The Darkroom of Damocles

by Willem Frederik Hermans

  The door opened, setting off the electric bell. Evert Turlings left and the bell tinkled again.

  Just as Osewoudt turned back towards the counter, the bell tinkled for a third time.

  There stood Dorbeck. He wore a pale grey summer suit that looked brand new. He did not give the impression of being as short as Osewoudt. He came in, leaving the door open. He deposited a large parcel wrapped in brown paper on the counter.

  ‘Morning, Osewoudt, I’ve brought your suit back.’

  ‘Dorbeck! Do you know they’re looking for you? There’s a bit about you in the paper.’

  ‘They can look wherever they like. If I don’t want them to find me, they won’t.’

  ‘Do you want the uniform back?’

  ‘No, never mind about that.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say, but I don’t know what to do with it either,’ muttered Osewoudt, heading for the sliding doors.

  But when he returned with the uniform over his arm, Dorbeck had gone. The door was still open.

  Osewoudt dumped the uniform on the counter and went out into the street. Just then the blue tram slowly came past, blocking his view. He didn’t see Dorbeck in the tram either, but that didn’t mean to say he wasn’t on.

  The sun shone. It was a fine day. There were people walking about, including some unarmed German soldiers. It was almost as if nothing had changed, as if things would stay the same for ever. Maybe Evert Turlings had a point. And maybe even now Dorbeck was on his way to give himself up. Osewoudt took the uniform, put the shop door on the latch, and went out into the back garden. He used the coal shovel to dig a hole in the ground, wrapped the uniform in newspaper and buried it.

  Not until evening did he get to open the parcel Dorbeck had left behind. It turned out to contain more than his Sunday suit. There were also two metal canisters, a ten-guilder note, and a typed message: Osewoudt, develop these films asap. No need for prints. Cut them into strips, put in an envelope and send to: E. Jagtman, Legmeerplein 25, Amsterdam. Post them tomorrow night at the latest.

  Osewoudt examined the canisters and saw they were not ordinary films but so-called Leica films. Not that he was an expert.

  That same evening he went to The Hague, to see the man who had given him the cardboard sign about developing and printing for his shop. But when he arrived at the address there was another name on the door, and nobody answered when he rang. Try a different photographer? He didn’t know any, and besides they would be closed by now. In Voorschoten there was only Turlings the chemist who knew anything about photography. Ask him to do it? But what about his son?

  And so Osewoudt decided to have a go himself. He’d developed the odd film or two back at school. In the cellar he found a red lamp that had belonged to Uncle Bart, and a couple of bowls in a crate. All he needed now was the chemicals. He didn’t dare buy them from the chemist. So the following morning he cycled over to Leiden, having asked his mother to look after the shop as Ria was in bed with flu.

  When he returned half an hour later, the shop was closed. Even the blinds over the window and the door had been lowered, which he never did in the old days. Since the invasion, though, he had been obliged to lower them after dark because of the blackout. His mind went back to that Ascension Day when, aged fifteen, he had come to scout around Voorschoten for clues to his father’s murder, and had seen the shop looking exactly as it did now. He was overcome by a sense of all being lost – what he had lost he couldn’t tell – as he put the key in the lock. His mother opened the door, saying she had heard him coming. In a rage, he fell to raising the blinds, but the cord of the blind over the door snapped, so it stayed down.

  His mother declared that she had let the blinds down to keep out two men, two men who had a message from somebody called Dorbeck which they wanted to pass on to Osewoudt in person. She had said he didn’t live here any more, that the name on the shop meant nothing. After that she had locked the door and lowered the blinds. ‘Clever of me, wasn’t it, my boy?’ She was greatly excited. He almost had to force her to go back to bed, and on the stairs she burst into tears, saying she had felt it coming and that it had to be stopped, stopped.

  ‘You won’t help me! Packing me off to bed like this as if I’m ill! You’ll come to grief if you don’t listen to me!’

  She ranted on, but nothing she said gave him any idea of what the two men might have wanted to tell him from Dorbeck. When they did not return in the afternoon, as he had hoped, he decided they had probably only come to ask if the films were ready. Straight after supper he went down to the cellar, dissolved the developer and the fixing salt in tap water and lit the little red oil lamp. Muddled visions of German defensive works, artillery positions, airfields, photostats of secret weapons and other classified material flashed across his mind as he took the first film from its canister. His heart raced, he could scarcely breathe imagining everything that was about to be revealed thanks to a bit of simple chemistry, pictures that would be pored over by the Military Command in London. But when he started unrolling the film he broke out in a sweat. He gauged its length to be two metres. The celluloid was very stiff; it kept slipping from his fingers, coiling around him like a snake.

  He struggled on; no images appeared. He tried holding the strips up to the red light. Nothing happened, other than that the films, which were milky white to start with, turned completely black. Finally he hung them up to dry and went to bed. When he looked at them again in the morning all he could see was dark smudges. He cut the strips into sections and put them in an envelope, which he laid in the drawer under the counter. But because he assumed they’d be no good and didn’t want to appear totally inept, he did something that could be interpreted as a deed of desperation: he withdrew his working capital (600 guilders) from the bank, went to The Hague, stepped into a camera shop and within five minutes had bought himself a Leica, which he paid for in cash. He took the tram to Scheveningen in the hope of photographing German military installations: anti-aircraft batteries, army encampments and vessels being fitted for the invasion of England. But when he got there he saw very little of potential interest. There were indeed a few ships in the harbour, but he had no idea whether they had anything to do with the impending German offensive against England. He photographed a few lorries on the off-chance, and also took a picture of the German sentry outside the prison. This was seen by the German. Instead of raising the alarm, he stood yet more stiffly to attention. Osewoudt returned home having taken no more than six photos, none of which he thought would be of any use. He was supposed to have sent off Dorbeck’s films the day before. As a last resort he took the envelope containing the botched negatives from the counter drawer, wrote E. Jagtman, Legmeerplein 25, Amsterdam on the front, stuck a stamp on it and dropped it in the letter box. For the next few days he left his mother in charge of the shop, only returning home at night to sleep. He wandered around taking photos at random, for what purpose he did not know. No Germans took any notice of him, which strengthened his feeling that he could not have photographed any location of significance, simply because he was so ignorant about military affairs. But in any case he would be able to show Dorbeck he had tried his level best not to let him down. After three days he felt he had sufficient grounds for a reprieve, should he be called to account. Besides, he had run out of ideas about what to photograph (the first film still wasn’t used up). If they came again and said: what’s going on? We send you two rolls of film for which people risked their lives and all you do is ruin them – he would be able to prove he had spared neither money nor effort to repair the damage. He went back to running the shop. No one came. One evening a week later there was a storm. In between thunderclaps he heard a ring at the door. He crossed to the front but couldn’t see who it was. He decided to take the chance and unlocked the door, turning the light switch at the same time. But the light didn’t come on.

  It was Dorbeck, in a long raincoat, dripping wet.

  ‘Dorbeck, the photographs—’

  Dorbeck
placed the flat of his left hand against Osewoudt’s chest and pushed him backwards. Tight-lipped, he barely looked at Osewoudt. He shut the door behind him and strode to the darkest part of the shop, at the back by the sliding doors.

  ‘Where’s your wife?’

  ‘Upstairs, in bed with flu. The photos—’

  ‘Is there anyone else around?’

  ‘No, but listen—’

  ‘I’m sorry you went to all that trouble for nothing. The films were worthless. They were put into our hands by a German provocateur. There was nothing on them, of course. I sent two people to tell you, but your mother wouldn’t let them in. Did you know that?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I haven’t much time. I need your help. I want you to be in the waiting room of Haarlem station next Tuesday at 2.45 p.m. Look out for me. I’ll be sitting at a table with someone else. Here …’ Dorbeck took Osewoudt’s hand and pressed a heavy object into it. ‘Here’s a pistol. Bring it with you.’

  Outside, the storm intensified, the shop grew even darker than before.

  ‘All right? I must go now,’ said Dorbeck.

  The pouring rain made a hissing sound. A flash of lightning lit up the interior, but not Dorbeck’s face, which was in Osewoudt’s shadow.

  ‘Hadn’t you better wait for the rain to stop?’

  ‘No time. Catch you later.’

  Dorbeck went round the counter towards the door and out into the street. Just then the electric light came on of its own accord. A long slab of light fell across the black asphalt paving.

  Osewoudt put his head round the door to look for Dorbeck, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

  ‘What’s the idea? Don’t you know there’s a blackout?’

  A policeman with a bicycle stood in the next doorway, water pouring from his cap.

  ‘So sorry, officer, I was just showing someone out. I tried turning the light on five minutes ago, but the current was down. And now it’s suddenly come on again.’

  Osewoudt turned the light switch.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Posted here recently, were you?’

  ‘Yes, not long ago,’ the policeman said. ‘Don’t let it happen again, sir.’

  The tramlines were still flooded with rainwater, but the sun shone. Osewoudt was halfway up a stepladder behind the door fixing the broken cord of the blind. Evert Turlings came past, and pointed to the cardboard sign with the snapshots on it. He asked: ‘Get much call for that, do you?’

  ‘Not much. I don’t do the work myself, actually. I ought to take that sign down, because the bloke who did the developing for me has given it up.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m starting in the developing and printing business myself. So if anyone comes asking, just send them on to me. I’ll make you a present of some shaving soap! But you wouldn’t have any use for it would you, ha ha!’

  Osewoudt came down the stepladder, and asked: ‘Is it difficult to learn? I don’t know the first thing about it. Doing all that stuff in red light, don’t you get exhausted?’

  ‘Red light, did you say? That was how they did it in your grandfather’s day. Modern films are sensitive to all kinds of light, including red.’

  ‘So what happens if you develop them in red light?’

  ‘They go black, of course. They’re ruined.’

  ‘Is there no chance of getting them to turn out right after that?’

  ‘None at all. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just wondering. What with everything they can do nowadays. What I mean is—’

  Evert Turlings squeezed his arm. He was almost a head and a half taller than Osewoudt.

  ‘We’re living in great age, in every respect. You’ll see. I was saying so to Ria only yesterday. How is she, anyway? Still in bed?’

  ‘Her temperature was down this morning.’

  ‘I’ll just pop in and say hello.’

  Evert Turlings squeezed past the stepladder into the shop.

  Tuesday, 23 July was a sweltering day.

  At 1 p.m. Osewoudt locked up. He changed into a white shirt, white shorts and tennis shoes.

  In this outfit he walked along the high street, a rolled-up towel under his arm containing his swimming trunks wrapped round the pistol.

  He took the tram to Leiden, and there he took the train to Haarlem.

  At 2.45 sharp he entered the waiting room at Haarlem station. Dorbeck was occupying a table beside a tall potted palm; there was another man with him. Otherwise the waiting room was empty. Dorbeck laid his lighted cigarette on the ashtray, half rose from his seat, and signalled to him.

  Osewoudt went to the table, passing the towel from his right hand to his left. The other man, who had remained seated, looked up.

  He had a large, despondent head oozing perspiration. His black hair was slicked down from a centre parting. On the table in front of him lay a small briefcase.

  ‘This is Zéwüster,’ Dorbeck said.

  Osewoudt shook hands with him, but did not mention his own name.

  Zéwüster was at least thirty-five years old. He wore a thick suit of brown serge.

  ‘The address we’re going to,’ Zéwüster said, ‘is Kleine Houtstraat 32. Just follow me. Better stay a few paces behind. There’s a fish shop near there where I’ll wait for you. We go inside together. As soon as we’re in the living room, you shoot. Shoot whoever’s nearest to you. Mind you don’t make a mistake, because if we both shoot the same man the other one’ll take us out.’

  Dorbeck called the waiter and paid the bill.

  They all shook hands deliberately, as if they were saying goodbye for a long time, then left the waiting room. Dorbeck in the lead, Zéwüster following some ten metres behind. Osewoudt brought up the rear.

  When he emerged from the station, Osewoudt didn’t see Dorbeck anywhere. He could still see Zéwüster, though.

  Walking on opposite sides of the street, they went down Kruisweg and then on in a straight line. Osewoudt was in the shade, Zéwüster in the sun. How light Osewoudt felt in his tennis shoes, compared to Zéwüster! It was like being on another planet, where the force of gravity is only a fraction of the earth’s.

  Zéwüster’s wide body lumbered forward under the oppressive sun. The buttons of his jacket must all have been done up, for the thick fabric strained across his back and his pockets gaped. His left hand gripped the handle of the worn black briefcase. He held his arm pinned to his side, as if the briefcase contained dynamite that might explode at any moment, which gave him a strange, jerky gait. He did not look back.

  They came to the side street where the terminal for the blue trams to Zandvoort, The Hague and Amsterdam was. Zéwüster stopped outside a fish shop. He still didn’t look round, seemingly engrossed in the window display. Osewoudt crossed the street and joined Zéwüster in front of the window. Walking side by side they came to a tree-lined square.

  ‘The public swimming pool’s over there,’ Zéwüster said. ‘You can take a dip as soon as we’re done. Was that what you had in mind?’

  ‘No, I just took the towel to make the folks in Voorschoten think I was going to the beach. The son of the chemist across the street is a Nazi.’

  Kleine Houtstraat 32 was on a corner. While Zéwüster rang the bell, Osewoudt looked in all directions, but didn’t see Dorbeck. The door opened almost at once, and a spongy, bald man with a red face stood before them in the hallway.

  ‘May we come in for a moment?’ Zéwüster said.

  Introductions and handshakes were apparently not expected. They filed down a cool but stale-smelling corridor. Zéwüster in front, then Osewoudt, and finally the man with the red face.

  The door at the end of the corridor was ajar. Zéwüster paused by this door for Osewoudt and the other man to catch up. The man with the red face pushed the door wide open and they went in.

  They found themselves facing a conservatory where, indistinct against the light, two figures rose from their chairs. Before they
were fully upright Zéwüster said: ‘Aunt Amelia sends her regards,’ and immediately shots rang out. Osewoudt could no longer see a thing. He had his right hand in the rolled-up towel, which he held with his left hand to his chest like a muff, and through the towel he fired three shots at the red-faced man standing next to him. The man opened his mouth wide as if about to vomit, reached out to grab Osewoudt’s shoulders, but missed and fell to the ground.

  In the room hung a grey vapour that stank of cough drops.

  Osewoudt ran into the corridor with Zéwüster at his heels.

  Once outside, they saw Dorbeck across the street, bending over someone who was clinging on to his leg. Osewoudt saw Dorbeck kick the man’s head. That was all he saw. He ran back to the square, slowed down, and walked calmly to the swimming pool.

  The entrance hall of the swimming pool was crammed with maybe more than a hundred smelly German soldiers. Osewoudt leaned forward to the girl behind the ticket window.

  ‘Do you have a Wehrmacht card?’ asked the girl.

  ‘No.’

  ‘The pool is reserved for the German Wehrmacht today. Always is on Tuesday afternoons.’

  He walked evenly out of the building, glanced around and strolled in the direction of the tram stop at the junction. A tram was just moving off, to the accompaniment of long-drawn-out whistles. Osewoudt broke into a run and jumped on. Not until the conductor approached him did he notice that the tram was going to Zandvoort.

  He bought a return ticket to Zandvoort and headed for the ‘Smoking’ section. How could this be? There, sitting by the window, was the chemist’s son. Evert Turlings was looking outside, unaware of Osewoudt. Go up to him and start a conversation? No, better get off at the earliest opportunity. But Turlings was on the right-hand side of the car, and people sitting there tend to notice passengers getting off. So he would be bound to see Osewoudt.

  Osewoudt turned back and stayed in the ‘No Smoking’ section for the remainder of the journey. He had picked a seat as far away from the door as possible. At the Zandvoort terminal he waited for everyone to get off. When at last he left the tram there was no sign of the chemist’s son.