The Persimmon Tree (63 page)

They marched down the brick-edged front path to the gate, and that was when Anna saw it. Spiked to a bamboo pole by the side of the front gate was Til’s severed head, his eyes still open and seeming to be looking at her.

Anna screamed and collapsed to her knees so that the
kempeitai
soldier who was marching behind her knocked into her, causing her to sprawl forward onto her face and graze her chin on the gravel, her bag falling from her shoulders. ‘You idiot!’ she heard the sergeant shout at the soldier a moment before her head filled with a terrible roaring sound that she was unaware came from her own chest and throat. She sprang to her feet and then turning, bodily lifted the
kempeitai
soldier who had inadvertently bumped into her, and threw him into the gate, his rifle clattering on the path at Anna’s feet. Anna bent down, picked it up by the barrel and swung it up from the ground to catch the sergeant with the rifle butt on the side of the jaw, knocking him backwards where he crashed to the path unconscious.

The two soldiers on either side of her, taken completely by surprise and with orders not to harm her, hesitated. Anna swung wildly at the soldier on her right so that the rifle butt caught him across the ribs, knocking him from his feet and severely winding him, his rifle flying from his hands. He lay on his back clutching his side and trying to regain his breath.

The second soldier at her side finally came to his wits, dropped his rifle and tackled her to the ground, his body pressing her down, his breath hot against her face. Anna screamed, and raising her head, bit through his earlobe. He jumped to his feet in alarm, clutching at his ear. The fourth soldier now fell upon her, but Anna managed to get her knee up hard into his groin and he howled in sudden pain, clutching his manhood and rolling away.

Then the soldier whom she’d hurled into the gate came running and flung himself upon her, blood streaming down the side of his head and into his eye from the deep gash on his forehead where he’d crashed into the wrought-iron gate. The blood pouring from his eye began to soak Anna’s white blouse as he grimly hung on to her struggling form.

The fifth
kempeitai
,
the one who’d carried her cotton bag, came running from the car and kicked out at her, his boot planted squarely into her right upper thigh. The soldier she’d kicked in the groin had partly recovered and while two of them held her down the
kempeitai
who had kicked her managed to put her wrists in handcuffs and the two soldiers moved away from her.

Snarling and spitting, Anna refused to stand up and so the soldier with the groin injury and the unhurt kicker took her by the shoulder and dragged her along the path, scraping her knees on the gravel. They finally reached the big American Chevrolet and threw her into the back seat, where she commenced to howl. At last, this was something the
kempeitai
understood — a victim crying. The two soldiers looked relieved as one sat on either side of her in the back seat. One of them, cupping both hands over his groin, groaned, ‘The bitch kneed me in the balls!’

The soldier who’d kicked her, still panting from the effort of dragging Anna and the only one among them without an injury, snorted. ‘You’ll be lucky if that’s
all
that happens to you, brother! We are all in deep shit. Colonel
Takahashi-san
wanted the woman delivered to the Nest of the Swallows without a mark on her. The sergeant told me that the
colonel-san
left express orders that if she possessed even a scratch after being apprehended we would all pay dearly.’

‘But it was her or us!’ the second soldier protested. ‘We can explain.’

‘Sure! Five of us armed to the teeth with rifles and with a sergeant in command against an unarmed woman. Nice going — wait until the barracks hears about this!’

‘What could we do? We couldn’t shoot her like we would anyone else resisting arrest,’ the second
kempeitai
complained morosely, massaging his gonads.

The uninjured soldier, obviously possessed of slightly more intelligence than the others, glanced out of the window and down the garden path. ‘And who is going to drive the automobile?’ he asked. ‘I can’t drive, none of us can, only the sergeant. He’s still out like a light. Maybe she killed him? Not a bad thing, he’s a bastard. Look at those three others, they’re sitting down like wounded soldiers in a battle waiting for the ambulance to arrive.’

‘Speak for yourself, they
are
wounded. The bitch is dangerous,’ the injured groin answered.

The Japanese sergeant was beginning to come around; still dazed, he held out his hand to be assisted to his feet. The soldier who had taken a blow in the ribs with the second swipe from the rifle butt, grasping his left side and using his right hand, attempted to pull him to his feet. Halfway up, a sudden excruciating stab of pain through his ribs caused him to slacken and then lose his grip, and the sergeant, unable to maintain his balance, fell backwards. He knocked his head on the sharp pitch of an angled brick in the row that lined the garden path, and lay unconscious for the second time in five minutes.

The soldier with the missing earlobe sat on the uncut grass beyond the path with his head between his legs, blood oozing through his fingers.

The
kempeitai
who had been hurled against the gate and who’d bloodied her blouse sat on the opposite side of the pathway. The blood streamed down his neck from the deep gash above his eye and was beginning to form a dark patch on the shoulder of his khaki uniform.

It was only then that a distraught and sobbing Anna found her voice. ‘
Kisama!
Kusokurae! Yarichin! Sensuri koitero! Kusottare!
[Lords of the donkeys who eat shit! Male sluts! Thousand-stroke masturbators! Arseholes!]
You killed my friend! You killed my beloved Til!
Teme-konoyaro!
[You dogs!]’ she screamed in Japanese to the open-mouthed astonishment of the two men seated on either side of her.

Anna burst into fresh cries of anguish. Her darling, beloved Til had been killed, needlessly, wantonly, and it could only be because of his involvement with her.

As is inevitable, an early-morning crowd began to gather and just as inevitably, one old man, up early in his village to take four trussed chickens to the markets, had seen the whole thing and now, self-importantly, explained to the other onlookers what had occurred. Unexpectedly thrust into the limelight, he told how a young Javanese woman, who would now surely be beheaded, had single-handedly and without a weapon resisted arrest by five
kempeitai
and a sergeant,
leaving them injured and sprawling in the dust to lick their wounds.

A woman, seeing Anna seated between the two
kempeitai
in the big American car, the front of her blouse covered in blood, recognised her. ‘She is the daughter of a great liberator, the Dutchman Piet Van Heerden, who risked his life for the Javanese people and for our independence from the Dutch,’ she announced, then added, ‘My brother, who is a gravedigger, says the Japanese gave him a funeral where the mayor spoke of his brave deeds and the soldier band played and they fired bullets in the air. The Japanese commandant was also there.’

‘The daughter has the bravery of the father,’ a second woman amongst the onlookers declared, to the serious nods of agreement from the small but growing crowd.

From such beginnings legends are made and myths begun. The local people, from the very start, had hated the arrogant and cruel
kempeitai
, and were growing more and more disenchanted with the Japanese who had promised them independence that, after three years, looked no nearer than when the Dutch occupied their homeland. They were certain that, like Til, Anna would be
bamboo’d
(a local expression), but she had nonetheless given them a great heroic story — here was a mere slip of a girl who, unarmed and furious, had stood up to the hated Japanese
Pak
Polisi
and had single-handedly given them a severe beating
.

The locals would not soon forget or forgive the brutal beheading of Til. He was a good Muslim, liked and respected in the mosque and town, and especially in the markets, where he had seemed to know everyone. He was also known to be Anna’s friend. The terrible and wanton killing of a man who daily, and always wisely, quoted from the Koran and seemed on easy terms with the Prophet and even God Himself was a further tragedy the locals would add to the future telling of the story of ‘Anna and the Japanese
Pak Polisi
’.

By this time several of the local police from the
kampong
had arrived, some still tucking in their shirts. Finally a driver was found amongst them, and the unwounded and wounded
kempeitai
, in various states of physical condition, were transported back to their barracks. There, a
kempeitai
lieutenant, beside himself with fury when he saw the bloodstained and injured Anna, had all the men arrested. Without further ado he ordered the local police driver to vacate the Chevrolet, giving only the briefest acknowledgment for his services, and replaced him with a
kempeitai
driver. With the lieutenant in the front seat beside the driver, Anna, still handcuffed, was summarily transported to the Nest of the Swallows.

It was later discovered that the sergeant had a broken jaw, his four front teeth (including the gold one) were missing, and a severe wound to the back of his head from the point of the sharply angled brick had caused him to become concussed. One soldier had five broken ribs, another now possessed only half an ear and the one with the gash above his eye required twenty-seven stitches and would be left with a purple scar he would wear instead of an eyebrow for the remainder of his life. The soldier with the bruised gonads recovered in a few days without further medication and the unhurt
kempeitai
private was promoted to lance corporal, while the sergeant was demoted to private and sentenced to three months in military detention with hard labour. All the others were beaten and sentenced to two weeks’ confinement to barracks.

Anna was bleeding from the side of her face, the skin covering her cheekbone was scraped raw, her left eye was beginning to close, both her knees oozed blood, and her inner thigh, where she had been kicked, ached and later an ugly bruise would form and spread down her thigh and almost to her knee.

The car arrived at a small gatehouse (now used as a guardhouse) that was situated at a boom gate that must have replaced the original gates. Two guards stood at attention and saluted as the car drew up. Seeing the
kempeitai
officer in the front seat, one of them hurried to raise the boom. The car entered the grounds of a very large mansion that was completely surrounded by a brick wall about three metres high and topped with barbed wire. The Nest of the Swallows was obviously well guarded. They drove up a gravel driveway and Anna briefly wondered if she or any of the working girls would be allowed to walk in the spacious gardens that seemed large enough to be called a park.

At the front of the mansion the young lieutenant, aide-de-camp to Colonel Takahashi and himself
kempeitai
, who hadn’t spoken a word during the journey, left the handcuffed Anna in the car under the care of the
kempeitai
driver and hurried up the steps.

He must have specifically demanded to see one of the two
okami-san
who had instructed Anna in
kinbaku
at the brewer’s mansion, because the desk clerk went to fetch Izumi, the second
okami-san
, even though she wasn’t on duty that day.

Izumi would later relate the conversation Lieutenant Ito had with her in the reception area. She had begun by telling Anna how terrified she’d been when the soldier desk clerk had knocked on her bedroom door, then shouted, ‘The
kempeitai
are waiting for you in reception! Come at once!’

Izumi proved to be a clever mimic and, with the trained memory of a geisha, recalled almost exactly the conversation with the
kempeitai
officer from the moment she arrived in reception.

‘“What is it we can do for you, honourable
Lieutenant-san
?” I asked him, first bowing low and not looking him in the eye. I was trying to keep my knees from shaking, but was nevertheless relieved to see it was a lone officer without any dreaded
kempeitai
soldiers brought along to arrest me.

‘“I have with me a young woman who has been injured. You are instructed to treat her injuries and under no circumstances is she to be made available for the duties of the
okiya.
Disobedience will lead to certain death. Do you understand,
mama-san
?”’

Izumi had laughed. ‘That
kempeitai
pig should have known better — an
okami-san
is not a
mama-san
! It is an insult. But I wasn’t going to correct him then and there, so I said, “Yes,
Lieutenant-san
, it is very well understood. We will look after her until she is well again.” Then I asked, “Will you be sending a doctor?”’ Izumi had paused. ‘Of course, at that stage I didn’t know it was you, Anna.