So Who's Your Mother

by Tarquin Olivier

  Things had started to fall apart with various rebellions, based on local culture, interpretations of religion, nascent Communist cells, the persecution of the Chinese middle classes, the expulsion of the remain-ing Dutch citizens and the spread of corruption. Sukarno still spoke to and for the nation he had led into independence. His rhetoric was everywhere, resonant and wonderfully put together. Sudara sudara,my brothers and sisters.

  I had been invited, out of the blue, to stay with the Hatcher family. They had read about me in the Straits Times. Phil Hatcher had been head of Nestlé in Malaya, which he said had no speck of corruption. He had now been a few months in Indonesia which was awash with it. During the war he had been imprisoned for years by the Japanese in Singapore. Even he, who had ‘seen it all’, felt the burden of daily stress in Djakarta. He and others called Indonesia the land of unlimited impossibility. He lived a hundred yards from the Presidential Palace, a gleaming white building with Corinthian columns, overlooking a lawn which was being mown by an old man with a stick and little more than a razor blade on one end, sweeping it from side to side. Djakarta was subsisting at a low rate. There were only two traffic lights in the entire city, the trishaw and car wheels were mostly worn smooth. Whenever you parked you had to remove the windscreen wipers to prevent them from being stolen.

  Indonesians are wonderful-looking people, both sexes, unlike some Asian countries where the women are beautiful but not the men. At that time most of the women wore their national dress, a long-skirted kain made of batik cotton and a light floral long-sleeved kebaya.Their hair was pulled tightly from their foreheads, hanging down the back of the head with complex braids in a net.

  The Philippine Senator Recto’s introduction to the number two man in the Indonesian Supreme Advisory Council gave me an entrée to Sukarno’s inner circle. Khrushchev, Chairman President of the Soviet Union, made a state visit to Indonesia. The Soviet leader and his hench-men and henchwomen looked unseemly among the elegance of their hosts. They were pallid, hard-eyed and their conversation was riddled with propaganda about the staggering success of Communism, and the exploitation of Indonesia by the imperialist Dutch. There was no gain-saying any of them. No debate could be squeezed between the black or white terms in which they saw the world. This made it impossible for Indonesians to come to any depth of understanding with them, because of the Indonesian practice of mushjawara: talking any problem to death. A most democratic and time-consuming activity.

  I accompanied a Soviet official and his interpreter in their car from the Central Javanese capital Jogjakarta to Borobudur Temple, the greatest Buddhist monument in the world. It is about eighty yards square of lava rock and represents the universe, the whole structure is topped with a huge bell-shaped stupa. Very steep steps lead up six storeys, each level sculpted along each of the four sides with scenes from the Buddha’s life. On top there are three circular terraces with ninety-two stupas, each a lattice-work of stone with a life-sized Buddha visible inside. This spiritual centre is surrounded by rice fields. Its medi-tative quality is enhanced by the sound of the ploughmen singing to encourage their buffaloes, songs from the epic Hindu Mahabharata.

  The arrival of dialectic materialism in its midst seemed crass. Sukarno led up the steep steps, trim in his Field Marshal’s service dress with the Order of Lenin on his chest and his baton firmly held. On his head he wore a black velvet songkok which hid his baldness and made him look younger. Khrushchev, with a pale loose suit hanging round his barrel of a body, laboured behind him. He was sweating and breathless and took many pauses. His rotundity gave new meaning to the word ‘girth’. He had to balance his mass on short stumpy legs. We stood at the top, President Sukarno, his two intelligent lady secretaries, the press corps, all waiting for him.

  Khrushchev eventually pitched up and stood breathlessly to one side. Sukarno tapped each of the six microphones and listened to the corresponding loudspeakers reacting round the quiet crowd below.

  Thousands of Javanese stood between the base of the monument and the rice fields. In the silence before the speech we could still hear the ploughmen singing. It was a clear day and unusually for that time of year we could see a dozen miles away the summit of the perfectly formed volcano, Merapi, smoke rising lazily from its crater.

  Sukarno’s speech dramatised the Indonesian struggle for indepen-dence. He was in fine form, lowering his voice to a carefully amplified whisper, then in full volume roaring out the same phrase to tumultuous cheering. He reminded me of Hitler, though his voice had less of a manic rasp, and his gestures were controlled, his eyes quietly hypnotic even when he was in full cry.

  ‘Indonesia from Sabang to Merauke’ indicated the spread of the country from the island north of Sumatra all the 3,000 miles across to the far eastern border of what was then the Netherlands New Guinea, still to be released to Indonesia to become Irian Jaya. ‘A just and pros-perous society.’ A constant exhortation, ‘We must re-tool the revolu-tion’, was his pet phrase for that year.

  And on it went, with the crowd’s cheers growing. The loudspeakers were switched off. Once again we could hear the ploughmen in the rice fields, their singsong voices rising and falling. Sukarno turned to Khrushchev and asked for comment. The interpreter, who had managed very well so far, relayed the question. Khrushchev shook his head and said he didn’t like it. Rather than translate those few bleak words the interpreter sought some elucidation.

  He turned once more to Khrushchev and asked: ‘What do you think, Mr Chairman President?’

  This was translated into Russian.

  ‘What do I think?’ Khrushchev demanded rhetorically. ‘I think you need tractors.’

  This was translated into Indonesian.

  Sukarno was stunned. His Soviet guest then proceeded to outline the need for planning. Everything must be planned, every minute of the day, every aspect of life from state education to match all the needs of production. When he had finished Sukarno murmured that that was the life of a robot.

  The State Visit proceeded to the blessed Isle of Bali. In the baking midday sun the two Heads of State sat together on a high stand, shaded by gorgeous palanquins. In the street before them paraded streams of bare-footed Balinese dancing girls, their hair folded within itself in two loops, crowned with frangipani blooms, their bare arms undulating in unison, their bodies wrapped tightly in scarlet and gold, their legs in traditional kains. Beyond them on the other side of the road was a gamelan orchestra with polychromatic xylophones and every kind of bass gong, emitting sounds ranging from deep reverber-ation to the thinnest tinsel. Meanwhile we were treated to fruit juices and ice cream.

  At the end of that long hot day there was an Indonesian cultural evening at Tampaksiring Palace. In the front row were two high-backed wooden thrones. Khrushchev came in and sat down with his male secretary behind him; Sukarno took his place next to him, and behind him the most ravishing Balinese maiden in white. I was a few rows back with Ganis Harsono, head of the Foreign Office Cultural Section. He had never seen the girl before. And all through the interminable dances, while Khrushchev gave dictation to his secretary, Sukarno turned to her and fed peanuts into her hands, with limpid looks. Everyone knew of his philandering. It was even said he liked to give really important speeches within an hour of making love. She looked Balinese. He was half Balinese on his mother’s side so he would have known how to get her, but she was a perfect mystery.

  A week later I went to the Sanur coast of Bali to see the Javanese painter Agus Jaya. He had a large wooden bungalow on the beach, overlooking gaily painted fishing-boats, masts laid flat, rolled up in their sails. His wife explained that when he came out of his studio he would remain so immersed in his painting that it would take him a while to focus on anything else – even her.

  She showed me a life-size portrait of a naked young woman’s back-view, lying in a forest. It reminded me of the similar painting by Velasquez, but without the mirror showing Venus’s face. That omission made her even more sensuous. We looked at it
for quite a while, unaware that Agus Jaya had joined us, a rag in one hand, apparently glad to have heard what I had been saying. We shook hands and I wondered what would have happened if Sukarno had seen that paint-ing.

  ‘Oh he did,’ he replied. ‘That’s the girl now with him. He went to her village and she agreed for him to take her. It will be some time for her to get over the shame when he leaves her.’

  My first time in Bali had been made most memorable by a sweet and loving relationship with a Balinese girl. I wrote fully about Sri, the name I gave her in my book. We had a wonderful month together. We bicycled miles and miles trying to find somewhere we could be alone. Even in the most luxuriant and leafy forests there was no chance. Around every tree trunk peered the face of a grinning child. It was the happiest and most uncomplicated month either of us had ever had. So hard to say goodbye. But I was to see her again fifteen years later.

  For several weeks I island hopped eastwards in small wooden ferries, eventually arriving in Timor, which means ‘East’. It was far beyond the live body politic. I accompanied an American anthropologist, Clarke Cunningham. He was about thirty, handsome and married to a French girl, as lovely as Brigitte Bardot, who had only just conceived their first baby and was passionately and shamelessly in love. He let me accom-pany him far into the interior, to a people who had hardly ever been visited by anyone, and never by a doctor.

  Their village was a ropey version of traditional poverty, rattan and well-trodden earth. The trees grew high above it, spaced so the canopy just joined. These rag-clad poor people farmed in nearby sunshine: hill paddy, vegetables, and fish in hand-dug ponds. None of them could read or write. Many had eyes cloyed with infection, fed upon by flies. About a dozen of them had twitches and facial expressions indicating mental problems. Wonky faces, wonky walks. There were indeed some devils waiting to be cast out.

  I was struck by the thought that these were the conditions prevalent in the Holy Land at the time of Christ. We did wash their faces with mildly salted water to clean their eyes. It seemed that in one or two cases this did restore eyesight they had lost for some time. I applied some antiseptic I always carried and their swollen lids got a bit better. They did not seem to look upon the world as individuals, with their own identity. Most of them just looked lost. I had never seen anything like it in Africa, even in Chafombo’s village which every year went for days with no water and was much poorer in every way.

  There were three or four seniors among them who remembered aspects of their history they wanted Clarke to record. Those few had special faces, focused, and one looked like Voltaire. They all spoke Indonesian as well as the Timorese language and answered Clarke’s questions clearly, day by day, and he noted down how their society was organised. They said some of their children had gone to the Timorese capital Kupang for teacher training. Their time would soon come, and they would truly participate in Indonesia’s finest achievement: the development of education.

  When I returned to Jogjakarta my Javanese friends could not believe my photographs were of normal Timorese. ‘Are these beggars?’

  I gave some lectures in the university, courtesy of the American professor of economics. The Indonesian gift for languages is extraordi-nary. Their English was so good they understood every nuance and laughed out loud at my story about the Cebu Rotarian’s question: ‘Who’s your mother?’

  Out and about there were frequent conversations where references to the volcano Merapi were used as an opener, like weather with the English. Yet hardly anyone had climbed it. I persisted with the Depart-ment of Volcanology and managed to obtain a permit for a team of American professors to come with me. I had asked a number of students but they didn’t see the point. With their inborn Javanese images of spirits and mystery perhaps they did not want to let sunshine in on magic.

  So we were five men. We had to drive our two jeeps round to the east side of Merapi, with a volcanologist. He guided us up a tarmac lane, threading through steep hairpin bends, up and up to a height of about 6,000 feet. It was evening. We came to a solid brick hut with a view of the peak. One of the rooms was equipped with barometric and seismo-logical equipment, all perfectly kept, the record books open and up to date.

  It was very cold. We had an early dinner with hot food and whisky and got into our camp beds, preparatory to getting up at three in the morning. We would then be able to reach the summit in time to see the sun rising behind other, lesser volcanoes far away. These formed the backbone of Java, making it the most beautiful island in all the world, with its immense spread of rice fields and terraces, the occasional clump of a village under fruit trees and palms. Our guide said that with such a view extending below us we would feel like kings.

  We awoke, made coffee, toast, boiled some eggs and bundled on our sweaters and windbreakers, all except for the economics professor. It was sharply cold and I wondered why he chose to remain only in a sleeveless vest. A young colleague told me he wanted us to admire his pectorals and biceps. Before we started our climb he lit a cigar.

  No moon. A slight mist reduced the stars. This worried our guide. He led us up and up and up. The slope was precipitous and the path slippery. We had to stop for breath every few minutes. The one who was the only possessor of mountain boots started gasping that his heart was playing up. We stopped and waited until he said he felt well enough to go on. Slowly. The economics professor finished his cigar and stamped it out. Our breathing became shamelessly loud.

  After a couple of hours, still in the dark, we came to a stone hut five hundred feet below the crater. It had a hefty door with special seals inside to protect occupants from any poisonous gas from the bowels of the earth. We sat, exhausted, our eyes drained of any spark. The stars were still shrouded and the guide said we must wait. The mist would make it impossible to see any gases coming down the mountainside. The light increased slowly but we were enveloped in mist so the expedi-tion had to be called off and back we went. The trudge down was far more treacherous than the ascent. We were dreadfully disappointed.

  A year later I received a letter from one of the professors saying they had put the expedition together again, climbed to the top, taken pictures of the inside of the crater steaming away at the bottom, and turned to hail the dawn. They had all cried three cheers for Ike and the Queen.

  In Singapore the editor of the Straits Times, Wee Kim Wee, was most impressive. With his iron-grey hair and gentle face he looked possessed with the wisdom of a sage, despite the constant interruptive demands of running a major newspaper. Twenty years later he was Singapore’s Head of State. He was quietly spoken and philosophical. He asked me all about Indonesia. I said that Singapore, so clean in every detail, seemed a world away from the vagueness and continuous stress which I had left behind, though with much regret. My eight months all over Indonesia had taught me more than any other such period in my life, and I felt more affection for a foreign country than I had ever known. I used the word ‘spiritual’ in a number of contexts, especially Javanese, and he understood.

  I asked him where he thought the heart of Singapore was to be found. Without hesitation he said ‘Chinatown’. I said that I would have to stay there. He said that might be difficult; a diplomatic way of telling me not to be silly. The ostentatious waterfront of Singapore was a thin façade in 1960. Directly behind it spread the populous and narrow streets of Chinatown. People’s servants lived there, taxi drivers, shop-keepers, factory workers, clerks and dockworkers, all the cogs and nuts and bolts which connected the big wheels. It was the basic ingredient of Singapore; not so much the heart, perhaps, but the guts.

  In between sorties to Malaya I returned five times to Singapore. I gave up staying at the YMCA – no privacy – and took a cubicle in a very poor hotel on the outskirts. Even there I had to fill out a police form with passport and other details. The Emergency caused by the Communist uprising among Malayan Maoist Chinese, led by Li Peng, was only recently over. The British Army, under General Sir Gerald Templer, had infiltrated the jungle hi
de-outs, ferreted out the terrorists mainly with small arms and patrols, resettled the vulnerable locals in protected new villages, and won the battle for hearts and minds. Malaya and Singapore had each only been independent for a year. The presence of visitors and hotel guests remained under scrutiny.

  I had checked in late at night. At seven thirty in the morning the phone rang. It was the Commissioner of Police of Malaya, a well-estab-lished friend: Sir Claude Fenner, who also had the Malay title ‘tan sri’. The next title, ‘Dato’, came later.

  ‘How on earth did you find me here, of all places?’

  ‘We have our means.’

  He asked me to join him on holiday in a police launch up the east coast of Malaya.

  He was a very big man, huge policeman’s feet, powerful and heavily built. He had managed to evade capture by the Japanese and had had a very successful war in the jungle, Force 136. During the Emergency which followed he was one of the masterminds against the well-organised Communists. His wife Joan was Elizabeth Arden’s rep-resentative for the Far East. With two young couples we had a wonderful week together on his launch along the east coast.

  We came across some Chinese fishermen, their black hair bleached red by the sun, their skin was the colour of mahogany and their four wooden boats silver grey. Claude had served in Quemoy and Matsu on the south coast of China and spoke their kind of Chinese. He persuaded them to let me join them.

  One of their boats had a diesel engine and it towed the other three. After an hour they switched off and we drifted in silence. One of them put on flippers, a facemask and dived in. The sea was so clear and calm we could see him, his legs sweeping him further and further down until he was out of sight. Then he reappeared, letting out air bubbles, until at the surface his breath exploded with a yelp. He gave the thumbs up. Fish were there. He had seen masses of them. He hauled himself into the boat. Two others held out a much-worn diver’s suit, with metal feet and a glass-windowed helmet which screwed on like a space suit, and helped him into it. His hands were free, the wrists tightly bound.