Lunch with the Generals

by Derek Hansen

  He took his time and saw how things were done, then formed a council with himself at the head. He ruled by consensus, aiming to guide them into a western way of doing business rather than dictate to them. His thoughtfulness marked him as a worthy successor to his father, and the estate steadily reverted to its former prosperity, although the profits were now shared more equitably.

  The following year and each year thereafter, Jan returned to Europe on the fledgling Dutch airline KLM, to sign up buyers for his tea, and to see his mother. She was in her early sixties and arthritis had become her constant companion. Her doctors suggested a warmer climate but she wouldn’t hear of it. She steadfastly maintained she would rather suffer the bitter cold of a northern winter than once again endure the claustrophobic heat of Java. She never returned.

  It was on these visits that Jan discovered the potential for another enterprise. He obliged friends by bringing with him as gifts the Indonesian artifacts they requested. As the number of requests grew and Europeans discovered a taste for primitive art, he found he was shipping in commercial quantities. In this way he began a small but lucrative trade.

  He leased a small shop on the Prinsegracht canal near Vyzelstraat to sell his artifacts and installed his mother as manager. She needed something to occupy both her mind and her time. But more than that, she was a very independent woman and a reluctant recipient of Jan’s charity. She also understood the value of the artifacts better than Jan and marked up his prices outrageously. Yet she sold everything Jan brought and began to take orders from customers for Jan to fill. Gradually she took the initiative and, with it, the running of the business. The shop’s reputation and clientele steadily grew.

  His mother hired a young assistant, for there were days when her arthritis held her prisoner in her bed. But whenever possible she would make the trip into her little shop. It had begun as a much needed interest, but in her remaining years it became her life.

  Whether Jan opened the shop as an act of kindness to his lonely mother or as the astute act of a visionary, is immaterial. Whatever his motives, the day was coming when he would be grateful indeed for that little shop in Amsterdam.

  In Indonesia the political scene was as chaotic and volatile as the embassy had suggested it would be. Coalition governments came and went with the seasons, as one Muslim group sought ascendancy over the other, and over the socialists and communist PKI. Revolts in the outer islands and West Sumatra against the Javanese Government were abruptly suppressed by the military.

  In 1957, Sukarno made his move towards a totalitarian regime with himself installed at the head. He proposed a village system of consultation and consensus but, in effect, set about creating a vehicle from which to impose his will. At the end of that year, following a dispute with the Dutch over the future of Irian Barat, now Irian Jaya, he ordered the seizure of Dutch property.

  Once again, the people of the villages stood by Jan and the unique arrangement they had made with his father.

  Ten years from the day Jan made his tear-filled return to the slopes of Tangkuban Perahu, he met Melita and fell utterly and hopelessly in love.

  He was invited to a rijstaffel banquet at the exquisite art deco Savoy Homann to celebrate the birthday of an expatriate friend. Whether by accident or design, for good-intentioned people were always trying to marry him off, he was given a seat next to the most stunning woman he had ever seen.

  The beautiful child he had first spotted on the platform of the Bandung station was now a woman. Her skin was an exotic, coppery-olive, owing as much to her British father as her Sundanese mother, and was as delicate and translucent as a baby’s. She was dressed simply, European style, in a full-length white evening dress. Her only jewellery was an antique silver-lace comb. It was both decorative and functional for, let loose, her jet black hair would cascade over her shoulders and down to her tiny waist. The comb held her hair clear of her face so her big European eyes, smiling from her fine featured Sundanese face, could work their magic.

  Jan was not inexperienced. He knew women were as attracted to him as he was to them, and he’d had numerous affairs. But in the presence of this exquisite jewel of two cultures, he found himself tongue-tied.

  His attempts at conversation broke down into stumbling, stuttering inanities. He hoped he saw encouragement in those astonishing eyes, but it could have been the glint of amusement. He tried to eat the delicacies that were placed before him but his fingers had turned into thumbs and he could only pick at them. Every course became an obstacle to be negotiated. He wound the mee goreng onto his fork as he always had but it would not stay there. It slid back onto his plate and every little splash threatened the pristine white dress of the angel alongside. He did not trust his voice sufficiently to apologise to her.

  At any event she abandoned him at the first opportunity, leaving him feeling empty and as hollow as an old, dried up coconut. She smiled as she left him though, and in that kind gesture he tried to read cause for hope.

  For two weeks he moped about the estate, irritable and uncommunicative. He complained about food he’d normally devour with relish, and spent hours every evening soaking alone in the hot thermal pools at Ciater.

  Often they’d find him sitting alone by the monkey forest, silent and still, watching the monkeys go about their business. The monkey forest was on Jan’s estate, and both Jan and his father before him insisted that the monkeys be allowed to live their lives unmolested.

  Left to themselves the council would soon have turned the land over to the production of tea, but they respected Jan’s wishes and the small monkey community was left in peace. On the crowded island of Java, the monkey forest afforded solitude and that was precisely what Jan wanted.

  Nobody was offended by Jan’s ill temper. They knew the symptoms well. His staff engaged in endless speculation as to who might be both cause and cure. The women in distant lines on the hillside, identified by the sun-bleached pink, blue and saffron scarves they wore around their coolie hats, would enthusiastically discuss his prospects as they filled their hessian bags with tea leaves.

  ‘A love so big could not go unnoticed,’ they reasoned. ‘We will soon see who the new mistress is.’

  ‘A wise woman makes her man wait,’ argued others. ‘It strengthens his love and concentrates his resolve so in later years it is not easily swayed.’

  ‘I always make my husband wait,’ commented another mischievously. ‘It certainly strengthens his love and that is not easily swayed either.’

  The women laughed and they filled in their days this way, forgetful of the back-breaking grind of their job.

  The women were right, of course. Melita—or Lita as she preferred to be called—was perfectly aware of the effect she’d had on Jan and was anxious for their next encounter. She was not concerned that she may have discouraged him. Women discuss these matters and all agreed she had timed her exit to perfection. Still she grew impatient, a reaction she put down to her European blood. Her Sundanese mother laughed and counselled her gently.

  ‘Stay calm, car ayu. He will come running to you. It is for men to make fools of themselves at such times, not women. And your young man is not yet finished with being foolish.’

  Jan was in a quandary. He wanted to pour out his heart in letters to her, but thought it presumptuous. His pride would not allow him to ring a mutual friend to intercede. He was too proud to declare his love even in confidence, in case it was spurned. But what confidentiality could there be in a small and isolated expatriate community? Confined to his estate Jan was unaware that friendly forces were already at work on his behalf.

  A dinner party was arranged with Jan sitting as far from Lita as the table would allow so that he might accustom himself to her presence and avoid a repeat of his previous performance. The hosts sat them both on the same side so that their eyes could not accidentally meet and cause embarrassment. But their good intentions back-fired.

  Jan could not help himself. He would constantly lean across the table to reac
h for some fruit chutney or fiery pickle, and every time he did so his eyes would search out Lita. Do women with Lita’s colouring blush? Of course they do! Invariably somebody came to the poor girl’s rescue by directing a question or comment towards Jan, demanding his attention. Yet he persisted. Nobody ever used more salt, pepper, desiccated coconut, pickle, chutney or relish. And every time somebody was forced to offer a distraction. Couldn’t he see that after dinner, there would be ample opportunity for two young people to get together and talk if they were so inclined?

  Lita knew then that this big man she had chosen would always be a child before the rush of his emotions and that he would need her strengths. Any doubts she may have had about the future course of her life vanished at that moment. She made up her mind. She would be his wife.

  The courtship was old-fashioned and romantic. Their love for each other grew until it was almost tangible, and the matchmakers fair wept to see their handiwork. Jan and Lita did not make love until their wedding night, when they took each other in a floodtide of passion.

  They conceived twins that night—two sons, Thomas and Pieter—which caused Jan to boast jokingly of his virility. But, more accurately, it was fitting testimony to the fecundity of the amazing island of Java.

  They say in Java that if you drop a box of matches you will return next year to a forest. Two and three times a year, Java wears a vivid emerald carpet as its rice crops ripen. And the fabulously rich volcanic soil gives rise to a profusion of vegetables and fruits all year round. Into this Garden of Eden Jan and Lita brought three children. The two boys, and then an angel they called Annemieke.

  She was born on March 27, 1966, and while bigots and those opposed to inter-racial marriage still number in the majority, none would ever begrudge the union that produced Annemieke Van der Meer.

  Ramon finished speaking. Gancio watched for Milos to signal that it was time for intermission. He reached for the cups.

  ‘What are you doing to us?’ asked Neil? ‘One day you tell us a horror story and now you tell us this. Barbara Cartland would be proud of you.’

  ‘Why are you always so impatient, Neil? Don’t you think it is important to know where people are coming from? It helps explain why they are who they are, why they do the things they do. We are all products of our upbringing—even you—and I shudder to think what yours must have been like.’

  ‘Agghhh …’ Neil clutched his chest as if mortally wounded.

  ‘Ramon …’

  ‘It’s okay, Milos, he knows I’m being facetious and it takes a lot more than that to offend him. His hide rivals that of a rhinoceros. You’re not offended, are you, Neil?’

  ‘Yes, I bloody am,’ said Neil evenly.

  ‘Then I take it all back.’

  ‘You can’t do that. That’s one thing you can never do.’

  ‘Milos, what are you going on about?’

  ‘There are three things, Ramon, that can never be taken back, no? The arrow in flight, the spoken word …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘… and anything bought in a sale.’

  The four men broke into easy laughter.

  ‘I think you got this story in a sale,’ said Lucio. ‘Your story today does not have the drama and tension of last week’s. I miss Rosa, Jorge and Carlos.’

  ‘What if I was to tell you that Jan went mad one day, butchered his wife and children and flushed them down the lavatory? Would that make him more interesting? Is that what you want to hear?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Ramon. The fact is the people you told us about last week were all flawed,’ cut in Milos. ‘It’s the flaws and faults and weaknesses in people that make them interesting, no? Jan bores me too. He is just too nice. His story is too nice. I don’t like nice people, present company excepted of course.’

  ‘You’re quite right, Milos. People don’t have to be extreme to be interesting. But you’re making assumptions because Jan, too, is flawed. You just haven’t yet discovered his weakness. Perhaps his story is too nice, as you put it. But you may look back and envy the peace and pleasantness of this afternoon. It won’t last. Happiness never does. The story is moving towards its inevitable climax, and Jan Van der Meer is about to learn just how fragile happiness can be.’ His voice took on a startling intensity. ‘Perhaps my life has been harder than yours. In the bad years I learned to grab the good times while they lasted and be grateful for them. It’s a lesson you should heed.’

  ‘Jesus, Ramon.’ Neil began to chuckle. ‘I know this is another of your little tricks, but you’re not usually so obvious. That wasn’t up to your usual calculating standard at all.’

  Gancio brought their coffee. He looked around the table that usually sparkled with energy.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘Your friend here is accused of being too nice. Of giving us Barbara Cartland when what we want is something with a little more meat.’

  ‘Neil is right,’ said Lucio. ‘We need spice and excitement. We need a little bit of what Rosa gave to Victor. Let me tell you this story while we have our coffee. It is a true story. It happened to me just last week. Look at me. What do you see? Answer truthfully.’

  ‘A short, fat, balding Italian,’ said Neil.

  ‘Why does he have to be Italian?’ moaned Gancio theatrically. But now they were all caught up in Lucio’s diversion.

  ‘You think it is easy to be short, fat and bald? Short and fat is a problem, but that’s okay, I can handle that. Bald is something else. For some reason women like to pat bald men on the head. You tell them a joke, they laugh and pat you on the head. You do them a favour, and they pat you on the head like a good dog. Or sometimes they kiss you on the head. I can’t tell you how humiliating this is for a sexual Olympian like myself.

  ‘So sometimes, I confess to you, when I am sure nobody I know will see me I wear a toupee. No! Don’t laugh, it’s true! Stop it. Why do you want to hurt my feelings? God—who everyone knows is Italian—is not always fair. He didn’t give me the gifts he gave to Gancio even though we were almost neighbours. I am not tall and dark and handsome like he is, and I don’t have his wonderful head of hair. I would give my right testicle for hair like that. Instead I have to pretend. Please, don’t laugh. This is a true story. I am lifting the veil on my secret life and you laugh at me.

  ‘I’ll tell you something else. My toupee is a bit salt and pepper because I don’t want to cheat too much and lie about my age. But when I wear it, I swear to you, I feel tall and slim. It gives me confidence to talk to tall elegant women. I don’t know what it is about short, fat, bald Italians, but we love tall, elegant, beautiful women.’

  ‘Lucio, we all love tall, elegant, beautiful women,’ cut in Milos. ‘Even us well-preserved Hungarians of average height.’

  ‘I met such a woman,’ he continued, ignoring Milos, ‘I told you about her. The florist. She owns the shop. I’d met her three times before and always with my toupee. I suggested dinner, she accepted. She suggested her place, I accepted. So she ordered two dozen oysters for dessert. It was ridiculous of course. I could hardly look at the waiter who brought them. But that’s the kind of woman she is. Unpredictable, imaginative—you know—what’s the word?’

  ‘Vulgar?’ volunteered Milos.

  ‘No! Artistic. Not vulgar, she is artistic. So we went back to her apartment. Very nice. Many beautiful things. But by then we could not keep our hands off each other. I jumped on the bed. “No!” she says, “Wait. Not on the covers.” So she pulled back the covers. She pulled back the sheet. Pure top quality cotton trimmed with damask. Pillowslips the same. Beautiful. We leaped back on the bed and my thing was so hard and straight I swear I nearly vaulted right over it. I thought I would give her engine one last tune-up by an Italian expert, when she just grabbed it and shoved it in. We went at it like eighteen year olds. Like Jorge and Rosa. The harder I pushed the harder she pulled. I pulled backwards, she thrust upwards. She was one greedy lady. It became a race to finish first and in the end it was a ph
oto finish. I collapsed. I wanted to lay there forever in her honeypot, head pillowed on her breasts, savouring every delicious moment, reloading the gun for a second assault. Suddenly she killed me stone dead. Just like that.

  ‘“Damn,” she says, “I can’t reach the tissues. You don’t mind do you?” Then do you know what she did? Unbelievable! She pulled off my toupee and used it to mop her crotch!’

  The other diners wondered what joke could make five men explode with laughter and send Gancio back to his kitchen with tears streaming down his cheeks.

  They finished their coffee and Ramon prepared to return to his story.

  ‘If I had a daughter,’ he said wistfully, ‘I would want her to be like dear, sweet Annemieke.’

  The others gave Ramon their full attention and watched him closely. It was not always what Ramon said that was important, but the manner of the telling. Was this gentle wistfulness another of his ploys? If so, what was he trying to tell them? If not, what did it reveal?

  ‘Annemieke was a little angel. Even as a baby her beauty, serenity and the sheer joy she drew from life touched all who knew her. It is often said of such children that they are too good for this world and that is the reason given when the gods take them back before their lives have barely begun. Annemieke Van der Meer was more fortunate, though there would be times when it seemed death may have been a greater kindness.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  From the day she was born everybody loved Annemieke, even her rampaging brothers, Thomas and Pieter. People drew a pleasure from holding her that they found difficult to explain.

  The servants vied with one another for the privilege of carrying her, as they carried their own young, in a sling strung around their shoulder. But even then, Annemieke had her favourite. Her name was Levi and she was only twelve. Her job was to help the older women but more and more she came to be the baby Annemieke’s special minder. Annemieke would not go to sleep in the afternoon unless Levi was there to lay down beside her and stroke her hair.