Strong as he had been during the strange events, which he had been able to ward off with a single threat of force, this superstition—the aftermath of those events—found a weakness, a vulnerable spot in him. He was so surprised at not understanding himself that he was frightened of going mad, and yet he went on fretting. His health had been undermined by the beginnings of liver disease and he studied his yellow complexion. Suddenly he thought of poisoning. The kitchen was investigated and the cook was questioned, but nothing was found. He realized he was worrying about nothing, but the doctor diagnosed a swollen liver and prescribed the usual diet. What in other circumstances he would have considered quite normal—a very common illness—he now suddenly found odd, a strange phenomenon, about which he fretted. It affected his nerves. He now suffered from sudden bouts of tiredness while working, and from pounding headaches. His jealousy made him agitated; he was seized by tremors of restlessness. He suddenly realized that if there had been hammering above his head now, if betel juice had been spewed around him, he wouldn’t be able to stay in the house. And he believed in a hatred that rose in clouds out of the resentful earth like a pestilence. He believed in a force, deeply hidden in things in the Indies, in nature in Java, the climate of Labuwangi, in the mumbo-jumbo—that was what he still called it—that sometimes enables the Javanese to outsmart the Westerner, and gives him power, mysterious power, not enough to free himself from the yoke, but sufficient to make people ill, make them languish, to taunt and torment them, to haunt them incomprehensibly and horribly—a hidden force, a hidden power, hostile to our Western temperament, our blood, our body, our soul, our civilization, to everything we see fit to be and to think. He had been illuminated as if by a sudden single light, not as a consequence of thinking. He had been illuminated as if with a single jolt of revelation, completely at odds with the logic of his everyday life, his everyday train of thought. He suddenly saw it before him in a single vision of terror, like the light of his approaching old age, just as the very old sometimes suddenly see the truth. Yet he was still young, he was strong… And he felt that unless he could divert his crazy thoughts they might make him ill, weak and miserable, for ever, for ever…
For him especially, as a simple practical man, this sudden reversal was almost unbearable. What someone with a morbid cast of mind would have contemplated calmly, left him thunderstruck. He had never thought that there might be things in life somewhere deep down, mysterious, stronger than will-power, intellectual power. Now—after the nightmare, which he had bravely overcome—it appeared that the nightmare had exhausted him after all and infected him with all kinds of weakness. It was unbelievable, but now, in the evenings when he was working, he listened to night falling in the garden, or the rat stumbling around above his head. And then he would suddenly get up, go into Léonie’s room and look under her bed. When he finally discovered that many of the anonymous letters by which he was pursued were the work of a half-blood claiming to be his son, and even known in the compound by Van Oudijck’s own surname, he felt too hesitant to investigate the matter, because of what might come to light that he had forgotten, from his time as a controller long ago in Ngajiwa. Now he wavered, where in the past he had been resolute. Now he was no longer able to order his memories with such certainty that he could swear he had no son, sired at that time almost without knowing it. He did not have a clear memory of the housekeeper he’d had before his first marriage. He preferred to let the whole business of the anonymous letters go on smouldering in their dark recess, rather than investigate and stir things up. He even had money sent to the half-caste who claimed to be his son, so that he would not abuse the name that he had appropriated, by asking for gifts of chicken, rice and clothes all over the compound. These were things that si-Oudijck asked of ignorant village folk, whom he threatened with the vague displeasure of his father, the master over in Labuwangi. So to avoid the villagers being threatened any longer with his wrath, Van Oudijck sent him money. That was a sign of weakness, and in the past he would never have done it, but now he developed a tendency to pour oil in troubled waters, to make excuses, no longer to be so unbending and severe, and to blur and tone down everything that was black and white. Eldersma was sometimes amazed when he now saw the Commissioner—who had once been so resolute—in two minds, saw him giving way in administrative matters, disputes with tenants, in a way he never would have done in the past. A laxness in the operation of the office would have crept in, had not Eldersma taken the work off Van Oudijck’s hands, and made himself even busier than he already was. It was widely rumoured that the District Commissioner was a sick man. And it was true that his complexion was jaundiced, and his liver painful; the slightest thing set off his palpitations. The atmosphere in the household was neurotic, with Doddy’s tantrums and outbursts, the jealousy and hatred of Theo, who was back home after having abandoned Surabaya. Only Léonie remained triumphant, always beautiful, white, calm, smiling, content, exulting in the enduring passion of Addy, whom she was able to enchant as a sorceress of love, a mistress of passion. Fate had warned her, and she kept Theo at arm’s length, but apart from that she was happy, content.
Then there was suddenly a vacancy in Batavia. The names of two or three commissioners were mentioned, but Van Oudijck had the best chance. He fretted about it, he was apprehensive: he didn’t like Batavia as a district. He would not be able to work there as he had worked here, devoting himself assiduously to promoting so many different interests, both cultural and social. He would have preferred an appointment in Surabaya, where there was a lot happening, or in one of the Principalities, where his tact in dealing with the Javanese nobility would have stood him in good stead. But Batavia! For a commissioner, the least interesting district as an official: for the position of district commissioner the least flattering aspect was the arrogance of the place, close to the governor general, right in the midst of the most senior officials, so that the commissioner, virtually all-powerful elsewhere, was no more than another senior official among members of the Council of the Indies, and too close to Buitenzorg, with its conceited secretariat, whose bureaucracy and red tape were in conflict with administrative practice and the actual work of the commissioners themselves.
The possibility of his appointment threw him into complete confusion, and made him jumpier than ever, now that he would have to leave Labuwangi at a month’s notice, and sell his household effects. It would be a real wrench to leave Labuwangi. Despite what he had suffered there, he loved the town and especially his district. Throughout his territory in all those years he had left traces of his industry, his concentration, his ambition, his love. Now, in less than a month, he might have to hand it all over to a successor, tear himself away from everything he had lovingly provided and promoted. And the successor might change everything, and totally disagree with him. It provoked a melancholy gloom in him. The fact that a promotion would also take him closer to retirement, meant nothing to him. That future of idleness and boredom as old age approached was a nightmare to him.
Then his possible promotion suddenly became such a pathological obsession that the improbable happened and he wrote to the Director of the Colonial Service and the Governor General requesting that he be left at Labuwangi. Little of these letters leaked out; he himself said nothing about them either in the family circle or among his officials, so that when a younger commissioner, second class was appointed as commissioner of Batavia, people talked about Van Oudijck having been passed over, without knowing that it had been at his own instigation. Searching for a reason, people raked up the dismissal of the Prince of Ngajiwa, and the ensuing strange happenings, but it was felt that neither was really reason enough for the government to pass over Van Oudijck.
He himself regained in the process a strange kind of calm, the calm of weariness, of letting himself go, of being stuck in his familiar Labuwangi, of going native in his provincial post, of not having to go to Batavia, where things were so completely different. When at his last audience the Governor General had ment
ioned a European leave, he had felt a fear of Europe—a fear of no longer feeling at home there—now he felt the same fear even of Batavia. Yet he was only too familiar with all the quasi-Western humbug of the place; he knew the capital of Java put on very European airs, and in reality was only half-European. In himself—unbeknown to his wife, who regretted the shattered illusion of Batavia—he was secretly amused that he had been able to ensure that he stayed in Labuwangi. But that amusement showed him that he was changed, aged, diminished, eyes no longer fixed on the path upward, assuming a higher and higher position in human society, which had always been the path of his life. What had happened to his ambition? How had his domineering drive slackened? He attributed everything to the effect of the climate. It would certainly be good if he could refresh his blood and his mind in Europe. But instantly that thought dissolved for want of will. No, he didn’t want to go to Europe. He was fond of the Indies. He gave himself over to long reflections, lying in an easy chair, enjoying his coffee, his airy clothes, the gentle weakening of his muscles, the aimless drowsy flow of his thoughts. The only sharp-edged element of that drowsy flow was his ever-increasing suspicion, and he would suddenly wake from his torpor and listen to the vague sound, the faint suppressed laughter that he imagined he heard from Léonie’s room, just as at night, suspicious of ghosts, he listened to the muffled sounds of the garden and the rat above his head.
BOOK VII
1
ADDY WAS SITTING with Mrs Van Does on the small back veranda of her house when they heard a carriage rattle to a halt outside. They looked at each other with a smile, and got up.
“I’ll leave you alone,” said Mrs Van Does, and she disappeared to ride around town in a dos-à-dos carriage doing business with friends.
Léonie entered.
“Where’s Mrs Van Does?” she asked, acting each time as if it were the first: that was her great attraction.
He knew this and replied: “She’s just popped out for a moment. She’ll be sorry not to have seen you…”
He spoke in this way because he knew that she liked it: each time the ceremonial beginning in order to maintain the freshness of their liaison.
They sat down on a divan in the small enclosed central gallery, he next to her.
The divan had been covered with a piece of brightly patterned cretonne; the white walls were covered with some cheap fans and Japanese scroll paintings, and on either side of a small mirror there were two imitation bronze statues on pedestals: unspecified knights, one leg forward, a spear in hand. Through the glass door the grubby rear veranda was dimly visible, the pillars greenish yellow and damp, the flowerpots also greenish yellow, with a few withered rose bushes; the damp garden beyond was overgrown, with a pair of scrawny coconut palms, their leaves drooping like snapped feathers.
He drew her into his arms, but she pushed him back gently.
“Doddy is insufferable,” she said. “We must put an end to it.”
“How do we do that?”
“She must leave home. She’s so irritable, I can’t do a thing with her.”
“You tease her, too.”
She shrugged her shoulders, out of humour after a tiff with her stepdaughter.
“I used not to tease her, she used to love me, we used to get on very well. Now she explodes at the least thing. It’s your fault. Those eternal evening walks that lead nowhere are playing on her nerves.”
“It’s better they don’t lead anywhere,” he murmured, with his seducer’s smile. “But still I can’t break it off, because that would hurt her, and I can never hurt a woman.”
She laughed disparagingly.
“Yes, you’re so kind-hearted. You’d spread your favours far and wide out of the goodness of your heart. But whatever happens, she’s leaving home.”
“Where will she go?”
“Don’t ask such stupid questions!” she cried angrily, jerked out of her usual indifference. “Away, away, she’s going away: I couldn’t care less where. You know that once I say something, it happens. And this, this will happen.”
He took her in his arms.
“You’re so angry. You’re not beautiful at all like that…”
Upset, she didn’t want to let herself be kissed at first, but he didn’t like such upsets and was well aware of the power of his irresistible, handsome, Moorish masculinity, and overpowered her with brute force, smiling all the while and hugging her so tightly that she couldn’t move.
“You mustn’t be angry any more…”
“Oh yes I must… I hate Doddy.”
“The poor child has done you no harm.”
“That’s as may be…”
“You, on the other hand, tease her.”
“Because I hate her…”
“But why? Surely you’re not jealous?…”
She laughed loudly.
“No! That’s not in my nature.”
“Why then?”
“What’s it to you? I don’t know myself. I hate her. I enjoy teasing her.”
“Are you as bad as you’re beautiful?”
“What’s bad? How should I know! I’d like to tease you too, if only I knew how.”
“And I’d like to give you a good hiding.”
Again she laughed aloud.
“Perhaps that might do me good now,” she admitted. “I’m seldom upset, but Doddy!…”
She tensed her fingers and, suddenly calmer, she snuggled up to him and put her arms round his body.
“I used to be very indifferent,” she confessed. “Recently I’ve become much more nervous, since I had such a fright in that bathroom, after they spat betel juice all over me. Do you think it was ghosts, spirits at work? I don’t think so. It was the Prince taunting us. Those wretched Javanese know all sorts of things… But since that time I’ve been thrown off course. Do you understand that expression?… It used to be wonderful: everything ran off me like water off a duck’s back. Since I was so ill, I seem to have changed, become more nervous. Theo, when he was angry with me once, said that since then I’ve been hysterical… which I used not to be. I don’t know: perhaps he’s right. But I’ve certainly changed… I care less about people; I think I’m becoming very brazen… The gossip is also more spiteful than it used to be… Van Oudijck annoys me, snooping around like that… He’s starting to notice things… And Doddy, Doddy!… I’m not jealous, but I can’t stand those evening strolls she has with you… You mustn’t do it any more, go for walks with her… I won’t stand for it any more, I won’t… Everything bores me here in Labuwangi… What a miserable, monotonous existence… Surabaya bores me too… So does Batavia… Everything here is so dull: people never think up anything new. I’d like to go to Paris… I think I’m made of the right stuff to enjoy myself there.”
“Do I bore you, too?”
“You?”
She stroked his face with her hands, his chest, down to his legs.
“Shall I tell you something? You’re a handsome lad, but you’re too good-natured, which irritates me, too. You kiss anyone who wants to be kissed by you. At Pajaram you slobber over your old mother, your sisters, everyone. I think that’s terrible of you!”
He laughed.
“You’re getting jealous!” he exclaimed.
“Jealous? Am I really getting jealous? It’s terrible if I am. I don’t know… I don’t want to. I still believe that there’s something that will always protect me.”
“A devil…”
“Perhaps. Un bon diable.”
“Are you starting to speak French?”
“Yes. With my departure to Paris in view… Something that protects me. I firmly believe that life has no hold on me, that I am invulnerable, to anything.”
“You’re getting superstitious.”
“Oh, I already was. Perhaps I’ve become worse. Tell me, have I changed recently?”
“You’re more nervous…”
“Not so indifferent any more?”
“You’re more cheerful, more amusing.”
“Was I boring before?”
“You were quiet. You were always beautiful, wonderful, divine… but rather quiet.”
“Perhaps I cared more about people then.”
“Don’t you care any more?”
“No, not any more. They gossip anyway… But tell me, haven’t I changed in more ways?
The Hidden Force Page 20