‘He is only journalist …’
At this juncture, the man in spectacles spoke up for himself. He said, ‘You have no need to shout or shoot, sir, I am only a journalist, as Tung Su Chi says.’
Acting heavy, I walked slowly over and looked at him. He countered by rising from the table as I approached and regarding me with a half-smile.
‘You speak English. What’s your name? Do you live here?’
‘I live in Medan. Not particularly through choice.’
I moved a pace nearer. ‘Do you live in this particular fucking building?’
‘I live nearby, sir.’
‘Is he a relation of yours?’ I asked Fat.
Fat had been devoting his attention to smoking and blinking. He continued to blink as he said, ‘No, sir, no rela’. On’y fren’. He Tiger Balm, run China newspaper.’
The other man produced a grubby visiting card. ‘You see, sir, I am known by my journalist’s name of Tiger Balm. My name is Chae Lieng Sing, and I am acting editor of New South China Times, published from Boulan Way, where I also live.’
Glancing hopefully at my two watches, I said, ‘It’s nearly curfew.’
Tiger Balm nodded. ‘I shall be on my way soon. Meanwhile, why don’t you sit down with us? Su Chi, please bring over your friend’s beer.’
There was something mocking in the way he spoke. I mistrusted his flawless English, and the point he made by addressing Margey by her Chinese name. She came forward with the beer and the fruit. Fat immediately seized on an apple and began to munch before his sister-in-law could fade into the background. I looked for a signal from her but she gave none.
Lifting his glass, Tiger Balm said, ‘It is a pleasure to talk with you. Shooting sometimes makes for friendliness. May I offer a Singapore cigarette?’
Perhaps it was time to make amends. I sat down opposite the two Chinese and pulled out the field-dressing tin which I used for a cigarette case. ‘Have an English fag.’
All three of us lit up. Margey stood watching in the background, saying nothing.
‘Let me ask you why the British authorities do not stop all the shooting,’ said Tiger Balm. ‘Surely they could do so if they wished.’
‘It’s only a few extremists. They live in the kampongs and come into town to cause trouble. Things are far worse in Java, as I expect you know.’
He shook the match until it went out, in an idly contemptuous gesture.
‘Of course I know it. Nevertheless, what happens in Java and what happens here is all part of one process, the endeavour of the Soekarno Freedom party to rid NEI of colonial rule. It is not just a matter of a few extremists, as you represent.’
‘Bang, bang, bang, “stremis”,’ echoed Fat. We ignored the man, and he gradually disappeared behind a wreath of cigarette smoke.
Swigging down the beer, I said heavily, ‘As you probably realise, the Japs here started handing out their weapons to the natives as soon as they were defeated, to stir up trouble for their victors. The British mission when we arrived here last October was simply to pack the Japs off to Japan and let the Dutch resume their rule. What you might call restoring the status quo, eh? But nobody wants the Dutch back, so we have to hang around and keep the peace as best we can.’
As I peeled a mangusteen, Tiger Balm pressed his argument.
‘Excuse me if I say so, but you do not keep the peace so very well, sir. In Sourabaya, your troops fight pitched battles with the extremists. You bomb towns, kill innocent people. You also use the defeated Nipponese to help. Why are you allowed to ally yourself with a defeated and disgraced enemy in that way? It brings unpopularity.’
‘The real wars are over, in case you’ve forgotten. We had Hitler to fight as well, you know. Now we want to pack up and go home. We’re short of men, owing to the demob programme, so we – well, the trouble is that the local population encourages the extremists. You have to inflict peace on them.’ I laughed.
Silence reigned, inside and out.
He smoked his cigarette concentratedly and made a comment in Chinese to Fat. To me he said, ‘You see, sir, what you have to say about the situation is not at all exact. You must face one fact, that the old world of the nineteen-thirties is totally shattered. None of us can go back to those times. Demons are loose.’
He paused as if considering what to say, tapping impatiently with long fingers on the table. ‘Myself, I am a wanderer on the earth’s face, but let me give the example of the family who employs me, who owns the New South China Times. They remain here in Sumatra under Dutch rule since five generations. They come from Swatow, a fine port you should visit if ever you would. They are Overseas Chinese, not mere refugees like Fat Sian and I. But who can say what will happen to them before the end of 1946? How can they go back to China, where civil war rages? Sumatra is their place, they understand everything about it …
‘We sit here, you and I, and talk in this poor building. It once housed a spare – what do you say? – an auxiliary printing press of the firm’s. The press was stolen, the mechanic who guarded it is killed. Many unlawful things happen …’
‘Look, the curfew –’
He sighed. ‘I see you do not care to learn. Please give me another cigarette. I mean no harm, I even admire the British in a way. But I wish you understand my meaning. You hear the shooting, you enjoy certain pleasures with Su Chi. You think you are in old Medan.
‘Let me tell you, sir, that you are not. You are in a new place, and the hairs on your head should be standing upright in alarm.’ He laughed with sudden ferocity. ‘You are in a snake’s den. You are in a town of the new Indonesian Republic! You appear not to understand that. Do you know that Dr Soekarno declared the Netherlands East Indies dead and gone in 1945? We now remain in a militant new republic, with its own flag, under which certainly no colonialists will be allowed. They will kill off all white foreigners, ten to one.’
It irritated me to be lectured at. Swigging the beer, I said, dismissively, ‘Well, it’s their bloody country, after all.’
He laughed, and again made a rapid remark in Chinese to Fat, who blinked expertly. ‘My godfather, is that the British point of view, sir, the famous British sense of justice? Murder is okay on home ground, is that what you say? If so, why don’t you clear off, every one of you? Or if you do not clear off, why don’t you send more troops, Indians if necessary, and crush this whole damned Soekarno Merdeka movement once for all? Do one thing or the other, for god’s sake!’
‘Look here, it’s a difficult –’
‘Restore real peace, get business picking up again, introduce a proper legal currency, open up trade with outside world. Then if local discontent dies, support for Dr Soekarno dies.’
‘It’s a difficult political situation for the British. You know the name of Jinnah?’
Tiger Balm leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head, smiling.
‘You refer to Mr Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League Party of the Indian Central Assembly? Naturally, I am tolerably familiar with the name.’
‘Then you may be tolerably familiar with his noises about the wrongs of the British using Indian troops in a foreign country. If our troops took Jinnah seriously, we’d have a mutiny on our bloody hands. I can’t think why they don’t lock Jinnah up.’ I laughed.
He laughed too, without humour. ‘As you say, your hands are already bloody. You have already locked Jinnah up, and Jawarhalal Nehru, and Ghandi – and it did no bit of good. Your gaols were not oppressive enough. As a result, the days of the British in India are numbered.’
‘That’s