Kunang Helmi

Ratna Cartier-Bresson. A fragmented portraitIn: Archipel. Volume 54, 1997. Destins croisés entre l'Insulinde et la France. pp. 253-268.

AbstractKunang HelmiRatna Cartier-Bresson was born in Batavia in 1904 and spent her formative years on Java. She changed her name several timeswhen she trained as a dancer in both traditional Javanese and modern contemporary dance forms while still in the NetherlandsEast Indies. Ratna was not only attractive, but also endowed with a quicksilver temperament and lively intelligence, accentuatedby a great sense of humour. It was thus she appeared on the scene in the Paris of the 1930s where artists, writers and painterscongregated in the cafés of Montparnasse. She was destined to make Paris her home for the rest of her life when she marriedthe now famous photographer Henri Cartier- Bresson in 1937. Ratna was to die in 1988 far away from those islands bathed insunlight where she had spent her youth. Her travels had taken her all over the globe during the struggle for indépendance ofmany new nations in Asia and Africa. A surprising and unusual life for a woman in the days when Indonesian women were veryrarely seen outside of the former Dutch colony.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Helmi Kunang. Ratna Cartier-Bresson. A fragmented portrait. In: Archipel. Volume 54, 1997. Destins croisés entre l'Insulinde etla France. pp. 253-268.

doi : 10.3406/arch.1997.3427

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/arch_0044-8613_1997_num_54_1_3427

Kunang HELMI

Ratna Cartier-Bresson

A fragmented portrait

A petite, lithe figure with a pretty round face from which large, dark eyes sparkled in amusement, Ratna was not only attractive, but also endowed with a quicksilver temperament and lively intelligence, accentuated by a great sense of humour. She thus appeared on the scene in the Paris of the 1930s where

artists, writers and painters congregated in the cafés of Montparnasse. A dancer from Java was a rare sight here in those days. Ratna was destined to make Paris her home for the rest of her life when she married the now famous photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. She was to die far away from those islands bathed in sunlight where she had spent her youth.

In the 1920s and 1930s it was unusual for natives of the Netherlands East Indies to travel outside the Dutch colony. These privileged travellers were often either religious pilgrims to Mecca or students in the Netherlands. Among the select few who travelled the world outside what was to become the Republic of Indonesia, women were a rarity. Ratna Cartier-Bresson belonged to this minority moving between East and West. Javanese princesses, daughters of the wealthy native upper echelons of Dutch colonial society or ladies of mixed parentage, were among the restrained number of her female compatriots able to travel outside the colony.

It is not surprising that Ratna' s story inspires the imagination of many Indonesians today. They are viewing Indonesia's history in retrospect, seen from the closing of the very same century which earlier witnessed the birth of Indonesian nationalism. This was stimulated by the encounter of Indonesians with European culture and political philosophy, vectors of revolutionary ideas in the Netherlands East Indies. Many future leaders of Indonesia's elite were among those Indonesians she was to meet while she travelled the world. However, at this point in time, my research for her biography has not yet been completed. Therefore, the following brief outline of her life cannot claim to be

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997, pp. 253-268

254 Kunang Helmi

either exhaustive or definitive. There are still too many questions which remain to be answered. Inevitably, some will remain a mystery, but this is surely part of the fascination Ratna Cartier-Bresson exerts on those who have heard of her.

It is one of my regrets that I did not meet Retna Mohini, as she was known during her dancing career. Ratna Cartier-Bresson, the first wife of the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was called Eli in private, short for Caroline, the French version of her name. She was born on 17th May 1904 in Batavia as Carolina Jeanne de Souza-IJke. Ratna, often described as being a very intelligent and witty woman, with lively mannerisms, was also known to tease friends with occasional caustic repartees. She passed away on 24th October 1988, a legendary and enigmatic figure for a whole generation of Indonesians who lived in Paris during the 1950s.

«Sis Ratna» in her sober kain kebaya was an intriguing personage who attracted much attention at Indonesian Embassy functions in Europe, Asia and the United States during the early days of the Republic, as many first generation Indonesian diplomats will confirm. Although she had been a French citizen for many decades, in the final years of her life Ratna confided to Indonesian lecturer Farida Soemargono, that she felt she had two home-lands, Indonesia and France. Ratna repeatedly told her confidant that she wished to leave something useful for young Indonesians who were now students. Ratna's private collection of books was to become the subject of intense correspondance between French authorities and the Indonesian Ministry of Education. However, the fate of the collection since 1989 seems to be unknown. She also left a sizeable donation to both a Catholic and a Muslim orphanage in Indonesia.

Some may have gained the impression that she wished to keep her true identity shrouded in secrecy. But Michael Horowitz, a renowned surgeon in London, who had befriended her when she arrived in France in 1936, and remained friends with her until her death, maintains that this mystery was perhaps necessary for her wish to be regarded as an artist - a dancer and a poet - and not « only the wife of a famous photographer » or « an exotic bird from a warmer clime», or even the two together. We should not forget that she must have been the subject of great curiosity in France before the outbreak of World War Two ; a France where as yet few Indonesians had taken up permanent residence and at a time when French citizens were perhaps more familiar with the natives of French colonies.

Indonesians recall Ratna in France Mira Alwi, who studied briefly here during the late 1970s, remembers that

she was one of many young Indonesians frequently invited to Ratna's apartment in the Boulevard Saint-Germain, proof that Ratna had not forgotten the country of her birth as she grew older. A former French student at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris (INALCO) in the 1970s and now an Indonesian citizen who wishes to remain anonymous recalls Ratna's palpable charisma despite her deceptively simple appearance. At that period in her life,

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

Illustration non autorisée à la diffusion

Ratna Cartier-Bresson. A fragmented portrait 255

Portrait of Ratna, U.S.A, ca.1947. (© Photo H. Cartier-Bresson)

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

256 Kunang Helmi

she dressed in classic French style without any apparent clues as to her Indonesian origin, apart from her hair made up in a tight chignon. Ratna entertained her with many stories about her far-flung travels and unusual experiences accompanying her former husband during his photographic missions. The rapt listener was often under the impression that she regretted her exciting life before her divorce.

The Javanese widow of Louis Damais, the famous French epigraphist from the Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, recently revealed a souvenir of Ratna's spontaneous and carefree nature while still living with Henri in the early 1950s. Together with their three children, the Damais were invited to dinner at the Cartier-Bresson's residence at the Rue de Lisbonne in Paris. Here Ratna and Henri lived in an apartment in the same house as her mother-in-law. Ratna confidently served the Indonesian meal, which she had cooked herself, straight from the saucepans taken from the kitchen. At first it seemed rather incongruous to Ibu Damais that this should happen in the formal surroundings of such a distinguished family in France, but as she then remarked : «It just seemed like her nature, she did not care for superficial appearances and did what she felt like with great aplomb ! »

Yet earlier in 1938, the eminent Indonesian economic expert,- Professor Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, then a 21 -year old student and a member of the Socialist Party, worked as a waiter at Hotel Lancaster in the Rue de Berry in Paris to pay for his student fees. That year he also took on a temporary job serving Indonesian coffee at a trade fair in Paris with his young uncle. Ratna, who had come to visit the fair, immediately noticed Sumitro and asked him whether he was Javanese. Sumitro remembers her as being extremely hospitable, spontaneously inviting him and his uncle to dinner with her and Henri in the tiny studio in the Rue Danielle-Casanova where the young couple had begun their married life together.

Sumitro recalls how charming and poised she seemed at all levels of society and how mens' heads turned when her graceful figure passed by. She was not only attractive but extremely witty, well informed on current affairs and full of life. This chance meeting was the beginning of a long friendship between Ratna and Henri Cartier-Bresson and Sumitro. Sumitro was introduced to André Malraux by them at a small gathering of people to discuss and organize fund-raising for Republican Spain. « My limited contribution was to perform on several occasions, together with Ratna Cartier-Bresson, Indonesian dances for audiences of various kinds where we collected the direly needed funds » recalled Sumitro at a seminar on André Malraux to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his death at the French Cultural Centre in Jakarta on November 12, 1996.

This was the time of her life in France when she seemed the most carefree, a fact confirmed by Henri Cartier-Bresson's younger brother Claude. He stated : «She was so happy!» («Elle respirait le bonheur!»). As a young student in the late 1930s, Claude Cartier-Bresson was elated to escape a strict parental household and enjoy the relaxing company of artists, many of whom were famous or who later became so. Poets, painters, sculptors and writers,

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

Illustration non autorisée à la diffusion

Ratna Cartier-Bresson. A fragmented portrait 257

Ratna and Henri Cartier-Bresson in Madrid, 1937. (© Archives Henri Cartier-Bresson)

among others, surrounded Henri and Ratna in a «harbour of pleasure» («un havre de plaisir»). They later often dined together at a tiny Indonesian restaurant in the Rue Saint-Roch run by some Dutch people. Claude also vividly remembers Ratna performing Javanese dance at the Salle Pleyel. He saw less of Ratna in the late 1950s because he himself had married and began to move in different circles. Meanwhile Henri and Ratna' s relationship was also beginning to show signs of strain.

However, Ratna' s relationship with her mother-in-law improved as time went by. Even after her separation with Henri, she continued to share the family premises in the Rue de Lisbonne with her until her mother-in-law's death. Henri's sister Nicole was also a firm friend of Ratna, especially after Henri and Ratna were based in New York in the late 1940s. Nicole, considerably younger, could almost have been their daughter, according to a close friend of Henri. It was Nicole, herself a very talented poet before embarking on her scientific career, who, helped by Henri and his present wife, Martine Franck, made the choice of Ratna's poems published after her death in 1988.

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

258 Kunang Helmi

Besides having been a gracious performer of Javanese and Indian dance, Ratna was also knowledgeable in European cultural history, according to Ibu Rahmi Hatta. The wife of Indonesia's first vice-president, together with her husband Bung Hatta, enjoyed a private tour stretched over a few days with «Sis Ratna» as their guide sometime in the mid-1950s. Ratna took them to all the important museums in Paris and surroundings, explaining the history of the objects on display in fascinating detail. It was obvious to Ibu Hatta, as related later in 1996, that Ratna appreciated the intrinsic beauty of these objects and she was able to impart that sense to her companions.

It was also in the 1950s that Indonesian students such as Winarsih and Chalid Arifin, or the Ongs, enjoyed her generosity. Winarsih and Chalid spent their honeymoon in the Cartier-Bresson's country cottage at St. Dié-sur-Loire near Chambord. They remember Ratna as being out of the ordinary, a very serene personality, although they did recall that the Indonesian community realised later that she was going through troubled times in her marriage with the famous photographer. Ratna was very discrete about her personal problems. Alisjah Alisjahbana, youngest sister of the famous Indonesian writer and a writer in her own right, remembers Ratna listening to her endless marital problems with a French painter, without complaining or mentioning any of her own suffering : «When I was with her, I was under the impression that she loved me as a mother would and that she understood me.» Ratna never had any children of her own.

Ratna continued to lead an active social life in the 1950s and 1960s, partaking in a varied range of gatherings. Some of Henri's colleagues at the agency he helped to found remember the days when Saint-Germain-des-Prés was the scene of happy reunions in cafés. Here Ratna contributed to lively conversations on world happenings. Artists, dancers and writers, or people involved in the publishing world continued to interest her. She was seen with the editor of Harper's Bazaar in France or once, later on, accompanied by Clara Malraux, at an informal gathering at the home of anthropologist Louis Berthe. She was a close friend of the noted poet Henri Michaux and the Indonesian painter Mochtar Apin. Her world spanned many nationalities and sections of French society. She also often entertained friends down for a few days from the French capital at their holiday home in St. Dié-sur-Loire. Many important Indonesians coming through Paris asked to meet her and she was able to play the role of a cultural mediator for her compatriots with great skill and charm.

In short, her wit and sparkling humour, together with her broad general knowledge, was much in demand before her divorce. The official separation seemed to affect her profoundly, although Ratna and Henri Cartier-Bresson had increasingly led separate lives. She had frequently told Cartier-Bresson and close friends that she would tolerate other women with him as long as she was still considered the first wife. In this she showed a traditional Asian attitude towards marriage. Slowly she began to retire from society, seeing only a few friends who had known them together as a married couple and only making a few new ones. Gradually she began to see more, and younger,

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

Ratna Cartier -Bresson. A fragmented portrait 259

Indonesians who had begun to come over to France in larger numbers than before.

Later in the 1980s, in the immediate years before Ratna's death, Hartiwi Sumiryat, a former member of the Indonesian Embassy local staff in Paris, recalls being phoned very late at night whenever Ratna had an anxiety attack : «My child, are you still awake, how are you?» She was very affectionate to those Indonesians close to her. However, Sin Apin, the widow of Ratna's close friend the Indonesian painter Mochtar Apin, on her two visits to Ratna in Paris, had already noticed the big change in Ratna's life-style between 1968 and 1975, when Ratna would give indirect hints at having to save money in her daily expenditures. Ratna had never possessed a strong sense of being able to manage a budget. Despite having been awarded a generous financial settlement after her divorce, she was later to suffer from financial discomfort due to spontaneous extravagances. Although her demands for more money persisted, Henri continued to see her until she died.

In spite of knowing a vast amount of people superficially, Ratna appeared to be a mysteriously lonely, and perhaps even tragic figure, towards the end of her life. A famous antique dealer on Boulevard Saint-Germain remembers her occasionally stopping by to discuss the finer points of certain pieces of Indonesian art and her unfortunate efforts at dealing with various artifacts. She was obviously not sharp enough to survive transactions with hardened business people. In the late 1970s, Jean Guiart, Director of the Ethnological Department of the Musée de l'Homme, acquired a sizeable part of her textile collection for the museum. Her collection was completed by some fine jewelery.

A select few, such as Henri Michaux, and also Henri de la Bastide, associated for a long time with the INALCO in Paris, offered her companionship during her last two decades. Other close friends, such as Tien Waworuntu, the first female mayor of Indonesia after being the Dean of French Studies at Universitas Indonesia, and business-woman Widari Djoehana, were also to pass away. Although brought up in Catholic schools and considering herself an adept of Vedanta when in her 30s and 40s, Ratna embraced the Muslim faith during her last years, often reaching to read her copy of the holy Koran. Thus, in late October 1988, with the help of her faithful compatriots at the Indonesian Embassy, among them Ibu Saripil who had known her since 1951, the necessary Muslim rites were performed before she was laid to rest in the Cartier-Bresson family tomb in Bagneux, near Paris.

Youth in the Netherlands Dutch Indies and her dance career A studio portrait, probably taken around 1906 in the Netherlands East

Indies, shows Ratna and her older brother, together with their mother wearing a sarong and white Chinese Pesisir style kebaya. Her brother is wearing a sailor's oufit, while, with an extraordinarily serious expression for such a young girl, Carolina, later to be called Ratna, is firmly ensconced in her mother's lap.

Henri Cartier-Bresson thinks that Ratna's mother's family was originally from Bukittinggi, although her father was supposedly from Banten. In the mid-

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

260 Kunang Helmi

Family portrait, Ratna, her mother and her eldest brother, ca. 1906, Batavia (?)

1980s Ratna herself told Farida Soemargono that she was a descendant of a Queen (ratu) Aminah of Banten, but she died before she could explain the complicated genealogical connections to her interested Javanese compatriot. Here historians should note that many followers of the first Ratu Aminah, a fierce warrior against the colonial masters, were banished from Banten by the Dutch and sent into exile near Menado. A later Ratu Aminah died recently and was known by her married name as Aminah Hidayat. According to her daughter she met Ratna in Paris in 1951 .

Ratna may well have been of mixed descent, although dating back several generations, as is indeed the case with quite a few Indonesians, including nobles at the royal courts. The woman assumed to be her mother, according to Imrad Idris, a retired Indonesian diplomat whose wife Tikka was an intimate friend of Ratna for several decades, is buried in Petamburan cemetry in Jakarta. Here her name is registered as Marie-Antoinetta de Souza-Pijloo, and

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

Ratna Carder-Bresson. A fragmented portrait 261

the date of decease noted as 5th July 1934. This is a graveyard where many Europeans and Indonesians of mixed origin were buried. These include descendants of mardijkers, who were soldiers in the Dutch colonial army recruited from India and Ceylon. They were themselves often descendants of rebellious native Indonesian aristocrats, like the Muslim Syekh Yusuf from Makassar, banished together with his followers by the Dutch to Ceylon, then a Dutch colony, back in the 18th century. The name De Souza is either of Ambonese or Flores origin, where the Portuguese were active in commerce and Pijloo, her second husband's name, may be a Dutch deformation of a name from Ambon or Menado.

Ratna probably grew up in Rembang and Batavia, although it remains unclear where she went to school. She was known to have enjoyed a Catholic education. While in her twenties, Ratna was married for little over a year to the younger brother of a mercurial Dutch journalist named Dominique W. Berretty, who commuted between Batavia and Bandung in the 1920s and 1930s. Berretty was the founder and one of the directors of the Aneta news agency, predecessor of the Antara news agency in present-day Indonesia. Ratna's first husband, Willem L. Berretty was also involved in the journalistic world as he was the longtime editor of the Sukabumi Post. Ratna was therefore a member of a circle on Java that was always informed about the latest events and trends.

Dominique W. Berretty died tragically when the famous KLM Douglas plane called « Uiver» crashed with seven people on board near Karachi on 21st December 1934 on the way back from the Netherlands. He was followed in 1946 by Willem L. Berretty who died in Australia. The older Beretty built the luxurious art déco style Villa Isola, now the College of Art in Bandung. According to Frans NaerffO), Dominique Beretty was supposedly fabulously rich. It was further reported that rumours had circulated that he was a spy for the Japanese, but this also had never been proved. The Berretty brothers were of mixed blood. The son of Louis Damais, Soedarmadji Damais, director of the Fatahilah Museum in Jakarta, heard that their father was Dutch of Italian origin. He had taught Italian in Yogyakarta where he met Dominique's Javanese mother.

Now a sprightly 88 year-old, former Javanese dancer Retnowati Sudjono, first remembers Ratna as being a talented pupil of her rythmic dance class in Batavia in 1933. Retnowati, daughter of an affluent medical doctor who himself trained in Vienna, was schooled in the same city in the Mary Wigman modern dance style. Afterwards she travelled through Europe for two years as a member of the Rosalia Chladeck contemporary dance group. She was herself an exceptional case for Indonesian women at that time.

Ratna had seen Retnowati perform her modern dance selection at the Schouwburg in Batavia in 1933. She came to visit Retnowati afterwards to ask her whether she could take rythmic dance lessons. Retnowati thinks that Ratna probably also followed her example in taking serimpi dance lessons from the

1. Frans Naerff, « Het aanzien - Nederlands Indië-herinneringen aan een kolonial verleden» Amsterdam 1978, p. 163.

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

262 Kunang Helmi

brothers of Raden Poerbatjaraka. They were the first to teach the classical Javanese dance in Batavia, outside the context of the Central Javanese courts. Ratna, then called Elina (shortened form of Carolina), was a very pleasant and easy going pupil, who applied herself with great enthusiasm to the new method of expressive dancing to a wide range of music. The Mary Wigman style was one of the predecessors of modern dance, like that of Martha Graham in New York. Her famous partner in Indian dance, Ram Gopal, who reintroduced Indian dance to Europe after Uday Shankar in the 1920s, also recalls that she lived in Yogyakarta for a while to perfect her Javanese dance technique.

In March 1935, in the year after Retnowati's marriage to Sudjono, her path again crossed Ratna' s in Tokyo, where she had moved because her husband held a post teaching Indonesian there. Bahasa Melayu was in the process of being transformed into modern bahasa Indonesia as a result of the Indonesian Nationalist movement. Besides, Japan was gaining prestige in the eyes of some Indonesian nationalists as being an Asian world power. Retnowati recalls that when Ratna came to visit them during her stay in Japan in March 1935, she was accompanied by a famous Dutch architect. Unfortunately she has since forgotten what Ratna came to study in Japan.

When her husband became one of the first staff members of the young Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and close to President Soekarno's entourage, Henri Cartier-Bresson approached him to procure an introduction to the Indonesian president. The Sudjonos therefore again met Ratna, now Madame Cartier-Bresson, in post-independent Indonesia during the negotiations with the Dutch authorities. This, she recalls, was after Ratna had accompanied Cartier-Bresson to India for a photo-reportage in the winter of 1947-1948, during which Gandhi was assassinated. Later, when Retnowati visited her in Paris in 1971, after Ratna's divorce, she was struck by Ratna's sadness when she showed her the studio near the Opera where they had lived.

Michael Horowitz, who met her in Paris in 1936 at a gathering hosted by a painter, remembers her as being extremely vivacious in personality and attractive in the way she moved. She was presented to him as a Javanese dancer, but he did not realise what this meant at the time. The Indonesian painter Salim, a longtime resident of Paris and former pupil of Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant, was told by Ratna that she came to Paris to complete her dance training. Salim was also told that she was introduced to her future husband while she was with mutual friends in Café Le Dôme.

Horowitz has an amusing recollection of the time Ratna came to be treated for asthma at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital. While Horowitz was being consulted, all the other interns deserted their posts and crowded around to admire her exotic beauty. Her eyes have been mentioned by many, including Horowitz himself, as being large and very expressive. According to Horowitz, he had already met Henri Cartier-Bresson when he was still an intern completing his studies in medicine. However, he did not realise that Henri and Ratna had already met each other. It was only when he went to one of the railway stations in Paris to

Archipel 54, Paris,' 1997

Ratna Cartier-Bresson. A fragmented portrait 263

bid Ratna farewell on a brief journey that he was surprised by Henri's presence on the platform.

Horowitz, who is now 90, observed that during their first years together Henri and Ratna had a passionate relationship, with frequent heated disputes and equally rapid reconciliation. He further recalls an incident in the 1940s, when Henri and Ratna came to London and were refused lodging in a famous hotel in Jermyn street because she was considered coloured. Cartier-Bresson was naturally very upset about this injustice which was not an isolated occurence in Great Britain, in the days when the remnants of a colonial attitude still prevailed. An incident which serves to illustrate some of the difficulties which must have confronted Ratna living in foreign countries at that point in history.

The Indian dancer Ram Gopal recollects contacting her in Paris in the late 1930s through a mutual acquaintance at the Musée Guimet. Thus began their long cooperation as dancing partners. Gopal had already been to Java accompanying an older American woman dance partner called La Meri in her research of traditional dance forms. He was consequentially overjoyed to find a Javanese dancer in Europe who could accompany him. Retna Mohini, as she was to be known professionally, went to India together with Henri Cartier- Bresson and took dancing lessons with Gopal's teachers in Bangalore.

Ram Gopal and Retna Mohini were disciplined pupils at the renowned Kerala Kalamandalam school near Shoranur, where Ravunni Menon, Kunju Nair and the famous Indian poet Vallathol were also present. The noted teacher Ravunni Menon taught Gopal's partner the soft, graceful, feminine lasya style of Kathakali dance. She was an ideal pupil according to Gopal, with her «extraordinarily pliant and supple body, trained in the strict and hard school of Javanese dance.» The poet Vallathol would communicate to Retna Mohini in sign language based on mudras as he did not speak English. She would later dance in one of his recitals in New Delhi. Janta, a Polish friend of Gopal who became their impresario, took many pictures of the pair dancing. Unfortunately nearly all the negatives were later lost in Poland during the war.

Janta soon arranged an India tour beginning at the Globe Theatre in Bangalore in March 1939, which was attended and commented upon by Fred Harvey who stated : «The Javanese lady, Retna Mohini, gives the effect of grace and rhythm, so easy and effortless are her movements...» <2) They continued on tour in Delhi and later also danced together in Europe, including the Delphi Theatre in London and the Archives de la Danse in Paris, when the surrealist poet Robert Desnos preceded the performance with a lecture. Ram Gopal and Ratna were also to perform several times at the Musée Guimet in Paris. Legend has it that on one occasion Jean Cocteau was so moved by her talent as a dancer that he knelt down before her in respect after her solo performance.

A friend of Ratna and Henri from their New York days, tells an amusing anecdote of their Polish impresario Janta accompanying the dancing pair's

2. Ram Gopal, An Autobiography, Rhythm in the Heavens, Seeker and Warburg, London 1957, p. 93.

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

Illustration non autorisée à la diffusion

264 Kunang Helmi

Ratna in Javanese dancer's dress, unknown date (© Photo H. Cartier-Bresson)

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

Ratna Cartier-Bresson. A fragmented portrait 265

travels through India. They were voyaging on an Indian night-train and he went to relieve himself. All their earnings in Indian banknotes disappeared through a hole in his trouser pocket. He could only repeat : «Oh, poor, poor rupees ! », while Ratna and Ram were very upset about continuing to travel and perform without any of their earnings left. Ram Gopal, who is half-Burmese and half-Rajput, was like a brother to Ratna, who later lost her real brother in post-independant Indonesia. He remembers that he later often gently chided her for denying her Javanese background by not wearing Javanese costume everyday but dressing like «a French bourgeoise.»

In 1950, Ratna' s dancing career was abruptly cut short by a car accident. Henri Cartier-Bresson and Ratna were driving a friend's car back to France from South India. They were accompanied by an American journalist and his Chinese secretary on the voyage through many of the countries which were undergoing profound political changes. The photographer and the journalist were thus working their way back to Europe. Cartier-Bresson was at the wheel of the cabriolet in Baluchistan. It was during the Muslim fasting month when a truck transporting wood crashed into them at an intersection. Miraculously none of the four were seriously hurt, despite being flung on top of the overturned car. However, Ratna had a tiny glass splinter in her left index finger, which became infected during their train-ride to Iran in suffocating heat. In Zadan a Sikh doctor involuntarily cut a nerve of the finger while puncturing the abscess. Her left index finger was never to respond normally again.

As a result of this unfortunate incident, Ratna could not dance as she felt she could not perform the hand movements known as mudras accurately. She also could not, or would not teach dance, while not making any conscious effort to learn something else to replace her principal activity up to that time. Ratna was already at an age when dance performers habitually become teachers. According to Cartier-Bresson, her insatisfaction at this state of affairs was an important contributing factor to why their marriage began to flounder. Ram Gopal remembers advising Ratna to continue dancing because this would keep her young and happy, but she did not heed her close friend.

At this point, when their relationship became increasingly rocky, Cartier- Bresson had to travel extensively for work reasons without her, usually without an accompanying reporter. He had become a new genre of photographer, what is now called a photo-journalist. Never again did they travel together on his photographic missions for his photo agency. Thus they gradually drifted apart until they divorced in 1969. The glamour of Henri's profession, and Henri's attractiveness to women, could only aggravate Ratna's hyper-sensitive feelings as she grew older without a clearly defined professional activity during his prolonged absences.

Ratna accompanies Henri on his photographic forays Ratna Mohini was more out-going than her husband Henri Cartier-Bresson,

whom she married in 1937. He came from a very wealthy upper class background and was sometimes painfully shy, a trait which he still occasionally displays to this day. His shyness is also deliberately cultivated

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

266 Kunang Helmi

because he chooses to remain anonymous to be able to photograph, or simply to observe, without being noticed and recognized. Understandably for a family of the high bourgeoisie, his parents already had some trouble accepting Henri's profession as a photographer. For a while they may well have regarded photography as not being quite respectable. It cannot be surprising that they had similar misgivings when introduced to Ratna as a dancer coming from an unknown Asian colony.

One of their first trips together was in 1937, while Henri was working in Spain. A photo of the two during that period shows them in front of the University Village in Madrid, Henri tenderly looking down at his newly found love. Cartier-Bresson's photos of the period show a Spain already torn by the opposing political factions of a bitter Civil War. However, his main purpose in Spain was to make a documentary film about Loyalist military hospitals. Ratna was to continue to accompany her husband for some time while he captured the decisive moments of a world amidst increasing political upheaval. Her ability to rapidly comprehend what was happening in all sorts of situations, and to understand who she was dealing with, was to serve them both well while travelling through countries in the midst of political turmoil.

During the war, Ratna found refuge with a farmer's family at Chouzé near Chambord. After being mobilised, Henri's unit was captured in the Vosges in June 1940 and made prisoners of war. He escaped three times during three years imprisonment in Germany and apparently Ratna wrote him letters using key words in bahasa Melayu after sending him a dictionary while he was in captivity. Cartier-Bresson first wondered why she had sent him the dictionary, but then quickly understood as the letters followed. After he escaped for the final time, he returned to Paris, miraculously avoiding being betrayed by a double-agent of the resistance, who had turned in the rest of his group of resistance fighters. Soon he became involved in photo-journalism and was to help found the now legendary photo agency Magnum in 1947.

After the war, Ratna accompanied her husband in 1946 to New York, where his work to date was shown at an important exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. In New York she was more often seen wearing a sari. There, after meeting Lincoln Kirstein who invited her to practise in his ballet school, she became involved with the modern dance scene and choreography. Ratna was also to give a recital of Javanese dance at Hunter College, accompanied by music arranged by Colin McPhee, the composer and musicologist reputed for his work on the island of Bali. Ratna and Henri Cartier-Bresson were now intensely involved in promoting the young Indonesian Republic, once sharing a crowded flat under Queensboro bridge with six members of the Indonesian delegation to the United Nations.

Ratna later joined Cartier-Bresson and writer John Malcolm Brinnin for the last lap of their prolonged car journey across the United States in 1947. This was when the photographer captured remarkable images of America, which will retain the power of their visual impact in decades to come. Ratna caught up with them by train in Michigan and the writer immediately noticed her Indian habits, dating back to her days dancing with Ram Gopal. She was in the habit of putting a dot on her forehead and wearing saris.

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

Ratna Cartier -Bresson. A fragmented portrait 267

Soon the occasion to return to India arose in the context of Magnum, where Henri was regarded as the specialist in the decolonization process which was rapidly spreading throughout Asia. They arrived in India just a month after independence was declared in mid- August. Here Henri was first free-lance, and later joined Margaret Bourke- White for Life magazine. While they were there, the young Indian republic on the huge sub-continent was in the process of being violently separated into two states.

Here Ratna proved invaluable. Her American friend Dorothy Norman was a friend of Krishna Hutheesingh, a sister of Nehru, who was able to introduce Cartier-Bresson to the Mahatma. Gandhi was already firmly embarked on a total fast to protest the violence between the two factions, which was increasing daily. Cartier-Bresson was yet again present in the eye of the storm. Although he did not actually catch the moment when Gandhi was shot, his photo essay for Life is a riveting series on crowd scenes of an anguished people.

Later in 1949, according to Mayunani, then the Indonesian press officer in Burma, they were in Rangoon, where Henri interviewed U Nu Win and others. He left Burma for China, leaving Ratna behind for over a month. Ratna stayed at the House of Indonesia, then on Thamway Road, where she was the guest of Mayunani and his Scottish-Burmese wife : « She was polished and intelligent in the sense of being modern. » Their conversations revolved mostly around culture, Hindu philosophy and Buddhist religion. Ratna also proved to be a valuable asset to the Indonesian diplomats stationed there. She was able to spread accurate information about the young Indonesian Republic to interested Burmese personalities. In her short time there, Mayunani observed that she had no difficulty encountering people because of her social poise and brilliant conversation.

The Cartier-Bresson journey to China, and later to Indonesia, with Ratna, has already entered into photographic legend. (3) However, research for the book about Ratna Cartier-Bresson has not yet been completed. Therefore this seminal period, from mid- 1948 to the end of 1949, when Ratna and Henri Cartier-Bresson were accompanied by Ann Ford Doyle and her husband Bob Doyle, bureau chief for Time magazine in Shanghai, on their journey through China and Indonesia, cannot be treated in detail in this article. Both Doyles were proficient journalist and ideal travel companions for the Franco- Indonesian couple. Tragically, Bob Doyle was later killed by Darul Islam rebels in Indonesia, in an yet unexplained incident, while he accompanied an American anthropologist. Suffice to say, Henri and Ratna Cartier-Bresson were privileged witnesses to a pivotal moment in Indonesian history.

Parting remarks Ratna Cartier-Bresson's role at the side of her husband while traveling

through world history in the making is not to be underestimated. As an Asian

3. Dan Hofstadter, «Profiles : Stealing A March on the World, Part I and II», The New Yorker, 65 : 36 and 65 : 37, October 1989.

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997

268 Kunang Helmi

woman, she was of great help clearing the way for his work in India and Indonesia, among other Asian countries they passed through. This, together with her obviously invigorating personal presence and knowledge about current affairs, coupled with her shrewd assessment of human personality, made her a valuable member of a working team. In New York, she was also a lively personality with an easy social grace which contributed to what is now called public relations for her husband, an indispensable aid to photographers in the cut- throat media world, including publishing magazines and books.

However anchored she may have appeared superficially in Europe, Ratna was a child of Indonesia. She belonged to those who are eventually torn between a new homeland and a sometimes painful nostalgia for the country of birth. A country which has often changed beyond recognition during the years of absence. She also belonged to those who did not have the good fortune to carry on a fulfilling and all-encompassing activity well beyond the age of retirement. Ratna's destiny was to sweep her far beyond the shores of the verdant islands of her birth into the maelstrom of world history.

Later in her life Ratna learnt to express her feelings through poetry. As it had often transformed the course of her own life, she would take up the theme of wandering, witness the following verses from the volume 'Our festive shadows', published after her death.

Wandering

And always in parting The promise to return Defying time distance Then ever becoming so strong Is the need for returning The hope to find again the seed Which at the hour of parting One entrusts to the ground of infinity As a token of love What mystery so evident Will ripen the gold grain of absence.

Ratna Cartier-Bresson

Besides a wide range of newspaper and magazine articles and books, this article is also based on personal interviews with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Claude Cartier-Bresson, Luc Bouchage, Celia Bertin, Michael Horowitz, Mayunani, Prof. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, Farida Soemargono, Colette de Sadeleer, Imrad and Tikka Idris, Aki Djoehana, Ram Gopal, Mira Alwi, and many others scattered around the globe, whom the author warmly thanks for their kindness.

Archipel 54, Paris, 1997