The Mind-Murders

6

Aunt Coba smoked a cigarette, Uncle Henry smoked a pipe, Grijpstra smoked a small cigar, and de Gier didn't smoke. The four protagonists sat on armchairs, upholstered with green velvet, on the back porch of a mansion built and kept in an exuberance that would surely have been liberating if Calvinism and the urge to make both spiritual and material profit hadn't imposed certain limits. The open garden doors offered a view of rhododendron bushes gracefully curving around a sea of lowly flowers. A choir of invisible songbirds engaged in a fairly steady melody embellished with trills and twitters. Aunt Coba and Uncle Henry were stately miniatures, and their faces were nicely chiseled by age and determination. They looked alike, under silvery hair cut and combed in identical fashion, and wore about the same clothes. Antique unisex, the sergeant thought, observing and admiring their narrow trousers and flowing jackets of old shiny velours.

Uncle Henry talked around the stem of his pipe.

"Nephew Frits did something wrong?"

"No, Mr. Fortune, not that we know of. But we're looking for his wife, who seems to have disappeared. All household goods, I beg your pardon, the contents of the house, disappeared as well. So did the dog, we retrieved the dog; it was dead, however."

"Still had its head?" Aunt Coba asked.

Grijpstra stared.

Aunt Coba repeated her question loudly, articulating the syllables.

"Yes ma'm. But somebody knocked it on the head. The skull broke. The dog was on the roof."

Aunt Coba nodded happily.

"Never was much good."

"The dog?"

"Nephew Frits. If you knew what experiences we had with him! But how could you know?"

Uncle Henry coughed painfully. Aunt Coba's beady eyes pierced her husband's forehead. He coughed again and patted his chest.

"You want a glass of water?"

"No. Isn't it coffee time yet?"

"Not for a long while. Why don't you go and write some checks? You always write checks on Saturdays. I'll take care of these gentlemen."

Uncle Henry didn't move. Aunt Coba's steady gaze increased in strength. He got up, excused himself and left the room.

Aunt Coba sighed. She restrained her hands that were about to rub each other.

"So Rea has gone, has she? Doesn't surprise me, no, not at all. What isn't needed anymore is put away. Such a nice woman too, serving, servile even. And married to Frits!" She sighed again, sadly this time, also a little longer and deeper. "Ah well."

"Yes ma'm."

"But that's the way it had to go. His father was a Fortune and his mother was crazy too. Whenever she got too crazy, the child came here. Little Frits is going to spend some time with Coba. She always said that with such conviction. I was never asked whether I wanted to put up with that child, the child just came."

Empathy flooded Grijpstra's face.

"And what would little Frits do, when he stayed with you, ma'm?"

"What wouldn't he do?"

"What wouldn't your nephew do, ma'm?"

"He would wet the bedclothes. He wouldn't eat cauliflower, with or without white sauce, the sauce didn't matter to him. He would use half a roll of toilet paper at a time. If that garden fence was locked, it always was locked, and if he wanted to get his push-bike into the garden, he would break the lock, again and again. He picked his nose, at mealtimes preferably. He didn't do well at school. He stole money."

"Your money, ma'm?"

"No. He stole at home. But he wasn't home much, he was mostly here."

Aunt Coba gazed at the garden. De Gier kicked Grijpstra's ankle, too hard, because his leg jumped out of control. Grijpstra began to get up, but de Gier pushed him back. De Gier's lips formed the word "home."

"What else did he do at home, ma'm?"

"He read. He wasn't allowed to read, the doctor said he shouldn't. He had to play. He was given a box of toy bricks, an electric train, and a teddy bear. He refused to play, although he would pretend to play. He attached strings to the bricks and kicked the string while he read, and meanwhile the train moved around and around. They gave him another train with a clock-work he would have to wind now and then, but he worked out a defense. Do you know what he did with that train?"

"What did he do, ma'm?"

"My sister-in-law came into the room one evening, and there were no lights in the room. The curtains were drawn. Frits had inserted matchheads into the locomotive and the little carts and wagons, and lit them. A big flame rushed around the carpet. It frightened his mother and she tripped over the rail. Half the house burned down."

"Is that it, ma'm?"

Aunt Coba shrank in her armchair. Her eyes glistened behind her gleaming glasses.

"You know what he did with his teddy bear?"

"No ma'm."

"The teddy bear was called Brom. It was a big bear, of good quality and expensive. One day Brom disappeared. Frits's parents couldn't understand what had happened to it, and they didn't trust Frits's peculiar answers to their straightforward questions. Do you know where Brom was found?"

"No ma'm."

"Buried in the garden in a shallow grave. And do you know what else Frits had done?"

"No ma'm."

"He had beheaded Brom."