Janwillem De Wetering - Tumbleweed

"And now she is dead," Mr. de Sousa said after a while. "You will want to know who threw the knife into her but I do not know."

The commissaris returned to his hotel and had a bath. He drank his coffee and his orange juice and he smoked a cigar and the hot water soaked the dirt and the sweat off him. He put on a clean suit and left the hotel and wandered past the ships moored at the quay. The schooner of the Indian who gave him the cigarettes had left. He stopped to admire the old tramp steamer.

"What are you looking at?" a voice bellowed from the bridge.

"Hello," the commissaris shouted.

"You," the captain with the yellow beard shouted back. "You? Come up here!"

The commissaris crossed the gangway, anxious not to soil his suit. The captain met him on the lower deck.

"Have some rum with me, policeman," the captain said, and put out his hand. The commissaris touched the hand gently but it was clean, clean like its owner, who was now grinning through his beard, showing broken teeth separated by large gaps.

"I saw you at Silva's window this morning," the captain said, and cackled. "He pretends not to care about the soot I blow at him but I got him the other day. He came out and shook his fist at me. That police station will be very dirty when I finish with it but there is nothing they can do about it except cough. I am not breaking any law. I have to keep the old engine going, don't I?"

They were in the captain's cabin, and a hunchback in a torn jacket had brought a flat green bottle of rum and glasses and a dented silver bucket filled with ice.

"Nice bucket," the captain said, picking it up. "Filched it from a nightclub in Barranquilla. But they made me pay for it on the next trip. They always win in the end."

He poured a glass half full of rum and filled it with ice.

"Thank you," the commissaris said.

"Carta Blanca," the captain said, "the best rum of the island. You know why?"

"No."

"Because of the label."

The captain turned the bottle and the commissaris saw a handsome black woman showing a full well-formed bosom as she bent down to took at a letter which she had obviously just received and which was causing a strong emotion.

"Every man who drinks this rum thinks he has written the letter," the captain said, "and they forget the taste of the rum. But the rum isn't bad all the same."

The commissaris leaned back in his chair and sipped a little of the raw-tasting liquor. He told himself to be careful, his body wouldn't take much of the strong spirit.

"You made some money today," the captain said, emptying his glass, filling it again and leering at the commissaris. "I spoke to the woman who sold you a number. You should go to Otrabanda tomorrow and collect, she likes you. You had a busy day, didn't you? One of my men saw you talking to Mr. van der Linden. Did you like the old buzzard?"

"Yes," the commissaris said, "a nice man."

"He is all right. Won a case for me once, and he lost one too, but that was my fault. He warned me but I was young then. I believed in right and wrong."

"You don't anymore?"

"Hee hee." The captain sat down gingerly in a rickety-looking cane chair. "Must be careful now. Chair is getting old, like the ship. One day the bottom will fall out of her but it doesn't matter anymore. We are all getting old, me, the crew, the engine. Right and wrong. I don't know now. The older I get the less I know."

The commissaris forgot his good intentions and swallowed his rum. He put the glass on the table with a bang and the captain filled it up for him. His hand was unsteady and he had trouble with the ice cubes. The commissaris helped him.

"You saw our medicine man today as well, didn't you? Did you like him?"

"Shon Wancho," the commissaris said.

"Shon Wancho," the captain repeated, nodding his head vigorously.

"Do you know him?"

"Sure," the captain said. "I brought him here, a long time ago, thirty years maybe, maybe longer. He comes from me bush, a bush doctor. His father was a bush doctor before him. He knows."

"He knows what?"

The captain gesticulated. "Everything. He knows the lot."

"Do you see him regularly?"

"Not regularly," the captain said, "sometimes. I saw him the other day."

"Why?"

"About the crabs. The crabs were after me, you know. The rum brought them out. Thousands of crabs. I was seeing them all the time, rum or no rum."

"Did he tell you to stop drinking?"

The captain looked surprised. "No," he said, "but he chased the crabs away."

"They haven't come back?"

"If they do I will go and see him again."

The captain was slurring his words and the commissaris expected him to fall asleep or pass out any minute now but he had underestimated the old man's capacity.

"You like ?" he asked.

The commissaris had suddenly remembered the pain in his legs. The twinge had come back again during the morning but it had left him when he was sitting on the rocking chair in Shon Wancho's house and it wasn't with him now. "This is a good island," he was telling the captain. "I have been thinking that I might like to live here one day."

The captain nodded solemnly. "Yes, you do that. And when you get bored seeing the same people and the same goats you can come on a little trip with me. I have a cabin for passengers and the cook is Chinese."

"That would be nice."

"No charge," the captain said, "provided I am still alive. Don't wait too long."

The captain stamped his foot on the floor twice and an elderly Chinese appeared in the doorway.

"You are Dutch," the captain said, "and the Dutch always eat something when they drink. I have come to so often that I have picked up their habits. In Venezuela we drink when we drink. What have you got, cook?"

"Noodle soup, boss."

"No eggrolls?"

"Eggrolls, too."

"Yes, please," the commissaris said.

The food arrived within minutes and the hunchback set the table, taking the rum bottle with him in spite of the captain's protests.

The commissaris stayed another hour, listening to the captain's tales. He heard about the ports of Venezuela and Colombia and there was a long story about Guajira, the peninsula between the two countries where smugglers rule and where Indians still live the Indian life. He was told about the many islands, about revolutions, about sudden gales.

"I nearly lost my first mate then," the captain said, "Maria's brother. How is he, by the way?"

"Her brother?" the commissaris asked, "but she only has

The captain was trying to light a soggy cigar and, after several attempts, threw it out of the porthole and selected a fresh one from the tin which the commissaris had put on the table.

"Different mother," he said, "but the same father. Maria's father has a lot of children but he was very fond of this son. His mother had come out from Holland to teach here. De Sousa looked after her when she became pregnant and built her a little house in the South. Maria knew her brother, they would come and play on this ship sometimes. The boy went to high school in Amsterdam and later graduated from the merchant navy college. Then he came back."

"You knew him well?" the commissaris asked.

"Of course. He sailed under me for several years. Poor fellow."

"Poor fellow?"

"Yes." The captain stamped on the floor three times.

"Captain?" the hunchback's voice came from the lower deck.

"Can I have that bottle back now?"

"No," the hunchback shouted, "but you can have a beer."

"Beer!" the captain shouted.

Two tins arrived and the captain shoved one to the commissaris. They pulled them open.

"Health."

"The poor fellow," the commissaris reminded him.

"Yes. Natural child, you know. He had his mother's name. His mother married and she didn't have much time for her first child. He hated his father. And he is a small chap, small chaps have a difficult time. He looks small too, some small chaps don't look small but he does. Became very Christian, Bible and all. And then he wouldn't stay with me anymore, he couldn't put up with the drinking and goings on, used to lock himself in his cabin at times. I couldn't help him. But he was a good seaman, I liked him."