The Persimmon Tree (5 page)

‘Okay, then give it to Anna now. Sign it over to her and let her sail it with me to Australia?’

‘
Ja
, papa, let me go with Nicholas. It will be a big adventure. We are going to Australia, we will meet you and Katerina and
Kleine
Kiki again there,’ she said ingenuously. Neither of us had noticed her return to the kitchen, or how long she had been present and what part of our conversation she might have overheard.

I confess a disparate thought had begun to form in my mind: that this might be a conspiracy between father and daughter and that Anna had been playing me for a sucker all along. The supper, the butterfly hunt, was it simply all a come-on? If it was, it was more than I could bear to think about. She was so beautiful, so lovely; for her to turn out to be deceitful would have broken my heart. But now she obviously wasn’t part of a conspiracy. She’d freely admitted that her family’s destination was to be Australia. She couldn’t possibly have been implicated or she would never have proferred this information and so exposed the Dutchman’s motive. What’s more, she wanted to accompany me. I couldn’t believe my ears. There was no need for the Dutchman to con me. With Anna on board I’d happily accept the use of the cutter and give it back to him, to her, when we arrived. A month at sea alone with Anna was a wild and exhilarating thought.

I turned to look at the Dutchman for confirmation. His large head had turned almost purple, the veins on his neck stood out like fat worms and the capillaries that normally flushed his chubby cheeks looked as if they might burst at any moment. He was snorting like a rhino. Then his huge fist came crashing down on the table. ‘
Verdomme, nee! Nee! Nee!
’
he bellowed.

‘Papa! Papa!’ Anna cried, rushing to her father’s side. She kissed him several times on the forehead and then started to knead his shoulders.

‘I think I’d better go,’ I said, standing.

‘No, please to stay, Nicholas,’ Anna cried.

‘I don’t think I’m welcome,’ I said in a whisper though conscious that the Dutchman could probably hear me.

Anna walked from behind her father to where he could see her. ‘So, papa, for Nicholas it is okay to sail to Australia,
ja
? For me,
nee
, no?’

The Dutchman ignored his daughter and looked directly at me. ‘She is too young.’

‘But, sir, you said it was safe, that she is a good sailor and knows how to sail the
Vleermuis
.’

‘She must look after her stepmother!’ he said, raising his voice.

‘She has already
Kleine
Kiki, papa,’ Anna protested. ‘Katerina wants only she.’

‘
Nee!
Too young!’ Piet Van Heerden shouted. I could see he was coming close to losing his temper again.

Anna was not put off. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at her father, her eyes daring him. ‘For what, Papa? Why I am too young?’

The Dutchman’s fist smashed down on the table. ‘
Heere
,
man! Jy is te jong om te
fok!
’

It was crude and direct and said in Dutch, but the one essential word needed no translation.

‘Sir, you have my word of —’

‘Sssh! Nicholas,’ Anna interrupted. I looked at her, surprised. Tears formed in her lovely eyes, then escaped to run slowly down her cheeks. Her voice was steady as she spoke to her father in English. ‘My mother was fifteen!
Mijn moeder was slechts vijftien!
’ she repeated in Dutch.

The Dutchman brought his arm back to strike Anna as he rose from the bench. I saw the dark healing line of the superficial cut Ishmael, the barman I’d replaced, had made with the lime-slicing knife down the length of his massive forearm. I had the Dutchman in a headlock before he was halfway up, squeezing hard to cut off his air supply and pulling him backwards so that he was off balance and then forcing him back onto the bench. He was a huge man, but still enormously strong as he pulled at my arms. But I was standing and he was seated, giving me the immediate advantage, and I knew he couldn’t resist for long while I was choking him. Unable to pry my arms from his neck, his face near-purple from the constriction, he gave up and tapped the table with the butt of his hand to indicate that he’d had enough.

‘First promise you won’t hurt Anna, or punish her!’ I demanded.

A croak followed and a slight movement of his head and shaking of his shoulders indicated to me that he agreed. He tapped the table a second time. I was happy to release him. I wasn’t small and I guess I was fairly strong, but had he been a younger and fitter man he might well have been too much for me. As it was I was panting from the effort of holding him down.

Anna’s frightened face looked first at me and then down at her father. ‘Oh, Papa!’ she howled and rushed to embrace him, kissing his scarlet and furiously perspiring face.

‘Now I’d better go,’ I said emphatically, still panting. ‘Will you be okay, Anna?’

‘
Ja
, thank you, Nicholas,’ Anna said, glancing up, now wiping her father’s face using her tulip apron. I noticed that a small trickle of blood ran from his nose and that a smudge of it stained her pretty sarong. ‘Nicholas, please forgive
mijn
father,’ Anna said, appealing to me through sudden tears.

The Dutchman looked up, but when he opened his mouth his voice, intended no doubt to sound as a fierce reprimand, came out as a gravelled rasp. ‘Go! You will not see again Anna. If you do I shoot you! You understand?’ In his newly acquired squeaky voice it didn’t sound too dangerous.

But Anna screamed. ‘
Nee,
nee!
’ she shouted. ‘Do not believe, Nicholas! He doesn’t mean.’ Then she began to sob, using the apron to cover her face.

‘Whore! Whore! Whore!’ It was Katerina, the stepmother, wheeling herself into the kitchen and shaking an accusing finger at the Dutchman. All that was needed was for Little Kiki to appear and to drop the dishes on the kitchen floor and we had a complete Mack Sennett scene, the full slapstick. But, of course, at the time I thought it far from funny.

I picked up my canvas bag and turned to go when I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t given Anna the specimen I’d prepared of the Clipper. ‘Oh, this is for you, Anna,’ I said, removing the small display box from the bag and placing it on the table. ‘With my love,’ I said softly.

Walking home I was close to tears on several occasions. ‘What a balls-up! What a total fucking balls-up!’ I said aloud, looking at the sky and wondering how love could possibly hurt so much and how lost love hurt even more.

I lay awake for most of the night. Naturally I expected to be fired from the restaurant the following day. This meant losing my room and having to find alternative accommodation. It was high time to get out, to attempt to go home. I admit I felt thoroughly sorry for myself. I decided I would write a letter to Anna, telling her I loved her and giving her an address in Australia. But then I told myself confessing my love was a mawkish thing to do and she’d probably tear it up and laugh. In the two days we’d known each other, two pecks on the cheek, one quite close to my mouth, were the sum total of the affection she’d shown me. She’d admitted she liked me on two occasions, but this wasn’t exactly a burning commitment or a meaningful love affair. No promises, no lingering sighs, no ‘if only’s, not even a kiss on the lips. In total, a shared meal on a worn linoleum floor and a morning spent hunting butterflies followed by the utter fiasco of tonight.

I packed my gear in anticipation of being given my marching orders in the morning. To my surprise there was no knock on the door first thing to tell me to hit the road. I spent the morning at the docks seeing if I could get a working passage out, but without any luck. I turned up at
De Kost Kamer
for the afternoon shift and nothing was said, nor was the Dutchman to be seen. I spent the early part of the evening visiting the dockside pubs questioning seamen about work on board, but again nothing. Crew were, for the most part, Malaccans or from Goa, and I didn’t speak Dutch so the various ships’ masters I talked to saw no point in my working as a third officer or a liaison officer on one of the tramps now hastily converted to take refugees.

At 9 p.m., somewhat depressed, I arrived back at the restaurant compound to see a light in my room and Anna’s bicycle leaning against the wall. My heart started to beat rapidly and I felt a lump in my throat. Anna must have heard me coming because the door opened and with the soft lamplight behind her she stood, a slender silhouette, in the doorway.

‘So now you are coming, Mr Butterfly.’

I grinned, so pleased to see her that I was momentarily lost for words. ‘Anna, you came!’ I managed at last.

‘Of course, Nicholas, why not?’

‘Well, last night… ?’

‘
Ja
, I am sorry.’ She stepped aside to let me in and the scent of lemons was back in my life.

‘And your father? He knows you’re here?’ I asked tentatively.

She giggled. ‘You are afraid,
ja
? He will not shoot you, Nicholas.’

‘Afraid? Not for me, Anna… for you,’ I said, hastily correcting her.

‘Nooo! He is
mijn
papa! He will not hurt me.’ She seated herself on the stool and adjusted her dress as she had done the first night we’d met. ‘This morning he is coming to me, still he is talking’ — she cleared her throat, touching her thorax — ‘how you say?’

‘Hoarsely? I’m sorry, I thought he was going to hit you, Anna,’ I apologised.

‘
Ja
, hoarse. Then he says, “Nick is
n regter man
, Anna.
Hy is n goede jange kerel
.”’
She laughed. ‘It means you are a
proper
man. A good young man,’ she translated. She looked down at her feet, then slowly back up at me. ‘Nicholas, myself I think also the same,’ she said shyly.

I was suddenly choked, tears blurring my eyes. I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice. ‘Oh, Anna… can’t you see I’m crazy about you?’

Anna jumped to her feet and, throwing her arms around my neck, kissed me, this time on the mouth, holding the kiss with her lips soft and tender and ever so slightly apart. So much for my masculinity. My knees started to tremble as I put my arms around her slender back and I drew her to me.
Oh, God! Do I open my lips? Hers are slightly open. Do I put my tongue into her mouth? You’re supposed to do that, aren’t you? Oh shit! I should know all this! Will she know I’ve never kissed a girl before? Oh, Jesus, oh, oh, oh!
Then quite suddenly Anna pulled away, her arms still about my neck. ‘Mr Butterfly!’ she murmured softly, then sighed. We kissed and kissed and kissed again and I was getting better at it by the moment and our lips parted.
Oh, my God!

Now I can’t say all this kissing and holding tightly didn’t affect the nether parts, the fire down below, because it did. But those were different times to today and I didn’t even have the courage to put my hand on Anna’s breasts, even through the material of her cotton dress.

All good things must come to an end and Anna eventually pulled away from me. ‘You must eat, Nicholas,’ she said in a practical voice. ‘I have some
ryst-tafel
but it is not hot; also coffee, it is hot from the thermos.’

I had been too miserable to eat the ample meal the restaurant provided before I went to work at the bar earlier and realised that I was positively starving. Whereas the misery of thwarted love left me without an appetite, love’s sudden recognition had the opposite effect and I wolfed down the rice dish followed by what remained of the peach pie of the previous night. Anna poured two mugs of coffee, handing me one.

‘Nicholas,
mijn
papa, he say you can have
Vleermuis
if you want
,
’
she said suddenly. I remained silent, placing the mug of coffee on the packing case. Anna quickly added, ‘The papers he will give, they are yours, you don’t pay. When you are in Australia you can keep always that boat.’

‘Anna, will he let you come?’ I asked.

Anna shook her head slowly, then burst into tears. We were sitting on the edge of the iron cot and I took the mug from her shaking hands, placed it beside my own and took her into my arms as she began to sob, her head against my chest. ‘I must stay!’ she sobbed. ‘
Mijn
stepmother…
mijn
father… to look after them…
Kleine
Kiki, she cannot… she was only just turned thirteen…
Mijn
papa… he cannot… he is a man… I must… ’ She looked up at me tearfully. ‘Oh, Nicholas!’ Then she burst into fresh sobs.

‘Anna, Anna, don’t cry… it’s okay! You’re going to Australia. I’ll see you there.’ I put my hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘Anna, I don’t want to lose you!’ I cried.

I withdrew my arms and reached for my handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Her own was a wet ball clutched in her hand. ‘Here, use this,’ I said, handing her my handkerchief. ‘Now listen to me,’ I said, trying to sound practical. ‘When I get back I’m going to join up — I turn eighteen in nine days.’