Krakatoa Lighthouse, page 12
Kerta learned about the messages from the people who received them …
The fishmonger was slitting up a fish in her open shop in the market when he arrived. ‘A telegram? For me? That is terrible news! Don’t stand there, boy, open it!’ She waved the knife and the fish at him. He hastily ripped the envelope and she grabbed the message from his fingers. ‘Kalimbang? Oh, oh! My little sister has a baby! A boy! About time!’ She was surrounded by a crowd from the market, people slapped her on the back and she shoved the fish into Kerta’s bag. For the rest of the day Kerta had to apologise for the smell of his messages.
When Kerta was walking along the Waterfront he saw Li Yang cleaning up his big bronze lock and talking to his wooden Indian. ‘See, this has stopped the thieves. You don’t frighten anyone.’ The wooden Indian glared. Li Yang took the message with a sigh. ‘That is family. I get them all the time. This time the Sydney family wants me to take their third dumb son to learn the business. My business. I think I’ll tell them we have volcano trouble …’
Tuan Baha in his coffee shop snatched his message from Kerta. ‘I don’t believe it. It’s my third son in Nebraska. Last time I saw him he was working with horses on the Tigris River, not far from my old Baghdad home. But now? You’d never guess what he’s doing. Well, he’s gone off with the barbarians in America. He’s had it with chasing cows and now he’s looking after horses in something called “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show”. Maybe I should buy Li Yang’s wooden Indian …’
After a while, sometimes Telegrapher Berg told Kerta what the message said. Like the one from an army captain who wanted to map Krakatoa and wanted to know if Assistant Resident Thomas Buijs could join him.
When Kerta arrived at the house of the Assistant Resident, Tuan Buijs was supervising the planting of flower bushes as his wife and two children were playing with a big red ball on the grass. ‘Good, good,’ were his words as he took the message, but he was looking at the flowers instead of the message. ‘What do you think, boy? The yellows first or the red …’ Then he read the message and looked at Kerta. ‘You’ve been there, Krakatoa. Is it safe?’
Kerta’s eyes widened. He wants me to go there! ‘Ah, safe …’
‘Nobody died, did they?’ Then he looked at his squealing daughters. ‘I’ll think about it.’
And then one day Telegrapher Berg passed a message to him without saying anything and suddenly Master Telegrapher Schruit looked like a furtive monkey. Kerta started to move for the door, glancing at the address, and stopped. ‘Kerta Ndora … That’s me!’
‘Really, well you better open it,’ said Schruit.
‘It’s Mac!’ Kerta squealed and read, Congratulations Telegraph Boy Hawaii too quiet will come back to Krakatoa will bring you a velocipede. ‘What is a velocipede?’
‘It sounds like a monster,’ said Berg.
‘I haven’t the faintest,’ said Schruit.
* * *
At the end of a Friday afternoon Master Telegrapher Schruit presented the Telegram Boy with some worn coins. Kerta strolled through Anjer and the kampong, clinking them in his pocket as he wondered what he would do with them. He passed a muddy, grinning Hasan, but he didn’t wonder about that for a second.
The following day, he was still thinking about the coins when he went with Ma and Dewi to the market. But then he had a sudden glimmer. ‘Ma, can I take Dewi to Li Yang?’
‘Oh, yes, yes, can we?’ Dewi beamed.
‘All right, all right. Here in half an hour.’
Dewi had been to Li Yang’s before with Ma, seen its shelves of tea, hats, shovels, candles, treacle – sometimes even fireworks – and bright toys and sweets. She would stare at the full glass bowls while Ma bought the tea and then they would go, leaving the sweets in their bowls. But today was different – her brother was clinking as he walked.
They walked past the wooden Indian and through the door.
Li Yang beamed at them from his counter, which could be a little terrifying. His teeth glinted with gold and his face cracked like the wooden Indian’s, but even Dewi had got used to him. ‘Good Tuan Kerta, and beautiful Dewi, isn’t it a lovely day?’
Kerta shook his pocket. ‘I have money now.’
‘Ah, yes. Then what can I do for you? Sweets?’
‘I suppose.’ He placed two small coins with holes on the counter.
‘You are in among the rich! Two five-cents! Any of those.’ Li Yang waved at the glass bowls and rows of wrapped toffees.
‘Um …’ Kerta looked across at Dewi. ‘What do you think?’
Dewi was staring at a stitched Dutch doll, with bonnet, blue dress, white apron and plaited blonde hair. ‘What?’
‘You pick.’
‘Oh.’ Still locked on the doll, Dewi was confused. She was in the shop because her brother had some money and she was interested to see what he might buy, and maybe she would be given a single sweet, but that was it.
‘Well, liquorices, fudge, caramels, toffees …’
Dewi dragged her eyes reluctantly to the glass bowls. ‘Um, maybe …’
‘Wait a bit.’ Li Yang had seen Dewi’s look. He walked quickly to a box behind the counter, pulled something from it and dusted it behind his back. ‘I think Dewi wants a doll, yes?’
Dewi watched Li Yang with huge eyes.
‘Now the others there are a little expensive. And they are little Dutch girls. However I have this …’ He showed a small doll, still dusty. The dark hair, the eyes, nose and the crooked mouth were drawn on the light cream head. She had a brown skirt and her arms and legs were elongated and thick.
‘That’s me!’ Dewi reached up and took the doll from Li Yang very carefully, then she whipped her head to Kerta. ‘Can I, please?’
Kerta winced, but he remembered that Dewi couldn’t spin the top and there were the nightmares that he had given her. He looked at Li Yang. ‘Um, how much would it cost?’
Li Yang smiled at him and slid one of the five-cent coins towards him. ‘Now you can use the other coin to get your sweets. All right?’
Dewi wandered out of Li Yang’s, talking to the doll she was cradling. Kerta trailed after her with a small brown paper bag and a huge grin.
* * *
Telegrapher Berg didn’t tell Kerta what the message to Tuan Joost was. ‘Better not.’ But he didn’t really want to know. He just hoped that Jan wasn’t at home.
But he was. He swung the door open and his face became cold. ‘So?’
Kerta touched the long peak of his cap and lifted the envelope. ‘Ah, I have something for Tuan Joost.’
‘He’s not here. He’s at his depot.’
‘Oh.’ Kerta turned away.
Jan sighed. ‘I can take it.’
Kerta hesitated.
Jan snatched the envelope from him, opened it and squinted at him. ‘Did you see this, Telegram Boy?’
‘No.’
‘No? Doesn’t matter. It’s just about a shipment of gunpowder.’
‘Oh.’
‘For blowing up tree roots and for Li Yang’s son to make his fireworks …’
‘I know.’ Kerta turned away, stopped and turned back. ‘Look, that time outside the market … It was only that Hasan was watching.’
‘I understand. You are Javanese and I am Dutch, and that’s everything.’
Kerta walked heavily away.
the party
Tuesday, August 14
DEWI stomped with her doll down the steps of the hut. ‘I should go to the party. It’s not fair. Upya thinks so.’ The doll nodded.
Ma took her hand and walked with Pa and Kerta towards Jacob’s bungalow. ‘You wouldn’t like it, Dewi. A lot of very old people just talking.’
‘He’s going!’ She pointed with the arm of her doll at Kerta.
‘I don’t want to go,’ muttered Kerta. He was carrying his top.
‘He has to. They all are talking about the volcano. They have an army captain who went there just a few days ago and Kerta has been there.’
‘Twice,’ Pa said with a smile.
‘It’s going to be terrible …’ Kerta promised.
Dewi looked up at the bungalow and saw Jacob walking down with a smile. Rara, Jacob’s amah, was giving a drink to Carver on the veranda, with Dirck and Adam making faces at Dewi. ‘This will be worse.’
‘Are you frightened of the twins?’ Pa said.
‘Frightened of them?’ Dewi shook her hand from Ma’s, grabbed the top from Kerta, ran past Jacob, galloped up the steps of the bungalow, shoved the top into Adam’s hand and pushed Dirck.
Jacob laughed as he joined Ma and Pa. ‘Just as well we’ve got twins to protect each other.’
Adam raised the top, to thank Kerta. He had mastered the top, but Dirck wasn’t interested and Dewi had Upya.
Jacob looked at Kerta as he led him from the bungalow. ‘Why the misery face? It won’t be so bad.’
But Kerta caught a murmur from Ma.
‘But it will.’
* * *
Kerta thought about Ma’s mumble all the way to the Great Post Road, through the kampong, across the stone bridge, into the scented Dutch Quarter, to the front gate of the Joost family house. And it was there that he began to work it out.
He was worrying about things as walked towards the gate, like he didn’t want to go to the party because people would ask him awkward questions about Krakatoa – especially this army captain – and probably he wouldn’t know the answers. He knew Orang Aljeh, but the Dutch didn’t want to know about ghosts and that was all he knew. Maybe Ma understood that, but she wouldn’t know about the other thing.
That he didn’t want to face Jan. After that moment at the Joost house he would rather fight Hasan or sniff Orang Aljeh.
And then Ma stopped at the gate of the Joost house.
Jacob smiled at her and pushed the gate open.
Ma remained outside in the street.
Kerta looked at his mother, saw her lips pushing at each other, saw her hands were clenching.
In that moment he realised that Ma was not worried about him – she was worried about herself.
‘Are you all right, love?’ Pa said.
Ma stiffened a little, nodded and stepped into Tuan Joost’s bright flower garden.
Kerta knew what was happening. Ma was about to walk into a gathering of wealthy Dutch women with polished necklaces, dresses which creaked as they moved, and she wore a bracelet made from the bone of a squid, a gift from Carver. She was expecting to be sneered at the moment she walked into the house. But Pa was almost as vital as Jacob in the Fourth Point lighthouse. He knew how important he was, so he wasn’t feeling Ma’s fear.
It didn’t matter. On the doorstep plump Mrs Joost squeezed Ma to herself as if she was a lost sister, bustling her towards Dutch women in the crowded lounge.
Madam Schuit who ran the hotel asked, ‘One thing I’ve been wanting to know; how do you manage a mob of men jammed into a lighthouse?’
Ma laughed. ‘Simple. I let my daughter, Dewi, push them around …’
Then Kerta saw the wife of Li Yang drifting towards Ma and behind her there was her husband, with the Imam, Baha, and his wife talking to the Assistant Resident Thomas Buijs. There was the Minister from the Dutch church, Dr Dillié, Chandler Captain De Jong, Harbourmaster van Leewen, Master Telegrapher Schruit, Lloyd’s Agent Schuit … almost everyone who was important in Anjer was in Joost’s house.
Kerta knew that besides the general store, Li Yang had several other buildings and Ma said that he was almost as rich as Lloyd’s Agent Schuit. He was the unofficial mayor of the Chinese Quarter. Assistant Resident Thomas Buijs was supposed to be a Rajah, ruling over everyone on the coast of Sunda Strait, but nearly everyone ignored him. But nobody ignored the Imam. He was only the leader in Anjer’s small mosque but he was absolutely certain about everything, and everyone – even the Dutch – knew that he was very powerful. And now he was imperiously crooking his finger at Pa.
‘Oh, um.’ Pa walked slowly towards him.
The Imam tugged his beard. ‘I haven’t seen you in the mosque for a while …’
‘We’ve had a little trouble with the volcano.’
‘Allah is not concerned with little imps on little islands. He is concerned with you.’
‘I am sorry. I pray at the top of Fourth Point.’
Li Yang smiled. ‘It is a mighty minaret.’
The Imam looked at him with a frown, as if he was working out whether he was being mocked.
But then Assistant Resident Thomas Buijs snorted. ‘It is not a minaret, it is a Dutch lighthouse.’
‘There is a cross there too,’ Jacob said gently as he drifted past.
The Imam frowned lightly and then he shrugged. ‘Of course a lighthouse can be a minaret just as a proa can be a mosque.’ But then he turned to Pa. ‘But come to my house soon.’
Then Pa was caught by Lloyd’s Agent Schuit and pulled into another group and Kerta followed.
‘They say the captain has bad news for us,’ Schuit said, wiping his face with his sleeve. ‘Is Krakatoa looking worse from the lighthouse?’
Jacob turned to Pa. ‘I told them that we can’t see anything now, it’s a fog of ash, but I think it is settling down. Would you say?’
Pa smiled. ‘It is easier to clean the panes.’
‘That what I thought too,’ Master Telegrapher Schruit said.
Harbourmaster van Leewen waved his stinking pipe around. ‘I don’t know what this captain has to say. I had a word with an English lad who sailed a proa near Krakatoa a month ago and he didn’t see anything special. I have studied the plumes of smoke from Krakatoa and there’s nothing in there. The captain could go to any active volcanoes in the bubbling Dutch Indies and see a better display …’
Suddenly Kerta was looking at Tuan Joost’s deeply troubled face across the room. Tuan Joost was stabbing his finger at him. His mouth said something soundless as he hurried towards him. Kerta stepped back in alarm when he saw Jan behind Joost.
‘I wanted to see you,’ Joost said quickly.
‘Yes …’
‘About two weeks ago you brought a telegram here.’
‘Yes.’ Kerta saw Jan’s eyes widening.
‘Did you know what it said?’
‘Said …?’ Kerta saw Jan shaking his head furiously at him. ‘I didn’t see the message, Tuan. They gave me the envelope and I gave it to you.’
‘You’re sure?’
Kerta nodded.
Tuan Joost grunted and walked away.
Jan came over. ‘I didn’t tell him that I told you what the message said. About the gunpowder.’
‘Oh.’
‘Did you tell anyone? About the gunpowder.’
‘No. Why?’
‘Someone has stolen it.’
Kerta took a quick breath. ‘From the depot? I thought that was impossible.’
‘Someone dug under the wall and waited.’
Kerta remembered the muddy Hasan. ‘Ah.’
‘You sure you didn’t tell anyone?’
‘Did you tell the police where Hasan’s pa was hiding?’
‘What?’
‘The time Hasan’s pa was blaming you Dutch for Krakatoa, and the police came with Berouw. And that gunboat shot him. Did you tell the police?’
‘Do you think that?’
Kerta hesitated and then nodded.
Well, I didn’t.’
‘All right.’
‘I only told Papa …’
Kerta and Jan stared at each other for a long time.
‘Hell, hell, hell …’ Jan walked away. Kerta did not stop him.
Then Tuan Joost pushed the door to the house wide open. ‘The captain is here …’
A tall sunburned man in the uniform of the Dutch army stepped into the house, to be clapped and presented with a drink.
‘There you are.’ Tuan Joost waved his hand at the officer. ‘You want to know what the volcano is doing right now? See Captain Ferzenaar, the man who went to Krakatoa only two days ago – brave enough to go there by himself.’
Assistant Resident Buijs hunched his back.
The captain looked at him and shrugged. ‘No, you mean stupid.’
‘How bad is the volcano?’ Tuan Joost asked.
The captain sucked his teeth. ‘I really don’t know. It depends what it was like in the past. I did put my foot on the higher hill of Krakatoa – Rakata – but I didn’t stay there. There were still trees and bushes on the top, but it was a frightening place.’
‘My son has been there, at Rakata.’ Mrs Joost pushed Jan before him. ‘When it all started.’
Jan nodded furiously, looking away from Kerta. ‘That was scary, with explosions all over the place –’
‘When did you go?’
‘Ah …’ Jan looked at Kerta. ‘May. Halfway through May.’
‘May? It’s a long time ago, isn’t it?’
‘My son has been there later.’ Pa pointed.
The captain cocked an eyebrow as he heard Kerta’s story and then shook his head. ‘The crater? All of you went up to the crater? That’s madness. It’s quiet, but I wouldn’t go there now. But you saw only one crater firing?’
‘Yes. Big smoke.’
‘At Perboewatan. Alone.’
‘Yes.’
The Harbourmaster said, ‘And there was a seaman who sailed near Krakatoa a couple of weeks ago and he wasn’t impressed.’
‘Yes?’
‘A lad called Dalby, Liverpool English; with such a thick accent you’d think he was an Eskimo. His ship, the barque Hope, was picking up cargo in Anjer for a few days so he asked me where he could get a proa to cross the Sunda Strait. I pointed him to the canal.’
‘What did he see?’ said the captain.
‘He said that Krakatoa was very quiet, just chimney smoke – but he said there were two. There was Perboewatan and –’
‘Rakata. The high peak is smoking. They are both gentle, and I wouldn’t worry about them, but there’s more. After I had a good look at the middle volcano, Danan, I wanted to go home. Oh, I finished the map of the island, but I anchored on the other side of Verlaten. Next day I came back.’
‘What did you see?’ Tuan Joost said.
‘Danan is erupting too, and there’s more. I only saw the southern slopes of Danan, but I saw pink smoke from vents all over the rock. I could count fourteen vents. The island is beginning to collapse …’
