The Streetbird

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  Grijpstra talked quickly. "The vulture was in the alley. Olofs-alley. Near the corpse. Obrian's corpse. The vulture is yours. So is the cat. The cat Tigri. Also in the alley."

  "But was / in the alley, official?"

  "Were you?"

  Uncle Wisi stepped sideways. "I." He stepped back. "Was." He jumped a foot off the floor. "Not there Because," Uncle Wisi said, "I was here."

  "So you didn't kill Obrian?"

  Uncle Wisi removed his cap, stuck his fingers into his crisp gray hair, and put his headgear back. "That's to say, official. Yes and no."

  Grijpstra leaned back but the stool offered no support and he waved his arms desperately, just managing not to fall off. "Yes or no, Uncle Wisi?"

  Uncle Wisi sat down too. "You know, official, that's what makes it tricky. Out methods differ. I do not say that yours aren't valid, because they clearly serve many purposes. If it isn't this, it must be that—one can argue that way mathematically, and if you're handy as well, you have manufactured a rocket before you know what you've done. That method of yours works well, but mine is different. Yes and no, I say. Yes or no, you say. And neither of us is wrong."

  Grijpstra flapped his handkerchief. "Did you shoot?" He blew his nose. "Or did you not?" He wiped the sweat off his forehead.

  "No." Uncle Wisi laughed. "A machine gun does not belong to my collection of tools."

  That man is very old, Grijpstra thought, and he still has all his teeth, and not too many wrinkles, but I don't like his eyes, they're too sharp.

  "Although I did own a gun once," Uncle Wisi said. "In the West. I used to fire it, too, during services for the dead. It was my magic rifle."

  "Not a real rifle?"

  Uncle Wisi nodded. "Very real. Used to belong to you people, and with you everything is real, right? An ancient muzzle-loader, used at the time of importation of slaves; you fellows shot with bullets, but I used only powder, to make noise, to help the yorka on his way. You've got to do that at times, you know, because the spirit is frightened and wants to stay, and you help him along, in your function as magician."

  "You were the magician?"

  "I am the magician," Uncle Wisi said.

  "Wah," Grijpstra said. He pointed at the table. "You've got one too."

  "What are you indicating?"

  "That Christ, in the skirt."

  "I've got more," Uncle Wisi said, and held up a framed portrait. "This is the great Indian who rules the jungle where his followers allowed our free men to settle. We took the great Indian too. And Jesus of course, for you people told us he was the son of Massa Gran-Gado and supposed to love us. Why shouldn't we believe you? And this we have as well." He showed ajar of genever. "A glass, official?"

  "I'm on duty," Grijpstra said.

  "So am I," Uncle Wisi said. He poured and passed Grijpstra an egg holder filled to its rim. "Your health, official."

  "Your health, Uncle Wisi."

  Uncle Wisi sat down and looked at Grijpstra through his glass, with one much enlarged eye.

  "To magic," Grijpstra said. "Is yours white or black?"

  "I'm black," Uncle Wisi said, and held his hand next to Grijpstra's. "See? All my grandparents were niggers."

  "That's not what I mean."

  "Oh," Uncle Wisi said. "You mean the color of my art? That used to be black." He sang, "Powers beyond, powers below, the dark death, sure but slow."

  Grijpstra couldn't remember ever having drunk such strong genever. All tension had been burned out of his body and he felt slightly paralyzed. "The slow death, Uncle Wisi?" To his surprise, he recognized his own voice that sounded kindly inquisitive and quite clear.

  "But the power works both ways," Uncle Wisi said. "Like the boomerang the black brothers of Australia use." He smiled at his guest. "The people became frightened of me, official, like they have fear of you. People don't appreciate powers in others. And the other wisimen got together and arranged their altars and sang and danced. They set off fireworks and asked the gados who lived under their mulberry trees to hunt me, and I needed all my time and strength to defend myself." Uncle Wisi grinned slyly. "But I had gold, for a good wisiman doesn't take mere money, and the world is wide. I went a-journeying to the land of the queen." He touched his cap respectfully. "She's the great holy spirit-woman who doesn't only protect you but us too. Her photograph hung in my cabin. I prayed to her, and advised her of my arrival, and she received me well." Uncle Wisi grabbed his egg holder, drank, and smacked his lips. "A good woman, and I became good too, for I had been bad already, and a man has to move along, don't you agree?"

  "You still are?" Grijpstra asked. "Good, I mean?"

  Uncle Wisi looked at the floor.

  "Yes?"

  The keen eyes filled with light and stared at Grijpstra. "No," Uncle Wisi said. "That's all too simple. Isn't good as stupid as bad? I haven't been good for a long time now." His voice softened, "But it took some doing, to be done with definitions, or to soar out of them; it can be put that way too, although that doesn't sound modest. We have to stay simple or the trap may close again."

  Grijpstra's nose wrinkled. "Whatever you say."

  "You don't understand?"

  "No."

  "Not difficult at all," Uncle Wisi said. "Or rather, nothing at all, but it took me a while before I could see that, but I had more time, of course. I'm somewhat older than you are. Another sip?"

  "No," Grijpstra said. "Thank you. I should be on my way. So you don't know who did away with Obrian either? Who shot him, I mean?"

  Uncle Wisi lifted a hand. "Just a moment, official. We could pursue this matter together."

  "How, Uncle Wisi?"

  "Yes." Uncle Wisi lifted his stool and put it down closer to Grijpstra. He sat down again and arranged his robe. "Listen here, official. As I said, you've your method and I have mine. Yours doesn't work now because you've got to find someone who saw what happened, and there doesn't seem to be anybody, except the one who fired the gun, and he doesn't want to show up, true or not?"

  "True, Uncle Wisi."

  "Well, let's try it my way, then. You're a bit of a drummer, aren't you?"

  "Magic?" Grijpstra asked.

  "Magic frightens you?"

  "Yes," Grijpstra said. "No. I know nothing about magic."

  "But I do. It's easy, official. I burn some dry herbs to make a good smell, and you play a drum, and so do I, and we are in the alley, you and I, making time turn back, and then we see what happened."

  "We go to the alley?"

  "We stay right here," Uncle Wisi said. "But keep your cool, or my method won't work either. And we sing," he said. "You sure you don't want a little more genever?"

  "Just a little, perhaps."

  Uncle Wisi poured. "To the yorka."

  "The what?"

  "The spirit of the deceased, Obrian's in this case—he'll have to be around too."

  Grijpstra nodded morosely.

  "One drum for you," Uncle Wisi said, "another for me. You think you can handle this type of drum?"

  Grijpstra made his knuckles glide along the tight skin. "Yes, feels okay, Uncle Wisi."

  "A moment," Uncle Wisi said while he mixed ground herbs in an earthenware dish. He poured genever on the mixture and lit a match. A flame shot from the dish, and sharp smoke crinkled up. Uncle Wisi took hold of his drum. "Right. Ready?"

  Grijpstra lifted his hand.

  Incoherent improvisation. Grijpstra thought. We'll never get anywhere this way. That old man drinks too much.

  But it wasn't quite like that, Grijpstra had to admit. Dry bones and hollow sockets, the adjutant thought, Uncle Wisi is shaking a skeleton.

  "Eee," Uncle Wisi sang. "Eeehee, EEhee."

  Grijpstra looked up. The stench of the smoldering herbs, the green haze of plants all around him, the subtle colors of grains and seeds in the jars arranged on shelves, seemed to indicate a melody that Uncle Wisi was already playing, and a rhythm that the adjutant drew from his own drum. Wham, turrick, whamtur RICK rattled Grijpstra
's stubby fingers. This may seem primitive, the adjutant thought, but in reality it's impossibly complicated, the formula is somewhere between the softest scratching and loudest thumping and it's the whole rigmarole de Gier is always searching for when he tootles his flute, and even finds at odd moments, but now I don't have to help him along, since Uncle Wisi has it dead center and I can follow without paying attention. Turrim, turrdm.

  Most pleasant. Good music. But I could do without the ghosts. There's Obrian, marionette Obrian. Uncle Wisi pulls the strings, and Obrian jumps and dances to our tune.

  The corpse regains its life.

  Grijpstra played energetically. Uncle Wisi took care of the solos but the adjutant expressed introductions and afterthoughts, always in the right intervals and never losing a beat. He was enjoying himself. Uncle Wisi sang nicely too, using open vowels mostly, interspersed with short foreign words, to command the corpse.

  Corpses don't put me off, Grijpstra thought. I saw so many. This stuff works well. We are in the Olofs-alley and daybreak hasn't come yet and Obrian strolls along over there and will be shot in a moment. Obrian pretends he doesn't know what will happen to him, he acts the scene out, a most helpful fellow. In a minute he will explain exactly why he had to be murdered— if only he won't use his own language, because then I won't understand what he's saying.

  But now, Grijpstra thought, fervently hitting his drum, how did we get on this little bridge? We're losing track. It isn't dark anymore either, the sun shines. That woman is on her knees and edges forward. She's begging Obrian with her smile, and he gives his consent, and her mouth, her mouth . . .

  The drum fell out of Grijpstra's hands. Spittle dribbled down his chin. His body swayed and crashed to the floor.

  "Pity," Uncle Wisi said.

  "Where am I?" Grijpstra asked.

  "With your very own Nellie." She stroked his cheek. You're quite heavy, you know. Uncle Wisi and I nearly broke our backs when we lifted you into the hammock. Did you sleep well?"

  "I'm thirsty." Grijpstra whispered.

  She brought a glass of water. The taste was bitter.

  "What did you put into the glass?"

  "Obeah, made by Uncle Wisi, to make you feel better."

  "Am I ill?"

  "No," Nellie said. "But you did faint just now. Now you're okay again."

  "Pity," Grijpstra said.

  She kissed him. "Aren't you a funny fellow? And the two of you were drumming so well. I could hear it from here. But then it suddenly stopped and Uncle Wisi came to fetch me. I didn't worry at all. With Uncle Wisi you are safe." She pushed the hammock. Grijpstra swung slowly.

  "Uncle Wisi is a thingamajig," Grijpstra said.

  Nellie laughed.

  Grijpstra head dropped to the side, and he stared at her mournfully.

  "The land," Nellie said dreamily, "of the thingamajigs. When I was little, I once stayed with my grandma, and the sky was so blue that day, no clouds at all, everything seemed empty, and I asked my grandma what could be behind the sky. For everything does go on forever, but everything comes to an end too, and I didn't understand that, for if the sky comes to an end, there must be something behind it."

  Grijpstra looked up. The sky was blue and empty. "Behind the sky?"

  "Yes, and my grandma said that beyond what we know is the land of the thingamajigs."

  Grijpstra groaned.

  "Poor Henk."

  He wriggled until he was on his side. "You're my dearest, Nellie."

  "And you're mine, Henk."

  Grijpstra waved his hand. "What's there? Between your lettuce?"

  "Where, Henk?"

  "That's a turtle," Grijpstra said accusingly.

  "The turtle belongs to Uncle Wisi."

  "A well-known model," Grijpstra said.

  She held on to his hand. "You know, Henk, maybe you're right. I do believe Uncle Wisi is a thingamajig."

  "You have too many uncles," Grijpstra said, "and you know too many thingamajigs."

  She dropped his hand. "Poor Uncle Jan, he's still in his bath, and I promised him coffee."

  "Then you better give him his coffee," Grijpstra said.

  Grijpstra looked out of the hammock. He tried to remember what the woman who had been creeping toward Obrian had looked like. The color of her hair? Red, like Nellie's?

  I should be able to remember, Grijpstra thought.

  \\ 22 ////

  CARDOZO LOOKED AT ELIAZAR JACOB'S NAME SIGN AND read the text underneath: "He who believes in the Good." He noticed that he was trembling. "I'm not well," he said aloud. "Probably have the flu." He didn't have the flu, as he knew, he didn't even have a cold. He read the text again, without surprise, for this wasn't the first time he had visited Jacobs at home. I also know him from the synagogue, Cardozo thought; we're brothers in the faith. In the faith of what? In the good of what? In the good that created Dachau? In Him who created all possibilities when He set the whole thing off? In the benevolence of Him who did not bother to create all details—you can only blame Him for the origin, Cardozo added, I'm not stupid, after all—and allowed the terrible results to be created by that which He created himself? Does it make any difference? Or does Eliazar Jacobs believe in the good that permitted him to survive disaster, in the ultimate cruelty of survival to remember? What do I know about it anyway? Cardozo thought, I only arrived later, and the evil has moved since then, to Argentina and other out of the way countries. As I'm here, and not in Argentina, I can persist in believing in the good; all I have to do is to ignore what evil is doing further along, and all Eliazar has to do is to forget. Am I burrowing again? Cardozo thought.

  He rang the bell. The house remained quiet. He tried again and pushed his ear against the door. The bell worked.

  The good of a Schmeisser, Cardozo thought—what might that be? The perfect functioning of the weapon?

  The door opened and Cardozo nearly fell into the corridor. A slender black woman looked at him kindly. "Yes?"

  "Good afternoon, miss," Cardozo said shakily. "Is Mr. Jacobs in?"

  "Eliazar is on holiday."

  "A pity," Cardozo said. He rubbed his cheeks. My teeth are going to chatter, Cardozo thought, but this is not the right moment. He handed her his card. "I'm a policeman, miss, and I have to talk to Eliazar urgently."

  The woman looked at Cardozo's crumpled corduroy jacket, strengthened by leather patches on the elbows, one of which was dangling from a thread. "You are a constable?"

  "A detective, miss. But I'm also a friend of Eliazar's, and it is important that I see him."

  "Eliazar is on leave," the woman said, "and will be away for at least two weeks. He went to Jerusalem, to cry at the Wailing Wall. He goes there often."

  Cardozo's lower lip trembled. She returned his identification. He took a deep breath, to be used in further communication, but his words slipped away and he swallowed instead. He smiled his good-bye.

  Cardozo sat on a bench at the waterside, staring at the Straight-Tree-Ditch's rippling surface. His mind functioned somewhat again and he tried to arrange facts into a theory. The weapon, the time, the place, the victim, the motivation. His hand slapped his thigh as the facts moved about, shakily, like Eliazar's head approaching and receding, without touching the wall's surface. Cardozo knew what the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem looked like, from a photograph in a magazine that he had cut out and hung above his bed. He visualized the gray-green stones, square or rectangular, and the solemn black-suited worshipers, their heavy hairy heads covered by wide dark hats, bowing to the wall, crying at the wall, wailing in devotion. Wailing in general, not so much about their private pains—Jacobs wouldn't do that either.

  Cardozo no longer trembled. I'm glad I'm crying myself now, he thought, for it removes tension, but the tears also wash my facts away, and the theory I hung them in. It would be better to stop crying perhaps, because it doesn't look good. I'm not in Jerusalem here.

  The sobs continued, seeming to form themselves at the lowest point of his spine and pulsate
slowly upward. To restrain himself seemed useless. It would be better to let the suffering, or whatever his affliction could be, release itself. Maybe the crying would clean him up, inside, for on the outside he was getting rather soppy. He no longer wiped the tears away and helped the sobs along by nodding diligently.

  The music he was hearing fitted in well and he only understood that the sounds took place beyond his own confinement when the ensemble glided past his bench. The musicians manned a good-sized rowboat, moved by the efforts of two young ladies. An upright piano rested on boards placed across the boat's sides; a saxophone player stood in the bow and the drummer in the stern. The music was sad, but underneath its lament rose cheerful undertones as if, finally, reality was about to be properly represented and lies would no longer be necessary. The girls rowed slowly and the boat inched ahead. While the saxophone filled empty caves with voluminous clouds of sounds, the drum thumped softly and helped the piano to supply outlines, with a single discord here and there, placed in the center of space, deliberately overlooked by the saxophone.

  Although the boat moved slowly, it did float on, and Cardozo got up and walked with the music, placing his feet carefully, until he reached the next bridge and climbed up on it. He bent over the railing, first on one side and then on the other, so that the boat was swallowed up and rebuilt slowly again. Under the bridge the music sounded even more wistful, first accentuated by the drummer's representation of straight grief, then by the saxophone's version of a whispered complaint.

  Cardozo shuffled on, watched the boat moor and the musicians clamber ashore. The three young men wore turtle-necked blue jerseys and faded jeans, the girls old-fashioned cotton dresses with flower patterns. The girls landed too, unscrewed a thermos, and unpacked sandwiches from a hamper. Cardozo stood, his head oddly askew, as if he were still listening.

  "You're still listening?" the piano player asked.

  "Why are you crying?" the drummer asked.

  If I tell them, Cardozo thought, that I'm crying because of Eliazar Jacobs, who's taking the suffering of the world upon himself in Jerusalem, eight hours a day, for he is a disciplined man who feels comfortable in a daily routine, then my explanation would probably be quite plausible.