Just a Corpse at Twilight by Janwillem van de Wetering Page B
Authors: Janwillem van de Wetering
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bang them shut. You'd better take my car."
The rental, a shiny new four-door "Ford product," as Beth and Aki called it, impressed Grijpstra. Grijpstra remembered, from "World War Two days in Holland, the time when there were no cars except German army vehicles. He also recalled the first American cars coming in after liberation: large shiny chariots that zoomed quietly on Holland's deserted highways, superior inventions from an advanced planet, benevolent robots symbolizing a luxurious beauty that had been beyond a child's imagination.
"Wow!" Grijpstra said when he first saw de Gier's rental. "Nice wheels."
"All yours," de Gier said.
"You guys must be rich," Aki said as she drove the car, cruise-controlled at sixty-five miles an hour, on Interstate 95, a highway that appeared like an endless park to Grijpstra. "Rinus just keeps that car sitting at the Point? At what? At forty bucks a day?"
"He had an inheritance," Grijpstra said, sitting back, fingers intertwined on his stomach, undergoing the pleasant repetition ofa million trees, similar but never identical, with rock arrangements sloping down to the multilaned highway.
He remembered a letter from De Gier that referred to the rocks along Interstate 95. De Gier, combining his interests in gardening and the surreal, wrote that the rocks might have been placed by Chinese monks. Grijpstra visualized that image: a thousand monks, in straw sandals, robes tucked into belts, practicing the art of shifting overweight rocks along a thousand miles of foreign roadway, in the hope of pleasing the deity within by abusing their emaciated bodies. But this was America, pleasing a different facet of that very same deity, and there were machines alongside the interstate, mechanical dinosaurs with long necks, daintily moving rocks about with their muzzles.
"See that?" Aki asked. "That dragline we just passed? Made in Japan?"
"Rains," Aki said a little later, looking sexy in a short leather skirt and a T-shirt printed with a design of bare-breasted Hawaiian dancers under palm trees. "Frost must have dislodged the granite. They're always working on this road. Rinus had an inheritance? Are you kidding? Isn't he lucky? So he can do all that traveling and gadding about."
"Yes," Grijpstra said.
"Watching nature out of his dinghy," Aki said. "You know what he paid for that dinghy? Over two thousand, and that's secondhand. It took two men a month to build it." She shook her head. "He says I can have it when he leaves."
"Lucky with investments too," Grijpstra said. "Rinus just keeps making money. A golden thumb."
"You're kidding."
I'm kidding, Grijpstra thought.
There were more miles sliding by. Grijpstra liked the well-behaved traffic controlled by an occasional gleaming cop car. He told Aki this was the way it should be, just a few people in a million square miles, just a few rules, the minimum of good-looking law enforcement, nice food in road restaurants, attractive wildlife grazing along the highways' shoulders and well beyond in bordering fields. He pointed at long-tailed magpies fluttering between white pines, at a large dark shape cantering lightly across a glade. "What the hell was that?"
"Moose," Aki said. "There are lots of moose in Maine, more now that we've killed off the wolf. Moose are bigger than camels, you know. Moose are next on the list. You can get a license to shoot them now. One of the state's new attractions. Five hundred bucks a pop. They're easy: they'll wait for you, you can walk up to them, say hello, blast them between the eyes."
"Will there be any left?"
"Maybe," Aki said. "Hairy Harry and Billy Boy will stuff the last one for target practice." She touched Grijpstra's knee. "Or it'll be like the nature movies. See these moose?" She deepened her voice. "Behold the broad flattened antlers. North America's largest deer. This is rare footage, folks, taken of the last-known herd some ten years ago." Aki snarled. "And then you hear shots and you see the final
The rental, a shiny new four-door "Ford product," as Beth and Aki called it, impressed Grijpstra. Grijpstra remembered, from "World War Two days in Holland, the time when there were no cars except German army vehicles. He also recalled the first American cars coming in after liberation: large shiny chariots that zoomed quietly on Holland's deserted highways, superior inventions from an advanced planet, benevolent robots symbolizing a luxurious beauty that had been beyond a child's imagination.
"Wow!" Grijpstra said when he first saw de Gier's rental. "Nice wheels."
"All yours," de Gier said.
"You guys must be rich," Aki said as she drove the car, cruise-controlled at sixty-five miles an hour, on Interstate 95, a highway that appeared like an endless park to Grijpstra. "Rinus just keeps that car sitting at the Point? At what? At forty bucks a day?"
"He had an inheritance," Grijpstra said, sitting back, fingers intertwined on his stomach, undergoing the pleasant repetition ofa million trees, similar but never identical, with rock arrangements sloping down to the multilaned highway.
He remembered a letter from De Gier that referred to the rocks along Interstate 95. De Gier, combining his interests in gardening and the surreal, wrote that the rocks might have been placed by Chinese monks. Grijpstra visualized that image: a thousand monks, in straw sandals, robes tucked into belts, practicing the art of shifting overweight rocks along a thousand miles of foreign roadway, in the hope of pleasing the deity within by abusing their emaciated bodies. But this was America, pleasing a different facet of that very same deity, and there were machines alongside the interstate, mechanical dinosaurs with long necks, daintily moving rocks about with their muzzles.
"See that?" Aki asked. "That dragline we just passed? Made in Japan?"
"Rains," Aki said a little later, looking sexy in a short leather skirt and a T-shirt printed with a design of bare-breasted Hawaiian dancers under palm trees. "Frost must have dislodged the granite. They're always working on this road. Rinus had an inheritance? Are you kidding? Isn't he lucky? So he can do all that traveling and gadding about."
"Yes," Grijpstra said.
"Watching nature out of his dinghy," Aki said. "You know what he paid for that dinghy? Over two thousand, and that's secondhand. It took two men a month to build it." She shook her head. "He says I can have it when he leaves."
"Lucky with investments too," Grijpstra said. "Rinus just keeps making money. A golden thumb."
"You're kidding."
I'm kidding, Grijpstra thought.
There were more miles sliding by. Grijpstra liked the well-behaved traffic controlled by an occasional gleaming cop car. He told Aki this was the way it should be, just a few people in a million square miles, just a few rules, the minimum of good-looking law enforcement, nice food in road restaurants, attractive wildlife grazing along the highways' shoulders and well beyond in bordering fields. He pointed at long-tailed magpies fluttering between white pines, at a large dark shape cantering lightly across a glade. "What the hell was that?"
"Moose," Aki said. "There are lots of moose in Maine, more now that we've killed off the wolf. Moose are bigger than camels, you know. Moose are next on the list. You can get a license to shoot them now. One of the state's new attractions. Five hundred bucks a pop. They're easy: they'll wait for you, you can walk up to them, say hello, blast them between the eyes."
"Will there be any left?"
"Maybe," Aki said. "Hairy Harry and Billy Boy will stuff the last one for target practice." She touched Grijpstra's knee. "Or it'll be like the nature movies. See these moose?" She deepened her voice. "Behold the broad flattened antlers. North America's largest deer. This is rare footage, folks, taken of the last-known herd some ten years ago." Aki snarled. "And then you hear shots and you see the final
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