Page 57 of Sisters Under The Rising Sun

‘You will clean camp. You will cut the grass, pick up rubbish, toys. There must be nothing left outside. No one will get any food until whole camp is clean. Captain Miachi will inspect tomorrow morning. There is a special visitor coming tomorrow afternoon, all women will be nicely dressed, no skin,’ Ah Fat insists.

Having walked to the end of the street, Miachi turns around and walks back repeating his orders. The children laugh at the diminutive translator stumbling up the road. His message is now reduced to: ‘Cut grass. No skin. Clean drain. No skin.’ Mothers hold their hands over the mouths of their giggling children, only letting them go when Miachi has passed by.

Norah looks at a group of guards, nudging Ena, who snorts out a laugh; the Javanese guards hold their stomachs as they openly laugh out loud at the spectacle they too have witnessed.

Mrs Hinch calls out to Nesta to join her and Margaret.

‘I think we’d better have a meeting and set up work details. He was serious about wanting the camp spick and span.’

‘That was one of the funniest performances I think we’ve seen,’ Margaret says. ‘I was worried for the children who couldn’t control themselves.’

‘I think we should be very grateful the soldiers have gone; they may not have been as tolerant as the guards,’ Mrs Hinch says.

‘I’m not sure how we are to cut the grass, we don’t have any mowers,’ Nesta points out.

‘Inchi, Inchi, where are you?’ Ah Fat calls out, running towards them.

‘Oh, he’s back,’ Mrs Hinch sighs.

‘Inchi! Inchi!’

Turning to the exhausted Ah Fat, who stumbles towards them, she says, ‘What do you want now? We got the message.’

‘Inchi, please have women clean properly. Captain Miachi will be very angry if you don’t.’

‘We will try, but we don’t have any tools. How are we to cut the grass?’

Reaching into his pocket, he opens his palm. ‘Here, you have these.’

‘Scissors? You’re giving me two pairs of scissors to cut everyone’s grass?’

‘You share, you cut all the grass out front.’

‘Oh, so we don’t have to cut the grass at the back of our houses?’

‘Just out front, and clean drains. Nothing is to be seen in the street, OK?’

‘Run along, Ah Fat.’

‘Thank you, Inchi.’

‘Well, who wants to cut their lawn first?’ Mrs Hinch says, brandishing the scissors.

Nesta takes a pair. ‘He’s kidding, isn’t he?’

‘I don’t think so. Come on, let’s come up with a plan.’

‘Right then,’ Norah tells the groups assigned to clean the common areas. ‘Let’s get started.’

Norah and the volunteers clean the drains and street outside their house, offering to continue down the camp and help their neighbours. Others in the groups are given knives and sent outside to cut the grass on their hands and knees.

‘I see you have actual scissors,’ Norah calls over to Betty, who is hard at work snipping the grass in front of their house.

Nesta joins Norah who is dragging rubbish from the drains in which there is free-flowing sewage.

‘Nice job,’ Nesta says.

‘Hmm.’ Norah is using banana leaves to carry the grunge to the end of the camp to dump.