The commissaris muttered while he poured the whiskey.
'Did you say 'shit'?' Fernandus asked. 'You don't want to face me? Here's shit in your eye.'
The commissaris raised his cup. 'Your health.' He lowered the cup again. 'Sorry.'
'Not your health either,' Fernandus said. 'I want you to suffer. Here's to the pain in your leg.' He drank. 'Do you know why I asked you to come?'
'Sure,' the commissaris said. 'To brag. Save your last breath, Willem.' He raised his hands. 'No, really, shut up. I'll drink your liquor, but I've had enough of your claptrap by now.' He drank too. 'Sixty years of wrong views. I know your side of the argument. I'm the weak one who refused to experiment. We agree there are no absolute morals…'
'We do,' Fernandus said. 'In theory you always saw that, but you were conventional, you took the easy way out. Sold your soul to the opinion of the majority. Waved the flag, sang the national anthem.'
'And why not?' The commissaris looked over the rim of his cup. 'This isn't a bad country. You betrayed it.'
'I never betrayed myself,' Fernandus said. 'I maneuvered along with whoever happened to be in power, always covering my exits. I'm for me, like everybody else is for everybody else, it's a nasty truth and I faced up to it. I had a good time. You didn't.'
The commissaris winked. 'Always covered your exits, eh? So how come I caught you at the taxi stand?'
Fernandus held up his cup. 'You betrayed our mutual views. And you and I are the same. You're my weak side, my eternal embarrassment, my shame. Of all those eager watchdogs, you were the only one who could foresee what I might do.' Fernandus smacked his lips. 'I hoped-it's true, even if you don't believe me-I hoped that you'd let me go, to continue the game. But you had to get rid of me, you ass. Couldn't face the truth.'
The commissaris refilled the cups. 'The truth… what if there isn't any?'
Fernandus sighed pleasurably. 'Good buzz. Hits the painkiller just right.' He looked at his cigar. 'You thought I'd die of lung cancer, I'm sure. I had stopped smoking, then I started again because of you. I thought about that later. Did you know they suspected lung cancer, the doctors?'
'No.' The commissaris balanced his cup on the palm of his hand. 'Why should I know that? I have been avoiding you. I asked you a question. What if there isn't any truth? What if even our supposition that there's no truth isn't true? Wouldn't we have to make up our own truth then?'
'But I did,' Fernandus said loudly. 'You didn't. You accepted the made-up truth of present unevolved society. I hypothesized that nothing matters and that therefore I could make myself matter and that I should do anything to bring about the best possible time for me. I succeeded at doing that. Most of my life I had everything that my own gods would hand me on a platter.' Fernandus giggled. 'Including your secretary. Now whom did she marry?'
'The junkie,' the commissaris said, 'who is no junkie and whom you failed to kill. A most courageous and talented artist. Carl.'
Fernandus studied the swirling contents of his cup. 'The unbalanced boy who stutters?'
'Yes.'
Fernandus drank. 'Yes, I didn't figure that out very well, you can't blame me for that. You always had the power of the state behind you, and I could only rely on my own weak crew. I was handicapped. Even so, I did pretty well.'
'You didn't get my secretary,' the commissaris said. 'She was my spy. You never knew that.'
Fernandus held up his cup again. 'But I did, I saw through your gambit at once. I never trusted Toine.' He grinned. 'But what a chance! She had to play along a bit and I stretched that out as far as her imagination would go. I reconstructed Miss Bakker… heh heh.'
'Yes,' the commissaris said. 'You sure you can drink this much? The alcohol might conk you out.'
'I'll be all right.'
'Sure,' the commissaris said. 'You'll be fine. Tomorrow you die and nobody cares. Your wife has become a fat slobbering sow. Your son waits for you in hell. The baron, your trusted right hand, will turn into a festering demon who'll spread himself all over your ghost. Heul and the junkies you overdosed in that garbage boat changed into cancerous cells that are now sucking your marrow.'
'Whoa,' Fernandus shouted. 'Save your poetry, Jan. What brings on this petty rage? Getting sozzled already?'
'A bit.' The commissaris nodded. 'Just a bit. I'd better not get drunk. If I do, Katrien will be furious.'
Fernandus imitated the commissaris's voice. ' 'Katrien will be furious.' Here you are, sixty years old, head of the municipal police, a knight in the Order of the Queen, and you live in peril of your dragon lady.'
The commissaris frowned. 'Katrien wanted to come too. Be grateful she didn't.'
'I would have told her about Miss Bakker,' Fernandus said, slurring the edges of his words. 'That's where it all started. It's so simple, looking back. That's what's nice about approaching death. Suddenly the worn-out memory becomes quite clear. Listen'- he gestured, careful not to spill his whiskey-'listen, Jan. You and I were both born of middle-aged, flat-chested mothers, that's the key to our desire. Absence of good breasts. We both tried to make Miss Bakker our mother. You succeeded because you were good at being cute. I got you off her lap. I deprived you of motherly love, of big breasts to lean your cute little head against, and to feel a bit, I saw you do that.'
'No,' the commissaris said. 'Right. Let's assume you're right. It would have made no difference if I had stayed on Miss Bakker's lap or not. Now listen to this. I agree, we keep going back to that basic supposition, I agree that there's nothing at all. No morals. No good or evil. We made it up ourselves. We, humanity.' He waved his cup wildly.
'Careful,' Fernandus said.
'So there's this big empty universe,' the commissaris said. 'With some minute specks of matter floating around, and we're on a speck. But the speck is nothing, either. So we can do as we like. We can be friendly or unfriendly. Maybe we're clever, you and I…'
'Very clever,' Fernandus said. 'But what's the good of intelligence if it isn't used? You never used yours. You toed all these lines. On the tips of your toes, tongue hanging out, conforming, pleasing essentially powerless authorities like the Queen. Bah! Never daring to do anything at all on your own, refusing the good gifts. You never even had a proper car.
'I have a very nice car,' the commissaris said, 'serves me well, thank you, and a comfortable house, and a turtle, and a coffee pot, I've got everything. Now hold off for a minute. So maybe I'm clever. I can manipulate the others, make them do what I like. Abuse them. What good does that do?'
'There's no good,' Fernandus said. 'There's only our own selection of self-made values.'
'Please,' the commissaris said. 'Don't interrupt all the time. I have manipulated people, I still do, but for their own…'He hesitated.
'Good,' Fernandus finished. 'There you go again. There is no good. There's pleasure and there's non- pleasure. There's tension and a nice free feeling. There's frustration and indulgence. I always went for pleasure. Whose pleasure, eh?'
'Your own,' the commissaris said. 'Look where you are now.'
Fernandus patted his cushion. 'I'm comfortable. I arranged for my own painless death tomorrow. I don't want well-wishers around when I die. Just a scientist in a nice clean coat, holding a clean needle with fast poison. I won't even feel death, for I'll be put to sleep first. Nice sleep, Jan. You're an old man too. You know how good it is to nap.' He smiled. 'Drift away slowly, the bright colors around you fading into all sorts of subtle soft shades. The sounds dying out, and suddenly you drift free, that's what it will be like.'
'And then?'
Fernandus shook his head. 'Then nothing. I'm looking forward to that. My body is old now, I'm getting rid of a faulty instrument, and my mind can go too. I had fun with it, but it's getting slow. It didn't get me out of the damned airport. The hell with my mind.' He pounded the mattress. 'And the hell with you.'
'No,' the commissaris said. 'I'll go to heaven.' He sighed. 'Maybe you did right after all, Willem. Hell could be exciting. Heaven will be dull. Hell is probably like your club and I'd be forever looking at half-naked women and eating caviar on toast.'
'You're serious?' Fernandus asked. 'I also think hell will be like the Society's club, or like the motel at the lakeside. I wouldn't mind that. Being young again. I'll swim. I used to enjoy that.'
'In boiling tar,' the commissaris said. 'And I'll be on an aromatic cloud. You hurt and I float in boredom.' He emptied the bottle into the cup. 'I hope the angels will send me down to relieve your pain.'
