A Money-Lending

No sound had betrayed her coming. Her bare feet had moved silently across the marble floor. First I was aware of a faint scent of betel nut. Then I felt her slim brown hand laid gently on my arm, and I turned to find her sitting on the floor beside me.

She was immaculately clean and neat. A new red-and-tan sarong, bought with her first month’s gadji since she came to serve as bedroom baboe in our house, was fastened, in the fashion of all the Malay women, snugly about her waist, and reached to her slender ankles. Above it she wore a jacket of pale-blue lawn, fastened down the front by three large elaborate brooches of carved gold. The transparent jacket disclosed an underbodice, clean and white, and abundantly decorated with lace. Her sleek black hair was drawn back smoothly from her brow and gathered into a pretty knot behind — a mysterious knot, the secret of which I cannot probe, for, no matter how heavy the mass, the Malay woman requires no pin to support it.

Baboe often slipped in like this and sat for a few minutes on the floor at my feet, for purposes purely social; but on this occasion she appeared to have something of importance on her mind. It was the first of the month. She had been paid the night before. But so, she may have surmised, had the toewan — the gentleman, head of the house.

‘Njonja,' she began, her voice soft and rather shy. Then she stopped, with one of her frequent giggles.

’Apa Baboe maoe?’ I inquired, to help her out.

‘Baboe minta Njonja toeloong Baboe (Baboe begs the Njonja to help her),’ she answered.

‘ Begimana (How) ? ‘ I asked her.

There followed a torrent of Malayan words, only a few of which I understood. I was able to discern, however, that she needed money in order to have restored to her an article of value which she had temporarily lost.

So it was a loan she desired. Lending money is a great weakness with me — a weakness I have been many times exhorted to overcome. I ruminated on past experiences in lending money to servants. There was Mollie, the affable Negress who once assisted me in Alabama. It was ten dollars that Mollie needed, and she needed it for a laudable purpose: to go on a visit to her little boy, whom she had in a moment of generosity — or perhaps economy— given to her sister. I had children myself. Of course I advanced Mollie the money to go for a glimpse of her baby. She disappeared down the road with a gallant backward wave, my ten dollars in the mitten of the hand that waved.

I never saw her again. To be sure the toewan—not a toewan then, but merely ‘the boss’ — drove out to Mollie’s house, when he was next in Birmingham, to inquire into the case of the ten dollars. Mollie, with her feet on the mantel and smoking a large black cigar, could do nothing for him.

‘I ain’t got dat ten dollahs no mo’,’ she told him, willing to repay but obviously disqualified. ‘No, I ain’t got it no mo’, Mistah Jenkins. I done spent dat ten dollahs.’

And here was Baboe requesting, not ten dollars, but fifty-five rupias, which come to the respectable sum of twentytwo dollars.

I was aghast. I felt for words to express myself. Baboe, seeing my lingual difficulty, slipped quietly to my room and returned with my EnglishMalay dictionary.

‘Fifty-five rupias!’ I exclaimed. ‘Why, that is almost three months’ gadji.’

She admitted my statement, and assured me she would work for me for three months with no gadji at all if I would step into the breach for her this time.

‘But how would you live?’

‘ Baboe laki-laki kasi Baboe (Baboe’s husband will provide for her).’

Baboe’s laki-laki happens to be my houseboy, and I did not wish to occasion domestic difficulties.

‘What does your husband say to this plan?’ I asked her.

‘He says nothing. He can say nothing,’ she told me.

I questioned her further as to the object she was desiring. It appeared to be an article of personal adornment — and American, too. She laughed, entertained that she should think me all the readier to restore her possession because I shared its homeland.

Where was it, I wished to know; and it evolved that it was in the gadi roemah. I turned over the pages of my dictionary and discovered that the gadi roemah was a government pawnshop. When this light broke on me, Baboe was enchanted. She seemed to have faith that if I once understood the situation I would come to her rescue — which turned out to be the case.

‘Are n’t you willing to wait?’ I asked her. ‘Wait and save your gadji and redeem your ornament yourself?’

Again she laid her hand on my arm and answered naïvely, ‘ Baboe is willing to wait, but the gadi roemah is not willing to wait. If Baboe does not pay at once she will lose her — ‘ But even then I was not able to determine just what it was that she would lose, beyond the fact that, like me, it was American.

And in the end I went to the safe and got the fifty-five guilders. The little Baboe is so faithful in her service, so loyal in her devotion, so cheerful in a house frequently left echoingly empty by the journeys of the toewan into the jungles of Sumatra! Of course it is bad discipline to advance three months’ wages, and I cautioned Baboe not to talk it over with the other servants. She dropped her voice to secret pitch and swore not to mention it. She promised to work for me faithfully and well. Wherever I went, there would she follow. Even when I returned to America, she would go with me there: ‘Pigi America sama Njonja!’ And again and again she repeated her thanks: ‘ Trima kasi, trima kasi, Njonja.’

And to-night she wore her redeemed ornament suspended from a chain about her neck. I was dazzled by it. How long, how very long had it been since I had looked upon its like! A slender rim of gold had been clamped about its edge to bear the ring which held it to her chain. Heavy and splendid it lay in my hand, its mellow gold eagle bearing proudly the emblems of liberty, this medal most desired by the women of a subdued race — a shining twenty-dollar gold piece of the United States of America.