Ghostwritten (21 page)

I clicked on the survivors’ stories. A woman named Renata wrote of picking through the rubbish for anything still edible and of trying to catch grasshoppers to eat. A man named Max wrote of the thrill when, occasionally, they’d get an egg; he and his sister would share it, then their mother would grind up the shell, dissolve it in water and make them drink it for the calcium. Katrin
described how she once watched her six-year-old brother trying to make a toy out of two rusty nails – a memory, she wrote, that could still make her cry.

Now I read a posting by someone called Edda.

Klara

It was now a month since Peter had left, and we’d heard nothing. We could only hope that he was amongst people who treated him decently, or at least didn’t mistreat him. I consoled myself with the thought that wherever Peter was surely couldn’t be worse than Tjideng; but perhaps that was just a lack of imagination on my part.

One morning, Flora and I were on sweeping duty when we saw the bread truck drive in. As it took its usual route up Laan Trivelli we could smell the bread, and soon the children were rushing out of the houses and racing towards it with as much energy as they could muster. We waited for the truck to stop, but it didn’t stop. Instead, it did a U-turn, went back down the street and drove out of the gate.

‘Why’s it done
that
?’ Flora wailed.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’

A minute later the truck came back in, drove up Laan
Trivelli again, followed by the children, only to turn round and go out once more. By the time it had done this three times, everyone stayed inside. We now understood just how determined Sonei was to make us suffer.

Later, Mrs Cornelisse told us why Sonei had told the driver to do this. The day before, she explained, Sonei had seen the vegetable truck come in. But not one of the prisoners on the street had bowed to the driver – an employee of the Emperor!

‘Lieutenant Sonei feels that this was a grave insult to His Imperial Majesty. And so …’ Mrs Cornelisse paused, and I knew that bad news was coming. ‘I’m afraid he’s going to withhold food from the entire camp for the next three days.’

There were wails of despair.

‘He can’t
do
that to us!’

‘We’ll die!’

‘He’s
insane
!’

‘Speak to him, Mrs Cornelisse!’

‘Yes – in the name of God beg him not to
do
this to us!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Mrs Cornelisse said. ‘All the group leaders tried to dissuade him, but Sonei’s mind is made up. We’ll just have to cope as best we can.’

The cries of anguish continued, but worse was to come. The kitchen workers were ordered to dig trenches and to throw into them all the porridge and bread that they had been about to distribute. Sonei himself was seen shovelling dirt onto it to make sure it was inedible. And so the food that would have fed ten thousand starving women and children was now destroyed!

That night it was impossible to sleep. The constant
weeping rang in my ears. The twins kept crying and Corrie screamed at them to be quiet, just be quiet, be quiet …

We heard the monkeys shriek.

‘
They’re
being fed,’ Kirsten said bitterly.

A deep despair descended on the camp. Some of the women, crazed with hunger, said they were going to break into buildings and find food. There must be
something
to eat, they screamed, somewhere in this utterly hellish,
godvergeten
place. They even said that they would sneak into Sonei’s villa – there was always a smell of delicious food coming from
there!

‘My cousin has to cook for him,’ said a woman called Mies. ‘Sonei tells her to bring her children with her so that they can watch him eat – that seems to make it taste
extra
delicious, God damn that devil!’

We all slept as much as possible to avoid wasting energy. As I lay there I thought of all the things I regretted not having eaten in my life. I regretted not eating rice pudding at school; I regretted not having eaten cassava cake when I was at Flora’s house once. I regretted turning up my nose at bread crusts, and buffalo milk and the insides of tomatoes. I even wished that I had eaten more snails.

The medical staff handed out tiny quantities of bread and lentils, from their emergency supplies. But there was nothing to cook them on because Sonei had confiscated all the
anglos.
So we ground them up with a rock, mixed them with water and ate them with our tiny piece of grey bread.

My mother looked at her lentils. ‘We are now Stone Age people,’ she observed quietly. ‘This is what they have done to us.’

The three days felt like three weeks. But at last Sonei gave the order for the
dapur
to reopen. While that happened we waited on our beds, too weak to do anything else. I had found a piece of card and was fanning myself with it, but my mother told me to stop, as even this small exertion would waste precious calories.

‘When can I see Flora?’ I asked her. We’d been unable to see each other during the ‘hunger days’ and I’d missed her.

‘After we’ve eaten,’ my mother answered wearily.

When Mrs Cornelisse’s megaphoned voice once again summoned the food carriers to the kitchen, my mother and Kirsten hurried off with the tub. When they returned my mother seemed upset, but she wouldn’t say why; I knew that she was worrying about Peter, from whom we still hadn’t heard. She gave me my cup of porridge then, as soon as we’d finished, she told me that she’d seen Susan.

‘Did you tell her that I’m going to go over there?’

‘Yes. I did tell her … but …’

‘But what? What’s the matter, Mum?’

She put her hand on mine. ‘Klara,’ she said gently. ‘Flora’s ill.’

A warmth rose in my chest. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘Because I was worried that you wouldn’t eat.’

I stood up. ‘I must go and see her.’

‘I don’t think you should,’ I heard my mother say, but I was already halfway across the front yard. As I got to the gate I saw Irene and Susan, with two other women, hurrying up the road, carrying Flora on a stretcher. Flora had got too hungry, I told myself. She just needed some
extra food; I would give her some of mine. But as she was carried past us towards the hospital, I saw that her skin was grey, and that her body was twisted in pain beneath the thin sheet. It wasn’t hunger that had done this to her. In distress, I ran back to my mother, and asked her what had.

She explained that the previous night, Flora and Lena had found some cakes of
bunkil
in an outhouse and had eaten some.
Bunkil
was animal feed, made of flaked soya beans.

‘Why would that have hurt Flora?’ I demanded. ‘Soya beans are good.’

My mother explained that
bunkil
, though fine for animals, can be poisonous to humans. Lena had eaten only a little and would recover, but Flora was very ill. I asked my mother if I could go into the hospital to be with her, but she said that Flora was too unwell. I must just wait, and pray that she would get better.

I prayed morning, noon and night, stopping only when Susan came by to give us news. By the end of the first day Flora was barely conscious; by the end of the second day she had slipped into a coma. On the afternoon of the third day, my mother and I were inside our net, dozing. I heard a
tokeh
, and began to count its croaks, hoping against hope to hear seven, but it stopped at six. I’d have to start all over again. One … two … three … I opened my eyes and saw Susan standing on the other side of our
kelambu.
In my half-asleep state I thought she was an angel.

I sat up, my heart pounding. ‘How is she? How’s Flora?’

Susan didn’t answer. She knelt down beside me. ‘The doctors did everything they could,’ she whispered through
the net. ‘They did their very best for her – they tried so hard to make her better … I’m sorry, Klara.’

As if in a dream, my mother and I went with Susan to Ampasiet Weg where we found Irene, cradling Flora’s china doll, Lottie. The doll’s face was wet with her tears.

‘I didn’t know,’ Irene sobbed. ‘I didn’t know that the
bunkil
was there or that she would ever have
eaten
it!’ She clasped the doll to her, rocking back and forth.

The next morning we all stood beside Flora’s small bamboo coffin as it was loaded onto a truck with five others; then the gate was opened and the vehicle drove out, towards the cemetery.

My mother and Susan were crying, heads bowed. Irene was standing a little way in front of us, staring at the gate. I stood beside her.

‘She was my best friend,’ I whispered. ‘I’ll never like anyone as much as I liked Flora.’

A tear slid down Irene’s cheek. ‘You’ll have other friends, Klara.’ She swallowed. ‘But please, don’t forget Flora.’

‘I won’t,’ I vowed. ‘I’ll never, ever, forget her.’

For the next few weeks we hardly saw Irene and Susan. Then one day Irene came to our house. She told me that she wanted to give me something of Flora’s as a keepsake.

‘It’s just a small thing,’ she said as she handed it to me.

It felt heavy in my palm. ‘Thank you,’ I managed to whisper, as, in the saddest possible way, the lizard became mine.

By the end of May, thanks to a very brave woman named Henny, who had smuggled in a radio, we knew that Hitler was dead and that Holland had been liberated.
We knew that victory had been declared in Europe, and that the Allies had retaken the Philippines and Borneo and many of the Pacific islands. A new mood took hold in the camp. Everyone whispered of freedom, not ‘if’, but ‘when’.

In early June my mother and I were overjoyed to receive a card from Peter. It was from Tjimahi and had been written two months before. He’d ticked the usual prescribed phrases stating that he was ‘enjoying excellent health’, had ‘good fresh food’ and was being ‘treated well’ by the Forces of Nippon. In his twenty-five ‘free’ words he’d managed to convey that he was ‘fine’, but that he ‘still missed Daddy and Wil’. At the end, he’d added, ‘Herman’s been kind’.

Anxiety clouded my mother’s face. ‘So Daddy isn’t in Tjimahi. Poor Peter – he was so sure that he was going to see him. Wil isn’t there either. I must go and tell Irene.’

‘Mum, Herman
is
there. Shouldn’t we tell Mrs Dekker?’

My mother stared at me. ‘I am
not
prepared to,’ she said. ‘If it weren’t for that hateful woman, Peter wouldn’t
be
there.’ I felt a pang of guilt. My mother chewed her lip. ‘But I suppose we should, in all conscience, pass that on. But you can tell her, Klara.’

‘I will.’

After Peter had been taken away, my mother had been unable even to look at Mrs Dekker. Summoning all her self-control, she’d ignored her, fearing that if she didn’t, she might strike her. But Marleen Dekker hadn’t liked being ignored.

‘
My
son had to go, Anneke!’ she’d shouted after her.
‘Why should you have got away with those lies about yours?’

Now, while Mum hurried to see Irene, I went to look for Marleen. Unlike my mother, I didn’t blame Marleen for Peter being transported; I knew that he’d been transported because of me. And after the war, when everything was all right again, I would tell my mother what had happened in the guardhouse that day, and she would not only understand, she would forgive me, and it would all be forgotten. That was my plan.

I found Mrs Dekker in her usual space in a corner of the living room. She was lying down, and through the
kelambu
I could see that her feet and ankles were swollen with the beginnings of hunger oedema. ‘Mrs Dekker …’

She pushed herself upright. ‘Yes?’ she said warily.

‘Mrs Dekker, we’ve just had a card from my brother. He’s in Tjimahi, and he says that your Herman’s there too. I expect you know that already, but just in case you didn’t, I thought I ought to tell you.’

She opened the net, staring at me, clearly surprised at my friendly tone. ‘I did know,’ she said faintly. ‘But … thank you.’

‘Peter said that Herman’s being kind to him.’

Mrs Dekker smiled. ‘Good. I’m glad to hear that – he
is
a kind boy. If Herman sends me news of Peter, I’ll tell you, Klara.’

‘Thank you Mrs Dekker.’ I walked away but, on an impulse, turned back. ‘Mrs Dekker, I just want to say that it’s not your fault that Peter was transported.’

She didn’t answer for a moment, fiddling with the collar of her shabby dress. ‘I shouldn’t have done what I did,’ she said softly. ‘I feel bad about it, but I was … angry.’

‘It’s all right. I just want you to know that I don’t blame you.’

She looked puzzled. ‘Well … I’m glad. Thank you, Klara.’

In a while my mother returned from seeing Irene. She sat on her mattress, took out a grubby card that she had been saving, and began to write. ‘It’s so good to know where Peter
is
, Klara.’ She gave me a radiant smile. ‘And to be able to send him a card is just wonderful after all our worry.’

‘Are you going to tell him about Flora?’

‘No. It’ll make him too sad. We’ll tell him when he’s safely back with us, which, let’s pray, won’t be long now.’

‘I
do
pray for that.’ My mother could have had no idea how fervently. One afternoon towards the end of June, Louisa ran into the house.

‘Sonei’s gone!’ she screamed. ‘He’s gone. Sonei has
GONE!!!
’ As we gathered round, Louisa explained that it was to do with the coming end of the war. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

Ina sniffed. ‘I don’t believe it. Our hopes have been dashed often enough before.’

As for the war supposedly ending, we had no idea whether or not this was true, because our radio had been discovered. Henny, who had smuggled it in, had been tied to the chair. We’d managed to get a little water to her when the guards weren’t looking. Even so, she’d died on the evening of the fourth day.

‘It wasn’t a punishment,’ Kirsten had said angrily. ‘It was an execution.’

A few days after this, Greta’s grandmother, Mrs Moonen, hurried into the house. ‘I’ve just seen a new
officer by the gate,’ she said breathlessly. ‘He’s called Sakai and he’s Sonei’s replacement. Someone told me that Sonei’s been made a captain and has been transferred: that’s why we haven’t seen him – because he really
has
gone!’

A cry of unadulterated joy went up.

That night there were celebrations throughout Tjideng. Some women wept with happiness; others were so euphoric that they decided to go
gedekking.
They went to the northwest corner, right away from the gate. We heard afterwards that they’d been in such a happy frame of mind that they didn’t trade in the terrified silence that they would normally have done, but in an abandoned way, with conversation and laughter. Then the laughter had abruptly stopped.