Louis Couperus: The Hidden Force

These were her favourite hours.

Here in Labuwangi she didn’t dare do what she did in Batavia, and here people could scarcely believe what was said in Batavia. Yet Mrs Van Does was adamant that “that commissioner and that inspector”—one travelling, the other on an official tour and staying at the Commissioner’s residence for a few days — had found their way to Léonie’s bedroom in the afternoon, during the siesta. But at Labuwangi such realities were rare intermezzos among Mrs Van Oudijck’s pink afternoon visions…

Yet, this afternoon it seemed…

As if, after having dozed off for a moment and after all the tiredness from the journey and the heat had cleared away from her milk-white complexion — as if, now she was looking at the romping angels on the perfume advert, her mind was not on all that pink doll-like tenderness, but as if she were listening for sounds from outside…

After a while she got up.

She was wearing only a sarong, which she had pulled up under her arms and held in a knot on her breast.

Her splendid blond hair hung loose.

Her beautiful white feet were bare; she had not even slipped into her mules.

And she looked through the slats of the blind.

Between the flowerpots, which on the steps at the side of the house masked her windows with great masses of leaves, she looked out at an annexe with four rooms — the guest rooms — one of which was occupied by Theo.

She peered for a while and then opened the blind a fraction…

And she saw the blind of Theo’s room also open a fraction…

Then she smiled; tied the sarong more tightly, and went back to bed.

She listened.

A moment later she heard a brief crunching of the gravel under the weight of a slipper. Her venetian blinds, without being locked, had closed. A hand now cautiously opened them…

She turned, smiling…

“What is it, Theo?” she whispered.

He came closer, in pyjama bottoms and a linen jacket, sat down on the edge of the bed and played with her white, chubby hands, and suddenly kissed her passionately.

At that moment a stone whizzed through the room.

They were both startled, quickly looked up, and in a moment were in the middle of the room.

“Who’s throwing stones?” she asked, trembling.

“Perhaps one of the boys — René or Ricus — who are playing outside,” he said.

“They’re not up yet…”

“Or it might have fallen…”

“No, it was thrown…”

“Stones often come loose…”

“But this is gravel.”

She picked up the stone. He looked cautiously outside.

“It’s nothing, Léonie. It simply must have fallen from the gutter, through the window, and then it flew up again. It’s nothing…”

“I’m frightened,” she murmured.

He almost laughed aloud and asked, “Of what?”

They had nothing to fear. The room was situated between Léonie’s boudoir and the two large guest rooms intended only for commissioners, generals and other senior officials. On the other side of the central gallery were the rooms of Van Oudijck, office and bedroom, Doddy’s room and the room of the boys, Ricus and René. So Léonie was isolated in her wing, between the two guest rooms. It made her brazen. At this hour the compound was completely deserted. Anyway, she was not frightened of the servants. Urip was completely trustworthy and often received lovely presents: sarongs, a gold clasp, a long diamond jacket pin that she wore on her breast like a silver and jewelled brooch. Since Léonie never grumbled, was generous with advances on wages and had a certain apparently easy-going manner — although things only happened the way she wanted them to — she was not unpopular, and however much the servants might know, they had never betrayed her. This made her all the more shameless. In front of the passage between her bedroom and boudoir hung a curtain, and it had been agreed between Theo and Léonie that, in case of danger, he would simply slip away behind the curtain and exit through the garden door of the boudoir, as if wanting to see the rose pots on the steps. That would make it look as if he had just come from his own room and was viewing the roses. The inner doors of the boudoir and bedroom were locked as a rule, as Léonie made it quite clear that she did not care to be caught unawares.

She liked Theo because of his fresh youthfulness. And here in Labuwangi he was her only indiscretion, apart from an inspector who happened to be passing through, and the pink angels. Now they were like naughty children, laughing silently in each other’s arms. But they had to be careful. It was four o’clock and they could hear the voices of René and Ricus in the garden. They took over the whole compound for their holiday. Aged thirteen and fourteen, they loved the big garden. Dressed in blue-striped cotton jackets and trousers, and with bare feet, they went to see the horses and the pigeons: they teased Doddy’s cockatoo, which tripped about on the roof of the outbuildings, and they had a tame squirrel. They hunted for geckos, which they shot with a blowpipe, much to the annoyance of the servants, since geckos bring good luck. At the gate they bought roast peanuts from a passing Chinese and then made fun of him, imitating his accent, “Loast peanuts! Chinaman dead!”

They climbed the flamboyant tree and swung from the branches like monkeys. They threw stones at the cats; they taunted the neighbours’ dogs until they barked hoarsely and chewed each other’s ears. They messed around with water near the pond, making themselves unpresentable with mud and filth, and had the nerve to pick the water lilies, which was absolutely forbidden. They tested the firmness of the flat green water lily leaves — like large trays that they thought they could stand on, and went under… Then they put empty bottles in a line and pelted them with pebbles. Then, using a bamboo stick, they fished out all kinds of nameless floating debris and hurled it at each other. Their inventiveness was inexhaustible, and the hour of the siesta was their time. They had found a gecko and a cat and had made them fight: the gecko opened its miniature crocodile jaws and hypnotized the cat, which slunk off, retreating from the black beady-eyed stare — back arched, bristling with terror. And afterwards the boys made themselves ill on unripe mangoes.

Léonie and Theo had spied on the fight between the cat and the gecko through the blind and saw the boys now sitting calmly in the grass eating unripe mangoes. But it was the time when the convicted criminals — twelve of them — worked in the compound, under the supervision of an old, dignified overseer holding a cane. They fetched water in tubs and watering cans made from paraffin tins, sometimes in actual paraffin tins, and watered the plants, the grass and the gravel. Then they swept the grounds clean with the loud swishing of palm-leaf brooms.

Behind the back of the overseer, of whom they were afraid, René and Ricus pelted the prisoners with gnawed mangoes, called them names and pulled faces.

Doddy came by, well rested, playing with her cockatoo, which she carried on her hand and which cried, “Kaka! Kaka!” and raised its yellow crest with swift movements of its neck.

And Theo now slipped away behind the curtain into the boudoir, and when for a moment the boys were chasing each other in a bombardment of mangoes, and Doddy was walking towards the pond with her slouching, hip-swaying Indies gait and the cockatoo on her hand, he emerged from behind the plants, sniffed the roses and pretended he had been walking in the garden, before taking a bath.

VAN OUDIJCK FELT in a better mood than he had in weeks; after those two months of dreary tedium some sense of family life seemed to re-enter his house; he liked to see his two young scamps romping in the garden, even if they got up to all kinds of mischief, and he was especially pleased that his wife was back.