SEPTEMBER 27, 1945. One month and 10 days after the Independence Proclamation. A Frenchman in Jakarta writes a letter to an American woman in Washington, D.C.

The Frenchman was Charles-Louis Damais. The woman was Claire Holt, a romantic figure, an art enthusiast who had traveled to Java.

Louis told her the death of W.F. Stutterheim, a Dutchman and Claire’s lover. Louis and Stutterheim were two big names in the archipelago’s field of