This Earth of Mankind

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

  “She could have gone to the court any time she liked if she wanted a divorce,” answered your papa very weakly, frightened of his own son, who’d become so wild.

  “Why should it be Mrs. Mellema-Hammers when it was you who made the accusations? If you really believe my mother was unfaithful, why don’t you, sir, file for divorce right now.”

  “If it had been me that took the case to court, your mother would have lost all her rights over my dairy business in Holland.”

  “Don’t give us all these ifs and buts, Mr. Mellema. The fact is that you never took the case to court. Mrs. Mellema-Hammers became the victim of your ifs and buts.”

  “If your mother had not objected to opening up the scandal to the public, I would have done something long ago, and without your advice.”

  “In those days my mother could not afford to hire lawyers. Now her son is ready and able; yes, even to hire the most expensive. You can open the case. You’re also rich enough to hire them, and wealthy enough to pay alimony.”

  Ann, it was now clear. Engineer Mellema was none other than your papa’s only legitimate son from his legitimate wife. He came as a destroyer to ruin our lives.

  I trembled as I heard all this. Clerk Sastrotomo and his wife were never allowed to disturb my children’s lives; neither was Paiman. Nor would a change in attitude by Mr. Mellema, should he ever change—or even a change by any one of my children. The family and business had to remain as they were. Now there came your stepbrother, who didn’t want just to disturb our lives. He came attacking, aiming to ruin everything.

  Up until that time I hadn’t said anything. Unable to bear hearing what was being said, I came out to cool down the atmosphere. Naturally I had to help Tuan.

  “The detective gave me a very detailed and trustworthy account of things,” he continued, ignoring my presence. “I know what is in every room of this house, how many workers you have, how many cattle, how many hectares of paddy and how many tons of other crops you get from your fields, how much is your annual income, how much is in your bank account. And the most fantastic thing in all this concerns the foundation of your way of life, Mr. Mellema, you who accused Mrs. Amelia Mellema-Hammers of unfaithfulness. What’s the reality now? Legally, sir, you are still the husband of my mother. But you have gone ahead and taken a Native woman as your bedmate, not for one or two days, but for years! Night and day. Without a legitimate marriage. You, sir, have been responsible for the birth of two bastard children!”

  On hearing that, my blood rose to my head. My lips trembled, dry. My teeth ground together. I stepped slowly towards him and was ready to claw at his face. He had insulted all that I had secured, looked after, striven after, and had loved all this time.

  “Words that are only fit to be heard in the house of Mellema-Hammers and her son!” I retorted in Dutch.

  He wasn’t even prepared to look at me, Ann. To him I was no more than a piece of firewood. As far as he was concerned, I had committed sin with his father and his father had committed sin with me. Perhaps it was his right and the right of the whole world to make such a judgment. But that your papa and I had cheated on this woman Amelia, whom I’d never known, and her child . . . that was the height of his vulgar impudence. And it was happening in the house we ourselves had worked for and built, in our own home.

  “You have no right to talk about my family,” I roared in Dutch.

  “I have no business with you, Nyai,” he answered in Malay, pronounced very coarsely and stiffly. He refused to look at me again.

  “This is my house. You can speak like that out on the street, not here.”

  I signaled to your father that Maurits should go, but he didn’t understand. Meanwhile this impudent man continued to ignore me. Your papa just stood there open-mouthed, like somebody who’d lost his senses. And it turned out later that indeed he had lost his mind.

  “Mr. Mellema.” Maurits spoke again in Dutch, still ignoring me. “Even if you married this nyai, this concubine, in a legal marriage, she is still not Christian. She’s an unbeliever! And even if she were Christian, you, sir, are still more rotten than Amelia Mellema-Hammers, more rotten than all the rottenness you accused my mother of. You, sir, have committed a blood sin, a crime against blood! Mixing Christian European blood with colored, Native, unbeliever’s blood! A sin never to be forgiven!”

  “Go!” I roared. He still ignored me. “Disturbing people’s homes. You say you’re an engineer, but you have no manners at all.”

  He still ignored me. I moved forward a step and he moved back half a step, as if to show his disgust at being approached by a Native. Then he spoke to his father again.

  “Mr. Mellema, you now know what you really are.”

  He turned his back on us, descended the steps, got into the carriage. He did not glance back or say another word.

  Your papa still stood nailed to the floor, in a state of stupefaction.

  “So this is the child you had with your legal wife,” I shouted at Tuan. “So this is the European civilization about which you’ve been teaching me all these years? You’ve been glorifying to the heavens? Night and day? Checking into people’s private lives and homes, insulting them, so as to come and blackmail them? Blackmail? What else if not to blackmail? Why else does one investigate the affairs of other people?”

  Ann, Tuan didn’t hear my shouting. His eyeballs moved, but he gazed unblinking at the main road. I shouted at him again. He still didn’t hear. Several workers came running up wanting to know what had happened. When they saw me berating Tuan so furiously, they all ran away.

  I pulled at him and I scratched his chest. He was silent, and he didn’t feel anything. But the hurt in my heart went amok, striking out looking for a target. I didn’t know what he was thinking. Perhaps he was remembering his wife. How my heart hurt, Ann, especially because he didn’t want to know about the pain I was suffering in this bosom of mine.

  Tired of pulling and scratching, I began to cry. I collapsed, sitting down exhausted, like old clothes dropped on a chair. I lay my wet face down on the table.

  When would my humiliation end? Must everyone be allowed to hurt me? Must I curse my dead parents, who had sold me as a nyai? I had never cursed them, Ann. Couldn’t he understand, an educated person, an engineer, that he had not only humiliated me but also my children? Must my children become a rubbish bin, a place for insults to be flung? And why didn’t my master, Mr. Herman Mellema, tall and big, broad-chested, hairy, and with mighty muscles, have my strength to defend his life-friend, the mother of his own children? What’s the use of a man like that? He wasn’t just my teacher, but the father of my children, my god. What was the use of his knowledge and learning? What was the use of his being a European respected by all Natives? What was the use of his being my master and my teacher at once, and my god, if he wasn’t even able to defend himself?

  From that moment on, Ann, my respect for him vanished. His teachings about self-respect and honor had become a kingdom within me. He was no better than Sastrotomo and his wife. If that was all he was able to do when faced with such a little test as this, then even without him, I could still look after my children, could still do everything myself. How my heart hurt, Ann; it’s impossible that I could ever feel a greater pain as long as I live.

  When I lifted my head, I saw him still standing there without blinking, stupefied, looking out towards the main road. Did he look at me, his life-friend and foremost helper? No, he didn’t. He coughed, took a step, very slowly. He called out slowly, as if afraid of being heard by the devils and demons:

  “Maurits! Maurits!”

  He walked down the stairs, crossed the front yard. When he reached the main road, he turned right, towards Surabaya. He was not wearing shoes; he was in field clothes, wearing sandals.

  Your papa didn’t come home that day. I didn’t care. I was still preoccupied attending to my pain. He didn’t return home that night either. The next morning—still no sign. Three days and nights, Ann. During all that time the
tears drenching my pillow were to no avail.

  Darsam looked after everything. On the third day, he summoned up the courage to knock on the door. It was you, Ann, who opened the door and brought him upstairs. I never dreamed he’d dare come up. My hurt and sadness at once exploded into anger: How dare he come upstairs! Then it came to me: Perhaps he thought there was something more important than my pain and sadness. The door wasn’t locked. It was you, Ann, who opened it. Perhaps you’ve forgotten it all now. That was the first and last time he came upstairs.

  Darsam spoke like this:

  “Nyai, except for the reading and writing, Darsam has looked after everything.” He spoke in Madurese. I didn’t answer. I wasn’t thinking about the business. I was still lying on the bed, hugging my pillow. “Nyai shouldn’t worry. Everything is fixed. You can trust Darsam, Nyai.”

  And it turned out he could indeed be trusted.

  On the fourth day I went out from the house and garden. I took you from school. This business, the fruit of our efforts, must not collapse, must not be wasted. It was everything; upon it, our lives rode. It was my first child, Ann, your eldest brother, this business.

  (Having finished telling her story, Mama wept and sobbed, feeling over again the pain of her humiliation, a humiliation she could neither answer nor revenge. After the crying died away, she resumed.)

  You know yourself how many people—fifteen—I dismissed. It was they who had sold information to Maurits for small change. Perhaps they weren’t even paid anything. And I must ask your forgiveness too, Ann. Your papa and I had agreed to send you to school in Europe, where you could study to be a teacher. I felt I sinned greatly when I took you from school. I’ve forced you to work so hard, long before you were old enough, to work every day, without holidays, without friend or comrade, because you mustn’t have any, for the business’s sake. I have made you learn to be a good employer. And employers may not become friends with their employees. You mustn’t be influenced by them. What can one do, Ann?

  * * *

  After the arrival of Engineer Mellema, tremendous changes had occurred. I knew about Papa without anyone telling me. On the seventh day he returned. The strange thing was that he wore clean clothes and new shoes. That was in the evening, after the workday was over. Mama, Robert and I, were sitting at the front of the house. And Papa came.

  “Don’t speak to him. Don’t greet him,” Mama ordered.

  The closer Papa came the more visible was his pale, cleanly shaven face. His hair was now parted in the middle. The odor of hair oil, never used at home, excited our nostrils. Also the smell of strong drink mixed with spices. He passed us without a remark or a glance, went up the steps, disappeared inside.

  Suddenly Robert stood up and, with eyes popping out, stared at Mama and frowned angrily:

  “My papa is not a Native!” He ran calling after Papa.

  I looked at Mama. And Mama was looking at me. She said slowly:

  “If you like, you may follow your brother’s example.”

  “No, Mama,” I exclaimed and I hugged her neck. “I only follow Mama, I’m a Native too, like Mama.”

  Mas, that’s our true situation. I don’t know if you’re going to despise us like my brother, Robert, and Engineer Maurits, my stepbrother.

  Who knows what Papa did in the house. We didn’t know. All the rooms upstairs and downstairs were locked.

  After a quarter of an hour he came out again. This time he looked at Mama and me. He offered no greeting. Behind him followed Robert. Papa left the yard again, descended to the main road, and disappeared. Robert came back to the house with a gloomy face, disappointed because Papa had ignored him.

  I’ve hardly ever seen Papa since that event five years ago. Sometimes he appears, not saying anything, and then leaves, not saying anything. Mama refused to look for him or look after him. Mama forbade me too to look for him. We were even forbidden to talk about him. Papa’s portraits were taken down from the walls by Darsam and Mama ordered that they be burned in the yard in front of the whole household and all the workers. Perhaps that was how Mama let go of her feelings of revenge.

  At first Robert was just silent. Only after Papa’s portraits were burned did he protest. He ran inside the house, took down Mama’s portraits, and burned them himself in the kitchen.

  “He can join his father,” Mama said to Darsam.

  And the fighter passed on Mama’s words to Robert, adding:

  “Whoever dares disturb Nyai and Noni, I don’t care if it’s you yourself, Sinyo Robert, he will die under my machete. Sinyo can try if he likes, now, tomorrow, or whenever. And if Sinyo tries to find Tuan . . .”

  Two months after all this, Robert graduated from E.L.S. He never reported it to Mama, and Mama didn’t care either. He wandered about everywhere. A silent enmity has continued between Mama and Robert till this day. Five years.

  At first Robert sold anything he could lay his hands on, from the warehouse, kitchen, house, office. He kept the money for himself. Mama got rid of every worker who took orders from him to steal. Then Mama forbade Robert from entering anywhere other than his own room and the dining room.

  Five years passed, Mas. Five years. And there appeared two guests: Robert Suurhof for my brother, and Minke for me and Mama. Yes, you, Mas, no one else but you.

  6

  After I had been living for five days in that luxurious house at Wonokromo, Robert Mellema invited me to his room.

  I entered warily. There was more furniture there than in my room. There was a desk with a glass top. Underneath the glass top was a big picture of a freighter, the Caribou, a ship flying the English flag.

  He seemed friendly. His eyes were wild, a bit red. His clothes were clean and smelled of cheap perfume. His hair shone with pomade and was parted on the left. He was a handsome youth, tall, agile, fit, strong, and polite, and he looked as if he was always thinking. It was only his brown, marblelike eyes with their stealthy glances and his curled-up lips that really put me on edge. With just the two of us there I felt very uneasy.

  “Minke,” he began, “it looks as if you like living here. You’re a school friend of Robert Suurhof, aren’t you? In the same class at the H.B.S.?” I nodded suspiciously.

  We sat on chairs, facing each other.

  “I should have gone to H.B.S. too, and would have already graduated by now.”

  “Why didn’t you go on?”

  “That was Mama’s responsibility, and Mama didn’t do it.”

  “Pity. Perhaps you never asked her.”

  “No need to ask. It was her responsibility.”

  “Maybe Mama thought you didn’t want to go on.”

  “There’s no use in supposing about fate, Minke. This is my situation now. I’m outdone by you, Minke, you, just a Native—an H.B.S. student. But what’s the point of talking about school?” He was silent a moment, examining me with his chocolate eyes. “I want to ask how you come to be staying here? It seems you like it here too. Because of Annelies?”

  “Yes, Rob, because your sister is here. Also because I was asked.”

  He cleared his throat as I scanned his face.

  “You’ve got objections perhaps?” I asked.

  “You like my sister?” he asked in return.

  “Yes.”

  “What a pity you’re only a Native.”

  “It’s a crime to be a Native?”

  He cleared his throat once again, looking for words. His eyes wandered outside the window. I took the chance to check out his room more closely.

  His bed had no mosquito net. In a hole in the floor there stood a bottle with the remnants of a mosquito coil in its neck. Around the bottle were scattered ashes. The room hadn’t been swept yet.

  I stopped inspecting the hole when I heard his voice again.

  “This house is too quiet for me,” he said. “Do you like playing chess?”

  “Unfortunately no, Rob.”

  “Yes, a pity. Do you hunt? Let’s go hunting.”

  “I am s
orry, Rob, but I need the time to study. Actually, I like hunting too. Perhaps some other time?”

  “Good, another time.” He looked piercingly into my eyes. I knew there was a threat in that look. He dropped the palm of his right hand to his thigh. “How about if we go for a walk?”

  “It’s a pity, Rob, but I have to study.”

  We were both silent for quite a while. He stood up and closed the door. My eyes groped around seeking something to talk about while remaining ever vigilant, ready for every possibility. The window caught my attention. If he suddenly attacked me, that’s where I’d run and jump out. Especially as below it there was a bench without any flowerpots.

  On the other chair, the one Robert wasn’t sitting on, lay a squashed, folded-up magazine. It looked as if it had been used as a prop for a cupboard or table leg.

  “You don’t have anything to read?” I asked. He sat in his chair again and answered with a voiceless laugh. His teeth were white, well looked after and gleaming.

  “You mean by something to read, that paper?” His eyes pointed to the folded-up magazine. “I’ve had a look through it.”

  He picked it up and gave it to me. At that moment I was unsure if he wasn’t about to do something. His eyes pierced my heart and I shivered. It was a magazine. Its cover was damaged, yet I could still read part of its name: Indi. . . .

  “A magazine for lazy people,” he said sharply. “Read it if you like. Take it.”

  From the paper and ink, you could tell it was a recent edition.

  “What do you want to be when you’ve graduated from H.B.S.?” he suddenly asked. “Robert Suurhof says you’ll be a bupati.”

  “It’s not true. I don’t want to be an official. I prefer being free, as I am now. And anyway, who’d make me a bupati? And you yourself Rob?” I asked in return.