Shadows Over Paradise (13 page)

Early in December, Flora, Susan, and I were at school. It was almost the end of term, and we were looking forward to our Christmas concert. But at assembly one morning the headmistress, Miss Broek, announced with a grim expression that the holiday would begin that very day.

“The reason,” she told us, “is that yesterday Japanese planes attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, sinking eight of their ships. America is now at war with Japan.”

As a gasp rippled through the hall, Miss Broek added that the
Netherlands, as a close ally of the United States, had declared war against Japan too.

“So we must all pray that the brave Dutch soldiers will protect us,” Miss Broek went on. “Please bow your heads.”

Prayers were said—I heard stifled sobs—then we all filed out and collected our bags.

As Flora, Susan, and I walked down the school’s front steps, I saw Corrie being met by her mother, a blond Australian woman who was always smiling. Normally petite, she was hugely pregnant, with twins, Corrie had told us.

I went up to Corrie. “So you were right.”

“Well, not me—my
papa
.” Corrie flashed me a rueful smile. “It’s scary, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Very.”

“Oh, it’ll be
fine
, girls,” Mrs. Van der Velden said. “It just means you’ll have a bit longer for Christmas. Enjoy it, though, because I’m sure you’ll be back in class soon enough!”

The next day, as we decorated the house for Christmas, I put on the radio and heard that the Japanese had attacked the Philippines. A few days later the announcer told us that Japanese pilots had made strikes on Singapore and Borneo. Then, as we sat down to lunch on Christmas Day, we heard that the Japanese had captured Hong Kong.

“
Surely
they’ll stop there!” my mother cried. Her face had grown pale, and I was suddenly frightened. The war seemed horribly close.

“No,” my father said grimly. “They’ll come here, because they want oil, and this is where the oil is.”

Now every adult conversation was about the war. On the radio and in the newspapers, citizens were advised how to prepare
for it, where to hide in case of air attacks, what to pack if your home had to be evacuated.

“Where should
we
hide if the Japs attack?” I asked Flora anxiously. “Under the verandah?”

Flora thought for a moment. “No,” she replied. “Because of the snakes.”

“That’s true. Maybe our dads will build an air-raid shelter,” I suggested. “Let’s ask them to do that.”

The next day Flora came to me, her eyes red with weeping. Her father wouldn’t be making an air-raid shelter, she told me.

I was horrified. “Why not?”

Flora’s eyes shone with sudden tears. “Because we’re leaving Java.”

It was as though I’d been pushed off a cliff. Then I heard approaching voices and saw Wil, with my father. I ran to them.

“Mr. Jochen …” I was so upset that I could hardly get out the words. “Is it true, Mr. Jochen? That you’re leaving Java?”

He nodded. “We are. I’ve just been discussing it with your dad. As my wife and the girls have British passports, I’ve decided that we’ll get a boat to Singapore and stay there until the hostilities are over.”

“But …” I felt a wave of dismay. I was losing my best friend.

“What if the Japs take Singapore?” my father asked Wil.

Wil laughed, then slapped Dad on the back. “My dear Hans, Singapore is
invincible
!”

The day before the Jochens left, I went to their house. I could see that Susan had been crying, largely because of having to leave Arif, I suspected, and I had to swallow my own tears as I watched Flora pack. I helped her choose the clothes that she was to take, and her mother said that she could bring one or two
toys, so she packed her favorite dolls: Lottie, a china doll with brown ringlets, and Lucie, a rag doll with big button eyes. Flora also had a brass lizard that she treasured. It had delicate hands, a wonderfully sinuous tail, and green agates for its eyes. I’d always coveted it and hoped, with the selfishness of a child, that Flora might leave it behind for me to look after. But to my disappointment, she put that in her case too.

The next day the Jochens drove away. My father was angry that Wil had decided to leave; it would hugely increase his own workload; he would now have to be the plantation administrator as well as the manager. I heard him tell my mother that he thought Wil Jochen a fool to put his family at such risk, given that the sea was full of Jap submarines. But my mother, Peter, and I saw them all off with hugs and smiles, and promises to write. I watched Flora waving to me through the rear window until the very last moment. Then, as their car disappeared from view, I burst into tears.

My mother put her arm round me. “Don’t be upset,” she said, though she was almost crying herself. “Two such good friends can’t be parted for long. I’m sure you and Flora will see each other again.”

My mother could not have known then that we
would
, but in circumstances that none of us could have imagined.

Everyone was talking about Singapore. Most people insisted, as Wil had done, that it was an “impregnable fortress” that would “never be taken.” But in mid-February, Singapore fell. Knowing that many people had been killed, I was terrified for Flora’s safety. Then, as the Japanese swept farther south, taking Borneo and Sumatra, I began for the first time to fear for our own.

“Will they
definitely
come here?” I asked my father.

He hesitated. “I’m not going to lie to you, Klara—I believe that they will.” He touched my cheek. “But you mustn’t worry because there are rules about what they can and can’t do—international rules.” Despite this, I had a dreadful sense of foreboding.

My mother began sewing rucksacks for us all. Into them she carefully packed tins of beef and beans, milk powder, packets of biscuits, and medical supplies, especially quinine tablets against malaria. Her great fear was that Peter would get malaria again. She also made some outfits for him and me to grow into.

“We need some clothes for the future,” she told us, “because we don’t know what will happen, or where we’ll be.”

My parents kept the radio on constantly during this time. The news was terrifying. We heard of naval battles in the Java Sea and of two Dutch warships that had been sunk.

“What about the sailors?” I asked, imagining them flailing in the water.

“Some may have survived,” my mother said after a moment. “But I’m afraid that many won’t have done, and we must pray for them.”

One day it was announced that the retreating Dutch had managed to destroy half the oil wells on Borneo and Sumatra.

“What heroes,” my father murmured.

Then the announcer said there were rumors that the Japanese had beheaded these men, or hacked off their limbs, and that their wives and daughters had been raped.

My mother gasped.

“What does raped mean?” I wanted to know.

“It means that they were … tortured,” she answered after a moment.

“Tortured?”

“Yes. Hurt very badly, on purpose.”

I turned to my father, bewildered. “What about the rules, Dad? You said there were rules.” But he just shook his head.

It was reported that there was now fighting on Java itself, around Surabaya, near the beach where we’d had such a wonderful holiday. I imagined the white sand being strafed by Japanese planes, and couldn’t sleep.

A week later, Peter and I were in the garden when we saw a red glow in the sky and heard low rumblings. It was as though one of the island’s volcanoes was awakening.

Frightened, we ran to Mum, who told us that it was just thunder, but I knew it must be gunfire, because by then we’d heard that the Japanese had made landings in West Java. Peter and I sat together on the verandah. How, I marveled, could something as dreadful as war make the sky look so lovely? Within days, Batavia had been taken, soon followed by Bandung. Java was now in Japanese hands.

The day after the invasion I went with my mother to the market to get extra supplies of rice, sugar, and flour. There was an eerie silence as we walked through the streets. The shopkeepers, who usually stood outside their stores chatting, were all inside. Many of the shops were closed. When we got to the square I saw that the Dutch flag that always flew there was gone. In its place was a white flag with a blood-red ball in the center of it.

My mother looked stricken. “They’re already up here—in
the mountains; we must go home.” So we hurried back, got everyone inside, then locked all our windows and doors.

The knowledge that we were now occupied was terrifying. Everyone knew of the atrocities that the Japanese had carried out on other islands. We’d also heard that in some parts of Java, gangs of youths were taking advantage of the situation and were
rampokking
—looting—the houses of Europeans and killing anyone who tried to fight back. It was reported that the soldiers of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, having surrendered, were being sent to prisoner-of-war camps. I imagined Corrie’s father among them, his hands shackled.

“Should we leave Java too?” I asked my father. “Like the Jochens did?”

“No, Klara,” he replied. “There’s nowhere for us to go; we must just pray that the occupation doesn’t last long.” Stories of cruelty began to circulate. We heard that in the towns and cities, European civilian men were being herded into schools and government buildings, but that their families were not being allowed to visit them. We were told that in Bandung a
kawat
, or barbed-wire fence, had been put around the perimeter of these buildings, turning them into a prison camp.

One night, we learned, three men who’d been interned in one of these camps were caught climbing out. The next day the Japanese lined them up outside the gates. They left the men standing there, in the sun, for two days, without shade, food, or water. Then they were severely beaten and brought back inside. A few days later three other men had been caught doing the
same thing. But they weren’t made to stand in the sun. They were tied to posts and bayoneted in front of all the prisoners.

There were also rumors that the European civilian men would now be transported to an old military barracks, called Tjimahi, and that their wives and children would be moved into “protected areas.”

“To be protected from what?” I asked my parents. My father’s mouth became a thin line. “From the local people, with whom we’ve lived, peacefully, for more than three centuries.”

“I don’t need to be protected from Jaya,” Peter volunteered. “He’s my friend.”

“These ‘protected areas’ are really camps,” my father explained. “They’re for holding lots of people, so that they can’t go round causing trouble for the Japs.”

“Will
we
have to go into a camp?” I asked.

“Fortunately, we won’t,” my mother answered. “The Japs have said that they’ll leave the planters alone, as they need us to go on growing our crops.”

“Which they’ll then send to Japan,” my father added sourly.

“Yes, but at least we’ll be together, Hans,” my mother reminded him gently, “and still in our home. We must just be thankful for that.”

My father gave a defeated sigh. “I am.”

All the Europeans had to go and register with their local police station, as though we were now aliens on Japanese territory. So we drove to Garut, where my parents were given ID cards by an official. He told my parents that within the week all privately owned cars would be confiscated. “They’re not taking
my
car,” my father said furiously as we drove back home. “I won’t let them!”

Two days later we were in the living room. My mother was doing some darning while Peter and I played cards with Dad. Suddenly Mum looked up; we heard the crunch of wheels on the gravel.

She froze, then lowered her sewing.

My father went to the window. “They’re here,” he said quietly. “Klara and Peter, go and sit with your mother.”

As we did so, she looked at my father, alarmed. “Do
whatever
they ask, Hans,” she whispered. “If you don’t, God knows
what
they might—”

We heard heavy steps on the verandah, then loud banging. Dad opened the front door, and two Japanese soldiers marched in. The first man was an officer, with a brown uniform and gleaming black boots. At his waist was a gun, and a long curved sword in a leather scabbard. Was he going to shoot us, I wondered? Or behead us? The second man was an ordinary soldier. His uniform was green; he wore a cap with a strip of white cloth at the neck, and carried a rifle with a steel bayonet. I stared at the blade with horrified fascination, imagining it being plunged into human flesh.

The officer’s eyes swept the room. Seeing the rack that held the weapons for our platoon, he barked an order at the soldier, who took the rifles and carried them outside, piled in his arms. The officer opened Dad’s gun cabinet and took out his pistol, his hunting rifle, and the ammunition; these he handed to his subordinate too. Next, he went into the dining room and, to my dismay, emerged with the radio, my mother’s beloved Agfa, and the Bolex Cine camera that Dad had given her for her birthday. Then the two soldiers went outside.

Mum, Peter, and I ran to the window. We watched them walk
toward the garage. The officer looked at the Ford, then turned to my father and held out his hand. My father hesitated. Beside me, I felt my mother stiffen.

“Just
do
it, Hans!” she hissed.

As if he’d heard her, Dad handed over the key. The officer opened the car door, removed his sword, then slid behind the wheel. He drove the Ford away, followed by his minion in the other car, the back of which was filled with our things.

Now, without any means of self-protection or escape, we felt very vulnerable. All we could do was to carry on, as best we could, thankful that we were at least still together as a family, which was rare, as by then nearly all the European men had been interned.

One big problem was that without a car it was much harder to bring back food from the market. Dad walked Sweetie down there, and loaded him up with sacks of rice and flour; but getting there and back took a long time. And all the while I knew that there’d be shortages.