Twilight in Djakarta (14 page)

‘That’s true, ’Tam,’ Saimun replied. ‘Me, I also often think and think. In our life, see, no change – under the Dutch or under our own people, no different. Me, I don’t ’nderstand a thing ’bout these politics, see. But I can feel for myself, and hear friends talk. Sure, our life now has no joy at all. Nothing’s fixed. Nobody cares about our lot. If hungry – ’llright, be hungry by yourself. If sick – ’llright, be sick by yourself. If dead – ’llright, be dead by yourself.’

‘Nah, if I ’lready feel like I’m near crazy, sometimes I get to think, ’llright, just steal, that’s all. If not steal, ’llright, rob. Don’t care ’nymore what’ll happen!’

‘’T’s true,’ said Saimun. ‘Me, I also feel that way once ’n while. One time, when still learning drive the truck, motor goes dead, truck ’n middle of street; aduh, how people in big shiny cars swearing at me – telling me, lu, if you don’t know how to drive, don’t drive, yak! Our own people so terrible stuck-up. I’d not be bitter if he, who wants to pass, were the number of Pak President. And his name were also Pak President’s. ’T’s only proper to give way – lives he not in the palace and ’vrything’s set. But if our own people, who’re not the president, carry on like this, aduh, I can’t take it, ’Tam. Are we not all human? Only they have money, and we’re the people who don’t.’

‘’Mun,’ said Itam, ‘friends say when driving betja luck can be fairly good. More so if we get know addresses of women. Tips then good, too. Speaking ’f women, yesterday I see Neneng on Sawah Besar market. Aduh, she wants not know me any more.’

Saimun held his breath hearing Itam mention Neneng’s name. Since Neneng had left their hut last August, Saimun had tried four times to approach her and persuade her to return.

‘She’s ’lready fine show,’ added Itam. ‘All dressed up, clothes neat, lips painted red. I greet her, doesn’t even answer.’

Itam stretched himself out on the balai-balai and lit a kretek cigarette.

Saimun recalled the moment when he had tried for the first time to approach Neneng. It was almost a month after she had left them to go to Kaligot. At first he had been reluctant to enter the house where she worked, because there were so many other women in it, and Saimun did not know how to behave toward all these other women who kept looking at him. But later he got up enough courage to enter because he noticed that Neneng was sitting on the front verandah with a few other women. When he
entered, Neneng, seeing him, got up and ran inside. Saimun didn’t dare to follow and look for her, and he quickly went out again, not daring to stand and wait for her outside either.

The second time, when he came there, he just managed to catch a glimpse of a man who was drawing Neneng with him into the inner room. He was so upset at that moment that he ran away as fast as he could.

The third time, two weeks later, he came across Neneng at the Sawah Besar market. He greeted her, but the woman kept walking on as if she’d never known him.

Neneng’s behaviour had greatly depressed Saimun. But he didn’t give up hope, and when a week later he accidentally met Neneng on the street he greeted her again. And again Neneng did not return the greeting. But Saimun, gathering courage, followed Neneng while saying to her,

‘Neneng, why you like this? I mean no harm. Just want to see you. Want to see that you’re well.’

And only then the woman answered, in a dull, sad voice,

‘Bang,
1
what’s the use looking for me? I’m now a dirty woman.’

At these words Saimun felt as though his heart was being cut to pieces, and without a moment’s thought he said,

‘Leave that house, ’Neng ayoh; let’s go back to our hut.’

‘And like before, with you and Itam, bang,’ Neneng replied. ‘It’s the same as my life now. Let it be, bang, I’m ’lready a woman like this. Let it be!’

‘Aduh, ’Neng, we’ll get married if lu want,’ suddenly sprang from Saimun’s mouth without him being aware of the meaning of his own words, of the fact that he couldn’t support a wife while his earnings were not even enough for himself alone and while he still suffered many ups and downs and hunger.

‘You’re really good, abang, but me, I’m ashamed,’ said Neneng,
quickening her steps.

And she did not listen any more to what Saimun tried to tell her, coaxing her as he was, until he began to feel embarrassed as people started to stare at him – chasing after a woman in the middle of the street in broad daylight. He stopped and let Neneng walk on by herself in front.

‘Ah, ’Tam,’ said Saimun to Itam who was puffing out dense clouds of cigarette smoke, ‘me, I don’t know any more why we’re born to be human beings! Only the Lord knows what he wants with us!’

And Saimun sat there, musing.

Yasrin was walking in the scorching heat of Djakarta towards Achmad’s office. He had received a letter from Achmad, the contents of which he rather liked. Achmad had written that cultural activities in Indonesia had been left in the hands of bourgeois intellectuals like Pranoto and his friends far too long. The result had been a total lack of progress in developing a genuine cultural movement ‘among the people, by the people and for the people’. In Achmad’s words, these bourgeois intellectuals who profess to be supporters of Indonesian culture and claim to be heirs to universal human values are stuck in theorising, analysing, writing pseudo-intellectual essays full of pretentious words and terms borrowed from Western books. They’re so absorbed in this kind of masturbation that they’re quite satisfied with just publishing manifestos, producing analyses, dreaming about a fine arts academy, a popular theatre, a museum of modern art, etc., etc …. It all starts with a barrage of propaganda but soon disappears without a trace, just like in the old Malay saying – ‘Very, very hot are a chicken’s droppings.’

Yasrin was rather flattered by Achmad’s letter.

Actually, he had been feeling dissatisfied with himself for quite some time. This dissatisfaction had been quite vague and general, but after receiving the letter three days ago, the reasons for his discontent had become clear to him. It was quite evident now that Pranoto and his group had been just exploiting his name as a front to show their concern for the people, because his poems always dealt with the life and sufferings of the masses. He remembered one of his poems being praised by Pranoto in the journal
Culture
. Pranoto had written that Yasrin was Indonesia’s most important poet since Chairil Anwar. Yasrin ranked perhaps even higher than Chairil Anwar, Pranoto had written, since evidence that some of Anwar’s poems had been plagiarised had detracted from his reputation as an original poet.

So far, all he’d got from his friends was praise. Meanwhile, several members of their club had received invitations to visit the United States or some other Western country, like England or France, but his own turn had never come. He had once asked to be given a chance, but his request had not been given the proper attention. It was even conveyed to him indirectly that it was difficult for his colleagues to get him an invitation to the United States or England since he couldn’t speak the language. He had been very hurt to hear this. He had retorted by asking why the Chinese or the Russians, for instance, invited Indonesian artists, even though these artists didn’t know a word of Russian or Chinese. But to this question no satisfactory reply had been given. All he’d
received was just an intimation – did he want to be a propaganda tool for the communists?

Since receiving Achmad’s letter, Yasrin had become convinced that his proper place was not with Pranoto’s group. I’ve been lost all this time, Yasrin thought to himself. Why didn’t I see how completely bourgeois someone like Suryono is? He goes on talking about the misery of the masses and the disintegration of the state, but money’s really all he’s interested in. Look how fast he’s made his fortune! And for such a young man to have a car of his own and live it up the way he does! When you remember the stories of friends that Suryono’s wealth comes from his father’s connections with the party, it’s perfectly obvious that Pranoto’s group is just indulging in words, without any honest and sincere desire to serve the masses, or the proletariat – the workers and the peasants.

And now that he remembered how many times in the past he had written in defence of democracy, criticising the communists and their totalitarian system, he felt ashamed of himself. I’ve certainly been blind all this time, he thought.

He also reminded himself that though Pranoto, the unofficial leader of their study club, was good enough at ‘analysis’, he’d never had any contact with the people, had never really known the people. Wah, he just uses the autolette or the tram – never, as far as I know, goes on foot! He remembered how he had once invited Pranoto to eat with him, squatting at the roadside, and how Pranoto had refused saying,

‘Aduh, Yasrin, how can you eat there? Isn’t it awfully dirty? Just look how they rinse the spoons and plates in a jar where the water’s never changed.’

Yasrin felt resentful as he remembered these words of Pranoto, although at the time he had answered merely by laughing. But now, since receiving Achmad’s letter, he suddenly felt that he had been badly humiliated by Pranoto. I eat every day squatting by the
roadside like this, Yasrin said to himself, and Pranoto says it’s dirty. By Allah!

And by the time Yasrin had reached Achmad’s office he was almost ninety-nine per cent determined to join Achmad and stop working for the journal he and Pranoto were publishing together. He had even formulated his reasons for leaving Pranoto – it was all so clear in his mind: he had decided to abandon their kind of cultural activity in order to devote himself to the people’s culture, among the people.

In Achmad’s office three other persons were already waiting. Achmad stood up quickly, overjoyed to see Yasrin arrive.

‘We’ve been waiting for you. We were afraid you’d not be able to come at all. Let me introduce you first – this is Sjafei, people’s poet; Murtoho, people’s painter; and Hambali, people’s
short-story
writer.’

They sat down, and Achmad opened the meeting by telling them that the time had now come when all artists, poets, writers or painters must get together to generate a real people’s culture. He surveyed the cultural scene in Indonesia, pointing out that it was still dominated by a feudal atmosphere. It was self-evident that their now-independent country could not possibly tolerate the continuation of feudalistic influences on culture, and that these would have to be consciously replaced by a people’s culture.

‘That’s why we’ve been building up a fund large enough for this struggle, and to start with, we’ll have to set up a people’s cultural movement. This GEKRA
1
will publish a really militant cultural magazine. In asking you four, brothers, to come here today, it was my intention to invite you to work as full-time activists for this publication. For the time being it’ll come out once a month. But, the magazine aside, our task will also be to establish branches of GEKRA all over the country, organise exhibitions of books, of paintings, organise literary competitions, a popular theatre and
to create new people’s dances and music. We’ve got a lot to do, and I hope we’ll get through with all these preparations without losing too much time.’

Achmad’s statements got Yasrin all excited. His blood was pulsing and he felt as though he couldn’t wait to start.

Achmad then went on to explain that each activist would receive a monthly stipend of a thousand rupiah, and that they would be sent in turn to survey the various regions of their country. Later on arrangements would be made for them to be invited to study methods of cultural organisation in the People’s Republic of China, in Russia, in Czechoslovakia and other people’s democracies.

They then decided upon the division of labour, and Yasrin was given the job of heading the people’s cultural magazine which was to appear at the beginning of the new year. He was to get an office in a house on Tanah Tinggi where the Proletarian Library Foundation, which was publishing Indonesian translations of books by Russian and Chinese authors, had its headquarters.

They took leave of each other with mutual assurances of
cooperation
in the cause of the people’s cultural uplift and the destruction of the residue of feudalistic cultural influences. And as Yasrin was walking home an extraordinary joy seemed to flow through his veins, warming his whole body, making him feel as if he were bobbing along on a street of balloons, bouncing him upwards as if to propel him up into the sky.

And he felt as though he couldn’t restrain the joy that flooded his being; he wanted to fill the air with cries of joy – I will now be working for the people, now I know where I am and where I’m going. Achmad’s explanations came into his mind again, how they would bring justice and prosperity to all the people, how social classes would be abolished and all men would live in happiness. To attain this, Achmad had said, we must be united, uncompromising and merciless towards our enemies, the stooges
of the imperialists and capitalists, the remnants of the feudal and bourgeois cliques.

He was just about to go into his house when he remembered that he still owed his landlady, Ibu Warmana, a month’s rent for his room and board. But now he had no need to come home feeling uncomfortable. His total debt was only three hundred rupiah, and next month he would have a salary of one thousand. He’d have no trouble paying off his arrears for two months immediately. And he was suddenly struck with amazement at the idea of getting one thousand rupiah each month; never before had he had such a large income. His earnings had always been irregular. If he happened to publish some poems in Pranoto’s journal he would receive a honorarium of fifty up to one hundred rupiah at the most. And only once had he been given two thousand rupiah by a publisher for a collection of his poems. But this money was soon gone – he had had a good many debts that had to be settled. To supplement his income he did all sorts of writing, book reviews and even stories for children. But all this never brought in more than three or four hundred rupiah a month. And now suddenly he was to get a salary of one thousand rupiah every month. And just before they had parted Achmad had even mentioned that should he need some money before the end of the month he could ask for an advance.