house at the Spanish Lane in Friesland's capital. I'm not sure why. There isn't much I'm sure of these days. I'm an old man.'
'Not at all,' Cardozo said. 'How do I get to Friesland?'
'My car is gone,' the commissaris said. 'De Gier will bring it back, but that'll be tomorrow. I don't want de Gier driving my new car, he's a reckless speeder. Not that it matters. Nothing matters much these days.'
'Does your leg hurt?' Cardozo asked.
'Should it?' the commissaris asked. 'I'm on a diet of Belgian endives. My wife says I'm very fond of Belgian endives. I would rather be driving on the Great Dike, but I'm short of a car.'
'What are Grypstra and de Gier doing in Friesland, sir?'
'Grijpstra,' the commissaris said, 'is in Friesland because he's a Frisian. His parents were born in Harlingen, just north of the dike. I should be there because I'm a Frisian too. I was bora in Joure, a little farther inland. De Gier is in Fries-land because he drifted after Grypstra.'
'Wasn't Scherjoen murdered here?'
'That's an effect,' the commissaris said. 'We're looking for causes, Cardozo. The present hardly matters. Think with me now. Scherjoen has been described to us as an inferior being of a devilish nature. He even parks his car asocially. A ne'er-do-well, this Douwe. It's a first attempt at constructing a theory, but we have to begin in the past.'
'But you've only just heard that Scherjoen is an asocial parker.'
The commissaris sighed.
'Is your leg hurting badly?'
'You want to hear the truth?'
'Why not?' Cardozo asked.
'I was trying to construct a theory that would take me to Friesland, because I've a new car. I wanted to race it on the dike. Fate got in my way again. My theory was designed to satisfy my selfish longings. But I could still be right. If Douwe is no good, he started by being no good in Friesland. Suppose Frisians wanted to be rid of Douwe and did that here. Couldn't that be possible?'
'Why not in Friesland?'
'It's pure out there,' the commissaris said. 'And messy here. Another misdeed here might attract little attention.'
Cardozo rolled a cigarette.
'And if the misdeed is Frisian-related,' the commissaris said, 'the inquiry should be Frisian too, for only we Frisians know the depth of our own soul. Grijpstra and I will be the most suitable sleuths.'
Cardozo lit his cigarette.
'Grijpstra hunts out there,' the commissaris said, 'and I drive up and down the dike, to keep contact at over a hundred miles an hour, that's what I had in mind.'
'And I would be hunting here?'
'Yes,' the commissaris said. His phone rang. 'I'm on my way, dear,' he said, and replaced the phone on its cradle. 'Have to go home now, to eat Belgian endives.'
Cardozo coughed and sneezed.
'You should go home too,' the commissaris said.
They waited at the elevator together.
'The elevator broke down,' a passing constable said. 'Everything is down these days, but the elevator got stuck upstairs.'
The commissaris and Cardozo walked down the stairs together. Cardozo limped a little. 'Are you imitating me?' the commissaris asked.
'I fought the Arrest Team, sir.'
'You lost? So why did they complain to me?'
'I sort of not-lost, sir.'
'I'm in a bad mood,' the commissaris said. 'You must excuse me.'
'Tomorrow you'll have your car again, sir.'
'True,' the commissaris said. 'Visit me again tomorrow, my spirits should be up.'
Waiting at the streetcar stop together, they felt better together. 'Bald Ary,' the commissaris said, 'and Fritz with the Tuft, in Friesland too. Yes, things may be looking up.'
His streetcar came first. Cardozo waved good-bye.
\\ 6 /////
The Commissaris, who had only just got out into the new day, looked fresh in the early sunlight. His light gray three-piece summer suit contrasted pleasantly with the luscious colors of the begonia flowers in the windows. His small head, under the last few hairs neatly combed across his gleaming skull, rose energetically from the collar of a starched white shirt that held a bright blue tie clasped with a large pearl set in silver. He related his adventure with the barkeep Troelstra and the possibility of future charges against the criminal Bald Ary and his mate, Fritz with the Tuft.
Cardozo listened.
De Gier came in. 'Moarn' he said.
The commissaris and Cardozo questioned the sergeant soundlessly, from under raised eyebrows.
'Moarn?' de Gier asked. 'Haven't I fattened the vowels sufficiently? Is my accent blurring my meaning?'
The commissaris's and Cardozo's eyebrows were still up.
'Can I sit down?'
'We are accustomed here,' the commissaris said, 'to wishing each other a good morning first. After that we can sit down.'
'But I did wish you a good morning,' de Gier said. 'In the Frisian language. You're Frisian, I believe?' He held up a small black book. 'My dictionary, the word is listed.' He held up a multicolored book. 'And this is a novel, or rather a bundle of Frisian stories, called'-he read the title- 'We're Out of Condiments at Home, and Other Stories, in Frisian, that is.'
'Sit down,' the commissaris said.
De Gier sat down. 'Excellent stories, sir, and all connected. About a lady. A Frisian lady, about the suffering she gets herself into out there. In her stories she calls herself Martha. Literature is interesting, don't you think? Truthful and schizophrenic. We split ourselves, allow the split part to grow and change its name.'
'Goinga?' Cardozo asked, taking the book away from de Gier. 'Is that her real name? Sounds like Hungarian-Finnish to me.'
'Frisian is very foreign,' de Gier said, 'but understandable to me. Even more, because the novel is female. I've been studying the female mind for a while, and she won't escape me, not even in a foreign language. Most of the words I can guess, and the few exceptions I've looked up. There's some confusion about the negative, which they express as positive, but once you've turned it around again, there's nothing to miss.'
'Our linguistic wonderboy,' the commissaris said, 'and the eternal victim of his fantasies about the miracle of Woman. Did you return my car?'
'But sir,' de Gier said, 'there may be a female suspect. This book is filled with clues.'
'My car? Is it here?'
'Yes sir. It was too late last night, and this morning I overslept a little. I didn't cause you any inconvenience, I hope?'
'You did,' the commissaris said. 'I'm not used to the streetcars anymore. They sell tickets in the cigar stores now, not on the cars. Without a ticket, I was caught twice and paid two fines. Twice a lady offered me her seat. I've been robbed and insulted.'
'Good car,' de Gier said. 'I didn't see much on the way up, for Grypstra likes to speed, but when I came back, the Inland Sea was beautiful; there was this slow swell, touched up by moonlight, and everywhere the bobbing birds. I got out three times to try and take it all in. I had the feeling of being between nowhere and
