This Earth of Mankind Read online

  “What business are you in?”

  “Top-class furniture, Mama.” I began my propaganda. “The latest styles and models from Europe. I go to meet the ships bringing newcomers from Europe. I also visit the houses of the parents of my school friends.”

  “And Sinyo’s progress at school? You’re not left behind?”

  “Never, Mama.”

  “Interesting. For me, those who really endeavor are always interesting. Does Sinyo own his own furniture workshop? How many tradesmen?”

  “No, I only sell the furniture. I carry pictures with me.”

  “So you came here to sell furniture? Let’s see your pictures.”

  “No. I came here without bringing anything. But if Mama feels it necessary, I will bring them another time: wardrobes, for example, as in the palaces of Austria or France or England—Renaissance, baroque, rococo, Victorian. . . .”

  She listened to me carefully. Twice I heard her smack her lips, I don’t know if in praise or as an insult. Then she said slowly:

  “Happy are they who eat from the products of their own sweat, obtain pleasure from their own endeavors, and advance because of their own experiences.”

  The tones sounded as if they had come out of the chest of a priest in a wayang performance. Then she called out:

  “Fantastic!” She was looking up at the head of the stairs. “Ah!”

  Down those stairs descended the angel Annelies, in a batik kain and a traditional laced kabaya blouse. Her sanggul bun hairstyle was a bit too high, revealing her long white neck. Her neck, arms, ears, and bosom were decorated with a pattern of green-white emeralds, pearls, and diamonds. (Really, I didn’t know which were diamonds and which were the others, what was real and what was fake.)

  I was entranced. She must have been more beautiful and arresting than Jaka Tarub’s angel in the legends of Babad Tanah Jawi. She was smiling nervously as if embarrassed. The adornments she was wearing were somewhat, indeed definitely overdone, too extravagant. And I knew she had dressed up for me and me alone.

  And for a countenance and presence as beautiful as that, there was no need for any adornment. Naked too, she would remain beautiful. How foolish of us to think that the beauty bestowed by the gods does not always triumph over the inventions of humans. With all those adornments from the sea and the land she looked alien, while the Javanese clothes, which she was not used to wearing, made her movements like those of a wooden doll. Everything about her seemed somehow pretentious. But it didn’t matter—what is beautiful stays beautiful. It was up to me to cleverly ignore her extravagances.

  “She has dressed up for you, Nyo,” whispered Nyai.

  Annelies walked up to us while still smiling and perhaps with a thank you readied in her heart. But before I could get in my compliment, Nyai got in first:

  “From whom did you learn to dress up and adorn yourself like that?”

  “Ah, Mama!” she exclaimed, prodding her mother’s shoulder and glancing at me with her big eyes. She was blushing.

  I was embarrassed to be listening to such a conversation between mother and daughter: too intimate to be heard by a stranger. Yet near Mama I felt I ought to be resolute. I had to leave behind an impression of being a man who was resolute, interesting, dashing, an unappeased conqueror of the goddess of beauty. In front of the queen I think I would also have had to exhibit the same attitude. That is the cock’s plumage, the deer’s antlers, the symbol of virility.

  I knew what was proper and I did not involve myself in the affairs of mother and daughter.

  “See, Ann, Sinyo was ready to go home. It’s fortunate we stopped him. Otherwise, he would have really missed out on something!”

  “Ah, Mama!” Annelies said again, in her sweet, spoiled manner, and prodded her mother. Her eyes glanced at me.

  “Well, what about it, Nyo? Why are you silent? Have you forgotten your own custom?”

  “Too beautiful, Mama. What words are appropriate for beauty’s beauty?”

  “Yes,” added Nyai, “fit to become queen of the Indies, isn’t she, Nyo?” and she turned to me.

  The relationship between mother and daughter seemed strange to me. Maybe it was the result of the illegitimate marriage and birth. Perhaps this is the atmosphere in the homes of all nyais. Perhaps even among modern families in Europe today and among Indies Natives far in the future. Or perhaps it wasn’t right, but abnormal. Yet I liked it. And luckily the mutual praising finally ended without having led anywhere.

  The light began to fade. Mama talked on. Annelies and I just listened. There were too many new things, which my teachers had never mentioned, that proceeded from her lips. Remarkable. And I was still not allowed to go home, although:

  “Dokar?” she said, “Out at the back, there are many such carts. If you like you can even go home in a carriage.”

  A young boy began to light the gas lamps. I still did not know where the mains were located.

  The servants began to prepare the dining table.

  The two Roberts were summoned into the back parlor. Dinner began in silence.

  Another servant entered the front room, closing the door. The back-parlor light, covered by a milk-white glass shade, shone dimly. No one said a word. Eyes just moved about from plate to bowl, from bowl to dish. Spoons, forks, and knives clinked as they touched the plates.

  Nyai lifted up her head. The front door could be heard opening, without any knock, without announcement. I looked up at Nyai. She looked vigilantly toward the front room.

  Robert Mellema glanced in the same direction. His eyes shone with pleasure and his lips had a satisfied smile. I also wanted to glance behind, to where their looks were directed. I held back my desire; it wasn’t polite, not gentlemanly. So I glanced at Annelies. Her head bowed down, her eyes raised high, clearly she was straining her ears.

  Deliberately, I stopped my spoon in midair and focused my hearing on the area behind me. Shoes walking, scraping along the floor. As time passed they became clearer, closer. Nyai stopped eating. Robert Suurhof did not put the food in his mouth; he put the spoon and fork down on his plate. I heard the steps coming closer, drowning out the tick-tock of the pendulum clock.

  Robert Mellema continued eating as if nothing was happening.

  Finally Annelies, who was sitting beside me, also glanced behind. She blinked open her eyes, startled. Her spoon dropped with a clang to the floor. I tried to pick it up. A servant came running and took it. Then the servant quickly got out of the way. Annelies stood up as if she wanted to confront this new arrival, who was getting closer.

  I placed my spoon and fork on the plate and, following Annelies’s example, stood up and turned around.

  Nyai also stood in readiness.

  A shadow, splayed out by the front-room lamps, became longer and longer. The dragging steps became clearer and clearer. Then a European man emerged—tall, big, fat, too fat. His clothes were rumpled and his hair in a mess, who knows if really white or gray.

  He looked in our direction. Stopped a moment.

  “Your father?” I whispered to Annelies.

  “Yes.” Almost inaudible.

  Looking straight at me Mr. Mellema, dragging his feet, walked towards me. Towards me. He stopped in front of me. His eyebrows were bushy, almost white, and his face was frozen like chalk. For a moment my eyes fell to his shoes, which were dusty, unlaced. Then I remembered what my teachers had taught me: Look those who want to talk to you in the eyes. Quickly, I lifted my eyes and offered my greetings:

  “Good evening, Mr. Mellema,” in Dutch and in a quite polite tone.

  He growled like a cat. His rumpled clothes were loose on his body. His hair, uncombed and thin, covered his forehead and ears.

  “Who gave you permission to come here, monkey!” He hissed his sentence in bazaar Malay, awkwardly and, in accord with its contents, crudely.

  Behind me Robert Mellema coughed. Then I heard Annelies holding back a sob. Robert Suurhof put his shoes into action and stood up also to extend his
greetings. But the ogre in front of me paid him no heed.

  I admit it: My body shook, although only a little. In such a situation I could only await words from Nyai. I could expect nothing from anyone else. It was going to be a disaster for me if she stayed silent. And indeed she was silent.

  “You think, boy, because you wear European clothes, mix with Europeans, and can speak a little Dutch you then become a European? You’re still a monkey.”

  “Close your mouth!” shouted Nyai loudly in Dutch. “He is my guest.”

  Mr. Mellema’s eyes shifted dully to his concubine. And must something happen because of this uninvited Native?

  “Nyai,” said Mr. Mellema.

  “A mad European is the same as a mad Native!” Her eyes burned with hatred and disgust. “You have no rights in this house. You know where your room is.” The nyai pointed to a door. And her pointed finger was clawed.

  Mr. Mellema still stood in front of me, hesitant.

  “Do I need to call Darsam?” she threatened.

  The tall-big-fat man was confused; he growled in answer. He turned and walked, dragging his feet, to a door next to the room I had just occupied, and disappeared behind it.

  “Rob,” Robert Mellema said to his guest, “let’s go outside. It’s too hot in here.”

  They went out together, without excusing themselves to Nyai.

  “Trash!” Nyai cursed.

  Annelies was sobbing.

  “Be quiet, Ann. Forgive us, Minke, Nyo. Sit down again. Don’t make a racket, Ann. Sit down in your chair.”

  We both sat down again. Annelies covered her face with a silk handkerchief. And Nyai still kept an eye on the just-closed door.

  “No need to be ashamed in front of Sinyo,” Nyai said without looking at us, still in a rage. “And you, Nyo, you may never forget this. I’m not ashamed. Sinyo shouldn’t be shocked or feel ashamed either. Don’t be angry. I’ve done exactly what I had to. Just pretend that he doesn’t exist, Nyo. Once I was indeed his faithful nyai, his loyal companion. Now he is only worthless garbage. All he is good for now is shaming his own descendants. That is your father, Ann.”

  Satisfied after her outburst, she sat down again. She didn’t resume her dinner. The look on her face was hard and sharp. Calmly, I looked at her. What sort of woman was this?

  “If I wasn’t hard like that, Nyo—forgive me that I must offer a defense for myself in my humiliation—what would become of all this? His children . . . his business . . . we would be reduced to destitution. So I do not regret acting this way in front of you, Nyo.” She lowered her voice as if pleading with me. “Don’t think me insolent and rude, Nyo,” she said, continuing in her beautiful Dutch. “It is all for his own good. I treat him the way he wants. This is what he wants. It is the Europeans themselves who have taught me to act this way, Minke, the Europeans themselves.” Her voice pleaded with me to believe. “Not at school, but in life.”

  I was silent. I nailed every one of her words into my memory: not in school, in life! Don’t think me insolent and rude! Europeans themselves have taught me this. . . .

  Nyai stood up, walked slowly towards the window. And behind the door she pulled a cord that ended in a bunch of tassels. In the distance a bell could be heard ringing indistinctly. The servant girl who had just vanished reappeared. Nyai ordered her to take away the food. I still didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

  “Go home now, Nyo,” she said.

  “Yes, Mama, it’s better I go home.”

  She walked up to me. Her eyes had their original motherly gentleness.

  “Ann,” she said still more softly, “let your guest go home now. Wipe away those tears.”

  “Forgive us, Minke,” Annelies whispered, holding her sobs back.

  “It’s nothing, Ann.”

  “When holiday time arrives later, come and spend the vacation here, Nyo. Don’t hesitate. Nothing will happen. What do you think? Agree? Now Sinyo must go home. Darsam will escort you in the cart.”

  She walked again to the door and pulled that cord. Then she sat back down in her seat. She was amazing, this nyai: The people and everything around her were indeed in her grip, and I, myself, too. From what school had she graduated that she appeared so educated, intelligent? And she was able to look to the needs of several people at once, with a different manner for each. And if she did graduate from a school, how was she able to accept her situation as a nyai? I couldn’t understand any of this.

  A Madurese man arrived. He was approaching forty, shirt and pants all black, and an East Javanese destar headband on his head. A short machete was fastened at his waist. His mustache was twirled up high, pitch black and thick.

  Nyai gave him an order in Madurese. I didn’t catch all of what it meant. She was probably ordering that I be escorted safely home in a dokar.

  Darsam stood straight. He didn’t speak. He looked at me with searching eyes—as if he wanted to memorize my face—without blinking.

  “The young master is my guest, is Miss Annelies’s guest,” said Nyai in Javanese. “Take him home. Don’t let anything happen on the way. Be careful.” Apparently this was only a translation of the earlier Madurese.

  Darsam raised his hand without speaking and left.

  “Sinyo, Minke,” Nyai confided, “Annelies has no friends. She is happy that Sinyo came here. You, of course, don’t have a lot of time. I know that. Even so, try to come here often. You don’t need worry about Mr. Mellema. I will look after him. If Sinyo would like, we would be very happy for you to live here. You could be taken to school each day by buggy. That’s if Sinyo would like.”

  Such a strange and frightening house and family! It’s no wonder they have such a sinister reputation. And I answered:

  “Let me think about it first, Mama. Thank you for such a generous invitation.”

  “Don’t refuse us,” Annelies said. There was rebuke in her voice.

  “Yes, Nyo, think about it. If you have no objections, Annelies will look after it all. Isn’t that so, Ann?”

  Annelies nodded in agreement.

  The carriage could be heard coming along beside the house. We walked to the front of the house and found Robert Suurhof and Robert Mellema sitting silently, looking out at the darkness. The carriage stopped in front of the steps. Suurhof and I went down the steps and boarded the carriage.

  “Good night everybody, and thank you very much, Mama, Ann, Rob!” I said.

  And the carriage began to move.

  “Stop!” ordered Mama. The carriage stopped. “Sinyo Minke! Come down here first.”

  Like a slave I was caught in her grip. Without stopping to think for a moment, I climbed out and approached the steps. Nyai descended one step and so did Annelies, and Nyai said slowly into my ear:

  “Annelies has told me, Nyo—don’t be afraid—is it true, you kissed her?”

  Even a flash of lightning would not have startled me so greatly. Anxiety crawled through my body, down to my feet, and my feet tripped.

  “It is true?” she insisted. Seeing I couldn’t answer, she pulled Annelies and drew her to me. Then, “So it’s true. Now Minke, kiss Annelies in front of me. So that I may know that my daughter does not lie.”

  I trembled. Yet I could not resist her command. And I kissed Annelies on the cheek.

  “I’m proud, Nyo, that it’s you who kissed her. Go home now.”

  * * *

  I was unable to say a word all the way home. I felt as if Nyai had cast a spell over my mind. Annelies was indeed gloriously beautiful. Yet her clever mother subdued people so they would bow down to her will.

  Robert Suurhof didn’t speak either.

  And the carriage rattled as it went on grinding the street pebbles. The carriage’s carbide light split open the darkness relentlessly. Our carriage was the only one on the road that night. It appeared that everyone had streamed into Surabaya to celebrate the coronation of the maiden Wilhelmina.

  Darsam escorted me to my boarding house in Kranggan. He stayed until he
saw me enter the house before he left to escort Suurhof home.

  “Ai-ai, Master Minke!” Mrs. Telinga, my talkative old landlady, called out. “So young master doesn’t eat at home anymore? I’ve just put a letter in your room. I see that you still haven’t read the earlier letters either. The envelopes haven’t even been opened. Remember Young Master, those letters were written, were given stamps, and were sent to be read. Who knows if there may be something important in them? They all seem to come from the town of B. So, Young Master, what about it? Tomorrow there’ll be no shopping money left, eh.”

  I gave a few coins to the garrulous, good-hearted woman. She said thank you over and over again, as usual, without it needing to come from her heart.

  There was hot chocolate ready for me in my room. I drank it down quickly. I took off my shoes and shirt, jumped onto the bed, and started to reflect upon all that had happened. But my eyes fell upon the portrait of the goddess near the oil lamp on the wall. I got out of bed, studied it well, then turned it over. And I climbed back into bed.

  I pushed aside the Surabaya and Batavia papers, which were, as usual, placed on my pillow. It had become my custom to read the papers before sleeping. I don’t know why but I liked to seek out reports about Japan. It pleased me to find out that their youth were being sent to England and America to study. You could say I was a Japan-watcher. But now there was something more interesting—that strange and wealthy family: Nyai, with her power to grip people’s hearts as if she were a sorceress; Annelies Mellema, who was beautiful, childlike, yet experienced and able in managing workers; Robert Mellema with his sharp glances, who cared about nothing except soccer, not even his own mother; Mr. Mellema, as big as an elephant, sullen, but powerless over his own concubine. Each like a character in a play. What sort of family was this? And myself? I too was powerless before Nyai. Even as I turned over on the bed her voice still called: Annelies has no friends! She is happy Sinyo has come here. You, of course, don’t have much time. Even so, try to come here often . . . we would be very happy if you were to stay here. . . .

  It felt like I had only been asleep a little while when there was a commotion outside the house. I lit the oil lamp in my room. Five o’clock in the morning.