No television, no armchairs, no knickknacks. The floor was covered by a large dark-colored carpet.
Good, thought Van Veeteren, sitting down on the couch. Nothing but essentials. The essence.
She served tea from an earthernware teapot. Simple cups, without handles. Thin cookies. No sugar, no milk. She didn’t even ask if he wanted any, but he didn’t, in any case.
She was old, at least fifteen years older than Van Veeteren, but she radiated vitality and alertness like an aura. It was clear that he was facing a person who inspired and demanded respect beyond the norm. The familiar feeling of deference came creeping up on him, the kind he sometimes felt when confronted by deeply religious and serene individuals—people who had worked out the answer to questions he himself had barely been able to formulate. A deference that was just as naturally complemented by its opposite, contempt and loathing, when he met the opposite type: submissive and loudly braying sheep, dominated by the herd instinct, the sanctimonious fellow travelers of hypocrisy.
He had sensed her qualities the moment they shook hands; she was a slim, erect woman with serious-looking brown eyes and a high forehead. She sat down opposite him, sinking onto one of the cushions with a graceful movement reminiscent of a curtsy. It struck him that as she squatted there with her legs hidden underneath her in the Asian manner, she could almost have been a twenty-five-year-old Buddhist woman. But in fact she was a Roman Catholic nun, three times as old as that.
“Help yourself,” she said.
He sipped the aromatic tea, groping for the folder he had placed on the floor beside him.
“I think I must ask you to clarify your intentions once more.”
He nodded. It was obvious that to produce the folder and the form would be an insult. Klimke’s razor, that he had justifiably thrown into the face of the chief of police only the other day, now threatened to bring shame upon himself, and nobody else.
“I must apologize,” he said. “My name is indeed Van Veeteren, but I am not who I said I was. I am a detective chief inspector, stationed in Maardam. My visit has to do with a case that I would prefer not to go into in detail. Will you be satisfied with my assurance that I have the best of intentions, but am dealing with a matter wallowing in evil?”
She smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s to do with Anna, if I understood you rightly?”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“She lived here with you for a few years before she died, I think. From 1987 to 1992, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“You cared for her and looked after her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because that is my vocation. That’s the way we work in our order. It’s a way of creating meaning. And love between people. Anna got in touch with us; there are about twenty of us sisters, and I was free at the time.”
He thought for a moment.
“I take it that you became…quite close to her?”
“We meant a lot to each other.”
“Confided in each other?”
“Of course.”
“Can you tell me about her illness?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Was she confined to bed all the time, for instance?”
It was clear to him that she already knew and had considered in advance what the conversation would be about, but perhaps that didn’t matter.
“She improved.”
“Improved?”
She suddenly became more serious.
“Yes, Chief Inspector. She improved. You are doubtless aware that her wounds were not confined to her hips. There is such a thing as a soul as well.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Van Veeteren with unintentional irony. “What on earth are you hinting at?”
She drew a deep breath and straightened her back.
“Irrespective whether or not you are a believer,” she said, “perhaps you can agree that many physical phenomena also have a psychological side. A spiritual dimension.”
She spoke very slowly, as if she had prepared the words in advance and wanted to be certain that none of them escaped his attention.
“Can you explain in a little more detail,” he said.
“Preferably not. It is a matter of trust as well. Not spelled out, but just as binding. I’m sure you understand what I mean.”
“You consider that you are bound by professional secrecy?”
“To some extent, yes.”
He nodded.
“But when the wounds in the soul had healed, her handicap also became less severe, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“How much better did she become? Could she move around? With the aid of a rolling walker or walking sticks, for instance?”
“Yes.”
“Did she go out?”
“I took her out in a wheelchair every day.”
“But she never went out on her own?”
“Not as far as I know.”
He looked past her and out the window.
“Can you tell me what you were doing on June fifth, 1992?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you know what Anna was doing that day?”
She didn’t reply. Looked at him with those calm, brown eyes of hers without an ounce of worry or embarrassment.
“How far is it from here to Ulmentahl?”
“Eighteen miles,” she said with no hesitation.
He drank the rest of his tea and allowed the silence to settle on the low table. It’s remarkable how information can be passed on via silence, he thought. He could have asked important questions now; that would have been the normal procedure, no doubt about that. He would have received no answers, but he was used to reading the nuances in unspoken words. But this was different. There was an infinitely wide gap between this almost stylized situation and the usual unspoken exchanges. For a moment he could feel a dizzy spell coming on again. Possibly not the kind of dizziness due to his operation, but nevertheless a feeling of weakness, a loss of strength and a feeling that he was losing his foothold…Or that there was something about which he was the only person to have total knowledge. And hence the total and unavoidable responsibility.
“Those wounds in her soul…,” he said eventually. “Have you any idea about what caused them?”
“She never told me about it.”
“I have gathered that. But I asked you if you had any idea about it.”
She smiled faintly once more.
“I can’t go into this, Chief Inspector. It doesn’t belong to me anymore.”
He paused for a few seconds.
“Do you believe in divine justice?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
“And earthly justice?”
“That too. I am sorry that I am inhibited with regard to what I can tell you, but I think you already know what you need to know. It is not up to me to break my confidence and to speculate. If she had wanted me to have a complete knowledge of everything, she would have told me everything, of course. But she didn’t. If it had been the intention that I should take the matter further, I would have known. But that is not the case.”
“So Nemesis is my role?”
“Perhaps. A profession is also a calling, is that not the case?”
He sighed.
“May I ask you a personal question that has nothing to do with this?”
“Of course. Please do.”
“Do you believe in a God who intervenes?”
She clasped her hands over her knee.
“Certainly,” she said. “I believe that to the greatest possible degree.”
“How does He intervene?”
“In many ways. Through people.”
“And you believe that He is careful when He selects His agents?”
“Why should He not be?”
“It was just a thought,” said Van Veeteren.
Suspicions! he thought as he sat down in the first of his stopping places on the way home. Suspicions and thin air.