At last Smiler comes up to me and gestures to me to follow him. Nervously I walk after him, away from the river and into the scrubby land beyond. We walk until we are a good distance from the camp. Suddenly he stops, and points to a large rock. I stare at it and then back at him – then he pushes me down so that I am sitting on it. He turns to go and I get up, but he gestures at me to stay put, so I sit down again.
He seems satisfied then and lopes off back towards the camp.
The sun is hot now, and I don’t know how long I can sit here. Is this some sort of punishment for making love to Heni? Or is it some sort of ritual? My mouth is dry and I have no idea what I should do.
I see Heni approaching, led by her father. As they draw closer I jump to my feet, but the old man gestures for me to sit down again. Then he presses Heni down firmly in my lap. As she sits there, he addresses her, and his words sound serious.
If it were not for Heni’s smiling face, I would be frightened by this strange behaviour, but she seems completely happy and when her father turns away and retraces his steps, she jumps up and drags me to my feet.
I start to make for their camp but she pulls me in the other direction and points downriver.
And then it dawns on me. This was our marriage ceremony! Now we are man and wife and I am to take her to my camp.
Much later, I learn what her father said to her as she sat on my lap. He told her that she was not to leave me on pain of being speared!
Chapter Sixteen
Heni has not been to our camp before and I watch her face carefully as she inspects it, running first to the cold ashes of the fire, making clicks of disapproval, then touching the iron pan and the other implements – which are strange to her – before finally approaching the hut. She stands staring at it for a while, taking in its sturdiness, so different from those at her family’s camp; then, timidly, she creeps inside. I stand at the entrance and watch as she picks up our blankets and feels them, frowning.
At last she emerges. She smiles at me and claps her hands in delight, then points meaningfully at the fire which I’ve let die, and disappears into the trees for a moment, coming back with two straight sticks and a bundle of dry leaves. I watch as she puts the leaves in the cold ash and rubs the sticks together, frowning with effort. At last, there is a spark from the friction and the dry leaves catch fire. Soon we have a merry blaze.
As the fire burns, I stare into the flames and think about Wouter. He will be angry when he finds Heni here but I shall stand up to him and explain that, in the eyes of Heni’s family, we are married, and that I cannot leave her. I look round the camp. Maybe I can build a second hut for Wouter or maybe we can construct another camp.
My stomach lurches as I think of Wouter.
That night, Heni won’t go inside the hut to sleep. We curl up in each other’s arms beside the fire.
The next day, I busy myself showing Heni how to use the iron pan and how the spade digs the soil. She watches me carefully, but she won’t try to use either of these unfamiliar implements, even when I go and dig out more roots just to show her how useful a spade can be.
Wouter has been gone for two nights and the longer he is away, the more I dread his return.
That evening, I offer Heni some salted meat but, having smelt it, licked at it and chewed a piece, she spits it out and will only eat roots. How stupid of me to think that she will change her habits.
Early the next morning, I take the net to set it up in the river. At once she gets up and follows me. She squats at the river’s edge watching as I select rocks to anchor the net. She is not pleased with what I’ve done and starts pointing, so I gesture to her to show me what she means. Immediately she jumps up and wades into the water.
But just as she is showing me, there is a loud bang.
Wouter’s musket!
I tense. Heni splashes back to me, her eyes wide with terror, and flings herself into my arms. I hold her tight and feel the thumping of her heart, but I keep smiling and telling her there is nothing to fear, even though I am fearful. Wouter must have shot a creature at the waterhole – and that means he will soon be back at the camp.
But he does not come. All day I listen for his footfalls, for the giveaway sound of snapping twigs and tuneless whistling. But there is nothing.
Later in the day, Heni helps me take the fish we have caught and stun them on the rocks, and she cooks them on the fire. But I cannot enjoy our meal together. I am listening out all the time for Wouter.
And still he does not come. Two more days and nights go by, and I am more and more uneasy.
Smiler comes to visit us and we are both glad to see him. He holds his spear in one hand and one of the strange dragon creatures in the other. He hands it to Heni, who immediately skins and puts it in the hot ashes to cook.
He stays with us all day. This is the first time that I have seen him on his own, and I try hard to communicate with him. I point to the fire, the trees, his spear, parrots, the hut. He repeats the words for these basic things again and again, and I say them back to him. He and Heni laugh at my feeble efforts.
When the sun sets he does not leave us, but settles down by the fire to sleep. It is then, for the first time, that Heni lets me take her into the hut to lie under our blankets.
Another day dawns, and still there is no Wouter. Has something happened to him? I am filled with foreboding and I know that I must go and look for him.
I try and explain this to Smiler and Heni. I draw the outline of a man in the sand – a primitive figure with stick arms and legs and a head covered with wild hair and a profuse beard, then I point in the direction of the waterhole, pick up my water bottle and set off through the trees.
I still have not learned how to walk quietly as the Aborigines do, and I am conscious of my clumsiness. Some sixth sense alerts me to the fact that I am being followed, and I turn round to see Smiler a little distance behind me. He stops when I look back and stands still, resting on his spear. I smile and beckon to him, grateful for his presence.
As we approach the waterhole, I catch sight of the musket lying abandoned on the path. Instinctively, I crouch down beside it and as I do so, Smiler touches my shoulder and gestures towards the undergrowth.
His sharp eyes have spotted what I have missed.
Slowly I get to my feet and follow his gaze. At first, because the trees cast shadows over the dense tangle of ferns beneath them, I can see nothing. But then I make out a shape and, as my eyes adjust to the gloom, I see that it is the pale skin of a man’s back.
I start forward with a cry, but Smiler hauls me back by my arm. I look at him in anguish, but still he holds me, and each time I try to move, he shouts at me. Then, with his spear, he bangs the ground, before walking slowly forwards, and this time he does not stop me as I follow him.
Wouter is slumped over the corpse of a furry creature. I stand rooted to the spot, as Smiler turns his body over, grunting with the effort.
The ants have already been at him and his face is not a pretty sight. I turn away, retching, but Smiler, after banging his spear again on the ground, kneels down beside the body and carefully examines it. I cannot bear to look, and it is not until Smiler grabs my arm, chattering and pointing, that I turn back. Smiler is touching Wouter’s leg with his finger.
Just above the ankle I see a tiny puncture mark and all around it the skin is swollen and bloated. I stare at the wound and nod, even as Smiler makes a swirling gesture with his hand. And at last I understand what he is trying to tell me. Wouter has been bitten by a snake and the venom has killed him.
I never felt grief for any of the poor souls on the islands as I now feel for Wouter. A long moaning cry comes from within me and I stand there, helpless, above the empty husk of the man who has been my constant companion these past months.
But Smiler already has his hands under Wouter’s armpits, and drags him through the undergrowth and back on to the path. Then he squats down and, with astonishing strength, heaves the corpse over his shou
lder and stands up.
He is about to start back to our camp, but I stop him.
I don’t know how the Aborigines bury their dead, but I am certain that Wouter would not like to be buried with their rites. So I point down towards the shore and walk forward, numb with misery. Some instinct is making me head for the sea where I feel his last resting-place should be. I scarcely know what I have in mind until we reach the shore, and I indicate to Smiler that we should walk along the sand. We stop frequently so that Smiler can rest. He is not smiling now, and his face is grim with effort. I give him water from my bottle and offer to take a turn at carrying Wouter, but Smiler won’t let me and I am grateful for his strength and his trust.
It is only when I see the boat that I know what I shall do – what Wouter would want me to do. It lies out in full view and beside it Wouter has made a rustic flag-pole from the paddle and his shirt.
I help Smiler lift Wouter’s body into the boat and, as I do so, I see the journal tucked in the stern. I take it out and notice that Wouter has added some more scribblings. For a while I hold it, wondering whether I should keep it, but at last I put it back where Wouter has hidden it.
No one will read it now.
I stare out to sea. The tide is going out. I start to heave the boat towards the water and Smiler helps me. Slowly, slowly, inch by inch, we push the boat until at last it is bobbing in the water.
We thrust it out into the waves until we can no longer stand up. Then we let it go, and watch it as it swirls about in the current.
I cannot remember any of the preacher’s prayers and, in any case, they don’t seem right in this place, so I send my thoughts with Wouter and commit him to the wind and tide.
I would like to think that the boat will be swept up the coast and make landfall in Java, taking Wouter back to a place where there are people of his own race, but I know that it will simply be tossed about in the rips, dashed upon coral or rocks and sink to the bottom of the sea, taking Wouter and the journal with it.
I no longer need a boat of this kind. If I ever make a boat, it will be a canoe like the one I saw when I had my first sight of an Aborigine.
Smiler and I watch as the little boat swirls and bobs in the water. We stand together looking after it until it is just a smudge on the horizon.
Then I wrench the boat’s upright paddle from the sand, untie Wouter’s shirt and bury my head in it, breathing the scent of his body. Smiler stands apart from me as I weep into its folds.
As I stumble back along the shore, I think of Wouter: a rough soldier, to be sure, and a man who didn’t hesitate to kill – or to lead the other mutineers when Corneliez was captured – but I shall always remember his kindness. I shall remember the way he protected Lucretia, how he helped me smear ointment on my sore hands and bind them with strips of shirt, how he took charge when we arrived here.
I take one last look at the sea before we strike up the path towards the camp. As we pass the waterhole, I pause briefly at the corpse of the furry creature, but I do not want it. If Wouter had not shot it and disturbed a snake as he went to pick it up, he would still be alive today.
Now, the only connection with my past life is gone. It was a life in which I endured misery and ridicule and I have no desire to return to it. As one day follows another, I forget more and more and relax into the rhythm of living here with Heni. Her simplicity, her openness and her tenderness towards me enchant me.
Epilogue
All this happened long ago. As time passed, I learnt the Aboriginal language and how to hunt turtles, birds and frogs. I learnt which plants are good to eat. I learnt, too, of the Aborigines’ beliefs: how the ancestor spirits came to earth and formed the people, the land, the plants and animals; how Beemarra, the rainbow serpent, formed the rivers and hills with its body, and how its scales scraped off to form the forests and flowers.
When I understood this, I began to interpret the stories of the spirit ancestors retold through dances and ceremonies performed at the corroborees when different tribes came together and traded shells at the river’s edge. I began to understand, too, the significance of secret rituals and rites – men’s business and women’s business.
But for years I did not realise that Heni’s family thought I was a spirit ancestor returned to them. This was why they accepted our union and even gave me my own territory, so that I could pass it on to my sons.
Our first child – a boy – has Heni’s features but his skin is paler than hers and he has my fair hair and blue eyes. We named him after the Aboriginal god Nogomain, who gives spirit children to mortal parents.
Many years later, long after our children were grown up, we received a special message stick which, for the first time in years, reminded me of my past life. I am now expert at interpreting the lines and dots upon these sticks. But this message stick was unwelcome. It told of more ancestor spirits who had come to these shores – in large numbers – and I guessed that there had been another shipwreck and that more Dutch sailors had arrived. But when I read the signs more carefully, I saw that these ‘spirit ancestors’ had been seen many miles south of us.
For some years I feared that these sailors might venture up the coast to our river, and I dreaded meeting them, for they would have heard of Batavia’s shipwreck and of the mutiny and the massacre. They would know that Wouter and I had been marooned on this coast. But, although I waited for other message sticks that might bring news of them, none ever came.
I am old now and near death, but death holds no fear for me. It is only the first step into the spirit world.
Heni is beside me. Like me, she is old and toothless, but our affection for each other has never wavered.
We hear the sound of laughter and we see the men come in from hunting, noisy with success. Our three sons are in front, leading the way into the camp.
Three strong, blue-eyed Aborigines.
Historical note
On October 28th 1628, the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia sailed from Texel, an island off the north coast of Holland, on her maiden voyage to Batavia (present-day Jakarta) in Java. The ship was laden with a priceless cargo including jewels, silver coins and objets d’art to be traded for highly prized spices. Francisco Pelsaert, an employee of the Dutch East India Company, was in command of the ship and Jeronimus Corneliez, another Company employee, was second-in-command. However, neither of these well-educated men knew how to sail a ship and responsibility for this lay with the skipper, Ariaen Jacobsz. But his authority could be countermanded at any time by the two company men.
Jacobsz had sailed with Pelsaert on a previous voyage and despised him, so the relationship between Captain and Commander was not a happy one.
There were 316 people on board Batavia. As well as troops for the colonies and sailors, cramped in the squalid lower decks, there were passengers, many of them destitute and hoping for a better life away from their native Holland. A few, however, were wealthy and these passengers were housed in the relative comfort of the cabins astern.
When the ship docked at Cape Town, Captain Jacobsz went on a violent drinking spree and Commander Pelsaert rebuked him publicly, which made the relationship between Captain and Commander worse than ever.
The second-in-command, Under Merchant Jeronimus Corneliez, had joined the company as a last resort, to avoid being arrested at home in Holland. His career as an apothecary was ruined and his creditors had uncovered his association with an heretical sect which believed that sin did not exist. This religious affiliation goes some way to explain his chilling detachment and lack of self-blame during the events on the island. He was also manipulative, persuasive and charismatic, exerting power over his followers and bending them to his will.
Jacobsz and Corneliez formed a dangerous alliance and they began to plan a mutiny, intending to seize the ship and her valuable cargo, kill the Commander and those loyal to him and then live as pirates. They gathered about them some hot-headed cadets and discontented sailors and directed them to attack the Comma
nder’s friend, a high-born young woman, Lucretia van der Meylen, who was on her way to join her husband in Batavia. Jacobsz and Corneliez were sure that the Commander would react violently to this act, and his retaliation would be the signal for the mutiny to begin.
In the event, Pelsaert did not lash out as expected, remaining passive and reasonable. Lucretia could only identify one of her attackers and he was imprisoned on board to await trial on the mainland.
So, the lid was on the mutiny – but only just – when Batavia ran aground on Morning Reef off the Houtman Abrolhos Islands (near Geraldton, Western Australia) on June 4th, 1629.
The Mutiny and after
The details of Batavia’s ill-fated voyage and the subsequent events on the islands were all meticulously recorded by Commander Francisco Pelsaert. He died in 1630, broken and disgraced, a year after the shipwreck. The captain of Batavia, Ariaen Jacobsz, died in prison while awaiting trial in Java. Wiebbe Hayes, however, came out well from the mutiny. He went from ordinary soldier to commissioned officer, receiving a substantial pay rise, and on his return to Batavia (Jakarta) he was promoted even further in recognition of his deeds by the Council for the Indies.
Jan Pelgrom’s crimes are listed as the murder of a cabin boy and assisting in two other murders, as well as ‘misbehaving with married women’.
Wouter Looes’ crimes are listed as taking part in the killing of the preacher’s family and of commanding the mutineers after the capture of Corneliez.
In 1656 the Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon) was wrecked off Cape Leschenault, much further south from the wreck site of Batavia. It is known that at least seventy-five survivors reached the shore and that seven of these sailed for Java. The remaining sixty-eight were never seen again, at least not by subsequent rescue parties.
The Blue-Eyed Aborigine Page 13
