This Earth of Mankind

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  “There is a package. For Young Master Minke”—I heard a man’s voice—“milk, cheese, and butter. There is also a letter from Nyai Ontosoroh herself.”

  3

  Life went on as usual. It was, perhaps, only I who changed. Boerderij Buitenzorg in Wonokromo continued calling, summoning me, every day, every hour. Was I the victim of black magic? I knew many Pure and Indo-European girls. Why was it only Annelies I saw before me? And why did the voice of Nyai not want to go from my soul’s ear? Minke, Sinyo Minke, when are you coming?

  I was confused.

  Every day I left for school with little May Marais. I would walk hand in hand with her as far as her school at E.L.S., Simpang. Then I walked on by myself to my school on H.B.S. Street. I closely observed every carriage driver that passed by me, just in case it was Darsam. And whenever a carriage wanted to pass me from behind, I had to look around. It was as if I had some business with every carriage that passed.

  At school, Annelies also hovered before me continuously. And over and over again came Nyai’s voice. When are you coming? She has got all dressed up for you. When are you coming?

  Robert Suurhof never bothered me with anything about Wonokromo. He avoided me. He refused to honor his promise to respect my success with Annelies. And I somehow felt as if I were separated from reality by a gray veil. Everything was unclear; all feelings uncertain. All my school friends, Pure European or Indo, male and female, it was as if they had all changed. And they too saw changes in me. I was no longer the same easy-to-get-on-with and affable Minke.

  One day, on my way home from school, I went straight to Jean Marais’s workshop. He was, as usual, absorbed in his drawings, sketches, or in some design he was preparing. I hadn’t wanted to go straight back to my lodgings. I didn’t feel like going down to the harbor either. I didn’t want to go to the auction-paper office to write up advertising texts. But I had no inclination to write any serious journalism either. I certainly had no desire to go visiting my friends’ homes to try to sell furniture or seek orders for portraits.

  I didn’t feel like doing anything. All my body wanted to do was lie in bed turning over and over while I remembered Annelies. Only Annelies, that childlike maiden.

  Mrs. Telinga never tired of asking to hear the story of my visit to Boerderij Buitenzorg, only afterwards to have me listen to her coarse, repetitious insults: “Young Master, Young Master, of course Young Master likes the daughter; but it’s her mother who has the great lust. Everybody, of course, says her daughter is beautiful. No one dares go there. Young Master is very lucky. But remember this about Nyai, lest Young Master be gobbled up by her!”

  Not only Mrs. Telinga and I knew, but it felt as if the whole world knew, that such indeed was the moral level of the families of nyais: low, dirty, without culture, moved only by lust. They were the families of prostitutes; they were people without character, destined to sink into nothingness, leaving no trace. But did this popular judgment apply to Nyai Ontosoroh? This was what was confusing me. No, she wasn’t like that. Or was I just a careless observer? Maybe I just didn’t want to know. All social classes had passed judgment on the Nyai, as well as all races: Native, European, Chinese, Arab. How could I, just one person, say no. Her order that I kiss Annelies, wasn’t that a sign of her low morals? Perhaps. Yet Mrs. Telinga’s insults offended something inside me. Perhaps it was because I was fantasizing. During the last few days I had been trying to convince myself that what had taken place between Annelies and myself was just a normal event in the life of a young man and a young woman. It happens to people from all walks of life: kings, traders, religious leaders, farmers, workers, even the gods in heaven. True. But an invisible finger pointed accusingly at me and said: The trouble is you’re trying to justify your own fantasies.

  And so that afternoon I found myself compelled to go and ask Jean Marais. I could not yet hope for a really serious conversation with him, although his Malay was getting better every day. He didn’t know Dutch. That was the difficulty. His Malay was limited. My French was pretty hopeless. He resisted learning Dutch with all his might, even though he had fought in Aceh with the Dutch Colonial Army for more than four years. His Dutch was confined to military terms.

  But he was my oldest friend, my companion in business. It was only proper that I ask him.

  The workmen were finishing off furniture ordered by someone called Ah Tjong. I suspected that it was the one who owned the brothel next door to Nyai Ontosoroh’s. Because the order was for European-style furniture, the Chinese hadn’t gone to a Chinese carpenter. I had received the order through someone else.

  Jean was playing with his pencil, making a sketch for his next picture. “I need to disturb you, Jean,” I said and sat on the chair at the drawing table. He lifted up his face and looked at me. “Do you know the meaning of sihir?”

  He shook his head.

  “Guna-guna?” I asked.

  “Yes—black magic—so I have heard anyway. The Africans practice it, people say. That’s if I have heard properly.”

  I began to tell him of my situation, about being under a spell, and about the popular view of the nyais in general, and of Nyai Ontosoroh in particular.

  He put his pencil down on top of the drawing paper, stared at me, and tried to capture and understand each of my words. Then, calmly and in a mixture of several languages:

  “You’re in trouble, Minke. You’ve fallen in love.”

  “No, Jean. I am not in love. She is certainly an attractive, enchanting girl, but in love, no.”

  “I understand. You’re really in trouble; it’s serious when you can’t tell somebody they’ve fallen in love. Listen, Minke, your young blood wants to have her for yourself, and you’re afraid of what people will say.” He laughed slowly. “You must pay heed to and respect what people think if they are correct. If they’re wrong, why pay them any heed? You’re educated, Minke. An educated person must learn to act justly, beginning, first of all, with his thoughts, then later in his deeds. That is what it means to be educated. Go and visit this family two, or maybe three more times. Then you might be able to judge for yourself if Nyai and her family deserve their bad reputation.”

  “So you think I should go back?”

  “I think you should find out for yourself if what people say is fair or not. To go along with unfair gossip is wrong. You might find you’re judging a family that is perhaps better than the judge himself.”

  “Jean, I’ve been asked to go and stay there.”

  “Take up the offer. Only don’t forget your studies. But you don’t really need to chase after new orders any more. Look, there are still five portraits that have to be finished. And this”—he patted his sketch paper—“I’m going to paint something I’ve long dreamed of doing.”

  I looked at the sketching paper in front of him. The picture immediately made me forget my own problems. A Netherlands Indies soldier—it was obvious from his bamboo hat and his sword—was thrusting his foot down onto the stomach of an Acehnese fighter. The soldier was pushing his bayonet down towards the bosom of his victim. The bayonet pressed onto the black shirt, and from under the shirt emerged the breast of a young woman. The eyes of the woman were wide open. Her hair fell in bunches over fallen bamboo leaves. Her left hand was resisting as she tried to rise. Her right hand powerlessly held a dagger. Above them both, like an umbrella, was a cluster of bamboo bent down by the attack of a strong wind. It was as if only those two lived: one who was to kill and one who was to be killed.

  “But this is so vicious, Jean. You like to talk about beauty. Where is the beauty in viciousness, Jean?” He sucked on his cigarette. Then:

  “It’s not easy to explain, Minke. This picture is very personal, not intended for public display. Its beauty is in the memories it records.” He was silent, and I realized:

  “So you are the soldier, Jean? You’ve carried out such barbarity as this?” He shook his head. “You killed this young woman?” He shook his head again. “So you freed her?” He nod
ded. “She must have been grateful to you.”

  “She was not grateful, Minke. She asked me to kill her. She was ashamed that she had been sullied by the touch of an infidel.”

  He answered dispiritedly, and as if his words were not directed at me, but at his own past, which was now far beyond his reach.

  “And now she is dead. Her younger brother sneaked into the camp and stabbed her in her side with a poison-tipped dagger. She died immediately. Her killer then himself died, hearing his own cries: ‘To hell with you infidel, follower of the infidels!’”

  “Why did her brother stab her?” Already I’d forgotten all about my own troubles.

  “Her brother had continued fighting for his country, for his beliefs. His sister had surrendered. There was nobody there when she died, Minke. Her child was being taken for a walk at the time. Her husband was away on duty.”

  “So this woman lived amongst the soldiers? As a prisoner? As a prisoner until she had a child?”

  “At first she was a prisoner. Then later, no longer,” he answered quickly.

  “So she married?”

  “No. She didn’t marry.”

  “And the child who was out walking, where did it come from?”

  “That child was the baby she gave me, my own child, Minke.”

  “Jean!”

  “Minke, don’t tell this story to May.”

  All of a sudden I was overcome by emotion. I ran to find May, who was safely asleep on a wooden divan, without a sheet. I picked her up and I kissed her. She was startled and looked at me with wide-open eyes. She didn’t say a word.

  “May! May!” I cried to her, to myself, and I carried her out and found Jean Marais again. “Jean, this is your child. This is that baby, Jean. You’re not lying to me, Jean? You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”

  The Frenchman, his chin now resting on his hand, was gazing out of the house into the distance. He didn’t want to repeat his story. He didn’t want to answer. And I remembered how often he’d spoken of his love for his wife.

  “That’s why you advise me to go to Wonokromo?” I asked.

  “Love is beautiful, Minke, very, very beautiful, but perhaps disaster follows. You must dare to face its consequences.”

  The child prattled. “Will we go for a walk, Papa?” and when he said they would go after she had bathed, she ran merrily off. I said:

  “Jean, I’m not sure I love this Wonokromo girl.”

  “Perhaps you don’t or at least don’t yet love this girl. It’s not up to me to determine that. And also there is no love that appears suddenly out of the blue, because love is a child of culture, not a stone dropped from heaven. You must test yourself, your own heart. This girl may like you. It’s clear from what you’ve told me that her mother is very fond of you. Fond of you after the first meeting. I don’t believe in black magic. Perhaps it exists, but I don’t need to believe in it, because it can only be common where life is still at a very simple level of civilization. Moreover you’ve said Nyai does all types of office work. Someone like that is not going to believe in black magic. She will believe more in strength of character. Only people without any character practice black magic. Nyai knows what she needs. Perhaps she realizes how lonely her daughter is.

  “Do you want to take May for a walk this afternoon?”

  “You never take her!” I replied. “She wants to go walking with you.”

  “Not yet, Minke. Take pity on her. People will stare at us both. One day she will hear someone say: Look at the lame, stumped foreigner and his child! No, Minke. She mustn’t have her young soul scarred by some unnecessary hurt, especially not one caused by her own father’s deformity. She should love me and look upon me as the father who loves her, without regard to the voices and views of others.”

  I had never heard him talk so much. I had never seen him so depressed. What was happening inside him? Perhaps he was longing for his past, lost and no longer within his reach? Or for the country where he was born, brought up, and saw the sun for the first time? A country that he doesn’t dare return to because he’s without one leg and has a daughter born in a foreign country? Or is he longing to create a painting that will force his country to acknowledge his greatness as an artist?

  “You have never had any time for pity, Jean,” I rebuked him.

  “You’re right, Minke. As I’ve told you before, pity is the feeling of well-intentioned people who are unable to act. Pity is only a luxury, or a weakness. It is those who are able to carry out their good intentions who deserve praise. I can’t, Minke. The more I reflect on it the more beautiful that word pity sounds here in these Indies, though not in Europe.”

  He sounded even more gloomy.

  “This is not the Jean I know,” I chided him. “I’m worried about you. You don’t seem to be yourself, Jean.”

  “Thanks for your concern, Minke. You’re becoming sharper every day.”

  May came in. As soon as she found out her father wouldn’t be taking her, the look on her face changed.

  “Go with Uncle Minke, May. It’s a pity but I still have work that I must finish. Don’t frown like that, darling.”

  I took the little French-Acehnese Mixed-Blood girl by the hand and left the house.

  “Papa never wants to walk with me,” she complained in Dutch. “He doesn’t believe I’m strong enough to lead him, Uncle. I’m able to make sure he doesn’t fall down.”

  “Of course you’re strong enough, May. He’ll take you another time.”

  I took her to Koblen field, and she began to forget her disappointment. We sat on the grass and watched the kites battling each other. She began to prattle in Javanese mixed with Dutch and some French. I didn’t pay any attention. I just said yes to everything. My own thoughts were still confused, under attack from several directions: the Mellema family, the Marais family, the changing attitude of my school friends towards me, and my own changing feelings. Some kites broke loose and whirled around the sky aimlessly.

  May pulled at my hand, and pointed at a patch of clouds on the horizon.

  “You love your father, May?”

  She looked at me with amazed eyes. I saw Jean Marais in her face. I could not find the smallest trace of the face of the young woman sprawled out under the bamboo, threatened by the bayonet. This was perhaps what Jean had looked like as a child. And this little Marais does not know at all who her father really is.

  Jean, so he said himself, had once studied at the Sorbonne. He never told me in what department or to what level. Commanded by the voice of his own heart, he abandoned lectures and poured all his strength into painting. He lived in the Latin Quarter in Paris and hawked his paintings on the street. His works always sold well, but never caught society’s attention or that of the Parisian critics. While hawking his paintings, he also did carvings on the street. Five years passed. He still didn’t get anywhere. He was bored with his surroundings—with the mobs of sightseers who watched him make African statues or other carvings; with Paris; with his own society; with Europe. He longed for something new that might fill life’s barrenness. He left Europe, went to Morocco, Libya, Algeria, and Egypt. He still didn’t find that something he sought but could not identify: He never felt satisfied; he was always anxious and agitated. He still couldn’t create the paintings of which he dreamed. He left Africa. By the time he arrived in the Indies, his money had run out. The only road open to him was to join the Dutch Indies Army. He joined, underwent training for several months, and departed for the front in Aceh. In his army unit too he lived within himself, having almost no contact with anyone except through the orders he received in Dutch. And he was unwilling to learn that language.

  May Marais did not know, or did not yet know, any of this.

  I can paint and be a soldier too, Jean Marais resolved. The Indies Natives are very simple. They will never win any war. How can daggers and spears defeat rifles and cannons? he thought. He was sent to Aceh as a private first class. The commander of his platoon, Corporal Bastian Telinga,
was an Indo-European. If Jean hadn’t been a Pure, he would certainly never have got higher than private second-class. Jean lived amongst the other Pure Europeans who spoke no Dutch: Swiss, Germans, Swedes, Belgians, Russians, Hungarians, Romanians, Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians—from almost all the nations of Europe—the rubbish discarded from their own countries. They were people who had given up hope, or bandits on the run, or people running from debts, or bankrupt because of gambling and speculation—adventurers all. And none of them was less than a private first-class. Second-class was reserved for Indos and Natives—generally Javanese from Purworejo.

  Why mainly Natives from Purworejo? I once asked. They, Jean said, are a very calm people, with very strong nerves. That’s why the army chose them to fight the Acehnese, who are as tough and hard as steel, men of action, and able to instill terror in most people. Perseverance and stamina were absolutely essential to survive in Aceh.

  He soon had to admit that his initial views about the Natives’ ability to wage war turned out to be wrong. The Acehnese had great ability; it was only their weapons that were inadequate. They were also very well organized, although he acknowledged the Dutch army’s outstanding ability in selecting personnel.

  Jean once admitted to me he had been wrong to say that dagger, spear, and Acehnese bamboo trap would not be able to face up to rifle and cannon. The Acehnese waged war in their own special way. Using the local environment, all their abilities, and their beliefs, they were able to destroy much of the strength of the colonial army. He was astounded by this. They fought to defend what they regarded as their rights, mindless of death. Everybody, even the children! Even when defeated they fought back. They fought back with all their abilities and all their inabilities.

  He once told me another story in that mixture of languages of his. The Acehnese defenses had been pushed far into the interior and to the south, to the region of Takinguen. An Acehnese commander, Tjoet Ali, had lost a great many of his men and much of his territory, yet morale was still high, a secret Jean could not fathom. They kept fighting, not only resisting the army, but resisting their own decline as well. The army’s communications links were their easy targets: bridges, roads, telegraph lines, trains, and railways. Then came the drinking water, which they poisoned, surprise attacks, bamboo traps, ambushes, stabbings, running amok in the barracks.