Ghostwritten (23 page)

Klara

It had been three and a half years since Susan had last seen Arif. She’d had no idea if she’d ever meet him again. She told him about Flora, then, with my mother and me, she took him to see Irene.

We asked him about everyone at Tempat Sungai. Arif said that the Japanese had cut down most of the trees for fuel and had then planted castor-oil seeds, which the plantation workers had been forced to cultivate, as
romushas
– forced labour. They’d survived by living off the land. Arif told us that our houses had been occupied by the Japanese, but that once they’d gone, both villas had been ransacked by a mob. I hated to think of our beloved home being looted and despoiled.

I asked Arif about our pets. He told me that Suliman and Jasmine had looked after them for as long as they could, but that Ferdi had disappeared some months before.

‘Peter will be sad,’ my mother murmured. ‘But we’ll get him another rabbit. Or perhaps he’d like a dog. Yes, I think a little dog would be fun for him, don’t you, Klara?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed uncertainly. ‘What about my pony?’ I asked Arif. He said that the Japanese had harnessed Sweetie for dragging logs, but that he hadn’t seen him since the surrender. I felt tears sting my eyes.

My mother reached for my hand. ‘We’ll search for him, Klara. Perhaps we’ll find him.’

‘So are we going to go home?’ I asked her. ‘To the plantation?’

‘Maybe,’ Mum answered. ‘Though Daddy will have a
lot
to do there by the sounds of it; but we’ll all help him, won’t we?’

‘Jaya will be glad to see Peter,’ Arif said. ‘He’s really missed him. But where
is
Peter?’

‘We have no idea,’ I answered.

My mother gave me a sharp look. ‘Of course we do, Klara.’ She turned to Arif. ‘Peter’s in Tjimahi – a men and boys’ camp, west of Bandung. We had a card from him not long ago and he was fine.’

I didn’t like to remind my mother that Peter had written that card ten weeks before. I hadn’t told her that he might be transported again. Now I just prayed that he’d soon return; it was awful having no news.

Nor was there any information about Dad. Every morning my mother and I steeled ourselves to look at the lists, and were amazed now to understand the scale of the transport – not just of soldiers, but of civilian men. They had been in labour camps in Burma, Sumatra, Borneo and Manchuria. Many, we learned, had died on board ships en route to Japan.

By mid-September we still hadn’t heard. One morning we were standing by the gate when, to our surprise, we saw a Dutch pilot walk into the camp. He was the first Dutch serviceman we’d seen since the war started. He stared at the skeletal women and children who flocked to him, some of them bowing, as we still did, automatically, to anyone in uniform. The pilot told us that his name was Captain Arens and that his wife and young son were in Tjideng. He’d come to collect them in his seaplane, which was moored in the harbour. Someone rushed to find them, and when the man’s wife and son ran to him and flung themselves into his arms, it was for most of us a bittersweet sight. But this man was so moved by our plight that he offered to take letters for us all, immediately, to post to Holland. We all rushed around looking for something to write on. My mother found a scrap of paper and a pencil stub and wrote a note to her parents saying that she and I were fine, but that we were still waiting to hear about Hans and Peter.

By the time my grandmother received that note, we’d had news.

One day, in late September, my mother and I had gone to check the lists as usual, but as usual there was nothing.

‘No news is good news,’ I intoned as we turned away. ‘No news is …’ All at once the camp official came out of the office again, holding another list. As she pinned it up, my mother and I walked towards it. My mother reached for my hand and squeezed it, hard. Then I felt her fingers go loose.

Dead.

It was as though there was no other name.

Bennink.

My instant reaction was that it must be my father. But as we drew closer we saw
P.H.
in front of it and, after it,
8 April 1935–10 Aug. 1945. Tjikalengka.

My mother’s knees buckled. I held her – she felt so light; then we walked slowly away. With nowhere else to go we went back to the house, closed the net around us and let in the darkness of a life without Peter.

‘I should have fought harder to keep him with us,’ she whispered.

‘You did everything you could. You never gave up.’

‘I knew that I was fighting for his life. I lost,’ she added bleakly. ‘I lost. But … why was he in Tjikalengka?’

‘He must have been transported there.’

‘Yes …’ She blinked. ‘That would explain it. But I wonder what happened to him, Klara. We don’t know what
happened
to him, do we? We don’t know what happened to him or
why
he …’

Her thin body was convulsed by sobs that now turned into a keening cry that made my heart cave in. Then, as her weeping subsided, she began, as I knew she would, to blame Mrs Dekker. She said that she
hated
her for what she had done – she would hate her until her dying day. ‘If only I hadn’t
upset
her that time,’ she wailed. ‘If I’d known where it would lead, I’d have kept my mouth
shut.
’

‘What Mrs Dekker did was horrible, but—’

‘It was
more
than horrible,’ she wept. ‘It was wicked; it was evil – she condemned my son to
die
!’

‘No, Mummy. She didn’t.’

My mother stared at me through her tears. ‘Of course she did, Klara. Without her interference he’d have stayed here, with us, and he would have survived.’ The logic of it, to my mother, was clear and unarguable.

‘But it wasn’t Mrs Dekker’s fault that Peter was transported.’

‘Of course it was her fault,’ my mother retorted angrily. ‘I don’t know why you’re arguing about it, Klara.’

‘Because …’ I was on a precipice. I looked into the abyss, then jumped. ‘It was my fault,’ I whispered.

‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. ‘How? How
could
it be your fault?’ She stared at me, her eyes red with weeping, then her expression cleared. ‘So you
did
tell them his age, that day.’

‘No. I didn’t. That’s not what I mean.’

‘What are you talking about, Klara?’

At last, I told my mother what had happened in the guardhouse. The words came out in a torrent. ‘They questioned me for hours. Then they said that they were going to hurt me, and that I could “choose”. I thought they meant that I could choose whether I wanted to be burnt by cigarettes, or to have needles pushed under my nails, or to be hung by my wrists, any of which I would have preferred to—’

‘To … what?’ My mother looked confused.

‘They said that they wouldn’t transport Peter. I was so relieved and elated. I thanked them, again and again; I was almost crying with happiness. They said that instead, they’d punish
you.
They told me that they’d tie you to a chair for five days, maybe more. If I didn’t want this to happen to you, they would transport Peter. My choice, they said.’

My mother gasped. ‘So you chose for him to go?’ I nodded. ‘But you should have chosen me. You should have chosen
me
,’ she repeated.

‘How could I, knowing that you’d die?’

‘No. I’d have borne it.’

‘You wouldn’t. Mrs Tromp died after two days in the chair; Henny died after four – and you were already so
frail
, Mum. How could I have let them do that to you?’

My mother’s mouth twisted with distress. ‘How could
you
have let them send Peter
away
?’

Tears pricked my eyes. ‘Because I believed that it was the lesser of those two evils.’

I cast my mind back to that day. As I’d waited in the guardhouse, I’d thought of Peter trying to fend for himself amongst hundreds of men and teenage boys. I thought of him being mistreated or abused, or not having enough to eat, or being cold at night, or getting malaria again, with no one to care for him. But then my mind would swing back to the image of my mother, tied to a chair in the blazing sun.

‘Mummy, I didn’t know what to do. Then Kochi said that if I
didn’t
choose one, they would do
both.
Then he left me for two hours to make up my mind.’

In that time I’d convinced myself that Peter would be all right. The war would surely soon end – within weeks, people were saying. I told myself that there might be some kind men in the camp who would take pity on these young boys and help them. I even persuaded myself that my father was there. Then the soldiers returned, and I gave them my answer. I prayed that I’d never have to tell my mother what it was.

When Herman Dekker returned to Tjideng in mid-October he came to see her and me. We sat in a quiet corner of the house as he gave her Peter’s suitcase. She opened it and out of it took my brother’s shabby old teddy bear,
then his jacket. She laid the jacket on her lap, and ran her hands over the cloth. She did up the buttons. Then, clutching the bear, she asked Herman to tell her what had happened to her son.

Herman put his hands on his thin knees, as if bracing himself. He was only twelve himself and was visibly upset. He explained that in Tjimahi Peter had been treated reasonably well. He’d been there for ten weeks and things were bearable, not least because their camp leader had done his best to make sure that the boys had enough food.

‘If we’d been able to stay there, Peter might have been all right,’ Herman continued quietly. ‘But in July we were transported again.’

My mother looked bewildered. ‘Why? The war was almost over.’

He shrugged. ‘It seems mad, but the Japs had started to build a new railway line between Tjikalengka and Madjalala. In July they transported hundreds of us Tjimahi boys to work on it. We were in the middle of the jungle, living in a camp that was just bamboo sheds with no running water and almost nothing to eat. We had to work all day in the sun, just in our shorts, with no shirts or hats. Most of us didn’t even have shoes, let alone the boots and trousers we should have had to do that kind of work.’

‘What kind of work?’ my mother asked.

‘We had to move stones away from where the tracks were to be laid. That’s what we did, all day,’ Herman went on, ‘just lifting stones from one place to another. I was working next to Peter and he was managing all right – he was cheerful, even. He kept saying that it was an
“adventure”. Then one day he lifted up this big stone, and …’ Herman closed his eyes. ‘There was a cobra.’

My hand flew to my mouth.

‘But … Peter would have known what to
do
,’ Mum protested quietly. ‘We’d always taught our children to keep absolutely still.’

‘He did, Mrs Bennink. I’d seen the snake too, and I froze. We were just waiting for it to move away. But then this other boy, Markus, picked up a stone and before we could stop him he’d hurled it at the snake. Then I heard Peter scream. It had bitten him on his hand, which immediately started to swell. There was a doctor in the camp so I ran to get him, and he put a tourniquet on Peter’s wrist to try and stop the venom spreading, and we carried him back to the shed. But after a while the doctor took me to one side and he said …’ Herman’s eyes glimmered with tears. ‘We kept talking to Peter as though everything was fine, but I think he knew that it wasn’t; he was becoming ill, and there was nothing we could do except …’ Herman lowered his head. A tear fell onto his lap, darkening the pale green of his shorts.

‘Did you stay with him?’ my mother asked, softly.

Herman nodded. ‘I didn’t leave him, Mrs Bennink. Not for one second.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

‘The doctor said prayers for him, and we sang a hymn … and then we …’

He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper with some pencil markings on it then gave it to my mother.

‘His grave?’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ Herman answered. ‘I made a map, so that you’ll
be able to find it one day. It’s marked with a big stone, with his name scratched onto it.’ My mother stared at the map, her face blank with grief. ‘A few days later we were told that the Japs had surrendered and we were trucked back to Tjimahi. We had to stay there for another month, because of the rebels, then a group of us were brought here to Tjideng. I’m so sorry, Mrs Bennink.’

My mother gave him a half-smile. ‘I always knew that he wouldn’t come back. But thank you for being such a kind friend to him, Herman.’

As Herman left I wondered why it was that he’d been so good to Peter. Had he found out what his mother had done and felt bad about it? Or was he just a decent boy, trying to do the right thing.

‘You
should
have chosen me,’ Mum said again one morning as were sitting on the steps at the front of the house.

I looked ahead, afraid to meet her gaze. ‘I didn’t, because I knew that you’d die.’

‘
No
. My love for my children would have kept me alive!’ She gestured at the emaciated women coming and going on Laan Trivelli. ‘Many of
these
women should have died; but they refused to die, because they
had
to stay alive, for their children, and I would have stayed alive for mine!’ Her face was tight with pain. ‘So that’s why you wouldn’t tell me what had happened in the guardhouse that day.’

‘Yes. Because I knew that you’d have asked to be punished instead.’

My mother put her hands on her knees. I could see every bone in them. ‘If I had known that Peter would live, I would have gone through the punishment
– sacrificed myself for him, if necessary. But you didn’t give me that choice. And I think that you chose for Peter to go because you needed me, Klara!’

‘No,’ I whispered, appalled. ‘That’s not true.’

‘I looked after you, and so you were more afraid of me dying than Peter.’

‘No! I didn’t want
either
of you to die!’

My mother shook her head. ‘Poor Hans – he’ll never get over it.
I’ll
never get over it.
Never.
’

‘Nor will I,’ I said, fiercely. ‘Especially if you’re going to
blame
me! You’re making me feel as though I
killed
Peter!’