The Shallow Seas

by Dawn Farnham

  “The English and the Dutch, no matter their personal feelings, had to appear united, for the Javanese Regents were constantly on the lookout for a chance of rebellion. However, my father and Muntinghe were close to Raffles, and they admired each other so it was an easy relationship,” Wilhelmina said.

  Tigran, the Governor-General and the other men retired to the smoking room. Now the ladies were seated in the verandah, where the air was cool. The temperature change from the high hills to here was considerable. The evenings were not cold but merely pleasantly cool. Takouhi had gone to bed, but Charlotte was curious and enjoying, as always, the company of Wilhelmina.

  Pieter Merkus was remarkable for having married a divorced woman. This was common knowledge in Batavia. Wilhelmina was unconcerned. Her former husband had been an unpleasant man, stupidly so, since she took away from him a considerable inheritance and influence. Pieter, she had been happy to tell Charlotte, was a man she could respect and love. The divorce had had little effect on his promotion, and she was delighted to acknowledge the fact that she was the first, and perhaps only, divorced woman to be the wife of a Governor-General of the Indies. She took care, with great affection, of his daughter Henrietta born to him by an Ambonese slave woman.

  “Raffles governed Java almost entirely from the palace at Buitenzorg. Olivia Raffles died here, you know, and the memorial he built for her is in the grounds of the palace, just beyond the lake. The botanical gardens adjoin the grounds. Would you care to visit it tomorrow and take a turn with the children?”

  Charlotte quickly agreed. She very much wanted to learn more.

  As the evening broke up, Tigran came out onto the verandah. He put his arms around her, and they gazed out at the jagged moonlit outline of Mount Salak. It looked so peaceful, yet they both knew it contained a heart of fire.

  Charlotte leaned against him. “What will you do tomorrow? I am visiting the gardens with Wilhelmina and the children. Takouhi may come. Will you hunt?”

  “I’ll come with you. Old Teysmann is a good friend. We shall make a picnic on the lakeside, and tomorrow night there is a wayang performance. Do you remember the wayang play in Brieswijk the night before our marriage?”

  The wedding had seemed a dream, but now, in his arms and content, Charlotte remembered that night.

  Tigran had asked the puppet master to put on a play in honour of his forthcoming marriage. They had chosen the Arjunawiwaha, the Story of Arjuna’s Marriage. Everyone understood the conceit. On this occasion, several villainous characters had been added from the pantheon of Dutch VOC Governors, to further merriment. Wayang performances could last all night, but Tigran had asked that this one be limited to two hours. In the long, low light of the late afternoon, hundreds of villagers from the kampongs made their way to the lawns of the house. Food and drink was laid out on the riverside, which the villagers devoured noisily, chattering, their babes in arms and children running to and fro.

  The puppet master was the most famous dalen in Batavia. The gamelan belonged to the estate and was endowed with the finest musicians Tigran had been able to find. As the last streaks of crimson left the sky and the dusk crept over the grounds, the villagers had gathered. The first star appeared, tremulous as a dewdrop in the heavens, and the groups ceased their chatter.

  The dalen rose, like a high priest of the shadow world, and spread on a bamboo altar the sacrificial gifts—fruit, yellow rice and flowers—lighting the incense to honour the gods and to keep off evil spirits. As the perfumed smoke rose on the breeze, the gamelan began, in a thunderous burst, and the dancers appeared. The village children shrank into their parents’ arms at this sound, eyes glued to the stage. Like willowy saplings, the dancers turned and swayed, miming the ballad, the prologue to the play, which a companion was singing. The sound of the gamelan was pure and mysterious, like moonlight on flowing water, constantly shifting but always the same. When the dancers disappeared, the shadow play began.

  Tigran had told her the story. The king of the demons wished to wed a celestial nymph, but Arjuna would save her through strength and virtue. The puppet of Arjuna was clearly carved to resemble Tigran, with long plaited hair and flowing locks under the huge, curled backsweep of his headdress. Charlotte could see that the celestial nymph was meant to be her. The dress and hair were vaguely European, and she was portrayed with exceptional grace, despite her rather long, thin nose. The demon king was also clearly a European, with a big Dutch hat. He was, Tigran explained, a formidable opponent, for he was invulnerable save in one place—his tongue was his Achilles heel.

  The audience all clapped loudly and laughed delightedly at these realistic depictions. The white screen was transformed into a fiery orange courtly world of elegant shadows. Insects buzzed and flapped around the light and onto the screen, increasing its shadowy grip on reality; the dalen, the master magician, chanted the story, played every part, the rise and fall of the gamelan shadowing him as he made shadows on the screen.

  As the battle between Arjuna and the demon king came to a climax, it seemed that Arjuna must die. He fell in a crash of musical frenzy, and the demon, rejoicing, opened his mouth in a shout of victory, but Arjuna, only feigning mortal wounds, rose and hurled his spear into the demon’s tongue. The demon faltered, again and again, and finally fell.

  Arjuna was victorious, and the audience shouted its appreciation. The wedding to the celestial nymph was a blaze of glory, a symphony of flitting shadow and fire, of bells and gongs, and when the lovers embraced, the villagers rose in a joyous clapping and cheering.

  Charlotte had understood not one word of the narrative, but that was unimportant. The fascination was in the constant repetition of the resonant gongs, the hypnotic beat of the drum, the flame and shadows trembling on the screen, the strong, sure and melodious voice of the dalen.

  Since then she had discovered that the dalen and his art were held in the highest reverence. If he travelled, he was welcomed everywhere and at home he was, like a prince, exempt from taxes, his fellows discharging his due in payment for the pleasure he brought them. There was, she thought, something deeply generous and pleasing in the nature of the Javanese that could acquit the artist of all earthly duties because he fulfilled the most supreme one, that of giving joy.

  It had been shadows to her then, but she recalled it now with a warm pleasure. She turned in Tigran’s arms and pulled his face to hers, thanking him with a kiss.

  After breakfast, Wilhelmina took Charlotte by the arm and led the party across the lawn, passing by the descendents of the grazing silver-dotted deer which Raffles had brought here and down towards the lake. A red, Chinese-style bridge spanned a dark, reedy spur of water, and they crossed over to an avenue of ancient, bumpy trees which lined the lake edge. The lake was filled with water lilies of a deep blue and vast pans of bright green leaves, ten feet across. The sun shot rainbows through the water, and wading birds edged away as they approached.

  Leaving the children to play with the servants, the four adults penetrated into the palace grounds, long ago converted to botanical gardens. These had been started by Raffles, whose wide-ranging interests included botany. The gardens were developed and now stood unrivalled even by the great gardens at Kew in their scientific and botanical importance. An impenetrable mass of dense, thick-stemmed bamboo lay to both sides of the path, bending its gracious bows and whispering as they passed.

  The shade grew deeper. Really, the tropical forest was a perplexing thing, Charlotte thought. In a land with no perceptible seasons, the trees in the forest kept to their own rhythms. Even as one was springing with fresh green leaves, another would be turning brown, each seemingly driven by its own instincts and acting without any regard for its neighbours, yet all in harmony. When the eye failed to separate the mass of this exuberance, the ear drank in the sounds breaking the silence and deepening the solitude. The leaves rustled, and under them, barely perceptible, the breath of the forest, the movement of insects and birds, an invisible and constant pullulation of li
fe which could only be felt, not seen.

  They heard rushing water as they approached the stone parapet which guarded the banks of the upper reaches of the Ciliwung River. Here nature had been fashioned by men into embankments, the water deep and clear, coursing over the boulders and rocks of the river bed. They crossed a bridge into a canyon of immense, buttressed banyan trees, the aerial roots forming thick, ropy columns. Tigran waved to a man who was approaching.

  Johannes Teysmann, the head of the gardens, joined them. Charlotte was reminded of the bearded face of a Greek philosopher. Teysmann was something of a botanical hero, for he had saved these magnificent gardens from certain obliteration.

  He took them to see the Japanese plants brought by Philip von Siebold from Deshima several years ago. Over 2000 specimens had found a home in Java, including the tea plant, which he had smuggled out and which now formed the basis of the recent tea plantations in West Java.

  They gazed at the tall kempas tree, with its roots spread out like the gnarled fingers of an ancient warlock, and at the stacked roots of the pandanus, seemingly ready for bonfire night, supporting the tufty palm. In one alley, the light was all but obscured by the silhouettes of curling creepers, lianas and rattans joining hands across the track. As if unable to grow in the ordinary way, these plants took the shapes of serpents, twining around less pliant neighbours, festooning each tree, some loose and swaying, some stiff as the shrouds which support the mast of a ship.

  Wilhelmina was tiring and asked Charlotte to accompany her back to the lake. They left the men to their conversations about Teysmann’s experiments in the cultivation of chinchona and vanilla and retraced their steps. Her former husband, Karl Blume, she confided to Charlotte, had been the second director of these gardens. He liked the female plant genus, she told Charlotte with a laugh, better than the female human genus.

  At the far end of the lake was another small bridge, and on the opposite bank Charlotte could see a white-columned cupola, shaded all around by the soft leaves of overhanging branches.

  “Olivia Raffles’s memorial,” Wilhelmina explained.

  Charlotte read the inscription there:

  Oh Thou! whom ne’er my constant heart

  One moment hath forgot

  Tho’ fate severe hath bid us part

  Yet you forget me not.

  Charlotte had read the memoir written by Raffles’s second wife, Sophia, a book which, following on Singapore’s spectacular commercial success, had served to raise Raffles out of the murky obscurity into which he had fallen in the eyes of the East India Company. The memoir made no mention of Olivia, a woman so prominent in his life and early success, and this absence hinted at Sophia’s enduring unease, even dark jealousy, of the other woman. As they walked around the memorial, Charlotte mentioned this, and Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders.

  “Olivia was a lively woman, rather showy, somewhat older than Thomas, of course. I heard from the gossip that she was very fond of a glass of brandy and could be a little wild. But, après tout, who is not? To me she was always good-hearted. And she was beautiful. I heard she had Circassian blood, and they are reputed to be of great beauty. Do you recall Don Juan? Byron’s words about the Circassian beauty in the slave market? ‘Beauty’s brightest colours. Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven …’

  “He loved her very much, no one who saw them together could ever doubt it. She was his jewel, you know. Her death was the greatest blow of his life. My father told us of it, for immediately after the funeral Raffles travelled in West Java with friends and stayed at my father’s estate in Cinere, climbing and walking, exhausting himself. When he returned, he could not, for a long time, come here. When he did, finally, he built this memorial for her. Until he left Java, he worked until he was exhausted. To keep thoughts of her loss from crushing him, I have no doubt at all. Everybody thought it would kill him. I never met his second wife, for they went to live in Sumatra, at Bencoolen, a horrid place by all accounts. I heard that three of his children died there of fever. Bon dieu, so much sadness in one life.”

  They sat on a stone bench carved with vines, which stood to one side of the memorial near thick bushes of soft pink lantana. Here in the dappled sunlight, they could see the children and nursemaids playing on the far side of the lake. She could see Zan tumbling on the grass with Wilhelmina’s two little daughters and her son. The water changed constantly with the movement of clouds, as if inhabited by hidden forces. From here, the eye was drawn irresistibly over the water to the sweeping lawn and into the white-columned verandah of the palace.

  There was a clear line of sight to the memorial, and Charlotte could suddenly see Raffles standing there, his face like that of the bust in the Singapore Institution, dark and brooding, grieving the loss of this woman, his constant and adored companion, her face in his mind as he stared silently down to this place. The feeling was so powerful that a darkness seemed to veil the sun.

  Olivia had died very suddenly, Wilhelmina was saying. She had had occasional long bouts of sickness but always seemed to recover. Of course, it was like that in the tropics. No one was safe. Death came swiftly. Life was merely bubbles on the stream.

  Eeerily, Charlotte felt now a presence on the very bench where they sat. Yet she felt intense sympathy for Olivia. Had any woman in all the history of diplomacy inherited such an outlandish society to govern? Olivia had been lonely, surely, with few companions, surrounded by alien and ignorant Indies women with whom she had nothing in common. She’d been vivacious and colourful, where they were slow and dull; often unwell, lacking children. At least, though, she had lived with the man she truly loved.

  Charlotte rose quickly, taking Wilhelmina’s hand, and walked out into the sunlight to watch the men returning.

  14

  Charlotte was glad to return to Brieswijk and to the social rounds of dinners and plays which she had come to enjoy. She no longer minded at all the weekly late-afternoon ride around the Waterlooplein. This social “review of the troops” which the wealthy Batavian beau monde enjoyed was a chance for each to examine the carriages and costumes of their neighbours with undisguised curiosity. For the benefit of the young women who exhibited their varied charms, the bachelors on horseback showed off unashamedly, displaying, like so many plumed and strutting cocks, the elegance of their dress and, by the movement of their muscled thighs, the superiority of their horsemanship and whatever other activity might suggest itself to the young lady’s imagination.

  They all enjoyed the game, and she and Takouhi made sure to wear their most expensive and finest jewels and silks. For a fancy-dress ball at the Harmonie Club, Tigran had a copy made of the broad-brimmed black hat worn by Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the founder of Batavia, whose portrait hung on the walls of the Town Hall. This he sometimes wore festooned with the bright feathers of birds of paradise. With his long plaits and loose hair flowing over his shoulders, he looked every inch a 17th-century buccaneer, and both woman adored it. Charlotte always made sure to nod charmingly to Petra Couperus if she appeared and to display the exquisite Japanese fan which Tigran had obtained for her from the latest arrivals from Deshima. Tigran, to her annoyance, however, always removed his hat and bowed respectfully to Petra. Charlotte would have preferred him to make a grand, mocking gesture as he did occasionally to some of their acquaintance, but she recognised in his attitude to Petra an innate kindness and courtesy and could not fault him. Thus they turned around the great parade ground, with its barracks, officers’ residences and the Concordia military club.

  Before Daendels’ enormous palace on the east side, the orchestra played military tunes and old favourites: Strauss, Rossini and Donizetti, songs from the French opéra comique, as well as new compositions, particularly a tune from a Signor Verdi’s opera—va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate: fly, thought, on golden wings—which had lately become immensely popular. In front of the palace, an object of constant derision, stood the towering column which celebrated the victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, adorned wi
th the lion which atop its high plinth unfortunately resembled nothing so much as a large poodle.

  As the sun began its slow descent, the horses turned for home. The ride back took them away from Waterlooplein, past the Catholic church, along the broad expanse of Willemslaan, under the towering walls of the citadel and onto the long bridge over the Ciliwung. The river divided around the citadel. It was wide, its banks well kept, and painted boats moved slowly along its expanse. The view of the citadel from the bridge was like that looking up to the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle: so distinctly European that one could be forgiven for a moment for forgetting that it was in Java.

  Weltevreden was designated the new “town”, for want of a better word, but in truth it was more a picturesque ensemble of villa-studded parks and avenues. The old town, despite the disappearance of its fortifications, retained the atmosphere of the stronghold which the steel-clad, steely-eyed Dutchmen of 1620 built on the ruins of the burnt-down Javanese town of Jayakarta. Here, shadowy paths divided the parks and avenues, with a glimpse everywhere of the rivers which ran between bamboo groves, lined with cool, low-pillared walls and houses in leafy gardens.

  Of all the squares of Batavia, the largest and most remarkable was the Koningsplein. In fact it was not a square; it was a field, the mighty brother of the Javanese alun alun, vast enough, Charlotte was informed proudly, to contain the city of Utrecht, dotted here and there with pasturing cattle, banyan and betel trees, and bordered on all sides by a triple rampart of branching tamarinds. There was a racecourse fenced off in one part of it, quite large, but reduced to insignificance against the sweeping magnitude of the Koningsplein.