The Persimmon Tree (55 page)

‘Ah, but it is my wish that you wear a kimono,’ he said calmly, amused at her outburst. ‘That snivelling little tailor has been told to make three more; you will require them all. Sit please,
Anna-san
.’ Konoe Akira spread his hands, smiling. ‘
Of course
you have a choice,’ he said in a voice intended to mollify.

‘What?’ Anna replied rudely, still standing. ‘Death or I am
acquired
by you?’

Colonel Konoe laughed. ‘Possibly, but it is not me who will be the cause of your death.’ He pointed to the chair. ‘You have been directed by me to sit and you have not obeyed. Please sit at once and I will explain,’ he barked.

Anna sat as he’d instructed, but she folded her arms across her chest, her mouth drawn into a disapproving pout. Having openly lost her temper to no avail, silent disapproval was the only defiance she could now openly demonstrate. Konoe Akira carried an innate authority, not only of a military officer of high rank but also one born of generations of noble lineage, of privilege combined with discipline. Piet Van Heerden had a similar background, ten generations of privilege, but he lacked the discipline that went with it and, in the end, the authority. The Japanese officer was the persimmon tree, the ebony heartwood at the core, while her father was pulpwood through and through.

The colonel began speaking slowly. ‘We have in Tjilatjap two battalions, the one under Major Masahiro working at the port and the docks, and the one to govern the town, that is 1800 men and non-commissioned officers and sixty officers. These men have needs, physical needs, but are forbidden to fraternise with the local woman. But these needs must be met.’ He paused, spreading his hands. ‘Do you understand what I am saying,
Anna-san
?’

‘Yes, but you have already used local women prostitutes for this purpose,
Colonel-san
.’ The Japanese officer looked surprised that she should be aware of this, so Anna quickly added, ‘The
becak
owner told me about the brothel for soldiers.’

‘Ah, a small establishment with local women who are professional prostitutes organised with my permission for the
kempeitai.
They are different, a small military police unit who do not normally mix with the ordinary soldiers. You must understand, we are the liberators of the local people from colonial oppression, and do not wish to force respectable Javanese women into becoming whores. So you see, we have a problem. This still leaves 1800 soldiers and sixty officers we have to look after — to accommodate.’

‘Dutch women!’ Anna cried out, alarmed.

‘Ho! You are very perceptive,
Anna-san
,’ Konoe Akira said, pleased with her. ‘Yes, exactly! Some, the younger attractive ones, will become comfort women for the officers. Others, the younger mothers and experienced women, for the men. Captain Takahashi will organise these facilities, one for the officers and a much bigger one for the men. The
okami-san
,
the women who will run these houses, are on a ship coming from Japan and will be here in a month.’

Anna shuddered. ‘Takahashi the executioner?’ Her eyes filled with fear and she visibly trembled at the terrible implications of the colonel’s words.

‘Ah, Takahashi! He is very proficient with the
katana
and of a moderately good family,’ the colonel observed. ‘He is also an excellent organiser.’ He was silent for a few moments, then said evenly, ‘So, you see,
Anna-san
, you do have a choice. You may choose to be acquired, or forcibly recruited by Captain Takahashi to serve in “The Nest of the Swallows”, the officers’ house.’ He paused, tapping the arm of his chair. ‘I had previously decided that you are too precious a piece of art to allow him to have you, but now, as the second vase, I will allow you to choose your own immediate future.’

Anna’s eyes suddenly welled so that she was forced to close them, whereupon from each a tear escaped to run down her cheeks. She opened her eyes and looked directly at Konoe Akira; his face, seen through her tears, was blurred. ‘That is very cruel!’ she sobbed, not appending the formal politeness of his name.

‘No, that is life. Be grateful to the gods that they have made you a work of art. Are you a virgin,
Anna-san
?’ he asked suddenly.

Anna, sobbing softly, taken by surprise at his unexpected question, nodded, her eyes streaming.

‘I am greatly privileged to know that the pearl nestled in the oyster remains perfect,’ Konoe Akira said in a low voice. Using the arms of the bamboo chair, he braced himself and rose awkwardly to his feet. He stood silently, looking down at the distraught and tearful Anna. Then, as if he were issuing a casual order to a subaltern or sergeant, he said, ‘You will now go upstairs and change, and tell the
mama-san
to bring lunch. I will see you back here in fifteen minutes.’ He bowed stiffly, then turned and limped away, a proud, if physically crippled, samurai warrior. Konoe Akira halted and turned at the doorway to the interior of the house to once again face Anna. ‘Then, “Second Vase”, you will inform me of your decision,’ he instructed.

Anna, having changed back into her sarong, returned to the verandah to see that the table was set for lunch. Yasuko, who had helped her remove the kimono, must have raced downstairs to set the table in time for the colonel’s return from his rooms. Anna reached out and touched the glass butterfly. ‘Nick, I have been acquired, will you forgive me?’ she cried in despair.

Colonel Konoe, now back in uniform, joined her. Anna paid him due respect by rising and bowing low, while keeping her eyes averted. Within she burned with anger and humiliation but she knew there was nothing she could do, except attempt to salvage what self-respect she could.

Konoe Akira sat and went through his cigarette routine, then asked, ‘Well, what have you decided, Second Vase?’

Anna realised that she had been renamed in the Japanese manner, her real name discarded when she was with him. It was, she supposed, a part of the anonymity required for whatever role he intended her to play in his life.

‘Acquired!’ She spat the single word out defiantly.

The Japanese officer threw back his head and laughed. ‘You will never make a geisha, but perhaps within you I will find the samurai spirit? We will see when the lessons begin. At first, while you learn and receive instruction there will be complete obedience. After that we will see what is painted on the canvas. Do you have any questions?’

‘Yes, am I to live here with you,
Konoe-san
?’

‘No. You will be told when to come. You must be prepared at all times for my call. I will send a car for you. Except for the period while you take lessons, it will be mostly at night and you will be returned home. You will have your own room upstairs where you can change into a kimono and keep whatever you wish. No one will enter without your permission.’

‘
Konoe-san
, I have
mijn
father; he is not well. Will he be protected from the
kempeitai
?’

‘Of course, I will give instructions. What is his sickness?’

Anna decided that there was little point in hiding her father’s condition and thought that the colonel might allow a military doctor to see him. ‘He’s an alcoholic who has come through an enforced withdrawal and is now very depressed. If you will allow a doctor to see him, we will pay.’

‘I will attend to it. It will not be necessary to pay the doctor,’ Colonel Konoe said with a dismissive flick of the hand. ‘Now, returning to what is required of you, Second Vase, you will learn Japanese in the mornings for three hours. You will be here at nine o’clock every weekday morning to be tutored by your instructor and then we will have lunch together when I arrive at noon. I will send a driver.’

‘That will not be necessary,
Konoe-san
. I have a regular
becak
driver who will bring me here. It is what I would prefer.’

‘As you wish. Tell him to go to the
mama-san
to be paid.’

‘I will pay him myself,
Konoe-san
. I am acquired, but not dependent on your generosity.’

The Japanese officer laughed. ‘As you wish.’

‘Are these the lessons you mentioned?’ Anna now asked, relieved that she would not be seen leaving home each morning in a staff car. She knew her memory was good and was confident she wouldn’t have too great a struggle learning a new language.

‘No! But you cannot perfect your art without knowing Japanese. You must learn fast; in one month we must begin to converse. In two you will grasp more clearly Japanese meanings — there is much that is unspoken yet relevant. In three you will be able to start your instruction. Your English is good but your Japanese must be better!’ He said all this as if it were a simple order and, notwithstanding any linguistic limitations she might have, one that
must
be obeyed. Konoe Akira then turned in his chair towards the verandah door and called to the
mama-san
for lunch to be served.

Anna recalls little about the few mouthfuls she managed to eat, the exception being a dish of eel and the fact that Colonel Konoe drank a small container of sake. ‘This is a special occasion, Second Vase. I ordered eel in anticipation of our mutual success,’ he declared happily. ‘It is a very special Japanese dish.’

The eel had a flavour not greatly to her liking, but Konoe Akira pressed the delicacy on her and ate his own with relish. He seemed extremely pleased with himself. It was almost as if he believed Anna had arrived, of her own accord, at the decision to become ‘acquired’.

At the conclusion of lunch, rather than rise as he normally did, Konoe Akira said almost shyly, ‘Second Vase, I promised I would translate the beautiful and forbidden persimmon
poem by the venerable
haiku
master and poet–priest, Taneda Santoka. It is, alas, my poor translation of a great work and I regret I can never do justice to it in English, but you will, I hope, forgive my humble attempt.’

Anna was surprised at the obvious humility and even nervousness he displayed. She immediately understood that in Konoe Akira’s mind, this was no simple poem to be recited as if an entertainment. Instead, she sensed every word was equally important. This man, who was all-powerful in his own immediate environment, became humble in the presence of the words of the poet–priest he was about to recite.

‘Why is it forbidden,
Konoe-san
?’ she asked.

‘It is a poem for soldiers, a cry of pain! It suggests that the soldiers of Japan are not invincible, that we suffer the same fates and fears of all soldiers since the dawn of time. Prime Minister Tojo thinks it is bad for morale.’ He began speaking, slowly enunciating each word.

Marching together

on the ground

they will never step on again

Winter rain clouds

thinking going to China

to be torn to pieces

Leaving hands and feet

behind in China

the soldiers return to Japan

Will the town

throw a festival

for those brought back as bones?

The bones

silently this time

returned across the ocean

The air raid alarm

screaming, screaming

red persimmons.

Konoe Akira was silent for a moment, then braced himself in the usual way and rose awkwardly. He bowed to Anna. ‘Thank you, Second Vase. I will see you tomorrow at noon.’ He turned abruptly and left.

‘Ah, that is up to you,
Anna-san
.

If you do not please him in this art, then he will crush the pearl.

The honourable Konoe Akira is a man of unlimited power

and his power over life and death requires as its counterbalance

an equal arbitrary and capricious submission by him.

He has chosen you and
only
you to know this secret,

to assuage his guilt.
’

The seventh
okami-san

The Nest of the Swallows, Tjilatjap

THE THREE MONTHS OF
language lessons and lunches passed quickly and Colonel Konoe pronounced himself happy with Anna’s progress in Japanese. In fact, she was glad to be using her mind again and proved to be an outstanding student who took great pleasure in the teaching given to her by a military instructor, 2nd Lieutenant Ando, a shy bespectacled young scholar who had been a junior lecturer in linguistics at Tokyo University before being called up into the army.

Ando was an unlikely soldier and had become disenchanted with the thankless task of trying to teach Japanese to the Korean conscripts, both male and female. The males did the dirty outside work for the Japanese army, while the females worked in the kitchens or as cleaners in the officers’ accommodation and the brothels. While they had the constitution of a mule the lieutenant felt they also shared the animal’s intelligence; most of them were illiterate slum kids grabbed from the streets of Seoul and Pyongyang or from the impoverished rice paddies in the surrounding countryside.

Inspired once more,
Ando-san
delighted in the opportunity and challenge of teaching Anna. It was a case of a diligent teacher and a willing student and the results surpassed even Konoe Akira’s ambitious demands.

If I make Anna’s achievement seem effortless, that would not be correct. She studied deep into each evening and most nights went to bed exhausted, her head spinning with phrases and the inflections cast upon words in a language where what is said is seldom what is meant.

Dutch is a Teutonic and often pedantic language. Javanese, when well spoken, is a gentle and sometimes lyrical one. English, borrowed from everywhere and everyone, is perhaps the most difficult. But Japanese was by far the most introverted, subtle and formal language Anna had ever tackled. It is a language where what is left unspoken is often the more meaningful statement.

Nonetheless, the three months Anna spent with 2nd Lieutenant Ando before Colonel Konoe deemed her ready to enter the second phase of her Japanese initiation were the happiest she’d had since leaving Batavia. The shy lieutenant would continue to teach her for another two years, by which time Anna spoke Japanese with more proficiency than she spoke English.

The daily lunches over the first three months with Konoe Akira continued and with them a strange bond began to develop between Anna and her captor. The Japanese colonel, while appearing urbane, sophisticated and a patient mentor, nevertheless kept a tight hold on her behaviour. In numerous subtle ways, usually preceded or followed by small acts of kindness, he made sure she understood that without his patronage she was in mortal danger.

At no stage did he touch her or make any sexual advances; his preoccupation was with her mind combined with physical perfection, and she could only conclude (with immense gratitude) that this meant, given the manner in which he had referred to her chastity, the pearl that nestled in the heart of the oyster was to remain intact.

Anna’s deep resentment at having been acquired by him gradually began to lessen, and as her knowledge of Japanese increased he delighted in testing her with more difficult precepts, and her naturally competitive nature rose to the challenge these presented.

During this same period Captain Takahashi, the commander of the
kempeitai
, had taken with enthusiasm to the task of conscripting young Dutch women for the two designated brothels. Girls from the age of fifteen, chosen for their looks and purity, were set aside to work in the Nest of the Swallows, the officers’ house of pleasure. The older women, mostly in their late twenties or early thirties, usually married, sexually mature and robust, were chosen for the establishment created for the common soldiers and non-commissioned officers.

Seven
okami-san
, geishas too old for active service, arrived by ship from Japan to set up the two brothels. Six of them were required to work as keepers of an
okiya
, the Japanese name for a geisha house, running the establishments and disciplining the comfort women, while the seventh, also a retired geisha, was a woman skilled in every imaginable way of sexually pleasing a male. Her task as the supreme
okami-san
was to instruct the young Dutch women at the Nest of the Swallows in any sexual proclivity an officer patron might desire.

Both establishments remained open for sixteen hours every day and each comfort woman was required to work an eight-hour shift under the supervision of an
okami-san.

While enforced prostitution is degrading, humiliating and psychologically deeply damaging, in many respects the more experienced women in the enlisted men’s brothel were somewhat better off than the young inexperienced girls in the Nest of the Swallows. The older women were required to service thirty patrons a day and while this may seem physically inhuman, it was a carefully calculated figure. Most young soldiers arrive at a brothel with their testosterone at a very high level and their anticipation of things to come even higher. What has been imagined prior to sexual congress is much more important than the actual act of penetration. The cladding of a condom and the entrance to the tunnel of bliss were simply the final physical acts in the mental drama. Most experienced prostitutes, if they are being honest, do not feel unduly sexually abused by the quick and explosive orgasm of an over-excited young male. Thirty soldier customers a day was blatant and systemised rape, but the number and conduct of the customers was nevertheless carefully supervised. No self-respecting
okami-san
would dream of over-utilising her charges. This may have had little to do with her feeling any compassion since it was, quite simply, bad for business and the
okami-san
would be punished as a result.

Every once in a while Konoe Akira would make an oblique reference to the Nest of the Swallows, so that Anna was constantly aware that the captive relationship she had with the Japanese officer was a very privileged one. Also, his occasional veiled remarks were a reminder that her required presence for tutorials and lunch was a situation much to be preferred to the alternative choice of work under the overall supervision of the
kempeitai
and the dreaded executioner, Captain Takahashi.

Anna was also subtly reminded that the demands of Japanese officers were often peculiar and specific, and that virginity and the innocence of a neophyte was a much sought-after prize, particularly when the carefully inculcated skills of the seventh
okami-san
were added to their regime. In addition, the more sophisticated officer patrons seldom suffered from the spontaneous combustion of the young soldiers, and often required more complex gratification. While Anna couldn’t begin to imagine what any of their sexual proclivities might be, she was nevertheless inordinately grateful to Konoe Akira for rescuing her from being recruited to the Nest of the Swallows.

Colonel Konoe would also ameliorate this underlying threat by rewarding Anna with small specific acts of kindness. As an example, Til lamented to her one morning that the tyres of his
becak
were worn down to the lining and were close to the point where they could no longer be mended, and the inner tubes had so many puncture patches that they too would soon be worthless. Since tyres or inner tubes couldn’t be purchased, even on the black market, he explained that he would soon be unable to fetch her or, for that matter, earn a living. Anna had spoken to the colonel, who had seen to it that the little
becak
owner received six sets of new bicycle tyres and inner tubes and instructed that he was simply to go to the ordnance depot when he required more.

Kindness of a larger nature was shown in his command that a military doctor was to pay a visit to Piet Van Heerden twice a week to monitor his condition. The doctor had been unable to diagnose Anna’s father’s sickness — not surprising, as the medical profession at the time was unaware of the type 2 diabetes that caused his constant thirst and frequent need to urinate. The doctor probed at the discolouration of skin that Anna had first noticed at the back of her father’s neck and which soon spread to his elbows, knees, knuckles and armpits, but could draw no medical conclusions. His patient also suffered from high blood pressure and hypertension, while at the same time he gained weight and became hugely obese without any increase in appetite. There was very little the Japanese doctor could do to help Piet Van Heerden and so he supplied him with a bottle of tablets, while cautioning that they were only to be taken when he felt particularly ill, as they would invariably lead to acute constipation. Anna came to call them his ‘magic pills’ as they quickly calmed her father. Unbeknown to her the prescribed tablets were pure morphine and Piet Van Heerden soon became addicted, as well as adding constipation to his list of woes.

As an aside, Java at the time was awash with heroin and amphetamines, the latter a Japanese invention while the former came from Japanese-occupied China. The Japanese military used them to subdue the more recalcitrant elements in a local society or to encourage collaborators, while at the same time a great many of the senior Japanese officers were addicted to a combination of the two drugs. When injected together they produced a sense of euphoria and a heightened since of awareness — the perfect fix.

Soldiers coming down the Malayan peninsula where they were forced to endure long marches through difficult conditions were issued with amphetamine-infused cigarettes to keep them awake and alert. At the conclusion of the war one warehouse in Japan was found to contain 18 000 kilograms of amphetamine crystal. While it has never been officially confirmed, it is claimed that large amounts of heroin were found throughout the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.

In August 1942 all Dutch men from fourteen years onwards were finally rounded up and placed in concentration camps; the youngest boys and the old men, the sick and disabled were to remain in Java, while the able-bodied were sent to Burma to work in the Japanese labour camps, where many died of starvation, dysentery, malaria and ill treatment. Piet Van Heerden was given a dispensation by the Japanese commander and was permitted to remain with Anna.

And so, with these and similar acts of kindness combined with occasional threats, Anna began to lose her fear of Konoe Akira. She had always been subject to patriarchy and so was accustomed to the dominance of a male in her daily life. With her increasing fluency in the Japanese language, taken with the fact that he’d never touched her or made a direct reference to a personal sexual need, it wasn’t too difficult to regard the Japanese officer as being the father figure Anna would have hoped for, rather than the pathetic, incontinent and increasingly obese, fearful and self-absorbed one to whom she returned home each afternoon.

However, if these first months could be regarded as the halcyon days of Anna’s benign captivity, they were to end all too abruptly. Exactly to the day when the three months Konoe Akira designated for her initial language lessons had passed, Yasuko served eel once more. As on the previous occasion, a small container of sake was placed in front of the colonel.

At the conclusion of the lunch, Konoe Akira, first lighting a cigarette, leaned back in his chair. He now only spoke to her in Japanese.

‘You have done well, Second Vase, and I am pleased with you. Now the time has come for the next part of your journey to become an artist and, at the same time, your own canvas. I am pleased with how you have advanced with the first learning. You have been quick to progress with the Japanese language. This afternoon you will not go home but retire to your room upstairs, where you will receive a visitor, a woman, who will begin your second instruction.’

Anna smiled. ‘What is it to be,
Konoe-san
?’ she asked.

‘A second instruction only an
okami-san
can teach,’ he replied, looking unsmilingly at her.

Anna laughed. ‘You have said yourself that I would never make a geisha,
Konoe-san
.’

He got up from his chair in the usual awkward manner while Anna rose to return the customary bow that signified his departure.

She had grown accustomed to wearing a kimono, knowing how to prevent the silk from creasing when she sat, and she now adopted the wide-elbowed, fingertipped, reclining-thumb posture bow that Yasuko had taught her without having to think about it. She was wearing the prettiest of the four kimonos she possessed. This had come about when, having completed her language lessons with 2nd Lieutenant Ando, she had gone to her room upstairs to change for lunch only to discover Yasuko standing at the door holding the garment she was now wearing. ‘Today this one,
Anna-san
,’ she’d laughed. ‘We are having eel and the honourable
Konoe-san
will drink sake.’