The Ten Thousand Things

by Maria Dermout

  And why think that the professor was going blind? He might just be coming down with malaria, that’s what he seemed to insist on himself anyway.

  Not the professor but Suprapto was coming down with malaria; that same night after their walk, they had just entered the hotel, it began: he became nauseated, shook as if freezing, his teeth chattered. The professor was immediately with him, called the room boy, the manager. He held up Suprapto’s head for him to vomit into a basin, made him rinse his mouth afterward; when he was undressed and in bed he put hot-water bottles against his body, covered him with a striped army blanket, put a wet compress on his head, took his temperature. Then he went to get the doctor from the Club. Suprapto vaguely remembered their voices: the professor terribly worried—was it malaria tropica? was it dangerous? The young man had recently had another attack, what should be done? The doctor, a bit ironical—it would probably be ordinary malaria, a good thing he had quinine, he’d come back tomorrow for a look—and also: the professor was supposed to visit the Rajah on the peninsula the next day—yes, he could certainly go! The patient would just stay in bed like a good boy and swallow his medicine. If the professor would come along with him, he’d give him the medicine. The professor told the room boy to stay in front of the door until he returned.

  It was evening outside, in the room a wall lamp was burning. Suprapto was lying stiffly, flat on his back, his head on a pillow—the compress had fallen off, his body felt like a hard piece of wood that slowly began to burn with little dry flames from the feet up. At first it did not matter, especially after the shaking and the helpless shivering, but the higher the flames crept the hotter they became; at the same time a palpitating began everywhere in his head, behind his temples, in his neck—he had a terrible headache!—and behind his eyes pain and heat were radiating as if they would scorch his eyes. His lips burst and his tongue was too dry to wet them, the pillowcase became as hot as his head upon it.

  They were on their way to the Rajah, walking on the white road in the white sunlight, so sharp, so sharp, it made his eyes hurt so—he pressed them closed, turned his head to where the pillow was cool—under green trees, in the shade, and farther down the outer bay shimmered through the palms, deep, deep, an almost night blue, and the professor said, “I like trees so.”

  His head glowed so that the pillow was already no longer cool; he was too tired to turn it—the burned-off slope, the rough red earth radiated heat, the charred tree trunks smoldered with red flashes through the black, in front of the huts there were fires, red, and from the machetes of the four men in a row red sparks flew, all the time—any moment everything could burst into flame and burn down.

  Suprapto tried his utmost to sit up straight; he had to get up, there was something wrong! He only moved his head to the other side of the pillow—cool!

  They were standing on the covered bridge under the roof made of moist green palm leaves, the little river flowed by in its bed of stones, down to the beach where under the trees in the shade the proas were lying at anchor, proas to sail the seas in rain and wind, in pouring rain and storm, he tried to drink the pouring rain with his scorched mouth, and the storm wind.

  When the pillow under his head was hot again they had to move on—past the small settlement, past the burned-off mountain slope, past the four men in a row. And again all was on fire, charred, black with red, and full of red sparks from the machetes.

  Again Suprapto tried to get up—there was something wrong, he had to get up.

  He didn’t know how but he had turned the pillow—cool, cool—they were under the trees, past the settlement and past the four men with their knives. The girl came running down the slope with the butterflies in her hands—they were flowers, soft and wet with dew, lilac and pink and purple and yellow and cool and cool and cool—“look there, young friend!” the professor said.

  And then everything turned black for Suprapto.

  He was long and dangerously ill—it had been “tropica” after all. When the fever abated he was exhausted, very weak; he did not seem to wonder why the professor wasn’t there, he didn’t ask anything. The doctor had given orders not to tell him about it yet.

  The first time he consciously thought about the professor was one night. He woke up dripping with perspiration but didn’t ring the bell to be helped; he got up alone, dizzily clutching the edge of the round marble table—the night lamp gave a dim light.

  On the table stood a wooden box, of the kind that was sold in the Chinese quarter—white wood with six long thin dark-green bottles of cologne, wrapped in gray tissue paper. The box was open, the cover was lying next to it, one bottle had been opened and the cork loosely put back on again. There was a note: “You’re to have compresses, half water, half cologne—I’ve told the room boy. Take good care of yourself, young friend, I’ll be back shortly!” And only an initial: McN.

  A portrait was propped up against the box, the Sir Princess in traveling costume. He picked it up.

  How had the portrait got there? Had he himself left it out on the table, folded in the handkerchief, before he fell ill? Had the professor found it and put it there?—then he had seen her, he had not wanted him to see her—would he have seen her as she was, had he seen what was behind her? How could he—had he seen—? He put the picture back against the box of cologne bottles, with the note, went to the basin, rubbed himself dry with a towel, had a drink of water, and crept back under the blue and white blanket. He was cold.

  The following morning the fever stayed away and he began to get well, slowly.

  The doctor told him to try to get up and lie in a deck chair on the verandah; the doctor also gave permission to one of the young Dutch officials, a district officer, to visit him and to tell him that the professor had been murdered—he had to know.

  Radèn Mas Suprapto was lying in the long rattan chair, amidst the potted palms, in a batik sarong and jacket, a kerchief loosely tied around his head, and he listened to the district officer. The officer was a young man in a white suit, blond, blue eyes—an agreeable-looking fellow. Suprapto had greeted him curtly, “please sit down, forgive me, I’m not able to get up to greet you,” his face was darker than usual, tight, and he seemed deadly tired, kept closing his eyes.

  The officer told him: when the professor had not come home, had not returned after some days, the town had begun to worry and he himself had been sent out with several policemen. First, the road along the outer bay to the Rajah at the tip of the peninsula—that’s where the professor had gone, the hotel owner and the doctor had said. He, Suprapto, had been too ill to be asked about it.

  “Yes,” Suprapto said, his eyes closed.

  The Rajah had been baffled. The professor had been there that day, certainly, just for a short visit. He had accepted only a drink of coconut water and he had bought the flowers and plants the children had collected from him. He had distributed dimes and quarters—they weren’t to take all that trouble for nothing, he had said, although his botanical case had been already half filled with wild orchids. He had to go back immediately, his assistant was seriously ill.

  The officer stopped for a moment.

  Radèn Mas Suprapto remained silent.

  The Rajah had wanted to accompany the professor back, but he had refused—“I can go quicker alone,” he had said. But the Rajah together with all the children had escorted him to the edge of the village anyway and the professor had looked around and waved, as he always did, the Rajah had related.

  “Yes,” said Suprapto.

  So they had taken up the search from there: he, the policemen, the Rajah from the tip of the peninsula, and many others (everyone wanted to help); first along all the roads and paths which enter the mountains from there; they had inquired in the mountain villages, with no result.

  “Then back again, the road along the outer bay, you know that it’s a long and lonely road, up to the settlement of the Binongkos. I had them all called together, in that one large cabin—”

  Suprapto seemed
to be asleep.

  “Do you remember the settlement of the Binongkos? There is a little roofed bridge across the river there.”

  “Yes.”

  “One of my policemen is a Binongko, or anyway he speaks their language. We questioned them—nobody knew a thing. In the morning the professor had passed there on his way to the Rajah, a girl had given him flowers, she had done that once before; the professor had paid her two quarters for them, as he had done before—”

  “Yes,” Suprapto said again.

  In the afternoon the professor had passed on his way back—that was all they knew.

  Which way? Just the usual way to town.

  He had never arrived in town? They couldn’t explain that.

  Had anyone talked to him? No one had talked to him.

  Had the girl given him flowers? The girl hadn’t given him flowers in the afternoon; she had done that in the morning.

  The officer paused, then he leaned a little nearer to Suprapto. “Something happened then—it is difficult to explain it—that large dirty hut full of people, so dark that you could hardly see. And all the way at the back four young men sitting next to each other on a mat on the ground; in the doorway near me the girl of the flowers was standing, a sad little thing, and she looked as if someone had beaten her, hit her on the mouth—her lips were burst and bloody.

  “She stood there without saying anything but she kept looking at me and then again at the four men in the back of the hut, and then again at me; and it was as if she were saying it in loud words. I had the four young men get up and step out into the light—at first they refused, they all held machetes—but there were enough policemen there—two of them had cuts on their hands and forearms, not serious.

  “But the girl remained standing where she was, and kept looking at me and then again at the mat on which they had been sitting, and again at me. I had the mat lifted up, there was nothing to be seen, but the earth underneath it seemed freshly broken; and there we found buried the watch and chain of the professor, the gold frame of his glasses, his wallet, two bags with a few dimes and quarters left in them, not many.

  “After that it was all quickly done with. One of the four young men came out with the whole story and turned witness against the other three—state witness, so to speak!” said the officer and grinned, “on the bridge, under the roofing—there had been a short struggle: the old man with his plant knife against four machetes. They had used the dull edge to avoid too much blood, afterward they had hurriedly carried him to the beach, robbed him of his belongings, rolled him up in an old mat, bound it with rattan rope and tied a basketful of stones—such as they use for anchoring—to it, loaded him into one of the winged proas, rowed him out into the bay—there was no one there at that time of the afternoon—and they dropped him overboard.

  “I asked, was he sure that the professor was dead then? Yes, the man thought the professor had been dead.

  “After that I had to go back inside the hut to get the things which had been buried there, seal them up as evidence. The girl of the flowers was standing there again and kept pointing to her fingers—one two three four—the four quarters which belonged to her, two from the first time, two the second time, you know!”

  And Radèn Mas Suprapto said again, “Yes.”

  “I couldn’t give them to her, of course; luckily I had four quarters myself, but not such brightly polished ones—she was very disappointed.”

  The officer paused, and then he said, “when I gave her those four quarters I thought that for these she had—well, yes, properly speaking—turned in, informed on four of her own people: a quarter apiece, that is really not much!” He looked at the other from aside, the sick man’s face was so yellow and tired, and his eyes still closed. “I hope my story has not taken too much out of you,” he then said, and stood up.

  Radèn Mas Suprapto opened his eyes, regarded him, “out of me? no,” he said, and after a while, “I thank you for calling on me.”

  They shook hands.

  Later, on the verandah in front of the Club, the district officer asked the doctor, “are you sure? Is that Javanese assistant of the professor really getting well? He doesn’t look it to me.”

  “He’s been very ill,” the doctor said, “and perhaps he didn’t particularly enjoy the story of how the professor was murdered. We didn’t enjoy it here, and we hardly knew him; a card game, a story, a drink—the old man liked a drink—and whether we had ever seen a shell or a fish of this or that description.”

  One of the other members said, “and his damned Javanese clerk had to pick that day to get sick!”

  When Suprapto had completely recovered, and shortly before he was to return to Java, the district officer came to call on him again one morning. The Binongko, the “state witness,” was going to point out the place where they had dropped the professor’s body into the outer bay. They wanted to find out whether it would be possible to recover the body and send it to Scotland for burial there.

  Suprapto hesitated—why should he go along? But he ended by sitting next to the Dutch official under the wooden roofing of the police proa.

  A large proa: a steersman, many rowers, two men to do the soundings later, two police guards on a bench with the Binongko between them. He was handcuffed with iron rings around his wrists and a long thin chain between them; his ankles were shackled too, with a shorter, heavier chain.

  Suprapto had seated himself in such a way that he did not have to look at him.

  The gong and drum players sat on the roof over their heads: the beating of their instruments sounded regular and almost cheerful over the outer bay, at the end of each beat there was one ringing stroke on the gong. Every now and again the rowers accentuated the rhythm by hitting the boards of the boat with their oars, then put them back into the water with a splash and pulled again.

  It was still early in the morning.

  Suprapto had the feeling of being on his way to where things would be new, as if in the cool of the new day he himself was a new man, no longer burdened by what had been—light, and without ballast!

  Without ballast . . .

  He shook his shoulders.

  It was good to sail in a proa over a murmuring bay, no matter what, under the sound of the drums—why had they never done that before?

  “And might even have drowned on the way,” the professor said.

  Suprapto started to lift his hands to his ears but he did not get that far.

  The coast, low at first, became steeper: loosely piled rust-brown rocks, heavily overgrown, not only with green bushes but also high straight trees; a couple stood apart from the others, flowers all around them, a swarm of copper-green parakeets rose fluttering and screeching.

  Trees, trees, how I like . . .

  The wind from the outer bay now gained strength, the swell grew heavier, the rowers had difficulty pulling against it and they sighed, swore, and then laughed again.

  “Going back we’ll have the wind and the current with us,” the steersman promised.

  The scorched slope, the river which cut deeply into the coastline and carried its sandy brown water far out into the bay; on the beach, under the trees, the winged proas were gone. The little roofed bridge across the river was invisible from the bay.

  The Binongko made a movement as if he wanted to stand up. One of the guards, not the one who spoke his language, the other, said shortly in Malayan, “sit down, you dog!”

  And it was as if the man understood, he ducked with his head.

  Suprapto felt a shiver across his back—dog—dog . . .

  They went on.

  Then the Dutch officer said, “it should be somewhere around here,” and to the guard, “ask him, will you?”

  And the guard who could talk to him asked the Binongko, who was watching the coast attentively and who now pointed with his shackled hand to a tree rising above the others, as if he were drawing a line from tree to proa—“here!” he said.

  The guard passed the word to the
steersman and he to the drummers, and when the drums stopped the rowers immediately stopped too, let the water run off the oars, took them in and laid them down. All but a few who went on sculling, with the steersman, to keep the bow of the proa on the waves.

  Suddenly there was an almost tangible silence.

  Only the sound of the surf on the coast, the steady murmur of the ocean far out, and the wind, in gusts.

  The two men let out the sounding line over the edge of the proa.

  The Binongko stood up (the guards let him); he spoke some words—repeated the same ones, it seemed—no one understood him except the one police guard but he paid no attention. Nobody paid attention.

  Nobody listened—but they all looked at him.

  The two under the roof, the rowers on each side of the proa; the two with the sounding lead worked on the line but they looked at him too, and so did the guards. All looked, all those pairs of dark eyes and the one pair of blue eyes, all looked at the shackled man standing in their midst—the murderer.

  Nobody spoke.

  Suprapto had the feeling of circles—concentric circles.

  First the murderer: his handcuffs and chains made him seem enclosed and encircled within himself.

  Then all of them around the man.

  The proa again around them.

  Outside—the open—water, waves, coast, trees, wind and sky—were no part of this, could not set them free from the circles. They had no link with all that any more.

  No one spoke, no one moved.

  Only the line of the lead running farther out; the steersman holding the long oar, two rowers sculling with short ones. But the feeling of a slow encirclement, of a tightening ring, was so strong—the atmosphere so oppressive and threatening—that Suprapto thought he couldn’t bear it any longer; did the man next to him feel nothing?

  It was then that the district officer got up, looked over the roof, turned his head smartly toward the steersman, called out—steersman!—as has been done at all times when there is danger at sea.

  “Steersman, watch it! And remember, no tricks, do you hear?”