Stories of the cared for, loyal servant may have resonated in some former servants'
accounts, but another Dutch myth of family ties did not: that of the babu
with gentle touch and lilting voice who loved the Dutch child as her own. While some spoke of having been nurtured, few celebrated their assigned nurturing
roles. Ibu Kasan, for example, remembered her employer's car pulling away on
the eve of the occupation. She recalled the child's outstretched arms and hysterical
shrieks of "Genduuuk, Genduuuk," his mother's cold and hunied goodbye,
and her own indifference. (Her account sharply contrasts that of the cared-for Ibu
Patmi, who cried telling us of her confusion and desolation when her employers,
who had treated her "like their own child," were taken away by the Japane~e.7~)
Some recalled the children's names but not those of their parents. Others had forgotten
both. Ibu Soekati equated caring for Dutch children with caring for their
pet dogs: both were fed milk, taken for walks, given baths. Few of these women
and men had maintained any connection with their Dutch employers