by Arthur Japin
“But that’s absurd. Sunday and Saturday, a birthday each week! Whatever next?” She lost her patience, spun round to face Kwame and gave him a commanding look: “Come now, tell me the date of your birth.”
“I don’t know it,” he said.
“He doesn’t know!” Sophie turned to me saying, “And are you any better informed, may I ask?”
“Not really,” I said. She wrinkled her nose when she laughed, like a puppy about to sneeze. “I only know what I’ve been told,” I went on, “but I have no proof, for I can’t remember being born.”
“Nor can I!” She thought for a while. “In actual fact . . .” she went on, “in actual fact, my birthday is the only proof I have.”
“And when is it?”
“The eighth of April.” As an afterthought she said: “So it’s not for a long time yet.”
“We know that,” said Kwame, feeling somewhat left out. “We know the months. We’re not stupid.” Sophie walked away. I was afraid that we had vexed her, but she soon returned, with the bearded saint trailing after her. St. Nicholas bent over so that he might speak to us face-to-face. The acrid smell of tobacco! I did my best not to start coughing again.
“What’s this I hear? Don’t you boys have birthdays?”
“No sir,” I said.
“But then we must pick a date at once.”
Anna Pavlovna abandoned her tête-à-tête with Madame Kuchelev at the other end of the room and sailed over to see what the commotion was about.
“Goodness gracious!” she cried. “What’s the matter with them? They haven’t even opened their present.”
“It’s not their birthday,” said Sophie.
“Since when does it have to be one’s birthday before one can open one’s gift from St. Nicholas?”
“You don’t understand,” the saint said. “They don’t have birthdays. They don’t celebrate them.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“What an odd way of attracting attention,” Anna Pavlovna remarked, glancing at us quizzically. The saint hitched up his robe and sat down beside us.
“What was the date of your departure from Africa?” he asked. “You do know that, don’t you?”
Kwame remembered exactly. Van Drunen had written it down for us, and as soon as Kwame learned to use a calendar he looked up the day at once, and marked it. It was also etched in my memory because Kwame hadn’t spoken a word all day when the date had come round last spring.
“The twenty-fourth of April,” he said.
“And the date of your arrival in the Netherlands?”
“The twenty-first of June.”
“In that case we shall from now on celebrate your birthday, Prince Aquasi, on the twenty-fourth of April. And yours, Prince Quame, on the twenty-first of June. How does that strike you?”
“Wonderful, Pappa!” exclaimed Sophie. She giggled at her mistake: “I mean St. Nicholas, of course.”
Suddenly Willem Alexander, the heir apparent, came in. He had wiped the blacking off his face, but some of it had remained, emphasizing the lines that were already appearing around his eyes, which were small and partially hidden by a fold of eyelid. His cheeks were rosy from scrubbing, and shone with some kind of grease. He had exchanged his bloomers for a suit. He took a glass of port and tried hard to make up for his previous outburst of ill temper. The other Black Peter turned up in his wake. In uniform.
“Hendrik, such fun!” The princess ran towards him. “I was thinking the whole time that you had to be the other silly nigger, but I couldn’t possibly see which was which. I was looking for you, as I want to introduce you to two friends of mine, with whom you’ll have a lot to talk about, I’m sure. Prince Quame and Prince Aquasi, this is my brother Hendrik.”
The young man, with a flushed, plump face, held out his hand and also saluted in acknowledgment of our station, which was superfluous but well intentioned. Sophie put her arm through his.
“He knows the tropics better than anyone. I’ve had to miss him for so long. I only got him back last summer. And now I shan’t let him go again. Go on, Hendrik, tell them. He’s seen so much of the world, for someone so young!”
The prince asked for a bite of food, and withdrew with us to the next room. He spoke with ardour of faraway lands. At the age of sixteen he had already rounded the Cape, but the only place in Africa he had visited was Table Mountain. He talked of life at sea and the customs on board, of Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, Delhi, and the Himalayas. His fondest memories were of the East Indies, which he had visited last year, the first member of the House of Orange to do so. He lowered his voice, twirled his wrists in the air, and from time to time he caught a glimpse, over our heads, of green hillsides, the courtyard of a native temple, a long lost friend. In a few words he brought to life the string of islands on the school atlas: Celebes, Java, Ambon, Ternate.
Sophie was spellbound. She urged him to give more and more details about the wildernesses he had seen and the customs of the peoples he had encountered. She was not moved by a desire for sensational facts, like most people. Her interest in other worlds and peoples was heartfelt and passionate.
Sophie told her brother about the spider in Raden Saleh’s studio. To our astonishment he already knew the tales of Anansi. During his stay in the South American colony of Suriname two years earlier, the ambassador had taken the young man, who was bored with official banquets, to a circle of carefully selected slaves. They had fired his imagination with stories of Spider Anansi, his friend Tsetse the fly, his wife Sis Akuba and all their children. To hear those names that we had known as children coming from the mouth of a stranger moved us deeply. Sophie took the coincidence to be an omen. She couldn’t get over it. I liked seeing her so intrigued, so I did not explain how the story had got around. Besides, that subject was too unpleasant to be broached on a festive occasion such as this. (When we were in Elmina we discovered that the slaves sold to the Hollanders year-in year-out had been destined for the colony of Suriname. They had been robbed of everything except their minds and their stories.)
We were offered cake with icing, and a glass of punch. Sophie urged Hendrik to tell us some more adventures of Spider Anansi. Now and then I glanced at Kwame. He seemed utterly at ease. Stories you know by heart, like dreams, will never bore you.
Crown Prince Willem Frederik, whose birthday it was, asked his guests to play and sing for him. A young countess with little crooked teeth immediately drew out a score from her bodice and burst into song. She gave a very poor performance, which encouraged the others to do better. After three more songs the crown prince beckoned us to his side. The smell was unmistakable—he was smoking one cigarette after the other—but otherwise all that was left of his bishop’s disguise was some flaky dried glue, which Sophie proceeded to pick out of his bushy side-whiskers. He asked us to demonstrate our musical skills. I played an étude on the pianoforte, with moderate success, after which Kwame displayed that his talent in music far surpassed mine. He played some Bach variations on the harpsichord, followed by a solo on the clarinet, which had been hastily procured for him from the Russian musicians.
My own performance was rewarded with polite applause, but Kwame was deluged with praise. He hardly noticed, because whenever he made music he was lost to the world. If I am honest, I think that may have been an impediment to my own artistic development: seeing how effortlessly the muses lured my beloved cousin to other spheres, from which I was barred. Not that I grudged him his escape. I was fascinated by his abandon and tried to imitate his devotion to the arts. My vain efforts only hardened my resolve to understand the mind of the artist. Dreams do not come true by keeping one’s eyes shut.
He was playing again when I was beckoned by Anna Pavlovna, who was having a conversation with her eldest son. Willem Alexander, the heir apparent, was quite tipsy by now, and all the more mellow for it.
“Quelle émotion! Le prince est vraiment talenté!” Anna Pavlovna remarked, when the last notes had died away.
She spoke French so as to keep their exchange private.
“Ce sont des sauvages bien élevés, maman,” her son concurred warmly.
He signalled Kwame to come forward. My cousin had some difficulty extricating himself from a throng of admiring young ladies, for which I envied him.
“Mais venez donc, mon tout petit grand homme, venez ici!” Anna Pavlovna said, and introduced him to Willem Alexander, on whom it was beginning to dawn that we understood French. He looked at me askance and seemed slightly uneasy again.
“Prince Quame will ascend to the throne one day.”
“The throne?”
“Just like you, dear boy.”
“Where is this throne to which he will ascend, may I ask?”
“Oh, it is very far away!” said Anna Pavlovna, and she was overcome with emotion. “So very far away, poor dears!” She averted her face. “It is merely the music making me sentimental!” she said primly, without glancing at us. Willem Alexander was perplexed.
Sophie offered further explanation. “Quame is to be the king of Ashanti.”
“But,” said Willem Alexander, “I was given to understand that the father of the other one . . .”
“They do things differently over there,” Sophie began, as if she thought it was rather a good idea. “Dynastic succession passes in the female line.”
“Good Lord!” Willem Alexander exclaimed. “Whatever next!” He shook his head and emptied his glass. A hint of mockery had come into his voice.
“Why should Holland provide the yardstick whereby we measure others?” Anna Pavlovna said sternly. “Heaven forbid it should be so.”
“Why shouldn’t a king use the yardstick of his own kingdom?” answered her son.
Anna Pavlovna rose from her seat and drew herself up, no longer a mother now, but every inch a Romanov, daughter of the tsar.
“For the time being it is your grandfather who is king. And then it will be your dear papa’s turn. And after that, who knows . . .?” She sniffed and called for a handkerchief. The message was passed on from one valet to the next until at last her personal page presented the requested article to her on a silver tray, with a deep bow.
In the meantime she had addressed her son with a hard smile on her lips: “Every gardener, dear boy, must know what grows in the forest before he can even mow a lawn.” She blew her nose, dropped the handkerchief on the floor as was her custom, and flounced off.
We returned to Delft in the night. Once we were in our room we opened the present St. Nicholas had given us. He had spoken the truth. The package came from my father, but it had been opened, inspected and re-wrapped at the Ministry of Colonies. Among the contents was a notice from Elmina stating that the Asantehene had dispatched six ounces of gold dust in payment for our upkeep, as well as two pairs of necklaces and rings as gifts. The ornaments made us glad that we had not been forgotten, but the gold they were made of was so cold to the touch that we took them off again quickly.
Kwame was very tired, but thoughts of the Black Peters kept him awake. I told him not to take offence at their antics, that it was all part of an old Dutch tradition, that we had curious traditions at home, too. Such folk ways are maintained, but the significance is largely forgotten. Kwame thought that was the worst, the most dangerous sort of tradition. He became quite agitated. Fortunately I drifted off after a while and dreamed I was on a ship scudding across the ocean with a huge pair of bloomers for a sail: I stood at the helm, humming a wordless tune.
“I don’t know, sir,” we overheard Cornelius de Groot stammering as we entered the classroom the next morning. Our outing had not escaped the notice of our schoolmates: Mrs. van Moock talked of nothing else. Besides, since we had returned so late we were permitted to rise two hours later than normal, and so to miss the first lessons. This was considered most unfair by the other boys, even by those who had befriended us. To make matters worse we came in just in time to witness Cornelius being put in his place.
“Master de Groot, it is not my custom to blame a simpleton for his stupidity, but your case is different. You are shrewd enough outside the classroom. Shrewd enough to take advantage of your peers. So your ignorance must be due to idleness.”
“Oh no sir, I have just remembered the answer!”
“Shrewd enough to make notes on your cuff, I see. No, you may not answer the question now. Aquasi, do you know the answer?”
I glanced at the blackboard.
“One-and-a-half-times the quotient of the short sides,” I said. I was guessing, and had the audacity to flash Cornelius a quick look of triumph.
“Do you hear, Master de Groot? It is but one year since the princes of Ashanti entered my care, and you have been my pupil for four already. You should take their example.”
“I’d sooner take horse-shit for breakfast,” Cornelius muttered under his breath, returning my look defiantly. He had never been as crude as this. I remembered how he had said never to lower your guard, especially when you think you have the upper hand.
“What was that?” asked the headmaster, who either had not heard properly or could not believe his ears. “The impudence!” But his exclamation was drowned out by a burst of laughter, which was all the louder for having been suppressed for so long.
Cornelius had imposed certain restrictions on Verheeck and his cronies. The actual bullying was over. I myself had grown too strong. But neither Kwame nor I made any friends at school after that. Conversations would flag when we approached. We withdrew from games and sport of our own accord. We surrounded ourselves with books, and the friends we had made at court were to be our only allies.
That I fell ill was due to the cold, and not, as Kwame would have it, to grief. It started with a stab of pain in my back each time I breathed. Then I started to cough, especially in the morning and at night, and after five weeks I was finding it increasingly hard to breathe during the day too. The squeaking in my lungs grew so loud that I was banned from attending classes until I was cured.
Kwame, always quicker to adapt to the forces of nature than to those of man, did not suffer from the cold, but he refused to pursue his lessons without me. When severe and repeated punishment proved to no avail, the headmaster gave in and permitted Kwame to keep me company in my room, as long as he took his work with him and handed in his copy-books each afternoon.
I was finding it increasingly hard to climb the stairs to the second floor. My listlessness kept me awake, which in turn gave me headaches and pains in the lower back. I lost my appetite and grew thin, until Mrs. van Moock found me in bed one morning drenched in perspiration. She turned back the covers and the look in her eyes told me I was dangerously ill. A doctor was called, who diagnosed bronchitis and prescribed steam baths. Two weeks later the steam baths had not had any noticeable effect, and van Moock decided it was time to notify Commissioner van Drunen.
I received a letter from Princess Sophie:
I am afraid it was I who put your health at risk, by insisting that you both come down to the beach with me that evening at the pavilion in Scheveningen. I hope you will understand that I had grown tired of the company, and even of my mechanical doll. When I had made the doll write my name on enough sheets of paper to give each subject of this kingdom a copy, there was only one thing left to amuse me. To follow the call of raging winter. The sea roared to make me hear. Hendrik’s sea. I tried to persuade my brother to take a walk in the storm with me, but he demurred, more convincingly than you and your cousin. Quame seemed quite eager to embrace the elements, the way he used to in the past. I could think of no better company in which to brave the storm than you two, who are familiar with the forces of nature. Had I known of your constitution, I would never have pressed my wishes upon you, but as it is, my memory of the occasion is very dear to me. How wonderful to lean against the wind and be lifted up on its wings, as if one were weightless and airborne. To spread one’s arms like a bird, ah, to throw one’s cares to the wind! We have so much in common, you and I. I weep for the loneliness bo
th of you must endure. But you do not stand alone. Please believe me. We must trust in God.
And now you are unwell! The respiratory ailment you are reported to be su fering from is not unfamiliar to me. Last summer it kept me in bed for many weeks, and to my great regret I was therefore unable to attend Prince Hendrik’s homecoming, because I had been sent away to convalesce. My mother blames everything on the Dutch climate, which she claims is utterly unsuitable for human habitation. “I shall have St. Peter explain it all to me one day,” she’ll say when she’s in one of her moods where you can’t tell if she’s serious or joking: “and I shall discover why the Lord God created a people so misguided as to choose to live in a bog!” The bad news of your ill health is a cause of great concern to her and to the Crown Prince, who is equally your friend. Steps are being taken to hasten your recovery, which I hope will be speedy. Please be so kind as to convey my respectful greetings to Prince Quame and also to accept them yourself,
Sophie, Princess of the Netherlands.
P.S. Spiritual nourishment can fortify the body, too. Enclosed you will therefore find a play. It is entitled Mahomet, and was written by Monsieur Voltaire. Mamma is afraid Monsieur Voltaire might have a bad influence on me, but some of his lines have a special resonance for us. I have marked them in the book, and have made them my personal motto: “All mortals are equal; it is not birth that distinguishes them, but virtue.”
Hardly had we received Sophie’s missive than Professor Everard, who had treated Sophie during her sickness, arrived at the school. He was also physician to Crown Prince Willem Frederik, whose health had never been good.
The doctor forbade the steam baths at once, wrapped me in mustard poultices and prescribed covering my thorax with strips of cloth soaked in sulphur. Within a few hours the entire floor was filled with the stench of rotten eggs.
The smell in our room was unbearable. I was having difficulty breathing and my heart was beating irregularly, which made me dizzy. I advised Kwame to take refuge from the sulphurous fumes for a while in the next room, but he refused to leave my side. He spent many hours guarding over me at night, making me turn on my side as soon as I rolled over, because that helped me to breathe. By the time he fell asleep it would be morning, and even in his dreams he was alert to every change in the pattern of my breathing, so that the slightest shift would awaken him. Then he would lay his ear on my chest, listening like the doctor. When I asked him what he heard he replied, “A heart like a horse run riot.” I scoffed at his comparison, which must have come from one of the modern poems in the anthology Mrs. van Moock had kindly lent us, but later that night I had a feverish dream in which I saw a heart with little legs galloping round as fast as it could.