Ghostwritten (17 page)

‘Please take no more than fifty centimetres!’ Mrs Cornelisse shouted. ‘No more than fifty centimetres per person!’ Once we had put down our things she summoned us all into the front yard. There she explained that we needed to choose two people to go to the
dapur
with a basin big enough to hold fifty litres of food. There was a frenzied search for one, and a metal washtub was found. Mrs Moonen and Shirin agreed to go and returned an hour later with the heavy tub, which they had struggled to carry. The sago porridge that it contained was enough to provide each person with just one cup of food. The porridge tasted like wallpaper paste, but we were so famished that not a speck was left. There were also some tiny lumps of translucent grey bread.

That evening Mrs Cornelisse stood in the front garden
again, raised her megaphone, and summoned us to
tenko
– our first in Tjideng.

We came out of the house and began to line up a little further down the road, opposite a large building, on the front of which the words ‘Juliana School’ could be seen. The young woman standing on my right told me that it was no longer a school – it was the camp hospital.

‘But it’s where you go to die, not to get better,’ she added cheerily. Judging by her emaciated body, and the tea towel tied round her chest, she’d clearly been in Tjideng a long time.

Mrs Cornelisse carefully ticked off all our names on her list, but I noticed that she kept casting anxious glances at Sonei’s villa.

As we stood looking down the wide, deserted street, a high-pitched noise could suddenly be heard. It reminded me of the sound that the bees had made as they swarmed towards us that day. It was growing louder and louder; and now I was amazed to see a seemingly endless stream of women and children pour onto Laan Trivelli. They came by the hundreds from the streets to the left and right. In Tjihapit,
tenko
had taken place in groups throughout the day. Here it seemed to be done in one vast gathering, along what we now knew to be Tjideng’s main road.

As I gaped at the sea of people surging towards us, a sudden jolt ran down the length of my spine. I gripped Mum’s arm so hard that she yelped.

‘What’s the matter?’ she demanded crossly.

I pointed to three distant figures. My mother followed my gaze, shielding her eyes against the sinking sun. I heard her gasp.

‘
Is
it?’ she murmured. ‘It
is …
’ A euphoric smile lit up her weary face. ‘It’s
Irene
! But oh, she’s so
thin
, Klara; I wouldn’t have known her.’ I wondered, with our own altered appearance, how easily Irene would have recognised us. ‘There’s Susan,’ my mother added happily. ‘But her hair’s short. And there’s darling Flora.’ My mother’s eyes shone with tears. ‘My God, Klara – they’re safe and they’re
here
!’ She turned to Peter. ‘We’ve spotted the Jochens,’ she told him excitedly. ‘Let me lift you up, darling, so that you can see them.’

‘Sssshhhh!’ said Mrs Cornelisse into her megaphone. ‘Quiet now, everyone!’

Behind us the huge gate had swung open. A phalanx of soldiers strode towards us, led by Sonei.

Mrs Cornelisse raised her megaphone again. ‘
Kiotsukete!
’ she shouted. ‘
Ker-ei!
’ We all bowed. After we had spent what felt like an age at thirty degrees, the order ‘
Naore!
’ rang out and we straightened up. Then the endless counting began, out loud.

‘Ichi! Ni! San! Shi! Go!’

Sometimes a column had to be counted twice or even three times, before Sonei was satisfied.

‘Roku! Shichi! Hachi! Kyu! Ju!’

Sonei was running up and down the rows, clutching his whip, his sword bouncing against his leg. He was immaculately dressed, but on his feet were those strange slippers, which made a ‘sluff-sluff’ sound as he raced around. He was followed by Mrs Cornelisse, who now had to go forward and call the next group to order. So a wave of megaphoned
Kiotsuketes
and
Kereis
echoed all the way down Laan Trivelli, and were gradually drowned out by the resumed chatter of the women and children around us.

I could still see Flora and longed to run to her. But we had to stay in our lines until every one of the prisoners – several thousand – had been counted, and this took more than two hours. During this time I speculated with my mother as to how long the Jochens had been in Tjideng, and where Wil might be.

‘Perhaps he’s in a camp with Daddy,’ Peter suggested.

‘Perhaps he is,’ Mum agreed, though I saw her face cloud. We still had no idea where our father was.

The young woman who’d spoken to me earlier introduced herself as May. She said that she was living in the house next door to ours, and that she’d been in Tjideng from the start of the occupation. Her fair hair had been bleached by the sun; her skin was the colour of tea from having spent so much time outside.

I asked May how many people there were in the camp. She explained that there were over ten thousand of us, adding that until a year before there had been only two and a half thousand, in a much bigger area. But Sonei had repeatedly reduced the camp in size.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘The smaller the camp, the easier for him to keep an eye on us,’ May answered. ‘One tip – when you bow you must put your little fingers on the side seams of your skirt, like this …’ She demonstrated. ‘If you don’t, Sonei will thrash the daylights out of you or get his clippers out. Isn’t that right, Louisa?’ she said to the red-haired woman standing next to her.

‘Dead right,’ Louisa confirmed. ‘The man’s a fiend. In his last camp he tore people’s hair out by the roots.’ She pointed to the gate. ‘You saw the monkey cage?’ I nodded. ‘One of the women in this camp gave those apes to Sonei,
hoping to get favours from him. He placed the cage inside the camp as “entertainment”. Sometimes he starves them for a week then lets them out – for “fun”,’ Louisa added contemptuously. ‘But the creatures terrify everyone. They’ve bitten several of the children.’

My mother put her arms around Peter and me. ‘How horrible,’ she murmured.

‘Oh, they’re nasty things,’ Louisa continued. ‘Mrs Ament – she was the camp head then – complained to Sonei about them. He listened to her very carefully.’ She paused. ‘Then he opened the cage, grabbed one of the monkeys and smashed its head against the wall; there was blood everywhere. He said he’d done it to punish Mrs Ament for her “ingratitude” for the “entertainment” that the monkeys provided.’ She shuddered. ‘She was lucky that Sonei didn’t kill her too. Once, he beheaded a woman at
tenko.
’

My mother, horrified that Peter and I were hearing of such brutality, murmured that Sonei must be mad.

‘He
is
mad,’ May agreed. ‘He’s a lunatic – a real one – just wait until the next full moon! That’s when he puts on his steel-capped boots and things get really scary.’

We watched Sonei lead his soldiers back to the gate, which seemed to signal the end of
tenko.
Everyone sighed with relief and our group broke ranks. I wanted to run to Flora, but it was dark, and my mother said that we had to get back to the house. She promised that we would find Flora and her family the next day.

Inside the house, the floor was a sea of mattresses covered by ghostly mosquito netting. Mum had managed to hang a
kelambu
from the ceiling; it just covered Peter,
herself and me. As ‘Lights out!’ was heard we lay under it, cocooned together. They both fell asleep, but I lay awake, comforted by their breathing and by the wonderful knowledge that I had found Flora again.

On the beach, Honor’s face was slack with shock. ‘You had a little brother?’ she said weakly.

I nodded. ‘Ted. His name was Ted. He was five.’

She blinked, bewildered. ‘How can I have known you for fifteen years, and not known that?’

‘Because no one knows,’ I answered. ‘Not you. Not Nina. I’ve never told anyone.’

‘Surely you’ve told Rick?’ I shook my head. ‘My God …’ In Honor’s eyes was a blend of compassion and astonishment. ‘But … what happened?’

‘It was August,’ I began quietly. ‘We were here with my mother and her new boyfriend: this man, Clive. I hated him being on our family holiday, and wanted to get away from him. So I went rock-pooling with Ted. He hadn’t wanted to come with me, but I made him, which makes me feel even worse about what happened …’ I exhaled painfully. ‘As we walked across the sand we met a boy and girl, about the same age as us, who were making this huge hole.’ I looked across to the patch
of sand where they’d been digging. I half expected to see them there. ‘The girl had a “J” on her shirt,’ I went on. ‘I don’t know why, but that detail really stuck in my mind. She was tall and thin like me, with dark hair, except that hers was very long; mine was short in those days. Her brother was sandy-haired and stocky, and Ted and I chatted to them about this big tunnel that they were digging; then we left them and went on the rocks. But the tide was coming up.’

‘Oh, Jenni,’ Honor murmured.

‘We went a long way – too far, almost to Trennick.’ I nodded into the distance. ‘But we were enjoying ourselves, catching fish and shrimps, and it was very sunny and then …’ I paused. ‘We heard the bell.’

‘The bell?’

‘The woman who ran the tea hut always rang a bell at six to let everyone know she was closing. Our mother had told us to come back when we heard it. Ted said that he could hear it, but I pretended I couldn’t, because I didn’t
want
to go back. But –’ my fingers clenched around the tissue – ‘when I saw how close the waves were, I said we
should
go back, and so I started for the beach … I thought Ted was following me.’

‘Oh God.’

‘Eventually I reached the sand, and I had another look at the tunnel; it was huge by then. After that I walked on, looking for shells; and as I glanced up I saw my mother in the distance, looking for us. So I waved, and she waved back with a relieved smile. Then I remember her smile fading; she started running towards me; she was shouting frantically at someone behind me. As I turned, I could hear a dog barking. Then I saw Ted. He
was some way away, but he was very visible because of his red swimming trunks. He was standing on a rock, and there was this dog snapping at him, and Ted was screaming.’

Honor’s eyes were full of anguish. ‘Did the dog bite him?’

‘No. I don’t think it was going to – it was just excited; it had been on the beach all day, chasing balls. I think its ball must have gone on the rocks near to Ted and it just wanted Ted to throw it. But he was terrified of dogs. My mother had seen what was happening, and she was running towards him, trying to call the dog off. She was shouting at it to get away from him, but that only seemed to make it bark more. Just as she got near to it, it jumped up.’ I swallowed. ‘And Ted disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘In that instant I knew where he’d been standing. Just there … He’d been standing by that gully, then the dog had startled him and he’d lost his footing. My mother was scrambling over the rocks in her bare feet. She was still screaming at the dog to get away, not realising that by then it had already gone, because its owners were calling it.’

‘Didn’t they realise what had happened?’

‘I don’t think they had any idea, because I saw them walking towards the slipway with all their stuff. My mother dropped down into the gully and lifted Ted up, then she carried him over the rocks – her feet were bleeding – while I tried to help. As she laid Ted on the sand I could see a swelling on the side of his face. His eyes were closed. There was spit on his lips, like sea-foam, and my mother kept saying his name, over and
over, and stroking his face, but he wasn’t responding. Then her boyfriend ran down to us and when he saw how Ted was he yelled that he’d call an ambulance from the hotel; he raced up the beach again. In the meantime people had gathered round. They all had this strange expression on their faces, as though they were very upset, but also fascinated.’

‘Oh,
Jen
,’ Honor whispered.

‘A woman came up to us, and said she was a nurse: as she examined Ted, Mum explained, through her sobs, what had happened and said that she thought he was concussed. The woman said that he was breathing okay, but that we had to get him to hospital as soon as possible. So my mother picked Ted up and carried him up the beach. The girl and boy who’d been digging were just staring at us, in shock. Within a few minutes I heard a siren, and the ambulance drove onto the field behind the hut – that was the closest it could get to the beach. Two ambulance men jumped out and ran down to us and gave Ted first aid; then they laid him on a stretcher and my mother followed them to the ambulance and waited while they lifted Ted in. I started to get in too but Mum told me that I wasn’t to come – I think she didn’t want me to see Ted in such a bad way. But as her boyfriend got in, my mother said that she needed someone to look after me. The woman who ran the tea hut said that she would. She told Mum that she’d take me to the hotel, and that she wouldn’t leave my side until Mum came back, however long that might be. Mum thanked her and told me to go with her.’ I inhaled. ‘The woman asked me my name, then told me that hers was Jane; which I’d forgotten – until today,’ I added quietly. ‘I
remember now – it’s all coming back to me in perfect detail. As the ambulance doors shut, Jane put her arm round my shoulder and drew me away.’

‘Oh, Jenni,’ Honor breathed again.

‘She helped me pick up our towels and our beach things. She said that we were going to need them the next day because it was going to be hot again. Then we walked up the lane to the hotel.

‘The manager showed us into a corner of the lounge, where there was a TV and a box of games for the children. Jane chatted away to me, telling me that my mum would soon be back. The manager brought me something to eat but I didn’t want it. Jane and I watched television, though it might as well have been a blank screen. Then she got out some board games and we played Snakes and Ladders; after that we played Snap! We played it over and over again. Then, sometime in the early hours, my mother returned.

‘I’d fallen asleep on a sofa and Jane had put a blanket over me. I remember hearing my mother’s voice, then opening my eyes and seeing her, and feeling so relieved. Mum was back, and everything was going to be okay, and Ted would be fine, and we could carry on with the holiday and I didn’t even mind Clive being there, because he’d been nice, running to call the ambulance like that. It was even going to be sunny again the next day. Then, in a low, flat voice that I barely recognised, Mum thanked Jane for looking after me, and we walked up to Penlee. On the way there I asked my Mum how Ted was, but she didn’t answer. I asked her if he was still in the hospital, and she said yes. As we went into the house I asked her how long he was going to be there because
I really wanted to see him. It was then that my mother sat me on her lap and told me that Ted had died.’

‘I wish I’d …
known
,’ Honor said again, later that evening. We sat in the kitchen, hardly talking. The window was open, and we could hear the sigh of the sea. ‘I hate to think of you carrying something so huge, for so long, all by yourself. It must have made you feel … lonely.’

‘I did feel lonely,’ I responded quietly. ‘But whenever I think about that day, which I do nearly all the time, I think about the boy and girl who were making the tunnel. Perhaps it’s because that was the last “normal” conversation I had with anyone before Ted died. Or perhaps it’s simply because they were there – but I associate them with it profoundly.’

‘It must have been so hard for you just to walk on the beach today, let alone to go out on the rocks. It must have been difficult, just coming here, to Polvarth.’

‘It was. When I realised where the job was I could have said no, and I was going to say no; then, somehow, I found myself saying yes. A part of me
has
wanted to come here again, because it’s haunted me all these years.’

Honor looked at me, still stunned by what she’d learned. ‘And you’ve never told
anyone
?’

‘Not a soul. You must be wondering what else you don’t know about me,’ I added bleakly. ‘But there isn’t anything.’

She pushed away her plate. ‘I’m just so sad about it, Jen. But I still don’t understand why you couldn’t tell your close friends; and I can’t fathom why you’ve never told Rick. How could you want to share the rest of your
life
with him, yet not tell him something so important about yourself?’

‘I did
want
to tell Rick. Of course I did.’

‘Then why didn’t you?’

‘I …’ I couldn’t bring myself to tell Honor the truth. ‘I was just … waiting for the right time, but it never seemed to come. And the longer I left it, the harder it got. But this is why he’s never met my mother, because if we went there, he’d see all the photos of the brother he didn’t know I’d had.’

‘I’ve only met your mother once,’ Honor said. ‘At our graduation. I remember thinking that she looked sad, but I assumed it was because you and she aren’t close – I’d always known that. I also thought it might be because of what had happened to your dad. But it was something even worse – poor woman.’ She exhaled. ‘So … was it a head injury?’

I nodded. ‘What they call a “catastrophic” head injury. They carried out emergency surgery but he died in the night.’

‘So is that why you left Goring?’

‘Yes. My mother couldn’t bear the house any more without Ted; she couldn’t bear going up to the school to collect me, but having to go home without him. It upset her to see the children in his class and she couldn’t cope with the sympathy of their parents, or of the local shopkeepers. Goring was such a small place that everyone knew what had happened – they already knew what had happened to my father.’

‘Did
you
want to go? Leave your schoolfriends?’

‘Probably not; but I guess I was too traumatised to protest, so I went along with what my mother wanted,
which was to escape. She only ever went back there to visit the cemetery.’ I thought of Ted’s small headstone in the children’s corner of the churchyard. It was carved with his name and dates, a rosebud and the inscription,
Sleep, my Darling.

‘Why did she move to Southampton? Did she know people there?’

‘She didn’t know a soul – which was the whole point. It was a large city in which she felt she could be anonymous. She found a job, in the accounts department of a big printing firm, and enrolled me in a local school.’

‘Didn’t you tell any of your new friends what had happened?’

‘Absolutely not. I kept myself to myself. And if anyone asked me whether I had any siblings, I’d just say “no”, which wasn’t a lie.’

‘But wasn’t exactly the truth.’

‘I didn’t see why I had to
tell
the truth. These people were strangers. What did it have to do with them?’

‘But, Jenni,
I’m
not a stranger; neither is Nina – or Rick. So why you felt you couldn’t tell even us, I don’t know.’

I looked at my hands, unable to tell her. ‘It was just too sad to talk about. I was struggling with it, as I still do to this day. And by the time I’d met you and Nina I’d buried it so deep inside that it had almost … fossilised.’ I lifted my eyes to the sea. ‘But now I’m here, and it’s cracked open, and I’m tormented by it all over again.’

‘Tormented?’ Honor echoed softly. ‘But what happened was a tragedy, Jen. It was just one of those terribly sad things – a small boy, an overexcited dog. It was an accident,’ she went on. ‘It was no one’s fault.’

I stood up, went to the window, and pulled down the blind against the night.

The following morning I went up to the farm. As I walked down the track I saw Henry and Beth in the yard. We chatted briefly, but their friendly smiles were tinged with sympathy and I saw at once that they knew my story. It would have been natural for Klara to have told them about our encounter with Jane. The thought made me feel naked, exposed.

I went up the stairs to the flat. As Klara opened the door I sensed that she was looking at me in a different way, as though now unsure how to treat me.

‘Jenni.’ She smiled at me solicitously. ‘Come in. You’ll have some coffee and cake?’

‘Coffee, please, but no cake, thanks. I’m not hungry.’

This time Klara didn’t press it on me. ‘It was lovely to meet Honor,’ she said as she brought the tray over. ‘What’s she doing today?’

‘She’s walking to the lighthouse at St Anthony Head. I’m going to pick her up at half one, and then we’ll have a pub lunch somewhere.
So
…’ I got out the recorder. ‘I’ve transcribed what we did yesterday morning; the hellish journey to Tjideng …’ I quickly changed the batteries. ‘I found it hard, listening to it again.’

Klara smiled grimly. ‘The experience has remained seared on my mind all these years; and you can be sure that having been through
that
, I never complained about any train journey that I ever went on.’

I nodded. ‘I wondered if we could talk about what happened when you got there. I know from my research that Tjideng was one of the worst camps.’

‘Yes, because of Sonei. He was … a devil.’

‘So, Klara, it’s now October 1944, and you’ve just settled in to your third camp, Tjideng. The war is almost over by now, though you didn’t know that at the time. Can you tell me what you remember about your first few days and weeks there?’

Klara didn’t respond. She sat staring at her lap. For a moment I thought that she was too upset at the prospect of having to talk about Tjideng. She’d told me that there were some experiences that would be too difficult for her to describe, let alone discuss. Perhaps we’d come to those now. She’d spoken of so many harrowing incidents that I didn’t dare imagine what these ones might be. I was just thinking that we’d have to find some way to skirt round them when Klara looked up. ‘So I was right,’ she said softly.