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FROM BALI TO THAILAND
(Friendship with the Painter)

I have to admit, as I mentioned before, I was a bit disappointed. I found not an eccentric South Sea island painter with a mad look in his eye, but on the contrary a very sober looking gentleman in his mid-fifties. He was dean-shaven and wore knee-length shorts and a bright batik shirt. Except for the strong Shan cheroot he was smoking he could easily have passed for a Swiss banker on holiday. He was very polite, and spoke in a distinctive German accent, and immediately signaled for servant girls to bring us drinks.

That began my friendship with Theo Meier.

At that first introduction Theo and I discovered we had something very much in common-we had both lived in Tahiti. Although Theo lived there some years before me, there were still a few people left whom we both knew. There were the McCullens from Moorea, the shopkeeper Bob McKitteridge from Nuka Hiva and many others. Unfortunately, Nordoff and Hall of the Bounty fame had both passed away but Quinn’s Tahitian Hut on the Papeete waterfront was still stacking them in on boat days. We loved swapping tales about Tahiti and the islands. Theo also delighted in showing me his photographs he had taken in the islands. He was a marvelous and gifted photographer. “Why shouldn’t I be,” he laughed, lighting up a cheroot. “With Henri Cartier-Bresson my teacher, why not?”

• Photo caption on page 211 of the book:  Here we see Willy photographing a Thai Airways hostess. He was proud of his part time position with the airlines.

Whenever I arrived for a visit in Chiang Mai the routine was always the same. Theo welcomed me and before anything he would lead me to his studio, show me his latest work, generally a dozen or so canvasses, some mural size, and we would then go to the verandah and slump down into comfortable cane chairs with Mekongs and sodas and we would start again about the McCullens and the McKitteridges. We would sit and discuss people we knew and talk about the old times in the islands. We were like two old women gossiping with small talk no one else could understand, but it was the breath of life to Theo. We were frightfully boring to anyone but ourselves. And poor Yattlie, I do believe she dreaded seeing me arrive, although her reception was always very warm.

I learned more about Theo’s early years from old photographs he kept than from our conversations. He had literally hundreds upon hundreds of them, stuffed in envelopes and cardboard boxes which he kept tucked away in drawers and on shelves in his studio.

Willy sometimes came up to Chiang Mai with me. He had become a part time photographer for Thai Airways, and you can be sure he told everyone. He now had status.

Willy loved rummaging through Theo’s photographs but he was very discrete about it. I wondered about this behaviour and then let it pass. Willy was always up to something and often what he said went in one ear and out the other. But this was one time I should have paid attention. The photographs and Theo and my talk about Bali began to have an effect on Willy. Still, I didn’t get the connection with Willy and Theo’s photographs. The next thing Willy ran off to Bali and I hadn’t heard from him for a while. What trouble was he up to now?

Indeed, the photographs and our talk about Bali had so intrigued Willy that he went to the island to see for himself what it was all about. Before long he was making frequent trips to Bali, and then one day when I was in my office at Bangkok World I received a message from Willy in Denpasar. He was getting married to a Balinese dancer and invited me to the wedding. He insisted that I attend. Was this another of Willy’s antics?

“It will be an official Balinese wedding ceremony,” he said. “You don’t want to miss it.”

Willy was right. A traditional Balinese wedding could be interesting. I booked a flight but when I arrived I was running late. I had almost missed the ceremony.

“Never mind, “Willy said.” It’s not over.”

I had to look twice at Willy when I laid eyes on him. It took all I could do to suppress laughing. He was dressed in his Balinese wedding costume. He even had a kris dagger with its curved blade tucked into his waistband. “Come see, we are having the tooth filing ceremony,” he added.

I followed him to a shaded pavilion. A priest stood over Willy’s wife-to-be. She was laid back on a silk-covered mattress so that her head fell back over the edge. I could not see her face.

Placed on a low table next to the priest was an earthen pot from which protruded a couple of large mechanic’s files such as you might find in a motor workshop. One could only look on with horror for what was about to happen.

After intoning a brief prayer, the priest took one of the files and began to grind away at the girl’s upper teeth. A chorus of women chanters sang a monotonous dirge. “She can take it,” Willy said and I wondered what he would do when it was his turn.

“If she can take it, why the tears?” I asked. Before Willy could reply, the girl sat up. I did a double take. I couldn’t believe it. I recognized her from the paintings Theo had made of her. The girl was Rubic, Rubic from Bedulu.

“Rubic,” I exclaimed. “It’s Rubic.”

“Right, now you can meet her,” Willy said.

I didn’t want to meet her. I didn’t’ want to believe it was her. I knew instantly that Theo did not know that she and Willy were getting married. And I was right. Theo didn’t know.

“How did it happen?” I asked Willy. “How did you meet her?”

Willy explained and I wished he hadn’t. It was best I didn’t know. It was a real slap in the face with Theo, and all the while Willy thought it was rather clever on his part. Once he started bragging he couldn’t stop talking. He had been up to his old tricks.

When we were rummaging through Theo’s photographs at his house in Wat Dorn, Willy had seen Rubic’s picture with her name written on the back. He stuck the photograph into his pocket and went to Bali and looked her up. That wasn’t too difficult. Everyone in Bali knew her. Willy lied to her and her family and said Theo had sent him. He was accepted. And why not? Willy came with Theo’s endorsement. When he asked for Rubic’s hand in marriage, they agreed.

• Photo caption on page 214 of the book:  Rubic, right, and I seen here chatting just after her marriage to Willy Mettler. It was a traditional Balinese wedding, tooth filing and all.  Willy participated but wanted to take pictures at the same time. Theo knew nothing about the marriage.

Theo would, of course, have voiced a different story. I was glad that I wasn’t present in Chiang Mai when Willy took Rubic there for a visit. I never fully got to know what happened, and Rubic never explained it, but Theo received them both with best wishes.

As a travel writer for Bangkok World I had to travel a great deal of the time, and whenever I was away for a while, I enjoyed taking the train up to Chiang Mai to spend time with Theo. As the years passed Theo began to settle quite comfortably in Chiang Mai. He even planned to build a traditional Thai teak house on the Ping River. I knew he missed Bali, but he also realized he was fortunate to have left the island when he did. Bali was witnessing its worst time of troubles in its long turbulent history. In fact one of the biggest massacres in history took place in Indonesia in the years 1965 and 1966, the years Theo began building his Thai house. The record shows that around half a million people were killed in the suppression of the Communist Party of Indonesia, the party of which Sukarno was leader. Bali was not immune, The Balinese felt that their whole culture and religion were threatened and they responded in the worst possible way to save their whole way of life. The peaceful Balinese turned ruthless killers.

When the news filtered out to Theo he fell into great sorrow. The failed coup against Sukarno released all sorts of pent-up communal hatreds, many of which were fanned by the army who quickly blamed the communists. While Theo was planning his new house in 1965, the massacres began in the weeks following the coup attempt, and they reached their peak over the remainder of the year before subsiding in the early months of 1966. They started in the capital, Jakarta, spread to Central and East Java, and later Bali. Thousands of local vigilantes and army units killed not only communists but also suspected communists as well. Often the label communist was used to include anyone who wasn’t in sympathy with the National Party. Local Chinese suffered the most and thousands were killed. Their shops and properties were looted and burned, resulting in anti-Chinese racism on the excuse that the Chinese were affiliated with China.

On Christian islands the clergy and teachers suffered at the hands of Muslim youth. Bali saw conflict between supporters of the traditional caste system, and those rejecting these traditional values. Communists, which meant nearly all Chinese shopkeepers, were publicly accused of working towards the destruction of the island’s culture, religion and character.

Methods of killing included shooting and beheading with Japanese-style Samurai swords. The killings left whole sections of villages empty, and the houses of victims or the interned were looted and often handed over to the military. Sadly, Theo learned that many of his high-cast friends had died.

Between December 1965 and early 1966, an estimated 80,000 Balinese were killed, or roughly five percent of the island’s population at the time. Some of Theo’s friends put the figure much higher.

Arrests and imprisonment continued for years after the purge. Theo feared returning for even a short visit. Those not killed or imprisoned went into hiding while others tried to hide their past. Those arrested included leading politicians, artists and writers, many of whom were Theo’s friends.

Theo’s thoughts turned to Europe years ago. Helga had written telling him that Nolde’s paintings had been confiscated from the museums, and that his works were labeled “Degenerate Art” by Hitler. Theo’s world was falling apart. Was there no place where he could go and find freedom?

Theo knew, deep inside, he had fled Indonesia just in time. He was relieved to learn that his daughters were safe. It would be some time before he would see them again.

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FROM BALI TO THAILAND
(Further Trouble with Models , New Thai Wife)

Hua Hin, being a coastal town, was blessed with lovely sea breezes. Theo was often seen sitting on the beach behind his easel-with the high mountains punctuating the background. Most days offered clear blue skies and sometimes billowing white clouds rolled in. Theo was happy and contented in Hua Hin, but, as could be expected, it was not without incident.

He had planned to stay only three months but three months turned into a three-year sojourn in Southern Thailand>His troubles began, as usual, with his choice of models. In this case it was the 13-year old daughter of the caretaker of the property. She was an attractive, pretty girl, willing to pose for him. But as time passed, she turned into a very lovely, desirable woman. Before long she was spending nights with Theo in his bed.

The arrangement, however, did not sit well with the caretaker and his wife. The caretaker was in a difficult predicament being in the employ of Prince Sandith, but he had no choice. He approached Sandith and explained that Theo would have to mend his ways.

But Theo had grown attached to the girl. “What does his age to do with it?” Theo said to Sandith when Sandith confronted him. “She is happy with me, and she makes a good model.”

Sandith could only shake his head. He was as James Michener labeled him, an irredeemable reprobate, but a most likeable reprobate.

The caretaker had no choice but to send his daughter back to the rice fields, but he did come up with a solution. He brought in from the fields the young girl’s older sister, sixteen-year-old Yattlie.

With Yattlie taking the place of her younger sister, Sandith thought it best that he send them away, off to Chiang Mai to live. Theo had no objection and he and Yattlie went to the northern city by train to look for a place for them to live. They found an old Thai house near Wat Suan Dok that pleased Theo very much. Built high above ground on teak posts, it had verandahs that surrounded the entire house. It was ideal for painting. Theo and Yattlie moved in.

One would imagine that the problem was settled, but it wasn’t quite that simple. Yattlie’s mother followed her and Theo to Chiang Mai.

Yattlie’s family was not typical Thai. They were Chinese-Thais with deep-rooted traditions. When Hans Oplander, Theo’s German businessman friend, came to Chiang Mai for a visit, Theo asked him for his advice. Hans would know. He was married to a Thai Chinese girl.

“You have to marry her,” Hans said. He then explained Theo couldn’t possibly live with her unless they were married, and the Chinese custom was that a man had to buy his wife from the girl’s parents. Theo would have to buy Yattlie and then marry her if he wanted her to stay with him.

“Buy her,” Theo ranted. “I can’t afford to buy her.” “Then send her back,” Hans replied.

“I can’t do that,” he answered. “Why not?” Sandith asked.

“I like her,” Theo admitted.

“Then you have no other choice.”

The next time Sandith came to Chiang Mai, Theo told him he wanted to marry Yattlie.

“Are you out of your mind?” Sandith screamed. “Maybe, but I still want to marry her,” Theo replied. “But she is not pretty. Her youthful figure, yes-“

Theo interrupted. “What do I care about her looks? She makes a good model.”

“Yah, she’s a farm girl from up country. Look the way she squats, the way she eats, no dignity,” Sandith shouted.

“But by god she’s natural. What do I care for a pretty face?”

“But you can find another, someone else.” “I don’t want another.”

Sandith knew Theo, and he knew he was fighting a lost cause if he tried to talk Theo into something that he was opposed to. Theo was hardnosed and once he made up his mind there was no changing it. Theo in this case was adamant, very adamant. Sandith knew there was no need to tell his friend that he would be an outcast if he married this girl. To paint her, yes; to make love with her, yes; to even keep her as a mistress, yes; but to marry her, no. To parade her around as his wife, that would be folly. So let him take her, let him be the fool, and then he will see. Theo is a friend, Sandith reasoned, a good friend, and when Theo comes to his senses, he will understand.

So it was decided, by all, that Theo and Yattlie would marry. Hans agreed to go to Hua Hin to see Yattlie’s family as a negotiator, a matchmaker, to ask for her hand in marriage. He went to Hua Hin to meet them.

Yattlie’s parents agreed, but Theo would have to pay the going rate for a wife, 5,000 baht. Hans said, “Look he is a foreigner, a painter and he doesn’t have 5,000 baht.”

“He is your friend,” Yattlie’s father the caretaker said, “and you are a foreigner and all foreigners are rich and have money.”

It was useless for Hans to argue so he bargained with Yattlie’s father to reduce the sum down to 3,000 baht. Once agreed, the date was set and Hans made the wedding arrangements.

“We all went down to Hua Hin,” he said. “It was a marvelous day. Yattlie is Thai-Chinese. Her father and grandfather were full Chinese. Anyway it was a gathering of the whole family and they had to pay respect to their ancestors and line up at the altar. They were all lined up and I was the only one, a white man, on Theo’s side. Theo had learned his lessons very well, and he bowed three times to an ancestor. When he did his trousers split up the back, and he didn’t have underwear on. He couldn’t have cared less. Yattlie was dressed like a Thai actress, long silk dress, golden shoes, and Theo in his torn trousers. Fortunately, he had his long Balinese shorts to put on. We all got terribly drunk, and in the evening we were about to send them off down south on their honeymoon when Theo insisted I go on their honeymoon with them. I did and I was to learn something about Yattlie I didn’t realize before. She was no simple Thai farm girl.

“We were in the dining car heading south,” Hans continued. “Theo had the whole compartment in stitches, everyone, yelling and shouting, holding up their glasses filled with Mekong whiskey, shouting ‘salute’ with each toast. Theo was getting a little too tipsy to suit Yattlie so she told him to take it easy. Theo flared up.

“One thing you must learn,” he scolded his new bride. “You don’t tell me to take it easy. You understand?”

“Yes, me understand,” she replied, “and you no tell me same same.” With that she reached for a Mekong bottle on the table, bit off the cork with her teeth and filled a glass to the brim. She began to drink. Tears flowed down her cheek. Theo attempted to take the glass from her but she resisted. She drank until it was empty. “Salute,” she said wiping away the tears. It was the first hard liquor Yattlie ever had in her life.

“Hey, you can’t do that,” Theo said and snatched away the empty glass from her hand.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you to get drunk.”

“Me same same. No want you drunk.” Theo cut out his drinking that night.

Prince Sandith, with his Thai wife at his side, met Theo and his wedding party-which had been gathering momentum-in Phuket and they all carried on for another three days.

• Photo caption on page 209 of the book:  Theo and Yattlie married in Hua Hin. They didn’t have cell-phone cameras then. I took this photo several years later.

Theo and Yattlie were married and living in Wat Dorn in Chiang Mai when I finally met Theo in person. I was most anxious to get to know him after having seen his wife Pergi in Bali many years before. She was beautiful and I never could understand why Theo had separated from her and why he had left Bali that he loved so much. When our mutual friend, photographer Willy Mettler told me about Theo living in Chiang Mai, I had to go with him to met Theo. This was the chance, my golden opportunity that I had waited for. Captain Dekoning of the Northwinds had written on several occasions asking if I ever found out about Theo Meier, why he had left Bali. Now I could write and tell him.

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FROM BALI TO THAILAND

Prince Sandith Rangsit was one of Theo’s friends who came regularly to Bali. Over the years they became the best of friends, like brothers, and they had no secrets they kept from one another. Theo found Sandith a most interesting man, other than belonging to the royal family of Thailand. Sandith’s father was one of the sons of King Chulalongkorn, Rama V. Sandith was said to be the first Thai professional anthropologist having done, in the 1930s, research work on the Ahka and Meau hill tribes in northern Thailand. His glowing accounts of the hill tribes stirred up Theo’s interest in Thailand.

• Photo caption on page 201 of the book:  Theo in a discussion with Prince Sandith. They were the best of friends and the prince came often to visit Theo.

It was soon after Theo had returned from Switzerland that Sandith arrived in Bali for a two-week visit. It took him no time to see that Theo was in torment. He had lost Pergi, the love of his life; he was in trouble with the authorities for administering drugs to the Balinese; someone was supposedly attempting to poison him; and most of his friends had left Bali for one reason or another. Sandith listened to Theo with a sympathetic ear and then told Theo he needed a break, a change of scenery, and he suggested that Theo come to Thailand and remain until the climate had settled down on Bali. “I have a house in Bangkok where you can stay and a house on the coast in Hua Hin. You can paint there,” he said to Theo. After two weeks, Prince Sandith left with Theo promising he would think about it.

Theo attempted to hang on to what he had but in the end, when the police threatened to arrest him, he knew he had to take a stand. Fearing that he might be impugned by the authorities and be at their gainsay, he thought it best that he leave and take Prince Sandith’s offer. To remain was to portend disaster.

Theo decided he would take up Prince Sandith’s invitation and go to Thailand but, he reasoned, it would be only a short stay and when it was safe again he would return to Bali. He packed up his belongings and his paintings and left them with Han Snel in Ubud. He rolled up the remaining canvases and his paints in a canvas bag, went overland to Jakarta and from there he flew to Bangkok. He had no address for Prince Sandith but he knew the prince frequented the Oriental Hotel. Theo took a taxi from the airport to the hotel. It was January 1958.

Christine Rangsit, Prince Sandith’s wife-they had not long been married-was down at the Oriental Hotel sitting in the lobby when she saw, in her own words, this very strange looking fellow come in to the hotel. He wore homemade Balinese shorts, which were torn down the back, and a batik shirt. He went up to the desk and tried to phone the Swiss consul but the consul was out. Then he said to the receptionist he wanted to phone Prince Rangsit. Christine’s heart sank. Her heart sank even further when the receptionist pointed to her and said, “You are in luck. There is Prince Sandith’s wife over there.”

“He marched right up to me and introduced himself,” Christine recalled. “I couldn’t get to the phone quick enough to tell Sandith to come to the hotel as soon as possible. I was horrified when Theo said my husband invited him to stay with us.”

Christine was new to Thailand. She was Swiss, a very beautiful lady, but a very delicate lady. She was very prim and proper in her ways and she radiated the charm of European nobility. Prince Sandith had fallen in love with her the moment he first saw her. They married in Switzerland but when they arrived in Bangkok, to take up their new home, Christine had a difficult time reconciling to the fact that she was a second wife. She couldn’t quite accept that “second wives” was standard policy among the Thais. Prince Sandith wasn’t deceiving her; she knew he had a Thai wife and family of long standing. Her mistake was thinking she could change the system. She soon learned she couldn’t. She would have to accept she was a second wife.

It was an agonizing half hour for Christine until Prince Sandith arrived. She was shocked when the two men bear-hugged one another and her husband announced loudly for all to hear that this was his good friend, Theo Meier, from Bali, and that Theo was his guest. Christine made it known she would have to prepare a room for Theo before he could move in. Sandith had no objection, nor did Theo. Sandith said he would rent a room for Theo at the Trocadero hotel around the corner from the Oriental. He escorted Theo to the hotel with his luggage, his single canvas bag, and checked him in.

The very first night Theo arrived there was the opening of Nick’s No. One Restaurant, owned by Nick Zero. Everyone of importance, including the diplomatic corps from all the embassies, was invited for the black-tie affair. Sandith phoned Nick and asked if he could bring a friend along. Nick assured him it would be okay. Christine developed a headache and couldn’t make it when she learned Theo was coming.

Sandith sent his car to pick Theo up at the Trocadero Hotel, and when Theo stepped out of the car he was dressed exactly as he had been when he arrived at the Oriental. All heads turned as he entered the front door, and being good natured as he was, upon seeing everyone staring at him, he waved his hands above his head and shouted out-“Salute.” He then announced for all to hear that he just came from Bali where he lived and he didn’t have a chance to change. Then he added, in his gargantuan voice, “I don’t have anything to change into anyway.” He brought out laughs from everyone. Theo was just what the party needed-an eccentric artist. He was an immediate success and quickly made friends with everyone there.

Sandith put Theo up for a week at the Trocadero and then, after Christine left on a vacation to Switzerland, he moved Theo into his house on Rum Rudee. On the property was a small wooden house which became Theo’s pad. For the next month it was one party after another at the house. The lawn was constantly torn up with pits for cooking pigs. Theo had bought a new shirt and trousers, but his canvas bag with his easel and paints remained unopened.

When Christine returned from Switzerland it was time for Sandith to find Theo new accommodation. He moved him to his summer house in Hua Hin on the west coast of the Gulf of Thailand, a half-day’s journey south of Bangkok. For a painter the choice couldn’t have been better.

Hua Hin was a resort, discovered in the early 1920s by King Rama VII as an ideal getaway from Bangkok. The tranquil fishing village was turned into the Royal resort and consequently became popular among Siam’s nobility and upper class. Many of Bangkok’s rich and famous built their own beachfront summer homes to the north and south along the curving sandy bay. And here too Prince Sandith built his home.

Theo was at home the moment he moved in. The empty beaches and the solitude were what he needed. He missed Bali, of course, but he kept busy enough to keep his mind on his work. Having a gift for languages, in no time he was making friends, speaking Thai with everyone he met. Among his many interests, he became fascinated in classical Thai music and dancing. He didn’t miss a dance or musical festival when they came to town.

• Photo caption on page 204 of the book:  Prince Sandith helped Theo resettle in Thailand. Here is Prince Sandith with his niece.

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SUKARNO COMES TO BALI
(Hard Times Ahead, Lost Treasures)

Back to Rubic. Like many young Balinese girls who showed talent, she had begun dancing as soon as she could walk. Even before she reached her teens she was a very talented and popular Legong dancer, known from one end of the island to the other. She didn’t read music, but she could feel it. She gave the dance meaning. Theo recalled that she danced enchantingly with unbelievable intensity. “Theo did hundreds of paintings of me,” she said. “Not all were finished but they all sold. In the beginning I didn’t mind him painting me in the nude but later I didn’t like it. I said no but he kept saying he wanted to paint me. Often when I didn’t go to the house to visit Anni he came to my house in Bedulu with all his paints and canvases. I would tell him, ‘There are other pretty girls here.’ He would say, ‘I don’t want to paint them. I want to paint you.’ My parents didn’t mind.”

Once when Sukarno came to Bali, Theo arranged for a gamelan orchestra and dancers to perform for him. Rubic was one of the dancers but when Sukarno began to take a particular interest in her, Theo ushered her away. Theo knew well about Sukarno’s uncanny love for women.

When Theo was in his painting mood, he was oblivious to the world around him. He became completely immersed in his work. He had a great capacity for losing himself while painting, it was if he became part of the canvas before him. It is not a little puzzling that when he returned home one evening he found the canvas he was working on that morning had been slashed to pieces by Pergi. She knew he had slept with the model by the expression on the model’s face. What could Theo say to his wife; he couldn’t deny it. That was not the first nor the last time. Pergi became increasingly unhappy with Theo and his affairs. Theo failed to realize his wife was very jealous of his models, and that included Rubic.

• Photo caption on page 194 of the book: Legong dancer, Rubic was a favorite model for Theo. He painted and sketched a hundred pictures of Rubic, she later claimed.

As time went on, Prince Sandith made more frequent visits to Bali. He loved Bali and he loved Theo’s companionship. Bali was his escape from the rigors and protocol of the royal life he had to live in Bangkok. Here with Theo he could do what he pleased. No one cared if he drank too much arrack. No one minded when he jumped into the pool behind Theo’s house and frolicked with the young maidens. No one admonished him or questioned him.

But the good times weren’t to last forever. Times were changing, even on Bali. Old friends were leaving; new faces were appearing. The art colony was terribly saddened when Le Mayeur became critically ill and returned to Belgium for treatment. He never saw his beloved Bali again. He died in Belgium. In his will he left the land at Sanur to his wife with special instructions that upon her death, half would be bequeathed to the government to be preserved as a museum. The remaining land was to be inherited by Ni Pollok’s family.

The early 1950s started off well on Bali but by the end of the decade changes were in the wind. Sukarno was finding himself in political troubles and turned a cold shoulder to the foreign artists living on Bali. He made the claim that Western-style democracy was unsuitable for Indonesia. Instead he called for a system of “guided democracy” based on what he called traditional Indonesian principles, principles that gave him absolute power. The Indonesian way of deciding important questions, he argued, was by way of prolonged deliberation designed to achieve a consensus. He proposed a government based not only on political parties but also on “functional groups” composed of the nation’s basic elements, in which a national consensus could express itself under presidential guidance. And he was the president, naturally. During this later part of his presidency, Sukarno came to increasingly rely on the army and the support of the Communist Party of Indonesia. He increased his ties to the People’s Republic of China and admitted more Communists into his government. He also began to accept increasing amounts of Soviet bloc military aid.

• Photo caption on page 196 of the book: Pergi, Theo’s wife, looking out the window while Theo paints her. She was becoming very unhappy with Theo and his antics.

On November 30, 1957, an attempt was made to assassinate Sukarno by a grenade attack while he was visiting a school in Cikini, Central Jakarta. Six children were killed but Sukarno did not suffer any serious wounds. The perpetrators were members of the Darul Islam rebellious group. In December he ordered the nationalization of 246 Dutch businesses. In February he began a crackdown on rebels in the republic.

He also began to lose favor with the people when he met and married a Japanese hostess, Dewi Fujin, at the Kokusai Club in Akasaka, a place for foreign VIPs. She became Sukarno’s fourth wife.

Sukarno began to spend unlimited funds for public monuments, buildings and for private luxuries for himself and his four wives. The problem was that Indonesia needed to repair its infrastructure devastated by a decade of war and rebellion. Indonesia was not meeting its food needs and shortages were becoming serious. The Government was printing money and inflation began to surge into the hyperinflation range. He did not concern himself with the economic problems. He instead devoted his time to political posturing. He played games in international politics flirting in turn with the Soviets, the Chinese and the West. He verbally abused the West because he found this brought responses, not only from the West but also from the Soviets and Chinese.

For the foreign artists living on Bali the axe fell in 1957 when Sukarno nationalized all Dutch assets and thousands of Dutch citizens were expelled from Indonesia. Han Snel and Arie Smit, even though both men had become Indonesian citizens, were ordered to report to the Indonesian authorities in Jakarta. Only after Theo made a plea to Sukarno were they permitted, after months of waiting, to travel back to Bali.

The pressure for Theo was on. He wasn’t a Dutch national but hanging over his head was uncertainty. He could no longer turn to Sukarno for support.

But it was more than a threat of exile, a threat of getting kicked out of the country, which upset Theo. He could deal with that. But he couldn’t deal with what he learned when he discovered Pergi had fallen hopelessly in love with a young musician. He found it hard to believe until he confronted her. His years of philandering with his models had reached a point of no return with Pergi. In desperation Theo attempted to reconcile with her but without success. She admitted she loved him but love was not enough. She and Theo parted and she moved in with the musician, taking Anni with her.

Theo was devastated, heart broken and he needed time to think. Whatever he decided to do, it was certain to have repercussions. Bali to him had been a thing of beauty, but it was not, as Keats had written, a joy forever. The things that had excited Theo at one time no longer did.

Disenchanted, Theo decided to return to Switzerland for a spell. Perhaps away from Bali he could dear his mind. It was a bad decision. Once he did return home, he did not find the peace and calm he was seeking. On the contrary, it was quite the opposite. When he went to claim the paintings he sent back from Australia with his friend Lucas Staehelin, he learned Lucas no longer lived in Switzerland and his family flatly refused to surrender the paintings to Theo, claiming their son had given them to them as gifts. They were adamant and Theo felt it might be their revenge for taking their son away to the South Seas. He was probably right.

Then Theo was hoping to collect the paintings that he had sent to his sister Helen Meier for safekeeping. He was both appalled and shocked when he discovered that she had given them all away. He couldn’t believe it; she had given them away like they might have been dish towels.

“What did you expect,” she declared in a huff. “We didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

“You had no right to give them away,” Theo cried. “You can give anything away. You can give your jewelry away, your body, but not my paintings.” She only scoffed at him. What had been done, had been done. There was no getting the paintings back. Theo could only postulate on the many hundreds of paintings he had lost. There were the Japanese when they invaded. As a Japanese officer was to explain, did not his soldiers use Theo’s paintings confiscated from his house for covers for card tables, and to make sunshades, and to give others to coolies for payment for their work. And there were his female nudes taken aboard Japanese warships for shipment back to Japan, but could they not be at the bottom of the ocean, the ships sunk by the Allies? Six years of work was lost. How many others? The mulatto woman in Martinique who defaced the oil he painted of her. There was the painting his wife Pergi slashed when she found he was unfaithful and had slept with the model. The savages in the New Hebrides took his paintings and burned them when they believed the canvases had captured their souls. The warlords in China that he had to give paintings to for his safe passage. And how many hundreds had he given away as gifts and favors. Even Milos in far off Tahiti had Theo’s oils hanging in his Robert Luis Stephenson shack. How many had Milos given away to pay his debts? And Schooner Third Sea had a Theo nude hanging in the galley. Theo painted the nude especially for the schooner. And what about the carvings he made for the schooner, two in the main saloon that measure ten feet long, They were donations.

Theo was not the man to give up. He wanted to pick up where he left off. He returned to Bali hoping, perhaps, to reconcile with Pergi and begin all over again. He was sadly mistaken. He was too late. Pergi had married her musician lover. Then he found he was in deep trouble with the authorities. The police had ransacked his house in Sanur and found his drugs and medicine. When he enquired the reason, he was informed he was being accused of practicing medicine without a license. It was true, he had been helping the sick when they came to him for help. The medicine came from friends that he asked to bring when they traveled abroad. There was even talk that Pergi’s husband had hired a bomoh to poison Theo to get rid of him. Theo was disenchanted. He no longer enjoyed food, found it difficult to paint and defending himself was becoming a drain. He was emotionally exhausted. He reckoned he either had to leave or else go to jail. He didn’t fancy the thought of going to jail.

It was Prince Sandith Rangsit from Thailand who came to his rescue.

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SUKARNO COMES TO BALI

Luckily for the painters living on Bali, Sukarno was a great lover of the arts and he was known to surround himself with painters and artists. Theo had the good fortune to paint two large canvases for Sukarno during his early visits to Iseh, long before he became president. Theo recalled the occasion when Sukarno came to Bali when he was president: “He came to our humble village which was the high-point for everyone. In his company, I met heads of states like Nasser and Nehru, though not all of these VIPs were as enthusiastically disposed towards Bali as Nehru was. Nehru called Bali ‘the morning of the world.’ Khrushchev, on the other hand, was a good deal less responsive to the islands’ beauties. In Denpasar he spoke up in the middle of a native dance performed in his honor: ‘That’s all very well, but it doesn’t bring any foreign currency into the country.’ Sukarno, not surprisingly, immediately ordered the dancers to stop. He had already been shocked by similar philistine remarks of his bulky guest earlier in the tour.”

In a letter to a friend in Switzerland Theo wrote that Sukarno was one of his best clients. “Sukarno was much better in the field of art than he was in politics,” he wrote.

Sukarno loved Bali and the people loved him. Once he traveled over poor, unpaved roads to visit Theo in Iseh. En route he often got down from the car to shake hands with the people. When they came to a temple he would have the driver stop and wait while he walked across rice fields to visit the temple. In Iseh he went to the market with Theo to buy food. He took the time to talk to the people. He ate with Theo and praised Theo for his marvelous cooking.

• Photo caption on page 186 of the book:  When author James Michener visited Bali with his American wife, and wasn’t getting along too well with her, Theo suggested he find  an Asian wife. Michener did just that. The next visit he arrived with a Japanese, Mari Yoriko Sabusawa.

Despite the time of troubles that brewed after the war, Theo worked no less hard and diligently than before in an atmosphere of uncertainty. His relative seclusion was interrupted by visits that included many well-known personalities. With the war over, visitors by the droves began to arrive and Theo, a survivor of the war and the Japanese occupation, was much sought after. He was taking on the role that Walter Spies had before the war. Many of those who came looking for Theo-photographers, actors and moviemakers-were of international fame, famous in their own right. In particular, visitors included people like Howard Sochurek, Ernst Haas and Henri Cartier Bresson.

Theo found Cartier-Bresson most interesting. Theo admired him for his photography and he learned from him much about taking good pictures. It wasn’t long and they were good pals running around Bali together. In 1937 Cartier-Bresson had married a Javanese dancer, Ratna Mohini. She was his first wife and he adored her. She had a tremendous influence in her husband’s work as a photographer. Being of Hindu extraction she fitted in well in Bali. Theo joined them both on a number of photographic shoots around the island. Like Theo, Cartier-Bresson was keen on light and shadows.

Life Magazine photographer Howard Sochurek, the first Robert Capa Gold Medal awardee, came to Bali with the explicit purpose of photographing Theo at work. There was also James Michener. He and Theo hit it off immediately. The first time Michener came to Bali he was with his American wife. She was not very accommodating and argued with her husband on the most trivial matters. Theo got Michener aside and told him he’d be much better off with an Asian wife. Sometime later when Michener returned to Bali he was with his new wife, a Japanese lady, Mari Yoriko Sabusawa Michener. A second-generation Japanese American, Mari was interned with her family in a California camp during World War II. When she met Michener, he was working on a story for Life magazine about a marriage between a Japanese woman and her American husband. The story became the basis for his novel Sayonara, which later became an MGM movie with Marlon Brando playing the leading role.

“You, see, I followed your advice,” Michener said to Theo. “I married an Asian girl.”

In studying the social repercussions of the times, Michener wrote: “It is no joke for a woman to be taken for just one more American remnant and to see these eastern girls capturing all the men folk of the U.S.A.”

Another one who passed through Bali was the celebrated Charlie Chaplin. Theo had missed out meeting him when he had visited Walter Spies. Now was his chance. Theo was granted an interview before the reception with the Raja of Karangasem. The Raja asked Theo, “Do tell me, who is this man who comes to visit me.?”

“Why, he is the famous Charlie Chaplin,” Theo replied.

“That is obvious,” continued the Raja, “for on the island everyonewith a Charlie Chaplin mustache is called Chaplin. But what else should I know about him?”

“Well, he is a man who takes pictures, moving pictures,” Theo answered.

“That is very clear, for Charlie Chaplin has a camera slung across his shoulders. But is he rich?”

“Enormously,” Theo replied, grinning.

“Where does his money come from?” the Raja asked, still puzzled.

“Well, from the pictures he makes,” said Theo.

“But how can one grow rich by taking pictures. I can see what it costs me with my son who rides the same hobbyhorse.”

Charlie Chaplin arrived, graciously and all smiles. He was polite to Theo and said he had heard about him, the Swiss painter who had outwitted the Japanese. Theo answered questions asked by the Raja.

When Chaplin left after the reception, the Raja remarked he had expected a much bigger man. He was mildly disappointed. Chaplin continued to remain a man of mystery in his eye.

With President Sukarno’s accession to power, his taste for art didn’t wane and if anything, it grew. He acquired, as a gift from Theo, more than a dozen of his masterpieces which became part of the famous Sukarno Collection, an admirable set of volumes entitled; Paintings in Dr. Sukarno’s Collection. From the very first. President Sukarno had taken interest in Theo’s work. In 1950, the Indonesian Ambassador in Switzerland promoted an exhibition of Theo’s works in Basel: and Sukarno, during his state visit to Switzerland, arranged for a private exhibition of some of Theo’s canvases in the salons of the Indonesian Embassy at Bern, to which he brought the entire diplomatic corps. On that occasion, “the Magic Flute,” one of Theo’s major works, was exhibited.

The beginning of the 1950s was a good time for foreign artists living on Bali. Antonio Blanco and Han Snel were making names for themselves and their paintings were selling. Snel was in the process of building a magnificent stone carved house in Ubud. Blanco, who had married a lovely Balinese Legong dancer, was making waves with his nude paintings. And a young entrepreneur named Smeja Neka was setting up one of the island’s first art galleries.

Born in Ubud in 1939, young Neka grew up surrounded by art. His father was a member of the ground-breaking Pita Maha Artists’ Association, founded in 1936 by Walter Spies, Rudolf Bonnet and Prince Cokorda Gede. Neka, naturally, was in constant contact with the many talented artists in the area. Gradually he became aware that through the growth of tourism many of the finest examples of Balinese art were leaving the island, snapped up by foreign collectors. By 1966 his awareness had turned into such concern that he decided to dedicate himself full time to collecting, preserving and promoting Balinese art. His collection started modestly, but it was not long before the Neka Gallery had become one of the finest in Bali.

Jumping ahead, in 1982 the Indonesian Government acknowledged the importance of such a museum and on 7th July that year Museum Neka was officially opened by the then Minister of Education and Culture, Dr. Daoed Joesoef Theo’s portrait of Smeja Neka stands prominently in the museum.

• Photo caption on page 190 of the book: Artist Han Snel, left, showing me the new carved stone studio and gallery he had just completed. Right, a portrait Theo painted  of Suteja Neka.

In time, Theo, Pergi and daughter Anni moved back to their house at Sanur, traveling back to Iseh only for weekend getaways. Theo adored his daughter Anni who was rapidly growing from child to woman. Anni often invited her young friends to come visit. Theo delighted in all the young maidens running about the house and bathing in the stream behind the building. A painter couldn’t ask for more.

One striking, lovely young girl, the same age as Anni, that captured Theo’s attention more than any other girl was Rubic from the village of Bedulu. Anni and Rubic were often present when Theo and Pergi had foreigners for lunch or dinner. Rubic remembers Theo would tell her and Anni that they must learn to use knives and forks. “It was very funny,” she recalled. “We called Theo papa. He spoke beautiful Balinese, high Balinese and Indonesian as well. He spoke high Balinese mostly because his friends came from the high cast. I owe a lot to Papa for what he taught us. I got along very well with his daughter Anni. We were like sisters.”

• Photo caption on page 191 of the book: Left, Theo presented with a daughter. Right, his daughter, older now, peeking around the corner.

Theo did in fact speak high Balinese, the language that Rubic mentioned, the language the high cast Balinese spoke. The caste system on Bali originated from Hindu traditions on Java dating back to about 1350, although it was not nearly as strict as the system in India. On Bali, caste determined the roles in religious rituals and the form of language to be used in every social situation. Theo had found in most villages that caste was very much part of life and caste concepts were absolutely essential to religious practices. For that reason Theo found it necessary to learn high Balinese, although around ninety percent of Bali’s ethnic population belonged to the common shudra caste, with the rest belonging to the triwangsa or upper caste. Theo learned to speak both the high and the common dialects equally well.

• Photo caption on page 192 of the book: In the 50’s Theo was producing some of his finest work.  Here’s a splendid oil painting of women making offerings to a temple.

• Photo caption on page 192 of the book: Two more of Theo’s paintings from the 1950’s.

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UNDER THE RISING SUN

Another arrival in Sabah after an arduous journey through Java was Theo’s good friend Ernst Schlager. We can only imagine Theo’s surprise when Schlager showed up at his doorstep in Iseh, tired and worn.

Schlager had been sent to the Netherlands Antilles to organize an agency for Sandoz, the Swiss pharmaceutical firm. When war broke out he tried to get on the last outgoing boat from Batavia, but there was no room aboard when he arrived at dockside. It was lucky for him. The ship was sent to the bottom by Japanese aircraft a few hours after it set sail. All hands were lost. The war brought an end to Schlager’s business activities.

Theo and Schlager immediately found a common interest-Balinese music.

The two quickly teamed up and began to make a study of traditional Balinese music. Besides helping Schlager as an interpreter and entertaining the many musicians they interviewed, Theo began to jot down songs and stories and notes about Balinese customs. These later formed the basis of a book he co-authored, My Bali, published by Silva Editions in Zurich.

Theo’s young wife Nurukan helped them in their work. She enjoyed the work as much as the two friends did. They were fortunate that the villagers in Eastern Bali were hospitable to them. Nevertheless, it was always a harrowing moment when a Japanese patrol with their rifles and fixed bayonets made an appearance. Nurukan kept out of sight when they came and Theo knew how to shuffle them off with a bottle or two of cheap rice wine.

It was during this time that Theo helped Schlager write his History of Balinese Music which was published in Encyclopedie de la Pleiade under the heading: History of Music. Schlager had the rare advantage of having both a doctorate of chemistry and a doctorate of philosophy which included the theory of music. In his own words: “Balinese music culture is so rich that the exhibitionists made no efforts to conserve it.”

Compiling the book was no easy task. Bali might share the gamelan and various other Indonesian musical instruments with other islands in the archipelago, but Bali has its own techniques and styles. One example is the Kecak, the monkey dance that Spies choreographed. Nowhere else but on Bali could one see a legitimate Kecak performance. In addition, the island was home to several unique kinds of gamelan, including the gamelan jegog, gamelan gong gede, gamelan gambang, gamelan selunding and gamelan semar pegulingan, the cremation music angklung and the processional music bebonangan. Theo and Schlager had to master them all. Fortunately they had the time to learn.

Balinese gamelan, they discovered, compared to Indonesian classical music, was louder, swifter and more aggressive than Javanese music. Balinese gamelan also featured more archaic instrumentation that included bronze and bamboo xylophones. Gongs and a number of gong chimes were used, such as the solo instrument trompong, and a variety of percussion instruments like cymbals, bells, drums and the anklung, a bamboo rattle. Like school kids they experimented with all the instruments including two sizes of bamboo flutes and two-stringed fiddles. The two white men made an odd couple sitting on the steps of the house in Iseh mastering many of these instruments. Often late into the night Nurukan served them rice wine urging them on. Neighboring Balinese came to join in and more often than not music sessions turned into all night parties.

The war came to an official end in 1945 and finally it was possible now for Schlager to bid his goodbye to Theo and Nurukan and leave the East Indies. It was a sad parting with many tears and promises. In Denpasar Schlager boarded a bus to Jakarta which, unbeknown at the time, happened to be the last bus for many months to come. The very next day, the Balinese frontiers were closed. Not until April 1946 did the Allied landing take place and they were opened again. In the meantime, a lot had happened. Under an agreement with the Allies, the Japanese, from their improvised fortified camps, had been made responsible for upholding law and order and halting feuds between villages that were beginning to flare up. A few traitors were put to death and a resistance movement was organized in the event of the Dutch trying to re-impose their pre-war colonial domination. The only thing that saved Bali from complete collapse in those days was the deeply entrenched structure of Balinese society.

It was during this period at the end of the war that Theo Meier and his wife Nurukan divorced. Slowly over the last months in Iseh they had grown apart. Nurukan wanted to return to her village and the life she had missed. Theo, on the other hand, longed to return to his house at Sanur and concentrate on his painting. The future did not look promising for Nurukan. The divorce, Theo wrote in his journal, was an amicable parting. What he didn’t say was that it was as amicable as any divorce could be. But it was one that Theo never expected. Those who knew Theo at the time claimed he was very distraught and saddened. It didn’t help matters when Nurukan took their daughter Leonie to live with her.

But Theo was destined not to be alone long, not after he laid eyes upon a Balinese maiden named Madepergi. She was the most beautiful woman he claimed he had ever seen, on Bali, on Tahiti or on any of his travels. He was not alone in his judgment. She was an exceptional beauty. Pergi, as everyone called her, was the woman that I had seen when I first arrived in Bali aboard the schooner Northwinds-the time she was marching in a religious procession above the hills of Ubud. She possessed something more than beauty, an almost ethereal quality, some intangible mystical quality that only the gods of Bali could have created. At that time I had yet to meet Theo.

Pergi became the great love of Theo’s life. She was his living goddess, the embodiment of every man’s dreams. That beautiful face, that lovely graceful body, those lines of elegant perfection, they would be etched forever on canvases painted by Theo. A year after they met they married, Pergi bore a daughter named Niwayan Anni Sugandi Nria. “Ni” indicated a girl; “wayan” meant the eldest-born: “Anni” was conferred by a friend of the family who acted as godmother; the name “Sugandi” was given by Sukarno, and Nria, the mountain, was the religious name given by the Brahmin priest. The name Anni was sufficient for Theo.

World War II came to an end but not the fighting. Indonesia wanted independence. On August 17, 1945, two days after the Japanese surrendered to the Allied forces, Sukarno read a Declaration of lndependence to a small group of people outside his house in Mente on Java. He demanded immediate independence from the Dutch. But the Dutch weren’t about to give up the Dutch East Indies. It took the Dutch four years of bitter fighting to learn that they were not going to get their colony back. Finally, on December 27, 1949 Netherlands recognized the sovereignty of Indonesia which became the Republic of Indonesia. Sukarno became the first president.

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THE JAPANESE INVASION

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia was swift. Japan had no fear of European interference. Germany had conquered France and Holland, thus the Dutch could not defend French Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies. Britain was too preoccupied with fighting in Europe to protect her territories in Southeast Asia, mainly Singapore and Malaya. And the American war fleet lay at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

A few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes flew to the Philippines and destroyed the American air force there, and in the same month of December Japanese troops invaded the Philippines. The American and Filipino troops surrendered to the Japanese on 6 May 1942 due to a lack of additional armed forces that were promised to them.

In December 1941, Japan began its invasion of the Dutch East Indies. In January 1942, they conquered Borneo and gained control of the Dutch and British oil fields. In the Battle of the Java Sea the powerful Japanese naval forces defeated a combined fleet of British, Dutch, Australian and American warships. After that, she successfully conquered Java, Sumatra and other islands in the Dutch East Indies, and that included Bali.

In the beginning Japanese occupation was welcomed by the Indonesians as they were thought to be liberators from the unrighteous Imperial Dutch. During the occupation, the Indonesian nationalist movement increased in popularity. In July 1942, leading nationalists like Sukarno offer to rally the public in support of the Japanese war effort. In 1943, both Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta were invited to Japan where they were decorated by the Emperor of Japan himself.

But let me not get too far ahead. We are back to the beginning of 1942, on one dark night at Sanur beach where Theo lived. It was here that the Japanese landed in full force, right in front of Theo’s house. Was this really happening? Maybe in war-torn Europe but not in peaceful Bali. No, Theo couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had no time to pack or put things away. He had to flee. There was no telling an advancing army with fixed bayonets that he was Swiss and neutral.

“Immediately, I grabbed hold of my bicycle and pedaled furiously to the home of my friend Prince Rajan Anak Agung in Saba,” Theo later wrote in his journal.

Prince Rajan found Theo refuge in the palace until he could arrange with the Japanese command for Theo’s papers. In the meantime the prince was concerned with the raping and pillaging that was sure to happen. Japanese soldier had a reputation that preceded them. Everyone was aware that Japanese soldiers considered young unmarried maidens as war booty, to be taken at will. The prince was worried too about a young Balinese girl in his charge whom he had hidden out in the palace. Her name was Nurukan. Turning to Theo he said, “Perhaps if I married you two she would be safe.” It was a bold, unexpected suggestion but Theo, out of obligation to the prince, readily agreed. Nurukan was sent for and when she appeared Theo was quite shocked. She was lovely, perhaps not yet twenty years of age, tall and slender and very graceful. Theo’s immediate thought was that she would make a good model.

“Yes, yes,” Prince Rajan said when Theo mentioned about her being a model, “but first things first,”

That same morning Theo and Nurukan were married with the prince officiating himself Theo, being a citizen of a neutral country, received permission from the Japanese high command to stay in Bali, any place except Sanur. A week after the ceremony, when the documents for Theo and his wife were signed by the Japanese in Denpasar, the couple fled to Iseh.

Theo officially leased Walter Spies’ mountain hut from the ruling princely Ksatriya family of Sideman. Tjokorda Gede Gangin, the prince of Sideman, had created a greenbelt to preserve the rural farmland and panoramic backdrop of Mont Agung.

The arrival of the Japanese changed everything. Prince Rajan was successful in arranging for Theo to travel with a Japanese officer and guards to his house at Sanur. Theo was appalled at what he found. The place had been ransacked. Above all his paintings were desecrated. The female nudes, the officer told him, were taken onto Japanese warships and now, for all Theo knew, probably ended up at the bottom of the ocean. Others were used as covers for card tables, as parasols, or as fuel to fire the army’s huge rice stores. Some, too, were given to coolies in lieu of pay. Theo hoped he would later be able to recover some of them. But otherwise years of work was irretrievably lost.

The Indonesians were finding that life under Japanese occupation was not what they expected. The Japanese, it turned out, were not liberators but conquerors. Their occupation became brutal. Those who lived in areas considered important to the war effort suffered the most from torture to sex slavery, and from arrest to execution. Thousands of Indonesians were forced into labor and taken away for Japanese military projects, including the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway. Many were suffering, or had died, as a result of ill treatment and hunger. People of Dutch and mixed Dutch-Indonesian descent were particular targets of the Japanese occupation. Within a few short months all this was happening.

In spite of the deprivation and hardships, life in Iseh was not altogether unpleasant for Theo with his young wife. Although it was not love at first, like in the storybooks, as time passed Theo became more and more fond of her. She never complained about the hardships, nor her having to sit for hours while he painted her, and she was a great help to him in serving him as a wife. Theo was not one to admit the weakness of love, but he was becoming very attached to his young wife. His devotion grew when she bore him a daughter. They named her Leonie.

Theo made the most of what they had. Without materials to paint he turned to mixing his own colors from tree bark, resins and crushed stones. He had no canvas, of course, so he painted on scraps of boards and pieces of glass. Fortunately, the Balinese of Iseh continued with their dance and music, and Theo took up the study of the gamelan. Theo was not one to idle away his time in remorse or regret. He used his time wisely.

Theo kept in contact with Denpasar and a few times, on daring adventures, he traveled the long distance for a visit. Once he took Nurukan. After being arrested by Japanese police for no apparent reason, he was thrown in jail. In his journal, he wrote: “Thanks to Nurukan’s courage, she stood up to the Japanese military police, and my stay in Jail-for which I had been accused of spying-was cut mercifully short.”

With the exception of Theo and Bonnet, no foreign artists were left on Bali. Bonnet did manage for a spell to escape the wrath of the Japanese, but eventually his freedom was cut short. When a new Japanese officer took charge, he had the Dutchman arrested and shipped to Sulawesi. Bonnet spent the rest of the war in internment camps in different places, in Parepare, Bolong and finally in Makassar.

And Theo and Nurukan waited out the war in Iseh.

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THE ORDEAL OF WALTER SPIES

Bali can capture the emotions and the hearts of anyone who visits the island, be it only for a few days. There was a saying that Theo learned on Tahiti: three days is not enough; three weeks is too long; for then you can never leave. Theo applied that saying to Bali. He intended to stay only a few weeks, or a month or two at the most, and once he stayed longer than a month he couldn’t leave. Theo mused that if Gauguin had known of Bali and its pristine culture, he would have come here instead of Tahiti whose culture had virtually been destroyed by the time of Gauguin’s arrival at the end of the 19th century.

But it wasn’t only artists, writers and poets who got caught up in Bali’s charm. People like Noel Coward and Charlie Chaplin also fell under its spell. It can be categorically said, it was Walter Spies who started it all. The romance of Bali began with him, but, fortunately, it didn’t end with him.

Walter Spies began the romance which eventually led to his doom. In the beginning he was mentor to many foreign artists, including Theo, even though Theo was not always in agreement with him. Theo was not in accord with Spies’ belief that the Balinese had to be taught how to paint. Theo felt differently, that foreign artists who came to Bali should learn and not teach. In respect for Spies, Theo kept his feeling to himself-until the very end. What eventually happened to Walter Spies was a terrible tragedy.

When Spies arrived in Bali he found a culture completely devoted to art; the notion of art for art’s sake was alien. The Balinese had no word for artist-painting, stone and wood carving, weaving, playing musical instruments, and, above all, dancing. Those things were what one did when not fishing or working in the rice fields.

It is an axiom of art history that the primitive movement had a profound influence on the emergence of modernism in twentieth-century Europe. As one of Spies biographers put it, “Spies had an uncanny affinity for the Balinese sensibility, and he thoroughly transformed the arts of the island in the fourteen years he lived there. The famous school of painting in Ubud, one of the principal attractions for people from every part of the world, was virtually his invention”. Perhaps but Theo did not agree.

Traditionally the Balinese considered painting to be among the lowest of the arts; such painting as was done before Spies came was comparatively unsophisticated, consisting mainly of astrological calendars and scenes from the wayang, the mythological shadow-puppet show popular throughout the archipelago. Painters were limited by convention and by the natural pigments, such as bone, soot, and day that were available to them.

Spies, later joined by the Dutch artist Rudolf Bonnet, introduced Balinese artists to the wider range of colors of Western painting, and to the variety of effects possible with ready-made brushes and canvas. There’s no question about it, according to Theo, they both, Spies and Bonnet, introduced Western techniques to Bali, like perspective, and to paint scenes from everyday life. Theo felt the two tampered with tradition.

Spies did much to reveal to the world the art of Bali, other than its painting. The best-known example of Spies’ work is the dance of Bali, the Kecak, in which a chorus of men lie in a circle, loudly chanting “chak-a-chak-a-chak” as elaborately costumed solo performers act out a tale from the Ramayana. The Kecak was choreographed in its present form by Spies in 1931. Originally,

the chorus was much smaller and performed in a trance, but Spies wanted to create something more dramatic for a film he was working on, Victor Baron von Plessen’s “Island of Demons.” It was an early effort to capture the romance of Bali and, ironically, it was the film that enticed Theo to leave Basel and go to Bali.

Although Spies had a beautiful house in Ubud, he often found the place overrun by guests. When that happened he would take refuge in a bamboo pavilion he had built in Iseh, far distant in the mountain of East Bali. Once he took Theo to have a look at his retreat. Theo had no thought that one day soon the house in Iseh would serve as his escape from the Japanese, and later would become his home for many years to come.

Theo found on Bali exactly what he had been seeking all the while: a simple, joyous existence, a calm life, and with poetry all around. As time went on, he realized he had not the slightest wish to leave. Bali offered him the atmosphere into which his painting fitted more naturally than anywhere in the world.

As Walter Spies had become a legend, Theo too was becoming a legend, and in his own time. Mention Bali and Theo Meier came to mind.

Theo soon found himself entertaining a great number of guests when they came from afar to visit. His expertise in cultural matters, his culinary delights and all his mixtures alcoholic, became as legendary as his artistic output. A meal prepared or supervised by Theo was an experience not to be forgotten.

Spies had been helpful to Theo for through him Theo met many illustrious personalities, and for this Theo felt grateful, but Theo and Spies had their own differences.

Aside from his affair with Barbara Hutton and other female admirers, Spies was sexually inclined in a different way, and the results turned out to be disastrous. The Dutch authorities, scandalized at the general moral laxity of foreigners in Ubud, and as part of a crackdown on homosexuals throughout the colony, arrested Spies on New Year’s Eve, 1938, and charged him with committing sodomy with a minor. According to his biographer, Hans Rhodius, the Balinese were shocked and puzzled by the arrest, and, feeling sorry for him, they brought his favorite gamelan to play for him outside the window of his jail cell. The boy’s father came to Spies’ defense and told the trial judge, “He is our best friend, and it was an honor for my son to be in his company. If both are in agreement, why fuss?”

The Dutch, however, were not impressed.

Spies was released from prison in September of 1939 pending trial. While war was breaking out in Europe, he threw himself into the study of insects and marine life, turning out some exquisitely observed gouaches of his specimens. After Germany invaded Holland, the following year, all German citizens living in the Dutch East Indies were arrested. Spies, the last German on Bali, was sent to a prison in Sumatra. There he continued painting and organized an orchestra which he conducted in performances of Rachmaninoff. In 1942, fearful of an imminent Japanese attack, the Dutch authorities put their German captives on a ship for transport to Ceylon. The day after the ship embarked, a Japanese dive bomber hit the vessel with devastating results and it began to go down. The Dutch crew abandoned the sinking ship, leaving the prisoners on their own to drown, slowly and horribly. Theo lost a friend and deeply lamented his passing. Theo feared now more than ever before that the changes that were talking place in Europe would spread to the rest of the world. His fears were justified. The Germans invaded the Netherlands. Japan now went on the aggressive in Southeast Asia. There was no European power to stop her.

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UNDER THE SPELL

Ubud was an art colony and as such it did not appeal to Theo. He had always steered dear of groups. But he did have many friends there and went often to visit. There were no hotels and invited travelers stayed in the bungalows that Prince Gede Agung Sukawati had built for the circle of painters, painters that he patronized.

Ubud was at the time considered to be the most exotic art colony in the world. Its inaccessibility was one thing that had to do with it. The other was the popularity one man everyone want to meet, Walter Spies.

As mentioned, Spies arrived in Bali in 1927 for a short stay, and he never left. In Ubud he encountered a culture as graceful and refined as any in the world. Everyone, it seemed, was an artist of one sort or another. Even child dancers participated in mystic trances which enacted the fables of the Hindu classic Ramayana. Of course, there was the exuberant, clangorous accompaniment of the gamelan. But what also attracted Spies mostly were the paintings. He admired the traditional art and sought to learn from it. But he rejected what did not suit his inclination. In a short time Walter Spies made a name for himself and celebrities flocked to his door. He eventually started a school of learning introducing Western principles into Bali’s ancient art forms.

With Theo it was different. He didn’t paint fashionably, and never considered that he belonged to a movement between him and his surroundings. Color for him was his school and he needed no teacher to tell him how to paint. Indeed, color was all-important. It flowed from the dark-toned palette of his youth to the clear, glowing tonal opulence of his painting in the tropics. He saw a cloud or a tree, and the thought welled up in him how beautiful that object was. At such moments he was at peace with himself.

It was clear from the moment he arrived in the tropics that his love was for the female body. He loved the mulattos of Martinique, the dark skinned Polynesians on the Pacific islands and he especially loved the fair-skinned women of Bali. He loved the fineness of their bodies, the texture of their skin, and for certain their very existence. They were alive with expressions and emotions. The women of the tropics were more than objects of beauty for Theo. He once said he could not paint a female nude body without having an erection. He told how his wife had slashed an unfinished canvas of a nude he was painting. “She was jealous,” he said. “Not jealous because the girl was nude. All women in Bali went around half nude. No, she recognized the look in model’s eyes. When she saw that painting she knew I was making love to the model.”

Theo never stopped learning, and he was learning much on Bali. “When we paint, we try to consign the colors we see in real life to those we put on canvas,” Theo once said. “It takes time to learn to see. If I am painting a landscape, I suddenly see a yellow in a green tree, and it becomes blue on my canvas. Eventually, we begin to exaggerate, we begin to be selective, and finally it ends up just as nothing. You can, for instance, paint a blue in a tropical landscape, as blue as it actually is, but consigned to canvas, it is not the picture. The color is there, the blue is there, but it doesn’t come alive. Then I began to realize that the tropical landscape is not at all as we see it. It is, rather, an experience. This landscape is warm in tone, and so I start, in simple fashion, to paint my pictures over a reddish priming coat. And then the green tones and the other colors come to life. When the picture is finished, it is redder than Nature, but yet conveys the landscape accurately. One must translate.”

Theo continued: “I often work with blue outlines. How I came to do this I don’t remember. Blue is a sort of handwriting that goes across the picture so as to emphasize something. I feel this to be beautiful. I depart from Nature to a certain degree. I am less concerned with an intimation of Nature than with a representation of my impression of it-my concept, my dream but abstract painting is not to my taste. My mind is too much involved with the senses than with the visual, not tied up with a depiction of reality. I always seek for the simplest form. I simplify deliberately. I sometimes make a couple of preliminary sketches. If I had not studied thoroughly the music of the Balinese orchestra, I would probably not have managed to portray a Rejang dance realistically.”

On Bali the beauty of the music had naturally influenced Theo’s painting, as did the mystics of the island. When Balinese people lose something, they consult a balian, a benign sort of sorcerer, who tells them where to find it. Balians can interpret dreams, cure sickness, go into trances, and speak in the voices of ancestors. And magic, in the form of the island’s unique religion, is at the core of Bali’s arts. A blend of Hinduism and nature worship, the Balinese religion is an ecstatic union of the spiritual and the aesthetic, reminiscent of the religion of ancient Greece. Bali’s famous trance dances, for example, suggest the rites of Bacchus: in one of the sanghyang dances two girls who are supposedly untrained in the dance’s intricate choreography go into a trance and, eyes firmly shut, move in perfect unison. The dance is named after the divine spirit that inhabits them.

One breezy morning in 1941, Theo recalls he was sitting beneath the palms in his garden in Sanur talking to Jacorda Rai Sajan, another Raja friend of his from Ubud. In the course of the conversation, he looked at Theo and said: “Theo, we had a very pleasant evening together yesterday and went to bed contented. A few hours later, I woke up to find a light shining in your studio; you were painting. I noticed the same when I visited you a week ago. Are you an addict, like the old-smokers? Is something the matter with you?”

Theo looked at him and was puzzled. “Painting is just one part of life,” he said, “like music, writing, traveling, love.”

Perhaps it should be explained at this time that Jocorda Rai was a learned Balian, in fact, he was a Balian usada, a medicine man who receives his enlightenment from studying the Usanas, the Hindu-Balinese books on the philosophy of life and the art of healing. And now, before Theo knew it, he was extracting from Theo the story of his life, bringing to mind events stretching back to earliest childhood. An uncomfortable thought occurred to Theo, a fear that Jocorda Rai was trying to persuade him to resist his passion for painting. Sensing this, he wanted to break off the conversation.

Jacorda seemed to understand. He gave a friendly laugh and said “Theo, you are a chronic cock-fighter!”

A few days after the conversation with Jacorda Rai, a strange happening took place. In spite of the threat of war, an American yacht appeared off shore in Sanur and dropped anchor. Theo along with dozens of Balinese stood on the beach to watch a long boat with a crew of five or six men row ashore. It seemed so odd, with the imminent threat from the Japanese who were invading the islands that an American vessel would appear.

A sailor wearing a captain’s cap was the first to step ashore. Seeing Theo was the only white man on the beach, he walked up to him. “Name’s Sheridan, Sheridan Fahnestock, the Fahnestock South Sea Expedition”. He extended his hand. The second sailor stepped up. “This is my brother, Bruce.” Theo shook his hand.

The brothers explained their yacht was the 137-foot Director II which had sailed from New York in February 1940, and she carried two Presto disc-cutters, the state of the art recording devices of the day.

Theo was really puzzled now when he heard about the recording devices. He wondered what could these two brothers possibly want. He didn’t have to wonder long. Sheridan explained their mission.

“We have come to record traditional Balinese music for the New York’s American Museum of Natural History,” he said. “If we can be so bold, we are calling it The Music of the Gods.”

Theo’s ears perked up. Anything to do with Balinese music was his interest.

Sheridan went on, stating that, they brought along two miles of insulated microphone cable, enabling them to record on shore while the equipment remained safety aboard the boat, with two skilled radio technicians at the controls. “This method,” he said, “will enable us to record in the least obtrusive manner possible, while obtaining the highest quality results.”

Theo said he was at their service and would aid them in any way needed. When the brothers learned of Theo’s involvement with Bali music they were delighted. But the task they wanted to achieve would not be easy. The driving energy of the large gamelan ensembles featured haunting voices, bamboo flutes and reed instruments, and one featuring nothing other than an Indonesian Jew’s harp. Most important of the gamelan ensembles were the magnificent bronze gongs and metallophones, the bronze-keyed xylophones.

Then there was the Kecak, which they certainly had to record. The Kecak was the legendary Monkey Dance, a complex counterpoint of interlocking chants by a 200-man chorus, building to a kind of ecstatic, other worldly frenzy.

Two miles of cable would not go far. The villages where the music was made were far apart. The solution was to bring the performers to Sanur. Fortunately the Balinese were only too eager to perform for the Americans. They came in carloads and busloads to Sanur bringing with their musical instruments, some which were very cumbersome and heavy to transport.

Theo was like a director at a great music hall in Europe, instructing the groups where and how to set up shop and when to begin playing. Soon half the island, it seemed, came to Sanur each evening for three weeks, until the recordings were finished. They came to watch the performances as well as to listen to the music.

The Fahnestocks were delighted with the results. Unfortunately overshadowing the expedition was the Japanese threat of war. Indeed, the whole of the Dutch East Indies was about to fall to the Japanese. A few weeks after the Fahnestocks set sail for America the war did erupt. It was uncanny timing for they completed recording in September 1941, and arrived back in the United States with their Music for the Gods only weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Fahnestocks had sailed away and it was but a year later that Theo learned that the Fahnestock expedition was also on an intelligence assignment undertaken at the request of President Franklin Roosevelt. At an earlier White House meeting, the President had asked the brothers to evaluate Dutch military preparations on Java, and assess the usefulness of small watercraft for Pacific Islands combat. Whether or not the Fahnestock brothers were gathering information for the US Government, Theo never knew, but upon hearing what the president had asked the brothers to do, if the Japanese were to find out, Theo could be in a very delicate situation.

Theo had problems other than the Fahnestock brothers being spies. After five years of marriage, Meg wanted a divorce. She and Theo separated and soon after each went their own way. Theo tried to be callous and indifferent but in truth he was terribly heart broken.

And he was alone again on Sanur Beach.

Bali, indeed, was Theo’s training ground. The lessons he had to learn were often painful and did not always go away easily.

_________________________

This chapter’s photo captions in the printed publication:

Page 164       – Theo preferred to live in Sanur and not the art colony in Ubud. And like
                          Le Mayeur, he liked to paint outdoors.
Page 167       – Theo often bathed in the stream behind his house when young girls were also          
                          bathing.
Page 169       – The schooner Director II appeared on day offshore at Sanur Beach in front of  
                          Theo’s house.

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AN ARTIST IN PARADISE

Theo knew no one on Bali when he arrived, and he had no letters of introduction; but a name he had heard before he arrived; and a man he wanted to meet, was Walter Spies. Spies had arrived in Bali in 1927 and in ten years had made quite a name for himself. All one had to do was mention the name Bali and Walter Spies would come up. He was not only a gifted artist but a musicologist as well. He knew everything about Bali-music, dance, shadow plays. Any time someone had a question or a problem to solve, he went to see Walter Spies. When Rudolph Bonnet came to Bali the first thing he did was look up Spies. When Colin McPhee wanted to build a house, he went to see Spies, and so it went. Theo had been on Bali two months and still hadn’t met him. Spies, he heard, was off gallivanting around Southeast Asia, The story was that Barbara Hutton, the flamboyant American heiress, had fallen madly in love with him and with the money she had paid him for some of his paintings, he had built her a fine house with a swimming pool next to his home in Ubud, but by the time it was finished, she had moved on to Persia with a new lover. When Theo learned Spies was back in Bali, he rented a horse and carriage and with Meg they went to Ubud to visit him.

The carriage driver knew the place and drove up to the house, a dark brown, two-storey building clinging to the side of a steep ravine. Dense foliage screened it from the road and gave it an aurora of a secret abode. They were met by two young Balinese boys who led Theo and Meg to the house. There to greet them stood Walter Spies, a legend in his own time. He was quite tall and very dignified looking. He was forty some years old and in the prime of his life. His straight brown hair was neatly trimmed and he wore white shorts and a plain white cotton shirt. Theo almost expected him to be carrying a tennis racket.

He was strikingly handsome, as any Hollywood movie star might be. Theo could see now how Barbara Hutton had easily fallen in love with him.

Spies spoke first to Theo in English, in an accent that was British, but upon hearing Theo’s German accent, his face lighted up and he switched to German. “I heard that you were here on Bali,” he said with a smile. “Another German patriot.”

“Swiss,” Theo spoke up without hesitation.

“Yes, yes, of course, you are Swiss. One hardly wants to be German in Dutch territories these days,” Spies replied and quickly changed the subject and led Theo and Meg on a tour of the house. The house was like a museum, but not stuffy like museums. Everything chosen was in good taste. The walls were decorated with Balinese paintings, some antique pieces and quite old and, dominating one wall in the living rooms, was one of Spies’ own paintings, a forest scene in great detail with long shafts of light filtering down through dense foliage. It did have a touch of Rousseau about it.

There was a grand piano, as well, in the living room.

Below the house was an oval swimming pool fed by a bamboo pipe from a hillside springhouse. They gathered at the poolside. Spies called for drinks from one of the houseboys and asked if anyone wanted a swim. He had bathing costumes for anyone who did. He then departed, returned in swimming togs and dove into the pool with great aplomb, hardly creating a splash. He swam up to the side of the pool while his houseboy brought him a tray of whiskey bottles and placed it in front of him. Half immersed, he poured the drinks. He called for the boy again, to bring him gin. “I have some good Holland gin that just came in,” he announced happily. He kept the conversation going with uncontroversial chatter as he poured drinks.

They were soon joined by another quest staying in the house. Spies introduced her-Miss Vicki Baum. Theo knew about her, and that she was visiting in Bali. He had no idea she was in the same house with Walter Spies. Theo had wanted to meet her. He was interested in her love for music. Miss Baum, Austrian by birth, was well known for her 1929 novel Menschenim Hotel which was made into an Academy Award winning film, “Grand Hotel”. She had been to Bali the year before and now had returned to write a novel.

“Miss Baum is doing research for her new novel, A Tale of Bali, and she must tell us about it,” Spies said.

Servants brought a low table laden with more bottles and glasses, and presently trays of food arrived. Spies vanished and returned, this time in long trousers and a sporty batik shirt. They all lounged on mats around the table. Night was falling and servants lighted wicks floating in oil in half coconut shells hanging from the trees. Somewhere in the distance, and unseen, a small gamelan group began playing. “Perhaps now Miss Baum can tell us about her novel,” Spies said, holding up a glass of Holland gin. She was reluctant at first, but once she began she was like a runaway locomotive without breaks. She got caught up in her own emotions; the tale she had to tell was about a subject that had also interested Theo greatly. It centered on an event dear to the heart of all Balinese, an event that changed forever the relationship with the Balinese and their Dutch masters. Miss Baum had to stop every now and then as her voiced choked up with emotion. She explained what happened on September 14, 1906, when a Dutch force landed at Sanur beach, and finding no resistance, they marched, in dress parade formation to Denpasar. They passed through a deserted town and approached the royal palace. To the tune of wild beating of drums coming from within the palace walls, they were greeted by a silent procession that emerged from the place, led by the Raja being borne by four bearers on a palanquin. The Raja dressed in traditional white cremation garments, wore magnificent jewelry, and was armed with a ceremonial kris dagger. The other people in the procession consisted of the Raja’s officials, guards, priests, wives, children and retainers, all of whom were similarly attired.

Miss Baum’s voice now waxed lyrical as though she were on stage and performing for a large audience. She began speaking with quiet reverence. “When the procession was close enough for the Dutch force to see the whites of their eyes,” she said, “they halted and the Raja stepped down from the palanquin and signaled a priest to come forth. The raja then handed the priest his dagger and on the Raja’s instructions, the priest plunged the dagger into the Raja’s breast. This was the signal for the rest of the procession to begin killing themselves and others. While this was happening, other royal followers attacked the Dutch with lances and spears, forcing the Dutch to open fire with rifles and artillery. It’s told that the women mockingly threw jewelry and gold coins at the troops. As more people emerged from the palace, the mounds of corpses rose higher and higher. Approximately 4,000 Balinese died. After stripping the corpses of valuables they sacked the ruins of the burned palace.”

Silence followed.

Spies broke the spell and spoke up. “The Dutch colonial government learned a lesson from the affair,” he said. ”As a result, the authorities became lenient and thereafter they did little to interfere with the people’s way of life. The highest authority on the island is the Resident of Bali and Lombok, an officer who lives in north Bali and who is responsible to the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies in Batavia. There is an Assistant Resident in the south in Denpasar, but he is more preoccupied with living than administering. We have eight Rajas. The system that controls runs from the Dutch to the Rajas and down through village councils to the people.”

Theo and Meg returned that night by their horse and carriage to their humble home on the beach at Sanur, with Theo deep in thought during the ride. Spies was his teacher and he was a willing student, but he did not fully agree with his teacher.

After that initial meeting, Spies invited Theo often to his house. Perhaps because he envied Theo for his time to himself to paint. Spies complained that his many guest were taking up his time, but Theo noticed he didn’t stop extending invitations. Theo in turn did meet many of his guests, some he enjoyed meeting, others he detested. One guest who greatly fascinated Theo was Margaret Mead, the anthropologist known for her work The Coming of Age on Samoa. She came to Bali with her husband, the English anthropologist Gregory Bateson, to do field work on the Balinese and later on the inhabitants of New Guinea.

Margaret and Gregory had the captain marry them on a ship that brought them to Bali. It was her third marriage. Theo liked her for her anthropological studies but he did find her annoying at times. Theo gathered from their conversations that she not only studied these primitive people but she lived with them, intimately. When Theo told her about his trials with the women in the New Hebrides, she wouldn’t let him alone. She probed into his sex life, and anyone else who was around, asking them all sorts of questions. She made it sound that it was for the sake of science but Theo wondered about this. He got particularity perturbed when she wanted to talk to Meg. He kept her away after that.

There was some friction between Mead and another frequent guest, Colin McPhee. McPhee was a musicologist who had studied with the avant-garde composer Edgar Varese. He then met Jane Bila, a disciple of Margaret Mead. McPhee, having heard about the charms of Bali convinced his wife she should pursue her anthropological studies there, which was supported by Mead. Once on Bali, McPhee became so interested in the local music he decided he wanted to take up the study of Balinese music. When McPhee and Spies became friendly, and Spies agreed to help McPhee build his own house nearby, Bila left Bali before completing her research. Theo thought it was odd that she had left her husband until he and Spies visited McPhee at his home one afternoon. It was a short walk and they arrived unannounced. McPhee was lounging on the verandah surrounded by three or four handsome young boys. McPhee introduced them as his houseboys. Theo figured they were more than houseboys and perhaps they were the reasons for his wife’s departure.

Theo had missed meeting Charlie Chaplin, but he did get to meet Noel Coward. Theo had to admit he didn’t understand a word Coward had said in his twang diction. Coward had traveled from Singapore to Bali especially to meet Spies. He spent three weeks and took advantage of the Steinway in the living room. Theo noticed that Coward was demanding and had a temper. Spies explained to Theo that what made him angry was when he arrived and found there wasn’t a single Spies painting for sale. He became even more irate when he learned that Barbara Hutton and Charlie Chaplin had bought several before his arrival. Coward scribbled out the following poem:

As I said this morning to Charlie,
There is far too much music in Bali.
And although as a place it’s entrancing,
There is also a thought too much dancing.
It appears that each Balinese native
From the womb to the tomb is creative,
And although the results are quite clever,
There is too much artistic endeavor.

After visiting with Walter Spies, Theo began to form his opinion of Spies as both the artist and a man. He made the following entry in his journal; “WS is a painter, a very individual one, his pictures, quainter to be exact, are Rousseau-like of figures in the jungles, but even more surrealist and diffused with a vivid unearthly light.”

Theo was interested to know what became of Colin McPhee. He knew, of course, that McPhee got out of Bali in time to escape World War II and went to New York in 1940. Theo later learned that he lived in a large brownstone house in Brooklyn, which he shared with Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten, among others. He was responsible for introducing Britten to the Balinese music that influenced such works by the British composer as “The Prince of the Pagodas”, “Curlew River”, and “Death in Venice”. Later in the decade, McPhee fell into depression fuelled by alcohol, but he did began to write music again. He became professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA.

_________________________

This chapter’s photo captions in the printed publication:

Page 156       – Theo wanted to meet Walter Spies long before he came to Bali. Spies had arrived    
                          in Bali in 1927 and knew every one of importance who ever came to Bali.
Page 161       – Noel Coward, left, and Charlie Chaplin right, came to Bali often, and when they did
                          they stayed with Walter Spies.

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