Thief of Glory

by Sigmund Brouwer

  I searched for the driest logs in the pile. As I labored to split off small enough pieces to fit into the stove, I was so absorbed in the task that I did not know Laura had entered my life again until I heard her speak in a dull voice.

  “I was told I could find you in the kitchen.”

  I turned and looked into the face of Laura. I had dreamed when one day I saw her again, I would be in fine clothes, driving a fine car, somewhere in Amsterdam. She would see me in the car and regret until her dying day how she had spurned me by sending an empty envelope in response to my beautiful sonnet.

  “I’ve been asked to deliver a message to you,” she said.

  I was spattered in mud, smelling of smoke. I became more aware of how distasteful I looked in that moment than I had in months. That was the impact Laura’s appearance had on me. It was the same horse’s kick in the belly reaction that I’d had the first time I’d seen her. This time, however, I let it make me feel angry and churlish. With her in front of me, so beautiful despite the near rags that served as a dress, and the knots in her long hair, and with her facial expression and dull voice so obviously indicative of her disinterest in me, I honed in on the vivid disappointment I felt after that empty envelope had arrived.

  “They were right, then, weren’t they? This is where I am.” I turned my attention back to the firewood. My goal was to say it in such a way that it hurt her as much as I felt hurt.

  I succeeded. When I glanced back to see if she had remained, I found her staring at me with near hatred.

  “Go away,” I said.

  “Believe me, I will. I didn’t want to look for you, but my oma sent me because she wants to talk to you. So I had no choice.”

  I should have asked how Sophie was doing. I should have apologized that it was my fault that I hadn’t done enough to stop Nakahara. Instead, I nodded without looking at her. I had every right to be angry, didn’t I? I’d poured my heart into a sonnet that Ivanhoe himself would have been proud to have given to Rowena. Yet Laura had made a deliberate point of insulting me with her reply of an empty envelope. And her current attitude that made it clear she thought I was dung to be scraped off her shoe.

  “I have wanted to be able to speak to your oma,” I said. I did not know if I would be able to thank Sophie in a way that made sense. How do you express happiness to someone for paying such a large price to save someone you love? “But not with you there. So I will go to the hospital as soon as I can.”

  “She’s not in the hospital,” Laura said. “The doctors said that they didn’t want her to catch an infection. She’s at the house where they put us.”

  I didn’t know which house Sophie had been forced to choose for their living quarters. The influx of newcomers had nearly doubled our population. Where families had once been able to keep a room all to themselves, now they had to share with another family of strangers. In our house, my decision to take such a small room, where five bodies asleep filled all the space on the floor, had paid off, and we’d been able to keep our privacy.

  “Send someone else to get me then,” I said, keeping my back to her. This was her chance to ask why I was so mad, and then when I explained, she could apologize and beg forgiveness for her betrayal.

  When I didn’t get a response, I turned my head to see why she was silent. But she was gone.

  A few hours later, after all the rice had been dispensed—family by family, according to a check sheet so that nobody cheated and got second rations—someone did show up to lead me to the house where Laura’s grandmother was recovering.

  Georgie.

  NINETEEN

  “I’m here to get you because I’ve been taking care of Laura and her oma,” Georgie said. His age made him one of the oldest boys in the camp, and his size showed it. His shirt stretched at his shoulders, and he’d grown wider, though not heavier, in the last months. My clothes were still comfortable and slid around my body, to the point where I wondered if I was ever going to get taller. “Oma Jansen wants to see you and I am to take you to the house. Our family shares the same house. That’s what Laura wanted.”

  He looked me up and down, letting me know he was doing it, then gave me a challenging smirk. “I can’t imagine Oma Jansen will have anything nice to say to you after you caused the commander to nearly kill her.”

  We were just outside the roof of the kitchen. The drizzle had stopped. Women in the kitchen were relaxing and chatting. This was not the place for a fight, but I could not help remembering the iron bar coming down on my arm. It took all my effort not to dive forward and tackle him. I felt like if I even let a single word escape from my mouth, it would burst the dam of rage I was trying to hold back, so I merely met his eyes and remained silent.

  I was no longer Ivanhoe, but King Arthur; Laura no longer Rowena, but Guinevere; and I was tasting ashes of bitterness as I faced Lancelot, the knight that Guinevere had chosen for her betrayal of me.

  I swallowed those ashes in silence, and I forced myself to walk away.

  “Afraid?” he asked. “Chicken?”

  I kept walking. He had to trot to catch up to me. This, at least, put me back in control.

  “You have to visit Oma Jansen,” he said. “She’s asking for you.”

  I could see that my refusal to speak was infuriating him. As was my refusal to follow him.

  “Hey,” he said. “Aren’t you listening? You have to go with me to Oma Jansen.”

  The streets were cobblestone, but the yards around the houses were grass. Or at least they had been, before the Jappenkamp. In many places, because each house held about fifty or more people, the grass had been worn to dirt, which had become puddles and mud after the rain. I walked directly into a huge patch of greasy dirt, and I made a splash. It didn’t matter to me; I was filthy from tending the fires in the kitchen.

  “Hey!” he said from the edge of the mud.

  This was good. If he wanted to follow me and drive himself crazy listening to me not answer, he would have to endure my splashing.

  “Hey!” He had not moved.

  I reached the edge of one yard but stayed on a path that would take me past the edge of the next house, using a shortcut to the street a block over.

  “I’m telling her that you’re afraid,” he yelled.

  I disappeared around the edge of the house. Out of his sight, I ran to our own house. The cistern in the back had filled with rainwater, beautifully clean and lukewarm. I poured bucket after bucket over myself, standing in my ragged underwear. Modesty was a general commodity that had vanished weeks earlier.

  After I dried, I noticed Pietje nearby, doing what he usually did—shadow my every move and observe everything.

  “Pietje,” I said as I walked toward him, “you need to stay with your sisters for a while. I am going to another house, and I will be back as soon as I can.”

  He giggled.

  “After I get dressed,” I said with pretended irritation.

  My best shirt and shorts still looked good because I rarely wore them, and I made sure my hair was combed. Then I went back to the street, this time avoiding all mud and puddles.

  It didn’t take long to find out where Laura and her oma were staying. As I had anticipated, all I had to do was ask. The clouds had broken, and as sunshine lifted the gloom, women and children were spilling out of their houses. In such cramped conditions, there was no joy in listening to rain when another entire family shared your bedroom.

  “Mevrouw,” I said to the first woman I saw a street over. “I’m looking for Mrs. Jansen. She’s the one that the commander attacked yesterday. Did you hear about it?”

  This woman wore a wide straw hat and had curtains of skin hanging from her face and her arms. For some, who had been robust before the Jappenkamp, losing weight was happening faster than the body could adjust by tightening skin.

  “I heard about it,” she said. She wouldn’t have seen it, of course, because where she was lined up during roll call was on her street, not ours. “It was a tragic thin
g. That poor woman couldn’t help but faint. And the boy, I hear he was almost killed by that dog. Such a brave thing that Mrs. Jansen did.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And Mrs. Jansen. Is she all right?”

  “The doctor is with her.” She pointed. “Four houses down. On that side of the street. I heard she was on a ship to Australia when it was captured by the Japanese Navy and everyone was taken back here and put into camps. She’s lucky it didn’t just get bombed like most of the ships. I heard that—”

  Then she gasped at what she noticed in my hand. “You have an orange! Would you like to trade for it?”

  A few days earlier, at the bamboo curtain, I’d been able to trade a few strips of mattress cover for it. I’d hidden it, even from my family, intending to surprise them with it on the birthday of the twins in a couple of days.

  “It’s not mine,” I said. Because my family had not known about it, they would not be disappointed it would not reach them. “I’m sorry.”

  I followed her directions, not surprised she knew Dr. Eikenboom was there. Gossip and rumor spread faster and more thoroughly than bedbugs. When I stepped inside the house, the familiar smell of body odor pressed upon me, as it did upon entering the house where our family stayed.

  With all the interior doors removed from the frames, all I needed to do was walk down the hallway. Some families, in defiance of camp orders, had hung sheets in the doorways for privacy. Others, afraid of surprise inspections, had not.

  Down the hallway, I saw the familiar figure of Dr. Eikenboom. Standing near her, blocking my view of the focus of her attention, were Laura and Georgie and a woman I did not know.

  I cleared my throat, and all heads turned toward me.

  “That’s him, Mom,” Georgie said without hesitation. “The boy who attacked me at the market. Remember? Who bit my ear? Before we got on the ship. He’s the boy who didn’t listen when I told him to follow me here.”

  Georgie’s mother pursed her lips in instant disapproval. As an American woman, Mrs. Smith would have been automatically granted an air of mystique. Her appearance amplified it—thick, curly hair and the exquisite bone features of her face. I’d seen movie posters for Santa Fe Trail, starring Olivia de Havilland. The woman in front of me resembled and had the aura of that actress, but without the bonnet and frilly dress in the poster.

  “Jeremiah,” Dr. Eikenboom said. “It’s nice to see you. I told them that we should expect you anytime.”

  At least she showed no pursing of the lips.

  Beside her, Laura stepped away from the cot. I saw her seeing me see her, and I felt crucified by my regret for my churlishness.

  “Mrs. Jansen asked for me,” I explained. “So I am here.”

  “Yes,” came the voice from behind Dr. Eikenboom. “Thank you.”

  Dr. Eikenboom moved aside, giving me a clear view of Mrs. Jansen, propped by pillows on a cot that had undoubtedly been moved here from the hospital. Her face was mottled with bruises, stitched in several places. Her swollen lips were split, with dried blood in the creases. She had an arm in a sling, resting atop the sheet of lightweight fabric that covered the rest of her body.

  I stepped forward. “Thank you, Mrs. Jansen, for protecting my mother. I am very sorry for what happened to you. I brought this for you.”

  I held out the precious orange.

  Mrs. Smith said, “An orange! Did you steal that?”

  Instead of answering her insult, I froze my stare directly upon her. I could see that she wanted to rebuke me for my insolence, but Mrs. Jansen spoke first.

  “I would like to be alone with Jeremiah,” she said. “If possible, this will be a private conversation.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Eikenboom said. “I have hospital duties. Please send for me if you feel the need. We are all grateful for the courage you showed yesterday, and already, I am hearing that we all must stand together against the Japanese.”

  Dr. Eikenboom said to me, “And Jeremiah, when you hoodwink Dr. Kloet into a marble game this afternoon, ask him to put disinfectant again on those scratches. We can’t be too careful, you know.”

  “Yes, mevrouw,” I said. “Thank you.”

  As Mrs. Smith, Georgie, and Laura pushed past me, I heard Mrs. Smith say, “Hoodwink?”

  The only response I heard from Dr. Eikenboom was laughter. Then I was in the room alone with Mrs. Jansen.

  She studied me through one eye since her left eye was nearly swollen shut.

  “So,” she said. “I like how you look now much better than seeing you only in underwear in a goat field.”

  I held out my orange for her. “Thank you for saving my mother.”

  “I’d like you to keep that for your family,” she said. “I don’t need thanks for what I did yesterday. I am so tired of how we’ve been treated, I’ve decided that I will no longer be a coward, even if it kills me.”

  She gave me a wan smile, and a touch of blood seeped from a crack in her lips at the movement. “That was a very serious thing to say, and it wasn’t why I asked to see you. So I apologize if speaking of this frightens you, but I truly want you to understand my actions. You must not feel that you or your mother are to blame in any way for what happened to me. It was my choice and it gave me a chance to feel good about myself. Physical pain is a small price to pay for that.”

  “Yes, mevrouw,” I said.

  “If we become friends,” she said, “I would prefer it if you called me Sophie. And I would like to become friends, but I want to ask you some questions first.”

  This was not at all the direction of conversation I expected. Friends with an adult? “You are the boy who wrote a letter to Laura?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Would you like to tell me what you wrote in the letter?”

  “No,” I said. It had been bad enough that Laura had humiliated me by sending back an empty envelope. “I would not.”

  I could tell my answer disappointed her. She took her time, as if gathering her thoughts.

  “I’ve been told that you are cruel to animals,” she said. “That you hit a pig in the head with a hammer. Is that true?”

  I stood still, trying to keep my defenses in control. “There are two sides to every story.”

  “Then I would like to hear the other side.”

  I did not like this feeling that I was on trial, and it made me angry. “Whoever told you that I hit a pig in the head with a hammer knows both sides to the story. Ask him or her. Then ask why he or she only told one side of the story.”

  That was either Laura or Georgie, who’d heard about it beneath the banyan tree. I hoped it had been Georgie trying to make me look bad, but now I wasn’t sure about Laura.

  “Fair enough,” Mrs. Jansen said, and a hint of a smile returned to her face, though that could have been my imagination because of how puffed and swollen the skin was around her cheekbones. She studied me again.

  “I am trying to decide about you,” she said finally. She closed her eyes. “I saw yesterday that you tried to help your mother when she fainted, even though you risked a beating yourself and the dog was at your throat.” She paused, then opened her eyes. “Dr. Eikenboom tells me that you work in the kitchen in her place and you carry buckets of sewage for her when it’s her turn for that duty.”

  I expected then that she’d offer me unnecessary praise that I neither wanted nor deserved, but instead she said, “I’ve even heard the younger children adore you because you don’t let anyone bully them and that you give marbles to the little children in this camp whenever you find them crying on the street.”

  She looked at me as if waiting for a reply.

  “Only if they are old enough to know not to swallow them,” I said. “I learned with younger ones that it upsets them to lose the marble, and then we have to wait until it passes through so that we can find it again.”

  More reflective silence on her part, perhaps as she sympathized with the difficulty of keeping happy a younger child that swallows marbles. Then, “Yo
u won’t tell me what was in the letter to Laura?”

  “I sent it for her eyes. If she wants to tell you, I can’t stop that.”

  Sophie’s eyebrows wrinkled slightly.

  “Your arm,” she said. “Outside the market where I saw you in your underwear tied to a rope to a fence post. Before we went on the ship to Australia. I heard that it had been broken that day. I heard that you fell from a tree after I took Georgie away.”

  “I’m sure that’s what you heard,” I said.

  “Did you? Fall from a tree?”

  “That’s what I told my mother.”

  “What you told your mother might be one thing. But did you fall from a tree and break it?”

  “I would like to know why you are asking,” I said.

  “I would like to know why, if it happened differently, that you keep it a secret.”

  “May I go now?” I asked.

  “Do you remember that day in the market when you saw some money fall at the baker’s stall and gave it back to the woman? I was there, at a nearby stall, and I heard her thanking you.”

  I shrugged. “To keep it would have been stealing.”

  “I also saw what happened at the fight with that piece of iron as I was walking up, when none of the boys had noticed me yet,” she said, nodding toward my arm. “Georgie hit you with it.”

  “I have nothing to say about that fight.”

  “Laura told me that Georgie was the one who wanted to fight. I found it remarkable that you made it seem like nothing had happened, and I found it remarkable that you didn’t try to get him in trouble for it. What I can’t decide is how the same boy who could have easily kept the money and easily put another boy in trouble for breaking his arm is the same boy who would write something in a letter that would make my granddaughter cry for several days.”

  I said as respectfully as I could, “I think that if someone wants to judge me to see if they will approve of me, it makes me not care what they think. May I go now?”