After the Ashes (20 page)

I heaved it higher, standing on my toes. “That's it. Quick!” I cried.

Her hand snaked under the branch, grasped the boy by his arm and yanked him out. She had just gotten him clear when my strength left me. The branch crashed back down and impaled the ground where the boy had been.

His cries grew louder, and he hiccuped.

“Shhh.” Brigitta rubbed his back and held him close. “Shhh. You're fine. Everything is fine.” She rocked back and forth.

I had no idea what to do. Thank goodness for Brigitta.

“Is he hurt?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don't think so. Just scared.” She soothed him until he settled. “We have to take him with us.”

I nodded. “Let's go, then.”

“How far is it?”

“About a kilometer from here.” I spoke with more confidence than I felt. I had no points of reference anymore. It was worse than Anjer. “Maybe two,” I conceded.

We walked. My eyes grew ever more weary from the strain of trying to see without my spectacles.

We walked. After a time, Brigitta asked me to carry the boy.

We walked. Our surroundings blurred into one giant ashen mass.

We walked. Brigitta pointed out odd sights. “There's a small boat over there.” “I think we just passed someone's roof.” “This is half a grandfather clock.”

After what felt like a lifetime, the jungle returned. It looked like my beloved tangle of trees again.

“Thank God,” I muttered.

The boy wriggled in my arms, and I set him down. He scrambled ahead of us. “Don't go far,” I called.

“Frits, come back,” Brigitta called.

“Frits?”

“It's what I'm calling him.”

He turned around and toddled back to us.

I scrunched my nose. “How old is he?”

“Probably two or three.” She bent down and opened her arms. He walked right to her. “Hello, Frits.”

He giggled and babbled something in Javanese. Or maybe it was his own made-up language.

“I'm thirsty,” Brigitta said, kissing Frits's hands.

“We're almost there, and we can get some water from the stream. It's very cool and tasty.”

“Maybe we could wash a bit, too.”

I nodded. “That's a wonderful idea.”

Sweat and grime, tiny bits of tree bark, saltwater residue, and blood covered us both. I not only felt sticky but also prickly, filthy, weak and sore.

She picked Frits up. “I'm just glad we haven't seen any snakes or anything.”

“You're right,” I agreed, though the thought troubled me.

Krakatau was silent now. I hadn't heard a single rumble since that last devastating boom.

So now, I reasoned, buzzing insects and calling monkeys and a thousand other sounds should be echoing around the forest. But the only sound was our footsteps and Frits's babble. Earlier, my eyes were telling me that the trees were devoid of animals. My ears seemed to be doing the same for the entire forest now.

“It's so odd,” I whispered. “So much silence.” Had the ash muffled the noises? It still fell, but not as heavily.

“Pardon?”

“Oh.” I spoke up for Brigitta. “It's just unusual not to hear anything here. Or see anything.”

“I'm grateful we haven't.”

“Where do you think they are?”

“Where do I think what are?” she asked, setting Frits back down and holding his hand.

“The animals. The insects. Where do you think they are?” My voice rang out in the quiet, making me flinch as if I had spoken aloud in church.

She shrugged. “Dead. Why wouldn't they be? Snakes couldn't out-slither that wave.”

“Perhaps. But . . .” I trailed off.

“But what?”

“But we haven't seen any bodies. We should have seen some evidence by now. Even if it was just insects.”

“What do you mean? Because we haven't seen a dead snake, there can't be any dead snakes?” Her nonsensical leap of logic made my head hurt.

“Not entirely, no. I've walked through the jungle many times,” I explained. “Sometimes I see a python or a constrictor or some other snake and other times I don't. So the fact that we haven't seen a dead snake is irrelevant.”

She rolled her eyes and let Frits drag her. “I think you're talking in circles.”

“Here's my point. I always see insects. Hundreds of insects. They're everywhere—on trees, flying through the air, scurrying along on the ground. They're all around.”

Brigitta pulled Frits toward her, eyes darting back and forth.

I finished my argument. “With so many insects, some of them should be dead. We should see their bodies. The wave could have easily washed away those insects closer to the beach.” I swallowed suddenly and blinked to keep the sharp tears that sprung up at bay. My
Hexarthrius rhinoceros rhinoceros
collection! Three hundred four specimens. Years of hard work. Gone in minutes. Rubbing my eyes, I continued, “Here, where the waves never came, we should be seeing evidence of life.”

“Maybe this is like natural selection. No evidence exists.”

I growled. “Evidence does exist, just not the evidence you want.”

“Then maybe the ash killed them,” she speculated.

“Maybe,” I conceded, “but it couldn't have killed
everything
. And if it did, we should still see some evidence. Bodies. Exoskeletons. Something. We haven't seen any. Where is the life?”

Frits fussed and whimpered, and Brigitta picked him up again. “He's probably hungry.”

I didn't answer, because up ahead, I saw a familiar sight. At long last we had reached the clearing. The banyan trees still circled the small space, and the grass was a verdant green. The Sampaguita vines climbed up the banyan trees.

Everything around the stream remained unchanged.

Only the stream itself was different.

The stream was drained. Its muddy bed was completely exposed.

I hoped my weak eyes were playing tricks on me.

“Lovely, Katrien. Just lovely.” Brigitta's sarcasm told me they weren't.

Frits's crying grew louder.

“I wasn't expecting this,” I said.

“That's good. I'm glad you weren't expecting this. I would hate to know you marched me all the way up here. In the dark. With the bugs—”

“We haven't seen any—”

“—and with the snakes. And the wild animals, all the while
expecting
to find a stream drained of all its water. But you weren't expecting this, were you? That's a relief. I feel so much better. And now I'm stuck up here in the middle of the jungle. With you,” she added, as if that was the worst part of all. “And there's no water! I haven't eaten since this morning. I haven't had anything to drink either. Who knows when Frits last ate. I'm hungry. I'm wet. I'm thirsty. My ankle hurts—that's your fault, too, for gripping it like a vise. My feet feel like they want to fall off my legs. My arms hurt.”

Frits wailed, and I interrupted her tirade. “And you're scared. I know, Brigitta. I am, too. But we should stay here. We should try to get some sleep tonight and decide what to do in the morning.”

She bent down and picked up Frits, patting his back. “We're going back to Anjer tomorrow.”

Rubbing my eyes, I said, “Do you want to sleep on the ground or in the tree?”

She glared at me. “On the ground, of course. We can't get Frits into the tree. He might fall and hurt himself.”

I hadn't thought about Frits's safety. “Why don't we pick a spot close to the tree?”

Her willingness to sleep on the forest floor surprised me, but it probably had more to do with her concern for Frits. She stretched out under a banyan tree and got the little boy to lie down. While he tossed and turned, she sang.

“Under trees so big and giant

in the forest of the gnomes

is a nice and little cottage

between tree roots on the moss.”

It was just like the evening in the Hotel Anjer when she sang to Jeroen at the dinner table. “I haven't heard that since my mother died,” I said aloud. I realized then that there had not been much singing in my life since my mother passed away. Hymns at mass weren't the same thing.

“Shhh,” Brigitta soothed. She hummed some more, keeping a gentle rhythm until Frits was asleep. Then she eased her shoes off and winced as she rubbed her feet.

“I am sorry about your ankle,” I whispered. “Is it still bleeding?”

She shook her head and brushed dried mud off her legs and arms.

“I didn't mean to hurt you. I only wanted to keep you on the branch.” I removed my own shoes. Oh, that felt good!

My feet breathed their thanks as I wriggled my toes and made circles with my ankles, letting the air—warm and stuffy as it was—soothe my skin.

Brigitta didn't say anything for several long moments, but then responded gently, “I know.” She let out a watery breath and sniffed.

I scooted closer to her. “It's going to be fine. We're going to be fine. We're alive.”

“I know,” she said again with a whimper. “But my mother and father aren't. Little Jeroen, too. Even Utari. And Ratu and Kuwat.”

“Who are they?”

“Ratu is—was—our cook and housekeeper. Utari, the nanny. Kuwat was the gardener.” Her voice broke on Kuwat's name.

What would Tante Greet do in this situation? “Empathy, Katrien,” I heard in my head. I did have some empathy. I reminded myself again that I knew what it was like to lose a parent. “Would it help if you talked about them?” I asked.

“I don't know.” Tears filled her voice. “It hurts so much. Why does it hurt so much? How long does it take to get used to them being gone?” Her question was drowned out in a sob.

Frits shifted beside her, and she rubbed his back.

“Vader likes your father,” I said. “He thinks he's a wonderful supervisor. He never says one cross thing about Mr. Burkart.”

“You do know your father is dead, don't you?”

Why did she do that? Why did she lash out? I was trying to comfort her, to ease her hurt. I moved away, not wanting to be any closer than necessary to her vile words. “No. I don't know that. You should get some sleep.”

She wept a bit longer, her soft sniffles the only sound in the darkness. I couldn't sleep. My mind would not stop whirring. What happened to the animals? Where were they? We had tromped through the jungle for hours, and except for that lone dhole, the only life we saw was each other. And Frits.

“
A group, when it has once disappeared, never reappears
.”

Brigitta's sniffles turned to snores as she fell asleep.

As I sat awake, the scent of the Sampaguita flowers filled the dark air and reminded me of other smells that always seemed to permeate the air around Anjer. Tea and coffee, spices and raw fish, the salty ocean and sweet fruits. But Krakatau had taken all that loveliness away.

Anjer would never be the same.

My life would never be the same.

A wave of sorrow washed over me, and I could feel tears leaking from my eyes. I didn't know what to do. I had dragged Brigitta and Frits up here, and I wasn't sure if it was the right thing or not. What if this had been a mistake?

What if another wave attacked us? I didn't think I had the strength to hang onto a tree another time.

What if a wild animal cornered us, instead? Even though we had only seen a dhole, that didn't mean other animals weren't lurking in the recesses of the jungle. We were near a stream that was normally filled with water. Animals would need to drink, too, and they wouldn't know it was drained.

Why was it drained?

I focused on that. State the problem. “It is drained of water,” I whispered to myself.

Hypothesize answers. “Drought.” That was the simplest answer. It was also unlikely. Although we were in the dry season, it had still been raining off and on.

However . . . it hadn't rained in over a week.

But a week or so without rain wouldn't cause the stream to completely dry out. Besides, the bed was muddy.

No. It couldn't be drought.

Another answer. “All the water was drunk.” Ridiculous! Every animal in the jungle would have to drink from this one stream at the same time. Impossible!

A different answer. “The wave?” That didn't make much sense to me. There ought to be more water. It should be flooded, shouldn't it? The stream should be brackish with saltwater. Or at least I thought it should.

But none of those things happened.

“Maybe we should go farther into the jungle?” I whispered aloud. “Follow the stream. We might be able to find some water farther inland.”

That was it. That was the plan.

I swung from tree to tree. The wind whipped through my hair and made my skirts ripple. Vader swung along behind me, and Tante Greet followed him.

“Woooo!” my aunt cried, joy coursing through her voice.

Silvery gibbons brachiated beside us.

“Katrien, keep up with them,” Vader called.

“I will.” My legs swung harder, and I picked up a little speed. The gibbons didn't pass me, but Vader and Tante Greet fell behind.

The gibbons stopped, and I teetered on the branch when I landed near them. “Vader! Tante Greet! I'm here!”

They were gone.

Where could they be?

I burst into tears, a little girl lost in the jungle. Loud cries ripped from my soul, causing the gibbons to scatter.

“Wake up, Katrien,” Brigitta said, shaking me.

I yawned and wiped my eyes. Frits bawled beside us.

“You need to get up,” she said.

“I'm awake,” I said groggily. “Why is he crying?”

She pulled the boy into her lap. “He's hungry, and I want to go home.”

“We need water.”

“
Ja
, we do.” She reached for her shoes and pulled them on.