"No," Lieutenant Sudema said. "He can go to Amsterdam for all I care. Anywhere in the hell below the dike. Not here. The smudge has to be rubbed off."
"And the other cheek?" Gyske asked. "Shouldn't we turn the other cheek? Aren't you Christian, Sjurd?"
"You've got two cheeks," Sjurd said, "but only one…" He stopped and thought, and concluded, "Only one." He thought again. "But what I was saying about you"-he had trouble not sliding off his chair-"that isn't true, Gyske. I've been truly stupid. You're right. I'm sorry. It'll be different from now on."
He managed to get up and steered an unsteady course for the cupboard. He clawed the handle. He skated back and pulled the cupboard door open. "Here is where it all happened, here on the shelf, in the name of the Lord. An insult to Our Lord, Gyske, by an authority of the church." He kicked the shelf, tore out the broken boards, and cracked them on his knee. "I will burn these outside. I'll take the entire cupboard out, but not now, right now I'm a little tired."
"Why don't you lie down?" Gyske asked.
"In a minute," Lieutenant Sudema said. "But the gentlemen should come along with me for a moment. I have a present for the gentlemen."
Six crates of tomatoes had been placed outside the greenhouse. "My occupation outside of work hours," Lieutenant Sudema said sadly. "More work. To sweat to please the Lord. I was wrong there too. They all got ripe at the same time. You do like tomatoes, I hope?"
"Delicious," the commissaris said.
•I'll fetch the car," Grijpstra said.
Gyske got hold of her husband. "You have to rest now, Sjurd." She pushed him into the house and came back alone, mumbling to herself. She passed the commissaris. "You're leaving us?" the commissaris asked.
"I think I'll visit Mem Scherjoen for a moment."
"A good idea," the commissaris said. "In times of stress, one needs a friend."
"Mem understands," Gyske said. She turned. "Mem's pain is all done now. But Sjurd can stay alive, I would like that better."
"Mem prefers Douwe dead?"
"Mem understands, that means she can accept. Do you have a cigarette?"
"Only small cigars."
Gyske took the cigar. The commissaris flicked a light. Gyske inhaled hungrily. "Mem even accepted the dead kittens. She used to have a limping cat that showed up one night. Douwe didn't want her to feed the cat, but Mem did it anyway, behind the barn. When Douwe was away, Mem would talk to the cat. The cat had kittens, funny babies, that frolicked and gamboled all over the yard, but then they all began to die one afternoon. They didn't know they were dying, they still tried to play. Douwe had poisoned their milk, of course. He had to laugh, because Mem didn't know what was wrong with the kittens. Mem was going crazy."
"There's a turtle," the commissaris said, "that lives in my rear garden. He's my good friend, I like to share his silence. If someone hurt my turtle, I would probably be quite upset."
"I wanted revenge," Gyske said, "because Sjurd believes in good, and that's too boring. He would say that I should put my bottom in a bucket of cold water, that would soothe the urge, so I made a grab for Anne. That bald little Anne, with his few hairs plastered over his skull, and his wrinkled neck, and his spectacles without rims, only because he happened to be around, with his three-piece suit and with his watch chain across his stupid belly and with his arrogant accent. I took revenge. I committed a sin. Mem doesn't sin."
"I see," the commissaris said. "I wish you strength. Your husband seems rather an excellent fellow."
"I'm madly in love with Sjurd," Gyske said, "but I can't go on like this. It'll have to change. There's your car backing up, I'll help you lifting in the crates."
"Enough of this," the commissaris said in the Volkswagen. 'Take me to Municipal Police headquarters in Leeuwarden, Adjutant. Select the shortest route. We've wasted time."
"You think this is the right way?" Grypstra asked.
"What are you mumbling, sir?" Grypstra asked a few minutes later.
"I'm sinful," the commissaris said. "It's rather weak to manipulate a lady who's having a mental breakdown. Indeed! And did I learn anything?" He banged his fist on the dashboard. "Nothing, Adjutant. But what do you expect? What can anyone expect from someone like me? Bald, small, with one and a half hairs on my naked skull, with spectacles without rims, a suit complete with waistcoat. Pathetic, Adjutant, a clown from long ago, expressing his ignorance in old-fashioned language, rattling a watch chain on his belly."
Grijpstra glanced at the commissaris. "Your neck is not too wrinkled. On the contrary, it's still quite smooth."
Looking ahead again, he read a sign aloud: "Tzum."
The commissaris pondered. "That Gyske," he murmured. "She wasn't too fond of Douwe Scherjoen."
"Tzummarum," Grijpstra said, reading another sign. "Marum means 'sea.' The Romans must have been here."
"We're lost again," the commissaris said. "We shouldn't be close to the sea. The Romans came to collect taxes too. Another bunch of foreigners injecting their evil into my pure soul. Leeuwarden is more inland. Better turn the car, but be careful, this dike is rather narrow."
\\\\\ 9 /////
"I won't have it," Mrs. Cardozo said. "You're not to clean your pistol on my kitchen table. The oil gets into the wood. That's expensive oak, I'll have you know, I polish the top daily."
"Please, Mother," Cardozo said. "Don't bother me now. You've no idea how tricky… look, see what you made me do? You know what I'm doing? I make the light reflect from my thumbnail, like this, and then I look through the barrel. I'm seeing spirals now, gleaming in blue steel. I can see that when the barrel is clean. When it isn't, I see some nasty grit."
"It'll go off. Stop that, Simon. There shouldn't be instruments of murder in the house."
"I've got it out," Cardozo said. "A detached barrel can't possibly fire. You're living in unreasonable fear. Like with the lamp the other day. I had pulled the cord out of the wall and you wouldn't let me fix it."
"Because there might still have been electricity in that lamp."
"Oh, Mother."
"And who lives under stress here?" Mrs. Cardozo said. "Do you ever hear me complain? Would you ever hear me complain if you stopped complaining yourself for a minute? Your whining wears me down. Chuck your job if you don't like it. You can help your Uncle Ezra in the market, he earns more in a day than you do in a month. Uncle Ezra has no kids, you can take over his stall when he retires to Mallorca. He wants you to have his business, you only have to learn for a year. Ezra said that to me the other day. 'Manya,' he said, 'your Simon isn't serious yet. He can pick up some seriousness from me, why don't you tell that to your Simon?'"
"Oh, Mother."
"And then maybe you can learn how to dress," Mrs. Cardozo said. "And have a haircut for a change. Do you have to show yourself as a ragamuffin?"
Cardozo reassembled his pistol and slipped it into its holster. He buttoned up his rumpled jacket. "Mother, I fight evil. I don't like the way Uncle Ezra evades taxes."
"Your Uncle Ezra is a serious man."
"He's a silly man," Cardozo said. "He refuses to develop. He's a capitalist during the day and a hedonist in his free time. Greed and luxury will get him nowhere."
"Oh, Simon."
"Egocentric," Cardozo said. "/ work for others. So that others may have a chance to develop and grow too. It isn't easy and I may occasionally be heard to complain. That's a weak trait in my character, and I'm sorry."
Cardozo dialed the telephone. "Not outside the city," Mrs. Cardozo said. "Your father doesn't like that. The bill is too high already."
"Sergeant?" Cardozo said. "It's me."
"You were dialing too long," Mrs. Cardozo said. "You're outside the city. Keep it short, Simon, or your father will be at me again."