Footsteps (20 page)

“Thank you. I think we’ve been happy enough, haven’t we?”

Between us it was as if we had signed an agreement not to talk about names, and that we would not have children for an as yet unspecified period of time. She seemed certain that no one could know who she really was.

I still remember the letter I translated for her some time ago. It was a reply to a letter from Jepara just before the woman from Jepara had married a bupati. At the time, there were many rumors that the governor-general was pressuring her father not to put off her marriage to a suitable husband much longer. Perhaps, at that time, only she herself was unaware of those rumors. All the students at the medical school knew. I also told Mei about the reports. And Mei had commented: “Believe me, forcing someone to marry like that could easily happen here, as it could in any other backward country.”

It was reported that the resident for Central Java had made a list of suitable candidates. Apparently it was a very long list, including people from outside Java. This modern girl, alone in her traditional, premarriage solitude, must be married, silenced in the marriage bed.

At the peak of the rumors, Mei received a letter from Jepara. It said that the girl had decided not to dishonor or disappoint her
parents. She would take the middle path; she would marry and await the freedom of being a widow. It was the only way that she could carry out her ideas, the only way.

Now she was as free as she ever would be.

The evening meeting with the old doctor began with an avalanche of questions from Mei. What was his source of information about the men and women sent out from China? From where came the report of the murder of the Chinese man in Surabaya? What were the relationships between the different organizations?

The old Java Doctor did not give a clear answer about his sources. He gave the names of some of the young supporters of the Old Generation group. Now, he said, there had been a wave of revenge against the Old Generation members accused of being involved in the young Chinese man’s murder. There was chaos in Surabaya. Blood had flowed. This had all taken place within the Chinese community itself. The police had not been able to intervene. The leaders of both the Young Generation and Old Generation organizations had entered the Indies illegally.

And the troubles had only been about how they fix their hair—pro-and anti-pigtail. A group of young men surrounded others just to cut off their pigtails. Sometimes those who were surrounded did not lose one strand of hair. It was the attackers who were left bruised and swollen.
Silat
had spoken.

Did he know if any of the Young Generation had been arrested? No, he didn’t know.

D
r. van Staveren explained that the syphilis bacteria had finally been definitively identified by the German zoologist Fritz Schauddin. He had been assisted by another German syphilologist from Bonn, Dr. Eric Hoffman. This meant that
Treponema pallidum
and syphilis could now be distinguished from gonococcus gonorrhoea. Most syphilis patients also suffered from gonorrhoea, and for a long time it had been impossible to distinguish between the two diseases.

This evil bacteria has had quite a long history. It spread as an epidemic all over Europe around about the time Columbus returned from his newly discovered continent. The epidemic started in Spain and Italy. People began to speculate that it had been brought to Europe from America by Columbus’s men. It then spread to France and Germany. A few years later an epidemic broke out in the Netherlands and Greece and then later in England and Scotland, followed by Russia and Poland.

The result? Poor old Diwan was taken out of his cell and he became the subject for our study of
Treponema pallidum
and gonococcus.

One afternoon, while sitting outside the house, I told Mei about Fritz Schauddin and Eric Hoffman, and also about Diwan.

She didn’t get angry as she had the last time. She just sat there staring at me as if waiting for me to tell some more interesting story. But I had nothing more interesting to tell.

“So you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“I read about it in a Chinese paper at the home of one of my students.…”

War had broken out in the north. Russia had sent trainload after trainload of soldiers across the icy wastelands of Siberia to Manchuria. The non-European world, even to the smallest island in the ocean, had been swept up into European empires. And Russia felt left out.

Japan would quickly be defeated by the Russian armory, the newspaper report had said. Trainloads of medals were already on their way to decorate the soon-to-be-victorious Russian soldiers. What threat were the yellow-skinned soldiers of Asia? One sweep at them and they’d all be scampering away. A huge armada had left the northern harbors to make a journey halfway around the world, staggering all the way from a boycott by coal suppliers. Through the straits of Malacca up to Vladivostok they headed, ready to cut off Japan’s supplies from the crest of the ocean’s waves.

Japan had not been prepared to sit idly by without conquests of its own—it wanted Manchuria for itself. It had become a matter of honor for a country to be able to enslave another people, to rob and exploit another people.

And in Betawi, the Japanese shops, barbers, drink sellers, prostitutes, peddlers, all flew the flag of the Rising Sun. Japan was on everybody’s lips.

“I haven’t read any reports like that,” I said.

“It’s impossible that the report I read was a lie.”

At the medical school, none of the Dutch papers in the library mentioned any news of the war. I still didn’t really believe that the report was true.

Then about a week later the Dutch press carried a report containing just a snippet of what Mei had told me. The Malay language papers followed. The news flowed everywhere like water finding the lowest spot to rest. Everyone wanted to know who was winning in this war between the baby and the giant. Those
educated in wayang tended to root for the Japanese; no new knights were born, grew, and became mighty without being tested, they said.

I too became excited. At the school no one could stop talking about what was happening, discussing what was going on. The eternally snowcapped Mt. Fuji took a hold on our minds.

Then one afternoon, when I thought I’d mastered the issues, I explained to Mei the course of the big naval battle that had taken place in the Tsushima Straits, a story of old sailors and old admirals, all of whom had sworn to deliver a victory for the czar or die.…

She was fascinated by my story. Her narrow eyes gazed out without blinking. This always aroused my passions, as she knew, but this time she just ignored the signs.

“What is there to admire?” she said coldly. “Whether Russia or Japan wins, it will be no victory for humanity. And if Russia is defeated, it will not be a defeat that benefits humanity. They are two wolves fighting over their victim.”

She went on to tell me about the rise of British imperialism, beginning with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, opening a new chapter in the history of industry, giving rise to the accumulation of capital and the separation of labor from capital, which brought the enslavement of the colored peoples by English capital.

“Minke, I don’t think it was an accident that you told me the other day about
Treponema pallidum
—that’s how you say it, isn’t it?—and gonococcus. That’s what Japanese and English imperialism are like. Two bacteria, each wanting to ruin the world the way Diwan’s body has been destroyed. What? Why are you making such a face?”

“Yes, Mei, perhaps I know what you’re getting at. But there is still something that you don’t seem to want to recognize. How can you not admire an Asian people, from such a small country, so courageously taking on a European people from such a huge country as Russia?”

“Japan is not so different in size from England. Ordinary human beings eat things that are smaller than their mouths. Those bacteria, as well as England and Japan, do the opposite.” She spoke slowly and her voice was hard, inflamed with hatred, burning, tense with conviction. “Surely you remember what happened to our friend in Jepara? These bacteria eat up both the flesh and the
world they live in. You of all people should understand this!” she said bitterly. “And isn’t it true that all the nations that the Europeans have conquered these last three hundred years have been much, much bigger than their conquerors? And that the small are not always defeated, and that indeed it is the big ones that are usually defeated by them? The tiny bacteria can also bring down an elephant.”

I regretted having told her the news with such enthusiasm. She had a different starting point and perspective.

“I’m sorry we differ on this matter. Look, these two kinds of bacteria that you have reported about have no nationality. Both of them are only after victims. Without victims they themselves would die. There’s no need to root for Japan. You know that we fight against the Ching dynasty, even though it is also Chinese, because they not only collaborate with those bacteria, they themselves are another kind of evil bacteria. Forgive me. Can you understand?”

Japan’s victory greatly worried Ang San Mei. The rising power of Japan had also worried my late friend in Surabaya. They may be right, I thought. Though Japan may defeat Russia and swallow up Manchuria, China would be its first real victim.

“It may not only be China that is grabbed by Japan but all the weaker countries of Asia that have not yet been conquered by Europe. And perhaps even those that have been gobbled up by Europe could also be taken over.”

Before we had properly finished our conversation, a friend from school turned up and hurried me out onto the main street. A luxurious coach was waiting there and a European dressed in civilian clothing handed me a letter, once again from the governor-general’s office. I read it quickly as he ushered me into the coach.

It wasn’t long afterward, just before sunset, that I found myself sitting on a garden chair facing Governor-General van Heutsz.

“Nah, sir,” he began, “I’m glad to be able to see you again. How are your studies going? How do you spend your time? Does your wife get any of that little time of yours? You’ve been writing so much these last few weeks. Ah, so you see, I am one of your readers, and, yes, perhaps you could also say, one of your admirers.”

“Your Excellency…”

During this unofficial meeting with the governor-general, a meeting that was completely unexpected, there were two main
questions he put to me: As an educated Native, what would be my reaction to a Japanese victory—if indeed they won—and, second, what was being done by the educated Natives from and for this modern era?

These questions made me feel like a primary-school student who had forgotten to do his homework and was now called to recite in front of the class.

Van Heutsz understood my awkwardness, saying: “No need to answer now. If you prefer you can present your answers in one of your excellent articles. Whatever newspaper you write in, it will reach me. You must do this. This month. I know it may disturb your studies a little, but you are quite good at scheduling your time, are you not? And also, you know, writers can often see aspects of things which others cannot.”

The meeting lasted only a quarter of an hour. When it was over, he presented me with some of Multatuli’s books. He had them ready on the seat beside him.

I did not go home to the dormitory but went straight to Kwitang. Mei was not home—something that greatly surprised me. Ibu Baldrun repeated to me over and over again that this was the first time that my wife had gone out alone at night. She had asked Ibu Baldrun’s permission to go, saying she would be back around midnight or even later. She had taken the front door key with her.

“At first, I wouldn’t let her go,” Ibu said in a pleading tone, “but she said you would understand and would have permitted it, so I gave her permission. Forgive me if I have done wrong, Denmas.”

Ibu Baldrun did not know where Mei had gone. And I had no idea either.

I went to bed but tossed and turned unable to sleep. I was restless. Jealousy ran amok within me. Our quiet and secure life was threatened, for now and forever.

Once you are afflicted with jealousy there are no words of wisdom that can cure you.

“Such a good child as she will not do anything wrong.”

Ibu Baldrun was also beginning to get restless.

A jealous heart is like a claw whose clutch becomes deeper and deeper. That night I needed her to discuss the questions I had been asked by van Heutsz. Very well, my plans would have to be canceled. But I would not go back to the dormitory. The
governor-general’s questions had been wiped from my mind by evil imaginings about what my wife was up to.

I turned off the light and pulled down the mosquito net. As I tossed and turned I tried to humor myself. Mei would never do anything that she shouldn’t. She was a careful, calm person. But jealousy knows only its own laws. It’s like a fire that plays at burning the rice husks. Whether or not there is anything there to burn, all you know is that you can feel the burning heat. Even so, I eventually fell asleep. I woke up at three in the morning. I heard her mumble, I don’t know in what language. Perhaps she was asking who had pulled down the mosquito net. In the darkness, she started climbing into bed. She was startled to find someone else in there with her.

“Mei!” I reprimanded her. “Where have you been?”

She didn’t get in after all.

“I knew you would be angry. I’m sorry.” She lit a lamp.

“Where have you been?” I got out of bed.

“I’m sorry. But there’s no need to make a noise.”

I grabbed both her shoulders and shook her. “Answer. Where have you been?”

She looked at me calmly as if nothing had happened.

“I know that you do not want to know where I have been—and will not want to know where I will be going in the future. But you do want to know what I am doing and what my work here is.”

Then I realized that I was standing before the fiancé of my late friend—a woman who did not belong to herself, a young woman who had surrendered her youth to the ideals of her organization. Her soft and gentle face was now like stone, polished by her concern at the world’s sympathy with Japan in its war against Russia, a war going on at some faraway point on the north of the globe. She was worried about something that was abstract, but that had been made concrete by her own ideals—the fate of her country and her people.