Love and Death in Bali

by Vicki Baum

  The lord leant forward with his eyes fixed on the dance. His eyes drank their fill, as Ida Katut had said. He clenched his fists as a servant drew Raka’s kris from the scabbard and gave it him. The loveplay turned to earnest. The kris flashed over Lambon’s head and she quailed beneath it—and vanished. The gamelan played. The drums beat in a tumult. Then Raka ran towards the other two dancers in the battle of Laksmana with the two demons.

  Many of the children had fallen asleep. They clung fast to their mothers like little monkeys in their sleep. Many of the slave-girls of the palace-women slept too, with their heads leaning upon one another. Even some of the courtiers, with the sirih still in their mouths, let their heads fall forward. The old Tjokorda Madé had fallen asleep, wearied out with age and much suffering. Only Alit was alert and wide-awake to the very end.

  With the last note of the gamelan the crowd broke up and quickly dispersed. They set off home by the light of the torches, keeping together, so that they need fear no demons or lejaks. Many of the women held knives, with onions speared on them, a certain defence against the dangers of the night. The men of Taman Sari bore their instruments on their shoulders. The newfangled lamps round the arena, which did not last out so long as the coconut lamps, were dimmed with their own smoke. The lord’s wives stood wearily leaning on one another, and the faded flowers in their hair smelt all the more strongly for being faded. They waited on their lord’s pleasure. Bernis stood apart, impatient for what the night might bring. The lord remained seated on his mat, lost in reflection. He smiled as he looked after the retreating dancers. Ida Katut squatted near, trying to read his thoughts. The Anak Agung Bima approached him with clasped hands, though he was of the same blood as Alit.

  “I noticed you found the little girl dancer beautiful,” he said tentatively yet officiously. The lord raised his eyes heavily from the vacant arena and stood up. He stretched and took a deep breath of the cool air which fell dew-laden from the tops of the palms.

  “She is still a child,” he said, “but one day perhaps she will be a beautiful woman.”

  Buleleng

  IT was hot in Buleleng. A sluggish breeze wafted the heat southward from the equator and it hung heavy along the shores of Bali. The Chinese sat in front of their shops with their jackets unbuttoned and perspired. Two traders from Bombay sat cross-legged beside their balés of cloth and played dominoes. Three sailing-ships from Macassar were anchored in the roadstead and the crews roamed the few streets of the town, brown-faced, black-fez’d and bold.

  A Javanese servant ran along the gravel path to the office. He was carrying, with an anxious expression on his face, a white tunic which creaked with starch. The Controller in charge of inland affairs, Mynheer Visser, stood impatiently in the office. He was in shirt-sleeves and the sweat ran in three small trickles down his neck. He stamped his feet, drummed on his desk and gave every sign of angry impatience. At last the servant appeared with a tunic, which he held out to his tuan with bent, submissive back. Visser cursed a little in fluent Javanese, though this language does not lend itself well to curses. He hastily put on the uniform and buttoned the high collar up to his double chin. The gold epaulettes gleamed. Visser ended with an honest Dutch Godverdamme and the Javanese began to laugh. He knew this signal: it meant that his master’s rage had cooled and that peace and quiet were restored.

  “What’s up?” Boomsmer asked from the door leading to the second office. He was a tall sandy-colored Dutchman with tousled hair and blue eyes.

  “This buffalo of a servant of mine hadn’t ironed my tunic and the Resident wants to speak to me immediately,” Visser said as he buttoned in his paunch with an effort.

  “At nine in the morning? There must be something up. Perhaps the Russians have been smuggling their superannuated breech-loaders into South Bali again.”

  Visser snatched up a few official papers and put them under his arm and took a quick drink from a bottle of gin which dwelt in a small cupboard on the wall just below the portrait of the Queen and her consort. He looked plaintively at Boomsmer, who looked like a shelled egg in his tight white jacket and appeared to find something to laugh at in his heated colleague.

  “You don’t feel the heat, man,” he said reproachfully.

  “That is a matter of will-power,” Boomsmer replied, drawing himself up.

  Visser went out. “I know one thing: once I’m old enough to draw my pension I’ll go about in a sarong,” he said from the door.

  “That’s just about your mark!” Boomsmer called after him as the door shut. Visser had the reputation of being too easy with the natives. No sense of discipline, in Boomsmer’s opinion. It was essential, in his view, to keep a tight hold on that refractory island. But the Resident doted on Visser apparently. Visser knew the natives and understood their complicated lingo. He was sent out to conduct friendly palavers, which he sometimes brought to a successful conclusion. But for Visser’s interposition they might never have got the concession in South Bali. Cannon were better than concessions, Boomsmer considered. He had a ticklish sense of honor and in his opinion the Dutch Government was too easy-going. The mere mention of Bali made them all grow sentimental, he thought irritably. He himself had no enthusiasm for the island. Life in Buleleng was not the height of comfort and he regretted Surabaya. There was not even a club, as there was even in the most godforsaken colonial settlement. The natives were dirty and spat out their betel-juice even on the office stoep. They were eaten up with scabies and ringworm and fever and were too stupid to have themselves cured. They had innumerable superstitions and tabus, and the higher castes were even worse in that respect than the lower ones. The petty rajas, who after all were no better than bare-footed peasants, squatted about among the litter of their puris and thought themselves the most mighty sovereigns on earth because they could have the heads and hands of their subjects hacked off when they had the mind. But when one of them died, then he was wrapped in white linen and kept in the house till the stink rose to heaven. Boomsmer shuddered at the recollection of this charnel stench and took a quick nip of gin in his turn. The portrait of the Queen, youthful and in full regalia, looked down amiably from the wall.

  Boomsmer went up to Visser’s desk and took the uppermost paper lying there. There was nothing on it, however, of political interest, but only a series of childish drawings of gentlemen in top-hats, such as Visser was in the habit of scribbling when he pondered a problem. Boomsmer sighed and returned to his own office, where a Javanese clerk with long thin hands stood at a desk, copying documents.

  “What’s all this about that Chinese?” the Resident asked the Controller, who was seated opposite him in a cane chair. They were on the verandah of the large house, as it was coolest there. Berginck, the Resident, had his empty breakfast-cup at his elbow and also a large pile of papers waiting for his signature.

  “The Chinese to whom the people of Citgit have mortgaged their fields?” Visser asked.

  “No, that’s done with. The Chinese whose boat was wrecked.” The Resident searched about among his papers. “Kwe Tik Tjiang, the man’s name is,” he added, and looked the Controller full in the face. “I thought that was done with too,” Visser replied, after recalling the name and the circumstances. “The man calmed down and went back to Banjarmasin.”

  “So you thought, but it is not the case. The fellow turned up again the day before yesterday, and this time he has the gusti behind him.”

  “Gusti Nyoman? What has he to do with the Chinese?”

  “In the first place, they see in him a sort of raja and think he can get more done than we can. And in the second place, they know that he was appointed by the Government and it seems they prefer to palaver with a Balinese rather than with us.”

  “May I have a look?” Visser asked, taking the paper from the table. It was not unlikely he had forgotten the details, for this claim was only one among hundreds which had to be disposed of in the island. The Resident undid two buttons of his tunic and waited. He was a tall powerful ma
n with fine brown eyes, to which short sight gave a look of concentration.

  “As your Excellency will see, I had good grounds for refusing his claim,” Visser said, returning the papers to the table. “He had bad luck, it is true. But how does that concern our Government? His boat was wrecked on the coast, but his life was saved and the people there even fished his goods from the sea and returned them to him. I cannot understand why he comes to us for damages. We are not an insurance agency, after all. Moreover, the Resident initialled the case himself before it was dismissed.” And Visser gave the paper a flick nearer the Resident’s short-sighted eyes.

  “You did not draw my attention at the time to the fact of the boat’s being wrecked on the coast of Badung,” the Resident said, without looking down at the document. Visser made no reply to this.

  The three refractory provinces in the south were a thorn in the side of the Government officials. It was an unsatisfactory situation that the Dutch should be masters of the island and yet not masters of it. Also Klungklung, Tabanan or Badung might at any moment kindle a spark and rouse the already subdued lords to rebellion. There were treaties, so old that they smelt of mildew, with additional clauses and signatures which gave the Government a certain influence over these territories. So far, so good. But it was not a satisfactory solution and the Government in Batavia gave Buleleng to understand from time to time that their officials in Bali had had ample time to bring that colony to heel. Visser knew all this as well as the Resident did, and it sometimes robbed him of his sleep. He had done his bit. He had gone alone into the lions’ den; again and again he had ventured unarmed and unprotected into the puri among a thousand warriors armed with their krises and tried to bring their rulers to reason. He had drunk their horrible sweet rice wine and ruined his stomach with their over-spiced dishes. He had with infinite patience won the regard of several lords and tried calling himself their elder brother, to whose counsel they ought to give heed. But when he heard the word Badung he knew at once that there was unpleasantness to come.

  “On the whole I got the impression that the Chinese wanted to make a deal out of his shipwreck. It is money he is after, that’s all.” “It never for a moment entered my head that it was for us to compensate him,” the Resident said. He pushed his empty coffee-cup aside with a clatter. Visser, too, felt the blood go to his head. He wiped the perspiration from his neck.

  “As your Excellency seems to feel a particular interest in the case I would suggest summoning the gusti here together with the Chinese, Kwe Tik Tjiang,” he said in his official manner, expecting to hear the suggestion turned down.

  “Yes, Visser, will you see to it?” the Resident said, however. “I shall be at home until two. In any case there is no occasion to be upset yourself,” he added in a conciliatory tone.

  Visser crossed the expanse of grass on which were a few old Balinese stone statues and the flag-staff. It lay hushed in a drowsy stillness. An attempt had been made to give it a homely air by getting seeds from Holland and growing them in the borders. They flowered with difficulty and unwillingly in the moist heat in which groves of palms and the tropical creepers of the forests throve with indescribable luxuriance. A few Balinese were loitering along the garden railings and farther along the road were to be seen the trim villas of the Dutch settlers, all exactly alike, all painted a bright yellow and all with a hanging lamp and two imitation Delft plates in the stoep. At the edge of the road immediately in front them stood a little girl, brown and stark naked but for four brass bracelets round her arms and ankles and rolls of lontar leaves in her ears. Visser gave a deep sigh and returned to his office. He took a nip of gin and, sitting down at his desk, drew three more little gentlemen in top-hats on the uppermost sheet of paper. “Opas!” he roared out suddenly. “Tuan?” came the dutiful echo from without. The uniformed orderly entered with a frightened expression on his face. “I am now writing a letter which you will take at once to the gusti Nyoman,” Visser said, and Opas squatted in a corner to wait for the letter to be written. Before many moments had passed Boomsmer’s sandy head appeared round the door.

  “Well, what did the tuan Besar want with you?” he asked. “Nothing, nothing at all,” Visser said. “Only the usual nonsense.” “So you say,” Boomsmer observed. “The first commandment in the Colonies is that nothing is without consequence.”

  “And so forth,” Visser said. “I know all you’re going to say by heart. Our honor is at stake, we are the masters and we insist on obedience, we think only of the good of the natives and this country belongs to the Netherlands. And now I will tell you something: that sort of talk merely inflames the situation. For heaven’s sake, leave the natives alone, and if they don’t care about corrugated sheet-iron and bicycles, why make them? They’re no use as plantation coolies either. It’s all a lot of damned nonsense.”

  “You’re an anarchist,” Boomsmer said, and as Visser made no reply to this he withdrew again to his own room.

  An hour later three two-wheeled vehicles drew up before the Residence, with a loud clinking of shining harness. In the first sat the gusti Nyoman himself. In the other two were Kwe Tik Tjiang and several of the gusti’s retinue. Nyoman walked quickly, though with dignity, up the garden and was greeted courteously on the stoep by the Resident. He took the proffered hand loosely and with some embarrassment, for he was not yet quite at home with the manners of the white men. His escort squatted on the stone steps, which gleamed with the true Dutch cleanliness; and this dissuaded the men from spraying them liberally with red betel-juice. The Chinese stood patiently at the foot of the steps; he was smiling and he looked hot in his silk robe.

  The Resident offered the gusti a chair and the gusti sat on it cross-legged just as though it was his usual bamboo bench. He was a good-looking, strongly built young man, whose eyes showed that he was intelligent and energetic and resourceful. Also, with his silvery green sarong and brown bare feet, he wore a white tunic, buttoned to the chin, as the Dutch did. “The tuan sent for me and I am here,” he said in Malay. The Resident offered him a cigarette. “Ask the tuan Visser to come here,” he told the orderly who was crouching on the steps. “My friend Nyoman can tell him what the complaint of the Chinese is.”

  Gusti Nyoman came of a noble family, but of a branch of it that was not quite without taint. He had gained his position in Buleleng by coming to an understanding with the Dutch. The other native lords called him a traitor behind his back and there was no love lost between him and them. They had treated him as a man of lower caste and an upstart until the Dutch put power in his hands. “I set no store by this Chinaman,” he said arrogantly, although Kwe Tik Tjiang was listening, “but since his complaint is with the lords of Badung and Pametjutan I thought it best to bring it to the ears of the tuan Resident.”

  Visser at this moment stepped on to the stoep and after greeting the gusti sat down in silence at the table. He had brought his Javanese clerk, who squatted on the floor ready to take a minute of the proceedings. The Resident signalled to the Chinese to come nearer and plead his case; and Kwe Tik Tjiang, who was by now quite used to being his own advocate, opened out with great fluency.

  When his boat struck, so his story ran, he was not for some hours in possession of his senses, since his head had struck the mast in the violence of the storm. Therefore the first mate had been in sole charge during that time. He himself asked the punggawa of Sanur to set a guard over the boat and in addition he left two of his own men on the beach. Also he had returned to the ship with the rest of the crew towards morning and had found about two hundred of the people of the coast breaking it up and plundering it. It was not in the power of him and his men to stop them. On boarding the ship at ebb-tide he found a large part of the cargo missing, including an iron chest containing ringits and several bamboo baskets in which were strings of Chinese kepengs, a thousand to each string. Next day, when the cargo was unshipped, further thefts came to light. Thereupon he made his complaint to the court of Badung, but was scornfully refused
redress. It had occurred to him that in his first suit to the Resident he had not been sufficiently clear as to the extent of his losses. Now therefore he submitted a correct list of them and a report showing how they came about.

  With this and a low bow he laid several sheets of paper written in Malay characters before the Resident.

  The Resident read them through, passing each sheet when he had read it to the Controller. Visser went redder and redder in the face as he examined them, and now and then he whistled aloud without himself observing this breach of etiquette. The gusti sat and smoked with an air of sleepy amusement.

  The document consisted of a long list of all that the merchant of Banjarmasin had lost, beginning with the chest containing 3,700 rix-dollars and ending with the cooking utensils of the cook Simin, of Banjarmasin, valued at five Dutch guilders. Then followed the sworn testimony of the crew, given in the presence of, and signed by, the harbor master of Singaraja.

  The Resident reached for the document and read it through twice more and finally sighed. “Is that all?” he asked ironically. The Chinese bowed several times and produced another document from his wide sleeve, which he handed to the gusti, watching with expectant eyes as it pursued its course into the Resident’s hands. “Still more?” Visser muttered.

  “A letter from the Chinese, Tan Suey Hin of Sanur,” the gusti said in a bored voice, “to the Chinese, Kwe Tik Tjiang.”

  “Is it usual for Chinese to write each other letters in Malay?” Visser asked, after glancing hastily at the letter and seeing the Arabic characters. The Resident smiled pensively. “It announces that Tan Suey Hin can no longer buy up the wreck as marauders removed the copper plates and the shrouds after Twe Tik Tjiang left Sanur, leaving the wreck on the beach,” the Resident said to the Controller, winking as he spoke.

  “Bad, too bad,” Mynheer Visser sighed hypocritically. The Chinese looked from one to the other and observed that they were not taking him seriously.