When he returned from Wiesbaden, where they had spent their honeymoon, MacLeod seemed disconcerted. He explained that the spa town had been full of young German officers, to whom he often saw Gerda talking. When he was passing by on his own, they made loud remarks about what they would like to do with Gerda. He’d had to step up to one of them and remind him that Gerda was his wife. Also, the trip had been costly. Gerda had ordered several new dresses and the spa town was expensive. The whole episode seemed to worry him. He asked me if he could borrow some money. ‘Just to tide me over,’ he said. He seemed relieved when I agreed. He then asked me if I would look in on Gerda the next evening since he had an appointment with a young lady and would be late home.
I did what he asked and spent the following evening listening to Margaretha playing the piano badly. Louise seemed gloomy and the low-ceilinged room was stifling. As soon as Margaretha had finished, Louise left the room. Margaretha sat beside me and asked me about the East Indies. I told her about the heat, about the rain that usually fell every afternoon and the monsoon that came every September. She said the town she had grown up in had been too small for her and that she was sure life in such a faraway place would be exciting. I chose not to tell her of the constriction and boredom of colonial life. Instead, I watched her young face and, for the first time, was afraid of what would happen to her.
Five months after the wedding, she gave birth to a baby boy. MacLeod was at the Café Americain playing cards at the time. When he received the news, MacLeod ordered a schnapps for everyone and, when they had been served, he stood up and announced that his son would be called Norman after his great-uncle, a retired general.
In the spring of 1896, Queen Regent Emma held a royal garden party, to which nearly every commissioned officer was invited, as well as politicians, businessmen and celebrities. I drifted uncomfortably among the marquees and covered tables set out on the lawns, looking for a familiar face. It was with some relief that I saw MacLeod arriving with Margaretha just as luncheon was announced. She was wearing a lemon-yellow gown with a string of pearls. MacLeod presented her to the Queen Regent’s young daughter, Queen Wilhelmina, who smiled and said, ‘How charming.’ Margaretha curtsied. MacLeod and I spent the afternoon at the bar, where MacLeod drank and I tried to slow him down. He was angry at her extravagance. Her new dress had cost forty guilders, an amount he simply couldn’t afford on his captain’s pay. He muttered something about bills. I looked across the garden and saw Margaretha dancing with a naval captain. Several men gathered round, waiting for the next dance.
MacLeod’s leave in Amsterdam had been extended, firstly because of his wedding and then because of the baby. But soon after the royal garden party, MacLeod finally got his new posting – to Toempoeng, in Java. As was usual with a new posting, MacLeod also received his promotion, in his case to major. I hadn’t seen much of him at the Americain and the word was that he was seeing a great deal of his mistress. I was with a friend at the Pink Flamingo Casino one night when I saw MacLeod arrive with Margaretha. I said hello to them, but MacLeod seemed keener to play roulette than talk. He only used one-guilder chips and put one chip on each colour as his bet. While I stood with my friend, I watched MacLeod, who was in turn watching Margaretha. She was mingling at the baccarat table. She was wearing an olive-green dimity dress that hugged her body and trailed down to the ground. A businessman was watching her. A few moments later, the businessman approached her and they began talking. She was standing close to him, looking up into his eyes. He gestured to the door; then they drifted past the velvet curtains and up some stairs. At this point, MacLeod cashed in his chips and left without saying goodnight.
Early in the summer, I received my new posting. I was to be garrisoned at Magelang, a small town high up in the mountains of central Java. It would be a dull few years. Like MacLeod, I also received my promotion to major but, unlike MacLeod, I was to be posted immediately as I had no wife or family. I packed up what few possessions I owned and gave notice on my rented room. My passage was booked for mid-June. I went to the Americain several times, but MacLeod was never there and no one knew where he was. I called by the house in Leidschekade twice, but no one was home. The third time I went there, Louise answered the door and told me that her brother was hardly ever at home these days and that Margaretha spent all her time at social events. She said ‘social events’ as though it was a disease. I asked her to pass on my good wishes to them both and my hope that we would see each other again. But the world was too big and I never did, although I often thought of Margaretha.
2
Dutch East Indies, 1897–99
A photograph taken on 1 May 1897 on board the SS Prinses Amalia, bound for the Dutch East Indies, shows a group of eighteen people gathered together – six men, eight women and four children.
In the foreground are two girls sitting on the wooden deck. They are both wearing long checked dresses and one has a bonnet set back on her head. Behind them sit five women. To the right sit three in long black dresses, with black frills and tight chokers. One face is slightly blurred.
On the extreme left sits a young woman in a voluminous black skirt and white jacket with large, uneven lapels. Her hands are crossed on her lap and she is looking directly into the camera. This is Gerda. She is twenty years old. To the right of her stands a young boy with fluffy blond hair, carrying a large sabre on a leather sash. This is Norman; he is one and a half.
Standing just behind him is a short man, dressed completely in black, with a black bowler hat. He is not looking at the camera, but upwards and to his left. The lenses of his spectacles reflect the blankness of the sky.
Behind Gerda stands a soldier, wearing a kepi. The two rows of buttons running down his jacket are connected by chenille. The soldier is Major Rudolph MacLeod. He is forty-one.
All the men have moustaches. No one is smiling. The day is overcast.
By the time I received my new posting in Toempoeng, my marriage to Gerda was foundering. What had started as a response to my deepest insecurities as a bachelor had developed into a mismatched coupling. The one saving grace in all of this was my son, Norman. I loved him above anything, above my own life even. As soon as he was born, Gerda handed him over to the wet nurse. She showed him no love, and I strove to show him all the love I could in order that he might have enough. I do believe he was happy. I remember how, every morning on the boat to Java, I took him out on deck and we would practise marches and salutes together.
As a family, we spent the first year in Toempoeng – a small, dirty village as dull as rain. The garrison amounted to no more than twenty men. There was nothing to do there and no one to meet. The only person we saw was Van Rheede, who owned a coffee plantation in the hills. He doubled as the government comptroller for the region, a job which involved making sure that there was not too much corruption among the local Javanese council. We clung to Van Rheede for fear that we would go mad with boredom.
I think it was boredom, and alcohol, that drove me to Gerda after a particularly raucous night at his house. As soon as we got home, I told her to strip. She was surprised, because we hardly slept together any more, but I think she was secretly glad. She took off her dress and unbuttoned her petticoat. I looked at her body, which I had once so coveted. She pulled her hair loose and got into the bed without a word. I quickly disrobed and climbed on top of her. I spread her legs and pinned her down. For a moment we were together again, and the moment must have had some truth to it because out of it came Jeanne Louise, my beloved daughter. She was named after my sister, but we quickly took to calling her Non, a shortened version of nonah, the local word for ‘girl’.
When old Major Bervoets retired as garrison commander in Medan, Sumatra, I received my promotion and was ordered to replace him. I breathed a huge sigh of relief that I would be put to some use after all. I immediately rode my horse over to Van Rheede’s and asked him to take in Gerda and the two children while I travelled over there to secure accommodation. We Dutch took ca
re of our own and I knew he would agree without hesitation. I packed a small case and spent three days sailing from Surabaya across the Java Sea and up the Strait of Malacca to Tanjungbalai. From there, I took a cart to Medan. As luck would have it, Bervoets was returning to Holland and giving up his villa, but not for a month at least. I wrote to Gerda that I would stay on for that month, adjusting myself to the new job and arranging for new furniture. The army refused to give financial assistance, which meant I had to auction off everything each time I moved house. It was a severe drain on my finances.
Fortunately, my promotion brought with it a modest increase in pay, which I desperately needed. I had left Amsterdam with many debts – my meagre captain’s pay simply did not cover the kind of lifestyle I had enjoyed. I learnt to avoid those I owed money to – Captains Ter Stegge, Verster and Kraaykamp. Then there had been the wedding reception and the honeymoon in Wiesbaden. To make matters worse, Gerda had bought new dresses, hats, shoes and parasols for the trip, all of which were on credit. But my biggest expense of all in Amsterdam was my mistress, Johanna, whom I was seeing long before I met Gerda. When I realised the mistake I’d made in marrying Gerda, I found solace in Johanna. She made me feel appreciated every time I saw her, which was often. She cried when I told her I was leaving for Java, but her tears soon dried up when I gave her my parting gift of a diamond ring.
Medan was a small city, consisting of multi-storey buildings and excellent roads, all designed by the Dutch but built by the Sumatrans. Electric lighting had been installed five years previously. Several shops, or tokos, sold goods from Holland. It was paradise compared to Toempoeng. I wrote to Gerda, explaining all this, and asked after the children. I was anxious about them being alone with her. In one of her letters, she sent a picture of her with Norman and Non. She mentioned that a naval lieutenant had taken the photograph. Gerda vexed me with her flirtations, but I tried, for the children’s sake, to make the best of it.
Eventually, old Bervoets left the villa and I prepared to move in. I sent word to Gerda to make the sea journey and began the laborious task of arranging the sale of what little we had in Toempoeng and moving the new furniture I had bought. Mertens, the garrison doctor, lived nearby. I had befriended him since arriving in Medan and he helped me move. Mertens had himself just arrived in Medan when Krakatoa exploded in 1883. He said it was the worst sound he had ever heard, but the sunsets for months afterwards had been a very striking purple-red. The villa overlooked the city, perched on the slopes of our very own collapsed volcano, which eventually peaked 100 kilometres to the south. Steps had been cut into the hillside and irrigated to grow rice. The clouds were always low and the atmosphere somewhat oppressive. To the north lay the Strait of Malacca, which you could only see on a clear day. I employed a maid, who came up from Medan every morning and left every evening. She collected water, cooked the rice and cleaned the house. I made sure the villa was stocked up with brandy.
On the night Gerda was due to arrive, I put the wicker chair on the verandah, lit the lamp and settled down with a newspaper. I had no idea exactly when she would arrive. She had sent a telegram, but failed to mention a time. This was typical of her, but I had grown accustomed to her bad organisation and even worse timekeeping. It was nearly ten o’clock when I heard a cart approach and saw Gerda’s white dress through the gloom. I took Non from Gerda’s arms and looked into the small bundle. Non was fast asleep. I stood under the lamp and saw that she was very pale. I brought Norman into the light and saw that he, too, looked unwell. When I asked Gerda about this, she said it was nothing, only that food had been a little scarce in Toempoeng. My hackles rose and I shouted that she was the wife of a major in the Dutch army and that she could have all the food she bloody well asked for! She said that I hadn’t sent her enough money, to which I countered that all she had to do was ask! I told the porter to unload the cart and left her to bring in the last of her infernal hatboxes herself.
My anger with her lasted for the next few days. I left instructions with the maid to give both Norman and Non extra food and busied myself at the garrison. There was a suspected outbreak of rabies in Medan – two dogs had been seen running wild in the streets, twitching and foaming at the mouth. I ordered a complete round-up of every dog in the city. Bill posters were put up in the city centre as well as in the outer slums, ordering every citizen who owned a dog to clamp its mouth and turn it over to the garrison. By the fourth day of the round-up, we had several hundred dogs. The compound was full of them. I arranged for two squads of soldiers to shoot them and burn the carcasses. At the same time, I arranged for another four squads to search the slums for any dogs that were being hidden by the natives. After two days, we had a further 141 dogs. One of the platoon sergeants brought a native soldier to me, saying that he had attempted to hide his father’s dog. When I questioned him, the soldier claimed there was nothing wrong with it, but I was taking no chances. I docked him two months’ pay and assigned him latrine duty for a week. I ignored his obvious resentment and dismissed him. Orders were orders and the natives had to understand that. In all, 739 dogs were caught and killed.
A few weeks later, I informed Gerda that we would host a drinks party to celebrate my promotion. It was a tradition that I didn’t particularly relish, but one that I was obliged to observe. On the day of the party, I left the garrison at four o’clock and took a rickshaw up to the villa. When I arrived, Gerda seemed upset. She told me that she had dislodged an enormous scorpion after moving one of the potted palms on the verandah. It was pale yellow, almost white, and had its pincers raised. The maid had had to come and sweep it off the verandah. She had heard it fall into the foliage. She shivered when she told me. I shrugged and told her that was why it was important to move the flowerpots each morning.
I undressed and doused myself with cold water in the bathroom, then put on my dress uniform. My nerves were jangled, so I had a large brandy to take off the edge. Non was given her milk and put in her cot. Norman was fed his rice and vegetables by the maid and put to bed. At six-thirty, I looked in on them: they were both asleep. Gerda changed into a rust-coloured sarong and bright blue kabaja. I asked how much they’d cost. She said next to nothing, which I didn’t believe. By seven, the first guests started to arrive. As I had instructed, the maid stood by the door holding a tray of glasses filled with sherry. Gerda was next to me as I welcomed people one by one. Most of the guests were junior officers from the garrison. I had noticed many of the sly glances they gave Gerda on our Saturday nights at the club, but although I had come to find my wife deeply unattractive, I was going to make damn sure no one else laid a finger on her.
One of the guests was a major newly transferred from a garrison further along the coast of Sumatra. He knew no one and, for half an hour, tried to impress me with his knowledge of Indonesian geography. I took long draughts from my brandy and noticed that Gerda was deep in conversation with a young naval lieutenant. I had no idea who he was or what he was doing in Medan, but I began to wonder if he was the naval lieutenant Gerda had mentioned in her letter. When Mertens arrived with his wife, I made my excuses and slipped away. I fetched some sherry for them. We talked about the lack of drugs to combat the latest outbreak of cholera. Bored by our conversation, Mertens’ wife broke off and mingled. I asked Mertens if he knew who the naval lieutenant was, but he didn’t.
By nine-thirty I was half-cut and the guests were thinning out. The naval lieutenant was leaving too. He smiled at Gerda and kissed her hand before he left. My teeth were clenched in fury at his impertinence. The maid was gathering up the last of the glasses. I told her to check on the children and walked over to Gerda. She said what a pleasant evening it had been and I told her to go to hell. She looked at me and I waited for her to say something so that I could get angry. I picked up a bottle from the dining table and poured myself another brandy. She was just about to say something when the maid rushed back into the room. She said that Norman was ill.
I ran into his bedroom and what I saw mor
tified me. He lay panting and contorted, clutching his stomach. The sheets were twisted into a knot at the foot of the bed. There was vomit on the sheets and floor. I told the maid to fetch the doctor, then knelt down beside the bed. The boy’s teeth were chattering and his eyes were closed. I quickly got a blanket from the chest of drawers and laid it over him. Mertens came in. He laid the back of his hand on the boy’s forehead and told the maid to get some water and towels. His wife was sent to fetch his bag.
As Mertens felt for a pulse, Norman vomited again. A white sludge dribbled from his mouth. I laid another blanket over him, even though he was hot and sweating, and asked Mertens what we should do. Mertens clutched the boy’s wrist and stared at his pocket watch. I turned and saw Gerda and the few remaining guests at the bedroom door. I shouted at them all to get out. Gerda ushered the guests away. I could hear them whispering in the living room; then everything was quiet. The maid came back with a bowl of water and towels. Mertens put his watch away and said that his pulse was very weak. I shouted at him to find out what the matter was, but he told me to keep quiet. He passed his hand over Norman’s swollen stomach and the boy cried out. He asked if there was any kaolin and morphine solution in the house. I ran to the kitchen to get it. I had to steady myself against the wall for a moment before going through the cupboards until I found the solution. Mertens pulled out the cork stopper and carefully opened Norman’s mouth. He poured some of the white liquid down his throat, but he vomited it into a puddle on the sheets. I groaned when I saw blood in the bile.
The Red Dancer Page 2