Hard Rain Read Free

then."
    "Another love story?" the commissaris's wife asked. "You lost again? You got me, you know. I didn't really like Willem. I was very pleased you seduced me when we went out sailing that day, in his brother Ernst's boat."
    "Katrien," the commissaris said softly, "will you admit it now? You wanted Ernst Fernandus. Go on, let's have it out at last. That was thirty-five years ago. You can be honest, we're all old dodderers by now."
    "Maybe," his wife said. "It was such a lovely day and Willem had been rude again and you asked me to your room afterward and I knew I shouldn't go, but you said it was just for coffee, and then it was kind of stuffy in your room and you said there was no need to be overdressed."
    "Ernst looked like Tarzan," the commissaris said. "Tarzan with a golden beard. He'd had his first poetry published by then. He owned that wonderful sailboat. Ernst was everything a romantic girl could wish for. Every time he looked at you, you squeaked."
    She took his hand. "I squeaked a lot in those days. I was a silly girl. You know who got Ernst that night? Fleur. Willem went home by himself, on two wheels in his stupid car. Wasn't he pathetic? And you got me. It was the first time for me. Now tell me what happened in Paris."
    "Yes," the commissaris said, "maybe I won that time. And maybe I won in Paris, too, but that's a bad tale. You sure you want to hear it?"
    She squeezed his hand. "Yes. Keep talking, Jan, the plane is going down, I never like it when airplanes land."
    "We went dancing on the Champs Elysees," the commissaris said, "and I met a girl. Jacqueline, she was called. A pretty girl. Her father had a small grocery in the Fourteenth District. I wrote her phone number down, intending to call her the next day—she was going to show me a museum, I think—but when I woke up in the hotel, Willem had taken the piece of paper from my jacket. He wasn't there. He had phoned her, saying I was unwell, and taken her for a ride in the Bois de Boulogne. A motorcar was very special in those days. I didn't see much of Willem for the rest of the week, because he kept taking Jacqueline out. It turned out that she was rather old-fashioned and he couldn't get close to her unless he met her parents. Then she still wouldn't give in, so Willem said he'd marry her."
    "Are we about to land now?" his wife asked.
    "Not yet."
    "Tell me when I can open my eyes."
    "Willem got her pregnant," the commissaris said. "He lost interest at once. That was about a year later. Before then Willem kept driving up and down to Paris. Jacqueline was really a rather lovely girl. He brought her up to Amsterdam a few times, to impress all of us —and to annoy me, of course."
    "Are we landing?"
    "Now," the commissaris said. "Open your eyes. We're safe. Do you want to hear the rest of it?"
    "So Willem has a child in Paris?"
    "He killed it."
    "An abortion?"
    "Much worse," the commissaris said. "He tried to kill Jacqueline. We had become philosophers by then, and Willem was reading Nietzsche. I didn't care too much for Nietzsche, but even so, the man made some good points. I won't bore you with the argument, but Willem and I somehow agreed that all morals were nonsense. Morals were merely rehashed tribal laws, and enlightened souls such as ourselves didn't have to bother with good and evil. We could do as we liked. I agreed in theory—maybe I still do—but I insisted that we should never hurt others."
    "You've hurt me many times, Jan."
    He patted her shoulder. "Yes, but that was in spite of my good intentions. I didn't put rat poison in your porridge because I'd made you pregnant, did I, now?"
    "Oh, Jan, did WHIem do that to the poor girl?"
    "He certainly did," the commissaris said, waiting for impatient passengers to file out of the plane. "And mostly to prove a point. You see what I'm getting at?"
    "No, Jan. Shouldn't we get out?"
    They walked through the airport's main building, arm in arm, a small, dapper old man with a slight limp, and a tall,