Louis Couperus - The Hidden Force

“Yes!” the table tapped once, angrily.

“What danger?”

“Rebellion…”

“Rebellion? Who is going to rebel?”

“Within two… months… Sunario…”

They listened intently.

But the table suddenly and unexpectedly bumped against Ida’s stomach again.

“ Adu ! I don’t believe it,” cried the young woman.

The table had had enough.

“Tired…” it tapped.

They kept their hands on it.

“Stop it now,” the table tapped.

The doctor, sniggering, put his broad hand on it, as if trying to force it to stop.

“Damned miser!” cursed the table, grating and turning.

“Swine!” it went on.

And a few more dirty words followed, directed at the doctor, as if a street urchin were shouting at him: filthy words without rhyme or reason.

“Who is thinking up those words?” asked Eva indignantly.

Obviously no one was making them up, neither the three ladies nor Van Helderen, always very correct and obviously indignant at the shamelessness of the poltergeist.

“It really is a ghost,” said Ida, ashen-faced.

“I’m stopping,” said Eva nervously and lifted her finger off. “I can’t make head or tail of this nonsense. It may be amusing… but the table isn’t used to decent company.”

“We have a new resource for Labuwangi!” said Eldersma. “No more picnics or balls… but table-turning!”

“We must practice!” said Mrs Doorn de Bruijn.

Eva shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s inexplicable,” she said. “I can only believe that we were all playing fair. It’d not be at all like Van Helderen to suggest such words.”

“Madam,” protested Van Helderen

“We must do it more often,” said Ida. “Look, there’s a pilgrim to Mecca leaving the grounds…”

She pointed to the garden.

“A pilgrim?” asked Eva.

They looked in the garden. There was no sign of anything.

“Oh no,” said Ida. “I thought it was a haji … It’s nothing: the moonlight…”

It had got late. They took their leave, laughing and cheerfully bewildered, but unable to find an explanation.

“As long as it hasn’t made the ladies nervous!” said the doctor.

No. Relatively speaking they were not nervous. They were more amused, although they didn’t understand.

It was two o’clock in the morning by the time they left. The town was deathly quiet in the velvet shadow of the gardens, the moonlight streaming down.

THE NEXT DAY, when Eldersma had left for his office and Eva was wandering through her house on domestic duty, dressed in a sarong and a jacket, she saw Frans van Helderen coming through the garden.

“May I?” he called out.

“Of course!” she shouted. “Come in. But I’m on my way to the pantry.”

And she showed him her basket of keys.

“I’m due to see the Commissioner in half an hour, but I’m too early… That’s why I’ve dropped by.”

She smiled.

“But I’m busy, you know!” she said. “Come along with me to the pantry.”

He followed her, wearing a black lustre jacket, since he was about to see the Commissioner.

“How’s Ida?” asked Eva. “Did she sleep well after last night’s seance?”

“So-so,” said Frans van Helderen. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to repeat it. She kept waking up with a start, throwing her arms round my neck and asking forgiveness, I’ve no idea what for.”

“It didn’t make me nervous in the least,” said Eva. “Though I can’t make head or tail of it…”

She opened the pantry, called her cook, and arranged the menu with her. The cook suffered from a nervous affliction that caused her, when surprised, to obey any order and imitate whoever spoke to her, and Eva liked to tease the old woman.

“La… la-illa-lala!” she cried.

The cook jumped, repeated the cry, and the next moment came to her senses, begging for forgiveness.

“Throw it down, cook, throw it down!” cried Eva, and the cook, reacting to the suggestion, threw a tray of rambutan and mangosteen fruits on the floor, and instantly came to herself, begging forgiveness, picking up the scattered fruit, shaking her head and clicking her tongue.

“Come with me!” said Eva to Frans. “Or she’ll be breaking my eggs next. Come on, outside with you, cook!”

“Come on, outside!” repeated the cook with the nervous condition. “I beg forgiveness, nyonya . Enough, mistress!”

“Come and sit down for a moment,” said Eva.

He followed her.

“You’re so cheerful,” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“No, I’ve been feeling melancholy recently.”

“So have I. There’s something in the air in Labuwangi. We must pin our hopes on our table-turning.”

They sat down on the back veranda. He sighed.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “I’m fond of you. I love you.”

She was silent for a moment.

“Again,” she said reproachfully.

He didn’t reply.

“I’ve told you, I haven’t got a passionate nature. I’m cold. I love my husband and my child. Let’s be friends, Van Helderen.”

“I try to fight it, but it’s no good.”

“I’m fond of Ida, I wouldn’t want to hurt her for anything in the world.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever loved her.”

“Van Helderen…”

“Perhaps just her pretty face. But however white she may be, she’s a Eurasian, with her whims and childish petty tragedies. I never realized it before, but now I do. I’ve met European women before you. But you’ve been a revelation to me, of everything that is enchanting, gracious and artistic in a woman… Your exoticism complements my own.”

“I value your friendship highly. Let’s keep it like that.”

“Sometimes it’s as if I’m crazy, sometimes I dream… that we’re travelling through Europe as a couple, that we’re in Paris together. Sometimes I see us together in a private room by the fire, you talking about art and me about contemporary social issues. But then I see us in a more intimate situation.”

“Van Helderen…”

“It doesn’t matter if you warn me off. I love you, Eva, Eva…”

“I don’t think there’s any country on earth where so many people are in love as in the Indies. It must be the heat…”

“Don’t crush me with your sarcasm. No woman has ever appealed to me so completely, body and soul, as you, Eva…”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Don’t be angry, Van Helderen, but I can’t stand those clichés. Let’s be sensible. I have a charming husband, and you have a sweet wife. We’re all good friends and have fun together.

“You’re so cool.”

“I don’t want to spoil our happy friendship.”

“Friendship!”

“Friendship. There’s nothing I value as much apart from my domestic happiness. I couldn’t live without friends. After happiness with my husband and my child, the first thing I need is friends.”

“To admire you, and for you to dominate,” he said angrily.

She looked at him.

“Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps I need to be admired and to dominate. We all have our weaknesses.”

“I have mine,” he said bitterly.

“Come on,” she said in a warmer tone. “Let’s stay friends.”

“I’m deeply unhappy,” he said in a flat voice. “It’s as if I’ve missed out on everything in my life. I’ve never left Java, and I feel a sense of incompleteness because I’ve never seen snow or ice. Snow… for me it stands for a strange, unknown purity. I never even come close to what I long for. When will I see Europe? When will I stop enthusing over Il Trovatore and be able to go to Bayreuth? When will I reach you, Eva? I reach out everywhere with my antennae, like a wingless insect… What does the rest of my life hold for me? With Ida, with three children, who I know will grow up to be just like their mother. I’ll work as a controller for years, and then — perhaps — become an assistant commissioner… and rise no further. And then finally I’ll leave the service, retire or be retired, and move to Sukabumi and vegetate on a small pension. Everything in me seems to long for a life of idleness.”