by Tash Aw
The woman says, Is he okay? Yes, he’s fine, he’s fine. The light makes him funny, don’t open the shutters. Breathe, Adam. Slowly. You’re okay.
There is one voice that Adam can hear over the others, quite clearly.
· 26 ·
One of the most famous Indonesian paintings of all time might, at first glance, easily be mistaken for a fairly conventional nineteenth-century European work of art. It depicts a large group of people clustered around the steps of a colonnaded veranda; in the distance there is a volcanic mountain, suggestive of a tropical landscape. Most of the figures are dressed in Javanese costume; some are squatting on the ground, forlorn, others hold their heads in their hands, weeping, one presumes. But most of them are looking at a proud figure surrounded by Dutch army officers. This person is Prince Diponegoro, the Javanese aristocrat who led the resistance movement against the Dutch in the 1830s. Executed with great assurance and in a style that is unmistakably Western, it is easy to see this painting as yet another scene from the annals of European history: the conquest of a foreign land, the easy subjugation of the natives by the sophisticated, upright officers of a Western power. But look again. There is something unusual about these Westerners. Are their heads too big for their bodies? Almost certainly they are. And now that you’ve noticed this, don’t they look gawky and ill at ease? This isn’t due to a lack of painterly craft, because the Javanese people are beautifully rendered, full of humanity, grace, and pride. They do not confront the beholder as the big-headed Dutch characters do, but form part of the landscape; they are dressed not in rags but in sarongs and headdresses of batik. They may be defeated in this battle, but it is they, not the Dutch, who remain human.
The artist, Bill Schneider explained earnestly, was a Javanese nobleman named Raden Saleh, who traveled to Holland to study under Kruseman and Schelfhout, excelling early in his career at landscapes and portraiture, which brought great success and made him a favorite of Ernst I, Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in whose home he lived for five years, slipping quite easily, it seems, into aristocratic life in Dresden. All this time, however, Raden Saleh nursed a passion for painting wild animals, in particular, lions. He had once seen some at Henri Martin’s circus in The Hague and was seized by the urge to depict their untamable instincts. He identified with their pride and fiery temperament, and began producing monumental works depicting these wild yet noble beasts attacking snakes, or horses, or Dutch army officers out hunting (never mind that there are no lions in Java). Now back in Yogyakarta, his work took on simple yet striking anti-Western overtones, culminating in the masterful Capture of Prince Diponegoro, which hangs in the royal palace in Amsterdam.
“I’m thinking,” said Bill, “I’m thinking that it’ll be a peace offering. A kind of sweetener to make the president more amenable to … well, to things in general. The idea is simple: We arrange for the return of this priceless, hugely symbolic nationalistic work of art to Indonesia, and in return he recognizes that we’re good friends of his, not enemies. I’ve been working for weeks now, but I’m not making much headway. The Dutch are not in a giving mood. We’ve had endless negotiations—endless—but they won’t give up these paintings easily.”
They studied the slide under the magnifying glass, taking turns to peer at it.
“This is the one the Indonesian people would want to see back in the country,” Bill said, tapping his finger in front of the Capture of Prince Diponegoro. “It would be very fitting in a grand, public space, maybe at the presidential palace. It’s noble, dignified, bold in its statement, but still very classy. It’s the subject of our official promptings, the negotiations that are, let’s say, documented.”
“Why do I always know that there’s something dirty going on with you, Bill?” said Margaret as she leaned over to look at the slide. She thought Prince Diponegoro very handsome, but also somewhat fragile underneath his proud regard. She felt more than a twinge of revulsion for the Dutch figures in the painting; she thought them ridiculous and even disgusting. She was falling into the trap, she knew, but she didn’t mind. She did not usually enjoy the sensation of being manipulated or of being slyly coerced into feeling or thinking something, but in this instance it felt entirely natural, as though she ought to side with the Javanese and that there was no other option.
“The question is,” Bill continued, “how much is this painting worth to the president himself? I mean, personally?”
“You mean, is it worth giving us oil concessions in Sumatra? Or do you mean, is it worth turning his back on Russia?”
Bill smiled. “No, obviously no painting is going to be worth that much. What I meant was, does the president personally value this painting enough to make him feel favorable toward us again? It’s a grand, public statement, but what does he himself feel for the painting?”
Mick reached for the magnifying glass, almost pushing Margaret out of the way. “Hmm, very good,” he mumbled. “Very, very good. This guy knows exactly what he’s doing. Brilliant composition.” He bent over the magnifying glass, shifting it slightly now and then.
“Good, isn’t it?” Bill said, opening a drawer. “But frankly I don’t think it’s quite the thing to push the president’s buttons. It’s too static, too quiet. It demands too much involvement from the viewer. If the president is going to make a grand gift to his nation, he’ll want something more flamboyant. Something, oh, I don’t know, aggressive, something that’s more his style.” He placed another slide on the desk and slid it toward them. “That’s why I’m trying to get this painting too. Another Raden Saleh, not at all well known. I have a feeling that this is more likely to make the president sit up. It’s totally the kind of thing he’d like to have in his private salon, or in his boudoir when he’s seducing some wench. Or even on public display, as if to say, ‘I’m still a powerful man.’”
Mick moved the magnifying glass over the new slide. “Wow. That is quite something. It’s like Delacroix, just like Delacroix, in fact, only a bit rougher, more earthy. Fantastically romantic. Margaret, look!”
Margaret noticed Mick’s quick breaths as she took the magnifying glass; his eyes were shining, like a child’s—a child who had just woken up from a long sleep and found a present at the foot of his bed.
The picture was of two lions and a tiger mauling a chestnut horse that was rearing up in terror, its eyes wild with fear. Its rider—a white man—looked tiny and helpless and strangely calm, as if he had accepted his fate. Margaret felt sorry for him; he wasn’t as beastly as his comrades in the first painting and didn’t, therefore, deserve to be ripped to shreds by these beasts.
“It’s called Lions and Tiger Attack a Horseman, dating from Raden Saleh’s time in Paris, not long before he moved back to Java. It’s a monumental work, completely breathtaking in real life, ten by twelve.” Bill stretched out his arms vertically, reaching for the ceiling, then sideways, as if doing exercises. “I heard of it from someone I had dinner with years ago and managed to track it down. It took ages, but I recently found it in a private collection in Geneva. We’re arranging for its purchase—for quite a handsome amount of money, I must say. The owner isn’t anxious to sell, says it’s an heirloom or some nonsense, but everything has its price, even family history. Of course, the transaction is not being documented by any newspaper or auction house or dealer. Neither the buyer nor the seller wishes to be identified, I think the expression goes.”
“I see what you mean,” Margaret said. “It’s right up the president’s street.” She was struck by Bill’s unerring instinct for finding the way to appeal to someone’s basest instincts, for knowing exactly what they would like to see or hear. And she realized why she had felt drawn to him all those years ago—not because she had fallen prey to his tricks, but because they were similar in this respect: They could both get what they wanted in order to survive.
“The only way to get him on our side again is to appeal to his human instincts, to touch a chord. It’s gotten to the stage where no amount of offici
al aid can make him see eye to eye with us. It’s too late for that. His public rhetoric is way too anti-American for him to back down now. But behind the scenes we can still try and make sure that he finds us, well, of interest. We don’t give a damn what he’s obliged to say in his great speeches, as long as he feels that we can still help him.” Bill watched Mick pore over the image. He raised one hand to his lips and began absentmindedly to nibble his thumbnail, his jawbone twitching. Margaret remembered this old habit of his, this tendency to switch off and become blank and introspective, as if no one else was in the room; he used to do it all the time in college, but she had not seen it since he became Bill Schneider, senior statesman. “The bastard’s got to fall for it. He’s got to. It’s … magnificent.”
“It’s not like you to get emotionally involved in your job, Bill,” said Margaret. “Aren’t you the model professional, always detached and cold and analytical?”
He shrugged and laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting old. But this painting is special. When I saw it, I was blown away. I just stood there, gaping. There was something about it that made everything else I’ve done in my work irrelevant and trivial. It was hanging there on the wall of this beautiful old apartment in Switzerland, so out of place. And I got that feeling I get when I go to a lousy zoo in a lousy town, and see some huge and powerful jungle animal in a cramped cage, and it’s barely moving because it’s so shell-shocked it doesn’t know what to do anymore. Yeah, I guess I must be getting old.”
“No you’re not.”
They stood watching Mick as he raised the image to the light, still holding the magnifying glass to his eye the way detectives did in movies. “I want to help you, Bill, honestly, I do,” said Margaret, “but I’ve got to find the boy. He’s out there, alone in a huge city he doesn’t know.”
Bill moved so that he was standing with his back to Mick, shielding Margaret from Mick’s view. He dropped his voice. “Listen, please help me. I can’t do this without you. No one in this whole building can do it. You’re a neutral. The Indonesians don’t really even consider you American. You’re one of them, almost. I’ve fixed everything, all you have to do is talk us through the palace and get an audience with the president. We need to talk to the big guy himself. None of his acolytes will do. My name is mud over there, and besides, we have to be so careful now. We can’t make a misstep—and you know what I’m like, I just can’t judge these guys like you can.”
Margaret shook her head. “No way. Absolutely not. I need to find Adam.”
“We’ll get him, don’t worry. Uncle Sam may no longer be valuable to the president, but he still has enough influence at lowly police stations. My contacts have got your Maluddin guy well covered. As soon as they get him, they’ll find the boy too. I’m sorry about Karl, but he just slipped away from that hospital, and I can’t trace him. Zero. But the boy, I know we’ll find him.” He reached out and touched her, his fingers trying to encircle her wrist. “I promise, Margaret.”
Margaret shook her head and pulled away slightly. “I told you, Bill, I don’t know anyone anymore. When I was more, I don’t know, in love with this country—yes, I knew how people thought, how they felt and spoke. Sometimes I used to think I knew how they dreamed. For the longest time my dreams were only in Indonesian and I thought, I’m one of them. But now I don’t really have dreams, and when I do I see my mother, god help me. I’m of no use to you or the United States, Bill.”
“It’s not a question of use, Margaret, you’re not an instrument of the state.” He reached out and touched her arm again. “I’m asking you to help me as a friend. Yeah, sure, there’s all that governmental bullshit at stake, but you know this painting is worth sticking your neck out for. It belongs here, in this country. I’m going to find that boy even if you don’t help me. It’s not a quid pro quo thing. This isn’t an official request, it’s a personal one. What I need is someone charming and sensitive to help me through this minefield. If I go in there myself—if they let me in—and I say something wrong, I’ll be dead in three seconds.”
“I’ve only met the president a couple of times.”
“But he remembered you. He asked me about you once. ‘What happened to that charming administrator with the Ford Foundation? She was so very nice, and she could speak Javanese too. Amazing.’ That’s what he said, I swear. If you appear at the palace, I guarantee he’ll see us.”
Mick looked up. He held the magnifying glass in the air as if it were a sign. “I think it’s a great idea. Margaret can definitely do it. She’s got everything it takes. I’ll come as backup, if you need me. I can be your bodyguard or chauffeur, anything you please.”
Margaret shook her head but she knew that all her nonverbal signs were communicating acquiescence. She thought of her early days in this city, when a problem such as this one would have seemed perfectly normal, barely even an adventure, merely something to talk about over dinner the next day. Oh, I smuggled a painting into the palace today; hey, you didn’t tell me you were negotiating an arms deal; did you know so-and-so is actually screwing General Whatshisname? It seemed to be like that every day. She recalled how she had been, rampaging fearlessly through the city as if it were hers to conquer; she could not say at what point she had realized that it was the city that had conquered her, not the other way around.
“It won’t work,” she said.
There was unanimous dismay; Bill and Mick both protested.
“Your plan just isn’t logical, Bill,” she insisted. She was sure of this now. She was older, and more afraid, but age and fear also made her confident of certain things. “From what I understand, you’re persona non grata at the palace. You have to keep out of it. Fix everything for me, make whatever phone calls you need to get me through the gates. I’ll go on my own.”
“No way,” Mick said. “Absolutely no way. I’m going to come with you.”
“You don’t understand. They aren’t going to hurt a single, unarmed woman. The moment a macho white guy appears it changes the dynamics completely. I’ll unnerve them—which is the point of the exercise—but I won’t threaten them. It’s all to do with the way Asian men see white women, and the way men communicate with other men. Don’t look so skeptical. Trust me. I’m sure of it.”
THE FIRST TIME Margaret saw the palace she had been overwhelmed—by its imposing portico, by the white columns thicker than tree trunks, by the great glass-and-bronze lanterns that hung from the ceiling, and most of all by the smell of the place, the faintest aroma of soil and crushed vegetation intermingling with old cooking grease to produce a perfume that was perfectly Asian—powerful but not at all unpleasant. She had been overwhelmed too by the emotion of seeing the red and white flag everywhere she looked—in proud rows on the lawn, suspended between columns, draped across tables, as though staking a claim on the building. The red of the flag was deep and angry, like freshly spilled blood. She had been dismayed to have missed the formal ceremonies that marked the recognition of the new republic by the Western world; it irked her to think that she had been in Paris, pining after a lost love that had never even been articulated in the first place (really, how silly), when she could have been here, witnessing the official birth of the nation. It felt to her as though she had been left out of the creation of something that she was a part of, something that was a part of her. She would never be so foolish again. And so she made sure that she was there, milling among the crowds the following year during the first Independence Day celebrations. A few years passed before she was invited into the palace that first time (for an official reception of American educators and academics, though the pretext barely mattered to her), and she was overjoyed to find that this occasion too was overwhelming. She had remembered feeling perfectly at home there, enjoying the looks of envy and suspicion from her compatriots as she chattered merrily away in Indonesian with government officials, and even flirted with an air force general.
Now, passing through the metal and barbed-wire barricades and the heavy gates
, the palace again seemed overwhelming, not because of its size or its smell, but because its foreignness was intimidating: She realized she had never really known it at all. It still seemed monumental and noble, but now it also felt forbidding, as if there were a strict set of rules—STOP, do not proceed, SLOW, THIS WAY, remove crash helmet and sunglasses, do not cross, do not speak, do not smile—that she had somehow managed to ignore during previous visits. It was no longer a huge playground full of adventure but a place where the obstacles were all too real. Her driver did not turn around to look at her, nor did he wish her good luck or even good-bye as she got out of the car; he simply stared straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel, and drove away as soon as Margaret swung the door shut, leaving her marooned at the foot of the steps leading up to the immense porch.
A man in a dove gray suit came to meet her. The suit was too big for him and hung off his shoulders, making him look smaller than he was. He did not extend his hand for Margaret to shake but waved it gracefully to show Margaret the way. He kept half a step ahead of her, making sure there was always plenty of space between them. He wanted to remain aloof, she thought; his nonverbal communication was saying, “I really don’t want you here. You are a pain in the neck and we’re going to try to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.”