'With whom, dear lady?'
Gyske lifted one shoulder. 'With a man, of course.'
'Let's go in,' the commissaris said. 'Or are your children in the house?'
'Gone out,' Gyske said, 'to play with friends. So that they don't have to work in Sjurd's greenhouse tonight. They don't want to do that, they're too little anyway. Sjurd's idea of duty is too heavy. Slave away, day after day, that's a bad example.'
'I like your furniture,' the commissaris said when they had gone inside. 'Real antiques, I'm sure.'
'From the past,' Gyske said. 'Like my husband. Passed down through the generations. Clammy, moldy, sealed off from fresh air. I'm a modern woman. Would you like a beer?'
'I still have to drive,' Grypstra said, 'and the commissaris has to see the Leeuwarden chief constable. We'd better stay sober.'
Gyske plucked at her jacket. 'It's Sjurd's, it doesn't fit. I'll take it off now. I only put it on to have something to carry the pistol in. Sjurd wanted to shoot Anne.'
'The neighbor lady?'
'No,' Gyske said. 'Anne is a man. You're from Holland, are you? Our names are different here. Anne is the man I had been doing it with. He lives close by too. Everybody lives close by.' She began to cry. Grypstra supplied a handkerchief, the commissaris gentle words. 'Now, now, Mrs. Sudema.'
Gyske stopped crying. 'Anne's the Christian therapist here, qualified, with proper papers. He does social work for the municipality and the church. He's Dutch Reformed, too, same denomination as Sjurd and I. He was supposed to help me. I wasn't sleeping well at all, and cramps down below, and crying all the time. Sjurd got the parson to pray with me, but that made it worse, and then the pastor sent his therapeutical man.'
'Who went to bed with you?' the commissaris asked.
Gyske shook her wealth of golden hair. 'I went to bed with Anne. It was my decision. And we didn't use the bed; the bed is Sjurd's, from his grandparents, I won't use that bed for that. I did it over there.'
Surprised, Grijpstra looked at the cupboard door.
'Yes,' Gyske said. 'On a shelf. Wide enough. It's okay for sitting on and leaning back. Sjurd got upset too, when he heard.'
'You went into details when you talked to your husband?' the commissaris asked.
'Isn't that what Sjurd wanted? Didn't I have to make a complete confession? And what did it all amount to, any- way? Hadn't it come to an end a long time ago? I knew it wouldn't last. I wasn't doing it anymore. But Sjurd had to know everything, that's what he kept saying. I had to tell all, and then it would be all right forever. Anne no longer came to visit because I no longer cared for treatment. He was in love with me, Anne said, but later he changed his tale. He let me do it because bis wife was a lesbian. Some reason, right? What sort of reason could that be? I told him never to come again. That's a month ago now.'
'And Sjurd suspected?' the commissaris asked.
'He sensed it. He kept nosing about. It made me so nervous. If I came clean it would be good between us again, Sjurd told me ten times a day. We could make a fresh start.'
Grypstra covered his eyes with his hand.
'Right,' Gyske said. 'I'm a silly goose. But you men never give in, do you now? So I told him this evening that Anne and I… in the cupboard and all… and Sjurd ran off, beside himself with fury. To Anne's house. He broke Anne's glasses. Anne's wife stood next to the poor man. Me too, I had run after Sjurd, and then Sjurd hit Anne in the mouth, Anne's lips were bleeding, and he hit him once more, and again. Good thing I was there, I didn't trust it at all, Sjurd pretending he was taking it all so calmly and then suddenly running off. 'I'll take care of this.' Ha, I know Sjurd. And Anne's wife, the lesbian-she isn't one, you know-she thought she was, so she spent a weekend on the island with that other woman, but she wasn't after all. The other woman was, yes, sure, but not Anne's wife. So when Sjurd kept trying to smash Anne's face, Anne got away, in his car, at full speed, through his own fence, not the gate, he couldn't find the gate, and Sjurd rushed home to swallow all my pills, and then to the pub.' Gyske bit a fingernail. 'He was back again, to fetch his pistol, but I had it and wouldn't give it to him, and then he went to see the neighbor lady. She isn't happy either, her husband is first mate on a supertanker. He's never home.'
'Good evening/' Lieutenant Sudema said, wobbling through the door, trying to stay upright.
'My chief from Amsterdam,' Grypstra said. 'Lieutenant Sudema of the State Police.'
'How do you do?' the commissaris asked.
'Not so well, sir. I've been a little stupid, I think, for some time now, and it hasn't gotten any better. I was born stupid, that's always a bad start. Hello, Gyske. Evening, Adjutant.'
'Are you drunk, Sjurd?'
'Yes,' the lieutenant said, 'and stupid too. And I was wrong, I think.' He staggered to a chair. 'But Anne was wrong too. He can't come back to Dingjum. Won't have it, you know. That randy bugger will have to find himself another country. Let him settle down in the Netherlands somewhere. He'll have to remove himself completely. We can't have that here, something like that will have to go. And the money I paid him for his professional services. Gyske, I want that money back.'
'To the Netherlands?' the commissaris asked. 'Isn't Friesland part of the country?'
'No,' Lieutenant Sudema said. 'He can go to Amsterdam for all I care. Anywhere in the hell below the dike. Not here. The smudge has to be rubbed off.'
'And the other cheek?' Gyske asked. 'Shouldn't we turn the other cheek? Aren't you Christian, Sjurd?'
'You've got two cheeks,' Sjurd said, 'but only one…' He stopped and thought, and concluded, 'Only one.' He thought again. 'But what I was saying about you'-he had trouble not sliding off his chair-'that isn't true, Gyske. I've been truly stupid. You're right. I'm sorry. It'll be different from now on.'
He managed to get up and steered an unsteady course for the cupboard. He clawed the handle. He skated back and pulled the cupboard door open. 'Here is where it all happened, here on the shelf, in the name of the Lord. An insult to Our Lord, Gyske, by an authority of the church.' He kicked the shelf, tore out the broken boards, and cracked them on his knee. 'I will burn these outside. I'll take the entire cupboard out, but not now, right now I'm a little tired.'
'Why don't you lie down?' Gyske asked.
'In a minute,' Lieutenant Sudema said. 'But the gentlemen should come along with me for a moment. I have a present for the gentlemen.'
Six crates of tomatoes had been placed outside the greenhouse. 'My occupation outside of work hours,' Lieutenant Sudema said sadly. 'More work. To sweat to please the Lord. I was wrong there too. They all got ripe at the same time. You do like tomatoes, I hope?'
'Delicious,' the commissaris said.
•I'll fetch the car,' Grijpstra said.
Gyske got hold of her husband. 'You have to rest now, Sjurd.' She pushed him into the house and came back alone, mumbling to herself. She passed the commissaris. 'You're leaving us?' the commissaris asked.
'I think I'll visit Mem Scherjoen for a moment.'
'A good idea,' the commissaris said. 'In times of stress, one needs a friend.'
'Mem understands,' Gyske said. She turned. 'Mem's pain is all done now. But Sjurd can stay alive, I would like that better.'
'Mem prefers Douwe dead?'
'Mem understands, that means she can accept. Do you have a cigarette?'
'Only small cigars.'
Gyske took the cigar. The commissaris flicked a light. Gyske inhaled hungrily. 'Mem even accepted the dead kittens. She used to have a limping cat that showed up one night. Douwe didn't want her to feed the cat, but Mem did it anyway, behind the barn. When Douwe was away, Mem would talk to the cat. The cat had kittens, funny babies, that frolicked and gamboled all over the yard, but then they all began to die one afternoon. They didn't know they were dying, they still tried to play. Douwe had poisoned their milk, of course. He had to laugh, because Mem didn't know what was wrong with the kittens. Mem was going crazy.'
'There's a turtle,' the commissaris said, 'that lives in my rear garden. He's my good friend, I like to share his silence. If someone hurt my turtle, I would probably be quite upset.'
'I wanted revenge,' Gyske said, 'because Sjurd believes in good, and that's too boring. He would say that I should put my bottom in a bucket of cold water, that would soothe the urge, so I made a grab for Anne. That bald
