What to read: epic novel "Beauty - a mountain" of love, the resurrection of the dead, and the history of Indonesia

On War rumored for several months, since the radio announced a combat in Europe. Dewi Ayu then studied in the Franciscan school, the one where many years later, her granddaughter Renganis Beautiful rapes in the cabin toilet wild dog. Dewi Ayu decided to become a teacher, only to not go to the nurses. In school it is brought up by Aunt Hanneke, a teacher in a kindergarten, in the same "hummingbird" that will soon come running for Ma Gedik and whose driver shoot his dog.

With her by the best teachers in Halimunde - nuns taught her music and history, languages ​​and psychology. Sometimes they came from the seminary Jesuit priest, read God's law, church history and theology. Her natural intelligence admired teachers, and beauty disturbed, and some of the nuns tried to convince her to take vows of poverty, celibacy and chastity. "Here's another! - she snorted. - If all the women will give vows, people will die out like dinosaurs! ". Her boldness frightened even more than beauty. Whatever you say, in religion only was it entertaining for that miracle stories, and in the church she liked a silver bell ringing, summoning to the prayer "Angel of the Lord."

In the first year of her teaching the war broke out in Europe. Sister Maria put in the class radio and they heard alarming news: the German troops captured the Netherlands in just four days. Spellbound listening to a student: there is a vsamdelishnye war, this is not a fairy tale from the history books. Moreover, the war broke out in the homeland of their ancestors, and the Netherlands were defeated.

- First they invaded France, and now Germany? - Devi Ayu was indignant. - What a wretched country!

- Why pathetic Dewi Ayu? - Sister Maria repeated.

- Traders dime a dozen, and there is no one to fight.

As a punishment for daring Dewi Ayu forced to read the psalms. However, because of the whole class once she was glad the news about the war, and she had even turned the language to predict: will reach up to the war and the East Indies, even before Halimundy will reach. And let Dewi Ayu is still with the nuns prayed for the safety of relatives in Europe, in fact, she did not care.

Yet from the beginning of the war anxiety and settled in her home - her grandparents, Ted and Marjeta Stammler, worried for his numerous relatives netherlands. They coped without end, there are no letters from Holland, but no letters did not come.

And most of all they are worried about their parents Dewi Ayu, Henry and Ana Stammler, escaped once from the house. They disappeared one morning, sixteen years ago, without warning, and with no one saying goodbye, leaving the newborn Dewi Ayu. And let escape their native led into a rage, they have never ceased to worry about them.

- I hope they are happy, wherever they were, - sighed Ted Stammler.

- And if the Germans they still kill, let them be happy in heaven, - added Dewi Ayu. And she herself said, - Amen.

- For sixteen years all my anger vanished - admitted Marjeta. - Pray that you svidetsya with them.

- Of course, Grandma. They owe me sixteen gifts for Christmas, sixteen - birthday and Easter eggs and does not count.

The story of his parents, Henry and Ana Stammler, she already knew. Some of the servants in the kitchen to spill the beans, and find out about this, Ted and Marjeta not guilty escape flogging. But Ted and Marjeta soon realized that Dewi Ayu know everything - from the fact that it was found one morning in a basket on the front porch. She sweetly slept, wrapped in a blanket, and a note next to the name and the words that her parents sailed to Europe on board the "Aurora".

Since childhood, her surprise, that she had no parents, and grandparents only yes aunt. But after learning the story of the escape, she did not disappoint, on the contrary, was delighted. - The real adventurers! - she said Ted Stammler.

- Been reading you, baby, fairy tales, - said the grandfather.

- They must be very pious. In the Bible there is a story, the mother left the baby on the shore of the Nile.

- It is quite another matter.

- Of course, more. I was not left on the shore, and on the porch.

Henry and Ana were the children of Ted Stammler. They grew up in the same house, but no one knew that they were in love with each other, - the shame, and only! Henry, son of Marjeta, was two years older than Ana, the daughter of Ted from the native women, concubines Ma Iyang. And let Ma Iyang had a house with two guards, Ted immediately after birth, Ana decided to take the girl to her. Marjeta first a scandal, but what can you do, almost all men have concubines and illegitimate children. In the end, she agreed to take the girl to the house under his own name, to avoid fanning the gossip at the club.

The children grew up together and have time to fall in love, they were enough. Henry was a nice guy, a great player, a swimmer and dancer, hunted wild boar with greyhounds (which was delivered straight from Russia). Meanwhile, Anu rose beauty, played the piano, sang a pleasant soprano. Ted Marjeta and released them on the night fairs and dancing - let the fun, and there, staring, and the couple currently unattended. But this led to catastrophe - one day, dance a drunk until midnight and delicious restaurants lemonade, they did not return home. Ted, beside himself with anxiety, he took two guards and went looking for the night fair. But they found the only empty carousel with lights extinguished, tightly locked "haunted house" deserted dance floor, closed kiosks so sleeping on the ground sellers. Henry and Ana and gone, and Ted began to question their friends. Someone said:

- Henry and Ana went to the Gulf.

Bay at this hour was empty. Nestled on the shores of several hotels, Ted searched them from top to bottom and found a couple naked in the room. Not a word is said Ted, but home they no longer returned. Where they went, nobody knew. They may have taken refuge in one of the hotels, odd jobs, and even at all handouts friends. Or took refuge in the woods, living gathering and hunting for wild boars. It seems to have seen them in Batavia, working in the railway company. Ted and Marjeta not know where they were and what happened to them, until one morning, Ted is not found on the porch of a basket of foundling.

- The basket was you - Ted explained. - They called you Dewi Ayu.

- And in the "Aurora" and they had more children... perhaps, in Europe on every porch for a basket, - the girl said.

- Grandma's yours when I learned just went mad. He began to run headlong - no one could catch or riding or by car. We found it on the top of the rock, but it has not gone down. He flew away.

- Grandma Marjeta departed? - surprised Dewi Ayu.

- No, Ma Iyang.

Concubine, her second grandmother. Grandpa said that if you go to the back porch, you'll see two peaks in the distance. On the west and flew into the sky Ma Iyang and rock named in her honor. Amazing history, but what is sad! Dewi Ayu liked to sit alone on the porch, looking at the rock and looking out for my grandmother - all of a sudden she still hovering in the sky, like a dragonfly? It distracted her just war - now Dewi Ayu increasingly sitting beside the radio, listening to the reports from the front.

Although the war was far away, the echo of her echoed in Halimunde. Ted together with several Dutch cocoa plantation owned and coconuts, the largest of the surroundings. The war has caused damage to the entire world trade. Revenues fell, the family found themselves on the brink of ruin. All they tightened their belts. Marjeta buy products only from peddlers. Hanneke stopped going to the movies and spend money on records. Even Mr. Willie, Indo-Blood, who served them as a security guard and a mechanic, save on cartridges for rifles and petrol for "hummingbird". And Dewi Ayu had to move into the school dormitory.

Pension doors opened for free - so-Franciscan nuns helped people during the war. Now all lessons anxiously talked about the war, which was already very close. Once Dewi Ayu, tired of the endless speeches, stood up and said in a loud voice:

- The sit chatting yes, why we do not learn to shoot rifles and guns?

Nuns suspended her from school for a week, and only because it was a war, my grandfather did not come up for her more serious punishment. In school, she returned just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and sister Mary, who had always been the story with a smile, this time grimly remarked:

- It is time for America to intervene.

Everyone knew that the war was at the threshold - sneaks lizard, fills the earth with blood, covers with bullets. Self-fulfilling prophecy Dewi Ayu, only advancing not the Germans and the Japanese. Like a tiger marks territory, and they are all labeled with their flags: the flag of the rising sun shot up over the Philippines, and soon over Singapore.

A house by the hour is not easier: Ted Stammler, is still far from the old man received a summons to the army as all adult males. This is much worse than a lack of money. Hanneke in tears popped his charms, and Dewi Ayu gave the wise advice: "Better to be captured than to be killed."

When Ted went to the front, no one knew where he would be sent - is likely to Sumatra, where Japanese troops are getting closer to Java. Together with his friends, mostly come from families of planters, Ted left Halimundu and relatives. "I swear to God, he muff, his whole life, even in the pig did not get," - said in tears Marjeta, seeing him in the town square. Becoming head of the family, she looked a sufferer, the daughter and granddaughter as they could have tried to support her. Mr Willi visited them almost every day. In the army he was not taken away, he was a half-breed, of Dutch nationality had, besides limping - he injured in hunting wild boar.

- Calm down, my grandmother, the Japanese with their own eyes-scholkami Halimundu on the map do not make out. - Of course, Dewi Ayu was only trying to cheer up her grandmother, but she said it without a trace of a smile.

The city was plunged into despair. Night Bazaar closed, the club was empty. Dance was not satisfied longer, and plantation office guarded by a handful of frail elderly. Seen people just in the pool - swimming side by side in a dead silence. Meanwhile Halimundy disappeared from thence all Japanese. Farmers and traders, a photographer, a couple of acrobats from the circus - all suddenly disappeared somewhere, and people realized that all this time they were surrounded by spies.

Only the natives going about their business as if what is happening does not concern them. The drivers, as always, went to the port, because the trade did not stop and cargo ships continued to arrive. The peasants were still working in the field, and every night the fishermen went to fish. Regular troops arrived in Halimundu, the largest port on the southern coast of Java and a possible point for a mass evacuation to Australia. Halimunda emerged as a fishing port in the broad estuary of the river Renganis and sailing there was not developed. People flocked to and from the coast, and from the depths of the island for the exchange of goods. Fish, salt and shrimp paste fishermen exchanged for rice, vegetables and spices.

And even earlier on the site Halimundy was just a piece of wetland forests - gloomy no man's land. Princess, the last of the kingdom Padzhadzharan rulers fled to the local territory and gave it a name. Her descendants founded a village and a city. Exiled here disgraced Mataram rulers of the state, and the Dutch local places initially not interested: malaria in the swamps, flood fighting impossible, terrible roads. The first ship, the English sailing ship "Royal George" went here in the middle of the eighteenth century - not for trading, and stock up on fresh water. The Dutch authorities, however, were alarmed, suspecting that the British buy there coffee, indigo, and, possibly, pearls or even trafficked weapons to Diponegoro Military District. And finally came the first Dutch expedition to explore the area and make a map.

A small Dutch garrison - a lieutenant, two sergeants, a corporal and two sixty people armed soldiers - first settled in Halimunde. It happened after the uprising of Prince Diponegoro, when typing "system of compulsory crops". Even before the garrison, before the Dutch forced the local plant cocoa, the main products are coffee and indigo, they were transported by separating the Java path in Batavia. It was risky: the goods quickly rotted while on the road terribly annoyed robbers. When Halimunde nearby garrison and opened the port, the goods immediately began to load onto ships and sent for sale in Europe. Paved wide streets that were the wagons and vans. For flood protection dug canals, built in the port warehouses. And although the value Halimunda always inferior to the northern ports, colonial authorities paid attention to it, and the port finally opened to private trade.

The first in the beginning of the work the Dutch East India Shipping Company, which owned a sailboat. They began to open and private depots, especially when the island crossed from west to east railway. However, the flourishing trade in these parts did not reach - the colonial authorities by posting here first garrison Halimundu turned into an outpost. This was done for strategic reasons: in case of war, the only major port on the southern Coast could serve as a loophole for the Dutch evacuated to Australia, passing the Sunda Strait and the Strait Bali.

Along the coast were built bastions, cannons installed to protect the port and the city. On the tops of wooded mountains, on the Cape, where she lived as a princess of the kingdom Padzhadzharan rose sentinel tower. The city placed a hundred gunners. After two decades of established twenty-five cannons Armstrong and flourishing defense power came in the early twentieth century, the construction of new barracks.

Many innovations appeared then Halimunde: brothels, private clubs, hospitals, attempts to eradicate malaria - and the city flooded Dutch traders; many brought here the cocoa plantations and settled for many years.

At the beginning of the war, when Germany invaded the Netherlands, all military facilities Halimundy have been improved, the city introduced even more soldiers. Then, the radio announced that the Japanese sank the two British warships, "Prince of Wales" and "Repulse" and the Malay Peninsula captured by the enemy. Japanese continued their victory march. Soon after the capture of the Malay Peninsula, Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, commander in chief of the Malay Command signed an act of surrender of Singapore, the stronghold of the British forces. Things went from bad to worse, until that morning, when the city came the chief defense area with the terrible news: "The Japanese bombed Surabaya." In the city and stopped work, and trade. "We have to evacuate, Ms.", - said Marjeta Stammler, and neither she nor Hanneke nor Dewi Ayu has not found an answer.

City flooded with refugees - arrive by train, arrive by car, leaving them outside the city, or throwing on the sidelines, waiting for the queue to the ship. About fifty warships came to the port to evacuate residents. Everywhere was chaos, defeat the East Indies seemed inevitable. Find out exactly when they can catch a ship left Stammler started in a hurry to collect the suitcases, when Dewi Ayu all taken aback, "not going anywhere".

- Do not be silly, baby, - admonished her Hanneke. - The Japanese are plaguing you will not give here.

- Whatever happens, someone has to stay Stammler - did not give Dewi Ayu. - You know as well as me, who we need to wait.

Brought to tears by her stubbornness Marjeta wailed: - You will be picked up as a prisoner!

- Grandma, my name is Dewi Ayu - everyone understands that this native name.

Surabaya bombing, the Japanese moved to the next target, Tanjung Priok. The first evacuated local officials. Marjeta and Hanneke finally boarded a giant steamship "Zaandam" without knowing anything about the fate of Ted and leaving Dewi Ayu by her own request. "Zaandam" perevoz is not a party of refugees, but this flight was the last for him: he and another ship met with a Japanese cruiser were sunk without a fight. For Devi Ayu, Mr. Willie and protection of the days of mourning.

Part of Japan's forty-eighth Infantry Division landed in Kragane after the Battle of Bataan in the Philippines. Half departed Malang through Surabaya, and the other half, called itself brigade Sakaguchi, located in Halimunde. Already circling over the city, Japanese planes dropped bombs on refineries belonging to the Batavian Oil Company, working on the house, on the plantation office. Sakaguchi Brigade fought against the KNIL, the Dutch colonial army, which has held on the outskirts of the city just two days when General P. Meyer received the news that Holland surrendered in Kalidzhati. East Indies fell. General P. Meyer, the city council passed Halimundu under the control of Japan.

Dewi Ayu around witnessed, but as long as the mourning lasted, no one spoke, just sat quietly on the porch behind the house, looking at the top, according to Ted called, in honor of Ma Iyang.

Translation Marina Izvekova.

"Beauty - a Mountain" - one of the most fascinating novels of the day, which clearly echoes the works of Nikolai Gogol and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mikhail Bulgakov and Herman Melville. History Dewi Ayu, beauty of beauties, and her daughters, three of which were even more beautiful mother, fourth worse than death, pulled into a whirlwind of weird and wonderful events that are directly related to the fate of Indonesia.

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