State of Siege

3

Jebb wakened me at seven o’clock the next morning to say goodbye and to introduce me to the cleaning woman, Mrs. Choong.

“There’s a fair amount of stuff in the Frigidaire,” he said; “but if there’s anything else you want, just write out a list and she’ll do the marketing. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Choong?”

Mrs. Choong nodded. “I buy for good prices. I cook, too, if you like. You want eggs for breakfast, mister?”

“Yes, please.”

She was a ball of fat and the seams of her black trousers stretched almost to bursting-point as she bent down to pick up Jebb’s breakfast tray. As she waddled away into the kitchen, Jebb said: “I told her you’d be sleeping in the bedroom. There are two beds there. Tell her to make both of them up if you want to. Liberty Hall, this is.”

“And I’m very grateful. I can’t tell you.”

“Forget it, sport. Like I said, you’re doing me a favour. Let’s see. It’s Tuesday today. I should be back Thursday night or Friday morning. When exactly do you reckon on getting away, Steve?”

“I’m hoping to get the Friday plane to Djakarta.”

“Well, if they try and twist your arm too much over your exit papers, you see Lim Mor Sai and ask him to talk to his pals in the police department.”

“I’ll do that.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that the police department was not the only place where Lim Mor Sai had pals. Then, I decided not to. No doubt there were hundreds of people in Selampang who were secretly in touch with the insurgents in the north. If Lim were one of them, Jebb, as a Government employee, would probably rather not know about it. I said instead: “If you’re not back before I leave, what would you like me to do about the key you lent me?”

“Leave it with Mrs. Choong. You can trust her. She’s got her own anyway. But I hope I’ll see you.”

“So do I.”

He hesitated. “She’s a classy kid, Rosalie, you know,” he said awkwardly.

“Don’t worry. I’ll do right by her. Mina’s not going to be waiting for you with a hatchet.”

He laughed. “Okay, sport. Sorry I spoke. By the way, if you see Lim Mor Sai, tell him I’ll be bringing him some cheroots back with me. He usually asks me when I go Makassar way. He must have forgotten this time.”

“I’ll tell him. And thanks again.”

“If you’re still here Friday, you can buy me a drink.”

When he had gone, Mrs. Choong brought me a breakfast of fried eggs, coffee and papaya. Later, when I had bathed and shaved, I considered my clothes. Up in Tangga, I had seen myself making do with what I had until I reached Singapore. Now, the situation was different. My ridiculous suit did not matter; I would not be needing a jacket while I was in Selampang; but I would certainly need some more slacks and shirts. I consulted Mrs. Choong. She told me that she could get shirts dobi-ed for me in a few hours, but that if I wanted them properly laundered I would have to wait twenty-four. She also gave me the address of a good Chinese tailor.

I went to the tailor first and ordered two pairs of slacks and four shirts for delivery late that afternoon. Then, I paid my first call on the police department.

Sundanese officials are peculiarly difficult to deal with, especially if you are an English-speaking European. The first thing you have to realise is that, although they look very spruce and alert and although their shirt pockets glitter with rows of fancy ball-point pens, they have only the haziest notions of their duties. The language problem is also important. All the forms you have to fill up are printed in English as well as Malay, because English is an official language and the officials are supposed to be bi-lingual. The trouble is that they will never admit that they are not. If you speak in Malay they feel bound to reply in English. Unfortunately, the few words they have soon run out, and although they may continue to look as if they understand what you have said, they are in fact hopelessly at sea. Their technique for dealing with the resulting impasse is to pretend that they have to consult a colleague, and then go away and forget about you. The form you have completed gets lost. Your only chance is to say and write everything very distinctly both in English and Malay, and to keep fingering your wallet as if you are getting ready to pay. You are, indeed, going to have to pay eventually; and not merely the legal fee for the service in question. When the formalities are almost completed, it will suddenly be discovered that you ought to have produced another “clearance,” and that without it you cannot have whatever it is you want. A Kafka-like scene ensues. Nobody can tell you precisely what this mysterious clearance is or how you set about obtaining it. The shifty brown eyes peer at you. It is your move now. You ask what the fee for the clearance would be if one knew where to obtain it. A figure is named. You ask if, as a special favour, you may deposit this sum so that when more is known about it, the clearance may be obtained for you. There is a shrug, then a grudging assent. The eyes watch sullenly as you count the money out. You agreed too quickly. He is wishing he had asked for more and wondering if it is too late. No, it is not. He made a mistake. He forgot the price of the Government stamp. You smile politely and pay that, too. There is no answering smile. Other brown eyes have observed the transaction and there will be a share-out when you have gone. To get out again into the open air is like emerging from a depression.

The granting of an exit visa to a resident European is a big operation. My first visit to the visa section of the police-department headquarters lasted an hour. In that time I managed to secure the five different forms that had to be completed, and countersigned by various other authorities, before the formal application could be submitted. This was good going. I went next to the agents for the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, cashed a cheque and had one of the forms countersigned. After I had deposited it, together with another form, at the Internal Revenue Department, I called in at the Indonesian Consulate and applied for a transit visa. By then, it was time for lunch.

I went to the Orient Hotel, where they had an air-conditioned bar. I also hoped to find De Vries, the Sunda-Pacific Airways traffic manager, and thus save myself the trouble of calling in at his office. He was there all right, nursing a de Kuyper’s gin as if it were all that he had left to live for. Sunda-Pacific Airways ran the scheduled passenger services out of Selampang under a Government franchise that was due to expire later that year. The Government had recently announced that it would not be renewed, and that a new national airline authority would take over. He knew only too well that, while international air safety requirements would necessitate their retaining the Dutch pilots, no such necessity would protect the rest of the Dutch staff. He had been one of the original members of the company. His bitterness was understandable.

After he had promised to see that a seat was held for me on the Friday plane to Djakarta, he asked me how things were up in Tangga. I told him, and asked how things were in Selampang. It was a foolish question; but I had nothing to do until the offices opened again, and I thought, somewhat virtuously, that the least I could do was to listen to him.

I received the answer I deserved.

“You know damn well how things are in this city. I would be pleased if you would stop encouraging me to become a bore. Have another drink.”

Over luncheon, however, he did unburden himself a little.

“I wouldn’t like a Government spy to hear me saying this,” he said; “but people like me have only one chance of survival here.”

“What’s that?”

“A revolution.”

“You mean Sanusi?”

“Why not? Did you know that he’d appointed a representative in New York to lobby the United States, and that for the past six months he’s had agents in Malaya and Pakistan, meeting religious leaders and canvassing support for the movement?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The censorship has been quite efficient, but in my business news gets around. I can tell you, they’re badly worried down here. Sanusi controls more than half the total area of the country as it is. The Nasjah Government has failed completely. The country’s bankrupt, the elections were a farce and the Communists are getting stronger every day. If Sanusi were to take over tomorrow, the Americans and British would probably sigh with relief.”

“I don’t see how you’d be better off, though.”

“We couldn’t be worse off. At least, we could come to terms with Sanusi.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Sanusi may be a fanatic in some ways, but in others he is open to reason.”

“You speak as if you knew him.”

“Oh yes, I know him. You forget, he commanded the garrison here.” He paused, then added: “There are lots of people in this place who know Sanusi.”

“I’m sure there are. Has he any weaknesses?”

“Wishful thinking. Same as me.”

A waiter was hovering near us. De Vries began to talk of other things. It was not until we were sitting on the terrace having our coffee that he reverted to the subject. A column of army trucks with troops aboard them went by. The troops were in full marching order, with steel helmets and machine pistols. They were clinging on for dear life as the trucks bounced over the pot holes outside the hotel. I remembered something I had read in the Government newspaper that morning about an important army exercise.

“Sanusi has another weakness,” De Vries remarked sombrely.

“Oh?”

“He does not like to take chances.”

When the Government offices reopened I made another tour, beginning with the Ministry of Public Works, who were required to certify that I was leaving the country with their knowledge and without any of their property in my possession, and ending with the police department, where I deposited the completed forms, together with my passport and a substantial sum to cover “fees.” A sour police lieutenant then agreed reluctantly that, if I returned the following day at about the same time, the exit permit might be stamped in my passport. When I arrived back at the tailor’s it was no surprise to find that the slacks and shirts I had ordered were ready for me; nevertheless, I was pleased. After a day with official Sunda, it was refreshing to deal with the businesslike Chinese.

Back in the apartment, I slept for an hour or so. When I awoke, I found that it had rained heavily and that the air smelt of, and felt like, hot mud. However, the water in the bathhouse was cool, and, after I had showered, I was able to dress without too much discomfort.

I had arranged to meet Rosalie at the New Harmony Club at eight thirty. Soon after eight, I locked up the apartment and set out. The lift was not working, and I had to walk down the stairs past the floors occupied by the radio station. The corridors had sponge-rubber carpets laid along them and there was a lot of external wiring on the walls; but otherwise they looked much like floors in an ordinary office building. On one landing workmen were manhandling a heavy piece of electrical equipment that looked like a meat safe out of the lift. When I reached the ground floor I could hear a big diesel generator set thudding away in the basement. The radio station, Jebb had told me, was independent of the city power supply. The two policemen on the door glanced at me casually, but did not trouble to look at the temporary pass their predecessors had given me earlier in the day.

Mahmud pedalled over grinning when he saw me come out, and soon we were splashing through the rain-filled pot holes along the Telegraf Road towards the racecourse.

I would like to be able to say that I sensed something strange about the city that evening-an inexplicable tension in the air, a brooding calm that foretold the storm-but I cannot. Most of the drains had overflowed with the rain and added their own special stench to the normal canal smell, but there seemed to be just as many people about as there had been the previous night, and they all seemed to be behaving in the normal way. On one patch of wasteland beside the road, there was even a small fair in progress. A carousel had been set up, and a small stage on which two Indian conjurors were performing. Mahmud slowed down as we went past. One of the conjurors was holding a tin chamber pot, while the other pretended to defecate coins into it. As the coins clattered into the pot, the crowd applauded happily.

When I got to the club, I went through into the bar. It was fairly crowded, but I was relieved to find that neither Lim Mor Sai nor his wife was there. The Dutch couple were at their place by the piano. I had a drink and watched them for a time. Once, the pianist nodded vaguely to them and began to play what was evidently their favourite tune. The man touched his wife’s hand, and she looked at him fondly. The man smiled and said something to the pianist; but he was bored with them again. For him, no doubt, they were merely two pathetic Europeans who drank too much and breathed across the piano at him every evening, distracting him with their tiresome adulation from his private world of soft lights, rich boy-friends and American recordings. It was all rather depressing.

Then, Rosalie arrived and things were suddenly different.

She was wearing a light cotton dress that should have made her look more European, but for some reason had the reverse effect. As soon as she saw me, she smiled and came over, nodding to someone she knew on the way. There was nothing self-conscious about her greeting, no arch pretence that she had not really expected to find me there. She was glad to see me and I was glad to see her, and, as I was drinking gin, she would drink that, too.

It was a good evening. I don’t remember all the things we talked about; Mina and Jebb for a while, I know, and the police department, food, clothes, Singapore, air travel, and the black markets; but after we had dined, and then danced a bit, we talked about ourselves. I learned that she had a sister who worked for a shipping company, that her father, who had been in the Dutch army, had died in a Jap P.O.W. camp, and that her mother preferred to live now with relatives who owned land near Kota Baru. She learned that, after a spell in the Western Desert, I had spent most of the war building airfields, that my wife had gone off with a Polish army officer while I had been away, and that my firm in London had written asking me if I would like to do a job in Brazil.

Lim Mor Sai showed up later in the evening and went round the tables making himself agreeable to the customers. When he stopped at our table I gave him Jebb’s message about the cigars. Just for a moment it seemed to disconcert him.

“Cigars? Ah yes. That is most kind.” He paused. “May I ask where you are staying, Mr. Fraser?”

“Jebb’s lent me his apartment. Why?”

He hesitated, then shrugged apologetically. “Here one always asks. The hotels are so full. You are fortunate.” He bowed slightly and moved on; but I had a feeling that he had left something unsaid. So had Rosalie. I saw her look after him in a puzzled sort of way; then our eyes met, she smiled as if I had caught her out in an indiscretion, and we got up to dance again.

We left the place soon after eleven. Mahmud was waiting outside. There is just room for two reasonably slim persons in a betjak, and he waved away a colleague who tried to muscle in. Rosalie gave him an address, and he set off enthusiastically, the chain making cracking sounds as he threw his weight on to the pedals.

The street to which he took us was on the outskirts of the Chinese quarter. The pavements were arcaded, and between the shops there were broad, steep staircases leading to the upper floors. About halfway down the street, Rosalie told him to stop. Then she got out and hurried up one of the staircases. I lit a cigarette and waited. A little way along the street, an old man was sitting on the edge of the open drain with his legs dangling into it, solemnly combing a long grey beard. On the opposite pavement there was a Sikh watchman asleep on a charpoy placed across the doorway of a furniture shop. Only two or three windows in the street showed any light. It was so quiet that I could hear Mahmud breathing.

Rosalie was gone about ten minutes. When she returned, she had a small dressing case with her. I told Mahmud to drive us to the Air House.

There, the policemen on duty at the door glanced casually at my pass and nodded. They paid no attention to Rosalie. The generator in the basement was silent; presumably, the radio station had shut down for the night. The lift was working again and lights had been left on in the fifth-floor corridor. Beyond the swing doors at the end of it, however, there was pitch darkness and I had to strike matches to light the way to the apartment. I remembered how unprepossessing it had seemed to me the previous day.

“It’s not all as bad as this,” I said.

“I know, Mina told me. Besides, I helped her choose the furniture.”

When I had left the apartment, I had locked all the windows on to the terrace. She sat down while I opened up the living room, but when I came back from doing the bedroom, I found that she had gone into the kitchen and was looking at the refrigerator.

“Thirsty?” I asked.

“A little.” She patted the refrigerator. “Does it work?”

“Oh yes.”

I got a tray of ice out and showed her. She smiled and wandered off into the living room. When I went in there with the ice and glasses, however, she was out on the terrace.

I watched her. For a moment or two she stood quite still, looking round at everything as if she were making an inventory, then she walked away slowly past the attap screen to inspect the bathhouse. She was out of sight now, but I could hear her shoes clicking on the concrete. The sound receded and then got louder again. I heard her go into the bedroom. The sound of her footsteps ceased, and I knew that she was standing there taking in everything and getting used to it. The drinks were made, but I left them where they were and stretched out on one of the long chairs. I did not want to interrupt her.

A minute went by, and then I heard her move.

“Steven?” It was the first time she had used my name.

“In here.”

She came through from the bedroom and smiled when she saw me on the chair.

“I have been looking at everything,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

I handed her a drink. She drank about half of it, but thoughtfully, as if she were up against a serious problem. I asked her what it was.

“It is very warm,” she explained carefully. “I was thinking that I would take a bath.”

“Is that all? Well, I’m going to take one, too. You go first.”

She came back from the bathhouse wearing a sarong. The towel was draped modestly over her breasts and her black hair hung loose on her shoulders. I left her standing by the terrace balustrade, looking down into the square below.

The water was deliciously cool. I dried myself slowly so as not to get warm again, tied a towel round my waist and walked back along the terrace.

She was no longer there, and there was only a single light on in the living room. It shone indirectly through the open door into the bedroom. It was there that I found her.

It was still dark when I awoke and the terrace outside was almost white in the moonlight. I knew that it was a sound that had wakened me, but I did not know what sound. I looked across at Rosalie asleep on the other bed; but she was quite still. There was a small table between the two beds and I could see the dial of my watch glowing there. It was three forty-five.

Just then I heard the sound again. It came from away along the terrace. A man said something sharply and there was a noise like a packing case being moved on concrete.

I swung my legs to the floor and stood up. My bath towel was lying between the beds and I wrapped it around my waist. If I were going to have to tackle an intruder, I preferred not to do so stark naked.

I bent over Rosalie and kissed her. She stirred in her sleep. I kissed her again and she opened her eyes. I kept my head close to hers.

“Wake up, but speak softly.”

“What is it?” She was still half asleep.

“Listen. There’s somebody trying to get along the terrace from one of the empty apartments. Thieves, I suppose. I’m going to scare them away.”

She sat up. “Have you a revolver?”

“Yes, but I hope I won’t have to use it. They’re making a lot of noise. They probably think there’s no one here.”

My suitcase was under the bed. I got the revolver out, rotated the cylinder until one of the three rounds in it would fire when I pressed the trigger, and went over to the window.

There was a wall separating this section of the terrace from that belonging to the unfinished apartment next door, and it had iron spikes on it. I heard one of the men cursing as he tried to negotiate them. Now was the moment to act, I thought. As I had told Rosalie, all I wanted to do was to scare them away. If either of them got down from the wall, he would be cornered with nowhere to run to.

I stepped out on to the terrace.

I could see very clearly. The moon was behind me, shining directly along the terrace. A man was standing on the top of the wall astride the spikes. He was wearing an army steel helmet and a belt of ammunition pouches. As I watched, he bent down and took something handed up to him from below. When he straightened up I saw that it was a Japanese-pattern machine pistol. He held it up for a moment, regaining his balance, then he brought his other leg over the spikes and jumped.

As he landed on the terrace, I moved back into the bedroom. I was confused and scared now, but I had some sense left. I went straight back to the suitcase and dropped the revolver inside it.

“What’s the matter?” Rosalie whispered.

I took her hand and held it tightly, motioning her not to speak. The soldier was walking along the terrace now, not cautiously, but as if he were uncertain of the way. Then, he came into view, the machine pistol held across his body as if he were on patrol. Rosalie started violently and I gripped her tighter. For a moment the man outside stood silhouetted in the moonlight. He looked round and stared at the bedroom window. Rosalie began to tremble. He took a step towards it.

Suddenly, a loud hammering noise came from the living room, and I realised that someone was beating on the outer door of the apartment.

The man on the terrace peered round and then went through the open window into the living room. The door into the bedroom was open and we saw him cross towards the hall. A moment later there was the sound of the bolts of the door being shot back and a murmur of voices. The lights in there went on.

I stood up. My dressing gown was lying on a chair and I tossed it to Rosalie. Then, putting my finger to my lips, to warn her to keep quiet, I walked through into the living room.

There were several voices murmuring in the corridor now. Suddenly, there was a sound of sharp footsteps approaching and the voices were hushed.

A Sundanese voice said: “At your service, Major tuan.”

A moment later, Major Suparto walked into the room.