The covenant - James A. Michener [99]
'Our Willem makes it,' Van Riebeeck said proudly as the diners applauded.
'Did you really make this?' Kornelia asked as she poised the spoon above the rounded crust.
'I had to learn,' Willem said. 'But what's in it?'
'We save bits of bread and cake and biscuit. Eggs and cream. Butter and all the kinds of fruit we can find. At the end, of course . . .' He hesitated. 'You wouldn't appreciate this, Kornelia, never having lived in Java . ..' He felt that he was not expressing himself well, and turning to his brother and Van Riebeeck, he concluded rather lamely: 'You Java men will understand. When the sugar's been added and the lemon juice, I dust in a little cinnamon and a lot of nutmeg. To remind us of Java.'
'You're a fine cook, Willem.'
'Someone had to learn,' he said. 'You can't eat fish and mutton four hundred days a year.'
At this curious statement the diners looked at one another, but no one thought to correct the speaker. At some spots in the world the year did have four hundred days, and even a small thing like bread pudding helped alleviate the tedium of those long, lonely days.
When the last wine decanter was emptied, two final conversations occurred. They were monologues, really, for the speakers lectured their listeners without interruption. Karel van Doorn told Commander van Riebeeck, 'You must strive very hard, Jan, to comply with all Compagnie rules. Waste not a single stuiver. Make your people speak Dutch. Fence in the Compagnie property. Discipline your slaves. Get more cattle and start the wine flowing. Because if you take care of our ships, I can assure you that the Lords will reward you with an assignment in Java.' Before Van Riebeeck could respond, Karel added reflectively, 'Didn't the spices in Willem's pudding . . . Well, didn't they remind you of the great days in Ternate and Amboyna? There's no place in the world like Java.'
At this moment Kornelia van Doorn was telling her red-complexioned cousin, 'Katje, help Willem grow his grapes. Because if he succeeds, he'll be in line for promotion. Then you can come to Java.' With a flood of gentleness and affection, she embraced her unlovely cousin and confessed: 'We haven't brought you to a paradise, Katje. But he is a husband and his hut is temporary. If you keep him at his work, you'll both soon be in Java, of that I'm sure.'
When Willem saw how meticulously the vines from France had been packed and learned how carefully they had been tended on the voyage, he felt that these new stocks would invigorate the Cape vineyard; the hedge of young trees was high enough to break the force of those relentless summer winds and he now knew something about setting his rows in the right direction. Before Karel sailed on to Java the vines were well planted, and one of the last entries the commissioner made in his report to the Lords XVII commended Willem for taking viticulture seriously and predicted: Soon they will be sending casks of wine to Java.
His last entry was a remarkable one, often to be quoted in both Amsterdam and Batavia but never to be comprehended there or in South Africa; it dealt with slaves and their propensity for running away. In his stay at the Cape he had listened to three days of detailed testimony on the frequency with which slaves of all kindsAngolans, Malaccans, Madagascansran away. It was a madness, he concluded, which no measures open to the Dutch could eliminate, and he reported to the Lords XVII:
Neither hunger nor thirst, neither the murderous arrow of the Bushman nor the spear of the Hottentot, neither the waterless desert nor the impassable mountain deters the slave from seeking his freedom. I have therefore directed the officers at the Cape to initiate a series of punishments which will impress the slaves with the fact that they are Compagnie property and must obey its laws. At the first attempt to run away, the loss of an ear. At the next attempt, branding on the forehead and the other ear to be cropped. At the third attempt, the nose to be cut off. And at the fourth, the gallows.
When the Groote Hoorn resumed its way to