Child of All Nations (48 page)

“We are both pure-blood Europeans, Monsieur,” Jean Marais continued, “and I can agree with some of what Nyai has said. You are to blame for Madame Annelies’s death. Monsieur owes Nyai and Monsieur Minke a life.”

“There is someone who takes care of all that sort of thing, who is responsible,” answered Engineer Mellema.

“What you took care of, and what you are responsible for, is that death.”

“That’s for the courts to say.”

“You are a liar! In your heart, in your conscience, do you feel guilt?”

“No.”

“An even greater lie!”

“We don’t understand French,” protested Nyai in Malay. “Now that you have killed my daughter, when do you want to throw us out?”

The guest was still standing, and went pale for a moment; then he went red with impotent anger. Seeing Mellema was still not ready to speak, Mama went on stabbing at him: “Very beautiful.”

“So this is what the real Europe is like, the Europe without rival that has been stuffed into my head for so long,” I added in Dutch.

This educated man, this marine engineer turned to me. He answered softly: “I understand your sorrow, Tuan, and I join with you in your sorrow. But what can be done? It is all over now.”

“Very easy. Do you think your life is more valuable than that of my wife?” I swore. “You thought of my wife as a piece of portable property that you could shift around at will, that could be treated as you wish. You don’t recognize Native law, Moslem law; you did not honor our legal marriage.”

“I didn’t come to discuss all that.”

“Yes, you didn’t even bother to let us know that my wife had died. You wanted to surprise us with the news of her death. Yes?” I pressed.

Mama exploded in fury when she heard my accusation: “Good. He doesn’t want to talk about all this, the sins that weigh so heavily on his heart. Now just tell us: When do you want to throw us out so that your plan may be complete?”

“You are going to do that too?” asked Kommer.

“It’s nothing to do with you,” answered Mellema.

“Who said so?” Kommer contradicted. “Everything that happens under the sun is the business of thinking people.”

Now this person, this officer who was used to having his every word listened to, was stuttering, unable to speak.

“If one’s feelings of humanity are offended,” Kommer went on, “everyone with feeling will also be offended, except for people who are mad and those with truly criminal mentalities, even though they may be university graduates.”

“As a European, and more especially as a Frenchman, I too feel offended. That is why I am here,” said Marais in French.

“That’s it, Tuan Marais,” Kommer encouraged him, even though he didn’t understand French.

“Dressed in your navy uniform like that, with your title of engineer, you will surely be the subject of my next painting. And what will I call that painting? This:
L’Ingénieur Mellema, Le Vampire Hollandais.
”

Our guest went pale again. His lips seemed to have been deserted by his blood. He had run out of words.

“For the world, for God, one day I will exhibit that painting in Paris, and in your own country.”

“No need to show it in the Indies, however,” I added in French. Marais looked at me, shook his head, and smiled.

“There is no need in the Indies, Monsieur Minke,” he answered. “No vampire likes to admire another.” Marais’s voice rumbled in a low tone, like the far-off thunder. “Murdering people’s
children, robbing the fruits of labor of a woman he should in fact be protecting, and a Native woman too, whom he normally would consider a barbarian!” He laughed loudly, insultingly. “Long live Tuan Engineer Maurits Mellema! Long live murderer and thief.”

“There has been no murder, let alone any theft.”

“What did Tuan Mellema, your father, bring here from the Netherlands?” asked Mama. “No one knows but me: Two sets of underclothes. Not even a shirt. It was only afterwards that, together with me, he began to keep a few dairy cattle in Tulangan. Listen to me, Tuan Engineer Mellema. Everything he owned in the Netherlands—I don’t know whether it was a lot or not—he left for your mother and you. If you know dogs, you would know a dog could tell you that there is none of the salt of your sweat spilled on the floor upon which you now stand. Nor on the land that I now occupy.” She coughed and Rono woke up. She rocked him in her arms. “Everything you see around you here would tell you if it could, it is all salty with the sweat from my body.”

“The woman you consider a barbarian is speaking to you now, Tuan Engineer Maurits Mellema,” said Kommer in Malay. “Now you’ll pretend you don’t understand Malay?”

“You understand the meaning of
salt
and
sweat
?” asked Jan Marais in Malay.

“I understand,” he answered weakly.

“You haven’t spoken enough,” Mama pressed me.

“Mama, I’m admiring, at the moment, an educated European, civilized and cultured, who has robbed my wife in both life and death. So this is what he is like in reality: a graduate, dashing, handsome, tall and well-built, broad-chested…”

Engineer Maurits Mellema turned to me: “Truly, Tuan, I join you in your sorrow,” he said.

“He does not know even the name of my wife’s husband,” I said. “Was this the kind of guardian my wife had?”

“Truly, Tuan”—now he began to defend himself—“I was in South Africa at the time.”

“So you’re saying South Africa is to blame?”

“Yes, it’s indeed South Africa that’s to blame,” said Jean Marais. “Tuan Mellema doesn’t have any business with blame, let alone sin. His only business is profit.”

Engineer Mellema, uninvited, dropped to his seat. His white
scabbard got in his way and he shifted it with his left hand. His white cap still sat perched on his head.

Seeing him collapse onto his chair, the others, with relief, sat down as well.

Maysoroh’s eyes popped out as she tried to follow the conversation that was going on in French, Dutch, and Malay. She did not understand what was happening, but suspicion shone from her eyes, and it went straight towards the visitor wearing all the gold embroidery.

“Speak, Darsam!” ordered Mama.

In Malay, and with words that he had readied beforehand, Darsam began: “So it is Tuan who took Miss Annelies. Since she was little, I have been the one who guarded over her. Every day I took her to and from school. No one dared worry or touch her. Then you came and took her as if she were some goat’s kid. And only now I found out”—he couldn’t go on for a moment—“she died at your hands.”

The visitor took out a handkerchief. He wiped away his sweat.

“If you like, Tuan, you can unsheath your sword, and we will fight like men.”

Engineer Mellema pretended not to hear. He didn’t even turn to look at Darsam. Darsam stood up, rubbed his machete, and stepped forward.

“Stay where you are,” ordered Mama.

Darsam’s face was red with anger. As he edged back to his place, he growled in fury, “It was I. I who gave Miss Annelies away when she married!” He pointed accusingly, still on his feet. “You wouldn’t recognize it! Legal and right! Legitimate in the eyes of my religion!”

Hearing Darsam’s roars, two sailors came in, gave a salute, and stood on either side of their superior.

“Good. The three of you can fight me at once.”

“Go!” the visitor ordered his guards, “and bring that
thing
inside!” he shouted without looking behind him.

They saluted, then went to fetch the
thing
. What kind of weapon was it?

“My job is to guard the security of this family and business. Whoever disturbs it, Darsam’s machete is ready to cut up anyone who deserves it.”

“That’s enough, Darsam. You have to understand that the Tuan before you now is going to take over all this business, everything that the business owns, now that he has murdered Annelies.”

“He has killed her, and now he wants to take everything?”

“Yes, that’s the man.”

“Is it he, Nyai? He did that?”

“Yes, Darsam.”

“And I must keep still and do nothing, Nyai?”

“You may only speak. Nothing else.”

“Just speak, Nyai? That’s all?”

The guest took no notice of the conversation taking place in Malay. He pretended not to hear, but he was struggling to stay calm and in control of himself and the situation.

“But Darsam is willing and ready to fight with him, Nyai”—Darsam’s eyes radiated disgust—“now, later, whenever he wants.”

One of the sailors came back inside. It wasn’t a gun he was carrying, but a large package, not heavy, tied up with silk. He saluted, put the thing down beside his officer’s feet, saluted again, then left.

“Sit down, Darsam.” Darsam sat down again, still grumbling.

“You shame Europe before Natives,” Marais began again, “and in the eyes of Europeans too. If you are the best Europe can produce—a graduate, a scholar—what in heaven’s name are its ignorant bandits like?”

“Nyai, Tuan-tuan.” Mellema began to regain his confidence and self-control. “If need be, if you feel it’s necessary, take me to court. I am willing, I would accept that happily.”

“Give me a pencil and paper,” said Kommer. He had forgotten to bring his weapons of war. I gave him what he wanted and he began taking notes straight away.

“You of all people know that there is no way for a Native to sue a European.”

“You can do it, as a European, Monsieur Marais.”

Jean Marais lost his temper. In rapid French he answered: “Good. I will paint you and exhibit the painting both in France and in the Netherlands. And I will not paint the vampire with a tail
but just as you are now, in an officer’s uniform, representing the barbarian who salutes the law.”

“Please, do,” answered Mellema.

“Don’t worry, Tuan Mellema,” Kommer started, “I will publish a special edition in both Dutch and Malay. I will circulate that special edition among the sailors, so that they too may know who you really are.”

“Please do. That is your right,” he answered, with reviving confidence.

“And to the readers of Surabaya, I will say: Read about Lieutenant-Colonel Engineer Maurits Mellema and find out who he really is. I will tell the newspaper boys to shout out on every street corner: He hated his father, but not his father’s property, and now he faces his enemy—a Native woman named Ontosoroh, the person who worked to build the wealth of the father Mellema hated so greatly.”

“Superb!” shouted Marais.

“Don’t worry, Tuan Kommer,” I said. “I will write it all out for you in Dutch: the day I met my wife’s murderer, the murderer of his own stepsister.”

“No need for a lawyer, no need for a court,” added Mama enthusiastically. “Only then will I be happy to leave behind what I have worked for all these years, this building and everything in it, the business and all its wealth.”

For the first time, the guest bowed his head deeply and wiped away the sweat again with his handkerchief.

“So, so,” Maysoroh shrilled in her pure, clear voice, “Sis Annelies is dead, Nyai?” she asked in Dutch.

“Yes, May, she is dead,” answered Nyai.

“This Tuan, he was the one who took her and killed her?”

“Yes, he’s the one, May,” answered Marais.

Maysoroh now realized what this meeting was about. She went silent as she stared at Engineer Maurits Mellema. Suddenly her two hands seized her cheeks and the cheeks went red. Two tears launched forth across them.

“Sis Annelies is dead! Dead!” she screamed; she pushed out her lower lip as she moaned.

Engineer Maurits Mellema rose, moved to her, tried to caress her hair. Sorrow and rage defeated the little girl’s fear. “Murderer!”
she screamed, and ran inside. From where I was sitting I could hear Minem’s mother ask in Javanese: “What is it?”

Rono, still in Mama’s arms, struggled to get free, voiceless as always.

“Sis Annelies, dead, dead, killed by that man in there—the visitor, killed by him.”

I couldn’t hear whether Minem’s mother said anything; all sound was drowned out by May’s protests to heaven and earth.

Everyone in the front parlor was silenced as they listened. Mama turned towards the inner rooms and called to Minem’s mother: “Quiet her!” Then she soothed Rono, took the bottle of milk wrapped in one end of the sash, and gave some to him.

The guest seemed confused, listening for a moment to May’s cries as they faded into the distance, then glancing across to the baby in Nyai’s arms.

“Even that little child knows how to grieve for her sister,” Kommer went on. “But you want only to profit from her death.”

Engineer Mellema didn’t reply. His eyes focused on the baby.

“Everyone here loved Miss Annelies,” Darsam added. “Only a devil would have the heart to kill her.”

“Tuan Mellema,” Mama began her accusation, “Tuan needed to have the guardianship of my daughter in order to gain control over her inheritance. Why did no one even visit her before she died? Even when she was buried, there was no one.”

“Who said so? That is a lie, she was well looked after and as she should have been.”

“Do I need to bring in witnesses? The person, for example, who escorted and looked after my daughter from when she left Surabaya until Huizen and B.?”

“I’ve a letter from the Huizen Hospital; she was well looked after.”

“Who doesn’t believe that the hospital looked after her well? But what about yourself and your mother? Tell me it’s a lie! Or tell me you were in South Africa. It is no one other than Tuan yourself who knows. Whatever my faults might have been as her mother, I could look after my own daughter better than a thousand women like Amelia Mellema-Hammers.”

Sitting in the corner, Darsam was listening attentively to all the conversation, even if he could not understand it all. Every now and then he twirled his mustache or rubbed his machete.

“I don’t believe you treated Annelies in the way that even European custom dictates that a sister, even a half-sister, should be treated.”

The sound of Minem’s mother taking May outside floated in from the back parlor. We could see people trying to peer inside. Perhaps Marjuki had told everyone there was going to be a big party.

Maysoroh was still shouting and crying out, calling for Annelies and cursing her murderer.