The Persimmon Tree (32 page)

Anna glanced over to where Hans, the fat woman’s husband, stood nervously holding a basket and a folded paper parasol. The picture was the full comic skit of big woman and small downtrodden man. Anna had learned the nursery rhyme at school when she’d been young and taking her first English lessons. Now despite her embarrassment at being late and her private relief at finding the woman still waiting in her chalked square, the words leapt into her mind:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat,

His wife could eat no lean.

And so, between the two of them,

They licked the platter clean!

‘I am very sorry,
mevrouw
, I overslept,’ she apologised.

‘In your nice comfortable cabin without the sun in your eyes at six o’clock in the morning!’ She stabbed a fat finger at
Kleine
Kiki. ‘And who is this? You have your own maid already? My goodness, some people with their airs and graces think they are better than others!’

‘She is my little sister,’ Anna lied.

‘Umph! Maybe your father is not too particular, hey?’

Anna had had enough. ‘Look, I’m sorry we’ve kept you. I’ve paid my three guilders. Can we hang out our washing or will I call
Mijnheer
Van der Westhuisen? He is a friend of mine.’ It was Anna’s second lie for the morning.

The threat of the odious first mate seemed to work. The woman nodded. ‘We haven’t got all day. It is not
me
who was late.’

‘You may go at any time you wish, we know perfectly well how to hang out washing,’ Anna said tartly.

‘We must stay until it is done,’ the woman insisted.

Anna looked about her. The chalked square was spotless and contained a single large tin trunk secured by a heavy brass padlock. Painted on its lid in large white letters was the name H.J. Swanepoel. They’d obviously locked away their worldly goods for the day. Anna pointed to the trunk. ‘It’s okay, we won’t steal it.’

The Dutch woman sniffed. ‘
Kom
, Hans,’ she instructed. ‘
Wij gaan nu!
’ She turned to Anna. ‘We are coming in the afternoon back. The clothes, they must also be gone, you hear?’

‘
Nee, Mevrouw
Swanepoel, we too have to go ashore!’ Anna protested, knowing they would be at the police station at noon. ‘We may not be back in time.’

The woman stuck out her palm. ‘One guilder!’

Anna shook her head. ‘Only if we get back after you do.’

‘Fair enough,’ Hans replied, nodding his head in agreement.

His wife cast him a dirty look. ‘
Kom
,’ she huffed and moved off, leaving Jack Sprat to follow her with the basket and parasol.

Anna and
Kleine
Kiki arrived back at the cabin to find Anna’s father seated on the edge of the bottom bunk. He’d somehow managed to climb down from the top one, the sleep having sobered him up sufficiently to make the attempt, although he’d bumped his nose and a trickle of blood, now stemmed, still glistened at the base of his nostrils. Several drops had landed on his knees and dried. He’d found the brandy bottle Anna had opened to give
Kleine
Kiki a nip and he was already bleary-eyed, hugging the bottle to his chest.

Anna found a facecloth still damp from the night before and wiped his nose clean of blood and mucus. ‘Where’s everybody?’ Piet Van Heerden asked, looking around, his expression dazed.

Anna placed the facecloth in the basin and came to sit beside him. ‘Papa, it is not good news. Katerina committed suicide yesterday.’

He seemed to be thinking for several moments. ‘Then she is not coming to New Zealand?’ he asked in a querulous voice.

‘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 was 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.’