'I am from the island,' Silva said, 'born and bred. I was brought up with cabryt milk and rum, I speak the language. I understand the poor people of the island. If I didn't I would never solve a single crime.'
'Do they keep you busy?'
'No, not really. The island is small, one hundred and forty thousand people on three hundred square miles, everybody knows everything. Some fighting and thieving and that's it, but the island is dangerous. There's always a chance of explosion. Too much poverty, too little security and a mixture of races. Once the island was the center of the slave trade. Nobody has forgotten.'
'I see,' the commissaris said. He was wondering what the island would have been like when the first Spanish vessel sighted its coast. According to his books it would have been covered with trees. 'It's us,' the commissaris thought. 'We are the curse of the planet; the earth would still be beautiful if there had never been any people.'
They were in town now, entering Willemstad from the north. The town looked neat, with villas and gardens. Some of the houses were seventeenth-century Dutch in style but the colors differed. The commissaris had never seen a pink, or a yellow, or a palish-green gable house before. 'Lovely town,' he said, and obviously meant the compliment and Silva smiled and touched the commissaris' forearm again. 'Good thing de Gier isn't here,' the commissaris thought. 'Just the sort of thing he would immediately try to imitate,' but he didn't mind. He still felt friendly.
'I am taking you to a hotel close to my office, in Punda, on the other side of the harbor. You can have a bath and rest a little, and have a meal perhaps, and I'll meet you later this evening or tomorrow morning, if you like.'
The commissaris closed the door behind the fat smiling black man who had taken his suitcase up and brought a tray with a large glass of orange juice and a pot of coffee. He had the world to himself now, until the next morning, when he would see Silva at the police station. There was no need to do anything about the case tonight. He was planning to stay several days anyway, on this mysterious island which would have to be the culmination of all his imaginary travels through books. He was, he thought-as he looked out of the window at the lamplit quay where, through the passing cars, he could see the silhouettes of schooners moored in an orderly row-very far from his ordinary routine. He had, wondering whether the thought was too far-fetched, died and he was born again. This island, this naked rock as Silva had said, this rock surrounded by a tropical sea could in no way be compared to the moist fertile bog covered and protected by low gray clouds which had frustrated, but also sheltered, his mind for more than sixty years. He felt, as he drank his orange juice, close to the origin of all that had mystified his wish to know, close to the terrible secret. He smiled, and rubbed his legs, which still didn't hurt. Terrible, no doubt. The secret of life, which he had never solved, and probably never would solve, would have to be terrible. But he didn't feel frightened.
The hum of the powerful air conditioner controlling the room's temperature began to irritate him and he switched it off and opened the windows. There weren't as many cars on the quay now, and he could hear die voices of the men on the schooners. High voices, speaking Spanish. The voices were quarreling. 'La vaina! No joda, hombre! Santa Purfsima!' Swear words no doubt, but he liked the sound. The last two words, shouted by a high- pitched breaking voice, would mean 'pure saint.' A man, befuddled by rum and die fatigue mat comes from a day spent on a tough sea, calling the mother. The mother of all of us, the commissaris agreed, my mother as well, mother of the swamp, mother of the rock. Holy mother, who cares for the sailor and for me, an old weasel sworn to catch the murdering rabbit. For the murderer would be caught, there was no doubt in his mind. Marie van Buren, the fashionable whore in Amsterdam, the dead woman whose death was to be revenged. Order had been disturbed, order would be restored. We cannot allow a man to throw a knife into the living back of a fellow-citizen. He sighed, and stirred his coffee, mechanically patting his pocket to find his tin of cigars. Did he really care? Perhaps he did, perhaps part of his mind cared.
The voices petered out and he heard the sound of little waves which died against the timber of the schooners. The sea lapping gently, eating the island's foundation. At home the sea was lapping at the dikes, waiting patiently for the day that it could flood the swamp and squeeze the life out of its inhabitants, creating new living space for its own denizens, for the sharks, and the turtles, and the dolphins and the myriads of little creatures who would become the new citizens of Amsterdam, covering its streets and buildings and bridges with their shells and waving leaves and creepers and flitting in and out through broken windows.
He closed the windows again, switched on the air conditioner, and ran his bath. A little later he was comfortably soaking, sucking contentedly on his cigar. And when the bath ceremony was over and he had stubbed out the cigar he slipped between the sheets and switched off the light and sighed, and before the sigh had come to its end he had sunk away into nothing, dropping through a hole in his consciousness, and stopped existing.
He seemed to wake up in the same moment, but it was eight hours later and he shaved and dressed and walked down the stairs in a new shantung suit which his wife had bought with him and which was meant for their next holiday in France, a holiday which they had postponed many times because of his faltering health.
He breakfasted by himself, a huge meal consisting of fried eggs and tomatoes and sausages and bacon, and looked at his watch. He had several hours to himself before Silva would be expecting him in the police station. In the hotel's courtyard the fat happy room-waiter was playing with a small dog, talking to the animal in Papiamiento. The walls of the courtyard were covered with creeping plants, carrying a heavy load of many-colored flowers, of which he recognized the bougainvillaea contrasting its subtle violet petals with the loud yellows and reds and sparkling blues of its mates. He crossed the quay and saw the schooners and stopped to look at their loads of vegetables, attractively displayed under awnings of striped sailcloth. An Indian shouted at him, recommending the quality of his cabbages.
'No, thank you,' the commissaris said in English. 'I live in the hotel you see. Where do you come from?'
The Indian pointed at the sea. 'Colombia.'
'I see,' the commissaris said, and nodded at the man who returned his smile. 'You have a beautiful boat.'
'Wait,' the Indian said suddenly, and ran into the cabin of his boat. He came back with a pack of cigarettes which he gave to the commissaris.
'Cigarettes from my country. Very good. Black tobacco with sugar. You like.'
The commissaris took the packet and turned it around in his hands. It showed the crudely drawn head of a red Indian and he read the brand name 'Pielroja.'
'How much?'
'No. Present. For you.'
The commissaris pocketed the cigarettes, shook the Indian's hand, and walked away slowly. Santa Purfsima, the commissaris was thinking, holy mother. Two of your children have met. He crossed the bridge connecting the two parts of Willemstad and, to his right, saw the harbor where white cruise ships and the refineries' tankers and dirty tramp steamers were moored, as safely as on an inland lake. At the other side he looked at shop windows. It was early, not yet nine o'clock, but the Jewish store owners had opened up already and were waiting for their customers, sweating behind the counters with moist armpits or hovering in the street, close to their doors. He studied a display of canned foods. Everything seemed to come from the United States.
'Morning,' the merchant said. 'What can I do for you today? I have some nice strawberries, in their own juice, and cans of Dutch cream. Your wife will be pleased if you take them home.'
'My wife is in Holland,' the commissaris said. 'I am only here for a few days.'
'Holland,' the merchant said, 'in Holland you can have fresh strawberries. I suggested the wrong thing. What size does your wife wear? I have some batik dresses from Singapore.'
The commissaris bought a batik dress. It was expensive and the merchant took ten percent off although the commissaris hadn't said anything.
'Where are you from?' he asked the merchant.
'From Poland. I arrived during the war.'
'Before the war,' the commissaris said. 'You mean before the war.'
'No,' the merchant said, 'during the war. In 1941. I came on a ship which had to sail around for a very long time because nobody wanted us. We were all Jews. took us in the end. We had no more fuel and no more money and there was nowhere left to go.'
The commissaris shook his head. 'You are happy here?'
The merchant took his time parceling up the dress. 'Yes. I am happy. I am alive. I earn a living.'
