Footsteps (19 page)

He reminded us that we students of the medical school were the most highly educated Natives in the Indies. Then he asked us another question. But first he took out a white handkerchief and wiped his mouth. There was no glass of water for him and the thirstier he became the more he wiped his mouth. His next question: Were we Natives willing to lag so far behind the Chinese and Arabs? Even if we started now, he said, we would still be at least four years behind the Chinese. Such an organization would have to get legal recognition this year if we were not to fall yet another year behind. And if this was not done, it would mean that the Native people of the Indies would never have anyone who could represent them before the law, who could defend them before the law. He said he could not imagine anything sadder than there being no one here today, the cream of the educated Natives, who thought that their countrymen needed and deserved to be defended.

To be a doctor, a public servant, a servant of humankind—this was not enough! He called on us to start organizing, to educate the children, to prepare them for the modern era, their own era.

He explained how he had come to this realization only in his old age after he had seen the rapid progress made by the Chinese community. Then they were followed by the Arabs who awoke and started to try to catch up. And what about us, the Natives. All of you? Will you awake too, or will you stay asleep? What will happen to you all, if you never begin?

He was out taking a stroll one day, thinking about all these things, he went on to tell us, when something happened. A man had been injured in an accident with a horse cart. If he wasn’t helped quickly he would die of loss of blood. The old doctor bandaged him up as best he could and then took the man off to the hospital.

It was then that he realized that it was only because of his
patient’s helplessness that he had ended up in the hospital. Over tens of years he had tended to at least one person a day. This meant he had looked after about thirty thousand patients altogether. And of those less than 2 percent had come to him voluntarily. No one ever came to him if they were only a little sick, or had only a small injury. They were nearly all illiterate. They only ever visited a doctor if they had been involved in an accident or if some official had ordered them to do so.

Some had died in his arms because they had come too late, when too much damage had already been done. Most returned to society rehabilitated to their former state. The thief returned as a thief. The clerk returned to his desk. The blackbirder for European companies went on kidnapping Javanese.

As he walked home from the hospital that day, the old doctor had reached the following conclusion—even with decades of service as a doctor, he had made no meaningful contribution to the advancement of his people. It was true that medicine was a humanitarian profession. But what a waste it would be if all it amounted to was patching things up so that things could go on without ever changing. He wanted to help further the advancement of his people. A doctor must not only cure the disease of the body, he must also awaken the spirit of his people, anesthetized by their own ignorance.

So he didn’t go straight home. He turned right and set off for the bank. He withdrew all his thirty years of savings. Mind you, he was a Java Doctor, not a European doctor, so his savings weren’t that of a European. Java Doctors were not allowed to accept fees for their services. All he had was his salary. Nothing else.

And he had used that money to travel throughout Java. Everywhere he urged the Native leaders to set up organizations that could help advance the people.

“Now I stand before you, students of the Batavia Medical School, where I too once studied to be a doctor, and where I now call out to you all, as an old man with little remaining strength, as a retired Java Doctor. You must realize that you are being left behind! Wake up! Get out of bed! Rub your eyes so that you can see better and more clearly what is happening! Begin, sirs, begin! Start now! Organize! The further you are left behind, the harder it will be to catch up. You will lag further and further behind the Japanese. We will be a people who remain the servants of our own guests.”

He stopped, exhausted.

“That’s how the young doctors in our movement also talk,” said Mei. “I think it’s no accident that it’s always the doctors who are the first to think this way.”

And the retired Java Doctor went on: If a doctor cures a murderer so that he returns to society to do more murders, then the doctor too is an accomplice.…

The noisy students and troublemakers forgot they had to chatter and make trouble. Every accented, slow, and drawn-out Dutch word that came from him was like another heavy millstone resting on the backs of us in the audience.

But the doctor has no right or power to stop a murderer returning to his evil ways just because he has cured him. If the doctor had killed his murderous patient, then all that would have happened is that a murderer would have been murdered. Yet, if the doctor let his murderous patient live, then others might die as the victims of his former patient. You students are not being taught to be doctors like Tanca, are you? Who knows about the physician Tanca?

No one knew.

It’s worth knowing about Tanca. He was typical of the kind of doctor-murderer who practiced during the period of the Majapahit Empire. Emperor Kala Gemet Jayanegara fell ill. Some said it was a skin disease; others said it was a stomach ailment. Tanca operated on him. You didn’t know that they did surgery in those days, heh! Ever since there have been more than a thousand people on this earth, people have been operating on each other. The emperor underwent the operation. With or without orders from somebody else, Tanca murdered his patient to bring an end to the troubles that were afflicting the empire. There have always been the Dr. Tancas. He was not the only one. Now we are in the modern era. Nowadays a person is not held responsible for everything that happens in the world. Our responsibility is only for that little portion of the world’s activities that is our own work.…

“He’s stretching the point here,” I whispered to Mei.

During all his years as a doctor, he went on, whenever he cured a patient who was a good man, of noble heart, he too felt a right to be happy, knowing that such a person would go out to light up the world around him once more.

In the modern world, everything is specialization. People will become alienated from each other. People will have cause to meet
only because of business or they will meet only by accident. You will no longer be able to tell if the person you are treating is a good man or not. But we can make a guess that our patients will not be honorable, or at least not so honorable. Such an honorable character is the result of a good basic education. It is such an education that gives rise to good deeds and actions. The peoples of the Indies do not yet educate their sons and daughters. Our people still live as barbarians, and they, as a people, are indeed barbarians, unable to achieve any honor for themselves, let alone for their people as a whole.

“Stop!” Suddenly his voice became harsh, jolting everybody.

He did not mean to pass over the honorable achievements of the peoples of the Indies. But going into this modern age also meant that old values had to make way for the new. The old ways of honor will experience a change of form. And if the form changes, so too will the content. There is no form without content, no content without form.

It was the task of the Native doctors not only to treat wounds and cure disease, but also to treat and cure the soul, and also the people’s future. Who would do this if not those of us who are educated? And indeed is it not also true that the mark of a modern man is his ability to overcome his environment based on his own abilities and efforts? Those individuals who are strong of character need to join together, to raise up their weaker countrymen, to bring light into the darkness, to give eyes to the blind.

The most advanced of individuals, the most capable, can stop developing, can be drowned in the ocean of backwardness and bad traditions because of two reasons—lack of opportunity and lack of finances. The peoples of the Indies are too poor. It is the duty of those who are not too poor to pay for the education of Native children. They must pay the way for those Natives who are clever, have talent, but are poor. This will help prepare them so all can live in accordance with the modern age instead of being its victims.

In order to do all this, there must be organization. A big association of people who can manage things and look after the finances. It will not matter who is in need of help—the child of a priyayi, a carpenter, or a farmer.

Then he went on to tell us how he had made this call in many of the big towns of Java. He had met many well-educated and important Javanese. But there had been no response. He felt like
a wanderer shouting in the desert. And now he summoned the students of the medical school: Build an organization—now! Unite! If we do not begin today, the peoples of the Indies will be condemned to live as barbarians for eternity.

He descended from the podium. He looked exhausted. Only when he had sat down again with the teachers was he given a glass of water which he drank to its last drop.

Then there was a question and answer period. But this was a new idea. We Natives had never experienced this situation where you were allowed to ask questions of someone like this in public. None of the students spoke up.

Perhaps the retired doctor was very disappointed to see this “demonstration of democracy” receive so little approbation. Once more the request was made for questions. But modern organization was as alien as the leprosy bacteria.

Suddenly Mei whispered many ideas to me, and I decided to ask them: “First of all I apologize, Doctor, for my own ignorance. What do you mean by an ‘organization’? In Japan, advanced and patriotic individuals are looked after financially by the emperor. In China this is done by organizations of students who collect money wherever they can, including overseas. What’s the right kind of organization for the Indies?”

And even without looking I knew that everyone in the hall was turning in my direction—not to look at me, but at my wife. Indeed, no one knew that we had been married for these last few years. I felt uneasy being the object of their stares. Especially as my questions actually came from Mei. I could imagine Mei’s eyes shining brightly in anticipation of learning something new about the Indies. She had been urging me for some time now to set up an organization but I did not know how to begin. She said I should talk it over with my closest friends, but I had no close friends. I was still kept busy by my own affairs and the affairs of both of us together.

The retired doctor returned to the podium. He explained incident by incident all that the Japanese emperor had done to modernize his country and people, beginning from the arrival of Admiral Perry at Yokohama.

I already knew about all these incidents, but I hadn’t realized how they all linked together to become a huge, impressive mountain of actions.

He acknowledged that he did not know much about the
Chinese organizations, but he was still able to tell of some that I had never heard of either. I translated it all for Mei. And that wasn’t all. He also told of how these organizations sent people all over the world, wherever there was a Chinese community.

Mei squeezed my arm.

He told of how a few years ago there was a young Chinese man killed in Surabaya, that he was sent from China, and that people thought he had been killed by the Old Generation who opposed all forms of modernization and renewal. And it wasn’t only men who were sent overseas, but women also. And the foundation of the Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan in the Indies was certainly a victory for them, whatever obstacles had been put in their way by those with outdated views.

Mei prodded me with her elbow and whispered something else to me. She mentioned the name of Dewi Sartika. And I passed it on: “What are your views, sir, on the efforts of Nyi Dewi Sartika in Cicalengka?”

He nodded several times, praising this woman from Priangan. He hoped that many would copy her actions, men as well. He said that he was disappointed he had not yet been able to visit her to express his admiration for her. But, he said, the efforts of one person, backed at the most by one’s family, or perhaps only her husband, cannot produce all that much. An organization, only a big organization can do that.

“And what are your views on the girl from Jepara?”

He said she was a person who could have won the heavens as well as grasp the earth. It’s a pity she did not understand her own strength. He bowed his head, speaking under his breath. And then we learned that that extraordinary girl had only recently passed away.

Mei let out a cry. She quickly covered her mouth with a handkerchief.

“So young?”

Ah, what is not possible in this world? The old man said that he had visited Rembang to meet her, to listen to her call to the Javanese. But the Rembang pendopo was full of people paying their last respects. He recognized Dr. Ravenstein, who had treated the girl. Seeing him sitting on the floor, the European doctor nodded and then left. He would never get to meet this woman from Jepara. That brilliant and noble-hearted woman had died
surrounded by the sad wailing of the people of the area. That brilliant soul had gone to meet the Lord. Such an outstanding woman. And still there was no man to equal her.…

With news of her death, the cry of the doctor for us to start an organization became an anticlimax. The questions and answers came to an end. No one else wanted to speak. Once more he tried to convince us: Start organizing now. Study about organizing in the modern way.

The old man, the shouter in the desert, agreed to receive us where he was staying, at six o’clock in the evening. Perhaps he was pleased to receive such a request.

We walked home to Ibu Baldrun’s.

“Perhaps he also knows your names, Mei.”

“He might know our names, but he doesn’t know us.”

I knew she was never afraid of being caught by the police.

“Don’t be angry. See, even I have never asked your real name.”