Max Havelaar
Page 16
“Of course not! To . . . kiss on the brow, I was going to say, but that isn’t it either! No, to gaze at, to dream of, and . . . to feel good about!”
Duclari and Verbrugge must have felt that this anecdote, like the others, had a most peculiar conclusion. But Max was oblivious to their puzzlement, and continued:
“So noble were her features that I almost felt ashamed to be a mere human and not a spark . . . a ray—no, even that would be too material—an idea! But then, all of a sudden there’d be a brother or a father beside those women, and . . . God help me, I actually saw one of them blowing her nose!”
“There, I knew you’d go and ruin it all again . . .” Tina said sadly.
“That’s not my fault, though, is it? Personally, I’d rather have seen them drop dead. Is it right for a girl to behave in such a vulgar fashion?”
“But Mr. Havelaar,” Verbrugge said, “what if she happens to have a cold?”
“Well, it was wrong of her to catch cold with a nose like hers!”
“Yes, but . . .”
Just then, as bad luck would have it, Tina had to sneeze, and . . . next thing she knew she’d blown her nose!
“Dear Max, please don’t be cross,” she pleaded, suppressing a giggle.
He didn’t answer. And, however odd it may seem or be, he really was cross! And, what also sounds strange, Tina didn’t mind in the least that he was cross and that he expected more of her than of the Phocaean women in Arles,69 for all that she had no reason to be proud of her nose.
If Duclari still considered the new Assistant Resident to be “a fool,” he could hardly be blamed for feeling vindicated by his superior’s irritated reaction to Tina blowing her nose. But Havelaar had already returned from Carthage, and reading the faces of his guests—which he could do at lightning speed as long as his thoughts didn’t wander—saw that they were drawing the following conclusions:
1. He who won’t have his wife blowing her nose is a fool.
2. He who believes that a beautiful nose shouldn’t be blown would be wrong to apply this belief to Mrs. Havelaar, whose nose is a touch potato-ish.
Havelaar could live with the first conclusion, but not with the second!
“Oh!” he exclaimed, as if obliged to respond even though his guests had been too polite to voice their thoughts, “Let me explain. Tina is . . .”
“Max, dear!” she implored.
It was her way of saying: “Please don’t tell these gentlemen why you think I should be above catching colds!”
Havelaar seemed to understand what Tina meant, because he replied:
“Very well, my dear! But, gentlemen, I hope you realize how mistaken one can be about a person’s supposed right to physical imperfection.”
I’m sure the guests had never heard of any such right.
“I met a girl in Sumatra once,” he went on. “She was the daughter of a datu . . . well now, I say she had no right to such imperfection. And yet I saw her falling in the water during a shipwreck . . . just as anyone else would. It took me, a mere mortal, to help her reach dry land.”
“Are you saying she should’ve flown like a seagull, then?”
“That’s right, or . . . no, she shouldn’t have had a body at all. Shall I tell you how I made her acquaintance? It was in ’42, when I was serving as controleur in Natal . . . have you ever been there, Verbrugge?”
“Yes I have.”
“Well then, you know they grow pepper there. The pepper plantations are on the coast, around Taloh-Baleh to the north of the town. I had to inspect them, and as I knew nothing about pepper I took a datu with me in the proa to give me information. He was accompanied by his thirteen-year-old daughter. Sailing along the coast was rather boring . . .”
“And then you were shipwrecked?”
“Not at all, the weather was fine, just fine. The shipwreck took place much later; otherwise I wouldn’t have been so bored. Anyway, we were sailing along the coast in the sweltering heat. A proa doesn’t offer much in the way of diversion, and besides, I was feeling gloomy for a number of reasons. Firstly, I had a love affair that had gone wrong, secondly, another unhappy love affair . . . and thirdly . . . well, some more of the same, and so on. That’s just par for the course, you know. But I was also midway between two bouts of ambition. I’d crowned myself king and been dethroned. I’d climbed a tower and had fallen to the ground . . . I’ll spare you the details! Anyway, there I was sitting in that boat with a long face, being generally insufferable. For one thing, I considered it beneath my dignity to have to go round inspecting pepper gardens while I deserved to be appointed governor of a solar system. For another, it struck me as moral murder to confine a man of my intellect to a proa with only that simpleton of a datu and his daughter for company.
“I have to say that I was, on the whole, quite taken with the Malay chiefs, and we got along well. They even have many qualities that make me prefer them to their Javanese counterparts. Oh I know you don’t agree with me on that score, Verbrugge, very few people do, but we won’t go into that now.70
“If I’d gone on that excursion on another day—with fewer mares’ nests in my head, I mean—I’d probably have been chatting with that datu from the start, and I might well have found his company worth my while. I might also have engaged the girl in conversation, which might have kept me entertained, as children usually have some originality about them . . . although I must say I was still too much of a child myself at the time to take an interest in originality. I’ve changed since then. Nowadays every thirteen-year-old girl I set eyes on makes me think of a fresh manuscript with few or no corrections, so that the author is caught in a state of undress, as it were, which is often charming.
“The child was threading beads on a string with utmost concentration. Three red beads, one black . . . three red, one black: very pretty!
“Her name was Si Upi Keteh, which in Sumatra means something like ‘little milady.’ You, Verbrugge, know that, of course, but Duclari doesn’t, as he’s always served in Java.71 So her name was Si Upi Keteh, but in my mind I called her ‘poor mite’ or something like that, because I felt infinitely superior. The hours went by . . . towards evening the beads were put away. The coastline slid by slowly, and Mount Ophir dwindled down behind us.72 To our left was the wide, wide sea westwards all the way to Madagascar, and Africa beyond. The sun was setting, its rays dancing over the waves at an increasingly obtuse angle until it dipped into the refreshing coolness of the sea. How the devil did that thing go, again?”
“What thing? The sun?”
“No, of course not. I used to write verse in those days. Oh, what fun it was! Listen to this:
“You wonder why the Ocean waves
That crash on Natal’s shore
On other sands are meek and mild
But here on Natal’s docks grow wild,
With ceaseless rush and roar?
“As soon as the poor fisher boy
Grasps what you mean to say,
He turns and casts his dusky eye
Beyond th’ immeasurable sky
Out West—far, far away.
“He turns that dark eye’s gaze out West
And in that one slight motion
He shows you, as you look around,
That only Ocean can be found,
And nothing else but Ocean!
“And that is why the crashing waves
Tear at the Natal shore,
For farther than the eye can reach
And out to Madagascar’s beach
Is water—nothing more!
“And many an offering is made
To rein the Ocean in!
And many a cry must disappear
In depths where only God can hear—
“Not wife, nor child, nor kin!
“And many a hand, stretched one last time,
Has risen from the deep
And searched and groped and splashed about
But found no purchase, no way out,
An
d sunk to endless sleep!
“And . . .
“And then, then . . . I can’t remember the rest!”
“You could find out by writing to Krygsman, your clerk at Natal. He has it,” said Verbrugge.
“Where on earth did he get it from?” Max asked.
“Perhaps from your wastepaper basket. But he’s definitely got it! Doesn’t it go on to relate the legend of the primal sin that caused the island that used to shelter the roadstead at Natal to sink beneath the waves? The tale of Jiwa and her two brothers?”
“Indeed so. That legend . . . was no legend. It was a parable I made up, which may turn into a legend a few centuries from now if Krygsman recites it often enough. That’s how all mythologies begin. Jiwa means soul, as you know, soul, spirit, or the like. I made it into a woman, the indispensable, mischievous Eve . . .”
“So, Max, where does that leave the young lady with her beads?” Tina asked.
“The beads were put away. It was six o’clock, and there by the equator—Natal is a few degrees north of it, and whenever I went to Aia-Bangih over land I’d make my horse step clean over the line . . . quite a stumbling block, believe me!—there by the equator six o’clock is the time for evening meditations. A man’s always in a bit better shape in the evening, I find, or rather, less prone to mischief than in the morning, which is perfectly natural. In the morning he pulls himself together . . . he’s a bailiff, or a controleur, or . . . no, that’ll do for now! A bailiff pulls himself together for a day of doing his duty with a vengeance . . . good God, what a duty! And what does it do to his heart to be pulled together like that? A controleur—I don’t mean you, Verbrugge!—a controleur rubs his eyes and dreads meeting a new Assistant Resident, who puts on airs simply because he has a few more years of service behind him and about whom he heard such strange stories . . . back in Sumatra. Or else he faces a day of counting fields and battling with his conscience—you wouldn’t know this, Duclari, being a soldier, but honest controleurs do exist!—for he wavers between wanting to do the right thing and fearing that some chief or other will demand the return of the dapple horse he finds so useful for counting the fields. Or else he’ll have to give a firm yes or no in reply to the umpteenth missive. In short, when you wake up in the morning the whole world comes crashing down on you, and that’s a blow to any heart, however robust. But with evening comes respite. There are ten full hours between then and being confronted with your uniform again. Ten hours: thirty-six thousand seconds in which to be yourself! A pleasing prospect, to be sure. It is during those hours that I hope to die, so as to arrive yonder in an unofficial capacity. It’s at such times that your wife sees in your face a flash of what she was smitten by when she gave you that handkerchief embroidered with a crowned E in the corner . . .”
“And when she wasn’t yet entitled to catch cold,” Tina said.
“Now, don’t tease! All I mean to say is that people mellow towards evening. And so, as I was saying, while the sun was sinking slowly, I became a better man. The first sign of my betterment was that I turned to the little milady and said:
“‘It will soon be a bit cooler.’
“‘Yes, tuan!’ she replied.
“But I stooped even further and struck up a conversation with the ‘poor mite.’ My merit was the greater for her saying very little in reply. She agreed with everything I said . . . and that gets boring, however arrogant you may be. ‘Would you like to join me again, next time I go to Taloh-Baleh?’ I asked, to which she replied, ‘Whatever the tuan commodore wishes.’73 ‘No, I’m asking you whether you enjoy going on excursions.’ ‘If that is my father’s wish,’ she said.
“I ask you, my friends, surely that’s enough to drive a man mad? Well, I didn’t go mad. The sun had set, and I felt mellow enough not to be put off by her witless answers. In fact, I believe I began to enjoy the sound of my own voice—there are few among us who dislike hearing themselves—and now that I’d broken the silence I’d kept all day, I felt I deserved something better than the inanities offered by Si Upi Keteh.
“I’ll tell her a story, I thought, then at least I’ll hear it myself, and won’t be needing any answers from her. As you well know, when unloading a ship, the last batch of sugar to be put in will be the first to come out, and it’s the same with people: we normally start by unloading the last idea or tale to have entered our minds. I had just read a story titled ‘The Japanese Stonecutter’ in the Netherlands Indies Magazine. The author was one Jeronimus, who wrote several charming tales! Have you read his ‘Auction in a House of Mourning’? Or his ‘Graves’? Or, best of all, the ‘Pedati’? I’ll give it to you.74
“I had read the story about the Japanese stonecutter a short while before. Ah, it’s just come back to me . . . where I got lost during that song in which I had the fisher lad ‘cast his dusky eye out West’ where it probably fell into the waves . . . most peculiar! It was a string of associations. My bad temper that day had to do with the dangers of the roadstead at Natal . . . as you know, Verbrugge, no warship is allowed to enter it, especially in July . . . yes, Duclari, the southwest monsoon is at its peak there in July, whereas here it’s the contrary.75 Anyway, in my mind the perils of that roadstead became associated with my thwarted ambition, and that ambition in turn has to do with that little song about Jiwa. I had suggested to the Resident on several occasions that a breakwater be constructed at Natal, or at any rate an artificial harbor at the river mouth. That would be good for bringing trade to the regency of Natal, which forms the link between the all-important Batak lands and the sea. One and a half million people were stuck with their goods in the interior owing to the notoriety—deservedly so!—of the Natal roadstead. My suggestions were not taken up by the Resident, or rather, he said they’d be rejected by the government, and you realize that no self-respecting Resident bothers to make any proposal unless he reckons it’ll be approved by the government. Constructing a harbor at Natal ran counter to the closed-door policy, and far from encouraging ships to anchor there, the roadstead was even off bounds to square-riggers, unless in an emergency. And if a ship came anyway—usually American whalers or French ships laden with pepper from the small independent regions at the northern tip of Sumatra76—I always insisted the captain gave me a written request for permission to take on drinking water. It was my annoyance at failing in my attempts to do something for the advancement of Natal, or rather my wounded vanity—wasn’t it hard for me, to count for so little that I couldn’t even get a harbor built where I wanted?—that had put me in such a bad temper . . . that, and my thwarted ambition to rule a solar system! Once the sunset had cured me a little—bad temper’s a sickness—it was in fact that sickness that reminded me of the Japanese stonecutter, and perhaps that was why I raked up the story, pretending I was doing so to amuse the child, while secretly taking the last drop of the medicine I felt I needed. But she, the child, cured me—for a day or so—better than my story, which went more or less like this:
•
“Upi, there was a man who hewed stones out of rock. His labor was very hard and he labored much, but his wages were poor, and he was not content. He sighed because his labor was hard. And he cried: Oh, if only I were rich, to rest on a bamboo couch under a mosquito net of red silk.
“Then an angel came down from heaven, saying: It shall be as you say. And he became rich. And he rested on a bamboo couch with a red silk mosquito net. And the King of the country came past, with horsemen preceding his carriage. Following behind were more horsemen, and a golden payung was held over the King’s head. And when the rich man saw this, he was sorry there was no golden sunshade being held over his own head. And he was not content. He sighed, and said: I wish I were a king.
“And an angel came down from heaven, saying: It shall be as you say. And he became king! There were many horsemen in front of his carriage and more horsemen behind, and the golden payung was held over his head. And the sun shone down with searing rays, scorching the earth and making the grass shrivel. And th
e King complained about the sun burning his face and having power over him. And he was not content. He sighed, and said: I wish I were the sun.
“And an angel came from heaven, saying: It shall be as you say. And he was the sun. He sent his beams upwards, and downwards, to the right and to the left, all around. He scorched the grass on the earth, and the faces of the rulers of the land. And between him and the earth came a cloud, which blocked his rays. And he grew angry about his might being challenged, and complained that the cloud had power over him. And he was not content. He wanted to be the cloud, which was so powerful.
“And an angel came down from heaven, saying: It shall be as you say. And he became a cloud. He placed himself between the sun and the earth, and caught the rays, so that the grass grew green.
“And the cloud rained great drops upon the earth and made the rivers swell, and the herds were washed away by floods.
And he destroyed the fields with a surfeit of water.
And he fell upon a rock, which refused to give way. He sent down great torrents, but the rock did not give way. And he grew angry because the rock refused to give way, and because the force of his torrents was in vain. And he was not content. He cried: That rock has been given more power than me. I want to be that rock.
“And an angel came down from heaven, saying: You shall be as you say. And he became a rock, and didn’t give way when the sun shone, nor when it rained. And then came a man with a pickax, a pointed chisel, and a heavy hammer, who hewed stones from the rock. And the rock said: What is this? A man with more power than me, hewing stones from my lap? And he was not content. He cried: I’m weaker than he is, I want to be that man.
“And an angel came down from heaven, saying: You shall be as you say. And he was a stonecutter. He hewed stones from the rock, with hard labor, and he labored much for a poor wage, and he was content.”
“Very nice!” Duclari exclaimed, “but we’re still waiting for proof of that little Upi being ethereal.”