After the Ashes (16 page)

I was now consumed by this new worry. I thought I heard the roof groan with the weight of the ash, but I knew it was only my imagination. I hoped it was only my imagination.

We finished our meal. Tante Greet dusted again, and I stood by the parlor window. My reflection in the glass didn't look like me. My hair was even more of a mane than before, and fear filled my red-rimmed eyes. The rumbles from Krakatau reminded me of a rampaging rhinoceros. What if it never stopped? What would happen to us? Would it be dark forever? Was it dark in Batavia? Was Oom Maarten safe? Had Indah and Slamet reached the mosque? Was this the end of the world?

“I don't know, Katrien.”

I didn't realize I had spoken aloud. Tante Greet and I stared at each other. Her lips trembled, but she didn't cry. She enveloped me in her arms. My face squashed against her shoulder, and my spectacles floated up to my forehead.

We stood there a long time. Clutching each other. She had never held me like this before. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't fall. “I'm scared,” I whispered.

Her arms tightened around me. “I am, too, Katrien. I am, too.”

The clock in the hall ticked louder and louder, but the two of us stayed together, wrapped in each other's warm embrace.

Despite the incessant rumblings from Krakatau, Tante Greet said we should try to get some rest. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring?” she said.

After pulling on some nightclothes, I crawled into bed and stared at the stars Vader had painted on my ceiling years ago.
On the Origin of Species
lay on my bedside table, but I couldn't read it. Not tonight. I had too many thoughts and worries dancing through my mind.

Was Vader safe?

What about Indah and Slamet?

Did Oom Maarten know what was happening?

I blew out my candle and tried to calm myself by naming animals I had seen in the jungle. “Silvery gibbon. Javan rhinoceros. Javan lutung.” It was difficult to remember them all. “Dholes. Oriental whipsnake . . . wanderer butterfly . . . long-tailed macaque.” I yawned. “Flower pot toad . . . black giant squirrel.” I yawned again. “
Hexarthrius rhinoceros rhinoceros
 . . .”

I must have fallen asleep because I was groggy and disoriented when a loud explosion shot me right out of bed.

“I think that one was louder than yesterday's.” Tante Greet stood in my bedroom doorway holding a candle.

“It sounded like it was.” She was blurry, and I reached for my spectacles. “Is it morning?”

“Almost. It's early. You ought to get dressed.”

“
Ja
, Tante.” The cold, scary darkness still cloaked Anjer and I lit the candle on the bedside table.

Ash, seeping in through the windows and the cracks around the doors, coated the furniture again. The pyramid under my bedroom window had grown.

Tante Greet met me in the hall and handed me a banana. “It's still falling,” she said with a glance to the ceiling.

Monsoons were never this terrible. Even those rains came in ebbs and flows. This ceaseless torrent would bury us. “Like Pompeii,” I whispered.

“We shouldn't talk about that,” my aunt said. “Come here.” Leading me into my room, she brushed my hair off my shoulders, pulling it into a tight braid. “Much better. It won't fall in your eyes.”

“
Dank u
, Tante Greet,” I whispered. The arrival of a new day did little to quash my fears.

She smiled. “Come along, Katrien. Eat your banana. We need to keep busy. Let's sweep this new dust into piles. It will be that much easier to straighten when this is all over.”

“But what—”

She whipped her head around and gave me a glare that would have stopped a Javan tiger in its tracks. My mouth snapped shut.

“I left the broom in the pantry,” she said. “I'll brush off furniture and you can sweep the floors. We'll start in the parlor.”

Gulping down the banana, I tossed the peel onto the kitchen table, along with the remains of last night's pathetic meal. The clock chimed six. So early. Yawning, I went to get the broom.

As I swept, the powdery ash swirled around the floor with my thoughts. Tante Greet had been worried about the ash last night. I rubbed some between my fingers and decided it was like beach sand mixed with flour. It still seemed strange to think that something so fine could damage a roof, but if Tante Greet was worried, then the possibility must exist.

Tante Greet stared out the window. The sun must have risen somewhere on the other side of all that filth because the sky had
lightened a bit. Now the dark was gloomy but no longer oppressive. Not that it mattered. We still needed candles and lamps to light the room.

Half of the parlor had been dusted and swept when another eruption shook the house, rattling the windows. One pane cracked but did not shatter. “Why won't it stop?” I cried.

Tante shook her head.

More rumbling from Krakatau. But under the thunder, another noise started. The dark haze of smoke kept me from seeing anything. Racking my brain to figure out what it sounded like, I dropped the broom and pushed my spectacles up.

“Katrien, please get back to work. We have oth—”

“Shhh!” I thrust my finger in front of my mouth to hush her.

“Is that rain?” she wondered.

In that moment I knew. Mrs. De Groot's story echoed in my memory. My mouth went dry. My stomach clenched. “Oh, God. It's the ocean.” Grabbing Tante Greet's hand, I yelled, “RUN!”

We tore out of the parlor doors and whipped around the house. My aunt, whom I half dragged behind me, cried, “Careful, Katrien! The rosebushes!”

I swerved to avoid crashing into the spindly things, but my skirt snagged on some of the thorns. I did not stop moving and heard the fabric rip.

The thick blanket of powder slowed us down. It was worse than trying to run on the beach. We pushed our way through the drifts and the falling ash.

“Keep running, Katrien,” Tante Greet panted behind me, her hand slipping in mine. I tightened my grip.

Our slog through the ash was taking too long. I could hear the ocean roiling behind me, and I pictured a wall of clear blue water coming to sweep us away.

Tante Greet stopped in the cemetery by the Dutch Reformed Church. She leaned against the side of the little wooden building. “I'm not going to make it, Katrien.”

“
Ja
, you will,” I insisted, reaching for her hand. “I'll carry you into the jungle if I have to.”

She brushed me away. “No, Katrien, you keep going. I'll wait here.”

“I'm not going to leave you.” The rushing sound got louder, more distinct, over the rumblings of Krakatau.

“Your father will have to come this way. I'll rest, and he and I will join you.”

“Vader—” I stopped. Vader would never leave his post. She was making excuses.

The thunderous roar of the ocean grew even louder. I couldn't hear my own breathing.

We couldn't hide behind the tombstones. They weren't tall enough.

But the trees could work. They were tamarinds with solid trunks and thick branches. Perfect for climbing. “We have to get up there.” I pointed to a low-hanging branch.

“Have you lost your mind?”

“It's our only hope.”

“I can't climb a tree.”

“Your life may depend on it.”

“You climb. I will cling to the trunk.”

“No—”

“Do it, Katrien!” She shoved me toward the tree.

The ash still fell like rain. I shimmied up the trunk, my feet slipping numerous times on the powder-coated tree. But my experienced fingers clung like a house gecko crawling up a window. They sifted through the grit and gripped the rough bark. I had just gotten my legs and arms over the lowest branch when the giant wave attacked Anjer.

Crack!

As the water smashed through town, the sound of splintering wood was the first noise I could identify above the roar. Then a sharp crash followed as glass shattered, and a grinding screech as metal buckled, and heavy thudding as large objects shifted from their foundations.

The wave itself was worse than I imagined. Much worse. It was not a clear blue, but a roiling gray-green mass, as tall as the tree I clutched. It washed over buildings, casting them aside like houses of cards.

“I love you, Katrien!” Tante Greet cried from below.

She flung her arms around the base of the tamarind as the water washed over us. My body lifted off the branch, and I held my breath. I squeezed my arms and clung with my fingertips.

The water pummeled the tree, whipping me around and around as objects banged against my legs and side. My hands stayed glued to the branch. My chest ached.

Keep holding your breath. Keep holding your breath. Oh, God, please let me keep holding my breath!
I had never prayed so hard.

My fingers began to ache as the bark bit into them and the water continued to gush. But I vowed not to let go, even when the salty, dirty sea seeped between my clamped lips and my legs caught the current, making my body shift. I was pinned to that tamarind tree like my stag beetles were pinned to the cork in their cases.

Just when I thought I could stand it no more, when I was sure I would have to open my mouth out of desperation to breathe, the water receded. My legs dropped against the tree, and I wrapped them around the branch.

I gasped and began gulping long, deep breaths. Air never felt so good.

Then I started coughing, for the air was still thick with grit.

The water had shoved me farther out on the branch, and I crawled toward the trunk. My arms felt like stone. My legs were raw. The bark poked and scratched me all over. Half of my skirt was missing, torn straight from my body by the force of the water.

A long, thin gash in my leg oozed a small trickle of blood. Not too deep, but I would have to try to wrap it back at the house.

“Tante Greet!” I called. “The water took some of my skirt!”

But Krakatau's rumblings were the only reply I heard.

The little wooden church? Gone. Only a pile of broken boards against the base of the tamarind tree remained.

The tombstones in the cemetery? Ripped from the churchyard. They lay in a trail, leading to the ocean as if a giant Hansel and Gretel had dropped them for guidance.

Tante Greet? Vanished.

No.

No, that couldn't be right. She had to be there—the saltwater must have affected my eyes. I reached to push my spectacles up, but my finger didn't hit the familiar metal band that bridged my nose.

The wave had stolen my spectacles. “Tante Greet!” I cried.

No answer.

I shimmied down the tree. The bark scratched my calves and thighs all over again and tore more of my skirt.

Where was my aunt? She had been right here, clinging to the trunk. She couldn't have disappeared. I had clung to the same tree. I was still here.

Then I noticed that somehow, the top third of the tree was gone, and even the large statues in the cemetery had been moved by the powerful wave. Big, imposing stone monuments weighing many tons had shifted as if they were made of nothing more substantial than
paper. The Rutgers Monument—a marble, life-sized angel standing on a meter-high base—rested next to the Groesbeck statue.

Wait.

The Groesbeck statue?

That was from the Catholic cemetery at least half a kilometer away. It shouldn't even be here.

Yet here it was, a two-meter-tall statue of the Holy Mother leaning against the Rutgers angel with a broken wing.

I wanted to tell Tante Greet about the power of the water. To point out how it had moved rocks buried in the ground. But she was gone.

A terrible dread enveloped me. What if . . .

Tante Greet wasn't a stone. She was a living being. She could cling to the tree like I did. It was a living thing, too. It was still standing. I willed her to show up. Why wasn't she here?

I was on the verge of panic when a clamoring noise filled the air, joining the rumbles from Krakatau. It came from all around me. It was the sound of children wailing, women moaning, men screaming.

It was agony.

Despair.

Devastation.

“I want to go home,” I said aloud.

Home.
Ja
. That must be where Tante Greet was. I didn't know why she hadn't waited for me, but I would go home and find her. And change my clothes.

I reached to push my spectacles up, forgetting they were gone. My vision was poor without them, but I could still tell that tree branches, leaves and debris littered the ground. My spectacles were probably down there somewhere, but I would never spot them.

I could remedy that at home, too. I would simply grab my dust-covered spectacles again. After I found Tante Greet.

I set off, crashing into bizarre obstacles along the way: broken bits of furniture, mangled trees, hunks of coral. Strange structures loomed in the gloom before me. Without my spectacles, much of the
world blurred into one giant indistinct mass, and the smoky air did not help. My legs grew more bruised with each step.
Don't think about the pain, Katrien, you'll recover. Get home. Get Tante Greet
.

The ash continued to fall, and in my wet clothes, the grit couldn't be brushed off. The ash turned to mud wherever it landed, whether it fell on the ground or on me. I wiped my face but only smeared the awful stuff. Layers of filth covered me now. Even my eyelashes were heavy.

The muck squelched beneath my feet. Wherever the wall of water hit piles of ash, a massive gray quagmire had formed. The mud weighed down my feet like bricks and oozed over the tops of my shoes, squishing between my toes.

I passed a house. At least, I thought it was a house. It had most of its roof but only one wall, like a child's unfinished drawing. Nothing remained inside.

Would our home be standing? What if I couldn't find our house? What if I couldn't get my other spectacles? What if Tante—