Ghostwritten (22 page)

We learned that while the women were still at the
gedek
, Sonei, who had been in town celebrating his promotion, returned and caught them by surprise. At gunpoint he marched five of them back to the guardhouse, where he beat them, then locked them in the interrogation room.

The next day the group leaders went through the camp with their megaphones and ordered all last night’s
gedekkers
to report to the gate. No one came out of the houses. During evening
tenko
, one of the guards, a Korean called Oohara, advised Louisa to get volunteers to come out in order to appease Sonei, who was becoming ‘
gila
’ – crazy.

We went out into the front yard to see what was happening. At first we saw a dozen women standing at the gate, but were told that Sonei had said it wasn’t enough. Within an hour there were seventy, but he was
still not satisfied. By midnight five hundred women stood there in the moonlight, motionless and silent. They were prepared to suffer for something they had not done, in order to save those who had.

Sonei, in his metal-tipped boots, strode up and down the rows. He stopped in front of one woman, pulled her out of the line then began to slap and punch her. He picked out five others. With his guards, he marched these six women to the house opposite ours that served as the air-raid building. He made them line up on the verandah where, in the light from the one electric bulb that hung from it, I could see their terrified faces. I could hear the monkeys screaming, as if they knew that something bad was happening.

‘What’s he going to do?’ Mum murmured.

‘I don’t know,’ Louisa answered. ‘But it’s going to be bad.’

Sonei started haranguing the women in broken Malay. He called them ‘ungrateful sluts’ who had dared to disobey the ‘divine will’ of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor. He pushed the nearest woman onto her knees. She crouched down and covered her head with her hands, but he began to beat her with the butt of his rifle.

‘Our
Father
,’ I heard Ina murmur, ‘
which art in Heaven
…’

As other women joined in the prayer, Sonei rained down his blows. We could hear them thudding against her body. Twice the woman staggered to her feet, but this only seemed to enrage him all the more. He threw her onto a chair, and took a knife out of his belt. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled back her head. The blade glinted as he held it to her throat.

‘My God,’ Kirsten breathed.

‘…
and deliver us from evil.
’

Sonei sawed at the woman’s scalp. As blood streamed down her cheeks there were screams and gasps. I covered my face with my hands.

My mother was sobbing. ‘If there’s nothing we can do, surely we shouldn’t watch.’

‘Yes, we
should
,’ Louisa shot back. ‘Because soon the war’s going to end and then we’ll tell the whole world what this devil did! We
must
watch – and remember!’

‘How could we ever forget?’ Kirsten wept as the woman fell to the floor for the final time.

Sonei beat and shaved the other women too. Then he ran down the front steps of the building. As he headed off towards the
dapur
we all rushed forward to take the injured women to hospital. While we were doing this, Sonei was pushing over the drums containing the following morning’s breakfast. Once the food was oozing over the ground he went back to his villa, his work done.

This infamous night was Sonei’s swansong. He left Tjideng before the sun came up. We never saw him again.

The next day the new officer, Lieutenant Sakai, took over. Almost immediately the atmosphere in the camp improved. We now had
tenko
only once a day, and over the next few weeks the rations increased, though not enough to prevent people from dying.

In mid-August Mrs Dekker came to find me, walking with difficulty. She was holding a card. ‘I’ve heard from Herman. He says that Peter’s fine.’

I could have kissed her. ‘
Thank you
, Mrs Dekker. I’ll tell my mother.’

‘It’s taken two months to get here,’ she explained. ‘He wrote it on 16 June. But I’m worried because in his free words he used the words, “I am going”.’ As she showed the card to me my euphoria died.
Aku pergi. ‘I
think he was trying to warn me that they might be transported again,’ Marleen said. ‘Let’s hope not,’ she added anxiously.

‘Yes.’ I imagined Peter struggling to breathe in an overcrowded train.

Mrs Dekker sighed. ‘This war is horrible, isn’t it?’

‘Horrible,’ I murmured.

‘But the end
is
coming – very soon, they say.’

‘I pray for it, Mrs Dekker.’

What we couldn’t have known was that the end had already come, a week before. In a final act of cruelty, we hadn’t been told.

One morning in late August we assembled on Laan Trivelli in the usual way. To my surprise we weren’t made to line up and Mrs Cornelisse told us that we didn’t have to bow. Then Lieutenant Sakai, standing on a stage, started to talk. Sounding subdued, he told us, through the translator, that this would be our last ever
tenko.
A bewildered murmur rippled through the crowd. Sakai told us that the Emperor had ordered the cessation of hostilities.

‘A new type of bomb was dropped on my country,’ he went on. ‘It has resulted in hundreds of thousands of victims. His Imperial Majesty has therefore decided to end the war. You are now free.’

We stood there, a crowd of emaciated women and children, and stared at Sakai. A new kind of bomb had been dropped on Japan and had killed hundreds of thousands of people? We could not begin to understand this.
We understood only
tenko
and beatings and filthy latrines; we understood bedbugs and bamboo coffins, and fifty centimetres. We remained silent, too stunned to speak. Then, a murmur started among us. A growing elation took hold. Someone started to sing the ‘Wilhelmus’, hesitantly at first, then with more strength; and now, with a gathering passion, others joined in. Someone brought out a Dutch flag; how she’d concealed it I had no idea, but there it was, being openly waved – proof that the war really
was
over. A few British women were singing ‘God Save the King’! Ina was crying; Corrie was kissing the twins and twirling them. They were laughing, heads thrown back.

My mother gripped my arm. She was smiling but her eyes glittered with tears. ‘Klara, we’re going to go and find Peter. We’ll go to Tjimahi, right now – this very minute. And after we’ve found him we’re going to find Daddy – they’ll be
so
glad to see us! Come, my darling – we must go!’ She hurried off towards the gate. As I followed her, I fretted that we should at least go back to the house and get our things; then I remembered that we didn’t
have
any things. And how would we travel given that we had no money? Nor were we strong enough to undertake a journey – my mother weighed forty kilos and could barely walk, added to which we had no idea where Peter or my father were. If Peter
had
been transported again, then God knew where he might be.

I was about to try and reason with my mother when Sakai spoke again: we all turned to look at him.

‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘for the time being you must stay inside the camp. It is too dangerous for you out there – if you leave, you could be killed.’

Here was more startling and bewildering news. The war with Japan was over, so if the Japanese no longer wanted to kill us, then who
did
?

Irene and Susan came through the crowd towards us. My mother told them of her plans to leave.

‘Annie, please stay,’ Irene insisted quietly. ‘For the moment at least.’ She put her hand on my mother’s arm.

‘But I want my son and my husband.’ My mother was crying. ‘The war’s over and now I want them back – I
want
them!’

‘Of course you do.’ Irene touched my mother’s face. ‘But, Annie, it’s not safe to look for them now …’

I soon understood why. We had been so cut off from the world that we had no idea that nationalism, encouraged by the Japanese, had taken hold and that an Independent Republic of Indonesia had been declared. Gangs of young men, called
pemuda
, were patrolling the streets with bamboo spears and sabre-like swords shouting,
‘Merdeka!’ – ‘Freedom!’
– as they hunted for Dutchmen to kill. I tried to comprehend the idea that the people of Java, amongst whom we’d lived for so long, would now happily hack us to pieces. So, although the war had ended, we were still confined to our filthy and overcrowded camp.

At the very end of August we had a second postcard from Peter. Like Herman’s, it had been written on 16 June. In his free words Peter said that he had ‘enough to eat’ and was keeping his ‘head up’ but he made no mention of being moved. Perhaps he hadn’t been transported after all.

My mother pored over the card as though studying runes. ‘He’s fine.’ She looked up at me. ‘He has his malaria pills and his net and enough food, and now that the war’s over he’ll soon be back with us.’

One day I looked up and saw Australian bombers flying over – the first Allied planes that we’d seen since the start of the war. As we waved, the sky was suddenly filled with red, white and blue parachutes that drifted down, like petals, square containers swinging from their cords. Within a short time these boxes had been picked up and brought into the camp; tins of food were opened, though we were repeatedly warned by the hospital staff not to overeat in our emaciated state.

Our
anglo
stoves were returned, but, having no firewood, we gleefully ripped down panels of the
gedek
and began to burn those until Sakai arrived and made everyone stop. He warned that because of the rebels we needed the camp walls. So now we had to shelter behind these once-hated screens as the gangs of
pemuda
rampaged around us. At night I’d hear gunfire and screams.

Some women decided to take the risk and left Tjideng, but most of us believed that we were better off where we were. In the camp we were not only protected and fed, but we could more easily find out the fate of our loved ones. Now the joy at the ending of the war turned to fear and grief as the death lists from the men’s camps began to arrive.

The Red Cross lists were put up every day, at noon, and we’d all rush to the gate to check them. During this ordeal my mother and I would hold hands. First, we’d scan the
Alive
list, then, with thudding hearts, the list headed
Dead.
All around us we saw wives and children crumpling into sobs. Some just covered their faces and remained where they stood. Others turned and walked slowly away. In early September my mother and I were in the house when Susan came to see us. She was holding a letter and, for the first time since Flora’s death, she was smiling. ‘My papa’s alive!’

Fighting back tears, Susan explained that her mother had received a card from the Red Cross. Wil had been sent to work on the Burma Railroad and was now recuperating in Singapore.

‘Mummy started a letter to him, but she simply couldn’t find the words to tell him about …’ Susan’s voice trembled. ‘So … I wrote it, and I’m just taking it to the office to be sent to him – but I just wanted to tell you the news.’

‘It’s wonderful news,’ my mother told her. ‘But how strange, to think that Wil was so far from Java.’

Susan nodded. ‘All the time we thought he was in Tjimahi, he was a thousand miles to the north. We’re just so relieved that he’s survived; but he has to stay in Singapore for another six weeks as he’s only fifty kilos.’ I tried to imagine the hefty Wil reduced to a husk, and failed. We all strolled out together to the front yard. Susan said goodbye then turned out of the gate and stepped onto Laan Trivelli. She walked a couple of paces then stopped. Then she lifted her hand to her head, as if to smooth down the thick blonde hair that was no longer there. As we followed her gaze we saw a tall figure walking towards her.

‘Arif,’ my mother murmured. ‘It’s
Arif
, Klara.’ She smiled. ‘He’s come to find her.’

‘Of course he has,’ I said.

Arif’s face lit up as he drew closer to Susan. Now they were standing a few inches apart. She was staring at him, with a kind of exhilarated bewilderment.

‘There you are,’ we heard him say. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’ He held out the tiffin box that he was carrying. ‘But you must eat, Susan. You’re so thin. You must eat.’ Then he put his arms round her and she burst into tears.

On Monday Klara had to take Jane to hospital to see her specialist. While she did this I took a little time off, walking along the coastal path to Carne and back. As I looked at the sea I saw Adam, in his boat, taking in his catch. It struck me that Klara’s family knew almost nothing of what she had been through. She’d coped with her memories, in silence, and despite her sadness had made a good life for herself. I needed to do the same.

The following morning I returned to the farm.

As I walked down the track I saw Klara.

‘Jenni, could you do something for me?’

‘Of course – what can I do?’

‘I need to cut the rest of the pumpkins and bring them up to the shop; would you give me a hand?’

I put my bag down, then followed Klara across the yard into the walled garden. I enjoyed just being outside with her, away from the intense atmosphere of the interviews. It was so still that I could hear only the drone of a bumblebee as it drifted by.

‘It’s always quiet in here,’ Klara remarked, as though she’d read my mind. ‘You can barely even hear the sea.’ She took her secateurs out of her apron pocket and cut the pumpkins off their vines. I lifted them into the wheelbarrow and pushed and pulled it back up to the yard.

‘Thank you,’ Klara said as we unloaded them and put them on a table by the shop door. She wiped the earth off the skins with a corner of her apron. ‘There are lots of children here for half-term.’

‘I saw some arriving when I took Honor to the station.’

‘They go Trick-or-Treating, so all these will sell. Now, which would you say is the biggest …?’

The ginger cat was in the yard again, and this time it followed me up the stairs to Klara’s flat, then curled up beside me, purring.

Klara made coffee. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday, but Jane has regular appointments in Truro and I always take her to them, as her son works in London.’

I stroked the cat. ‘You’re a very good friend to her.’

‘She’s been a wonderful friend to me.’

‘And did you ever talk to her about Java? Given how close you’ve been?’

Klara shook her head. ‘Very little. I always felt I couldn’t talk about it to anyone who hadn’t been through it themselves.’ She got down the Delft crockery, opened a tin and shook some biscuits onto a plate.

‘I’ve had a lovely e-mail about you from Jill,’ I said as Klara switched on the kettle. ‘And I’d like to get some reminiscences of you from Jane and was wondering when we might do that.’

‘She’s coming to Adam’s art show tomorrow evening, so you could do it there.’ She spooned coffee into the brown jug. ‘You are coming, I hope?’

‘I will come, thanks – but that’ll be my last night. I’m leaving the morning after.’

Her face fell. ‘Well … I shall miss talking to you, Jenni.’

‘I’ll miss you too, Klara. I feel as though I’ve known you for years – which in a way, after all these interviews, I have.’ I collected the tray of coffee things and put it on the table while Klara brought the jug.

‘But there’s something I want to show you,’ I said. ‘You don’t use a computer, do you?’

‘I never have done, and I feel too old to start now.’ She handed me my coffee. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because there are a number of websites about the camps. There’s one in particular that’s about Tjideng.’

‘Jill did tell me about these websites, some time ago, but I told her that I didn’t want to look at them. I find it hard enough dealing with my own memories, without having my mind full of other people’s.’

‘I can understand that. But there’s a memory of you on it, Klara. I think it’s by a schoolfriend of yours, Edda. Can I show it to you?’

Klara’s hand shook as she poured the coffee. ‘Yes.’

I took the laptop out of its bag, opened it, then looked at the screenshot I’d saved of the page. I handed it to Klara and she balanced the computer on her lap, then reached for the pair of glasses on the table.

She put them on and peered at the screen. ‘Yes,’ she said after a few moments. ‘That’s the Edda I knew; she gives her maiden name, Smits. She’s living in Hilversum, it says here …’

‘Yes.’

‘And that she has children and grandchildren.’ Klara removed her glasses. She was quiet for a few moments. ‘Thank you for showing me this, Jenni. It’s good to know that she survived.’

‘But … do you remember the incident that Edda describes?’

Klara didn’t speak for a moment. ‘Of course I remember it. I could never forget it.’

A silence fell. ‘Klara, what was the terrible dilemma that you faced?’

She closed her eyes. ‘I was put in a position where I had to make a choice – one that has tormented me ever since.’ She looked at me. ‘But I’m not ready to talk about it, Jenni, even to you …’

The wooden box was open. Inside it I could see the recipe book, the folded handkerchief and some airmail letters. There was also a large brown envelope and something wrapped in white cloth. Following my gaze, Klara took this out, unwrapped it, and suddenly the lizard gleamed in my hand. I ran my finger along it from nose to tail, and imagined Irene giving it to Klara after poor Flora had died.

‘It
is
beautiful,’ I said.

Klara nodded. ‘I felt guilty for ever having wanted it. Sometimes I just hold it and think about Flora, and what her friendship meant to me. But how I wish that it had never become mine!’

I handed the lizard back and Klara wrapped it carefully and returned it to the box. She took out the brown envelope and passed it to me. I lifted the flap, the glue of which was shiny and brittle, then, gently, pulled out
a small painting. It was a portrait of a little boy with sun-bleached hair, and laughing green eyes in a too-thin face.

‘Peter,’ I murmured.

Klara nodded. ‘A few days before he was transported.’

‘Did Susan paint it?’

‘Yes; she’d somehow managed to conceal her box of watercolours from the soldiers. But she caught Peter’s expression exactly.’

I studied it for a few moments then handed it back. ‘Klara … why did Peter die?’ In the silence that followed I could hear the tick of the clock. ‘Was it malaria?’

‘It wasn’t,’ she answered, ‘though that was what our mother had feared most.’ She touched the box. ‘Jenni, you told me, when we started this memoir, that I could choose how honest I wanted to be.’ I nodded. ‘But I still don’t know. And now we’ve got to this point, I’m trying to decide whether to tell you the simple, “on the surface” story, about what happened to Peter, which would be easy; or the deeper, truer story, which will be agonizingly hard.’

‘Klara, it’s
your
memoir. What you say – or don’t say – is your decision.’ She slid the portrait back into its envelope and I saw her struggling with herself. I didn’t want her to feel pressured into telling me anything that she didn’t want to. I glanced at my notes. ‘Perhaps we could talk about Arif. I was thinking how hard it must have been for him to recognise Susan.’

‘No. If you love someone, it’s easy,’ Klara answered. ‘He recognised her at once, but yes, he was shocked at her appearance.’

‘How had he known where to find her?’

‘He hadn’t known. He’d had no idea where she was, or if she was even alive. But the day the war ended, he began to search for her.’

‘Wouldn’t he have assumed that she was in Singapore?’

‘No, because after the Jochens had missed that ill-fated boat, Susan wrote to him, telling him that they would be staying on Java. Then word spread that all the European women and children had been rounded up and put in camps. Arif thought it likely that Susan was in a camp in west Java. So he hitched a lift to Bandung and went to Tjihapit, which was almost deserted. He searched in Camp Karees, but she wasn’t there. He got a train to Batavia and went to camps Kramat and Grogol before someone told him that Susan was probably in Tjideng.’

‘How long had it taken him to find her?’

‘At least two weeks, I seem to remember, because without any money, he’d had to walk everywhere. Often he’d had to wait because the streets weren’t safe – there were snipers on every corner. He started carrying the red and white nationalist flag, because by then the
pemuda
were killing not just Europeans, but any Indonesians they believed were pro-Dutch. But finally, Arif got to Tjideng. And as he went through the gate, the first person he saw was Susan, walking towards him, a wraith.’