by Carol Coffey
Mina looks over at Wilfred but he looks quickly away. I feel that he wants to leave the room but is too afraid to move. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. He spends his life trying to avoid people’s eyes.
“I remember Lars’ eyes as he stood holding the bars of those gates. I never saw a man cry before but he was crying for me. I said: ‘Lars, please tell me. I know, I know, so please tell me.’
“When he said those words I screamed so loud that I frightened myself. Lars put out his strong arms and pulled me closer to him. He held me so tightly that I could feel the hard metal of the gates crushing into my body. His eyes were imploring me to quieten. He said ‘Stop, stop crying!’ in Dutch. I didn’t know that a soldier was walking down to see what this noise was. Then I remember someone pulling me away. A short Japanese man was staring at my face. He ordered me to do something. I didn’t speak Japanese but I understood his tone. In one moment I thought how ridiculous this was. I was bigger than him and I think at that time I must have gone a little mad. I started slapping his chest and screaming for Dirk. He stood there and stared at me with his narrow brown eyes that had no look of life in them and then raised his rifle and hit me in the face.”
Mina raises her hand to her forehead and massages the long white line that runs across her brow. She stops for a moment and turns her head to the right, as if she is again turning a page to a new chapter in her life. The room is completely silent and nobody moves. Even Iren seems to be listening.
“I fell down but stood up quickly. I could see it all happening as if I was watching myself from far away. Blood was pouring down my face but I didn’t feel any pain and in my memory I have an expression on my face that was very strange. I said ‘Murderer’ over and over to him. I could hear Lars pleading with me to stop and I could hear Mr Perkins, an Englishman we knew, shout out in English but they seemed very far away. The soldier shouted something to me that I didn’t understand but no doubt he was ordering me to stop, giving me one last chance to back down. I moved closer to him and did something I have never done before. I spit in his face and even now, even with what he did, I am horrified that I did this. My parents would have been so ashamed. The soldier raised his rifle. His face and neck were bright red with anger. I thought he was going to shoot me and in that moment I didn’t care. I wanted to be with Dirk. But he didn’t shoot me. He hit me in the stomach and I fell forward onto the ground where I knelt in pain on the hot sand. Someone tried to stand me up. My eyes were closed tight from the pain but I could hear the soldier shout out and I was put back on the ground. It seemed to me that I was left there for a long time, perhaps as a lesson to others. I could feel myself drift off and wake again. I thought I heard Dirk’s voice and that he was trying to lift me but it was two soldiers raising me roughly to my feet and dragging me away. I looked back at Lars who was holding on so tight to those bars that they should have snapped in his big hands. I will never forget the look on his face yet I cannot describe it. On the ground was a long red streak of blood, my baby pouring from me. I never saw Dirk’s body so I realise that on that very spot I left my husband and my baby and also in reality, myself. Nothing that happened after that mattered much to me.”
Mina stops talking and Steve reaches forward and stops the recorder. He takes a deep breath. I can tell by his face that he hadn’t planned on obtaining this type of story and what he really wanted was stories of poverty-stricken Europeans leaving their homeland and settling happily in Australia, the land of plenty. He wanted stories about how they managed to adjust to a new country and keep their own culture at the same time. Steve takes a large gulp of water and offers Mina a drink. I search her face and even though her eyes are watery she looks determined to finish her story. I realise that she needs to finish it today and that nothing will dissuade her from this.
Steve turns the machine back on and she continues.
“I woke up in the hospital and a nurse told me that my baby was gone, as if I didn’t already know this. She said it was a boy and I cried for the rest of that day and the day after. Someone sent word to my household that I was there and Merpati, my maid, came to see me at the hospital. She was crying but I could tell that she was afraid when I grabbed her tight and held onto her while I cried. I had never touched her before, not even to shake her hand for all she did for me. There is a lot for an old woman to be ashamed of. Merpati brought me photos of my family, my jewellery and as many clothes as she could carry. She knew that I would not be returning to my home but I didn’t know this then. Three days later I was brought with two other European women in my ward to a truck which was already full of other white women. One of the women from the hospital was English and had a new baby girl that she had named Hope. Her husband was missing and she had heard nothing from him for weeks but she was glad to find her younger sister on the truck. I watched them embrace and thought about my brother and my father. I no longer believed that they were alive and, even if they were, I wondered how they would ever find me. I watched as the woman tried to feed her child but she had not much milk and the baby cried almost all of the time. Each time the baby cried I felt a deep pain in my stomach. As darkness fell I could not stand to listen to any more crying. I grabbed the baby from her mother and put her to my breast. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. The baby started to suck but I could not look at her. I looked away and cried silently as the truck drove further and further away from my home. The child’s mother moved across and sat beside me. She said ‘I am Mary’ and held my hand as we both cried silently.
“It was dark when the truck stopped and we had not been given anything to eat or drink all day. One by one we were unloaded into several buildings. I could see nothing around except palm trees and jungle. I had no idea where we were or which direction we had taken from Jakarta. Mary and her sister Jane were in my building with two other women and a younger girl of about fifteen. One of the women, Scyler, was Dutch and I had known her socially. She was wealthier than Dirk and me and I was shocked to see how dirty she looked. She could not face me and at first she pretended not to know me. We were given dirty mattresses to sleep on and all night we scratched our skin because of fleas. The following morning we were made to work carrying stones a long way and building walls that seemed to have no purpose. We settled into a routine and ate whatever little food was given to us. I kept feeding little Hope even though she didn’t seem to gain much weight. One day when there was no one else around Scyler said to me, ‘You need to stop feeding that English baby. To survive, you need all your weight for yourself.’ I couldn’t forget her saying that and I wondered what was becoming of us. Of course, I kept feeding the child and despite myself I had a bond with her. When her mother died of malaria, she called me Mama. It hurt my heart. I didn’t want anyone to call me Mama except my own son. We lived there for more than one year and every day was the same, working hard in the hot sun and lying on dirty mattresses at night. Sometimes at night it was cold and we struggled to stay warm. But we didn’t know how lucky we were there. The soldiers sometimes beat us for breaking rules but it was not all that bad.
“One day we were rounded up and taken by truck a very long way and then we boarded a train. We were brought to another camp, much bigger. It was overcrowded and people there were really sick. I thought to myself, ‘This is where I will die.’ At the first camp I had recovered from malaria and even though I had become very thin, I was stronger than most of the women but I knew that my strength would not last forever. Within two months of our time there, Scyler died and her words warning me to look after myself rang in my ears and haunted my dreams. Hope was now fourteen months old but she still needed nursing so I continued to feed her even though I was turning to skin and bone. I encouraged her to call her Aunt Jane ‘Mama’. If she reached for me, unless it was time to feed her, I would shove her away. Everything she did I knew my son would be doing now – every new tooth, her first step – he should have been doing too. But she had lost her mother as I had lost my son
so, in a way, I loved her. I realise this now. You come to realise a lot when you are old. Before they took Scyler’s body away, I took the jewellery that I knew she had hidden in her underclothes. I used it to get things for Hope: medicine, extra food and clothes. Some soldiers were happy to take gold for such things. I felt guilty then for stealing but Scyler was gone, she no longer needed it, and I had to keep Hope alive.
“Some nights the Japanese soldiers would come inside our dorms and take one of the younger women away. I was almost forty-one then and glad that they were not interested in me. I would lie on my mattress and think of Dirk and our son. I was in a dorm with many women and things were not good between us. People were desperate for clothes and you had to sleep on your belongings to keep them. Food was scarce and the Japanese didn’t give us enough to live on. If you didn’t eat quickly, someone would take your food. Lots of people had dysentery and, if you were ill, you had to hide your food in your clothes and eat it when you felt better. The only one I gave some of my food to was Hope. She remained a skinny child with hardly any hair. I figured that if she died, my hope would die with her and I would die also so I made sure she had everything she needed to survive. I was caught trading jewellery for which I was beaten but I no longer cared about such things. I had changed. Life was not worth much and my only reason to keep going was to see if my papa and brother were alive and waiting for me in Holland.
“Sometimes news leaked around the camp and other women said that the war was coming to an end and that the Japanese were sending prisoners back to Holland by ship. Some of the women worked outside the camp and one time two of them were caught smuggling things inside. For punishment, the soldiers left us without food for three days. When they finally brought food to us, I didn’t eat ravenously as the other women did but ate only a small amount of what they brought. I promised myself that I would never go hungry again so I portioned out my food and hid it in my clothes. For some reason I always felt hungry, even when I had just eaten and I hated this feeling so much. It was as if I could not satisfy something inside myself . . . but I survived . . .”
Mina smiles a self-satisfied smile to herself. I see Li whisper to Tina that she now understands why Mina hides food and Tina responds by saying that she knows why Mina becomes angry when she tries to take her clothes away for washing. Everyone else remains quiet and even Jimmy looks like he is affected by Mina’s story.
“What happened to the little English baby?” he asks with sad eyes.
“She lived,” Mina replies, smiling. “She writes to me,” she adds with a proud face.
Steve stops the tape. My mother looks at her watch and cannot believe that it is lunch-time. Li runs to the kitchen to cook a quick meal for everyone. Steve stands and stretches.
“Would it be all right if we started again tomorrow, Mina?”
Mina nods. I suspect that the worst part of her story is over and that she is glad to have got it off her chest.
My mother walks Steve to the door and agrees for him to come again tomorrow morning at ten. When the meal is ready, Li calls everyone to the dining room but Mina remains in the lounge room looking out the window. She moves her walking frame forward and makes her way to the stairs. My mother follows her.
“Aren’t you coming to eat, Mina?”
Mina shakes her head. “I’m not hungry, Emma, thank you.”
My mother stands for a few minutes looking after Mina before lowering her head and coming in to join the others.
When she sits down to eat, I see her say to Kora, “I hope this isn’t a mistake.”
I think, “No, Mother, this is not a mistake.”
Chapter 12
When I awake it is already half past nine and I realise that I did not dream of the train and had slept soundly. Instead I had dreamt of Mina as a young girl running through fields of sugar cane with her brother. There were no lines on her face and she was smiling. I wonder what she dreamt last night and hope they were nice dreams of when she was happy. I get out of bed and look briefly at my foot and notice that it is not as sore as it usually is. I raise it towards me and prod the unevenly stitched flesh but it does not hurt. I wonder if it is finally getting better and smile to myself as I dress quickly before racing down to the Penance Room for the rest of Mina’s story. Steve is already there and I notice that Aishling has waited up again and is smiling strangely at him. Something about her face makes me redden and I feel a little angry towards Steve although I don’t understand why.
Mina coughs and prepares to continue with her story. She is wearing the same blue dress and again has too much make-up on. There are dark circles under her pale blue eyes that already look filled with tears. I am worried now that she spent her night going over all the bad things that happened to her and I worry that my mother is right. This is not what I want. I want everyone to put their bad stories behind them and think about the times that were happy.
Steve plays back the last few minutes of Mina’s recording but she pulls at her brooch impatiently and doesn’t look as if she needs to be reminded where she stopped. She puts her hand to her neck and closes her eyes. I can see her throat moving up and down and know that she is nervous.
“We stayed at the new camp for more than another year and around me everyone was dying of disease. Those that lived were getting angry and no one wanted to share anything, even to share for children who were dying faster than adults I noticed. There were no boys. They came and took them all away except the little ones who were still not much more than babies. No one told us where they went and it suddenly came to my mind that it was better that my son didn’t see any of this. It was best that he died and didn’t live a life of feeling afraid.”
I look quickly over at my mother who swallows hard. I know she is thinking of me.
“Twice I nursed Jane, Hope’s aunt, back to health. I told her, ‘You cannot die. Hope needs you.’ Once she asked me, in a fever, ‘Will you look after Hope?’ and I said, ‘No, I will not – you must live, Jane. I cannot look after anyone.’ I think this is why she lived. Once when she wrote to me from Canada, she asked if I was telling the truth all those years ago and I think of course I would have looked after Hope because I would have had no choice. I could not let her die. As I have said, if she died I would also have died. There would have been no reason to live.
“For many months I had sores on my feet and even then I still had to work. At night I would cut them and let the liquid pour out from them. I remember it smelt very bad and used to burn. I still hold onto food and keep it safe. I was always afraid that there would be no more and I would die. I stayed out of the soldiers’ way and worked hard. I never looked them in the eye. They didn’t like you to do that. I kept thinking that it was possible that my brother and papa were alive so I didn’t allow myself to think of them dead even though I had dreamt this very often. It is hard to control your dreams.
“After one more year we heard that the war was over but the Japanese didn’t tell us at first. We saw that there were fewer soldiers and one day an important soldier came and we had to line up and tell them where we came from. Again I thought, this is it, they are separating us and will only kill the races they don’t like. But we were all sent to another camp, this time not so far on the truck. The soldiers said it was for our safety. They told us that the Indonesians wanted to kill us but I didn’t believe this was true.
“When we arrived I could see lots of people in the town moving around and I could see the ocean but I had no idea where this place was. We were put into different buildings and for the first time I was separated from Hope and Jane. All of the women in my room were Dutch and I knew something was about to happen. I saw Jane in an exercise yard and I told her where I was from in Holland. She gave me her parents’ address in England. We had nothing to write on and I spent the day trying to memorise the strange-sounding English words in her address. We realised that we didn’t know each other’s last names and smiled as each of us spelt them out like we were being introduced fo
r the first time. We both laughed as we realised how silly all of this was because we both thought that we were soon going to die. For the first time I hugged Hope and ran my hand over her blonde head. I smelt her and I cried like a baby until she pulled away, afraid. A soldier shouted and I walked away quickly.
“The next morning we woke to the sound of big noise. There was shouting and I could hear people crying. I know the sound of fear. I have never forgotten it. All of the women in my group were put on the truck but no one told us where we were going. One woman said we were being taken a long way and put on boats to be set free . . .”
Wilfred gasps and everyone looks his way. No one knows why he has reacted this way. Mina continues.
“I strained my neck looking into the large yard for Hope but there were too many people and everyone was in panic. When the truck pulled away I thought ‘Why do they not just shoot us here?’ But when we arrived at the water there was a big ship there and already I could see people on this ship, European men who were staring down at us and my heart jumped. I realised that we were being set free.”
