Mr Lee.

MR. LEE

We lived high up in the mountains again. This time in the house of the grandmother of our neighbours in Surabaya. This dear grandmother, who was very happy we were living with her together with her grandchildren Wil, 10 years old and Eep, 13 years old, was suffering from a severe form of diabetes, had a nurse, a lovely Indonesian woman. My grandmother was with us too. My father stayed in the city to protect our house over there and worked as long as it was possible.
It was an uneasy time in Surabaya after the lost battle in the Pacific of the dutch army and losing a lot of our men. Many indonesian gangs went pillaging and murdering through the country. They were mainly targeted at Chinese and white people. Everyone was waiting for the Japs to come. It was an uneasy, anxious time.
Next door to us lived a wealthy Chinese, Mr. Lee. He was an old, rich, retired and very strange man. Mr. Lee’s front yard was wide and wild, only grass. In this grass 8 geese were living, very frightful geese.
His entrance was right next to our garden, a large iron fence around it and a gate with a high pergola. From this gate to the gate and the fence next to his house, which lay deep into the garden, was a path. If you opened the first gate, all eight geese flew up and attacked you, which was very hurtful. So you had to run for your life to the next gate beside the white house. This did not only happen to us, but also to the employees of Mr. Lee, what we found very amusing. His house was a low, wide white house, at the back of it was the entrance, which we had never seen.
Then the looting began (in Indonesian it is called rampokken), also in the mountains where we lived. Various shops owned by Chinese were set ablaze and several people were even found dead. Fear hit all of us to the heart. We were four defenseless women, four children and two trustful male employees, who were not young anymore. We were suddenly unable to get out. I remember that my mother read stories to us for hours. We got homework and had to draw. Not being allowed to go outside in the tropics is a severe punishment. At night you heard the shooting, it was really scary, specially as it came closer and closer.
“Elsie”, said my mother, “this is not good”. It became increasingly anxious and suddenly one morning also the staff did not show up. We were terrified. Usually if the staff stayed away, they knew something we didn’t know and so they stayed away. My mother had already asked everywhere if there was someone left to help us, without any result.
That awful day suddenly the phone rang, which shocked us to death. Luckily it was only Mr. Lee, who in very poor Dutch asked how we were doing. My mother told him that our employees left and that we were very afraid. He asked if we had a gun or other weapons. That we had not. He then asked my mother if she would allow him to help us. Yes please, said my mother, not understanding how such an old Chinese man could help us. Mr. Lee told us to make an opening in the hedge so we could come to his garden. With pain and difficulty all of us together succeeded to make an opening. While doing this we were attacked by the geese, which was making us crazy. They were so strong and false. When the opening was big enough we quickly covered it with a plate. Mr. Lee called again and asked if we were ready. Yes, my mother said, although we covered the hole with a plate to keep away the geese. “Okay”, said Mr. Lee and hung up the phone. We still didn’t understand how he could help us. That night we, all together, slept in the living room on the floor, allthough none of us really slept. Everything was shut tight, very stuffy in the mountains and it was deadly silent. At night the shooting began and it came closer and closer. At a certain moment we heard footsteps on the gravel. Wil’s grandmother started to cry: “we will be set on fire”.
“Hush”, said my mother. Stiffened we waited, more footsteps, rustling and then a bang. This is it, we will be set on fire. We heard an awful lot of footsteps, my mother held my grandmother. Then more huge bangs. Huddled together we waited. Then there was an awful noise, people were running and then everything was silent. We waited. An hour later our telephone went, we were shocked to death again, it was Mr. Lee saying: “Go back to sleep, there will be no more trouble”. My private army has driven them away from your property. Sleep well (“selamat tidoer” in Indonesian), my people will watch over the two houses. We couldn’t believe our ears, but indeed it remained quiet. We slept until late in the morning. In the morning our employees even returned. Everything was peaceful and normal. At night Mr. Lee’s private army watched over us, until everything in the village and beyond was back to normal, and than the police finaly took over, that gave us a peace of mind. My father was very worried when he heard the whole story.
We were very happy that this small, rich, old Chinese man, was so kind to rescue us. The next time when we were finaly able to go in to the street again, we ran throug the gate of mr.Lee's house followed by the fearful geese biting us, to bring him presents and flowers to thank him personally for saving our lives, his house was beautiful inside and full of antiques, he was gleaming all over, because he had surprised us.
We had to go back again, with the awful geese behind us making a terrible noise. After several weeks we had to go back to the city Surabaya, to my father, we were sad to leave this old nice man behind and also the dear grandmother, who just later before we all were put in to concentration camps, died. Thank God for here, no medicines in the camps. Dinkie.