The Darkroom of Damocles

by Willem Frederik Hermans

  Osewoudt peered out of the window and saw that they were driving through the residential neighbourhood of Leiden, where the professors lived.

  ‘You can drop me here,’ he said. ‘I’ll find my own way.’

  Cor looked round, swerved to the right and pulled up at the kerb. The man on Osewoudt’s right did not stir. Then Uncle Kees opened the door on his side and got out.

  Osewoudt made to step out of the car, and said: ‘Thank you all very much, I can’t tell you how grateful I am and why, but I hope I’ll have a chance to explain some day.’

  He stood beside the car. He shook hands with Uncle Kees and said: ‘The Germans have arrested my old, sick mother, and my wife, and my uncle. I’m the only one in the family who’s free.’

  ‘The Germans,’ said Uncle Kees, clasping Osewoudt’s hand while lifting his left wrist to look at his watch, ‘the Germans will be on the lookout for you. How will you avoid recognition?’

  ‘I wore glasses for a while, and a hat, but I’ve lost them.’

  ‘With that plaster over your eye they’ll recognise you even if it’s pitch-dark!’

  Uncle Kees let go of Osewoudt’s hand and reached out to rip off the plaster. Blinded by the pain, Osewoudt heard the car door slam and the engine revving. An acrid smell of burning wood gusted towards him. When he could see again, the car had gone. In the semi-darkness he saw the crumpled sticking plaster lying at his feet. He could feel blood trickling down his face.

  A handkerchief!

  In his trouser pocket he found the paper napkin Wülfing had given him. He held it to his face and started walking. Glancing around, he concluded that no one had seen anything. It was a very quiet neighbourhood.

  At least Labare would have no reason to complain about his behaviour – he had, after all, kept his mouth shut. He had been rescued by friends of Labare’s, of that he had no doubt. If they had been Dorbeck’s friends, why would that fellow Cor have been so eager to know what the Germans had him in for? Why the snide remarks about his girlish appearance, and about them taking risks only for important people, not for poor sods beaten up by the Germans by mistake? Alternatively, maybe they knew the doctor, or knew both the doctor and Labare, or they knew Meinarends, or Marianne. But then where would Cor have got the idea that it wasn’t for robbery that Osewoudt the tobacconist was wanted, as it said in the newspaper, but for a shooting in Haarlem?

  The hairdresser’s wife let him in.

  Osewoudt had never seen her before, because until now Marianne had always answered the door.

  The woman’s face was still remarkably plump, considering how long the war had been going on. Her cheeks were ruddy, with a tracery of fine veins in a deeper red. She had a high forehead, slightly narrowed eyes and thin, frizzy hair.

  ‘No, sir, Miss Sondaar is out, but do come in. You look dreadful, all that blood! Did you fall?’

  ‘Yes, I tripped and fell.’

  He stepped into the small shop. She motioned him to one of the two stools in front of the counter and said: ‘Let me get some cotton wool.’

  ‘Please don’t bother. Just tell me where I can find Miss Sondaar. I’m in a hurry.’

  But the woman went through to the back as if he hadn’t spoken.

  The display cases along the wall contained packaging and boxes of various soaps and hair lotions that had long since run out. Empty packaging. Would it ever be worth filling again? Everyone I have anything to do with comes a cropper. Why did they rescue me? He said nothing when the woman returned with a basin of water and a wad of cotton wool, and meekly submitted to having his face cleaned.

  ‘There, you look a lot better now. But what’s that over your eye?’

  ‘Stitches. I had a fall the day before yesterday, too. Has Marianne been arrested?’

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea? I certainly hope not! She’ll be back later.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘You’re Mr van Druten, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, from the look of you. I was to tell you Marianne is at Mr Labare’s. Number 74, Zoeterwoudsesingel.’

  ‘Is that what she told you to say?’

  ‘Yes, 74! But hadn’t you better wait here? I could go and fetch her. You look so dreadful.’

  What was Marianne doing at Labare’s? How did she know him? Or had they known each other all along?

  ‘No, thank you, no. It’s quite a long way to where I live. If I wait here I won’t make it home by eleven. Thanks anyway!’

  He ran out to the street, which was now almost dark. Free, but a sitting duck. Every Tom, Dick and Harry who had seen his picture in the newspaper or in the cinema and wanted the 500 guilders reward could report him to the authorities.

  Coming to a corner he paused, flattened himself against the building and looked in all directions. Not a German to be seen. Rounding the next corner he found he was no longer alone in the street. He was afraid any furtiveness on his part would arouse the suspicions of passers-by, but fortunately no one was paying any attention. So he looked about without pressing his back against the wall. But looking about wasn’t enough, because the danger would see him before he saw the danger.

  Twice a car of Germans came past, but they evidently had no orders to arrest him. A Luftwaffe officer asked him for a light and went on his way without another word. He arrived at Zoeterwoudsesingel unhindered.

  When he caught sight of Labare’s house, he thought: this is my last breath of fresh air. Anyone whose picture has been in the papers is useless to the Resistance. Wild horses won’t drag me out of that house until the war’s over. If Dorbeck wants me to do anything for him he’ll have to come and ask me in person, and even then I may not be in a position to oblige. What’s the use of blindly following his instructions? Anyone would think I idolise him!

  Maybe he’s been safe and sound in England all along. He sends me messages I can’t make head or tail of. I have my hair dyed so I won’t be recognised, but it’s just as if I did it to make it even easier to confuse me with Dorbeck. My enemies make me pay for his actions, while my friends can tell at a glance that I’m not half the man Dorbeck is. To them I’m a seventeen-year-old with a girl’s face, a wimp, a poor sod who gets beaten by the Germans more as a matter of routine than for any important secrets he might reveal.

  I’ve lost my forged papers, not that I’d be able to use them now anyway. I’ll have to sit tight until it all blows over.

  His thoughts came to a sudden halt, and he was aware only of the aching in his battered skull.

  Then the door of the house opened, without him having rung the bell. It was Marianne. He saw her standing in the hallway; she wore a raincoat of white Egyptian cotton belted tightly at the waist, her hair reached to her shoulders. She exclaimed when she saw him.

  Osewoudt laughed out loud. He stepped forward and threw his arms around her in the hallway, without bothering to shut the door. He didn’t explain what had happened to his face, only kissed her, and he saw tears rolling down her cheeks. Then he was seized with laughter again so that kissing was no longer possible. He kicked the door shut behind him with a bang.

  She put her hands round the back of his head and said: ‘Darling! I missed you so much that I couldn’t bring myself to flee when I realised you’d been arrested.’

  ‘Did you think they’d put us in the same cell if they arrested you too?’

  ‘That would have been bliss.’

  ‘Or did you think I’d be rescued somehow?’

  ‘Rescued?’

  ‘Yes! I was rescued. Abducted, in fact.’

  ‘I thought the Germans had let you go. So you were rescued, then?’

  ‘Yes! From the hospital! The doctor there said he knew you.’

  ‘He lived next door to us, that’s all.’

  ‘So you know nothing about me being rescued?’

  ‘Of course not. You’re not disappointed in me, are you, Filip?’

  ‘Then why did you tell the hairdresser’
s wife to say you were at Labare’s?’

  ‘I just hoped the Germans would let you go. Because it was all a mistake, wasn’t it? You’re not the man in that picture, are you?’

  Osewoudt laughed and pressed her close.

  ‘They certainly slapped you about a bit,’ she said. ‘Didn’t they have any idea they’d got the wrong man?’

  ‘No, first they beat me and then they confronted me with a man I didn’t know. After that they took me to Zuidwal hospital to have me patched up. They kept me there all day. There was a German guard in the corridor. But this evening I was abducted by four men. They gave the German some injection and tied up the nurse. They brought me to Leiden by car.’

  ‘And you didn’t know who they were?’

  ‘No. One of them was called Uncle Kees and another one Cor. The other two kept their mouths shut.’

  ‘Hey, who are you talking to down there?’

  It was Labare’s voice, coming from the first-floor landing.

  Osewoudt went to the stairs and called up: ‘Yes, Labare, it’s me! It’s me, Melgers! I’ll be right with you!’

  He turned back to Marianne and said: ‘Watch it, Labare thinks my name is Joost Melgers. Mind you don’t slip up!’

  He went on kissing her until he could tell from Labare’s footsteps that he was halfway down the stairs.

  Labare drew them into the back room, where Osewoudt had never been before. There was a man reading a newspaper, who introduced himself as Suyling. He wore glasses with thick, myopic lenses that made his eyes appear absurdly small. His voice had a snivelling quality.

  ‘Look here Labare, this is not what we agreed. We can’t have people who’ve had their fingers burned staying here. In any case, this Melgers or Osewoudt or van Druten, or whatever his name is, is believed to be the man in this picture. There is simply no point, not for us and not for him either, in letting him stay here.’

  The newspaper spread out across Suyling’s knees was the issue with the photo of the wanted man.

  Looking Osewoudt up and down, he said: ‘Yes, when you were in the darkroom you didn’t get to see me, but I saw you all right.’

  ‘No, I never saw you.’

  ‘I didn’t like the look of you one bit. I’m the only careful one around here!’ said Suyling. ‘The moment I saw that photo in the paper I said to myself: damn it, it’s Melgers. Where has he got to? I check with Labare and Labare says: he’ll be back this evening. We’ve been here all night with the pistols out on the table.’

  Labare now intervened.

  ‘Where he was last night is irrelevant. We know where he was. He was arrested. He kept his mouth shut about us or we wouldn’t be sitting here. That much is clear. But one thing isn’t: who were the gang who rescued him?’

  ‘Are you telling me you don’t know?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ said Labare. ‘Meinarends rang me up this morning saying you’d been badly beaten and that you were in Zuidwal hospital under German surveillance. He’d heard this from Miss Sondaar. So I asked Meinarends to send Miss Sondaar round so she could tell me herself. He said: fine by me, but then you’ll have to find her another address. That’s how she got here. All I know of the whole affair is what she told me. Your turn now. So you were rescued. By whom? On whose orders?’

  ‘They wouldn’t say.’

  ‘And when you left the hospital and got in the car, what did you tell them?’

  ‘They asked me where I wanted to go and I said I didn’t want to go anywhere I’d ever been before. I asked them if they had a place for me, but they said that was out of the question. Then I said they could drop me in the outskirts of Leiden. I didn’t mention any address. They stopped on some road, I got out of the car and they drove off straightaway.’

  Labare slumped back in his chair, folded his hands over his stomach and twiddled his thumbs.

  ‘Complete amateurs, obviously!’

  He grimaced with such intensity that his hollow cheeks actually looked chubby.

  ‘Blithering incompetents! Small fry! They go and kidnap someone from under the Gestapo’s nose and then can’t be bothered to take him somewhere safe! No! They wash their hands of him! Drop him any old where! Make off without even considering that he might bump into someone thirty seconds later, the law for instance, who’d say: what are you doing here? Your picture’s all over the papers and I just had a phone call saying you’ve gone missing from Zuidwal hospital. You’d better come along with me. Abducted, you say? You can start by describing them! God, what idiots they must be! Asking for the firing squad, they are!’

  Osewoudt felt himself redden. He opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.

  ‘Well, what were you about to say?’ asked Labare.

  ‘What do you want me to say? They’d never done anything like this before. Friends of the doctor. The doctor let them in and showed them the way. The nurse was probably in on it, too, because she didn’t say a word when they tied her up. Otherwise she’d surely have screamed, I mean any nurse would scream if three masked men burst into her tidy ward and made off with one of her patients, wouldn’t you think?’

  ‘It all sounds rather fishy to me,’ said Suyling. The newspaper was still open on his lap. He looked from Osewoudt to the photo and from the photo to Osewoudt.

  ‘Mr Suyling,’ said Marianne, ‘you’re looking at him as if you think he really is a criminal!’

  Suyling put the paper on the table and crossed his left leg over his right, but the leg wouldn’t keep still. It went on swinging while he said: ‘Oh, Miss, if I said all the things I think, there’d be no end to it. I’ll give you an example: newspaper photographs are always a bit dodgy, but now that I’ve taken a good look at it I don’t think the resemblance with Melgers is all that strong. How do we know that Melgers is indeed Osewoudt?’

  ‘That’s no concern of yours,’ Osewoudt said. ‘I am Osewoudt, but I am not the man in the photo. The photo is not of me, you understand, and the man the Germans are looking for is not Osewoudt but someone who looks like him. I am sure of that. The Germans confronted me with someone called Roorda who said he knew me. He’d spoken to me three days before, he said, in Vondel Park in Amsterdam. But I had never seen the man before, and I haven’t been to Vondel Park for years.’

  Suyling smacked his lips.

  ‘Now let’s assume for the moment that it’s not only the Germans making a mistake, but Osewoudt too. Like so: the Germans made a mistake arresting Osewoudt, but Osewoudt is making a mistake saying he was kidnapped from the hospital by four gangsters. How does that sound, Osewoudt? Eh? You’ve been doing a fair bit of embroidery, haven’t you? Well, we’ve all done it. I don’t mind. But d’you know what I think? I think the Germans realised they had the wrong man and simply let you go. It’s not that I mind, you know, but I really don’t see the point of spinning romantic yarns about masked men, cars powered by wood gas, Uncle Kees and Uncle Cor and all the rest.’

  He clapped his hands three times, blew a raspberry and smirked.

  Labare laughed quietly. Osewoudt didn’t say a word, spread his knees, propped his elbows on them, and let his hands and his head drop.

  Then Marianne said: ‘How fortunate we are to have Mr Suyling here keeping the score. No possibility, however remote, is beneath the notice of his mighty brain. But Mr Suyling, if you’re so keen on getting rid of him, if you think he’s a liability, then I take it you know a safe address for him? Because I’m sure you don’t need me to explain how important it is to prevent the Germans getting their hands on him again. He may have been arrested by mistake, he may not be the man in the photo, he may even not be Osewoudt the tobacconist, but that still leaves the fact that he can’t have breathed a word about this place and what goes on here, otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here pontificating, would you, Mr Suyling?’

  It was getting increasingly airless in the back room.

  ‘Well, Suyling, do you know a good address?’ said Labare. ‘And can you take him there now, straightawa
y? It’s already quarter to eleven, I’ll have you know.’

  Suyling did not reply. No one spoke any more. Quarter to eleven, thought Osewoudt. Marianne would have to hurry. He threw her a look, but she made no move to stand.

  Then the door opened and a boy of about fifteen burst in, waving a slip of paper. He shouted: ‘The Americans are coming! We just heard it on the radio! The Germans are retreating at Caen! We might be liberated next week!’

  Suyling did not let go of his newspaper on hearing this.

  Marianne, Labare and Osewoudt sprang up from their seats. Labare snatched the slip of paper from the boy’s hand. Marianne flung her arms around Osewoudt. She kissed him on his mouth, his neck and, very gently, on his good eye. But her kisses made him sad. Because if the Germans were beaten, what would a girl like Marianne still see in him: an uneducated, unattractive tobacconist, a man who didn’t even need to shave and who, in a liberated Holland, would have lost every chance of being either hero or martyr? He screwed up his eyes and pressed her to him, working his hands up and down her back as if there had to be a way he could clasp her so tightly they would never be prised apart.

  The voices of Labare and the boy shrieked in his ears. Suyling too made himself heard: ‘How stuffy it is in here! If you would just shut up for a moment, then I can let in some fresh air.’

  He switched off the light and opened the door to the back garden. All five of them went outside. Osewoudt had never been there before. He smelled the garden more than he saw it. There were no lights anywhere, and the neighbouring houses looked deserted too. Maybe the people who lived there had not been listening to the broadcasts from London and didn’t know that the front line had started to shift and that the war would be over in a week. What was that fragrance? There would be a variety of plants growing in the central flower bed, which he could feel at his feet.

  Together they looked up at the black sky. But there were no stars, and the blackness wasn’t really black.