Waiting for Venus - A Novel

by Robert Cooper

  ‘I vill give you the one-turd share. That vill stop you going to zee police.’

  ‘One turd?’

  ‘Vun turd für you. Vun turd für me. Vun turd für Nagasaki-san.’

  ‘Fair enough. Fair turds all round. I hope you find the treasure.’

  ‘Ya, I hope so also. Ve vill go togezer.’

  ‘Better I wait here. Li Fang’s spying on me.’ My mind is racing. What’s the policeman in Ra’mad’s flat doing? He couldn’t have missed that car outside but no sign he’s about to come in guns blazing. Must be waiting to catch them actually doing something against the law … like buggering me. I hope Ra’mad hasn’t absent-mindedly slipped a sedative into his cocoa. ‘Now tell me where are Norsiah and Barnaby.’

  ‘I tell you later, after ve see the treasure.’

  ‘What guarantee do I have that I will get a third share?’

  ‘The vord of an officer of der Turd Reich. Enough für you, I think.’

  ‘Quite, Adolf.’ Who could ask for anything more?

  I hope the policeman in Ra’mad’s flat or Li Fang in the Guild is looking as I’m shown into the back seat. I could run for it now – but Norsiah and Barnaby might never come home; Von Düsseldorf would just deny everything. The gun is now in Düsseldorf’s hand and he sits beside me as the Citroën moves silently off to the cuckoo’s nest.

  * * *

  We leave the car and walk through bodies half-visible in cloud-masked moonlight. The Gardens provide a spooning ground to any couple whose passion merits a thousand mosquito bites. I could scream for help but if I do the only witnesses will vanish into the foliage.

  At the collection of deserted concrete tables until now known only for ice cream, iced tea and glimpses of thigh, I point along Agnes’s path into virgin forest. ‘The way of lonely orchids,’ I say. Nagasaki has brought a spade and torchlight from the car; I am the treasure map. He lights the path and the Führer prods me onto it. Should I make a run for it? Would they shoot me in front of lonely orchids? But that gun fires only caps, so what if they do? But more likely the Divine Wind will fly through the air and head butt my vital parts. At least I’m out of the flat. The darkness of the forest should offer an escape if needed. After all, I tell myself, I sort of know the paths and I presume they do not.

  I fork left. The path skirts around a very tall and wide megalithic-like boulder that must be four metres high. It looks as good as any other big rock we are likely to come across.

  ‘The dog stone,’ I say.

  ‘Ver is der dog?’

  ‘Look, Adolf. There’s its nose sticking out. And a curly tail at the bottom.’

  ‘Not dog.’

  ‘In the dark, maybe not. More dog in daylight.’

  Nagasaki walks around the boulder to the other side. He’s Japanese; he knows his rocks. ‘Dog Stone,’ he declares.

  ‘Up to you, Adolf,’ I say cheerily. I’d welcome any hint of discord within the odd couple. ‘We keep walking or you try digging here.’

  ‘You dig,’ the Führer orders in a tone of Arbeit macht frei. Nagasaki-san passes the shovel.

  ‘Where?’ I ask, swinging the metal head absently. Nagasaki social distances himself.

  ‘The ground,’ says Adolf. ‘Dig up zee whole fucking rock if necessary.’

  The black, soft humus is almost like sand and within half an hour, there is something worthy of the name hole around one side of the rock. Once the surface soil has been removed, however, roots and stones stray in the path of the spade and the digging gets tough.

  I slowly dig myself deeper. The boulder looms over me. The axis powers look down on me. This is their big moment. They will reverse the fortunes of a war in which they carelessly lost the world. I know they won’t find it here. Pretty soon, I figure, my captors might sense it too.

  Whenever the spade chinks against a stone, I get a few seconds’ rest while the torchlight plays on imagined golden chalices. The digging is easiest near the boulder and I find myself tunneling under it.

  ‘Goot. Treasure may be under rock. Continue.’

  I continue. My hands are sore. I suggest this might be the wrong place or the wrong side of the rock and am told to dig deeper, wider and under the rock. Now and again, I glance up uneasily at the rock towering over me. The moon comes out behind it and it looks now less like a dog and more like the grim reaper stooping over to watch me at his feet, digging my own grave. The hole gets deeper; so do I.

  I am in the hole up to my armpits when the spade vibrates against metal. The torchlight beam reveals a metal plate with Japanese writing. Animated discussion in Japanese. Nagasaki jumps down beside me and takes the spade, waving me out of the hole and handing the gun up to Von Düsseldorf.

  Maybe I’ve struck treasure after all. Nagasaki caresses the plate lovingly and gently, cleaning away the earth around it. A metal oil drum. Skull and crossbones. Must be treasure!

  ‘What’s the writing say?’ I ask.

  ‘Danger. Explosives. Smoking verboten.’

  I lean my aching body against the dog stone and imagine it moves ever such a little bit. ‘Explosives! Shouldn’t we get out of here, Adolf?’

  The Führer looks down his nose at me from the infinite superiority of a man who would destroy the world to prove he is the best thing in it. ‘Don’t be afraid, little Englander. Der pearl is in der ugly oyster.’ I cower behind the boulder. The last of the master race laughs at me and laughs in the face of danger as he stands at the brink of the hole, straight, feet set apart, braced for a glorious posterity.

  Nagasaki-san uses the spade’s head to lever open the drum’s top. The Führer levels his Luger at me. I quiver against the stone and it quivers back. I push against the rock and it trembles. A stream of Japanese invectives. I look round to see Nagasaki raise an ammunition shell above his head.

  ‘Get in der hole!’ Adolf yells at me, gun unwavering. His wartime treasure is unearthed but he is not jumping for joy. I flatten myself against the rock, trembling; the rock trembles back. An idea from a boys-own comic surfaces in my mind. As the moon scuds behind a cloud, I will slip around the rock out of view and run into the forest as the evil Nazi looses off round after round into the darkness. Then I remember the gun fires only caps. I prepare to run.

  Powdered rock hits my eyes and I hear the Luger crack; those caps are damn realistic. Von Düsseldorf could have shot my balls off. His steely-blue eyes bear along the barrel of the gun and into my head. The moon obligingly scuds behind a cloud but I scud nowhere. Through the darkness, Nazi eyes shine fanatically. I look into the hole. It has final solution written all over it. Von Düsseldorf, the spoilsport, seems to be giving up on the treasure hunt. ‘In der hole!’ he spits, and his knees buckle, the gun flies out of his hand and he falls into the hole onto Nagasaki.

  Li Fang’s rugby tackle to the rescue, or rather, Li Fang’s alter ego in black overalls complete with face mask, goggles and tropical diving gloves. He tells me later he was cleaning out the cesspit at night while the Guild was closed when he noticed the Citroën pulling away towards the Gardens, went to my flat, found the door open and ran here. I hear cries from the hole as Li Fang adds his weight to mine and the rock topples neatly down.

  * * *

  ‘You okay?’ Li Fang asks, removing his mask and pointing the Luger at the fallen boulder to stop it getting up. I assure Li Fang that I am really, really, really glad to see him.

  I hear the spade digging under the stone. The earth at the rim of the fallen rock crumbles and the head of Von Düsseldorf appears. Less arrogant now. ‘Please to help us. My friend is trapped under der rock. His leg is perhaps broken. Der rock fell on us.’

  ‘It didn’t fall,’ I say. ‘It was pushed. And now Li Fang has your gun, full of your fingerprints, pointing at your head. He has only to pull the trigger, toss the gun into the hole and let Tokyo Rose explain to the police – if he should ever be found alive.’

  ‘I vill make der deal,’ the German speaks to Li Fang. ‘Let us escape and I vill te
ll who killed Chin Jin-Hui and why.’

  ‘Okay, deal,’ Li Fang agrees. Personally, I could not care less who killed Chin’s father.

  ‘Out hole first.’

  ‘Name first,’ counters Li Fang. He aims the gun directly between the Führer’s eyes. The Luger looks at home in his gloved hand. Both he and Düsseldorf seem to know it doesn’t fire caps.

  ‘Ya, okay. Jin-Hui vas killed by Bernard Fox. Jin-Hui gave names to der Kempeitai of those who refused to contribute to his resistance fund. Fox kill him good. Revenge. That’s all. Quits. All over long ago. Fox got treasure; you can keep it.’ Düsseldorf widens the hole enough to get both arms out and pulls himself up towards us.

  ‘Who kill aborigine wife of Fox? Who torture girl?’

  ‘Okay.’ Düsseldorf pulls his shoulders clear of the hole and starts to climb out. ‘It was Nagasaki.’

  A violent roar from the depths of the earth and the German struggles. ‘Help me,’ he calls in English. ‘Or you will never find the girl Norsiah.’

  ‘I know where she is,’ says Li Fang quietly.

  Inch by inch, Nagasaki pulls Düsseldorf back under the stone and we do nothing to stop him. A gurgling scream suggests the Turd Reich is being strangled by its axis partner. And then the stone slips again.

  Bernard is now fully avenged for the death of his wife if not himself; I hope now he can find peace and stop buzzing around in my mind. I listen carefully. I can make out a faint scraping under the stone.

  The spadework becomes appropriately frantic for a man with a broken leg about to be entombed forever. The head of the spade appears briefly and Nagasaki’s eyes flash in the moonlight. I watch fascinated as Nagasaki works to widen the hole. The edge of the hole crumbles again. The huge stone settles down, a dog making itself comfortable.

  I walk around the stone. It fits perfectly into its hole. Horizontal, it looks like Barnaby in recline – the dog stone. Li Fang stands, Luger in hand, savouring revenge. ‘Wait here, Li Fang, I’ll go get the police – there’s a policeman in Ra’mad’s flat. They can get something to lift the rock and arrest them.’

  ‘No. No police.’ Li Fang squats by the stone, gun in hand.

  ‘Give me the gun, Li Fang. I’ll put it in their car and dump the car.’

  Li Fang takes a rag from his pocket and wraps the gun in it. ‘Don’t touch it,’ he says. ‘This never happened.’

  * * *

  The Citroën is waiting. Much as I love pristine antiques, I am glad Düsseldorf replaced the vintage starting handle with a key switch electric start and gladder still he left the key in the ignition – too late now to search through his pockets. I put the wrapped gun beside me on the driver’s seat. The campus roads are empty, the moon has gone to sleep, any leftover lovers are too occupied to notice a black car pass silently through a dark night. Holding the wheel in my handkerchief, I drive quietly through the sleeping campus. I stop the car outside Chin’s front gate, turn off the ignition using the handkerchief and pop the keys into Chin’s mail box. He’ll think Düsseldorf parked it there and is asleep in the guest bedroom. I wonder how long it will be before Chin finds the keys and the gun, and realises his father’s friend is never coming back. As I take the back way to my flat, I hear an explosion from the Botanic Gardens – I hope Li Fang is okay.

  * * *

  Barnaby comes back next morning, personally returned by the superintendent of police. He comes with the technician to install the recording equipment and change the locks. ‘Do you have any idea how many animal clinics there are in Singapore? Half of the Singapore Police Force has been looking for your dog overnight.’ I thank him. That still leaves Norsiah unaccounted for. Does Li Fang really know where she is or is she waiting somewhere for the German to feed her? ‘When the technician’s quite done, you’ll feel safer and we might get something to lay on the two of them.’ Don’t worry, Superintendent, I feel safer already and something’s already laying on the two of them.

  23

  Barnaby’s Babies

  MURDERS ARE a fickle business. Within Singapore’s bamboo ivory towers, the alarm bells sounded by the death of Professor Fox fall silent as staff realise his was a one-off and none of them is next in line for the fan-murderer’s noose. Death loses its sting when police officers are to be seen every day in Guild House, sitting at desks and shovelling papers; reassuringly familiar activity. As long as murders can be reduced to the written word, quantified, classified and filed, the mystery of solving them takes on the dimensions of, say, a socio-demographic study of Toa Payoh housing estate. Bernard’s killer has been absorbed within the academic environment, the perfect hiding place. He has become a hypothesis, his existence to be proven. Nobody bothers too much about an abstraction of the mind.

  Off-campus curiosity about the death of Bernard has an equally brief life. The death is now popularly accepted as ‘an obvious case of suicide dressed as murder’ and never mind who dressed it up by turning on the fan. The news editor of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation suggests Venus ‘let up on eulogising a relic of colonialism’. At the request of Superintendent Wong, her last mention of the case on national TV is an appeal for anybody with information as to the whereabouts of Norsiah to contact the police. I see my cousin’s picture on Guild House television; it’s from her work permit and must have been taken some years before – she looks quite attractive. I don’t ask Li Fang where she is; he would never tell me, if he knows.

  * * *

  ‘I must, I must, I must increase my bust, my bust, my bust.’ The morning chorus of what David calls the Guild House Rozzers’ Male Voice Choir is heard for the last time by the dorm girls in their morning group exercise as they fling thin arms back and trim chests out. The investigation team boxes mounds of papers and, with visible reluctance, decamps for pastures less pleasant.

  Li Fang says he misses the policemen: they were more fun than academics. He particularly misses their happy hour after they closed down their day’s work, opened up their evening beers and eyed the procession of jogging shorts led by the strong thighs of Agnes. With the police retreat, only the sunset glint of binocular lenses from among the potted plants on Ra’mad’s balcony suggests anyone is monitoring the rites of Bukit Timah’s aspiring Amazons.

  Students are more interested in making up lost time than mourning an ancient Briton. Ra’mad manages to get his wife buried and overcomes his remorse at losing his favourite rat. Venus presumably continues her Sunday morning devotionals at Richard’s bedside, since she is never-on-Sunday and our relationship remains forever amber. I respect her wish to remain true to the one man she can never have again. I love her the more for her fidelity to my only competitor. K continues his marathon review of Singapore’s butterflies; neither he nor Wong seem to know the axis threat is buried forever.

  I manage both my own and K’s lectures and tutorials in the mornings; I like to get teaching out of the way by lunch, leaving my afternoons free. Venus begins her working day in the early afternoon, so we fall into a routine of late suppers after her 10 o’clock news slot. Agnes, on the other hand, has her afternoons free.

  It is on one such cloudy afternoon that I sit at my open window marking essays and see her walking by in that signature hat. She smiles, I smile, she walks on, crossing the cricket pitch; crisp, white summer dress; short skirt, long legs. My eyes follow her figure; she knows it. She reaches the corner of Wolverton Mess and looks back. She waits a full minute then waves before disappearing. I leave my desk and with Barnaby at my side, take a walk to share ice cream among the orchids. And the next day and the next; repeat performances but never boring with Agnes. She tells me one day that a peculiar thing has happened, a very large rock inside the jungle walk has been turned from vertical to horizontal – ‘Honestly, these gardeners must have nothing better to do.’ We feel the physical and mental attraction pulling us together; but it doesn’t progress beyond eye-games flirtation and friendship; we both seem to prefer it this way … at least for now. We talk a lot about Ber
nard, a little of K, nothing of Venus. I am happy to be Bernard’s platonic replacement. Agnes never comes into my flat; I am not K and we both know that might ruin everything.

  David continues to mourn K’s absence; I can’t tell him there is no cause for concern, some gossips just can’t be trusted with the truth. K had called his wife on the first night of his absence and knows he can rely on her silence. Toshi continues to live with David but in the closet; he builds up a small private clientele of university people who appreciate Japanese massage without dirty things.

  An open verdict is quietly declared on Bernard’s death – suspicious but cause unknown – and Bernard is cremated after an unmoving ceremony sponsored by the University Staff Association. Attendance is dictated by professional obligation and even Chin and Ra’mad are present, in opposite corners. Barnaby is locked in my flat; I don’t want her sobbing and howling through the funeral. As few words as can decently suffice are said by the VC about Bernard’s contribution to scholarship in Singapore. The only wreath comes from Venus, who wears a contrasting white corsage pinned to the bodice of a stunning long black dress. Siggy stays away, aware the event has zero news value. Only Agnes, in mourning white, cries openly.

  The staff troop out dry-eyed from the short goodbye: Professor Bernard Fox, historian, is history. K stands quietly at the back of the memorial hall, his reappearance almost unnoticed. Superintendent Wong has told him he can resume his teaching duties again as both Düsseldorf and the transvestite cannot be traced.

  Apart from the absence of Norsiah and the police tapes sealing the doors of Bernard’s house, so strong is the air of normality that the mystery of Bernard’s death and the turning fan might have remained forever academic … had Chin contained his ambitions. The memorial service might have been the final act in the psychodrama of Uncle Bernard’s life and death … if Chin had behaved himself. An ‘acting dean’ is supposed to sit quietly, be nice to everybody over tea and hope to be confirmed in place while denying any real wish for the office. But Chin can’t mark time. No sooner has Bernard been given his final honours then Chin strikes.