Stories from Deli

Hendrik Groiter, Tabakkers

It was a peculiar mishmash of personalities that, around 900, held sway over tobacco companies, or rather, the planters’ stick. The vast majority of them had not received any training in Europe that had prepared them for work in Indian cultures. Not until much later were the diplomas and other proofs of good conduct required, before there was a chance to be sent to Deli, but in those years any young guy who had a strong body and who knew how to work and above all: to let work. If he did not comply, he was dismissed without trial, as the tobacco company had not assumed any obligation under any contract. Most, who had been weighed and found wanting, then went further into the jungle or arrived at their destination in other parts of the world. Those who came belonged to the most diverse social circles in Europe. 

Besides young nobles, and also some ‘Freiherrn’, who had to disappear from Europe because of an ‘Ehrensache’, former non-commissioned officers and colonials were found who had passed their military service. The corps of ‘failed students’, who had stumbled over the bitter table of their club before their final exams, was well represented and Delft in particular provided a very useful contingent of these boys. 

In addition, office clerks who had accidentally ended up on the office stool because of their parents’ misunderstanding, but who, obeying an internal urge for adventure, had fled to ‘the East’. For the rest guys with whom the parents did not know what to do, and about whom the family council had finally decided, then to the Indies! and a single seafarer, either secretly or not from his ship, who could not resist the possibility of becoming a wealthy tobacco too. 

This last category included the one, which one day arrived in a tight cart at the company as a singkeh, as a novice, and was warmly welcomed by his future colleagues. Because he belonged to a group of Dutchmen who were not yet represented in the group of men that shared joys and sorrows in that corner of Sumatra’s East coast. His cradle was somewhere in that piece of primal Holland near Sliedrecht and Kinderdijk. Pulled out of the mud, as it were he had remained loyal to the mud and had helped propagate Dutch fame in this field over all parts of the world to which the dredging material had taken him. He used to show his patriotism by claiming that the Dutch mud still smelled the best. Besides, all those foreign countries and customs and peoples could not have made him a cosmopolitan; they left his tough form of polder guest untouched. He had remained true to his dialect, his patriotic curses, the old klare and his ‘keessie’, the tobacco plum, and sprayed his plum juice over the quays of Valparaiso, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Suez and Singapore. In the latter port city he had gotten the air of the muddy beaches of Deli, and then his red head had settled into the dream of becoming a wealthy tobacco magnate. At the time, the jump from the dredger to the tobacco fields was not so strange. There was a feverish urge to expand.

The tender-hearted thing of the cultures, and any European worker was welcome, who could be expected to obey and in turn make them obey. And the “Glow Worm,” as he was immediately baptized, looked like it would be all right, especially with regard to the latter. Anyone who would be inclined to associate that nickname with a new person would be faced with the surprise of one hundred, worm-like colossus of over six and a half feet and the rest accordingly. It was therefore more a matter of coloring than of dimensions, which coloring resided in a flaming head of hair with corresponding walrus mustache and a red head, always beaded with drops of sweat, as if the owner had just started the fire in hell. 

When on cozy evenings the mood started to warm up a bit, which used to be the case about after the fifth or sixth round, that head took on such a tone that his comrades called it “fire bite.” On the red background, a purple scar from the corner of the left mouth to the left ear was bright. Glow worm used to deny its existence and let out a pissed off growl when someone started nagging about it and wanted to know the origin of that gash. ‘You sometimes have a difference of opinion with this one or that one,’ he said at most, ‘well, and you fight that out. Nothing special!’ His features were far from classic, for example, but there was something childish and good in his tropical sun-laced blue eyes. He therefore applied to what is commonly called ‘a good guy’. 

Compared to his old trade at the dredger, the work on the kebon seemed to him salon work and the exercise of authority was not that bad, although he also had to rely more on his hairy hands than on eloquence and knowledge of languages. In fact it consisted of only a few dozen Malay technical terms, which he managed to roll in a clever way, with numerous GVDs as connecting links, into almost fluid sentences of indisputable imperative force. 

The relationship with his boss, the administrator of the company, was not too bad, considering that Glowworm couldn’t get used to throwing his plum solution into the seed beds and even to the feet of the boss. This was hard to accept, for gradually a touch of ‘civilization’ penetrated the tobacco land and types like Glowworm were already a little out of the frame. He was therefore forbidden to prune and that increased the nostalgia for the dredger, where he could indulge himself in that respect. But at night in his lonely house, or with his comrades, he made up for the damage and protruded his keessie under his cheek. That nevertheless quite soon a serious conflict with the administrator of the company broke out was due to the truly revolutionary conception of Glowworm about the harf besars, the two days off in the month. 

In his dredging days, he had never grumbled about his bosses taking up his days off, provided there was no whining about it, if he occasionally went off the box a little longer, than was actually allowed. He found it very natural that someone worked on command, but that a hard worker, also on command, had to lazy and have just so many hours, seemed incomprehensible to him. He preferred to work continuously, until that unrest about him became ready, which could only be alleviated by thoroughly playing the beast for a few days. After a refreshing nap of 24 hours and longer, he then embarked on a new period of diligent work and relatively frugal living. For he characterized his relationship to alcohol himself by admitting that he was a ‘quarter boozer’. 

However, after a heated discussion about the duration of a quarter, his friends had called him a “gibberish.” He apologized about this periodic intoxication, by arguing that the national folk drink was an infallible hygienic measure in the tropics; a vademecum against all kinds of ‘bad fumes in the body and dirty beasts in the blood’. Unfortunately, his tobacco boss turned out to have little appreciation for this system and after an overly extensive hari besar, he promptly received the note at home, informing him that his services were no longer required and that he had an extra month. salary was fired. Glowworm had to let go of his clean tobacco dream for good and after a thunderous vendution of his meager possessions and a farewell party, which kept all participants in the head and legs for days, he went back into the wide world. He now bitterly regretted his unfaithfulness to mud and the dredge, which he came to regard as a pleasure yacht in the coming weeks of lack of money. However, his cravings for the familiar mud world were not so easy to satisfy, because there was no dredger to be seen in all of Sumatra at the time, so it was important for him to first earn the necessary money in order to travel to such a box again. wherever in the world it may be. “Without luck no one fares,” and it happened that the Deli Spoor was busy with the construction of a line, which required a good work foreman for a mud and pile plow and Glowworm was appointed as such. With lust he sniffed the mud air again and the rattling and drone of pile driver and pile driver sounded like music to his ears. His supervisors were therefore quite satisfied with his professional work and, taking into account that this was considered dirty, troublesome and unhealthy, even his periodic excesses in the interest of hygiene were not overly blamed. In addition, he was allowed to plums as much as he wanted and Glowworm resolved to stay in this job until he had saved enough to go back out of the sea in search of a real dredging box. However, danger again threatened because of the primitive way in which he thought he had to maintain his authority. 

At the kebon, in his previous position, people did not look so closely in that respect, but at the Deli Spoor they applied other standards, and ‘the blow’ was prohibited. Glowworm, however, recognized as the only means of retaining discipline only a wholesome beating, as he himself had received many times from his nourishment in his youth. No punches or sticks in tantrums; no demeaning swear words, no penance, overtime, or other teasing, but a hefty whack immediately after the pluming, administered with chilling calmness. have led. For them until now he was gradually regarded as a sort of giant of the old sagas, who with justice, quite free from torment, was allowed to touch their bodies when they failed. The wretch, who got into his red-haired casserole-sized keyboards, was always resigned to his need, amid the quiet chuckles of his fellows. 

With fate over the Native’s fine, childlike instincts they rightly suspected behind that rough, rough nature a good heart and as every man in that team had been practically the victim, no one needed to be ‘maloe’ and those who looked at you more from the humorous side. valleys more or less A wide opportunity for fatherly chastisement was offered by the daily role-playing in the gray morning hour before sunrise. An appeal was then held and, in addition, a dose of quinine was administered as a contraceptive against malaria. That ceremony went as follows. 

At the command: ‘Boeka moeloet’ all jaws were opened wide and the tuan then strode along the row with a large bottle of quinine pills, aiming two pills in each cakement, which had to be swallowed ‘slamat’ with the victory wish. However, there were always brothers, who had more reluctance than confidence in that stuff and tried to hide the pills under their tongues or behind their molars and then spit them out later. Woe to the simpletons, who had tried to outwit the tuan! Without mercy they would get a lick on the jaws of one of the two frying pans, so that the pills shot in with fright. Even worse was the fate of the repeat offenders. 

These were worked in front of the troop with a piece of firewood from the pile-driver, often losing their only piece of clothing in an attempt to free themselves from the grip of those hairy claws. That fate struck Sastropawiro. The man was resentful, not because of the pain or humiliation he had suffered, for he had deserved punishment and always enjoyed himself when one of his fellows was chastised by tuan, and now it had simply been his turn to gloat to his companions. But he was resentful about his pants, a beautiful almost brand new 8 cent khakis, now hanging in tatters after his attempted escape. 

His local complaints had been disregarded, and so he had found the courage and the opportunity to accost the engineer at one of his inspections at work and humbly lament his torn trousers, in order to at least make up for that garment. to get. As a result, the next day Glowworm was now on the mat, plum and all. why not here, as in Holland, the discipline could be exercised without harsh violence. Glowworm had been profoundly silent at first, then shifted his choice from left to right, and brought it to the center, which he himself had often been blamed for. The engineer had then taken a different tack and pointed out the difficulties the Company could face with the authorities, as well as the considerable chance that today or tomorrow Glowworm would be found with a knife between the ribs. The prospect seemed to leave the man cold, at least he persisted in his stubborn silence and prunes. Nor did the engineer fail to appeal to Glowworm’s more tender and human feelings. The effect of this was a silence as in the grave. 

Finally, the chief became a foul and asked if Glowworm was not ashamed of its Herculean strength and, moreover, of pulling a piece of leather firewood against a puny Native. That shot was a hit; the plum came to rest, and from Glowworm’s plum mouth the words dripped: “Oh, sir, why all this fuss? I won’t hurt them! ‘ … Then the chief gave up: he was no match for so much good-natured innocence. With a last effort to keep himself well, he gave Glowworm a earnestly intended admonition, after which it reluctantly left, unaware of his guilt. When the construction work was finished, Glowworm said goodbye with a firm handshake to all his coolies, each of whom had been his victims, but who now all argued, that they thought it very ‘sajang’ that Tuan was leaving: they had also experienced the good disposition under this rough shell several times. His supervisors also regretted the passing of this raw, but good-natured polder guest, who, however, could not be stopped now that with his money saved and an extra bonus he was able to go to Shanghai, where the Hol dredging mills were running day and night and where they had him. -national best.