After the Ashes (21 page)

“I think we should follow the stream farther inland.”

The glare on her face could have sunk a fleet of ships. “What?” she asked hostilely.

“We might find water.”

“What makes you think that? The stream is empty. There
is
no water.”

“It's a stream,” I said. “I can't explain why it doesn't have water here, but there may be some farther inland.”

“I thought you fancied yourself a scientist,” she said with an accusatory sneer.

“I do.”

Frits's wails increased in volume, and Brigitta bounced him on her knees. “Then why don't you know what happened to the water? Why? Give me a reason.”

“Believe me.” I ran my hands through my knotted hair. “I wish I could. But one of the first things scientists learn is how little they know.”

Brigitta growled in frustration. “Why am I even listening to you?” She stood, picked up Frits and paced. “You made me come with you into the jungle. You made me climb a tree.”

“I saved your life,” I protested.

“Perhaps.” She gave me a dubious look and continued ranting. “You made me march all the way up here. You said there would be water. There is no water. And now you want me to march farther inland? Because you think there
might
be water? When my father hears about this, he'll—” She stopped short, realizing her mistake, and glowered at me.

“I also rescued you from a dhole, but I notice you've already forgotten that.”

“I wouldn't have needed rescuing from that thing if you hadn't dragged me into the jungle in the first place.”

Frits screamed.

“Can't you get him to be quiet?” I asked. His wails bored into my brain and made me want to smash something.

“He's a baby, Katrien. And he's hungry.” She kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear, but his cries continued.

I stood up and rubbed my eyes. “Then our best option is to follow the stream inland. The wave didn't hit here. We could find something to eat. It's our best plan. Don't you see that?”

Brigitta's entire being sank like a wilting flower. Frits almost tumbled from her arms. She mumbled something, but I couldn't make out the words.

“What was that?”

“Ja,”
she said tiredly. “I'll come with you.”

“Good.” I nodded. “Let's go.”

We followed a path along the bank, created by years and years of animals treading to and fro. Frits continued to cry and moan.

We hadn't walked more than twenty minutes when a rustling noise came from the forest. I threw out my arm and forced Brigitta to stop. “Shhh!”

She placed a hand over Frits's mouth, but his whimpers still echoed.

The rustling grew louder.

“What is that?” Brigitta whispered.

I shook my head. “I don't know.” I half expected a Javan rhinoceros to burst through the undergrowth.

But it was Raharjo and four other men who emerged from the foliage.

I couldn't believe it. What was he doing there? Shouldn't he have gone to the mosque like Slamet and Indah? Maybe they had come to him instead. I tried to see past the men, to see if Slamet was farther back in the trees.

Raharjo stared at me and pointed a finger. “You!” He narrowed his eyes and leaned toward me. “You are reason Slamet is not here with me where he belongs. You are reason Ibu is”—He paused before sneering—“not in her home. Not with her family.”

I felt as if I had been slapped. Was he saying that Indah was dead? That she had not made it to safety with her people? Or was he just berating me because she worked for my family?

I didn't understand Raharjo at all. I had never met a native person as confrontational as he was. Normally, they just smiled and backed away from conflicts. What was wrong with him?

But as soon as that question crossed my mind, I heard Slamet's words in my head. “You do not know. You cannot know. You are Dutch.” I remembered his story about the coffee plantation owner's callous indifference toward Purnama. I remembered how Wangi had to care for her husband, day and night. Purnama and Wangi were not about to get into an argument with the owner. Who knows what would have happened to them if they did? But just because they chose not to fight didn't mean they weren't in the right.

Now, standing in the middle of the jungle, filthy, thirsty, hungry and exhausted, I found myself growing angrier by the second. No matter what Raharjo meant about Indah, his malice toward me was unjust, and what he said about Slamet was not true. I did not keep Slamet from him! Slamet chose to be with his mother when the volcano erupted, not with his vile brother. And I did everything I could to protect them. After everything that had happened, I found I did not have the strength to walk away from this fight, regardless of the consequences.

“I tried to keep them safe!” I shouted. “When they wanted to go to the mosque I tried to keep them at home. Where it was safe!” I wished I had done more to protect them. For a brief instant, I even wished they had gone to Raharjo, deep in the jungle, instead of the mosque.

“Safe?” He turned to the other men and spoke in Javanese.

One of them responded and Raharjo turned back to me. Even in the dim light with all the ash in the air, his eyes gleamed with hatred. I took a step back.

“You tried to keep them from mosque?” Raharjo's voice dripped with contempt. “To keep them at your home? To do as you say? Like prisoners or slaves?”

“That is not—”

“What has happened to your home?” he interrupted.

I pressed my lips together and felt myself grow hot. I would not give Raharjo the satisfaction of an answer.

Brigitta stepped out from behind me, still holding Frits. “I'm sure it fared better than the mosque. Our homes are not made of wood.” Her eyes met mine, and I could tell she was frightened. But she wasn't going to be bullied either. Good for her.

The men all talked at once, now gesturing toward Frits.

Then, graceful as a leopard, Raharjo moved and in one swift motion took the boy from Brigitta's arms. Brigitta stumbled backward and fell, landing with a sharp cry on the damp mud.

“Raharjo!” My voice cracked like a whip. “We have been caring for that boy!”

“You are Wewe Gombel.” This was unfair. Wewe Gombel was a supernatural woman who kidnapped children.

“I did not steal him! We found him, and we've been caring for him. He's frightened!”

“You are dangerous,” he spat.

Brigitta reached out. “Frits.”

Raharjo sneered at her. “You give him Dutch name? He is not Dutch! We will take him. We are his family now.”

“No!” I grabbed his arm. “You can't!”

As soon as I touched him, one of the other men pulled his
kris
from his waist and pressed it to my throat.

I froze, and Brigitta gasped.

“The boy is Javanese,” the man said. “He is ours.”

Terrifed though I was, I cried out, “Raharjo! I'll tell Slamet about this.”

He gazed at me, and in his eyes I now saw grief mixed with hatred. I forced myself not to move. Even the slightest shiver would cause the
kris
to puncture my skin. “The Dutch are not welcome here,” Rahajaro hissed in my ear. “The Dutch never were. Slamet learned this, but he made a mistake. He trusted you. And you have killed him.”

Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Slamet had listened to his brother's stories about the Dutch. I knew the stories were probably terrible, and I knew some of them might be true. And I knew Slamet had believed them. But I also knew that in spite of all
this, Slamet had been my friend. He
had
. Even Raharjo said Slamet had trusted me.

“I didn't kill him,” I said, putting as much rage in my voice as I could. “I don't even know if he's dead, but I certainly don't plan to give up on him so easily!” The tears that had been threatening finally spilled over.

Raharjo stared at me for a long moment. Then, without another word, he walked away with Frits wriggling and twisting in his arms. My captor removed his
kris
from my neck and drifted off with the other men, his eyes never leaving mine until he faded into the forest.

I gasped in relief and held my head in my hands.

I stood there a long time, thinking about what had happened. I might have stayed in that spot forever if it weren't for Brigitta, who began whimpering from where she still sat on the ground. I squatted beside her. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, and tears streamed from her eyes. “I want him back, Katrien.”

“I know.” I rubbed her back as she had done with Frits. “I know.”

Wrapping her arms around my neck, she sobbed. “I miss him so much.”

She had grown quite fond of the boy for knowing him less than a day. And not really knowing him, even then.

“I m-miss him s-so m-much,” she repeated, hiccuping.

I continued patting her back. Trying to find the right words, I said, “Frits is a sweet boy.”
When he isn't screaming
, I thought. “Maybe they can find his family.” Even as I said the words, I doubted them. His family was probably dead.

“Not Frits,” Brigitta said, clutching my blouse. “Little Jeroen. I miss him so much.”

It must be awful to lose a sibling. I couldn't imagine what that would be like. Would it hurt more, less, or the same as losing a parent? I rubbed her back again until her sobs died down and eventually stopped.

She pulled herself away from me and wiped her eyes. “Shall we keep going?”

“Inland?”

Nodding, she said, “By the stream. You said—”

“I know. But do you want to? I mean, with Raharjo and those other men in the forest . . .”

“No.” Her voice was soft, but resolved.

“Nor I.”

She stood up. “So what are we going to do?”

We. I liked the sound of that. We were a team now. We had faced Raharjo together.

“Go back to Anjer,” I said. “By way of the streambed.” I just hoped that if the water rose again, we would have a standing tree to climb.

Brigitta's shoulders drooped with relief. “Thank goodness. I was terrified to follow those men.”

When we passed the clearing again, Brigitta's sarcasm returned. “I see our rooms from last night.”

“We were safe, though.”

“Only because those men didn't find us.” She ducked under a branch. “How do you know them?”

“I don't.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I heard you call one of them by name.”

“Raharjo.” I sighed. “I don't really know him. He's Slamet's brother.”

“Isn't Slamet that native boy you're always running around with?”

I nodded. “Raharjo hates me.”

“I can't imagine why,” she said archly.

“The only other time I saw him he called me dangerous. I had never even met him before.”

“You may be many things, Katrien,” she said, walking a bit ahead of me, “but dangerous isn't one of them.”

“Slamet said he meant to say Dutch.”

“But you aren't Dutch,” she stated, “you're Javanese.”

“I know,” I said, amazement filling my voice. Brigitta understood.
Of course she did. She was Javanese, too. Born and bred in Anjer, just like me.

“How far is it to home?” she asked.

“Several hours.”

She groaned.

I encouraged her. “We'll get there. Don't worry. Keep your eyes open for any puddles we can drink from.”

“I am not drinking from a puddle, Katrien.”

“Are you expecting to find a glass and a clean rain barrel?”

She puffed up like a proud bird. “I'm not stupid, you know. It's dangerous to drink from puddles.”

“You're correct.”

She gave me a smug smile.

“But in this case,” I said, “it might be more dangerous not to.”

Snapping her mouth shut, she shot me a defiant glare.

I smiled prettily, enjoying having an edge over her. “Come on, Brigitta.”

We had covered about fifteen minutes' worth of ground from the clearing when we saw the first downed tree. Not far beyond, bodies lay scattered.

There was a woman in her underthings. Brigitta and I both turned our heads.

There was a native man with his hands clasped in prayer.

Neither of us said anything about the bodies we passed. We made the sign of the cross each time we encountered a corpse, but we kept our thoughts to ourselves.

After a while, a pink fluffy pile of cloth caught my eye.

“What is that?” Brigitta asked.

“Fabric,” I said, looking down at my torn skirt. “I could wrap it around me like a sarong!” I picked up the bundle and was immediately surprised by its weight. I turned it over to examine it closer and suddenly a tiny face emerged from the folds.

“Oh!” I gasped in surprise.

“What?”

“It's a doll.” I laughed and brushed the face with my fingers. It was cold. Waxy. Not porcelain. I froze. “Oh, God.”

Brigitta stared at the bundle in my hands, yet I got the impression she wasn't seeing it. She seemed lost in some somber world of her own. But then she took a watery breath and came out of her reverie. Her voice cracked as she said, “It's a baby, isn't it?”

I nodded.

She stepped over to me. “We should bury her.”

Grateful for a task to get the cold feeling of death off my hands, I thrust the baby into Brigitta's arms. “I'll dig.” I scrambled in the mud, the dirt caking my fingers as I dug, until I had a hole large enough for the baby. Brigitta placed her gently in the grave, and we both covered her. I moved to leave, but Brigitta stayed. She stood as still as the dead baby.

“Brigitta? We need to keep going.” I touched her shoulder.

She startled like a mouse and wiped her eyes. “Amen,” she whispered and crossed herself.