House of Glass

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  And there were no other papers that showed whether the instruction was implemented or how it might have been implemented.

  There was also another document from the period of Van Der Wijck’s successor, Rosenboom, in the form of a recommendation from the Algemeene Secretariat concerning English intentions about Aceh. The note recommended that as the Aceh war came to an end, everything should be done to prevent the English from talking with the Acehnese with the ultimate aim of taking over Aceh. The note suggested that racial solidarity from the English-speaking peoples, both English and American, could not be relied upon. The American pressure on the Spanish over the Philippines might make the English nervous and encourage them to make inroads in Aceh. England had given considerable assistance to Aceh, in the form of arms and advice, both directly and through hints and signs.

  It wasn’t too hard to understand the English policy because the Netherlands Indies had violated the 1824 London Treaty. This treaty stated that Aceh would be treated in the same way as Siam, as a buffer state between two colonial neighbors. The provisions of this secret treaty were not adhered to. The Junghunn Expedition in Central and North Sumatra found signs that one of the reasons for the Natives’ resistance was the supply of guns from Singapore and the Peninsula.

  The 1871 Treaty resolved the problems between Holland and England. The two colonial powers made peace by agreeing to divide up their colonial spoils. Holland was free to act in Aceh, and England was free to act in Siam and all its occupied areas with the same rights as the Dutch businesses. The Netherlands Indies had ended England’s earlier dealings with Aceh by waging war against the Acehnese. Although the Acehnese resistance was no longer militarily significant, the rebellion in the Philippines might embolden the British to resume their support for Aceh. In assessing the situation in Aceh, it was important not to forget the United States’ role in the Philippines.

  I felt that I had discovered among all these papers the key to the problem that had been mentioned by Meneer K—, the important colonial figure, in the Harmoni Club. It was like this. Dutch colonialism was worried and suspicious of British and American colonialism. The Dutch were worried that the others might help the educated Natives in the Indies organize a revolt, then swallow up the Indies for themselves, either in part or whole, just as the Dutch themselves did to the North Celebes when the people there revolted against the Spanish.

  But there was an important reason why there could be no revolt by the educated Natives of the Indies. There were no higher educational institutions in the Indies. The only exception was perhaps the STOVIA-medical school. I made a special study of the STOVIA. After all, most of those promoting the awakening of Asia were doctors, and not lawyers as was the case in Europe. Perhaps the movements for enlightenment in Europe were motivated by the violation of people’s sense of justice. In Asia the awakening was inflamed by the awareness that society was sick and must be cured.

  If such a movement were ever to arise in the Indies, it would clearly follow the Asian pattern and not the European. The Indies Natives had no sense of justice, no sense of law. Try taking away the property of a Native. If it is taken by a European or a Eurasian, the Native will not say a word. He does not feel that any of his rights have been violated. They don’t understand the meaning of the word rights; they understand nothing about law. All they know is that there are judges who sentence them. It was no coincidence that the government made sure there was no big increase in the number of educated Natives so that there would continue to be no defiance. Of course, I don’t dare claim all this as definite before all the evidence for my conclusions is collected. These are just provisional notes.

  Now Aceh sheltered under the authority of the Netherlands Indies. Aceh would never be a subject of dispute with England. The Philippines sheltered under the authority of America. Many people accurately predicted that this nation, which was so proud of its nationhood, would give America many problems. And this English-speaking people in the North Indies remained a danger to the Netherlands Indies. So all contact between them and the Indies Natives, either directly or through books, needed to receive proper direction.

  To the east of the Indies were two other colonial powers—Germany in East Papua and Portugal in Timor.

  There was no danger of Portuguese influence seeping outside its territories through the educated Natives. During the last century, Portugal had been pushed out of the European cultural realm by its northern neighbors, Belgium, Holland, and France. Portugal now found itself almost exiled to the African continent, with its money, energy, and life spirit exhausted.

  Although Germany seemed very calm at the moment, this country, on the other hand, required special attention. The German people, who had historically always determined their fate on the battlefield, were a people always young and fresh in spirit. I had my own grounds for being suspicious as well. Twice now, the police had arrested and deported groups of Turkish youths. They had been traveling around the Indies, declaring themselves propagandists for Pan-Islamism. They said they were based in Istanbul. When they were interrogated, it turned out that they understood German better than English. They had thought that Arabic would be enough for them to make contact with the young Moslems of the Indies. They suffered total failure. And we discovered that they were all educated in Germany.

  The government did not make a fuss over these incidents and decided that they should not be made public. Even the journalists in the Indies never understood the real background to the arrests.

  The times had indeed changed; someone like Pitung had no chance today. You could not achieve much with just courage and terror in these modern times. This was the era of knowledge and learning. Today everything was assessed using that knowledge and learning. It was the era of leaders who were also great thinkers, who themselves sometimes did not need to descend into the arena of battle like Pitung. It was the power of their ideas that provided leadership, not just courage and terror.

  Uh, Pitung. Ziihhh!

  “Do you need something, Meneer?” asked De Man, offended.

  “Yes, yes, as it happens. A drink, Meneer De Man. Thank you very much. Like yesterday—hot milk.”

  He called an attendant and not long after, my order arrived. The servant put the glass down on my table. And I knew that De Man was watching me with unhappy eyes.

  By my third visit, De Man was making it clear that he did not like me. I didn’t care. Hopefully, today no ziihhh would escape from my lips. I would try to be in control of myself if Pitung appeared.

  After four hours of reading through the papers, I came across an instruction of Governor-General Rosenboom regarding the ban on reporting of events in the Philippines. It was in the form of an order from the Algemeene Secretariat to all governors and representatives of major companies in the Indies not to publish or discuss the Filipino rebellion in any of the publications under their control.

  And so it was that I sat in the State archives building studying those papers, document after document, for almost a month. I did not find anything else very important. I would have to look for anything else I needed in the Dutch and Malay papers. I didn’t understand Javanese. I could borrow newspaper material from the Gedung Gajah Museum library that belonged to the Batavia Society for the Arts and Sciences. It’s true that its collection wasn’t complete. There had once been a call for all publishers to give the library three copies of everything they published, to be saved for posterity. The call, however, was never backed up in law and many publishers took no notice. Apart from the library, my office also subscribed to several newspapers and magazines from the Netherlands, France, and England.

  It was from my reading of all those papers that I was able to make the following notes.

  The colonial powers of Europe were experiencing a calm that would eventually be costly for them. Especially given the emergence of new colonial powers like Japan and America, the calm in Europe was suspicious. All these powers, except Holland and Belgium, were not satisfied with the extent
of their colonies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. England had lost South Africa. Spain had lost the Philippines, Mexico, and Cuba. Meanwhile it was only natural that Belgium and Holland restrained themselves. Besides, they would be unable to compete in the battlefield with countries like France and Germany.

  Among all the colonial powers, the one that appeared most thirsty for colonies was Germany, which had joined the struggle for colonies late in the piece, having been preoccupied with Europe for the previous two centuries. The Germans were aware that they had been left behind. The world outside Europe had already been divided up among the European colonial powers.

  Among themselves the Europeans respected the law, so they had no grounds to start disputes with their neighbors over these colonies. The only opportunity arose when the Natives of the colonies themselves revolted and invited intervention.

  It has been said that no matter how clever a Western scholar might be, if he did not understand colonial affairs, he would never understand the world. He would be viewing the world from one floor or another of an ivory tower. Throughout the history of humankind, it was having colonies that turned a country into a whole world in itself. A country without colonies was like a widower who had to do all the housework as well as make a living by himself. The colony was like the wife who went out to work, who was submissive and faithful and obedient. Even though it was contrary to Christian morality (except for the Mormons, of course), the more wives a colonial power had, the more prosperous he would be, and the more desirable.

  If this analogy is at all appropriate, then we could go on to say that the wives Germany had acquired in Africa were incapable of doing anything, and its wife in East Papua was a dumb and useless one that not only didn’t produce anything but, in recent times anyway, had become a burden.

  In order for one country to seize its neighbor’s colonies—ah, see how the world was growing too small to cater for what was known as humankind’s lust for dominance—without the help of the Natives of the colony, the balance of power between the nations of Europe would have to be changed.

  I returned to the State archives to study some more about Papua. Could the Germans use it as a staging post to make moves into the territories of the Indies?

  It turned out that Papua had been the subject of colonial interest for a long time. The English tried to occupy West Papua in 1784 but were forced to leave, not just because its inhabitants were too primitive, but because blackwater fever was a terrifying angel of death. Once somebody was struck down by blackwater fever, his urine turning black like chocolate, he was wiped from the face of the earth. The English pulled up camp and left Papua, to be replaced by the Dutch, who established their headquarters at Manokwari.

  After one week of solid study at the archives, I concluded that England would regret having departed Papua in 1793. England should have developed Papua into a base to link Australia with Singapore and Malaya. Portugal in East Timor and Germany in East Papua were both too far away from any other base. This was true for the Indies and Holland too. But they all retained these three colonies. No matter how empty, or whether they were profitable or not, the possession of colonies was what made a country great. You could face your neighbors in any gathering with pride while you possessed such greatness.

  For three months solid I worked, digging about like this, to get a basic picture of the situation of the Netherlands Indies as regards the possibility of rebellion by the educated Natives, and of intervention by other colonial powers.

  When I asked for the papers dealing with Portuguese Timor, Meneer L— once again brought them to me himself. He sat down at the table across from me, looked at me for a long time, then began: “From the papers that you have been studying, I think I can guess how important your work is,” he said. “I have shown you everything. I have total control over all this material. I alone know the cataloguing codes. If I say that certain documents do not exist, there is no power that can bring them forth, Meneer.”

  “Yes, you are a very important man,” I said. I was thinking that he was hoping for gratitude from me and some words of tribute from His Excellency the governor-general.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean it would be very easy for you to refuse to hand over a document if you really didn’t want to.”

  He pulled on his lip, making sure he did not let all his feelings show. He seemed to be after sympathy. He was too lonely, stuck for years in this graveyard of a building.

  “Yes, it’s true. All I need do is say that it does not exist. Nobody would ever ask again. The document would cease to exist. As if I were a magician. Anybody who didn’t believe me could try to look for themselves among the seven kilometers of documents. They could search until they had grandchildren and still they would not find it.”

  “Yes, I can see you have total control over these documents. Thank you very much for all your help.”

  Now he smiled happily.

  Perhaps he was telling me all this as a way of expressing his annoyance at having to provide all this assistance to just a Native, even one with a mandate from the Algemeene Secretariat. Or perhaps my earlier guess was right—he wanted me to lobby His Excellency or the Gods of the Algemeene Secretariat for more resources for the archives.

  “All the important work of the government begins with studies in this building, Meneer,” he said again.

  “The members of the Indies Council too, yes?” I asked.

  “Very true.”

  “For their own research, or for the committees?”

  “The committees, Meneer. So I know how important your work is. And you yourself are an important man, Meneer.”

  “To be frank with you, Meneer, I don’t know whether this work is important or not,” I refuted him quickly. “All I know is that there is a task that I have to finish. I know no more than that.”

  “Do you have any plans for this evening?” he asked suddenly.

  “Just family business,” I answered.

  “Would you like to join me for dinner? At the Tong An restaurant? Eight o’clock?”

  “I don’t think I can accept your very generous invitation, Meneer.”

  “Tomorrow perhaps?” he asked quickly.

  “I don’t think I can, really, Meneer.”

  “What about with Mevrouw?” he continued to press me.

  “Very well, tomorrow, with my wife.”

  He held out his hand to me, and we shook hands. He was delighted. He went back into his office.

  There was very little of interest among the documents on Portuguese Timor. Most were concerned with tribal conflicts on the border. The next thing I had to look at was the question of England and North Borneo and all its oil.

  It appears that the most sought-after colonies are those with big populations, but even more so if they are also fertile and rich in minerals. It was precisely because Java had the biggest population that the Dutch set up headquarters on Java. The large population of Java could then be enslaved by cannon, rifle, and bayonet. Dutch colonial power in the Indies was always Javacentric. It was from Java that they saw and evaluated the rest of the Indies and everything that the Indies contained.

  In the Tong An restaurant two things became clear about Meneer L—. On the one hand he loved Chinese food, and on the other, he loved to study everything about Java.

  “And you have access to so many documents,” I said, commenting. “You will be the one who surpasses the achievements of Raffles and Veth in the twentieth century.”

  “There is no need to try to surpass them, Meneer. They are the great classic teachers who will live forever.” He gulped down a brandy after wishing me success and good health. Continuing: “One day, when the Javanese come to learn gratitude, they will put up statues to those two students of Java.”

  “They will build a statue to you too, Meneer,” I added.

  “That is too much praise, Meneer. I am not a pioneer. At the most you can say I am finishing off their work. Raffles and Veth’s pl
ace in this field is guaranteed for eternity.”

  And it was then that I also understood that this man did not need the attention of His Excellency the governor-general or the Algemeene Secretariat. It was enough for him to be able to bury himself in that mausoleum, still and cold as it was. All the documents that he needed were there and came to him on his command. He could research whatever he wanted and write about any subject he wanted. He would succeed. Why would he need people to pay him any special attention? It would be obvious to anyone that it would be a long time yet before any Javanese could equal him, especially if they did not begin to study Western logic. So why had he invited my wife and me to eat at this restaurant?

  My wife was busy talking with his wife. Sitting there under the hundred-watt light, their faces glistened even though they wiped them with their handkerchiefs repeatedly. After the dinner the waiter presented us with a scented wet towel. My wife had never eaten at a Chinese restaurant before and so did not know what to do with that warm, damp, and scented towel. As soon as she saw Meneer L— wipe his face and mouth with it, she gave an understanding laugh and followed his example.

  “Why did you choose to make Java your main subject of study, Meneer?”

  “There is one secret that I have not been able to discover, Meneer. I am not even able to make a simple hypothesis. See if you can work out the answer. What is the reason for the fact that there are many more Javanese than any other people of the Indies despite the similar opportunities and natural environment? Why does Java have a longer and richer history? Why is its cultural heritage greater, for any particular period of history? The Javanese even surpassed some of the European peoples in certain areas in particular periods. Aha, I see you are amazed at my saying that?”

  I was not amazed. Talk of the superior achievements of the Javanese always left me with an irritated feeling. But I knew the time would come when I would need more knowledge and understanding of the Javanese. So I decided to humor him now while he was so keen to talk about Java.