3) Divorce

3) Divorce

My parents divorce officially when I am four. They are both of mixed European and Asian parentage. Even nowadays in Indonesia Eurasians are called “Indo’s”. My father is dark skinned, my mother is proud of her skins’ yellowish hue.

Their marital life before they get a divorce is characterized by lapses of isolation and separation. He is a forest architect and has to travel from island to island.

My mother follows him from Java to Borneo with me and a few suitcases finally settling in then Dutch New Guinea. Mostly waiting for him to return from the forest. Until in 1951 when she finally leaves him and settles for ever in Holland.

My father has always loved camera’s and shoots pictures by the thousands. I still have an album mainly filled with utterly boring black and white bush pictures.

He marries another Eurasian lady and lives among her kinsmen. I don’t see him very often so I don’t come to know them. The slides he makes when he is in Holland are mostly of Indo’s unknown to me. By throwing away all these color-slides  of smiling Indo’s I have destroyed the very image of a short lived culture in Holland. That of the Indo’s clinging to there kin.

His death makes me delve into his past and doing so I unearth question upon question. To name but a simple one, I am baptised a catholic. According to my mother my father on his way to the registry office for my birthday certificate met a priest who offers a drink to celebrate. A few drinks later I am a catholic.

After the death of my father I find his military passport. It states as his religion: protestant.  I have nothing against protestants, nothing against catholics either, but what has happened on the way to the registry-office? Questions like these give me a sense of obligation to present my past to my children as clear and transparent as possible.

My mother prides herself not only of her light skin but also of having mainly Dutch friends. She is assimilated even before she sets foot in Holland. Had she ever made pictures of her friends I would have recognized these Dutch friends but she rarely makes pictures.