by Arthur Japin
“And is that all?” I asked.
“Yes. Come on now, how does it strike you?”
“It is, how shall I put it . . . quite remarkable. But what has this got to do with Ahim? God forbid that he should skip along behind the ladies too.”
Adeline did not react. She held her tongue and gave no indication of rising from her seat. I grew impatient, and said: “At my age a banquet is a rather daunting prospect, and to be honest I had planned to spend the day quietly, on my own, so as to prepare myself mentally.”
She went outside, but soon returned with a large jug of orangeade and two glasses.
“You and I are always alone,” she said. “This is our great occasion. Today we are together.”
Less than half an hour later it dawned on me that Adeline had ulterior motives for lingering at my house. As soon as Ahim arrived—in a carriage, no less—she hurried to meet him at the garden gate. They were evidently plotting something. When I stepped on to the porch Ahim fled into the kitchen, supposedly to fetch me a cold lunch. I called out to him that my stomach could not take another morsel of food, and demanded to know where he had been. Adeline, who had posted herself by the carriage, saved him from having to reply.
“Do sit down,” she cried, “there’s someone to see you.”
Adeline came forward with a frail old man shuffling at her side. His shirt was stained. If he had not grasped my hand so firmly and given me such a long searching look I would never have recognized him as van Drunen. His cheeks were unshaven and he was dressed like a workman. He was emaciated, his eyes sunken, and he seemed mortally ill. I made to help him into a chair, but he insisted that I remain seated. He took two steps back and bowed his bald head to me, and also inclined his body as far as he was able. He had obviously planned this beforehand. Then he bestowed on me the same honour as when we first met: he addressed me with my full Ashanti title. This only moved me because he was so manifestly emotional himself.
Adeline drew up a chair for him and Ahim brought us a tray with refreshments. I was under the impression that they had conspired together to arrange for an old forgotten friend to attend my jubilee celebration, and forgave them their interference. They withdrew discreetly.
Van Drunen spoke in a weak voice. His lungs rasped. He stopped now and then in mid-sentence to get his breath back. His thoughts evidently wandered during these pauses, because the gist of his words was unclear. I leaned forward to concentrate on what he was saying. His face was weathered like that of a peasant, and there were dry brown stains on his nose and forehead. His blue gaze had turned grey, and his pupils looked ragged along the edges. Eighty-seven! I reached out and took his hand to ease him back from his musings to reality. The look he gave me seemed to say that it was only now that he realized fully who I was.
“The little prince . . .” he said, as if he were face-to-face with the child I once was, “. . . out in the wide world.”
I asked after his current situation.
The modest batik-printing industry at Semarang that van Drunen had set up four decades ago with the “black Hollanders” resulted for a while in a lively trade with their tribal relatives on the Gold Coast. The Javanese designs were complemented with African patterns, and in many places the new style supplanted the traditional West African dress.
Around 1875, however, news of the popularity of wax prints in the African coastland reached the Dutch cotton manufacturers. As they had been facing diminishing sales of their batik in Java they were eager to expand their activities to West Africa, which they did with a vengeance. The African market was flooded with Dutch cloths, thereby ousting the import of wax-print textiles manufactured by the blanda hitams. The black community in Java had been living in poverty for the past twenty years.
Van Drunen himself is still living in their kampung, despite his failing health. He is regarded as an eccentric by the Dutch colonials, whose contact with him is limited to his occasional appeals for assistance in finding work for the half-caste offspring of African fathers and Javanese mothers.
“Like my own children,” I said, at which van Drunen’s eyes lit up. He was noticeably pleased at my fatherhood, but somewhat taken aback that it had come at my advanced age. I sent Ahim to fetch my little ones.
“In our kampung . . .” said van Drunen, “the next generation is already growing up. It has all gone so quickly. The very men that I recruited in Africa—grandfathers already. Last month a boy-child was born with skin so very pale . . .” His thoughts drifted off, then he regained his composure, adding triumphantly: “John!”
I stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“They have called the child John.” He was radiant.
“Is that your name too?” I asked.
His fingers trembled as he traced the outline of the infant’s head.
“Like John the Baptist!” He puffed up his wrinkled cheeks until they were as round as a child’s.
“I never knew your Christian name.”
“Didn’t you?”
“We were children. You were Mijnheer to us.”
His face fell. He nodded briefly.
“Children.” This time his thoughts strayed so far away that I was afraid he would forget to breathe.
“I try to help them,” he said finally, sighing. “These children were born of my shame.” He fixed my eyes with his, as if he expected something from me. I began to feel that he had not come here to attend the festivities. I glanced round, but Adeline was nowhere to be seen.
“I have read a letter you wrote long ago,” I began, “in which you requested to be relieved from your government post.” Van Drunen nodded. “I did not get the impression you abandoned your career to devote yourself to charitable works.”
“No indeed. That came later.”
“Yet it was your own choice to live so modestly.” My no-nonsense tone made him sit up. He struggled to regulate his breathing as best he could. It was as though he had been saving his energy to give me a full, uninterrupted account of what had transpired.
“In that letter you saw I surrendered my position and all that went with it. My superior began by delaying my missive, then tried to dissuade me. My fellow colonial officers were amazed: no man in his right mind would freely give up the influence he had accumulated during so many long years of service. I was even taken to a doctor, who examined me for symptoms of malaria, homesickness and tropical fever, but I was adamant.
“My salary was discontinued and I lost my credit with the bank. I forfeited my pension rights as well as my rank and my government residence, which meant that I was no longer invited to social functions. As I had not explained my motives to my friends they were perturbed, and consequently I caused them some embarrassment. In order not to compromise them further I stopped making social calls. I broke off the engagement with the fiancée I had found in Holland after much soul-searching. Even the clothing for which I had received an allowance from the government was confiscated, so that I was left with only a couple of old suits, which I sent out to be mended in turns. My carriage went, too, after which all I had to my name were some savings. Those I spent on a strong horse, because in my penurious state I longed only to be free to travel.
“So I did not hunt for a lodging house, and sold off my belongings and any effects connected with my former post. I was able to survive on the proceeds from that sale for eighteen months, during which time I crossed the archipelago from end to end, sleeping under the stars and eating with the natives. In no way did I rise above them, nor did I make the old mistake of believing I could become their equal. I was different, and was tolerated as such in their midst.”
Here he paused for a moment to take a sip of water. Then he mopped his neck and head, folded his handkerchief and tucked it into his breast pocket again.
“You, Prince Aquasi,” he continued, “you can see into my heart more clearly than any other man. When I returned to Batavia from my travels, eighteen months later, I found every door closed to me. I wrote to my relations
at home asking them for money, and in my attempts to exculpate myself it was tempting to give a noble twist to my self-chosen fall from grace; when a cousin of mine suggested that I had no doubt been moved to resign because I shared the great writer Douwes Dekker’s hatred of injustice, I did not contradict him. But it was not the truth, of course. Although I was driven by indignation at the injustice I had seen, my motives were purely selfish.”
“In what way?”
“In the sense that Douwes Dekker, too, served his own interests. No man sacrifices his future unless he believes he can save his soul by so doing.”
“So what was your motive?”
“My true motive? It was you.”
He met my gaze at last. A smile spread across his face, but there was a faraway look in his eyes. I tried to revive the old affection I had had for the man, but found I could not.
“Yes,” he said, “it was all because of you.”
“Did you feel guilty by any chance?” I asked bluntly. He became rather agitated, and although he spoke evenly I noticed a tremor in his nostrils.
“Whatever sins I may have committed will be revealed to me soon enough when I meet my maker. If the Lord asks me why I took you and your cousin away from your homeland my answer will be that I was not merely obeying orders, but believed in the righteousness of my action. Do not think I have come all the way here to ask for forgiveness. When I was in Africa I was a young man. It was my first expedition. I knew nothing about the world, and less about its peoples. When I first saw you, you were half naked, illiterate. I had no doubt that you would benefit from a sojourn in Holland, indeed that it would be your salvation from a life in a land so brutal that I tripped over a heap of human heads during an evening stroll. When I took you boys under my wing it was because I believed I had the Lord’s blessing.”
“Hardly an act of unselfishness,” I said. His tone was beginning to chafe me. I had never reproached him for his deeds, but now I felt bitter. I had no wish to appear unfriendly, so I stood up as if the subject were of no particular interest to me, and fixed my gaze on the garden path. I wished Ahim were with me— Ahim, who always managed to deflect me from my gloomy reminiscences with his impudence. For a moment I thought I saw the old buffoon in the shadows and I beckoned him without van Drunen noticing, but it was only the sun shining on a banana leaf at the bottom of the garden.
“What I have been saying to you does not mean,” the monologue continued behind my back, “that I did not feel responsible. The day I left Kumasi with you and your cousin changed the course of my own life, too.”
“Do you expect me to sympathize?” I asked.
“Not a day goes by without my thinking of you. Not a night, not an hour.” His voice faltered. “Prince Kwame’s death grieved me as if he were my own son. You do not believe me? That is your right. You are hearing the story of a man who lost less than yourself, a man, moreover, who contributed to your loss, albeit unknowingly. Even if you are sceptical, please let me finish.
“Your cousin’s death opened my eyes, but I could not yet face the truth. I decided to leave Holland in the hope of resting my soul. I requested relocation to the East Indies. I hoped to recover the vigour and commitment I had known when I first travelled to the tropics. It was not until I arrived in this colony, where social hierarchies are magnified out of all proportion, that I discovered the workings of the machine in which I myself was a cog.
“I had not been in Batavia for a full year when you paid me your first visit. I was so happy to see you—a grown man now, a university graduate, and a colonial officer to boot! You stood alone, but you were strong and full of energy. I was relieved to see that our adventure had produced such a positive result, and was most gratified by the way you and I shared memories of your dear cousin, that we were able to laugh together and also to weep over incidents I had never dared countenance until then. The effect of your visit was like that of the folk medicines the Bantamese use for colic: the cause of the ailment is not taken away, but all the internal organs are cleaned and oiled for a new lease of life. You made me think.
“By the time you came to see me I was beginning to feel at home in my new surroundings. Once I had settled down I had plenty of time for the thoughts I had banished for so long. Our conversation brought Kwame back to me in a way I had not believed possible. It was no longer his death that I pondered, but his life. I could not understand why you were able to succeed in life and not he. And if it was true that I had in some way contributed to your success, had I not equally contributed to your cousin’s tragic fate? Sometimes, on sleepless nights of inner turmoil, I would ask him outright whether I was to blame. I could feel his presence in my room—although my nature is rational and down-to-earth. One night he appeared in a dream. He sat on the edge of my bed and consoled me, saying I had been merely a pawn in the game.”
“And that made you feel better, no doubt.”
“After that the visions stopped. I thought I had found peace at last. Two years later you visited me again. As soon as you crossed the threshold I knew you had suffered misfortune. Grave misfortune. And I thought to myself: dear God, may he be spared!
“You told me of your lonely struggle. I promised to look into your situation and said goodbye without undue emotion, as was my custom. But a new zeal stirred in my heart, as if God Himself had roused me. You may find it hard to understand, but the sadness I felt at your suffering was mitigated by a sense of challenge, of a calling. Indeed I was glad of the opportunity, thanks to you, to do a good deed. I resolved to do everything in my power to help you. However, my loyalty to the government was still intact. My God, if I had known then what I would soon discover . . .”
Van Drunen’s voice broke, as if he dreaded telling the story up to the end. He shook his head and drank some water, fumbled in his pockets for a piece of paper, which he laid on the table between us, and mopped the perspiration from his neck. The handwriting was his.
At that very moment Ahim, who is never there when you want him and always when you don’t, turned up with my children skipping along behind him. They greeted the old gentleman politely the way I had taught them, and I truly believe that van Drunen was moved by the likeness between them and me. However, I was eager for him to continue his discourse which, I feared, was in danger of being ousted from his mind in the stir caused by my children. I told Ahim that I was otherwise engaged and ordered him to entertain the children until we had concluded our conversation. Despite the severity of my tone the fool insisted on fetching fresh fruit for us first, but eventually he took my little ones by the hand and went off into the garden, where they squatted down to make a small fire with twigs and dead leaves.
The note had been lying on the table all that time. At last van Drunen picked it up. He unfolded the sheet, folded it again and then held it up briefly between his fingers, where it shook like a leaf. I was impatient and about to take it from him when he broke the silence.
“The first step was simple. I requested a meeting with Governor-General Duymaer van Twist. He was aware of your case, and had already received several complaints about de Groot’s treatment of you. Those complaints had, he assured me, resulted in an official reprimand. I retorted that in my estimation you were too highly placed regarding both training and social rank to serve under de Groot. I proposed that you should be released from his employ and granted licence to work independently as you had been promised. When I pressed him for further details of the arrangement he changed the subject tactfully but firmly.
“Later that day I asked to see your dossier at the head office, as I still had the authority to do. I expected to find a handful of reports, but to my surprise I was presented with a bulky portfolio which, although the contents referred to a period of less than four years, was so heavy that it took two men to carry.
“In addition to the usual conduct records, salary lists and quarterly reports I came across memoranda giving detailed accounts of your day-to-day activities. De Groot, for instance, not only repor
ted on all the expeditions you undertook together, but also included a record of each and every private engagement, complete with dates, times and durations. Appended to these papers were notes submitted by others, often with suggestions of such an intimate nature that I felt obliged, contrary to my code of honour as a civil servant, to remove the offending items from your dossier before returning it to the records officer.
“The seriousness of your situation became fully apparent when I attempted to discover the reason for collecting such a mass of information. I broached the subject with the governor and his close associates, but met with only prevarication. After a while I realized that the gentlemen concerned had agreed among themselves not to reveal any further details to me.
“Towards the end of January 1855, after I had spent several weeks delving into your case, something remarkable happened. One night a native boy came to my door saying I was urgently needed by one of my colleagues. I hurried to his house, which was in one of the more disreputable parts of the city, only to find him in bed and quite content. We laughed at the misunderstanding, and I returned to the main road to call a rickshaw. At that point some beggars emerged from the gloom. They bore down on me and robbed me of my small change, pocket watch and meerschaum pipe. I pretended to be knocked out and cursed myself for being so heedless in a neighbourhood where such attacks were frequent, when suddenly I heard one of the men mention my name to his cronies—how could he possibly have known who I was?
“The very next morning my department received a visit from your superior, Cornelius de Groot himself. He had come for a drilling licence, he said. Hearing of my accident he made a show of concern for my injuries. He advised me in a genial tone to be more careful about where I went at night. He sat down as if we were old friends and assured me that he remembered me well from a visit I had paid to the boarding school when you were young. He told me he was your friend and protector and that he had great plans for you, despite your occasional disagreements. He was sorry to say that you had applied for relocation to Holland, presumably because you were homesick.
