Femme Fatale

by Pat Shipman

  Rudolf’s exaggerated concern about his children’s health was less bizarre if the children suffered from congenital syphilis, a common killer in the late nineteenth century. Even today, about 40 percent of children with untreated congenital syphilis die perinatally. What greater guilty terror might a father experience than to fear he had condemned his own children to illness and death?

  Is there evidence that little Norman and Non suffered from congenital syphilis? What would their symptoms be?

  Paul Diday, in his authoritative 1859 work on the topic, explained:

  A child born with the germs of syphilis, and which will present in a short time the most marked manifestations of that disease, may come into the world with every appearance of health and even of a vigorous constitution….

  In the generality of cases, however, this is not the usual course of things. From their very birth, and although as yet without any distinctly syphilitic symptoms, the subjects of hereditary taint may often be recognized. There is a certain habitus, a general physiognomy, about the expression about which parents already taught by a previous accident of the same nature, or an experienced physician, are rarely deceived…as Doublet has more simply expressed it, “they present a miniature picture of decrepitude.”…

  Next to this look of little old men, so common in new-born children doomed to syphilis, the most characteristic sign is the color of the skin…. Before the health becomes affected, the child has already a peculiar appearance; the skin, especially that of the face, loses its transparency; its rosy color disappears, and is replaced by a sooty tint, which resembles that in Asiatics. It is yellow, or like coffee mixed with milk, or looked as if it had been exposed to smoke; it has an empyreumatic color, similar to that which exists on the fingers of persons who are in the habit of smoking cigarettes. It appears as if a layer of coloring matter had been laid on unequally; it sometimes occupies the whole of the skin, but is more marked in certain favorite spots, as the forehead, eyebrows, chin, nose, eyelids, in short, the most prominent parts of the face; the deeper parts, such as the internal angle of the orbit, the hollow of the cheek, and that which separates the lower lip from the chin, almost always remain free from it. Although the face is commonly the part most affected, the rest of the body always participates more or less in this tint. The child becomes pale and wan.

  Any child of Gretha’s might have inherited her swarthy skin. Was it a sign of syphilis? It is easy to imagine Gretha and Rudolf inspecting their children daily, agonizing over whether their skin color was symptomatic or normal. Sometimes syphilitic symptoms showed up immediately and children died at birth; sometimes, cruelly, syphilitic children seemed healthy for two or three years and were then struck down. As Diday commented, even when a father had undergone treatment, there was no guarantee that the child would be spared: “Experience shows that, in spite of the most prolonged latency of the poison [that caused syphilis], and of the absence of any constitutional symptoms for four, six, and ten years, an individual may beget syphilitic children.”

  Even if both Rudolf and Gretha had been treated for syphilis in the Netherlands, the first years of their children’s lives would be a time of torture as they watched and waited for symptoms to appear.

  This special anxiety had to be concealed from the rest of society at all cost. Extreme parental caution was somewhat more ordinary in the late nineteenth century in Indies society than now. Hygienic and racial vigilance—protecting white prestige and white health—was a growing fixation, and nowhere was it stronger than in Deli. European wives were tacitly charged with redefining and enforcing moral and racial boundaries by their irreproachable behavior, while, paradoxically, European women were also seen as being more delicate, having finer sensibilities, and needing extra protection from the crudeness and sexual rapacity of the natives. The worst segment of European society was the poor whites, who were regarded as being in imminent danger of “going native” and sinking into the moral morass of the kampongs with a horde of illegitimate Indo children. Modern historian Ann Laura Stoler explains beliefs at the end of the nineteenth century:

  Good colonial living now meant hard work and physical exercise rather than sexual release, which had been one rationale for condoning concubinage and prostitution in an earlier period. The debilitating climate could be surmounted by regular diet and meticulous personal hygiene over which European women were to take full charge…. Adherence to strict conventions of cleanliness and cooking occupied an inordinate amount of time of colonial women and those who served them. Cleanliness itself served as a “prop to a Europeanness that was less than assumed.” Both activities entailed constant surveillance of native nursemaids, laundrymen, and live-in servants while demanding a heightened domesticity for European women themselves.

  Indeed, such hypervigilance was just what Rudolf demanded that Gretha exert. In the last letter he wrote to her before she went to Medan, Rudolf’s alarm over the children’s health was rampant:

  I am glad to have received your letter of 25 April this morning, with your description of the children’s illness. There is a lot of work waiting for you here, Griet, for these houses are dangerous to live in if one is not constantly clean. If one is not continuously busy with sweeping, moving of flowerpots and tarring of the premises, all kinds of vermin crawl around. Thus last night I saw a scorpion the size of which I had never before seen in my life. Although the bite of such a beast is not immediately fatal, it does cause a high fever and for small children it is very dangerous. Therefore you’ll have to inspect the rooms every day yourself, clean the children’s beds and move the flowerpots. I am glad to note from your letter that you are perfectly aware of your heavy responsibility with the children and that you take care of them with devotion.

  At the time, Norman, his favorite, was just a few months over two years old and Nonnie had just turned one. Either still might suddenly show signs of congenital syphilis and die. Rudolf’s demands that Gretha become a more diligent and careful household manager can be read as a desperate attempt to control at least some of the dangers that threatened his family. Fear for the children was overlaid with a poisonous mixture of guilt, anger, and jealousy.

  The commandant’s house in Medan was outside of the garrison and overlooked the river. (Collection of the KITLV, Leiden, The Netherlands, #3501)

  At long last, Rudolf sent money and booked the tickets for Gretha, Norman, and Nonnie to join him. It was usual in the Indies for the children’s babus to accompany the family on such a relocation, so in all probability they came too. They sailed from the port city of Surabaya on the S.S. Reijniers, commanded by Captain Haye. Gretha took advantage of the money Rudolf had sent and spent much of the day before departure shopping. Rudolf was outraged, ostensibly because she left the children with their babus. However, since the babus took care of the children all day every day, this seems a flimsy pretense. More probably he was upset by the expenditure. Having had no money to spend on herself in months, Gretha saw this as perhaps her last chance to refresh her wardrobe (she bought dresses and gloves) before the great unknown of Medan. And she was, undeniably, a vain woman who loved clothes.

  Rudolf presided over military ceremonies like this one at the government office in Medan. (Collectie KIT Tropenmuseum)

  The family arrived in Medan on May 26. After a brief stay in the Hotel de Boer, they moved into the splendid house Rudolf had secured for them in one of the finest areas of Medan. A few days after moving in, on May 31, the MacLeods hosted a farewell party for General Reisz, who had preceded Rudolf as garrison commander.

  Gretha had already received some cruel insults from some of the other women in Medan, so she took advantage of their first official entertainment to exact revenge. Exquisitely dressed, young and beautiful and dark-skinned, she insisted on rank and formal ceremony in greeting the guests. As the older officers’ wives arrived, she refused to move forward to greet them graciously but stood imperiously by Rudolf’s side and made them come to her. Rudolf was angered by her a
ctions, but doubtless Gretha felt the women were merely getting what they deserved: a pointed reminder that, despite her dark skin, she was superior to them in every way.

  Real disaster came swiftly.

  6

  Death of a Child

  PREDICTABLY, RUDOLF WAS FURIOUS with Gretha as soon as he saw the children. He thought they looked thin, pale, and neglected—just what he had feared during the two-month separation. He called the garrison doctor to examine them. According to MacLeod family stories, the doctor advised a special diet for Norman, who was in worse health; apparently a potion or medicine was also prescribed. Ominously, the children’s condition deteriorated during the first days of the doctor’s regimen. But after about a week, Rudolf noted that Norman’s color was better and he was playing with his toys with more enthusiasm.

  The bitter misery of the MacLeod marriage had returned in full force almost as soon as the couple were reunited. On June 10, Rudolf wrote a long letter to his sister, Tante Frida, about Gretha.

  How she makes me suffer! I am spending all my days without saying a single word to her, she has nothing to do except for her pleasure and was scandalously negligent of the poor little ones….

  And how am I to disentangle myself from such a floozy, while keeping the children? This will be very difficult, Louise. Ah! If I had the money to buy her consent, for this debauched woman would do anything for money…. If I could get rid of her, I would think myself rich, but to lay myself open to one such as she, the sort who would press the law, she looks out for herself well….

  If I have not written enough, it is because at every moment I am thinking of my children and each day I give thanks to God, that I have hastened their return. This vain and egotistical creature would have killed them, by not thinking of them. It is thus that I pray that God gives me a long life, because I would be in a frightful agony thinking what would come to pass concerning the honor of my name, under her wicked influence, if this creature were to raise my children….

  P.S. If I could deliver myself of this bitch, I would be happy. Sometimes, I cannot bear to have this creature around me; but what can I do to get rid of her? With or without scandal, it is the same to me.

  These are the words of a tormented man trapped in a dreadful marriage.

  Suddenly the children’s health worsened precipitously. On June 20, Norman began violent vomiting and was taken to the household of Lieutenant Adjutant Baerveldt, which was better suited for frequent visits from the doctor. Probably the lieutenant lived on the base, unlike the MacLeods.

  The most detailed account of the children’s illness is given by Charles Heymans, whose source was Rudolf, Rudolf’s letters, and Rudolf’s third wife. No mention is made of Non in Heymans’s account, perhaps indicating how strongly Rudolf favored his son over his daughter. Other sources indicate that both children were ill and vomiting; probably Nonnie was also transferred to the Baerveldt house.

  The children improved slightly after a few days, and on June 27 Rudolf visited at lunchtime to bring a favorite toy to his son. At 12:30 p.m. Norman and Non began again to vomit repeatedly, painfully retching up a terrible black liquid with thick clots in it. Rudolf stayed by his son’s bedside, holding the tiny, hot little hand in his own. Between bouts of vomiting, Norman bravely asked to put on his sailor suit and go for a ride in a carriage with his papa. He also asked for his medicine, so he could get well again.

  Slowly the boy sank into unconsciousness, mumbling and then falling silent, though he still appeared to be in great pain. At 12:30 a.m. Norman died. He was only two years and five months old. Rudolf lifted the small body and placed it on a wheeled stretcher. With the aid of two soldiers, he took his son home and put him in his office. Abandoning his small daughter, who was still very ill, Rudolf spent the night keeping watch over his dead son. As the boy lay in his coffin the next morning, Rudolf cut a lock of his hair. Six months later, he sealed the lock of hair into an envelope on which he wrote: “Hair of my only son, cut in his little coffin on 28 June, 1899, enclosed on 27 December, 1899.” Rudolf saved the leaves of the calendar from June 27 and 28, writing on them, “Day of the death and day of the burial of my dear Norman.”

  The funeral was held the day after the boy’s death, at 5 p.m., with full military pomp and splendor. All the officers of the garrison attended. In the days before refrigeration, funerals in the tropics could not wait. According to Heymans, Rudolf and his third wife said that the garrison doctor had thought the cause of death was criminal poisoning and wanted to conduct an autopsy. The garrison pharmacist examined the vomitus and was not so sure. Rudolf refused to permit an autopsy.

  A few days later, on July 4, Rudolf again wrote to his sister in anguish.

  Rudolf adored his son, Norman, who died of poisoning a few months before his third birthday. Rudolf wrote to his sister, “He was my darling, the little one, and my life is empty and arid without him.” Norman probably died of treatment for congenital syphilis. (The Mata Hari Foundation/Fries Museum)

  Ah, Louise, I am profoundly unhappy and miss my little dear every minute of day and night. I have prayed and supplicated that he would be saved but in vain…. Oh great God, I have suffered enough and I feel so old. I have no other resort…. He was my darling, the little one, and my life is empty and arid without him. He was everything on earth to me, my illusion and the point of my life. I am stricken and there is nothing I possess dearer than he was, and I will never see him again. It is why I am happy to quit the service.

  And thus, if I were dead myself and my wife had to continue his education, it would be all and badly turn out; also God alone knows if it is not for the best this way.

  Of his wife, he says simply: “Gretha is at the end of her resources with care and sorrow.”

  The most direct evidence of Gretha’s reaction to Norman’s death was a terse postcard she wrote to her father and stepmother on July 27: “The 28th of June my lovely little Norman has died and I am not in a state to write much about it. Concerning sorrow, the Indies doesn’t spare anything. I thank God that on the 29th of December we are going to ask for a pension and come back to Holland. I cannot write any more. The passing of my dear Norman has taken everything out of me.”

  Zelle painted a poignant vision of Gretha’s sorrow in his novelized account of her marriage. The narrator’s voice, meant to reflect Gretha’s thoughts and feelings, spoke of crippling despair and grief over the death of such a young and innocent child:

  My child had been poisoned!

  Why or by whom was initially an unfathomable riddle; and this it would probably have always remained, when at the hour of death the perpetrator herself confessed. It was one of our babus!

  And what was the reason of this dishonorable act? I have to recognize that I have never been able to feel certain about this, never sure, although it seems highly likely that revenge has been the most important motivation for the murder. It was said that the babu was the lover of a lower soldier in the army who, in his opinion, had been unjustly and wrongfully punished by my husband. To cool his rancor about this, [the soldier] must have used his lover the babu to strike back at the wife and child of his enemy. Others added to this that MacLeod maybe had had an affair with the infamous babu after which one of his inferiors, a soldier, fell in love with her. If these were the facts, it would not be surprising in military circles in Java, but I could not swear to the truth of this because I have no proof.

  Heymans also reported the story that, fifteen days after Norman’s death, the babu was struck down with cholera and on her deathbed confessed to poisoning the children. Waagenaar’s biography repeated the versions of the death that blame the babu.

  A slightly different account of the cause of the poisoning appeared in a 1964 reminiscence by the Balkstra sisters, Louise and Laura, who had known Gretha in Java late in the nineteenth century. Their father, G. P. Balkstra, had started a coffee plantation called Kemloko on the slopes of Kloet, a volcano in Central Java, not far from Malang. Gretha was a frequent
visitor to Kemloko after being introduced to the Balkstras by their good friend Mary Greve, whom she had met on the boat over. As the Balkstras recounted the story, using the nickname Greta instead of Griet or Gretha,

  Greta was a high-spirited young thing, her spouse a quiet and withdrawn character. In Atjeh, the first duty station of the major, took place a drama that cost the life of the older of the two children from this unequal marriage.

  Out of revenge for a disciplinary sentence, which the major had imposed on his orderly, the woman of the orderly who served as cook at the MacLeods’ poisoned Norman, then four years old, apple of his father’s eyes and the picture of his mother, whose splendid eyes he had inherited.

  MacLeod never recovered from that blow. He grew more and more somber, withdrew into himself more each Tuesday—the death-day of his little son—with his portrait. His grief took on a pathological character. He blamed himself shockingly: he should not have punished the orderly, then Norman would be still alive….

  With each day, the gap widened between the lively young woman and the dark, much older man. Each time for longer periods Greta withdrew from his presence. When the family MacLeod was stationed in Banjoe Biroe, the always welcoming atmosphere of Kemloko with its bright and lively family life became a sanctuary, where she sometimes months stayed. Her best friend at Kemloko became Louise, who was first the girlfriend of Mary Greve, the link between Greta and the Balkstras.

  The Balkstras’ reminiscences are demonstrably inaccurate in detail, since Norman was only two years old when he died, not four, and Rudolf’s first posting was to Ambarawa, not Atjeh. But the essence of the story—that Norman was poisoned by a female servant in revenge for an act of Rudolf’s—is consistent with other versions.

  Despite the repetition of similar stories, the idea that Norman was poisoned by his babu is extraordinary, almost unbelievable. Undoubtedly these stories were circulated at the time, but their veracity is suspect. For a babu to thus attack her charge is virtually unknown in fiction or fact about the Dutch East Indies. For the babu to then die so conveniently fifteen days later, after confessing the crime on her deathbed, strains credulity.