The Assault

by Harry Mulisch

  “Very well translated, my boy. Except for one mistake. They are not rivers, plural, that come together, but two rivers.”

  “Where does it say that?”

  “Here: symballeton, that’s a duality, the coming together of two things, two. Now the two armies also make sense. This is a form you find only in Homer. Remember the word ‘symbol,’ which comes from symballo, ‘to bring together,’ ‘to meet.’ Do you know what a symbolon was?”

  “No,” said Peter in a tone implying that he couldn’t care less.

  “What was it, Papa?” asked Anton.

  “It was a stone that they broke in two. Say I am a guest in another city, and I ask my host whether he would be willing to receive you too. How can he be sure that you really are my son? We make a symbolon. He keeps one half, and at home I give you the other. So then when you get there, they fit together exactly.”

  “That’s great,” said Anton. “I’m going to try that someday.”

  Groaning, Peter turned away. “Why in God’s name should I learn all that?”

  “Not in God’s name,” said Steenwijk, peering at him over his glasses. “In the name of humanitas. You’ll see how much pleasure it will give you for the rest of your life.”

  Peter slammed his books shut, piled them up, and said in a strange tone of voice: “Who looks at man, laughs if he can.”

  “Now what has that got to do with anything, Peter?” asked his mother. With her tongue she pushed the clove back in place.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Steenwijk. “Sunt pueri pueri pueri puerilia tractant.”

  The sweater had disappeared, and Mrs. Steenwijk stowed the ball of yarn in her sewing basket.

  “Come, let’s play a game before we go to bed.”

  “To bed already?” said Peter.

  “We’ve got to save gas. We only have enough for a few days.”

  Mrs. Steenwijk pulled the box out of the drawer of the dresser, pushed the lamp aside, and unfolded the game board.

  “I want green,” said Anton.

  Peter looked at him and tapped his forehead.

  “Do you really think green will make you win?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Steenwijk laid down his book. A moment later the only sounds were those of the dice being shaken and the pawns being moved across the board. It was almost eight o’clock: curfew. Outside all was as still as it must be on the moon.

  2

  In the silence that was Holland then, six shots suddenly rang out. First, one echoed through the street, then two more in rapid succession, and a few seconds later, a fourth and a fifth. After a moment came a kind of scream, followed by a sixth shot. Anton, about to throw the dice, froze and looked at his mother, his mother at his father, his father at the sliding doors; but Peter picked up the cover of the carbon lamp and put it over the flame.

  Suddenly, all was dark. Peter stood up, stumbled forward, opened the sliding doors, and peered through a crack in the curtains of the bay window. Freezing-cold air immediately streamed in from the parlor.

  “They shot someone!” he said. “Someone’s lying there.” He hurried into the front hall.

  “Peter!” cried his mother.

  Anton heard her follow. He jumped up himself and ran to the bay window. Unerringly he dodged all the furniture there, which he hadn’t seen for months: the armchairs, the low, round table with the lace doily under the glass plate, the dresser with the ceramic platter and the portraits of his grandparents. The curtains, the windowsill, everything was icy cold. No one had breathed in this room for so long that there weren’t even any frost flowers on the windowpanes. It was a moonless night, but the frozen snow held the light of the stars. At first he thought that Peter had been talking nonsense, but now he too saw it through the left side of the bay window.

  In the middle of the deserted street, in front of Mr. Korteweg’s house, lay a bicycle with its upended front wheel still turning—a dramatic effect later much used in close-ups in every movie about the Resistance. Limping, Peter ran along the garden path into the street. The last few weeks he’d had a boil on his toe that would not heal, and his mother had cut a piece out of his shoe to ease the pain. He knelt beside a man lying motionless in the gutter not far from the bicycle. The man’s right hand was resting on the edge of the sidewalk, as if he had made himself comfortable. Anton saw the shimmer of black boots and the iron plates on the heels.

  In a whisper that was surprisingly loud, his mother called Peter from the doorstep to come in at once. He stood up, looked to right and left along the quay and then back at the man, and limped home.

  “It’s Ploeg!” Anton heard him say a minute later in the hall, a tone of triumph in his voice. “Dead as a doornail, if you ask me.”

  Anton too knew Fake Ploeg, Chief Inspector of Police, the greatest murderer and traitor in Haarlem. He passed by regularly on his way between his office and his house in Heemstede. A big, square-shouldered man with a rough face, he was usually dressed in a hat, a brown sports jacket, and a shirt with a tie. But he wore black riding pants and high boots, and he radiated violence, hate, and fear. His son, also named Fake, was in Anton’s class. From the bay window Anton stared at the boots. He knew those, all right, because Fake had been brought to school a couple of times by his father on the back of that very bicycle. Each time they arrived at the school entrance, everyone fell silent. The father looked about with a mocking glance, but after he left, the son went in with downcast eyes and had to manage as best he could.

  “Tonny!” His mother called. “Get away from that window!”

  On the second day of school when nobody knew who he was yet, Fake had appeared in the pale-blue uniform and black-and-orange cap of the Nazi youth organization. That was in September, shortly after Mad Tuesday, when everyone thought the liberators were on their way and most National Socialists and collaborators had fled to the German border or beyond. Fake sat all alone at his desk in the classroom and pulled out his books. Mr. Bos, the math teacher, stood in the doorway, his arm against the doorjamb to keep out the other students; he had called back those who had already entered. He announced to Fake that there would be no teaching students in uniform, it hadn’t gotten that far and would never get that far, and he should go home and change. Fake said nothing, did not look back at the doorway but remained motionless. After a while the principal edged through the students and began to whisper excitedly to the teacher, who wouldn’t give in.

  Anton stood in the front of the crowd and, under Bos’s arm, stared at the back of the boy in the empty room. Then, slowly, Fake turned around and looked him straight in the eyes. All at once Anton was overcome by a pity for him such as he had never felt for anyone. How could Fake possibly go home, with that father of his? Before he knew what he was doing, Anton dove under Mr. Bos’s arm and sat down at his desk. This broke down the general resistance of the others. After school the principal stood waiting for him in the hall, caught him briefly by the arm, and whispered that he had probably saved Mr. Bos’s life. Anton didn’t quite know what to do with this compliment. He never told anyone at home about it, and the incident was never mentioned again.

  The body in the gutter. The wheel had stopped turning. Above, the amazing starry sky. His eyes were used to the darkness now, and he could see ten times better than before. Orion lifting his sword, the Milky Way, one brilliant, shiny planet, probably Jupiter—not in centuries had Holland’s skies been this clear. On the horizon two slowly moving searchlights crossed each other and fanned out, but no plane could be heard. He noticed that he was still holding one of the dice in his hand and put it in his pocket.

  As he was about to move away from the window, he saw Mr. Korteweg come out of his house, followed by Karin. Korteweg picked Ploeg up by the shoulders, Karin by the boots, and together they began dragging him through the snow, Karin walking backwards.

  “Look at that,” said Anton.

  His mother and
Peter were just in time to see them deposit the body in front of Carefree. Karin and Korteweg ran back. Karin threw Ploeg’s cap, which had fallen off, onto his body. Her father moved the bicycle to the road in front of Carefree. The next moment they had disappeared into Home at Last.

  Everyone was speechless in the bay window at the Steenwijks’. The quay was once more deserted, everything was as quiet as it had been, yet everything had changed. The dead man now lay with his arms above his head, the right hand clasping a gun, the long coat gathered at the waist, as if Ploeg had fallen from a great height. Now Anton clearly recognized the large face, its hair slicked down and brushed back, practically undisturbed.

  “God dammit!” screamed Peter suddenly, his voice breaking.

  “Hey, hey, watch it,” came Steenwijk’s voice from the darkness of the back room. He was still sitting at the table.

  “They put him down in front of our house, the bastards!” Peter cried. “Jesus Christ! We’ve got to get him out of here before the Krauts come.”

  “Don’t get involved,” said Mrs. Steenwijk. “We had nothing to do with it.”

  “No, except that now he’s lying in front of our door! Why do you suppose they did that? Because the Krauts are going to retaliate, of course. Just like before, at the Leidse Canal.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong, Peter.”

  “As if they care! You’re dealing with Krauts.” He left the room. “Come on Anton, hurry; you and I can do it.”

  “Are you crazy?” Mrs. Steenwijk cried. She choked, cleared her throat, and spat out the clove. “What do you want to do?”

  “Put him back—or at Mrs. Beumer’s.”

  “At Mrs. Beumer’s? How can you think of such a thing?”

  “Why not at Mrs. Beumer’s? Mrs. Beumer had nothing to do with it either! If only the river weren’t frozen … We’ll see what we can do.”

  “No you don’t!”

  Mrs. Steenwijk rushed out of the room. In the dim light that fell through the transom into the front hall, Anton saw that his mother had posted herself in front of the door; Peter was trying to push her aside. He heard her turn the key as she called, “Willem, why don’t you say something?”

  “Yes … yes …” Anton heard his father’s voice, still in the back room. “I …”

  In the distance, shots rang out again.

  “If he’d been hit a few seconds later, he’d be lying at Mrs. Beumer’s now,” called Peter.

  “Yes …” said Steenwijk softly, his voice breaking in an odd way, “But that is not the case.”

  “Not the case! It wasn’t the case that he was lying here, either, but now it is the case!” Peter said suddenly, “In fact, I’m going to take him back. I’ll just do it alone.”

  He turned to run toward the kitchen door, but with a cry of pain tripped over the pile of logs and branches from the last trees his mother had chopped down in the empty lots.

  “Peter, for God’s sake!” cried Mrs. Steenwijk. “You’re playing with your life!”

  “That’s exactly what you’re doing, dammit.”

  Before Peter could pick himself up, Anton turned the key in the kitchen door and threw it into the hall, where it clattered and became invisible; then he ran to the front door and did the same with the house key.

  “God dammit,” cried Peter, almost in tears. “You’re stupid, stupid, all of you.”

  He went to the back room, tore aside the curtains, and with his good foot pushed against the french doors. They burst open with a crash, sending strips of paper insulation flying, and suddenly Anton saw his father’s silhouette outlined against the snow. He was still sitting at the table.

  As Peter disappeared into the garden, Anton ran back to the bay window. He saw his brother appear limping around the house, climb over the fence, and grip Ploeg by the boots. At that moment he seemed to hesitate, perhaps because of all the blood, perhaps because he couldn’t decide which direction to take. But before he could do anything, shouts echoed at the end of the quay.

  “Halt! Stand still! Hands up!”

  Three men approached, bicycling hard. They threw their bikes down on the street and began running. Peter dropped Ploeg’s legs, pulled the gun out of Ploeg’s hand, ran without limping to the Kortewegs’ fence, and disappeared behind their house. The men screamed at each other. One of them, wearing a cap and an overcoat, took a shot at Peter and chased after him.

  Anton felt his mother’s warmth beside him.

  “What was that? Are they shooting at Peter? Where is he?”

  “Out in back.”

  With wide eyes Anton watched everything. The second man, who wore a Military Police uniform, ran back to his bicycle, jumped on, and rode away at full speed. The third, who was in civilian clothes, slid down the other side of the embankment and crouched on the towpath, holding a gun with both hands.

  Anton dove below the windowsill and turned around. His mother had disappeared. At the table the silhouette of his father was a little more bent than before, as if he were praying. Then Anton heard his mother, in the backyard, whisper Peter’s name into the night. It was as if the cold which now streamed into the house emanated from her back. There was no further sound. Anton saw and heard everything, but somehow he was no longer quite there. One part of him was already somewhere else, or nowhere at all. He was undernourished, and stiff now with cold, but that wasn’t all. This moment—his father cut out in black against the snow, his mother outside on the terrace under the starlight—became eternal, detached itself from all that had come before and all that would follow. It became part of him and began its journey through the rest of his life, until finally it would explode like a soap bubble, after which it might as well never have happened.

  His mother came in.

  “Tonny? Where are you? Do you see him?”

  “No.”

  “What should we do? Perhaps he’s hiding somewhere.” Agitated, she walked outside again and then came back. Suddenly she went to her husband and pulled at his shoulders.

  “Will you ever wake up? They’re shooting at Peter! Perhaps he’s been hit already.”

  Slowly Steenwijk stood up. Without a word, tall and thin, he left the room. A moment later he returned wearing a scarf and his black bowler hat. As he was about to enter the garden from the terrace, he drew back. Anton could hear that he was trying to call Peter’s name, but only a hoarse sound came out. Defeated, he turned back. He came in and went to sit, trembling, on the chair next to the stove. After a few moments he said, “Please forgive me, Thea … forgive me …” Mrs. Steenwijk’s hands wrestled with each other.

  “Everything has gone so well until now, and now, at the end … Anton, put on your coat. Oh God, where can that boy be?”

  “Perhaps he went into the Kortewegs’,” said Anton. “He took Ploeg’s gun.”

  From the silence which followed his words he understood that this was something terrible.

  “Did you really see that?”

  “Just as those men came … Like this … as he ran away …”

  In the soft, powdery light which now hung about the rooms, he acted out a short sprint and, leaning over, pulled an imaginary pistol out of an imaginary hand.

  “You don’t suppose he …” Mrs. Steenwijk caught her breath. “I’m going to Korteweg’s right now.”

  She started to run into the garden, but Anton followed and said, “Watch out! There’s another man out there somewhere.”

  As her husband had done before her, she drew back from the freezing silence. Nothing stirred. There was the garden, and beyond it the barren, snow-covered lots. Anton too stood motionless. Everything was still—and yet time went by. It was as if everything grew radiant with the passage of time, like pebbles at the bottom of a brook. Peter had disappeared, a corpse lay in front of the door, and all about them the armed men remained motionless. Anton had the feeling that by doing something which was within his power but which he could not quite think of, he could undo everything and return to the way they h
ad been before, sitting around the table playing a game. It was as if he had forgotten a name remembered a hundred times before and now on the tip of his tongue, but the harder he tried to recall it, the more elusive it became. Or it was like the time when he had suddenly realized that he was breathing in and out continuously and must make sure to keep doing it or else suffocate—and at that moment he almost did suffocate.

  Motorcycles sounded in the distance; also, he heard the noise of a car.

  “Come in, Mama,” said Anton.

  “Yes … I’ll close the doors.”

  He could tell from her voice that she stood on the edge of something she could not master. It seemed as if he was the only one who kept his wits, and that, of course, was as it should be, for a future aviator. In the Air Force difficult situations might also arise: at the eye of a cyclone, for instance, the wind is calm and the sun shines, but the pilot must fly out into the turmoil of weather, or else he’ll run out of fuel and be lost.

  Now the motorcycles and the car could be heard out front on the quay, while more cars—heavier ones—seemed to be approaching in the distance. So far, everything was still all right; nothing had changed, really—except of course that Peter had disappeared. How could anything really change?

  Then there it was. Squeaking tires, shouting in German, the iron clatter of boots jumping onto the street. Now and then a bright light flashed through the split between the curtains. Anton tiptoed to the bay window. Everywhere soldiers with rifles and machine guns, motorcycles coming and going, trucks with still more soldiers; a military ambulance out of which a stretcher was being pulled. Suddenly he yanked the curtains closed and turned around.

  “Here they are,” he said into the darkness. At that moment there was a banging on the door, so unnecessarily loud, with the butt of a rifle, that he knew something terrible was about to happen.

  “Aufmachen! Open at once!”

  Involuntarily he fled to the back room. His mother went into the hall and called out with a trembling voice that the key was lost. But already the door was being broken down and slammed against the wall. Anton heard the mirror shatter, the one with the two carved elephants over the little side table with the twisted legs. Suddenly the hall and rooms were filled with armed men in helmets, wrapped in ice-cold air, all much too large for his mother and father’s house. Already it was no longer theirs. Blinded by a lantern, Anton lifted one arm to his eyes. From beneath it he could see the shiny badge of the Field Police, and hanging from a belt, the elongated container of a gas mask, and boots caked with snow. A man in civilian dress entered the room. He wore a long black leather coat down to his ankles and on his head a hat with a lowered brim.