"Maybe I should go to a hotel after all."
"If you want to."
"No," she said and laughed. "I don't mind your cat. I'll be nice to him and my clothes will be in my bag. It's a plastic bag and it's got a zip. I'll pick him up and turn him over and cuddle him. Cats like to be cuddled."
"He can't stand it if people are nice to him," de Gier said. "He won't know what to do."
"There'll be two of us," Esther said.
De Gier was on the floor, trying to adjust to the hardness of his camping mattress. Esther was standing in the open door of his small bedroom, her finger on the light switch.
"Good night,'' Esther said.
"Good night."
"Thanks for the use of your shower."
"You are welcome."
"Your bed looks very comfortable."
"It's an antique," de Gier said from the floor. "I found it at an auction. The man said it came from a hospital."
"I like the frame," Esther said. "All those ornate metal flowers. And it's very nicely painted. Did you do it yourself?"
"Yes. It was a hell of a job. I had to use a very fine brush."
"I am glad you didn't use a lot of colors. Just gold, lovely. I hate these new fads. Some of my friends have used all the colors of the rainbow to decorate their houses, and those horrible transfers! Butterflies in the toilet and animals on the bath and funny pictures in the kitchen and you are forced to read the same jokes over and over again. Bah!"
"Bah!" de Gier said.
"This must be a good place to live in. Just a bed and a bookcase and a lot of cushions and plants. Very good taste. Why do you have the one chair? It doesn't seem to fit in."
"It's Oliver's. He likes to sit on a chair and watch me eat. I sit on the bed."
She smiled.
Beautiful, de Gier thought, she is beautiful. She had turned the switch now and the only light in the room came from a lantern in the park. He could only just make out her shape but the light caught the white of her breasts and face. She was wearing his kimono but she hadn't tightened the sash.
She can't feel like it now, de Gier thought. Her brother died today. She must still be in a state of shock. He closed his eyes, trying to destroy the image in his bedroom door but he could still see her. When she kissed him he groaned.
"What's wrong?" she asked softly.
He groaned again. The commissaris will find out. Grijpstra will find out. And Cardozo, the new detective on the murder squad, will find out and make sly remarks. And Geurts and Sietsema will know. The murder squad will have something to discuss again. De Gier the ladykiller. A detective who goes to bed with suspects. But he hadn't planned it. It had happened. Why will they never accept that things happen? Oliver yowled and Esther jumped.
"He bit me! Your cat bit me! He sneaked up to me from behind and bit me! Ouch! Look at my ankle!"
The light was on again and de Gier rushed to the bathroom and came back with a bandage. Oliver sat on the chair and watched the scene. He looked pleased. His eats pointed straight up and his eyes looked bright. His tail flicked nervously. Esther tickled the cat behind the ears and kissed him on the forehead. "Silly cat, aren't you? Jealous cat! It's all right, I won't take him away from you."
Oliver purred.
She switched the light off and took de Gier by the hand.
The kimono had dropped to the floor. Oliver sighed and curled up.
"He doesn't watch, does he?" Esther whispered on the bed.
De Gier got up and closed the door.
7
"No, dear," theCommissaris' wife said sleepily, and turned over. "It's still early, it's Sunday. Til make the coffee a little later, let me sleep awhile, sleep sleep…"
The rest of the sentence was a mumble, a mumble which changed into a soft pleasant polite snore. The commissaris patted her shoulder with a thin white hand. He hadn't asked for coffee, he hadn't said any* thing at all. She had probably noticed that he was awake and her sense of duty had been aroused. Dear Katrien, the commissaris thought, dear excellent soul, soul of souls, you are getting old and weak and tired and there are more lines in your face than I can count. Have you ever shared my thoughts? Perhaps you have.
He patted her shoulder again and the gentle snore changed into deep breathing. He sat up and pushed the blankets away and crossed his legs, straightening his spine. He lit a small cigar and inhaled the first smoke of the day, blowing it away toward the open window. In the garden his turtle would be rowing about in the grass. It was eight o'clock and Sunday morning. The city was silent without the growl and clank of traffic. A thrush sang in the garden, the sparrows had left their nests above the drainpipe and were rummaging about in the hedge, twittering softly, and the magpies were looking for more twigs to reinforce their domed nest in the poplar. He could hear the flap of their wings as they wheeled about just outside his window. He grunted contentedly.
There had been a dream and he was searching for its memory. It had been an interesting dream and he wanted to experience it again. Something to do with the garden, and with the small fishpond at the foot of the poplar, and with a splash. He sucked his cigar and the dream came back to him. He had been in the garden but his garden had been much bigger, spreading far into the distance, and the fishpond had been a vast lake. And the poplar was a forest, and the turtle was close. The turtle was his ordinary size, small, compact, self-contained and friendly, with a lettuce leaf in his mouth. The commissaris had been expecting something and so had the turtle, for it was craning its leathery neck and chewing excitedly. It had been staring at the blue metallic sky and the round white moon flooding the lawn with soft downy pale light.
And then it came. A purple spot growing quickly in size. Mauve and moving. Splitting into two individual but similar shapes. Female, with large wings. They were so close that he could see their long limbs, curved breasts, calm faces. He saw their features, high cheekbones and slanting eyes. Quiet faces but intent, purposeful. Wings fluttered as they turned above him, him and the turtle, who had lost his benign solitude and was trying to dance in the high grass and had dropped his lettuce leaf. The commissaris was squatting down, holding on to the turtle's shield. He recognized the winged shapes' faces. They resembled the Papuan who had once been arrested by the murder-squad detectives and who had escaped again without leaving a trace. Perhaps they were his sisters. Or his messengers. Or his thoughts, reaching out from wherever he was now. The commissaris lost his association. The apparitions were so close above him now that he could have touched their slender ankles if he had reached out. The wings moved again and they were gaining height. They hovered above the lake and then, first one, then the other, folded their wings, and dropped. They hit the surface of the lake like arrows and plunged right through.
The turtle had lost all self-control and was capering about at the commissaris' feet, distracting his attention. When he looked up again the mauve figures were with him on the grass, with spread wings, observing him and showing a glimmer of amusement in their sparkling eyes and softly smiling mouths. That was the dream. He rubbed the bald spot on his skull, amazed that the dream had come back to him. He didn't like purple or mauve and he had never been particularly impressed by naked winged angels. Where had the images come from? He now also remembered the events of the previous evening. Nellie's bar. Nellie's colors had been purple and mauve too, and pink, of course. He saw Nellie's large solid breasts again and the cleavage the doctor had been so poetic about. Had Nellie so impressed him that she had helped form this dream, together with the sympathetic presence of his turtle and the glorified version of his garden and the Papuan, a man he had liked once and whose attitude had puzzled him at the time?