‘Yes, yes. Still the same Leica, is it?’
‘Ah, so you do remember that. Is it all right for that man to come upstairs?’
‘What sort of man is he?’
‘Keep quiet and don’t tell anyone here. He’s from the Gestapo.’
‘Any other men from the Gestapo outside?’
‘No, of course not. You have nothing to fear. It’s me pulling the strings. He just needs to tell Dorbeck something, and then he’ll vamoose.’
‘I told you there is no Dorbeck here.’
‘Let the man come up anyway, then he can see for himself.’
‘All right then. Go and sit down somewhere. I’ve got things to do.’
Moorlag turned on his heel and disappeared into the unlit recesses of the attic.
Osewoudt leaned over the stairwell, called: ‘Hey, you can come up now!’ Then he made his way to the gathering at one of the tables, without waiting for Ebernuss to appear.
‘My name is van Druten,’ said Osewoudt, stopping one step short of the table.
The three boys and two girls were mumbling unintelligibly, and remained seated.
Osewoudt sat down with them, at the same table, although it would have been more natural for him to occupy a vacant one.
‘You can say what you like, but Roland Holst’s poems have been reprinted during the war, whereas you can’t get a complete set of Rilke anywhere.’
The boy who had spoken laid his hand on the pile of Rilke: the complete works. Another boy took a volume from the Roland Holst pile.
‘This isn’t a reprint. You can tell by the paper. It’s pre-war quality. But the binding isn’t pre-war, it’s cardboard. Oh well, as I said: I’ll give you 300 guilders extra, but that’s more than enough!’
‘300 guilders? What can I get for that? A measly pouch of shag tobacco, at the most!’
‘Fine, then you can have a smoke as you read Roland Holst!’
‘Poor old Alfred! He’ll have to read his Rilke without a cigarette. How very dull!’
‘Culture is a mighty achievement of mankind,’ said the third boy. He belched by way of conclusion. He had sunken, pimply cheeks and thick curly hair which stood on end.
The girl said: ‘Hark at Simon’s words of wisdom! He’d be worth his weight in gold if he didn’t keep repeating himself.’
‘Shut it, will you? Whore. Slut,’ said Simon. The insults were uttered evenly. ‘As I was saying,’ he went on in the same toneless voice, ‘listening to repeating is often irritating, always repeating is all of living, everything in a being is always repeating, more and more listening to repeating gives to me completed understanding. Gertrude Stein said that. Hey, what’s going on?’
Everyone turned to look.
Ebernuss and Moorlag were approaching, Moorlag holding two stone bottles of Bols genever.
Ebernuss was introduced as Naaborg, after which he sat down.
Moorlag remained standing and gave Osewoudt a nudge on the shoulder.
‘Come with me, you can help with the glasses.’
‘Right. I’ll be happy to!’
Osewoudt stood up and followed Moorlag to the back, where the candlelight barely penetrated.
‘You’re very well provided for! Genever!’
‘We deserve a treat. Don’t you agree, Henri?’
‘Why are you acting so strangely to me? I’ve been through so much, a week wouldn’t be enough for me to tell you. My mother died in prison.’
‘The glasses are in there. Just open the door.’
Osewoudt saw a luminous rectangular outline in the gloom.
He fumbled, felt wood, then felt a doorknob, and opened the door.
The door opened into a sort of kitchen area, with crockery stacked on shelves along the walls. Beside the sink an acetylene lamp spread a blinding light. Despite the glare he could make out a figure turning away from the sink. He too wore a jumper, but it was black and round-necked. He was the same height as Osewoudt. He had black hair and a small pointed black beard. He twisted his head back, keeping his body still, and fixed Osewoudt with green eyes.
‘Dorbeck! I didn’t know you were here already!’
Dorbeck put down the reservoir of an acetylene lamp, which he had filled with tap water, and took a step towards Osewoudt. He gripped him by the elbows and continued to stare at him.
‘There isn’t time to talk now, Osewoudt. You’re here with a German who’s had you behind bars for the past nine months.’
‘No. He’ll do anything for me. He wants to desert!’
‘We don’t need him. Look!’
Dorbeck drew a tobacco tin from his pocket and took out a packet of Rizla cigarette papers. He put the tin away again, and opened the packet. But instead of cigarette papers, it contained a small quantity of sparkling green crystals.
‘Put this in Ebernuss’ glass. Wait a quarter of an hour, then you can leave. Here are the glasses.’
‘But Dorbeck—’
‘I realise you have a lot to tell me, but not now. Don’t ruin everything by arguing now. So far you’ve done very well. You’ve been my surest ally. Just do this one more thing for me. Don’t believe what Ebernuss tells you, he’s a liar, he’s playing games with you. The sooner he’s got rid of the better. Liquidating Germans isn’t such a good idea, generally speaking, but this one knows too much. The glasses are up there.’
Dorbeck reached up to the top shelf and lifted off a tray with eight stem glasses.
‘Don’t put it in yet, you might make a mistake setting out the glasses. Wait until his third or fourth drink. See you later.’
Osewoudt took the tray with the glasses and went through the door, which Dorbeck held open for him. Picking his way with difficulty in the dark as he crossed the attic towards the table, he felt tears welling in his eyes.
‘Damn,’ he muttered, not understanding the cause of his tears.
He thought: I’ve gone soft in prison.
The young folk round the small table were passing his Leica around. Simon had already raised one of the stone bottles to his mouth for a quick swig.
‘Let’s take a picture,’ he drawled, handing the stone bottle to the boy wanting to sell Rilke. ‘Good souvenir for later! Here, pass me that Leica, will you?’
‘No, it belongs to that gentleman,’ said the girl.
Osewoudt took the glasses from the tray and set them out on the table, after which he sat down. Ebernuss took the other stone bottle and poured the liquor with an unsteady hand. All the glasses were filled to overflowing, each stood in a small puddle.
Now the girl was fingering the Leica.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Simon. ‘Out with your matches, everyone. A bundle of matches is as good as flashlight.’
‘That’s a fact,’ said Moorlag.
Ebernuss topped up the glasses while everyone searched their pockets for matches.
‘I don’t seem to have any,’ said Osewoudt. He knew he had no matches, but fished about in his pockets anyway. He felt the Rizla packet containing the green crystals. He withdrew his hand from his trouser pocket, hiding the small packet in his palm.
A fair number of matches now lay before them. Simon gathered them into a bundle with all the heads at one end. He secured the bundle with an elastic band and set it upright on the table.
The boy wanting to sell Rilke reached for the Leica.
‘All right if I take the picture? I’ve done it before.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Osewoudt. He stole a glance at Ebernuss, who was sitting beside him, but Ebernuss made no move to avert his face from the camera.
‘Ready?’
The Leica was positioned on top of the pile of Rilke. ‘Better not have the lamp on!’ said Moorlag, and blew out the flame. Simon struck a match and held it to the bundle on the table, which hissed as it caught fire, all but went out, hissed again, and finally flared into a blinding light.
Swathes of green lingered in the gloom. The camera gave a loud click, as though gulping down the image.<
br />
Osewoudt held his hand above Ebernuss’ glass, crooked his middle finger to open the Rizla packet, waited for the crystals to fall out, and put his hand in his pocket. Simon relit the paraffin lamp, while everyone coughed from the sulphur in the air.
‘God almighty, what a stink! So much for Simon’s bright ideas!’
‘Drink up, drink up!’
‘I hope my camera isn’t ruined,’ spluttered Osewoudt, taking the Leica from the pile of books and coughing even harder than before.
He got up, said: ‘It’s so stuffy in here!’ and ran off, hugging the camera to his chest.
There was no one near the stairwell. No one was looking. Noiselessly, he went down the steep stairs in complete darkness.
‘Is that you, Osewoudt?’
‘Yes. Are you down there?’
‘Yes, you’re almost at the bottom now.’
Dorbeck opened the front door and stepped outside. Osewoudt went past him and down the five steps to the street. Dorbeck reached behind him and quietly shut the door. Dorbeck wore a long, dark raincoat, under which he was obviously hiding something quite large.
‘Did you manage all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I have the Rizla packet back?’
Osewoudt gave it back to Dorbeck along with the key to Ebernuss’ car.
They sprinted along the canal, turned the corner, and got into the car.
‘Here,’ said Dorbeck, drawing the large object from under his coat. ‘If anyone tries to stop us, just use this. Open the window on your side.’
Osewoudt laid the Sten gun across his knees and wound down the window.
It was close to half past six, day was breaking. People began to appear in the street, staring after the car, which was a rare sight in the starving city.
Osewoudt looked at Dorbeck, who sat hunched at the wheel, careering round bends with tyres squealing. In through the open window came a blast of morning air, mixed with the sour smell of refuse which lay heaped in the gutters.
‘Been in England again?’ Osewoudt asked.
‘Not lately. My contacts are down south now, beyond the rivers.’
‘What’s life like there, in the liberated provinces?’
‘Same as here: blackout. Waiting for the end of the war. I don’t notice much, I mean about how people live. I’m restricted to army quarters, mostly.’
‘But surely people can go out and about at will now, and they have plenty to eat?’
‘Not plenty. Some things are available. They’re already beginning to grumble, just like before the war.’
‘What would be the best way of getting there?’
‘Easy. You can go to any village and find someone with a boat to take you across.’
‘Don’t the Germans patrol the rivers?’
‘Probably. But I have my own contacts, one hundred per cent reliable.’
‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’
‘Indeed. Well as far as I’m concerned, the war has been a successful operation. I didn’t surrender on 14 May, 1940. I’m on the winning side. So are you.’
‘Am I? It’s ridiculous, but I can’t get used to the idea that I’m free again. Maybe it’s because this car belongs to Ebernuss, or used to. Christ, I’m tired. I’ve been in prison for nine months. Where are we going?’
‘To Bernard Kochstraat. Do you know it?’
‘No. I’m not very familiar with Amsterdam.’
‘A quiet street.’
‘What’s it like in London? I’ve never been abroad.’
‘What it’s like in London? Plenty of nightclubs, plenty of rowdy airmen who think they’re a cut above everybody else just because their predecessors, who fought the Battle of Britain for them, aren’t around any more – they’re all dead.’
‘Couldn’t you get me a job with the Allies?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that.’
‘I’d like to join the military. That’s the only way I could make myself useful now. Maybe, with the war still on, they won’t be so fussy, maybe they won’t mind my being half a centimetre too short.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I mean, I’m no use to the Resistance any more – that was obvious from the moment the Germans showed my picture in the cinemas. And I’m even more useless now. Besides, what’ll happen when they find Ebernuss has gone missing?’
‘The lads will see to it that he vanishes without trace. Don’t you worry.’
‘Right. But I can’t stay in Holland. Nor can you, really. Because, you know, the picture they showed in the cinemas wasn’t of me, even though my name was up there beside it. It was a picture of you. And Ebernuss had found out it wasn’t me in the picture, he even thought I had a double.’
‘So they interrogated you about things I had done?’
‘I was confronted with someone called Roorda, a man I’d never seen in my life. He said he knew me.’
‘Roorda. Ah. Interesting.’
‘So you know Roorda?’
‘I think so.’
‘Tell me your contacts. I must get away from occupied territory. I want to take a friend with me, a Jewish girl who’s in hiding in Leiden. I want to escape with her. Tell me the best way of making it across the rivers. Give me a password, or some means of identification. I want to escape with her, and I want to take as few risks as possible, for her sake.’
‘I understand.’
The car turned into a drab-looking street with a line of trees on a central reservation. The house-fronts were tarred black, and the front doors, all identical, were painted moss green.
Dorbeck put the handbrake on and removed the key from the ignition.
‘Leave the Sten behind, and wind up the window.’
Dorbeck opened a front door with a Yale key, which he passed directly on to Osewoudt.
‘Here, this is yours.’
They went up a wooden staircase. The house smelled as if it had been unlived-in for months.
They came to a narrow corridor with three orange-painted doors off it. The doors were ajar. At a glance he could see that they led to a small kitchen, a bedroom with a made-up bed, and a parlour.
Dorbeck went into the front room, the parlour, and perched on the square table with his face to the window, which was more of a projecting bay set with small panes. Osewoudt just stood there, Leica in hand, looking at Dorbeck. Then he noticed a battered suitcase standing by the table leg. On one side of the room was a mantelpiece with a mirror reaching up to the lowish ceiling.
‘Who lives here?’
‘You do. Listen carefully to what I have to say, I don’t have much time.’
‘Must you be off again?’
‘Yes, as soon as I can.’
‘What a pity! This is a historic moment. It ought to be recorded for posterity.’
Osewoudt aimed the Leica at the mirror and adjusted the focus.
‘It’s much too dark in here,’ said Dorbeck.
‘No, it’ll be fine. Keep still now!’
From the mirror Dorbeck stared back at him. Their heads were close together. Osewoudt’s hair had grown quite fair again, but in spite of that, and in spite of Dorbeck’s pointed beard, the resemblance between them was uncanny. It really did look as if it was the same man twice over, once in disguise. Yet if you had to guess which one was real, you’d sooner take the pale, beardless one for the impostor. For a moment they were quite still, eyeing each other in the mirror. Osewoudt kept his finger on the shutter, rapt with emotion: now I am whole at last, if only in a photograph. The shutter clicked.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
Dorbeck slackened his pose and yawned.
‘Why don’t you take a look in that suitcase? You’ll be surprised.’
Osewoudt put the camera aside, bent down and opened the suitcase.
It contained women’s clothing: two vests, two pairs of white bloomers, two starched white pinafores, a black woollen cardigan, two slate-blue linen dresses, black stockings, walking shoes,
a blue coat, a blue nurse’s veil, and half a dozen white, starched caps with ribbons. Osewoudt held up one of the dresses. An enamel brooch with a yellow cross on it came undone and fell to the floor.
‘But this is a nurse’s uniform. What are you going to do with it?’
‘Not me. You! You must put it on, and keep it on until the end of the war.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘What’s the alternative? Hole up in this house and starve to death? Or go out into the street as you are and get caught? Don’t count on my being able to rescue you again, you can’t take that kind of thing for granted.’
‘I realise that, and it’s been twice already.’
‘Twice? What do you mean?’
‘Well, first you got me out of that hospital in The Hague, remember? There was Cor, and Uncle Kees.’
‘I don’t know any Cor or Uncle Kees. I had no hand in any of that.’
‘Didn’t you really? Let me tell you something. No sooner had we got in the car than they made it clear they weren’t getting what they’d expected. They didn’t say in so many words, but it was quite obvious: it wasn’t me they thought they were supposed to rescue from the hospital, it was you, and they felt let down. They were disappointed, wouldn’t even take me to a safe house. They didn’t think I was important enough.’
‘Ha, ha, what a laugh! You, not important enough? Wasn’t it you who liquidated Lagendaal? Didn’t you take part in the Haarlem shooting? Well then.’
‘Of course, but I couldn’t tell them that.’
‘Whatever the case, it’s a mystery to me. I’ve never heard of any Uncle Cor, or of an Uncle Kees for that matter.’
‘Do you have any idea why the Germans had it in for me then? They were looking for me even before they knew Lagendaal was dead. They had my name broadcast over the station tannoy in Amsterdam. They knew about that business in Haarlem.’
‘Poor Osewoudt! Don’t tell me you don’t know! It was your own wife who grassed on you to the Germans! It was Ria! Along with the chemist’s son! She’s back in the tobacco shop, with him! As if nothing ever happened. She tells everyone you’re dead.’
‘What? Damn, damn! After they’d got me out of the hospital and were driving to Leiden, we went past the shop and I could tell the place was lived in. I couldn’t think who it might be. Damn! The chemist’s son saw me boarding the blue tram in Haarlem. He followed me to Zandvoort. He struck up a conversation with me to draw me out. God almighty!’
The Darkroom of Damocles Page 22