Footsteps (48 page)

“This year. I think things will be the same.” Then he spoke in a language I didn’t understand, quickly and high-pitched, to Princess. His daughter nodded, keeping her head bowed all the time. “Is that all?”

“He also spoke about the Princess,” I said. At that moment the Princess lifted her face to look at me. “About the possibility of her marriage.”

“My marriage!” the girl gaped wide-eyed at me.

“Why is he interfering in my child’s affairs? It is nothing to do with him!” hissed the Raja. “We are Moslems.” His face was red with fury. He grabbed his cane and was squeezing it with all his strength.

“This matter is, of course, your prerogative, Bapak. Don’t be angry. And don’t let others know of your anger. That will only bring more problems.”

“Yes, yes,” he answered, then again spoke rapidly and in a high-pitched voice to his daughter.

Princess stood, nodded to me, and went into her room.

“And whom does His Excellency intend my daughter to marry?” he asked cautiously. Seeing that I was not answering, he continued in a growling voice, “They tore my daughter away from me, and put her with a Dutch family in Bandung. They are trying to turn my daughter into a Dutch woman and an infidel. Now they want to decide whom she marries. That’s going too far, isn’t it? God’s curse be on them!”

“Not so loud, Bapak.”

He was silent. His eyes dashed about, looking over the room. Then he moved closer and whispered: “Tell me, Child, who is it?”

“He didn’t say. He just said that the Princess of Kasiruta had reached marriageable age. He didn’t want the Princess to go home, that would only cause trouble.”

The Raja whispered a prayer. I bowed my head, participating also in his anxieties. Suddenly he raised his head, looked at me for quite a few moments, and asked: “You are a Moslem, Child?”

“Of course, Bapak; otherwise you and your daughter would not have been prepared to stay here tonight. Don’t get too upset by all this, Bapak. There is still time to think it all over.”

“Has anything like this happened before?” he asked, half hoping for something that would save them.

I told him about the girl from Jepara and her father, how such a young and brilliant girl finally passed away at such an early age. He followed every movement of my lips. Then came his voice, like a moan: “I will not allow such a thing to happen to my daughter. O Allah, protect my daughter!”

“We have no power in this matter, Bapak. Even so, we do have some time to think things through. The most they will do in the short term is pressure you about her marriage or keep asking whom she will marry. I will help you all I can in this matter. Ayoh, Bapak, it’s already late. I’ll show you your room.”

He stood, leaned on his cane, and limped off toward his room.…

As I stood before the door to my own room, I became lost in my thoughts. In my mind’s eye I saw Mir, and behind her, my good friend and her husband, Hendrik Frischboten. Lay no more claims upon my soul, Mir, Hendrik. I opened the door. I was right. Mir was asleep in my bed.

She awoke to greet me.

“We can’t go on like this, Mir,” I said. “Tomorrow your husband will be here. I sent a telegram summoning him. I have hopes that the Chinese sinse can help him.’

“He’s just a sinse,” she said, belittling the idea.

“You yourself have already lost hope.”

“I have never heard of such an illness ever being cured.”

And I too didn’t really believe it was possible.

“Maybe, but you have never tried this before. You must give it a chance. Who knows? The Chinese are an ancient culture, and with everything written down too,” I said, humoring her.

“That’s just a hope, not a reality. It’s late.” She embraced me, and in a moment I was gasping for breath again because of her kisses.

The next day I escorted Hendrik Frischboten to the bamboo house across from the Buitenzorg markets.

“In the name of our eternal friendship, my friend, rid yourself of all prejudices,” I said.

He was reluctant to go. He had no faith at all. We had to force him to go. Mir was on my side. It was as if she had suddenly developed an unqualified faith now in the sinse. And so it was that the two of us, bearing a thin, valueless piece of paper with unintelligible Chinese writing on it, entered the bamboo house.

An old Chinese man, just like in all the pictures, with a long white wispy beard, greeted us. He was wearing a black cap. He was no more than five feet tall. He stood straight and firm, despite looking dried-up and thin. His lips were blue, which was a sign that he smoked opium.

After reading the letter from the sinse, he nodded and spoke in broken Malay: “Which one is it, Tuan?”

I pointed to Hendrik Frischboten.

Without asking for any names, he guided Hendrik into a dark and stuffy room. I went too. Like a doctor, the sinse ordered
Hendrik to undress. Bowing again and again to me, he also asked that I leave the stuffy room. Hendrik emerged from the room, dressed and neat again, after three quarters of an hour. We walked home, via the other sinse’s shop. Hendrik handed over a letter that he had brought with him from the bamboo house.

Pengki nodded as he read it. While he made up the mixture he said: “If you do not feel humiliated to come at the times he has indicated, Tuan, you will be cured within a month. It’s just a problem of a weakness in the nervous system caused by not looking after yourself.” As he handed over a bottle of liquid substance, he added, “And you must drink this as indicated also. Three spoons a day. This bottle will be enough.”

How confident was this boy from yesterday afternoon in his people’s medicine!

“How much do we pay, Pengki?”

“When he is fully cured, you must come and tell us. That’s all. There is nothing to pay.”

“No, Pengki, that’s not right.”

“This is our way, Tuan. Only if you are ever writing to Encik Teacher Ang, please pass on my regards to her. I often think about her. If I get the chance to return to my country to study, I will come and get her address from you.”

As we walked home and I asked Hendrik how the blue-lipped sinse had examined him, he just shuddered.

“He stuck needles in you?”

“So you know their way?”

“I’ve heard stories.”

“There were needles around my navel, and others down both sides of my backbone, below my waist. I think there were six. I was so afraid I would get infected. But the strange thing was that there was no pain. It was a different feeling, not really pain, more a kind of prickling or smarting feeling.”

“How far did he put the needles in?”

“I couldn’t really tell. It felt as if they went just below the skin. But I don’t know. Perhaps they went in as much as the thickness of a finger.”

“Crazy.”

“Yes, well, let’s see how good this crazy doctor’s medicine is. I have to go every three days, he said.”

“You must go.”

The next morning the three of us caught the train back to
Bandung. The Raja and the Princess had left earlier. When Mir had fallen asleep in the corner, Hendrik whispered: “That old opium-addicted doctor has amazed me.”

“You’re not going back then?”

“No, on the contrary. I think I can already feel a change.”

“Are you sure? So quickly?” I cried out, so surprised that my cry woke up Mir.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mir, with a startled look on her face. “What are you talking about?” she asked anxiously.

There was no one else in the carriage besides us. Hendrik Frischboten kept glancing at me and I also kept watching him. After a while he moved across to sit beside his wife.

“Why were you so startled, Mir? We were just talking about that strange Chinese doctor.”

“Oh, Hendrik. I thought you two were arguing,” cried Mir, while she embraced her husband.

I stood up and moved away. What did Hendrik’s glances mean? He knew? But was pretending not to know? My knees almost gave way, and I had to hold on to the back of the seat. I hadn’t totally recovered from my own shock when Mir had wakened so startled and worried.

Hendrik took hold of my shaking body and sat me down next to Mir. He moved back to where he was sitting before. I felt a cold sweat all over my body.

Watching the two of us sitting there silently, Hendrik smiled and asked: “Mir, why don’t you thank him? It is because of Minke that such happy things are happening to us now.”

Showing just the slightest hesitation, Mir bent over and kissed me on the cheek. I could see that her eyes were glassy, as she held back tears both of happiness and worry. “Thank you very, very much, Minke.”

Then she turned to look outside the window and didn’t look at us again. My head was full of unanswered questions. We were almost in Bandung when Hendrik spoke: “I will come down and stay at your place in Buitenzorg every three days—so I can visit the sinse. Is that all right?”

“Of course,” I said.

Hendrik and I went straight to the office from the railway station. Mir went home by herself. Did Hendrik know what had happened back in Buitenzorg? I felt so ashamed whenever I was near these two very good friends of mine.

Fifteen days later I received an invitation from the Raja and his family to visit them at Sukabumi. They also invited me to stay the night. As soon as I arrived, and after the formal greetings, I bathed. Then the Raja took me out onto the grounds at the back of the house. There were tables and chairs and a whole range of Moluccan cakes. I neither recognized nor liked any of them.

“Child,” he began, “the
kontrolir
has visited us, just as you predicted. He kept asking about the Princess. When will she be married? Do I have anybody in mind? If not, then shouldn’t I be looking for somebody to marry her? What do you think I should do, Child?”

“Bapak no doubt has already formed a view on this. Have you plans for Princess to marry? Do you have a prospective husband in mind?”

“Of course I always intended that she marry a fellow countryman from Kasiruta. But she is not allowed to return home. And for some time now, while we have been in Java, I have not known what to do. We have been very isolated here.”

“Yes, it’s a difficult situation. What about if Princess were to marry someone who wasn’t from Kasiruta?”

“But who? I don’t know of anyone who is suitable and soon the kontrolir will be here again asking about her.”

Anyone in my shoes at that moment, if he had been educated properly and was a gentleman, would have felt just as I did—that I shouldn’t be there with the Raja, because, in fact, I had hopes of becoming his son-in-law. I felt as if I was part of a plot to force him into allowing me to marry his daughter. It truly wasn’t right or proper that I use this opportunity.

“Perhaps you should ask Princess herself? Who knows? Perhaps she herself has given some thought as to who would make a good husband for her,” I asked.

“How deep could her understanding of this kind of thing be? She is just a child, and a girl, too.”

“Well, she has had two years of European education in Bandung and seven years while she was in Ambon. Perhaps she has a better understanding of these things than her ancestors did.”

“It may be true that she knows many things that her ancestors did not know, but neither does she know anything of what they knew. She knows better the ways of the Dutch than those of her own people, those of her father.”

“From what I can see, Bapak, she is a person who is very polite, knows her place, knowledgeable, and, more than that, educated. She knows how to carry herself and has always seemed to honor and respect her parents.”

“The Dutch education! She only prays when she is here with me! I don’t believe she prays when she is staying with the Dutch family in Bandung.”

“No one knows better about such things, Bapak, than God himself. People do the best they can in accordance with their opportunities, needs, and abilities,” I said, repeating the teachings of the religious scholar Syech Ahmad Badjened. “When it comes to the relation between God and human beings, only God really knows how deep it is. It is something between God and that individual. No one else will ever know, not even that individual’s father or mother. Someone might always be seen to be praying but may have no real relationship with God, and, on the other hand, someone who is never seen to pray may be very close to Him”—another quote from Badjened.

So, as if I were someone who was learned in religion, I began dropping names from the great religious works. Then I ended: “But I believe Bapak knows more about this than I.”

“Yes, I have known all that since I was a child,” he said.

“That is why it is important that the religious books be taught to the young, so we may all benefit from it when we ourselves have to make such decisions.”

He nodded his agreement, listening intently as if he were my devoted student. After I had been silent for some time, he began again in his aging voice: “I have been giving this whole matter serious thought ever since the kontrolir’s visit. I have been weighing up all the possibilities and considering who would be a good husband for the Princess. No name or face has come to me, Child, except one. Just the one, Child. But there is one thing that worries me about him. Just the one thing, nothing else. I am afraid that perhaps, without my knowing it, my daughter could end up as the second or third wife.”