“She sent a hundred thousand of these boxes, filled with chocolate.”
“There are a hundred thousand of you here?” Was he planting information on troop strength?
“Oh . . . that was just at the start. . . . More now . . . many more . . . five times that now, probably.”
He opened the container, and a delicate smell overcame me. I’m sure it had been empty for months, but I could still smell the chocolate. It angered me.
“You kill our men and burn our farms, and the queen sends you chocolates?”
“Yes, she did. . . . Generous, I thought. Some men sent them right home to their girls or family, but it would have cost five shillings and I decided I could use it more than my mum.”
The box was beautiful.
“Here, smell,” he said.
“Put that away.”
“Just a smell . . .”
“No.” I yelled this time. But did not back away.
He held it closer to my face. My mouth flooded.
“No.”
At the edge of the crinkled inner wrapper was the smallest sliver of candy that had broken off, smaller than a flower petal, a smudge. I touched it, and it cleaved to my finger. I brought it to my nose and it was chocolate, the slightest essence, or maybe it was just a memory of chocolate. I touched my finger to my tongue. And there was a taste, or the memory of a taste, and it lasted for days.
I WAS ACCUSTOMED TO jarring sounds when I slept at home, since nightbirds would call at certain times of the year, and animals’ lives came to noisy ends in the thick darkness. But the shrill, one-note whistles in the camp at night were foreign to nature and impossible to attribute to memory or dream. It sparked fears of phantoms whistling their threats. I twisted in my small nest, blanketed between my sister and the tent wall, Moeder’s cot at my head, Mevrou Huiseveldt’s at my feet.
The commandant’s intrusion had made us realize nothing in the tent was safe or private, and Moeder made us go through our belongings to be certain we were not in jeopardy if the guards visited again. She took us aside when the commandant was gone to ask whether we had any idea what had caused their suspicions. Had either of us tried to send letters out of camp? No, Ma. Did we have any idea who might have tried to inform on us? No, Ma, do you? She tilted her head side to side a few times and then up and down slowly. As if the motion itself had shaken loose the thought, she whispered, “Oom.”
Moeder could not even bear to say the given name: Sarel. Her conclusion made sense: if he could turn on his country, he could turn on his family. Moeder might have frightened him so badly when he came to our tent that he was striking back with lies to the commandant. Not that anyone in the camp could be trusted, but it felt a relief to think it was Oom Sarel and not . . . yes . . . I had thought it . . . Maples.
I thought of him again during my restless sleep. With each body shift, I adjusted my “pillow,” which was the rolled-up pinafore I had never worn in camp. It had seemed too dressy at a time when I decided it was wiser not to call attention to myself. The first night, I had needed something for my head when sleeping on the ground, and the pinafore was soft and could be balled up. Since then, it had faded to the color of the tent floor.
The pillow added small comfort, since the ground felt harder now, and it seemed to pull harder at me, so that I woke up sore. Sometimes it was easier just to get up and fetch water or stand in line for rations early. Or just lie awake and think about the plans for the day and plot which direction I might walk. My path might lead me past the red-haired guard again. I thought about the guard’s schedule and where he stood at different times on different days. What would I wear today? As if I had options. Well, yes, I did.
When the others awoke, I asked Moeder if I could start helping with the laundry. She focused on the small black dots in the very middle of my eyes.
“I could wash my things so you wouldn’t have to,” I said. “Really, Ma, I should help. At least do my own.”
“What do you want washed?”
“I just want to help.”
“Aletta . . .”
I held up my filthy pinafore.
“Soap is dear, Lettie,” she said. “Why now?”
“It would protect my skirts; it’s really just an apron.”
Sound logic.
“If I get it white, then I can wear it if I go for psalms and hymns, and it will look nicer than these skirts and be more respectful of the service.”
Moeder unrolled it and held it up to my shoulders.
“I’ll be grown out of it if I don’t wear it soon.”
She could see that. “You’re taller now . . . more mature.”
I helped carry the basket to the reservoir.
“Ma, did you hear whistles last night?”
“Mmmm.”
“Are they birds?”
“Perhaps . . .”
“What kind?”
“Try to sleep through them.”
We went to the far end of the small dam, keeping a distance from others. Doing laundry was difficult and a constant chore because of the dust and mud and the other filth tracked around camp. When the white clay soap could not be had, some no longer bothered, but many still washed as they could, agitating the items in the shallow water.
Chatting as they scrubbed and rinsed, women bobbed like animals drinking at the edge of a water hole at sunset. They passed on what news they heard of the war or home, or rumors and camp gossip. The common complaints circled endlessly. How could the commandant consider soap and candles “articles of luxury”? Did you hear they put things in the food to make us sick? At the edge of this muddy pond, the women placed the blame for all the bad things in our lives on the Hands-Uppers and Joiners, even more than on the Tommies. This talk kept their hatred fresh and whipped to a froth.
Moeder liked to stay away from the knot of women, whom she said came to the reservoir to “wash with their tears.” They dragged one another to greater depths. “Sharing your sorrow does not diminish your own,” Moeder said.
That morning on the crowded bank, I strained to overhear the women’s gossip, catching only phrases amid the splashing water and the prattle of the mindless.
“. . . boy in the next tent passed . . .”
“. . . the coffee was so . . .”
“. . . measles, I . . .”
“. . . no soap since . . .”
“. . . pity the family . . .”
“. . . one of twins . . .”
“. . . fourteen . . .”
“. . . should have . . . commando . . .”
“. . . safer there . . .”
“. . . pity . . .”
It had to be Nicolaas. Janetta’s brother Nicolaas. That beautiful boy.
“Moeder . . . did you hear?”
She was focused on the wash.
“I think I heard that Janetta’s brother died. . . . Can I go?”
She looked at the basket.
“Of course. . . . Keep your distance.”