The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  Anna laughed. ‘He seems very nice, very honest.’

  ‘For a policeman, yes.’ She sniffed. ‘Budi’s father was a good-for-nothing. I sent him back to his kampong in Sumatra. Those people do not know how to work! They scratch their bums and want to be paid for the effort!’

  Anna laughed. ‘There are Dutch like that also.’ She paused, her expression suddenly serious. ‘Ratih, Budi tells me he has left school?’

  Ratih shook her head. ‘I am on my own. We cannot afford high school.’

  ‘What does it cost?’ Anna asked, knowing that one year of high school would entitle a Javanese boy to be apprenticed as a junior clerk.

  ‘Ten guilders a year, but then also with the Chinaman he earns thirty cents a week, that is another fifteen guilders, that is less than you paid those good-for-nothing water polisi! It is a crime!’

  ‘Ratih, I don’t know what will happen to me, but if I get to Australia I will pay for Budi’s education. You must let me know your address. I will give you the money for one year at high school now. Will you promise to send him back to school?’

  Ratih brought her hands up to cover her face and was silent for some time, then teary-eyed she said, ‘I promise, Anna.’ Then she added, ‘I think both halves are good, the Dutch and the Javanese.’ Anna peeled off twenty-five guilders from her father’s pile, now considerably smaller than it had been on the previous afternoon. Anna offered the money in both hands and it was accepted in the same way. ‘I think you have made up my mind, Anna. I will marry that Pak Polisi.’

  Anna laughed. ‘You must feed him less, Ratih. You know what they say about a fat policeman!’

  ‘I will remember, Anna. Maybe I will tell him that the fried chicken he likes to eat must first have a certificate from the magistrate, hey?’

  Anna thought, with a mother like Ratih, Budi couldn’t help but be intelligent.

  Leaving Ratih and returning to the Witvogel, she found everything in chaos. People were running around on deck like headless chickens and there was panic everywhere. The captain had, only half an hour before, announced that he regretted the ship could not be repaired, that for the benefit of the men on board, it was a big-end bearing failure and crankshaft seizure involving the Duxford engine. The 600 passengers and crew were stranded in Tjilatjap. With the Japanese thought to be no more than a few days away — and, some said, possibly a few hours — there could be no escape from Java. He had advised that the ship’s crew would be on duty for only another twenty-four hours, then the ship would no longer be serviced and thereafter everyone would have to take care of themselves as the company had no further responsibility for their welfare. They must arrange to hire porters from the town to move their baggage at their own cost. There were lots of out-of-work dockworkers available, he’d added helpfully. Finally, he regretted the inconvenience.

  Anna made her way back to the cabin to find the de Klerk women already packing while the bank clerk sat on the end of the bunk, slumped forward with his elbows resting on his knees, staring into space like a stunned mullet. Her father was snoring in the bottom bunk, oblivious to the goings-on, while Kleine Kiki sat in the top bunk with his laundry neatly folded on her lap. ‘What will we do, Anna?’ she cried anxiously as Anna entered. The de Klerk women looked up expectantly as if they too hoped for an answer.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Anna said. All she could think was that she must find a way to send me a letter to tell me she was not coming to Australia. ‘I must write a letter,’ she said softly, hoping the three women didn’t hear. But their ears were long since tuned to a level above her father’s snoring and the bank clerk’s wife laughed. ‘Yesterday we tried already to send a postcard to the Netherlands; there is no aeroplane going to Batavia and the railway is finished, the Japanese have the trains. There are no letters going out.’ All three women smiled, pleased that they could share this further bad news with Anna.

  ‘How is your stepmother?’ one of the maiden sisters asked.

  ‘They have asked me already,’ Kleine Kiki said quickly. ‘I said she was sick and you had taken her ashore.’

  The de Klerk sister pointed to the wheelchair. ‘Then why is that here?’

  ‘She does not need it at the moment,’ Anna replied. ‘Kleine Kiki brought it back on my instructions.’ It was, Anna thought, at least the technical truth; her stepmother certainly had no need of any further earthly transport. She didn’t like the way she was becoming accustomed to fibbing almost at the drop of a hat.

  ‘Good riddance!’ the second de Klerk maiden sister sniffed, looking down at Piet Van Heerden on the opposite bunk. ‘His drunken snoring is enough without her shouting.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Anna asked pointedly. Then she added, ‘As a matter of fact she is very ill and may die. Now, do you have any more questions?’

  This failed to get a sympathetic reaction from the three women other than a despairing sigh from the other spinster sister and with it, ‘We may all soon be dead.’

  ‘And how will you move him?’ the bank clerk’s wife asked, indicating Piet Van Heerden with a jerk of her chin.

  ‘With the wheelchair, of course,’ Anna replied. ‘Any more questions?’ She looked directly at the one fat and the two scrawny old hens. ‘Now if you will excuse me?’ She went to the trunk and withdrew a leather folder holding a writing pad with a fountain pen inserted into a small loop at the side of the pad. Then she climbed up onto the top bunk beside the little maid and sat with her knees folded, legs tucked under. Balancing the writing pad on her lap, she commenced to write:

  Tjilatjap, Java

  5th March 1942

  My dearest Nicholas,

  This was struck through and directly below it Anna wrote:

  My darling Nicholas,

  I do not know if you are alive and have come in the Vleermuis already to Australia. But I think it is so, or I would feel it in mijn heart.

  I have some very bad news. We are not coming to Australia! I am so sad I am wanting to cry, but I must be brave, ja. We are in a town in Java. Its name is Tjilatjap. It is eleven kilometres on a river. The boat, it is here, but it is broken and they cannot fix, we cannot go with it any more. Tomorrow we must all go from this boat — I don’t know where!

  But there is more bad news. My stepmother commit suicide in the river, she is jumped in the river and Kleine Kiki she cannot rescue her because she cannot swim. They have not found the body. Mijn father he is also drunk since Batavia.

  Nicholas, I don’t know if this letter gets to you. The post office have no aeroplane for letters any more, the Japanese they have the trains. They are not here, but coming soon. Maybe even tomorrow! I am very frightened!

  Nicholas, I love you. I am very sorry I did not let you make love to me. Maybe I will die and not know how it would be to make love to you!

  I love you, my darling Nicholas. Forever!

  Anna — Madam Butterfly X X X X X

  P.S. I have always the Clipper butterfly. I will keep it till I die.

  I love you!

  A

  I must pause here for a moment in telling Anna’s story because this letter, despite my having read it a thousand times, always brings me close to tears. Today I possess one of the world’s great butterfly collections, certainly the best originating from the Pacific region. Collectors are, by nature, hoarders and in the span of my life I have gathered together many beautiful things. But this despairing and infinitely sad single-page letter is without doubt my most precious possession. It is faded and the creases where it was folded have finally parted. I have now placed it in a frame behind tinted glass along with Anna’s embroidered butterfly handkerchief in an attempt to preserve them from further damage. Both are enormously precious to me, though I admit the letter is the more so. While I can recite every word by heart, I carry a copy in my wallet and read it almost daily. These bittersweet memories are the ghosts that come to haunt old
men who have lived too long.

  Anna completed the letter, sealed it in an envelope and then, showing amazing initiative, addressed it to:

  Mr Nicholas Duncan

  C/o The Archbishop of the Anglican Church

  Perth

  Australia

  I had once told her that when we eventually married, my godfather, Henry Le Fanu, the Anglican Archbishop of Perth, would conduct the ceremony and she had remembered my silly and somewhat vainglorious boast. But it was in her next action that she showed she wasn’t someone who is easily deterred.

  Anna climbed down and went to the trunk and selected a pretty summer dress and her best Sunday sandals. Kleine Kiki watched, anxious and curious, from the top bunk as Anna rummaged through Katerina’s make-up and then slipped a tube of lipstick into the bag that carried her toothbrush. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ she said, carrying the dress over her arm and holding the sandals and toilet bag.

  She changed in the women’s washroom, brushed her teeth and hair and carefully worked her late stepmother’s scarlet lipstick onto her lips before returning to the cabin. ‘Come, Kleine Kiki, we are going ashore!’ she instructed. She waited for the little maid to climb down from the top bunk and slip on her sandals. Moments later they left the cabin, to the curious stares of the de Klerk women. Anna noted that the bank clerk had stopped staring into space and was now reading from a small Bible, muttering the words of a psalm. The snivelling little coward was already in the process of giving up.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Kleine Kiki asked once they were ashore. ‘You are all dressed up with Sunday shoes and lipstick.’

  Anna thought how the child was really starting to blossom; previously she would have been too timid to ask or make such a comment. ‘I’m not sure. It’s just an idea. We are going to look for the Americans.’

  ‘Americans?’

  ‘Pilots!’ Anna answered. ‘The two I met were leaving today. Maybe there are still some here.’ She paused. ‘But first I must make a quick visit to Mother Ratih in her kampong.’

  They hailed a becak. ‘The airport where the Americans are, do you know it?’ Anna asked.

  The driver nodded, then said, ‘But it is six kilometres.’

  ‘Can you pedal that far, father?’ Anna asked him. He was an older man, his hair turned grey, almost white, perhaps in his early fifties, thin as a twig and his skinny brown legs roped with muscle.

  The becak man looked scornful. ‘Of course! One guilder?’ he asked hopefully.

  Kleine Kiki started to protest but Anna cut her short. ‘There and back one guilder?’ The becak driver readily agreed; it was probably more than he earned in two days of pedalling the double-seated three-wheeler.

  Anna directed the becak to Ratih’s kampong kitchen and told Kleine Kiki to wait with the driver while she went in to see Budi’s mother on a business matter. She returned about ten minutes later and they set off for the American airfield.

  It was nearly ten o’clock when they pedalled up to the guardpost at the airport gates, to be met by a military policeman wearing a white helmet and belt. ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ he commanded, stepping into the road, rifle at the ready.

  Anna got down from the becak into the spotlight that shone on the guardhouse and surrounds, concentrating hard to stop her knees shaking. ‘Please, sir, I must see a pilot,’ she said, having rehearsed the English sentence half a hundred times on their way to the airport. ‘I must give him this letter.’ She held the letter up for the American military policeman to see.

  The guard relaxed; a strikingly beautiful girl was looking directly at him, appealing for his help. ‘What pilot, ma’am? What is his name?’ he asked.

  ‘A pilot,’ Anna answered.

  ‘Any pilot?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I want him to take my letter when he flies away and to post it to Australia.’ She still held the letter up. ‘The post office, they are not sending letters any more. It is to my fiancé in Australia. I have also two guilders for postage.’ She held up the money in her free hand.

  The military policeman shook his head. ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, I do not have that authority.’

  Suddenly the guard shouldered his rifle and jumped to attention. Anna turned to see the lights of an automobile approaching, and moved to the side of the road. As the big American car drew up she burst into tears. The officer seated in the back looked out of the rear side window. He appeared to be a man in his forties and was obviously very senior, though Anna had no way of telling, not knowing how to read his rank.

  ‘What is it, provost? Why is this young woman crying?’ he called out.

  The guard still stood at attention. ‘She wants a pilot to take a letter out, Colonel, sir!’ he said at the top of his voice.

  ‘Steady on, provost, I am not your drill sergeant,’ the officer chided, then glanced at Anna. ‘Letter?’

  Anna, stifling a sob, took the three steps to the car window. ‘Please, sir, our boat it is broken and we cannot leave Java. I cannot go to Australia to mijn fiancé. Please, sir.’ Anna held out the letter, her expression pleading. ‘It is to tell him maybe I don’t die and I will see him after the war!’ Anna let go another heart-rending sob.

  The officer reached out and took the letter. Glancing at it he read the address. ‘Archbishop?’

  ‘Yes, sir, he is mijn fiancé’s godfather in Perth.’

  ‘And you want it posted?’

  ‘I have here two guilders for the postage,’ Anna said, holding up the notes.

  The colonel waved the money aside and smiled. ‘Leave it to me, miss. What is your name?’

  ‘Anna Van Heerden, sir.’

  ‘You are Dutch, Anna?’

  ‘My father is Dutch, sir, my mother Javanese.’

  ‘That accounts for your eyes,’ the officer observed, obviously admiring her. ‘I am Colonel Gregory Woon. I hope some day we meet again, but even more, that you come through this safely and marry your young man from Australia.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Anna said, replacing the tears of a moment before with a brilliant smile.

  Anna’s smile as a young woman was the kind that could make old men grieve for what might have been. It could melt a glacier or turn a young bloke’s knees to putty and make his heart pound like a Haitian voodoo drum. ‘I will personally see that it is posted safely, Anna,’ the colonel said. ‘Such a shame, the five Catalinas left last night for Australia, but we have six B-17’s leaving for Colombo tonight.’ He held Anna’s letter up. ‘Rest assured, I will do my very best to see it gets to Australia. I wish you luck, young lady.’ Colonel Woon paused, then added smilingly, ‘Those violet blue eyes, absolutely stunning! I shall not easily forget them.’ With that he told the corporal behind the wheel to proceed and the military policeman lifted the boom gate. Anna watched as the car moved on into the airport and disappeared down the road to the base, its rear brakelights twin crimson eyes in the dark.

  Anna had one more task to complete before returning to the ship, though it was not one she looked forward to. She had always been fond of Kleine Kiki and had become especially so since they’d shared the cabin. Waiting until the becak had reached the outskirts of town, she turned to the little maid. ‘Kleine Kiki, now I want you to listen to me very carefully, promise?’ The teenager nodded. ‘You know the Japanese soldiers are coming soon. They will be here any day now, perhaps even tomorrow. We don’t know what will happen but it will not be good for the Dutch. I think we will be put in a camp for prisoners, mijn papa and me also.’ Anna paused, turning and taking both Kleine Kiki’s hands in her own and looking into her soft brown eyes. ‘You are Javanese, a pure-blood. I don’t think they will harm you. I have spoken to Mother Ratih, that is why we stopped at her kampong. She is an honest woman and, if you agree, I will pay her to take you into her house and train you as a cook, an apprentice, you understand? You already know lots about cooking, stu
ff you learned in the Grootehuis, but she is a professional. She will train you well and you will also be safe.’

  Kleine Kiki burst into tears. ‘Anna, please, please, let me stay with you!’ she begged. ‘I will be good, a very good girl! I will eat very little and do nothing to make you angry! I will look after you and Mijnheer Piet. Please, Anna!’ she sobbed, broken-hearted at the notion of leaving Anna.

  Anna took her into her arms and they both started to cry. After a short time Anna, still somewhat tearful, spoke once again to the sobbing teenager. ‘Kleine Kiki, listen to me. I know that I told you we would always be together and we would take care of each other. But when the Japanese come they will take mijn father and me also because I am a half-blood, and I cannot leave him. They will put us in a concentration camp, but they will not let you come. You will be left on your own with nobody to help you. I cannot allow this to happen. You are our family now. You are my little sister!’ She took the diminutive maid by the shoulders and gently pushed her away so she could look directly into her face. ‘Look at me, Kleine Kiki,’ Anna said softly. The becak had reached the river and they were not far from the docks where so much had happened recently. ‘If I am still alive after the war, then I will come for you, we will be together again.’

  ‘Promise?’ Kleine Kiki choked, then started to sob once more.

  Anna attempted to smile through her own tears. ‘Cross my heart! But maybe by that time you will have met a fine young man and have a restaurant of your own and so you won’t want to come?’

  ‘Noooo!’ Kleine Kiki howled. ‘I will never leave you! I will always be your maid, Anna.’

  ‘My little sister,’ Anna said. ‘No more maid! That time is over. My little sister the famous cook, ja? You are clever, you will learn well from Mother Ratih and I will be very proud of you, darling.’

  ‘When must I go?’ Kleine Kiki asked tremulously, both hands attempting to knuckle the tears from her eyes, her little chest heaving from the effort of crying and her bottom lip trembling.