Shadows Over Paradise (17 page)

We saw so many women and girls being hit that it became the norm. Slapping was the preferred way; the soldiers would strike
first with the flat of the hand, then the back of the hand, then the flat again, snorting with the effort.
Slap, slap, slap!
Some liked to kick, or chop or punch. Others were more cunning, jabbing their fingers into soft parts with agonizing precision. A few, like Johnny Tomato, used their rifles, breaking collarbones and ribs or knocking out teeth.

My mother feared that being exposed to such violence would affect Peter and me. She worried that it would make us hate the Japanese.

“Why shouldn’t we hate them?” Peter demanded. “They’re horrible to
us
.”

“I don’t want you to hate
anyone
,” my mother replied. “Hatred is destroying the whole world.”

Not long after this, one of the twins, Sofie, became ill with dysentery. There was no hospital, and Kate was frantic. One morning I saw her run outside holding Sofie. She stopped two soldiers who’d been passing the house. Still cradling Sofie, she bowed, then implored them to get medicine for her “very sick child.”

“Imatin,” she said. “I need Imatin for my baby.”

The first soldier stared at her, then shook his head. Kate fell to her knees, still clutching the little girl, and begged him to help. But the pair just shrugged, then walked on. Kate sobbed as she carried Sofie inside.

That night my mother and I were woken by footsteps on the
émpér
that ran along the side of the house. We pulled back our
kelambus
and saw, standing by the open window, the second soldier. Without speaking, he handed my mother a small brown bottle; she looked at the label, then ran with it to Kate, who let out a cry of joy.

“You
see
,” my mother said triumphantly to Peter and me once Sofie had recovered. “That just proves that there’s good and bad in everyone; we must
never
forget that.”

My mother had said that running the plantation on her own had been too hard; but life in Bloemencamp was far worse. Peter and I hated having to see her doing such backbreaking work; we hated being hungry all the time. We loathed being crammed into such a confined space, with so many others that you could hear every cough, snore, and burp. I couldn’t bear the filth, the dreadful food, or the utter boredom. But what I hated, more than anything else, was
tenko. Tenko
was hell.

Morning and night we’d have to stand there as the soldiers counted us in our rows, shouting out the numbers:

Ichi! Ni! San! Shi! Go! Roku! Shichi! Hachi! Kyuu! Ju!

If they made a mistake, which they nearly always did, they’d go back and start all over again. There’d be people groaning and crying and leaning on one another, then they’d jerk straight up to bow as the commandant would stride past. We’d have to listen to him ranting at us, that we had been defeated and must therefore be obedient, polite, and grateful for the “hospitality” and “protection” that we were being given. As if this wasn’t enough, it was made far worse by the soldiers’ always finding someone to pick on. It could be for anything. Once they picked on Greta’s grandmother, Mrs. Moonen. Her mouth lifted up a little on one side; perhaps she’d had a stroke, I don’t know, but she was standing at the front when the commandant suddenly seemed to notice her. He must have thought that she was laughing at him, because he barked an order at a guard and the next second she was being dragged off the field. The following morning I saw Greta winding a bloodied bandage around Mrs. Moonen’s shorn head.

Of the many punishments that the Japanese used, head shaving was the most common. It was done in public, very badly, and was humiliating. Most would just tie a scarf around their head and carry on. Often, other women would cut off bits of their own hair and glue it to the front of the shaved woman’s scarf. My mother had done this so often that her once luxuriantly long hair now barely reached her collar.

“Why don’t we just escape?” Peter suggested one morning.

“Why don’t we?” I agreed. “After all, there are thousands of us, and just a few of them.”

“But they have guns and bayonets,” my mother responded. “And they’d use them.”

“In any case,” added Kate, “it would be hard to hide. We’d soon be spotted, brought back, and probably executed. Don’t worry, darling,” she said to Corrie. “That’s not going to happen.”

“I shan’t try and escape,” my mother stated. “My priority is just to stay alive, for my children.”

“Exactly,” agreed Kate, “and I shall stay alive for my girls—even if it kills me!” she added with a grim laugh.

I remember how painfully slowly time went by. We lost all track of it, though my mother tried to keep count of the passing weeks and months by making a daily mark on the wall. Our main aim was not to be noticed by the guards, so that we wouldn’t be punished. So during
tenko
I’d stand there, my face a mask, thinking about my father, and about the plantation, and about Ferdi and Sweetie and about how much I’d like to eat a mango, barely listening to the commandant ranting away. Then, during one
tenko
, after we’d been in Bloemencamp for about a year, I heard the interpreter announce that we were to be moved. A murmur of surprise rippled through the lines. My mother whispered to Peter and me that we were going to another camp, called Tjihapit. Then the interpreter raised her megaphone again, and told us that we were to go and pack immediately. We were to bring whatever we could carry, but were not to try to smuggle in any “forbidden items.” Our bags would be searched at the gate.

Back in the house, we all discussed what was forbidden.

“Anything Dutch,” said Kirsten. “That means no Dutch money—notes or coins—or anything with an image of Queen Wilhelmina on it.”

“Nothing orange,” Ina added, “
although …
” She lifted up her dress to reveal an orange ribbon sewn along the hem of her pants. She grinned. “Like my royal knickers?”

“They’re lovely,” said Loes. “At
tenko
I tie a piece of orange wool to one of my toes so that I feel I’m bowing to Holland, not to the rotten Japs.”

“No Dutch flags,” Kirsten went on as she packed her suitcase. “No radio parts,” she added in a singsong voice. “No scissors or knives or—even more dangerous—
books
!”

This grieved my mother, as reading was, as she often put it, a way of “restoring” herself at the end of each day. But we had to leave our books piled up in the front gardens to be collected and burned; not even Bibles were allowed. Ina beckoned to me and opened her jacket; hidden inside the lining were a few pages that she said she’d torn out of her Old Testament. “A few of my favorite psalms,” she whispered, then put her finger to her lips.

“No paper or pens,” Kirsten intoned as she packed her bag. “No playing cards, and no board games.”

My mother turned to Peter. “You’ll have to leave Jaya’s chess set behind.”

“But I said I’d bring it back to him! I can’t leave it!” His eyes had filled. “I
can’t
, Mummy.”

“You’ll have to, Pietje,” she said. “We can’t risk them finding it.”

“Because if they
did
,” I said crossly, “it’s Mummy that they’d punish, not you. Do you want that?”

My mother wiped away his tears. “After the war I’ll buy Jaya a beautiful new chess set for you to give him.”

Peter swallowed. “Do you promise?”

“I do. I’ll get him one that’s
even
nicer.”

This seemed to cheer Peter. “He’s always wanted one made of onyx and marble.”

Mum smiled. “Then that’s what he’ll have. I’ll get him the most beautiful onyx and marble chess set that I can find. This is my solemn promise to you, darling.”

Peter sniffed, then he took Jaya’s chess set out of his suitcase. With a regretful sigh, he put it in a corner of the room.

Family photos had also been banned, but my mother refused to leave behind the photo of our father, so she stitched it into Peter’s teddy bear along with the one postcard that we’d received from him.

We all tried to figure out why we were being moved. No one seemed to know. There were all sorts of rumors flying around: that the Japanese were losing the war; that they were winning it; that the Allies were on their way, advancing across the Pacific, island by island. Someone said that Tjihapit was a punishment
camp, run by the Kempeitai, which no one came out of alive. Someone else said no, it was better than Bloemencamp, with more food and fewer people.

But I didn’t care what it was like. It was at least a change—something to break us out of our harsh routine.

Klara and I had been recording for about an hour on Tuesday afternoon when I suddenly realized, guiltily, that she was exhausted.

“You’re tired, Klara,” I said. “Let’s stop for today. I was so engrossed in what you were saying, I didn’t notice.”

“Yes.” She heaved a weary sigh. “I don’t think I can do any more reminiscing today.” She glanced at her watch. “In any case, I have to open the shop soon.”

I turned off the tape recorder. “I’ll leave you to have a little rest before that.” I put the recorder into my bag, then stood up.

“Don’t go yet, Jenni,” Klara said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

I sat down again, pleased that Klara wanted to share something with me, unprompted. She lifted the lid of the wooden
box, which had been intriguing me. “As I told you, we left Java with nothing,” she said quietly. “But I do have a few mementoes, which I treasure, as a reminder of what we survived. This is one.” She took out a white handkerchief, neatly folded, opened it out, and laid it on the table. Edged in lace, it was made of fine cotton lawn and embroidered in a red-and-blue script. In the center of it was a circle, inside which, in small square capitals, was sewn
BLOEMENCAMP, BANDUNG, JUN 43–44
. Around this, in tiny letters, were thirty or so names.

“My mother made this,” Klara explained. “She stitched onto it the names of every woman and child who’d been in the house with us.”

“Loes van Rozelaar,” I read. “Lisbeth de Jong, Kate van der Velden, Hanke Sillem, Martha Tromp.” I stared at the hanky, fascinated.
KIRSTEN SWAAN
. “Here’s Kirsten—there’s no other Kirsten, so it must be her.”
MARJOLEIN DE BRUIN
. “That’s Marjolein, whose house it was. And there’s Ina.”
INA BOGAARDT
.

“And here’s my mother,” added Klara.
ANNEKE BENNINK
. “She worked on this hanky at night. I remember thinking how hard it must be, doing such minuscule stitches by lamplight, but she said that it was important to her, because in years to come she wanted to be able to remember everyone’s name.”

“Some have just the first names.” I peered at them.
CORRIE, ANGELIKA, YAN
.

“Those are the children,” Klara explained. “My mother did it like that in order to differentiate them from the adults.”
SASKIA, SOFIE, KLARA, PETER
…

“I’d like to photograph it, for the memoir. I’ll bring my camera either tomorrow or the day after. Would that be okay?”

Klara folded the handkerchief. “Of course.” As she put it back into the box, I caught a glimpse of something else.

“What’s that?”

She lifted it out. It was a bound notebook. The green leather cover was sun-stained and scratched. Klara looked at it, then passed it to me. I gazed at the embossed initials.
AKB
. “This was your mother’s?”

“Yes. Anneke Katrien Bennink.”

“Is it her diary?”

“No. She didn’t keep a diary.”

“May I open it?” Klara nodded. Gently I turned the first few pages. The edges were yellowed and brittle.

Irish Stew
, I read in a small neat hand.
Een pond rundvlees … twee uien … vijf wortels
. I turned the page.
Apple Charlotte … Vier Kookappels … 200 gram bloem … 200 gram poedersuiker … een theelepel vanille …
 I went to the next page.
Rice Pudding …

“She compiled it when we were in Tjihapit,” I heard Klara say.

I looked at her, bewildered. “Why would anyone compile a recipe book in a concentration camp?”

“I
will
tell you why, Jenni.” She nodded at the clock. “But not until next time, because I have to go down now.” She stood up stiffly. “I hate to keep people waiting—it’s bad manners and bad business.”

I carried the coffee things to the kitchen and put them on the counter. “It must be hard for you,” I said, “recalling these very
painful events, then having to go and chat to your customers as though it’s just a normal day.”

“I’m fine,” she replied. “It’s very intense, as you said it would be; but it’s less difficult than I imagined—perhaps because I find you so easy to talk to, Jenni. I find that I
want
to talk to you—I feel you pulling my story out of me, like a length of wool.”

“As though I’m unraveling you?” I teased.

“Yes, which, in a way, you are.” Klara studied my face for a moment. “But I’ve been racking my brains as to where we met.”

“We didn’t,” I asserted gently.

She shook her head. “I feel sure that we did. Perhaps we chatted in the lane, or on the beach.” She sighed. “Or perhaps my memory is failing, like Jane’s.”

“But why
should
you remember, given that it was twenty-five years ago?” I felt my face flush.

“So you came here in … 1987?”

My pulse was racing. “That’s right.”

Klara blinked. “Something will jog my memory and I’ll suddenly remember.” We walked toward the door. “And are you happy with what we’ve recorded so far?”

“Very happy,” I answered, glad to change the subject. “But there’s another element I’d like to include, which is to get your family to share something about you; one or two anecdotes, or just a paragraph about how they see you as a person and what you mean to them. This will add some other perspectives as well as involving your nearest and dearest in the creation of the memoir.”

“That’s a nice idea. So you’d ask Henry and Beth? And Vincent?”

“Yes, and your grandchildren. I could chat to Adam when I see him around the farm; and I could interview Vincent’s daughter over the phone, or she could email me something.”