'How old are you, Troelstra?'
They shared the same age.
'You know,' Troelstra said, 'I once shot a prisoner in Russia, from the rear. The Russian never knew what happened to him. He was talking to a tree, and the next thing he was out.'
'No!' the commissaris said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Troelstra nodded thoughtfully. 'He had gone mad. We were out on patrol. I was in charge of the squad. Frisian boys, every one of them. There were hardly any Frisians fighting for the Germans, but the few that went out there were under my command. Good fellows, steady, courageous, supermen, all specially picked for SS training. We were liberating the world. Civilian Russia was the worst place I had ever seen-starving people in hovels, suppressed by a terrible system; we didn't know then that we were making it even worse. Suddenly there was that Russian soldier behind us, with a rifle, hand grenades on his belt; quite a young man still, and he had lost his mind. He was yelling at us and pointing at the clouds. We took his weapons and he never noticed. He was singing by then. We tried to send him off, for a prisoner would slow us down; we were about to attack.'
'Yes,' the commissaris said.
'I was the sergeant,' Troelstra said. 'I was supposed to know what to do. My men were looking up to me. The Russian was stamping on the snow, screaming some ditty, frothing at the mouth, eyes popping out of his head. We were close to the enemy, and he was giving our position away.'
'Yes,' the commissaris said. 'I could have some more coffee.'
'Java Mocha,' Troelstra said. 'Too good a brand for this place but I'm getting too old to make a profit.'
'Yes?'
'I took that Russian along,' Troelstra said, 'with my arm around his shoulders, friendly-like, I was his older brother. He pulled away and ran into the trees; when I found him again, he was talking to an oak.'
'You shot him?'
'Yes.'
'And that's the way Scherjoen was helped out?'
'I wouldn't know,' Troelstra said slowly.
An old man shuffled into the caf6, in a dirty raincoat and frayed trousers. 'Jelle, a lemonade today.'
Jelle poured soda, holding the gin jar in his left hand. The old man studied first the jar, then his own trembling hands, clutching at the counter. 'Yes, go ahead.'
The gin joined the lemonade in the tall glass. Jelle lifted the jar but didn't replace it. 'Right,' the old man said. The jar tinkled again. The man drank. He put the glass down. 'Aaah,' the man said happily.
'I only meant,' Troelstra said to the commissaris, 'that things are often not quite what they seem. So I betrayed my country. Maybe I did. Maybe it wasn't meant that way.'
'You meant well?'
'Things had to get better, didn't they?' Troelstra asked. 'And they got worse. Isn't that the human way? We mean well and we become active and we go down even further.'
'In the beginning • • •'
'… there was God.' Troelstra scratched his chin. 'But where did He go? I sometimes think about that a bit.'
The man in the dirty raincoat rattled his glass. 'Same again, Jelle.' Jelle poured from bottle and jar. The man's toothless smile widened. 'Nice day today.'
Troelstra and the commissaris said that the old man was right.
'It's all so easy,' the old man said, 'but I keep forgetting, and it takes a few glasses to remember it again. To keep it easy can be rather tricky.'
'You generally succeed?' the commissaris asked.
'I've got a strong character,' the old man said. 'I never stop trying. No matter what they do to me. They won't knock me over.'
'Let's have the bill,' the commissaris said.
Troelstra looked out the window. Shadows moved through the street, dating back to a far past. Comrades- in-arms? A dying Russian? Wild men, with bones through their noses? An assistant inspector who didn't handcuff the traitor and took him to Headquarters in a streetcar?
'That won't be necessary,' Troelstra said. 'I still owe you. You kept me alive. I could experience a few good moments. New Guinea is beautiful, there are some fine birds out there, colorful, with long tails, and flowering shrubs that grow nowhere else. The voyage, there and back, tropical seas, palm trees on beaches, going on for miles. And the cafe here at the end, I don't mind doing this.'
'Scherjoen?' the commissaris asked.
'Can't help you there.'
The commissaris didn't catch on at once. He wondered whether he should ask.
'Is there something else you can help me with?'
'Last week…' Troelstra interrupted himself and looked at the old man, who was smiling and occupied with rolling a cigarette. 'Would you mind moving up?' he asked the commissaris, who got off his stool and followed the coffee cup that Troelstra slid across the counter.
'Last week,' Troelstra said softly, 'two heavy boys came here to have a few. A certain Ary, small chap and bald, and a certain Fritz, big fellow with a tuft of stiff hair on his big head. Southern types, from the Belgian border. I had some sheep dealers too, well away in the bottle. A Friday it was, when there's the cattle market in Friesland and they had collected some cash, safely tucked away in the purse. The Frisian purse is chained to the neck. It's all cash with us up north, we don't believe in checks and such. We're a bit silly that way.'
'Frisians aren't silly,' the commissaris said.
'Maybe they are sometimes. Carrying cash into this district? Cash that comes from evading taxes should be well hidden, I believe.' Troelstra smiled. 'It's silly to pay taxes, of course, especially when the money leaves the country. Hasn't everybody always been after our profits? The Romans, the Spanish, the French, the Germans, we kicked them all out, and then came the Dutch.'
'And you were fighting for United Europe?'
Now why did I say that? the commissaris thought. Here he wants to tell me something and I have to argue.
'United Europe,' Troelstra's eyelids dropped. 'That's the dream. Why shouldn't it come about some day? All together and still apart? America has done it. Why don't we do the same? The State of Friesland, and the State of Germany, and the State of Russia, and so on and so forth? United above our troubles?' He poured more coffee.
'You're too early,' the commissaris said. 'It'll come if we grant ourselves time.'
Troelstra held a finger alongside his nose. 'That's what I think now, but I'm still not sure. Maybe the urge to fight is too strong in us. Maybe it's part of human nature. Ever seen little kids play? They'll always invent weapons and bang away at each other. Have you ever seen little kids play peacemaking games?'
'Well…'
'Take the movies,' Troelstra said. 'I fought too, I know how bad it is. Creep up to a Russian camp and see the enemy eat, or sleep, or shit in a quiet corner, and you still have to mow them down. That can't be right. So why do I go to see future air vessels destroying each other, with humans in them, eh? I enjoy watching that destruction. So how can that be? If it isn't right, I mean?'
'About that bald Ary,' the commissaris said, 'and Fritz with the tuft.'
Troelstra closed one eye. 'You don't know either, right?'
'I don't know,' the commissaris said.
Troelstra laughed dryly. 'Nobody knows, I think. Maybe we just do what we were planned to do, maybe we have no say. I read the paper. There's war all over the place again. Same thing all over.'
The commissaris waited.
'Right,' Troelstra said. 'Here's a fight for you. Ary and Fritz were watching my sheep dealers and licking their chops. Suppose each dealer was carrying some twenty thousand in cash, and you hit them all-then you have a year's good wages. That's hardly enough if the risk is a few years in jail. Ary and Fritz had just come from jail.'
'So?'
