After the Ashes (29 page)

The priest reached the altar, and the choir ended their hymn. While he began the rituals, memories of Vader and Tante Greet filled my mind.

I could feel Vader's hand around mine as he tried to improve my penmanship. I could hear Tante Greet's soothing voice in my ear as I tried to chop vegetables. Each of them, in their own ways, tried to make me a better person.

The congregation sat, and I focused on the service.

The reader stepped up to the lectern. His deep voice resonated throughout the building. “A reading from the book of Wisdom.
Chapter three
, verses one through nine. ‘The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God, no torment shall ever touch them. In the eyes of the unwise, they did appear to die, their going looked like a disaster, their leaving us, like annihilation; but they are in peace.

“ ‘If they experienced punishment as people see it, their hope was rich with immortality; slight was their affliction, great will their blessing be. God has put them to the test and proved them worthy to be with him; God has tested them like gold in a furnace, and accepted them as a holocaust. When the time comes for his visitation, they will shine out; as sparks run through the stubble, so will they. They shall judge nations, rule over peoples, and the Lord will be their king forever. They who trust in him will understand the
truth, those who are faithful will live with Him in love; for grace and mercy await those He has chosen.' The word of the Lord.”

“Thanks be to God,” the congregation replied.

Tears ran down my cheeks, and I couldn't stop them. Oom Maarten wrapped his arms around me and held me in a strong hug. His chest muffled my sobs.

I cried and cried.

I cried for my beloved Anjer.

I cried for all those lost whom I would never know.

I cried for people I didn't even like—Adriaan Vogel, Maud, Rika and Inge.

I cried for the jungle.

I cried for my
Hexarthrius rhinoceros rhinoceros
collection.

I cried for my books.

But, mostly, I cried for those I loved.

I cried for Vader.

I cried for Tante Greet.

I cried for Brigitta and her family.

I cried for Indah and Slamet.

I didn't stop crying until people began to leave. The service was over, and I missed it. Oom Maarten retrieved my crutches and helped me out of the pew.

We left the church without saying a word, and he led me to a bench underneath an enormous fig tree. He took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Tears stained his cheeks, too, and I wondered if he had cried as long as I.

“Katrien, I have no idea what you went through,” he said. His voice sounded like it would shatter into pieces at any moment. “But I know the loss of your family—” He stopped for a moment, swallowed and took a deep breath. “The loss of your friends.”

A cynical laugh left my throat. “Friends.”

He nodded and squeezed my hand again. “I am so, so sorry.”

I shook my head. “Oom Maarten, I only ever had one real friend in Anjer. And we fought before the eruption. I'm not even sure we were friends. In the end.” It was true.

“But what about Brigitta?”

“Brigitta and I despised each other. I told you about her.”

He leaned against the bench, stunned. “
That's
the girl you wrote me about? The one you hated for so long? The one who always bothered you? You seem so close.”

“We are. Now. It took nearly dying to realize how much we had in common.” I sighed. “I miss her.”

“I do, too.” He smiled. “We should get home. I need to change out of these wet clothes before I catch my death.”

“Wet clothes . . . ?”

He pointed to his shirt. The front was soaked from my tears.

“Apologies, Oom Maarten. It won't happen again.” Vader would have been shocked at my lack of composure in public. He would have been disappointed. “Truly. I'm very sorry.”

“Katrien,” my uncle said, helping me stand, “you have nothing to apologize for.”

We returned home and I went to my room to rest. Torben jumped up on the bed beside me and licked my face. I closed my eyes and imagined I was in my old room in Anjer. Vader was writing a report in the study; Tante Greet was pulling weeds in the flower garden; Indah was humming a little tune in the kitchen; and Slamet would run inside at any moment to help his mother.

A knock on the door pulled me out of my reverie. Torben flew off the bed, barking excitedly. By the time I reached the entry hall, Oom Maarten had already welcomed Mrs. Brinckerhoff and her husband inside. I didn't even know she knew how to knock.

After shutting Torben in my room, Oom Maarten said, “I hope you don't mind if we go to the kitchen. We've had to do a little rearranging, and my niece has taken over the parlor. Stairs are her Waterloo.”

I shook my head as I followed them.

While they settled down at the table, I set the kettle on the stove to boil. Tante Greet would be pleased I could make tea. It wasn't much, but it was a step toward domestic skill.

“I recall Greet mentioning your name, Mrs. Brinckerhoff,” Oom Maarten said.

“Please,” she said, “call me Johanna.”

The three of them chatted about nothing in particular while I
poured the tea and added it to the tray, along with some pastries Oom Maarten had bought yesterday. “Oom Maarten?” I pointed to the tray. “Will you . . .”

“Of course,
lieve
.” He rose from his chair, but Mrs. Brinckerhoff stopped him. She retrieved the tray instead, and I had my first good look at her since the hospital.

A scar blotted her right cheek. Her blouse had long sleeves, and I suspected those were covering more disfigurements. She smiled at me, and the skin around her scar twisted.

After we both sat down, Oom Maarten poured the tea. “Katrien and I just returned from mass. The priest held a sort-of funeral for those who were lost.”

“What a beautiful gesture,” Mrs. Brinckerhoff said, taking a sip of the steaming tea.

“Are your children out of the hospital?” I asked.

Mr. Brinckerhoff answered, “
Ja
. We're together again.”

“And I wanted to make sure you were settled, Katrien,” Mrs. Brinckerhoff said. “I remembered you mentioning your uncle, and of course Greet talked about you, Maarten.”

He gave her a melancholy smile, and I wondered how he must feel. Rather like Brigitta did about her loss of little Jeroen?

“We wanted to make sure you were safe,” Mrs. Brinckerhoff said. Her eyes filled with warmth, and I realized that I had always been wrong about her. She did have my best interests at heart, just as Tante Greet said. I wished I could tell my aunt how sorry I was. “
Dank u
, Mrs. Brinckerhoff.”

Her husband leaned forward and refilled his cup. “What are your plans for the future, Maarten?”

Oom Maarten paused with his drink halfway to his lips. “What do you mean?”

“Do you plan to stay in Batavia?”

He swallowed the last of his tea. “I haven't decided.”

I froze, and my cup slipped from my fingers. It clattered onto the table with such force that a crack began to run up the side. Tea seeped from the crack and formed a large brown puddle on the table.

Mrs. Brinckerhoff snatched a napkin from the tray and draped it over the liquid. Then she patted my hand before mopping up the rest of the tea.

“What do you mean you haven't decided?” I asked.

“Just that.” He bit into a pastry.

“But this is my home.”

Mrs. Brinckerhoff returned to her seat. “Willem and I thought that, too. We believed we would never leave. Our children had many friends. We had a pleasant life. There was no reason to doubt it would go on.”

“But we were mistaken,” Mr. Brinckerhoff said. “Nothing will be the same.”

I leaned back in my chair. What were they saying? Mrs. Brinckerhoff had told me in the hospital that she wanted to leave, but I didn't think she would get her way.

“You don't plan to rebuild?” asked Oom Maarten.

“No,” Mr. Brinckerhoff said, a wistfulness in his voice. “There are too many memories in Ketimbang.”

“But, surely, you could stay in the East Indies?” I asked. “You could go to Yogyakarta or somewhere in the east.”

They shook their heads. A defeated look crossed Mr. Brinckerhoff's face. “We're going to the Netherlands.”

“I don't understand.”

Mrs. Brinckerhoff reached across the table to take my hand. “Would you want to return to Anjer?”

“There's nothing left,” I whispered.

She squeezed my fingers gently. “There's nothing left in Ketimbang either, but even if there were, we would not return. It would be too hard, too painful.”

“But I still don't see why you have to leave entirely.”

Oom Maarten rubbed my back. “If we stay, we'll be forced to confront memories. Sometimes confronting memories can be a good thing, but not if you get caught up in them to the point where you can't move forward. That's not a way to heal.”

“Memories such as . . . ?” I didn't understand. I couldn't think
how any memory could make my heart hurt worse than it already did.

“Arguments, rude behavior, our own sorrows and regrets toward those we loved—being reminded of those kinds of things every day can lead to disaster. Personal disaster, at least. And that can be avoided.”

I tore off a piece of pastry. Oom Maarten's words struck me. I did have regrets about my behavior. I wanted desperately to apologize to Vader and Tante Greet for all the rude things I said and did. I had never felt that way about my mother, but I was only six when she died. How many terrible offenses can a person commit by age six?

At thirteen, I could fill a steamship with my misdeeds—small and large. Would leaving Java mean leaving those memories behind? I didn't think so, but Oom Maarten and the Brinckerhoffs seemed to believe it would. Or maybe what they meant was that leaving would give us all a proper distance.

But what if I didn't want distance? What if I wanted to see Java recover?

“When do you sail?” Oom Maarten asked.

“March,” Mr. Brinckerhoff answered.

“We would need to find a place to live,” Oom Maarten said thoughtfully. “I'll begin making inquiries at once.”

JANUARY
1885

“Katrien, we need to leave soon,” Oom Maarten said, popping his head into the kitchen.

“Homo sapiens!” I cried. Then I slapped my hand over my mouth. “Apologies, Oom.”

“Whatever for?”

I stood at the stove with a slotted spoon in my hand and blinked at him. “For—for—my poor language.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Good grief,
lieve
, if you want poor language, I'll teach you better words to use.”

I blushed. “That won't be necessary.”

“Fine, but hurry.” Torben followed him through the door.

I dipped the spoon into the steaming water. The last of the
Rhagonycha fulva
beetles I had collected in the fall floated on the surface. I would have to work on this later. I scooped the beetles out of the water and placed them on a wooden cutting board to dry. Oom Maarten was not as picky as Tante Greet had been. He didn't mind my using kitchen utensils to create my new beetle displays. But I still only used specific items and kept them separate from the ones used for cooking.

The little insects—no bigger than peas—rested on the
cutting board. They were much smaller and less intimidating than my
Hexarthrius rhinoceros rhinoceros
. I let out a short sigh, and my breath made them skitter across the board.

“Come along, Katrien,” Oom Maarten called from the front hall. Torben scratched at the door. “Torben, stay.”

My cane leaned against the table. I grabbed it and hobbled to join him.

Once I'd mastered walking with the crutches, I had moved to two canes. Now I was down to one. I still walked with an odd, shuffling gate and needed the cane for balance, but I could stand up from chairs and climb stairs without too much trouble and with no assistance from anyone.

I could not, however, climb any more trees.

Not that it mattered. Most of the trees were in parks here, and people weren't allowed to climb them. We had only one weeping beech in our small outdoor space beside the canal. It was a good place to read in the summer. At the bookshop, I discovered
The Descent of Man
by Mr. Charles Darwin and was busy committing new passages to memory—when I wasn't buried in my other studies.

The University of Groningen accepted female students, and Oom Maarten thought I should apply when I graduated from school. “Your father would have wanted you to,” he said.

Two of the girls in my class—Inge and Paulien—had befriended me. Although neither of them had an interest in science, they both wanted to help me get accepted to the university. They had plans of attending themselves—though they intended to study literature—and said another friend would be welcome indeed. Inge was even helping me improve my penmanship. I looked forward to introducing them to Brigitta.

Outside, the snow crunched beneath my heavy shoes and cold seeped up my legs as I struggled toward the train station.

“The world is glorious today, isn't it?” Oom Maarten said as he walked slowly beside me. “Though it is colder than I remember.”

“All those years in Java made you forget,” I chided.

He laughed. “Fifteen years in the tropics will do that.” He stamped his feet. “But I truly don't recall it ever being this cold.” Puffs of steam shot out of his mouth as he spoke. “What about you, Katrien? What do you think of Old Man Winter?”

“He's a force to be reckoned with,” I said with a wry smile.

My first winter was certainly a new experience. The snow, the ice, the roaring fires blazing in the fireplace, the heavy clothes, and the oppressive, unyielding cold . . . I did not like any of it, but I would never say so to Oom Maarten.