Thief of Glory (13 page)

I heard a small sob from my mother, like it had been wrenched from her despite a struggle to hold it in.

I marched toward the woman who had answered my challenge with a reply. She had long, stringy hair and wore a filthy dress. My first impressions of people often were based on whether they took care of their appearance. Shallow perhaps, but that was how I was. So even without her insulting words, I would have disliked her. She also held the hand of a boy my age, a boy I had played in marbles and whom I knew had a tendency to cheat. Another strike against the woman. Still, among children it was too deeply ingrained to treat adults with respect, so I shifted to an easier target.

“You, Albert, are a snot-nosed brat, and I’m not surprised your momma is holding your hand. If you’ve lied to her about how you lost your marbles to me, you probably cried about it too.”

“You impertinent boy,” his mother said. “I’ll turn you over my knee and spank you, since your mother obviously knows nothing about what is acceptable behavior.”

Giggles from other mothers, combined with the direct insult aimed at my mother, drove me past the point of social convention, and for the first time in my life, I spoke disrespectfully to an adult.

“If you had done that often enough to Albert,” I said, “perhaps he wouldn’t be such a girl.”

Albert ducked his head. I hated myself in that moment, but I wanted to lash out on my mother’s behalf.

“Stop!” a voice from behind me said. “Isn’t it enough we have to fight the Japanese?”

I felt Dr. Eikenboom’s hand on my shoulder as she addressed the women. “Has it occurred to any of you that after our men were taken, that perhaps some of the Indonesian men forced themselves upon our women? And has it occurred to any of you that this is something of such shame that most of us, too, would make a decision never to speak of it? We are all children of God, and it is not how we treat each other in good times that allows us to demonstrate His love, but in times like this.”

Her admonishment was greeted with the silence of respect.

Dr. Eikenboom guided me away from the line and back to my mother at the table at the front of the tent. She glared at Dr. Kloet. “You and I will have the remainder of this conversation in private.”

“No,” I said. “I will be part of it. It’s my mother and if there is going to be a fight to help her, it’s my fight.”

Dr. Eikenboom said to me, “I like you, young man.”

Dr. Kloet lowered his voice and asked, “You’re the marble boy?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I have my own collection of marbles,” he said. “When I was a boy, I rarely lost a game, you know.”

He stroked his beard and smiled. He had a prominent eyetooth on the right side, as yellowed as the rest of his teeth. “I’ve heard rumors about a china marble that the boys tried to win.”

There had been an opportunity to win some chocolate, and it had been worth the risk. I nodded.

“It’s been years since I’ve seen one,” he said.

He spoke with an undertone of interest that I knew was in my favor. From my waistband, I pulled out the pouch that held my green statue marble and the china marble. I kept the green marble hidden and plucked out the china
marble, then rolled the exquisite, tiny globe in my palm. Even though we were in the shade of the tent, the rich colors of the dragon gleamed.

“Here it is,” I said. “I take on all challengers. Anytime.”

His eyes bulged at the sight of the marble. If he would have asked for it in exchange for sulfa pills for my mother, I would have given it to him. But he understood my unspoken promise and must have realized that taking the marble in front of all the women would have looked like accepting a bribe.

“Give her the sulfa she needs,” Dr. Kloet told Dr. Eikenboom.

As he walked away, two women broke from the line and walked to the chair where my mother was seated. These were young mothers, one dark haired and the other blond. The dark-haired woman had eyes filled with tears.

Both knelt beside her. The woman with tears spoke so softly I could barely hear.

“When you are ready,” she said, putting an arm on my mother’s shoulder, “both of us would like to help you back to your house. And while you are sick, we will help you with your children.”

F
IFTEEN

It seemed wise to recruit Dr. Kloet as an ally. But it couldn’t appear that I was too anxious. I waited a couple of weeks before I made sure Pietje and I were sitting on the road down from the outdoor clinic late one afternoon. People would have stood in line all through the night if the Japanese had allowed it. But the ending time of each day’s clinic was enforced to the exact minute.

When Dr. Kloet was finished, I was surprised that he didn’t make his way directly to us, for I knew he’d seen us. Instead, he went into the house behind the open-walled tent. I made a silent bet with myself.

“Pietje,” I said, “have you noticed that bigger pigeons are more easily plucked?”

Pietje squinted at me. “A pigeon sounds like a wonderful meal.”

Easily half of our conversations revolved around food. Snails, lizards, mice. Anything that moved, we were willing to eat.

Pietje meant it literally. I did not. I won the bet with myself when Dr. Kloet reappeared within minutes. Where else would he have kept his marble collection except inside his residence, the closet inside the converted school?

I pretended not to see him or notice that he was wiping his beard of crumbs as he strode in our direction. I had only arrived to lose some marbles to him, but the sight of those crumbs was an inspiration.

I took Pietje’s hand and began to walk back toward our own house.

“Hey!” Dr. Kloet called.

Wasn’t that the secret of life? When something hurts, don’t let the world know. When you want something badly, don’t let the world know.

“Don’t look back, Pietje,” I said. “Whatever he offers, you must not seem too excited.”

I ambled with my little brother, just slow enough for Dr. Kloet to reach us. I heard the sound of marbles clunking against marbles in a sack that he carried. I thought it was one of the prettiest sounds in human existence.

“Marble boy,” he said, panting slightly, “I was wondering when I would see you again. I’ve got something to show you.”

“Hello, Dr. Kloet. With all respect, perhaps another time. I hope you don’t mind that we don’t stop. Pietje said he was hungry, and we need to be on our way.”

“Nonsense. Let me see the china marble again.”

“He’s very hungry,” I said. “Our family always worries about him.”

Dr. Kloet grumbled, “I happen to have some bread remaining from my lunch today. Will that keep him happy?”

I shrugged, although I felt a moistening of saliva in my mouth. “We need to get home. Our mother has some cheese that she has been saving as a special treat.”

“No, no,” Dr. Kloet said. “Follow me back to the house. I have some cheese there too.”

I was proud of Pietje and his careless shrug. Neither of us had eaten cheese in weeks.

Dr. Kloet made us sit beneath the roof of the open-walled tent as he hurried back into his house.

“Pietje,” I whispered, “we don’t eat anything here. We share it with the others. Moeder especially needs the cheese.”

He nodded.

Dr. Kloet returned with cheese and bread wrapped in paper. By then, I was rolling the china marble across my open palm. He shoved the package at Pietje in his rush to have another look.

“How did you get it?” he breathed in awed respect. I almost liked him for that. I felt the same about this marble.

“My great-great-grandfather was a personal bodyguard at the Royal Palace,” I said. “I’m told it belonged to William the Third when he was a boy, and that when my great-great-grandfather rescued him from drowning, William himself gave it to my great-great-grandfather. I don’t believe it myself, but I like it as a story.”

There. The perfect way to lie truthfully. I’d told the story aloud to myself one day so that I could truthfully say it had been told to me. The truth was that I wished there had been a story like that. My mother’s father had left a huge bag of marbles in his estate, and she’d forgotten about it being in a trunk. She found it a few years ago and had given it to me because she knew I liked marbles. The china marble was one of the few that I loved for the sake of the marble itself. I’d found it among all the chipped old marbles in that bag, and had often wondered about its history and how it came to be ignored among all the dross.

“William the Third!” Dr. Kloet said. “Let me hold it!”

“I cannot,” I said.

He understood. He smiled what he must have supposed was a sly smile. “I used to be a fair player,” he said. “But I’ve lost my skills, I’m sure.”

He opened his marble bag and laid some of the round glass on the table. His shooters, of course, were larger. He had tiger’s-eyes and swirlies and aggies and corkscrews. It was a decent collection, but I doubted he’d shown me his best.

“I’m fond of ringer taw,” he said. “It would be an honor to play someone as good as I’ve heard you to be.”

He added hastily, “Not for the china marble, of course. I wouldn’t dream of that.”

How a man this clumsy managed to become a doctor must have been through family connections.

“Ringer taw,” I said. “That’s what I’m best at. And I happen to have some other marbles with me if that’s how you’d like to start. My china marble is only for the day when I’ve lost everything else and don’t have any more marbles to play.”

I withdrew my own pouch from a pocket in my shorts. It wasn’t my good collection of warrior marbles but middle-of-the-pack junk I’d won over the last weeks.

“Shall we start with five?” he asked.

“Pietje?” I said.

I didn’t need to explain anything else. To play ringer taw, you drew a circle about seven feet across, and in the center, another circle about a foot across. Pietje was an expert at drawing these circles for me.

The day’s heat was drawing down, but it was pleasant in the shade of the tent. The stench of the open sewage several hundred yards away wafted toward us, but I barely noticed it anymore. A gecko moved across the dirt just beyond our circle.

“Pietje,” I warned.

I didn’t need to explain that either. He was in tune with my thoughts. Now was not the time to be distracted by a hunt, especially with little chance to trap the gecko against a wall. Besides, we had cheese. Cheese!

I gave Pietje five marbles, and he spaced them out inside the inner circle. Dr. Kloet did the same, grunting with effort of a heavy man without flexibility. He wasn’t thin, when most of us were, which said much about him.

This was a similar game to the
X
game where I’d lost to the Indonesian boy so badly. Players took turns shooting from anywhere outside the larger circle for the first turn. After that, a player would shoot from wherever his shooter came to rest. If the player knocked a marble out of the inner circle, he got to keep it. If he missed hitting any marbles, his turn was over. The game ended when no marbles were left in either circle.

It was tricky appearing to make the game seem close when Dr. Kloet was such a poor player. On one hand, he expected me to be a great, because he’d heard the rumors about me. On the other hand, if I played up to his expectations, I would be cutting the pigeon’s throat, not plucking it. I wanted him to return. Finally, I managed to lose my marbles to him.

“I can’t believe this,” I said. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

He stroked his beard, smug with self-satisfaction.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “Give me another chance.”

“Of course,” he said generously. “As many chances as you want. But be warned: the camp might face some disruptions soon. I’ve heard that we may get a new commander and that we also may be getting more families.”

That surprised me.

“Yes?” I asked.

“I heard it from the guards,” he said. He laughed. “They may have heard it from the kitchen women. Those females always know things before anyone else.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “You put up a good fight. I’ll look forward to another game.”

He gave me that sly smile. “And don’t forget to keep that china marble handy, right?”

“Yes sir,” I said with proper earnestness. “And sir?”

“Yes, my little friend?”

“Thanks so much for helping my mother. It means a lot to me.”

He gave me another patronizing pat. “Think nothing of it. Don’t hesitate to bring her back anytime. She is pregnant, you know, and that means we need to take extra care with her.”

S
IXTEEN

Each night, the lights would go out in the Jappenkamp at a prescribed time, and each night, the bedbugs would begin to stir. We would stay awake as long as possible to hunt and kill them as they crawled to us from cracks and nail holes in the walls or fell on our bodies from the folds of our mosquito netting. It took a degree of skill, for the bugs were the size of pinheads, and in the dark you would have to accurately make a hard grinding squeeze to crush them between the pad of your thumb and forefinger. The reward would be a popping sensation and the foul smell of the oils from their bodies, an odor like rotting raw hamburger, or if it had been engorged with blood, a sickly sweet raspberry perfume.

The infestation had grown as hygiene had decreased from so many families living in such cramped quarters. Our family had already discarded our mattress for straw mats that Elsbeth had secured by trading the last jar of her cold cream. Other families had begun to do the same. If in every dark cloud there is a silver lining, then for Pietje and me, it was the fact that the cloth of a mattress cover was of great value to the Indonesians. We would prowl the yards first thing each morning, looking for the mattresses before they were taken away to be burned.

Not that this treasure came easily. Clouds of bedbugs would rise, then fall on us as we ripped the fabric, and there was no hurrying the process. Haphazard ripping resulted in smaller strips of fabric, so we’d have to slowly tear away the cover from the mattress in the widest strips possible, trying not to breathe in bedbugs. We would roll the fabric loose and then brush each other clean of bedbugs and then bundle the fabric before heading to the fence.