“You see, I have survived the war,” said Bouman, setting the soup before his guest, “but only in pieces.”
“Where were you?” said Tan.
“Here.”
“Here? The whole war here? Mr. Bouman, how can that be? All the Dutch were transported.”
“But the French were not. Remember, Vichy is an ally of the Golden Prosperity Sphere.” Bouman smiled slyly, then, reaching behind him to a splintered shelf, he found a passport. He handed it to Tan.
Tan opened the passport. There was Bouman’s picture—an old picture, to be sure, where Bouman’s fine blond hair actually reached his forehead in a bank rather than one sharp point in the center—the name Jean Guillotte, and the birthplace, Marseille, République de France.
“Very clever,” said Tan. “And how did you survive the natives?”
“I hear a trader down the coast was buried alive,” said Bouman with a smile. “But I am lucky. So much sadness puts people off,” he said.
“They say the ghost of Katrina wanders here, that she will steal your heart as her heart was stolen.”
Just then a shadow passed by the window and Tan thought he’d seen her, Katrina, although thinner and darker. He turned quickly to Bouman.
“And you,” said Bouman, “do you think Katrina still walks here?”
There was an awkward moment of silence, then a figure appeared in the door, a young woman carrying an infant strapped across her in a batik sling.
“This is Karen,” said Bouman.
Tan stiffened. The young woman looked Tan up and down, then turned to Bouman, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. This woman was nothing like the shy Katrina. She was darker and Tan realized with a shock that this was his genetic donation. Her eyes met his boldly and it seemed that she recognized him for who he was. Her hair was not brushed but matted into one huge knot at the nape of her neck. Tan calculated that she must be twenty-three years old, but she looked a good deal older. This Karen squatted by the table. She did not seem to care that there was a visitor, but looked at her father with some slyness and satisfaction.
Tan had anticipated another situation altogether, where he was in charge, but now Bouman and the woman were grinning at each other across the table in an exclusive way that could easily be taken as clairvoyant. No, thought Tan, madness. He took a spoonful of soup and began planning his departure.
The soup was odd, slightly bitter, with a nutty aroma that he could not place. People ate many strange things during the war and in the deprivation following. Tan wondered if perhaps the soup had been flavored with wood. Just then the baby, which Tan had pushed to the back of his mind, stirred in the sling and began wailing. The woman shifted on her ankles, clucking anxiously, then produced one skinny breast that she popped into the baby’s mouth. She moved the sling slightly to accommodate this action and Tan saw the baby’s sharp eyes and square face, the thick shock of vertical hair that was not a family trait, the paler skin.
Tan looked to Bouman.
“Yes,” said Bouman, “the father is Japanese, but she does not know who. She was not as lucky as me. She spent the war in Batavia as a comfort woman. She’d always wanted to go to Batavia, like her mother, for schooling.”
“I am sorry,” said Tan, stuttering over the phrase.
“Irony,” said Bouman and smiled. “My greatest fear was that men would steal my girls, but look, ruined for anything, delivered permanently into my hands, given back to me, my lovely girls, by men.”
Tan shook his head sympathetically. “She does not speak?”
“She,” said Bouman, “has nothing to say.”
The baby had fallen back asleep while nursing and Karen pulled up to the table, taking a seat and a bowl of soup close to Bouman’s right elbow.
“Tell me,” said Bouman, “what you plan to accomplish by this visit. I am no longer a trader, everything is gone, except for a small stash of gin and some rat poison.”
“I will be honest with you,” said Tan. “I thought you were dead. I was worried what would happen to Katrina, because of her Dutch blood. In Java, the Allies have herded all the Dutch into protection camps.” Tan glanced sideways at Bouman, who, in the old tradition, was speedily slopping up his soup. “They have been forced to hire Japanese troops to protect them.”
“Protect them?”
“From the Indonesians.”
“Indonesians?” said Bouman, looking slyly up from the bowl. “And who are these Indonesians? Before we got here, there were no Indonesians. There were Dayak, Batak, Asmat—headhunters and cannibals selling their daughters for glass beads. And now, you are Indonesian? Can you tell me that you love the Balinese as brothers? That you find the negro of Irian Jaya anything but a terrifying barbarian?”
Tan felt a chill at the base of his spine. “What can I tell you that will satisfy you?” said Tan. “There is nothing just in this world, but some things are essential to improvement in the future and we must take the bitter to achieve the sweet.”
“You speak like a politician.”
“I am a politician,” said Tan. “You would like something more direct? Your time has passed. You have profited in another’s country, which is equivalent to theft, and I would rather see you leave, but could easily kill you and feel justified.”
“You support the devil Sukarno.”
“Sukarno,” said Tan with a cryptic smile, “supports me.”
There was silence after that, maybe a whole fifteen minutes without a word said. Karen stood up to spill more soup into everyone’s bowl and Tan continued eating, despite the odd flavor, because he was tired of speaking to Bouman. Bouman was insane and this woman, Tan’s daughter, and the little Japanese baby, Tan’s grandson, were strangers and more than that, beyond the realm of his plan of noble return and rescue. What would he do with these people, inextricably bound to him by his own folly, by accidents of blood and union? Bouman was drinking a tall glass of gin. Tan saw that Karen too was drinking and thought of his other daughters, perfect ladies protected in yards of fabric, manners. They would never recognize her and they would despise their father’s indiscretion. Tan closed his eyes, unwilling to imagine further the sequence of ideas.
“Do you remember,” said Bouman, interrupting the moment of peace, “how I once told you that if I had enough of this”—Bouman raised his glass—“that I would show you my fingers?”
“Yes, yes I do. I remember that.”
Bouman got up and went to the far corner of the room, where the hammock was slung from the beams. Bouman ducked under it and began to rifle through some belongings that cluttered the top of a crude set of shelves. He lit a candle and long shadows began to dance across the wall, animated by each breeze that shivered the flame. Tan could see from the man’s clumsiness that he had had a lot to drink. Karen watched her grandfather for a moment, her face softening, but then growing blank. She stood up and took the baby from the sling. She rocked it softly, then offered the baby to Tan. Tan was chilled. He did not want to hold the child; he shuddered, then realized he had never been in a position to be so cruel.
“I can see you love your baby,” said Tan, finally relenting, extending his arms, and taking the child who, from his estimate, was about four months old. Karen smiled slightly, but her eyes were filling with tears. She snatched the baby back and began desperately cooing at it, even though the baby seemed peaceful and content.
Tan stood up. He had had enough for one evening. His blood pressure, he thought, must be soaring, because he was dizzy and heavy pounding had begun in his ears. He was also a bit short of breath. He looked over at Karen. To his surprise, she too seemed to have difficulty breathing. Her lips were pulling at the corners and Tan saw that she had no teeth.
“Here they are,” said Bouman with satisfaction. “Sit down, Tan. It will all be over soon.”
Tan sat down. Bouman was holding a yellowed linen handkerchief. He unfolded this ceremoniously until the two shriveled, leathery fingers were revealed. The nails were brown wi
th age and the fingers had curled, which made them look alive. Bouman set them down on the table.
“To what do I owe this honor?” asked Tan. He was feeling sweaty and weak. Something must have been off in the soup because his intestines were seizing up and he felt suddenly cold.
“This honor? I would like to be buried whole.”
“Why?” asked Tan unsympathetically. “Are you dying?”
“We are all dying,” answered Bouman. His voice sounded distant and muffled.
“Age,” said Tan, “has made you philosophical.”
Bouman laughed. “No, no. We are all dying. I have poisoned us by putting arsenic in the soup.”
The next morning Aya crept into the compound. She had heard the Japanese were finally vanquished and was worried about the old Dutchman, who was an idiot and a drunk, but not evil. She also missed soap and cigarettes, which at this juncture she preferred to betel. Most compellingly, she wanted to know if Karen, who was a daughter to her, had survived the war. Many nights she had stayed awake with her heart pounding, vibrating down to her very wrists, remembering the soldiers dragging Karen by her hair as she struggled to get her feet beneath her. She remembered Bouman’s strong arms holding her back, whispering,
“Aya, they will kill her if we protest. Let them go. It will not be long before we are liberated.”
Aya stood in the burnt square of what had been the house. Versteegh’s dwelling was gone too. There was a cigarette half smoked, carelessly tossed into the ruins. She picked this up, smoothed it straight, then stuck it behind her ear for later. Bouman was still alive, still smoking, still wasting tobacco. There was a prahu anchored close by and on it she could just make out the outline of men moving about. Why would a boat be moored so close without Bouman in attention? Perhaps the Nationalists had taken over.
“Bouman!” she called. “Bouman, sir, where are you?”
In response, Aya heard the caterwauling of an infant. Aya’s blood froze. The sound was coming from the manager’s hut. She was not one to be overwhelmed by superstition, but her first thought was that a spirit was tricking her, using the most compelling sound known to woman to draw her into the hut. Who knows what evil awaited her there?
“Bouman, sir!” she called again. “Bouman!”
A canoe had set off from the prahu angling for shore. Aya watched the rise and dip of paddles, the sun glinting off black hair and sweating arms, the sun brightening the surface of the water in bladelike light and purple depressions. She felt the heat beginning slowly in the day, rising up through the earth. Aya found a match in her pocket that she had managed to secure before coming to the house. The baby was still crying. She lit the half cigarette. When it was burned clear to her fingers, she would make the short walk to the manager’s hut. She would boldly greet whatever evil awaited her. She was an old woman and tough. Was there something stronger than she? What secrets and horrors were there that these old bones did not remember, recorded in the very stuff, ringed in the marrow and shell as years are told in the trunks of trees?
VIDEO
Meera Nair
Naseer lay beside his wife in the dark and wished he had never seen that video. He blamed it for all the trouble they had been having lately. He knew Rasheeda was angrier than she had ever been in all their years of marriage. Ever since he first asked her the question, she had flung her silence at him. But that was only during the day, in front of the rest of the family. At night, after the children were asleep, she hadn’t been so quiet. Now, with his blood cooling, he thought of mollifying her as he had done for many nights lately, and making her understand with clear, logical, unemotional explanations why he needed her to do this for him. She was his wife, for God’s sake. He had rights, didn’t he?
“Rasheeda! Listen—” he began.
“Fifteen years we’ve been married and now you want me to do this—this thing!” His wife sat up abruptly, reached for her nightgown, and thrust her head into it.
Oh God, here she goes again.
“Allah, please put some sense into this man. Is this a good thing to ask your wife to do? I’ve had three of his children and now he asks me for this . . .” Her voice was muffled but the aggrieved tone came through loud and clear.
MEERA NAIR was born in Kerala, India, in 1963. She has an M.A. from Temple University, Philadelphia, and an M.F.A. from New York University, where she was a New York Times Fellow. Her debut collection, Video, was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2002. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
She acts as if she has a Star TV channel blasting directly into Allah’s living room. As if He’s just waiting there, eager to listen to Madam Rasheeda. Naseer knew the situation was serious, but he couldn’t help smiling in the dark.
“Allah, he has gone mad. His body’s noise is louder than any voice of reason,” Rasheeda continued.
Why does she talk so loud? Naseer twisted his head around to make sure the door to the children’s bedroom was closed. She will probably wake the children and his brothers and their wives and his mother the way she’s carrying on. Surely his brothers didn’t have troubles like his: a recalcitrant wife who sat up in bed at night and belligerently talked to her God.
He looked at her now as she sat marooned in the middle of the bed. The light from the streetlamp filtered through the cotton curtains, turning her broad back pale blue. It was hot and still and Naseer shivered involuntarily as the sweat on his legs dried.
A few nights ago, he had even cited the teachings of the mullahs exhorting Muslim wives to listen to their husbands in all things. But then she was hardly the sort to be frightened by the mullahs, not with her direct line to Allah.
“But Allah, I’ll tell you one thing. Never shall I submit to this man’s whims. I’ll do my duty as a wife, but where is it written that I have to do such things?” Rasheeda’s monologue showed no signs of flagging.
That last bit was for his benefit, not Allah’s, thought Naseer as he reached for his pajamas at the foot of the bed. And what was this about doing her duty as a wife? When she was in bed with him, she didn’t just lie there hating it like some other women he had heard about. He should know. She liked the stroking and rubbing all right. Not that there had been too much of that lately. Take tonight. He hadn’t cared to slip his hand down her body and finish her off. He’d asked her right in the middle of it all, gasping the question at her, shameless in his need. But once again she said no, shaking her head from side to side, her eyes tightly closed. So he had ended it quickly and not bothered with her at all. But it wasn’t right, and he didn’t like it. Naseer shifted uncomfortably on the far side of the bed. He liked his fingers being swallowed up in her slopes and ridges and bumps, in that hidden, miniature landscape all her own. He liked having her face turned up at him, her eyes gone far away to the place where her feeling was building. He liked her giggling, embarrassed because she thrashed about so much. She’d always giggled, ever since the first time, a few months after their wedding when he had finally stumbled on how to pull her across the threshold of fear and nervousness to pleasure.
Her complaints to Allah done at last, Rasheeda lay down, taking care to not brush against him in the muggy dark. Everything had been fine right until the moment he sat down on the black rattan chair in Khaleel’s shadowed living room and the video player was turned on.
Naseer had gone over to his cousin Khaleel’s place to ask his opinion about a new van he wanted to buy. He’d use it to deliver hardware supplies from his store to customers who phoned in their orders. One had to move with the times. Khaleel had his own auto repair shop and could pick out a bad vehicle from a good one by merely listening to the sound of its engine, like a doctor to a patient’s chest. Nusrat, his second brother’s wife, had called loudly after him from the kitchen window as he opened the gate and stepped out into the street. “It’s kababs tonight, so don’t be late. You know how Rasheeda won’t eat without you.”
Adnan, thin and gangly, with Rasheeda’s fine, flyaway ha
ir, was playing cricket in the street in front of the house. After a quick sideways glance confirming that his father had stopped to watch him, he gazed seriously at the ball. Old Janaki Ram was sitting on his stoop in his striped undershorts, customary teacup in hand.
“Your boy is hitting four after four today,” he said. Naseer smiled and rubbed at his beard to hide his pride.
A few minutes into Adnan’s turn at the wicket, Naseer started down the street and Adnan lifted his hand off the bat for a second in farewell. Naseer fought an impulse to tell Adnan to go home before it got too dark. He was fourteen and Naseer didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his friends.
The street barely managed to squeeze between the buildings that lined its length. The houses scrunched up against each other and in the shadows of the late evening they seemed to draw closer together, huddling over the street like gossipy old women. The houses around here had hardly changed from when his father’s father had first moved in here. Naseer looked up affectionately at the lacy wooden balconies, their curlicued railings still overhung with the saris housewives had forgotten to take inside from the sun. As he walked he greeted the men resting from the heat on the porches, old men who, with the memories of his father still fresh in them, expected him to stop and inquire respectfully about the gout or kidney stones or unemployed son they suffered from.
Here and there transistor radios played softly, the tinny voice of Lata Mangeshkar singing a song about being stricken sleepless by love. One stanza flowed into another, accompanying him from porch to porch all the way down until he turned the corner onto Khaleel’s street.
Here the houses around him were newer. Bright whitewashed walls shouldered up against worn stone flared and dimmed in the light of passing cars. A shiny black Fiat jutted out of a gate, taking up street space. Khaleel’s place was the last one, just before the street curved away at an angle.
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