“Mama, Mama… Mrs Van Does is here!”
The smile faded for a second: the soft eyes darkened…
“I’ll be right there, dear…”
`But she sat down and Urip, her personal maid, sprinkled perfume on her handkerchief. Mrs Van Oudijck stretched out and mused a little in the languidness that followed her journey. She found Labuwangi desperately dull after Batavia, where she had stayed for two months with friends and family, free and with no obligations. Here, as the Commissioner’s wife, she had a few, even though she delegated most to the secretary’s wife. Deep down, she was tired, out of humour, discontent. Despite her complete indifference she was human enough to have her spells of depression, in which she cursed everything. Then she longed suddenly to do something crazy, she longed, vaguely, for Paris… She would never let anyone see that. She could control herself, and now, too, she controlled herself before she reappeared. Her vague, bacchantic longing melted into indolence. She stretched out more comfortably, her eyes almost closed. Through her almost superhuman indifference there occasionally wound a strange fantasy, hidden from the world. What she most wanted to do was to live a life of perfumed imagination in her room, especially after her time in Batavia… After such a period of perverse indulgence she needed to give free rein to her wandering imagination and let it curl and float cloudlike before her eyes. In her otherwise entirely arid soul it was like an unreal blossoming of blue flowers, which she cultivated with the only sentiment she would ever be able to feel. She had no feeling for any human being, but she felt for those flowers. She loved daydreaming like this. What she would have liked to be, if she didn’t have to be who she was… The clouds of fantasy rose: she saw a white palace and Cupids everywhere…
“Mama, do come on! It’s Mrs Van Does, Mrs Van Does with two jars…”
It was Doddy at the door. Léonie got up and went to the rear veranda, where the Eurasian lady, the wife of the local postmaster, was sitting. She kept cows and sold milk. But she also dealt in other goods. She was fat, with a brownish complexion and a protruding stomach; she wore a very simple jacket with a narrow piece of lace over it, and her podgy hands stroked her paunch. In front of her, on the table, she had two jars in which something was sparkling. Mrs Van Oudijck wondered vaguely whether it was sugar or crystal, when she suddenly remembered…
Mrs Van Does said she was glad to see her back. Two months away from Labuwangi. “Too bad that, Mrs Van Oudijck, wasn’t it?” And she pointed to the jars. Mrs Van Oudijck smiled. What was it?
With an air of mystery Mrs Van Does placed a fat, limp, backward-curling forefinger against one of the jars and said in a whisper:
“Diamonds!”
“Are they?” asked Mrs Van Oudijck.
Doddy stared wide-eyed and Theo looked on in amusement at the two jars.
“Yes… You know, from that lady… I told you about… She won’t give her name. Kassian, poor soul. Her husband was once a big noise, and now… she’s so unhappy; she hasn’t a penny. All gone. All she has are these two jars. She had all her jewels removed and keeps the stones in here. They’ve all been counted. She’s entrusting them to me, to sell them. Because of my dairy business I have lots of contacts. You’d like to see them, wouldn’t you, Mrs Van Oudijck? Beautiful stones! The Commissioner will buy them for you, now you’ve come home… Doddy, give me a black cloth, velvet would be best.”
Doddy got the seamstress to look for a piece of black velvet in a cupboard full of sewing clutter. A boy brought in tamarind syrup and ice. Mrs Van Does, with a pair of tweezers between her double-jointed fingers, placed a few stones carefully on the velvet…
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I ask you, look at that quality, Mrs Van Oudijck! Magnificent!”
Mrs Van Oudijck looked. She smiled sweetly and said in her soft voice: “That stone is imitation, dear lady.”
“Imitation?” screeched Mrs Van Does. “Imitation?”
Mrs Van Oudijck looked at the other stones.
“And those others, Mrs Van Does…”—she bent over intently, and then said as sweetly as possible, “Those others… are… imitation, too…”
Mrs Van Does looked at her with amusement, and then said to Doddy and Theo, cheerfully, “That mama of yours… sharp! She sees right away!”
“Just a joke, Mrs Van Oudijck. I just wanted to see if you knew about jewels. Of course, on my word of honour, I’d never sell them… But these… look…”
And solemnly, almost religiously, she now opened the other jar, which contained only a few stones. She laid them lovingly on the black velvet.
“That one would be marvellous… for a leontine,” said Mrs Van Oudijck, peering at a large gem.
“Well, what did I tell you?” asked the Eurasian lady.
And they all gazed at the stones, the genuine ones, those from the “real” jar, and held them carefully to the light.
Mrs Van Oudijck could see they were all genuine.
“I really have no money, dear lady!” she said.
“This big one… for the leontine… six hundred guilders… a bargain, I assure you, madam!”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly, madam!”
“How much then? You will be making a good purchase. Poor thing, her husband used to be a big noise. Council of the Indies.”
“Two hundred…”
“Kassian! Two hundred!”
“Two hundred and fifty, but no more. I really don’t have any money.”
“The Commissioner…” whispered Mrs Van Does, sensing the approach of Van Oudijck, who, now the hearing was over, was heading towards the back veranda. “The Commissioner… he’ll buy it for you!”
Mrs Van Oudijck smiled and looked at the sparkling drop of light on the black velvet. She liked jewellery and was not entirely indifferent to precious stones.
She looked up at her husband.
“Mrs Van Does is showing us lots of nice things,” she said soothingly.
Van Oudijck felt a jolt of displeasure. He never enjoyed seeing Mrs Van Does in his house. She was always selling something; on one occasion batik-dyed bedspreads, on another woven slippers, and on a third occasion splendid but very expensive table runners, with gold batik flowers on yellow glazed linen. Mrs Van Does always brought something with her, was always in touch with the wives of former “big noises”, whom she helped to sell things, for a very steep commission. A morning visit from Mrs Van Does cost him at least a few guilders and very frequently fifty guilders, since his wife had a calm way of buying things she didn’t need, but was too indifferent not to buy from Mrs Van Does. He didn’t see the two jars at once, but he saw the drop of light on the black velvet, and realized that this time the visit would cost more than fifty guilders, unless he were very firm.
“My dear lady!” he said in alarm. “It’s the end of the month; there’s no way we can buy jewels today! And jars of them at that,” he cried, horrified, now seeing them sparkling on the table, among the glasses of tamarind syrup.
“Oh, that Commissioner!” laughed Mrs Van Does, as though a commissioner were always rich.
Van Oudijck hated that laugh of hers. To run his household cost him a few hundred guilders or so more than his salary each month; he was eating into his savings and had debts. His wife never bothered with money matters; she reserved her most radiant indifference for them.
She made the stone sparkle for a moment; it flashed a blue ray.
“It’s wonderful… for two hundred and fifty.”