I was put on guard duty at the edge of the Chinese cemetery on Kembang Kuning, where the Punjabi regiment was stationed. I found Punjabi food strange at first, but gradually developed a taste for their odd pancakes filled with goat’s meat and hot curry sauce. Guard duty was dull and I soon began to get fed up with it.
On evenings when I was not required to stand guard, I wandered around the encampment keeping my eyes and ears peeled. I saw Punjabi soldiers secretly handing over Lee Enfield rifles, Bren guns and hand grenades to the locals in exchange for sexual favours from the local women. I reported this to a number of inspectors, who in turn filed a complaint with Major Tanner, our commander-in-chief. No action was taken, and I was left baffled.
I found myself in the back of beyond one night, on patrol with three Punjabis. The moon was new and the cloudless sky glittered with stars. In the dim light, those Punjabis could spot pelopors up to 300 yards away. They gave me their firearms for safe keeping, drew their foot-long kukris and crept up on the enemy. I strained to see them pounce but my eyesight was no match for the darkness and the distance. Minutes later they came back and whispered, ‘It is done!’
Hotel Brunet
The police barracks at Hotel Brunet, where I shared a room with the taciturn Albert Toorop, had a front garden with a paved section adjacent to the street. Benches for police personnel and their families had been placed in the shade of a few tall trees. I had only been staying at the hotel for a short while when a number of police inspectors and their families moved in, newly liberated from Indonesian concentration camps by British troops. Ironically, such camps were often guarded by Japanese soldiers awaiting repatriation. All of these former internees were wearing clothes handed out by the Red Cross, and the deprivation and emotional uncertainty they had endured were still etched on their faces. On the evening of their arrival, I was sipping a lager at the bar in the magnificent hotel salon when one of these inspectors came and stood next to me.
‘Good evening. Van Meeuwen’s the name. How’s life in these parts?’
I shook his outstretched hand and answered, ‘My name is Nolan, a humble constable first class. I have been here since 7 December 1945. You and your family will be safe here. The entire area as far as Surabaya’s southern boundary has been cleared of pelopors and looters. The hotel is a pleasant place to stay. The food is excellent and the service is good. A simple man could wish for no more in these troubled times.’
‘Nolan, you said? The next drink is on me.’
I had only just emptied my glass when two girls walked up to Inspector Van Meeuwen and kissed him on the cheek. They turned out to be his daughters, Truusje and Lotje. Their mother had died in the internment camp.
I made the girls’ acquaintance and expressed my condolences to Van Meeuwen for the loss of his wife.
‘Thank you, Nolan. I say, boy and girls, why don’t we sit down somewhere for a quiet chat? Enjoy each other’s company in a little more comfort.’
We found a charming spot in the corner, overlooking the garden, and had only just settled down when a young man joined us. Van Meeuwen introduced him as the fiancé of his younger daughter, Lotje. I shook his hand and sat back down.
They spoke at great length about camp life and the many hardships they had experienced. All the while, Truusje hardly took her beautiful eyes off me. This fairly rattled my nerves. When I got up to order another beer, she placed her hand on mine for a moment and said she would get it for me. She refused to let me pay and served me my drink so attentively that I was left completely flustered. Her father laughed sheepishly, well aware of his daughter’s advances.
It came as a relief when time wore on and the family retired to their rooms. I wished them good night and we shook hands. But Truusje held my hand for a long time and looked deep into my eyes. I broke into a cold sweat.
The next morning, my truncheon and I were back on patrol with a number of other policemen in a Dodge truck. I also had a fighting knife attached to my belt. A soldier accompanied us on every patrol, carrying a Lee Enfield rifle with bayonet. To us it seemed like madness to be patrolling without guns while the enemy were armed to the teeth.
The police inspectors acknowledged our objections and we were given permission to scavenge for firearms and ammunition. When searching a number of fire-blasted kampong houses, I had the good fortune to come across a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver hidden in a drain, with six bullets left in the cylinder. In another house in Kedung Anyar kampong, I happened across a charred body strung up on a roof beam. The place was swarming with flies and the stench was unbearable, but I still managed to track down a Mannlicher rifle concealed in a drainpipe. It was badly rusted but intact.
Before long, all us ‘native policemen’ had found ourselves a weapon and in our spare time we were permitted to clean them of dirt and rust. The barracks at Hotel Brunet had a weapons room that housed large quantities of ammunition. One of the inspectors supplied me with cartridges and I was allowed to get the range of my Mannlicher rifle by practising on the drill ground behind the nearby telephone exchange. Having handled my father’s rifles as a boy, I soon got to grips with my new weapon.
Sitting on a stool outside my room, dressed only in my shorts, I was busy cleaning the weapons I had found when Van Meeuwen came up to me and stood there watching.
‘I say, Nolan,’ he said out of nowhere, ‘can’t you see the way my daughter Truusje looks at you? Why not pay her more attention? The girl no longer has a mother and she’s already at an age where she has to think seriously about her future. She can see how happy her sister Lotje is with Lothar. So Nolan… show her a little understanding…’ I stopped cleaning my rifle and looked up at him, dumbfounded.
Not long after this encounter, Truusje began to inquire about my service roster and soon I had no way of avoiding her. Every time I returned from patrol, she came looking for me so that I could join her on the hotel veranda. But whenever I looked at her legs, she would cover them with her skirt or shield my face with her hands. When I asked her why, she declined to answer. Eventually I put the question to Lotje and she showed me her own legs, which were covered in boils.
‘Truusje’s legs are the same as mine. We suffered from malnutrition in the camps. That is what killed our mother,’ Lotje explained, ‘and so many women her age.’
I looked at both sisters, gave the matter some thought and then said, ‘Perhaps my mother can cure you of this ailment. Let me ask her. Will you come with me?’
Their father gave his permission and asked me if I had ever driven a jeep. I shook my head. He taught me to handle his jeep on the hotel grounds and I set off that afternoon, with Lotje and Lothar on the back seat, and Truusje beside me up front.
We arrived at the family home and I introduced the three of them to Mama. She examined the girls’ legs, thought for a while and then went looking for the right medicinal herbs from her store. In her potpourri of broken Dutch, Malay, Javanese and Chinese she said, ‘Arto, I will give you a supply of these herbs to take with you, along with some prussic acid. Those grains are highly poisonous, so be very careful. Take a bucket of boiling water, add a small quantity of the herbs and a few grains of prussic acid. When the water has cooled to lukewarm, the girls must put one leg at a time into the water. You will wash them and repeat this treatment every morning and every evening. Their legs will heal within a week. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap after every treatment. Do not get a single drop of water in your mouth, or you will be dead within minutes.’
*
Van Meeuwen was allocated a house on Arjuno Boulevard, a street I had known well as a child. Once the family had settled into their staff residence, he drove to the hotel personally to pick me up after my shift. In addition to a jeep, he owned a Harley Davidson motorcycle, which he lent me to make visiting his family easier. The force provided petrol free of charge. When I was not on night shift, the Van Meeuwens insisted that I stay with them. I treated the sisters’ legs patiently. The skin of my hands became
chapped and painful to the touch, but after one week the boils had indeed disappeared. My mother instructed me to rub their legs with soothing Purol ointment and, three weeks later, every last scar had all but vanished. From then on, the girls were able to show their legs without a trace of embarrassment.
Meanwhile, Truusje’s tender feelings towards me grew ever more serious. Unless I was working, she insisted that I spend the night with her. She slept under a mosquito net, and I slept on a rush mat on the floor at the foot of her bed. Truusje was unable to sleep without me there, and so I acceded to her wishes.
A little while later, a cousin moved into the house with them. We got along well. The idea of spending every night off watching over Truusje struck me as excessive, so one evening I left the house and set off on my borrowed Harley. On Palmenlaan I ran into an old pal of mine. He was riding a Harley too and we went to a bar together. When both of us were half-drunk, we mounted our machines and powered down Simpang to Tunjungan and on to Pasar Besar. On the way, I let my legs rest on the highway bars, let go of the steering and crossed my arms. I rode down the street like this doing around thirty miles an hour. My pal rode behind me and followed suit. We had the time of our lives. As the night wore on, we slowed things down and headed for Waru, where we hung around the kampong for a while. My pal visited a prostitute and was gone for quite some time, while I watched over our bikes. It was the early hours of the morning by the time we got back to Surabaya. My friend headed for his home downtown and I returned to Hotel Brunet. At last I was able to sleep in my own bed again, instead of curled up on a mat at the foot of Truusje’s bed like a manservant from the olden days. Little did I know that Truusje had been awake all night, worried sick about me.
The next day I worked an extra shift, on patrol in the kampongs. Here and there the stink was unbearable and led us to the badly decomposed bodies of civilians. Some of the corpses were half-burned. By now I was armed with the Mannlicher rifle I had found, and my superiors turned a blind eye. I fired shots in the air when I saw looters, as there were women and children among them. In the evening, I joined a team of ten other policemen and we headed for another area to sweep the kampongs clean. Looting was rife in the Chinese district on the other side of the Red Bridge, where the streets were still swarming with the remnants of fanatical pemuda units. Wherever we encountered the enemy, we leapt from the truck and hit the ground running and shooting.
One day, Inspector Van Meeuwen came storming into my room. ‘I say, Nolan,’ he burst out, ‘we haven’t heard from you for days. Truusje is driving me to distraction. She worries about you constantly. As soon as you have some time off, get on that motorbike and go and see her. Stay with her until your next shift. Understood?’
‘Mr Van Meeuwen,’ I replied, ‘I have been working extra shifts all this time.’
Face flushed with anger, Van Meeuwen.
My roommate Albert Toorop had heard everything. ‘Who in blazes does that chap think he is?’ he said. ‘Anyone would think you are his son-in-law. If I were you, I would watch myself with that girl. Before you know it, the whole family will have you under their thumb and your life will no longer be your own. And another thing… do you think he would have spoken to you that way if you had been a Belanda and not an Indo? I may be white, but I am an Indo too. I know how they think, how they talk about us. The colonial airs they put on with us will never change, not now, not ever. In their own minds, those Belandas are always reliving the glory days of the Dutch East India Company. The more I see, the less I understand what business they have being here.’
‘You know what you need…’
The ranks of the AMA Police Forces included intellectuals, planters from companies in East Java, civil servants, railway officials and prominent members of the business community – all survivors of the internment camps and seething with hatred of anything that smacked of Japan or Merdeka. But by April 1946, conditions in and around Surabaya had stabilized to the point where many constables returned home and, where possible, tried to pick up the thread of their old lives. This left the force so short of manpower that even Indonesians were recruited as part of the reorganization. The fact that they were restricted to the traffic division didn’t stop me viewing them with suspicion.
When the AMA Police Forces became the Municipal Police and fell under strict Dutch command, it spelled the end of the old free-and-easy approach. Each shift had to go by the book: every last bullet had to be accounted for and every incident, however minor, had to be reported in interminable detail. Before long, I was sick to the back teeth of it. One day they had me on patrol, the next I was on guard duty and they even had me directing traffic in the blazing sun.
I was popular with the girls but, with no sex to be had, frustration began to get the better of me. For months I suffered from a pounding headache above my right eye. I called in sick and the chief inspector sent me to see the police doctor, whose surgery was in a wing of Hotel Sarkies on Embong Malang.
The doctor examined me and asked, ‘What kind of exercise do you take?’
‘I lift weights now and again, do gymnastics on the high bar, I box and I go running.’
‘You know what you need, Nolan?’
‘And… what would that be, doctor?’
‘You need to get married!’ he said, with a deadpan expression.
‘Get married? But I am much too green for that. I don’t turn twenty-one until September. My mother would never allow it. I have no idea how to treat a girl or a woman.’
‘Calm down boy, I am not talking about marriage marriage. I mean you need to start seeing women. Going to bed with women. What you need is… a good fuck! Once you have done that and done it on a regular basis, your headache will disappear all by itself.’
I looked at him in bewilderment and he asked, ‘Don’t you have a girlfriend?’
‘Why yes, doctor, I am in love with one of Inspector Van Meeuwen’s daughters. Do you know who I mean?’
‘Ah, you must mean his elder daughter… Truusje, I believe? She bears a striking resemblance to her late mother.’
I nodded.
‘If I were you Nolan, I would not put her off too long. She would make a good match for a boy like you. Give it some thought.’
I left the doctor’s surgery with mixed feelings, but carried on doing my shifts with a fanatical devotion that left me little time to go and see my girl.
It was late in the year when I heard that the Dutch Marines were taking over the occupation of Surabaya and the surrounding area. I had seen them on shore leave in the city and, full of admiration for their modern weapons, I hatched a plan to work for them. In our intimate moments, I shared these thoughts with Truusje but they did not go down well, triggering wave after wave of protest and prompting many a tear. Lotje and her fiancé Lothar were equally vocal in their disapproval. But their father’s comments were the final straw. In the presence of his daughters, he accused me of practising guna-guna on them. And while he had no qualms about my using black magic to cure their skin, he lambasted me for bringing Truusje under my spell.
These accusations really got my goat. Not only did I believe that using guna-guna to get a girl was the most cowardly thing a man could do, but I also had absolutely no idea how to go about it. Furthermore, I had not set out to charm anyone; it was Truusje’s father who had charmed me. From then on, my relationship with the family cooled and, alone in my room, I took to brooding and worrying. I loved Truusje deeply, but I had no idea what to do about her.
Regarding my background
It was September 1946, my twenty-first birthday, and we celebrated at home with a modest party. The whole family was there, except Ella and Ina, who had been interned in women’s camps somewhere near Malang. My brothers Jacob and Karel, my half-sister Nonnie, her husband Ang Soen Bing and their children, and Uncle Soen and Aunty Kiep all wished me every happiness and presented me with small gifts. Mama, Babu Tenie and Kokkie Tas had prepared my favourite meals: fried rice Cantonese style and macaroni
cheese.
Before the festivities, the family gathered in the dining room. The table was only partially set. At its head sat Jacob, as the eldest son and Mama’s right hand. Before him lay a large folder containing a number of documents. Mama sat to Jacob’s right, with Karel beside her, and Uncle Soen and Aunty Kiep sat to his left. I took my place opposite Jacob at the far end of the table.
When we were all seated, Jacob began his speech. ‘Arto, today you have reached the age of twenty-one. You are now an adult. Ever since your cousin George died in a Japanese prison camp near Bandung in 1943, I have fulfilled the role of your guardian. Today my guardianship comes to an end. As you know, Papa was not officially married to Mama. All five of us were fathered by him but never recognized. That is why we bear the name Sie with the name “Nolan” in quotation marks, in full “Sie, goes by the name of Nolan”. But all five of us have been recognized to the extent that we have been granted equivalent status with Europeans. Here in this folder, I have an extract from the Government Gazette in question. You no doubt remember my many quarrels with Papa. Before war broke out, I had my name changed to “Nolans”, and for this reason it is not listed in the Government Gazette. It is of course a despicable thing for Papa to inflict on the five of us. It makes us pariahs in Indies society. But Papa has more to answer for. Before he met Mama, he fathered another child by a Chinese woman. Only she came from a powerful and influential family who threatened Papa with all manner of retribution if he failed to take responsibility for his offspring. As you know, Papa was a lawyer at the time, so the last thing he wanted was a scandal. That Chinese woman gave birth to a son named Jonas Chen. At Papa’s expense, the boy was given an outstanding education. After school, he attended a Dutch university, graduating in economics from Leiden. He then went on to settle in Jember, where he was appointed chief administrator of the Nolan estates under the supervision of his cousin Alfred Nolan and Alfred’s father, David Nolan. He also enjoyed the confidence of others, including his cousin George Nolan, your former guardian. Before Papa died, he made cousin George your guardian and reserved a large sum of money in his will for your further education. Papa wanted you to obtain a degree in engineering or to become a Master of Laws. Unfortunately the war has dashed many hopes and I no longer know where to find Papa’s will. I suspect the document is in Jonas Chen’s possession. I aim to recover it, because we are determined that you should resume your studies. My first priority, therefore, is to discover the whereabouts of Jonas Chen.’
The Interpreter from Java Page 28