Read Twilight in Djakarta Online
Authors: Mochtar Lubis
‘Ah, you talk just like a member of the opposition!’
And they both laughed.
Pranoto was writing an article in his room. The walls around him were lined with books on metal bookshelves, just like in a library. Otherwise the room was very simple. A small bed in one corner. Near his desk on a low table stood an electric record-player, and at its side a hi-fi radio set. According to Pranoto the records, especially of classical music, did not sound well without the hi-fi hook-up.
When he had first sat down to write, everything he meant to say seemed very clear in his mind. But as he went along he had to stop more and more often, dissatisfied with what he’d set down – he felt the sentences he’d formed didn’t convey clearly what he’d really intended to say.
Pranoto got up, put on a record, Schubert’s Quartet No. 14 in D minor. He stretched out on his bed, listening to the beginning … Schubert’s music – ‘Death and the Maiden’ – merging with his own artistic sensibilities produced in him a feeling of great loneliness. Pranoto began to contemplate his own self.
Here I am, he said to himself, thirty-four years old, still unmarried. Six years spent in the foreign service, then he’d given it up. And now publishing a cultural and political journal. He remembered the time when he had worked for the Indonesian delegation in New York. Two years in New York. Liz, Martha, Connie and much else. Connie stood out vividly in his mind. They were still corresponding. Pranoto smiled to himself sadly. His relationship with Connie was a kind of dream, like living in another world. Something that couldn’t be realised under present circumstances without destroying its essence. He knew with certainty that though he loved Connie he could never make up his mind to marry her. Pranoto had always prided himself on his practical sense, and in his letters to Connie he had repeatedly pointed out that it was impossible for him to marry her, no matter how strongly his heart, filled with love for her, urged him to do so.
I love you too much, Connie, he often wrote, to marry you and to bring you here into the life of my own people. You wouldn’t be able to live on my earnings, as an Indonesian woman and wife could. Your standard of living is so much higher than ours. And I wouldn’t want my wife to live any differently than my own people. I wouldn’t want to see my family become an island to itself, far above other Indonesian families. Even though you say that you can make the sacrifice, I cannot accept it. Therefore you’re free to live as you please; my love imposes no ties on you. And I say to you, I love you, love you ever so much, will always love you whatever you do, even if you marry someone else, my love for you will never change and I’ll always be with you in spirit. I have a duty to fulfil towards my own people here, to vindicate the struggle of my friends who have laid down their lives in the revolution for the liberation of my people. These friends of mine have not died to free my country and then have it bled white by immoral and unscrupulous politicians. Our young people have therefore a duty to work here in our homeland, to open the eyes of the people, to raise their standard of living, until the whole of our people is capable of consciously taking the reins of their destiny in their own hands.
Connie had written back, saying that reading his letter had made her love him all the more and had made her even more determined to be at his side during his struggle.
I love you, wrote Connie, and you know how strong my feelings for you are. You say that if you married me you would feel obliged for my sake to create a separate island, alien to your society. How incredibly little you think of my love for you. Do you imagine that we American women are incapable of loving a man strongly enough to be happy to sacrifice everything for
him? What does it matter having to bear the hardships you describe in your letter, having to live in one room, having to share a house with two or three other families and me having to give up the comforts of American life? As if you didn’t know there are plenty of Americans who live in badly crowded apartment houses, and, speaking of comforts, I’m sick and tired of hearing about America’s prosperity. This expression has been a curse for our people, and I now experience it myself – it has become a curse upon the love that binds us together. Do you really think that we can’t live without an elevator, without a
pressure-cooker
, without a fruit-squeezer, without a washing machine, without lipsticks, permanent waves and various other products of our giant industries? Don’t you know that there are many Americans who long for a life such as in your country, without the complexities of the machine age and all its consequences for human beings? You must realise that I love you, that I want to live by your side, to help you in your struggle to elevate your people. Am I asking too much, my dearest?
And Pranoto had written that he felt deeply how very fortunate he was to be blessed by a love as great as Connie’s, but that evidently she hadn’t fully understood what he had meant. He found it very hard, in fact, to tell her this – but to understand the conditions in his country fully, she had to realise that while physical hardships could be overcome by the power of love, there were other things which could not, no matter how great their love.
Here in my country,
Pranoto wrote,
there’s a plague of mistrust and suspicion of all foreigners, especially the white man, and Americans, Britons, Dutchmen, Frenchmen – they’re all lumped together – all are wicked imperialists and capitalists. And an Indonesian with a Dutch, English, American or French wife is automatically suspect and is distrusted by his own people,
particularly if he happens to be opposed to the communists or fanatic nationalists. He is finished then; and far from being any help to him his wife only impedes his efforts to fight on. That’s why, no matter how much I love you, and though I know how selfless your love for me is, we must both have the courage to renounce our love to my struggle in my people’s cause. I will always be longing for you, Connie, my love!
But Pranoto never sent this letter to Connie. After re-reading it he had felt that it was too hard, even cruel, and that it didn’t really reflect what was in his heart – which was crying out for Connie. Also, he was still torn by doubts that he found impossible to resolve.
Pranoto smiled bitterly. He recalled how ardently he always insisted that the Indonesians of his generation regarded themselves as heirs of all humanity, that no national barriers stood in their way and that human values were the same all over the world. And now he could not make a decision for himself.
Instead of the unsent letter, he answered Connie with a
love-letter
which spoke mainly of his longing for her.
How incredibly happy I was, my darling, he wrote, to get your wonderfully noble letter. I want to assure you of one thing, so you never doubt it – my everlasting love for you. I have almost succumbed to your reasoning. But I am not yet convinced for myself that marrying you and bringing you among my people will bring you happiness, the happiness I want you to have. So please be patient, my beloved, and wait a little longer.
Pranoto woke up with a start from his musings as he heard the humming sound of the phonograph as the record came to the end. He sat up on his bed, rubbed the bridge of his nose, pinched his eyebrows. He felt even more desolate and lonely than usual. He
stood up, went back to his desk, examined the piece of paper in the typewriter, his unfinished article. He forced himself to re-read what he had written. It was a great effort to continue the work, he felt.
‘That’s his story – do you think it can be done?’ said Sugeng to Suryono. They were both in Sugeng’s workroom. A workroom as yet empty. Suryono was thinking it over.
‘Should it come off, it would mean a clear half a million for us,’ he said.
Sugeng had just finished telling him how three days ago a certain Said Abdul Gafur had come to him with a proposal. According to Said Abdul Gafur, a friend of his, who was an Arab real estate owner, was eager to sell some of his property located rather strategically in the centre of the city. But unfortunately, several of the buildings on the property were occupied by government offices, so no one was willing to buy it. But if one could arrange for these government offices to be moved somewhere else, the property would become available for new housing construction and could be sold for as much as five million. And, Said Abdul Gafur had said, if Sugeng could arrange this, there was a cut of half a million waiting for those who got it done.
‘But you should realise,’ said Suryono, ‘that the property is worth far more than five million. I’m sure Said Abdul Gafur will want a big cut for himself. I’ll talk it over with my father, we’ll see what the party can do. But we’ll have to make sure to get a bigger share. Half a million for the party, and half a million for the two of us. Just tell your Arab that if he’s prepared to pay one million we’ll see it gets done.’
‘If this comes off I’ll resign from my post as an official,’ said Sugeng, ‘and go into business on my own. I want to start my own enterprise.’
‘Of course, it’s much better, what’s the use of being a civil servant!’ Suryono responded contemptuously.
Idris sat very still by the window of his bedroom. He had been sitting like this for the last quarter-hour. He’d just had a quarrel with Dahlia. He had been suppressing his feelings about his wife too long. All sorts of vile thoughts and suspicions had kept haunting him. He had seen her constantly acquiring more and more things she couldn’t possibly afford on his earnings as an inspector of education. Expensive batik cloths, beautiful jackets, not to mention gold jewellery with precious stones, perfumes and so on.
That afternoon when he got back from the office he could contain himself no longer. It was not finding her home that triggered everything off. It was only after he had finished eating that Dahlia had appeared, carrying a bundle of several batik kains.
‘I’ve kept quiet all this time, but, by Allah, you’d better tell the truth now and tell me just where you get the money to buy all this. It’s impossible on my salary,’ he had started, in an agitated voice.
Dahlia looked at him with great surprise, she had never expected such an outburst from her husband. For months now she had been going and coming as she pleased, bringing things home without Idris raising any questions.
But her shock didn’t last long. She knew her power over Idris. Dahlia counter-attacked at once.
‘Aduh, so you’ve gone so far as to suspect your own wife. Perhaps you think that I’ve stolen them all?’
Idris was groping for an answer, hesitating whether or not to utter the crucial accusation. But Dahlia, sensing his hesitation, quickly pursued her advantage. Coming a step closer she said,
‘Or do you think I’m selling myself to buy all these things?’
Her voice rose to the angry pitch of an injured wife, quite unjustly suspected. It conveyed the indignation of a woman who had to bear the hardships of being a civil servant’s wife and suddenly being accused of the worst by her own husband.
Idris felt that he had lost the initiative, but did not see his way to regaining it.
Dahlia pushed on with her attack.
‘You should be grateful and appreciate my efforts to supplement your salary and bolster our income a bit. But you’re doing just the opposite. If you really want to know how I manage to buy all these things, all right, I’ll tell you – by trading in a small way, buying and selling kains and jewels among my friends. These kains I’ve just bought will be resold later.’ And Dahlia picked up the bundle of batiks which she had brought from the shop – on credit. She still didn’t know how she was going to pay for them, whether to ask Suryono to settle the debt, or the young Indian manager of a shop she patronised on Pasar Baru, who kept trying to approach her whenever she came in to do some shopping.
‘Apart from trading, I run some raffles among friends. That radio over there in the dining-room, do you think I bought it out of your salary? And our new bed – from your salary, too?’
By this time Idris was completely crushed. And when, on top of this, Dahlia began to cry, sobbing bitterly and saying, ‘Ah, if you don’t like me any more, why don’t you just divorce me?’ he felt faint all over. As though he were laying his heart on the floor for Dahlia to trample on, he reproached himself in a hundred ways for having entertained such evil thoughts about the wife he loved. He sat very still by the window, not knowing how to win her back.
‘I ’lready got work driving betja, ’Mun,’ said Itam to Saimun in their hut. ‘No joking how hard foreman can be. If you’re sick one week he won’t take you back. He said we get paid by the day. When I was sick he got ’nother man do my work. Lucky I got work driving betja!’
‘How ’bout betja driving-licence?’ asked Saimun.
‘Tauké
1
don’t care, have or not have driving-licence. If not
have driving-licence, must make bigger deposit. Deposit for one day and one night, usual twenty rupiah, but me, I must make deposit twenty-five rupiah.’
‘Aduh, ’Tam, far too much, nuh?’
‘Yah, but we, what can we expect, ’Mun? If there’s no other work at all, see? Me, I’ve no schooling. Know nothing. Read – cannot. Write – cannot. Become skilled – cannot. Most I have – two hands and two feet. Lu, better off, see. Only thing left to do for lu, apply for licence. Then lu can be sopir.
2
Lu ’lready can write ’n read some.’
‘That’s it, ’Tam,’ said Saimun. ‘Me, from the beginning I ask you to come take P.B.H.
3
lessons, but lu just lazy.’
‘’T’s just fate, ’Mun. Has not every man his fate? We here just submit to the Lord. If lucky enough to earn living, well, thank God. If not, just croak.’
‘Don’t talk this way, ’Tam, Easy!’
‘Really, sometimes me, I feel like I’m going crazy, ’Mun, living like this. Feels like we just trampled on. If to stay in the village, want to work sawah
4
– cannot, ’ll be killed by grombolan. If run away to city, life just suffering. How lu think, how can it be if you’re sick then you lose the work? So how to be if it’s this way? Then you see our high people, who always doing fine. Lu ever see them stand in line for salt, for kerosene, for rice, like us in the kampung? No, never. Most we see them line up in cars.’