The Persimmon Tree (34 page)

‘And how will you move
him
?’ the bank clerk’s wife asked, indicating Piet Van Heerden with a jerk of her chin.

‘With the wheelchair, of course,’ Anna replied. ‘Any more questions?’ She looked directly at the one fat and the two scrawny old hens. ‘Now if you will excuse me?’ She went to the trunk and withdrew a leather folder holding a writing pad with a fountain pen inserted into a small loop at the side of the pad. Then she climbed up onto the top bunk beside the little maid and sat with her knees folded, legs tucked under. Balancing the writing pad on her lap, she commenced to write:

Tjilatjap, Java

5th March 1942

My dearest Nicholas,

This was struck through and directly below it Anna wrote:

My darling Nicholas,

I do not know if you are alive and have come in the
Vleermuis
already to Australia. But I think it is so, or I would feel it in
mijn
heart.

I have some very bad news. We are not coming to Australia! I am so sad I am wanting to cry, but I must be brave,
ja
. We are in a town in Java. Its name is Tjilatjap. It is eleven kilometres on a river. The boat, it is here, but it is broken and they cannot fix, we cannot go with it any more. Tomorrow we must all go from this boat — I don’t know where!

But there is more bad news. My stepmother commit suicide in the river, she is jumped in the river and
Kleine
Kiki she cannot rescue her because she cannot swim. They have not found the body.
Mijn
father he is also drunk since Batavia.

Nicholas, I don’t know if this letter gets to you. The post office have no aeroplane for letters any more, the Japanese they have the trains. They are not here, but coming soon. Maybe even tomorrow! I am very frightened!

Nicholas, I love you. I am very sorry I did not let you make love to me. Maybe I will die and not know how it would be to make love to you!

I love you, my darling Nicholas. Forever!

Anna — Madam Butterfly X X X X X

P.S. I have always the Clipper butterfly. I will keep it till I die.

I love you!

A

I must pause here for a moment in telling Anna’s story because this letter, despite my having read it a thousand times, always brings me close to tears. Today I possess one of the world’s great butterfly collections, certainly the best originating from the Pacific region. Collectors are, by nature, hoarders and in the span of my life I have gathered together many beautiful things. But this despairing and infinitely sad single-page letter is without doubt my most precious possession. It is faded and the creases where it was folded have finally parted. I have now placed it in a frame behind tinted glass along with Anna’s embroidered butterfly handkerchief in an attempt to preserve them from further damage. Both are enormously precious to me, though I admit the letter is the more so. While I can recite every word by heart, I carry a copy in my wallet and read it almost daily. These bittersweet memories are the ghosts that come to haunt old men who have lived too long.

Anna completed the letter, sealed it in an envelope and then, showing amazing initiative, addressed it to:

Mr Nicholas Duncan

C/o The Archbishop of the Anglican Church

Perth

Australia

I had once told her that when we eventually married, my godfather, Henry Le Fanu, the Anglican Archbishop of Perth, would conduct the ceremony and she had remembered my silly and somewhat vainglorious boast. But it was in her next action that she showed she wasn’t someone who is easily deterred.

Anna climbed down and went to the trunk and selected a pretty summer dress and her best Sunday sandals.
Kleine
Kiki watched, anxious and curious, from the top bunk as Anna rummaged through Katerina’s make-up and then slipped a tube of lipstick into the bag that carried her toothbrush. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ she said, carrying the dress over her arm and holding the sandals and toilet bag.

She changed in the women’s washroom, brushed her teeth and hair and carefully worked her late stepmother’s scarlet lipstick onto her lips before returning to the cabin. ‘Come,
Kleine
Kiki, we are going ashore!’ she instructed. She waited for the little maid to climb down from the top bunk and slip on her sandals. Moments later they left the cabin, to the curious stares of the de Klerk women. Anna noted that the bank clerk had stopped staring into space and was now reading from a small Bible, muttering the words of a psalm. The snivelling little coward was already in the process of giving up.

‘Where are we going?’
Kleine
Kiki asked once they were ashore. ‘You are all dressed up with Sunday shoes and lipstick.’

Anna thought how the child was really starting to blossom; previously she would have been too timid to ask or make such a comment. ‘I’m not sure. It’s just an idea. We are going to look for the Americans.’

‘Americans?’

‘Pilots!’ Anna answered. ‘The two I met were leaving today. Maybe there are still some here.’ She paused. ‘But first I must make a quick visit to Mother Ratih in her
kampong
.’

They hailed a
becak
. ‘The airport where the Americans are, do you know it?’ Anna asked.

The driver nodded, then said, ‘But it is six kilometres.’

‘Can you pedal that far, father?’ Anna asked him. He was an older man, his hair turned grey, almost white, perhaps in his early fifties, thin as a twig and his skinny brown legs roped with muscle.

The
becak
man looked scornful. ‘Of course! One guilder?’ he asked hopefully.

Kleine
Kiki started to protest but Anna cut her short. ‘There and back one guilder?’ The
becak
driver readily agreed; it was probably more than he earned in two days of pedalling the double-seated three-wheeler.

Anna directed the
becak
to Ratih’s
kampong
kitchen and told
Kleine
Kiki to wait with the driver while she went in to see Budi’s mother on a business matter. She returned about ten minutes later and they set off for the American airfield.

It was nearly ten o’clock when they pedalled up to the guardpost at the airport gates, to be met by a military policeman wearing a white helmet and belt. ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ he commanded, stepping into the road, rifle at the ready.

Anna got down from the
becak
into the spotlight that shone on the guardhouse and surrounds, concentrating hard to stop her knees shaking. ‘Please, sir, I must see a pilot,’ she said, having rehearsed the English sentence half a hundred times on their way to the airport. ‘I must give him this letter.’ She held the letter up for the American military policeman to see.

The guard relaxed; a strikingly beautiful girl was looking directly at him, appealing for his help. ‘What pilot, ma’am? What is his name?’ he asked.

‘A pilot,’ Anna answered.

‘Any pilot?’

‘Yes, sir. I want him to take my letter when he flies away and to post it to Australia.’ She still held the letter up. ‘The post office, they are not sending letters any more. It is to my fiancé in Australia. I have also two guilders for postage.’ She held up the money in her free hand.

The military policeman shook his head. ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, I do not have that authority.’

Suddenly the guard shouldered his rifle and jumped to attention. Anna turned to see the lights of an automobile approaching, and moved to the side of the road. As the big American car drew up she burst into tears. The officer seated in the back looked out of the rear side window. He appeared to be a man in his forties and was obviously very senior, though Anna had no way of telling, not knowing how to read his rank.

‘What is it, provost? Why is this young woman crying?’ he called out.

The guard still stood at attention. ‘She wants a pilot to take a letter out, Colonel, sir!’ he said at the top of his voice.

‘Steady on, provost, I am not your drill sergeant,’ the officer chided, then glanced at Anna. ‘Letter?’

Anna, stifling a sob, took the three steps to the car window. ‘Please, sir, our boat it is broken and we cannot leave Java. I cannot go to Australia to
mijn
fiancé. Please, sir.’ Anna held out the letter, her expression pleading. ‘It is to tell him maybe I don’t die and I will see him after the war!’ Anna let go another heart-rending sob.

The officer reached out and took the letter. Glancing at it he read the address. ‘Archbishop?’

‘Yes, sir, he is
mijn
fiancé’s godfather in Perth.’

‘And you want it posted?’

‘I have here two guilders for the postage,’ Anna said, holding up the notes.

The colonel waved the money aside and smiled. ‘Leave it to me, miss. What is your name?’

‘Anna Van Heerden, sir.’

‘You are Dutch, Anna?’

‘My father is Dutch, sir, my mother Javanese.’

‘That accounts for your eyes,’ the officer observed, obviously admiring her. ‘I am Colonel Gregory Woon. I hope some day we meet again, but even more, that you come through this safely and marry your young man from Australia.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Anna said, replacing the tears of a moment before with a brilliant smile.

Anna’s smile as a young woman was the kind that could make old men grieve for what might have been. It could melt a glacier or turn a young bloke’s knees to putty and make his heart pound like a Haitian voodoo drum. ‘I will personally see that it is posted safely, Anna,’ the colonel said. ‘Such a shame, the five Catalinas left last night for Australia, but we have six B-17’s leaving for Colombo tonight.’ He held Anna’s letter up. ‘Rest assured, I will do my very best to see it gets to Australia. I wish you luck, young lady.’ Colonel Woon paused, then added smilingly, ‘Those violet blue eyes, absolutely stunning! I shall not easily forget them.’ With that he told the corporal behind the wheel to proceed and the military policeman lifted the boom gate. Anna watched as the car moved on into the airport and disappeared down the road to the base, its rear brakelights twin crimson eyes in the dark.

Anna had one more task to complete before returning to the ship, though it was not one she looked forward to. She had always been fond of
Kleine
Kiki and had become especially so since they’d shared the cabin. Waiting until the
becak
had reached the outskirts of town, she turned to the little maid. ‘
Kleine
Kiki, now I want you to listen to me very carefully, promise?’ The teenager nodded. ‘You know the Japanese soldiers are coming soon. They will be here any day now, perhaps even tomorrow. We don’t know what will happen but it will not be good for the Dutch. I think we will be put in a camp for prisoners,
mijn
papa and me also.’ Anna paused, turning and taking both
Kleine
Kiki’s hands in her own and looking into her soft brown eyes. ‘You are Javanese, a pure-blood. I don’t think they will harm you. I have spoken to Mother Ratih, that is why we stopped at her
kampong
. She is an honest woman and, if you agree, I will pay her to take you into her house and train you as a cook, an apprentice, you understand? You already know lots about cooking, stuff you learned in the
Grootehuis
, but she is a professional. She will train you well and you will also be safe.’

Kleine
Kiki burst into tears. ‘Anna, please, please, let me stay with you!’ she begged. ‘I will be good, a very good girl! I will eat very little and do nothing to make you angry! I will look after you and
Mijnheer
Piet. Please, Anna!’ she sobbed, broken-hearted at the notion of leaving Anna.

Anna took her into her arms and they both started to cry. After a short time Anna, still somewhat tearful, spoke once again to the sobbing teenager. ‘
Kleine
Kiki, listen to me. I know that I told you we would always be together and we would take care of each other. But when the Japanese come they will take
mijn
father and me also because I am a half-blood, and I cannot leave him. They will put us in a concentration camp, but they will not let you come. You will be left on your own with nobody to help you. I cannot allow this to happen. You are our family now. You are my little sister!’ She took the diminutive maid by the shoulders and gently pushed her away so she could look directly into her face. ‘Look at me,
Kleine
Kiki,’ Anna said softly. The
becak
had reached the river and they were not far from the docks where so much had happened recently. ‘If I am still alive after the war, then I will come for you, we will be together again.’

‘Promise?’
Kleine
Kiki choked, then started to sob once more.

Anna attempted to smile through her own tears. ‘Cross my heart! But maybe by that time you will have met a fine young man and have a restaurant of your own and so you won’t want to come?’