Читать книгу Love and Death in Bali - Vicki Baum - Страница 13

Buleleng

IT was hot in Buleleng. A sluggish breeze wafted the heat southward from the equator and it hung heavy along the shores of Bali. The Chinese sat in front of their shops with their jackets unbuttoned and perspired. Two traders from Bombay sat cross-legged beside their balés of cloth and played dominoes. Three sailing-ships from Macassar were anchored in the roadstead and the crews roamed the few streets of the town, brown-faced, black-fez’d and bold.

A Javanese servant ran along the gravel path to the office. He was carrying, with an anxious expression on his face, a white tunic which creaked with starch. The Controller in charge of inland affairs, Mynheer Visser, stood impatiently in the office. He was in shirt-sleeves and the sweat ran in three small trickles down his neck. He stamped his feet, drummed on his desk and gave every sign of angry impatience. At last the servant appeared with a tunic, which he held out to his tuan with bent, submissive back. Visser cursed a little in fluent Javanese, though this language does not lend itself well to curses. He hastily put on the uniform and buttoned the high collar up to his double chin. The gold epaulettes gleamed. Visser ended with an honest Dutch Godverdamme and the Javanese began to laugh. He knew this signal: it meant that his master’s rage had cooled and that peace and quiet were restored.

“What’s up?” Boomsmer asked from the door leading to the second office. He was a tall sandy-colored Dutchman with tousled hair and blue eyes.

“This buffalo of a servant of mine hadn’t ironed my tunic and the Resident wants to speak to me immediately,” Visser said as he buttoned in his paunch with an effort.

“At nine in the morning? There must be something up. Perhaps the Russians have been smuggling their superannuated breech-loaders into South Bali again.”

Visser snatched up a few official papers and put them under his arm and took a quick drink from a bottle of gin which dwelt in a small cupboard on the wall just below the portrait of the Queen and her consort. He looked plaintively at Boomsmer, who looked like a shelled egg in his tight white jacket and appeared to find something to laugh at in his heated colleague.

“You don’t feel the heat, man,” he said reproachfully.

“That is a matter of will-power,” Boomsmer replied, drawing himself up.

Visser went out. “I know one thing: once I’m old enough to draw my pension I’ll go about in a sarong,” he said from the door.

“That’s just about your mark!” Boomsmer called after him as the door shut. Visser had the reputation of being too easy with the natives. No sense of discipline, in Boomsmer’s opinion. It was essential, in his view, to keep a tight hold on that refractory island. But the Resident doted on Visser apparently. Visser knew the natives and understood their complicated lingo. He was sent out to conduct friendly palavers, which he sometimes brought to a successful conclusion. But for Visser’s interposition they might never have got the concession in South Bali. Cannon were better than concessions, Boomsmer considered. He had a ticklish sense of honor and in his opinion the Dutch Government was too easy-going. The mere mention of Bali made them all grow sentimental, he thought irritably. He himself had no enthusiasm for the island. Life in Buleleng was not the height of comfort and he regretted Surabaya. There was not even a club, as there was even in the most godforsaken colonial settlement. The natives were dirty and spat out their betel-juice even on the office stoep. They were eaten up with scabies and ringworm and fever and were too stupid to have themselves cured. They had innumerable superstitions and tabus, and the higher castes were even worse in that respect than the lower ones. The petty rajas, who after all were no better than bare-footed peasants, squatted about among the litter of their puris and thought themselves the most mighty sovereigns on earth because they could have the heads and hands of their subjects hacked off when they had the mind. But when one of them died, then he was wrapped in white linen and kept in the house till the stink rose to heaven. Boomsmer shuddered at the recollection of this charnel stench and took a quick nip of gin in his turn. The portrait of the Queen, youthful and in full regalia, looked down amiably from the wall.

Boomsmer went up to Visser’s desk and took the uppermost paper lying there. There was nothing on it, however, of political interest, but only a series of childish drawings of gentlemen in top-hats, such as Visser was in the habit of scribbling when he pondered a problem. Boomsmer sighed and returned to his own office, where a Javanese clerk with long thin hands stood at a desk, copying documents.

“What’s all this about that Chinese?” the Resident asked the Controller, who was seated opposite him in a cane chair. They were on the verandah of the large house, as it was coolest there. Berginck, the Resident, had his empty breakfast-cup at his elbow and also a large pile of papers waiting for his signature.

“The Chinese to whom the people of Citgit have mortgaged their fields?” Visser asked.

“No, that’s done with. The Chinese whose boat was wrecked.” The Resident searched about among his papers. “Kwe Tik Tjiang, the man’s name is,” he added, and looked the Controller full in the face. “I thought that was done with too,” Visser replied, after recalling the name and the circumstances. “The man calmed down and went back to Banjarmasin.”

“So you thought, but it is not the case. The fellow turned up again the day before yesterday, and this time he has the gusti behind him.”

“Gusti Nyoman? What has he to do with the Chinese?”

“In the first place, they see in him a sort of raja and think he can get more done than we can. And in the second place, they know that he was appointed by the Government and it seems they prefer to palaver with a Balinese rather than with us.”

“May I have a look?” Visser asked, taking the paper from the table. It was not unlikely he had forgotten the details, for this claim was only one among hundreds which had to be disposed of in the island. The Resident undid two buttons of his tunic and waited. He was a tall powerful man with fine brown eyes, to which short sight gave a look of concentration.

“As your Excellency will see, I had good grounds for refusing his claim,” Visser said, returning the papers to the table. “He had bad luck, it is true. But how does that concern our Government? His boat was wrecked on the coast, but his life was saved and the people there even fished his goods from the sea and returned them to him. I cannot understand why he comes to us for damages. We are not an insurance agency, after all. Moreover, the Resident initialled the case himself before it was dismissed.” And Visser gave the paper a flick nearer the Resident’s short-sighted eyes.

“You did not draw my attention at the time to the fact of the boat’s being wrecked on the coast of Badung,” the Resident said, without looking down at the document. Visser made no reply to this.

The three refractory provinces in the south were a thorn in the side of the Government officials. It was an unsatisfactory situation that the Dutch should be masters of the island and yet not masters of it. Also Klungklung, Tabanan or Badung might at any moment kindle a spark and rouse the already subdued lords to rebellion. There were treaties, so old that they smelt of mildew, with additional clauses and signatures which gave the Government a certain influence over these territories. So far, so good. But it was not a satisfactory solution and the Government in Batavia gave Buleleng to understand from time to time that their officials in Bali had had ample time to bring that colony to heel. Visser knew all this as well as the Resident did, and it sometimes robbed him of his sleep. He had done his bit. He had gone alone into the lions’ den; again and again he had ventured unarmed and unprotected into the puri among a thousand warriors armed with their krises and tried to bring their rulers to reason. He had drunk their horrible sweet rice wine and ruined his stomach with their over-spiced dishes. He had with infinite patience won the regard of several lords and tried calling himself their elder brother, to whose counsel they ought to give heed. But when he heard the word Badung he knew at once that there was unpleasantness to come.

“On the whole I got the impression that the Chinese wanted to make a deal out of his shipwreck. It is money he is after, that’s all.” “It never for a moment entered my head that it was for us to compensate him,” the Resident said. He pushed his empty coffee-cup aside with a clatter. Visser, too, felt the blood go to his head. He wiped the perspiration from his neck.

“As your Excellency seems to feel a particular interest in the case I would suggest summoning the gusti here together with the Chinese, Kwe Tik Tjiang,” he said in his official manner, expecting to hear the suggestion turned down.

“Yes, Visser, will you see to it?” the Resident said, however. “I shall be at home until two. In any case there is no occasion to be upset yourself,” he added in a conciliatory tone.

Visser crossed the expanse of grass on which were a few old Balinese stone statues and the flag-staff. It lay hushed in a drowsy stillness. An attempt had been made to give it a homely air by getting seeds from Holland and growing them in the borders. They flowered with difficulty and unwillingly in the moist heat in which groves of palms and the tropical creepers of the forests throve with indescribable luxuriance. A few Balinese were loitering along the garden railings and farther along the road were to be seen the trim villas of the Dutch settlers, all exactly alike, all painted a bright yellow and all with a hanging lamp and two imitation Delft plates in the stoep. At the edge of the road immediately in front them stood a little girl, brown and stark naked but for four brass bracelets round her arms and ankles and rolls of lontar leaves in her ears. Visser gave a deep sigh and returned to his office. He took a nip of gin and, sitting down at his desk, drew three more little gentlemen in top-hats on the uppermost sheet of paper. “Opas!” he roared out suddenly. “Tuan?” came the dutiful echo from without. The uniformed orderly entered with a frightened expression on his face. “I am now writing a letter which you will take at once to the gusti Nyoman,” Visser said, and Opas squatted in a corner to wait for the letter to be written. Before many moments had passed Boomsmer’s sandy head appeared round the door.

“Well, what did the tuan Besar want with you?” he asked. “Nothing, nothing at all,” Visser said. “Only the usual nonsense.” “So you say,” Boomsmer observed. “The first commandment in the Colonies is that nothing is without consequence.”

“And so forth,” Visser said. “I know all you’re going to say by heart. Our honor is at stake, we are the masters and we insist on obedience, we think only of the good of the natives and this country belongs to the Netherlands. And now I will tell you something: that sort of talk merely inflames the situation. For heaven’s sake, leave the natives alone, and if they don’t care about corrugated sheet-iron and bicycles, why make them? They’re no use as plantation coolies either. It’s all a lot of damned nonsense.”

“You’re an anarchist,” Boomsmer said, and as Visser made no reply to this he withdrew again to his own room.

An hour later three two-wheeled vehicles drew up before the Residence, with a loud clinking of shining harness. In the first sat the gusti Nyoman himself. In the other two were Kwe Tik Tjiang and several of the gusti’s retinue. Nyoman walked quickly, though with dignity, up the garden and was greeted courteously on the stoep by the Resident. He took the proffered hand loosely and with some embarrassment, for he was not yet quite at home with the manners of the white men. His escort squatted on the stone steps, which gleamed with the true Dutch cleanliness; and this dissuaded the men from spraying them liberally with red betel-juice. The Chinese stood patiently at the foot of the steps; he was smiling and he looked hot in his silk robe.

The Resident offered the gusti a chair and the gusti sat on it cross-legged just as though it was his usual bamboo bench. He was a good-looking, strongly built young man, whose eyes showed that he was intelligent and energetic and resourceful. Also, with his silvery green sarong and brown bare feet, he wore a white tunic, buttoned to the chin, as the Dutch did. “The tuan sent for me and I am here,” he said in Malay. The Resident offered him a cigarette. “Ask the tuan Visser to come here,” he told the orderly who was crouching on the steps. “My friend Nyoman can tell him what the complaint of the Chinese is.”

Gusti Nyoman came of a noble family, but of a branch of it that was not quite without taint. He had gained his position in Buleleng by coming to an understanding with the Dutch. The other native lords called him a traitor behind his back and there was no love lost between him and them. They had treated him as a man of lower caste and an upstart until the Dutch put power in his hands. “I set no store by this Chinaman,” he said arrogantly, although Kwe Tik Tjiang was listening, “but since his complaint is with the lords of Badung and Pametjutan I thought it best to bring it to the ears of the tuan Resident.”

Visser at this moment stepped on to the stoep and after greeting the gusti sat down in silence at the table. He had brought his Javanese clerk, who squatted on the floor ready to take a minute of the proceedings. The Resident signalled to the Chinese to come nearer and plead his case; and Kwe Tik Tjiang, who was by now quite used to being his own advocate, opened out with great fluency.

When his boat struck, so his story ran, he was not for some hours in possession of his senses, since his head had struck the mast in the violence of the storm. Therefore the first mate had been in sole charge during that time. He himself asked the punggawa of Sanur to set a guard over the boat and in addition he left two of his own men on the beach. Also he had returned to the ship with the rest of the crew towards morning and had found about two hundred of the people of the coast breaking it up and plundering it. It was not in the power of him and his men to stop them. On boarding the ship at ebb-tide he found a large part of the cargo missing, including an iron chest containing ringits and several bamboo baskets in which were strings of Chinese kepengs, a thousand to each string. Next day, when the cargo was unshipped, further thefts came to light. Thereupon he made his complaint to the court of Badung, but was scornfully refused redress. It had occurred to him that in his first suit to the Resident he had not been sufficiently clear as to the extent of his losses. Now therefore he submitted a correct list of them and a report showing how they came about.

With this and a low bow he laid several sheets of paper written in Malay characters before the Resident.

The Resident read them through, passing each sheet when he had read it to the Controller. Visser went redder and redder in the face as he examined them, and now and then he whistled aloud without himself observing this breach of etiquette. The gusti sat and smoked with an air of sleepy amusement.

The document consisted of a long list of all that the merchant of Banjarmasin had lost, beginning with the chest containing 3,700 rix-dollars and ending with the cooking utensils of the cook Simin, of Banjarmasin, valued at five Dutch guilders. Then followed the sworn testimony of the crew, given in the presence of, and signed by, the harbor master of Singaraja.

The Resident reached for the document and read it through twice more and finally sighed. “Is that all?” he asked ironically. The Chinese bowed several times and produced another document from his wide sleeve, which he handed to the gusti, watching with expectant eyes as it pursued its course into the Resident’s hands. “Still more?” Visser muttered.

“A letter from the Chinese, Tan Suey Hin of Sanur,” the gusti said in a bored voice, “to the Chinese, Kwe Tik Tjiang.”

“Is it usual for Chinese to write each other letters in Malay?” Visser asked, after glancing hastily at the letter and seeing the Arabic characters. The Resident smiled pensively. “It announces that Tan Suey Hin can no longer buy up the wreck as marauders removed the copper plates and the shrouds after Twe Tik Tjiang left Sanur, leaving the wreck on the beach,” the Resident said to the Controller, winking as he spoke.

“Bad, too bad,” Mynheer Visser sighed hypocritically. The Chinese looked from one to the other and observed that they were not taking him seriously.

“The people of the coast of Badung behaved like wreckers,” he said bitterly. His disaster took on even larger proportions as time passed and, in any case, lying was part and parcel of his tortuous Chinese mentality.

“All this is quite new,” the Resident said. “There was nothing of all this in your first claim.” Visser bent forward to hear better. The Chinese did not reply. The Resident produced the earlier document and began to compare it with the new one. He shook his head and finally produced his spectacles, although he was loath to admit his short sight, and began again. At last he put the whole bunch down on the table and looked the Chinaman up and down.

“So you had three thousand seven hundred rix-dollars on board and two thousand nine hundred kepengs besides. How was it that nothing of all this money was rescued?” he asked.

“Kepengs to the value of a hundred and seventy-five guilders were recovered from the sea,” the Chinese said. “I have only entered my actual losses.”

“I see. The actual . . .” the Resident said abstractedly. “I read in your first statement that the crew when they were rescued carried some cases ashore with them. What did they contain?”

“Sugar,” the Chinese said.

“Oh—the sugar was rescued and the money left on the wreck,” the Resident observed. Gusti Nyoman laughed loudly. It seemed to him a good joke.

“Salt water destroys sugar——” the Chinese said. “I cannot say exactly what happened—I had hit my head on the mast——”

“One moment,” Visser said, stepping up to the Chinaman. “Are you certain that the case with all that money was on board when you left the ship? Or is it not possible that it went overboard in the storm?” Kwe Tik Tjiang considered this. He weighed the pros and cons. If it was more to his advantage not to lie, he was quite ready to speak the truth.

“It is possible that the chest went overboard. But I know nothing. I saw nothing,” he said smoothly. Visser was satisfied and sat down again.

“Your claim has gone up a good deal from the five hundred ringits it started with,” the Resident remarked after a pause, during which he had been totting up the figures with the point of his pencil and trying to make a rough calculation. Kwe Tik Tjiang looked at the gusti, as though seeking his advice. The gusti went on smoking; the smell of cloves was wafted on to the verandah and he complacently surveyed his long finger-nails.

“Tuan Resident, your Excellency,” the Chinese said, “how could I presume to make a definite claim? I am a simple man and now a ruined man. My boat was good, it had a new cabin, it has been plundered and broken up and the copper stolen; now there are only a few planks left. I have specified my actual loss under oath. His Excellency will decide what compensation shall be paid me.”

The Resident sighed. The matter was even more troublesome and unpleasant than before. He almost regretted he had ever dug it up again. The gusti threw away the stump of his cigarette.

“The Chinaman says they told him at the court of Badung that they had a perfect right to do as they did and that thirty per cent of the wreckage went to the lord of Badung,” he said, without raising his voice. The Resident took off his spectacles and his eyes narrowed.

“Did the lord of Badung say that?” he asked quickly.

“One of his relatives, Tuan Resident, your Excellency,” Kwe Tik Tjiang said. There was a pause. Visser did not appear to be listening.

He had collected all the papers in his rather informal way and was studying them; a broad smile came and went over his perspiring face. “I have given you a hearing and will give your suit my closest attention,” the Resident said, rising to his feet to show that the hearing was concluded. The Chinese again glanced at the gusti to see what he ought to do next. Then with a low bow he withdrew. His long robe swept the dry ground of the garden as he returned to the waiting carriage.

“It would be best to make an investigation on the spot in Badung,” the gusti said. “The Chinese have slit tongues, it is true. But the people along the coast of Badung are brought up by their fathers to be robbers. That is true also.”

Visser broke into a laugh as he read. “He had a gold watch and chain too. And chain——” he repeated. “It must have been no common watch. A hundred and seventy-five guilders our friend wants for it.”

“A watch?” the Resident asked absent-mindedly. He was reflecting that the ship had sailed under the Dutch flag. Impossible to overlook that. “What were you saying, Visser?”

“The whole business stinks to heaven, Resident. This letter in Malay of the other Chinaman is a put-up job. You can see that a mile off. And the list of his losses is a pure invention, in my opinion.”

“What do you propose?” the Resident asked. The gusti stood by, thoroughly enjoying himself. How these white men perspired and how seriously they took everything. Visser tried to guess his superior’s wishes. He suppressed a sigh.

“If your Excellency thinks fit, I can of course go to Badung and see what really happened. The punggawa of Sanur is a supporter of ours. He will give me all necessary information. But, as I say, it is a fishy business, very fishy indeed. We would do better to steer clear of it.”

“The question turns on whether Badung has broken Clause II of the treaty by which it renounces the right of salvage,” replied the Resident. “I don’t see how we can steer clear of that, my dear Visser.”