A little plate of rough china, glazed a light, even green—a real poison plate from Ceram.
“It warns against poison,” the grandmother said. Poison scared the plate and made it change color, bad poison would make cracks in it, and a really bad poison could make it break right in two.
Once Felicia had asked what poison was.
“Poison, that is the same as venom—Venom,” the grandmother said, pronouncing the “V” very sharply.
After that Felicia did not ask further: Venom, she realized, had to be something frightening, not a thing to ask or talk or even think about.
On the plate lay the two boxes.
In one, carefully wrapped in a piece of cloth, a “snakestone” was kept. It was tricky to keep the snakestones straight, there were so many kinds. There were little white stones which snakes sucked on to quench their thirst; then there was the Carbuncle stone which a certain kind of snake wore in its forehead and which gave a red glow in the dark, but that was a very rare one. You couldn’t kill the snake to get it, because then the glow of the stone vanished immediately and forever. Occasionally the snake left the stone somewhere as a gift; and when it went to drink or bathe it took it out—the stone must not get wet. That was your opportunity to find it and keep it. But it was no use to anybody else: the Carbuncle stone could not be traded, bought or sold, for then again the glow would vanish. Find it yourself, or get it as a gift.
Felicia’s grandmother had until now never found a Carbuncle stone, and no one had ever given her one “free as a gift for nothing to keep,” she said, “it is a pity, granddaughter.”
Her snakestone was of quite a different sort. It cured snakebite and the bite of poisonous animals, fishes, scorpions and spiders. The stone sucked the—Venom—out of the wound. Later she would show Felicia how to use it.
The second box was lined with little pieces of blue velvet and in it another stone was lying. It looked like a common white pebble with a bit of a pearly shine over it; and next to it lay a little stone, like a piece broken off the other one. But that was something one should not think and certainly never say!
The very small stone was the child of the other stone. First it had not been there: the larger one had been “all alone” in the box—and one morning the child was lying next to it, “born in the night,” grandmother said, and put the top back on the box.
And then there were always some shells in the drawer, nothing special, the kind that grew on the rocks near the bay. The small creatures which made their houses in them were still alive; they were not fed, yet they went on living for months and now and then they moved about with a slight crackling of their shells’ edges against the rough paper.
They were there to guard the treasure; grandmother was always careful to get some new ones from the beach regularly. As long as the treasure was guarded by living sentinels no thief would dare touch it, and as long as the treasure was lying in the drawer the house of the Small Garden would be protected against misfortune, and disease, and poverty, and venom, and other unmentionable things; and all who lived there would be—happy, grandmother would never say—not too unhappy, the Lord willing . . .
If she would ever find the Carbuncle stone, or get it as a present—free as a gift for nothing to keep—and (she hardly dared speak the words) the Green Bracelet!—then she would have a treasure of Five.
Five! Five is such a very good number; but that would most likely never happen.
Now it was Three, and three is a lot too. A person must be content with what’s given, and manage with that as well as possible; and then she said again, “you must learn to be a proud girl, upright, and not cry or be scared,” and “if we can only remain proud people!”
Later Felicia understood that with proud she meant courageous; at least that is what she thought.
And Felicia remembered how it had come about that they had left the island, and how the three girls had been mentioned on that occasion. She had never heard talk of them before, although she had often enough passed the three graves at the edge of the wood. Susanna had never told her about them, but then she did not really belong to the Small Garden.
It all started with the quarrel about the old spicegrower’s house, of which the brick foundations and some pieces of wall remained standing, between the trees to the right of the pavilion. Felicia’s mother had had a little plan, she always had plans—she wanted to rebuild the house.
It had been a stone house with a second story, not over the whole house but only in front—the Hall—with a row of tall windows with balustrades at the bayside. That second story would not be rebuilt, of course not; everyone knew better now with all those earthquakes: the Hall would be on the ground floor, again with French windows. Again with wrought-iron balustrades with curlicues and a bit of gilding, and in front a large flower bed, and through the trees the beautiful view on the inner bay.
The view was already there.
The Hall, that was the main thing! The rest of the house wasn’t too important. Felicia’s mother didn’t intend to live there, certainly not; but she had started to look around for old furniture, and chandeliers. She had found a large lamp dating from the 1810s: two milk-glass bells on top of each other, with glass chains and crystal pendants, and two crystal wall chandeliers. A white marble floor as there had been once, no, that would not do, dark-red tiles, she had thought, and the woodwork a reddish-brown, varnished (the way the Chinese sometimes have it), with here and there a touch of gold; the walls chalked an even white, antique furniture, not too much, a few good pieces. Perhaps grandmother would have her dresser refurbished, and the old chairs around the dining table.
As soon as the Hall was ready she would give a party with candlelight and music; and she wanted all the guests to come in ceremonial proas, illuminated, with the gongs and drums beating—that would sound so wonderful over the inner bay.
She had even made the trip to the Small Garden to ask the grandmother for her permission.
And grandmother has said no—without any ado, just no, no!—to Felicia’s mother.
“But for heaven’s sake, why not?”
“You know, daughter-in-law. Because it is a house of ill fortune.”
At first grandmother refused to say more, but when the other insisted she went on, “Why do you pretend not to know these things, that the three little girls of our family died in that house—all three on one day—and have you forgotten also that the house collapsed in the earthquake and that the great-grandmother of your husband was up in the Hall with another child, and that they were buried under the ruins, and that afterward the house burned down? Don’t you know all those things?”
“Oh my,” Felicia’s mother had said, “but that’s all so long ago!”
“Long ago or not makes no difference: misfortune remains misfortune, daughter-in-law!”
“Well—” the other shrugged—“I don’t believe in that sort of thing. Now you give your permission so that they can start building right away. You will see how beautiful it is all going to be and,” she said, “of course I’ll pay for everything, it won’t cost you a penny!”
The grandmother straightened herself even more than usual; she waited a moment before answering, looked out to the spot where the old house had been, “it is already beautiful here,” she said, “and you are a fool, daughter-in-law. You have everything to learn—money, I know money is needed if something is to be bought, but you cannot buy happiness with it, nor keep away misfortune. So much the worse for you, daughter-in-law.” She was really angry now, “and you haven’t learned your manners too well: in our family—not on Java, so elegant on the sugar plantation, oh no, right here—with us, with all the sisters at the Small Garden on the inner bay, we learned not to make remarks about pennies!”
That was bad too, for the spicegrowers of the Small Garden on the island in the Moluccas were of a much older family than the owners of the large sugar plantation on Java. And so Felicia’s mother had also become angry, so angry that she said
she would never put foot again in the Small Garden, and she was not going to stay in that miserable little town at the outer bay either—not another day (she always said that), not she, nor her husband, nor her daughter Felicia!
And thus all three of them had soon thereafter sailed for Europe. And Felicia wouldn’t forget the goodbye, for it was then that she had received the Snake with the Carbuncle stone as a present.
In the end her mother had gone with them to the Garden to say goodbye: it was better to part in peace, she had thought. Before they all went back in the proa the grandmother had taken the child to her room, alone, without the parents. She watched her attentively for a short moment, took her hand, “goodbye, granddaughter,” she said, “when you come back I’ll be here, I will wait for you. You must say that aloud once, so as not to forget—my grandma is waiting for me at the Small Garden on the inner bay.”
Felicia repeated it, although it had given her the shivers to say such a thing aloud. And then grandmother opened her cabinet, not the “special drawer,” and from behind a little pile of sarongs she brought out a round apothecary’s box with a bracelet, which Felicia had never seen before, “for the return voyage,” she said.
It was a wonderful bracelet, Felicia thought: a golden snake full of rubies; not only the eyes, but the back and the tail too, right down to the tip, were inlaid with them; and it was bent in a spiral.
“Oh,” she said, “how beautiful! the Snake with the Carbuncle stone; so you did get one after all, grandma,” with a bit of a reproach in her voice—why had she never shown it before?
“A fool you are, granddaughter,” said the grandmother, “of course this isn’t the Snake with the Carbuncle stone! This one is made of gold, the other is alive—that is not the same,” and taking the child by one hand and holding the box with the bracelet in the other, she went out again.
Once more, for the last time, they sat under the planes at the inner bay and drank homemade vanilla lemonade with lemon (from the Garden) and ate a piece of her kanari cake.
“Dear son, daughter-in-law,” the grandmother had said, “this bracelet is a present of mine to my sweet granddaughter for her voyage back.” Felicia’s parents looked at each other—what was that? back? they had not even left yet.
“She is not allowed to wear the bracelet or play with it as long as she is small, so that it won’t be lost. And later on she cannot sell it. And be careful that it isn’t stolen, for it is needed for the return voyage.”
Felicia’s mother shrugged, and whenever afterward the bracelet was mentioned she always said “that monster” or “that horror.” Felicia’s father had said, “thank you, mother, that is a very precious gift for the little one” (he seldom said so much) and it sounded sad, especially that “little one”—Felicia almost had to cry. But she did not, her grandmother certainly wouldn’t approve—proud, be proud . . .
A while later they were rowed away in the proa and the old lady stood very upright under the trees and waved with a little batiste handkerchief; behind her stood the old servants, dressed in black, waving with their large starched handkerchiefs—the slave bell was rung incessantly—Felicia and her father waved and waved.
Felicia did not dare look left or right, it was almost as if her father were crying; her mother was staring straight ahead without waving—could she be crying too? But no, impossible!
“May I hold my box?” she asked.
“Yes,” said her father, who always said yes, and gave it to her, wiped his eyes and blew his nose.
Felicia sat there quite still with the box in her hand, she wasn’t going to open it to look at her Snake with the Carbuncle stone; not now. “Be careful that you don’t drop that monster into the water,” said her mother.
Felicia looked at her without answering—her eyes did look red—“who were those three girls?” she asked.
“What girls?” said her mother.
“The girls grandma talked about that day she was angry with you, the girls who died.”
Her father was going to say something but her mother stopped him immediately. “I don’t want you to discuss that nonsense with the child,” she said, and to Felicia, “oh nothing!—three girls who died long ago,” and she dismissed them with her hand.
After a time they rounded the cape to the outer bay and to the town, and later they went on from there to Europe.
2.
That morning the boat from Java entered the outer bay ahead of schedule and slowly steamed up to the town. A light morning mist was hanging low over bay and town and mountains: as if the island were still tucked in and sleeping, without interest in the new morning or in a ship that happened to arrive or in anything.
On deck at the rail stood a young woman: small and strong with a round boyish face, springy brown hair, dark attentive eyes under frowning eyebrows. She wore clothes that didn’t quite suit her: an elegant but faded dress, a little hat that had once been fashionable, thin stockings, shoes with worn high heels—Felicia who was coming back to the Small Garden at the inner bay where her grandmother would be waiting for her as she had once promised.
There were many people on the quay; she did not see her grandmother among them—perhaps she had died in the meantime, the voyage had taken months. Then what? What would she do then?
But as soon as the gangplank was out an old man and woman approached her—were they servants?—neatly dressed in black: the woman in black slippers with the toes pointing upward and with a starched and folded, snowy-white handkerchief in her hand. There were also two big children with them—children, grandchildren?—all four were dark, with curly hair, bareheaded and on bare feet except for the woman in her slippers.
She and her husband each took Felicia by one hand and told her their names and those of the children; Biblical first names, last names with many A’s and U’s, pointing to each other and talking and laughing, all very quickly and at the same time. The old woman sobbed just once and sniffed loudly without using the folded handkerchief.
Felicia did not recognize them, she did not remember the names, and couldn’t understand the Malayan any more; she just nodded and laughed, she could have cried too—why not!
They came with her through the lounge to her cabin; there they bent over the basket, looked at each other. They clapped their hands, shook their heads, called—oh Lord, oh Lord!—as if they had never before seen a small child.
Felicia had bathed the little boy beforehand, fed him and dressed him neatly: a jacket of real Brussels lace (the last present from her mother) over his shirt and diaper. He had been sleeping quietly in his basket but now he woke up. He was a nice sturdy boy with some strands of dark hair, large light-brown eyes which he always opened very wide as if astonished at all he saw.
The old man immediately went to get coolies for the luggage; he urged them—come on, come on, we have to get going. They were in each other’s way in the small cabin: Felicia had the child in her arms, the old man and the old woman carried the basket between them, the children took some bags and a rag doll over which they quarreled first, the coolies dragged the trunks out. Felicia had said goodbye to everyone the night before, she could get off now without delay.
At the end of the quay there was a carriage waiting with green wooden shutters, like a palanquin, with a coachman on the box, a team of small horses: it was the only coach on the island. All the bystanders gaped at them and the faces of the two children were radiant with pleasure at so much attention.
They went at a walk through the Chinese quarter with its little shops, and past a market. The old man kept sticking his head out of the window to make certain the coolies were following with the trunks, and every time the old woman held him tightly by his long coat so that he would not fall out of the decrepit coach—that made him angry and he tried to pull loose; the two children giggled.
There were not many people on the street yet, but those who were stopped to look and to salute.
A large square, lined with trees, a path along the walls, t
he walls of a fortress, to a small embankment under an awning.
The fog began to lift.
Everywhere there stood high trees in heavy foliage, right down to the edge of the outer bay; in the ditches and along the path, on the walls of the fortress too, grass grew and weeds and bushes—the whole world was very green that morning; and through the tightness of the tree trunks again and again the moving water of the bay with the silver reflections of the sun, the light traces on the blue of the surf from the sea; above it motionless the dark wavy coastline of the other shore, and above that a still-misty sky.
At the embankment a large winged proa was moored, and a smaller one for the luggage, with rowers and a helmsman.
The men climbed out of the proa and helped them descend from the coach; the old man pointed to Felicia and from her to the rowers. Felicia nodded, laughed; the rowers nodded and laughed too, looked at the child on her arm in its beautiful jacket, well, well!
When the coolies got there with the luggage it was immediately carried into the small proa; Felicia wanted to get her purse but the old man produced an old-fashioned lady’s reticule of worn gray cloth, with a little silver lock, and started to count out the money very solemnly: for the coachman, for the coolies—one by one. Everyone interfered, they quarreled and came to agreements with a lot of shouts and laughter.
Felicia stood there, watching, and all of a sudden she recognized the purse: it was the household purse of her grandmother—my purse, please bring me my purse, granddaughter —she was sure, and now she remembered: this was the path behind the Castle, this was the quay from which she left with Susanna and her father to go visit the Small Garden at the inner bay. She had come back.
The old man and the two children climbed into the bow of the big proa. Felicia sat on the middle bench with the boy in her lap—he could already sit up straight, but not for long. The old woman next to her held over their heads a parasol of oiled paper, painted gaudily with flowers and large butterflies; the child stared at it with wide-open eyes. Their proa was pushed off and led the way; the other one followed.
The Ten Thousand Things Page 4
