day-to-day activities but was present nevertheless, rooted ever more deeply inside him, like . . . like a slowly growing benign tumour of gratitude and peace of mind.
Or how the hell could he describe it on a morning like this one? In his darkest moments – when he succumbed to his old weakness of regarding life as an equation and not much more – he sometimes saw Ulrike as a sort of substitute for Erich, his son, who had passed away two years ago, and naturally left a wound inside him which would continue to bleed for the rest of his life.
But such equivalences did not exist. A dead son could never be compensated for, he knew that now – had always known it of course – just as little as good deeds, no matter what they were, could balance out evil ones. It was no coincidence that Schopenhauer had been his household god for a while in his youth, and over thirty years in the police force had hardly served to contradict those basic pessimistic maxims about the facts of life. On the contrary.
And in recent years he had begun to think that Good also has a right to exist on its own account in this world. A much greater right than what he used to regard as a mere pawn in the struggle with Evil. The powers of darkness. How else could one allocate the true value of a child’s laughter or the eyes of a woman who loves you?
If these things have to be weighed up and compared. Balanced.
He closed the bedroom door and returned to the kitchen. Put the kettle on and flopped down at the table with the heap of newspapers in front of him. Copies of the Allgemejne for the last twenty days.
I might as well start working my way through them, he thought. They ought to be able to keep him occupied until his tiredness hit him once again, if nothing else. He adjusted the pile and started chronologically from the back. It was now eleven minutes to six. There was a scratching at the door, but he was damned if he was going to make it up with that confounded cat already.
An hour and three cups of tea later the lack of sleep had caught up with him. He had also given way and allowed Stravinsky back in: the cat had miaowed reproachfully and gone back to the same window ledge, presumably hoping against hope for the arrival of the next delicacy on this day of miracles when grilled swallows were flying around all over the place.
Or perhaps he’s forgotten all about it already, Van Veeteren thought. Cats’ memories are short. Enviably short. What he had done with the bird – or the remains of it – seemed to be written in the stars.
The newspapers were nothing special. He read at most two or three articles to the end, but leafed dutifully through every copy and glanced at every single page. He cut out the chess columns and put them in a pile, and by the time he had dealt with the fifteenth copy of the Allgemejne he could tell by the gravelly feeling behind his eyes that he wouldn’t be able to keep going for much longer. And there wasn’t much point anyway. He folded the newspaper up, placed it on top of the bundle of those he had read already and glanced at the first page of the one on top of the pile of unread copies.
Then his heart missed a beat.
The priest was glaring at him.
Glaring . There was no other word for it. His eyes were prominent under the long quiff of hair carefully combed to one side. His expression had something reproachful and at the same time aggressive in it. His dark beard was slightly better trimmed than Van Veeteren recalled it from the visit to the antiquarian bookshop. Presumably a little shorter as well, because his dog collar could be seen quite clearly.
He shook his head and stared at the headline.
PRIEST FELL UNDER A TRAIN
The text was only about ten lines long, and there was no continuation on an inside page.
The 29-year-old priest Tomas Gassel was killed late yesterday evening when for some unknown reason he fell down onto the lines just as a local train was pulling into Maardam Central Station. There
Or how the hell could he describe it on a morning like this one? In his darkest moments – when he succumbed to his old weakness of regarding life as an equation and not much more – he sometimes saw Ulrike as a sort of substitute for Erich, his son, who had passed away two years ago, and naturally left a wound inside him which would continue to bleed for the rest of his life.
But such equivalences did not exist. A dead son could never be compensated for, he knew that now – had always known it of course – just as little as good deeds, no matter what they were, could balance out evil ones. It was no coincidence that Schopenhauer had been his household god for a while in his youth, and over thirty years in the police force had hardly served to contradict those basic pessimistic maxims about the facts of life. On the contrary.
And in recent years he had begun to think that Good also has a right to exist on its own account in this world. A much greater right than what he used to regard as a mere pawn in the struggle with Evil. The powers of darkness. How else could one allocate the true value of a child’s laughter or the eyes of a woman who loves you?
If these things have to be weighed up and compared. Balanced.
He closed the bedroom door and returned to the kitchen. Put the kettle on and flopped down at the table with the heap of newspapers in front of him. Copies of the Allgemejne for the last twenty days.
I might as well start working my way through them, he thought. They ought to be able to keep him occupied until his tiredness hit him once again, if nothing else. He adjusted the pile and started chronologically from the back. It was now eleven minutes to six. There was a scratching at the door, but he was damned if he was going to make it up with that confounded cat already.
An hour and three cups of tea later the lack of sleep had caught up with him. He had also given way and allowed Stravinsky back in: the cat had miaowed reproachfully and gone back to the same window ledge, presumably hoping against hope for the arrival of the next delicacy on this day of miracles when grilled swallows were flying around all over the place.
Or perhaps he’s forgotten all about it already, Van Veeteren thought. Cats’ memories are short. Enviably short. What he had done with the bird – or the remains of it – seemed to be written in the stars.
The newspapers were nothing special. He read at most two or three articles to the end, but leafed dutifully through every copy and glanced at every single page. He cut out the chess columns and put them in a pile, and by the time he had dealt with the fifteenth copy of the Allgemejne he could tell by the gravelly feeling behind his eyes that he wouldn’t be able to keep going for much longer. And there wasn’t much point anyway. He folded the newspaper up, placed it on top of the bundle of those he had read already and glanced at the first page of the one on top of the pile of unread copies.
Then his heart missed a beat.
The priest was glaring at him.
Glaring . There was no other word for it. His eyes were prominent under the long quiff of hair carefully combed to one side. His expression had something reproachful and at the same time aggressive in it. His dark beard was slightly better trimmed than Van Veeteren recalled it from the visit to the antiquarian bookshop. Presumably a little shorter as well, because his dog collar could be seen quite clearly.
He shook his head and stared at the headline.
PRIEST FELL UNDER A TRAIN
The text was only about ten lines long, and there was no continuation on an inside page.
The 29-year-old priest Tomas Gassel was killed late yesterday evening when for some unknown reason he fell down onto the lines just as a local train was pulling into Maardam Central Station. There
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