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Kathryn Heyman is the author of four novels, including The Accomplice and Captain Starlight’s Apprentice, published internationally and in translation. She has received an Arts Council of England Writers Award, the Wingate and the Southern Arts Awards, and been nominated for the Orange Prize, the Scottish Writer of the Year Award, the Edinburgh Fringe Critic’s Awards, the Kibble Prize and the West Australian Premier’s Book Awards. She has written several radio plays for BBC radio, including adaptations of her own work. Her fifth novel, The Floodline, will be published in 2013.
More information at www.kathrynheyman.com
HOUSE of BOOKS
The Accomplice
For my nieces, Pippa and Alana
For my nephew, Jake
And for Sharon, my sister
This edition published by Allen & Unwin House of Books in 2012
First published by Headline Book Publishing, London, in 2003
Copyright © Kathryn Heyman 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
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ISBN 978 1 74331 435 7 (pbk)
ISBN 978 1 74343 098 9 (ebook)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Acknowledgements
‘The harsher the oppression, the more widespread among the oppressed is the willingness to collaborate with the power’
Primo Levi
The Drowned and the Saved
My daughter has returned from Amsterdam, her belly curving beneath her winter cloak, her young apothecary husband scarcely buried. Grey moons have formed beneath her eyes and she eats nothing but pickled fish. She says, ‘The ground was too cold when they laid him down. Ice was everywhere, so that I could only think of his lips turning blue, and I could not kiss him.’ She cups her hands beneath her swell. ‘And he could not kiss his child.’
Coffee cools on the board between us, its sharp scent scouring the air. Hours pass; days. The coffee is cold, turned to thick soup.
My daughter says, ‘There was a woman in Amsterdam.’ The bruises beneath her eyes turn black as she watches me, her long fingers tapping at the white pot.
I sip the cold coffee. Hold it in my mouth for a moment then spit it into my cup.
‘She came often to the dispensary, seeking remedies for sleeplessness, and for nervousness. She stopped coming sometime before Hans –’ she pauses, presses her hands together, ‘she stopped some time ago. She was on the ship, Mama. Had a husband in Java who died just before she arrived.’
Lucretia. Sour coffee aftertaste fills my mouth and suddenly I long to taste my daughter’s pickled fish.
‘She did not know who I was. It was only that Hans’s apprentice knew a boy who was her godson. Of course I never spoke. Hans said –’ her mouth stretches, becomes a thick track across her face. One high note, again and again, pushes through those lips and then, worse, the sound stops and her shoulders shudder noiselessly.
When she speaks again, it is a borrowed voice, a child’s cry. ‘How will I do this, Mama? How can I raise his child alone?’
‘You are not alone, and neither shall your child be.’
Days pass; hours. And then her crying stops. And then she says to me, ‘The woman. In Amsterdam. Later, she came for smallpox remedies. Then her maid came. Then no one, and we knew she had died.’ She sits on the cool floor, as though she is a boy. ‘You are the last one, Mama. You should speak.’
‘Too much has been said already. Everyone has spoken. I have spoken.’
‘But not to your grandchild. And not to me.’
The wood of the chair is hard, aching beneath my back. I close my eyes, as I always have done, until the silence becomes too loud to bear.
Birth. It is always best to begin with birth.
Here is my mother. The doctor beside her, his long thin hands rubbing at his cuffs. I am beside him, watching the bony fingers. My father pacing downstairs, smoke curling from his pipe, his mouth in a tight-drawn line. Screams. Wails. Lashing about. This is what I expected, is that a wrong thing?
My father took me aside, when my mother was still round with the child, said, ‘Judith, be strong, for your mother will be unable. She will be crying, even wailing. You must not fear, not for her, not for yourself. Do you understand me, little Jude?’
Yes, I told him, yes, I did understand. But he was wrong. My mother is able to be strong and she is not weeping. All is still but for deep breathing. Her forehead creased with concentration, her hands stretched out, the veins blue and raised.
The doctor picks at his teeth, then raises my mother’s gown. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘you will soon be ready. Perhaps, Judith, some ale?’
Downstairs, I pour the rich red brew. My father takes my wrist, spilling a drop of the ale onto his shirtfront. It spreads, like blood. His voice is anxious, desperate. ‘Judith,’ he says, ‘tell me how she is, tell me. Don’t spare me.’
He is a good man, you see. He worries for my mother, his wife, that she will be lost to him. It is important that you understand this: that he loves her deeply, that he loves us all so deeply. It is important that you understand from the start his willingness to love.
Laughing, I say that really my mother is so well, she is adored by the angels and the saints. For a moment my father’s face goes shadowed. For we have neither angels nor saints in our house; they do not belong in the house of God, and to speak of them is godless papist sport. My sisters are asleep, knowing nothing of my mother’s pains which have called to her in the night. Knowing nothing of this vigil. It is true that it is not usual even for the eldest daughter to be present for this moment. But I am seventeen, and this is my mother’s gift to me, this moment. Allowing me my presence. For I have waited for the arrival of this new child for long months. I have even felt his feet as he swelled within her. I feel sure that it is to be a boy, although my mother insists that the child is carried high which is a sure sign for a girl, being as each of we three girls were carried so high as to be almost below her ribs. Deep in the nights, I have whispered to him, as though he were in the very heavens waiting for my words. Fanciful, my father calls me. He jokes that I am to be kept away from the papists, for all their fluff is sure to fill my head. Which only makes me wish to meet one.
‘My mother is truly well,’ I tell my father. ‘Now please, let me take the ale to the good doctor, or he will faint away and be no help to your wife at all.’
He releases my hand and I run upstairs, hearing the wood clucking beneath my feet and the water beneath the wood whispering. The door to the chamber is dark and heavy, takes much of my weight to push and I spill another drop of ale. Silence inside, except for the deep, deep breathing of my mother. She is on her side, eyes tight shut and her body shuddering.
Dr Volkerson waves his hand, calls, ‘Come.
He is going to tell me she is dying, that her shudders are unnatural indicators, that her very silence is a sign of death – I am sure of these things and full of repentance for my calling on angels.
‘Hush,’ he says, ‘he is coming. The child is coming. Wipe her brow, she is wet with strain.’
I sprinkle ale on her head, for it is what I hold in the cup and I cannot bear even to cross the room for the water pitcher, not now, not with him coming.
My mother’s eyes open wide, so that I think she has an entire sky forced between the lids. Her lips pull back and she does not look like my mother, but rather like an old and ugly horse. Her chin is thrust forward and I am thinking about these things, about her chin and the grotesque horse and such because I know that something terrible is coming. Her face tells it to me, her body shaking tells it to me, the doctor bowing over with his face frowning tells it to me. The whole impossibility of the thing tells it to me. My mother’s thin body with her white gown twisted about her knees. Hair sticks to her face, and I pull it back carefully.
‘Don’t touch,’ she yells. ‘Want. No one. Damn. God. Uh.’ Creasing up her body, leaning down into herself.
‘Hush,’ Dr Volkerson says, ‘all is well, hush.’ Looking at me, eyebrows up near his cap.
‘Get damned away,’ she snaps out. ‘Damned away.’
Her words are short, short as her breaths, and I back myself towards the door. Before I am there, though, at the door, there it is: her whole secret self widened out, dark on the edges, but wide and round and through the middle, holding tight, a slippery shining surface. Flat as a table and wet as an eye. Then somehow not flat, but round, tilted, though still wet. As round as a head.
‘Aaah, Lord, Lord, Lord,’ says my mother. ‘Ahhhh, my Lord, oh, oh.’
The sound is of water, of the slap of water, and he slips out so fast that I think he will fall, but he does not fall, he is held by the long hands of Dr Volkerson, Saint Dr Volkerson. Small and red and his lips like bubbles, he is my brother, he is born and I do not care what my good father says, there are angels and they are singing a deafening, wonderful tune.
The flagstones in our long kitchen are ice to the touch: my hands are dappled with cold spots as I scrub. Wylbrecht is beside me, scouring more fiercely, more quickly. Beneath her grey apron, her arms are round and strong; I watch the curve in them as she heaves back and forth across the stones. She sits back, folds her red hands in her lap and watches me. Her eyes are still, and my scrubbing slows beneath her gaze.
‘What is it, Wylbrecht?’ My hands, like hers, fold into my lap.
Her fair eyelashes bat against her cheek and she looks over to the door, left open to the hall.
Lowering my voice, I say, ‘Father is in his office. There is no one else to hear.’
Wylbrecht, I believe, has a mortal terror of my father. She becomes quite silent when he is near, and stumbles over her most basic duties. She, too, speaks softly; so soft that I have to lean in close to hear her.
‘Your brother Jan wishes to learn to swim. He has asked me to teach him. Here, in the harbour.’
I take up my brush again, begin to scrub across the stones. ‘My father would not wish to know.’
‘I told him I could not, Judith. Your father would not – I do not believe he would be pleased with me.’
‘No.’
‘He told me he would teach himself, whether or not I would help. I should have come to you, or to your mother. I should have said yes. You always say yes to him. Your father says it will be his undoing.’
I glance up at her, trying to look stern. ‘Someone must say yes to him, at least sometimes. If not me, then who? Mama is distracted and Father says yes to nothing.’
Each of my fingers is thick with polish, slipping through the white cloth. Sweet smelling, and as solid as lard, it warms my hands. I rub them on my apron, already criss-crossed with black, grey and silver marks. Wylbrecht’s apron stays crisp, clean, all day long. She is naturally neat, temperamentally ordered. For me, cleanliness is a battle which is never won, even my hair creeps from under my cap when I scrub at these stones. Beneath my fingernails there are always pebbles, black lines, even slivers of paint where I have scraped at the white walls of the church. Mama says I must stop pawing at everything; I am always hungry for touch, for taste.
Wylbrecht has returned her attention to the flagstones, her whole body shifting back and forth, a line of sweat running from her cap to her chin. Outside, in the hall, a sudden rush of voices: my sister, Myntgie, and my brother, Jan. Calling, ‘Good boy, clever boy!’ and ‘Judith, Mama – come see Roelant. Come quick.’
In the hall, my baby brother takes a step to me, then another and another, clapping hands all the while. His fat legs are wide apart, so that he could be straddling a canal, and his hands are stretched in front, grasping at the air. His laugh, though, is victorious. When he tumbles into my lap, I rub my polish-covered hand against his soft cheek. He is as warm and sweet as the beeswax staining my fingers.
Perhaps if Roelant had not learned to walk, my father would have stayed there, safe in the Blue House in Dordrecht, and our family would grow old and happy together and I would never marry but stay and take care of Roelant and my mother, watching the water of the harbour turn grey with storms and green with promise. Sometimes, in my dreams, this is the way it happened. Firelight in the evening, the sound of words passed by the docks, Roelant a plump and possibly spoilt child, demanding an extra kiss for bedtime. Father praying by the window: oh Lord, protect your flock.
Four weeks after Roelant’s first steps, he wobbles past Wylbrecht beating at the red rug, past Anna placing flowers in a blue bowl, past me dreaming my dreams. Off he totters, out towards the docks. Mr Jan de Royt, from the Honourable Company, pulls Roelant by the scruff, picks him up moments before he would wobble himself right into the harbour. Jan de Royt lifts our brass knocker, notices the black tarnish on the underside of the brass hand and pauses to rub at the tarnish with his own grey handkerchief. Holding Roelant on his hip as he might hold an unsavoury parcel, Mr de Royt at last lets the knocker fall. Wylbrecht drops the heavy wooden brush and begins to push herself along the hall, all clumsy with haste.
‘I have it, Wylbrecht.’ I hold my hand up to stop her stumbling any further, hurry down the hall, and swing the heavy door open.
‘I believe I have a piece of your property,’ Mr de Royt says, smiling as though he has made a clever joke.
Roelant lifts his hands and calls to me, ‘Oodick.’ He points back to the water, completely delighted, and says, ‘Wa-wa.’
The water of the harbour is grey today and for a moment I imagine the round body of my brother floating past the bridge.
Unsure of the words I need, I hesitate. ‘Please,’ I say. Then, ‘Thank you, we did not realise he was gone. I cannot imagine … thank you.’
Mr de Royt looks well pleased and clicks his heels, ready to turn and leave. He wears a long cape, very dark, and there is the glint of a buckle near his waist. ‘You are most welcome,’ he smiles.
My father’s voice carries across the hall, gruff and loud in the office. ‘Well, they must, that is all, or else they shall all become as godless as the Jesuits.’
Jan de Royt pauses beneath the lintel and says, ‘Do you know, I think I will have a word with your father. Yes, yes indeed, now that I am here it occurs to me that I should speak with him.’
Wylbrecht, hovering behind me, runs to the office door and knocks for my father. He is pink near his scalp when he arrives, a sign of agitation in his spirit. He invites Jan de Royt in and offers him ale, calls Wylbrecht to bring a plate of cheeses. They sit in my father’s office, each man leaning close to hear what the other has to say, their heads nodding. Yes, my father seems to say, everything that you bring to us is good, and I can only agree to all you say. Yes, yes, yes.
Inside the office, this is what happens: Jan de Royt, senior merchant to the Honourable Company, says, ‘How is it for you, being an elder here in the city, now that your mill has gone?’
My father sucks at his teeth, a poor habit suited, so my mother says, to servants only, and one which my father finds hard to break.
‘Hum,’ he says. ‘Hum.’ Wondering what it is that is being asked, wondering about the correct answer, wondering what the rewards are likely to be. Finally, ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Simply that certain positions, certain –’ and here I think that Mr de Royt pauses, delicately – ‘influential, senior positions are soon to become available.’
‘Oh,’ my father says. ‘Oh.’
‘And I would not want to discuss them with you if you weren’t, as it were, willing to consider. More responsibility. More influence, certainly, and more respect. But more responsibility with it. And of course there is the question of calling. One must be called to the Lord’s work. As an elder you see this. Have you felt any sense of calling, dear Mr Bastiaansz?’
My father is quick to jump. ‘Why yes, I have pondered just these last months whether the heavy hand I have felt upon my heart has been the hand of the Lord. In fact, I have asked the Lord for a sign, for a messenger. Perhaps you are he?’
Perhaps if my father had asked me, I could have illuminated for him the cause of the heavy hand upon his heart. For I have observed that one’s sense of the Lord’s heavy hand becomes considerably lighter if one does not partake of generous dishes of pickled herrings and cheeses and sweetbreads before retiring in the evening. But, no matter, the questioning did take place and good Mr de Royt decided – in partnership with my father – that the heavy hand was indeed the call of the Lord. And would he feel called, my father, to undertake a Company appointment? Why yes, my father would feel called, would feel humbled by the honour. And would he feel called to undertake an examination on matters of doctrine and conduct? Again, he would be honoured.
And what about this, called to carry out the duties of a predikant in a far green island, in the fort of Batavia, where flowers grow all year long and the scent of spices fills the nostrils and the sun is always warm on the arms and face; where the faithful Dutch are surrounded by godless natives and disease; where predikants are few and the need is so very great? Would he, with no work to turn to in Dordrecht, feel called to this duty? Yes indeed, my father would feel called.
Lastly, this: to travel as a predikant on a ship – the queen of ships, the head of the fleet – defending the spirits of all who sail on her?
It is this last which makes my father cease from the infernal sucking of his teeth and begin tapping his fingers on his knees, a sure sign of anxiety. Water is not a welcome friend to my dear father. The grey waters of the harbour are tolerated by him, in the way that the papists are tolerated by the council. He is endlessly grateful that our fair land was liberated from the sea and has spoken of the brutish nature of the waves, of sailors, of the sea itself. No, he is not a man who desires ships.
Seeing the anxiously tapping fingers, Jan de Royt asks, ‘How would you expect to travel to the fair green island without a ship, my dear friend? The Company needs you, needs good pastors to care for the flock and to ensure that the goods – for they are many, and of great value – are kept safe. There are rewards commensurate.’
We are seven hungry mouths to feed, seven bodies to dress, and my father’s mill is signed away. Admittedly my brother Gisbert is now himself a Company clerk, but it is also true that our house is small and our needs are not.
So it is that my father emerges from the office with the black-coated Jan de Royt and has my mother call us all together. When we gather in the Welcome Room, he announces to us, as to an assembled flock, ‘My children, we are going across the sea to the fair green island. To Batavia! We are going to a better life.’
My mother looks straight at my father and says, ‘How do you know the life will be better, how do you know that?’
My father says nothing, only sucks his teeth and taps his fingers on his thighs. He takes a breath and says, ‘We are going to do the work of the Company; to do the Company’s will.’
Later I consider this, what he said. For one would think that he would say: we are going to do the Lord’s will. It is only much later, after my own daughter is wed, that I consider this: that for my father, as for so many of my countryfolk, there is no difference between the Company and the Lord. Even now, after everything that has happened, there are those who say this. The love of mammon, my father would say, is the root of all evil. And with the next breath: we desire only to serve the Honourable Company.
With the waters of Dordrecht harbour beginning to turn black, my mother wraps her cloak about her shoulders, shrugging away the sudden chill. Roelant totters back and forth across the hall, shrieking with laughter each time he hits the wall. We each of us stand silent, watching him wobble and fall. Measured against our wordlessness, his laughter seems louder and louder until it resembles thunder, or perhaps the sound of tears.
So much of this story is familiar. It has been spoken of over and over again, as though repetition can wear terror into a comfortable shape. The world is full of musings, full of longing to understand how such horror happened. Longing to believe that it was just that once – a rare moment, a freak of history – that it will never happen again. For some years, I was quite the exhibit. Invited to give talks, to open functions; invitations which I declined, for the most part. I was a mere curiosity, for all I had survived. There was, I suppose, a kind of titillation. But they did not want to draw too close for fear of being infected with my grief. One woman said – I remember her pale, round face, peering too closely: ‘It must have been such a relief, that you were spared.’
Oh, I held my tongue, though I did want to hiss and scream and spit at her: ‘There is no relief, not ever, from the memory of what they did.’ Wanted to call her Stupid and Devil besides, but did not. This was long ago, too, in the days when I had forgotten how to count sweet moments; it was in the time when I could not see the presence of the Lord, no matter where I looked. After that, I stopped attending such gatherings. Stopped attending gatherings of any kind and hid away, gnawing at the memory of it all, as if it were my own leg. For some time, I spoke only to my husband. Like my father, he was a predikant. Like my father, he did not know what to do with me. It was as though I were a troublesome pet, needing to be placed somewhere and given bowls of mush.
My daughter forces me to speak. She sits with her eyes upon me, until my mouth opens, and words begin to fall. She stands arm in arm with me and I am somehow given courage to speak.
There are halls of strangers, still, waiting to hear this story. To remind themselves, perhaps, that they are not like those beasts, the murderers of men. And perhaps you like to hear this story to tell yourself this: that if you had been there, you would have survived, like me. And to tell yourself this also: that if you had been there, you would have kept your kindness, kept your faith, kept your hope alive. That you would not be silent, that you would be strong, resistant. That you would have a different story to tell. Yes. Perhaps it is true.
But you were not there and this is not your story.
I thank the Lord that not everyone is a victim. But I ask forgiveness, too. Because I was there and I know that not every victim is innocent.
Rain pours for three days before our sailing and I fancy the ocean has been made deeper for our departing, and therefore perhaps kinder. My father grows quite pale as we are rowed out to the ship. The sailors deliver us from the dock to the ship in batches, as though we are brown loaves fresh from the oven. There are perhaps two hundred folk boarding, not including sailors and soldiers and officers, and I cannot see how we will manage to live together on a ship for so many months.
A thin, brown-skinned man separates us from those who are not boarding. ‘Say your farewells while you have the chance,’ he shouts out, but no one is listening much.
Who would have thought such a multitude would gather? The sea herself can barely be glimpsed for all the crowd of boats floating on its surface. The noise would swamp the loudest storm, I swear that to be true. Many folk are waving coloured cloaks, though a good number are crying. No one is on the dock weeping for us, the Bastiaansz family. Gisbert will be a company clerk in Java, and a ship’s clerk on board the Batavia, and so we are all together, travelling together to the far island. New Israel: green and full of promise. Even Wylbrecht has come with us. Hoping to find herself a husband, Myntgie has whispered to me, giggling. For Wylbrecht is boney and flat of face and my sister supposes this would make the search for a husband an impossible one. It is my opinion, though, that when love strikes, one would not notice the flatness of the face. My sister does not believe in love in this way, only in duty or convenience. For one so young, she has a very hardened heart.
‘Come then, say your farewells.’ The man gathers about forty people at a time into long flat boats and single-masted sloops.
Amongst the rush and crush, some folk leave badly, forgetting to embrace their loved ones. One woman turns right around and stands up in the sloop, calling out, ‘Sara! Sara! You’ve been such a good sister, I love you so,’ as though she will never see her family again. Another man, quite fat and red, suddenly hesitates, calling that he cannot get in the sloop. His hands flail about, become flapping birds. The man’s wife is already seated on one of the long benches and I watch her beckoning him, pleading with him to come. I cannot hear their words, only see the fat man being pushed into the boat, where he holds the edges and sobs, staring down into the sea.
How the Lord tries to save us, warning us of danger, even when we are not listening. Even now, I weep for this man and his wife, who were almost able to hear the Lord speaking.
‘Quick step, on you come!’ The brown-skinned man is a human bridge, guiding us on to the rocking piece of wood beneath our feet.
Suddenly the ship, the queen of ships, looks far away. One brown speck on cold blue. My brother Jan, who has been so full of boasting and brave talk, holds to the edge of the boat each time it rocks. Every time another person arrives, the little craft tipples and topples until I am sure that we will tumble in before we have even seen our ship. My heart fills my ribs, fills my whole body. So much water! With each slap of the oars, a spray of sea hits us in the face. Wind chills me, though I have my stole, and my heart has long gone across the stretch of water to the ship. For Jan and Pieter, I smile and make myself brave, telling them that this is the safest of journeys, the happiest of boats. Soon, speaking it makes me believe it, though my father is looking grey, clutching his hands in prayer while my brave-hearted mother smiles at the sky, so that it would be impossible to tell that she has spent these last weeks weeping in the kitchen, pleading with my father. After midnight just three nights ago, I heard her hiss, ‘It will destroy me, I swear.’
There are seven ships, docked together like sisters, each one more brightly coloured than her neighbour. And there she is at last: Batavia, the leader of the fleet. Seeing her, solid and richly painted, surrounded by sloops and yawls and smaller ships, a sigh fills my mouth, like a ripe fruit. Oh, the colours! Red and blue all along the edges, and stripes of gold and bronze. Grey-blue wavelets tossing about. Roelant reaches his hands out, trying to touch the waves. Wriggling in my arms, he slips towards the water, so that my hands clasp his round legs. Fearing he will squirm right out of my arms and topple into the sea, I gather him close to me, ignoring his cries and holding his arms by his sides.
‘Look,’ I say, ‘see the pretty ship. Our big ship.’
Sails fly high, fluttering like bird’s wings. Looking at them billowing, my spirit lifts as high as the mast, lifts right to the Lord. When I touch my father’s hand and whisper to him, ‘My spirit is soaring, Father, I am so enormously excited,’ he shakes his head at me
‘Fanciful,’ he says. ‘You are too fanciful, girl. Like Lot’s wife. Fanciful thoughts did her no good. Just watch out for the children. Think about that, not soaring spirits.’
‘Well,’ my mother says, white-faced, looking up at the sails, ‘this shall be our home for some months. Glory be.’
When we are finally on board I hold Myntgie’s hand and stare down at the flat water. Pieter and Jan immediately tag behind a tall soldier, asking if they may carry this, if they may touch that, if they could eat with the soldiers instead of at the commander’s table. He does not speak, though he looks kindly on them, and my mother tries to pull them away, whispering, ‘You are not to speak to soldiers, boys. I do believe they should not even be on deck.’
Though I would never notice from looking at the ship, it is said that below the deck are huge carved stones, ready to be assembled as a new city gate. Imagine this: entering the new city through new gates, on our very arrival. Processing beneath the stone arches, bowing to the natives, who will present us with the spices they have grown for the Company. Naturally enough, I know this to be a foolish fancy, for the gate has to be erected and this will take some time; yet the fancy comforts me and so I shall persist. It saddens me that we leave Dordrecht with so little ado. There were perhaps one hundred folk who journeyed to Texel to farewell those they love and not one of them for me.
When I tell Myntgie of my sadness, she says, ‘But Judith, we are all here. You are bringing those you love with you. Isn’t that true?’
Yes, it is true; it is the truth. Yet still I ache as the calls of ‘Anchor up’ echo around the deck, and the dock becomes smaller and smaller in my sight. The leaving seems sudden; I feel that I am unprepared. Sudden, too, the scurrying action on the deck. Sailors dash about, I can scarcely fathom their actions. Pushing us aside as though we are mere goods, calling to each other in accents that are thick and unfamiliar. Wind fills the sails above me, they are thrust out and it seems that the land shifts away from us as we stand still.
There is no solid earth beneath my feet, nothing stable at all. Each foot slips away from the other and my knees bend when I try to move. Sailors run past me as if there is ground beneath them instead of this ridiculous rocking floor. Perhaps if I were to make it inside to our cabin beneath the deck, I would not feel so bewildered by the strange motion of my legs. They seem to not obey my commands, as it is in dreams. Even my mind is disobedient, drifting away in all directions. My eyes as well; for I look to the land and can see none. Texel is gone and there is nothing to steady myself with. Only a fine line ahead of me: the horizon. Straight and distant, it is an edge which frightens me but does not give me strength.
I have a talisman though, a picture to bring me courage. For a moment I think of my mother and my baby brother; I think of her calmness, of his arrival, and I place one foot carefully down after the other. It is true that my hands are stretched on either side of me as though I am a windmill. Also true that my whole body sways left and right so that if anyone were watching I would look a fool, but I am moving nonetheless, each terrible step bringing me closer to the darkness of below deck, where I will no longer see the shifting mast, the infernal water.
Perhaps I have taken five clumsy steps, perhaps seven, when I see the tall soldier who so excited my brothers as we stumbled onto the deck. He is walking briskly towards me, swinging his long arms. Although I attempt to remain still until he passes – for like most folk, I do not like to look foolish, even in front of a soldier – I cannot help but sway and as I do so, my arms spring out from my sides. No doubt I do look slightly comical, and the soldier gives a snuffle of a laugh.
‘Would you like some help to your cabin, madam?’ He offers me his arm, still laughing. Red marks cover his cheeks, his skin is mottled, his teeth square.
Yes, yes, I would like some help to my cabin, for I am not happy wobbling along as though I am a child’s toy. Yet he has laughed at me and I am still innocent enough to be proud.
‘Thank you, no,’ I say. ‘I do not believe it is proper for a soldier to be seen with a passenger, and I would not wish to cause difficulty. And after all, I am merely enjoying the sea air. I appreciate the wind on my arms.’ To prove myself, I spread my arms out again, sighing with feigned pleasure.
‘Certainly. The wind is pleasing before the storms start. Watch for the light as the sun sinks, the colours are marvellous.’
Often at night now, I see him in my dreams, with his sawdust voice, his tangle of red hair. I hear the thick accent and see myself, the young Judith, holding herself in so tightly that she is unable to recognise what is before her. Whoever does recognise angels? When I wake from these dreams, I am calling out, crying out to myself to listen, to look. But I do not listen, it is not possible; I hear only my own skittering thoughts, and I speak with an unbecoming sneer. ‘I did not think soldiers would appreciate delicate colours.’
‘Some of us have eyes to see what is before us.’ He smiles at me and I notice the crookedness of his teeth, though there does appear to be a dimple in one cheek. ‘It can be helpful to stand and get the measure of a ship before beginning to walk. If any of your family, your younger sisters perhaps, were to find it difficult walking about on deck, you could suggest that they stand and sway with the ship, let their legs be soft. This can help get the sea legs, if they are hoping to find them.’ He pauses again. ‘Your brothers speak very highly of you, if you are the sister called Judith.’
‘Indeed I am, and my brothers are inclined to speak well of everyone. They have been brought up well and do not mock others, not even soldiers.’ My jaw feels tight as I say this, for now I know I am being absurd. ‘An admirable quality others would do well to emulate.’
‘Soldier! What are you doing on deck?’ The words come from behind me; a deep voice, warm and full. A reedy man steps alongside me. Though his arms are stretched out a little like mine, he makes me think of a musical pipe, and for a moment, I imagine the wind fluting through him, high notes echoing in a grand hall. When he speaks again, the tones are deep. ‘I’m sorry, girl, the man should not be bothering you. He is out of his place.’
The soldier looks down at the deck and a plum-coloured flush travels up his neck.
‘Please, no. I spoke to him, asked his assistance. It was my error.’
The thin man holds his hand up. Each finger is as pale as soap. ‘You must know better the next time, for the soldier could be well punished for your folly. If you wish assistance, come to me. I am Jeronimus Cornelisz, undermerchant to the Honourable Company.’ He bows down low, twirling his pale hand in the most peculiar manner. ‘I offer assistance. Soldier, you should return immediately to the –’ he straightens up, appears to hesitate – ‘to the soldiers’ quarters.’
‘The gun deck, Undermerchant.’ The soldier nods his head at me, his thick arms hanging by his side.
Jeronimus Cornelisz does not look at the soldier as he leaves, but keeps his dark eyes on me. I cannot tell if I am to be allowed to leave, and it is many moments before he speaks. ‘You should not be without your husband. Soldiers are an ignorant lot, and you should be protected.’
‘I do not travel with my husband, but with my family. My father is the predikant.’
‘Oh, yes. The predikant. Where should we be without the ministers of the Lord? You should return to your family. The predikant will wonder about you.’ Staring at me as though I am a curiosity, he is as smooth as cotton. After long moments, he nods his head, though his stare continues. I turn and stumble off, arms grasping the air, until I feel that his eyes are no longer on me. Yet the sensation of his gaze remains until I have retreated below deck, and the thought of it makes me stumble even more.
Despite the grandeur of the queen of ships, our living quarters are small and dark, making our home in Dordrecht seem as expansive as the Company offices. This is good; I am glad for an opportunity to be grateful for what I previously complained of. We are to sleep on top of each other, on wooden ledges hammered into the wall, surrounded by the smell of skin and salt and old breath. Our three boxes, full of clothes and books and the few jewels which my mother has, are piled high in the gallery, a narrow corridor smelling of spices. We have one trunk with us in the cabin. Father is pulling out the two copies of the Lord’s Book which sit alongside the folded dresses and coats. Pieter lies stretched out on the cabin deck, his stick-like arms tucked behind his head. Now and then, Jan kicks at him, laughing.
Father looks around at his family squeezed into the dark wooden womb and asks if we are happy to be on board such a ship. Are we not glad to be on our way to the fair island, glad to leave Dordrecht with all her gossip and bitterness? Mother says nothing, only strokes Roelant’s hair and looks at the curved wall as she nurses him, his hungry guzzling louder than the slap-slap on the outer surface of the ship.
There was a whale stranded in Dordrecht when I was a girl. A huge creature, reefed on the rocky shore of the harbour. For some weeks, Dordrecht was quite famous for the whale, though the stench was terrible. I remember little of it, only the smell. Jonah, caught in the terrible smell of the whale’s belly. We are like Jonah, swallowed up into the dark belly of the whale; saved from the sea by this great rocking ship. We are settling into the belly of the Batavia, curving ourselves round its ribs.
Looking over at my father, at his jutting chin and dark beard, I become full of thoughts for the new island, Java. ‘Father, is the green island like Nineveh? Full of sinners?’
‘Sinners abandoned by the Lord, for they are not a chosen nation. And our own flock, waiting for us.’ The ship gives a lurch and Father clutches for the edge of his bed.
Holding myself rigid, I watch the wooden deck tilting beneath me. ‘I confess I felt a moment of sadness, leaving our land. Watching the earth slide away.’
‘There should be no sadness for doing the Lord’s work.’ Father is distant, already thinking of something else, something greater than my tiny concerns.
Jan laughs and says, ‘Oh, Judith, land does not leave us, we leave the land.’
‘Really?’ I ask. ‘And how did you come to be such an expert in the ways of the sea? You who had to be cajoled and coaxed into the sloop just this morning?’
Jan smiles at me, a look of triumph, and says, ‘Wiebbe Hayes has told Pieter and me, for though he is a soldier this is his third sailing and he has promised to show us which stars the sailors use to guide the ship.’
‘And who is Wiebbe Hayes that we should hear him?’
‘The soldier we found this afternoon. He has no family. He is going to live forever in Batavia, to shield the fort from rebellious natives.’
‘The rude soldier? He with the ugly face? And we are not to mix with soldiers. Undermerchant Cornelisz has told me so.’ I am still smarting from my encounter on the deck.
Mama turns her face to me. ‘Could even a soldier be ruder than my daughter who was yesterday so courteous to all, so inclined to think well of all? This is not my Judith, to speak so ill of another.’
‘Perhaps you do not know your Judith as well as you think.’ It is unbecoming of me to speak to my mother so harshly. I scarcely understand my own irritation, yet my patience is somehow worn away already by the salt, the endless slap of waves, the tilting back and forth so that I never know quite where I am.
Unpacking the heavy box, surrounded by strangers, her own daughter hissing at her, my mother holds in her tears. She bites her lip and puts her head down so that I cannot see her face. One tear does drop, though, onto her hand.
‘I am sorry, Mama. I had no purpose in speaking to you harshly.’ I fold my hands into the cloth of my apron.
My mother raises her face, looks not at me but at my father.
‘It is not you, Judith. I do not weep because of you. I weep for all of us.’ She waves her hand at the dark walls, the narrow wooden ledges, our beds, cut into the walls. ‘Because of this I weep.’
My father says nothing, only opens the Holy Book. Not the family Bible, but the predikant’s Holy Book: perhaps this will carry more inspiration. Searching for the correct rebuke, he lifts out a fine leaf, an illustration of Lot’s wife, looking over her shoulder. Lips parted in sorrow, as her feet turn to salt. My father runs his finger over the picture. ‘Do not look back, for the Lord’s will is being done.’ He snaps the predikant’s book shut and lifts out the family Bible. The predikant’s book, I think, makes him nervous, with its heavy pages and leaves of illustrations ready to flutter out at any time. More, I think, he is nervous of the weight of the book, of what it may require.
My mother repeats his words quietly. ‘Do not look back.’ Her face is whiter than I have ever know it and I hear the memory of her whispered words: it shall destroy me. Here, in the deep half-dark of the cold cabin, it seems like prophecy.
Perhaps it is the truth that we leave the land, as my too-clever brother has been told by his new too-clever friend. Yet this is how it seemed to me, watching through the wet mist – that we stayed in one place while the green and brown edge of earth slipped further away, everything familiar and known slipping with it. Perhaps it is like this, after all: the whole earth is tilting and our fine, glorious land slides off to new oceans as the green island glides across the sea to find us. Where these fancies come from, I do not know. Too concerned with my own thinking, and