After the Ashes

by Sara K. Joiner

  “When we reflect on this struggle we may console ourselves with the full belief that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt.”

  The sun climbed into the sky, and the smell grew stronger. I covered my nose with my hand, but it did little to help.

  The sunlight dancing on the water’s surface and the waves rocking the bodies in a gentle rhythm hypnotized me. Brigitta sat by my side, her eyes half closed and her hand over her face, too.

  No one was left.

  Vader. Tante Greet. Indah. Slamet. Mr. and Mrs. Burkart. Little Jeroen. Sister Hilde. Wilhemina De Graff. The man whose shirt we took.

  Even Krakatau itself was gone.

  My head drooped, and I fell back against the hot sand, waiting for death to take me, too.

  It was then that Brigitta shook me. “We can’t stay here.” Her voice was the barest whisper. I strained to hear it over the ocean’s waves.

  Unable to argue, I squinted at her in confusion. “Where are we going?” My own voice came out like the sigh of a butterfly.

  She pointed to her left ear. “What?”

  Struggling to sit up, I couldn’t speak any louder. Using my finger, I scrawled my question into the sand, hoping she could read my dreadful writing.

  She shook her head.

  I swept over my words and tried again. Slower. Careful to form each letter. My eyes swam, and the letters danced under my finger. Was I even writing Dutch? I couldn’t read what I wrote. How could Brigitta?

  She must have, though, because she pointed north.

  “How?” I wrote and gestured to my feet. They were a violent shade of red now.

  Crawling on her hands and knees, she beckoned me.

  Through sheer force of will, I managed to copy her. The sand coated my damp palms and stuck in the wrinkles of my knees.

  My neck prickled with heat, and I fought dizziness even though I wasn’t standing. The beach tilted, and I stumbled to my elbows over and over again.

  This was futile. We couldn’t crawl to Batavia.

  I collapsed. With my last bit of strength, I tossed a small piece of wood at Brigitta. She stopped and turned to me.

  Shaking my head, I said, “I can’t go on.” No sound came out. My heart beat so fast I thought it would burst from my chest. I couldn’t seem to get enough air, and I panted rapidly. The world tilted again, and I collapsed onto the sand.

  Making her way back to me, Brigitta cradled my head in her lap. Her face was bright pink from the sun, and her cracked lips were white and flaky.

  I tried to lick my own lips, but my tongue felt thick and useless, like a dry bit of meat stuck in my mouth.

  Both of us were starving, thirsty, burned. Both of us so close to death I could feel the Reaper standing behind us.

  Waiting.

  And then Brigitta spoke.

  “A boat.” Her soft whisper floated in the breeze. “Katrien, a boat!”

  Chapter 46

  “Look, Katrien! Do you see? It’s a boat!” I knew Brigitta was shouting as loudly as she could, but to me it sounded like the croaking of a far-off frog.

  Somehow—I don’t know where she drew the strength—she stood and waved her hands back and forth. “Here! We’re over here! Please help us!” She rasped and motioned her arms for many long minutes until her voice gave out and exhaustion overtook her.

  The boat didn’t move.

  Brigitta collapsed beside me.

  A shadow passed over us. I knew what it was. “Death,” I murmured. I could not even hear my own voice.

  But it was not Death I saw when I looked up. It was a group of men who stood above us, staring. They were natives, though their clothing did not look like the sarongs and batik prints I saw on the men in Anjer.

  I struggled to sit up, but my arms wouldn’t work and I dropped back onto the sand. Beside me, Brigitta’s breath came in short pants.

  “Water?” No sound came out.

  They gave me a quizzical look.

  Lethargically, I mimed eating and drinking.

  The man in front turned to his companions. They conversed in a loud, rapid language I did not know. The man, apparently the leader, waved at us and pointed.

  Another ship, smaller than the one Brigitta had seen, was anchored not far off shore. How had we missed it?

  He gestured to us, then to himself and then to the ship.

  I nodded.

  He said something I didn’t understand and motioned toward the ship again.

  Brigitta squeezed my fingers. I tried once more to sit up, but I could not manage it.

  The leader whispered to two of his men. In one swift motion, they bent down and scooped us up as if we each weighed no more than a mouse.

  The boat was moored in the water, and the men had to walk through it to reach the side. Bodies swirled around us as we splashed to the vessel. The saltwater stung every sore on my feet. It felt like fire burning my toes. I cried out but no noises escaped my throat.

  The men either didn’t know or didn’t care about my pain. Time slowed on our slog. The man carrying me tripped over a body and nearly dropped me. One of my feet submerged completely before he righted himself. Boiling oil would have been less painful. I knew I would never recover from this agony.

  Finally we reached the boat. They hauled us onboard and set us down on the deck. The pain in my feet was unbearable. Was this rescue? My vision blurred. I couldn’t focus.

  An old man greeted us in Dutch. “So good to see some more faces.” He smiled. “I was beginning to wonder if anyone was left besides us.” He pointed to a woman holding a baby.

  The woman had skin like polished wood and was the darkest person I had ever seen. She was beautiful.

  The baby was wrapped in a bundle of cloth like a sack of rags.

  The old man introduced himself. “I’m Brecht Roemer, this is Kagiso and the baby is Pim.”

  My manners. Where were my manners? I must have left them on the beach. Did I leave anything else on the beach? What about On the Origin of Species? And my Hexarthrius rhinoceros rhinoceros collection?

  Oh, ja.

  They were gone.

  What was I thinking?

  Manners. Ja. This man had said something. I told him my name and Brigitta’s, but it was pointless. He couldn’t hear me. No one could hear me. My voice was gone.

  Brigitta let out a terrible noise—like a heavy chair being dragged across a quiet room. It took me a moment to realize she was telling this man our names.

  “Where are you from?” the man—what was his name?—asked.

  “Anjer,” said Brigitta in that awful rasp.

  I mouthed a request but no one heard me.

  “Anjer,” he said. “Anything left there?”

  Brigitta shook her head.

  He nodded. “Nothing in Merak either. That’s where we’re from—Merak. Well, truth be told, I’ve been living there for forty years. Originally, I’m from Rotterdam. But an old seaman like me has got to live near the shore. And Kagiso here, well, I’m not really sure where she’s from.”

  “Africa.” Her accent sounded clipped. “I work for the Steenbergen family. I am the nanny of Pim.” She handed the bundle to the man and began rummaging in a crate that sat near the boat’s stern.

  My eyes would not focus. I didn’t even have the strength to push up Sister Hilde’s spectacles.

  “If you don’t mind my saying, you two look like you’ve been through Hell.” He gave us an apologetic look.

  I rolled my head, trying to nod. That was precisely where we had been.

  “Escaped to jungle. Been walking. Want get Batavia.” Brigitta’s croak was getting weaker with every word.

  He blinked a few times. “I climbed a palm tree, and I didn’t let go. That wasn’t easy, but I climbed ship rigging all my life.”

  Kagiso returned with two small bowls. “This will help.” She scooped some sort of white mush and held it out to me. “Eat.”

  I tried to lift m
y hands, but they wouldn’t move. I tried to open my mouth, but I couldn’t. My head rested against the side of the ship, and I didn’t even have the strength to lift it. I closed my eyes. So tired. So . . .

  A slight sting on my cheek roused me and I heard my name being bellowed like a far-off crack of thunder. “Katrien!” the voice yelled. My mouth was forced open. Something soft and cool was shoved inside. I managed to close my mouth on my own and I chewed the white mush. Swallowing took such an effort. I coughed and fought to keep from spitting the food out.

  “More,” the voice said. Another mouthful was stuffed between my lips.

  I chewed again. A bit easier this time.

  “And another.” That same voice again.

  A bowl was placed in my hands. “Eat it all.”

  I eased my eyes open and saw Kagiso turn from me to Brigitta. I watched as she forced Brigitta to eat three mouthsful before giving her the bowl. Brigitta grabbed at it eagerly.

  Staring at the bowl in my hands, I wondered, Am I supposed to eat this? My arms and hands seemed useless.

  Kagiso scooped some of the white stuff from my bowl again. “Eat.”

  I ate, but Kagiso hand-fed me every bite.

  When the bowls were emptied, she took them from us.

  “More?” Brigitta asked.

  Kagiso shook her head. “Too much is dangerous.”

  “Dank u,” I said. My voice sounded old and unused, but at least I heard myself.

  Kagiso smiled. Brigitta reached over and took my hand. My eyes closed again, and I slumped against the side of the boat.

  Part Three

  SEPTEMBER 1883

  Batavia, Java, Dutch East Indies

  Chapter 47

  The room around me glowed white. Soft sheets enveloped me, and I tried to focus on the constellations above my head.

  Only they weren’t there. Had Vader painted over them? Why would he do that?

  “The stars,” I mumbled.

  “Katrien?” a soft voice beside me said. “You’re awake!”

  “’Course.” My tongue was thick and heavy in my throat.

  Another voice said, “Oh, thank goodness.”

  A familiar face hovered by my bed. I must be dreaming. “Brigitta?” Why on Earth was she here?

  A warm hand clasped mine, and I turned to see who it was. “Oom Maarten?” What was going on?

  Brigitta grabbed my other hand. “Do you know where you are, Katrien? Do you remember what happened?”

  I gazed at her pink face and struggled to think. “The last thing I remember is a boat.”

  “Ja.” She smiled and nodded. “Some men rescued us. Mr. Roemer helped us to the hospital.”

  “Mr. Roemer?” I had no idea who she was talking about.

  “He was in the boat. And he also helped notify your uncle.”

  Oom Maarten squeezed my hand. “When I learned where you were, I rushed here as fast as I could.”

  A pain in my feet—a pain I hadn’t felt before—struck me then and I cried out. “Aaahh!”

  The sheet no longer felt soft and comfortable. Now it was coarse, rubbing my feet like sandpaper, and I yanked it off so I could inspect my lower limbs. I thought I saw bandages, but I couldn’t be sure. I reached to push Sister Hilde’s spectacles up, but I wasn’t wearing them.

  Brigitta handed them to me.

  I put them on and instantly everything came into focus. I stared at my feet. They looked misshapen and foreign. They had no connection to me at all.

  Except for the pain.

  That was connected to me.

  Brigitta clutched my hand. Tears filled her eyes. Why was she crying?

  I tried to sit up, but Oom Maarten held me down. “Rest, Katrien. You need to rest.”

  “Why aren’t you in a hospital bed?” I asked Brigitta.

  She gave a short laugh. “I was, for about two days.”

  “Two days? How long have I been—?”

  Oom Maarten patted my hand. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness for five days.”

  “What?” It didn’t feel like five days.

  He felt my forehead. “I think your fever has finally broken.”

  “Fever?”

  “We were worried about you. The doctor didn’t think you would make it.” He drew in a ragged breath. “But I knew you would pull through.”

  I moaned and shifted in the bed.

  “Shhh.” Brigitta rubbed a wet cloth over my forehead. It was cool and heavenly.

  A blond man with a haggard face walked up to the bed, and Oom Maarten stood to speak with him.

  Brigitta squeezed my hand so hard I moaned again.

  “Sorry,” she whispered, loosening her grasp. She kept her right ear angled toward the men.

  Oom Maarten glanced at me and nodded toward the other man. With an exhausted sigh, the man said, “I see you’ve decided to wake up.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m Dr. Akkerman.” He held out his hand for me to take, which I did. “I need to take a look at your feet.”

  He peeled the bandages off, and the sight turned my world upside down.

  Black stitches crisscrossed the tips of my feet where my toes had once been.

  Gone! My toes were gone!

  I didn’t say a word. I just stared in disbelief at my feet that no longer looked like feet.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Courtlandt,” the doctor said, not sounding apologetic at all. “We didn’t have a choice. We had to act or the infection would have spread, and you would have lost both feet or even your legs. With more injured people arriving daily from the catastrophe, our supply of chloroform is dwindling. If we didn’t remove your toes when you arrived, you might have required far greater surgery, possibly with no anesthetic. I don’t know if you would have survived the stress.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “They could have gotten better.”

  “They wouldn’t have.” He spoke with no feeling at all, almost casually.

  Oom Maarten stepped beside me and grasped my other hand. “Katrien, I’m so, so sorry.” His voice broke on the words. He looked so much like Vader and yet they were so different. Vader never cried. He didn’t even cry when my mother died.

  My own eyes remained dry. No tears. No hysterics.

  Brigitta gripped my hand even tighter. “It had to happen, Katrien.” Then she whispered in my ear, “I was here beside you the whole time. I didn’t leave.”

  Oom Maarten’s sniffles sounded like a foraging animal.

  “And I’ll help you recover,” Brigitta said. “I promise.”

  I watched Dr. Akkerman wrap new bandages around my feet. The black stitches stood out in stark contrast to the soft white linen. The strange new shape of my foot looked more like a duck’s than a human’s.

  Mr. Charles Darwin’s words popped into my head. “Whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” My relationship with Brigitta had evolved. We had saved each other’s lives.

  Trusting her, I nodded.

  Oom Maarten sobbed and hugged me while Brigitta patted my hand.

  Chapter 48

  When I next awoke, a nurse was leaning over the patient in the bed beside mine. Although the nurse’s clothes were wrinkled and stained from treating patients, her manner was chirpy and pleasant. “How are you today, Mrs. Brinckerhoff?” she asked.

  I gasped. The ravaged face and arms of my aunt’s dear friend, who had apparently been beside me this whole time, were bright pink with sores and covered in gauze. The sores oozed and the gauze was a horrible shade of yellowish green. I nearly gagged at the sight. Poor Mrs. Brinckerhoff. I hadn’t even recognized her.

  Her voice, which I always thought of as haughty, sounded raspy and strangely soothing. “I am suffering, but not as badly as others.” She lifted her hand a slight distance from her side but let it drop.

  “Shhh,” the nurse said, “calm your
self. You need to rest to get better. I’ll get someone to help me change your dressings.”

  She moved to the foot of the bed, but Mrs. Brinckerhoff asked, “What of my husband? My children?”

  “They are here. In the hospital. They are being cared for as best we can.” She added quietly, “You are all being cared for as best we can.”

  Coming to me, the nurse pried the bandages away from my feet. I winced but did not cry out.

  “Your feet appear to be healing nicely.” She smiled and spoke over me to Mrs. Brinckerhoff while replacing my bandages. “Katrien here is another person who was injured by the volcano. She lost her toes.” The nurse draped the sheet back over me before coming to feel my forehead. “Still warm, but I think that has more to do with the time you were in the sun than any illness. We’ll keep checking.” She bent down and whispered, “Try to help Mrs. Brinckerhoff. She’s having a terrible time, but she won’t really talk to anyone.”

  I nodded.

  Her request reminded me of Tante Greet trying to get me to visit old Mrs. Schoonhoven. How many times had she urged me to be less judgmental? To make friends? Now, Brigitta and I were friends. My aunt would be so pleased.

  Wait.

  “Where is Brigitta?” I asked the nurse.

  “Who? Oh. Your friend. Your uncle insisted on taking her home for some rest. They should be back this afternoon.” She bustled off.

  The pain hit me again, and I pulled the sheet off my legs. The fabric dragging over the bandages felt like skin pulling off a sore. I bit my lip.

  Mrs. Brinckerhoff lay on her back, eyes closed. What should I say? I had never had much luck chatting with her. A simple ‘How are you?’ was out of the question. I knew how she was. Terrible. We all were. I pushed Sister Hilde’s spectacles up and blurted, “How did you survive, Mrs. Brinckerhoff?”

  A horrible stained piece of gauze covered one eye and part of her face. “Katrien Courtlandt? Is that you?”

  “Ja, Mrs. Brinckerhoff, it is.”

  “Is your aunt with you?”

  “No,” I whispered. “She—she didn’t make it.”

  “Oh, my dear girl, I’m so sorry.” She paused, and I thought she might not wish to speak anymore. But she did.