had a great need of raw materials and oil, which it didn’t have at home. However, the Dutch East Indies did, and one way or the other Japan wanted to gain control of these.
The governor-general would frequently go to Batavia, always accompanied by his staff. My father was therefore often away from home.
Every now and then my parents rented a bungalow in the Preanger, in the mountains of West Java. We would go there during school vacations and sometimes for weekends to “catch a breath of fresh air.” The little wooden house was close to a vast tea plantation that belonged to one of my uncles. He lived there with his family, whose two sons were just about my age. Covering the hillsides all around were pale green tea gardens.
I was always up early. Then I’d go to my uncle’s large house near the factory. At the break of day the morning wind would rustle through the stands of dry bamboo. In the pale sky a few stars were still visible. You could smell the dew on the soil that lay steaming in the first rays of the sun while gently waving spirals of charcoal smoke floated through the air. The coolies were sitting beside the shed by the light of smoldering oil lamps, and, crouching on their heels, the women pickers were waiting for the day’s instructions. In hushed almost comradely tones my uncle consulted with the mandurs, the supervisors and foremen, who then nodded that they understood, but they’d also make suggestions, to which my uncle listened attentively.
After everyone had gone to work, my uncle showed his sons and me fresh mud tracks on the tiles of the covered landing behind the house. They were panther tracks. The big cat had been snooping around during the night. I thought it was exciting and looked forward to the envy my schoolmates would show when hearing the story.
During the day it was hot. My cousins and I used to play all day long in a small, cold mountain river filled with boulders, rapids, and eddies. In deeper spots the water was stagnant, and there tiny skittish fish swam around that simply wouldn’t let themselves be caught. On the banks we’d catch green frogs and light blue dragonflies that jumped and flew around in vast numbers. We built little dams with stones and twigs. I can’t begin to imagine a nicer place to play for seven- and eight-year-old boys.
Sometimes we followed the little brook upriver right to the spring, which was a damp, mossy place, surrounded by ferns amid trees with a dim filtered light passing through. Clear water came burbling from the ground; the atmosphere was mysterious and magical. According to the local people, some benevolent water spirits were living there, which seemed—and still seems—highly plausible to me.
Other days we wandered through the tea plantations where in the mornings the pickers were working. In the hot sun they’d talk listlessly beneath their large woven bamboo hats with cloths attached to protect their neck and upper arms from the sun’s rays. They rarely paid any attention to us, unless they were chanting singsong lyrics in chorus when they would cast a sideways ironic glance in our direction. According to my uncle, these were rather lewd Sundanese folk songs. Despite our insistence he refused to translate them. I still hold that against him; how I’d love to be able to sing them today.
One day I was allowed to come along to a selamatan, a banquet. This selamatan was held to celebrate the opening of a new tea-drying shed. True to tradition, it was open only to men. When evening fell, my father and I went there. Gritting her teeth and green with envy, my sister, Carolien, watched us leave. But the adat, the custom, was inexorable. When I sneeringly looked back at her one more time, she stuck her tongue out at me.
The banquet took place in the open air. The mood was calm. Everyone sat on the ground. Some dishes were served on a banana leaf, others in small bowls. The men were talking in muffled voices.
High above us was the firmament with millions of stars. Torches crackled and smoldered. The lights of fireflies were glowing in the tree branches, and every now and then a big beetle would soar through the air with a rattling swirl. As one of the guests of honor, my father sat at some distance away, having first entrusted me to one of the foremen. I sat in the grass next to this mandur with my legs crossed under me, which at the time was not a problem for me. Unfortunately, I later lost this useful skill.
It was all very exciting, and I was looking around inquisitively to see and experience as much as I possibly could. I really felt senang, very content. But to my great shock I suddenly saw a huge pool of blood no more than two meters away from me, at its center the enormous head of a water buffalo that had been sacrificed shortly before. The silky eyes were wide open, and the head rested diagonally on one of the strong horns. I shuddered and involuntarily leaned against the mandur’s muscular thigh. Through the fabric of his sarong I felt the reassuring warmth of his skin. If I believed in God, I would want Him to have a warm thigh like that.
A few weeks later we went up into the cool mountains again for several days. Early in the evening we usually sat on the bungalow’s large wooden balcony. My parents would read papers and magazines or listen to the radio. Carolien and I played Sorry or made drawings with colored pencils by Caran d’Ache. I often sharpened them with a pencil sharpener because of the delicious wood scent it created.
High up in the sky, lighted from below by the setting sun, clusters of kalongs, large bats also known as flying dogs, were moving off to their feeding places. It was cool, and the screeching of the monkeys in the trees farther on only accentuated the silence. Although there were almost no mosquitoes at this elevation—we slept without netting and during the night would pull up a light blanket—on the floor a dot of the obat nyamuk glowed softly, a small spiral of some green substance that, smoldering slowly, spreads an incense-like smell, chasing away the mosquitoes.
Suddenly I heard my father say “goddamn” in a half-whisper, while he gazed intently at my uncle who’d just stopped by. The newscaster of the NIROM, the Netherlands Indies Radio Broadcasting Network, had just read the announcement of the sinking caused by Japanese torpedoes in the South China Sea of the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse, which were supposed to be protecting Singapore. It was 10 December 1941. The Dutch East Indies was wide open to invasion by the Japanese fleet.
The footsteps of Mars rang loud and clear.
Note
3. Buitenzorg is currently known as Bogor.
Chapter 4
BATAVIA
In 1941 political and military tensions in the Pacific were mounting. In order to cope with every contingency, early in the year the entire governmental apparatus of the Indies was centralized in Batavia.4 We, too, had moved there. We lived on the Sunda Road, a street in Kebon Sirih, the European district just south of the Koningsplein. Batavia was a large city. We were living in a freestanding one-story house surrounded by a garden, modern for its time, as were all the homes in that neighborhood. The house wasn’t big, but spacious enough for a family with two children. Facing the street was the terrace where we had tea late in the afternoon and where in the evening company was received. Across from us on the other side of the street was the athletic field of a school. This wasn’t the school I attended; I went to the Jan Ligthart School, a few streets further down. The back of the house had an airy covered walkway that led to the kitchen, the bathroom, and the gudangs. And all the way in the back of the yard, beyond the garage, stood the outbuildings. Of course, we had four or five local servants, as did everyone else. They occupied a series of small rooms in the outbuildings. Some had relatives or immediate family members with them. My parents didn’t know who exactly was living there, but I don’t think it concerned them very much.
The servants moved through the house and across the grounds without a sound. They were always solicitous and patient with us. The maid wore her black hair in a large knot. Her clothes were freshly laundered and smelled of starch in the morning. I don’t
