The Japanese Corpse

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "Yes," the commissaris said.

  "It was well done, sir. They got through to me. The little tricks the actor went in for were good, the way I pull my mustache when I am listening, for instance. At one point he took a cigarette from a pack which he kept in his shirt pocket and lit it; every movement was a complete copy of my own. It was interesting to watch him. A mirror image is never really good because you know that you are watching yourself. This was much better."

  "Were you frightened afterward?" the commissaris asked.

  "No, sir. I was telling Grijpstra on the phone yesterday, nothing seems to register anymore. Like this morning when you cried out in your sleep and rolled out of your bed. I was on the balcony because I couldn't sleep. I heard you and I must have thought that you were attacked, for the next second I was in the room with my gun out, but there were no feelings really. It was the same when I was watching the performance. It's as if part of my brain doesn't function. I see what is happening and I react to it but nothing comes afterward."

  The commissaris was lighting a cigar. There was still a slight tremor in the muscles of his right hand.

  "So you just left?"

  De Gier grinned. "No, sir. I did something silly. I was carrying my flute, you see, the small one which I usually have in my inside pocket. The orchestra had been pretty good when they did the fearful bit, and I had remembered the passage the flute played. Everybody was looking at me when the lights went on. The audience was startled, of course. They hadn't been prepared for the performance and the actors must have been somewhat shocked too. Evidently the same brain that thought of your mask had been directing them, and they must have been paid well, but still, it wasn't so nice what they did, trying to frighten a man they didn't even know. Maybe they felt guilty. I saw them standing in the wings and I got up and brought out my flute. I repeated the orchestra's flute passage. It came out rather well, especially because everybody was deadly quiet. And then I left."

  "Good," the commissaris shouted, and banged the table. "Excellent! Well done, de Gier! They must have been watching me too, but I was frightened out of my wits, running about in that temple garden like a scared hare. But you may have offset my poor results." He tittered and rubbed his hands. But a little later he was shaking his head and muttering to himself.

  "It's all right, sir," de Gier said softly. "They would have scared me too, under normal circumstances, I mean. But there has been the accident. When I stayed at your house I must have been a nuisance, I remember bits of it. I was crying, wasn't I? This must be the aftereffect of the shock; maybe I feel I have nothing to lose anymore. It's a dangerous mood to be in, asocial I think. I almost killed those fellows in Tokyo without any hesitation, I meant to kill them and if Dorin hadn't been around, I would have killed them. Not caring is abnormal. A normal man cares."

  "I certainly cared," the commissaris said. "It's amazing I didn't dirty my pants. I don't think I have ever been so frightened in my life, not even during the war when the Gestapo had arrested me and they threatened to pull my fingernails out."

  He looked pensively about him. The room had been cleaned and the dull shine of the thick floormats, the white walls supported by solid wooden posts, the neat lines of the paper-covered windows and doors seemed very foreign. I am a duckling in a chicken coop, he thought. Ducklings must get rather nervous when they find themselves caught in chicken coops.

  "What happened to Dorin?" he asked quietly. "Did the innkeeper tell him we would be back for lunch?"

  "Yes, sir, I checked with the office and he left a note. He'll come back for lunch too. I looked in his room but he isn't there yet."

  The commissaris looked at his watch. "We still have half an hour. I'll make a telephone call at the office, I won't be long."

  \\ 15 /////

  "HELLO JANE," THE COMMISSARIS SAID, "HOW ARE YOU today?"

  "You?" the voice said. "You are a fine fellow, you know. Dumping this girl on me and disappearing. Do you know that she has been with me for nearly two weeks now? I thought you were in Japan. You should come and see us. Joanne is a little restive. Apparently you promised her a new American passport and she is anxious to leave, and the poor girl is still very sad about her dead boyfriend. How is the investigation going? And how was your trip to Japan?"

  "I am in Japan," the commissaris said.

  "Really? Oh, my God, this call must be costing a fortune and here I am chattering away. Go on, what do you want to tell me?"

  The commissaris put his legs on a chair and sat back. "Never mind what this call costs, dear. I am sorry about leaving the girl with you, but you are doing very good work by looking after her. She'U get her passport, but it may take a while. I would like to have the death solved before she goes. I am sure she will understand. Is she with you now?"

  "No, she is doing some shopping for me."

  "Good. The case is twisting a little. We arrested the two Japanese men partly because Joanne Andrews accused them. But now that we have found the corpse there is some doubt about their guilt."

  "You found it? Where?"

  "The State Police found it, buried in a field. The way we are reconstructing the murder, well, it looks rather amateurish. And the two Japanese men we are holding in jail aren't amateurs. We also believe that only one man was involved in the killing, apart from the unfortunate victim, of course. So I have been thinking."

  There was a pause.

  "Go on," she said. "You can tell me. I am your niece after all. Your secrets will be safe."

  "Yes. I know that. Your help is much appreciated. Has she talked to you at all about other men? She said she was engaged to Mr. Nagai, the dead man, but she is an attractive girl. Maybe there were other lovers, or men who would like to be her lovers."

  "Jealousy," Jane said. "Is that what you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "Somebody killed Mr. Nagai because she was going to marry him?" She giggled. "Isn't that rather old-fashioned these days? I saw a program about partner-exchange on TV last night. It seems that everybody sleeps with everybody these days."

  The commissaris laughed too. "Yes. But men will always be jealous. She hasn't mentioned other men? You two must have talked a lot, two women in one house."

  "No. She doesn't say much, a very quiet girl. She has been good company, I'll be sorry to see her go."

  "Try to find out," the commissaris said. "I'll ring again, maybe tomorrow. The killer wasn't a white man, I think. We have witnesses who saw a man wash the car the murder was committed in, and who saw a man buy a spade. Probably the same man, probably the killer. In both instances the events took place close to where the corpse was found. And the witnesses described the man as a Chinese. That's the closest they can get to Japanese, they wouldn't know what a Japanese looks like."

  "I know what a Japanese man looks like," the commissaris' niece said. "They used to beat me up at least once a month, just so that I would remember my manners."

  "Yes, dear, but you have traveled. I have confronted the witnesses with the two suspects we hold in jail. The suspects were brought in one by one. First the witnesses said they had seen the first man, but when they saw the second suspect, they weren't sure anymore. Very likely, neither suspect was involved with the death of Mr. Nagai."

  "I see," Jane said. "So what now?"

  "Well, we'll find the third man, dear, the man who did it. And I am sure Joanne Andrews knows that third man very well. And you can find out who he was and then I'll have him picked up for questioning. Proper police procedure, there's nothing to it really."

  There was a pause.

  "Your adjutant phoned yesterday, you know," Jane said. "He is coming over this afternoon. He wanted to speak with Joanne."

  The commissaris sighed.

  "Are you there?"

  "I am here. Never mind, dear, forget what I told you to find out. The adjutant is following the same line of reasoning that I am. He'll report to me. Just give him any information he asks for. He is a very nice man, you'U like him. Don't tell
him I phoned. I am only fussing anyway. The adjutant is an experienced detective and the case is in good hands with him."

  "All right. So are you enjoying yourself? Any geisha parties?"

  "Yes," the commissaris said. "We are being wined and dined every day, and they have devised some special entertainment for us, rather fascinating. Maybe I'll tell you about it one day."

  "Be careful, dear," Jane said. "I got to know the Japanese well when I was in their camp during the war. They are not like us. They react differently and they can be very cruel and they think before they act, even in anger."

  "Yes."

  "But they have different qualities too, they are sensitive and creative. They nearly starved and beat me to death, but I sometimes think I wouldn't really have wanted to miss the experience. Those four years changed me. I enjoy many things now I would never have noticed before."

  "Maybe because you are a little older," the commissaris said.

  "I am not old, I am as old as you are."

  "I am very old," the commissaris said, "and my legs hurt. I was running this morning. Goodbye, dear, I'll call tomorrow. Can you stay in till I phone?"

  "Yes," she said, and rang off.

  The commissaris grunted. Then he picked up the phone again. The ambassador was in and he was connected immediately. He could imagine the big man sitting in a large room, under the portrait of the queen and with a Dutch flag in the corner. He had seen the Dutch embassy in Tokyo but he hadn't gone in.

  "How are you doing?" the ambassador asked.

  The commissaris described the adventures of the morning. The ambassador made the appropriate sounds of commiseration.

  "Well, well," he said, "I hope you weren't too upset. But it means we are making contact. The CIA will be interested. Mr. Johnson wanted to go to Kyoto, but I advised against it. There aren't too many foreigners in Kyoto at this time of the year and he would be too conspicuous. He is in Kobe now. It's all right in Kobe; there are thousands of Westerners milling about over there. I think you should pretend to buy some of the scrolls and whatever else the priest brings you, and get out. I hear you had the bodyguards called off. You have only the sergeant and Dorin to protect you now, right?"

  "Right."

  "Well, you'll have to move quickly. We don't want anything to happen to you; it would cause all sorts of complications. You have the emergency telephone number?"

  "Yes."

  "Good luck, sir, I'll be thinking of you. You are doing the country a great favor. Did you read that book on Deshima which I had delivered to your hotel?"

  "Yes," the commissaris said, and smiled. "I liked the passage about the women."

  "The keisei? Yes, our forefathers must have had a good time on the island, far removed from their nagging Dutch wives and screaming children, and cuddled by specially selected high-class prostitutes, supplied by the Japanese government, free of charge. A most interesting setup. Do you know what 'keisei' means?"

  "No."

  "Destroyers of walls. They were there to ease the communication between the Dutch and Japanese merchants, and they must have done a good job. Sales were booming, both ways. They were buying our guns and ships and the primitive machinery we had in those days, and we were buying their scrolls and earthenware and fans. We must have bought millions of fans."

  "The priest said he would bring us some fans today. He said they came from a geisha house and are a few hundred years old. I wonder how they got to his temple?"

  "Priests are men," the ambassador said. "Ordinary men. They don't only meditate and chant the sermons of the Buddha."

  "Yes," the commissaris said. "Quite."

  \\ 16 /////

  DORIN LOOKED IMPECCABLE IN A LIGHT SUMMER SUIT complete with a white shirt and a narrow tie. The commissaris eyed him pensively. Since he had been tricked into finding the mask and losing his self-control, he felt a cold hatred against practically everything around him. The room with its long parallel lines of beams, slats and walls, the floor with the neat tatamis, each bordered by a cotton strip showing small neat repeating flower designs, the view of the green and silvery-gray moss garden frightened and nauseated him. The feeling would pass, but he kept on seeing the trickle of blood on his own chin and the glasses that had slipped off his nose and were dangling from one ear. His own ear, a wooden ear on a perfect wooden mask. The student and the monk, smiling kindly, had lured him into facing a fear he thought he didn't have. He was, he supposed, angry with himself. The anger of disappointment.

  He sighed and forced himself to smile at Dorin, who was sitting on a cushion opposite de Gier. The commissaris had pulled his mattress out of the cupboard and was lying down, his head propped up on his arm. Dorin had tucked his legs into each other and each foot rested on the opposite thigh. The commissaris could see the naked soles, for Dorin had taken off his socks and put them in the sidepocket of his jacket. Strange habits, the commissaris thought. There had been an elderly man in the train who had calmly taken off his trousers, folded them and put them next to his small suitcase on the luggage rack. He had taken his socks off too and folded his legs. He had been wearing long underpants. In Holland such behavior might have caused an uproar, a quiet uproar, for they had been traveling first class.

  He looked at Dorin again. The man's face was calm, withdrawn. The commissaris reminded himself that Dorin was collaborating with them. A friend. And Dorin had been very friendly. He had shown a continuous concern for their welfare and comfort. He wondered what Dorin would be like as an enemy. Was the man capable of thinking of the creation of a wooden mask? Would he stage the death of the sergeant? Perhaps he would. Perhaps such tricks were fair play in the game. It was a game after all, wasn't it? Hadn't he always agreed with the Chinese philosophers he had been reading in Holland for so many years? Nothing on this planet is real; a game played by shadows. So why was he upset? But he was, to the point of feeling bilious.

  De Gier was polishing his flute. He seemed completely unperturbed, rubbing the metal tube with a cloth of clean flannel. Dorin had listened to their adventures, limiting his comments to mumbled remarks and half smiles, and occasionally looking concerned and sympathetic. Now he was thinking. Neither the commissaris nor de Gier felt it was right to disturb his concentration. The commissaris looked at the sheet of yellow paper that Dorin had placed on the table. The characters on the sheet meant nothing to him. There were three vertical lines, each line consisting of several hieroglyphs. He recognized some of the characters as Chinese and the others as Japanese.

  Dorin's eyes, which had been half closed, suddenly opened wide.

  "I got this note," he said in a low voice. "It was delivered by a small boy when I was visiting our priest this morning. Apparently it was meant for both of us. The boy ran off after he had given us the envelope."

  "What does it say?" the commissaris asked.

  "Oranda no Toyoo ni. Hae no tsuite kite," Dorin said, looking at the sheet in front of him.

  "I see," the sergeant said.

  "Oh, I am sorry. I'll translate. The translation is something like this—'When Dutchmen go to the Far East, flies follow.' I am sorry, it is rather an unpleasant message. A threat, I would say."

  The commissaris repeated the sentence. "When Dutchmen go to the Far East, flies follow." He coughed and began to pat the pockets of his jacket. He found the flat tin and lit a cigar after Dorin and de Gier refused. "That sentence seems to direct its venom at you, Dorin," he said apologetically. "That is, if our friends think you are following us. That's what they should think, isn't it? We are supposed to have the initiative in this buying of stolen art; you are acting as an assistant, an agent."

  Dorin smiled. "Not quite. Perhaps you are right, but I would interpret much more from the note. You see, in the old days the Japanese thought that the foreigners who came here had a funny smell. Foreigners ate a lot of meat and butter and cheese, and often the meat was putrid and the butter rancid. There was no refrigeration in those days, of course. The Japanese ate rice and vegeta
bles and got their protein from the sea. We are an island race, never far from the water. The fish was either fresh or salted. So we didn't have the body odor the gaijin, the foreigners, carried around with them."

  "You mean they thought we stank?" de Gier asked.

  Dorin bowed.

  "And flies followed those foreigners in the old days."

  "Indeed," Dorin said, and the narrow muscular hands adjusted the position of the sheet of paper. "So this note says that you gentlemen stink, and that I, and the priest who is in contact with us now, are flies. Everybody knows what happens to flies. They are swatted, smashed. The life is squeezed out of them and the dead bodies are tossed on the tatami and swept away."

  His hand crashed down on the tabletop and a dead fly was flicked on the floor.

  The commissaris rolled off his mattress and pulled his suitcase toward him. He opened it and began to feel around. "Here," he said. "A book on Deshima. The Dutch ambassador sent it to me in Tokyo. I think I remember reading something about Dutchmen and flies. Let me see."

  He flipped through the pages of the book, and Dorin looked over his shoulder. The book had a number of fullpage illustrations in color, photographs of Japanese scrolls showing the love life of the Dutch merchants, tall men with bags under their eyes, frolicking with young ladies with calm faces, not a hair out of place, dressed in many-layered kimonos. The bottom half of the paintings showed dainty white legs pushed aside by hairy hands and monstrous penises hard at work. The merchants hadn't bothered to take their hats off. The paintings, four in a row, were obviously done by the same artist, and each picture had the same composition, although the merchants and the prostitutes were different persons. The rooms were Japanese, the furniture Dutch, heavy claw-and-ball couches adorned with tassels, huge tables made out of solid oak and with lions sculptured at the corners, thick velvet draperies hiding most of the fusuma, the delicate Japanese sliding doors made out of slats and tightly stretched paper.