The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  Only Piet Van Heerden, who had somehow sobered up sufficiently to be aware of the events around him, seemed indifferent to the prospect of going ashore. Handing Anna a fat roll of high-denomination guilder notes, he instructed her to purchase as much brandy or Scotch whiskey or both as she and Kleine Kiki could carry and load into the canvas bag that hung from the back of Katerina’s wheelchair.

  ‘Find a Chink, you hear? A Chinaman always has contraband and black-market goods. Don’t pay him what he asks, but pay what you have to.’ His bloodshot eyes looked directly at her, imploring. ‘Please, lieveling, don’t come back empty-handed.’ Anna noted for the first time that his huge hands shook uncontrollably.

  ‘Papa, you must stop drinking like this!’ she begged, as she had done every day since they’d come on board.

  ‘Ja, ja, soon, when we get to New Zealand.’ She noted for the first time the coin-sized patches of grey that had appeared amongst the ginger growth on his unshaven face. ‘Don’t forget, all the bottles you can carry, mijn lieveling!’

  The Witvogel struggled up the turgid river, passing two ships that had attempted to carry escaping Dutch citizens to safety but had run aground, the rusty vessels now stranded on the brown mudflats. When at last the ship reached Tjilatjap at about three in the afternoon, the port was littered with sunken and abandoned ships. From its initial appearance, it seemed an unpropitious place to make any kind of repairs. An hour later, at about four o’clock on the afternoon of the 4th of March, the dirty, hungry and generally exhausted passengers from the Witvogel were allowed to go ashore.

  The local population seemed less hostile than they’d been in the capital. The Javanese are natural traders and the unexpected arrival of a ship was an opportunity, perhaps their last, to charge exorbitant prices for goods and services to passengers who, they soon discovered, were desperate for any tinned fish, meat, vegetables, coffee, tea and condensed milk — in fact anything edible that wouldn’t spoil. Fruit-sellers, especially those with fruit that might keep for a few days, such as oranges and mangoes, were asking and getting unheard-of prices, and the locals were soon scurrying back to outlying orchards to replenish supplies. People swarmed to local native restaurants and the marketplace; the three hotels in the river-port town were overrun with passengers wanting to eat and bathe or take a shower. The owners promptly trebled their room and dining prices and then closed their doors for fear of being overwhelmed.

  The local Javanese, many of whom had appropriated the homes of the Dutch who had earlier left the town, were charging twenty guilders for a twenty-minute use of the washhouse. Many passengers, desperate for a wash, simply stripped and jumped into the river, unabashedly shedding their clothes down to their underpants or, in the case of the females, bloomers and bras, soaping themselves willy-nilly, their hands within their undies to get to their private parts. Smaller kids, male and female, ran joyfully into the water in the nude.

  The Muslim locals were scandalised. While they were happy to capitalise on the misfortunes of the fleeing Dutch and take the exorbitant profits on offer, the public display of raw flesh by Dutch women confirmed their view of the perfidy of the infidel. These pink-skinned females, who had maintained their superiority and dominated their lives for many generations, confirmed the local mullah’s assertion that they were as vile as pig meat and lower than village dogs. ‘Haram! Unclean!’

  Anna left her stepmother in the care of Kleine Kiki at what was obviously once the private home of a Dutch family but was now occupied by an unsmiling native woman and her family who demanded twenty guilders for a small bar of soap and an hour’s use of the outside washhouse. She paid the sum happily, leaving Kleine Kiki with more than sufficient money to go shopping afterwards for any supplies she might be fortunate enough to find, arranging to meet them in the town’s square at eight o’clock that night. She departed to the sound of Katerina screaming at Kleine Kiki for not rinsing her hair correctly. One day Kleine Kiki will have had enough and she’ll walk out, Anna thought to herself. Then she’d gone looking for Piet Van Heerden’s proverbial Chinaman.

  She found him after approaching the third Chinese merchant in the town. His name was Lo Wok and he claimed to possess four bottles of Scotch whiskey and three of Australian brandy, stock that had obviously once been the possession of a departed Dutch shopkeeper. Speaking in the local language, Anna enquired the price. His eyes narrowed and he demanded two hundred guilders, an outrageous sum that was ten times the usual value of the Scotch and brandy. Anna threw back her head and laughed. ‘You insult me and my family by thinking of us as fools,’ she declared, and named a price a quarter of what he suggested, knowing it was still an extortionate amount to pay.

  Lo Wok wrung his hands. ‘These are hard times. I too have a family I must feed.’ He shook his head vigorously, naming a sum two-thirds of the original. Anna clicked her tongue several times, shaking her head in denial. ‘I respect your worthy lineage, Lo Wok. Your esteemed ancestors are watching and what would they think of your lack of commonsense?’ she chided him gently.

  Lo Wok smiled, happy that this young girl standing in front of him was not going to be a pushover. All Chinese love the process of striking a bargain. ‘Ahee! The Japanese are coming, they do not like the Chinese, I will not be allowed to run a shop, they will persecute me, anything could happen, there are hard times ahead,’ he whined, looping the sentences together.

  ‘Ha, precisely! Hard times! For you and for me, Lo Wok! So, it is time you showed some commonsense. The Japanese drink sake and if they want your Scotch and brandy they will not pay for it, they will simply confiscate it. The Muslims do not drink. The Dutch, those who can afford to drink Scotch and brandy, have all fled this town. I am your last customer and it is your good fortune that I am here at all. Now, tell me, Lo Wok, to whom do you intend to sell this Scotch and brandy for fifty-five guilders?’ Anna said, slightly upping her previous offer to him.

  ‘It is not enough. I have ten children and an extravagant wife. We must escape.’

  Anna observed to herself that the Chinaman could not have been much more than in his mid-twenties. ‘And at sixteen years old I am already the mother of five.’ She shrugged. ‘See? I exaggerate as well and as pointlessly as you do, Lo Wok,’ Anna said, in this way telling the Chinese merchant that she knew he was lying while, at the same time, careful to ensure he didn’t lose face.

  ‘Sixty, I cannot accept less.’

  Anna nodded though it was still three times above the usual retail price. ‘Let me see the merchandise,’ she asked.

  Lo Wok left and shortly afterwards emerged with a wooden case containing the Scotch and brandy. She examined the sealed tops of each of the seven bottles to see that they hadn’t been broken. The red wax on one of them, a bottle of Scotch, had a slightly pinkish colour and as they were all the same brand Anna pushed her fingernail into the seal to discover that it was soft, the consistency of candle wax. In fact, it was candle wax. She twisted the seal and it came away immediately without resistance. Pulling the cork from the bottle she brought it to her nose and her nostrils were suddenly assailed by the sharp tang of stale urine.

  ‘Do you have a glass?’ she asked the Chinaman.

  ‘No glass!’ Lo Wok said hastily.

  ‘Would you like a drink from the bottle, then? A toast to escaping our mutual danger?’ Anna smiled sweetly, proffering him the bottle of urine.

  ‘No drinkie from bottle!’ Lo Wok said, shaking his head vigorously.

  Anna retested the seals of each of the remaining six bottles with a fingernail, then calculated the sum minus the bottle of piss and, peeling off the correct amount from the bundle her father had given her, handed it to him. Lo Wok accepted the money, and smiling and shaking his head said ruefully, ‘If you were Chinese I would make you my number-one wife.’

  ‘Ha! If you cheat like this in business then you would cheat on me also. I would refuse,’ she said haughtily, stoo
ping and lifting the wooden crate to her shoulders.

  Lo Wok turned and shouted a name in the direction of the back of the small shop. Moments later a Javanese lad of perhaps thirteen appeared. ‘Carry the box for the missee,’ he instructed the boy.

  The lad, whose name was Budi, asked Anna where she was going and she told him the main town square to meet her stepmother and her maid. ‘It’s a big square, Miss,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult. My stepmother is in a wheelchair. She is wearing a brown straw hat with a long golden feather; we should find her easily enough.’ She turned to face the teenage boy. ‘Have you eaten your dinner?’ Anna asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I only finish at Lo Wok’s at nine o’clock tonight.’

  She had an hour to wait before meeting Katerina and Kleine Kiki in the square and Anna suddenly realised she was starving. ‘Come, I’ll buy you dinner, Budi. Do you know a good place?’

  ‘Yes, Miss, the very best — my mother works there,’ he said ingenuously.

  He led Anna to an eatery close by, a small place like hundreds of similar ones in the towns and cities of Java. The place must have had a good reputation because it was heavily patronised by the local Javanese. Budi pointed out a group of about a dozen men drinking from bottles of the local beer. ‘Truck drivers,’ he said. Anna took this to mean that the eatery was of good repute, truck drivers always knowing the best places to eat. Budi’s mother was the cook and she fed them royally; at the end of the meal she called her son over and spoke to him. He returned to where Anna sat. ‘My mother wants to know how come your eyes are so blue. Javanese women do not have blue eyes.’

  Anna laughed. ‘I am only half Javanese, my father is Dutch.’

  Budi returned to his mother and then back to Anna. He grinned. ‘She wants to know which half is Javanese.’

  Anna laughed. ‘That’s easy, my heart. My heart is Javanese.’ In fact, this is what Anna had always privately felt. Her mind was Dutch but her heart belonged to her mother’s people.

  Budi dutifully returned to the open wood fire where his mother was cooking vegetables in a wok, the smell of spices and frying shallots pervading the air. He soon returned. ‘My mother says her son does not have to pay for food in her kitchen and the Javanese half of you is free.’ He shrugged, spreading his hands, very proud of his mother. ‘So, Miss, there is nothing to pay.’

  ‘What about the Dutch part?’ Anna teased. ‘Should it not pay its half?’

  ‘No!’ Budi declared, but then seemed unsure. ‘I will ask,’ he said, trotting off once more.

  He returned, his face serious. ‘My mother says the Dutch half already has too many troubles. Next time, when you come back, the Dutch half can pay.’

  Anna thanked the woman, feeling cheerful for the first time since they’d left Batavia, laughing as they left, knowing that Budi, once they’d reached the town square, would receive a generous tip, more than the meal would have cost her.

  The boy had been right; it was a big square filled with hawkers and people strolling, an area where a couple, even with one of them in a wheelchair, could easily be swallowed in the crowd. It was almost eight o’clock and Katerina was a stickler for being on time. It was almost a passion with her. Because she was incapacitated it had become important to be punctual. Amongst her worst tantrums were those when she thought someone in the family was dawdling and they’d be late for an appointment.

  Budi put down the wooden crate beside a bench. ‘Sit, Miss, I will go and look. A wheelchair with a woman and a maid, you say?’ He set off immediately at a trot.

  ‘Her name, the maid’s, is Kleine Kiki,’ Anna shouted at his departing form.

  ‘Kleine Kiki, a feather in a straw hat!’ he called back, not looking, but raising his arm.

  Anna sat on the bench for a good hour. It was almost dark and the street lamps and those in the square had come on. A blur of bats passed squeaking overhead. If anything, there seemed to be even more people strolling in the square and she felt safe enough, although she was becoming increasingly concerned about the whereabouts of Katerina and Kleine Kiki. It simply wasn’t like her stepmother. Moreover, while it was a big square, it wasn’t that big and the boy should have long since found them.

  Two slightly inebriated American pilots walked up to the bench and propositioned her, but prepared to leave politely when they realised she was not for hire.

  ‘Perhaps you should not be here, the Japanese, they are soon coming,’ Anna said, carefully phrasing the English words.

  ‘We’re outa here in the morning, ma’am,’ one of them replied. Then touching his cap he said, ‘Sorry to — er…’

  ‘That’s alright,’ Anna said, dismissing them with a quick smile.

  It was shortly after the Yanks had left that Budi emerged out of the dimness beyond the nearest lamplight. Behind him were four barefooted urchins pushing a wheelchair.

  ‘I found it, the wheelchair!’ Budi called out. He turned and looked at the wheelchair and shrugged. ‘But it is empty, Miss!’ Drawing closer he said, ‘I promised these boys ten cents each if they brought it to show you. They say it is theirs,’ he added. ‘They will sell it to you for four guilders.’ The wheelchair unmistakably belonged to Katerina, the canvas bag was still attached to the back of the handlebars. ‘They were racing it in the square,’ Budi explained.

  Anna felt her heart pounding. ‘They have stolen it! They have taken it from my stepmother and Kleine Kiki!’ she accused. ‘We must call the police!’ she shouted, almost hysterical.

  ‘No, Miss, I asked them. They found it by the river. There was no one there, it was empty,’ Budi explained again. Then he added in a reasoned manner, ‘If they had stolen it and done what you say, they would have hidden it and would not be racing it in the town square.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘Where? Where did they find it exactly?’

  ‘On the old oil jetty,’ one of the urchins volunteered. From behind his back he produced Katerina’s now rather battered little brown straw hat with the golden pheasant feather. ‘There was also this, it was caught in the planks,’ the urchin explained.

  Anna was battling to make sense of what she was hearing. ‘A guilder each if they take me there, to the jetty,’ she cried urgently, snatching the hat with its ridiculous feather from the boy’s grasp and clasping it to her breast.

  One of the urchins moved up to Budi and spoke to him quietly, cupping his mouth so his voice wouldn’t carry. Budi turned to face Anna. ‘Is that on top of the guilder each for the sale of the wheelchair and the ten cents each for showing you?’ Budi, not wishing to be seen to take sides, indicated the urchin asking the question with a backwards nod of his head.

  ‘Yes, yes! Just take me there!’ Anna was close to weeping, not caring about the money.

  ‘It is dark, you won’t see nothing,’ one of the smaller urchins volunteered.

  ‘Shurrup, stupid!’ another cried, elbowing him in the ribs.

  Budi loaded the wooden crate onto the seat of the wheelchair and the urchins set off followed by Anna and Budi. They crossed to the far side of the square in the direction of the river and soon entered the docks area where only an occasional electric light shone from the high doorway of a godown. Anna made out the shape of a crane against the darkening sky and somewhere a night bird called out. Then she found herself walking along an unlit section of the docks and could hear the sharp slap of the river against the harbour wall. Finally they arrived at the oil jetty. Water lapped softly around the dark pylons, its wooden decking extending out into the river that was now in total darkness. There was no way of gauging the length of the jetty. Anna saw immediately that a search was pointless, but she nevertheless began to walk along it and into the dark. ‘Careful, Miss!’ one of the urchins shouted. ‘It is not safe, there are some planks missing!’

  The walk to the oil jetty had calmed her
a little. She turned to Budi. ‘Where is the nearest police station?’

  ‘In de Kaap Straat,’ Budi said. ‘It is not the main one, but my mother knows the sergeant there.’

  Anna pointed to the four urchins. ‘They must come with us,’ she said.

  Although she spoke in the local language so that the four boys were perfectly capable of understanding her demand that they accompany her, they nevertheless waited for Budi to address them. Anna was unable to see their reactions to her reiterated request, but when he returned the short distance to where she stood, he said, ‘No, Miss, they will not go, they do not like the police.’

  Anna sighed, knowing she would need them to make a statement. ‘Two guilders!’ she called into the dark, knowing it was a sum they simply couldn’t refuse but also knowing that their presence as witnesses was essential. They agreed at once; it was not every day four street kids came across a walking goldmine. In all, Anna now owed each of them four guilders and ten cents, a month’s wages for a dockworker and clearly downright robbery.

  A lone Javanese policeman reading a newspaper, with his feet on the desk, was on duty at the police station as they entered the single room, which had three fly-blown shaded light bulbs hanging from the ceiling that made the interior seem almost dim and tinged it a yellowish colour. The floor consisted of bare boards, the only furniture being a desk and a chair together with a battered filing cabinet against the back wall. Anyone coming into the room would be forced to stand. There was a picture of Queen Wilhelmina on the wall above the filing cabinet, and a corkboard with multiple small pieces of paper overlapping each other covering its surface. On the wall directly facing the desk was a pendulum clock in a cracked glass case.

  The policeman glanced up briefly as they entered to determine that they were not Dutch, then returned to reading his newspaper. The room seemed crowded after they’d all entered; the wheelchair, its seat now containing the crate of grog, would have appeared to the policeman — that is, if he’d been looking — as some kind of evidence.