Shadows Over Paradise (25 page)

“She’s always blamed me—which is why we’re not close.”

“But you were a little girl. Didn’t she help you? Console you? You must have been traumatized.”

“I was, of course. But she thought only of her own grief. She
asked me how I could have walked away from Ted, on a beach. She asked me again and again—what had I been thinking? Why had I done it? She kept
on
asking—I thought she’d never
stop
.” I exhaled, blowing out my breath. “So, finally, I told her the truth. But I soon wished that I hadn’t. She just stared at me, shocked. Then she said the fact that I’d done it on purpose made it so much worse—impossible to forgive.”

Impossible to forgive …

The words had echoed in my head for twenty-five years.

“Where was
she
when it happened?”

“At the top of the beach, with her boyfriend.”

“So she was distracted.”

“I think she was so glad to be with a man again after all her unhappiness that she focused on him instead of her children. She was very young—twenty-eight; six years younger than I am now.”

“Young or not, she was the mother. Didn’t she blame
herself
for what happened to Ted?”

“No. Or at least she didn’t seem to.”

“But parents are responsible for their children, and you were only nine.”

I shrugged. “Old enough to have done the right thing.”

“But you said that the tide was coming in; shouldn’t she at least have been aware of that?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“And she knew that your little brother was scared of dogs. Why should you take all the responsibility for what happened?”

“Why shouldn’t I, when I abandoned him?” I drew the tissue under my eyes. “Ted would be thirty now. I think of him every day and wonder what he’d look like, and what job he’d be
doing and how often we’d see each other. Then I think of him standing on the rocks, in his red trunks. And it’s as though he’s still there, waiting for me to go back and help him.” I clutched the tissue. “And how I wish, wish,
wish
that I had!”

“It must have been very hard, afterward,” Klara said quietly, “living with your mother. It must have felt as though a wall had gone up between you.”

I looked at her in surprise. “That’s
just
what it felt like.”

“You couldn’t comfort each other.”

“No. But I longed for her to comfort me—but she couldn’t, because she blamed me.” At that Klara nodded knowingly. “Being so much in the wrong, I became withdrawn. I didn’t want to get to know people in case they found out what I’d done. When I started at my new school, I called myself Jenni, as though the name Genevieve had nothing to do with me. I didn’t make any friends. Because if I did, they might come to the house, and they’d see the photos of Ted, and I’d have to tell them what happened, and they would judge me for it.”

“Do you really think they would have judged you?”

I shrugged. “My own mother had, so I felt sure that they would. She even said that the reason we’d moved was because she didn’t want people in the village to find out that Ted’s death was my fault.”

Klara blinked. “She didn’t spare you, did she?”

“No. So I didn’t spare myself.”

“Didn’t she feel
any
responsibility for what had happened?”

I shrugged. “Not that she would ever admit to. When I was seventeen, we had this awful row. It was Ted’s birthday; she’d had a couple of drinks and began crying. Then the blaming started. I couldn’t bear it. I said that
she
should have been looking
after us but that she’d been messing about with her boyfriend—a man she’d only just met—and who she never saw again. She retorted that I’d behaved in a wicked way. She said I’d deprived her of Ted, that I’d ruined her life. She said worse things than that—far worse.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell Klara what they were. “So as soon as I’d finished my A levels, I left home.”

“That must have been a relief in many ways.”

“It was liberating. After nine years of my mother’s reproachful gaze, I could try to move forward and be
myself
. Since then I’ve seen her no more than once a year. We phone occasionally and send birthday cards, but we both know that we’re just paying lip service to our relationship.”

“Poor woman,” Klara murmured. “I feel sad for her. But did you ever talk to anyone about what had happened?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t want any of my friends to know.”

“I mean a professional person.”

“A therapist?”

“Yes—or a counselor of some kind.”

“No.” I heaved a sigh. “People didn’t do that back then. Maybe it would have helped, because with no one to confide in, I had to absorb all my unhappiness and guilt. You could tell me ten thousand times that I was only a child, but that would never take away my certain belief that I was entirely at fault for what I did—or rather, failed to do—that day. I’ve tried reading self-help books,” I confessed. “But they only make me feel worse, so I get no further than a few pages.”

“I think you were meant to come back to Polvarth,” Klara said after a moment.

“Perhaps I was.” I shrugged, then picked up my pen, hinting
that I was ready to shift the focus back to Klara. I wasn’t sorry that I’d confided in her—in fact I was glad—but now it was time to move on.

“You talked about emotional honesty in writing a memoir,” Klara persisted. “What if, fifty years from now, you were writing your own? Would you write about Ted?”

“Well, yes. It would be too huge a thing to leave out.”

“But would you have the courage to tell the truth? To say what really happened, rather than just the surface story, that there was an accident?”

“I’m not sure that I’d be brave enough.” I stared at her. “Why do you ask?”

“I … wondered.”

“Klara, I’m here to write about
your
life, not mine. A week ago you asked me whether you’d get to know me, and you have, surely more than you would have liked.” Before Klara could protest, I started the tape, with a sigh of relief.

Klara

It was still dark when we were woken for morning
tenko
. My mother, Peter, and I set out from the house in the pink light of dawn and walked out onto the street where hundreds of women and children were walking in silence. I caught a glimpse of Irene, Susan, and Flora, who was clutching her doll, before they were swallowed up in the vast crowd. The soldiers counted us, then the hubbub of conversation around us resumed as they moved farther on down the rows. It was two hours before we were dismissed, then Mrs. Cornelisse came and told us to send two women to fetch breakfast. This time my mother volunteered. Carrying the empty bathtub, she and Louisa set off along Laan Trivelli toward the
dapur
. An hour later they returned
with the full tub, which they’d had to keep putting down because the metal handles cut into their palms.

As I helped them haul it onto the verandah, my mother gave me an ecstatic smile.

“I
found
them!” she whispered. “They were at the kitchen. We couldn’t talk for long, but Irene told me where their house is and we’ll go and see them this afternoon!”

I felt tears of happiness prickle my eyes. “I can’t wait, Mummy. I just can’t
wait
to see Flora!” Louisa ladled out the food as a hundred hungry faces crowded round for their cup of tasteless porridge and five-centimeter piece of hard gray bread. Everyone watched, gimlet-eyed, anxious that no one should get more than their share. The youngest children were allowed to scrape up the residue. I watched the twins do this, licking their fingers. They were nearly three but had the bodies of one-year-olds.

After breakfast Mrs. Cornelisse told us which work parties we’d have to join. There was a team to work in the
dapur
and another to help in the hospital, washing the linen and bandages. There was also a “hygiene” party to deal with the septic tank. The sewage first had to be stirred with a stick, then scooped out with little buckets and poured into the drainage ditch that ran along the
gedék
. Each house had a crew of young women to do this utterly disgusting job, and Kirsten now learned that she was to be one of them.

She stared at Mrs. Cornelisse in disbelief. “Are you saying that I have to stir poo?”

Mrs. Cornelisse nodded.

Kirsten clasped her hands in prayer, then looked up to the
sky. “Come on, God! It was one thing to make me eat snails, but
poo stirring
?!”

There was also a
kawat
team to fix the camp boundary, which was just rolls of barbed wire with wooden posts that often needed repair; to her relief, my mother was put in this group. I was assigned to the team that swept the streets and carried rubbish to the gate. We were told that from two
P.M
. until four, the hottest part of the day, was rest time.

“It’s important to sleep,” Mrs. Cornelisse told us, “to conserve energy.”

I failed to imagine how anyone
could
sleep amid the noise and stress of these hideously overcrowded houses. In any case, my mother, Peter, and I were not even going to try. We were going to find the Jochens.

My mother had the directions to their house, and we set off. I was so excited, I wanted to run, but my mother made me walk. As we went down Ampasiet Weg, we saw a soldier coming toward us. We bowed deeply, then, once he’d passed us, we straightened up and hurried on. The houses here were smaller and less well built, though their gardens, strung with lines of ragged washing, had more shade. The street was deserted, but now we saw three figures under a tree. Unable to contain myself, I ran toward them, then stopped, shocked.

Irene’s blue linen dress hung about her in deep, loose folds. Flora’s sweet sturdiness had gone, and her hands and feet seemed too large for her rake-thin limbs. Susan’s face was gaunt, her cheekbones sharp, her eyes huge. Her long hair had been ruthlessly cropped. I ran forward and gently hugged Flora, then Susan. My mother put her arms round Irene, and they stayed
like that for a few moments, not speaking, just patting each other’s shoulders.

Irene wiped away a tear, then laughed. “
Look
at us! We’re like scarecrows—scruffy scarecrows at that!”

We shook our heads in bewilderment at what had happened to us; then, keeping an eye out for soldiers, we sat in the shade and talked.

Irene said that they knew that Wil had been in Tjimahi—they’d had two postcards from him, although nothing for a year now. “But we assume he’s still there, as we haven’t heard otherwise.”

“Perhaps he and my daddy are together?” Peter suggested happily.

Irene stroked his cheek. “They probably are. I just hope my Wil’s not bossing your dad about too much!” she added with a laugh.

“So, what happened after you left the plantation?” Mum wanted to know.

“We headed for Batavia,” Irene answered. “Wil had booked passages to Singapore on the
Star of Asia
, but we missed it because our car broke down. The next day we were queuing to get on another boat when we heard that the
Star of Asia
had been sunk by a Japanese submarine that had been lying in wait off Bangka island.” She shuddered. “I told Wil that we’d had a blessed escape and were
not
going to tempt fate any further. I told him that it was too dangerous to try and get to Singapore. We’d just have to take our chances on Java and pray that the Dutch army would hold out.”

She went on to explain that they’d rented a house in Batavia so that they could be ready to leave if any safe passage could be
found to South Africa or Australia. But then the battle for Java had begun.

“We saw it,” Peter said, his eyes wide. “The sky was all red.”

“We were right
in
it,” said Flora. “We watched the Japanese planes fly overhead—they had suns painted on them. We saw a bomb being dropped—it looked like a bell. Then we heard this horrible explosion and there were these clouds of black smoke everywhere. We ran into an air-raid shelter, where we were given bits of rubber to bite on so that our teeth didn’t shatter during the bombardment. It was so
loud
, even though we’d stuffed our ears with cotton wool.”

On Peter’s face was a mixture of awe and envy. “Amazing …,” he murmured.

“No, Peter, dear.” Irene shook her head. “It was terrifying. We thought we were going to die. Then, within the week, Java fell. After that things moved very quickly. There were thousands of Japanese infantry marching through the streets, and surrendered Dutch soldiers sitting on trucks.”

“Did you see Corrie’s father?” I asked. “She’s here as well—I meant to tell you. We came together—on this horrible train.”

“Corrie’s mum’s dead,” Peter blurted out. “The Japs killed her because she bought some eggs. One of the women found out that they’d hanged her.”

Irene’s hands sprang to her face. “Dear God …”

“Corrie has to look after her little sisters,” I explained.

“She’s their mum now,” Peter added. He glanced at our mother, then at me, and I knew what he was thinking.

“We help Corrie as much as we can,” my mother told them. “Another friend, Ina, does a lot for her, but it’s very hard for the little girl.”

Tears shone in Irene’s eyes. “The poor darling,” she murmured.

“Greta’s here too,” I told Flora. “With her
oma
.”

“And how long have you three been here?” my mother asked.

“From the start of internment,” Irene answered. “Two and a half years. But now tell us, what happened to you?”

My mother explained that we’d been able to stay on the plantation until May 1943. “But it’s been unbearable, having no word of Hans. We’re so worried about him.”

“It’s better to hear nothing,” Irene said. “The way most people here learn that a loved one has died is if they have a postcard to that person returned with the word
Dead
stamped on it. Or they’re sent a little parcel that contains the man’s name, with a lock of his hair, his nail clippings, and his watch—it’s brutal. So believe me, Annie, no news is
good
news.”

“How was Arif?” Susan asked us. “Did you see him? Is he all right?”