The Darkroom of Damocles

by Willem Frederik Hermans

  He would have preferred to return by the same tram, but didn’t dare. He might be recognised by the conductor, who would wonder why he had come to Zandvoort with a towel but hadn’t gone for a swim. Just the kind of detail that would come back to him when the police started offering a reward for his capture.

  So Osewoudt went down to the beach and sauntered along the seashore without bothering to take off his tennis shoes. He saw ships on the horizon; he also saw the black streaks his sweaty hands were making on the towel, and felt how tired they were from carrying the heavy object rolled up in it.

  After an hour he turned his back on the sea and returned to the tram terminal. There was Evert Turlings, coming towards him. Evert’s hair was sopping wet and plastered down on his head. Like Osewoudt, he carried a towel.

  ‘Henri! I saw you!’

  ‘No need to shout.’

  ‘I saw you having a fight with someone in Houtstraat!’

  ‘I didn’t have a fight in Houtstraat. I wasn’t there.’

  The Nazi son of the God-fearing chemist looked down on him for a moment or two, raising the corners of his mouth. Then he began to whistle.

  ‘You got changed quickly!’ he said. ‘You don’t fool me, you know.’

  ‘When would I have changed my clothes? Don’t be daft! I haven’t been anywhere near Houtstraat.’

  ‘You got changed. You were wearing a grey suit before, with long trousers.’

  ‘But I’ve been here for the past half-hour!’

  ‘Liar! Otherwise you’d have been on the same tram as me coming here, and I didn’t see you.’

  ‘What does that prove? Trams take a lot of passengers.’

  ‘You only just got here. Your hair’s dry. You haven’t been for a swim.’

  ‘I was not involved in a fight in Houtstraat. You must have seen someone else. Where could I have changed, anyway?’

  Evert slapped him on the shoulder and laughed.

  They travelled back to Voorschoten together.

  * * *

  That night Osewoudt could not sleep for the cramp in his left hand. From the moment he ran into the chemist’s son he had not dared transfer the towel with the pistol in it to his other hand.

  For a whole week he thought almost continually of Dorbeck, hoping to hear from him. But Dorbeck did not turn up, nor were there any messages or notes. Not a word about the incident in the newspapers either. He racked his brains for some way of getting in touch with Dorbeck, but couldn’t think of anything safe enough to try.

  One Sunday night he finally had an idea. He remembered the roll of film Dorbeck had given him when they first met, that day in May when the Germans invaded. It was still in the drawer under the counter, undeveloped. He went down to the cellar and fetched out the developer and the fixing salt left over from his first attempt. It was a film that could be developed in red light, the label said, so this time it worked. All at once pictures appeared on the wet celluloid. He saw:

  a big snowman with a helmet and a rifle

  three soldiers wearing gas masks, their arms round each other, in pyjamas

  a blurred image of someone who had moved during the exposure

  a bare-chested soldier manning an anti-aircraft gun

  another botched photo – several superimposed images.

  The last one was a snap of Dorbeck standing in a street with his arms around two girls. It was so sharp that he could make out the number of the house behind them: 32. Naturally he thought of the address Kleine Houtstraat 32. He held the film up to the lamp for a closer look.

  KLEINE HOUT he read at the edge, with some difficulty as the letters were in reverse. But it was the same house on the corner, there was no doubt about it.

  He cut the film into manageable lengths, laid them in the fixing bath, and was still holding the section with the picture of the house when the door opened and the electric light was switched on. It was his mother, in one of her strange get-ups. She gave him such a shock that he did not call out, only went up to her with the negative still in his hand. She stood halfway down the steps, draped in a sheet, with a hat folded from newspaper on her head. She said she could feel it again and had come to scare it away. She pointed to the red oil lamp and asked what he was holding. ‘Nothing,’ he said, looking down at the negative, and then he saw it had turned quite black. He put it in the fixing bath, switched off the light and took his mother up to bed. He lifted the witch’s cap off her head and screwed it up into a ball. When she was under the covers she began to sob, saying she couldn’t do anything for him now. Then she had an attack of the hiccups. He tried giving her water, but that didn’t help. Ria called ‘What are you up to?’ but didn’t venture upstairs. Moorlag was out. The doctor came, but achieved little. All night his mother was kept awake by the hiccups. He crawled into bed beside her. As he couldn’t sleep anyway, he got up every half-hour to look at the negative, in case something of an image had been saved after all. But the next morning, inspecting it for the last time, there was nothing, not even when he held it up to the sun; no house number, no Dorbeck and no girlfriends. The other shots were all right, and he made a set of prints of them.

  At the end of August he read in the newspaper that a plane had been shot down in flames over Amsterdam. It had fallen on Legmeerplein, where it had completely destroyed one building and started fires in three others.

  Osewoudt went to Amsterdam the same day. He took Dorbeck’s photos with him.

  The explosion must have been huge. Glass crunched under his feet as he approached the square, curtains flapped in the windows. Furniture, some of it charred, had been stacked in the middle of the road, which was closed to traffic.

  He began to take note of the house numbers: 21, 23, 25. All that was left of number 25 was the porch.

  ‘Excuse me madam, do you happen to know if there were many casualties?’

  ‘Twelve dead, sir. The Jagtman family on the third floor, all of them dead. And then there’s old Mrs Sevensma, and …’

  On his return home he put away the photos in a safe place, as a memento of the only man he had ever admired.

  The next few weeks he kept hoping, and dreading, that something would happen, or that someone, maybe Zéwüster, would get in touch, but these thoughts, too, evaporated, and in the years that followed it was as if the war simply faded from his existence.

  In his left hand he held the sign he had just unwrapped: a smart plaque, made of some sort of ruby-red artificial glass. Painted on it were the words: EMPTY PACKAGING.

  In his right hand he held the receipt for the sum of twelve guilders and fifty cents, dated 28 June, 1944. A reasonable price.

  He went over to the window and slid aside the half-curtain that served as a backdrop for the display. Leaning forward carefully over the artful arrangement of empty cigar boxes, tobacco pouches and cigarette packets, he reached for the old card with the same inscription, grimy after three years propped in the window.

  As he strained to reach it, head down, he had a vague sense of someone passing back and forth outside the window. He looked up, but saw no one. Yet he was sure there had been someone there, and also that they hadn’t paused to look in the window before walking on in the same direction.

  Straightening up again, he looked outside. But all he saw was the milkman on his delivery bike across the street, pedalling backwards to brake.

  Osewoudt put the old card on the counter. Turning back to the display window, he noticed a brown envelope lying on the doormat.

  He ran to the door and out on to the pavement, setting off the electric bell. There was no one hurrying away. He stopped for a moment and waved to the milkman. Once more he looked up and down the street, but there was no one who could have dropped off the envelope within the last minute.

  What do I care, he thought, went back into the shop and opened the envelope.

  It contained a white slip of paper bearing a message: Have you developed my photos yet? Send them to PO Box 234, The Hague. Regards, Dorbeck.

>   The entire message was typewritten, including the name at the end.

  Osewoudt went to the post in time to catch the early mail collection, carrying an envelope in his hand. At the letter box he took a final look at the three snapshots in the envelope:

  a snowman with a helmet and a rifle

  three soldiers in pyjamas and gas masks

  one bare-chested soldier in pyjama trousers manning an anti-aircraft gun.

  Osewoudt checked the adjustable number on the letter box: 3, signifying yesterday’s last mail collection. He slid the pictures back into the envelope, stuck it down and pushed it through the slit.

  Just before five that afternoon he entered the main post office in The Hague. Looking constantly about him, he sauntered towards the wall of post-office boxes. Almost immediately he spotted the small metal door with the number 234. He waited.

  There was the usual post-office fug of damp sacking, drying ink and endless yearning, but it seemed to him that he smelled it for the first time. From outside came the clanging of tram signals and the afternoon sunlight shafting into the airless, twilit space.

  There were other people besides him waiting for the last delivery. Some went straight to their box, key in hand, removed a small batch of letters and vanished.

  By quarter past five Osewoudt was the only person left.

  Maybe there’s been a hitch and now Dorbeck can’t come, Osewoudt thought, maybe he wants me to stick around near the post-office boxes for a couple of days until we manage to meet.

  He felt his knees beginning to quake. If only he weren’t so conspicuously alone! He had every right to stand there, of course, but wouldn’t people notice him and wonder what he was doing? The last delivery had been made. What was he waiting for? Osewoudt turned round slowly, suddenly afraid that he was being watched, that it was perhaps a trap.

  He stood where he was, his hand on the butt of the pistol in his trouser pocket. There were two exits, left and right, and he glanced continually from one to the other. The post office was now practically deserted.

  Then he saw a woman enter. He thought she was coming straight towards him. She was wearing the Salvation Army uniform. He couldn’t see her face as the light was behind her, only the shape of her bonnet with the bow, her dumpy figure belted tightly in her navy raincoat, her spindly black-stockinged legs. A shopping bag hung from her left hand. She marched up to the wall of post-office boxes and opened number 234, as if she came here every day. She put something in her shopping bag, shut the metal door with a click and walked off.

  When she reached the revolving door Osewoudt went after her. She had a head start of some twenty metres. In the street too he maintained the same distance.

  She crossed the street just before a yellow tram came past, clanging loudly. Osewoudt had to wait. When the tram had gone the Salvation Army woman was nowhere to be seen.

  * * *

  The following day, at the same time, Osewoudt went to the post office again and waited by the boxes. But no one came to unlock number 234. He went back two more days; on the last day he was there at one o’clock and again at five. He waited until half past five, but no one turned up.

  He went to the porter and asked which window dealt with post-office box rental. The porter pointed it out.

  The window was empty. Osewoudt drummed his fingers on the slate counter and craned his neck to see as far inside as he could. At last a clerk arrived and asked what he wanted.

  Osewoudt took a deep breath and said: ‘Could you give me the name of the owner of box number 234? I can explain. That box number belongs to an acquaintance of mine, or rather, I believe it does. But I never get replies to my letters. So now I think I may have the wrong number.’

  ‘Number 234, did you say?’

  ‘Yes! 234!’

  The clerk consulted a list, narrowed his eyes, shook his head.

  ‘That number is not currently in use,’ he said. ‘If you have a moment I’ll get your letters and return them to you.’

  Off he went.

  Osewoudt also went off, to the exit, out of the building.

  And yet, the next day he was back again, hanging around the post-office box rental window in the hope of seeing the clerk who had told him that box 234 was not in use. That man surely knew more. That man was an accomplice, it was an inside job, because how else could the key of 234 have been in the possession of a Salvation Army woman only two days ago? That man had lied. There had to be some way of getting him to talk.

  But someone else was on duty at the window the whole time. Osewoudt had hardly noticed what the man he had spoken to looked like, but he was sure it wasn’t the one there now. Wait for the other one to come on duty again? But what would he say?

  He got on the blue tram, got off at Voorschoten, waited for it to leave again, crossed the street and paused outside his shop to study the display.

  In front of him, up against the glass, stood the plaque: EMPTY PACKAGING.

  As if I’m running a shop selling packaging materials, he thought – everything I have on offer is empty, null, void. A tobacconist with an ugly, cheating, penny-pinching wife who’s seven years older, a mother who’s mental, and a father who was murdered – so much the better, too. Not that I had a hand in it. Shame. What is there left for me to do? I’ve got a Leica and a pistol stashed under the counter. But I don’t know what to photograph and no one will tell me who to shoot. Things just happen. Nothing I do ever makes a difference. No news from Dorbeck for four whole years, and now that he’s back he still hasn’t shown his face.

  He stepped to one side and opened the shop door. As if in response, the telephone began to ring.

  He let it ring a second time, closed the shop door, waited for the phone to ring yet again and then lifted the receiver.

  He didn’t say a word, only listened.

  ‘Hello? Is that Mr Osewoudt? I’d like to meet you. I beg your pardon, but I would really like to meet you.’

  Osewoudt kept silent.

  ‘I can’t explain everything on the telephone, sir. My name is Elly Sprenkelbach Meijer. You have never heard of me. The thing is, I’d like to meet you, but you don’t know me by sight.’

  ‘Come to the shop tomorrow morning then.’

  ‘I’d rather not. Can’t we meet somewhere in The Hague? I have an important message for you.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter. What matters is how you will know it’s me. I’ve thought of something. Could you come to the yellow-tram terminal at Voorburg this evening at eight? It’s right by the viaduct. Be there at eight. I’ll be holding a rolled-up copy of today’s Telegraaf in my left hand.’

  The line went dead.

  He looked down at his watch. It was quarter past seven.

  His watch showed five past eight when he got off the blue tram at Voorburg.

  Through the underpass, over the level crossing, and there, a bit further on, is the yellow-tram terminal. Blue trams, yellow trams, trains, nowhere is there such a concentration of rail transport as in the suburbs of The Hague – and all of it crawling with Germans. How am I to spot a woman holding a rolled-up newspaper, how can I be sure she’s alone? There could be two or three armed Germans watching the terminal, ready to pounce the moment I address her. Quite possible. They could be lurking among the other waiting people.

  But rather than slowing down, he quickened his pace. He went through the underpass, nipped across the thoroughfare, arrived at the level crossing where the barriers were up, and came to the other side of the track.

  Now for the clump of trees marking the terminal of the yellow tram. He could see the shelter clearly, and also the tram wires, starkly defined against the dark grey sky. But he couldn’t get a good view of the people. A yellow tram rolled up and halted. I’ll wait for it to go, he thought, then she’ll be left standing there on her own. It’s too crowded now. If she still isn’t alone when the tram’s gone I’ll know how the land lies.

  But the tram, having reach
ed the end of its route, was in no hurry to depart. Osewoudt turned round, went back over the level crossing and struck left, thinking to keep an eye on the terminal from there. But he couldn’t see it: there was a mass of new bricks stacked up along the railway line. He walked on, only to find his view blocked by the small station. Bells began to ring, a railway signal dropped. When he got back to the level crossing, it was closed. A rumbling in the distance. Hanging over the barrier, Osewoudt focussed his eyes on the tram shelter. The tram whistled and set off.

  A car pulled up beside him, followed by a second. When the train finally thundered past dozens of cyclists were standing around him. The cars started up and the cyclists pushed off, one foot on the pedal.

  In the middle of that small flow, hampered by a similar flow coming from the opposite direction, Osewoudt crossed the tracks and walked without hesitation to the now deserted tram shelter.

  There she was. As soon as he saw her she met his gaze and held out a rolled-up newspaper.

  She was hatless, her hair was long and sleek, and she wore a white raincoat.

  He saw nobody else at the stop.

  In lieu of a handshake he grasped the newspaper, saying: ‘Elly? Are you the Elly who rang me up?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me. I wanted to speak to you.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you before. Why did you phone? Why me?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. Not now, not here. I’ve been here for ages, and I’m a bundle of nerves as it is.’

  Her face was round and very pale, her mouth was small with red lips, which she moved slightly as though shaping words under her breath.

  Osewoudt looked in all directions, but saw nothing alarming.

  ‘Fine, we’ll go somewhere else.’

  He took her elbow and steered her along, away from the tram stop and past the nursery garden at the corner of Prinses Mariannelaan.

  ‘Now, will you tell me how you got my address?’