Footsteps (40 page)

“Very well, Ndoro. Have a good trip, Ndoro Doctor.”

The conductor left through the same door as Ja’in.

Mas Sadikoen was still looking at me.

“You’re angry at the way I answered his questions?” I asked, without bothering to defer to his priyayi-ness.

“Could be. I have to say, at the very least, you have strange ideas that I need to understand better.”

“You’re looking at me as if I were some monkey lost in the night market.”

“Could be. I still don’t understand you. Everywhere you go you’re famous and people look up to you. People come to you to ask your help, to appeal to your heart.” All of a sudden he changed the subject: “Eh, in Kroja there’s this Indo. He’s been wanting to meet you for some time now. Actually he has a house in Kroja but is rarely there. At the moment he’s on leave from his job in Jeddah. He works in the Dutch Consulate there. A real Indo; everything about him is Indisch. Would you like to meet him?”

“He also wants something from me?”

“Maybe he’s like everyone else.”

“Why doesn’t he just go to the BO?”

“He’s an Indo. He asked to join the Kroja branch but was rejected. He went to the Betawi Committee, but they rejected his application too. He’s also going to Jogja, not to attend the congress but to protest.”

“So what does he want with me?”

“He has some suggestions and would like to discuss things
with you. He’s a very interesting chap. I can assure you that you won’t find him boring. He’s called Hans. I met him playing cards.”

And he studied me, as if I were one of his patients. The train raced on, rattling and shaking. Paddy fields, crops, and villages all chased after each other. But it was the telegraph poles that sped by the fastest.

“This Indo is truly an extraordinary person. He prefers to be called
Pak Haji
, ‘Father Haji.’ Wherever he goes—at least wherever I have seen him—he wears the Moslem fez. He calls himself Haji Moeloek.”

“He may incur the anger of the Moslems,” I said.

“He has gone on the pilgrimage himself twice already. I said he was an employee at the Dutch consulate in Jeddah. You mustn’t forget that his Dutch is as good as—in fact, better than—any graduate from a religious school on Java. He will be returning to his job in Jeddah next month.”

“He must be a person with many experiences,” I said.

“His stories are always fascinating.”

“Good. Then I would like to meet him.”

The brakeman didn’t appear again. It wasn’t until the train had stopped at Jogjakarta that I saw him. He was waiting outside the ticket gate.

“I wish you all the best at the congress, Bendoro,” he said, then went off to his work.

The second congress of the Boedi Oetomo was the first big meeting I had ever attended. The main auditorium of the teachers’ college was packed full. There was the president of the Betawi BO, Raden Tomo, who spoke in Dutch, never having had a Javanese education, unable to express himself in Javanese. God have mercy on us! The bupatis and the princes paraded their smiles. Six soldiers of the Mangkunegaran Legion silently stared at all around them. The old retired Java Doctor, who was now the president of the congress, had unilaterally renamed it Boedyatama. The pendopo at the front of the building had been extended on all sides by several yards of temporary roofing. It was truly an event to be remembered for the rest of your life.

Of course, the front rows were taken up by the high nobles and the senior officials of the Netherlands Indies government, as well as the Sultanate and Residency of Jogjakarta, including the resident himself. They were all seated in rows according to their rank. There was the retired Bupati of Karanganyar, Tirtaningrat,
who was the Life President of the Tirtayasa organization and the first Javanese to establish a traditional organization and school on his own initiative. There were also the Bupatis of Blora, Temanggung, Magelang, and Jogjakarta city, as well as several other senior district officials and many teachers and high school students, prospective new-style priyayi. Almost everyone, except a few people from outside Java, wore traditional priyayi clothes. The nobles of Jogjakarta wore locally woven clothes. The priyayi from outside Jogjakarta wore white blouses. Not everyone wore keris, as they would at a reception. There were many who ventured to wear leather slippers, either black or brown, except those who wore full European dress. And everyone carried a briefcase, as if they were on duty in a government office.

The columns around the auditorium were decorated with the Dutch flag and tree leaves. There were also decorations all around the building made from green woven banana leaves.

There were three rows of chairs along the sides for the journalists who had come from all over Java—Native, Dutch, Malay, and Chinese. I also sat with the journalists. Among them was my old Surabaya friend Kommer, and I noticed that Douwager, that protégé of Multatuli so often mentioned in Mir’s letters, was also there.

Together with these people, assembled with one purpose and one spirit, I felt a part of them all. I felt so proud. The hubbub from the auditorium felt like the rumbling of my own heart. And the colors that abounded everywhere reflected my own joy at the occasion. The trembling in the atmosphere was the trembling in the crucible of my own soul. Everything loomed so large. Even the strangeness. It was as if slithering along the floor, crawling and bowing down, were now alien to the ways of the Javanese. Amazing!

The president of the congress, the retired Java Doctor, in the manner of the priest who, in the wayang, had just descended from meditations on the mountain, explained the meaning of the name Boedyatama. Then he gave this advice—master the Dutch language, because it is a weapon. And then followed more talk. Before, there were only two classes—the priyayi and the peasant. Now there is a third group—the middle class.

Go to school! To school! one of the students of the Native civil service schools exhorted. He spoke school Malay, and most
of the people there didn’t understand. Foreigners had come to our country and they had all become wealthy. Not because of their own cleverness, but because of the ignorance of our own people. To school! To school!

Study and copy how the Europeans do things, admonished a Java Doctor from the Surakarta palace. Then the debate started. The issue: Most of the Javanese felt they did not need to learn anything new, that they did not need the Europeans. Rather it was the Europeans who needed the Javanese. After all, wasn’t it true that it was the Europeans who had come to Java?

Raden Tomo spoke: The government has now set up many primary and vocational schools. We are grateful, but they are still not enough. Indeed, it would be too great a burden for the government if it were to build all the schools we need. We must ourselves take on the responsibility of advancing our children even while waiting upon the compassion of the government as it increases the numbers of schools and courses.

And the opening speeches then concluded. The Java Doctor from Kroja did not speak. He sat in the ninth row.

Back at the hotel I made only a few notes. They all assumed that it was the natural role of the priyayi to lead. This was the thinking that led me to found the Sarekat Priyayi and the same thinking that took it to total disaster.

And who would have guessed that on that very evening I would receive a visit from a bupati! The Bupati of Temanggung! And he did not require me to bow and scrape before him. He went straight to the matter that concerned him. He had also founded an organization—a local organization called Sasangka Purnama. It was a traditional-style organization. It had no constitution or organizational rules. He was dissatisfied that his organization was unable to grow outside Temanggung.

This was a remarkable bupati. He had come to listen to the opinion of another person, who wasn’t even a priyayi. What was even more amazing was that he understood that there were other subjugated people in the Indies besides the Javanese, such as the Arabs and Chinese. And he could understand and indeed agree with the need for a multiracial organization.

The congress moved quickly to adopt a constitution and organizational rules. There were thirteen candidates for the position of central president: five bupatis, two doctors, four teachers, a
major in the Pakualam palace regiment, and an architect. I knew only Dr. Tjipto Mangoenkoesomo and the Bupati of Serang, Djajadiningrat.

While sitting in the auditorium during the counting of the votes, everyone was busy introducing themselves to each other. A young man came up to me and invited me to go and eat at one of the Jogjakarta street stalls with him. He looked like an office assistant. He was still very young, and he wore his destar the way the clerks do. He was barefooted, his traditional blouse was held together by discreetly placed pins, and his widely pleated sarong was held in place with clips. He said it was important. While gulping down coffee and savoring the aroma of frying
tape
and newly harvested
durian
, he took out a sheet of paper from his coat pocket, as yet unadorned by a pocket watch. And he never said a word. Like any priyayi meeting with his superior, he just bowed his head with his eyes fixed below. He paid for our drinks, excused himself, and then disappeared who-knows-where.

My hands shook as I read the paper he had given me—a secret document from the governor-general’s office. Van Heutsz was instructing that efforts be made to see that the Bupati of Karanganyar was chosen as the president of BO, since he would ensure that BO would remain in reliable hands.

And so I realized just how far the iron hand of the government could extend.

I set the paper alight with the glowing tip of my cigar. It was impossible that the young clerk could have composed the document himself, written as it was in Dutch and in the style of an official instruction. He was not one of those falsifiers of documents who sought to create a sensation in the press, which was one of the first things that a new reporter learned about. No, he was perhaps a clerk in the office of a resident, who knew just sufficient Dutch to cope with his tasks and that was all. And so it was as clear as day what was going to happen—the Bupati of Karanganyar, Tirtokeosoemo, would push aside all other candidates, even Tomo, as well as the retired Java Doctor.

And indeed that was how it happened. A language teacher from a Java teachers’ college, Mas Ngabehi Dwidjosewojo, was elected secretary. This was another victory for van Heutsz. Tjipto Mangoenkoesomo, a doctor in Demak, was elected treasurer. The Javanese character of the congress was preserved amid a flurry of
self-congratulation on the refinement of Javanese customs and the greatness of wayang. Everyone came to the same heartfelt conclusion—the Javanese were a great and unique race, superior to all others.

Many of the speeches contained the suggestions and questions of the dwindling number of visitors. Could Sunda and Madura be considered Javanese? Yes. In that case, Javanese could not be the organization’s official language. Malay was then adopted as the language for those who did not know Javanese. What about Javanese who lived outside Java and Madura? Could they also become members? No one answered. What about those Javanese who had been given official status as Gazetted Dutchmen? No one answered. What about somebody who had only one parent who was Javanese—an Indo, for example? No answer. What about the Chinese in the sultanates and surrounding areas who had completely adopted Javanese ways? No answer again. And Europeans who had mastered Javanese language and culture, like Mr. Wilkens, who was also attending the conference? There was no response except for everyone to turn and look at Mr. Wilkens. It was as though Sandiman was speaking through many mouths. Perhaps they were the mouths of Mangkunegaran soldiers in civilian clothes.

Everyone agreed that the BO should have its own press. A teacher, in the style of the traditional Javanese comic, eloquently defended the importance of the work of teachers. Without teachers everything would revert to the ways of the jungle. But all they had as a guide was what they were taught in the basic schools for teachers. These might be adequate for training teachers, but even then they taught only the same old things over and over again. Meanwhile the world marched onward. Every hour it advanced. Here it was day. In America it was night. Humankind never slept, it never stopped moving forward. Someone nominated His Honor Mr. Douwager as a candidate for editor of the proposed BO newspaper.

“I have the honor of nominating His Honor the Editor of
Medan
, who is here with us today.…”

I felt truly honored by the applause that followed. It was an honor too for Native journalism. This was a reward for all the effort and struggle and devotion all this time. So my eyes were not just moist—actual tears welled up and a few ran down over
my cheeks. These were beautiful moments for me. Then Douwager spoke up in Dutch: Natives are not yet ready to run a daily paper, a magazine, or any publications.

The whole audience went silent. One by one everyone walked out, myself included. Still, the congress did not give me a victory in this matter. Kommer visited me at my inn to express his condolences.

“It was you, Kommer, who taught me to use Malay.”

“But you are a great man now.”

“What are you doing these days?”

“The same as before,” and there was disappointment in his voice. Perhaps he had been experiencing misfortune lately. Perhaps in his work, perhaps in other things.

I closed my notes and brought the evening to an end with the following remarks. Boedi Oetomo was born in Betawi. In less than one year the young founders had been pushed aside. BO had been carried away to Jogjakarta where it had fallen into the hands of old men…all on such a grand scale.

B
ogowonto Inn was full. My room was cramped, with three other congress participants crowded in there as well. There was no escape from the aggravating, musty smell. There was nowhere better available. All the hotels were full. There weren’t even any easy chairs at the inn. They made no effort to rent or borrow extra chairs. Even though its only purpose was to provide a place for me to rest my body, the inn was a very unpleasant place. There were bedbugs everywhere and the bed sheets looked as if they hadn’t been washed for ages. The mattress was filthy. And the pillow…God knows how many different types of saliva had dripped over it!