Outside on the steps the attendants huddled together, listening, whispering, looking round timidly at their master, who was writing with a frown of concentration between his brows.
“Do you think he can’t hear it?”
“Of course. He’s not deaf, is he?”
“He must be able to hear it…”
“He thinks he can get to the bottom of it with policemen…”
“Soldiers are coming from Ngajiwa.”
“From Ngajiwa!”
“Yes. He doesn’t trust the policemen. He has written to the Major.”
“For soldiers?”
“Yes, there are soldiers coming…”
“Look at him frowning…”
“He works and works.”
“I’m frightened. I wouldn’t dare stay if I didn’t have to.”
“As long as he’s here, I have the courage to stay.”
“Yes… he’s brave.”
“He’s tough.”
“He’s a brave man.”
“But he doesn’t understand.”
“No, he doesn’t know what it is…”
“He thinks it’s rats…”
“Yes, he got them to hunt for rats up under the roof.”
“Those Dutch don’t know.”
“No, they don’t understand.”
“He smokes a lot…”
“Yes, at least twelve cigars a day.”
“He doesn’t drink much.”
“No… just a whisky and soda in the evenings.”
“He’ll be asking for one any minute now…”
“No one has stood by him.”
“No. The others have understood. They’ve all gone.”
“He goes to bed late.”
“Yes. He works hard.”
“He never sleeps at night anyway. Only in the afternoon.”
“Look at him frowning…”
“He just goes on working…”
“… Attendant!”
“He’s calling!”
“Kanjeng!”
“Bring me a whisky and soda!”
“Kanjeng…”
One attendant got up to get the drink. He had everything to hand in the guest building so he didn’t need to go into the house. The others moved closer together and went on whispering. The moon pierced the clouds and illuminated the garden and pond as if with a wet mist of enchantment. The attendant prepared the drink and offered it, squatting.
“Put it down here,” said Van Oudijck.
The attendant put the glass on the desk and crept away. The other attendants whispered.
“Attendant!” called Van Oudijck a moment later.
“Master!”
“What did you pour into this glass?”
The man trembled, and cringed at Van Oudijck’s feet.
“Master, it isn’t poison, on my life, on my death. I can’t help it, master. Kick me, kill me. I can’t help it, master.”
The glass was a yellow ochre colour.
“Fetch me another glass and pour it here…”
The attendant left, shivering.
The others sat close together, feeling each other’s bodies through the sweaty linen of their uniforms and looking frightened. The moon rose gleefully, mockingly, from above the clouds, like an evil fairy; its moist, deathly still enchantment draped the wide garden in silver. In the distance, from the back of the garden, a groan sounded as if from a child being strangled.
4
“AND HOW ARE YOU, my dear lady? How’s the depression? Do you like the Indies a little better today?”
Eva heard his jovial words as she saw him approaching through the garden at about eight, arriving for dinner. There was nothing in his tone but the jovial greeting of a man who has been working hard at his desk, and is now happy to see a sweet, good-looking woman at whose table he is about to sit. She was amazed and she admired him. He gave no sign of having been tormented all day long in an empty house by strange, incomprehensible phenomena. There was scarcely a wisp of melancholy on his wide forehead; scarcely a trace of concern in his broad, slightly stooped back, and the jovial lines round his thick moustache were there as always. Eldersma went up to him and in his welcoming handshake there was a kind of freemasonry of shared knowledge, and Eva sensed their intimacy. Van Oudijck drank his gin and bitters as usual; mentioned a letter from his wife, who was probably going to Batavia; said that René and Ricus were staying in the Principalities with a friend, on a coffee plantation. He said nothing about why they were not all with him, why he had been totally abandoned by his family and servants. He had never mentioned it in these intimate surroundings, where he now ate twice a day. And although Eva did not ask about it, it made her extremely nervous. So close to the haunted house, the pillars of which she could see dimly through the foliage of the trees, she felt more jittery every day. All day long the servants whispered around her, and glanced timidly in the direction of the Commissioner’s haunted residence. At night, unable to sleep, she listened herself to see if she could hear anything odd: the groaning of the children. The Indies night was too packed with sound for her not to lie trembling in her bed. Through the urgent croaking of the frogs for rain, for still more rain, their constant croaking with the monotonous guttural roar, she heard a thousand sounds that kept her awake. Through it the calls of the tokays and other geckos rang out like clockwork, like mysterious chimes. She thought about it all day long. Eldersma said nothing about it either. But when she saw Van Oudijck arriving for lunch, and for dinner, she had to bite her lip not to ask him anything. And the conversation ranged far and wide, but never touched on the strange phenomena. After lunch the Commissioner walked home; after dinner, at ten o’clock, she saw him disappearing back into the shadows of the garden. With a calm gait, every evening he went back through the enchanted night to his abandoned and miserable house, where outside his office he found the attendants and Kario squatting close together, and he worked late at his desk. And he never complained. He investigated meticulously, but nothing came to light. Everything continued to happen as an unfathomable mystery.
“And how do you like the Indies this evening, dear lady?” It was virtually always the same pleasantry, but every day she admired his tone. Courage, unshakable self-confidence, certainty about his own knowledge, belief in what he knew for certain, rang as clear as a bell in his voice. However desolate he must feel as a man who has lost all domestic intimacy and cool practicality in a house deserted by his family and full of inexplicable phenomena, there was no trace of despair or gloom in his persistent male simplicity. He went about his business, did his work more meticulously than ever — and he investigated. And at Eva’s table he was always a lively guest, talking to Eldersma about such matters as promotion, politics in the Indies, the new rage for having the Indies governed from Holland by laymen who hadn’t a clue. He talked animatedly, without getting worked up. Calmly, sociably, until Eva came to admire him more and more each day. But for her, as a sensitive woman, it became a nervous obsession. And one evening, while taking a short walk with him, she asked him. If it was not awful, if he could not leave the house, if he could not go on tour, for a long, long time. She saw his face cloud over when she raised the matter. But still he answered in a friendly tone that it wasn’t that bad, even though it was inexplicable, that he was determined to get to the bottom of all the sorcery. And he added that he really ought to go on tour, but did not go, so as not to give the impression of running away. Then he briefly pressed her hand, told her not to get worked up and not to think or talk about it. The latter sounded like a friendly command. She pressed his hand again, with tears in her eyes. And she watched him go, with his calm, manly step, and disappear into the night of his garden, where the enchantment, in order to take hold, had first to muffle the roaring cries of the frogs for rain. Then she shivered and hurried home. And she found her house, her spacious house, to be small and completely open and unprotected against the vast Indies night, which could penetrate everywhere.