Yet while it seemed Dr. Eikenboom had solved one crisis facing the camp, Nakahara’s determination was growing to find the girls he needed for his teahouse.
Sophie met that challenge in her straightforward way. She wanted Laura to be part of the conversation so that her granddaughter would be aware of this injustice and could stand bravely alongside her grandmother. By then, Sophie had become like my own grandmother, so I was with Laura, at the kitchen, when Sophie met with Mrs. Bakker and the other block representatives.
About twenty women were gathered around the tables and huge vats that later would be filled with more water and rice.
“Tomorrow,” Sophie said to all of them, “Nakahara wants us to present him the young women for his teahouse.”
“It’s against the Geneva Convention rules,” Mrs. Bakker said. About Sophie’s age, she was a mother of four boys, all in the men’s work camps, and had the habitual expression of a woman sucking on tart lemon candies. This had been Mrs. Bakker’s standard response in private conversations with Sophie, which is why Sophie wanted a broader audience.
“And it’s against the Geneva Convention rules for him to withhold our Red Cross supplies,” Sophie said. “But we know he’s doing it.”
“We think he’s doing it,” Mrs. Bakker said. It was hot, even in the shade of the tin roof. The armpits of her dress were damp. “There’s no proof. Surely he knows we need those supplies.”
Mrs. Bakker, Sophie had explained to Laura and me, liked life with her head in sand, her big bloomers puffed out like the hind end of an ostrich.
“I have a woman who says she wants her daughter to go to the teahouse,” one block representative said, utter exhaustion on her thin face. “So does the daughter. They say she will get fed well and won’t have to work.”
Sophie turned over a vat and stood on it so that she could see every woman and they her. She looked them in the eyes as necessary.
“Think about this,” Sophie said. “Stop and really think about this. Are we going to agree to be pimps for our enemy? If we allow even one woman to send her daughter to the soldiers, that is what we have collectively become. When the war is over—and it will end sooner or later—do you want to leave this camp and have that on your conscience forever? Do we want even one of our daughters spending the rest of her life not only remembering how those animals treated her, but remembering that we allowed it to begin and allowed it to continue?”
“They might kill us if we resist,” the woman said.
Sophie stepped down from the vat. She turned over another vat beside the first one, then motioned for Laura to stand on it beside her. She put her arms on Laura’s shoulders and addressed the women again.
“And you think the shame of handing daughters over to be deflowered is better than living with that shame?” Her voice rose. Sophie was furious. Not at the woman who radiated exhaustion but at the situation.
“These are our children!” Sophie looked from woman to woman. “If one of your children was drowning, wouldn’t you rush into the water even if you couldn’t swim? If a lion attacked one of your children, you would face it with a broom or your bare hands, would you not? And would not that lion flee to discover how savage you would be in driving it away?”
I saw many of the women stand straighter as if saying, Yes, they would attack a lion. Yes, it would flee.
“Tomorrow morning, Nakahara expects one of us to bring him the girls at his deadline of nine o’clock.” Sophie spoke clearly, her voice radiating strength. “I will be the one to go to his office and tell him that we refuse to grant his request.”
No one spoke. I assumed they were thinking, as I was, that Sophie would receive a savage beating for her defiance against Nakahara.
“If I don’t return,” Sophie continued, “it is up to the rest of you to be leaders for all the women. We must hide all of the girls that meet his age requirements. We cannot give him those girls.”
“And if the soldiers come to get those girls?” Mrs. Bakker asked. Serious as this situation was, I had difficulty getting the image out of my head of this old woman bent forward with her head in the sand and her bloomers exposed.
Sophie stepped down and reached for one of the stirring spoons. She stepped onto the vat again so that everyone could see as she tossed it to Mrs. Bakker. “If the soldiers come to get those girls, you will have this to defend yourself.”
“A spoon against a rifle!”
“No, all of us with any kind of weapon. We have table knives and paring knives and scissors and forks. There are three thousand women and only a couple hundred soldiers. Nakahara might be willing to kill one woman, but would he kill us all? And are his soldiers willing to shoot us down for him?”
Sophie scanned the women’s faces and met as many eyes as she could. “Every woman in this camp must choose this moment to stand up against Nakahara. If we don’t stop him here, who knows what he will ask for next.”
She put her hands back on Laura’s shoulders. “And who knows if the next girls he wants will even be of age.”
Again, silence. One of the women stepped forward and turned a vat over. She found her balance on it and, at Sophie’s side, faced the women.
“I will stand with her,” Mrs. Schoonenburg said. Normally, when she preached to us, she was strong and confident, a pastor’s wife whom we depended on as if she were the pastor herself. But now, her voice was trembling. “I will go with her tomorrow to Nakahara, and I will face his rage with her.” She gulped for air and struggled to continue speaking. “When Paul and Peter were asked to deny the Christ, they suffered beatings and imprisonment. When the first Christians in Rome were told to deny their Lord, they went into the arenas and sang hymns as wild animals advanced on them to tear them apart. If we give Nakahara our girls, we will be denying our Lord as surely as if we put the nails in His hands. And if tomorrow I die, when I enter heaven, it will not be with shame, and I will be able to look my Lord in the eyes and tell Him that I followed Him even unto death.”
“I will stand with her!” another shouted.
“And I!”
“And I!”
Then someone shouted, “We will stand with her!” It became an echo affirmed by all, repeated and repeated and repeated.
Sophie began to shudder as she, too, released her emotions. Then she began singing, so softly that it took me a few moments to realize it. “A wretch like me … was blind, but now I see …”
Mrs. Bakker, at the front, heard it too. She moved up and stood beside Sophie, then took Sophie’s hand and joined in. “ ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved …”
The ostrich was out of the sand, and her voice carried to the others. Like a flame touched to dry grass, it took only seconds for all to lift their voices, reaching out, hand to hand, many weeping as they sang.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we’d first begun …”
As these women began to sing the final chorus, I saw Nikki running toward me. Her face was pinched with grief.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound …”
Nikki darted among the women and reached me at Sophie’s side. I, too, was singing.
“I once was lost, but now am found …”
Nikki pulled my hand and stood on her tiptoes so she could speak into my ear and so I could hear her above this wonderful hymn of hope, poured out to their Lord by women so sad and afraid and resolute.
“Was blind, but now I see …”
“Jeremiah, Jeremiah,” she said. “Come home. Jasmijn won’t wake up.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Each day, dozens of bodies were prayed over by immediate family members or by Mrs. Schoonenburg before being removed from camp. There was no dignity in wrapping the bodies in blankets, and no remembrance stones were left to mark a loved one’s passing.
Stone-faced mothers dressed their children’s bodies in their finest clothing,
then let someone else take the child away. At least it spared her the final image of her child being stacked beside other bodies in a death wagon.
When a mother died, the children often responded with incomprehension, their reactions ranging from hysterics to denial. Sometimes a little boy or girl would refuse to let go of the mother’s hand in a futile attempt to prevent the body from being removed.
Elsbeth, Nikki, Aniek, and Pietje and I had placed our hope in my obtaining insulin for our little Jasmijn, but it hadn’t saved her. While we weren’t alone in our grief, we each faced the loss independently. I responded with a determination that Jasmijn would not be added to the bodies on the wagon, and I told Dr. Eikenboom of my decision as she filled out the death certificate.
Jasmijn’s soul had been gone only an hour or so, and she truly looked asleep.
Dr. Eikenboom shook her head. “But soldiers would see the freshly dug soil of a grave plot. Or a neighbor would know and others would hear about it. It wouldn’t be allowed because if you were able to bury your sister, others would want the same privilege.”
The tip of a small feather from her pillow extended from the edge of Jasmijn’s lips. Her mouth had not dried out, and the feather was still wet and bedraggled. I pulled it out.
“I will take her to Adi,” I said.
“Adi? The boy who does our trading in town?”
“I will ask him to take our little sister and provide her a grave. After the war, we will be able to visit her.”
“Jeremiah,” Dr. Eikenboom said, “Mrs. Schoonenburg will join you and perform a funeral ceremony and you can say good-bye to Jasmijn that way. That is how it must be done.”
I don’t know what she thought she saw in my eyes, because her expression changed and a sad smile formed on her lips. “That is not how it must be done. I think your suggestion is a beautiful idea. I trust you not to get caught.”
Pietje nodded. Aniek and Nikki came to a telepathic agreement and both nodded too. Their faces were blotched with grief and exhaustion. They had spent the last hour singing to Jasmijn, not songs to teach her what to call finger or nose, but hymns of comfort to her still body.
“Now,” Dr. Eikenboom said, “we need to see to your mother.” She knelt beside Elsbeth, who pushed her away. This, at least, told us that Elsbeth still heard and understood what was happening around her.
Dr. Eikenboom rose. “Please do your best to make sure that your mother eats what you give her. She needs rest.”
“Yes,” I said.
When Dr. Eikenboom left, we placed Jasmijn in the family bed and sang her lullabies, as if she were still with us. I glanced over at Elsbeth once, and she was managing a small smile as tears were rolling down her face. That gave me a burst of joy because it told me that perhaps our mother was breaking through her hard shell.
I knew what was ahead of me for the rest of the day. Mrs. Schoonenburg would lead us through a funeral, and I would promise to be responsible for taking Jasmijn out of the house. Mrs. Schoonenburg would assume I meant the wagon, then would leave us alone. I would spend the day with Jasmijn, and after curfew, I would hold my little sister to my chest and crawl through the drainage pipe. Then I would wait on the other side in the darkness for Adi to arrive with the items on the list that I’d left for him before Sophie had called together the block representatives. It wouldn’t matter to me if my vigil took all night.
The funeral came and went. With the knowledge that she would join Sophie the next morning to face Nakahara, Mrs. Schoonenburg had a powerful presence to her that illuminated her prayers over Jasmijn, as if she were already in the fire—like Daniel’s friends with the angel—and singing praise to God.
The only time I left the house and my vigil over Jasmijn was when Sophie came to see how our family was doing. I allowed Sophie to hug me, but Laura stared at me in a daze. The next morning, Sophie and Mrs. Schoonenburg would face Nakahara with their message of defiance, and Laura was trying to be brave about her own fears. We were both aware that today might be the last time for Sophie to hug either of us.
I waited about an hour after the siren sounded for curfew. Then I safely snuck to the bush that hid our pipeline to freedom, and I cried only a little as Jasmijn and I made our final journey together beneath the fence. On the other side, I found a spot in deep shadows to lean against the banyan that once held the python. With Jasmijn cradled against my chest, I let the night sounds settle around me. Frogs in high pitches and bullfrogs in low pitches. The occasional screech from trees outside of town. The tropical heat was a blanket, and I whispered lullabies to Jasmijn, grateful for each minute that Adi did not arrive.
I had no way to track time, but eventually, I fell asleep. It was only the rustling of brush that woke me, and I saw Adi kneeling as he prepared to crawl through the vegetation to the entrance to the drainage pipe.
“Adi,” I whispered.
He groaned with fright.
“It’s me—Jeremiah.”
Adi backed away. He had a bag in his arms.
“Jeremiah?”
“Over here,” I said.
Adi came forward. He set the day’s supplies on the ground.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Light your candle,” I said.
He did. The glow showed Jasmijn’s tranquil face. It also showed the twisted turn of his upper lip that made him an outcast in his own world.
“My sister,” I said. “Jasmijn.”
“She’s so beautiful.” He saw that her hair was dark. “She’s one of us.”
“Yes.”
In the candlelight, he reached over and lightly stroked her cheek. I could not help it. I shuddered with grief.
He drew his hand back as if he’d touched the flame of his candle. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” I said. I took his hand and brought it back to her face. He stroked her cheek again, as if lost in the perfection of her face.
“Don’t let her wake,” he said, a grunt escaping his mouth as he tried to form words. “Sometimes the little ones see my mouth and they don’t understand I am not a monster …”
In that moment, I wanted to hug him as Sophie had hugged me earlier in my grief, but that was impossible. Adi would have misinterpreted my compassion as pity.
“Remember how you’ve found me insulin?” I said to Adi. “It was for her. But she doesn’t need it anymore.”
He looked at me. And understood.
“My brother,” he said, “I am so sorry.”
“Will you truly be my brother?” I asked. “Will you find a grave for her and a cross? Beneath her shirt, I’ve written a note with her name and her date of birth and today’s date for the cross.”
“I will,” he said. “As God is my witness. You honor me with this.”
“Tell me what it costs,” I said. “I will leave you the money when I leave a list.”
“This is not something that a brother does for money,” he answered, and it was an answer that gave me certainty that I could trust Jasmijn to him.
I tried to thank him, but I could not control my shuddering anymore and became incoherent.
Adi blew out the candle. He knelt and took Jasmijn from my arms and walked away into the darkness, leaving me with the night sounds beneath the banyan.
TWENTY-NINE
I could not permit myself the luxury of solitude for my grief much past dawn, because I could not fail to be there for the usual roll call after the wailing of sirens took our family out to the street with all the other women and children of camp.
In line, waiting for the soldier to appear who would do the count for our block, I first heard the news: Sophie and Mrs. Schoonenburg had been taken away by guards the evening before, and no one knew where they were.
With the deadline less than an hour away, I heard the whispers up and down the line. “Who will face Nakahara now? Who will go to him and tell him that we will not give up our girls for the teahouse?”
With sisters
too young to be affected by the teahouse, my fears were for Sophie and Laura. During roll call, it was impossible to go a street over to see Laura, but as soon as the soldier had satisfied himself that everyone on our block was accounted for—Jasmijn’s death certificate had reduced it by one—I dashed between two houses on a familiar shortcut to find her.
Laura was sitting on the porch of the house, back to the wall, arms wrapped around her knees.
“I’ve heard,” I said as I sat beside her.
“He said they will be released when the teahouse girls are brought to him,” Laura answered. “What is there to do?”
I grappled with the answer that had already been decided. Sophie and Mrs. Schoonenburg had said that if necessary, they would sacrifice their lives in telling Nakahara of the camp’s refusal to give him teahouse girls. How had anything changed? That was a logical answer for Laura.
Yet only the day before, too many adults had tried to comfort me with logic. “It’s a mercy that Jasmijn is in heaven. This camp has too many hardships, and the poor child was in so much pain so much of the time.”
The heart is not engineered for logic, because the heart is not engineered.
I knew the answer to give Laura because Sophie had given me the best answer the day before. She had held me and whispered, “I’m sorry for you, Jeremiah. I don’t think anyone can understand how much it hurts. I wish I could carry your pain for you. I’m so sorry for you.”
“Laura,” I said, “I don’t know what there is to do. I wish I knew. And I’m so sorry for you.”
We might have remained on the porch all day, each in our own private griefs, but in the next minutes, Mrs. Bakker, the block representative, stepped into the middle of the street and called in a voice that was surprisingly loud.
Thief of Glory Page 17
