Death of a Hawker

11

The Commissaris looked at the young woman who, red-eyed, perched on a highbacked chair, was studying a stain on the wallpaper. They had dispensed with courtesies and he would have to make an opening.

"We were informed that you were friendly with Abe Rogge, miss. Perhaps you can tell us something about him. Any information will help. We know a little about the way he was, but not enough. Someone went to a lot of trouble to kill him. There usually is a strong connection between killer and victim. Perhaps you can help us to find out what bound the two together."

"Yes," the woman said, and sniffled. "I understand. Poor Abe. How did he die? I didn't know until the police phoned me this morning. I didn't dare to phone Esther. She must be very upset."

Grijpstra gave her an abridged version of what the police knew. He left out the gory details.

"Horrible," the woman said.

She calmed down after a while. Her two visitors looked harmless enough and were sipping coffee and smoking cigars, careful to tip their ash into the saucers of their cups. She remembered that she hadn't put an ashtray on the table and got up to fetch one. The two men didn't look out of place in the small modern fiat on the top floor of an apartment building. The commissaris commented on the view. He identified some of the church towers and when he made a mistake, she corrected him.

"Yes," she said. "I understand now. You have come to me because I was his girlfriend, or one of his girlfriends rather. I didn't mind, not very much anyway. Abe could be charming, he knew how to flatter me, and perhaps I didn't want him all for myself. I am reasonably content with my routine. Abe would have upset it if he had moved in. It wasn't just sex either; he often came to talk, about books or about films he had seen and he took me out sometimes.''

"What was he like?" the commissaris asked.

"Crazy."

"How do you mean, miss?" Grijpstra asked.

"Crazy," she repeated.

"In what way?" the commissaris asked. "He didn't pull faces or jump about on all fours, did he?"

"No, no. How can I explain? He had an unusual idea of values. Most people have set values, or no values at all. Abe seemed to change his values all the time, but without being weak. He thought from an angle nobody could grasp. I didn't understand him either and I often tried."

The commissaris had come a little forward in his chair. "That isn't enough, miss. You have to tell us a little more. I cant see the man; we only met him as a corpse, you see. You knew him well…"

"Yes. I'll try. Well… he was courageous. Perhaps that's the word. No fear, no fear of anything. When he thought of something he did it or tried to do it and most of the things he did seemed absolutely pointless. They weren't getting him anywhere but he didn't mind. Perhaps he didn't want to get anywhere. You have heard about his business, have you?"

"Beads," the commissaris said, "and wool."

"Yes. Funny things. He could have been a big businessman, a manager of a large firm perhaps but he preferred to shout on the market, on the Albert Cuyp street market. I wouldn't believe it at first, not until I went there. A showman, hypnotizing the poor housewives, telling them they were creative, and admiring the ugly sweaters and the horrible dolls they had made out of his yarn. It was pathetic to see those inane dumpy women swarming around his stall. And he almost graduated in French. I knew him at the university; he was the best student of our year, the pride of the professors. His essays were brilliant, anything he did was original, but…"

"You make him sound as if he were a failure,'' the commissaris said, "but it seemed he was a great success. His business did well, he was a wealthy man, he traveled a great deal, and he was only in his early thirties…”

"He was a silly man,^n the woman, whom the commissaris had in his notebook as Corin Kops, said.

"It's not so silly to be successful in business," the commissaris said. "For many people it is still the optimal goal."

"I didn't mean it in that way. I mean he was wasting his talents. He could have contributed something to society. Most people just live, like toadstools. They grow and after a while they begin to die. They are living objects, but Abe was much more than that."

"Yes," the commissaris said, and slumped back. "Quite. You said you and he discussed books. What sort of books did he like?"

She pursed her lips, as if she were going to whistle. Grijpstra looked at his watch. His stomach rumbled. "Peckish," Grijpstra thought. "I am feeling a bit peckish. I hope he'll take me to one of those bistros. I could do with a rare steak and a baked potato. A large baked potato."

"Books without a moral. He read some travel books, written by adventurers. People who just roamed about and wrote down their thoughts. And he liked surrealist books."

"Surrealist?" Grijpstra stirred.

"It's a philosophy. Surrealist writers go deeper than the average novelist, by using dreams and unusual associations. They don't bother about surface logic or try to describe daily events but aim for the roots of human behavior."

"They do?" Grijpstra asked.

The commissaris brightened. "Like Nellie's bar, Grijpstra," he said and grinned. "Like what you think when you are fishing, or when you wake up in the morning."

"When I shave?" Grijpstra asked, and grinned too. "Lots of hot water and lather and a new razor blade and nobody in the bathroom and the door locked and swash, swash with the brush."

"What do you think about when you shave?" the commissaris asked. Grijpstra rubbed the short hairs on his skull energetically.

"Hard to say, sir."

The woman showed interest. She was on her way to the kitchen, carrying the dirty coffee cups, but she stopped and turned.

"Try to describe your thoughts," Corin Kops said.

"About the sea," Grijpstra said. "Mostly about the sea, and I have never been a sailor, so that's strange, I suppose. But I think about the sea when I shave. Big waves and blue sky."

"Could you give an example from Abe's life, miss?" the commissaris asked.

"Something surrealistic, you mean? But his whole life was like that. He lived a dream, even when he was being practical. He never gave expectable answers to sensible questions and he always seemed to be changing his mind. There was no set pattern in his life. The man was like a wet bar of soap."

She suddenly sounded exasperated. She looked at the commissaris in desperation. "Once he was here, at night, in the early hours of the morning. There was a gale on. The windows were rattling and I couldn't sleep. I saw him get up and told him to get back to bed. A hard wind always makes me nervous and I wanted him to be with me. But he said he was going sailing, and Louis Zilver told me later that the two of them took that small plastic yacht right out onto the big lake and they very nearly drowned."

She put down the tray. "The Germans killed his parents during the war, you know. Dragged them across the street and threw them into a cattle track and gassed them. But he didn't seem to blame the Germans; he even took German as a second language at the university."

"The Germans must have meant to get him too," Grijpstra said.

"Yes, but the SS patrol missed him. He happened to be playing at a friend's house that morning. He didn't blame the Germans, he blamed the planets."

"Planets?"

"Yes. He thought that the planets, Mercury and Neptune and especially Uranus-he was very interested in Uranus, and all the others, I forget their names-control our lives. If the planets form certain constellations there is a war on earth, and when the constellations change again war stops and there is peace for a while. He had a very low opinion of human endeavor. He thought we are witless creatures, pushed into motion by forces entirely beyond our control. He often told me that there is nothing we can do about anything except perhaps to stop fighting fate and to try and move with it."

"But he was a very active person himself," the commissaris said.

"Exactly. I would say that to him too, but he only laughed and said his activity was due to Uranus, which happened to be very powerful at the time of his birth. Uranus is the planet of change."

"So he was hit by a cosmic ray when he was bora and it made him the sort of person he was," the commissaris said. "I see."

"Made him jump about like a squirrel, eh?" Grijpstra asked.

She laughed. "More like an ape, a large hairy mad ape. An ape with strange gleaming eyes."

"Your friend must have been rather unreliable," the commissaris said.

She picked up the tray again but the commissaris' question seemed to sting her. "No. Not at all. He was trustworthy. He always paid his debts and kept his appointments. If he promised anything he would do it."

"Well, we've got to know him a little better," the commissaris said. "Thank you very much. We are ready now. All I would like to ask before we leave is if you remember where you were yesterday afternoon and last night."

She looked frightened. "You don't suspect me do you?"

"Not necessarily, but we'd like to know all the same."

"I was here, all afternoon and all evening. By myself. I was working on some examination papers."

"Did you see anyone? Speak to anyone? Did anyone phone you?"

"No."

"Would you have any idea who could have wanted to kill Abe Rogge?"

"No."

"Do you know what killed him?" Grijpstra asked.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Was it jealousy? Revenge? Greed?"

She shook her head.

"I am sorry," the commissaris said. "One more question has occurred to me. You have described your friend as a rather negative sort of superman. Never got upset, thought that nothing mattered, did everything well, sailed in storms and came back safely, read unusual books, and in French of all languages. Was he really that marvelous? No weaknesses at all?"

The woman's facial muscles, which had been working nervously, suddenly slacked.

"Yes," she said. "He had his weakness. He cried in my arms once, and he cursed himself while he was shaving, here in my bathroom. He had left the door open and I could hear him."

"Why?"

"I asked him on both occasions and he gave the same answer. He said it was very close to him, so close that he could reach it, he thought, but then he couldn't."

"What?"

"He said he didn't know what it was."

They were almost at the door when Grijpstra, feeling that he hadn't been very helpful, tried again. "We met two of Mr. Rogge's friends, miss. Louis Zilver and Klaas Bezuur. Do you know how he was involved with them?"

She sighed. "He spent a lot of time with Louis. He even used to bring him here for dinner. Mr. Bezuur, I don't know very well. Abe used to talk about him. They were partners once, I think, but Bezuur has his own business now. Abe took me to Bezuur's factory one day, or his garage. I don't think they make the machinery over there; they just keep it around and rent it out, I think. Heavy trucks and all sorts of mobile machinery to make roads and move earth and so on. Abe was driving a bulldozer that afternoon, all over the yard. Louis was there too; he had a tractor. They were racing each other. Very spectacular. Later on Klaas joined them; he also drove a machine, with a big blade attached to it. He was rushing them, pretending to attack but he would reverse at the last moment. They frightened me."

"There was no bad feeling between Abe and Klaas?"

"No, apparently they had drifted apart but that was all. They were very affectionate when they met that afternoon. Embracing each other and shouting and calling each other names."

"When was that?"

"A few months ago, I think."

"Did he have any other close friends?"

She sighed again. "He knew thousands of people. Whenever we were in town together he seemed to be greeting every other person. Girls he had slept with, suppliers, customers, arty types, people he knew from the street market or the university or boating trips. It made me feel on edge, like I was escorting a TV star."

"Probably annoyed them all at some time or other," Grijpstra said gloomily holding the door open for the commissaris. Corin was crying when he closed the door behind him.