The Persimmon Tree (3 page)

‘You could have fooled me — this food is great, you’re a natural,’ I said, meaning it. After that she produced two fresh plates and a large apple strudel, and she once again apologised for using tinned apples. ‘Before the war they are fresh from Australia, but now not, only tins and no more also those. I hope you will like,
ja
?’

After two slices of her delicious strudel and repeated compliments from me on the pie and the picnic, Anna wrapped the remainder of the strudel in the tea towel and placed it on the packing case. ‘For tomorrow, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘Take when you go look for butterflies.’

So she knew about the butterflies. I had never mentioned it to the Dutchman. I glanced up to see if there was the usual half-concealed amusement mixed with scorn that appeared in people’s eyes whenever I was introduced as a butterfly collector.

‘This is Nick, he collects butterflies.’

‘Oh really, how interesting!’
Thinks:
Hmm, looks normal enough… never can tell, can you? Sort of thing that should have been stopped, discouraged early on by his parents. Never know where it might lead. Big strapping boy like him should be out there kicking a football with his mates. Butterflies, ferchrissake!

But there wasn’t a hint of irony in her voice when she asked, appealing to me with her eyes, ‘Nicholas, can I come, please?’

‘What, to collect butterflies?’ I asked, surprised.

‘
Ja,
I would like very much.’ She frowned suddenly. ‘But maybe you don’t want?’

I laughed. ‘Of course! But I must warn you, you can get pretty badly scratched chasing a butterfly.’ I realised that my heart was beating faster. The idea of having this beautiful creature with me in broad daylight was beyond my wildest fantasy. But then I thought of the Dutchman. ‘Your father, will he agree?’

She tilted her head towards her right shoulder and brought her forefinger up to touch her lips. She appeared to be considering her old man’s reaction. ‘No,’ she said, then grinned, ‘but I will come.’

‘Anna, I… I don’t want you to get into strife with your old man.’

‘He is not so old, only forty years,’ she protested.

‘No, sorry, it’s just what we, that is Australians, call our dad, our father, our “old man”. It’s just an expression, like you say “
mijn papa
”, we say “my old man”.’ My grin was feeling tight and my explanation becoming more convoluted and confusing by the second. ‘It’s, you know —’

‘
Ja,
I understand,’ Anna cut in, saving me any further embarrassment. ‘In Dutch we say
oude man
,
it is nearly the same. My English to understand is not always so good. But,
ja
, it is true,
mijn papa
will not let me go with you for the butterflies, my stepmother, she also. But I have told them tomorrow morning I am going to visit my friend Heidi who is leaving Batavia the day after tomorrow.’

I looked at her, surprised. ‘You mean to say you’d already decided? That is, about coming to hunt butterflies?’ I was becoming more gauche by the minute.

Anna looked at me scornfully. ‘Of course not! Maybe I don’t like you, then I cannot go.’ She took two paces so that our bodies almost touched. She had small breasts so that the whole of her body seemed equally close to mine. I was suddenly conscious of the growing and involuntary warmth between my thighs.
Oh, Jesus, no, not now! Please God, not now!
I begged silently. I had a sudden vision that the only part of me touching her was the one part that definitely shouldn’t. The fresh lemon perfume was there again. I concentrated on lemons, anything to get my mind off the fire down below. It must have been the soap she used, for she wore no make-up and I’d never heard of a perfume that smelled of lemons. I was just over six foot and I judged her around five feet five so that it was easy for her to rise onto her toes and kiss me lightly on the cheek.

‘I like you, Nicholas. I have never known another butterfly collector.’

She said this in a way that suggested that the two factors taken together were responsible for her decision and that one of them on its own might not have been sufficient to make up her mind to accompany me. She touched me lightly on the shoulder.
Don’t look down, Anna. Please, God, don’t let her look down!
‘Now I go home, it is very nice to meet you,’ she said, taking a single step backwards. ‘I am here again, seven o’clock tomorrow morning. Okay?’

‘Yes… no, I will see you home. It’s late and not safe to be out,’ I protested.

‘It is not necessary. I have
mijn
bicycle. You have a bicycle, Nicholas?’

‘No. I’ll run, I’ll run beside you,’ I said, quickly making up my mind.

Anna looked doubtful. ‘
Ja, nee.
It is three kilometres, maybe a little more.’

‘Yeah, okay, I can manage that,’ I said, not knowing if I could, but also prepared to die in the attempt.

‘You are sure, Nicholas? We can walk also. There are some hills.’

She hadn’t protested as I’d expected she might. Nor dismissed the notion of danger as she’d done when I’d first mentioned her venturing into the streets at night alone.
Maybe she likes
me a little bit?
She’d just said she did and kissed me. More a peck, but in my mind it was already a full-blown kiss.
Do girls really mean it when they say they like you?
The idea filled me with such an intense joy that I felt myself decidedly light-headed. Giddy is a better word.

Trotting beside her bicycle was easier than I had supposed. I spent most mornings running and darting after butterflies and unbeknownst to myself I was pretty fit. I soon got my second wind and regretted the short distance when we reached Anna’s home. We’d laughed and talked and got on like a house on fire.

As the
Vleermuis
had done as a yacht, the Van Heerden home surprised me equally. Even in the moonlight it was imposing. It was built, Anna explained, nearly two hundred years previously and added to by ensuing generations. It sat in large grounds and was reached through two ornate wrought-iron gates that rose ten feet into the air and opened onto an avenue of enormous dark oak trees that led up to the whitewashed stables, outhouses, servant quarters and a large covered gangway, then on to a low white wall that enclosed a formal rose garden and the home itself, a triple-gabled traditional Dutch colonial-style building, all of this seen in the bright moonlight. In the daylight the oaks must have looked equally grand and incongruous in the tropical setting. I was to learn they were nearly as old as the house itself.

I was too young to understand the power of a continuity imposed by ten generations of inheritance, each progenitor in the same home, in the same business, with the same overweening principles of superiority inculcated into them and never questioned by the next generation. I nevertheless began to realise what it would mean to Piet Van Heerden to be wrenched from a way of life he would have seen as his birthright and to know he might never return to it. It was hardly surprising that he was hitting the booze.

Unable to summon the courage to kiss her, I shook Anna’s hand. ‘See you tomorrow morning,’ I said, trying to keep my voice sounding matter-of-fact.

Anna laughed softly, seemingly amused by the handshake and even more beautiful in the moonlight. ‘Goodnight, Mr Butterfly.’ The large gate swung open and I turned to go when she called out, ‘
Ja
, Nicholas, I think it is much better name than Nick… brick… stick!’

‘Prick!’ I called back, this time laughing.

‘No!’ she protested once again. ‘No, no, no!’ Her laughter followed me down the street.

I was up well before seven when Anna tapped on my door. She wore a pair of faded khaki shorts that came down to her knees, a white shirt and the same sandals she’d worn the previous night. In the morning sunlight she appeared even more beautiful. I was suddenly overcome by shyness. It was as if daylight brought quite another person to my door and I panicked that we would have to start all over again and I didn’t know where to make a beginning. So, with my usual tact I said, ‘Sandals?’ looking directly at her feet.

She looked at the boots I was wearing, then turned and pointed to her bicycle. Tied to the back carry-tray were a pair of Wellington boots. ‘
Ja
, I have brought. Good morning, Nicholas,’ she said, smiling, and then promptly kissed me on the cheek. I had no need to apologise for my abrupt manner, she could see all she needed to know from my grin.

The
dokar
, a small two-passenger cart pulled by a tiny Timor pony, which I’d hired for the morning, was waiting to take us to a marsh some distance out of the city on the edge of a rainforest. I’d visited the site previously and knew I was unlikely to find the Magpie Crow of the
Danaidae
family of butterflies there, but other species had been plentiful and we would catch them together.
Anna was more beautiful than any butterfly I could ever collect. I didn’t for one moment stop to think that, at best, I would know her and love her for no more than a few weeks and then I would lose her. I was in love and a few weeks seemed as if an eternity of being in love lay ahead of me.

Anna had brought breakfast — small bread rolls, cheese, hard-boiled eggs and a thermos of coffee — and we sat in the cool of a large banyan tree as we ate. She poured me a cup of coffee. ‘
Ja
, so Nicholas, I have confession,’ she said, not looking up from the cup she handed me.

My heart skipped a beat. In my experience confessions seldom brought good news. ‘Confession? You didn’t clean your teeth this morning?’ I chaffed.

‘Of course,’ she looked up, appealing to me. ‘I have told my papa that I came to see you last night.’

I didn’t know quite how I was expected to react. Piet Van Heerden obviously hadn’t stopped her coming, or if he had, she’d disobeyed him. All I could think about was that Anna was with me and that’s all that mattered. ‘Was he angry?’

‘
Ja
, a little bit, but I said he is drunk last night.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘How can I ask him, he knows I cannot.’

‘And this morning he allowed you to come?’

‘
Ja
, I am sixteen,’ she said simply. ‘He wants you should come tonight. He wants to talk to you. It is important, I think.’

‘Important? Do you know why? What he wants to talk about?’

‘
Ja
, maybe, but I cannot say. He will tell you.’ She appealed to me with her eyes.
‘
You will come tonight, Nicholas?’

I sensed Anna wasn’t going to tell me more and I didn’t want to spoil the day by persisting. ‘Only if you do the cooking.’ I laughed.

Anna clapped her hands. ‘I will make you a nice peaches pie, but they are only from a tin.’

We spent the morning netting a variety of butterflies, nothing special, but Anna seemed interested in them all, big and small, plain and fancy, and also happy when I released them. It was almost the time the pony-cart driver had been asked to return when she netted a Clipper, a large and gorgeous butterfly and not one that is easy to find, its wing pattern resembling an old sailing ship in full sail, hence the name.

‘You beauty!’ I yelled. ‘Congratulations!’ The Clipper, also found in New Guinea, is a truly beautiful large butterfly. I took the net from her. ‘Would you like to keep it?’ I pointed out its likeness to a sailing ship and told her its name.

‘Oh, yes, Nicholas, I will keep it always.’

‘I’ll prepare it and mount it for you. I’ll bring it tonight.’

‘Mr Butterfly, I like you very much,’ she said and gave me an unexpected kiss. Not on the lips but much closer to them than the one last night and less of a peck. Another inch and I know I would have been reduced to a gibbering fool. As it was, I had to wait a few moments for my hands to stop shaking so that I could prepare the glass jar to contain the beautiful butterfly. This I did by placing a thick layer of tissue paper on the bottom that was impregnated with ethyl acetate. I then carefully removed the gorgeous specimen from the net and placed it in the jar to allow the fumes to kill it without a struggle, the humane way to do it and also to prevent damage to its wings.

We finished the rest of the strudel Anna had brought the evening before and the
dokar
arrived shortly afterwards to take us back to the city.

Anna had told me that her father would not be at
De Kost Kamer
for lunch and that I should come to dinner at around seven o’clock. It was a nice evening and I decided I’d walk to her home, taking with me in a small canvas bag the specimen I had mounted. The Clipper is a lovely butterfly and mounted in the small teak display box with a glass cover I must say it did look splendid.

A gardener was waiting at the gate to let me in when I arrived. Walking down the oak-lined avenue in the fading light I could see that a section of the house was covered by a brilliant scarlet bougainvillea. I passed through the walled rose garden and was about to knock on the impressive front door when it swung open. ‘You are welcome, Nick!’ Piet Van Heerden boomed. ‘Welcome to
Grootehuis.
Welcome to the big house,’ he translated. Moments later Anna appeared, wearing a sarong
kebaya
and an apron embroidered with tulips, wiping her hands as she walked towards me smiling. ‘Anna already you know,’ the Dutchman said. Then turning suddenly he swept his daughter into a great bear hug. ‘
Ja
! This is Anna.
Ja
blood, to mix in marriage, is no
goed
,
ja
!’ he joked.