The Persimmon Tree (2 page)

Piet Van Heerden turned and gave me a bleary-eyed look, then stabbed a fat forefinger at me. ‘You come to my house!’ he demanded.

‘No, not tonight, sir.’ Quickly I added, ‘I have things to do.’

‘
Ja
, you come. We eat. You see Anna. She want to meet you.’

‘I have eaten, sir. Some other time, perhaps.’

‘
Ja
, again you eat. You meet
mijn
Anna,’ he demanded belligerently, any trace of cordiality gone from his voice.

Just then a trishaw, known locally as a
becak
, came up to the mooring and the Dutchman yelled out, ‘Boy!’ even though the man pedalling it was clearly an adult. The
Vleermuis
was tied to the side of the dock, cushioned by a couple of motorcar tyres, and I allowed Van Heerden to take me by the upper arm so as to make the small step up onto the dock. He continued to grip my arm as we walked towards the
becak
. I helped him into the small two-seater cabin and then realised that he was attempting to pull me in beside him.

I jerked my arm free. ‘No!’ I protested.

His watery blue eyes were bloodshot and it was now obvious that he was pretty pissed. He looked at me, his expression a mixture of surprise and confusion. ‘But… but Anna, she is waiting!’

I signalled to the driver to go. He nodded.

‘Next time maybe, sir!’ I said, not really promising.

‘
Ja
,
fok
jou!
’ the Dutchman shouted, jerking backwards as the
becak
driver started to pedal furiously, anxious to get away in case his passenger changed his mind and robbed him of a fare.

‘Goodbye, job,’ I said aloud to myself. Not only was the Dutchman a good customer at
De Kost Kamer
but he was also related by marriage to one of the proprietors. I told myself it was probably a good thing; it was high time I left Java. Every day was becoming more chaotic with the docks piled two storeys high with large wooden packing cases waiting to be loaded. Many contained two centuries of the goods and chattels of colonials who, for ten generations, had known no other home but the Spice Islands. Shipping was at a premium and every rust bucket in the South Seas had gathered in the harbour to share in the chance to make an indecent profit from the fleeing colonials. Each daylight hour brought lorries carrying more packing cases to fill their holds.

I was hoping to work my passage home on one of the cargo vessels that were making a small fortune. Capitalising on the growing panic to get away before the Japs arrived, they were loading their holds with packing cases and then selling deck space to desperate passengers. If the holds could be cleaned up, electric lights rigged and air piped below, they were loaded the other way about. The current rate was fifty Dutch guilders or ten Australian pounds for a square the size of a large packing case marked out in chalk on the deck or within the hold. If I was unable to work my passage, I had the required ten pounds, two months’ salary saved while working for W.R. Carpenter in New Guinea.

I arrived back at the darkened restaurant and made my way to the tiny room at the back I still occupied until, as seemed certain, I was summarily booted out on the morrow. Lighting the hurricane lamp, I attached it to a wire hook hanging from the ceiling and then, for want of something better to do, sat on my small iron cot and started to pack my knapsack. I could have read, I suppose. But of the four books I’d brought with me, three I’d read at least twice and, if asked, I could describe in detail, as well as recall the Latin names of every butterfly and moth in the
fourth, a rare and cherished edition of a book taken from my father’s large private library, its title a mouthful:
A List of Butterflies of Sumatra with Special Reference to the Species Occurring on the North-east of the Island
,
printed in 1895 and written and compiled by L. De Niceville and L. Martin.

My absurd journey in pursuit of a single butterfly had proved a complete disaster. I was alone and rumours of the whereabouts of the Japanese were becoming increasingly bizarre. People had almost taken to checking for signs of the enemy under their beds. It was unlikely that I’d be able to get back to New Britain — Rabaul, to be more precise. As was the case with Java and Batavia, it was being referred to as a Japanese strategic priority, though this wasn’t my greatest concern. I hoped my father, who was a missionary, and my expat friends would have already left for Australia and I could only trust that my local friends would be safe. In three weeks I would turn eighteen, whereupon, if I got safely back to Australia, I’d join up. The butterfly excursion to the Spice Islands had been intended as my last taste of freedom and, as it was turning out, a very sour-tasting one at that.

Deep in thought, I was startled and surprised to hear a knock on the door. The six Javanese kitchen staff who occupied the remaining rooms in the compound rarely spoke to me and certainly never when off-duty. There followed a second, slightly louder knock and a female voice called out, ‘Mr Duncan?’

I opened the door into semi-darkness, the lamp hanging from a wire hook suspended from the ceiling only throwing sufficient light for me to make out a silhouette etched against the outside darkness. ‘May I come in, please?’ the voice asked, each word accompanied by the tiniest pause, as if it had been silently rehearsed and now was being tested out loud.

‘Please,’ I said, stepping aside. Then recovering slightly I added, ‘Not much room, I’m afraid.’

I caught the smell of fresh lemons as she passed into the lamplight and then turned to face me. ‘I am Anna,’ she announced, the words again carefully phrased.

I confess that on the way back from the mooring I had imagined the Dutchman’s daughter as being big-boned, blonde and clumsy, probably, like her father, overweight and almost certainly dull. I told myself his anxiety for me to meet his daughter was because of all these imagined characteristics. I’d grinned and given myself a mental pat on the back for refusing his invitation to dinner and thus avoiding an embarrassing evening.

Standing in the soft lamplight was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I suppose at sixteen you’re not truly yet a woman, but Anna Van Heerden couldn’t possibly be described as a young girl. I guess since I was just short of eighteen I could still be seen as a young bloke, but the extra two years of maturity I may have gained on her were totally specious. I was the callow youth and she was… well, I didn’t know how to describe her, in my inadequate male vocabulary she was… she was a total knockout! But certainly she was a woman and not a girl.

Had I been forced to give a more formal description of the astonishing creature that stood within the soft light of the hurricane lamp it might go something like this. Anna was of mixed blood; I suppose you’d call her Eurasian, Javanese mother and, of course, a Dutch father. She was slim and fine-boned though taller than the women of her mother’s nationality. She wore a simple, light-blue cotton dress worn off the shoulders, the sleeves slightly puffed and covering the top of her arms, which, like the rest of her skin, was the colour of honey in sunlight. Her hair fell just short of her shoulders and was jet black and framed a heart-shaped face. Her lips were full and generous and her cheekbones high — together with her arched eyebrows they seemed to emphasise her incredible eyes, only slightly almond-shaped and framed in rich dark lashes. In the prevailing lamplight they appeared to be a deep violet colour.

She smiled and my heart skipped yet another beat. ‘I have heard much about you, Mr Nicholas Duncan.’

‘Nick, please call me Nick,’ I managed to say, first clearing my throat and with my voice sounding fully half an octave higher.

‘Nick… Nicholas,’ she said as if testing both on her tongue. ‘
Ja
, for me, I think, Nicholas. I shall call you Nicholas.’

I grinned, trying to look relaxed, again clearing my throat. ‘As a kid, I only got called Nicholas when my father was angry,’ I managed.

She looked concerned. ‘No! It is a nice name. Nick, it is too hard… Nick, brick, stick… ’

‘Prick!’ I added, then realised what I’d just said and blushed violently.

‘No!’ she exclaimed again, before giggling until we were both laughing. I was in love, head over heels, hopelessly, helplessly in love. It was the most painful feeling I had ever experienced and I felt I was going to cry.

‘So, Nicholas, now you are wondering why I am here,
ja
?’

‘Well, surprised,’ I managed to say. Later when I replayed the moment in my mind I rewrote the script to add in an Errol Flynn-like voice, complete with the required slightly quizzical look: ‘
Well, surprised,
my dear.
Beautiful women don’t make a habit of knocking on my door at night
’, but knew, even if I’d thought of such a reply in the first place, I would have lacked the courage to carry it off.

A look of concern crossed her pretty face. ‘
Ja
, I am sorry if I disturb you.’

‘“Disturb” is the right word but in the wrong context,’ I said, grinning like a chimp.

Anna frowned. ‘Pardon?’

I was being too clever for my own good and hastened to reassure her. ‘No, no, you are very welcome!’ I spread my hands. ‘It’s… it’s just that, well… I was surprised, that’s all.’

‘You said “disturb” is the right word,’ she accused, then pursed her lips and her right shoulder twitched in a barely discernible shrug. ‘Maybe you like I go now.’

‘No, please, Anna! Please stay,’ I protested. Then using courage I didn’t have, I pulled a forlorn face and added quickly, ‘If you go it will break my heart.’

She laughed. ‘Okay, so now you must ask why I am come here, Nicholas.’

I realised that we were still standing. Apart from the cot with its lumpy mattress there was a three-legged stool to sit on. I pointed to the stool. ‘Would you like to sit, Anna?’

She sat, placing the basket she carried on the floor beside her, then adjusted her skirt, pulling it down to partially cover her knees, which she held together while her sandalled feet were splayed just as a small child might sit. Such had been my state of flummox that I hadn’t even noticed the basket she carried until the moment she’d placed it down. I sat on the edge of the iron cot so as not to appear as if I was standing over her. ‘Okay, so tell me, why have you come, Anna?’ I asked dutifully.

She looked at me seriously. ‘I have cooked a nice dinner and apple strudel, the apple is only from a tin, and you didn’t come, Nicholas. My papa said you would come tonight,’ she added accusingly.

‘But… but he only invited me when we were on the boat and… well, he was a bit under the weather, so —’

‘Under the weather?’ she interrupted. ‘I do not understand.’

‘Sozzled.’

‘Sozzled? It means maybe drunk?’

‘Well, yeah,’ I replied, nervously wiping my palms down the sides of my khaki shorts.

‘
Ja
, he is very sad man. He is not always drunk. But now he is going away, after two hundred years. It makes
mijn
papa very sad and so… ’ She didn’t complete the sentence but shrugged instead, suddenly dropping her lovely eyes and then slowly raising them, looking up at me again, silently pleading with me to forgive her father’s behaviour.

‘Yeah… must be pretty hard after all that time, good reason to… yeah,’ I agreed, finding no suitable words with which to continue.

Anna suddenly brightened. ‘So I have now here dinner!’

‘What, here?’

‘Of course! I have come on
mijn
bicycle. It has a basket on the front. It is not so hard.’

‘But it’s dangerous! I mean to come out alone at night.’

Anna laughed, dismissing any thought of danger with a flip of her hand. ‘
Ach
, I do not look Dutch, only
mijn
eyes.’ She lifted the basket to her knees and removed the tea towel covering it to reveal a neatly folded, bright-red chequered square of cloth. ‘There is no table,’ she said, needlessly looking around the tiny room as she unfolded the small tablecloth.

I pointed to the packing case that acted as a bedside table. It carried my books, a candle stuck in a chipped cup and a smallish wooden box containing my butterfly paraphernalia, the killing jar I used so as not to damage a specimen, and a small metal container of ethyl acetate. ‘Only this, will it do? I can move my stuff.’

Anna shook her head and pointed to the worn linoleum. ‘No, a picnic! We shall have a picnic,’ she announced, placing the basket on the floor beside her, and without rising from the stool she spread the cloth on the floor at her feet. Thank God for the Dutch — even in these difficult times a maid washed the linoleum every day and the floor was spotless. Anna rose and from the basket produced two plates, cutlery, two freshly ironed damask table napkins and a cruet set with salt, pepper and mustard and a small jar of horseradish.

Dinner was cold roast beef and still warmish roast potatoes. My unexpected dinner hostess explained that there had also been beans and pumpkin, but she didn’t think I’d like to eat them cold. ‘I am not so good cook,’ she apologised, adding, ‘The cook from always since I was little girl, her name is Rasmina, she has gone back to her
kampong
near Malang.’