Thief of Glory (6 page)

The senior officer pointed at the first tag on the dining room table and said,
“Juu yong.”

He held up his hands and made them into fists. He put up his left forefinger.
“Ichi.”

With his next finger, he said,
“Ni.”

Third finger.
“San.”

He counted this way until he reached his tenth finger.
“Juu.”

Then he counted eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen.
“Juu ichi. Juu ni. Juu san. Juu yong.”

I had no idea then that in the camps, our lives would depend on how well we could count for the Japanese during roll call. I was able to understand his emphasis on
juu yong
, which he repeated as he pointed at the tag, and we confirmed it after their departure.
Fourteen.
He had marked fourteen pieces of furniture with tags. With more gesturing, he made it clear that we were not to touch the tags. He waved his notepad, making it equally clear that he knew where every tag had been placed.

He made my father nod with agreement, and after that, he turned abruptly and marched out. The other officer and soldier followed.

“Children,” my father shouted, “come out now!”

My mother moved to the cabinet and poured herself some Bols gin into a teacup. She drank it straight, without a trace of grimace, then added more to the teacup. Normally I would have been impressed. I had once tasted gin from my father’s glass, and the sharp burning taste had sent me running for a banana to eat and remove the sting.

As I set Pietje down and he clung to my leg, I noticed a strange quietness to the house. Our servants had not arrived from where they lived in different parts of the town.

All of the family assembled in the dining room, where my mother sat at the table, staring at the tag.

“It appears that our home has become a shop for the Japanese army,” Father said. On my return from the doctor yesterday, streets had buzzed with trucks and Jeeps carrying Japanese soldiers. “Whatever has been marked will be taken by the Japanese. We must leave them marked. Later, I assume, someone will return to take all of it away.”

“Not fair,” Nikki said. “It’s ours.”

She and her twin sister were like dolls, and my mother dressed them that way as often as possible. It was a constant battle for my father to try to toughen them up for the real world. I sensed he didn’t want them to become as frail and brittle as my mother.

“I’ve told you many times that life is not fair,” Father said. In another household, perhaps, an invasion and subsequent departure by soldiers might have led to one or the other of parents offering comfort to their children. This, obviously, was not one of those households. “I don’t like to hear complaints.”

The usual silence followed his admonishment.

“And,” my father continued, “I don’t expect our servants to arrive. So we will make do as best as we can. Each of you go back to your room and straighten up, then we will have our breakfast.”

My cold rage had not abated. Despite my aching bladder, I ensured that
Pietje and I were the last ones in the dining room, and then I moved to the cabinet. Among the bottles of gin and vodka were three bottles of whiskey. I took them in my arms.

“Pietje, go out and see if the hallway is clear.”

He was accustomed to these instructions. My half brothers did not mistreat him, so he could wander the house with impunity that I could not afford. He scampered away, then returned to the threshold and nodded.

Quick as I could without dropping the bottles of whiskey, I retreated to my bedroom. Pietje followed and hopped onto my bed and watched in his typical silence. He ignored the occasional bumping of the mattress.

I moved to the window, lifted the shades, opened the window, and one by one, I poured a few ounces of whiskey out of each bottle. I was nearly dancing by then, so badly did I need to pee. But it was that very need that had given me my idea.

Pietje was my constant companion, so I felt no shyness about undressing in front of him. I carefully folded my clothes, noting for later cleaning that there actually was a spot on the side of my trousers where he’d wiped his nose against it.

With equal care, I urinated into the first of the whiskey bottles. When it was full again, I replaced the cap and shook it to mix the contents. I wanted just enough in the bottle to satisfy my desire for revenge, but not enough that it would stop the officers from drinking. I did the same to the second bottle, and to the third.

This episode may seem far-fetched, and once, when I wondered whether my memory of this morning was correct, I searched for information and found that a human bladder can hold as much as eighteen ounces of fluid, although the urge to urinate starts at about five ounces, and involuntary urination—micturition—is triggered at about ten ounces of volume.

My bladder had been so full that afterward, I noted with some satisfaction
that from the open bedroom window I still was able to splatter the leaves of a tree some fifteen feet away from the house. I’d tried to hit it once before but hadn’t looked down first, which earned angry shouts from our gardener and a spanking from my father.

Pietje giggled at my prowess, as I’d hoped. Sure, this was a bad habit to teach him, and I knew he’d try it soon because he always did his best to imitate me. But given that my family had just been threatened in our own home by soldiers with a machine gun, I didn’t think there would be much consequence if my mother found Pietje aiming out of his own bedroom window in the next few days.

I had more instructions for Pietje. I said, “Check again to see if the hallway is clear. It’s time to return these whiskey bottles.”

S
EVEN

A few mornings later, my father and half brothers returned home early after Japanese soldiers had arrived at school and told everyone to leave. Father further explained that our family was not to leave the house. Since Pietje and I were accustomed to entertaining ourselves, this had little effect on us. We were absorbed in our latest venture, sitting in chairs on the lawn near the foundation of the house.

Our house was built off the ground, supported by crossbeams on pilings. It was skirted by lattice meant to keep out larger animals. Beneath my chair was a machete. I held a fishing rod, and the line from the tip fed through a gap in the lattice into the darkness beneath the house. The tip of the rod was continuously quivering at the slight tugs that came at the end of the line.

Occasionally, Pietje would give me an inquiring glance and I would shake my head to indicate it was not yet time to reel in the fishing line. Matters like this required patience, and I wanted to be a good teacher.

Although he and I were not engaged in conversation, we didn’t sit in silence. As usual, geckos—
chichaks
—scrabbled up and down the walls, making little clicking sounds. I could not have guessed that within a year, I would be desperate to find them because we had resorted to eating them. The small lizards weren’t limited to the exterior of the house. At night, you’d see them near our lamps, waiting for insects attracted to the light. The bigger ones—the
tokeks
—rarely showed themselves.

Around us, the birds, too, twittered and squawked and added to the din. Tawny-breasted honey eaters, friarbirds, mouse warblers, scrub wrens, butcherbirds, orioles—all oblivious to the signs of a country under siege.

The Japanese had taken our radio, so we no longer heard news about the war. Jeeps and trucks continued along the streets, but now more and more of the soldiers were returning after weeks of battle and enjoying their respite. Troops of them ran around in white loincloths like overgrown toddlers in diapers, and it seemed to our ears that their screaming and chattering was no different than a monkey’s. They would enter houses at will to find food. Many had already been in our own home, inspecting the flushing toilets and opening and closing drawers to search for any objects of value.

That morning, it was less surprising than it should have been to see our father approaching us and carrying a folding chair to match the ones that Pietje and I were using. He set the chair down and sat beside us in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching the movement at the tip of the fishing rod.

“Is there water under the house that I’m not aware of?” he finally asked.

“No.” I was cautious in my answer. Usually my father was direct and impatient. Usually he spoke but didn’t listen.

“Aaah,” he said, as if that explained everything. But he didn’t spend much time around me and Pietje, so I doubted he understood why I had a fishing rod in hand, with the line running beneath the house.

He waited a few more minutes to see if I would explain. I out waited him. He must have had a purpose for joining us, and I had my fears in this regard. Earlier in the morning, I’d heard Simon yell in pain. More than once.

“Niels and Martijn have not slept well the previous nights,” he said. “Apparently they have had rats in their mattresses. Has this happened to you?”

“Yes,” I said. Each of the last three nights since the Governor-General had announced surrender, I’d moved the mattress onto the floor and slept on the mattress frame and bedsprings so that the rats could have their privacy and I could have mine.

“Rats in your mattress wasn’t something you needed to tell me?” he asked.

“It’s best not to complain,” I said. “I know you don’t like involvement in what happens among us, as long as the furniture doesn’t get broken.”

I was quoting his own words back to him and wondered how he would take this.

He remained calm. Very unusual, which made me more nervous. “So this means you suspect one of your brothers was responsible for the presence of the rats?”

“You don’t like tattletales,” I said.

“Niels had a hole in his mattress,” he said. “Someone had pushed a few handfuls of peanut butter into the hole. Same with Martijn. Naturally the rats began to explore when it was dark. Is this what happened to you?”

“I can’t say whether there was peanut butter in the hole of my own mattress. It seemed best not to put my hands in that deep. I wasn’t interested in letting a rat bite my fingers.”

Pietje’s head swiveled back and forth as he followed our discussion.

“Simon’s mattress was untouched,” my father said. “Do you find that significant?”

“If that is true, it would be best if Niels and Martijn didn’t know that,” I said. I was running a bluff. Niels and Martijn had been in my room first thing this morning to see if my own mattress had been tampered with as well. Certainly they would have checked Simon’s too.

“I suspect they already know. I found the three of them fighting a half hour ago. Furniture
was
broken, which is why I had to get involved. That’s when I learned about the peanut butter in the mattresses.”

“And Simon?”

“He swears he didn’t do anything.”

That answer disappointed me. I had actually been hoping for a medical report. Simon would have put up a good fight, but Niels and Martijn would have been furious at Simon, and I knew the effects of that fury.

“In this case,” my father said, “I’m tempted to believe Simon. You would think he’d know that if there were peanut butter in every mattress but his, naturally his brothers would suspect him and punish him for it.”

“You would think,” I said as neutrally as possible.

“A suspicious person might actually believe that someone else wanted revenge for the other day when Simon opened a certain envelope that had been addressed to a certain other boy in the family.” My father examined my face, but in this family, you learned early how to remain expressionless. “Tell me, Jeremiah, does peanut butter wash easily off the hands?”

I handed the fishing rod to Pietje and stood. I now knew the direction this was going. I unbuckled my shorts and lowered them to my knees, making sure my two pouches of hidden marbles were safe. I turned away from my father and took a deep lungful of air and held it. It’s best not to breathe during the initial few blows of a flat hand across the buttocks. It internalizes the cries of pain.

“Please sit,” my father said, not unkindly. “Our family has far greater things to worry about.”

I pulled up my shorts and buckled. Pietje gave me his inquiring look. I glanced at the tip of the rod. It was still quivering. “Not yet,” I told Pietje.

I resumed my seat in my chair, and Pietje returned me the rod. “I haven’t once told you that I am proud of how you can draw,” my father said.

Often, at the end of a school day, while he sat at his desk and graded papers, I would sit at a student’s desk nearby and practice those drawings. It wasn’t art, but symmetry. I sketched buildings. His indulgence of allowing me time at something that wasn’t practical or school oriented told me of his pride. I was startled to hear him state it openly.

“Neither,” he said, “have I told you that I know you are a remarkable boy.”

My chest swelled with this praise, then deflated when my father said, “I’m going to miss you.”

“Are you sending me away?” I asked. Pietje must have come to the same conclusion. He clutched at my free hand in fear.

What I’d done by planting peanut butter in all the mattresses but Simon’s did deserve a spanking, but I hadn’t expected to be banished from the household. Of course, I would then be out of reach of Simon, so there was some benefit in it. Eventually, he’d figure out what my father had figured out.

“You’ve seen what is happening,” my father said. “The Japanese are taking over. Dutch currency is being replaced by Japanese currency. I’ve heard rumors that it will be illegal to speak Dutch on the streets. The Japanese know that to rule this island, they have to control the Dutch.”

I listened.

“Accordingly, sooner or later,” my father continued, “a truck will arrive to take me and your older brothers. All the Dutch men are going into work camps, and Dutch women and children will go together into different camps. Boys over the age of sixteen are considered men, so Simon will be with us.”