around your house in the hot nights of Malaga. When you are here, your son’s nightmares will cease and he will forgive you for everything your war-crazed mind, your belt and your bloodied fists inflicted on your wife and children. In time he will understand that your romantic soul wanted only to fight for a white queen who, in your imagination, sat on a throne all day while her subjects bowed around her, as it was in the olden days. He will come to see that how we are born and the paths our lives take are not within our mortal grasp. Fight no longer in your dreams, Arto, but come unto us, and together we will watch over the path your son has yet to walk.
An announcement in HTML
His death was not printed in the paper. Or on a mourning card trimmed in black. It was announced on a web page designed by Phil. Mil wanted an old-school obituary, but given that his old acquaintances, distant relatives and comrades from the Marines are scattered across the globe, Phil posted the news of his passing online, and promptly got the date wrong. Pa’s death was mired in confusion, in miscommunication and rows sparked by delayed messages from Mil, who had shot off to Spain as soon as she heard the news. The patriarch falls away and the family descends into anarchy. Only Nana managed to hop on a plane in time to attend the funeral with Mil. Phil couldn’t have selected a better photo, a snapshot taken by Nana when the Eagle was sixty-five or thereabouts, shortly before he emigrated to Spain. Veiled in cigar smoke, the very picture of senang. He wasn’t much of a smoker – one cigar a day perhaps. An old Nolan tradition? The family plantations in Jember had mainly grown tobacco. Nana and I always thought Phil hated Pa. It turns out we were wrong. We were right once though. When did Phil stop hating his father? After reading his memoirs? Of course, Phil’s hatred has now been deflected towards our mother, who in his eyes has come to symbolize everything the Dutch don’t want to know. My twin has done the old man proud. The web page is a thing of beauty, a labour of love even. The text is concise but it sings. And the dates give food for thought.
* * * * *
Arend Noland
Surabaya, Indonesia 28 September 1925
Málaga, España 28 September 2005
Have a good
journey through space
and
time for another life
Your children and grandchildren…
[etc.]
* * * * *
Phil has turned that contented portrait into a planet trailing cigar smoke. In the background, the Earth is suspended in an indigo sky. Distant planets twinkle and circle beyond. Pa has entered a celestial pantheon, or so it would appear. I think Phil believes in something akin to a life beyond this mortal coil. Gazing at his digital artwork, I’m almost inclined to agree.
*
The doctors and the authorities in Spain say there is nothing to indicate suicide. Let’s face it, that’s the first thought that comes to mind when a worn-out old soldier dies alone on his birthday in an anonymous Spanish apartment and is found one morning by the lady who cleans the place and fetches his groceries. Phil and I attribute the timing to the air of mystery that has always surrounded his life. My son is sad that he will never have a chance to meet his grandfather. My hilarious accounts of grandad’s slap-dash, soldierly approach to cooking with frozen chicken, margarine, noodles, stock cubes and a shitload of MSG send him into fits of laughter.
Sura & Baya
The Spaniards gave Pa a stylish and efficient burial, Nana says. As far as I’m concerned, they could have thrown him to the crocodiles and sharks of Surabaya, where he came into this world. Not out of revenge for whatever he inflicted on whoever, but as the ultimate journ
ey home. Perfect recycling. All the rage now, apparently, in his beloved America: an environmentally friendly death. The terminally ill wander off into deserts or swamps to be devoured by vultures or alligators. Not really an option in Surabaya now that such carnivores have vanished from its waterways.
Surabaya was founded in 1293 by one Radèn Wijaya, or so the story goes. The city owes its name to the shark sura and the crocodile baya, the two creatures locked in an eternal battle on Surabaya’s coat of arms, against the blue background of Kali Mas, the Golden River. On my one visit to Indonesia, I went there to see for myself. The Golden River looked more like a murky Amsterdam canal heated to 32 degrees Celsius. I had no trouble imagining crocodiles swimming in the water, but that shark must have taken one hell of a wrong turn.
Still, it’s not impossible. Kali Mas flows to the sea, so shark and croc might have met one day in the brackish water. Here in Holland they once found a whale in the Rhine and guided it safely out to sea. Very humane when it comes to animals, the Dutch. As was my father, judging by his memoirs.
Now that the Eagle is dead, there’s not much left to hate. There are even moments when I think back on him with something that resembles love. I appear to be one of the great unwashed after all, a mere mortal who never speaks ill of the dead. I missed his funeral and the chance to lay my warm hand on his cold forehead. Strange, but since he died my nightmares have left me. And I have started to join the rest of humanity and live by day again.
Pa’s grave is insured for five years and Little Sister and I have hatched a plan. When the five years are up, we will have our father cremated, coffin, flag and all. I will fly to Java with an urnful of his ashes, and place them in his mother’s grave. But perhaps it would be more fitting to go to the Red Bridge over Kali Mas and scatter him on the water.
*
I recently came across a blurred photo of me taken on the Red Bridge in Surabaya. My little cousin, the grandson of that murdered Japanese pilot, accidentally moved the camera when he clicked. It’s as if a ghost is leaning over the railing, looking deep into the water. Without intending to, I had followed in my father’s footsteps. I was a stranger, I felt like a stranger there. My father had travelled a long, long way, an eternal stranger who rose like a monster from a cold, grey sea he thought could wash away his past. Many were those he left behind: beaten, raped, murdered, floating in the kali that reeked of death and guided him to the harbour from which he set sail, at the mouth of a river on the northeast tip of Java. Night after night he told me his war stories, the way another father might tell his children fairy tales. He told me how he and his soldier buddies unleashed death and destruction on the villages of his boyhood. Was he out to obliterate that boyhood with flamethrowers and grenades, to wipe out the traces of shame and disgrace that clung to the bastard son? He was never recognized by his father, but his mother did not give him life so that he could destroy the lives of others. Deep inside, was he always that little boy who was happiest shooting bats and rats and mice, only to be handed better weapons and told to hunt bigger prey? The tables turned and the friends of the men he had hunted came looking for him once hostilities between the Netherlands and Indonesia had officially ceased. Dutch marines gave him safe passage. For six weeks he sailed across the sea, and the sight of Holland made him so desperate that he had to fight the urge to jump overboard and swim straight back to Java. Did war make him crazy or was he born crazy? The madness must have been in him. All it took was a set of circumstances that gave him free rein. Karma. Ill fortune. A curse. Whatever. Does it matter in the end? Us humans have no say in how we are born, in how we carve a path through life. My father sailed to his fatherland, I took a plane to his motherland. Without having read his manuscript, I crossed from one end of Surabaya to the other, not knowing the names of all the streets, lanes, squares and kampongs he mentions. On Jembatan Merah, the Red Bridge over Kali Mas, my guide told me about the mythical struggle between shark and crocodile that once coloured the water red. I looked down at the stinking, shit-brown river. At the poor Javanese grubbing around on its banks. That water has a long history. If I scatter my father’s ashes there, I will be as old as he was when he completed his memoirs. For a long time, I fought his madness like a madman. Today I am a weary bridge, hunched over the past, blind to my own reflection in the water. I will stop now. This fight is at an end.
GLOSSARY
#
‘606’
another name for a Salvarsan injection to combat venereal diseases
A
aduh
an exclamation of pain or surprise
Allied Military Administration, AMA
a semi-military organization tasked with the restoration of civil administration and law under Dutch colonial rule after the capitulation of Japan’s occupying forces in the Dutch East Indies at the end of World War Two; formerly known as the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (see also NICA money)
amtrac
short for ‘amphibious tractor’; an assault/landing vehicle capable of moving on land and water
anak mas
favourite child; the apple of mother’s eye
APRA
Angkatan Perang Ratu Adil
the Legion of Ratu Adil or the Prince Justice Legion, a militia opposed to the Republican government of President Sukarno and encompassing many factions
attap
dried palm fronds used in thatching
B
babu
nanny or female domestic servant in colonial times
BAR
abbreviation of Browning Automatic Rifle, a US-made machine gun
baru
a greenhorn, a newcomer; nickname for a marine fresh off the boat from Holland
Batavia
the capital of the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia’s capital Jakarta
batik
a Javanese method of creating patterned textiles by covering parts of the material with wax and dyeing the parts left exposed in various colours; also a fabric dyed in this way and a pattern produced by this method
becak
a cycle rickshaw, mainly used as a form of taxi
Belanda
Dutchman or woman
Berlage, Hendrik
(1856–1934)
a prominent Dutch architect perhaps best known for his stock-exchange building in the heart of Amsterdam, but also for a cubist-expressionist kiosk in The Hague which now has listed status
Bersiap
the name for the period of chaos and violence that erupted in the power vacuum in the Dutch East Indies following Japan’s capitulation at the end of World War Two; literally ‘to get ready’
Big Shit
nickname for the staff of the Marine Brigade
BKR
Badan Keamanan Rakyat
People’s Security Body, a government-run force made up of fighters previously trained by the Dutch and the Japanese; a forerunner to Indonesia’s armed forces
Brabant
a province in the south of the Netherlands; much of Brabant was liberated by Allied forces in September 1944 as part of Operation Market Garden, while other parts of the country had to endure a bitterly cold winter with severe food shortages under German occupation before liberation came in May 1945
Bung Tomo
another name for Sutomo
bushidō
the code of conduct of the Samurai or warrior class in feudal Japan
C
Celebes
the former name of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi
cheval de frise
a portable frame covered with many long spikes or spears, used in warfare to block an enemy advance
Croc City
Krokodillenstad
a nickname for Surabaya
D
Darul Islam
an Indonesian resistance army founded on strict Islamic principles, which fought against both Dutch colonial rule and the Republican forces of the Indonesian Army; literally ‘Hou
se of Islam’
desa
village
Destruction Corps
Vernielingskorps
an organization in the Dutch East Indies set up to sabotage industry and equipment to prevent them being of use to the invading Japanese
dojo
a building for the practice of Japanese arts of self-defence
dokar
a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage
Dudok, Willem
(1884–1974)
a Dutch modernist architect put in charge of the urban redevelopment of The Hague after World War Two
dukun
medicine man, traditional healer
Dutch East India Company
Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC
a Dutch trading company founded with government backing in the Netherlands’ Golden Age with a monopoly on trade to and from the Dutch East Indies; still used as nationalist shorthand for Dutch maritime and mercantile power and the enterprising attitude that went with it
E
Eurasian
in the Dutch colonial context, a person of mixed blood in the Dutch East Indies who was recognized by their Dutch father and who held a Dutch passport; paternal recognition gave children of mixed blood access to privileged European status in some aspects of their lives
F
First Police Action
Eerste Politionele Actie
The Interpreter from Java Page 48
