Stories from Deli

It was what you call “a heavy department,” which the assistant of the Congis six, seven and eight had been placed under his control at the super-company where he was placed after returning from leave. High, dry bokits, very hilly with swampy ravines, so that he had to constantly walk up and down slopes to check everything. It was a reclamation; there had been heavy primeval forest and a lot of work had already been done before it was time for the soil to be tilled. Many forest giants were still only partially burnt scrap and crooked through the fields, and numerous man-sized tree trunks, many feet in size, were scattered everywhere, making it extremely difficult to make a neat tobacco plantation on such a site. 

The supply of building materials for the many drying sheds that had to be built, had taken a lot of effort. As far as the roadway was built, the necessary material could be carried by ox carts, but from there the heavy jambs of sea wood, the tiangs, as well as the other materials had to be lugged up. For months, teams of Javanese builders had toiled to get the large barns ready on time, and although a dozen or so had already been built, construction continued uninterruptedly, so the assistant had to give his full attention to it. Much of the lighter construction timber had to be cut from the nearby primeval forest and transported to the construction sites. Here it then had to be sorted, counted and paid out, in short, that building took a lot of time in addition to supervising the cultivation of the fields, laying out the seed beds and planting out the young tobacco plants. 

His house was on the edge of a ravine, so that every morning while it was still dark he had to descend a hundred and sixty steps and climb up the other side again along the zigzag path that had been made along the slope. The Chinese field coolies also had a hard time in such a field, because on the high-lying fields it was not possible to dig wells, so that for watering the seed beds and the newly planted tobacco, they often swung their empty petroleum cans on the side. cane, the zigzag stairs of the slopes had to go down to scoop water from the creek that ran through a ravine, and then toil up again with that burden. Strict control was therefore required to ensure, that the plants received enough water, because only then would they be able to continue to grow in the scorching heat of Tropical Day during the first days after planting. But a ‘laukeh’ like him, who had been brought up in the Deli-matjam for a decade, had little trouble persuading negligent coolies. 

That Deli-matjam, that special way of working and acting, was based on the principle: do not condone anything and punish any negligence in such a way that the negligent knew unambiguously what was required of him. That system was certainly necessary at the time in a precarious culture such as that of Deli tobacco, which culture had to be driven partly with the scum of Asian workers and partly with European adventurers, in a tropical country without police or other legal protection. 

The harshness of the Deli planters of forty years ago, the thundering, the bluffing and the tyrant, was necessary to mask the fact that they actually had very few legal means of discipline. No matter how much approved it was, it was a wonderful school for planters; a disciplinary school for the overconfident a selection test for those who should occupy the highest places in the cultural world. That teaching and disciplinary assistant of the fourth section successfully passed through school, and mercilessly applied its rules to his subordinates, just as they were applied to him by his superiors. He knew that he was being held liable for all work in his department, as if he had done it personally. That day he had had to endure another inspection from the clerk, and it had been the old song again: no eye for the difficulties he had to overcome in this difficult department, but looking for mistakes and then saying the necessary. Just like with that drying shed. Because he had to use a lot of forest wood as construction wood, it was impossible to make the building tight and straight everywhere and in the roof of one of the sheds a small undulation was visible and the ridge was not cleanly tight. His boss had stopped in front of it and, getting angry, had asked him if he hadn’t seen that kink in the roof and that curved ridge. 

Yes, of course, he had seen that, he had replied, but no decent work could be expected with that crooked wood. And besides, there was no time to lose to finish the drying sheds, so that he had accepted it. But his boss had used the old trick and added that he had not expected such a weak attitude from an assistant with ten years of service and that he was apparently not well-suited for the work in this department … Although he had already hit this whip for a long time, he was nevertheless very upset when in the evening he toiled up the slope that led to his house. It had been a blazing hot day, and his sweaty body no longer had a dry thread. 

The ‘barn time’, which had only just passed and in which he checked the sorting in the fermentation shed day in, day out, was no fun, but it now seemed like a life for rent compared to lugging around in a department like this. Nine to ten hours a day he walked up and down hill in a temperature, which would make the people of Holland lie on their toes and with this heat and drought there was no shot in the plantings, which therefore looked bad. Of course the boss was upset when he came for an inspection and walked through the measly one. But that was no reason to treat him like a sing-plant keh *. If the pouring rains did not come soon, the mood of the boss would get worse, because then there would be a lousy small and poor harvest, resulting in no bonus. 

This was no ground for tobacco either. Far too high and on difficult terrain, so that the cost price was much too high and the chance of a decent profit small. A Rot-kebon, which could not be honored. Thus grumbling he had arrived at his house. He threw off his sweaty clothes, tied a sarong around his bare body and, with towel and soap in hand, walked to the so-called bathroom in the outbuildings. The wine barrel, which stood in a corner on a pair of half-rotted planks, from which he had to scoop the water to throw it over his body, was only partly filled. “Mana Toucan Agier!” where is the water bearer, he roared furiously and when that little Chinese reported himself in fear, he released his pent-up mind on that man who was apparently too lazy to go down the hundred and sixty many times, steps, scoop water from the stream and then walk up again with the two filled paraffin cans to fill the mandivat to the brim. 

He gave the man a thunderous jam and signaled that he must now get ten more cans full from below although it had also become pitch dark. With a hard blow he slammed the door and then the water began to pour over his heated body, from which he recovered noticeably. He was very upset that night. At the evening meal, which followed his bath, he gibbered to the cook about the food, which was the same day in, day out, although the cook went to great lengths to make something out of a chicken that you couldn’t tell. that it was an ajam, a chicken. As usual, he had put the mail edition of the Nieuwe Rotterdammer against the beer bottle in front of his plate and read the many weeks old world news while eating. The boy, the factotum, was waiting on the small, adjoining back porch for his tuan to be ready, so that he could immediately bring the dessert or replace the empty beer bottles. 

After the meal he went to the front porch and was soon on his deckchair with his bare legs on the railing, breathing out the day’s fatigue and annoyances. Above the large marble table, the kerosene lamp burned with a yellowish light: the only point of light in the pitch-black night. On the whitewashed wooden walls, besides a few yellowed photographs, hung some very daring plates, which he had brought from Paris and over which a few tjitjaks were now crawling to hunt for the many insects that also walked around on them. Every now and then a yellow lizard like this would drop to the floor with a bang, and then hastily disappear under some piece of furniture. Throngs of flying insects approached the lamp light, burned… lay with their bare legs on the balustrade their wings and fell helplessly to the table top, which was soon littered with whole and half burnt beasts. 

Numerous ants scurried around that battlefield to select the most suitable slaughter for loot. Every now and then his red-sacrificial burnt fist swung across the table top to clean up, so that a whole collection of insects ended up on the floor, where the necessary ants also provided the further transport. Hid was hardly aware of all this. Nor did he hear the chorus of sharp insect noises out there in the dark night, where the shrill screeching of the great crickets, the monotonous cries of night birds, and the mysterious sounds of the high lalang went on and on. If that busy stuff suddenly stopped, he would certainly be startled by the absence of those sounds from the animal world around him, but they are so part of the tropical nights that they are no longer even noticed by the old-timers in that country. Especially on this evening he saw or heard none of that. While he was enjoying a good cigar and a cool drink, his ‘plague’ had already subsided. Lying immobile on his reclining chair, with no body covering other than a colorful sarong and a thin jacket, images of the past had involuntarily emerged. 

What leave he had been on! He had disembarked in Naples. There a German car was put ashore, which the driver had to drive to Frankfurt and when, taking the opportunity to see much, he offered to accompany that driver on his long journey, the owner of the car was happy to do so accepted. That had become a journey! They had started the role together; first in Naples and then in Rome. They had little interest in the forum like this or the forum like that, nor the Pantheon, St. Peter’s or the catacombs, but had been partying for a week. Rome… the Eternal City! It was just carnival there and they fell right in the middle of it. He had picked up a handsome Roman wench on the street, but this lady first wanted to ask permission from her parents before going out with such an outdoor model as he was then. He ended up in the back room of a pharmacy where his Dulcinea’s parents lived and with a mouthful of French and ‘beaucoup d’audace’ he soon won the case. It had become a mad night. He found himself standing on the stage of a small cabaret with a guitar in his hands singing the most foolish songs to an excited bunch of Romans, who kept giving rounds out of appreciation. 

Numerous carriages with partygoers drove through the Eternal City and he would just hop from one thing to the other and ride along. He soon lost his chosen one in the noise, but he kept hooking up with another beauty. What a night after those many long years of hard work in the silence of the jungle … He had felt completely disconnected in the festive mood of those days and no longer bound by the laws of society and what you call ‘decency’. They also made an attempt to visit the Pope, but failed. He laughed loudly about it… now, in the jungle far from any party noise. He remembered how he had had to swerve in a narrow street in Rome before a procession of seminarians, who were met by four. He had stood up against a wall to let those strangely dressed boys pass. As they passed him, the leaders lifted their broad-brimmed hats before him, and he, astonished at this kind tribute, even tapped his hat and said, “Good morning too.” 

But when all who followed also greeted in that manner, he had said “damn it” and understood nothing about it. Until he realized that he was standing under a statue in front of which a light was on, and that this honor did not belong to him in the least… -tribute In Florence one Sunday afternoon they had stopped by car in a narrow street; in the middle of the tram rails. The gasoline was used up to the last drop! The driver of a tramcar behind them rang loudly and signaled them to hurry up. Well, what are you doing then? They had got out calmly amid the assembled crowd, and one had argued in German and the other in Kebon Malay that they could not run without gasoline. Apa boleh boeat! 

The police, tram drivers and half the population of that glorious city had been involved, but they had sat quietly on the running board until this or that one was smart enough to scrape a can of gasoline for them, which after a while. half an hour indeed happened. Then they could finally clear the track again, but the entire tram traffic of Florence had gone to pieces for an hour. And that on a Sunday afternoon. In Pisa they dutifully stopped for a moment in front of the tilted tower and said to each other that it was a shame that they let it stand so crookedly. That wouldn’t happen in Holland! They do not like to demolish or rectify such crooked construction! -sels: On the ride over the Apenijnen it would have been a hair off or they would have crashed into the abyss through a light wall. The brani driver had the habit of holding the steering wheel with one hand and swinging around with the other to alert him to waterfalls, church towers, etc. ‘Sehen Sie’ mal, da ganz in der Tiefe … ‘he had pointed out, just before a sharp hairpin bend … Anyway, it had ended well. 

In Genoa it had become such a party again that he decided to abort the trip here and take the train to the North, because he foresaw that his leave would go on the further trip along the Riviera and through the Rhone Valley. . Of course he always had to pay for that poor driver of a driver … He had got up from his seat and leaning on the balustrade of the front porch, he stared into the deep black night. He thought of the brightly lit rooms, full of festivities, of Europe’s most famous restaurants where he had eaten and drunk. In the busy streets of the metropolises, the nightrooms, filled with shrill music and beautiful women, would once again be fully operational. 

Every now and then he had broken free from the domestic circle and participated exuberantly in that life of pleasure. A few moments now came back to him clearly. He found himself again in Hamburg, where he had gone with another person on leave. Deep in the night, coming from Alt-Bayern, they had hailed a monkey-coachman on the Repelbahn, and in the reckless mood they were in, in Malay: ‘Hey seice! pasang kareta and marl sini. Lekas ​​sediket! ”* Shouted. And hadn’t that Hamburg mustache immediately answered me: ‘Baik, tuan! mau pegi mang? ‘ That boy turned out to be an old colonial, an old servant under of Heutz! That guy would have had the best with them on the further journey! If the three of them went into one place or another, he tied the horse to a tree or bench and left it to its own devices. Finally, they should have driven that guy to his own house: both of them on the goat and the coachman drunk in the car, where he lay singing about Trang boelan! What a life there in old Europe! Damn… he swore under his breath, that’s been out for quite some time now… * Hey driver, make an effort and come here quickly! * Good, sir; where do you want to go Although it was long after midnight, he called out loudly for more beer and cigars; in this mood he could not go to bed. It seldom happened that he was so preoccupied with the merry life he had led on his leave. 

That European life so attracted him. For he loved this work here under the high, wide sky; of this great nature, in which everything had assumed gigantic shapes; of the rough and rough in word and in deed, which was entirely in harmony with the jungle, at the border of which he always resided. He experienced again and again the opulence of the wide space that surrounded him; in which the human voices were loud and in which the gestures became broad and powerful. In this respect he had too often sensed in Holland the influence that the narrow living space had on the people there. The narrowness of the rooms, the houses, the streets, had also taken possession of the people, who worried about trifles, about what you should and should not do, who quarreled about texts and dogmas, who gossiped about the weeds in neighbor’s garden and who shy away from the grand gesture, for an immediate big decision. He had soon realized that he was all too often criticized for his actions, especially when he disappeared from that small circle every now and then without a trace. He felt that they had no understanding of the influence that years of living and working in the loneliness of the tropical nature exerts on a person, which inevitably makes him a different person; a human, which must be measured with a different standard than is customary in good bourgeois society. 

And he was indeed different from his old friends who had stayed at home. He had met them again in their small offices, or behind a counter, or at their wives’ homes, where children crawled on the floor and where the small rooms could barely bear his deep voice and broad gestures. Like a man from another world, he had come back into their lives for a moment and disappeared again and he now knew how those good citizens of the motherland were with their card evenings and their visits, their Sunday church and walk next to the pram, in their solid houses. guarded by police, judiciary, fire brigade and night security, protected by their priests and pastors. And if all that wasn’t enough they had a safe in a bank building, a savings account, a wallet with life insurance policies, and they had also covered themselves against fire, burglary, water pipe damage, accidents, etc. What could happen to them? And he? He had none of that; he had plunged into their solid life like a frivolous vagabond who had squandered a small fortune in a few months. He had proven that he could also work in this country. Because here only one factor had value: labor! 

Here, only one measure was applied in the assessment of your person: the work performance of yourself and of your subordinates. There in Holland they had no idea how people worked here! Of the thirty, one and thirty days of the month, you had hardly two days off, and then only partially. There was no question of Sundays or the celebration of Christian holidays and you had to be very deep in the rag basket before you lay on your nest due to illness. Vacation was a word not in the tobacco dictionary, and the few weeks to Java he’d had had been a great favor in the eight years of uninterrupted work. That such a pace of work was by no means unhealthy was proven by the numerous sturdy boys who were scattered all over Deli and whom it was not obvious that they could not keep up. On the contrary; nowhere did you see such a healthy bunch of strong guys gathered together as in a group of Delians, and he had happily taken his place back in their ranks, after a few crazy months in old Europe … But what is that? In the distance he hears the dull beats of a barrel tongue. What time is it then? Damn it, five o’clock…; did he lie there worrying about me all night… Still, it was good after yesterday’s plague. 

Well if the lightning a bath and clothes, then a few cups of coffee and then back into the fields. First of all, to that mandur of the construction javanese, who gave him that bungler about that shed roof. They must break it down and rebuild it flawlessly, no matter how crooked the wood is! The cabaret song that had so struck him in Paris: Si tu veux garder ta fierté Ta belle humeur et ta santé: Travaille! he hummed as he descended the slope in the twilight, on his way to the fields above which the fireball of the tropical sun had already risen. A long, tiring working day lay before him again, but refreshed by his nightly reflections,

Kleian, Deli Planter