Beauty Is a Wound (11 page)

A number of young girls, including Ola, tried to make themselves up to look like old women, which of course didn’t work. Others ran, hiding in the toilets or climbing up onto the rooftop and crouching there, but the Japanese soldiers found them all. An old woman, who feared she was about to lose her daughter, tried to protest and said if the young women were to be taken then all should be taken. In response, two soldiers beat her black and blue.

Finally all the young women stood in rows in the middle of the yard, shaking in fear while their mothers huddled together in the distance. Dewi Ayu saw Gerda clinging to a post all alone gulping back tears, and beside her Ola didn’t dare look anywhere except down toward her ugly tattered shoes. She heard a number of the girls crying and murmuring prayers. Then the officers came, examining them one by one. They stood in front of each woman, laughing quietly while scrutinizing her body, from the top of her head down to the tips of her toes. Sometimes, to get a better look at her face, they’d lift up her chin with their fingertips.

Then there was a selection. A number of women were separated off to the side and every time a young girl was released, it was like an arrow shooting from the group of girls to the group of mothers. Now only half of them were still standing in the middle of the yard, including Dewi Ayu and Ola, even after the second culling, they both were still in the middle of the yard, powerless pawns in the Japanese soldiers’ ridiculous game. They were called one by one to face an official, who examined them much more minutely with small squinting eyes. That final selection left only twenty girls in the center of the yard clutching one another, but no one dared look at anyone else. These chosen girls—young, pretty, healthy, and strong—were ordered to pack all of their belongings immediately and gather in the camp office. The truck was already waiting to take them away.

“I have to bring Gerda,” said Ola.

“No,” said Dewi Ayu. “If we die, at least she will survive.”

“Or the other way around?”

“Or the other way around.”

They entrusted Gerda to a family that Dewi Ayu had known for a long time. But even so, Ola couldn’t accept the situation and the sisters sat in a corner embracing for very a long time. Dewi Ayu packed their things and helped sort out what would be left behind for Gerda.

Then Dewi Ayu said to Gerda, “Ok, that’s enough, after two years of this boring life, we are leaving for a while to go on a trip. I’ll bring you back some souvenirs.”

“Don’t forget a guidebook,” said Gerda.

“You’re funny, kid,” said Dewi Ayu.

The twenty women swarmed next to the gate, and from the look of it Dewi Ayu was the only one acting as though it would be a pleasant outing. The other young girls stood in confusion and fear, looking back at those they were leaving behind. The officers had gone on ahead, and the women were herded to the ferryboat by a number of soldiers, who pushed and shoved them forcefully. Once boarded, they could still see the prison gates and deep inside people crowded around watching their departure. There were some handkerchiefs waving, reminding everyone of when the Japanese had first taken them from their homes. Now another journey was waiting. But once the ferry began to move, the gate and the view inside vanished. That was when the girls began to wail, drowning out the ferry engine and the barks of the soldiers who were getting annoyed at their whining.

Then they were lifted onto a truck that was waiting across the river. Everyone crouched along the sides except Dewi Ayu, who stood leaning against the wall of the truck taking in the view along the familiar journey to Halimunda, next to two armed guards. After two years in the camps, almost all of the young women already knew each other well, but no one seemed to want to talk, and they were amazed by Dewi Ayu’s calm demeanor. Even Ola didn’t know what she was thinking, and presumptuously decided that Dewi Ayu didn’t have anyone left to worry about—she wasn’t leaving anyone behind.

“Where are we being taken, Sir?” Dewi Ayu asked a soldier, even though she knew that the truck was headed to the western edge of the city, or maybe beyond. The guards apparently had been given orders not to speak to the women, so he ignored Dewi Ayu’s question, and instead kept talking to the others in Japanese.

The women were brought to a big house with a sweeping yard full of trees and bushes, a big banyan tree in the center, and alternating palm trees and Chinese coconut trees lining the fence. When the truck entered the grounds, Dewi Ayu guessed that there were more than twenty rooms in the two-storey house. The girls got down from the truck dumbfounded: from a vile and gloomy prison camp they had come all of a sudden to a comfortable and even luxurious mansion. It was so strange—the orders must have gotten mixed up or something.

In addition to the two guards, there were more soldiers patrolling the expansive grounds or sitting playing cards. A middle-aged native woman appeared from inside the house, wearing her hair in a bun and a loose-fitting gown with the belt untied at her waist. She smiled at the women standing in the yard like peasants too nervous to approach the king’s palace.

“Is this your house, Miss?” asked Dewi Ayu politely.

“Call me Mama Kalong,” she said. “Because like a
kalong
, a fruit bat, I’m much more often up and about at night than during the day.” She came down off the veranda and approached the women, trying to lighten the bleak expressions on their faces with a joke and a smile. “This used to be a vacation house owned by a Dutch lemonade factory owner from Batavia. I forget his name, but it doesn’t really matter because the house belongs to you all now.”

“What for?” asked Dewi Ayu.

“I think you know what for. You are here to volunteer for soldiers who are sick.”

“Like Red Cross volunteers?”

“You’re smart, kid. What’s your name?”

“Ola.”

“All right, Ola, invite your friends inside.”

The house interior was even more amazing. There were many paintings, most in the
Mooi Indie
style, hanging on the walls. The whole structure was still intact, made from intricately carved wood. Dewi Ayu saw a family portrait still hanging on the wall, a group of people from what looked like more than three generations all squeezed together on a sofa. Maybe they had successfully escaped, or maybe some were living in Bloedenkamp, or quite possibly they were all already dead. A large portrait of Queen Wilhelmina was leaning over in one corner; maybe the Japanese had taken it down. This all made Dewi Ayu realize that she herself must no longer have a home: probably the Japanese had it, or maybe it had been blown to smithereens by an off-target shell. But every little thing was diligently cared for, maybe by Mama Kalong, and when she walked into one of the bedrooms, she felt like she was entering a bridal chamber. The big bed had a soft, thick mattress and a mosquito net the color of a red apple, and the air was fragrant with roses. The armoires were still filled with clothes, some for young ladies, and Mama Kalong said that they could wear them. Ola remarked that after two years in the prison camp, it all seemed like a dream.

“What did I tell you,” said Dewi Ayu. “We are on an excursion.”

Each girl got her own room, and the luxury didn’t end there. With the help of two servants, Mama Kalong served them a complete
rijsttafel
dinner, which, after starving for months on end, was the best thing they had ever tasted. Still, the memory of those they had left behind in the camp made it impossible for most of the girls to enjoy these indulgences.

“Gerda should be with us,” said Ola.

Dewi Ayu tried to comfort her, “If we don’t end up getting sent to do forced labor in a weapons factory, then we can go get her.”

“The woman said we were going to be Red Cross volunteers.”

“And so? What’s the difference? You don’t even know how to dress a wound, so what would Gerda do?”

It was true. But they were all already enchanted by the idea of becoming Red Cross volunteers, even if it meant working for the enemy. At the very least, it was better than dying of starvation in the prison camp. They became all abuzz discussing matters of first aid. One young girl said that she had been a member of the girl scouts, and knew how to staunch a wound, and not only that, she also knew how to treat less serious illnesses like diarrhea, fever and food poisoning, with wild plants.

“The problem is, the Japanese soldiers don’t need diarrhea medicine,” said Dewi Ayu. “They need someone to amputate them at the neck.”

Dewi Ayu left the group and went into her room. Because she was the calmest among them, even though she wasn’t the oldest, they had come to consider her their leader. So the nineteen other girls followed her and gathered in her room, some sitting on top of her bed, and resumed their conversation about how to amputate a Japanese soldier’s neck, just in case their heads were wounded and no longer useful to them. Dewi Ayu paid no attention to their foolish chatter, and instead chose to enjoy her new bed, like a little child with a new toy. She massaged the mattress, stroked the blanket, rolled back and forth, and even jumped up and down to make the mattress jiggle and her friends bounce.

“What are you doing?” one of them asked.

“I just want to see whether this bed will collapse if it’s given some hearty shakes,” she replied while jumping.

“There’s no way there will be an earthquake,” said another girl.

“Who knows,” she replied. “If I am going to end up falling onto the floor while I’m sleeping, I’d rather just lie down on the floor to begin with.”

“Such a strange young girl,” they said, and one by one they drifted off to their own bedrooms.

After they had all left, Dewi Ayu walked to the window and opened it. There were thick iron bars and she said to herself, “There is no way to escape.” She closed the window, climbed into her bed, and pulled up the covers without changing her clothes. Before closing her eyes she prayed, “Well hell, you know that this is what war is like.”

When morning arrived, breakfast was already prepared: fried rice with eggs sunny-side up. All the girls had bathed but they were still wearing their old clothes, which resembled foul dishrags that had been used and washed and set out to dry one too many times. Their bloodshot eyes showed the traces of tears cried all night long. Only Dewi Ayu had brazenly taken the clothes from her armoire, and was wearing a short-sleeved cream-colored dress with white polka dots and a belt that cinched her waist with a round buckle. She had powdered her face, applied a thin layer of lipstick, and the faint scent of lavender perfume wafted off her body. She had found everything in the drawers of the vanity table. She looked elegant and bright, as if it was her birthday, quite out of place among the gloomy girls around her. They looked at her with accusatory gazes, as if they had caught a traitor red-handed, but after eating breakfast they all ran to their rooms, quickly changed their clothes, and admired one another.

It was near midday when the Japanese arrived, the sound of their boots filling the house. The girls immediately remembered that despite it all they were still prisoners, and it felt strange that they had just been so happy. They retreated until their backs were against the wall, once again overcome with gloom. Except Dewi Ayu, who quickly greeted one of the guests.

“How are you?”

He just looked at her for a moment, not bothering to speak, and then went to find Mama Kalong. They spoke for a moment, then he returned and counted the girls before going back out again. The house grew quiet with only the girls and Mama Kalong and a couple of soldiers patrolling outside.

“He was counting us as if we were a group of soldiers!” one of them complained.

“That’s the job of a commandant,” said Mama Kalong.

That whole day they didn’t do anything except hang around in the living room or in one of their bedrooms, and boredom overcame them. After getting nostalgic about their happy childhoods before the war, they ran out of things to talk about. They didn’t say anything more about the Red Cross, because there was no indication that they were really going to become volunteers. The Japanese didn’t speak about it, but they didn’t speak about anything at all. The women thought there really should be some kind of training if they were going to be volunteers, but it looked like they were just going to rot away inside the house, amid all that nonsensical luxury. What’s more, if you think about it, said one of them, the front is far away from here, who knows where, maybe in the Pacific Ocean, maybe in India, but definitely not in Halimunda. There were no wounded soldiers in this city, and nobody needed the Red Cross.

“They still need neck amputators, though,” said Dewi Ayu.

That joke no longer seemed funny, especially since the person telling it looked like she didn’t have a care in the world. She seemed to be enjoying everything, eating the apples that had been set out, and then just as greedily eating the bananas and papayas.

“Are you starving to death, or just being greedy?” asked Ola.

“Both.”

By the following day, nothing had happened yet, making them more and more confused. Ola tried to comfort herself, thinking that maybe they were going to be exchanged with other prisoners of war, and that’s why they were being given good food, a house and clothing, so that they wouldn’t appear to have been suffering. None of the girls believed that. The opportunity to ask questions came when a number of Japanese men appeared at the house, along with a photographer. But none of them could speak English, Dutch, or Malay. They just pantomimed to the girls to look stylish, because they were going to be photographed. Reluctantly the girls lined up in front of the camera, with forced smiles, hoping Ola was right that their portraits would be part of a campaign about the condition of the prisoners of war, and that there would be an exchange.