After the Ashes (12 page)

“Such as?”

“Stars. We watch them. Follow them.”

“You could stargaze at our house,” I said. “Vader would teach you.”

“Is not same.”

“But Vader knows a great deal about astronomy.” He knew that.
Vader had pointed out constellations to us when we were younger. Had Slamet forgotten?

“Teacher knows more.” He took the basket from me and turned off the road, not even checking to see if I followed. Frowning at his back, I hurried to catch him.

We walked toward the jungle for about ten minutes before we came upon a small village of kampongs partially hidden among the trees. Chickens ran around the houses, and I wondered how anyone knew whose chickens belonged to whom.

Although the village was small, we turned corners so often, I lost my sense of direction.

But Slamet knew where he was going. I stuck close to him, and we stopped in front of a tiny kampong. He stepped up to the door. “Purnama? Wangi?
Ini
Slamet.”

A woman came to the door. “Slamet?” I had been expecting these friends to be elderly, like old Mrs. Schoonhoven. But this woman—Wangi—was about the same age as Indah, though she was thinner and looked more tired.

She stared around Slamet at me, and he motioned me forward. “Wangi,
ini adalah
Katrien.”

I smiled and gave her a slight bow. Every word of Javanese that I knew fled my mind. “It's nice to meet you,” I said in Dutch, hoping she would understand my actions if not my words.

She welcomed us both inside. Slamet handed her the basket of
pisang goreng
. They talked to each other in Javanese, and I stood in the doorway until Wangi motioned for me to sit down.

She offered us the fritters, and I copied Slamet in taking one. Wangi sat next to a man lying on a rush mat. His face was haggard, with lines of pain around his mouth. She raised his shoulders and fed him a fritter.

Slamet introduced him as Purnama. I smiled and nodded at him, but he only grimaced. The three of them talked, and I tried to follow the conversation. But they spoke too quickly for me to make out more than a few words.

We had been there a short time when another voice sounded outside. “Wangi?
Ini
Raharjo.”

Slamet's brother was here? I sat up a little straighter, prepared to be as polite as possible. I would show Raharjo that not all Dutch people were awful. I would make him see what a good friend I was to Slamet.

Wangi led Raharjo inside. He had a pleasant look about him; not what I expected from someone saying such hurtful things. Like many natives, he was not tall, and he wore a traditional sarong with a
kris
at his waist. The handle of the curvy dagger sat at a cocky angle. He smiled at Slamet and went over to greet Purnama. After a brief chat, Raharjo spotted me.

His friendly expression fell and anger took its place. All my plans for being polite vanished, and I wished I could shrink into the corner to hide. Why was he mad at me? What did I do? I pushed my spectacles up.

Slamet placed a hand on Raharjo's and whispered something in his ear. Raharjo nodded but kept his fierce gaze on me.

I felt like a mouse being stalked by a cat.

Ambulo . . . ambulare . . .
I tried to conjugate the Latin word for “walk” in my head, but I couldn't. Raharjo scared me. I couldn't even remember Latin verbs. My gaze bounced around the small space before it settled on Purnama.

He had yet to sit upright, despite the visitors. He hadn't spoken much. He wasn't sweating with a fever, and his lips weren't parched with thirst, but something was wrong with him. He looked only a few years older than Vader. When I looked up again, Slamet, Wangi and Raharjo were talking, but I couldn't join them. My Javanese
was not as good as Slamet's Dutch. I managed to catch a few words of their conversation—sun, trees, monkeys.

Monkeys. I could say something about that! I had no idea if anyone other than Slamet understood Dutch, but I nonetheless gathered my courage and said, “I saw a silvery gibbon a few weeks ago.”

All three of them stared at me. Slamet narrowed his eyes and shook his head the tiniest bit.

“Ma'af,”
I apologized, my face heating up. The earthen floor under the mat suddenly seemed like the best place to focus my attention, and I traced patterns in the dirt until they began talking again. Raharjo continued to throw ugly looks my way, and Slamet whispered to his brother after every mean glance. I was certain Raharjo said something else about monkeys.

The tension in the house grew the longer we stayed. It swirled around me like humidity on a hot day. When did we plan to leave? I could make my own excuses, but I had gotten utterly lost and wasn't sure I would be able to make it back on my own.

A cool breeze blew in through the door, and I turned my face to catch it. Rain fell outside. Not too hard, but not too gentle either. It was the kind of rain that cooled the air while it fell but made the afternoon steamy when it stopped.

Suddenly Purnama moaned and began shaking his head. “Oh,” I cried. In one motion, I stood, snatched my hat off my head and held it over Purnama's face.

Raharjo jumped up and glared, but Slamet laughed and said something to Wangi. She spoke to me directly, but I didn't understand a word.

Slamet translated. “You are good to keep Purnama out of rain, she says.”

“The roof needs new thatch,” I said, looking up at the leak.

Raharjo walked to the door, speaking the whole time.

Slamet furrowed his brow and said something to his brother, then turned to me. “He will fix.”

That wasn't all Raharjo had said, but I didn't want to know the rest.

Wangi and Slamet dragged Purnama on his rush mat away from the leak, and I placed my hat back on my head. My hair would get damp, but I didn't mind.

By that time, the rain had stopped.

Purnama motioned for me to come over to him. I knelt down.
“Terima kasih,”
he said with a painful grimace.

“It was my pleasure.” I smiled at him.

At last, Slamet said our good-byes.

“Wait,” he said, after we walked outside. He ran over to his brother, who was bundling thatch. They spoke briefly, smiled at each other and parted.

As Slamet rejoined me, Raharjo called after him, “She is dangerous,” and pointed to me. My lips parted to reply before I realized he had spoken in Dutch.

How could I be dangerous? I wasn't the one scaring people. I pushed my spectacles up. Raharjo was a hate-filled, nasty person. What had I ever done to him?

Slamet and I followed the circuitous route out of the village. Chickens ran from us, and I remembered the time long ago when we had chased chickens around Slamet's kampong to see how far they would fly. Sometimes the birds ran into the house, and Indah had to chase them out.

Purnama didn't look able to chase chickens. “What's the matter with Purnama?” I asked. “Why was he lying on that rush mat?”

Slamet slapped a mosquito. “He is sick.”

“
Ja
, but what's wrong with him?”

He pointed to his back. “He has hurt.”

“He's injured?” I remembered the grimaces on Purnama's face. “Is he in pain?”

Slamet nodded. “
Ya
.”

“How did he hurt himself?” I asked, stepping around a puddle.

“He falls from coffee tree.”

I gasped. “That's terrible.”

“He cannot walk. He cannot feel.” Slamet pointed to his chest and then swept his arm down his body.

“Oh, no. Poor Purnama. And Wangi takes care of him?”

He nodded again. “
Ya
. She is his wife. She works for coffee owner. She stops when Purnama falls.”

“What a dreadful thing to have happen.” If something ever happened to Vader, what would Tante Greet and I do? Probably move in with Oom Maarten.

“The coffee owner does not help. Wangi does not work there.”

“What do you mean he doesn't help? He didn't send for a doctor to see Purnama? He didn't offer any money?”

Slamet shrugged. “He is Dutch.”

“He's a horrible person,” I huffed.

“
Ya
, he is Dutch.”

“That has nothing to do with it. He's awful and cruel.” Slamet's insistence that the coffee plantation owner acted so callously because he was Dutch was unsettling. “And Wangi had to stop working to take care of her husband?”

He nodded.

“They are fortunate to have friends to help them.” Vader's words about needing people came back to me. Would anyone help me if I were in that position? Anyone other than my family? The questions made me uncomfortable and I brushed them away.

We walked in silence toward the mosque. When we passed it and were back on the Great Post Road, I asked, “Why did Raharjo say I was dangerous?”

Slamet blushed and turned his face from mine. “He does not say—”

“
Ja
, he did. I heard him. I didn't even know he spoke Dutch.”

He shook his head. “He does not mean . . . he says wrong word.”

“Then what did he mean?”

“You are Dutch.”

“It's hard to confuse
Dutch
and
dangerous
. He sounded like he was warning you about me. Why? What have I ever done?” I pushed my spectacles up.

“You are Dutch.”

“I'm not Dutch, I'm Javanese. I was born here. Like you.”

“You are Dutch,” he insisted.

I growled and threw my hands up in frustration. “You keep saying that. Am I supposed to know why that's a problem?”

“You run our lives.”

I stopped walking. “I don't run your life. Didn't we just visit
your
friends?”

“
Ya
, but you come.”

“You told me I could,” I pointed out.

“You do not ask,” he said. “You say, ‘I will come.' This is way you run our lives.”

Did I do that? I . . . I did. “But you still agreed,” I argued. “You didn't say I couldn't come. You could have.”

With a disbelieving look, he asked, “Why do you come?”

“I wanted to spend time with you. I missed you.”

“You want me around.”

“Of course I do. You're my friend.”

“What if I do not want to be friends?”

“What?” My heart stopped at his words. “That's not true, is it?”

He sighed. “I do not know.”

“Why do you keep saying these awful things?”

“You are Dutch.”

Fed up, I rubbed my eyes. “Fine, Slamet. When you decide to treat me like your friend again, when you decide to act like the boy who used to climb trees and swim in the ocean and watch the stars with me, I'll be here. That boy is my friend.” I stalked off and left him on the road. He called after me, but I didn't stop and refused to look back.

My dear Oom Maarten,

Krakatau continues to send smoke up into the sky. But Vader doesn't seem bothered by it anymore. I suppose it's one of those parts of life that we have to learn to live with.

I've been having problems with Slamet. He said strange things to me about how the Dutch treat native people. I know there are some Dutch people who treat the natives terribly, but I don't think I've ever been mean to Slamet. At least not intentionally. When I asked him to explain why he's angry about it, he said he's heard bad stories about the Dutch from his brother Raharjo.

What do you think it could mean? Is Raharjo lying to Slamet? Why would he do that?

When I met Raharjo, he called me dangerous. Slamet said he meant to say Dutch, but I don't believe him. I yelled at him, and I'm not sure we're friends anymore. What will I do without Slamet?

In other bad news, my punishment has not been lifted. I'm still only allowed to explore the jungle one time a week. But in good news, last week I spotted a wanderer butterfly in a clearing. It had the most beautiful silvery blue-and-black wings, and it dipped and dived around me. I wish you could have seen it. It would make a beautiful wallpaper pattern. Have you decided which one you will choose?

I haven't found any stag beetles lately. I still have room in my twenty-sixth case for more specimens, but the beetles seem to have
vanished from the jungle. It's so strange. I usually find them all around. I wonder where they could be.

It's almost time for dinner, so I'll finish this letter. I miss you and send

Warmest regards,
Katrien

The next week, butterflies fluttered around me as I made my way toward the jungle. Several Common Clubtails showed off their striking black-and-white markings and yellow spots. Caper Whites and Koh-i-Noors also dipped in and out of my path.

“ ‘We behold the face of nature bright with gladness,' ”
I whispered to myself. I could not remember the last time I'd been inspired to quote Mr. Charles Darwin, and I smiled at the familiar words.

A plaintive cuckoo hiding in the tamarind tree let out its distinctive cry: four sharp notes followed by a little laughing chirp.

I walked around a cluster of kampongs. Children scurried from building to building, calling to each other and chattering in Javanese. Their voices mingled with the twittering of the birds.

Ahead of me, Brigitta and one of her servants emerged from a kampong. I froze.

“When we come back tomorrow, we should bring some rice,” Brigitta was saying to her servant. “She needs to eat, Kuwat.”

“She will not accept,” Kuwat said.

“She needs to. I'll make her some
beras kencur
, and you'll have to get her to drink it.”

“I will try,” he said.

The she saw me.

“Katrien,” she gasped, her face white.

Wary of an insult from her, I said,
“Ja?”

“What are you doing here?”