People call me Minke.

My own name ... for the time being I need not tell it. Not because I'm crazy for mystery. I've thought about it quite a lot: I don't really need to reveal who I am before the eyes of others.

In the beginning I wrote these short notes during a period of mourning: She had left me, who could tell if only for a while or forever? (At the time I didn't know how things would turn out.) That eternally harassing, tantalizing future. Mystery! We will all eventually arrive there--willing or unwilling, with all our soul and body. And too often it proves to be a great despot. And so, in the end, I arrived too. Whether the future is a kind or cruel god is, of course, its own affair: Humanity too often claps with just one hand.

Thirteen years later I read and studied these short notes over again. I merged them together with dreams, imaginings. Naturally they became different from the original. Different? But that doesn't matter!

And here is how they turned out.

I was still very young, just the age of a corn plant, yet I had already experienced modern learning and science: They had bestowed upon me a blessing whose beauty was beyond description.

The director of my school once told my class: Your teachers have given you a very broad general knowledge, much broader than that received by students of the same level in many of the European countries.

Naturally this breast of mine swelled. I'd never been to Europe, so I did not know if the director was telling the truth or not. But because it pleased me, I decided to believe him. And, further, all my teachers had been born and educated in Europe. It didn't feel right to distrust my teachers. My parents had entrusted me to them. Among the educated European and Indo communities, they were considered to be the best teachers in all of the Netherlands Indies. So I was obliged to trust them.

This science and learning, which I had been taught at school and which I saw manifested in life all around me, meant that I was rather different from the general run of my countrymen. I don't know. And that's how it was that I, a Javanese, liked to make notes--because of my European training. One day the notes would be of use to me, as they are now.

One of the products of science at which I never stopped marveling was printing, especially zincography. Imagine, people can reproduce tens of thou sands of copies of any photograph in just one day: pictures of landscapes, important people, new machines, American skyscrapers. Now I could see for myself everything from all over the world upon these printed sheets of paper. How deprived had the generation before me been--a generation that had been satisfied with accumulation of its own footsteps in the lanes of its villages. I was truly grateful to all those people who had worked so tirelessly to give birth to these new wonders. Five years ago there were no printed pictures, only block and lithographic prints, which gave very poor representations of reality.

Reports from Europe and America brought word of the latest discoveries. Their awesomeness rivaled the magical powers of the gods and knights, my ancestors in the wayang shadow puppet theater. Train carriages without horses, without cattle, without buffalo--had been witnessed now for over ten years by my countrymen. And astonishment remains in their hearts even today. The distance from Betawi to Surabaya can be traveled in only three days! And they're predicting it will soon take only a day and a night! A day and a night! A long train of carriages as big as houses, full of goods, and people too, all pulled by water power alone. If I had ever been so lucky to meet Stephenson, I would have made him an offering of a wreath of flowers, all orchids. A network of railway tracks splintered my island, Java. The trains' billowing smoke colored the sky of my homeland with black lines, which faded into nothingness. It was as if the world no longer knew distance--it too had been abolished by the telegraph. Power was no longer the monopoly of the elephant and the rhinoceros. They had been replaced by small manmade things: nuts, screws, and bolts.

And over there in Europe, people had begun making even smaller machines, with even greater power, or at least with the same power as steam engines. Indeed, not with steam--with oil. There were also vague reports saying that a German had made a vehicle that worked by electricity. Oh Allah, and I couldn't really understand what electricity was.

The forces of nature were beginning to be changed by man and put to his service. People were even planning to fly like the shadow puppet character Gatotkaca, like Icarus. One of my teachers had said: Just a little while longer, just a little while, and people will no longer have to force their bones and squeeze out their sweat for so little result. Machines will replace all and every kind of work. People will have nothing to do except enjoy themselves. You are fortunate indeed, my students, he said, to be able to witness the beginning of the modern era here in the Indies.

Modern! How quickly that word had surged forward and multiplied itself like bacteria throughout the world. (At least, that is what people were saying.) So allow me also to use the word, though I still don't fully understand its meaning.

In short, in this modern era tens of thousands of copies of any photo could be reproduced each day. And the more important thing was there was one of these that I looked at more often than any other: a photo of a beautiful maiden, rich, powerful, glorious, one who possessed everything, the beloved of the gods.

The rumors, whispered furtively among my school friends, were that even the richest bankers in the world had no chance of courting her. Handsome and manly nobility scrambled head over heels just to be noticed by her. Just to be noticed!

Whenever I had nothing to do, I would gaze at her face while supposing how it would be to court her. How would it be! And how high, too, was her station. And how far away she was, nearly twenty thousand kilometers from where I was: Surabaya. One month's sail by boat across two oceans, five straits, and through one canal. Even then there'd be no certainty of being able to meet her. I didn't dare speak my feeling to a single soul. They would have laughed at me and called me mad.

At the post offices, so rumor was also whispered, letters were occasionally received proposing marriage to this maiden who lived so far away and so high above. None ever reached her. Even if I had been crazy enough to try, it would have been just the same: The post officials would have kept the letter for themselves.

And that beloved of the gods was the same age as me: eighteen. We were both born in the same year: 1880. Only one figure shaped like a stick, the others roundish, like miscast marbles. The day and the month were also the same: 31 August. If there were any differences, they were only the hour and sex. My parents never noted down the time of my birth. And I didn't know the hour of her birth. As for difference in sex, I was a male, she was a female. And that bewildering difference in time: When my island was blanketed in the darkness of night, her land was lit with sunshine. When her country was embraced by the blackness of night, my island shone brightly under the equatorial sun.

My teacher, Magda Peters, forbade us to believe in astrology. It was nonsense, she said. Thomas Aquinas, she said, once saw two people who were born in the same year, in the same month, on the same day and at the same hour, even in the same place. The joke played by astrology was that one became a great landowner and the other his slave.

Indeed I don't believe in astrology. How could anyone believe in it? It has never lit the way for progress in science and in learning. And it demands of us that we submit to its predictions. There is nothing else we can do except throw it into the pig's slop bucket. Once I had my fortune told, just for fun. My horoscope was turned over and over. The fortune-teller opened her mouth. She had two gold teeth: If sir is patient, she said, he will surely meet the maiden. So I just prefer to trust my intellect. Even with the patience of all mankind, I would never meet her.

I put my trust in scientific understanding and in reason. With these, at least, there are certainties that can be grasped.

.....

[Page 23]

The buggy entered Wonokrono district.

"Look to the left," Rob suggested.

I saw a Chinese-style house with a big yard, well kept and with a hedge. The front doors and windows were closed. It was painted red all over. I didn't think it was at all attractive. And we all knew whose house it was and what it was--a pleasure-house, a brothel, owned by Babah Ah Tjong.

But the buggy kept on going.

"Keep looking to the left."

For about one hundred and fifty meters past the pleasure-house the land was empty. Then there stood a two-storied timber house, also with extensive grounds. Standing behind the wooden fence was a big sign with the words Boederij Buitenzorg--Buitenzorg Agricultural Company.

Everyone who lived in Surabaya and Wonokromo, I thought, knew that was the house of the wealthy Mr. Mellema--Herman Mellema. Everyone thought of that house as Mellema's private palace, even if it was only made of teak. Its grey, wooden-shingle roof was already visible from quite a distance away. Its doors and windows stood wide open--not like Ah Tjong's pleasure-house. There was no veranda. In its place there was a broad, expansive awning overhanging the wooden stairs, which were also wide, wider than the front door.

But that's all that anyone knew, his name: Mr. Mellema. People would see him once or twice only, or once and then never again. But everyone talked about his concubine: Nyai Ontosoroh. People admired her very much. She was handsome, in her thirties, and she managed the whole of this great agricultural firm. People called her Ontosoroh, a Javanese pronunciation of Buitenzorg.

The family and its business were guarded by a Madurese fighter, Darsam, and his men. No one dared to call on that timber palace.

I sat up, startled.

The buggy suddenly turned, passed through the gate, passed the Boederij Buitenzorg sign, and headed directly to the house's front steps. I shuddered. Darsam, whom I had never seen, appeared in my mind's eye. Just a mustache, nothing but a mustache and a fist, and a giant sickle. I had never heard of anyone receiving any invitation from this eerie and sinister palace.

"Here?"

Robert just spat.

An Indo-Eurasian youth opened the glass door and came down the steps to greet Suurhof. He appeared to be about my age. He looked European, except he had brown skin. He was tall, well built, sturdy.

"Hi, Rob!"

"Oho, Rob!" greeted Suurhof. "I've brought my friend. It's okay, isn't it? You don't mind, do you?"

He didn't greet me. I was just a Native. He looked at me piercingly. I started to become anxious. I knew we were beginning a new round in a game. If he refused to receive me, Suurhof would laugh and wait for me to crawl back to the main road, driven away by Darsam. He hadn't yet refused, hadn't yet expelled me. With just one movement of his lips, I could be driven out--God! Where must I hide my face? But no, suddenly he smiled and held out his hand.

"Robert Mellema," he introduced himself.

"Minke," I responded.

He still held my hand, waiting for me to give my family name. He raised his eyebrows. I understood: He thought I was an Indo who was not, or not yet, legally acknowledged by my father. Without a family name, an Indo is considered beneath contempt, like a Native. And I am indeed a Native. But no, he didn't demand my family name.

"Pleased to meet you. Come on in."

We went up the steps. His sharp glance did nothing to dispel my suspicions.

But suddenly a new mood replaced suspicion. In front of us stood a girl, white-skinned, refined, European face, hair and eyes of a Native. And those eyes, those shining eyes! ("Like a pair of morning stars," I called them in my notes.) If this was the girl Suurhof meant, he was right: Not only could she rival the queen, she triumphed over her. And she was alive, flesh and blood, not just a picture.

"Annelies Mellema." She held out her hand to me, then to Suurhof.

.....

[Page 38]

Annelies pulled me along again. We entered into a long, wide stable. There were only three horses inside. Now it was the stench of horses permeating the air and assaulting my sense of smell. She approached a gray-colored horse, embraced the animal's neck, and whispered something in his ear, calling it Bawuk.

Bawuk neighed lightly as if laughing in response. Then Annelies stroked the horse's forehead and it grinned, showing its mighty teeth.

Annelies laughed gaily.

Then, in a serious voice, after whispering while embracing Bawuk's neck, she glanced at me, "We have a guest. That's him. His name is Minke. An alias: It is not a Javanese name, nor Islamic, not even Chinese, I imagine. An alias. Do you believe his name is Minke?"

Once again the horse neighed in response.

"Nah!" Annelies said, then to me: "She said that of course your name is an alias."

They were plotting. I was their target. And the other two horses joined in neighing, looking at me accusingly with their big, unblinking eyes.

"Let's go outside," I said, but she went over to the other two horses and stroked each of their backs. Only then did she say to me: "Come on."

"You smell of horses," I said.

She only laughed.

"Apparently it doesn't worry you."

"It's not really important," she answered grumpily. "Bawuk has been treated that way ever since she was small. Mama would be angry if I didn't love her. You must be grateful to everything that gives you life says Mama, even if it's only a horse."

I didn't annoy her again about the stench.

"Why don't you believe my name is Minke?"

Her eyes shone with disbelief, accusing.

It was, of course, not my idea that my name be, or that people should call me, Minke. I too had been amazed by how it had happened. It is a bit of an involved story. It started when I was still at E.L.S. and did not know a word of Dutch. Mr. Ben Rooseboom, my very first teacher, was always cross with me. I could never answer his questions. I always ended up crying. Yet every day a servant escorted me to that hated school.

I was stuck in first class for two years. Mr. Rooseboom remained cross with me and I remained scared of him. But by the time the new school year arrived, my Dutch was somewhat better. My friends had all gone up to second class. I stayed in first class. I was seated between two Dutch girls, who were always making trouble and annoying me. On one occasion, one of the girls who sat beside me, Vera, pinched my thigh as hard as she could, as a way of getting acquainted. I screamed in pain.

Mr. Rooseboom's eyes popped out frighteningly, and he yelled:

"Quiet, you monk ... Minke!"

From that day, everyone in the class called me Minke, the one and only Native. My teachers followed suit. Then my friends from all the other classes. Also from outside school.

I once asked my elder brother, what did Minke mean? He didn't know. He even ordered me to ask Mr. Rooseboom himself. I didn't dare. My grandfather didn't know Dutch. He couldn't even read or write Latin script. He only knew Javanese, written and spoken. His view was that Minke should be my permanent name: It was a sign of respect from a good and wise teacher. So my real name was almost lost.

I always believed that the name meant something unpleasant. The day my teacher spoke that word Minke, his eyes popped out like a cow's eyes. His eyebrows jumped off his broad face. And the ruler in his hand fell to the desk. Goodness and wisdom? Far from it.

I could not find the word in the Dutch dictionary.

Then I entered the H.B.S., Surabaya. My teachers there did not know what it meant either. Unlike us Javanese, they would never make a guess based just on feelings. One even quoted to me from some Englishman: What's in a name? (It was a long time before I could remember the Englishman's name.)

Then we began English lessons. Six months passed and I came across a word similar in pronunciation and spelling to my name. I began to think back over it: eyes popping out and eyebrows ready to disengage from his broad face--for sure he was insulting me. And I remember how Mr. Rooseboom hesitated in saying the name. Fearfully I dared to guess: Perhaps he intended to insult me by calling me monkey.

I've never told anyone what I thought, not even Annelies.

"Minke is a good name," said Annelies.

.....

(Continues...)

Copyright © 1999 by Pramoedya Ananta Toer;
English language copyright © 1999 by Max Lane.
Reprinted by arrangement with:

Hyperion,
77 West 66th Street,
New York, NY 10023.

Reprinted by permission.
This text may not be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher.