The Japanese Corpse

\\\\\ 13 /////

The Commissaris was watching intently as the priest, with much hissing and bowing, reverently lifted the scroll from its simple wooden box and held it up with both hands. Dorin had knelt down, his hands placed flat on the floormat, and the head with the bristly black crew cut bobbed rapidly up and down. De Gier was sitting farther back, some four feet from the commissaris. He had crossed his legs and was smoking one of the commissaris ' small cigars, but he stubbed it out as he felt the concentrated mood of the room.

The priest, a man in his late thirties, simply dressed in a brown cotton robe, raised his small head, looking even smaller because of the shaved skull. His quiet eyes swept the room, taking in the three men facing him. "Very good painting this," he said, searching painfully for words, "done by great master, Chinese painter, not just painter, very much more than painter, great master, great wisdom."

He paused, vainly attempting to collect more words.

Dorin cleared his throat. "Perhaps you can unroll the painting and our guests can see, then explanations may be unnecessary."

The priest smiled gratefully and raised himself to his feet in one supple movement without taking his hands off the rolled-up scroll. De Gier whistled with admiration. After much practice he had taught his body to change from the sitting to the standing position without pushing it up with his hands, but the movement had always been jerky, consisting of a great many separate muscle actions. With the priest there seemed to be no effort at all. He wondered if the man was taught judo or other sports in the monastery, or whether such suppleness of limbs came naturally to these strange people. The scroll rolled free by its own weight and they saw a drawing in ink, done in a few flowing brush strokes. An old bald-headed man in a tattered robe was resting his head and right shoulder on a large sleeping tiger. The animal lay stretched out, every muscle and sinew and tendon relaxed. The large eyes, shadowed by huge eyebrows, were tightly shut and the paws were flat on the ground, the nails out. The old man's eyes were closed too and the expressions of both faces were absolutely identical.

"Shin K'o," the priest was saying. "Chinese master, tenth century, but this is not the original. Original is in China, kept in museum. This is thirteenth-century copy by Japanese master, unknown." He thought again. "Anonymous, but great master all the same. Very valuable scroll, worth fortune in West."

"Beautiful, beautiful," the commissaris mumbled. The drawing was in perfect balance, man and animal completed each other, but there was more than just harmony and perfect detail, in spite of the seemingly haphazard flow of the lines. The folds and contours of the old man's robe were done with thick strokes that conveyed a great power to the image.

"Painting is called 'Two Patriarchs Harmonizing Their Minds,'" the priest said shyly.

"What is a patriarch?" de Gier asked.

"A master, an old master who has taught many disciples, many monks, many lay people."

"A master?" de Gier asked, shuffling forward on his knees to get closer. "So the tiger is a master too? Like in a fairy tale?"

The priest didn't know the meaning of "fairy tale," and Dorin translated quickly. The priest smiled. "Yes. But this is real fairy tele. Tiger is master, old man is master. Two masters meet. Minds meet. Two minds, one mind."

"Very beautiful," the commissaris said again. "But we don't want to handle this valuable piece; it may get damaged. Perhaps you'd better take it back to your temple and we can pretend you are asking a high price and we are not ready to pay it yet. You are not alone, are you? If the yakusa want it they may take it from you on your way back."

"He is safe," Dorin said. 'The yakusa don't want just this piece; they want everything they can get and they can only get it through the priest. If they start robbing openly, the whole thing comes to the surface, the police will be alerted and public opinion will be roused. They don't want that. Kyoto is the heart of Japan, most of our national treasures can be found here; almost every Japanese will visit the city a few times in his life. Robbing art from here is a heinous crime. It would upset the whole country. The yakusa will have to work in the dark."

"Good. Then maybe we should offer our friend a beer. Would you like some nice cold beer, sir?"

The priest smiled. "Please, last few nights I drink many beers, very nice. Also gamble and meet prostitutes. Very strange occupation for priest. High priests say this is spiritual exercise."

They all laughed. A maid brought the beer and the four men discarded their formal ways. The priest returned the scroll to its box and put it in a corner of the room. After the second glass his words seemed to come more easily. The commissaris asked about Deshima, and the priest started a long discourse on Japan's early contact with the West. As, during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, only Dutchmen were allowed to trade with the country, Japanese curiosity about Western ways had to be satisfied via the tiny island, the size of a large ship. A special science was developed, called Ran'gaku, "Ran" being an abbreviation of Oranda or Holland, "gaku" meaning "study." Japanese scholars managed to master the Dutch written language and read Dutch scholarly works on medicine, astronomy, botany, mathematics and the art of war. Ballistics was of special interest as the Japanese, by then, had grasped the principles of firearms.

"Very useful," the priest said, and giggled, "but our people thought that Holland was large and powerful country, dominating the Western world. Not true. Later, English had to be learned, much more important language. Dutch very interesting no doubt, but only few people spoke it."

"That's still true today," the commissaris said, and nibbled at a cookie. "Very tasty this."

"Seaweed," Dorin said. "It tastes a little like pretzels, doesn't it? But it comes straight from the sea."

"Hmm," the commissaris said, and slipped the cookie into his pocket as he pointed at a pine tree, visible through the open sliding doors which led to the balcony of their room. The inn was similar to the one where they had stayed in Tokyo but larger and more luxurious. It was, the priest told them, a converted temple, as so many buildings in Kyoto are. With the decline of Buddhism and the receding number of monks and priests, and the lessening support, both from state and public, temples had fallen into disrepair, and only during the last ten years or so had interest in the magnificent structures been revived.

"But Buddhism seems very popular in the West now," de Gier objected.

"In the West, but here it is almost dead. Maybe there are fifty masters left in Japan, each master with a small cluster of disciples. But the disciples aren't always serious. The monks know that they can become priests after a few years, and a priest can live in a temple of his own and have some status. They go into the training for material gain. There are few serious students left. It's all according to the predictions: the religion will almost die out, spread to the West, and come back again. But meanwhile it will not die out here. The masters are still here and they have great wisdom."

"How do you feel about your own master?" the commissaris asked. He was staring at the priest's face.

The priest suddenly grinned. "He is source of great irritation to me. Always one inch ahead. What is an inch?" He held up his hand, indicating an inch by bringing the top of his index finger toward his thumb. "Very small distance. I go to great trouble, meditate for many hours, do this and that, and I reach him. But then he is an inch away again and I have to start all over again. Always same thing, I can touch him for brief moment, then…"

A maid came in. She said something to Dorin and the commissaris recognized the word "denwa," electric speech. He had heard the word before. "Telephone."

"Telephone," Dorin said, "for you, sir. There is a phone in the office downstairs. A call from Holland."

"Yes? How do they know we are here?"

"Our American friend in the capital knows our number, he must have passed it on."

The commissaris made his way down to the small office and took the phone from a smiling and bowing clerk.

"Commissaris?"

"Yes, Grijpstra. How are you?"

"Sleepy, sir, it's four in the morning here. It took me a while to get through to you."

"Yes, you phoned Tokyo, we are in Kyoto."

"Different cities?"

"Tokyo is the new capital, Kyoto is the old. Three or four hundred miles' distance, I think. Lots of temples and parks. Very nice here."

"Yes, sir. The State Police found the corpse, sir."

The commissaris looked at the cup of green tea the office clerk had placed in front of him before leaving the small room, walking backward. He took a sip and began to listen while Grijpstra described his recent adventure.

"Killed by an amateur, you think?" the commissaris asked, sipping more tea. Grijpstra talked at length.

"I see, I see. Pity in a way, we thought we had the case started nicely. I'll have to think about this, don't let your two suspects go yet. I'll let you know something within the next day or so. Send you a cable."

"How's the sergeant, sir?"

"De Gier? I think you should talk to him. Don't tell him about the case, I'll do that later."

De Gier came down and the commissaris left the office, taking the small teacup with him. He found the clerk in the hall. "O-cha"* the commissaris said slowly. "Yoroshii. Arigato."

The clerk's face was wreathed in smiles. He rushed off and came back with a gigantic kettle and poured another cup. The commissaris picked the cup up, but the clerk began to hiss and bow. He took the cup from the commissaris' hands and pretended to drink himself, holding the cup with two hands.

"Ah, I see," the commissaris said. "Like this?"

"Yes," the clerk said. "Ceremony. Sometimes important. Not now, but sometimes."

The English words had exhausted him and he left hurriedly, carrying the kettle.

"Are you doing anything over there?" de Gier was asking.

"No. Very quiet here. We had a complaint from an old lady who was shot in the leg with an air gun, while she was waiting at a streetcar stop. The pellet had to be taken out in the hospital and she limped for a day. Cardozo found the man, some idiot in a garret room, with nothing to do all day but stare out of the window, young chappie on welfare. Cardozo had six constables on the job, took them two days. He is very patient, you know." "But you? What did you do?"

"Went for walks, had a few good meals, read the daily reports. Oh yes, you remember that inspector with the rat face?"

"Yes."

"He is bothering me."

"Badly?"

"Yes, badly. Told me to screw a confession out of the two Japanese. It isn't even his case. Threatened me, in fact."

"Yes," de Gier said. "Pity you weren't in Tokyo with me. They sent me there five days ahead of the commissaris, I don't know why. Maybe they wanted me to meet some of our colleagues here. I could have asked the commissaris why, but I haven't. He doesn't like that sort of question."

"Yes. So did you like your five days?"

"Sure, but I almost killed a man, twisted his neck."

"Self-defense?"

"No. He was throwing stones at a cat."

Grijpstra rubbed his short bristly gray hairs and stared at the phone which sat in his hand, innocently gray. De Gier's voice had sounded very quiet.

"Shit," Grijpstra said. "Is there a charge against you?"

"I suppose so, but I got away."

"The commissaris knows?"

"Yes."

"And you are still on the job?"

"Sure."

"Ah well," Grijpstra said. "Send me a postcard sometime. And if they catch you I'll come and blow up the jail. It will be a change. Maybe I can get my two little fat friends here to help me. I've gotten quite friendly with them, you know, especially since I found them Japanese newspapers. Yes, that's a good idea." He was feeling really cheerful now. It would be a change, waltzing around Tokyo arm in arm with two trained gangsters. And with de Gier in jail, waiting patiently in some smelly cell, living on half a bowl of cold mushy rice a day. Saving his friend. His only friend. Did he have any other friends? No. Grijpstra nodded to himself.

"How are you otherwise?" he asked.

"Funny," de Gier said, "very funny. It seems as if there is nothing left in me, everything goes straight through. I see all these beautiful things here, temples, gardens, lovely girls. The man they assigned to us is quite a character and we get on well. I do judo practice, I learn Japanese words, I study maps, I think about what we are supposed to do here. But nothing really seems to register. It all goes straight through, as if I am not there. Even when I drink I am not there."

"But that must be a good feeling," Grijpstra said, surprised.

"Sure. I am not complaining. Maybe the only worry I have is that the feeling will stop. I will remember who I am and that I live in Amsterdam and that I am a policeman and all that. Now there is nothing. I am some sort of mirror. Things reflect in me and then the things go away and the reflection goes too."

"Yes," Grijpstra said. "I think I know what you mean. But I only get that after the twelfth drink or so, and by that time I am staggering about, and the feeling never lasts. I just get sick after that, throw up and all."

"Where are you?" de Gier asked.

"In our room, at my desk. I wouldn't phone Japan from my own house, would I? The bill will be for an unpronounceable amount."

"You are really there, eh?" de Gier asked. "And I am here, at the other end of the world. And I have to get back to our room. We are pretending to buy a valuable painting from a corrupt priest. Maybe the chase will be on by tomorrow."

Grijpstra hung up. "Twisted a man's neck because the man was throwing stones at a cat," he said aloud.

He was still shaking his head as he left the building. Ten minutes later he was knocking on the door of a small hotel reputed to keep its bar open right through the night. A number of bearded and bleary-eyed poets looked up as the portly gentleman elbowed his way to the counter and ordered two jenevers.

"Two?" the girl in the low blouse asked. "In one glass?"

"In two glasses," Grijpstra said. "I'll drink them both at the same time. I am drinking with my friend, you see, but he is in Japan."

"I see," the girl said, and poured the drinks. She smiled reassuringly at the poets. The poets still looked worried.

She went to them to spell out her message.

"It's all right," she said, "he is crazy too." * Cha means tea, O is a polite preface.