Shadows Over Paradise (23 page)

“Please take no more than fifty centimeters!” Mrs. Cornelisse shouted. “No more than fifty centimeters per person!” Once we had put down our things, she summoned us all into the front yard. There she explained that we needed to choose two people to go to the
dapur
with a basin big enough to hold fifty liters of food. There was a frenzied search for one, and a metal washtub was found. Mrs. Moonen and Shirin agreed to go, and returned an hour later with the heavy tub, which they had struggled to carry. The sago porridge that it contained was enough to provide each person with just one cup of food. It tasted like wallpaper paste, but we were so famished that not a speck was left. There were also some tiny lumps of translucent gray bread.

That evening Mrs. Cornelisse stood in the front garden again, raised her megaphone, and summoned us to
tenko
—our first in Tjideng.

We came out of the house and began to line up a little farther down the road, opposite a large building, on the front of which the words
JULIANA SCHOOL
could be seen. The young woman standing on my right told me that it was no longer a school—it was the camp hospital.

“But it’s where you go to die, not to get better,” she added
cheerily. Judging by her emaciated body, and the tea towel tied round her chest, she’d clearly been in Tjideng a long time.

Mrs. Cornelisse carefully ticked off all our names on her list, but I noticed that she kept casting anxious glances at Sonei’s villa.

As we stood looking down the wide, deserted street, a high-pitched noise could suddenly be heard. It reminded me of the sound that the bees had made as they swarmed toward us that day. It was growing louder and louder; and now I was amazed to see a seemingly endless stream of women and children pour onto Laan Trivelli. They came by the hundreds from the streets to the left and right. In Tjihapit,
tenko
had taken place in groups throughout the day. Here it seemed to be done in one vast gathering, along what we now knew to be Tjideng’s main road.

As I gaped at the sea of people surging toward us, a sudden jolt ran down the length of my spine. I gripped Mum’s arm so hard that she yelped.

“What’s the matter?” she demanded crossly.

I pointed to three distant figures. My mother followed my gaze, shielding her eyes against the sinking sun. I heard her gasp.

“
Is
it?” she murmured. “It
is …
” A euphoric smile lit up her weary face. “It’s
Irene
! But oh, she’s so
thin
, Klara; I wouldn’t have known her.” I wondered, with our own altered appearance, how easily Irene would have recognized us. “There’s Susan,” my mother added happily. “But her hair’s short. And there’s darling Flora.” My mother’s eyes shone with tears. “My God, Klara—they’re safe and they’re
here
!” She turned to Peter. “We’ve spotted the Jochens,” she told him excitedly. “Let me lift you up, darling, so that you can see them.”

“Sssshhhh!” said Mrs. Cornelisse into her megaphone. “Quiet now, everyone!”

Behind us the huge gate had swung open. A phalanx of soldiers strode toward us, led by Sonei.

Mrs. Cornelisse raised her megaphone again.

“Kiotsuke!”
she shouted.
“Kere!
” We all bowed. After we had spent what felt like an age at thirty degrees, the order
“Naore!”
rang out and we straightened up. Then the endless counting began, out loud.

“Ichi! Ni! San! Shi! Go!”

Sometimes a column had to be counted twice or even three times before Sonei was satisfied.

“Roku! Shichi! Hachi! Kyuu! Ju!”

Sonei was running up and down the rows, clutching his whip, his sword bouncing against his leg. He was immaculately dressed, but on his feet were those strange slippers, which made a
sluff-sluff
sound as he raced around. He was followed by Mrs. Cornelisse, who now had to go forward and call the next group to order. So a wave of megaphoned
Kiotsukes
and
Keres
echoed all the way down Laan Trivelli, gradually drowned out by the resumed chatter of the women and children around us.

I could still see Flora and longed to run to her. But we had to stay in our lines until every one of the prisoners—several thousand—had been counted, and this took more than two hours. During this time I speculated with my mother as to how long the Jochens had been in Tjideng, and where Mr. Jochen might be.

“Perhaps he’s in a camp with Daddy,” Peter suggested.

“Perhaps he is,” Mum agreed, though I saw her face cloud. We still had no idea where our father was.

The young woman who’d spoken to me earlier introduced herself as May. She said that she was living in the house next door to ours, and that she’d been in Tjideng from the start of the occupation. Her fair hair had been bleached by the sun; her skin was the color of tea from having spent so much time outside.

I asked May how many people there were in the camp. She explained that there were more than ten thousand of us, adding that until a year before there had been only twenty-five hundred, in a much bigger area. But Sonei had repeatedly reduced the camp in size.

“Why?” I asked.

“The smaller the camp, the easier for him to keep an eye on us,” May answered. “One tip: When you bow, you must put your little fingers on the side seams of your skirt, like this.” She demonstrated. “If you don’t, Sonei will thrash the daylights out of you or get his clippers out. Isn’t that right, Louisa?” she said to the red-haired woman standing next to her.

“Dead right,” Louisa confirmed. “The man’s a fiend. In his last camp he tore people’s hair out by the roots.” She pointed to the gate. “You saw the monkey cage?” I nodded. “One of the women in this camp gave those apes to Sonei, hoping to get favors from him. He placed the cage inside the camp as ‘entertainment.’ Sometimes he starves them for a week, then lets them out—for ‘fun,’ ” Louisa added contemptuously. “But the creatures terrify everyone. They’ve bitten several of the children.”

My mother put her arms around Peter and me. “How horrible,” she murmured.

“Oh, they’re nasty things,” Louisa continued. “Mrs. Ament—she was the camp head then—complained to Sonei
about them. He listened to her very carefully.” She paused. “Then he opened the cage, grabbed one of the monkeys, and smashed its head against the wall; there was blood everywhere. He said he’d done it to punish Mrs. Ament for her ‘ingratitude’ for the ‘entertainment’ that the monkeys provided.” She shuddered. “She was lucky that Sonei didn’t kill her too. Once, he beheaded a woman at
tenko
.”

My mother, horrified that Peter and I were hearing of such brutality, murmured that Sonei must be mad.

“He
is
mad,” May agreed. “He’s a lunatic—a real one. Just wait until the next full moon! That’s when he puts on his steel-capped boots and things get really scary.”

We watched Sonei lead his soldiers back to the gate, which seemed to signal the end of
tenko
. Everyone sighed with relief, and our group broke ranks. I wanted to run to Flora, but it was dark, and my mother said that we had to get back to the house. She promised that we would find Flora and her family the next day.

Inside the house, the floor was a sea of mattresses covered by ghostly mosquito netting. Mum had managed to hang a
kelambu
from the ceiling; it just covered Peter, herself, and me. As “Lights out!” was heard, we lay under it, cocooned together. They both fell asleep, but I lay awake, comforted by their breathing and by the wonderful knowledge that I had found Flora again.

On the beach, Honor’s face was slack with shock. “You had a little brother?” she said weakly.

I nodded. “Ted. His name was Ted. He was five.”

She blinked, bewildered. “How can I have known you for fifteen years, and not known that?”

“Because no one knows,” I answered. “Not you. Not Nina. I’ve never told anyone.”

“Surely you’ve told Rick?” I shook my head. “My God …” In Honor’s eyes was a blend of compassion and astonishment. “But … what happened?”

“It was August,” I began quietly. “We were here with my mother and her new boyfriend, this man Clive. I hated him being on our family holiday, and wanted to get away from him. So I went rock pooling with Ted. He hadn’t wanted to come with me, but I made him, which makes me feel even worse about
what happened …” I exhaled painfully. “As we walked across the sand we met a boy and girl, about the same age as us, who were making this huge hole.” I looked across to the patch of sand where they’d been digging. I half expected to see them there. “The girl had a
J
on her shirt,” I went on. “I don’t know why, but that detail really stuck in my mind. She was tall and thin like me, with dark hair, except that hers was very long; mine was short in those days. Her brother was sandy-haired and stocky, and Ted and I chatted to them about this big tunnel that they were digging; then we left them and went on the rocks. But the tide was coming up.”

“Oh, Jenni,” Honor murmured.

“We went a long way—too far, almost to Trennick.” I nodded into the distance. “But we were enjoying ourselves, catching fish and shrimps, and it was very sunny, and then …” I paused. “We heard the bell.”

“The bell?”

“The woman who ran the tea hut always rang a bell at six to let everyone know she was closing. Our mother had told us to come back when we heard it. Ted said that he could hear it, but I pretended I couldn’t, because I didn’t
want
to go back. But”—my fingers clenched around the tissue—“when I saw how close the waves were, I said we
should
go back, and so I started for the beach … I thought Ted was following me.”

“Oh God.”

“Eventually I reached the sand, and I had another look at the tunnel; it was huge by then. After that I walked on, looking for shells, and as I glanced up I saw my mother in the distance, looking for us. So I waved, and she waved back with a relieved smile. Then I remember her smile fading. She started running
toward me; she was shouting frantically at someone behind me. As I turned, I could hear a dog barking. Then I saw Ted. He was some way away, but he was very visible because of his red swimming trunks. He was standing on a rock, and there was this dog snapping at him, and Ted was screaming.”

Honor’s eyes were full of anguish. “Did the dog bite him?”

“No. I don’t think it was going to—it was just excited; it had been on the beach all day, chasing balls. I think its ball must have gone onto the rocks near Ted and it just wanted Ted to throw it. But he was terrified of dogs. My mother had seen what was happening, and she was running toward him, trying to call the dog off. She was shouting at it to get away from him, but that only seemed to make it bark more. Just as she got near to it, it jumped up.” I swallowed. “And Ted disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“In that instant I knew where he’d been standing. Just there … He’d been standing by that gully, then the dog had startled him and he’d lost his footing. My mother was scrambling over the rocks in her bare feet. She was still screaming at the dog to get away, not realizing that by then it had already gone, because its owners were calling it.”

“Didn’t they realize what had happened?”

“I don’t think they had any idea, because I saw them walking toward the slipway with all their stuff. My mother dropped down into the gully and lifted Ted up, then she carried him over the rocks—her feet were bleeding—while I tried to help. As she laid Ted on the sand I could see a swelling on the side of his face. His eyes were closed. There was spit on his lips, like seafoam, and my mother kept saying his name, over and over, and stroking his face, but he wasn’t responding. Then her boyfriend ran
down to us, and when he saw how Ted was, he yelled that he’d call an ambulance from the hotel; he raced up the beach again. In the meantime people had gathered round. They all had this strange expression on their faces, as though they were very upset, but also fascinated.”

“Oh,
Jen
,” Honor whispered.

“A woman came up to us and said she was a nurse. As she examined Ted, Mum explained, through her sobs, what had happened and said that she thought he was concussed. The woman said that he was breathing okay, but that we had to get him to hospital as soon as possible. So my mother picked Ted up and carried him up the beach. The girl and boy who’d been digging were just staring at us, in shock. Within a few minutes I heard a siren, and the ambulance drove onto the field behind the hut—that was the closest it could get to the beach. Two ambulance men jumped out and ran down to us and gave Ted first aid; then they laid him on a stretcher and my mother followed them to the ambulance and waited while they lifted him in. I started to get in too, but Mum told me that I wasn’t to come—I think she didn’t want me to see Ted in such a bad way. But as her boyfriend got in, my mother said that she needed someone to look after me. The woman who ran the tea hut said that she would. She told Mum that she’d take me to the hotel, and that she wouldn’t leave my side until Mum came back, however long that might be. Mum thanked her and told me to go with her.” I inhaled. “The woman asked me my name, then told me that hers was Jane; which I’d forgotten—until today,” I added quietly. “I remember now—it’s all coming back to me in perfect detail. As the ambulance doors shut, Jane put her arm round my shoulder and drew me away.”

“Oh, Jenni,” Honor breathed again.

“She helped me pick up our towels and our beach things. She said that we were going to need them the next day because it was going to be hot again. Then we walked up the lane to the hotel.

“We were shown into a corner of the lounge, where there was a TV and a box of games for the children. Jane chatted away to me, telling me that my mum would soon be back. The manager brought me something to eat, but I didn’t want it. Jane and I watched television, though it might as well have been a blank screen. Then she got out some board games and we played Snakes and Ladders; after that we played snap. We played it over and over again. Then, sometime in the early hours, my mother returned.

“I’d fallen asleep on a sofa, and Jane had put a blanket over me. I remember hearing my mother’s voice, then opening my eyes and seeing her, and feeling so relieved. Mum was back, and everything was going to be okay, and Ted would be fine, and we could carry on with the holiday and I didn’t even mind Clive being there, because he’d been nice, running to call the ambulance like that. It was even going to be sunny again the next day. Then, in a low, flat voice that I barely recognized, Mum thanked Jane for looking after me, and we walked up to Penlee. On the way there I asked my mum how Ted was, but she didn’t answer. I asked her if he was still in the hospital, and she said yes. As we went into the house I asked her how long he was going to be there because I really wanted to see him. It was then that my mother sat me on her lap and told me that Ted had died.”