End the Silence

Chapter 20. The Handkerchief

(Backstory: It is 1945 on the island of Java. Ilse, her mother, and three younger siblings are interned in Camp Hamlaheira, a Japanese concentration camp for Dutch and Indo women and children that is run by the Kempeitai. Thirty-nine people live in a tiny , vermin-infested bungalow. Ilse’s mother has been arrested, along with the other women in her house, for a “crime” that was committed by a housemate, Mrs. H. Ilse, 12 years old, is suddenly solely responsible for her younger siblings: Edith, 2; René, 6; and Marijke, 8.)

Chapter 20. The Handkerchief

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I am trying to do things as Mam would be doing them. I am in charge now.

“Hush, hush, my darlings,” I tell the little ones when they start to cry. “Mami will be home soon.” But I am crying, too.

The morning roll call in front of our house is only children. The guard does not even bother to stop. We go to the central kitchen for our morning porridge. After breakfast I send Marijke and René to the mandi bak to clean up, and then I give them clean clothes for the day. I feel like a machine, going through motions. Every second, I am watching for the women of our house to come up the street. It is time to deliver Marijke and René to the little school run by the nuns. I tell them not to worry, Mam will be home when they return tonight.

Please, God, please, please, please, I pray all the way home, Edith toddling along beside me. But no women have returned.

I sit on the front steps with my little sister in my lap, and at last I see women from our house coming up the street. One by one they walk by me, and I see how badly they have been beaten, their faces swollen, lips split, and teeth missing. I look frantically for my mother. But she does not come home. My tears will not stop. When I ask the other women what has happened to her, they cannot tell me because they do not know. Mrs. H. has returned, but I do not speak to her. I will never speak to her.

All I can do is cry and pray for Mam. And hope upon hope that I will look down that street and see her walking toward me—broken, toothless, bloody—I will take care of her whatever they have done to her. I want my Mami. I need her. I love her. But the day passes into night, and we wait, still.

The next morning, as we are eating our breakfasts, a guard comes to the house.

“Where is the daughter of Maria Christina Evelijn Veere?” he asks, not shouting.

I stand up. My voice is stuck in my throat and I am shaking in fear of what I am going to hear. If it were good news, Mam would be here herself.

“Your mother is being jailed in the Kempeitai headquarters.”

My voice comes unstuck in a blast of words. “But why? She did not do anything wrong. Why isn’t the woman who had the tarot cards in jail? This woman, right here,” and I point to Mrs. H. I expect to be kicked, but I don’t care.

The soldier shrugs. “I have told you what you need to know,” he says and he leaves. No kick.

Inside myself I am screaming: This is not right! It is unfair! My mother did not do anything wrong! She has been a good house supervisor! She always makes the women abide by the rules! We need her here, with us. I cannot go on by myself.

It comes to me, what I must do, but I am so terrified at the thought, I think I may throw up.

I do not take Marijke and René to the nuns. I clean up Edith and dress her in a little jumpsuit that Marijke wore when we first arrived in this place. I put gunnysack shifts on René and Marijke, and I put on one of my mother’s shifts with flowers on it, one that I remember from our days in Medan. It is too big, but I am dressing up for this occasion, just like church. I wonder if it might be Sunday. Then I pick up Edith, and we all go to the end of the street and head up the low hill to the main building of the Kempeitai headquarters. I have never been this close.

It is all I can do to make myself climb the steps to the wide porch. The only thing that keeps me from backtracking is that they have my mother and I must get her back. I push René and Marijke ahead of me, and I hitch Edith higher on my hip. René is so scared, he shakes all over.

I push open the wide door, and we step over the threshold. I see a large room, with four soldiers standing by a pillar. They seem to be visiting. One sees us and walks over.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“I have come to get my mother, Maria Christina Evelijn Veere. Can you tell me where she is?” My voice is wobbly and high, but I speak loud enough.

The soldier frowns, not a mean frown. “Wait here,” he says, and he disappears.

The little ones cling to me. Edith is getting heavy in my arms, but I don’t dare put her down. We wait for a long time, and finally, an officer comes toward us. We all bow, low. It is very important to show our respect right now.

“You are the children of Mrs. Evelijn Veere?” he asks.

“Yes, shookoo-san,” I say, remembering the word for “officer.” Then I blurt it all out. “My mother has been a good house supervisor, shookoo-san. She has always made sure everyone abides by the rules. She was not home when Mrs. H. brought out the tarot cards. My mother would never have permitted it. Please, shookoo-san, we need our mother. This baby needs her mother. We cannot get along without her. My mother has done nothing wrong.”

René begins to sob. Marijke and I break into tears, too. Our lives are in this Kempeitai officer’s hands, and I know that Mam, the little ones, and I are nothing to him. We are probably bedbugs as far as he is concerned, and he wouldn’t mind exterminating us on the spot.

I am surprised. I think I see a little sympathy in his eyes, and I am hopeful that our tears have softened his heart enough to let my mother go.

He squats to speak with René. “Little boy,” he says, “I cannot let your mother go.”

My heart drops.

The officer stands back up to speak to me. “Your mother has committed a very serious crime, and she has not been cooperative.”

“But, shookoo-san,” I begin, and stop when he shakes his head.

“She cannot go home with you. She has been put into solitary confinement.”

My mouth drops open, and I gasp. My heart tightens up, my head swims, and I think I may stop breathing and fall to the floor. Solitary confinement? Those terrible little huts that stand in the sun behind the headquarters building? Where women go and do not come home, or if they do come home, they die soon after?

I hug Edith closer, but I cannot stop the tears. And I cannot help but whisper, “Why?” It is Mrs. H. who should be in solitary confinement, for what she has done to my mother. Oh, how I hate Mrs. H.

The officer does not answer my question, but he takes my arm and leads me out of the headquarters. Marijke and René follow along behind us. We all walk down the steps and around the building where the solitary confinement cells are lined up. Four, maybe five. They are tiny, like the telephone booths on city street corners, but smaller. I think Mam can stand up, but I am sure there is no room to lie down.

The cells are not shaded. They must be like little ovens, steaming human flesh. The officer points to one, and I cannot bear to think that my mother is there, inside. I begin to sob again, great loud sobs and I hope Mam cannot hear me. The little ones cry, too, even though I don’t think they understand what is happening to our mother.

The officer actually looks at me, and I can see he does not mean me harm.

“The only thing I can do is give you permission to come to your mother’s cell each day and bring clean clothes to her.”

It is enough to give me a little boost of hope. I put Edith down on the ground and pull the loose bodice of Mam’s dress up over my face, to dry the tears.

“I can see her every day?”

“Yes, but you may not speak to her.” His eyes turn hard, to show he means business.  “You may not smile or cry or communicate with her in any way. She is in solitary confinement.”

I have been blown apart by something worse than a bomb. I cannot even talk with my own mother? All I can do is walk by like a robot, deliver the clean clothes, pick up the dirty ones, and leave?

“Be glad you can take clean clothes to her,” he says. I think he has read my mind. “If you do more—if you try to communicate with her or smuggle anything to her, she will be severely punished.”

He points in the opposite direction and shoos us with his hands, back the way we came. I pick up Edith and walk ahead of him, with the little ones.

“Come back tomorrow morning, with clean clothes,” he says, and he turns to climb the steps of the headquarters building. We walk on toward home. Home? Three sleeping mats full of bedbugs? The only thing that has ever made it home is Mam, and she is not there. I have never felt so alone, and so afraid.

The next day, as soon as breakfast is over, I fold a clean dress, with clean underpants inside, and I am off for the first delivery. I have never seen the solitary confinement cells close up. There is an opening at the bottom of the cell, where things can be passed in and out. I am able to see her through a slit window in the upper part of the cell. When she looks at me, her eyes are filled with sadness. They seem to plead for help from God. It is very hard for me to look at Mam without any emotion, but I have to stay strong or she will be punished. I put the clean clothes down and walk on by.

As the days and then the weeks go by, we may not be allowed to speak, but Mam’s eyes are like magnets. We learn to communicate through our eyes. That’s how she tells me one day she has something for me in the clothes I am picking up. I fly home, to find the treasure. I am so excited.

I go straight to the water spigot on the side of the house, where we wash clothes.

Whatever Mam has hidden, I cannot wait to see it, to hold it and love it. I unfold the bundle—the dress has been folded over the underpants, as usual, but I find nothing else. I shake the dress, but nothing falls out. I turn everything inside out, but I find nothing. Tears come. Perhaps I misunderstood the message in her eyes. I am so disappointed.

I reach for the washboard that leans against the wall and then I turn on the water. I kneel down to put the dress under the stream of water and start the scrubbing. The fabric is so thin you can almost see through it. I must be very careful or I will push my hand right through the cloth. I wish I had some soap. I start at the neckline and work my way down. When I get to the hem, my hand wraps around a small lump. I jump to my feet. I have found it! Mam has sewn something into the hem of her dress. My mind leaps to the needle she always kept under her lapel.  A tiny little needle—they did not find it when they arrested her.

I scratch at the thread that bastes the hem closed until I can raise it and bite through it. I sit back down to open the hem, and I find the little handkerchief that I made for her when I was six years old. She had it in her pocket when she was taken to the jail. I see a message embroidered on it. Somehow, Mam has taken green threads out of one of her dresses to stitch these words:

My darling children,

Have you been good?

Be loving to each other

watch over baby sister

Does little brother enjoy school?

Does Mieke go also?

Pray that Mam comes home soon

Till I see you again, Darlings.

A message from Mam! It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, but it is a joy I can share with no one. I will keep the handkerchief in my pocket day and night, both to wring comfort from it and to protect Mam from being found out. I am prepared to swallow the evidence before I let her jailers know what she has done.

I hug the handkerchief to my chest, and I think my heart must be getting ready to fly into a million pieces, I have such happy pain.