“That’s the end of it. No band.”

In the distance, in the garden of the Concordia club, they could already hear the first sounds.

Van Oudijck had go back to work. Doddy and Theo threw themselves into two rocking chairs in the front garden and rocked madly, gliding across the smooth marble in the chairs.

“Come on,” said Theo. “Let’s get going. Addy’s waiting for you.”

“No,” she sulked. “Don’t care two hoots. Tomorrow I shall tell Addy. Papa so horrid. He’s spoiling my fun. And… I’m not putting any flowers in Mama’s room.”

Theo sniggered.

“Say,” whispered Doddy. “That Papa… hey? So in love, always. He was blushing when he asked me about those flowers.”

Theo sniggered again, and hummed along to the distant music.

3

THE NEXT MORNING at eleven-thirty Theo went to collect his stepmother from the station in the landau. Van Oudijck, who at that time usually dealt with police business, had not said anything to his son, but when, from his office, he saw Theo getting into the landau and driving off, he thought it was nice of the lad. He had adored Theo as a child, had continued to spoil him as a boy, and had often clashed with him as a young man, but still the old paternal passion often flared up. At this moment he loved his son more than Doddy, who was still sulking that morning and had not put any flowers in his wife’s room, so he’d had to instruct Kario to provide some. He was now sorry that he hadn’t spoken a kind word to Theo for days and resolved to do so in the very near future. The lad was volatile: in three years he had been employed by at least five coffee companies; at present he was again out of work and was hanging around at home looking for something to occupy him.

At the station, Theo waited only a few minutes before the train from Surabaya arrived. He saw Mrs Van Oudijck at once, with her personal maid Urip and the two little boys, René and Ricus, who unlike himself were dark-skinned, and whom she had brought with her from Batavia for their long holidays.

Theo helped his stepmother off the train as the station-master stepped up to greet her respectfully. She nodded in reply with her unique smile, like a benevolent queen. With the same ambivalent smile she allowed her stepson to kiss her on the cheek. A tall woman, white, blond, in her thirties, with the languid elegance of women born in the Indies of European parents, she had a quality that immediately attracted attention. It lay in her white skin, her milky complexion, her very light blond hair and her eyes that were a strange grey colour, and which sometimes narrowed momentarily and always had an ambiguous expression. It lay in her eternal smile, sometimes sweet and engaging, and often intolerable, irritating. At first one couldn’t tell whether there was anything hidden beneath that look and that smile—any depth, any soul—or if it was nothing but looking and smiling, both with the same slight ambivalence. However, one soon noticed her smiling, non-committal indifference, as if she didn’t care even if the heavens fell, as if she would greet such an event with a smile. She walked slowly, dressed in a pink piqué skirt and a bolero, a white satin ribbon around her waist, and a white sailor hat with a white satin bow; her summer travel outfit was very smart compared with that of some of the other ladies on the platform, strolling along in stiffly starched wrap-arounds—like nightdresses—and tulle hats topped with feathers! The only touch of the Indies in her extremely European appearance that distinguished her from a woman newly arrived from Holland was perhaps her slow gait, that languid elegance. Theo had offered her his arm and she allowed herself to be conducted to the carriage—“the coach”—followed by the two little dark-skinned brothers. She had been away for two months.

She had a nod and a smile for the stationmaster, a glance for the coachman and the groom, and took her seat slowly, languidly, still smiling, like a white sultan’s wife. The three stepsons followed her; the maid travelled behind in a cart. Mrs Van Oudijck glanced outside and felt that Labuwangi looked exactly the same as ever.