On seeing Darsam I called out straight away:
“No, Darsam! No!” and I ran after him.
And Darsam didn’t listen to me. He kept on after Fatso. I had no choice, I ran after Darsam to try to stop him. Nothing must happen. And Darsam kept on after Fatso. And I kept on running too, yelling out for him to stop—running with all my strength.
From behind me, I heard Annelies cry out:
“Mas! Mas!”
I glanced back for a moment. Annelies was running after me.
It seemed that Fatso knew he was being chased. He ran with all his might to save that abundance of flesh from the fighter’s machete. Now and then he glanced back.
“Tso! Fatso! Stop!” Darsam shouted hoarsely.
Fatso bent down so he could run faster.
“Darsam! Come back! Don’t go on!” I shouted.
“Mas, Mas, don’t follow them!” exclaimed Annelies from behind me, shrilly and loudly.
I reached the main gate. Fatso was out ahead, heading straight for Surabaya. Darsam was getting closer.
“Anneliesss! Aaaaan! Anneliessssss! Come Baaaack!” Nyai could be heard calling out.
When I looked back I saw Mama, holding her kain up high, chasing her daughter. Her hair had fallen free and loose. Fatso was running to save himself. Darsam chased after Fatso. I chased after Darsam. Annelies chased me. And Nyai chased her daughter.
“Darsam! Listen to me! Don’t!”
And he took no notice. He ran and ran. In a moment he would catch up with Fatso, who would then lose his head. No! It must not happen.
“Mas! Mas! Don’t join in!” exclaimed Annelies.
“Ann, Anneliessss, come home!” exclaimed Mama.
And if Fatso had run on in the direction of Surabaya, he would have died for sure. The road was quiet on a Sunday, with just paddy, paddy everywhere, Ah Tjong’s brothel, and Nyai’s paddy, paddy and fields, and more paddy, and only then forest. It seemed he knew the area. His only chance: to turn into Ah Tjong’s yard. He did it, and disappeared from my view.
“Don’t turn!” ordered Darsam to his intended victim.
“Darsaaam! Alaaa! Darsam!” I exclaimed.
Then the fighter turned also and disappeared.
“Don’t go in there!” came Nyai’s indistinct shout.
“Don’t go in there!” Annelies passed it on.
And now I too turned into Ah Tjong’s compound. Fatso wasn’t to be seen anywhere. There was only Darsam standing, confused, not knowing what to do next.
The front doors and windows were closed as usual. When I caught up with Darsam he was still panting. I too was out of breath.
“The rat has disappeared, I don’t know where he’s gone, Young Master.”
“All right, let’s go home. Don’t keep on.”
“No, he has to be taught a lesson.”
There was no stopping him. He walked past the row of windows along the side of the house.
“Mas! Don’t go into that house!” called out Annelies from her neighbor’s gate. “Mama forbids it.” But she herself had entered, tottering, into the front of the yard.
Darsam looked left and right. I pulled at him to make him return. He ignored me. His naked machete remained outside its sheath. In the end, I too became wild-eyed.
It turned out that Babah Ah Tjong’s building was much bigger than it appeared to be from the outside. There was a long annex at the back. Almost all the surrounding grounds were garden, with fruit trees and flowers. They were all very well looked after. Everywhere could be seen thick heavy-looking blackpainted benches. A narrow path, covered with layers of river gravel, cut up the yard into little sections.
For just a moment I caught sight of a couple. They didn’t see us. Such views were never visible from outside, closed off by high, thick, multirowed walls.
Darsam turned right, circling the main building. There didn’t seem to be anybody around. A back door was standing wide open. Behind me, Annelies had passed the row of side windows. Nyai’s shouts could be heard more clearly:
“No, don’t go inside!!”
And without hesitating Darsam went inside. He stopped, looked left and right, with his machete still in his hand.
And I too entered.
A large room, a dining room, opened up before us, complete with furniture: table and chairs, a buffet with all sorts of crockery inside. Mirrors painted with Chinese calligraphy hung on the walls. A few Japanese paper paintings of ocean prawns, bamboo, and horses also hung on the walls.
Suddenly Darsam was startled, and stopped dead in his tracks. His two arms shot out and stopped me from going any farther. I kept going on. What was there?
The body of a European lay in the corner of the dining room. The body was long and big, fat, large-stomached. Its blond hair was already threaded with gray and he was somewhat bald. His right hand was raised up on his head. His left hand lay on his chest. His throat and neck were covered in yellow vomit. The smell of liquor filled the room. His shirt and pants were filthy, as if they hadn’t been washed for a month.
“Tuan!” whispered Darsam. “Tuan Mellema!”
Hearing that name I shuddered, and shuddered again as I approached the person with that familiar body, fatter than I had seen before, sprawled in the corner like a meditating ascetic. He was possibly in an extraordinary state of drunkenness or had fallen asleep after vomiting.
Darsam approached, crouched, and felt and pushed the body with his left hand. In his right hand his unsheathed machete was alert. The body did not move. Darsam then shook it back and forward, then felt the man’s breast.
I came up close. It was indeed Mellema.
“Dead!” hissed the fighter. Only then did he glance at me, and continue his hissed speech: “Dead. Tuan Mellema is dead.” And the frightening look on his face disappeared at once.
Annelies appeared at the door, calling hoarsely, out of voice, panting.
“Mas, don’t go inside this house!”
I went outside, down the stairs, pulling her by the shouder. Mama arrived, also gasping. Her face was red and her hair was disheveled and all over the place, falling in a mess across her ears, face, neck, and back. She was soaked in sweat.
“Come on, come home! Everyone! Don’t go into that accursed house!” she whispered, gasping.
“Young Master!” called Darsam from inside.
“Don’t enter!” I now forbade Annelies and Mama. And I entered.
Darsam was rocking Mellema’s body. The machete was still in his right hand.
“He’s dead all right,” he said, “he’s not breathing. The blood has stopped too.”
Annelies and Mama were suddenly behind me.
“Papa?” whispered Annelies.
“Yes, Ann, your Papa.”
“Tuan?” whispered Nyai.
“Dead, Nyai, Noni: Tuan Mellema is dead,” said Darsam.
The two women stepped closer, then stood still in a daze.
“That smell of liquor!” whispered Nyai.
“Mama?”
“Ann, take note of that smell,” whispered Nyai again, without stepping closer. “Do you remember it?”
“Like Robert that time, Mama?”
“Yes, when he began to go mad too,” continued Nyai, “and like Tuan the first time. Tuan went that way too. Don’t get close, Ann, don’t.”
All of a sudden everyone looked up when they heard a woman’s footsteps. And they saw a female in a yellow kimono patterned with big red and black flowers. Her skin was more white than yellow: a Japanese woman. Her quick, short steps brought her in our direction. Then she spoke to us in Japanese with a clear and attractive voice. We couldn’t understand.
As an answer I pointed to the corpse strewn in the corner of the dining room. She shook her head and shuddered, turned right, and ran off with those short steps, more quickly, and went into the inner section of the house through a corridor.
We followed her with our amazed looks. That was the first time I had seen a Japanese wom
an. The round face, slanted, narrow eyes, the cherry-red, parted lips, one gold tooth: I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
Not long after, out of the same corridor, there emerged the body of a tall man, an Indo, thin, with sunken eyes.
“Mama,” whispered Annelies, “Robert, Mama.”
Only then did I recognize that handsome youth, who had changed so much. It was indeed Robert.
Hearing Robert’s name spoken, Darsam jumped up, forgetting Mellema’s corpse.
“Nyo!” he shouted.
Robert stopped that moment. His eyes shot wide open. As soon as he recognized Darsam and saw the machete, he turned and ran. Darsam chased him.
Annelies, Nyai, and I were nailed to the floor. Dazed. For a second I imagined Robert sprawled out covered in blood, with a gaping stab wound. But no. Darsam came back again. He wiped his mustache. His face was wild.
“He ran, Nyai. Went into a room, jumped out the window. I don’t know where to.”
“Enough, Darsam, enough.” Only then could Nyai talk. “Don’t keep on with this craziness. He’s my son.” Her voice vibrated. “Look after your Tuan.”
“Very well, Nyai.”
Annelies held her mother’s sleeve; she was shivering.
“See,” Nyai hissed, holding back her anger, “nothing goes right. You go home, Ann. What did I say? Don’t come into this house of sin. Pick up and carry back your Tuan, Darsam.”
“Borrow a cart,” I instructed Darsam.
Only then did the fighter sheath his machete and go outside.
Now Nyai stiffened as she looked at her master’s corpse, while Annelies buried her face in her mother’s breasts.
“Didn’t want to be looked after properly. Preferred to be looked after by a neighbor. Ah Tjong! Ah Tjong!” Nyai called out. “Ah Tjong! Babah!” and the person being called did not appear.
Darsam entered again, frowning:
“The impudent caretaker won’t lend us a carriage.”
“Where’s Babah?”
“He’s not here, he said.”
“Fetch our own carriage.”
“Let me go,” I said.
“You two stay here,” said Nyai. “I’ll go back. Come on, we’ll go home, Ann!” and she pulled her child along.
The two women held hands, leading each other out of Mr. Tjong’s pleasure-house through the back door. They took no notice of Mellema’s gaping-mouthed corpse, sprawled out on the floor.
I saw then just how totally Nyai had broken with her master. She was not even prepared to touch him, even though he was the father of her children. She could never forgive him.
“Such a good beginning, such a hateful end, Young Master,” Darsam grumbled. “What he hunted he lost, what he caught was cursed.”
Soon after, there was the sound of uproar from the rooms. Women could be heard running about.
“Babah Ah Tjong’s whores,” hissed Darsam. “Five years Tuan nested here, here too he died. Dying in a whore’s nest. Tuan! Tuan Mellema! Five years Nyai maintained her wrath. Even on his death, she showed no concern . . . human trash!”
“And Robert was here too.”
“Under the same roof, with the same whores. Damned ones!”
“Mama had to pay for it all?”
“A bill came every month.”
“Don’t move the corpse,” I ordered him.
A carriage arrived. Not Annelies, not Mama. Four police officers and their commandant, an Indo. They made an examination. One took notes of everything said by his commandant.
“Has he been moved?” the commandant asked in Malay.
“A little. I shook him,” answered Darsam in Madurese.
“Where’s the owner of the house?”
“Not here.”
“Who lives here?” He took out his pocket watch, looked at it for a moment, and then put it back.
Not one of the house’s inhabitants appeared.
“Who saw the body first?”
Darsam coughed, as his answer.
“What’s the explanation of why the whole of the Boerderij household turned up here?” he asked in Madurese.
My heart pounded fast. There was no way of stopping it from becoming a police affair now. And all will be involved in difficulties.
“I was chasing Fatso.”
“Who is this Fatso?”
“A suspicious character. He ran, I chased him, and he disappeared into here,” Darsam explained.
“You entered someone else’s house? Without permission?”
“There was no one here when we arrived. Anyone can enter here without permission. It’s a pleasure-house.”
“But you didn’t come here for that.”
“I’ve already told you”—Darsam was offended—“we came after Fatso. Perhaps a customer here.”
The commandant laughed insultingly. And the other policemen lifted up the corpse. Not strong enough. Darsam helped, just to avoid more questions.
“Very well. What are your names?”
So Darsam and I were taken away in the government carriage. We were questioned more thoroughly at the station. And . . . in the end Father would indeed read his son’s name in the paper—the cleverest among his children, the one the whole family was proud of, involved in a police case, and a dirty one—in a pleasure-house too—all just as Father had predicted.
* * *
That day we found out that Mr. Mellema died of poisoning. His vomit and the phlegm in his mouth and throat pointed to this fact. According to the investigations of Dr. Martinet, who was asked to conduct the autopsy, the poison had been given in low dosages over a long period, so that the victim had become used to it. On the day of his death he had received a dosage two or three times greater than usual.
And in the end it did happen. Reports began to appear in the daily press: the death of one of Surabaya’s richest men, the owner of Boerderij Buitenzorg, Tuan Mellema, dead in Babah Ah Tjong’s Wonokromo pleasure house; dying in poisoned alcoholic vomit! And our names were mentioned over and over again.
Reporters kept coming to our house: Native, Chinese, Indo, and Pure European. Mama and Annelies refused to answer any questions. It was I who forbade them to open their mouths. And in the street outside, people collected to watch us. Yes, we were beginning to be regarded as freaks on show.
None of us was detained. I used the opportunity to write a report of what really happened and it was published by the S.N. v/d D. A long time later I found out that my reports had increased the paper’s circulation. People in other towns also sought that Surabaya paper because it was considered a credible source. The unnatural death of a wealthy man always gives rise to many suspicions and rumors.
I used my week’s leave from school to write, to repudiate all the false and tendentious reports. But then there appeared another report, allegedly from police sources, that the police were carrying out investigations and were hunting for Fatso and Robert Mellema, who was the eldest of the Mellema children, both of whom were strongly suspected of conspiring to kill Robert’s own father.
Who was this Fatso? One Malay-Chinese daily asked. The article mentioned the possibility that he could be a recently arrived Chinese illegal immigrant. Perhaps he was a member of that group calling itself the Chinese Young Generation, who wanted to overthrow the Empire. One of their special features: They wore no pigtails! And, indeed, Fatso wore no pigtail. Maybe he had come to Java because he was being pursued by the British police in Hong Kong or Singapore. Now he was making trouble in Surabaya. Firm action needs to be taken against illegal immigrants, especially those without pigtails, who obviously had criminal intentions.
This guess was based on no more than a sucking of one’s thumb! I replied to that Malay-Chinese paper. He indeed was slant-eyed—but that is not a characteristic unique to Chinese. He had no pigtail—but that too need not be interpreted as a sign he was a member of the Chinese Young Generation.
The result of my article was that the police questioned S.N.v/d D. about Fatso. Maarten N
ijman refused on principle to give any explanation. Actually he didn’t really know what it was all about anyway. For his refusal, he was detained for three days and nights.
Miriam and Sarah de la Croix expressed their sympathy to me, to us, and were sure that we were innocent of any wrongdoing. Greetings also came from Herbert de la Croix, who hoped that we would be able to face all our trials with strength and patience and that we would get through them all safely.
Mother’s letters, so moving, told of her sadness, as well as telling me of Father’s fury, which had reached such a peak that he actually said he no longer acknowledged me as his son. He had even written a letter to the director of my school withdrawing me from school!
In the next letter from Mother, also written in Javanese language and script, she said that it was not certain that I was in the wrong, and she hoped I would be the one who cleared the matter up. And that Assistant Resident B had visited father to calm him down and to pass on to him the above words; and also to say that my living at Boerderij Buitenzorg did not necessarily have any connection with anything indecent; that such a matter can occur as a result of one’s own actions, but also can occur as a completely unrelated accident; no one can guess when such an accident, such a disaster, would befall them. Father did not contradict him. But to his sons and daughters he said: To become involved with the police is to shame and humiliate me, and whoever does become mixed up in a police affair is unfit to be near me.
I replied to all the letters. Responding to Father’s pronouncement I wrote: If that is what is desired by Father, so be it; so from now on I will devote myself only to my mother.
My elder brother wrote to me: Mother was bathed in her own tears on reading your reply. She cried over your attitude, why did you approach your father, who was already so furious with you, with such lack of devotion, as if he was a father who had never wished anything good for you, his own son. You are his son, you are young; it is you who must surrender.
And I didn’t reply to my brother’s letter. Let my father be free with his own attitude. Especially too as I didn’t really know my father well. Since I was little I had lived with grandfather, so father was really no more than a title to me. Every time I met him, all he wanted was for his authority as a father to be acknowledged. It was up to him! I had no business with his anger and his attitude. If Father withdraws me from H.B.S., that too is his right. And a Native only got into school if someone with position guaranteed him. Only it was not Father who guaranteed me, but Grandfather. And it was not certain that the school director would accept Father’s request. If he did, so be it. I now felt that I had accumulated enough means to study by myself, to enter the world walking on my own two feet.
This Earth of Mankind Page 30
