Louis Couperus - The Hidden Force

“My mother was French.”

“But still you’re a colonial, born and brought up here. But you don’t behave at all like a colonial. I’m delighted to have met you, you’re a breath of fresh air… Help me then. Suggest something new. Not a ball and not a trip to the mountains. I need something new. Otherwise I shall feel homesick for my father’s paintings, my mother’s singing, for our beautiful artistic house in The Hague. Without novelty, I shall die. I’m like your wife, Van Helderen, forever in love.”

“Eva, please!” begged Ida.

“Tragically in love, with her beautiful, sombre eyes. Always with her husband first and then with someone else. I’m never in love. Not even with my husband any more. He is with me. But I haven’t got a passionate nature. Quite a lot of love goes on here in the Indies, doesn’t it, Doctor? So… no balls, no mountain trips, no love. My God, what else is there, what else?…”

“I know what we could do,” said Mrs Doorn de Bruijn, her placid melancholy suddenly tinged with fear. She shot a sideways look at Mrs Rantzow, and the German woman understood her meaning…

“What is it?” they all asked, inquisitively.

“Table-turning,” the two women whispered.

There was general laughter.

“Oh,” sighed Eva, disappointed. “A gimmick, a novelty, a game for an evening. No, I need something that will fill my life for at least a month.”

“Table-turning,” repeated Mrs Rantzow.

“Shall I tell you something?” said Mrs Doorn de Bruijn.

“The other day, for fun, we tried to get a three-legged table to turn. We promised each other that we would be absolutely honest. The table… moved and spelt out words by tapping alphabetically.”

“But was there no cheating?” asked the doctor, Eldersma and Van Helderen.

“You must trust us,” said the two ladies in self-defence.

“Agreed!” said Eva. “We’ve finished dinner. Let’s do table-turning.”

“We must promise each other that we will be honest…” said Mrs Rantzow. “I can see… that my husband will be antipathetic, but Ida… will be a great medium.”

They got up.

“Do we have to turn the lights off?” asked Eva.

“No,” said Mrs Doorn de Bruijn.

“An ordinary side table?”

“A wooden side table.”

“All eight of us?”

“No, let’s choose first. For example, you Eva, Ida, Van Helderen and Mrs Rantzow. The doctor is not sympathetic, nor is Eldersma. De Bruijn and I can relieve you.”

“Off we go then,” said Eva. A new resource for the social life of Labuwangi. “And no cheating…”

“As friends, we’ll give each other our word of honour… that we won’t cheat.”

“Agreed,” they all said.

The doctor sniggered. Eldersma shrugged his shoulders. A boy brought a side table. They sat around the wooden table and some placed their fingers on it light-heartedly, looking at each other with curiosity and suspicion. Mrs Rantzow was solemn, Ida sombre, Eva amused, Van Helderen laughing indifferently. Suddenly Ida’s lovely Eurasian face tautened.

The table trembled…

They looked at each other in alarm, and the doctor sniggered.

Then slowly the table raised one of its three legs, and carefully set it down again.

“Did anyone move?” asked Eva.

They all shook their heads. Ida had gone pale.

“I can feel vibrations in my fingers,” she murmured.

The table once again raised its leg, and creakily described an angry quarter turn on the marble floor, setting the leg down again with a violent thud.

They looked at each other in bewilderment.

Ida sat staring blankly ahead, with outspread fingers, ecstatic.

And the table, for the third time, raised its leg.

IT WAS CERTAINLY VERY STRANGE.

For a moment Eva was unsure whether Mrs Rantzow was lifting the table, but when she looked quizzically at the doctor’s wife, Mrs Rantzow shook her head and Eva could see she was acting in good faith. Once more they promised each other that they would be scrupulously honest… And, very oddly, once they were absolutely sure of each other, the table went on describing angrily grating semicircles and raising its leg and tapping on the marble floor.

“Is there a spirit revealing itself?” asked Mrs Rantzow, looking at the table leg.

The table tapped once: yes.

But when the spirit tried to spell its name, tapping the letters alphabetically, what came out was: “Z, X, R, S, A”, which was incomprehensible.

But all of a sudden the table started spelling out a name, as if being pursued… They counted the taps, and what came out was:

“Le…onie Ou…dijck?…”

“What about Mrs Van Oudijck?”

A vulgar word followed.

The ladies were alarmed, except for Ida, who sat as if in a trance.

“Did the table speak? What did it say? What is Mrs Van Oudijck?” people clamoured all at once.

“It’s unbelievable,” muttered Eva. “Are none of us cheating?”

Everyone swore they were playing fair.

“Let’s be absolutely honest, otherwise it’s no fun… I really wish I could be sure…”

That was what they all wished: Mrs Rantzow, Ida, Van Helderen, Eva. The others looked on eagerly, believing what they heard, though the doctor was sceptical and went on sniggering.

The table grated angrily and tapped, and the leg repeated:

“A…”

And the leg repeated the dirty word.

“Why?” asked Mrs Rantzow.

The table tapped.

“Write it down, Onno!” said Eva to her husband.

Eldersma found a pencil and paper and took down the messages.

Three names were given: a member of the Council of the Indies, a departmental head and a young businessman.

“In the Indies, when people are not gossiping, the tables are doing it for them!” said Eva.

“The spirits…” murmured Ida.

“Such phenomena are usually mocking spirits,” lectured Mrs Rantzow.

But the table went on tapping…

“Take it down, Onno!” said Eva.

Eldersma went on writing.

“A-d-d-y!” the leg tapped out.

“No!” everyone said at once, vehemently denying the imputation. “The table is mistaken about that! At least young De Luce has never been mentioned in connection with Mrs Van Oudijck.”

“T-h-e-o!” tapped the table, correcting itself.

“Her stepson! How awful! That’s different! That’s common knowledge!” cried the babble of voices in agreement.

“But we know that!” said Mrs Rantzow, focusing on the table leg. “Why don’t you tell us something we don’t know? Come on, table; come on, come on, spirit!”

She addressed the table leg sweetly and cajolingly. People laughed. The table grated.

“Be serious!” warned Mrs Doorn de Bruijn.

The table fell on to Ida’s lap with a thud.

“ Adu ! I don’t believe it,” cried the beautiful Eurasian woman, as if awakening from her trance. “It hit my tummy!..”

They laughed and laughed. The table revolved angrily, and they got up off their chairs, keeping their hands on the side table, and followed its angry waltzing movements.

“Next… year…” the table tapped.

Eldersma wrote it down.

“Terrible… war…”

“Between whom and whom?”

“Europe… and… China.”

“That sounds like a fairy tale,” sniggered Doctor Rantzow.

“La…bu…wangi,” tapped the table.

“What?” they asked.

“Is… a… hole…”

Please say something serious, table” begged Mrs Rantzow sweetly, in her pleasant German matronly tone.

“Dan…ger,” tapped the table.

“Where?”

“Threatens…” the table continued. “Labu…wangi.”

“Danger threatens Labuwangi?”