The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Papa, listen, your wife, Katerina, is dead!’ Anna said, raising her voice. Kleine Kiki started to whimper. Anna cast an impatient look at the little maid. ‘It’s over, pull yourself together, Kleine Kiki,’ she said in a loud whisper.

  ‘Pull together!’ Piet Van Heerden mumbled. ‘Pull together!’ He looked up and giggled. ‘Bitch! She was — bitch!’ He shook his head several times, then slurred, ‘Not nice — person.’

  ‘Papa, please give me the brandy bottle!’ Anna held out her hand for the bottle. ‘You must stop this drinking!’

  Her father pulled backwards, clutching the bottle even tighter to his chest. ‘No! Mine!’ he said, as if he was a small boy refusing to share a bag of lollies.

  Anna sighed. ‘Please, Papa, listen to me! Katerina is dead! We have to go ashore, you must pull yourself together.’

  ‘Listen? Must listen! Ja! Dead — we must have tomb — stone. Bury with tomb — stone!’ He seemed to find this exceedingly funny and started to cackle. ‘Katerina — not coming to New — Zealand. Goed! Ja, that is goed, lieveling!’ He raised the bottle and took a long swig, then shook his head. ‘Dead — it is goed to be dead now! This is goed time to be dead.’ He then commenced to weep, clutching the bottle. Anna put her arms around him. ‘It’s okay, Papa, I will stay with you.’ Deep inside she knew she despised her father for his weakness.

  The breakfast session wasn’t crowded for a change because the wealthier passengers had stayed ashore for the night. Moreover, the ship had ordered in fresh supplies and there were hard-boiled eggs, fresh bread and two common types of cheese; no butter — but that was to be expected, the cheese was surprise enough. Anna took bread, cheese and two eggs down to the cabin, but Piet Van Heerden was back into his drinking routine and refused to eat. Anna tried to persuade him to get back into the top bunk, where he was out of the way if the de Klerks should return, but he refused. She managed to get him to pee into the second empty brandy bottle. Then covering the two bottles of urine with a towel she sent Kleine Kiki out to the women’s toilet to empty and rinse them.

  They packed clean undies and sarongs into a cotton bag, Kleine Kiki remembering to return the money Anna had given her for supplies the previous day. Anna still had her father’s roll of banknotes, a considerable amount even after Lo Wok’s unabashed greed and her own generosity to Budi and the street kids the previous evening. They took the wheelchair with them, thinking the police might require it as evidence.

  Together they headed towards the house in which Katerina had been washed the previous day, even though several of the locals were touting the washrooms of their newly acquired residences. The prices, Anna noted, had fallen considerably overnight. The woman greeted them and demanded the same fee as the previous day. To Anna’s surprise, Kleine Kiki piped up, quoting a Javanese proverb. ‘Yesterday is a distant land. We will pay one guilder, already too much, and not a cent more.’

  The woman thought for several moments, then reluctantly agreed. ‘That is one guilder for each of you, yes?’

  Kleine Kiki’s expression was scornful. ‘Do you take us for fools? That is for both of us and the soap. Yesterday you cheated us!’

  The woman laughed, quoting yet another local proverb. ‘She who leaves a golden egg while searching for hen eggs is a fool,’ she said. Then she agreed to the new sum and left to fetch a bar of coarse homemade soap.

  Anna grinned. ‘I must take you shopping more often, Kleine Kiki.’

  Bathed and wearing fresh sarongs, a style of local dress Anna enjoyed, they went shopping. As they’d expected, there wasn’t a tin of anything to be had in the entire town, the Witvogel’s passengers having the previous day bought anything that required a can-opener. However, the fruit and vegetable prices had been reduced considerably as the locals had stocked up in anticipation of a repeat of the previous day’s demand. There now appeared to be a glut. The hawkers and market women looked sullen; they’d found their golden egg, but were now beginning to realise that there wasn’t going to be another. Kleine Kiki proved again that she was a frugal and canny shopper.

  The wheelchair was an ideal shopping cart and they arrived at the police station ten minutes before midday with a full load. ‘Do you think the police will think it disrespectful loading the wheelchair with shopping like this?’ Anna asked the little maid.

  ‘Titch! They are men,’ Kleine Kiki replied, dismissing the notion with the wave of a hand. Freed of the presence of her tyrannical mistress, the little maid was turning out to be a delightful companion.

  Budi and his mother were waiting outside the police station when they arrived and they both greeted Anna with broad smiles, seeming genuinely happy to see her. Anna introduced Kleine Kiki and explained why she had come with her. Then Budi’s mother, who said her name was Ratih, offered her condolences to Anna.

  ‘Thank you, Mother Ratih,’ Anna said, paying her respect but averting her eyes so the cook couldn’t read anything into them. It was not yet noon and so they waited. Anna, anxious not to appear aloof, asked Budi, ‘Was Lo Wok happy for you to come?’

  ‘Who has ever seen a happy Chinaman?’ Ratih snorted, replying for her son. ‘That one, he is only happy making a profit.’

  ‘He said to tell you his offer still stands,’ Budi said. Then he added, ‘He didn’t explain.’

  ‘He wants me for his number-one wife, but first I must turn Chinese,’ Anna laughed. ‘By the way, how many children does he have? He is still a young man!’

  ‘Just one, a girl. He is not happy and says his wife is cursed, what use is a girl?’ Budi replied.

  It was precisely noon and Anna, having for years been conditioned by her stepmother’s fanatical punctuality, now said, ‘Shall we go in?’

  Sergeant Khamdani stood up from behind his desk immediately as they entered. He was a big man for a Javanese and also a little overweight, not yet fat but well on the way to being described as such. Anna suspected Budi’s mother’s cooking was to blame. Her failure to greet him with the usual respect as they entered, as might have been expected from a local woman to a police sergeant, made it readily apparent that the two of them were more than just professional friends. Budi too seemed comfortable in his presence, although he was quick to greet the policeman formally and then to introduce Anna and thereafter Kleine Kiki. He impressed Anna by remembering the maid’s name, pronouncing the Dutch adjective perfectly. They all shook hands with the policeman.

  Three teak and rattan chairs had been placed on the interviewing side of the desk. Whoever had thought to bring them, probably Budi, hadn’t anticipated the presence of Kleine Kiki.

  ‘Sit, please,’ the sergeant said, indicating the chairs.

  ‘I will stand,’ Budi said quickly, knowing that in the local pecking order, his male status overrode that of the maid. Anna, aware of this and of the pride of Javanese men, admired his manners. But Kleine Kiki, anxious to preserve the rightful order of things, would have none of it. ‘No, it is my place to stand. It is an honour to be here,’ she protested, showing that she too was not without manners.

  The sergeant sat down. ‘We must make a statement.’ He glanced at Anna. ‘I am sorry for last night, my colleague — his wife is sick with the malaria.’ It was about as close as he, a male, could come to an apology to a woman.

  They spent the next hour writing down the statement, Anna repeating the story she had told the policeman the previous evening, with Budi adding the details of his search in the square for the wheelchair. Kleine Kiki, who burst into frequent tears in the process, then told of the suicide incident.

  Sergeant Khamdani wrote ponderously in longhand, frequently stopping to ask a question and once or twice how to spell a word. He was thorough and serious throughout. ‘There is a problem,’ he said when he’d finally completed the task. ‘We have no body.’

  ‘Yes, I was hoping we could get the police boat to do a search of the river,’ Anna replied. She wa
s anxious to give her stepmother a proper funeral and, as her father had insisted in his drunken raving, a headstone.

  ‘Ah, it is broken,’ the sergeant said, confirming the night policeman’s assertion.

  Ratih, who had hitherto remained silent, now leaned forward. ‘They are all good-for-nothings, those water policemen! They drink beer all night at the kampong and say they are Muslims and order food when it is time to go home! Now their Dutch captain has left they no longer go on the river.’

  The sergeant shrugged. ‘What can I do?’ he asked. ‘They are not Pak Polisi. Water is a different precinct.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Ratih asked, ‘how much will it take to make repairs to this boat? Ten guilders? Fifteen guilders?’ She glanced at Anna, who nodded. ‘Not a cent more, Ajun, you understand?’

  Anna memorised his name, Ajun Khamdani. The policeman seemed like a decent, honest type.

  ‘I will try,’ he said, sighing, picking up the telephone and dialling what must have been the central police switchboard. ‘Get me the Water Police,’ he requested. He waited thirty seconds or so before he spoke into the receiver. ‘Water Police, this is Sergeant Ajun Khamdani from Central Town District. We need to search the river for a Dutch national, a woman, who is believed to have committed suicide.’ There was silence, then ‘Yes, I know it is broken, but how much to fix it? When do we want it? Yes, this afternoon, of course! Yes, to the estuary, a thorough search.’ Silence. ‘That is too much, I can offer you fifteen guilders?’ Silence. ‘Wait, I will ask.’ He cupped the receiver with his hand, turning to look at Anna. ‘Twenty-five, the repairs are difficult and there is the fuel.’ Anna nodded agreement. ‘Okay, twenty-five!’ The sergeant nodded his head, taking further instructions. ‘Good! Excellent! Yes, I must be on board, also someone who can identify her body if you find it. Two o’clock, we will be there. Yes, twenty-five guilders.’ He put down the receiver, then turned to Anna. ‘We must be there at two o’clock. With the incoming tide, it will wash anything upriver again if it hasn’t already reached the sea.’

  ‘What about the beaches near the estuary? When the boat came in I saw a long beach close by, a body could wash onto the beach,’ Anna said, anxious that the Water Police be made to understand that she wanted a thorough search.

  ‘I will tell them,’ the sergeant promised. ‘But now we have another problem. But only a maybe problem.’

  ‘No more money!’ Ratih cried. ‘Twenty-five guilders! They are robbers!’

  Sergeant Khamdani ignored her. ‘If we find the body there is no coroner. He is Dr Van Tool and he left on the twenty-sixth, on the last boat.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Anna asked.

  ‘This is a Dutch woman, she cannot be officially dead, you understand. You must have a coroner’s investigation, a verdict, then a certificate. Death by drowning, death by misadventure, death by violent means, murder, manslaughter, suicide,’ he ticked them all off on his fingers. ‘Only sickness when there is a doctor who can verify and write a certificate. Otherwise she is not dead until the coroner says so.’ He paused and shrugged his shoulders. ‘And we have no coroner!’

  ‘Nonsense, Ajun! If you find this woman and she is floating in the river and you fish her out, you can see she is dead. Even some places the crabs have eaten her. Anyone can see! If I cook a chicken I can see if it is dead. I don’t need a certificate to say this chicken is dead! What is this certificate? You are Pak Polisi! You can say she is dead. What is this nonsense? Who will argue?’ Ratih declared with vehemence.

  ‘It is the law,’ the police sergeant shrugged. ‘The law will argue. The law must have a certificate. You can’t have people going around, even the police, saying so-and-so is dead. “Dead” is official. A doctor or the coroner must say it, put on a stamp, “Deceased”, no more argument!’

  ‘What if she is not found — the body?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Magistrate,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Oh my, what is this now? Magistrate? He must now say she is dead if they can’t find the body?’ Ratih said scornfully.

  ‘If we have a witness, a reliable witness, he can give a certificate.’ The police sergeant glanced over at Kleine Kiki. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Just thirteen, sir.’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘No good. Thirteen is not a reliable witness.’

  ‘So if we find her, she is not dead, even if she is dead, unless the coroner says she is dead and gives a certificate? If someone sees her dying, but isn’t old enough to officially see her dying, then she is not dead and the magistrate will not give us a certificate? Is that right?’ Budi asked. Anna grinned to herself — the boy wasn’t stupid by any measure.

  Sergeant Khamdani sighed. ‘I know it is difficult, that is why we have to go to the police academy. Even then, it takes time. But after a while you understand how it all makes sense. A police enquiry is a serious matter and we must have rules of conduct.’

  ‘And if there is no reliable witness who saw the person who is dead actually die, then the person is not officially dead. If this not-officially-dead person is not found, what then?’ Anna asked.

  The police sergeant smiled. ‘This is precisely what I have been trying to say all along. That is easy! Missing persons! Dead, maybe, but not officially, no reliable witness, that is a correct definition for a missing person.’ He spread his hands in a gesture of goodwill. ‘I can issue a Missing Person’s Certificate, easy. That is now a police matter and I am the police.’

  Anna realised that it would be far better, all things considered, if her stepmother was never found. But she also knew it would prey on her father’s conscience forever. Even in a drunken haze he’d insisted on a tombstone. Besides, in a funny way, you are not dead in the heart and mind until there is a place where your bones or ashes reside, until the dominee, the minister, has said the proper words and people have departed from the grave site with long faces and serious expressions. Commonsense, which is what the police sergeant was subtly advising, indicated that she should save the twenty-five guilders and allow him to give her a Missing Person’s Certificate.

  ‘How far away is the police launch? Can we walk?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Ja, we can walk, it is only ten minutes,’ Sergeant Khamdani replied.

  ‘It is just after one o’clock. May I buy you all lunch?’ Anna smiled and turned to Ratih. ‘The Dutch half will pay.’

  At two o’clock precisely Anna and the sergeant arrived at the docks to find the police launch waiting. Budi had returned to Lo Wok and his mother had left for the markets to prepare for the evening meal at the kampong. Anna sent Kleine Kiki back to the ship with the wheelchair and shopping, with instructions to remove the washing from Mevrouw Swanepoel’s portion of the ship’s railing. She gave her a one-guilder coin in case the fat frump and Jack Sprat had already arrived back on board.

  The sergeant in charge of the launch asked her, ‘When did the body fall into the river?’ A curious way of putting it, Anna thought, although it avoided talking about her stepmother in the first person.

  ‘Yesterday, about five in the evening, maybe half-past five, no later.’ Kleine Kiki did not possess a watch.

  He thought for a moment, then drew Sergeant Khamdani aside and they chatted for a while, the land police sergeant frequently nodding to the other. Eventually he came over to Anna. ‘It is not worthwhile searching this area by the docks. Last night the tide would have taken the body down the river, perhaps already out to sea. But it is possible that it landed on the mudflats downriver by the two recent wrecks. That is where we will go first.’

  ‘And after that?’ Anna asked.

  Sergeant Khamdani addressed the other water police sergeant who answered directly, ‘There is no “after that”.’

  ‘Can’t we search the river?’ Anna asked.

  The policeman shook his head. ‘The body will be there or nowhere else. The bodies are always
there, if they have not already floated out to sea.’ He made it sound as if the bodies as a group made up their own minds where they wanted to go. ‘We never find them washed up on a beach, they never go there,’ he concluded.

  The launch took off downriver and against the tide. The water policeman explained that the incoming tide would cover the mudflats and the narrow draught of the boat meant they could get right up to the mangroves. ‘There are special places to look, places they like to hide.’ Again he made it sound as if the bodies, like elephants going to die, had a predestination, but cunning as they might be at hiding, he wasn’t all that easily fooled.

  However, despite nearly two hours of searching in all the special places, the certain-to-find places, Katerina, as usual, was contrary and difficult and refused to be found. It was nearly five in the afternoon when they landed back at the docks in Tjilatjap.

  Sergeant Khamdani seemed delighted with the result. ‘Now I can give you your very own Certificate of Missing Persons. If you like I can also put on it “Presumed dead”. The police can say that because it isn’t a worry to the magistrate or the coroner, because there is no certainty, you understand?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sergeant,’ Anna replied. She couldn’t fault him. He’d done all he could. It was a paradox: all the people who had been pleasant to her were Javanese and all the unpleasant ones had been Dutch.

  Anna had one more task to complete before returning to the ship and so made her way to the kampong where Ratih cooked. She found her with a cleaver, standing at an enormous wooden chopping block and cutting chickens into bits to fry. Ratih looked up as she approached. ‘I have no coroner’s certificate, but they are dead,’ she laughed, pointing to the chicken pieces.

  ‘Ratih, can you give me a moment? It’s about Budi.’

  ‘Budi? He has misbehaved?’

  ‘On the contrary, he is a fine boy; you should be proud.’

  ‘What do you think, Anna, must I marry that Pak Polisi? The boy needs a father.’