Lunch with the Generals

by Derek Hansen

  Silent tears flowed once more down Annemieke’s cheeks. How could she explain the darkness that gripped her? She threw her arms around her father’s neck and pulled him fiercely to her. ‘Oh, Daddy, something bad is going to happen! I just know it.’

  ‘Shhh … you’ll frighten Osh. Nothing bad is going to happen. You know I won’t let anything bad happen to you or Mummy.’

  ‘It is, Dad! Something bad is going to happen. I know it is! I can feel it.’

  Her desperation unnerved him. This was so unlike his daughter. Then he remembered how quiet Annemieke had been. Since when? The day before they left? Since Ciater, since the hot springs. Then he remembered, and with a sickening certainty, realised he was the cause of Annemieke’s distress.

  ‘Oh, pet, I’m sorry. When I told you about Krakatau and Tambora I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  ‘There’s something else, Dad, there’s something else and I just don’t know what it is!’

  The anguish in her voice was plain. Again Jan felt a ripple of unease.

  ‘Please, Dad, can’t we go?’

  Jan would do anything for Annemieke. But it was clear to him that it would be madness to try to leave now.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said, trying to buy time. ‘We’ll wait until evening. Then we’ll see how it is.’

  ‘Thank you, Daddy,’ she cried and kissed him.

  By evening, Jan thought, he could turn Annemieke around and make her see reason. But Annemieke had made up her mind that they would leave for home. Nothing would change it.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Jan. ‘This is so unlike her. She’s never been like this before.’

  Neneng smiled.

  ‘It’s her age,’ she said. ‘She is at the age where children discover they are not immortal and neither are their parents. It is something we all face in our own way. Perhaps this is her way.’

  ‘Perhaps. Lita thinks she’s had a premonition of some sort.’

  ‘That is always what women think,’ scoffed Barnaby. ‘Give them something that can’t be proved, some metaphysical nonsense, and they grab hold of it in a flash. Stuff and nonsense.’ He began to laugh and Jan laughed along with him.

  The women were unimpressed.

  Late in the afternoon a westerly breeze blew up, pushing the ash clouds back towards their source. At times the visibility improved markedly, and then a gust would pick up the fallen ash and carry it in swirling clouds. Driving under such conditions was still patently dangerous, and Jan stooped to desperate tactics to convince Annemieke to stay.

  ‘What about Osh?’ he said to her. ‘How can you just go and leave Osh? That’s not fair. He’s only just got to know you. He’s begun to depend on you and now you want to just walk away and leave him.’

  ‘Of course I’ll miss him, Daddy,’ she said. ‘But I’ll have to leave him sooner or later. Perhaps it’s better if he doesn’t become too attached to me. Besides, he’ll be here when I come back. Grandpa promised.’

  What could Jan say? He resigned himself to the inevitable.

  ‘Get some sleep now. We’ll leave at midnight.’ In his heart Jan knew it was the wrong decision, but it had an immediate effect upon Annemieke. The girl who had sat around so listlessly now raced about the house getting ready for their departure.

  Osh sensed the change in her mood and decided to join in this new game. As soon as Annemieke put things in her bag Osh pulled them out again. Annemieke pretended to scold him but he was back to his tricks as soon as she took her eyes off him.

  ‘See? Even Osh wants you to stay,’ said Jan. It was a last ditch attempt to make her change her mind but it didn’t work. Jan went to his bedroom and lay down. He could hear Annemieke singing as he dozed off, preparing himself for the nightmare drive ahead.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jan waited until the car was packed and they were ready to leave before washing the windows. To his dismay the ash turned into mud that streaked and clung stubbornly to the glass. He realised that he could never carry enough water to keep the windscreen clear for the duration of their journey.

  ‘What on earth are we doing?’ he complained.

  ‘It’s not too late to change your mind,’ Barnaby replied.

  ‘It’s not my mind that needs changing.’ Jan could not disappoint Annemieke now. The old man shrugged.

  ‘Take my hand pump. A bit of pressure might help.’ Barnaby stumped off to fetch it.

  ‘Okay, Lita, Annemieke, into the car. Say goodbye to Osh.’

  The farewells were subdued, tinged with disappointment and apprehension of the journey ahead. Jan took the pump from Barnaby and stowed it in the footwell on Lita’s side. No point putting away something they were going to need before much longer.

  The roads were not deserted as Jan had hoped. But neither were they blocked. The traffic crawled along at the pace of the slowest, gasping, wheezing truck. Jan was unwilling to risk overtaking, knowing with absolute certainty that there’d always be another truck in front.

  Ash built up around the windshield and clogged the wipers. It penetrated the air vents and blocked the filters of the airconditioning. Jan had no choice but to switch it off and suffer the heat. The beams from the headlights became ineffectual columns of grey which reflected back at them every time the wind gusted.

  They passed countless cars and trucks which had been abandoned by the roadside. Too many, Jan thought, and puzzled over the cause. He checked his instruments and realised his own engine was beginning to overheat. The ash was clogging the fins of his radiator. He would have to stop and hose it down although this would rob him of all his remaining water. But what choice did he have?

  The traffic slowed to a halt. Through breaks in the swirling ash Jan could see a glowing red snake of tail-lights winding through the hills ahead. Everywhere drivers honked their horns oblivious to the futility of the gesture. Jan smiled despite their predicament. It was such an Indonesian thing to do.

  Jan saw his chance to check his radiator. He got out and raised the bonnet. Immediately the horn of the car behind howled in protest. He took out the polythene jerry can he’d filled with water and his father-in-law’s pump. But his earlier experience with the windscreen made him cautious. He propped his torch up so that its beam shone on the bottom third of the radiator. He covered the nozzle of the outlet hose while he pumped up some pressure, then fired at the part of the radiator he’d illuminated. The force of the jet pushed the ash into the gaps between the fins where it settled like wet cement. As he’d suspected, the cure was worse than the problem. He put the pump aside. He had an idea.

  ‘Annemieke, did you bring your hairbrush?’

  Annemieke rummaged around in her little carry bag and passed the brush to her father. He ran it across the radiator in short sharp movements. A cloud of ash rose, blotting out the flashlight and snapping Jan’s breath. He gagged. He made a desperate lunge for the pump and forced water into his mouth. He rinsed as quickly as he could and, with lungs near bursting, allowed the water to tumble from his mouth. He inhaled. And immediately collapsed in a fit of coughing. But enough air got into his lungs each time to enable him to catch his breath. His temples pounded and his eyes watered. He looked up and found Lita standing over him. She had every right to look panic stricken.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he gasped. ‘It’s just taking me time to learn the rules.’

  He covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief and began to brush once more. He brushed for as long as he could, than stepped out of the cloud of ash to breathe and clear his eyes. The dry ash came away easily. But the wet ash was a lost cause.

  The traffic began to move once more. For half an hour they stuttered along behind the glowing tail-light in front of them until they reached the cause of the delay. A bus had gone off the road and overturned, scattering its human cargo among the underbrush. People called out in pain and distress, but there were plenty of others to look after them. Emergency services would be virtually nonexistent under the strain of the pas
t few days. But the local people would improvise, Jan knew. They always did.

  It was one-thirty, and they’d covered little more than twenty kilometres. But they were leaving the hills and the pace began to quicken. Jan had never liked travelling in a line of vehicles, and allowed a gap to grow between himself and the car in front. Immediately a car came from behind and filled it. He stabbed down hard on the brakes and hit his horn in a long angry blast. He need not have bothered. Once more he allowed a gap to develop so that if the car in front was forced to stop suddenly, he could avoid it and have time to warn the car behind him. But this time he was careful not to let the gap open too far. He didn’t want to tempt anyone else to overtake.

  But a gap is a gap. And just as nature abhors a vacuum, so too do Indonesian drivers feel the need to fill a gap, no matter how small. Before Jan knew it, another car squeezed in front of him and immediately braked. Jan did likewise. He glanced into his rear vision mirror but couldn’t see anything. He could see only the glow not the shape of the headlights behind him. He was searching for them when the car behind hit them. Jan see-sawed the steering wheel as the pendulum effect pushed the rear of the car first this way then that. Their lack of speed worked for them and Jan brought the car to a sliding halt. He was badly shaken.

  ‘You both all right?’ he asked.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Annemieke, her eyes out on stalks. Lita’s eyes were closed. She was praying to whichever god cared to listen.

  Jan was surprised to see how little damage was done. The bumper was bent and the off-side rear mudguard. But both tail-light assemblies still functioned.

  The driver who’d run into them was conciliatory. He’d lost a headlight and most of his grille. Clearly, he thought Jan was in the wrong for braking so suddenly. Jan was less forgiving and told him so.

  ‘But,’ his adversary claimed indignantly, ‘everybody drives like this in Indonesia. You are in the wrong for not following closely enough behind the car in front of you. That is what caused the accident. If there had been no gap, you would not have been overtaken. If you had not been overtaken, you would not have needed to brake. If you had not braked, you would not have forced me to bump into you.’

  He was right, Jan realised. The Indonesians were a nation of tail-gaters. He’d have to drive like them or not at all. They shook hands and a wary Jan drove on.

  The wind had picked up and often Jan found himself driving blind, unwilling to brake in case the car behind ran into them again. Annemeike began to sing, softly, soothingly. She was the reason they were heading back to Tangkuban Perahu, and she was trying to help. She could see how tense Jan was. Under normal circumstances Jan would be touched. But tonight it interrupted his concentration and grated on him.

  ‘Can’t we stop?’ Lita pleaded. She was scared and her voice showed it.

  ‘Where?’ asked Jan helplessly. ‘If we stop on the side of the road there’s a good chance a truck or bus will run into us. Besides, if we wait for daylight the traffic will only get worse. We’re committed. We have to keep going. We have no other choice.’

  ‘We’ll be all right, Mummy,’ whispered Annemieke from the dark of the rear seat. But she’d stopped singing and doubts had crept into her voice.

  They crept onwards towards Bandung. Every time the car stopped in the queue for any length of time, Jan cleared the ash from the radiator. Other drivers did the same, faces swaddled in whatever cloth came to hand. Jan hadn’t been the only one to inhale ash that night.

  ‘Let’s stop at the Savoy Homann,’ Lita pleaded. But Jan had reached the stage where he just wanted to get home.

  They drove through the centre of Bandung and began to ascend the hills towards Tangkuban Perahu. The traffic had thinned out a little. With a bit of luck, Jan thought, they’d arrive home around six or seven. He regretted leaving the lights of Bandung behind. Ash had irritated his eyes and made them sore. Now he had to peer once more into the gloom, tucked in behind the tail-light of the car in front. He could feel the tensions build up in him once more and waves of tiredness swept over him. He ached to rub his eyes but knew that would only irritate them.

  As they got closer to Lembang, Jan let a gap grow in front of him. Cars streamed past at will till Jan found himself on stretches of road without another car in sight. Ash and dust swirled around them. Maybe the crater of Mount Tangkuban Perahu had come out in sympathy, Jan thought morosely. He could picture his tea bushes snowed under with ash. Tension eased with the traffic, and his attention began to wander. Then an oncoming or passing car would snap him back to reality, and he would start painfully, willing himself to remain alert. But his mind had found a warm, friendly place in his reveries, where it could relax.

  His car started to wander as his concentration waned. He found himself looking for the roadside trees to guide the way, their trunks daubed with rectangles of reflective white paint. He began to greet them as friends and let them show him the shape of each curve. He adopted the habit of long-haul truckies who doggedly track the white lines on the road. There are no white lines on the road to Tangkuban Perahu, however, just white splashes of paint on the trees that mark most of the corners. But not all of them … Jan’s dulled mind had not even begun to react when his car slammed head-on into one of those trees that had not been marked, and Annemieke hurtled past him taking the windscreen with her as she went.

  Jan knew he’d crashed. But his brain was slow to acknowledge anything else. He heard a car horn blaring and realised it was his. The funny thing was he couldn’t do anything about it. His right arm was jammed in front of him, and the steering wheel had molded itself around his hips. Someone was pressing the back of his seat. It hurt. Who could possibly be doing that to him? Couldn’t they see that it must hurt …

  ‘Annemieke!’ he screamed. ‘Annemieke!’ His mind recoiled at the horror it remembered. The fleeting impression of his precious daughter hurtling past him. ‘Annemieke!’

  ‘Be calm, Pak Jan, we are helping.’

  For the first time he became aware of the presence of others. He could feel hands trying to free him. Why didn’t they disconnect the horn? It would wake up Lita. Oh God! His shoulder exploded in pain.

  ‘Very sorry, Pak Jan.’

  Why couldn’t he see properly? They were pushing his seat again and the pain raged through him. What was he trying to remember? It was something important. He turned to his left. There were more people huddled over something. Someone. Lita. Oh dear God!

  ‘Lita!’

  ‘Please stay calm, Pak Jan. We are doing all we can.’

  His seat finally gave way to the efforts of his rescuers. The horn stopped. The pain in his shoulder eased marginally. He could hear soft voices and urgent whispers. He turned towards his wife as hands reached under him to lift him from the wreck.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She is unconscious, Pak. Her face is also cut and like you she has lost much blood. But her heart beats strong.’

  So that was why he couldn’t see. He tried to lift his hand to wipe the blood from his eyes but his shoulder shrieked a warning.

  ‘Please move this leg, Pak. This leg. Yes! This leg. Now slide your backside, Pak, towards me, Pak. That is good, very good.’

  Jan relaxed. Someone was in control. The quiet firm voice was in control. Somebody was taking care of everything. He would do as he was told. His mind sought a place of sanctuary but stumbled across a disturbing vision of his daughter disappearing through a million stars. The windscreen. Oh God. He began to sob.

  ‘Are we hurting you, Pak? Perhaps there is another way.’

  ‘No! Get me out! Get me out! Take me to Annemieke!’

  ‘Gently, Pak, this way, gently.’

  They reached under his arms and began to lift him gently from the wreck. The pain from his broken shoulder flared intolerably and he lost consciousness. When he came to, he was laying on the grass verge, his head cradled in someone’s lap.

  ‘Annemieke. Where is Annemieke?’

  ‘She
is gone through the windscreen, Pak Jan.’

  ‘Take me to her.’

  ‘That is not wise.’

  ‘Take me to her. Please! I beg you! Take me to her.’

  ‘If that is your wish, Pak.’

  They helped him to his feet, over the grassy verge and storm ditch. In the beam from his broken, fading headlights, he could see shapes huddled over something where the grass gave way to the battalions of tea bushes. Tea. So close to home. So very close. His knees went and he nearly fell.

  ‘Annemieke?’ His voice was weak with the fear of what he might see. Strong hands steadied him. He edged towards her, legs rubbery, driven on only by a father’s love.

  ‘How is she?’ he begged. And someone obligingly pointed the beam of their torch onto the shattered remnants of what had been Annemieke’s face.

  ‘Oh God, no!’ he moaned. He sank to his knees, oblivious to his own pain. ‘Oh dear God, no!’

  ‘It is God’s will,’ someone soothed. ‘His name be praised.’

  ‘Is she … is she …?’

  ‘She lives, Pak. We have a van. I will drive you to hospital. My son will inform your staff.’

  ‘You know me?’

  ‘Of course, Pak. I am Djembar. My father worked for your father. My sisters pick your tea.’

  Two women lifted Annemieke and carried her tenderly to the van. Jan followed, supported by his helpers. Lita was already in the van. She slumped unconscious in the back, supported by an old, grim faced woman who would not meet his eye.

  She’s blaming me, Jan thought. And why not? Why not? It’s my fault. I have done this! The realisation hit him with numbing force. He cried out loud.

  ‘Dear God, what have I done?’