status?" His hand dived between stacked bundles of dried leaves and returned with a stone jar. "A glass of whole bodied grain genever?"
"You will be joining me?" the commissaris asked.
Uncle Wisi lifted a piece of cloth and took two glass egg holders from a weathered board. "Most certainly. You won't be poisoned here, opo. Grain is health-giving but it's a sin to limit its use to the manufacture of sandwiches." The jar gurgled. "Here you are. Your most excellent health!"
The genever burned through the commissaris' chest while he tried to adjust to Uncle Wisi's surroundings. He was in the low living room of an antique artisan's dwelling, both long and narrow, under a plastered ceiling supported by sagging pine beams. The old colors—the yellowish white of the thick plaster and the crumbly dark red of the aged wood—framed a tropical exuberance. Bright-colored textiles had been pinned to posts and shelves, and collections of pots and jars filled all available space, between plants that bloomed and crept and hung everywhere, some reaching for the light, others content in dark corners. His host was talking, but what Uncle Wisi said hardly penetrated to the commissaris' brain. When he did listen in the end, he noticed the medicine man's perfect Dutch. This strange man, the commissaris thought, did manage to adjust well—or is it the other way around perhaps? Could it be that the ancient reliability of the house is serving a foreign influence? He got up and looked out of the window.
Uncle Wisi stood next to him. The commissaris raised his eyebrows at the obvious vigor of the exotic vegetation outside. "My private plantation," Uncle Wisi said. "Given to me, since it grew from seeds that I was allowed to gather in your botanical garden. Everything is always available, a noteworthy fact, and how easy it is to find, once you know what you're looking for. The world holds nothing back, all one needs is a correct formulation of any particular desire. I always thought that the idea that gods only live in the home country bears witness of stunted growth."
The commissaris searched his memory, until he saw an elementary schoolteacher whose thin cane glided over a linen map covering the blackboard. Its tip touched a red spot, Paramaribo, capital of Surinam. The droning voice stated that only the coastal region had been developed and that the hills and jungles of the far-away country were wild. Descendants of runaway slaves roamed the wilderness, far from foreign interference, obeying only their own chiefs. The Dutch, through necessity, acknowledged the chiefs' power and sent gifts once a year: silver medals for the captains and discarded officer uniforms to confirm their authority. In the old days the captains had to promise to surrender escaped slaves, but they didn't. They weren't idiots; even the schoolteacher thought so.
"Massa Gran-Gado has been always everywhere," Uncle Wisi said, "but even so, we can't reach him because he's good enough to elude our efforts. Only his winds live inside us, from the very first day, on the African coast, in South America, and in our present location. Another nip, opo?"
"No, thank you." The commissaris hid his egg holder under a convenient leaf. The mood invoked by Uncle Wisi's emanations reminded him of his early youth and he saw the child that he had once been hiding under a glass cupola, in an herbarium. He had fled the crowd milling about in the city's zoo, amusing itself by watching diseased animals: a thin lion with a festering skin, a camel burping bad-temperedly, squinting at his tormentors from infected eyes. The screaming toddlers chasing each other around a cage full of screeching parrots had become too much for him and he had ducked out of the throttling grip of educating parents. The herbarium was quiet, as quiet as Uncle Wisi's room, even when the old man held forth, for his voice was no more than the whispering of large leaves moved by a cool breeze.
Uncle Wisi corked the jar. He
"You will be joining me?" the commissaris asked.
Uncle Wisi lifted a piece of cloth and took two glass egg holders from a weathered board. "Most certainly. You won't be poisoned here, opo. Grain is health-giving but it's a sin to limit its use to the manufacture of sandwiches." The jar gurgled. "Here you are. Your most excellent health!"
The genever burned through the commissaris' chest while he tried to adjust to Uncle Wisi's surroundings. He was in the low living room of an antique artisan's dwelling, both long and narrow, under a plastered ceiling supported by sagging pine beams. The old colors—the yellowish white of the thick plaster and the crumbly dark red of the aged wood—framed a tropical exuberance. Bright-colored textiles had been pinned to posts and shelves, and collections of pots and jars filled all available space, between plants that bloomed and crept and hung everywhere, some reaching for the light, others content in dark corners. His host was talking, but what Uncle Wisi said hardly penetrated to the commissaris' brain. When he did listen in the end, he noticed the medicine man's perfect Dutch. This strange man, the commissaris thought, did manage to adjust well—or is it the other way around perhaps? Could it be that the ancient reliability of the house is serving a foreign influence? He got up and looked out of the window.
Uncle Wisi stood next to him. The commissaris raised his eyebrows at the obvious vigor of the exotic vegetation outside. "My private plantation," Uncle Wisi said. "Given to me, since it grew from seeds that I was allowed to gather in your botanical garden. Everything is always available, a noteworthy fact, and how easy it is to find, once you know what you're looking for. The world holds nothing back, all one needs is a correct formulation of any particular desire. I always thought that the idea that gods only live in the home country bears witness of stunted growth."
The commissaris searched his memory, until he saw an elementary schoolteacher whose thin cane glided over a linen map covering the blackboard. Its tip touched a red spot, Paramaribo, capital of Surinam. The droning voice stated that only the coastal region had been developed and that the hills and jungles of the far-away country were wild. Descendants of runaway slaves roamed the wilderness, far from foreign interference, obeying only their own chiefs. The Dutch, through necessity, acknowledged the chiefs' power and sent gifts once a year: silver medals for the captains and discarded officer uniforms to confirm their authority. In the old days the captains had to promise to surrender escaped slaves, but they didn't. They weren't idiots; even the schoolteacher thought so.
"Massa Gran-Gado has been always everywhere," Uncle Wisi said, "but even so, we can't reach him because he's good enough to elude our efforts. Only his winds live inside us, from the very first day, on the African coast, in South America, and in our present location. Another nip, opo?"
"No, thank you." The commissaris hid his egg holder under a convenient leaf. The mood invoked by Uncle Wisi's emanations reminded him of his early youth and he saw the child that he had once been hiding under a glass cupola, in an herbarium. He had fled the crowd milling about in the city's zoo, amusing itself by watching diseased animals: a thin lion with a festering skin, a camel burping bad-temperedly, squinting at his tormentors from infected eyes. The screaming toddlers chasing each other around a cage full of screeching parrots had become too much for him and he had ducked out of the throttling grip of educating parents. The herbarium was quiet, as quiet as Uncle Wisi's room, even when the old man held forth, for his voice was no more than the whispering of large leaves moved by a cool breeze.
Uncle Wisi corked the jar. He
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