The sun is low on the fields as the local detective races on his electrically powered service bike toward the remote farm on the edge of the village. He parks his blue-and-white paddlewheel in the yard, walks to the utility room door, and knocks. No sound.
Knock again. Nothing.
Harreblaksems, the investigating officer muses to himself. In one corner of the newspaper you are warmly welcomed, with tuber pulp, baked lumps of buttermilk porridge and a kind word, and in the other you stand in front of a closed door.
Krek so, the service knocker answers his own observation. As the only extraordinary investigating officer in the region, he is used to exchanging ideas with himself.
Perhaps, boa Bonkjes considers, running his wet nose down the sleeve of his uniform, it has something to do with what they’ve been saying about the police lately, on television and the boring media. No, that’s not pretty, but Bonkjes doesn’t fear zanksies. He treats everyone in the postcode area equally. Race is not in his dictionary.
Well, how long has it been since he was here on the part? Twenty years, second zennia. How often has he been invited in for a warm apartment and a bit of humanity? How many rounds of butt-tick has he won gloriously – even though he always played the game strictly according to the Olympic spirit? And how many brandies did he not accept, out of courtesy, of course, otherwise nothing? But then came the transfer and he heard that it is getting warmer as farmers keep all their livestock and then he saw films on the stream and the nitrogen and the ammenemak came and more and more a chill breeze was blowing through all those warm memories. Yet he missed the family, the always willing daughter Mieke-Kee most of all. Every December he bought the farmer’s wife’s calendar, hoping to catch a glimpse of her mischievous face without a glove next to a hay bale, or in the trusted box bed. In vain.
And now he’s back, and everything seems different. And just as the melancholy threatens to overpower the law enforcement officer, there is scurrying behind the door.
‘Is it you, Bonks? Not bad news, I hope?’
It’s Mother Kneupma. She hasn’t aged a day.
‘I’m here for Kneup,’ says Bonkjes. ‘It’s about the calculation models and the detailed calculations.’
‘I don’t know all that,’ Mother Kneupma sighs. ‘Father is visiting the city with the tractor. Otherwise we’ll all end up in the puddle, or how did he say that? Could get late. And our Gerrit-Jan is now a hobbyist in Brussels. He makes up omission figures there.’
‘And Mieke-Kee?’ Bonkjes informs with a blush.
‘He is going to the harvest festival of the VVD. There she does a mootsie to get the mood going. Some kind of folk dance, I think. O. the turnips are just done – poke a fork? Just like before?’ An evening just like before? Picking up with only Mother Kneupma and a pan? Bonkjes won’t say ‘no’ to that.
Thanks to Remco Campert.