Tumbleweed

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "This man needs nothing," the commissaris' mind was saying to itself and a small surge of approval moved through his thoughts.

  "No, not a chief," he was thinking now. "A chief needs a tribe. And a nobleman needs his rank."

  His attempts at trying to place the man failed. And suddenly he felt that he no longer cared either. The quietness of Shon Wancho was too strong and he surrendered to it. Shon Wancho had stopped looking at the commissaris. He sat down on a low stool, close to the rocking chair. His back was erect and his gaze steady; he was looking ahead now, at the garden and the distant sea.

  Together they underwent the sudden explosive sunset of the tropics; the bursting colors, the wide space of the endless view, and the cool powerful sound of the sea combined to knock away the last support of the busy-ness of the commissaris' mind so that he reached a state of awareness where he was neither awake nor asleep.

  After a while he found his hat and put it on and left, and before he left Shon Wancho had lightly touched his forearm and smiled.

  "So what did you find out?" the commissaris kept on asking himself as he drove back to Willemstad. "What did you find out?'

  There was a final visit to make. He stopped near a public callbox and dialed Mr. de Sousa's number.

  Mr. de Sousa answered the phone himself.

  "Yes, commissaris," Mr. de Sousa said. "Chief-Inspector da Silva told me you would be calling."

  "I would like to come and see you," the commissaris said.

  "Tomorrow?"

  "No. Tomorrow I should be on my way back to Holland. Unfortunately I am rather pressed for time. If it isn't inconvenient for you I would like to come and see you right now. According to my map I am very close to your house. I should be able to see you within a few minutes."

  "You will be welcome," Mr. de Sousa said and rang off.

  The commissaris found the house, a palatial home built on a small hill with a driveway lined with palm trees. Mr. de Sousa opened the car door and led the way.

  The house breathed wealth. The corridor was wide and high and there were potted plants and pieces of sculpture and oil portraits of men who looked like plantation owners, dressed in riding breeches and holding whips, and of ladies with elaborate hairstyles and stiff lace dresses.

  As they walked to Mr. de Sousa's study a servant scuffled behind them carrying a silver tray with bottles and glasses. Polite phrases filled ten minutes before the commissaris could mention the name of Maria.

  "Yes," Mr. de Sousa said, and the folds of his face trembled. "My daughter. She is dead."

  The commissaris found that it had become impossible to ask questions. He waited.

  "I refused her presence," Mr. de Sousa said, and began to wipe his wet face, "my own daughter, the cleverest, the most beautiful of them all. I wouldn't have her in my own house. I disapproved. I had to disapprove. Do you understand, commissaris of police, do you understand?"

  The commissaris drank his whisky, the silence of Shon Wancho was still around him and some of it reached the fat rich man and calmed him a little.

  "Perhaps you understand. Perhaps you have children of your own. But Europe is different. I have been to Europe, many times. I am a wealthy man, I do big business. I know the beautiful women of Europe, I have paid them money and they have given me experiences which I will never forget. I am grateful to those women. But my own daughter became one of them and that I couldn't accept."

  Mr. de Sousa filled the commissaris' glass and fussed with the ice cubes and the water and the silver stirring spoon.

  "But I am her father and perhaps I should have accepted. As a child she always came to me and talked to me and we were together. She was a wise child and I learned from her as we walked through the island. I took her to the other islands, the Dutch islands and the English islands and some of the French. I even took her to Haiti, she wanted to go to Haiti. She was partly black and she was very interested in her blackness and Haiti is a black country. I always thought that a father teaches his child but Maria taught me. Her voice was very quiet and when she spoke I listened.

  "And now she is dead," Mr. de Sousa said after a while. "You will want to know who threw the knife into her but I do not know."

  The commissaris returned to his hotel and had a bath. He drank his coffee and his orange juice and he smoked a cigar and the hot water soaked the dirt and the sweat off him. He put on a clean suit and left the hotel and wandered past the ships moored at the quay. The schooner of the Indian who gave him the cigarettes had left. He stopped to admire the old tramp steamer.

  "What are you looking at?" a voice bellowed from the bridge.

  "Hello," the commissaris shouted.

  "You," the captain with the yellow beard shouted back. "You? Come up here!"

  The commissaris crossed the gangway, anxious not to soil his suit. The captain met him on the lower deck.

  "Have some rum with me, policeman," the captain said, and put out his hand. The commissaris touched the hand gently but it was clean, clean like its owner, who was now grinning through his beard, showing broken teeth separated by large gaps.

  "I saw you at Silva's window this morning," the captain said, and cackled. "He pretends not to care about the soot I blow at him but I got him the other day. He came out and shook his fist at me. That police station will be very dirty when I finish with it but there is nothing they can do about it except cough. I am not breaking any law. I have to keep the old engine going, don't I?"

  They were in the captain's cabin, and a hunchback in a torn jacket had brought a flat green bottle of rum and glasses and a dented silver bucket filled with ice.

  "Nice bucket," the captain said, picking it up. "Filched it from a nightclub in Barranquilla. But they made me pay for it on the next trip. They always win in the end."

  He poured a glass half full of rum and filled it with ice.

  "Thank you," the commissaris said.

  "Carta Blanca," the captain said, "the best rum of the island. You know why?"

  "No."

  "Because of the label."

  The captain turned the bottle and the commissaris saw a handsome black woman showing a full well-formed bosom as she bent down to took at a letter which she had obviously just received and which was causing a strong emotion.

  "Every man who drinks this rum thinks he has written the letter," the captain said, "and they forget the taste of the rum. But the rum isn't bad all the same."

  The commissaris leaned back in his chair and sipped a little of the raw-tasting liquor. He told himself to be careful, his body wouldn't take much of the strong spirit.

  "You made some money today," the captain said, emptying his glass, filling it again and leering at the commissaris. "I spoke to the woman who sold you a number. You should go to Otrabanda tomorrow and collect, she likes you. You had a busy day, didn't you? One of my men saw you talking to Mr. van der Linden. Did you like the old buzzard?"

  "Yes," the commissaris said, "a nice man."

  "He is all right. Won a case for me once, and he lost one too, but that was my fault. He warned me but I was young then. I believed in right and wrong."

  "You don't anymore?"

  "Hee hee." The captain sat down gingerly in a rickety-looking cane chair. "Must be careful now. Chair is getting old, like the ship. One day the bottom will fall out of her but it doesn't matter anymore. We are all getting old, me, the crew, the engine. Right and wrong. I don't know now. The older I get the less I know."

  The commissaris forgot his good intentions and swallowed his rum. He put the glass on the table with a bang and the captain filled it up for him. His hand was unsteady and he had trouble with the ice cubes. The commissaris helped him.

  "You saw our medicine man today as well, didn't you? Did you like him?"

  "Shon Wancho," the commissaris said.

  "Shon Wancho," the captain repeated, nodding his head vigorously.

  "Do you know him?"

  "Sure," the captain said. "I brought him here, a long time a
go, thirty years maybe, maybe longer. He comes from me bush, a bush doctor. His father was a bush doctor before him. He knows."

  "He knows what?"

  The captain gesticulated. "Everything. He knows the lot."

  "Do you see him regularly?"

  "Not regularly," the captain said, "sometimes. I saw him the other day."

  "Why?"

  "About the crabs. The crabs were after me, you know. The rum brought them out. Thousands of crabs. I was seeing them all the time, rum or no rum."

  "Did he tell you to stop drinking?"

  The captain looked surprised. "No," he said, "but he chased the crabs away."

  "They haven't come back?"

  "If they do I will go and see him again."

  The captain was slurring his words and the commissaris expected him to fall asleep or pass out any minute now but he had underestimated the old man's capacity.

  "You like ?" he asked.

  The commissaris had suddenly remembered the pain in his legs. The twinge had come back again during the morning but it had left him when he was sitting on the rocking chair in Shon Wancho's house and it wasn't with him now. "This is a good island," he was telling the captain. "I have been thinking that I might like to live here one day."

  The captain nodded solemnly. "Yes, you do that. And when you get bored seeing the same people and the same goats you can come on a little trip with me. I have a cabin for passengers and the cook is Chinese."

  "That would be nice."

  "No charge," the captain said, "provided I am still alive. Don't wait too long."

  The captain stamped his foot on the floor twice and an elderly Chinese appeared in the doorway.

  "You are Dutch," the captain said, "and the Dutch always eat something when they drink. I have come to so often that I have picked up their habits. In Venezuela we drink when we drink. What have you got, cook?"

  "Noodle soup, boss."

  "No eggrolls?"

  "Eggrolls, too."

  "Yes, please," the commissaris said.

  The food arrived within minutes and the hunchback set the table, taking the rum bottle with him in spite of the captain's protests.

  The commissaris stayed another hour, listening to the captain's tales. He heard about the ports of Venezuela and Colombia and there was a long story about Guajira, the peninsula between the two countries where smugglers rule and where Indians still live the Indian life. He was told about the many islands, about revolutions, about sudden gales.

  "I nearly lost my first mate then," the captain said, "Maria's brother. How is he, by the way?"

  "Her brother?" the commissaris asked, "but she only has

  The captain was trying to light a soggy cigar and, after several attempts, threw it out of the porthole and selected a fresh one from the tin which the commissaris had put on the table.

  "Different mother," he said, "but the same father. Maria's father has a lot of children but he was very fond of this son. His mother had come out from Holland to teach here. De Sousa looked after her when she became pregnant and built her a little house in the South. Maria knew her brother, they would come and play on this ship sometimes. The boy went to high school in Amsterdam and later graduated from the merchant navy college. Then he came back."

  "You knew him well?" the commissaris asked.

  "Of course. He sailed under me for several years. Poor fellow."

  "Poor fellow?"

  "Yes." The captain stamped on the floor three times.

  "Captain?" the hunchback's voice came from the lower deck.

  "Can I have that bottle back now?"

  "No," the hunchback shouted, "but you can have a beer."

  "Beer!" the captain shouted.

  Two tins arrived and the captain shoved one to the commissaris. They pulled them open.

  "Health."

  "The poor fellow," the commissaris reminded him.

  "Yes. Natural child, you know. He had his mother's name. His mother married and she didn't have much time for her first child. He hated his father. And he is a small chap, small chaps have a difficult time. He looks small too, some small chaps don't look small but he does. Became very Christian, Bible and all. And then he wouldn't stay with me anymore, he couldn't put up with the drinking and goings on, used to lock himself in his cabin at times. I couldn't help him. But he was a good seaman, I liked him."

  "So where is he now?"

  "He went back to Holland. Surely you know. Didn't you run into him when Maria got killed?"

  "No."

  "He is on Schiermonnikoog, 'The Eye of die Gray Monk. Funny name, that's why I remembered it. He gave up die sea but he had to stay close to it so he picked an island to live on. He became a ranger on a nature reserve. Always liked birds and plants."

  "What's his name?" the commissaris asked.

  "He has his father's first name and his mother's surname. Ramon Scheffer."

  "Thank you," the commissaris said.

  14

  IT WAS CLOSE TO FOUR O'CLOCK AND STILL DARK. ADJUtant Buisman had forced their small dinghy onto the muddy beach.

  "This is as close as we can get," he said in a low voice. "You better take off your boots, they'll get stuck in the mud, it's easier if we walk barefoot."

  Grijpstra stared at the inky water, de Gier had already pulled off his short boots.

  "Ah well," Grijpstra said, more to himself than to anyone else. He found it hard to move in his oilcloth suit and the souwester had tipped into his eyes. With a grunt he managed to get out of his boots and he lowered one foot carefully. It looked very white in the dim early morning light.

  The water was cold, about as cold as he had expected it to be.

  "Anrgh," he said in a loud voice as his foot sank into the thick mud.

  "Sssh," the adjutant whispered, "the birds. We don't want to disturb them."

  "Birds," Grijpstra mumbled. He felt the mud ooze between his toes.

  "Bah," he whispered to de Gier, "are you sure this is mud?"

  "What else could it be?"

  "Dogshit," Grijpstra said.

  De Gier laughed politely. He was having his own troubles with the mud which sucked at his legs.

  "Careful with the binoculars," the adjutant whispered to Grijpstra. "If we don't bring them back my sergeant will be very upset. He has only just got them."

  "Yes, yes," Grijpstra said, and began to wade toward the shore. The dinghy appeared to be sitting on a small bank for the water continued for another fifty yards.

  Grijpstra tried not to think as he waded, he only wanted to get to the shore. His foot struck an empty tin and he stumbled but succeeded in staying on his legs. He was the last to arrive.

  "Wipe the mud off your feet," the adjutant said, offering Grijpstra a handful of grass. "What happened to your foot? It's bleeding."

  De Gier sat down on his haunches and studied Grijpstra's foot. "A wound," he said.

  Grijpstra looked down but all he could see was his wide oilcloth trousers.

  "Let's go a little farther," de Gier said. "There's some dry sand over there. I've got a torch."

  The wound was fairly deep and de Gier cleaned and bandaged it. "Bad luck. Try and walk on it."

  Grijpstra could still walk. They put on their socks and shoes again.

  "Aha," the adjutant said. "It's getting light now, this is the best time. Look!"

  Grijpstra looked and saw a bird, followed by another.

  "Plovers," the adjutant exclaimed, adjusting his field glasses.

  Grijpstra obediently looked, lifting the heavy binoculars. He saw a blur and felt too cold and too tired to try to adjust the glasses. De Gier saw nothing, he hadn't taken the protecting caps off. The adjutant told him about it.

  "Ah yes," de Gier said.

  He saw the two small birds.

  "Plovers," the adjutant said again. "There are quite a few of them here now, more than last year. Lovely birds. Graceful! Watch them run! They aren't afraid, if they were they would fly. This is a reserve, they
know we won't harm them."

  Grijpstra moved and his trousers squeaked.

  "That's bad," the adjutant said, "can't you take them off? The squeak will irritate the birds. Look! A redshank."

  "Where?" Grijpstra asked, feeling that he had to show interest.

  "I don't know," de Gier said, "all I can see is a fat yellowshank."

  The adjutant had moved away. Grijpstra suddenly turned around and de Gier, startled by Grijpstra's looming shadow, staggered back.

  "Cut it out, will you. You got me these saffron monstrosities."

  "But they are all right, aren't they? They are waterproof. It has begun to rain."

  "So it has," Grijpstra said.

  It drizzled but Buisman's enthusiasm increased. There were birds everywhere around them and he reeled off their names, telling his guests about the birds' habits.

  "Oystercatchers! They can break open the thickest shell with those strong red beaks. Look."