From Aceh to Mejong Lodaja, part 6 reading time approx 16 min
Engko had fewer objections to the move to Java. She was curious about the tea plantation and about the uncle she had heard about but had never seen. Moreover, she hoped that the new environment would put an end to the constant battle between her parents. She was disappointed. The war in Atjeh was never far away, nor were the quarrels. She tried to make herself invisible when she unwittingly witnessed a quarrel in which her mother staged the most gruesome images of war one by one: the burned down kampongs, the gunfire, the stench and the fear. Tjoet despised the narrow-mindedness of the belandas who sent out a fleet consisting of a hodgepodge of 'half-drained washtubs' as she called them. Of course, Willem was aware of the misplaced Dutch thrift and Engko knew that he was secretly embarrassed by it. She sympathized with him when he eventually gave up the fight and kept his unconvincing rebuttal to himself. Listening to Tjoet calling the Dutch people intruders and cowardly dogs whining and calling for their mother must have been a real ordeal for her father, Engko thought. At times like that he seemed unable to cope with Tjoet's verbal violence. But that meekness only concerned the war. He could be much more unyielding when it came to Tjoet's 'heretical kampong wisdom'. Engko almost physically felt how his irritation filled the room when Tjoet, despite all her astuteness, continued to cling stubbornly to the old customs of her people. For example, she would never kill certain night insects because they preserved the life spirit of sleeping children. For Engko, such assumptions were as evident as the sun rising every day; she had inherited nothing of her father's business sense. The domestic micro-battle between East and West was familiar territory, it became second nature to her to navigate cautiously between the warring parties. In the meantime, curious as she was, she kept her eyes and ears open. She developed an extra sense for hidden undercurrents, for things that were not talked about and the more persistently there was silence, the more obstinately she tried to find out what was going on. She was sure that her mother and Baboe Meutiah were hiding something from her. The two women shared something sad and Engko racked her brain as to what it could be. Was Tjoet still grieving for the baby that didn't come? Or was it Meutiah who, with her sighs, brought a heaviness into the air that weighed everyone down? 'Boeyoeng, who is your father?' Engko asked one day. Boeyoeng perked up as if stung by an insect. 'What kind of question is that?' 'Did your father stay behind in Atjeh? 'I don't have a father, not here or in Atjeh.' 'But in Meulaboh your mother still went to her family. Later on she no longer did.' 'Ajoh, we live in Java now. What do I care about that family?' Engko stopped her interrogation. She could tell by the stiff look around his mouth that Boeyoeng didn't want to talk, but she kept thinking about it. Her intuition told her there was something dark she couldn't ask Meutiah about. It was like an itchy scab on a wound: you tried to stay away from it but couldn't resist picking at it again and again. She tried to hear her mother out. 'When did Meutiah come to us?' 'When you were a baby.' 'Where did she come from?' 'You know that right. She came from a kampong near Meulaboh.' 'Did she come live with us straight away?' 'No, she still lived in the kampong and went to her own house every evening with Boeyoeng.' 'To her father and mother?' 'I think so.' 'Or to her husband?' 'Say you. What are you fishing for? You shouldn't stick your nose in things that don't concern you.' Engko persisted. She felt she was on the right track. 'She already had a child, so she must have had a husband. What happened to Boeyoeng's father?' Ultimately, she managed to get the secret out of her mother. Tjoet made Engko swear never to talk about this, neither with Boeyoeng nor with Meutiah. Engko solemnly promised and kept her promise.
Meutiah and her son Boeyoeng formed neutral ground where Engko could seek redress if tensions at home became too high. They lived in a servants' quarters on the grounds of the plantation and Engko felt completely at ease with the baboe and her son. Unlike her father, she saw no difference in class. It did not matter to her that her father had an important position on the plantation and that Boeyoeng was only the son of a baboe. She did not understand her father's reluctance to allow the boy access to the large planter's house. She thought it was complete nonsense that he had to 'stand his ground', as he put it. 'What must the coolies think of us when that native boy comes to our house as if he were one of us?' His disapproval could not prevent Boeyoeng and Engko from developing a strong bond over the years. Engko crouched in front of the door of the servants' quarters almost every day. When Boeyoeng was not at home, she sometimes had long conversations with his mother, but these conversations were never about Meutiah herself. Still, Engko enjoyed exchanging ideas with her. Meutiah understood the underlying tensions between her parents better than she did and while Willem eventually declared his wife insane, Meutiah could usually explain Tjoet's outbursts. 'Your mother was in the resistance in Atjeh,' she explained on a cloudy day as she unhooked the rice bird's cage to replace the sand on the bottom. 'She was transporting classified documents.' 'What kind of documents?' 'Those could be letters from the Council of Eight to the oelama's, you know: the clergy. Your mother intercepted them and took them to the oeleëbalangs, the princes.' Engko took the bird from Meutiah. She stuck her nose in the air. It seemed as if all nature was awaiting the redeeming rains. 'There was always division in Atjeh between the clergy and the feudal princes,' Meutiah continued. 'Your father became rich from those eternal contradictions, but for your mother it was about more than money. She was the daughter of an oeleëbalang. Naturally, she sided with the monarchs. She fought against the belandas and the oelama's. But it was complicated. Leaders of both the oelama's and the uleëbalangs defected to the belandas when it suited them, and back again. That still happens today.' Engko gave the bird back to Meutiah. 'My mother blames my father for forcing her to come here.' 'That's understandable,' Meutiah agreed. 'She was an important resistance fighter. She played a significant role.' 'She had an ideal. Now she has nothing left.' Meutiah lovingly blew the bird on its head and then put it back on its perch. She shook her head. 'You're wrong about that, Engko,' she said. 'Your mother has you. The only reason she abandoned Atjeh is you.' The first drops of rain fell on the parched earth.
The friction between Tjoet and Willem turned into bitterness that reached a fatal climax when one of the lady tea pickers lay eyes on Willem. Or did he have his eye on her? Engko didn't know the ins and outs of it, but the issue was not without consequences. In the years that followed, Engko would love to hear her mother argue again. The silence that had fallen over their house screamed at her when she got home and she felt the urge to scream against it. But when her mind was quiet, she preferred to think of her mother's soft side. Tjoet who sang old-fashioned songs with her and who stood up for Boeyoeng when Willem wanted to send him away from the gallery. Her mystical side also continued to fascinate Engko. Tjoet could make things disappear and reappear in another place. She could see things that others could not see and she could cure certain ailments. She was known throughout the area as a wise woman. Engko remembered how a man possessed by an evil spirit was brought to her mother. The man drooled and soiled himself. He made incessant jerking movements with his head and shoulders. Tjoet performed a secret incantation over a jug of water and had the man drink liters and liters of the sacred fluid until the evil spirit threatened to drown in his body and left him. The man calmed down, the shaking of his head and shoulders took an end, and he stopped drooling. Tjoet gave him the remainder of the water with instructions on how to sprinkle the entrance to his house with it to prevent the spirit from moving back in. Engko, in her naivety, told her father about what she thought was a heroic deed and Willem flew into a rage. He dragged Tjoet by her arm to the front veranda and threatened that he would never let her come into the house again if she engaged in that 'hocus pocus' one more time. Tjoet promised with her forehead on his feet, a sight that shocked Engko, but at the same time she knew that her mother would not give up her practices, she would only keep it a more careful secret and she, Engko, would never say a word about it again to her father. That went well until Tjoet visibly weakened overnight. 'There's a woman involved,' she confided to Engko. 'A tea picker. She targets your father and wants to get rid of me.' Willem refused to admit that there could be silent forces at work. A white doctor was allowed to come and see his wife, but he could do nothing for her and Willem did not want a doekoen in his house. No hocus pocus. It was a rapid disease process. Engko's mother died in the early morning after an anxious night in which Willem was almost ready to summon a native medicine man. The woman from the tea field presented herself shortly afterwards with quick smiles and fragrant dresses for dinner. She was not invited to the table, but she kept returning and slowly took over Engko's father. A year after the death of her rival, she energetically took matters into her own hands. Without further ado, she entered the master bedroom during the afternoon rest with the intention of taking care of Willem. But she had misjudged her chances. Willem may have been flattered by her attention, but his interest went no further. He made this clear to her with Dutch directness, which came across as blunt and hurtful to the Indian woman. Despite the loss of face, she left with her head held high, but Engko could see the hatred smoldering in her eyes. The tea picker spat on the ground and muttered something unintelligible. Not much later, Willem became ill. The doctor spoke of lung disease and the tropical climate being too humid for him. Engko suggested that a doekoen be brought, but as expected, her father flew into a fit of rage, during which he almost choked.
Boeyoeng had seen his mother leave with mixed feelings. After nyonja Tjoet's death, she did not want to continue living on toean Vorman's property. The tea picker's regular visits had further accelerated her decision to move elsewhere. Meutiah knew some people in a kampong nearby and decided to live there. Boeyoeng stayed behind in the servants' house on the plantation. There he had always felt a connection with Atjeh, with the people who, like him, came from there. There weren't many left now. Only Engko and her father still lived in the plantation house and his relationship with the tuan was still not good. The fact that the friendship between Engko and him grew into a deeper feeling that they wanted to explore further did not help that relationship at all. Naturally, the toean protested their relationship. He suggested that Boeyoeng would be better suited elsewhere, but did not go so far as to send him away. Perhaps, Boeyoeng thought, it was out of piety towards Engko's mother, who had been very fond of him, or it could also be that the toean's willpower had been broken by his illness. The man deteriorated quickly and Boeyoeng comforted Engko when her father announced that he was returning to the Netherlands. It saddened Engko to see her sick father leave, but for her it was certain that she would never feel at home in that cold country where the trees did not have enough leaves in winter to shelter the spirits and where the doctors - all their pills and potions notwithstanding – not understanding enough of the magic of the tropics to be able to lift an evil spell. She left the house on the tea plantation to her father's cousin and followed her heart and her great love. But that was not to the kampong where Meutiah had started a new life. Boeyoeng did not want to live as a stranger in a village where he knew no one except his mother and where he feared that he would always be an outsider as an Atjehnese. Boeyoeng and Engko found a home in the bend of the Tjimandiri River under two huge kapok trees. Boeyoeng pointed to the other side. 'Look, a crocodile.' Engko pointed up. 'Look, kapok. I can spin that.' At the same time they looked at the ground on which they stood and saw the fabulous paw print of a tiger. 'That must be from a king tiger,' said Boeyoeng. 'There aren't that many of those left.' This is a good place, he thought after looking around for a while. Among the undergrowth of the jungle he saw a large boulder sticking out of the ground like a megalith from ancient times and he had a vision of an aloen-aloen, a village square, surrounding the erected stone as the center of a lively settlement. He sucked in his cheeks like he always did when he was thinking. 'There is a lot of forest, that is good. There is a lot of game that we can catch to eat, there are trees with all kinds of fruit. The land is fertile this close to the river, but we will have to build our house on stilts because there will be a flood sometimes. And I will have to cut a lot of wood to clear a piece of land.' 'Shouldn't we ask permission to settle here?' 'I wouldn't know to whom. We have the right to build a paddy field on undeveloped land that does not belong to anyone. And if this area is owned by a regent, his captain will find us eventually.' Engko nodded. She had no doubt that sooner or later a monarch would appear and claim their piece of land. The authority was simply organized in such a way that no mortal could escape control. In her mind she heard her father again listing the successive levels of government: starting with the highest authority in the Indies, the Governor-General – the most important monkey sat highest in the tree, Boeyoeng mocked – and then descending along two lines of authority, a Dutch and an Indian, who complemented and benefited each other. Father Vorman had been in diplomatic circles long enough to fully understand the Dutch approach. The Internal Government left it to the Indian monarchs to control the indigenous population. It left the traditional authority of the monarchs intact and granted privileges and claims to bind them. After all, these heads knew exactly how to keep the people under their thumb, they had not done otherwise for centuries. And in the meantime, the Dutch kept a firm grip on things. Thinking back to her sick father made Engko sad and she quickly put the memory aside and focused on the two kapok trees.