The Hidden Force

by Louis Couperus

  Léonie van Oudijck, in the half-lit back veranda of the Commissioner’s house, was talking in a soft voice to Theo, with Urip squatting down beside her.

  “It’s nonsense, Urip!” she said in irritation.

  “No, it isn’t, nyonya, it isn’t nonsense,” said the maid. “I hear them every evening.”

  “Where?” asked Theo.

  “In the banyan tree in the grounds behind the house, on the highest branches.”

  “They’re wildcats!” said Theo.

  “They’re not wildcats, kanjeng!” the maid maintained. “Massa, goodness me! As if Urip didn’t know how wildcats miaow! Creeow, creeow, is the sound they make. What we hear every night now are the ghosts! They are the little children crying in the trees. The souls of the little children crying in the trees!”

  “It’s the wind, Urip…”

  “Goodness me, nyonya. As if Urip couldn’t hear the wind! Boo-oh is how the wind goes, and then the branches move. These are the little children moaning in the highest branches and the main branches do not move. Then everything is deathly quiet… This spells doom, ma’am.”

  “And why should it spell doom…”

  “Urip knows, but dare not say. Ma’am is bound to be angry.”

  “Come on, Urip, out with it!”

  “It’s because of the tuan kanjeng, the tuan commissioner.”

  “Why?”

  “Recently at the fair on the square and the fair for white people, in the town park…”

  “Well, what about it?”

  “The day wasn’t properly calculated, according to the almanacs. It was an unlucky day… And with the new well…”

  “Well, what about the new well?”

  “There was no ritual offering of food. So no one uses the new well. Everyone draws their water from the old well… Even though the water is not good. Because the woman with the bleeding hole in her breast rises from the new well… And Miss Doddy…”

  “What?”

  “Miss Doddy saw him, the white haji! That is not a good pilgrim, the white pilgrim… That is a ghost. Miss Doddy has seen him twice, at Pajaram and here… Listen, ma’am.”

  “What?”

  “Can’t you hear? The children’s souls are moaning in the topmost branches. There is no wind at the moment. Listen, listen, they are not wildcats! The wildcats go cree-ow, creeow when they are on heat! That is the souls!…”

  All three listened. Instinctively Léonie pressed closer to Theo. She was deathly pale. The spacious back veranda, with the table permanently set, stretched away in the gloomy light of a single hanging paraffin lamp. The waterlogged back garden was dimly visible against the blackness of the banyans, from which a stream of droplets was falling, but whose impenetrable, velvety masses of foliage were immobile. And an inexplicable, scarcely perceptible groaning, like a faint secret of tormented young souls persisted high above, as if in the sky, as if in the topmost branches of the trees. At times it was a short cry, at others a faint sobbing as if of tortured girls…

  “What kind of animals can they be?” asked Theo. “Are they birds or insects?…”

  The groaning and the sobbing were clearly audible. Léonie was as white as a sheet and was trembling all over her body.

  “Don’t be frightened,” said Theo. “They must be animals…”

  But he himself was as pale as a ghost, and when they looked into each other’s eyes, she realized that he was afraid, too. She squeezed his arm tightly and pressed up against him. The maid squatted humbly, hunched up, as if accepting whatever fate brought as an inexplicable mystery. She would not take flight. But in the eyes of the white people there seemed to be a single thought, to flee. Suddenly the two of them—the stepmother and the stepson who were bringing shame on the house—felt fear, a single fear, as if of punishment. They didn’t speak, they said nothing to each other, just stayed resting against each other, understanding each other’s trembling, the two white children of the mysterious Indies earth—who from their childhood onwards had breathed the mysterious air of Java; unconsciously they had heard the vague, softly approaching mystery, like ordinary music, a music that they had not heeded, as if mystery were ordinary. As they stood trembling and looking at each other, the wind got up and brought with it the secret of the souls, and carried them away; the branches moved about wildly and fresh rain poured down. A chilly breeze filled the house; a gust extinguished the lamp and they were left in darkness for a moment. She, despite the openness of the veranda, almost in the arms of her son and lover; the maid cringed at their feet. But then she disengaged herself from him, disengaged herself from the black oppression of darkness and fear through which the rain roared; a chilly wind blew and she stumbled indoors, almost fainting. Theo and Urip followed her. The central gallery was lit, and Van Oudijck’s office was open. He was working. Léonie stood there indecisively, with Theo, not knowing what to do. The maid disappeared, muttering under her breath. It was then that Léonie heard a whooshing sound and a small round stone flew through the veranda and fell somewhere. She gave a cry and stepped behind the screen that separated the office where Van Oudijck was sitting at his desk, then she cast caution to the winds and again threw herself into Theo’s arms. They stood shivering and clinging to each other. Van Oudijck had heard her, stood up and came out from behind the partition. His eyes were blinking rapidly, as if tired from working. Léonie and Theo regained their composure.

  “What is it, Léonie?…”

  “Nothing,” she said, not daring to say anything about the souls or the stone, afraid of the imminent punishment. She and Theo stood guiltily, both white as a sheet and trembling. Van Oudijck, with his mind still on his work, saw nothing.

  “Nothing,” she said. “The mat is worn, and… I almost stumbled. But I wanted to mention something, Otto…”

  Her voice was trembling but he didn’t hear it, blind and deaf to her as he was, still absorbed in his documents.

  “What?”

  “Urip suggested to me that the servants would like to have an offering, since a new well has been sunk in the grounds…”

  “The well that is two months old?”

  “They don’t draw water from it.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re superstitious, you see; they don’t want to use the water until the offering has been made.”

  “Then it should have been done immediately. Why didn’t they let me know through Kario? I can’t think of all that nonsense by myself. But I would have arranged an offering at the time. Now it’s like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. The well is two months old.”

  “It would be good in any case,” said Theo. “Papa, you know yourself what the Javanese are like: they won’t use the well if they aren’t granted an offering.”

  “No,” said Van Oudijck stubbornly, shaking his head. “Making an offering now would be quite senseless. I would have been happy to do it, but now, after two months, it’s absurd. They should have asked straight away.”

  “Come on, Otto,” begged Léonie. “Why don’t you make the offering. As a favour to me.”

  “Mama has already half-promised Urip…” said Theo with gentle insistence.

  They stood before him, trembling, white as a sheet, like supplicants.

  But, worn out as he was, and with his mind on his documents, he was filled with a stubborn reluctance, though he could seldom refuse his wife anything.

  “No, Léonie,” he said firmly. “You must never promise anything you’re not sure of…”

  He turned away, went round the screen, and sat down to continue his work.

  They looked at each other, the stepmother and her stepson. Slowly, aimlessly, they moved from where they were onto the front veranda, where a damp darkness floated between the imposing pillars. They saw a white figure approaching through the sodden garden. They were alarmed, frightened of everything now, each silhouette reminding them of the strange punishment that would befall them so long as they remained in the parental home
on which they had brought shame. But when they peered more closely they recognized Doddy. She said that she had been to see Eva Eldersma. In fact she had been walking with Addy de Luce, and they had sheltered from the rain in the native quarter. She was very pale and shivering, but Léonie and Theo couldn’t see it in the dark front veranda, just as she couldn’t see that her stepmother was pale, and Theo too. She was shivering so violently because she had been pelted with stones in the garden—Addy had left her at the gate. She thought of an impudent Javanese, who hated her father and his house and his family, but on the dark front veranda, where she saw her stepmother and brother sitting silently close together, as if helpless, she suddenly felt—she knew not why—that it had not been an impudent Javanese…

  She sat down with them in silence. They looked out onto the dark, damp garden, over which night approached as if on giant bat’s wings. And in the wordless melancholy that filtered between the stately white pillars in the grey dusk, all three of them—Doddy alone; her stepmother and stepson together—frightened to death and crushed by the strange event that was about to happen…

  2

  DESPITE THEIR FEAR, Theo and Léonie sought each other out even more often, feeling drawn by what was now an unbreakable bond. In the afternoons he would slip into her room and they would embrace wildly and then remain close together.

  “It must be nonsense, Léonie…” he whispered.

  “All right, so what is it then?” she whispered back. “I heard the groaning, didn’t I? And the stone whizzing through the air…”

  “And so…”

  “What?”

  “If it is something… suppose it’s something we can’t explain.”

  “But I don’t believe that sort of thing!”

  “Nor do I… But just…”

  “What?”

  “If it is something… if it’s something we can’t explain, then…”

  “Then what?”

  “Then it’s not because of us!” he whispered almost inaudibly. “Didn’t Urip say so herself. It’s because of Papa!”

  “Oh, but it’s too silly…”

  “I don’t believe in that nonsense either.”

  “The groaning… must be animals.”

  “And that stone must have been thrown by some wretch, one of the servants, someone with big ideas… or who has been bribed…”

  “Bribed? By whom?”

  “By… the… Prince…”

  “Oh, Theo!”

  “Urip said that the groaning came from the palace…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “And that they wanted to taunt Papa from there…”

  “Taunt?”

  “Over the Prince of Ngajiwa’s dismissal.”

  “Did Urip say that?…”

  “No, no, she didn’t say that. I’m saying that. Urip said that Prince Sunario has magic powers. That’s nonsense of course. The fellow is no good… He’s bribed people… to torment Papa.”

  “But Papa isn’t aware of anything…”

  “No… And we mustn’t say anything. That’s the best thing to do… We must ignore it.”

  “And the white pilgrim, Theo, that Doddy has seen twice… And when they make the table turn at Van Helderen’s place, Ida sees him too…”

  “Oh, of course he’s another of the Prince’s men.”

  “Yes, I expect he is… But it’s still horrible, Theo… My Theo, I’m frightened!”

  “Of that nonsense! Come now!”

  “If it is something, Theo… it’s not because of us?”

  He laughed.

  “Of course not. Because of us! It’s foolery by the Prince…”

  “We shouldn’t see each other any more…”

  “Oh yes we should. I love you, I’m mad about you.”

  He kissed her violently and they were both afraid, but he put a brave face on it.

  “Come on, Léonie, don’t be so superstitious…”

  “When I was a child, my nursemaid told me…”

  She whispered a story in his ear. He turned pale.

  “Oh, what nonsense, Léonie!”

  “There are strange things, here in the Indies… If they bury something of yours, a handkerchief or a lock of hair… then… using just charms… they can make you fall ill and waste away, and die… without a doctor having any idea what the disease is…”

  “That’s rubbish!”

  “It’s absolutely true!”

  “I didn’t know you were that superstitious!”

  “I never used to think about it. I’ve only been thinking about it recently… Theo, do you think there is something?”

  “There’s nothing… except kissing.”

  “No, Theo… be quiet, don’t. I’m frightened… It’s getting late. It’s getting dark so soon. Papa’s already up, Theo. Go now, Theo… through the boudoir. I want to take a bath. I’m frightened when it gets dark these days… With those rains there is no dusk… It takes you by surprise, the evening… The other day I had no light taken into the bathroom… and it was already so dark in there… and there were two bats flying around; I was frightened they would get tangled up in my hair… Quiet… is that Papa?”

  “No, it’s Doddy… playing with her cockatoo.”

  “Go now, Theo.”

  He left through the boudoir and walked into the garden. She got up, threw a kimono over her sarong that she had knotted loosely under her arms, and called Urip.

  “Bring the bath things!”

  “Ma’am!…”

  “Where are you, Urip?”

  “Here, ma’am…”

  “Where were you?…”

  “Here in front of your garden door, ma’am… I was waiting!” said the maid, meaningfully, implying that she was waiting until Theo had gone.

  “Is the kanjeng tuan up yet?”

  “Already up… has already had bath, ma’am.”

  “Bring me my bath things then… Light the lamp in the bathroom… The other day the lamp-glass was broken, and the lamp wasn’t filled…”

  “Ma’am never used to bathe with a light on…”

  “Urip, did anything… happen… this afternoon?”

  “No… everything was calm… But, oh dear, when night falls… All the servants are afraid, ma’am. The cook doesn’t want to stay.”

  “Oh, what a fuss… Urip, promise her five guilders… as a present if she stays…”

  “The butler is frightened too, ma’am…”

  “Oh, what a fuss… I’ve never known so much fuss, Urip…”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I’ve always been able to organize my life so well… But these are things!…”

  “What can we do, ma’am?… Things more powerful than mankind…”

  “Do you really think they aren’t wildcats… and a man throwing stones?”

  “They’re no such thing, ma’am.”

  “Well… just bring my bath things then… And don’t forget to light the lamp…”

  The maid went out. Darkness was already filtering from the rain-shrouded air. The commissioner’s mansion lay deathly quiet in the pitch darkness of its giant banyans; the lamps had not yet been lit. On the front veranda, alone, Van Oudijck was drinking tea, reclining on a wicker chair in pyjama bottoms and jacket… In the garden, deep shadows were accumulating, like swathes of black, airy velvet falling from the trees.

  “Lamp boy!” called Léonie.

  “Ma’am!”

  “Light the lamps! Why are you so late? First light the lamp in my bedroom…”

  She went to the bathroom… She passed the long line of storerooms and servant’s rooms that closed off the garden at the back. She looked up at the banyan where she had recently heard the groaning of the souls in the top branches. The branches were not moving. There was not a breath of wind, the air was oppressively close with a threatening rainstorm, a storm too heavy to break. In the bathroom Urip lit the lamp.

  “Did you bring everything, Urip?”

  “Yes, ma’
am…”

  “Didn’t you forget the big bottle of white perfume?”

  “And what’s this then, ma’am?”

  “Right then… In future you must give me a finer towel for my face. I always tell you to give me a fine towel. I don’t like those rough ones…”