The day came when my condition could no longer be concealed, as the curve of my belly could be seen beneath my dress, even though I wore the loosest one I possessed.
It was an illusion to think I could fool anyone. I was overcome by deep despair as I looked at myself in the mirror. That which would have brought most women delight caused me ever greater fear.
I told myself it would all be right if Paul appeared. If he made me his wife as he had promised.
Carmichael was grinding his teeth more and more. The chance to take me to an abortionist had long passed. The idea of having to look after a baby was a nightmare to him, but I was as determined as ever that it should live—after all, it was my child, mine and Paul’s.
Then, one day, my agent came to me. Until that moment I had not given a thought to where I should go. My mother’s house was no longer there for me; she was in the jungle, in Magek, a place that was nothing but a faint childhood memory for me, a place where demands would be made of me for which I was insufficiently prepared. And when Paul returned, he would never find me there.
Carmichael turned out to be prepared to help, even though I never asked him. As I was no longer of use to him, he could easily have dropped me, but he didn’t. He used the contacts we had made during the previous months to find someone who would be prepared to accommodate me.
And so, just a week later, I found myself shamefully facing Piet van Swieten. There was regret in his eyes, as though his own daughter had committed this error, not me. He, too, had probably held me up as an angel, an ethereal, supernatural being free from all earthly desires, but now he had to concede that even I was human, weak and corrupt.
But of course he did not say so. Instead he offered me the annex to his house, which he called the guesthouse. That day I moved in there with Mai and my luggage, since I had no more possessions than what I carried with me in my suitcase.
I waited for four long months. Day after day I sat at the window and waited. I looked out on the dreamlike garden, which I came to know in all its moods. Sometimes I would even sit there at night, especially during the rainy season when the dull gray darkened my soul. I had no one but Carmichael and Mai. The servants of the house had been instructed to keep out of sight. Even the master of the house stayed away from me. I knew that I had fallen from his favor, that his agreement to allow me to lie low there was nothing more than an act of Christian charity, which he undertook without any true understanding of me.
The annex at Welkom could nevertheless have been a place of peace and relaxation for me. The beautiful garden could have strengthened my soul, could have enabled me to trust in the belief that I could manage with my child and that, despite all my disgrace, I could find my way back.
But my optimism diminished daily. As the date of the birth approached, I cried almost every day and wished that the thing in my womb would finally be out. Sometimes I even regretted not having decided to visit the abortionist.
Carmichael saw my despair and felt obliged to act without first asking for my permission.
“Van Swieten is offering to hand over the child to a very respectable family here in Padang for you,” he declared one day. “They will raise it while you pick up your career again.”
The words passed through me like a biting wind, but I remained unperturbed.
“Is there any mail?” I asked, as if I had not heard, as if I had lost my capacity to understand.
In truth, I was trying to come to a decision.
“No,” Carmichael replied flatly, with perhaps a tinge of sympathy. “No mail.”
My agent put the governor’s offer to me another three times before I realized one morning that Paul would not be coming. He’d had almost nine months to visit me, and even without my letter, that should have been enough time for him to return—or at least to send me word to assure me that all would be well. I briefly toyed with the idea of sending a messenger to the plantation owner to ask whether the transaction between him and Paul had come about, but how would I feel if the message came back that he and his charming wife were already there for a visit and amusing themselves in style?
I told Carmichael to let the governor know that I consented.
The birth itself was one of the most dreadful things I had ever experienced. I lay in agony for hours, wishing only for release. With hindsight I’m glad that my memory has blocked out most of the details of the event. All I remember is the moment when the baby slipped from me, and I felt a wonderful sense of relief. The local midwife, who was clearly unaware of the arrangement, put the crying baby to my breast but quickly snatched it away again after the doctor whispered something in her ear that I did not catch.
But that moment was enough. I had seen that sweet face, a face that was still too new to show any real family likeness but that was nevertheless wonderful. And I had also seen that she was a girl. I had a little daughter!
But it was too late to turn back. The child had been promised to another family, and the birth had weakened me to such an extent that I was unable to protest. She was taken away, and I had nothing but my memories of the birth—a week of the deepest mental anguish and innumerable tears—leaving me emotionally scarred and with a deeply wounded heart.
Although it had caused a stir that I had vanished for so long from the stage, my audience forgave me for my absence and welcomed me, freshly recovered from childbirth, back into the limelight. I should have enjoyed my return to the role of admired musician, but I could not enjoy the applause, since I was firmly of the opinion that I did not deserve it.
Carmichael did not care. He organized concert after concert for me. The concert halls grew smaller, and the interest of the people grew less, but I played on—playing without soul, playing for no other reason than to silence my guilty conscience. In the evenings, after my performances, an empty shell would gaze back at me from the mirror, and at night I would be plagued by nightmares in which I saw a blood-smeared child’s face that reproached me for giving her away.
But in the mornings I would don my mask again, and after a while I had gotten so used to it that I believed I was the old Rose again, the one who lived for nothing but music. I may have succeeded on the outside, but the fact that it was mere deception was clear to me from the way the images refused to return when I played.
Then, a few years later, I met Johan de Vries, a plantation owner from the vicinity of Padang. He appeared at one of my concerts, and although the bloom had gone from my cheeks and the light from my eyes, he came shyly to the door of my dressing room with a bouquet of dark red roses that looked fiendishly expensive.
At that moment, as he stood there scarcely daring to look at me, I knew that he might be my salvation—that, through him, I could save my soul.
I won’t call it love—Paul had taken that away over the sea with him and, laughing, had thrown it overboard to be eaten by the sharks.
In contrast to my relationship with Paul, it took time for Johan and me to grow close. Roses in the dressing room, brief conversations, letters, walks. He was devoted, making every effort to satisfy my wishes, and I accepted his gifts graciously. As my eyes were not clouded by love, I recognized that he was my chance to restore my honor.
One day he went down on one knee before me to ask for my hand in marriage. I hardly hesitated before accepting. This was anything but acceptable to Carmichael, since it meant that I would never tread the stage again and was not going to end my days as a violinist in the dives of Jakarta. I paid Carmichael off with a generous sum of money and assured him of my friendship. I also entrusted Mai to his care, as I no longer needed her.
I could have created a stir of a different kind with a grand wedding, but I asked Johan for a quiet marriage with an unassuming celebration among a tiny circle of friends and family. I did not want to remind the world of what I had once been but to withdraw quietly and without fuss. There was not even an announcement of the wedding in the paper—at my request. In his adoration of me, Johan did everything I wanted.
&nb
sp; I hardly recall our wedding night, or any of the other nights we spent in our marriage bed. He was not a thoughtless lover; on the contrary, he was gentle, considerate of me, moving carefully and making every effort not to cause me pain. But it was as though his devotion fell on stony ground. I let it all wash over me, and only if I closed my eyes and thought of Paul was it any better than merely bearable.
As it turned out, I became pregnant in no time, which caused great joy among my husband’s family. I gave the appearance of being pleased, too, and I bore the aches and pains with good grace. It came all the easier to me since there was no audience, and no impatient agent, waiting for me. I still played the violin every now and then, but only because I convinced myself that the baby inside me would perhaps be musical and that I was doing some good by transmitting the sounds to it.
That birth, too, was awful, but this time I was given strength by the knowledge that I would keep the baby, and maybe it would be consolation for the loss of my firstborn. The midwife placed a little boy to my breast, every bit as beautiful as the child I did not know.
This time I did not recover so quickly. I had childbed fever and lay there, delirious, for days. I have no idea what I said during that time. At my worst I may have called out for Paul, again and again, begging him to come back to me. When I finally awoke, my first thoughts were of him, but fortunately I was sufficiently awake to realize that it was not Paul bending over my bed but Johan, who was ill with worry.
“You’re back with me!” he said with relief as he stroked my hair and kissed me. “I thought I was going to lose you too.”
He had chosen his words rather thoughtlessly, as they immediately aroused my suspicion.
“What’s the matter with our son?” I asked weakly as fear froze my blood.
Johan appeared to recognize his mistake. He bit his lip and realized that lying would help nothing. “Our son . . . is dead,” he said dully, drawing me into his arms.
If the loss of my daughter had already deeply wounded my heart, these words finally broke it in two. As I found out later, my boy had a heart defect, which he must have inherited from his father’s family, since Johan had two sisters who had also died of the same cause.
I was immediately overcome by a strange weakness. It was thought at first to be caused by the melancholy I was feeling as a grieving mother, but when I broke down one day at the foot of the stairs, Johan called the doctor, who sat down by me with a serious expression.
“Mevrouw de Vries, I’m afraid I don’t have good news for you. Your heart has been seriously weakened by the childbed fever. You must take great care of yourself during the coming months; otherwise I’m afraid of the consequences.”
The words dried up in his throat, but I knew what he meant. If I did not look after myself, I would die. At only twenty-nine years of age!
After the doctor left, Johan came to me and took me silently in his arms. I could sense how much love lay in his touch, how much despair there was in his tears, but I felt nothing.
I was sure of only one thing, that it was not the childbed fever that had damaged my heart. No, the loss of my two babies had broken it, and I felt that if I did not at least find my daughter again, I would be condemned to eternal damnation after my death.
February 13, 1910
The day has now come. I’m to meet with the detective. I’m incredibly nervous, something my doctor warned me against as my weak heart can no longer withstand excitement, and my ailing veins could burst at any time. I refuse to believe that God is so cruel as to take away my life before I can discover where my daughter lives. I know I have sinned, but all human beings have a right to earn forgiveness, don’t they?
Later . . .
I can hardly describe how I felt as I stood outside the detective agency. My rapid heartbeat had made me breathless, and at first I could not walk a step farther. My body was trembling from head to toe, and one or two concerned passersby asked if I was unwell. I sent them away with the excuse that the hot climate didn’t suit me, which didn’t particularly surprise them as I give a good impression of being an Englishwoman. (Paul’s fiancée had complained constantly about the heat.) I finally managed to enter the building where Cooper Swanson had his office. In addition to his unattractive appearance, he also had a rather dubious past, according to the rumors that surrounded him. One such was that he had previously served in the British army in India but had to flee from there after a fight with a fellow soldier. Another version claims that he had been involved with Chinese bandits, ransacking English villas in India. I have no interest in whether there is any truth in either or both of these versions. I wanted only one thing: an answer to the question I had put to him weeks before.
He received me with a look of concern, probably because my lips had turned blue as they always did when I was under great stress.
“Your case has been a challenge for me, Mrs. de Vries,” he began, sinking down into the old leather chair behind his desk. “But I have some positive news for you.”
He pushed a thin black folder across the desk. I opened it cautiously, arming myself mentally against the unknown yet still unprepared for what I was about to see.
The photo showed a girl, around seven years old and such a spitting image of how I used to look that I could not help gasping in shock. There was no doubt that this was the child whose face I had seen lying against my breast so long ago!
“I had to bribe a few people, but it paid off,” Swanson remarked smugly, as he could sense that I considered he had done his work satisfactorily. “The girl is in the care of James and Ivy Carter, a very respectable family in Padang. You will find the address beneath the photo. You can now decide whether you would like any further . . . services from me. I will say that the security at their house is hardly substantial.”
At first I wondered what he meant, but then it dawned on me.
February 15, 1910
I can hardly believe it! The girl, that little girl with the amber eyes! The detective was right; it really was her. And I’ve spoken to her. I have no idea what I was like as a child, but this girl is so open, so sympathetic. All these years I’ve been imagining what she would be like. I’ve wondered which of us, her father or me, she would resemble. And now I’ve seen her.
There’s hardly a trace of me or my ancestors in her; her eyes are shaped like her father’s, and her skin is very white. No one would know that the blood of the Minangkabau flows in her veins. But the color of her eyes—they’re like mine and my mother’s. My mother, whom I haven’t seen since she set off back to her village. She would have been so incredibly proud of her granddaughter. And I’m proud of my daughter, although I know that I’ve sinned deeply against her . . .
All my life I’ve never believed in any god, but I thank whoever granted me the mercy of seeing her, of speaking to her, from the bottom of my heart. Even though that heart has shown me all the more clearly today how weak it is.
March 27, 1910
After a month of illness and weakness that almost deprived me of the confidence to keep my promise, I can finally go and see her again!
As my heart fought to keep on beating, I imagined my little girl standing behind the wrought-iron gates. No, I didn’t see them as a prison; they looked more like the gates to Heaven, a Heaven from which I was excluded. But I’m grateful that I can at least catch another glimpse.
Later . . .
My little Helen now has the violin, and I somehow feel as though I’m with her, day and night, to watch over her. We have agreed to meet regularly so that I can teach her to play.
How I would love to take her and have her with me, but I cannot. She would be made an orphan in just a few months, and then there might be no one who would look after her as well as the Carters.
But there are still two things I have to do before I close my eyes forever.
The first is already done—I’ve written a letter to Paul.
My resentment against him has faded now, and I’ve even come to understan
d that he could not have acted otherwise back then. Yes, I still refuse to accept that he acted out of spite. He had probably hardly set foot back on English soil when he was beset by so many obligations that he had no other choice.
I nevertheless recently asked Carmichael, with whom I have still had sporadic contact over the years despite the termination of our business relationship, to pass on this last message from me. Paul should know what has become of our child. Perhaps the years have also changed him, and he will now be prepared to accept the responsibility. Even if he doesn’t, I know she’s in very good hands; the Carters are a caring family, and their wealth will be of great benefit to her.
And now I’m sitting down at my desk once again to compose a letter to my mother, whom I have not seen for so long.
The fact that I did not tell her about my pregnancy, that I didn’t invite her to my wedding, are two more sins that weigh heavily on me. I wanted at all costs to prevent the adat from having a claim on me, so I forgot that it wouldn’t be an imperious old woman waiting for me there but my mother, my mother who loves me and who could perhaps have helped me to make a different decision . . .
28
By the time Lilly awoke it was almost noon. She blinked sleepily in the dull daylight that fell through the window.
It was not until a few minutes had passed that she realized she had spent the whole night reading Rose Gallway’s diary. The little book lay on her pillow and had left an impression on her face.
The Moonlit Garden Page 35