Girl Out Of Place , livre ebook

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122 pages

English

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A coming-of-age story set during the liberation of Indonesia (formerly the Dutch East Indies). At the end of the war, Nell is released from a Japanese internment camp in Java. While searching for her father in the chaos, she meets Tim, a young man who is looking for his family too. Nell's journey takes her first to Singapore then to a new life and new friends in Sydney, Australia. But although Tim may well be the love of her life, her father puts her on a passenger liner bound for the Netherlands. Will Nell really be able to settle in a country she's never known - and will she ever see Tim again?Based on the true story of Nora Valk, this is an exciting tale of courage and friendship, hope and determination, about the search for love and a place to finally call home.

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Historical fiction

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Publié par	Distributed By PublishDrive
Date de parution	26 novembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781912430444
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0187€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

SYL VAN DUYN
Syl van Duyn has published several Dutch language children’s books: Hallo Aarde, Hier Maan (2001), Mijn Zus is een Flussemus (2002), Angels (2008) and Op zoek naar jou (2015), as well as an adult non-fiction book based on the columns she wrote for the Dutch magazine, Margriet, titled Een kwetsbaar bestaan (2001). She works for the Dutch broadcasting network VPRO, selecting and purchasing documentaries, and lives in Amsterdam.
ERNESTINE HOEGEN
Ernestine Hoegen worked as a public prosecutor before turning to writing, translating and editing full-time in 2017. Her biography of Dutchwoman Mieke Bouman, Een strijdbaar bestaan. Mieke Bouman en de Indonesische strafprocessen (Spectrum, Amsterdam) has recently been published. She lives near Arnhem.
First published in the UK in 2020 by Aurora Metro Publications Ltd. 67 Grove Avenue, Twickenham, TW1 4HX www.aurorametro.com info@aurorametro.com T: @aurorametro FB/AuroraMetroBooks
Girl Out Of Place (Searching for you) © Syl van Duyn 2020
English translation of Girl Out Of Place (Searching for You) © Ernestine Hoegen 2020
Cover images: Shutterstock
Cover design: © 2020 Aurora Metro Publications Ltd.
Editor: Cheryl Robson
Aurora Metro Books would like to thank Marina Tuffier, Zainab Raghdo and Lianna Tosetti
All rights are strictly reserved. For rights enquiries please contact the publisher: info@aurorametro.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed by 4edge Printers, Essex, UK on FSC grade paper.
ISBNs: 978-1-912430-43-7 (print)/978-1-912430-44-4 (ebook)
This publication has been made possible with financial support from the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

For Nora
CONTENTS
Getting Away
The Long Journey
Jogjakarta
Looking For My Father
Living In A Proper House Again
News Of My Father
Merdeka
Bersiap: Be Prepared
We Have To Get Away From Here
Waiting
To Singapore
Where Is Everyone?
Here I Am
Don’t Make Me Do Things
Jakarta Is Not For Girls
Bondi: The Place To Be
Surprise
Carefree Days
Too Bad
To Sydney
The Garden Of Eden
What Use Is A Father Like That?
Where’s The Sun?
I’m Here For You
A New Destination
Glossary
Author’s Endnote
My mother has forgotten my name
My child does not yet know what I’m called.
How do I know I’m safe?
Name me, confirm my existence,
Let my name be like a chain.
Call me, call me, talk to me,
Oh, call me by my deepest name.
For those I love, I need a name. Maria Min
GETTING AWAY
I was fifteen and I had never kissed a boy. Of course, there were no boys of my age to kiss, because I was living in a dreadful internment camp, deep in the jungle, somewhere in the mountains beyond Semarang. We were prisoners of the Japanese army, which had occupied the island of Java a few years before, forcing many of us Westerners into detention camps, like this one at Ambarawa. It’s not a place I like to think about, now, as life there was harsh and sometimes cruel. We all prayed for the war to be over, so we could go back home to our house in Jogjakarta. But then, not long after the Japs surrendered, the day came when my aunt told me quietly, ‘Nell, we’re leaving, tomorrow. Make sure you pack everything and you’re ready to go.’
You’d think I would have been excited and had all my stuff packed in a flash. But no, I really didn’t want to go. You see, I couldn’t abandon my mother, who lay all alone in a bamboo coffin under the ground. She had been buried in the open field beside the yard, where we used to stand in rows for hours every morning to bow to the Japs. She’d been dead for three months by then. But still, I found it hard to leave.
Aunt Karly explained to me that the allies had dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Japan, which had ended the war. But the Japs were still there in the camp because they had to protect us from the Indonesian people, who wanted their independence from the Dutch. I hated politics. And all the strife. It only led to war. And you lost the people you loved the most.
‘Now that we can go, we’re leaving no matter what happens,’ said Aunt Karly, firmly.
That’s why I’d woken up really early that morning. The sun had just risen and was beginning to warm the field. The dreary camp was quiet. Most people still lay under their mosquito nets, but I’d gone outside in my underwear.
The building used to be a Catholic school, and this was one of the classrooms. I was standing in the doorway of classroom 4G. The Japs had very cleverly arranged wooden bunks along the walls and even right in the middle of the room. That way, they could cram as many people as possible into one room. I had a small mattress on the bunk along the left side where I slept under a mosquito net beside my aunt. Our few belongings were stowed beneath our bunk. There were even more people crammed onto the bunk next to us.
Alert to all the sounds, I leaned against the outer wall of the classroom. All I could see was the steeple of the school chapel and the peaks of the surrounding mountains. Some days, the clouds completely covered them. The barbed wire fence and the guards in their watch towers usually meant that everyone stayed in their rooms. Today I wanted to absorb everything. I wanted to be able to tell people what this place was really like, and I didn’t want to forget a single thing. I listened to the silence. The mountains, the camp buildings and the watch towers still had to shake off the lingering darkness and resume their usual place in the world. Ever since the day my mother had ceased to be there beside me in the tiny bed in classroom 4G, ever since she had been taken away to be laid in the field, I often got up before dawn.
Because I was leaving, I wanted to remember every detail of this place. How the first ray of sunlight tinged the morning sky with shades of purple while the same light made the mountains glow white. It was that time of the day when everything seemed possible and the violet light softened everything. It was as if my mother was still here, as if she could touch me and I could feel her. We were very similar, my mother and me. We both tended to be impatient – and to be honest, I was much more impatient than my mother. We had the same slender build, the same unruly mass of brownish curls, the same amber-coloured eyes, the same crease between our eyebrows that appeared when we were worrying about something.
Could I really leave this place? For years, I’d prayed to be able to go. Away from the dirt and the unbearable stench, away from the single cold water tap in the camp, which usually wasn’t working. I was always thirsty. I was always hungry. There was never enough food. Yes, of course Aunt Karly and I had to get out of here. Now that the war was over, I wanted to look for my father. I needed to know where he was. I wanted to feel his arms around me. I wanted to hear his voice again, gently teasing me ‘And how is my little Nelly today?’ I wanted to go back to the time when everything was safe, and we were all still living together. That was three years ago, three years since I’d seen him. I had to hurry, pack my few things, and get out. Mustn’t waste any time! I went inside and took my things out from under the mosquito net. Of course, my father didn’t know the worst thing of all − that on 26th April we’d carried my mother out of the camp to lay her in the field beyond and that I was now alone with my aunt. Mustn’t think about that now . It would only make me cry and I didn’t want to cry anymore. I had to get ready to leave.
I laid our little saucepan and our two cups out on a piece of batik cloth. On top of that I laid my threadbare and now, much too short, blue skirt together with a white vest. Then I rolled up my mosquito net and placed it on top of the other things. Lastly, I put my mother’s smart woollen coat on top of the pile, and I tried to tie the corners of the cloth into a bundle. Why was I having so much trouble? I was trying to do it too fast, of course. I had to put everything together again neatly and pull really hard on the corners of the cloth to be able to tie them together. ‘A beautiful bungkusan, ’ my mother would have said. Mustn’t think about it . I pulled on my green skirt and white blouse, slipped on my worn sandals, and walked out of the room.
Outside, at the corner of the yard, a young Jap was standing guard. It was the same young man who, three months ago, had walked with my aunt and me behind the bamboo coffin. An Indonesian had pushed the coffin on a cart over to the field. There, the coffin had disappeared into a shallow hole. My eyes searched once more for the right spot in the grassy field. I had no choice but how could I leave my mother behind over there? All alone.
Why was everything so complicated? Staying here or going. The young Jap soldier stood there exactly as he had always stood there, but he wasn’t looking as severe as before. Just now, I hadn’t bowed for him and I hadn’t been punished. He hadn’t beaten me, but had just ignored me, pretended he hadn’t seen me. Although his emperor had capitulated a week ago, he couldn’t get away from here either. He had no choice but to stay where he was.
Aunt Karly came to stand next to me. The dress she was wearing with the frayed white collar was much too big for her, but she still looke