After the Ashes (15 page)

I wanted my friend back.

But I knew—just as I knew that Earth revolved around the sun—that with my unfeeling words in the kitchen, our relationship had shattered.

I remembered Oom Maarten's words about friendships ending. I remembered Slamet saying there were things about him I would not, could not, understand. Maybe they were both right. But I did not want us to part in anger.

Slamet and Indah moved to leave. I knew I had one final chance to see my friend—my old friend, my only friend—before they left.

“Slamet.” My voice cracked on his name. “I apologize for my outburst.”

He looked at me, and for one brief moment, the Slamet I knew shone through his eyes. Some strange impulse compelled me to fling my arms around him. To hold onto him forever. He stiffened, but I squeezed him tight.

He took a step back, but I only rocked forward, clinging to him. I would not let my friend go. But he finally managed to escape my grasp, his face as red as the Ousterhoudts' flowers.

“
Selamat jalan
,” I said.

“
Sampai jumpa lagi
,” he said.

“
Ja
. Until we meet again.” I didn't know if that would be true. And if only his angry impostor returned, I wasn't sure I wanted to meet again. But I would not think of that now.

Indah opened the door, and she and Slamet stepped into the black afternoon.

As evening fell, Tante Greet and I kept busy. By the time the clock chimed seven, we had dusted the ash off all the furniture and swept it into piles in the corners of every room. The rumbling from Krakatau continued like constant, rolling thunder. I traced patterns in the thin layer of powder that had somehow managed to coat the inside of the windows. Outside, the view was now pitch black.

Please keep Indah and Slamet safe. Please keep Indah and Slamet safe
. I prayed this silent plea over and over. I was sorry for what I had said to Slamet earlier, but I still didn't understand what Tante Greet had been thinking, letting them leave the house. “Why did she do that?”

“Did you say something, Katrien?” Tante Greet asked.

Did I? I pushed my spectacles up. “Why did you let them leave?” I asked.

“Lift them, please.” She sat on the sofa and patted the cushion next to her, but I crossed my arms and refused to budge.

“I let them leave for the very same reasons we left the hotel,” she said.

“What do you mean? It made sense for us to leave the hotel. We were taking up space there. We didn't live there. It wasn't our home.”

“Katrien, the same thing could be said for Indah and Slamet here.”

“They weren't taking up space!” If she said they were, I would shove her back outside.

“No, they weren't,” she agreed. “But did you want to stay at the hotel?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?” She stayed calm, despite the maelstrom outside and the edge that was creeping into my voice.

“It wasn't home,” I repeated. I looked around. Every lamp in our parlor was lit. The furniture had some of the awful powder coating it, but everything was still familiar and comforting in the scary turmoil of the eruption.

“Precisely,” said Tante Greet. “This is not their home.”

“But they didn't go home.” I pointed in the direction of their kampong. “They went to the mosque.” I flung my arm behind me and accidentally pushed the window open. A whirl of ash blew inside before I could hook it closed again. “Terra firma,” I muttered at the new layer of filth on my blouse.

“Language,” said Tante Greet. “Katrien, the mosque is where they feel comforted,” she explained. Again, she patted the seat next to her, and this time I joined her. “I think we both need some comforting ourselves right now.”

“What do you suggest?” I asked in a tiny voice. The thunder from Krakatau echoed in my head.

“When I was a little girl, I always liked hearing about the Netherlands. I loved the history, the stories. Would you like to hear something like that?”

I nodded.

“I'll be right back.” She went into the study with a lamp and returned a few moments later carrying a leather-bound book. When she settled back on the sofa, she pulled me toward her. I rested my head on her shoulder. The book was dusty, but I didn't know how much of that was ash and how much was from sitting unread for years. She opened the cover and began, “
The History of the Netherlands
by Thomas Colley Grattan.
Chapter one
. B.C. 50 to A.D. 250.”

“So long ago,” I said. “It's a solace. To know the world has been around so long.”

Tante Greet nodded and began to read. “ ‘The Netherlands form a kingdom of moderate extent, situated on the borders of the ocean, opposite to the south-east coast of England, and stretching from the frontiers of France to those of Hanover. The country is principally composed of low and humid grounds, presenting a vast plain, irrigated by the waters from all those neighbouring states which are traversed by the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt.' ”

She read with a low, reassuring tone, and her voice drifted over me.
I should be furious with her
, I thought,
for letting Indah and Slamet leave. For keeping me from the jungle. For so many things
. But her arm around my shoulders was so warm. The soft murmur of her voice so soothing. I tried to block out the rumbling, the worry, the fear. I clung to the comfort my aunt provided like a drowning man clings to driftwood.

“ ‘The history of the Netherlands is, then, essentially that of a patient and industrious population struggling against every obstacle which nature could oppose to its well-being; and, in this contest, man triumphed most completely over the elements in those places where they offered the greatest resistance.' ”

Another blast outside caused both of us to jump like startled cats.

“That—that wasn't Krakatau, was it?” Tante Greet asked, panic in her voice.

“I don't know.”

It hadn't been as loud as the blast from this afternoon. I walked to the door and opened it to try to identify the source of the noise.

“You can't see anything,” Tante Greet reminded me.

“Yes, but . . .” I trailed off as I took in the blackness. She was correct. But just as I swung the door back to close it, she stopped me.

“What is that?” She pointed toward the docks.

An orange glow shimmered in the darkness. It appeared to be near Vader's office.

“Is it a fire?” I asked. Someone must have set an oil lamp too close to a curtain.

Tante Greet's hands were on my shoulders, squeezing them like a boa constrictor. I grimaced and shifted, but she didn't stop. “Tante, you're hurt—” I began.

But then another blast sounded, and the orange glow grew larger. It was certainly a fire.

“Oh, my God,” Tante Greet whispered. “Niels.”

I turned cold with fear. So cold I wondered how my aunt could keep touching me. Vader's office
was
near that fire. Vader was near that fire. I shoved Tante Greet away and ran down the steps, slipping in the ash piled on them. I couldn't see anything ahead of me.

“Katrien! Come back!”

“No,” I screamed. “I have to get to Vader.”

“Katrien!”

A streak of bright orange lit the sky. It arced overhead and fell with a thud in the center of town. Flames leaped into the sky and sparks flew into the air, fizzling out in the darkness. I cried out in fear, skidding to a halt. What was happening? My stomach clenched. I couldn't breathe; the ash was too thick.

“Katrien!” Tante Greet grabbed me and dashed back under the porch.

More balls of fire rained down, some extinguishing before hitting the ground and others setting more buildings alight.

Mrs. De Groot had not mentioned anything like this. This was more like stories I had heard of Pompeii. All those people who died there. Was that going to happen to us? Were these my last few moments on Earth? Standing under our porch with Tante Greet's fingers grasping mine? Vader in his office, so close and so far at the same time?

No!

I ran back inside. Tante Greet followed me and shut the door. She took a sharp breath and coughed. When she looked at me, she had tears in her eyes. I had never seen my aunt cry, and the sight unnerved me. Suddenly I felt like tiny insects were crawling all over
me. I scratched my arms and my neck and my fingers and my head. My hands would not stop moving.

Tante Greet shook me, and I stilled. “Calm down, Katrien.” Her voice was firm. “Stay here, and do not move.”

I did as she said, watching as she stepped back outside and stood on the porch.

“Are they still falling?” I called.

She didn't answer. The clock chimed eight times. I did math in my head to distract myself. It had been seven hours since the eruption, five hours since we made it home, and four hours since Indah and Slamet left.

I gasped. Indah and Slamet! They were walking to the mosque. They might be out there in this rain of fire. “Oh, God,” I moaned. “Tante Greet?”

She came back inside and shut the door again. “I think it's over.”

I collapsed, shivering, against her. “What about Indah and Slamet? Did you see anything falling toward the mosque?”

She shook her head. “We'll pray that they are safe.”

The night dragged on. Tante Greet and I stayed in the parlor where the glow from the fires was now visible through our front windows. Eventually they died down. The only good thing about the heaviness in the air tonight was that wind couldn't blow, and flames couldn't revive and spread.

This knowledge eased my fears about our house catching fire, but it did little to calm my nerves about Vader. His office was so near the first fire. I hoped with all my might that he had been able to get to safety in the hotel. He could still send telegraph messages from the hotel's machine. He could still do his job from there.

My stomach rumbled like Krakatau, and I realized I hadn't eaten since before the eruption.

“Are you hungry?” Tante Greet asked from her seat on the sofa.

I rubbed my arms. I was hungry but didn't know if I could bring myself to eat anything.

“We may as well eat,” she said. “Perhaps then we can try to get some sleep.” She trotted to the kitchen.

She expected me to sleep in this? Krakatau grumbled in reply. I couldn't sleep now. Too many fears and worries rushed through me anew. My mind wouldn't quit churning up images from Mrs. De Groot's story and my own imagination.

“Katrien,” Tante Greet called, “come help me, please.”

I dragged myself down the hall, wondering if food would help ease my fear.

My aunt rummaged through the shelves in the pantry before popping out with a wax-covered wheel of Edam in her hand. “Cheese!” She set it on the table and returned to the pantry. “Is there any
volkorenbrood
left?”

“
Ja
, I can tear the loaf in half.”

“Do that, please.”

After breaking the bread into chunks, I stared at the cheese.

“We've also got
belimbing
,” Tante Greet said, coming back into the kitchen carrying two star fruits. “That will work.” She plucked the cheese from my hands. The knife went through the waxy surface with only slight force. Then she sliced the star fruit while I grabbed a wooden tray.

“I think we still have tea in the pot,” I said.

Her face wrinkled in disgust. “It will be cold.”

“It's better than nothing.”

She shrugged and poured the tea into two cups. Each of us had bread, cheese and star fruit—the only stars visible on Java, I imagined. The thunder from Krakatau rumbled in the distance, drowning out the sounds of our chewing.

“Do you think Oom Maarten is safe?” I asked.

She took a deep breath and nodded. “I'm sure he is.” She didn't sound sure.

“We should have left.” Even to my own ears, I sounded shrill, and my hands shook. “Like the De Groots. We should have listened to them. We're not going to make it.” Then my voice broke like a shattered cup.

“Shhh, Katrien.” Tante Greet patted my hand. “Shhh. Don't think like that.”

The tea did nothing to wash the grit from my mouth, and the food tasted like it had been sprinkled with dirt.

It made me think of the earth and worms, of rotting flesh and death. “
Nevertheless so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic
being; and as we do not see the cause, we involve cataclysms to desolate the world, or invest laws on the duration of the forms of life
.” Cataclysms. I was in a cataclysm now. Had Mr. Charles Darwin ever been in such a cataclysm? Would I escape this one? Was the world headed toward extinction? Or just me?

“The ash was piling up when we were outside,” Tante Greet said, worry filling her voice. “It's probably higher now.”

I shrugged, unsure why the ash was worrying her. It was messy and choked the breath out of you, but inside the house, breathing was much easier. As long as we didn't disturb the piles of powder.

“If it keeps up, the roof could collapse.”

“What?” I cried. “It's ash! It weighs no more than a feather!”

“
Ja
, but think of how the ash bent your hat earlier.” She glanced at the window. “Now it's piling up like snow.”

“I don't understand.” I pushed my spectacles up. “What does it matter if it's like snow?”

Tante Greet reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Snow can collapse roofs when it gets too heavy. It happens, and it can be deadly for anyone inside the building.”

I stared at her. Could this be true? I had never seen snow. I had read about it, of course, but it never snowed in Java. “Should we leave the house?” I asked.

“No. We'll take our chances. Better to be inside and able to breathe than outside and struggling.”