From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
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stimulating my appetite and my desire to work and to enjoy myself. But Canton, subject to the Continental climate, was quite astonishing. For me it was like a bakery in the summer and an ice-chest in the winter. Furthermore, I had not yet integrated myself into Chinese society. I did not yet understand their philosophy of cooking, whereby the food was suited to the climate. The only restaurant I knew was the “Boston,” managed by a Cantonese who had returned from America and who cooked in the American style—heavy, fatty food that was unsuited to the hot season. I began to get headaches, to lose my appetite, and to find it harder and harder to sleep. But I still had to use precious time in this foreign society trying to master English. I read all the time.
My appetite waned further, my nights were ever more sleepless, my headaches got worse, and I began to cough. All this indicated that my health was going downhill fast. I had already been here for two months, and still The Dawn was not ready. Professor Huang became harder and harder to locate. He had to go around raising funds for his college, which was in all sorts of difficulties, but without him I could not even talk to the printer.
[119] The one step forward I had made was my attempt to write in English about a strike in Shameen, the European area in the center of Canton.6 I showed the article to someone who had lived for a long time in America and who knew English well. “This is fine for the workers, whose English is not too good,” he said. “You have used short sentences and words that are easy to understand. I would like you to write an analysis of the Asian situation for me.”
What was important to me was that I had arrived at the stage where with my basic English I could communicate with the leaders of the Asian workers. Basic English was being widely propagandized in China. With a knowledge of some eight hundred basic words one could explain one’s thoughts, whatever they might be, in English, as long as one followed the grammatical rules carefully.7 For all that, I was not content and could not be content, to remain on the level of basic English, for books, magazines, and newspapers are not written in this form. Nevertheless, I had reached this stage and had written several articles in English for The Dawn, but the printing was still swaying along like an old cart. The first issue was not even half completed. There were not enough letters. For example, the word “Pacific” had to be written “PacifiC” because of a shortage of small c’s. And a single word might be written with two or three capital letters in the middle. It certainly looked peculiar. But what was even more depressing was that after three months not even the first issue was ready. How could I account for this to Moscow, where they could not possibly know the situation?
Finally, with great difficulty, I secured an assistant especially for The Dawn. He was a former pupil at an American school in China, and his English was good, but he was with me for only two days when he vanished. He was taken away by other organizations in Canton for their English sections. Indeed there were shortages in all fields: shortages of type, shortages of personnel, shortages of everything.
Frequently, with no one to help me, with my head aching, and the heat beating down, I would go to visit the printer, only to be met by his inevitable smile, which indicted that the work was not ready yet. I was getting less and less sleep every day. One morning after bathing, my whole body felt stiff and I think I lost consciousness for a moment. I was incapable of reading even a line.
[120] I went to a Chinese doctor, Dr. Lee.8 He had often treated Dr. Sun and was a graduate of a German university. With the help of two assistants, he gave me several injections: at first he gave me one, and then he followed up with three or four jabs in different parts of my body. I felt quite strange. Dr. Lee said: “I gave you a gold injection just now. But your pulse stopped for several seconds so we had to give you injections of antidote.”
I answered: “Yes, I felt you give me one injection here, and then all over.”
Dr. Lee continued: “We thought you had died. Your pulse wasn’t functioning. If we hadn’t acted swiftly, you would have been lost.”
Dr. Lee had apparently made a mistake. He thought I had tuberculosis. He had recently read about a new treatment by gold injection, developed by a Swedish doctor.9 If, in fact, I had had tuberculosis, I would not have minded being used as a guinea pig. But the diagnosis was wrong.10
The following day I sought the advice of Dr. Rummel, a German doctor who had long worked in Canton. “What is worrying you?” he asked. I was advised to stop work immediately and not even to read. “You had best go to a warm tropic place to rest,” he said, diagnosing my illness as a physical breakdown.
Dr. Lee had also advised that I go somewhere to convalesce. I therefore went back to him to ask for a certificate stating that I needed rest. It was this certificate and an accompanying letter from me to the Dutch East Indies government that was referred to in the Encyclopaedie and quoted above.11 I sent the letters to the PKI for consideration by the party as to whether they should be sent on. They decided to forward them to the government. The answer, which came to me by way of the PKI, was most unsatisfactory. My reply to the government’s answer created quite a storm in a teacup.12 A Dutch newspaper that dared to print my reply was slapped with restrictions by the Dutch East Indies government.13 My letter was in no way a plea for forgiveness, as had been alleged; this allegation was answered clearly by Subakat in the newspaper Api.14 It is as well for me to straighten the matter out here, even though it has been covered up for some twenty years.
[121] Naturally the Dutch East Indies is not the only tropic country. But Siam, Burma, Annam, the Philippines, and Malaya—all countries below the tropic-were closed to me by their respective governments. The key to entry was in my hands, in my ability to smuggle myself in. What was important concerning my correspondence with the Dutch East Indies government was not the question of a place for me but the question of fair play. The Dutch East Indies government was forced to show that it felt no such concern. The article by the late Subakat on this matter also centered on the government’s unfair attitude. And that was what led to the proposal for a strike by the PKI and the trade unions, as mentioned in the Encyclopaedie and quoted above.
It was not only my illness that pushed me into going to the tropics. Time and again I had received telegrams asking me to come. The reason was not and could not be disclosed. All I knew was that in 1925 the PKI was facing a serious crisis.15 Cables naturally cross a distance of 2,500 kilometers with no trouble, but it was no easy thing for someone in my weak state, without a country and without a passport, to travel that far. I experimented with all kinds of injections from Filipino, English, and Portuguese doctors in Hong Kong. For the first time I even tried Chinese herbal medicines and various remedies advocated by the Chinese sailors. All I wanted was the strength to cross the sea.
A stow away violated international law and is liable to severe punishment, but if I were caught, the danger was not merely in being jailed, but in being handed over to the Dutch East Indies government. Even this one journey as a stow away produced enough stories to fill a book. Even for a healthy person or for a European stow away on a European boat, the exercise involves all kinds of risks: finding a hiding place, getting food, avoiding detection, and so on. It is all the more hazardous for a sick Indonesian on a boat loaded with thousands of Chinese packed in like sardines. I had to find a place of concealment and avoid being discovered in all the inspections for vaccinations and passports in all the British-run ports. In short, it was a triumph just to arrive alive rather than dead of starvation in some secret place on the boat.
[122] I got to a certain place down south to meet with my comrades.16 But scarcely had I tasted the tropical air when another cable came from 2,500 kilometers away. It was a request to return to Canton immediately, since a Profintern representative had arrived from Moscow and wanted to meet me. For someone who did not know the situation, “immediately” would mean two or three days, but even with all the necessary papers such a journey would take a week at the least. Even straining myself the utmost I could not have made it in under two weeks, and that was assuming that no problems arose.
After two weeks and on my last breath, I arrived in Canton. But the person who had called me had apparently himself been recalled. “What