Footsteps (22 page)

I went back to the dormitory and did not visit Kwitang again.

Whenever Mei wanted to meet me, she came to the office at the paper in Jalan Kramat. Her face was drawn and becoming paler. Her eyes looked yellow. It was very likely she was not getting enough sleep.

Whenever she came I gave her all that day’s earnings. She always counted it, and noted it down in a book. She always gave me back a quarter for my own shopping.

Month after month, for almost a year.

Then one day she asked: “Why do you never come home?”

“Who will I find there? Look at yourself, you’re just skin and bones. Your eyes are more and more yellow. I’m worried…. Stop for a while, Mei. Don’t go out so much. Stay at home…. But it’s up to you.”

“Forgive me. Let me have another three months. After that I will be able to be a proper wife again. I’ve been very unfair to you these past months, not like a good Chinese should be to her husband. But I’m sure you know that I’m truly thankful that you have allowed me to make some contribution to my country and my people.”

She went again, I don’t know where, and I went back to the dormitory.

We both lost weight and I became a daydreamer. Every time I met Mei her eyes were more yellow. She was showing more and more symptoms of hepatitis. I truly respected her dedication to her people. How many men have touched her without my permission or knowledge? It was impossible that this had not happened. I had thought about stopping her money. But that would not be the act of an educated person! I must be better than my parents and my ancestors. I must carry out my duties as a husband.

“Mei, go to the doctor.”

“Do I look sick?”

“Yes. Don’t put it off. Just this once do as I say.”

Then she did not appear for a week. She must be exhausted from illness, I thought. She will need me now.

I walked slowly to Kwitang. She was lying sprawled out on the bed. Almost all of her skin had turned yellow.

“Mei!” I shouted and embraced her. “You’re ill, Mei.”

She cried. She knew I understood she was very ill. Her liver was inflamed and there were already signs of swelling. This illness would take her to the grave—as certain as the ticking of a clock’s hands. The science of medicine and my world would not be able to save her from her disease.

“I thought you would not want to see me again, my husband. A wife who has divided her loyalties.” She sobbed.

“Shush, Mei. I have always admired you so much. You have been able to do what I have not.”

“I know you did not come to condemn me.”

“No. Why didn’t you send news?”

“Soon you will be a doctor. You don’t have long to go, do you? You’ve come to treat me?”

“Of course, Mei. Have you been to a doctor?”

I examined her—her eyes, heart, pulse, and the swelling in her stomach.

“No, I am not going to a doctor. I know you will cure me. You, my husband.”

“Of course, Mei, I will cure you. Where are your friends? Why is no one bothering about you?”

“They do not know where I live. They do not need to know.”

She needed to be looked after in a hospital. Mei, ah, Mei, my narrow-eyed girl of satin skin. Look how you are now.

“I’ll be the one to shed the tears, my husband,” she said
hoarsely. “You mustn’t shed a single tear for me. You will be a doctor. You must not fail because of any tears.”

Ibu Baldrun no longer seemed to have any concern for Mei. Even though she knew I had arrived she did not come in to see me. When I came out of the room, she greeted me with a scowl. I knew I was in the wrong.

“Forgive me, Ibu, causing you so much trouble all this time.”

“Yes, what have I done, Denmas, that things should come to this?”

“A thousand apologies, Ibu, it is all my fault.”

“So what is going to happen now?”

“I know you no longer like my wife, Ibu. But believe me, she has done nothing wrong.”

“You have not been home yourself either, Denmas.”

“Work and study have kept me busy.”

“That’s not why you haven’t been home, Denmas.”

“Tomorrow I will take my wife to the hospital,” I said humbly.

Mei called me from our room.

I went back in. She signaled me with her hand to come nearer: “I don’t want you to take me to a hospital. I want to be near you. Only you can treat me.”

She had more faith in me than anyone else.

“Treat me yourself, no one else.”

Mei was asking something of me that was impossible.

“I know you are not yet a doctor. I want to see you become a doctor. Are you listening?”

“I’ll make out a prescription, Mei. Quiet down, now. I’ll be your doctor.”

She wanted to see me as a real doctor. It might be her last wish.

I wrote out a prescription and asked Ibu Baldrun’s son to take it to the apothecary.

I stayed with her. In this helpless state, she looked even more beautiful.

“I’ll stay with you in the hospital tomorrow, Mei. I’ll stay with you all the time.”

“As long as I am with you,” she answered. She nodded. “You must become a doctor, my husband. A very good doctor.”

Two hours passed. The child still hadn’t come back with the medicine. If the prescription did not get through, then I would
be in big trouble. I was not yet permitted to write prescriptions. And when the boy did return, he was escorted by the police.

“You wrote this prescription?” asked the policeman.

“Yes, sir.”

“Who is sick?”

“My wife.”

“You are a doctor?”

“A medical student.”

“So you’re not yet a doctor?”

“Next year. I’m a student,” I said, beginning to lose my temper.

“Very well, come with me,” he ordered.

“My wife is very ill,” I whispered.

“There is some explaining you have to do first.”

“Fine. Go with him,” said Mei. “Don’t worry about me.”

I was not ashamed to be arrested in front of Mei, even though I knew her faith in me would disappear or at least be lessened by this. Indeed, I did not yet have the right to write prescriptions. And I had not written it because of ignorance. But because I wanted my wife to have faith. Let what must happen, happen. She knows I tried everything. Let the prescription be something that changes this gloomy atmosphere.

I was thrown into a cell. There was also an interrogation that evening, although only brief. When they realized that I was indeed a medical student, they gave me a better cell and treated me much more politely.

The next day the director fetched me from the police station and took me back to his office. He asked me to tell him everything. I also told him how I had to look after my wife myself.

“Don’t you realize that you have already broken more rules than anyone else?”

“I more than realize, sir.”

“And who will pay for your wife’s medical expenses?”

“You must also know that there is very little hope for my wife, except if God wishes otherwise. And you must also know that I must do my duty as a husband.”

“Where will you get the money?”

“I will get it.”

“You have put your studies at risk as well as written a false prescription.”

“No, the prescription I wrote was correct. I know I did not
have the right to do so, I have broken the rules, but I have not written any bogus prescription. I knew what medicine she needed.”

“Very well, take care of your wife as best you can. You can miss classes whenever you need.”

For two months Mei lay in bed in the hospital. The operation to draw out the infection from her stomach resulted in another infection. She got worse. Every morning when I came to see her, it was more and more obvious how weak she was becoming.

Then on top of all this she contracted another intestinal illness.

“Promise me truthfully, my husband, that you will become a doctor.” Those were the words she uttered every time we met. “Forgive me for all the trouble I have caused you. Promise me, my husband, you will become a doctor to your people who suffer poverty and humiliation. Cure their bodies, make healthy their souls, show them a way to live, rouse them to arise.”

She could no longer take proteins, only glucose.

“Shush, Mei. You’ll be better soon.”

Meanwhile I had fallen behind in my studies, with no way to catch up, especially with my practical studies. Now I stayed with her every night, all night.

At three in the morning, when I was sitting in a chair next to her, she moved her lips. Her voice was so weak. I held her hand, now only skin and bones.

She died without leaving behind a word.

I returned to my lessons. I knew I had no chance of passing the examinations. Inside, I was all churned up and in turmoil. I did what I had to do like a machine. I think it is what they call patience, having faith, and a cartload of other names. All was done because of duty, as a man and a husband, as a candidate doctor, as an educated person. I don’t think any sane person could censure me for what I had done. Getting married before graduating? Who is it that is still so eager to judge relationships between people? That Mei met me, and I met her, each from a country so distant and so alien from the other’s, was not something I’d wished for. Nor was it something Mei had wished for.

The other students often asked how my wife was feeling. From my sunken eyes and cheeks, they understood without needing an answer. And their sadness at my loss was also sincere and
genuine. Each came up to me to offer his hand and to express condolences. One by one I shook their hands. And those hands were cold like my heart.

Through my downcast eyes everything seemed downcast—the windows and doors, the bed and the old clothes hanging on the clothes hanger.

The air I breathed still seemed to smell of the coconut oil mixed with jasmine and
kenanga
that I had rubbed into Mei’s hair while she had been ill. She was constantly in my mind’s eye, sprawled out helpless on the hospital bed. And her faint voice still echoed within me, reminding me to make sure that I became a doctor.

Ah, Mei, I never even knew your real name. You have gone with the knowledge that I have never hurt your feelings, nor your body. For you, Mei, I have worked, studied, written a prescription before I was permitted to. And you’ve gone on before me. I never did wrong toward you, Mei. That my studies were in disarray was not your fault, neither was it mine. It was just misfortune.

And once again what happened was different from what I had prepared myself for.

The director sat at his desk. Before him were several sheets of paper weighted down with a bottle of ink and a ruler.

“Mr. Minke,” he began, “please accept my condolences on the passing away of your wife. And those too of all the staff, the teachers and the students.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Even so, it seems there are still more troubles that we just cannot avoid. I know your results and your behavior here. You have shown a special, individual development. I have tried to explain to the Council of Teachers that you have even attracted the attention of the governor-general.”

An opening speech which heralded disaster.

“It is the opinion of the Council of Teachers that the two major breaches of the rules by you indicate that you cannot be relied upon to be a satisfactory government doctor. You are expelled from the school. At the start of these coming holidays, you must leave the school and the dormitory.”

I will never be a doctor, Mei, I screamed within me; forgive me, Mei. I will never be able to keep my promise to you.

“Why don’t you say something? Don’t you regret what has happened?”

“Before she died, my wife reminded me over and over again to make sure I worked hard to become a good doctor.”

“It’s a pity that possibility has now been closed off to you.” “What can one do?”

“And that’s not all, Mr. Minke. This is your letter of expulsion.”

I took it and put it in my pocket without reading it.

“And this is another letter that you must sign.”

I read the letter. I had to repay the costs of my time at the school and at the dormitory. Four years times eleven months times forty guilders. Two thousand nine hundred and seventy guilders—enough to buy two big brick buildings complete with luxurious fittings. At the bottom of the letter was a sentence: I agree to fully repay the above amount at the rate of—–per month.

“If you go and see the governor-general, you’ll surely be able to find a way out of this. Try it.”

“I will repay all my debts, sir.”

“You’ll go to your father?”

“No.”

“To the former assistant resident?”

“No.”

“To the governor-general?”

“No.”

“You’ll pay it yourself? Impossible. Even as a doctor you would be earning less than twenty guilders a month. If you pay it off monthly, it will take you at least ten years.”

I signed the letter promising to repay the debt within three months.

The director’s eyes popped out in disbelief and he cried out: “A thousand a month! How is it possible! Even your teachers could not pay that much off so quickly. Don’t get yourself in more trouble. Be careful. Remember, there will be legal consequences.”

“So be it, sir. May I go now?”

I stood to leave and walked toward the door. He raced after me, held me by the shoulders and gazed at me with his brown eyes. He bowed his head without saying anything.

I went back to the dormitory and packed quickly. The dormitory was empty; everyone was at classes. An employee helped me carry my things to a
dokar.

“You are not the only one, Master, to experience this,” he said, trying to humor me.

The dokar took me to Kwitang. I went into Mei’s room. It was just as it was before. I felt weighted down with sadness. I still saw Mei everywhere—her smile, her teeth, her voice. Mei! Mei! And I remembered the first time we met in the old bamboo shanty in Kotta—a girl alien in the midst of her own people. And she was sick and I took her away from that place to this room.…

Then suddenly something pressed in on my chest and I burst out sobbing. How lonely will life be without you, Mei.

“Enough, Denmas,” Ibu Baldrun comforted me. “Don’t think about her too much.”