House of Glass

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  I could in fact put together a list of their questions, which would not be too long. But I won’t put them down here. They will only disturb my peace of mind as an official. Perhaps some other time, when my resolve is stronger, I’ll be able to note them down. At least my children’s resolve will equal that of any among the young generation of educated Natives, even though none of the European colonials believe that the Natives will ever advance beyond the level of their ancestors.

  But I am a Native too! And I am an official. But as far as the Natives are concerned, I tend to agree with the colonials, that the Natives are trapped forever in a never-ending atavism. Exceptions like Minke can come along and change the situation, but the personality of the majority of people, which gives a people its character, does not change.

  The movement that emerged as a result of Minke’s strides forward, and all the unrest sweeping the country now, were no more than a movement of bandit gangs desperate for leadership, because they are incapable of leading themselves. I couldn’t see any signs that they were continuing the ideals that the Modern Pitung had brought forth. There were new leaders emerging, but no new ideals. The things that they thought were advances were nothing more than ornamentations compared to what Minke had achieved. For example, they thought that the disappearance of European lawyers from positions of responsibility in the Native and Chinese newspapers was an advance. None of them understood what the disappearance of these people meant. They hadn’t even written a single short article about it.

  It wasn’t long ago when Marquis had asked me why there were so many European words in Malay—even very basic words like buku for “book,” lampu for “lamp,” and bangku for “bench,” let alone all the names of machines and their parts. It was even true for words about agriculture, even though the Natives were themselves a farming people. I answered by repeating what Meneer L— had told me once, that the collapse of the Majapahit empire meant also the collapse of Native civilization.

  This nation, which once had carried on a busy trade with the great civilizations of Asia, was no longer capable of defending its seas. Slowly it enclosed itself in its own ignorance, cut itself off from the great civilizations, became more and more backward and poor, until finally it was left with nothing except dreams and illusions. Even until today.

  So now when the Natives wanted to get close to Europe they had to borrow words from wherever they could. It’s so sad, hissed Marquis. Yes, it’s very sad, I agreed with him.

  And it was sad too. All these foreign words meant that people often ended up speaking only to themselves. Those who had learned to read and write in the village schools never really knew what their leaders were telling them. And these great, impressive foreign words seemed to take on the power that the mantra of their ancestors once contained and became a new mantra. And as was the case with the ancient mantra, the new mantra would not produce results either. And even the leaders, who themselves did not have sufficient schooling, often did not know the real meaning of the words they used. Inadequate knowledge, unclear concepts, were all passed on to followers who themselves were not yet ready.

  The Indies was not Europe. A little European education produced only confusion. The government and Europe didn’t have to worry about all this. But for me, the confusion and unrest that were occurring were all a result of the confused thinking of the leaders and the even greater confusion of their followers.

  The situation in the Indies was very uncertain. The still hand of Governor-General Van Limburg Stirum, who seemed reluctant to move even his little finger, demoralized my boss completely as far as his work went. He hardly ever gave me any important cases anymore. And he hardly ever gave me any orders either. Whenever we talked now, his growing longing for America was more and more obvious. He longed for America, the new continent or the continent of freedom, as he called it, which he himself had never set eyes on.

  “It won’t be long now, Meneer, and the world will have to sit up and take notice,” he said once. “When America entered the war in Europe, everyone was amazed to see their weaponry, and how well they were equipped, as if they weren’t heading off to war, but to business. And they will be victorious in Europe. Europe is a barren place now. There is nothing left except the lust to kill and to become corpses. While America brings new, improved automatic weapons. And wheat! Wheat! And all that is left of Europe’s wheat is a few weevil-chewed grains.”

  Having lost hope in the Indies, and his own Europe, this educated man had now turned to America and made himself one with America, just because of the inspiration one scientist, Edison, had been to him. He had subordinated his mind to his emotional needs. How could such a well-educated European man change so much just because of one American scientist, whose achievements were limited to only one sphere of human activity anyway? He had forgotten the other aspects of America, the negative aspects.

  I myself was reminded of the American Indians who had been systematically annihilated—conquered, Christianized, and turned into farmers. Then, after they had grown accustomed to eating European food based on farm produce, they had their land stolen from them and they were pushed into reservations and surrendered to tuberculosis and were destroyed.

  And my mind wandered to the big plantation fields of America and the Negro nation who slaved in those fields to feed the other Americans, those with white skin. Their fate would be no better than the Native Javanese and West Sumatrans during the Cultuurstelsel period. And I remembered also how in the waters off Menado the American ships of 150 to 200 tonnes swept down upon my fishermen ancestors of only one or two generations ago and stole them away to work in the belly of the earth, digging mines in South America.

  “Where every man can live freely and lives to be free!” my boss told me again, this time with even greater enthusiasm. “There is so much freedom there that there is none left for outside America.”

  “Don’t you feel free here in the Indies?” I asked.

  “I feel free here in the Indies—free to oppress the Natives. But this is a different kind of freedom than the freedom to truly make something of yourself, to become a millionaire who knows no limits to his wealth, who knows no limit to his power and influence, whose influence will be felt in every corner of the earth. That can only happen in America—a country of freedom with a freedom that is unrivaled anywhere. With its armed forces entering the war in Europe, it means the war will soon come to an end. Only America, with its unrivaled technical abilities, can defeat Germany.”

  “Yes, but when the French began using the machine gun, all the other countries started making them too. And the English introduced their secret weapon, the tank. People didn’t know what a tank was to start with. They thought it was a water tank, but it turned out to be a steel fort that could move. But it didn’t take long for Germany to be able to make them too.”

  “But they will not be able to make more than America can produce.”

  “Now Germany is using a new weapon, Big Bertha. They have to use a railline to haul it.”

  “I am sure if it’s just a matter of iron and steel, America can do much better,” my boss interrupted. “Giant cannon like that will be across from America within a month. Germany will be able to make one cannon at the most.”

  “Germany has developed balloons from which it can drop bombs.”

  My boss laughed, and said that those balloons would be just toys in the eyes of the American scientists and industrialists. “And they will make them in unlimited numbers.”

  There was nothing more I could say to this fan of America.

  “Here in the Indies where the people are still children and the authorities arrogant and spoiled, all we can expect to see is oppression.”

  “But the Natives are moving forward, Meneer,” I said, fishing.

  “Yes, that’s true. We can see that in the way they’re fighting the government. But just imagine what will happen if they succeed—though I don’t believe for a moment that they will. They will realize that they’re incap
able of doing anything except fighting each other. They’ll end up fighting among themselves; that will be the outcome.”

  It seemed he had decided he would answer his own questions this time. Then he stood up and came across close to me, bent over, and spoke slowly to me: “They will fight us, Meneer, that is clear. And it is your task to make it clear to His Excellency just what their main aspirations are. And please don’t take too long about it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘their main aspirations’?”

  “Yes, the aspirations that most represent the whole movement.” He left me and it was I who had to go to work.

  And so I returned to my old work, reading cables and files. And once again I realized that the Sarekat, in its present condition, was not going anywhere because it did not know where it wanted to go. People who were used to just echoing the will of the government now waited in silence for His Excellency to show what his attitude was. The Insulinde was paralyzed even before it got going. The ethnic organizations were busy proving each was superior and more arrogant than the other.

  There were only two issues left to discuss. First, there was the slogan once whispered by the Indische Partij: “For self-government!” But nobody whispered that anymore, not even in a weaker whisper. And then there was the Boedi Oetomo, which was campaigning for a broader membership in the local government councils and for the establishment of high schools for Natives. I handed in my report to my boss without presenting any conclusions.

  Not long afterward we heard from His Excellency the news that the government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands was still very concerned about the situation in the Indies.

  I was startled awake from my indifference. I became very concerned. I studied again the report I had handed in and regretted that I had not done a more thorough job. There had obviously been some connection between my boss’s instruction and the news from the Netherlands.

  And it was true that the situation in the Indies for the ordinary person was already intolerable. Unemployment was everywhere, crime was on the rise, and unrest and rioting multiplied. The people had nothing left to pawn in the State pawnshops. And things were not helped by the fact that the discontented pawnshop employees also preferred to join in the strike waves.

  This closed off the opportunity for the people to obtain a little credit with low interest and so they were forced more and more into the hands of the moneylenders. The State pawnshops were becoming warehouses full of unsalable goods, except for a little gold and silver. In the towns, both big and small, people did not have enough to eat. In the villages the farmers, who produced all their own needs, weren’t buying goods from the towns.

  There was trouble everywhere. People even began stealing telephone wires and the railway telegraph wires to get the copper. Desperate people, despite the danger of being caught, began forging coins from nickel, copper, and silver.

  I was very unsure whether the government would be able to manage all this. The police and army would not be enough. I didn’t know what use my work could be either.

  “Meneer,” I began a conversation one day with my boss.

  He sat down in his chair, looking like an emperor who had lost his crown, and without taking his pipe from his mouth.

  “I am not satisfied with the last report I wrote. I would like to prepare another.”

  His eyes were shining, I didn’t know why. He gazed at me very amicably, took out the heavy ivory pipe, then smiled. And didn’t say another word.

  Back in my office, I read a report in the paper that pushed all other news off the front page. Czar Nicholas of Russia had been overthrown. The world press condemned the insurrection for helping the Germans because Russia was in the middle of moving its army into the field. There was a quote from one of the insurrectionists that said that it felt the same to them to be oppressed by Czar Nicholas as by the Germans and they rejected both and preferred to choose freedom from both sides.

  Once again I was confronted with a new kind of logic. It felt and sounded crazy, but it had become a reality and had manifested itself concretely in the overthrow of a czar whose power had never been challenged before.

  Just a few minutes before the office closed for the day, my boss came in.

  “I have a special assignment for you, something you might enjoy.”

  “Something to do with America, perhaps, Meneer?”

  He laughed happily but didn’t answer. I saw that he had brought his office diary with him. The same book had been used since the day of my arrival here. Then: “How long has it been since Raden Mas Minke was sent into exile?”

  “I haven’t been keeping count. Five years! How time flies!”

  “And it was you yourself who escorted him into exile. Tell me what you discussed with him during the journey.”

  “He always refused to talk to me,” I answered cautiously. Then I changed the topic: “Well, Meneer, will I be able to review that last report I handed in?”

  “Don’t you like talking about Minke?”

  “Very well, Meneer.”

  “There is no need to change your last report. His Excellency has already read it. He himself made a few changes and then it was telegrammed to the Netherlands.”

  “Telegrammed to the Netherlands?”

  “Yes, a report based upon the views of the Sworn Colonial Expert, Meneer Pangemanann . . . everything is under control. The report has reached its destination.”

  My heart began to pound when I heard what had happened. Such shoddy work had been sent to the Netherlands! With my name on it!

  “Why have you gone pale?”

  He could read my thoughts. He opened the office diary at a particular page and then read aloud, in a clear voice, word by word: “All action taken by the government against the Native movements has been based on the general line of the reports prepared by the Colonial Affairs Expert of the Algemeene Secretariat, Meneer J. Pangemanann. No policies have been implemented without his knowledge and agreement and without considering his suggestions and advice. This is in accordance with the verbal instructions of His Excellency the Governor-General on November 22, 1912.”

  He stopped reading and watched me for a moment to see how I was reacting. Then he went on: “You are a very competent expert in these affairs, Meneer, and I think your desire to reexamine or rewrite these reports that have been already sent on to the Netherlands can only have arisen because you are worried by something outside your work. You must forget such things, Meneer.”

  “What things outside my work?”

  “Forgive me, but this is just my own opinion, just subjective desires and opinions. It doesn’t matter; forget all that, Meneer. Let’s get back to our present work. In one week’s time, Meneer Raden Mas Minke will be arriving in Tanjung Perak port in Surabaya. It will be your job to meet him and also your job to obtain from him a signed undertaking that he will not become involved in the affairs of the Sarekat Islam for as long as he lives.”

  I sat there in my office pondering. Now I was reaping the harvest of my own hard work: a bitter harvest. Again I would have to deny my own feelings.

  I had developed very detailed policies to make sure that this great organization was kept in sterile conditions, free from infection from new and dangerous ideas and teachings. Because of its sterile condition it was incapable of taking any initiatives. The Sarekat had not been able to establish even one school. It had not even been able to take one action against its own youth wing, based in Solo, Semarang, and Jogja. I had succeeded.

  Now its founder was returning, the only person who truly understood why and for what the Sarekat was founded. Once again I would have to face him. So we would no longer just be playing chess against each other from afar. He had never surrendered his principles. He had only lost his freedom. During these last five years I had lost everything: principles, wife and children, my honor—and I had become the bought slave of the Syndicates, the Sugar Syndicate and the Algemeene Landbouw Syndicaat. . . .

  I would have to face hi
m in all his greatness. He had not been defeated in any way at all. He had lost all his property and the bank deposits that had been frozen as illegally earned money by the De Lange Commission. Cruelly he had been separated by divorce from his wife who loved him and whom he would never meet again. Princess Kasiruta had been ordered to leave Java a year ago and it was probable that Minke would not be allowed to leave Java once he had returned. He too had lost everything, except his honor and his greatness.

  The government and its apparatus had created a situation where it was impossible for him to hire a lawyer who could demand his rights. He might be able to get help from the Sarekat if the government turned out to be unable to keep him apart from the organization. There had been one Eurasian lawyer—a graduate from Amsterdam—who had tried to take up Minke’s case. He had been warned and then threatened in various ways so that it had become clear that it would be very difficult for him to open a practice in the Indies if he continued with his intentions.

  How great were the consequences that flowed from the thoughts of this colonial affairs expert named Pangemanann! And the other Jacques Pangemanann, the husband of his wife named Paulette Pangemanann, never dreamed his ideas would be used to justify such shameful thefts. Minke’s organization had been manipulated and maneuvered into a situation where it was incapable of defending him, or protecting him. And this was not only because it lacked any sense of law and knew nothing about the law, but also because we had succeeded in completely taming it in its dealings with the government.

  Now I would have to confront him again. As his escort and host! As a civilized man educated in one of the world’s leading institutions of learning. I would have to meet and escort him, a teacher and man whom I admired so much, but who had lost everything because of me. I would go and meet him and he would be like a crab whose legs I had cut off. This meeting would be a great humiliation for me; it would burst my insides because I would be meeting with everything that is my opposite.