Dear reader, 

I wrote this short story for the NaNoWriMo challenge 2013. It is also a story I want to tell my children one day. 

I apologize for any spelling mistakes or bad grammar: English is not my first language. I hope you will enjoy my short story.

Thank you, 

Catharina

Now, my children, I will tell you a bit about your Indonesian heritage.

When I was a girl I would hear my mother and my aunts talking about angels and ghosts and spirits as if it was the most normal thing in the world. They could all see them and feel them and they all believed in the power of coincidence. I would sit there and silently overhear my mother telling her sister that she saw the ghost of so and so the other day, to which my aunt would reply something like that this ghost had always been a busy person. It was nothing special and simply a part of life.

My grandmother, Mary, had an older sister Jenny. There were eleven children in their family and Jennifer was one of the oldest, born in 1914. Like so many older sisters at that time, she was simply called "Sister" by the younger ones and so to my mother and later to me, she was "Auntie Sister".

Auntie Sister has always been a bit peculiar. She, like my grandmother, was a survivor of the Japanese camps in Indonesia, but I think she was damaged for good in there. She never married and lived alone all her life. Because she was my mother's godmother, she often visited us and when my sister and I were little girls she would often babysit.

Peculiar though she was, I loved her very much. My grandmother tried to forget Indonesia as best she could, but Auntie Sister loved talking about it. She told me the best stories about life in early twentieth century, colonial Indonesia or Dutch Indies as it was called then. Life was still full of nature spirits, good and bad energies and ghosts. This is a ghost story she told me.

When she was a little girl, it was customary for colonial families to have baboes or nannies to take care of the children. Every household had one or two baboes and a couple of other servants. In their house there was one young beautiful baboe who took care of the smaller children. There also was a young boy, who did all sorts of jobs around the house. It was strictly forbidden for the servants to have relationships with one another, but of course they did. They had to be very secret about it, but little Jenny had seen the two kissing and was now an accomplice. She was about 8 years old and she did not understand the risk the young couple took. She did understand how much in love they were and how badly they wanted to be together. Every night when baboe put her to bed, the boy would come to her room too, and it would be their secret meeting place. While Jenny was falling asleep, the two would sit in the corner of her bedroom and talk all night. Jenny would fall asleep to the sound of their whispers and giggles.

It was all so romantic, but as these things usually go, the couple was eventually discovered and Jenny's parents fired the boy immediately. They kept the baboe, because the children loved her so much, but she was now watched every second by another, older baboe, who had to make sure that she did not see the boy again.

Jenny felt sad for the couple. She missed having them sitting and whispering in her bedroom every night. But because the baboe was told she was not to see the boy again, Jenny did not expect him to ever return.

She was therefore very surprised to find him in her room one evening. She was just returning to her room after eating some saté with her father on the porch - a special treat both because of the food, but mostly because of the undivided attention she got from her father during that special moment they shared. The baboe had already put her to bed but her dad had asked her to get up and share a saté with him, which she of course gladly did. Now she came back to her room, tired but very happy and was startled by the young man standing in the corner. He looked sick and pale.

"What are you doing here? Don't you know you can not come here anymore?"

No answer. The boy just sighed and stared at his feet.

"All right, all right.. I'll go and find baboe for you. Just stay here and don't make a sound, ok?"

Jenny hurried to the servants' room and tiptoed over to baboe's bed.

"Psssst! Baboe! Wake up! He's here! Your friend, he is in my bedroom, waiting for you!" Baboe's eyes shot open and she was up in a second. Together they went back to Jenny's bedroom, but when they got there, he was gone.

"Oh I'm sorry baboe, I must have taken too long to get you.. He really wás here.."

Baboe looked at her, smiling but sad, gave her a kiss and went back to her room.

The next day, the cook called in sick and baboe had to help out in the kitchen instead of watching the children.

That evening Jenny went to bed feeling hungry. The other servants had tried their best to prepare a decent meal, but it just wasn't as good as cook's food. She had eaten the rice, but the soup smelled awful and the meat looked burned.

Because of her empty stomach, she found it difficult to sleep. She was turning this way and that but just couldn't find a comfortable spot. She opened the shutters for the window to let some air in, then got back up to close them. Then she opened the shutters and the door, to let the draft cool the room and crawled back in bed.

She was almost asleep when she saw the young servant walking right past her door, heading for the servants' rooms. She got up and ran after him, because baboe would be still in the kitchen, cleaning up or preparing food for tomorrow. But as she got to the servants' rooms, he was nowhere to be found.

The next day Jenny's parents both stayed in bed sick and the servants were busier than ever, because now the gardener and the older baboe were sick too.

The children sat around the house amusing themselves by chasing tokehs and tji-tjaks and daring each other to hold them in their hands. They were locked in their rooms without the baboes for their siesta and got so bored they started daring each other to hang the tokehs from their ears or nose. It was one of the hottest days that year and being forced to stay inside made Jenny grumpy.

The only good thing that day was that everyone got bami and saté from the chinese street vendor for dinner. The children all sat on the porch and enjoyed their meal and were bragging about what they did to those poor tokehs. Her younger brother William still had one hanging from his ear but he claimed it didn't hurt.

Out of the corner of her eyes Jenny suddenly glimpsed the servant boy, walking to the back of the house. She got up to follow him, but was stopped by her older sister, telling her to finish her plate before she could play in the backyard. Annoyed, Jenny quickly ate her last saté and rushed to see where the boy had gone. She thought she saw him near the water well but when she got there he had disappeared again. She stood there thinking for a while and then she noticed something. There was a strange sweet smell in the air. It seemed to come from the well. She looked over the edge, but she couldn't see anything because it was so dark. The smell was a lot stronger near the well though.

She went back in the house and told baboe about the smell. Soon there was chaos all over the house. The servants were shouting and screaming at each other and her sick parents came out of bed and called the police. There were people standing around the well, even the neighbours were there. Jenny and the other children were told to go to bed and keep quiet. Angry that she had to go to bed and miss all the excitement, Jenny opened her bedroom door and listened to what was happening.

There was baboe, crying hysterically and being comforted by a friend. She slumbed down the wall and sat there sobbing. Jenny could hear someone being sick in the backyard. Baboe looked up at the sound and saw Jenny peering through the crack.

She got up and walked over to Jenny. She picked Jenny up and put her in her bed. Then she told her the horrible end of her own love story.

Baboe had been told by Jenny's parents that if she ever saw her boyfriend, they would send her away. Baboe needed the job to provide for her own family and so she took the difficult decision to break up with him. He was devastated, and cursed the family that turned his love against him. Apparently he got very drunk that evening and came back to the house to plead with her one last time. Being as drunk as he was, he tripped and fell down the well. He probably drowned and his body had started to rot. The family and the servants had all drunk from the well of course and that was why everyone was getting sick.

Jenny couldn't sleep all night. Not only did she feel a bit queasy after hearing what was in the water, she kept thinking of who or what she saw. It couldn't have been him, could it?

The police came and took the body away and for a while they used the neighbours' well until their own was safe again. No one believed Jenny when she told them what she saw, but she still beliefs it today.

Jenny is now 99 years old and in a nursing home. She still sees ghosts and demons, but unlike when she was eight, she is now terrified of them. I hope she will find her former curiosity and bravery once more so she can spend her last days in peace.

Auntie Sister/ Jenny (here 95 years old) holding my son