But she was not the only person preoccupied with the mysterious phenomena. They oppressed the whole of Labuwangi with their inexplicable nature, which conflicted dramatically with factual, everyday reality. They talked about them in every home, even if only in a whisper, so as not to frighten the children and not to let the servants notice that they were in awe of Javanese mumbo-jumbo, as the Commissioner himself had called it. And a fear, a gloom made people ill with nervous peering and listening in the nights that were awash with sound and billowed thick, muffled and grey across the town, which seemed to nestle deeper amid the foliage, and during the damp dusk disappeared beneath a dull, silent resignation and submission to the mystery. At that point Van Oudijck decided to take firm measures. He wrote to the Major — the Commandant of the garrison at Ngajiwa — instructing him to bring a captain, a couple of lieutenants and a company of soldiers. That evening the officers dined with the Commissioner and Van Helderen at the Eldersmas’s house. They rushed their meal, and Eva, standing at the garden gate, saw them all — the Commissioner, the secretary, the controller, together with four officers — heading for the dark garden of the haunted house. The grounds of the commissioner’s mansion were cordoned off, the house surrounded and the cemetery put under guard. And the men, all of them, went into the bathroom.
They stayed there all night, and all night the grounds and the house remained cordoned off and surrounded. They re-emerged at about five o’clock, and immediately went for a communal swim. They did not talk about what had happened to them, but they’d had a terrible night. The very next morning the bathroom was demolished.
They had all promised Van Oudijck not to speak about that night, and Eldersma would not say anything to Eva, or Van Helderen to Ida. The officers in Ngajiwa were also tight-lipped. All they would say was that the night in the bathroom had been too improbable to be believed. Finally one of the young lieutenants let slip something about his adventure, and a story circulated about betel juice being spat, stones being thrown, a floor shaking like in an earthquake, while they had struck it with sticks and sabres, and on top of that about something unspeakably dreadful that had happened. Everyone added a little touch of their own, so that when the story reached Van Oudijck, he scarcely recognized the terrible night, which had been quite horrific enough without embellishment.
Meanwhile, Eldersma had drawn up a report of their joint vigil and they all signed the improbable report. Van Oudijck took the report to Batavia in person and handed it to the Governor General. It was subsequently deposited in the government archives.
The Governor General advised Van Oudijck to take a short period of leave in Holland, assuring him that this leave would in no way affect his imminent promotion to commissioner, first class. However, he declined the favour and returned to Labuwangi. The only concession that he made was to move in with Eva Eldersma until the commissioner’s house was cleaned. But the flag continued to fly from the flagpole in the grounds of the commissioner’s residence…
On his return from Batavia Van Oudijck frequently met the Prince, Sunario, on official business, and in his dealings with him the Commissioner remained correct and stern. Then he had a short conversation, first with the Prince, and then with his mother, the Princess. These two conversations lasted no longer than twenty minutes, but it seemed that the few words spoken had been both weighty and menacing.
Because the strange happenings ceased. When everything in the house had been cleaned and restored under Eva’s supervision, Van Oudijck forced Léonie to return, as he wished to give a great New Year’s ball. In the morning the Commissioner hosted a reception for all his European and Javanese officials. In the evening the guests streamed in through the brilliantly lit verandas from all over the district, still slightly apprehensive and curious, and instinctively looking around in their immediate vicinity and upwards. And while the champagne was going round, Van Oudijck himself took a glass and offered it to the Prince with a deliberate violation of etiquette, and, with a mixture of threatening seriousness and good-natured joviality, spoke these words, which for months afterwards were to be repeated throughout the district: “Go ahead and drink, Prince. I assure you on my word of honour that no more glasses will break in my house, except by chance or carelessness…”
He could speak like this because he knew that — this time — he had been too strong for the hidden force, simply because of his courage, as an official, a Dutchman and a man.
Still, in the eyes of the Prince as he drank, there was a faint, slightly ironic look indicating that though the hidden force had not triumphed — this time — it would still remain an inexplicable mystery for the short-sighted gaze of Westerners…
5
LABUWANGI REVIVED. There was almost unanimous agreement that they should no longer talk about the strange things to people from elsewhere, since although their scepticism in this matter was so forgivable, the people of Labuwangi believed. The provincial town, after the mystical pressure under which it had been for those unforgettable weeks, came back to life. As if to shake off all obsession, party succeeded party, ball succeeded ball, play followed concert: everyone opened up their houses to celebrate and have fun and seek some ordinary pursuits after the unbelievable nightmare. The people, so accustomed to a normal and comprehensible life, the ample and material comfort of the Indies — to a good table, cold drinks, wide beds, spacious houses, to earning and spending money: all the physical luxury of the Westerner in the East — such people breathed a sigh of relief, and shrugged off the nightmare and the belief in the strange happenings. If it was ever still talked of, it was generally called incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo, in imitation of the Commissioner. Mumbo-jumbo concocted by the Prince, since it was certain that he’d had a hand in it. It was certain, too, that the Commissioner had threatened him, and his mother, with fearful consequences if the strange happenings did not cease. And it was certain that subsequently order had been restored to ordinary life. Mumbo-jumbo then. People were now ashamed of their credulity, their fear, and for having shuddered at what had seemed mysterious and was nothing but clever mumbo-jumbo. And people wanted to be cheerful and there was one party after another.
In this intoxicating atmosphere, Léonie forgot her annoyance at being called back by Van Oudijck. And she too wanted to forget the vermilion defiling of her body. But there was still a residue of fear in her. She now bathed early in the afternoon, at four-thirty, in the newly built bathroom. Her second bath was still the cause of some trepidation. And now Theo had a position in Surabaya, she gradually detached herself, partly out of fear. She could not shake off the thought that their idyll had threatened to punish them both, mother and son, for bringing shame on the parental home. The romantic side of her perverse imagination, her pink fantasies full of cherubs, Cupids, gave this idea — inspired by alarm — too precious a tragic hue not to hold on to it, whatever Theo said. She’d had enough. And it drove him to distraction, since he was mad about her; he could not forget the infamous pleasure he had experienced in her arms. But she held her ground steadfastly, and told him about her fear and said she was certain that the ghosts would return if they made love, he and his father’s wife. Her words made him apoplectic on the occasional Sunday that he spent at Labuwangi: furious at her refusal, her newly assumed maternal persona, and furious because he knew that she saw a lot of Addy de Luce and often stayed at Pajaram. At the parties, Addy danced with her; at the concerts he hung over her chair in the improvised commissioner’s box. True, he was not faithful to her, since it was not in his nature to love only one woman — he bestowed his favours far and wide — but still he was as faithful to her as he possibly could be. She felt a more lasting passion for him than she had ever felt before; and this passion roused her from her usual passive indifference. Often in company, though boring, dreary, she would be enthroned in the glow of her white beauty, like a smiling idol, the languor of the Indies years gradually flowing into her blood, until her movements had taken on that indifferent sloth for everything but caresses and love; her voice, the drawling accent used for any word that was not a word of passion. Under the flame that emanated from Addy and surrounded her, she transformed into a younger woman, more lively in company, more cheerful, flattered by the continuing attentions of the young man who had turned all the girls’ heads. And she delighted in dominating him as far as possible, to the regret of all the girls and especially of Doddy. In her passion she also took a spiteful delight in teasing, just for the sake of it: it gave her an exquisite pleasure, and — for the first time, since she had always been very careful — she made her husband jealous, made Theo jealous, Doddy jealous: she made all the young women and girls jealous. And there she stood above them all, as the Commissioner’s wife, she was superior to them all. If on a particular evening she had gone too far, she delighted in winning back, with a smile or a word, the affection she had forfeited by her flirtatiousness. And strangely enough, she succeeded. The moment people saw her, the moment she spoke, smiled and made a point of being nice, she regained everything, people forgave her everything. Even Eva was won over by the strange charm of this woman, who was not witty, not intelligent, who became scarcely any more cheerful when roused from her dreary lethargy, and who won people over only through the lines of her body, the shape of her face, the look in her strange eyes — calm and yet full of hidden passion — and who was aware of her attraction, having noted its effect since childhood. That attraction together with her indifference was her strength. Anything to do with fate seemed to bounce off her. Although it had approached her with strange magic, until she thought that a punishment would descend on her, it had drifted away. But she heeded the warning. She no longer wanted Theo, and henceforth she treated him like a mother. It enraged him, especially at these parties, now that she was younger, more cheerful and more seductive.