The Streetbird (8 page)

\\\\ 9 ////

"Yes," the commissaris said. "I do believe I dropped off for a few moments while you were working so diligently. Pulling weeds?"

Nellie dropped more grass into her bucket. "Yes, I can't stand weeds. Everything has to be neat, I think, but Uncle Wisi says that I'm overdoing it. He allows most of his weeds to grow—that's better, he says, because everybody attracts his own plants around him, and whatever you attract is good for you."

The commissaris sat down and looked about contentedly. "He would approve of my garden, I think. I've got all sorts of weeds. Some of them grow quite high, and all of them flower. You have to look for them, but they're always there. I like weeds, and so does the turtle."

"You have a turtle?"

"My friend," the commissaris said. "He hasn't got a name and he doesn't achieve much and usually I can't even find him, but if I wait he'll show up and be with me for a while."

Nellie cleaned her hands on her apron. "Yes, I remember. Henk told me about your pet. He often talks about you, you know. I once asked him if the two of you were friends, but he says that you only socialize with your turtle. And with your wife of course. You have a good wife."

The commissaris rubbed his thighs. "I'm glad the adjutant approves of her. I do too. She takes better care of me than I of her. Maybe I'll have time to make it up later, when I don't have to gad about anymore."

"Are you in pain?" Nellie asked. "Would you like to lie in the hammock? Henk uses it too, and then he likes to swing a bit, and I've got to push."

She brought a rolled-up bundle from the house. "Here, I just have to hook it into these rings. Why don't you stand on your chair, then it's easy to get into."

Like a fly in a spider's web, the commissaris thought, helplessly cradled, surrendered to fate, quite a pleasant feeling really.

"Tea is about ready," Nellie said. "You look good like that, you know? And you fit better than Henk. He always rather bulges, and it's the biggest hammock I could find."

The commissaris slurped his tea. Maybe I should do some work, he thought, ask a few clever questions. Or shall I just lie here and admire the sky? To look up is more enjoyable than to look down. There's an excellent cloud, artistically afloat in the divine nothing. Not quite nothing, of course, for it's still blue. Good shade of blue. And there are some vines creeping along the reddish bricks. The smell of flowers. Even horizontally the view is pleasant because I see cookies and cake, pleasantly arranged, and behind all that there's Nellie's bosom, heaving softly. If I could only keep it this way forever after.

He took a slice of cake she offered and nibbled. "Delicious. Now, tell me, Nellie. Gustav and Lennie—where could I find these suspects?"

Nellie pulled a face. "If you don't find them, you haven't missed much. Late at night, I would think, Gustav anyway, since he still has a few women in the quarter and he's got to collect. Lennie hangs out in his luxury boat on the Catburgh Canal. He only comes into the quarter to have a drink at Hotel Hadde, on the Eastern Canal. I saw him there last week, whispering to Gustav. They were talking about Obrian, cursing him again."

"Hotel Hadde. I think I know where that is. An after-hours place, illegal I daresay."

"Most everything is illegal here." She pushed the hammock softly. The commissaris sat up. "Maybe I should see Uncle Wisi now."

"I haven't heard him come back, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I showed you his garden. It has a glass roof that he can close in winter so that it turns into a hothouse. He burns a wood stove then, to keep his tropical plants alive."

"I think I need some help."

She reached out to him, but he slipped through her arms and fell against her. She clucked worriedly. "Didn't hurt yourself, now, did you?"

The commissaris freed his head from the pressure of her chest. "Let me sit down a moment."

She held his hand. "That wasn't such a good idea. I'm sorry. Henk never gets out of the hammock easily either. Perhaps you should ask Uncle Wisi about your pains. All the blacks around here call on him. He can cure almost anything."

"Was Obrian his patient?"

"Luku came to see him too."

"Is Uncle Wisi a real doctor? He holds a degree?"

She shook her head. "No, but he was a doctor when he came. He must have studied over there."

The commissaris grimaced and felt his legs. "An herbal doctor?"

Nellie laughed. "You mean like that ugly lady on TV? With the dandelion tea? Uncle Wisi isn't like that. That's all silliness I think, stuff that tastes bad and makes you burp." She sat down next to him. "Here, let me tell you. Like a year or two ago, when I was trying to get my driver's license. I failed and I failed and I thought I would never be done. I told Uncle Wisi about it and he gave me the juice of one of his plants. Kaykay-kankan, I think it is called. It made me very quiet and he held on to me and sang—just before the exam, that was—and I didn't care about anything at all and during the test I heard his voice and I never thought about whether I would pass or not, but I did."

"A drug?"

She smiled. "Nah. Not the stupid stuff they sniff in the quarter. The man who gave me the test didn't even touch me, he always used to before, because I was so nervous I suppose."

"Did you drink the juice again?"

She shook her head. "Uncle Wisi said it was just for once. And that time I was losing things, that was a misery too, and Uncle Wisi gave me some little flowers to put in a vase. There was a girl working for me, and I heard her yell. I ran upstairs and the girl just stood and gaped. My gold bracelet was on the floor and she had my money in her hand, taken from my purse. She gave it to me and ran out of the house and I never saw her since. And another time again, when a man who stayed here was after me, banging on my door at night because he knew what I had been before, and wanting a discount on the room price, that time Uncle Wisi gave me some crushed leaves that I had to smear on the fellow's coat and he ran away too and stayed away."

"Magical herbs?"

"Yes, but they don't do any harm."

The commissaris grinned. "They don't do
you
any harm, you mean. This Obrian, now, you thought he was harmful, didn't you?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I certainly did."

"And you say he visited Uncle Wisi regularly?"

"Aren't you cold?" Nellie asked. "Shall I get you a scarf?"

"No, I'm quite comfortable."

"I'm cold."

"Put something on," the commissaris said. "I'll wait for you here."

She went into the house and put on a jacket. "Now, that fellow, the fellow I mentioned just now who wanted a discount and so forth, as soon as I'd put that ointment on his coat, you should have seen him. He was looking for everything that day, his bag, his hat, his razor, and he kept on phoning and dialing the wrong numbers."

"Poor chap."

She shrugged. "But maybe he just had a bad day. He was a button salesman and he had these hundred thousand samples, all in a suitcase, always mixed up of course. Maybe it got too much for him, sorting those buttons."

"And Obrian?"

She buttoned her jacket. "What do you mean, Obrian?"

"Well," the commissaris said, 'I don't quite understand. I saw him this morning and he didn't seem at all out of the ordinary to me. Now, what could have been so special about the man that he could dominate anybody?"

"You really don't get that?"

"No," the commissaris said.

Nellie sighed. "Maybe because you're not a woman. All pimps know that trick. They pull at you. I don't know what it is, but you can't resist it. They sort of look at you sideways and half-smile and then you get all warm and moist inside and you want to go with them, and do everything they like."

"A kind of power?"

"Yes," Nellie said. "And it works on women, but also on men sometimes. Take Crazy Chris, he's got his cart and he sells good stuff and makes a living. I always thought Chris was his own man, but when he saw Obrian, he followed him like a dog. He could never do enough for that black, and Obrian wasn't paying him, Obrian never gave a cent to anybody."

"Herbs that carry power," the commissaris said. A butterfly landed on his knee and slowly flapped its translucent wings. He watched the delicate insect. "Or insight, that might be a better word." He looked up. "Herbs do work. Take coffee, for instance, a very stimulating fluid, and cocoa, just before going to bed, but made with water, not with milk, never fails to give me good thoughts." He moved his hand slowly toward the butterfly and smiled when it stepped onto his finger. "Cocoa, constipating of course, but clarifying when taken in small quantities."

"Cocoa is an herb?"

He got up. "Grows on a plant." The butterfly was still on his hand and he blew softly until it flew away.

"He didn't want to go," Nellie said.

"Like the cat," the commissaris said. "I had a cat after me today. Strange, one would expect that the senses diminish when one grows older, but when I look at animals, or birds, insects even, I seem to see far more than before, like I can identify with their being . . . well . . ." He watched the butterfly land on a tomato plant. "Lovely creature."

"Go on," Nellie said. "Men don't often talk to me, except Henk of course, he does mumble away a bit every now and then. The being, you said, of animals?"

The commissaris leaned on his cane. He became aware that he was looking at her bosom again, raised majestically inside the tight jacket. " 'Being' is a big word. I don't want to exaggerate, but I do think that I'm closer to nature now. Insight, maybe, more than intellectual understanding. Most miraculous, that butterfly just now, and the cat earlier on. I'm an animal myself, hunting, yes." He looked away when he noticed her motherly smile.

"Yes," Nellie said. "You do talk like Henk, but he only says things like that when he tells me about his painting."

"You go ahead," the commissaris said when she had opened the garden door. "You know Uncle Wisi."

She called out, but there was no answer. "He must be out. I don't really want to go into the house, not with him not there. It's creepy in there."

"Then we'll wait here." A cat slept in a straw-filled basket. It yawned when it saw the commissaris and stretched a leg that flopped lazily over the basket's side. The commissaris scratched its soft fur. "That's the cat I mentioned just now. Look at that. She doesn't even withdraw her paw. You're not going to scratch me with your claws, are you?"

He felt the claws edge along his skin and the pressure of a velvet sole. The cat began to purr.

"That's Tigri," Nellie said. "She's always here when she isn't on the roofs. 'Tigri' means 'tiger' in the language of the blacks."

The commissaris withdrew his hand. "Isn't this garden just like the greenhouse in the zoo? That must be a mulberry tree. I have seen trees just like that in southern France. What's in the dishes? Does Uncle Wisi have other animals?"

"Only the bird." Nellie smiled. "Uncle Wisi says that the god of the garden lives in the tree. In that dish is some fried rice with banana, and there's rum in the other. He buries the food every evening, but he drinks the rum."

"The god?"

She laughed. "No, Uncle Wisi."

"Very practical. That plant also looks familiar. Wolfs claw, I think, but this one is twice the size of what grows in my garden. And it's a lot warmer here, too." He looked up. "That's quite a construction, that glass roof."

Nellie pointed at steel cables that led along the walls and connected to a winch. "At first he just covered it all up with plastic, but it always tore and the blacks from the neighborhood came and made the roof for him. You always hear people say that the blacks here can only collect unemployment and mug old ladies, but some of them can make anything you like. Uncle Wisi says that they had to work too hard on the plantations and were whipped too much. That's why they will never work hard again, but that doesn't mean that they aren't clever."

The commissaris picked a leaf. "I'm sure this is wolfs claw. Contains poison, I believe."

"That's what he gave me to put on that fellow's coat."

"The man who wanted to abuse you?"

"Yes, the fellow who never came back."

The commissaris touched the plant's stem with his cane. "Ah, I remember now. My wife was saying that I should pull it out because it destroys love. I made a joke about it, said that she should put it in my bath, to be rid of all the trouble I cause her."

"Do you often tease your wife?"

"Only when she nags."

Nellie turned away. "I wish I could nag at Henk, but I don't dare to whine. If I do, he might never come back again."

The tip of the commissaris' cane shot up. "What's that squeaking?"

"Opete does that. He lives behind the bushes over there. Do you want to see him?"

The commissaris was hardly surprised. Neither was the vulture. The bird was perched on a stick, stuck through holes in the sides of a crate. It leaned forward.

"He's quite tame," Nellie said. "Right? Opete?"

The bird squeaked.

"Does he ever get locked up?" the commissaris asked.

"No, but he can't get out in winter because then the roof is closed. He doesn't mind that, I think. It'll be too cold for him then."

"I thought vultures were much larger," the commissaris said to the bird. "I mistook you for a crow at first when I saw you this morning, and it's your fault that I'm not in Austria now. A black vulture flying above a black corpse in my own Olofsalley is too much. Do you know that you're an unsuitable apparition?"

The bird bent its head sideways and moved its claws on the stick.

"Poor thing," Nellie said. "You don't like to be scolded, do you?" She ran off and came back holding a bit of meat. "Steak. Not too much, because the price has gone up again."

The vulture took the meat carefully from her fingers and closed its eyes while it swallowed. The commissaris grinned. "Wherever did Uncle Wisi find him?"