“Here, drink your gin and bitters. Pour yourself one. I’ll play on my out-of-tune piano, which will be in tune with my soul, which is also confused…”
She went back to the central gallery and played from
Parsifal
. He, on the front veranda, sat and listened. The rain lashed down and the garden was flooded. A violent
thunderbolt seemed to split the world asunder. Nature was all-powerful and in its gigantic revelation the two people in this damp house were small: his love was nothing, her melancholy was nothing, and the mystical music of the Grail was like a nursery rhyme amid the booming mysticism of that thunderbolt, with which fate itself seemed to be passing with its heavenly cymbals over the human beings drowning in the deluge.
V
AN HELDEREN’S TWO CHILDREN
, a boy and a girl of six and seven, were staying with Eva, and Van Helderen came regularly for a meal once a day. He never spoke again of his innermost feelings, as if he didn’t want to disturb the soothing sweetness of their time together every day. And she accepted his daily visits, unable to deny him access. He was the only man she knew to whom she could talk and with whom she could think aloud, and he was a comfort to her in these gloomy days. She did not understand how she had got into this state, but she gradually fell into total apathy, a kind of nihilism in which nothing seemed necessary. She had never been like that. She had a lively, cheerful nature, she sought and admired beauty, poetry, music and art: things that, from her very first children’s books, she had seen around her and felt and discussed. In the Indies she had gradually begun to miss everything she needed. She was seized by a desperate nihilism that made her ask: what is it all for; what is all that piffling whirling about for? When she read about social forces, the great social question in Europe, in the Indies the emerging issue of the Eurasians, she thought: what is the world for if human beings remain
eternally the same—small and passive and oppressed in the misery of their humanity? She couldn’t see the point. Half of humanity suffered from poverty and struggled to rise from that darkness—towards what? The other half vegetated stupidly and drowsily in money. Between the two there was a stairway of shades from dark poverty to anaesthetized wealth. Above them arched the same rainbow of eternal illusions: love, art, big questions marks concerning justice and peace and an ideal future… She found it all futile, she couldn’t see the point and thought: why is the world as it is, and why are there poor people?…
She had never felt like this before, but she couldn’t fight it. Slowly, day by day, the Indies made her spiritually ill. Frans van Helderen was her only consolation: this young controller, blond and distinguished, who had never been in Europe, who had been educated entirely in Batavia, had taken his exams in Batavia, had with his supple
courtesy
, his indescribably strange nationality, by virtue of his almost exotic education, become a dear friend. She told him how much she treasured that friendship and he no longer responded by declaring his love. As it was, there was so much tenderness in their relationship, something idealistic, which they both needed. In the ordinariness that surrounded them, that friendship shone forth as
something
most exquisite and glorious, of which they were both proud. He was a frequent visitor—especially now his wife was at Tosari—and in the dusk they would walk to the lighthouse, which stood by the shore like a miniature
Eiffel Tower. There was much talk about those walks, but that did not bother them. They sat down on the base of the lighthouse, looked out to sea, and listened to sounds in the distance. Ghostly proas, with sails like nocturnal birds, slid into the canal, to the aching crooning of the fishermen. A melancholy air of desolation, of a small world of small people, spread eerily under the twinkling starry skies, where the mystical Southern Cross appeared diamond-like, or the crescent moon sometimes shone, and above the melancholy of the fishermen’s droning song, battered proas, the little people at the bottom of the little lighthouse, floated an unfathomable immensity: skies and eternal lights. And out of the immensity the ineffable approached as the superhumanly divine in which all petty humanity submerged, melted.
“Why should I attach any value to life, when I may be dead tomorrow?” thought Eva. “Why all that human entanglement and bustle, when we all may be dead tomorrow?…”
She told him. He replied that individuals did not live for themselves and their own present time, but for all human beings and for the future… But she laughed bitterly, shrugged her shoulders, and found him trite. She found herself trite, too, thinking such things, which had been thought so often before. Yet, despite her self-criticism, she remained oppressed by her obsession with the pointlessness of life, when
everything
might cease to exist tomorrow. A humiliating sense of atomic smallness overcame both of them as they sat there, looking at the vast skies and eternal starlight.
Yet they loved those moments, which meant everything to them, since when they were not too aware of their
smallness
, they talked about books, music, art and the bigger things in life. They felt that despite the subscription library and the Italian opera in Surabaya, they were no longer in touch. They felt that the great, exalted things were very far removed from them, and they were seized, both of them, by a homesickness for Europe, a desire no longer to feel so small. They would have both liked to go away, to Europe, but neither of them could. They were trapped by humdrum everyday life. Then, almost automatically, in perfect harmony, they talked about the soul and the essence of things and its great mystery.
All its mystery. They could feel it from the sea, in the air, but secretly they also sought it in the dancing leg of a table. They could not understand how a spirit or soul could reveal itself through a table on which they earnestly placed their hands, and through which the energy passing through was transformed from something dead to something alive. But when they placed their hands on it, the table did come alive, and they couldn’t help believing. The letters that they counted sometimes came out in a confused form in a strange alphabet, as if directed by a mocking spirit intending constantly to tease and confuse, suddenly to stop and become coarse and filthy. They read books about spiritualism together, and weren’t sure whether to believe or not.
These were silent days—silent, monotonous days—in the town, where rain gushed everywhere. Their life together
seemed unreal, like a dream that wove through the rain like a mist. And for Eva it was like a sudden awakening when one afternoon, walking outside down the damp avenue and waiting for Van Helderen, she saw Van Oudijck approaching.
“I was just on my way to see you, dear lady!” he said excitedly. “I wanted to ask you something. Will you help me again?”
“With what, Commissioner?”
“But first tell me, are you not well? You don’t look well at the moment.”
“It’s nothing serious,” she said with a flat laugh. “It will pass. What can I do for you, Commissioner?”
“Something has got to be done, dear lady, and we can’t do without you. My wife said only this morning: ask Mrs Eldersma…”
“What is it?”
“You know Mrs Staats, the wife of the stationmaster who passed away? The poor woman has been left with nothing, just her five children and a few debts.”
“He committed suicide, didn’t he?”
“Yes. It’s a very sad case. We must help her. We need a large sum. Circulating lists won’t produce much. People are generous enough, but recently they’ve made such a lot of sacrifices. At the gala they went crazy. They won’t have a lot to give now at the end of the month. But at the beginning of next month, January, dear lady, there’ll be a production by Thalia. Very quick, a couple of drawing-room pieces, without great overheads. Tickets at one guilder fifty
or two-fifty, and if you organize it, the house will be full and they will come from Surabaya. You must help me dear lady. You will, won’t you?”
“But Commissioner,” said Eva wearily. “We’ve just had the
tableaux vivants
. Don’t be angry, but I don’t feel like
playacting
all the time.”
“Yes, yes, you must…” Oudijck insisted rather imperiously, excited about his plan.
She became peevish. She liked her independence and particularly in these days of depression she was too gloomy, in these dreamlike days she felt too woolly to accede sweetly and at once to the request from on high.
“Really, Commissioner, I can’t think of anything this time,” she answered abruptly. “Why doesn’t Mrs Van Oudijck do it herself?…”
She startled herself by saying that peevishly. As he walked next to her, he became upset and his face darkened. The excited, cheerful look, the jovial laugh around his thick moustache had suddenly disappeared. She saw that she had been cruel and regretted it. And for the first time she realized that however much in love he might be with his wife, he did not approve of her shirking all her duties.
He was lost for an answer, and as he hunted for words, she was silent.
Then she said, in a sweet tone: “Don’t be angry,
Commissioner
. That wasn’t very kind of me. I know very well that Mrs Van Oudijck doesn’t like that kind of thing. I’m happy to take it off her hands. I shall do whatever you want.”
She was so nervous that her eyes filled with tears.
Smiling now, he gave her a quizzical sideways look.
“How on edge you are. But I knew that your heart was in the right place, and you wouldn’t let me down with my plan, and would want to help poor Mrs Staats. But nothing too expensive, dear lady, no lavish expenditure, and no new scenery. Just your wit, your talent, your beautiful diction in French or Dutch—whatever you want. We’re proud of that in Labuwangi, and all those wonderful things—which you will provide free of charge—will be quite enough to make the performance a success. But how nervous you are, dear lady. Why are you crying? Are you not well? Tell me if there is anything I can do for you.”
“Don’t give my husband so much work, Commissioner. I scarcely ever see him.”
He made a gesture of helplessness.
“It’s true, it’s terribly busy,” he admitted. “Is that the heart of the matter?”
“Show me the good things about the Indies.”
“Is
that
the problem?”
“And lots more besides…”
“Are you homesick? Don’t you like the Indies any more, don’t you care for Labuwangi, where we all think the world of you?… You’ve got the wrong idea about the Indies. Try to see the good side.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Is it no use any longer?”
“No…”
“You’re too sensible not to see the good things about this country.”
“You’re too fond of the country to be impartial. And I can’t be impartial either. But tell me the good things.”
“Where shall I begin? The good that we can do as officials for the country and its people, and the satisfaction we derive from it. The wonderful, marvellous work we do for the country and its people; the great amount of hard work that fills a whole life here… I’m not talking about all the office work of your husband, who is a secretary, I’m talking of later on, when he is an assistant commissioner!”
“How much longer will that be?…”
“And what about the comfortable life here then?”
“That the white ants gnaw away at.”
“That’s a cheap joke, madam.”
“That may be, Commissioner. Everything is out of tune in and around me. My cleverness, my piano, and my poor soul.”
“What about nature then?”
“It makes me feel so insignificant. Nature overwhelms me and consumes me.”
“Your work?”
“My work… one of the good things in the Indies…”
“Yes. The work of occasionally inspiring us humdrum people with your wit.”
“Commissioner, so many compliments! Is that all because of the performance!”
“And using that wit to help widow Staats?”
“Couldn’t I do good in Europe?”
“Of course,” he said curtly. “Off you go to Europe, madam. Join a charity organization in The Hague, with a collection box at your door and two and a half guilders… how often?”
She laughed.
“Don’t be unfair. A lot of good is done in Holland too.”
“But doing what
you’re
going to do for one unfortunate… is that ever done in Holland? And don’t tell me there’s less poverty here.”
“So?…”
“So there are a lot of good things here for you. Your work. Working for others, materially and morally. Don’t let Van Helderen become too infatuated with you, madam. He’s a charming chap, but too literary in his monthly controller’s reports. I can see him coming and I must go. So I can count on you?”
“Absolutely.”
“When shall we have the first meeting, with the theatre committee, and the ladies?”
“Tomorrow evening, Commissioner, at your house?”
“Excellent. I’ll circulate subscription lists. We must raise a lot of money, dear lady.”
“We’ll help Mrs Staats,” she said softly.
He shook her hand and left. She felt limp, without knowing why.
“The Commissioner warned me about you, because you were too literary!” she teased Van Helderen.
They sat on the front veranda. The heavens opened: a white curtain of rain descended in vertical folds. A plague
of locusts leapt through the veranda. A cloud of tiny flies hummed like an Aeolian harp in the corners. Eva and Van Helderen lay their hands on the table and it raised a leg with a jerk, while the beetles swarmed around them.
L
ISTS CIRCULATED
. The performance was rehearsed and three weeks later was performed, and the theatre committee presented the commission with the sum of almost fifteen hundred guilders for widow Staats; a house was rented for her, and she was set up in a small dress shop, for which Eva had called on connections in Paris. All the ladies of Labuwangi had placed an order with widow Staats, and in less than a month the woman had not only been saved from complete disaster, but her life had been arranged, her children were back at school, and she had a thriving business. All of this had happened quickly and unostentatiously: subscribers had given generously; the ladies were so quick to order a dress or a hat that they didn’t need, that Eva was astonished. She had to admit that the egotistical, self-obsessed, less appealing side that she so often saw in their social life—in their daily dealings, conversation, intrigues and gossip—had suddenly been pushed into the background by a collective talent for doing good, quite simply because it had to be done, because there was no alternative, because the woman had to be helped. After the day-to-day concerns of the performance had roused her from her gloom, and she had been galvanized
into acting quickly, she learnt to appreciate this benevolent aspect of her surroundings and wrote so enthusiastically about it to Holland that her parents, for whom the Indies were a closed book, could not help smiling. But although this episode had awakened in her something soft and weak and appreciative, it was only an episode, and when the
surrounding
emotion had subsided, she was the same. Despite the disapproval that she felt around her in Labuwangi, she continued to centre her whole life around her friendship with Van Helderen.
Because there was so little else. The loyal coterie that she had gathered around her with such hopes, whom she invited to dinner, to whom her house was always open—what did it really amount to? Nowadays she regarded the Doorn de Bruins and the Rantzows as indifferent acquaintances, no longer as friends. She suspected that Mrs Doorn de Bruin was not to be trusted, Dr Rantzow was too bourgeois, too common for her taste, and his wife an insignificant German housewife. Yes, they joined in the table-turning, but they enjoyed the inept stupidities, the indecent comments of the mocking spirit. She and Van Helderen took it extremely seriously, although she actually found the table comical. So there was no one left but Van Helderen to whom she felt close.
She had come to admire Van Oudijck, though. She had suddenly seen his true character and, although it was
completely
different from the artistic charm that had hitherto attracted her in people’s characters, she saw the line of beauty in this man too, who was utterly inartistic, who had not the
slightest notion of art, and yet had such beauty in his simple masculine ideas of duty and in the equanimity with which he bore the disappointment of his domestic life. Because Eva saw that although he adored his wife, he did not approve of Léonie’s indifference to all the interests that constituted
his
life. If he saw nothing else, if apart from that he was blind to everything in the domestic sphere, this disappointment was his secret and his sorrow, to which, deep down, he was not blind.
And she admired him, and her admiration was a kind of revelation that art was not always paramount in human existence. She suddenly understood that the exaggerated posturing with art in the modern era was a sickness from which she had suffered and still suffered. Because what was she and what did she do? Nothing. Her parents were both great artists, pure creators, and their house was a temple and their fixation could be understood and forgiven. But what about her? She played the piano quite well, that was all. She had some ideas and some taste, that was all. In the past she had enthused with other young girls, and she remembered now that silly phase of writing each other letters in a
derivative
style, with echoes of romantic poetry. In that way, in her depression, her thinking progressed, and she underwent an evolution. It was almost incredible that as her parents’ child she should not value art above all things.
A process of seeking and thinking moved to and fro in her as she tried to find her way, now that she had lost herself completely in a country that was alien to her nature, among people on whom, without letting them notice, she looked
down. She tried to find the good things in that country, in order to assimilate and appreciate them; among people she was happy to find those few who evoked her sympathy and admiration. But good experiences remained just episodes, and those few people exceptions, and despite all her searching and thinking, she could not find her way and was left with the resentment of a woman who was too European, too artistic—despite her self-knowledge and denial of art—to live contentedly and comfortably in a provincial town in the Indies, by the side of her husband who had been swallowed up by office work, in a climate that made her ill, a nature that overwhelmed her, and in company she disliked.
And in the most lucid moments of this movement to and fro it was fear that she felt clearest of all, the fear that she felt softly approaching, she did not know from where it came or where it was bound, but seething above her head, as if with the swishing veils of a fate that moved through the sultry rainy skies…
In this resentful mood she did not gather her loyal coterie around her, she herself couldn’t be bothered and her acquaintances did not know her well enough to visit her. They no longer found in her the cheerfulness that had first attracted them. Now jealousy and hostility gained the upper hand and there was much gossip about her: she put on airs, she was pedantic, vain, proud, and aimed always to be first in the town; she acted as if she were a commissioner’s wife and bossed everyone about. She wasn’t really beautiful, but dressed outrageously, and her house was furnished in an
incomprehensible style. Then there was her relationship with Van Helderen, their evening walks to the lighthouse. In Tosari, in the hive of gossip in the small, cramped hotel, where the guests are bored if they do not go on excursions and so are almost on top of each other in their narrow verandas, peering into each other’s rooms, eavesdropping by the thin partitions—in Tosari Ida heard about it and it was enough to awaken her Eurasian instincts and make her suddenly, without explanation, remove her children from Eva’s care. Van Helderen, while visiting his wife for a few days, asked for an explanation, asked her why she was insulting Eva by removing her children from her care without any reason and bringing them up to stay with her in Tosari, which considerably increased the hotel bill. Ida made a scene, with hysterical fits, which made the whole hotel tremble, which made everyone prick up their ears, and like a gale whipped up the babble of gossip into a sea. Without further explanation, Ida broke off relations with Eva. Eva withdrew. Even as far away as Surabaya, where she went to shop, she heard the slanders and smears, and she became so sick of her world and her people that she withdrew silently into herself. She wrote to Van Helderen and told him not to come any more, and entreated him to make it up with his wife. She no longer received him, and was now completely alone. She felt that she was in no mood to seek consolation with anyone in her circle. In the Indies there was no sympathy or fellow feeling for moods like hers, and so she shut herself away. Her husband worked. But she
devoted more time to her son; she immersed herself
completely
in the love of her child. She withdrew into the love of her house. It now became a life of never going out, never seeing anyone, never speaking to anyone, never hearing any music except her own. She now sought consolation in her own home, her child and her reading. This was the lonely self to which she had been reduced after her first illusions and bursts of energy. Now she felt a constant homesickness for Europe, for Holland, for her parents, for people with an artistic culture. Now there was hatred for the country that she had at first seen as overwhelmingly great and beautiful, with its majestic mountains, and with the soft cloud of mystery in nature and in the people.
Now she filled her life with thoughts of her child. Her son, little Onno, was three. She would guide him, make a man of him. As soon as he was born, she’d had vague illusions of one day seeing him as a great artist, preferably a great writer, world-renowned. But she had learnt since then. She felt that art is not always paramount. She felt that there were higher things, which, though she might sometimes deny them in her depression, were nonetheless there, great and gleaming. Those things were about shaping the future; those things were in particular about peace, justice and brotherhood. Oh, the great brotherhood of rich and poor—now, in her loneliness, she thought about it as the highest ideal, at which one could work, like sculptors on a monument. Justice and peace would then follow of their own accord. But brotherhood must be approached
first, and she wanted her son to work at it. Where? In Europe? In the Indies? She didn’t know; she couldn’t see that in front of her. She thought Europe more probable than the Indies. In the Indies all her thoughts remained fixed on the inexplicable, the mysterious, the fearful. How strange that was…
She was a woman of ideals. Perhaps this alone was the simple explanation of what she felt and feared in the Indies.
“You’ve got entirely the wrong idea about the Indies,” her husband sometimes said. “Your view of the Indies is completely mistaken. Quiet? You think it’s quiet here? Why would I have so much work to do in the Indies if Labuwangi were quiet? We promote hundreds of interests of the Dutch and Javanese. Agriculture is pursued here as vigorously as anywhere… The population goes on increasing… Run down, a colony where so much is happening?… These are those idiotic ideas of Van Helderen. Abstract ideas, plucked out of the air, which you brood on. I can’t understand how you see the Indies as you do today… There was a time when you were receptive to what was beautiful and interesting… That seems to be all in the past… Actually you ought to go back to Holland…”
But she knew that he would be very lonely, and that was why she did not want to go. Later, when her son was older, then she would have to leave. But by that time Eldersma would definitely have become an assistant commissioner. Now he still had seventeen controllers and secretaries above him. That had been the case for years, that looking forward to a
distant future of promotion like the pursuit of a mirage—he didn’t even think of becoming a commissioner. A few years as an assistant commissioner, and then back to Holland on a pension…
She found it a desolate existence, toiling away like that, for Labuwangi…
She was suffering from malaria and her maid, Saina, was massaging her sore limbs with her supple fingers.
“Saina, when I’m sick it’s inconvenient your being in the native quarter. Why don’t you move in here this evening with your four children?”
Saina thought that was a nuisance, too much fuss.
“Why?”
Saina explained. The house had been left to her by her husband. She was attached to it, although it was very
dilapidated
. Now, during the wet monsoon, rainwater often came in, and then she couldn’t cook and the children had nothing to eat. Having it repaired was difficult. She earned two and a half guilders a week from the lady, and sixty cents of that went on rice. Then every day she spent a few cents on fish, coconut oil, betel, and a few cents on fuel… No, it was
impossible
to repair the house. She would be much better off with the good lady, in the compound. But it would be a lot of fuss finding a tenant for the house because it was so run down and the good lady knew that no house in the native quarter must stand empty: it carried a hefty fine… So she preferred to go on living in her wet house… At night she
could stay and look after the good lady; her eldest daughter could look after the little ones.
Accepting her petty existence with its petty miseries, Saina slid her supple fingers over the sick limbs of her mistress, pressing firmly and gently.
Eva found it a bleak existence, living on two and a half guilders a week, with four children, in a house that let the rain in so that it was impossible to cook.
“Let me look after your second daughter, Saina,” said Eva another time.
Saina hesitated, and smiled: she would rather not, but didn’t dare say so.
“Come on,” Eva insisted. “Let her come here: you’ll see her all day long; she can sleep in cook’s room; I’ll get her some clothes and all she’ll have to do is tidy up my bedroom. You can show her how to do that.”
“She’s still so young,
nyonya
, only ten.”
“Come on,” Eva insisted. “Let her help you now. What’s her name?”
“Mina,
nyonya
.”
“Mina? No! That’s the seamstress’s name. We’ll find another name for her…”
Saina brought the child, who was very shy, with a streak of rice powder on her forehead, and Eva dressed her in some nice clothes. She was a very pretty child, a softy downy brown, and looked sweet in her fresh clothes. She made a neat pile of all the sarongs in the wardrobe and put fragrant white
flowers between them: the flowers had to be replaced with fresh ones every day. For a joke, because she was so good with flowers, Eva called her Melati.
A few days later Saina again squatted at her mistress’s feet.
“What is it, Saina?”
“Could the child come back to the wet house in the native quarter?”
“Why?!” asked Eva, astonished. “Isn’t your little girl happy here then?”
“Oh yes, but the child simply likes the cottage better,” said Saina in embarrassment; the
nyonya
was very nice, but little Mina liked the cottage better.
Eva was angry and let the child go, with the new clothes, which Saina simply took with her.
“Why wasn’t the child allowed to stay?” Eva asked the cook.
At first the cook did not dare say.
“Come on, why not, cook?” Eva insisted.
“Because the
nyonya
had called the girl Melati… Flower and fruit names… are given only… to dancing girls,” explained the cook mysteriously.