House of Glass

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  The conversation reached a dead end, and Goenawan did not push him further, especially as Minke was not yet showing any signs of recovering from his illness.

  It was Goenawan who explained to him how the Sarekat had developed while he was in exile—not as it had been reported in the press, but the reality. And he listened silently, sometimes shaking his head in disbelief.

  “I have not only come back at the wrong time,” he commented. “Things have not developed at all as we had hoped.”

  “It seems they have readied everything for your return, Mas. I know you are in great difficulties.”

  “Yes, because there are always trials put before us, and I will face these trials and go forward.”

  “Of course.”

  “The preparations they have made don’t bother me very much.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Why not? There is only one thing preventing me from acting—the world war.”

  “Ah, you are drawing too long a bow, Mas. We don’t have anything to do with the war.”

  “All of us bear the burden of this world war. It’s a matter for all of us. It will be a block to all our efforts during our lifetime, and it will leave its mark for years to come.”

  “But the war had nothing to do with your release.”

  “Who knows what happens in the colonial heavens?”

  “And what happens when the war is over?”

  “When it is over? My first step will be to sue the government and the bank.”

  “Mas!”

  Raden Mas Minke nodded. He was so thin, yet his mustache was still properly cared for. His eyes shone full of optimism, and his voice was clear and strong just as it had been in earlier times.

  “I will hire European lawyers.”

  “What will you use to pay them?”

  “If all they are interested in is money, then there is no point in there being any laws that they have a duty to maintain and defend.”

  “But they had to work very hard to become lawyers and spend a lot of money.”

  “But how does that compare with all the efforts of the whole of humankind to finally discover and institute laws in the first place? How much can just one person contribute to humankind’s treasury of laws? If lawyers are not angered by the violation of the law, then they should look for jobs as street sweepers instead.”

  “Yes, that’s how you think things should be, Mas. It’s not how they actually are.”

  “We all have to accept reality, yes, that’s true. But just to accept reality and do nothing else, that is the attitude of human beings who have lost the ability to develop and grow, because human beings also have the ability to create new realities. And if there are no longer people who want to create new realities, then perhaps the word progress should be removed altogether from humankind’s vocabulary.”

  “You are going to fight the government, Mas? Perhaps you have forgotten that you have just been exiled for attacking Governor-General Idenburg?”

  “Even if he had not been attacked like that, he could still have exiled me at any time, just to show that he did indeed have the power to do so. Even better. For somebody who considers himself to be chosen by God, his Extraordinary Powers are just another luxury for him to use at any time. In any case, it wasn’t me who attacked him in Medan.”

  “Not you? But everybody praised you for having the courage to print that attack.”

  “It wasn’t me. I didn’t agree with it at all. I wouldn’t have been so reckless, especially when it wasn’t at all clear that such recklessness would bring any benefits for the people.”

  “But it teaches people to have courage.”

  “Courage to do what? Bravery for the sake of bravery is just as negative as acting arbitrarily for the sake of acting arbitrarily. They are both extravagances, nothing more.”

  “And when the world war ends, and you take them to court, are you sure you’ll win? The lawyers you hire will be more loyal to those in power and with white skins than to a brown-skinned son of a colonized people like us. The government and the bank will be able to pay more than you.”

  It was said that he laughed when he heard that and answered: “That is just a matter of risk. For some time now people have thought of me as a leader. Now that everybody has watched them inflict injustice and take illegal actions against me and the companies that were under my control, while they all actually belonged to the organization, should I just be silent? Then what kind of leader would I be?”

  “But I don’t believe you can win, Mas.”

  “They have always been the victors. So if they emerge victorious in my case too, that is only what everyone expects. But if I win?”

  “I can only pray for your victory, Mas.”

  But the conversation about Minke’s plans to sue the government and the bank did not end there.

  The unwitnessed conversation between these two people reached me via a convoluted and contorted route and produced big rumblings in many government offices. My office was very busy. And I was the busiest of all. I received order after order instructing me to study all the files dealing with Minke. I carried out the order even though I knew every folio in his file by heart. I read the manuscripts from Ambon again. Nobody knew that I had taken them for myself and that I kept them in my house.

  The Bandung State Court reexamined the documentation regarding its orders for the confiscation of the Sarekat companies that were under Raden Mas Minke’s direct control. The Betawi police compiled a list of everybody who had ever been close to him and sent out its eyes and ears to see if any of them were preparing to give him any help. The police in Buitenzorg and Bandung did the same thing.

  I myself had to visit the banks to carry out my own investigation. None of them would show me Raden Mas Minke’s accounts. “As regards this, sir,” they said, “we can show them only to Raden Mas Minke himself.”

  I gave the police the task of finding Meneer Koordat Evertsen, the former executive manager of the publishing side of Medan. It turned out he had gone home to Holland and then moved to Surinam, a very wealthy man.

  How futile had been the life of De Lange, who had indeed given his life. He had listened too closely to the voice of his European conscience. If he had been able to accept what the colonial authorities had done, then he would still be safe and alive and I would still be a policeman. Even though the government had engaged in deceit, there was no chance it would get caught, because not all cases, let alone cases involving the government, necessarily had to go to court.

  The Netherlands police instructed the colonial police in Surinam to investigate Koordat Evertsen. A very intensive investigation and repeated questioning finally produced a confession that he had embezzled from the company because of intimidation from De Zweep and also because there was something in it for himself as well.

  Whether Koordat Evertsen confessed or not wasn’t important because there was no chance that Minke would ever be able to take his case to court. Moreover, the investigation of Evertsen was conducted merely as a routine checkup. And if the name De Zweep arose, then it would be better for the police to remain silent. And it was no accident that Robert Suurhof had not shown his face for so long. He would be eliminated by Cor Oosterhof. And nobody knew how he lived now since the death of Rientje de Roo because nobody needed to know. And such is the fate of bandits who are no longer of use.

  De Zweep! A name that brought forth bad memories. De Zweep had been destroyed when Princess Kasiruta’s bullet pierced Robert Suurhof’s sternum.

  Minke could, however, call on his friends in Europe to expose the government for its crimes. But I had to make sure that such a thing didn’t happen. Perhaps he had already sent off one or two letters to them. If that turned out to be true, then Cor Oosterhof would send Robert Suurhof and the remnants of his gang to hell, no matter where they might be today.

  If he had not yet contacted his friends in Europe, then we had to make sure he did not do so. Every person who emerged from Goenawan
’s house was followed just in case they might try to post a letter. And it turned out that nobody tried.

  As more reports came in, I found out that Minke had expressed his desire to his friends to send some letters and telegrams. But Goenawan did not understand exactly what Minke wanted from him and so did not give him the money he needed. And the Modern Pitung did not have a single cent to his name. He also planned to meet Thamrin Mohammed Thabrie, but he was too weak to walk that far. He had to postpone all his plans.

  That his return from exile was never reported in the press was also the result of the tight rein I kept on the newspapers. He must not become the center of public attention again. He must remain separated from his favorite child, the world of journalism. It was truly an irony that a pioneer of the Native press should get no place in the press at such an important moment in his life as this. The Oetoesan Hindia, the Sarekat paper, knew nothing of his arrival in Betawi. Goenawan had severed all links with the Sarekat and so did not inform any of the Sarekat publications.

  The leading figures in the Betawi branch of the Sarekat had heard within a week, however. They held a special meeting to discuss what to do. From my desk I was able to make sure that they took no action that would make Minke a public figure again.

  A policeman who lived near one of the Betawi branch leaders went to see his neighbor and told him that Minke had been met by ex-Commissioner Pangemanann in Surabaya and that when they arrived together in Betawi, Minke was taken straight to Police Headquarters. He told his neighbor that he was in the same room as Minke when, in front of Pangemanann and two senior police officers, Minke signed a promise of some kind. He said he didn’t know what was in the document. But he was prepared to swear that he heard the police talking after Minke had left and that they had been talking about how Minke had promised to carry out the government’s orders to spy on the Sarekat.

  These few words were all that was needed. It was very easy to throw such people as these, people who did not know where they were going or what their goals were, into confusion with little reports like these.

  The Betawi Branch would take no action concerning Minke.

  But Minke himself seemed to be prepared to patiently await the end of the world war. He could be patient because there was no other road he could travel, no other path open to him. Could the others be patient like him?

  Among Goenawan’s acquaintances was a German doctor named Bernard Meyersohn. He had reported to the police that he had been visited by a Eurasian. But from the very moment that this patient stepped into the surgery, it was clear that he was as healthy as an ox. And indeed, there was nothing wrong with him. As soon as he stood before Dr. Meyersohn he took out a leather whip from his shirt and spoke very coarsely in Dutch: “Do you know what this is?”

  “A leather whip.”

  The doctor was a very simple man. He had come to the Indies for no other reason than to seek a livelihood and find some peace and quiet. He didn’t know anything about what was happening in the Indies nor did he have any desire to know. In his simplicity he stared at this patient full of amazement, thinking that he was dealing with a crazy man.

  “Are you sure you haven’t come to the wrong place?”

  “Do you think I am illiterate, Meneer Doctor?”

  “Of course not,” he answered, observing the whip. “But I have no need of that whip.”

  “But Meneer does need it. Not as a possession, no. But you do need a beating, I think.”

  “I am a doctor, not a cow,” Meyersohn retorted. “I think you had better leave.”

  The Eurasian youth hit the doctor very hard on his left cheek. He put the whip away and took out a knife and thrust it at the doctor.

  “I am not only a doctor, I am also a German,” Meyersohn challenged him.

  “That’s even better,” and the youth quickly lunged forward threatening the doctor, his knife aiming at the doctor’s heart. “I think it is better for you if you listen to me rather than make speeches about how brave you are. This knife can rip your heart in two easily. Just listen to me now. In a few hours a Native man will be brought to you as a patient. You must not treat him or give him any medicine. Just tell him that he has dysentery, that’s all. Remember? Dysentery. You will be safe and the patient will die. Or indeed, the reverse could happen. The patient could live and the doctor could die. Or both could die, or perhaps both could live. Yes, yes, Meneer Doctor must make the choice as to what is best for you. I think the first option is the best. Understand?”

  “That is my business.”

  The youth’s left hand wielded his whip again. One hit to the face and the doctor couldn’t see anymore. His hands groped around looking for something to grab hold of. All that he could find was the youth’s shoulder. And at that moment, he once more heard him speak: “So Meneer Doctor will not forget this order,” and he took the doctor to his chair, wet his handkerchief with water from a bowl in the surgery, and cleaned the doctor’s face.

  He remained seated in the examination room.

  A little while later a horse cart pulled up in front of the surgery. Three men helped into the surgery a sick man who seemed unable to stand by himself any longer. The young Eurasian immediately invited them to go into the examination room.

  The doctor examined him and the youth assisted. Then it was the young man who said to Dr. Meyersohn: “Dysentery, isn’t it, Doctor? Too far gone, I think? Nothing we can do anymore. The best thing to do is take this poor man home.”

  The doctor did not answer. And the youth repeated what he had said in Malay to the patient’s helpers and ordered them to take him home.

  They didn’t refuse and they carried the patient outside, put him into the horse cart, and disappeared from sight.

  “It’s a great pity, Doctor, but you will be closing for the rest of the day,” and he stayed there for the next four hours.

  It was nine o’clock in the evening. As soon as the youth left, the doctor hurried off to report what had happened to the police. But despite his very sharp memory, he was unable to give the police an adequate description of the youth. Because of the inadequate information the police felt it would be very difficult to track this criminal down. The police did not ask the name of the sick man who had been carried into the surgery. And Bernard Meyersohn never knew the man’s name either.

  Goenawan took the very ill man home and Raden Mas Minke passed away in his care. . . .

  * * *

  And so that was how my teacher ended his life, leaving behind in this world only the imprints of his footsteps. He had gone in loneliness—he who had been forgotten, forgotten since the moment of his birth. He was a leader forgotten by his followers. Such a thing had never happened in Europe. Perhaps such a thing could only happen and has only ever happened in the Indies, where even bones are rotted by the humidity. But even so, it is better to have been a leader forgotten by your followers than a cheat and a liar who is able to become a leader and gain many followers.

  His death made me reflect upon how flimsy and fragile is man’s place in this life. I could remember the hands that had fumbled about trying to cut him off from his past and future. And I could hear the voices that were blown onto the wind to make sure he did not arrive at the destination he was seeking. And there was not another person in the world who knew any of this better than I. Here upon my desk I had created magic threads that connected me with him. I could feel every move of his fingers, I could hear his every heartbeat. So I also knew that he did not leave behind a single word when he died.

  He had died because of sudden stomach illness. I would firmly hold to the explanation that the youth had given, that he had really been ill with dysentery. Perhaps in the future someone might come forward to give another version, but that will not be of concern to me anymore because this Pangemanann will have left this illusory world. In the end the problem of life is the problem of postponing death, even though wise people prefer to die once rather than over and over again.

  Raden Mas Minke h
ad died. He was taken to his final resting place in Karet Cemetery by paid pallbearers. There was only one of his friends who accompanied him—Goenawan. There was nobody else. And there was one admirer who escorted him from afar. That person was Jacques Pangemanann. And when he was lowered into his grave, his admirer also watched from afar. And the admirer felt at ease now, because with Raden Mas Minke’s death he need not worry about any problems concerning Robert Suurhof, concerning De Zweep and other such things. Minke had gone to where everybody finally journeys and is journeying now.

  14

  That there were no reports about his death in the newspapers was enough to make me feel secure. He would remain forgotten.

  But had he been forgotten?

  More and more people continued in his footsteps and left even more of their own imprints—yes, there were more and more of them. I could see this happening before me. What lay before me on my desk was also a sign of this. It was a book titled Green Student by Marco Kartodikromo. Even though I did not like the style, or the way he used the language, nor even the story, I had finished the book.

  Answers to my inquiries revealed that Mas Marco had arrived in Java a few months after the death of his teacher. Governor-General Van Limburg Stirum had given verbal orders that no action be taken against him unless it could be proved that he had violated the law. Punishment was no longer to be handed out based on the mere suppositions of prosecutors or judges. It looked as though His Excellency was deliberately forgetting the article Marco had written before he had left to follow Siti Soendari to the Netherlands, an article that had directly challenged the governor-general.

  Marco had returned home very quietly. He had once crossed an ocean to be near his love’s desire, leaving behind his fame and his activity, the struggle and his devotion to it. Now he returned alone, no doubt to resume his activity and restore his fame, which had begun to fade. It was possible that his struggle and efforts to win Soendari had met with failure.

  “This time I will not hold back. I will continue my activity unrestrained until they arrest me and exile me somewhere,” he told one of his friends.