The Streetbird (17 page)

\\\\ 20 ////

"Aren't you my sweet duck," Nellie said, "and haven't we been petting marvelously. Why don't you come more often? Isn't it cozier here than in that stuffy apartment of yours, on that moldy little canal? Just look at the way you're sitting there, all happy and relaxed. Nothing to worry about and everything coming up at just the right time. What would you like now? Some medium-rare steak on toast? Yes? With a gherkin on the side?"

"No," Grijpstra said, "because I have to go."

"Do you want to go?"

The adjutant folded his hands on his belly and rubbed his shoulders against the chair's back.

"You don't want to go at all."

"I've got to work," Grijpstra said. "I now know that the vulture belongs to your neighbor and that your neighbor isn't home. To merely wait means wasting time. I've got to rush about the neighborhood and gather more information."

Nellie bent over him and kissed his bald crown. "Gather information from me. I probably know more than you need to know."

"Shouldn't you be working?" Grijpstra asked.

"Do I talk too much?" Nellie asked. "Would you like a nice nap? Shall I get the hammock? Or would you rather have coffee first?" She ran into the kitchen.

Nice and quiet here, Grijpstra thought. A good idea to have a yard. Protected within your own world. A yard to think in. Quietly. Logically, of course. Everything in the right place. Where was I, now? Let's start at the beginning. Without the slightest rush, very carefully, paying attention to every detail. Connect causes and events. I close my eyes and concentrate. Like this. I won't overconcentrate, I just hold on to the thread. Obrian. Obrian who? Obrian what?

What do I care about Obrian? Grijpstra thought. He saw a street in old Amsterdam, with sidewalks behind which closed doors protected the privacy of patrician homes. A dignified quietness pervaded the street and was enjoyed by Grijpstra, who had dressed in his best blue three-piece suit, had just visited the barber and polished his shoes. He was a patrician himself, and the street was his. Two ladies came along—he knew them but he didn't have to acknowledge the acquaintanceship. The ladies walked slowly by. He studied them from the front, the side, and the rear. They were aware, in spite of their sedately lowered eyes, that he was paying them his fullest attention, but they didn't react, not because they were angry with their suitor or because they shouldn't know he was there, but rather because they wanted to be admired completely, in pure detachment, and also because any activity on his part would have been despicable. He only had to know that they were there, a condition Grijpstra silently agreed to. The ladies wore hats, woven from straw, and red-and-white-checked streamers hung over their naked shoulders and backs. Their skirts had been cut from the same material and were really pieces of cloth loosely wound around their hips and tucked in. Whether they wore shoes, Grijpstra didn't know, because the skirts dragged on the sidewalk. One bare-bosomed lady was Nellie, the other Adjutant Adèle.

They must be wearing shoes, Grijpstra thought, their heels click on the cobblestones, but the sounds were made by the coffee cups Nellie placed on the table.

"What kept you so long?"

Nellie said, "I couldn't help it. Uncle Jan wanted to take a bath, and the one faucet sticks and I had to find a hammer to hit it with."

Grijpstra stirred his coffee.

"Uncle Jan is a guest," Nellie said. "An old man who sometimes stays here. He's from Utrecht.... Hello, Tigri," Nellie said to a cat that appeared from the bushes. Grijpstra put out a hand. The cat approached and pushed herself against his fingers.

"The cat belongs to your neighbor too?"

"Yes," Nellie said. "Isn't she beautiful? So delicate on her high legs. She sometimes visits me at night, when I'm alone in bed. Then she'll come through the window." Nellie grinned. "She always crawls into my arm, puts her paws around my neck, and purrs into my ear, and sometimes she turns over and wants me to knead her belly."

Grijpstra picked the animal up. "You like men too?" Tigri put out a leg and touched the adjutant's nose with her paw.

"Oh," Nellie said. "Just look at that. You really have a way with animals. She never cares for strangers at all."

"This Tigri," Grijpstra said, while he shook the cat softly, "is a witness, for she was in the Olofs-alley yesterday morning, and the vulture that I'm looking for flew over the roofs of the same street."

"Yes?"

Grijpstra's voice shot up. "You don't think that's strange?"

"Not at all," Nellie said. "They have to be somewhere, don't they? The vulture flies about in the early hours, when everything's still quiet, and Tigri is an animal of the night. They were curious, I suppose, and wanted to know what was going on in the alley."

Grijpstra put the cat down and got up.

"Stay a little longer."

"To work," Grijpstra told himself.

She pushed him back into his chair. "And what if I had murdered Obrian? Would you stay with me then?"

"You?"

"Me. I'm quite a good shot. I detested Obrian. I just nipped out of my bed, bang bang bang, and nipped back again. Why couldn't it have been me?"

"You're not a good shot."

"I am, and I've told you so before. Don't you remember the Germans who left their stuff at my father's farm at the end of the war? And how my brother found their gear many years later? And how we were shooting crows?"

"You did tell me," Grijpstra said. "Weren't you using a rifle then?"

"A machine pistol, a nasty black short barreled thing, with bullets that you had to push into a holder, and the holder had to be pressed into it from underneath."

"Didn't your father call the local constable to have all the weapons confiscated?"

"Some detective you are. Couldn't I have lied? About that constable and all?"

Grijpstra shook his head.

She smiled and held his hand. "You really think I wouldn't lie to you?"

"You shouldn't lie to me. I'm your friend."

She pushed her chair against his. "You're my lover."

"Okay," Grijpstra said. "Let's assume you did lie. You own a Schmeisser. But to have and to shoot are not the same thing. You're a sweet woman. You couldn't kill anybody." Grijpstra caressed her hair. "Why should you? You've got me, haven't you? I'll always help you out. The slightest trouble, and I come marching in."

"And you shoot Obrian?"

Grijpstra withdrew his arm. "Didn't I protect you, even against Obrian?"

"Not really."

Grijpstra turned his head. She looked away. "Obrian was after me, Henk, he was sucking me in. I was getting very nervous. I knew what he wanted of me." She laughed.

Grijpstra stared at her.

She looked up and pushed his face away. "Don't look like that."

"I don't understand," Grijpstra said. "We're discussing murder. What's so funny all of a sudden?"

"Something I thought of. Shall I tell you?"

"Please."

"Maybe this'U help to make you understand women better. Remember the heat wave last month? I had to go out, to wash my clothes, and on the way I bought some bananas. It was a hundred degrees in the laundry and I sat there waiting, and next to me a man in shorts waited. There was nothing to do except watch the clothes go around, so he kept pushing his stool closer to mine, and when my machine was finally done I looked up at that man and he was getting all excited. Know what I mean?"

"I don't want to know," Grijpstra said.

"Don't be silly, now. He was all stiff and I could see it because I was practically on the floor. It annoyed me because I wasn't there for anything else but my laundry and I didn't need his attention. So I went to the manager to complain, but the manager wanted to understand precisely what I was complaining about."

"You don't really have to tell me all that."

"No, wait, it'll get worse. That manager pretended he didn't know what I was talking about, and he had shorts on too— crazy, hardly anybody wears shorts these days, but they both did. I got tired of repeating myself and I knew that he wasn't going to do anything anyway and my laundry was still in the machine, so I knelt down again and looked up, and the manager had sat down too, and he had gotten all excited as well."

"Please," Grijpstra said. "What sort of tale is this? Why didn't you just leave?"

"That's the point. I should have, you see, but I was getting so nervous and I had those bananas, and suddenly I was eating them, one after another, just to have something to do."

"Nellie . . . " Grijpstra pleaded.

"You think that's crazy, to eat bananas with those two next to you?"

"Bah," Grijpstra said.

"I'm sorry," Nellie said. "I didn't mean to upset you. You don't like that much, do you, now? But it's nothing out of the way, you know. All women do it to their men. I would do it to you too if I thought you would enjoy it."

Grijpstra stared at the tiles between his chair and the table. He breathed heavily. Nellie stroked his hand. "Are you unwell?"

Grijpstra scraped his throat. "That's what Obrian wanted of you?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't have given way to him."

"That's why you shot him?"

"I didn't shoot him," Nellie said. "I was only teasing you. I can take care of myself, especially since I got to know you. A crazy black can't make me go against my own likes. But with Madeleine it was different, she was alone so she had to give in, and hang herself later."

Grijpstra's head rested on her shoulder. She put her arm around his neck. "Poor Henk, he works so hard, and all I do to help is tell him dirty stories."

"So who shot the bastard?" Grijpstra asked. "What sort of a case is this anyway? What am I doing in it? The commissaris would have solved it long ago, there are indications enough, but all I can come up with is a vulture, and vultures don't fire machine guns. This has to do with witchcraft or with religion or something. You should have seen Obrian's altar. Jesus Christ in a straw skirt and a naked woman rubbing herself against a bottle of tomato ketchup and skulls and crazy drums. In a room with rags hanging from the walls. He probably prayed in there. What am I to make of that?"

"Poor Henk."

"Even the Dutch Reformed Church gave me the willies," Grijpstra said, "and that's kid's stuff compared to this. Chanting psalms and the blood we had to drink at Easter, and the bones they made me gnaw. Sure, it was only wine and bread, but the reverend said we were eating a corpse. I fainted, and I never went back."

"I know," Nellie said. "That happened to me too. I was a Catholic, of course, but / couldn't stand the incense, and once the prayer wouldn't stop and I looked up and Christ was on the wall. He was made of plaster, but it looked real enough to me, and there was blood running down his leg. I pissed in my pants that time."

"Yes," Grijpstra said.

"And the dreams," Nellie said. "When I was still in the faith, I dreamed almost every night. Churches that were on fire, but the basements were still working and I had to go in, and there were altars downstairs too, with live pricks on them, bent a bit forward and leering at me with their one eye."

"No," Grijpstra said.

"True enough. But I didn't mind, I think, because then I knew that God is dirty too and that all that holiness and sin and so on is a lot of baloney." She kissed Grijpstra's neck. "I dreamed last night, too."

"No bananas," Grijpstra said. "And no eyes."

"No, it was something else. I was in a church again, and there was a statue, of a devil or demon or something, but not really a bad one. He had a biggie and I had to kneel—"

"Please, Nellie."

"No, no, just kneel, and pray. If I prayed well, fruit fell into my hands, delicious apples, but if I forgot what I was praying about, the apples hit my head and hurt me."

"Apples," Grijpstra said.

"There's nothing wrong with apples, is there? Granny Smiths they were, but I did think it was strange, for where did the apples come from? Well, from the rear, of course."

"Of the demon?"

"Yes. I didn't believe that God was really rewarding or punishing me, so I sneaked away and found out what was happening behind the statue, and just as I thought, there were a lot of little priests there, throwing the apples into the devil's ass. It was all a show, you see, to bamboozle the stupid."

"Good dream," Grijpstra said.

Nellie held up a hand. "I think I heard something. Uncle Wisi must have come home. Do you want to see him now?"

\\\\ 21 ////

"Good day," Uncle Wisi said, and pushed his beaded cap to the back of his head so he could scratch his ear. "It's warm outside, even for me. Opete? A visitor."

The vulture hopped from under a branch loaded down with flowers.

"My wicked pet," Uncle Wisi said. "Now, what do you have on your leg, Opete?" He knelt down and felt the bird's sinewy ankle. "Here. The tricolor of the fatherland?"

The vulture squeaked.

"The flag looks well on you, Opete." Uncle Wisi rubbed his finger along Opete's beak. "They caught and decorated you, and you accepted the distinction. Are you getting weak in your old age?"

"Crazy," Nellie said. "Who would want to catch Opete? But they let him go again, so they must have meant well." She held up her arm, and the vulture flapped its wings and jumped so that he could settle on her wrist. She stroked the head that bowed to her chest.

"I'm a policeman," Grijpstra said.

"I know," Uncle Wisi said. "Nellie told me. You're quite an authority, eh, official? This visit has to do with the death of my compatriot?"

"Luku Obrian, sir."

"Uncle," Uncle Wisi said. "That's what I am now, uncle to all and everybody, regardless of race or religion. Come in, official. Nellie tells me that you're good on drums."

Nellie followed them, with Opete in uncertain balance on her arm. "Ouch." She pushed the vulture softly away. "If he bends his knees, his talons get into my skin." Opete flew to a cupboard.

"An official on drums," Uncle Wisi said. "That does make me feel at home."

"Henk's really quite good," Nellie said. "He plays in his office, on a set that Lost and Found gave him."

"Nothing special," Grijpstra said. "I used to play in the school band and I've picked it up again now. To bang away every now and then kills time pleasantly."

"And his partner plays flute," Nellie said. "He's a real artist, too. They play that old-fashioned kind of music, chorals and sonatas, and all the other policemen come to listen."

Uncle Wisi pushed a stool toward his guest. Grijpstra looked at he multitude of objects in the small low room. "I have to get back," Nellie said. "Uncle Jan'11 want his dinner soon. I'll be waiting for you, Henk, when you're done."

"Yes," Grijpstra said.

"Yes, who?"

"Yes, dear Nellie."

"Let's have it, official," Uncle Wisi said, "or do you only want to talk to my vulture?"

Opete squeaked from his perch.

"I only wanted to know who owned the bird."

"The bird is mine," Uncle Wisi said solemnly.

Grijpstra talked quickly. "The vulture was in the alley. Olofs-alley. Near the corpse. Obrian's corpse. The vulture is yours. So is the cat. The cat Tigri. Also in the alley."

"But was / in the alley, official?"

"Were you?"

Uncle Wisi stepped sideways. "I." He stepped back. "Was." He jumped a foot off the floor. "Not there Because," Uncle Wisi said, "I was here."

"So you didn't kill Obrian?"

Uncle Wisi removed his cap, stuck his fingers into his crisp gray hair, and put his headgear back. "That's to say, official. Yes and no."

Grijpstra leaned back but the stool offered no support and he waved his arms desperately, just managing not to fall off. "Yes or no, Uncle Wisi?"

Uncle Wisi sat down too. "You know, official, that's what makes it tricky. Out methods differ. I do not say that yours aren't valid, because they clearly serve many purposes. If it isn't this, it must be that—one can argue that way mathematically, and if you're handy as well, you have manufactured a rocket before you know what you've done. That method of yours works well, but mine is different. Yes and no, I say. Yes
or
no, you say. And neither of us is wrong."

Grijpstra flapped his handkerchief. "Did you shoot?" He blew his nose. "Or did you not?" He wiped the sweat off his forehead.

"No." Uncle Wisi laughed. "A machine gun does not belong to my collection of tools."

That man is very old, Grijpstra thought, and he still has all his teeth, and not too many wrinkles, but I don't like his eyes, they're too sharp.

"Although I did own a gun once," Uncle Wisi said. "In the West. I used to fire it, too, during services for the dead. It was my magic rifle."

"Not a real rifle?"

Uncle Wisi nodded. "Very real. Used to belong to you people, and with you everything is real, right? An ancient muzzle-loader, used at the time of importation of slaves; you fellows shot with bullets, but I used only powder, to make noise, to help the
yorka
on his way. You've got to do that at times, you know, because the spirit is frightened and wants to stay, and you help him along, in your function as magician."

"You were the magician?"

"I
am
the magician," Uncle Wisi said.

"Wah," Grijpstra said. He pointed at the table. "You've got one too."

"What are you indicating?"

"That Christ, in the skirt."

"I've got more," Uncle Wisi said, and held up a framed portrait. "This is the great Indian who rules the jungle where his followers allowed our free men to settle. We took the great Indian too. And Jesus of course, for you people told us he was the son of Massa Gran-Gado and supposed to love us. Why shouldn't we believe you? And this we have as well." He showed ajar of genever. "A glass, official?"

"I'm on duty," Grijpstra said.

"So am I," Uncle Wisi said. He poured and passed Grijpstra an egg holder filled to its rim. "Your health, official."

"Your health, Uncle Wisi."

Uncle Wisi sat down and looked at Grijpstra through his glass, with one much enlarged eye.

"To magic," Grijpstra said. "Is yours white or black?"

"I'm black," Uncle Wisi said, and held his hand next to Grijpstra's. "See? All my grandparents were niggers."

"That's not what I mean."

"Oh," Uncle Wisi said. "You mean the color of my art? That
used
to be black." He sang,
"Powers beyond, powers below, the dark death, sure but slow."

Grijpstra couldn't remember ever having drunk such strong genever. All tension had been burned out of his body and he felt slightly paralyzed. "The slow death, Uncle Wisi?" To his surprise, he recognized his own voice that sounded kindly inquisitive and quite clear.

"But the power works both ways," Uncle Wisi said. "Like the boomerang the black brothers of Australia use." He smiled at his guest. "The people became frightened of me, official, like they have fear of you. People don't appreciate powers in others. And the other wisimen got together and arranged their altars and sang and danced. They set off fireworks and asked the
gados
who lived under their mulberry trees to hunt me, and I needed all my time and strength to defend myself." Uncle Wisi grinned slyly. "But I had gold, for a good wisiman doesn't take mere money, and the world is wide. I went a-journeying to the land of the queen." He touched his cap respectfully. "She's the great holy spirit-woman who doesn't only protect you but us too. Her photograph hung in my cabin. I prayed to her, and advised her of my arrival, and she received me well." Uncle Wisi grabbed his egg holder, drank, and smacked his lips. "A good woman, and I became good too, for I had been bad already, and a man has to move along, don't you agree?"

"You still are?" Grijpstra asked. "Good, I mean?"

Uncle Wisi looked at the floor.

"Yes?"

The keen eyes filled with light and stared at Grijpstra. "No," Uncle Wisi said. "That's all too simple. Isn't good as stupid as bad? I haven't been good for a long time now." His voice softened, "But it took some doing, to be done with definitions, or to soar out of them; it can be put that way too, although that doesn't sound modest. We have to stay simple or the trap may close again."

Grijpstra's nose wrinkled. "Whatever you say."

"You don't understand?"

"No."

"Not difficult at all," Uncle Wisi said. "Or rather, nothing at all, but it took me a while before I could see that, but I had more time, of course. I'm somewhat older than you are. Another sip?"

"No," Grijpstra said. "Thank you. I should be on my way. So you don't know who did away with Obrian either? Who shot him, I mean?"

Uncle Wisi lifted a hand. "Just a moment, official. We could pursue this matter together."

"How, Uncle Wisi?"

"Yes." Uncle Wisi lifted his stool and put it down closer to Grijpstra. He sat down again and arranged his robe. "Listen here, official. As I said, you've your method and I have mine. Yours doesn't work now because you've got to find someone who saw what happened, and there doesn't seem to be anybody, except the one who fired the gun, and he doesn't want to show up, true or not?"

"True, Uncle Wisi."

"Well, let's try it my way, then. You're a bit of a drummer, aren't you?"

"Magic?" Grijpstra asked.

"Magic frightens you?"

"Yes," Grijpstra said. "No. I know nothing about magic."

"But I do. It's easy, official. I burn some dry herbs to make a good smell, and you play a drum, and so do I, and we are in the alley, you and I, making time turn back, and then we see what happened."

"We go to the alley?"

"We stay right here," Uncle Wisi said. "But keep your cool, or my method won't work either. And we sing," he said. "You sure you don't want a little more genever?"

"Just a little, perhaps."

Uncle Wisi poured. "To the
yorka."

"The what?"

"The spirit of the deceased, Obrian's in this case—he'll have to be around too."

Grijpstra nodded morosely.

"One drum for you," Uncle Wisi said, "another for me. You think you can handle this type of drum?"

Grijpstra made his knuckles glide along the tight skin. "Yes, feels okay, Uncle Wisi."

"A moment," Uncle Wisi said while he mixed ground herbs in an earthenware dish. He poured genever on the mixture and lit a match. A flame shot from the dish, and sharp smoke crinkled up. Uncle Wisi took hold of his drum. "Right. Ready?"

Grijpstra lifted his hand.

Incoherent improvisation. Grijpstra thought. We'll never get anywhere this way. That old man drinks too much.

But it wasn't quite like that, Grijpstra had to admit. Dry bones and hollow sockets, the adjutant thought, Uncle Wisi is shaking a skeleton.

"Eee,"
Uncle Wisi sang.
"Eeehee, EEhee.
"

Grijpstra looked up. The stench of the smoldering herbs, the green haze of plants all around him, the subtle colors of grains and seeds in the jars arranged on shelves, seemed to indicate a melody that Uncle Wisi was already playing, and a rhythm that the adjutant drew from his own drum.
Wham, turrick, whamtur RICK
rattled Grijpstra's stubby fingers. This may seem primitive, the adjutant thought, but in reality it's impossibly complicated, the formula is somewhere between the softest scratching and loudest thumping and it's the whole rigmarole de Gier is always searching for when he tootles his flute, and even finds at odd moments, but now I don't have to help him along, since Uncle Wisi has it dead center and I can follow without paying attention.
Turrim, turrdm.

Most pleasant. Good music. But I could do without the ghosts. There's Obrian, marionette Obrian. Uncle Wisi pulls the strings, and Obrian jumps and dances to our tune.

The corpse regains its life.

Grijpstra played energetically. Uncle Wisi took care of the solos but the adjutant expressed introductions and afterthoughts, always in the right intervals and never losing a beat. He was enjoying himself. Uncle Wisi sang nicely too, using open vowels mostly, interspersed with short foreign words, to command the corpse.

Corpses don't put me off, Grijpstra thought. I saw so many. This stuff works well. We are in the Olofs-alley and daybreak hasn't come yet and Obrian strolls along over there and will be shot in a moment. Obrian pretends he doesn't know what will happen to him, he acts the scene out, a most helpful fellow. In a minute he will explain exactly why he had to be murdered— if only he won't use his own language, because then I won't understand what he's saying.

But now, Grijpstra thought, fervently hitting his drum, how did we get on this little bridge? We're losing track. It isn't dark anymore either, the sun shines. That woman is on her knees and edges forward. She's begging Obrian with her smile, and he gives his consent, and her mouth, her mouth . . .

The drum fell out of Grijpstra's hands. Spittle dribbled down his chin. His body swayed and crashed to the floor.

"Pity," Uncle Wisi said.

"With your very own Nellie." She stroked his cheek. You're quite heavy, you know. Uncle Wisi and I nearly broke our backs when we lifted you into the hammock. Did you sleep well?"

"I'm thirsty." Grijpstra whispered.

She brought a glass of water. The taste was bitter.

"What did you put into the glass?"

"Obeah, made by Uncle Wisi, to make you feel better."

"Am I ill?"

"No," Nellie said. "But you did faint just now. Now you're okay again."

"Pity," Grijpstra said.

She kissed him. "Aren't you a funny fellow? And the two of you were drumming so well. I could hear it from here. But then it suddenly stopped and Uncle Wisi came to fetch me. I didn't worry at all. With Uncle Wisi you are safe." She pushed the hammock. Grijpstra swung slowly.

"Uncle Wisi is a thingamajig," Grijpstra said.

Nellie laughed.

Grijpstra head dropped to the side, and he stared at her mournfully.

"The land," Nellie said dreamily, "of the thingamajigs. When I was little, I once stayed with my grandma, and the sky was so blue that day, no clouds at all, everything seemed empty, and I asked my grandma what could be behind the sky. For everything does go on forever, but everything comes to an end too, and I didn't understand that, for if the sky comes to an end, there must be something behind it."

Grijpstra looked up. The sky was blue and empty. "Behind the sky?"