Janwillem De Wetering - The Japanese Corpse

There was a knock on the door and Dorin came in, carrying two large paper bags and a broom.

"Was that you sweeping?" de Gier asked.

"Yes."

"But your room is next door to ours, isn't it?"

"They moved me out of it this morning. I prefer the room upstairs. I can look over the wall now, into the temple compound across the road, and the priests are having a big ceremony tomorrow which I want to see. They all come in their best robes and do a sort of dance. They do it once a month. Yes, that was me sweeping. I was sweeping up dead flies. They are in these bags now."

He opened one of the bags and showed its contents to the commissaris, then to de Gier. The bag was full to the brim. The flies were fairly large. They had striped bodies, green wings and bulging eyes. And they were all dead.

"When Dutchmen go to the Far East, flies follow," the commissaris said slowly.

Dorin sat down and lit a cigarette. His hand was shaking a little and his eyes looked tired; the finely drawn eyebrows sagged and there were deep wrinkles on his forehead.

"If each fly is a hint you got a lot of hints," de Gier said. "There must be somebody here in the inn who keeps the yakusa informed about us. You only moved into the room this morning, didn't you?"

"Yes, and I was out for an hour only. They must have been waiting for me. I wonder where they got the flies. I can't stand flies, but most Japanese hate them. We are a proverbially clean people, and flies have to do with dirt and rotting food and corpses and disease."

"And Dutchmen," de Gier mumbled, and walked over to the other bag, which Dorin had left near the door and looked into it. "Where did I see a lot of flies once?" he asked aloud, staring at the bag. "At a farm I think it was, in Holland somewhere. We were investigating somebody's death, a long time ago. That's right. I went into the barn and opened a door leading into a partitioning, and there were a million dead flies. The farmer said that they had all come out of their eggs at the same time, but they were in a closed part of the barn. He had built the partitioning during the winter. When the flies hatched they couldn't find any food and died of starvation. Everything in the room was covered with their bodies. Maybe these came from a barn too. A barn. I had something to do with a barn. But what was it?"

"A barn?" the commissaris asked. "Have you been in any barns since we arrived in Japan? I haven't been near a farm as far as I know."

"Bird barn!" de Gier exclaimed. "Yuiko-san was telling me about Kono. Kono has a birdbarn. He sleeps in it when the peacock eggs are incubating. The bird barn is on the grounds of the daimyo's castle."

"Well," the commissaris said brightly. "The dead flies didn't upset you, did they, Dorin?"

"They did," Dorin said. "I vomited twice; I just made it to the bathroom each time. I knew I had something coming, but I find it very difficult to defend myself against this sort of thing."

"So why did you sweep them up? The maids could have done it for you."

"A little revenge," Dorin said. "The sergeant asked me this morning if I believe in revenge. I do. Maybe it doesn't accomplish much and only provokes action from the other side and sets off an endless chain of suffering, but it will relieve my feelings. I am going to sprinkle these flies all over the bar in the yakusa nightclub, tonight some time."

"Right now," de Gier said, "there may be nobody around. It's still early in the afternoon. I'll help you If you like."

"You are too conspicuous," Dorin said. "Thanks anyway. And you are right about the time. I'll go as a plumber. It's a disguise I have used before, and I have some affinity with the trade. My uncle is a plumber and I used to go with him on jobs when I was a kid. I have the right clothes with me, and one of my bags is a plumber's toolbox. I'll find a few pipes which I can keep under my arm."

"Yes," the commissaris said. "You can go through the back door. Can you pick locks?"

Dorin nodded.

"There's something else," de Gier said. "I am going sailing with a yakusa girl tomorrow, on Lake Biwa. The commissaris thinks you might be around too, in another boat or a plane."

"A boat," Dorin said. "I can get one easily. We'll discuss the details after I come back, and if I don't come back you can phone the emergency number you have. You should phone it anyway if I don't come back. They'll know what to do. But perhaps you shouldn't go sailing tomorrow. I telephoned my superiors in Tokyo this morning, and they think we know enough. They are prepared to give the word to have both the nightclub here and the daimyo's castle raided. We don't really need a well-prepared case. I am not a policeman and my superiors aren't either. They have enough power to wipe out the daimyo and his tribe. They didn't have it before, because the daimyo has friends in Tokyo too, government rats, rats with sticky paws, but their paws are drying up. The daimyo is losing his strength. The heroin connection to Europe was important to him, and it's gone now. The art business is only a sideline, but now that we have proof we could approach a few reporters and get the magazines to do illustrated stories. JAPANESE HOLY TREASURES GOING WEST. The government rats don't want to be associated with a juicy scandal and the magazines could make it very juicy. Unfortunately, we still don't know the identity of the daimyo."

"So how do you know you have caught him when you raid his castle?" the commissaris asked.

"We'll raze it. I'll bring in special troops, the Snow Monkeys of my own regiment. We don't have a standing army anymore, but there are still warriors in Japan, volunteers, hand-picked, well trained."

"Snow Monkeys?" the commissaris asked.

Dorin smiled. He looked much better now. The bags of flies stood leaning against the table, forgotten. His eyes were sparkling.

"Snow Monkeys, the monkeys of Hokkaido, our big island in the North. They are macaques, short-tailed monkeys that can live anywhere. In Africa they are short-haired, but our variety has grown fluffy gray coats, and they walk in single file through the snow. When they get too cold they warm up by bathing in the hot springs, and while their bottoms are almost boiled the snow still sits on their heads. They survived even during the times that we hunted them, and they can act in groups and on their own. Japanese have never been known for their individual strength. The American soldiers would try to shoot our officers, for they knew they could pick off the soldiers one by one afterward. But the Snow Monkeys can make their own decisions, although they are disciplined enough to obey orders. And they have retained some of the old samurai values. They won't surrender."

"What do they believe in?" de Gier asked.

Dorin shrugged. "I don't know what my fellow officers base their guidance on, but I have never encouraged any idealism in my own men. I try not to believe in anything myself. Ultimately there is nothing, and it is better to believe in nothing from the start. But it takes great courage not to believe. My own life is continuous proof. Anything upsets me, even dead flies. But I try."

"And so do the Snow Monkeys," the commissaris said. "If they attack the palace they will destroy it completely, I imagine, and the daimyo with it, if he happens to be in. What sort of weapons do your men use, Dorin?"

"They are familiar with most weapons, but their main training is with the American M-16 automatic rifle, the Uzzi submachine gun and the Walther pistol. I would like them to use tanks or machine-gun carriers when they attack the castle, but the roads are too narrow and the yakusa will see them coming. I think I'll have them flown in with helicopters and supply them with jeeps. They can use small mortars for blasting the compounds of the castle, and the helicopters can gun anyone down who shows his face. There will also be a bit of bombing, and the men can rush the place once the bombs have exploded. It should be over in half an hour at the most. The palace may have escape tunnels, but they will have to come up somewhere, so I can have roadblocks at various strategic points. There aren't too many roads and we have good maps; the maps show the mountain paths too. Some of the Snow Monkeys are in the Rokko Mountains right now, disguised as tourists. So there is really no need for you to take any more risks. Maybe it would be foolish to go further. The yakusa haven't guessed who we are, but they may one day, tomorrow perhaps."