This Earth of Mankind

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  Passing through the back door, we entered an area containing steel-hooped wooden barrels. On top of the largest one there was a churning machine. The smell of cow’s milk filled the room. People worked without making any sound, as if they were dumb. Now and then they wiped their bodies with a piece of cloth. Each wore a white headband. All wore white shirts with the sleeves rolled up to about ten centimeters above their elbows. Not all of them were men. Some were women; you could tell from the batik kains below their white shirts. Women working in a business. Wearing calico shirts too! Village women wearing coats! And not in their own kitchens! Were they wearing breast-cloths too under their calico shirts?

  One by one I looked them over. They only paid attention to me for a moment.

  Annelies approached them each in turn, and they greeted her, without speaking, just with a sign. That was the first time I knew this beautiful childlike girl was also a supervisor who must be paid heed to by her workers, male and female.

  I was dumbfounded to see women leaving their kitchens in their homes, wearing work clothes, seeking a living in someone else’s business, mixing with men! Was this also a sign of the modern era in the Indies?

  “You’re amazed to see women working?”

  I nodded.

  “They wear the same uniforms here as workers in Holland, but we can only give them calico.”

  She pulled me by the hand and took me out into an open compound, the area for drying produce. Several people were working, turning over soya beans, shucked corn, peas, and peanuts. As soon as we arrived, they all stopped work and greeted us by nodding and lifting up their hands. They all wore bamboo farmers’ hats.

  Annelies clapped her hands and held up two fingers to somebody. A moment later a child worker came up with two bamboo hats. Annelies put one on my head, and wore one herself, and we walked several hundred meters along a path laid with river gravel.

  “There are big celebrations on at the moment,” I said. “Why aren’t they given a holiday?”

  “They can holiday if they like. Mama and I never holiday. They’re day laborers.”

  Along the path, up in front of us, quite far away, I could see the two Roberts, each with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

  “What work is it you do?” I asked.

  “Everything except the office work. Mama does that herself.”

  So Nyai Ontosoroh does office work. What sort of office work can she do?

  “Administration?” I asked, groping around.

  “Everything. The books, trading, correspondence, banking . . .”

  I stopped in my steps. Annelies also. I stared at her in disbelief. She pulled at my hand and we walked on again toward a row of cattle pens. I already could smell the stench of their dung. It was only because a beautiful girl was taking me that I did not run to avoid it; indeed, I even went into the pens themselves. Only once in all my life. Truly.

  The row of pens was very long. In each one people were busy looking after the feed and drink for the dairy cows. The smell of cow dung and of rotten grass made the atmosphere fetid, and I had to resist the urge to vomit.

  Lifting up the edge of her satin dress, Annelies went up to several cows and patted them on the forehead, talked to them in a whisper, even laughed. I observed her from a distance. She had such easy manners entering the pens and talking with the cows, and in a satin gown like that!

  Here too there were women workers. They were sweeping, rinsing down the pen floors, and scrubbing them with very long-handled brushes. They all seemed surprised to see me there.

  Annelies walked along the shelves, and I walked along opposite her. She stopped. I saw her talk with a worker, and they both glanced at me, as if sharing a secret.

  Another worker, stooped over in deference, walked out in front of me carrying two empty zinc buckets. Her face was pretty. Like the others she wore a breast-cloth and kain. She was barefooted, wet, dirty, with her toes trumpeting outward. Her breasts were firm and full and by themselves attracted attention. She bowed, glanced up at me from under her forehead, and smiled invitingly.

  “Greetings, Sinyo!” She addressed me freely, softly and enticingly.

  I’d never met a Native girl so free as that, greeting a man she had never met before. She stopped in front of me and asked in Malay:

  “Checking up on things, Nyo?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Suddenly Annelies was behind me. “How many buckets a day are you getting from your cows, Sis Minem?” Now she spoke Javanese.

  “The usual, Non,” Minem replied in High Javanese.

  Annelies appeared impatient.

  “I can still collect more milk than any of them,” she said when we went outside. “I don’t think you like cows. Let’s go to the stables, if you like; or to the fields.”

  I had never been to a field. There is nothing interesting there. Yet I still followed her.

  “Or do you like riding?”

  “Ride a horse?” I cried. “You ride horses?”

  This childlike girl who had never graduated from primary school suddenly stood revealed as a person of extraordinary character: Not only was she such an efficient manager, but she could ride horses and could get more milk from her cows than any of the other workers.

  “Of course. How else could you keep check on fields as large as these?”

  We came to a field that had just been harvested. Peanuts. The harvest could be seen heaped on the ground everywhere. There were also piles of peanut stems and plants being carted off for cattle fodder.

  “The land here is very good; it can produce three metric tons dry weight of peanuts per hectare. If we hadn’t proved it ourselves maybe people would never have believed it,” Annelies said. “Good land. First-class quality. Profitable. Even the leaves and stems are good for fertilizer and for cattle fodder.”

  It seemed that she could read my thoughts: Who cares if it’s two or five tons a hectare? I heard her voice: “You’re not interested. Let’s race the horses. Agree?”

  Before I could answer, she pulled my hand. I was dragged along as she ran. I could hear her breathing and then panting heavily. She took me into a big, broad shed that contained coaches, carriages, wagons, and buggies. Saddles, with all sorts of stirrups, hung along the walls. Most of the building was empty.

  Seeing my amazement at finding a carriage stable as big as a bupati’s office, she laughed, then pointed to a carriage adorned with shining brass and with carbide lights.

  “Have you ever seen such a beautiful buggy?”

  “Never, never,” I answered as I approached the vehicle.

  Annelies pulled me along again. We entered into a long, wide stable. There were only three horses inside. Now it was the stench of horses permeating the air and assaulting my sense of smell. She approached a gray-colored horse, embraced the animal’s neck, and whispered something in its ear, calling it Bawuk.

  Bawuk neighed lightly as if laughing in response. Then Annelies stroked the horse’s forehead and it grinned, showing its mighty teeth.

  Annelies laughed gaily.

  Then, in a serious voice, after whispering while embracing Bawuk’s neck, she glanced at me, “We have a guest. That’s him. His name is Minke. An alias: It is not a Javanese name, nor Islamic, not even Christian, I imagine. An alias. Do you believe his name is Minke?”

  Once again the horse neighed in response.

  “Nah!” Annelies said, then to me: “She said that of course your name is an alias.”

  They were plotting. I was their target. And the other two horses joined in neighing, looking at me accusingly with their big, unblinking eyes.

  “Let’s go outside,” I said, but she went over to the other two horses and stroked each of their backs. Only then did she say to me: “Come on.”

  “You smell of horses,” I said.

  She only laughed.

  “Apparently it doesn’t worry you.”

  “It’s not really important,” she answered grumpily. “Bawuk has been treated that
way ever since she was small. Mama would be angry if I didn’t love her. You must be grateful to everything that gives you life, says Mama, even if it’s only a horse.”

  I didn’t annoy her again about the stench.

  “Why don’t you believe my name is Minke?”

  Her eyes shone with disbelief, accusing.

  It was, of course, not my idea that my name be, or that people should call me, Minke. I too had been amazed by how it had happened. It is a bit of an involved story. It started when I was still at E.L.S. and did not know a word of Dutch. Mr. Ben Rooseboom, my very first teacher, was always cross with me. I could never answer his questions. I always ended up crying. Yet every day a servant escorted me to that hated school.

  I was stuck in first class for two years. Mr. Rooseboom remained cross with me and I remained scared of him. But by the time the new school year arrived, my Dutch was somewhat better. My friends had all gone up to second class. I stayed in first class. I was seated between two Dutch girls, who were always making trouble and annoying me. On one occasion, one of the girls who sat beside me, Vera, pinched my thigh as hard as she could, as a way of getting acquainted. I screamed in pain.

  Mr. Rooseboom’s eyes popped out frighteningly, and he yelled:

  “Quiet, you monk . . . Minke!”

  From that day, everyone in the class called me Minke, the one and only Native. My teachers followed suit. Then my friends from all the other classes. Also from outside school.

  I once asked my elder brother, what did Minke mean? He didn’t know. He even ordered me to ask Mr. Rooseboom himself. I didn’t dare. My grandfather didn’t know Dutch. He couldn’t even read or write Latin script. He only knew Javanese, written and spoken. His view was that Minke should be my permanent name: It was a sign of respect from a good and wise teacher. So my real name was almost lost.

  I always believed that the name meant something unpleasant. The day my teacher spoke that word Minke, his eyes popped out like a cow’s eyes. His eyebrows jumped off his broad face. And the ruler in his hand fell to the desk. Goodness and wisdom? Far from it.

  I could not find the word in the Dutch dictionary.

  Then I entered the H.B.S., Surabaya. My teachers there did not know what it meant either. Unlike us Javanese, they would never make a guess based just on feelings. One even quoted to me from some Englishman: What’s in a name? (It was a long time before I could remember the Englishman’s name.)

  Then we began English lessons. Six months passed and I came across a word similar in pronunciation and spelling to my name. I began to think back over it: eyes popping out and eyebrows ready to disengage from his broad face—for sure he was insulting me. And I remember how Mr. Rooseboom hesitated in saying the name. Fearfully I dared to guess: Perhaps he intended to insult me by calling me monkey.

  I’ve never told anyone what I thought, not even Annelies.

  “Minke is a good name,” said Annelies. Then: “Let’s visit the villages. There are four villages on our land. All the family heads work for us.”

  All along the road the villagers acknowledged us with respect. They called the girl Non or Noni.

  “How many hectares do you have?” I asked.

  “One hundred and eighty.”

  One hundred and eighty! I couldn’t even imagine how vast that was. And she continued:

  “That’s the paddy and fields. It doesn’t include the forests.”

  Forests! She owns forests. Crazy. She owns forests! What for?

  “For the firewood,” she added.

  “Perhaps you own swamps too?”

  “Yes. There are two small swamps.”

  “What about mountains?” I asked. “Mountains?”

  “You’re teasing me.” She pinched me.

  “Volcanoes, no doubt, so you can catch their flames if they erupt, just like the gods.”

  “Iiiih!” She pinched again.

  “What’s all that growing over there?” I asked, pointing to a marshy area a few meters away.

  “Only reeds. Haven’t you ever seen that kind of reed?”

  “Let’s go over there,” I said.

  “No,” she answered firmly and hunched her shoulders. She shuddered visibly.

  “You’re scared of that place.”

  She took my hand and hers felt cold. All of a sudden her eyes became nervous and she tried to tear them away as quickly as possible from the marshes. Her lips were pale. I glanced behind. She pulled my hand and whispered nervously:

  “Don’t pay any attention. Come on, walk a little faster.”

  We entered another village, then left it and entered yet another. It was the same everywhere: little, naked children playing everywhere, most with snot hanging from their noses. There were also a few who licked it off. In the shady places, women in late pregnancy sat sewing while carrying their youngest children in kain slings. Two or three women sat in a row looking for head lice.

  Several women stopped Annelies and wanted to talk with her, asking for help. And this extraordinary girl, like a mother, affably attended to them all.

  She loved her horses because they gave life to her and so it was also with her people. She appeared so grand among the villagers, her people. More grand perhaps than the maiden I had so often dreamed of and who now, in great pomp, had taken her place on the throne to govern the Indies, Surinam, the Antilles, and the Netherlands itself. Even Annelies’s skin was finer and more radiant. And Annelies could be approached.

  As soon as she finished attending to her people’s demands, we continued our walk. Vast nature and that clear, cloudless sky enveloped us. It was scorching hot. It was at that moment I whispered to her these words:

  “Have you seen a picture of the queen?”

  “Naturally. She’s beautiful!”

  “Yes. You’re not wrong.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You’re more beautiful than she.”

  She stopped walking just to look at me.

  “Thank you, Minke,” she answered, embarrassed.

  The road became hotter and more still. I jumped over a drain just to see if she would jump or not. She picked up her long dress as high as she could and jumped. I caught her hand, pulled her close, and kissed her upon the cheek. She looked startled, her eyes wide open, examining me.

  And I kissed her once again. This time I felt how her skin was smooth as velvet.

  “The most beautiful girl I have ever met,” I whispered with all my heart’s honesty.

  She didn’t answer, and she didn’t say thank you either. She signaled we should go home. She walked along silently all the way. Then a premonition came upon me: You are going to get nothing but trouble from these actions of yours, Minke. If she complains to Darsam, you’ll be beaten up before you can even bark.

  She walked with her head bowed. I realized only then that her sandals had been left on the other side of the drain. And soon I felt ashamed for pretending not to have noticed.

  “Your sandals have been left behind, Ann.”

  She didn’t care. Didn’t answer. Didn’t look back. She increased her pace.

  Quickly I moved up beside her.

  “Are you angry, Ann? Angry at me?”

  She continued to keep her silence.

  The timber palace was visible far away high above the roofs of the other buildings. I could see Nyai watching us from an upstairs window. Annelies, who was walking with her head down, did not know the eyes upstairs followed us until the roofs of the factory buildings blocked Nyai’s view.

  We entered the house and sat once again on the front-parlor settee. Annelies sat quietly, leaving frozen all my questions. All of a sudden she leaped up and went into another room. As I sat there, I became more and more anxious. She is going to complain to Nyai for sure. I’ll get my just desserts now. But no, I will not run.

  It wasn’t long after that she came out again, carrying a big paper bundle. She placed the object upon the table and said coldly:

  “It’s late. Rest. That door�
��—she pointed to the back, at a door—“is your room. In this bundle there are sandals, a towel, and pajamas. You can bathe there. I still have work to do.”

  Before going, she went to the door she had just pointed out, opened it, and invited me to enter.

  Gently she pushed me inside and closed the door from the outside, leaving me alone behind it.

  These small and large tensions had made me very tired. My fears about the consequences of my impertinence continued to worry me, though I didn’t think I had really done anything wrong. What was it that I had done wrong? Any young man would have behaved the same in the presence of such an extraordinarily beautiful maiden. Didn’t my biology teacher say. . . ? Ah, to the devil with biology!

  Entering the bathroom was another experience again, another kind of luxury. The walls were lined with mirrors at least three millimeters thick. The floor was made of cream porcelain tiles. I had never seen such a big, clean, and beautiful bathroom. Even a bupati’s home would not be equipped with such a bathroom. The bluish water in the porcelain-lined bathtub called out to me to submerge myself in it. And wherever your eyes were directed, it was always yourself that you saw: front, behind, sides, everything.

  The bluish clear cool water washed away my anxieties and fears.

  And if ever I am rich, I thought, I will build luxury like this. Nothing less than this.

  * * *

  Mama offered me a chair in the parlor. She sat down beside me and tried to start up a discussion about business and trade. It was soon obvious that I knew nothing about these things. She was acquainted with many European terms that I didn’t know. Sometimes she would explain them to me just like a teacher. And how clearly this Nyai could explain things!

  “Sinyo is interested in business and trade,” she said afterwards, as if I had understood everything. “That’s very unusual for a Javanese, especially the son of an important official. Or perhaps Sinyo has plans to become a trader or a businessman?”

  “I am already trying my hand at business, Mama.”

  “Sinyo? The son of a bupati? What sort of business?”

  “Perhaps also because I’m not the son of a bupati,” I replied.