Child of All Nations Read Free

annihilation. And it is that annihilation that in turn brings rebirth.
    I don’t really know whether this beginning to my notes is fitting or not. At the very least everything must have a beginning. And this is the beginning I have written.
    Mama and I hadn’t been allowed out of the house for three days nor permitted to receive guests.
    A district police head rode up on his horse. I didn’t leave my room. It was Mama who met him, and hardly a moment passed before the shouting started in Malay. Mama called me out of my room. The two of them stood facing each other.
    She pointed to a piece of paper on the table: “Minke, the police chief here says we were never under arrest. Yet we haven’t been able to leave the house for over a week now.”
    “Yes,” the policeman explained, “you now are being officially notified: The two inhabitants of this house are free to come and go.”
    “The police chief here thinks that now, with this written notice, our period of detention never existed.”
    These last few days Mama’s nerves had been so on edge thatshe was ready to fight with anyone at all, especially a servant of the state. I was reluctant to join in the fight. I could see that Mama, her face fiery red, was ready to erupt with rage.
    The police chief jumped on his horse and made his escape.
    “Why didn’t you say something?” Mama rebuked me. “Afraid?” Her voice subsided into a low rumble. “They need us to be afraid, Child, no matter how badly we Natives are treated.”
    “Ah, everything is all over now anyway, Ma.”
    “Indeed, all over. We were defeated, but still they have violated a principle. They have detained us illegally. Don’t ever think that you can defend something, especially justice, if you don’t care about principles, no matter how trifling an issue.”
    So she began to lecture me about principles—a lesson I had never learned at school, had never read about in books, magazines, or newspapers. My heart was not yet calm enough to receive such new teachings, no matter how beautiful and good. Yet still I listened.
    “Look, no matter how rich you are,” she began, and I listened half-heartedly, “you must resist anyone who takes what is yours, even if it’s only a clump of soil below the window. Not because the soil is so very valuable to you. A principle: Taking someone’s possession without permission is theft. It is not right; it must be opposed. And in the last few days, it is our very freedom they have robbed us of.”
    “Yes, Ma,” I answered, hoping that she would end her lecture quickly.
    But it wasn’t so easy to stop her and, if I hadn’t been there, she would probably have delivered it to whoever else was around.
    “Those who are not faithful to principles become open to evil, to have evil done to them or to do evil themselves.”
    Then she seemed to realize that her timing was wrong. “Go out and get some fresh air, child. You’ve been locked up too long. You look stale.”
    I went back into my old room, which I had shared so briefly with Annelies. Yes, I needed to go for a stroll, to get some fresh air. I opened the wardrobe to get out a change of clothes. All of a sudden I remembered Robert Suurhof. There was something of his in this wardrobe: a gold and diamond ring.
    Mama had thought it was a very expensive gift for a friend to give as a wedding present. The diamond alone was about twocarats. Only somebody who was rich, or who really loved you, would give such a present. Mama’s guess was probably right—Robert Suurhof might indeed have given it as a sign of his love. Now that Annelies had gone, the time had come to return this thing to him, to his family. Now it seemed no mere coincidence that Mama had spoken of principles.
    After I’d dressed I opened the wardrobe and took out Annelies’s metal jewelry box. Robert’s ring wasn’t there. I checked the drawer again. It was lying unwrapped in a corner. I picked it up and looked at it closely.
    I had never taken