The Assault

by Harry Mulisch

  And then there was politics. The talk went on forever, but he hardly bothered to follow it, especially on a national level. Though he read the headlines, he forgot them at once. When an English colleague questioned him about the Dutch system of government, Anton knew very little, no more than about the German or French. As to the newspaper, he spent most of the time trying to solve the daily crossword puzzle; he couldn’t resist them and had become an expert. Whenever he found an unsolved puzzle in a paper in some waiting room, it became his ambition to decipher the clue that had stymied the previous person. After he had filled all the blanks, he surveyed the completed square with satisfaction. The fact that most letters had a double function in both a horizontal and a vertical word, and that these words were paired in a mysterious way, pleased him no end. It had something to do with poetry.

  But during that same year, 1956, the time came for him to vote in the elections. At his weekly dinner in the Apollolaan his uncle asked him which party he would endorse. He said it would probably be the liberals. When his uncle asked why, Anton had no better reason than that his friends did. This was the worst possible reason, according to Van Liempt, who managed to change Anton’s mind in a few minutes. Present-day liberalism, he said, combined a fundamental pessimism about social solidarity with the idea that the individual must remain as free as possible. But a person is either a pessimist who favors enforced order, or an optimist who favors freedom. It is impossible to be both at once. One cannot combine the pessimism of socialism with the optimism of anarchy, and yet this is what liberalism does. Therefore it is very simple, he said; you have only to decide whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. Which is it? Anton looked up at him briefly, lowered his eyes again, and said, “Pessimist.”

  And so he voted for the Social Democrats like his uncle, who was one of those important party leaders from whom burgomasters and ministers are chosen. Only later did Anton realize that almost nobody voted rationally, but simply out of self-interest, or because he felt an affinity for the members of a certain party, or because the leading candidate inspired confidence. It was physiobiological, in a way. In a subsequent election he voted somewhat more conservatively, for a newly founded party which claimed that the difference between right and left was obsolete. Still, national politics meant little to him: about as much as paper airplanes would mean to the survivor of a plane crash.

  2

  Later that year he became more aware of Communism, and at the same time of international politics. For the second half of 1956 provided a veritable orgy for newspaper readers: unrest in Poland, scandals within the royal family, the French and English attack on Egypt, the revolution in Hungary and the intervention of the Soviet Union, the landing of Fidel Castro in Cuba. A few weeks before this bravura performance in the Caribbean, the rumble of the Russian tanks which had rolled into Budapest still echoed within Holland, and nowhere more audibly than around the corner from Anton’s apartment. There, in a large eighteenth-century building called Felix Meritis, were the headquarters of the Communist Party. Unruly mobs roamed the city, destroying everything that had anything to do with the Communists, from their bookstore to the windows of their homes. The crowds were aided by the press, which published addresses under the pretense of objective reporting. A paper would announce that the home of this or that Party leader on such-and-such a street had been only slightly damaged—and the next day the damage would be more extensive. After completing all this work, mobs of thousands gathered in front of the Felix Meritis building on the Keizergracht and besieged it continuously for forty-eight hours.

  By then the building had become a fortress. Downstairs the windows were boarded up. None of the second-floor areas were still undamaged, and men in helmets were visible on the roof. Women too could be seen at times, and the crowds jeered at them with hostility. People who wanted to go in or out of the building made sure they had police protection. Policemen with rubber-tipped clubs and drawn guns tried to hold the crowd to the opposite side of the canal, but the police too were in danger from stones flying through the air. The men on the roof were throwing back the stones that had landed inside the building. Now and then they aimed fire hoses at small groups that came too close. A gray police boat patrolled the canal to fish out people who had fallen in the water.

  Anton was totally uninterested in all this. He would never have taken part; he even avoided conversations about it. Somehow he couldn’t help thinking that though it was all pretty terrible, it was only child’s play, really. Besides, he got the impression that in a way, many people were delighted with what had happened in Budapest because it confirmed their opinions about Communism.

  The worst problem for him was the constant racket. Since his own narrow street provided access to the back of the Felix Meritis building, on the Prinsengracht, demonstrators also gathered there and even threw Molotov cocktails, as the fishman told him. In desperation one evening he went to the movies, to see The Seventh Seal, and when he came home he put on loud music, Mahler’s Second Symphony. But the noise didn’t let up all night, and he decided to spend the following night in the Apollolaan, where everything was peaceful. When the time came, however, he couldn’t believe that the uproar would go on for another night, so he went home as usual after work.

  It was dusk, and candles were burning at many windows. The flag hung at half-mast from countless houses. He parked his scooter a few blocks away so it wouldn’t be damaged by the mob, and walked to his little street.

  The tumult had grown, if anything. He had trouble getting to his house through the crowd, and just as he reached the doorway, all hell broke loose. Police cars from the Keizergracht suddenly appeared and drove into the mob with blasting sirens and blazing lights, stepping on the gas, slamming on the brakes, then revving up again. Policemen on horseback with drawn swords now invaded the street, and motorcycles with sidecars rode up and down the sidewalks while helmeted policemen leaned out of them and hit people with the handles of long black poles. Panic broke out, but to his surprise Anton noticed that he, in contrast, became calmer. He had felt upset at first, yet now, with shouting and screaming everywhere, people being trampled, people bleeding and trying to reach safety, he was pervaded by a strange indifference. His doorway, which also led to the entrance of the fish store, was only about two meters square. Now a dozen people stood in it, crowding him against his front door. He already had his key in his hand but he realized that even if he could turn around, he mustn’t open the door. If he did the staircase and his rooms would be invaded within minutes, and when the people left all his possessions would have disappeared.

  In front of him stood a big fellow whose strong back was crushing Anton against the door with all its might, but of course it only seemed that way, for the man was being crushed himself. His hand gripped a big gray rock, which he had to hold up over his shoulder for lack of room. To protect his nose and in order not to suffocate, Anton turned his head to the side, but from the corner of his eye he saw the man’s dirty nails and the calluses on his fingers.

  Suddenly everyone ran out of the doorway. The man in front turned around briefly—perhaps to see who he had felt at his back all this time—stepped out into the street, turned around again, and stood still.

  “Hello, Ton,” he said.

  Anton looked into the wide, coarse face. Suddenly he knew.

  “Hello, Fake.”

  3

  For a few seconds they eyed each other, Fake with the stone in his hand, Anton with the key. There was still movement on the street, but the center of the violence had shifted to the Prinsengracht.

  “Come on up,” said Anton.

  Fake hesitated. He looked to right and left, as if reluctant to leave the excitement, but understood that he could not very well avoid it.

  “Just for a minute, then.”

  When Anton heard the heavy footsteps following him on the stairs, he could hardly believe it was happening. He had never thought about Fake Ploeg again, yet Fake too had gone on existing and
was still present in this world. They didn’t shake hands. What were they supposed to talk about? Why in hell had he invited him in? He switched on the light and drew the curtains.

  “You want a drink?”

  To his horror, Fake put the stone on the grand piano Anton had been given for his birthday. He didn’t slam it down, but Anton could hear that it had scratched the lacquer.

  “A beer, if you’ve got it.”

  For himself, Anton poured a glass of wine out of the bottle left from last night. Ill at ease, Fake tried to get comfortable in the canvas chair that looked like a huge butterfly. Anton sat on the black couch with the worn-out springs.

  “Cheers,” he said, and wondered what to say next.

  Fake briefly lifted his glass, then emptied half of it. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he looked at the bookcase and the shelf with the sextants.

  “Student, I suppose?”

  Anton nodded. Fake nodded back. He shifted, straightened, and tried to get more comfortable.

  “No good?”

  “What a lousy chair,” said Fake.

  “It’s the latest fashion, you know. Come on, sit here.” They changed places. Fake stared at him as if he could see him better now.

  “Do you know you haven’t changed at all?”

  “So I’m told.”

  “I recognized you right away.”

  “It took me a moment,” said Anton. “I didn’t see your father that often.”

  Fake pulled a pack of tobacco out of his inside pocket and began to roll a cigarette. When Anton offered him a pack of Yellow Dry, he declined. Maybe Anton shouldn’t have said it, but it was true: Fake was the image of his father, only younger and thinner and a bit puffier. Besides, he didn’t think it was up to him to be careful of Fake’s feelings. He wished the telephone would ring, so he could say to whoever it was that he would come to the hospital at once. It was cold and damp in the room.

  “I’ll light the stove,” he said.

  He got up and opened the kerosene valve. Fake rolled his cigarette, picked the extra tobacco out of both ends, and stuffed it back into the package, which he held firmly between his ring and little finger.

  “What are you studying?”

  “Medicine.”

  “I work for a household appliance store,” said Fake before Anton got a chance to ask him. “Repairs, you know.”

  Anton waited till enough oil had dripped into the stove.

  “In Haarlem?”

  Fake looked at him as if he were crazy. “Did you really think we could go on living in Haarlem?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Can’t you imagine that we had to get out of there in a hurry, after the War?”

  “Yes, I guess so,” said Anton. He lifted the lid off the stove and dropped the burning match into it. “Where are you living now?”

  “In Den Helder.”

  The match went out and he lit a second one. He dropped it and faced his visitor.

  “Did you come to Amsterdam just to throw stones?”

  “Yes,” said Fake and looked at him. “Strange, isn’t it?”

  Anton put the lid back on the stove and sat down. If he simply suggested that they put an end to this meeting, Fake would probably get up and go at once. But suddenly he felt stubborn, as if he didn’t want Fake to think that he could get rid of him that easily.

  “Is your mother still alive?”

  Fake nodded. “Yes,” he said after a silence. He made it sound like a kind of admission, as if Anton had asked, is your mother still alive? He hadn’t meant it that way—but even as he said it he realized that perhaps it was what he had meant, after all.

  “How come you’re working in one of those appliance stores?” he asked. “You went to high school, after all.”

  “Only one semester.”

  “Why didn’t you stay on?”

  “Do you really care?” asked Fake, poking a bit of tobacco back into his cigarette with the end of his match.

  “Why would I ask if I didn’t?”

  “After the War they arrested my mother and put her in a camp. I ended up in a Catholic boarding school, which was connected to the Episcopal industrial school. So I had to go there, even though I wasn’t a Catholic.”

  “What was your mother accused of?”

  “Ask the gentlemen of the Special Judiciary. They probably suspected her of being married to my father.” From his tone Anton could tell that Fake had said this before, and it didn’t sound as if he had thought it up himself, either.

  “And then?”

  “After nine months they let her go, but by that time other people were living in our house. We were offered a place in Den Helder where nobody knew us. So I went to trade school there.”

  “And why didn’t you go back to high school?”

  “You really don’t understand anything, do you?” Fake screwed up his face as if he smelled something rotten. “What do you think? My mother had to become a cleaning woman to support me and my sisters. You know—one of those women with a rag around their heads and a shopping bag, like you see on the streets at six-thirty in the morning. The bag was to carry her brushes and mops and soaps. She had to buy those herself. When she came home at night, she walked slower and slower. And now she’s in the hospital, if you really want to know, with water running out of her right leg. That one is all yellow with brown spots. The left leg was amputated two weeks ago. Now are you satisfied, Doctor?” He emptied his glass, slammed it down on the table, and leaned back. “So that’s the difference, right? We’re in the same class, your parents are shot, but you’re doing medical studies all the same, whereas my father was shot and I repair water heaters.”

  “But your mother is alive,” said Anton promptly, “and your sisters too.” Now he weighed his words carefully. They were on dangerous ground. “Besides, isn’t there some difference between your father’s and my parents’ deaths?”

  “What difference?” Fake asked aggressively.

  “My parents were innocent.”

  “My father too,” he said without a moment’s hesitation, his eyes on Anton. Anton, amazed, kept silent. Perhaps Fake actually meant it. Perhaps he was really convinced of it.

  “All right,” Anton said, at last, with a conciliatory gesture. “All right. I only know what I heard, but …”

  “Exactly.”

  “… but if it really is your opinion that social injustice caused this difference between us, then I don’t understand that stone.” With his head he motioned to the ugly stone that was still lying like an insult on his grand piano. “Then you should have been a Communist instead.”

  Before Fake answered, he took his glass and poured the last drops down his throat. “Communism,” he said calmly, but with an undertone of rage, “is the worst. Just look at Budapest, where an entire people’s drive for freedom is being drowned in blood.”

  “Fake,” said Anton, irritated, “I’m no Communist either, but that doesn’t mean I find it necessary to learn those headlines by heart.”

  “Sure, of course Doctor Steenwijk is clever enough to say it better in his own words. Excuse me if I’m not that smart. People are killing each other over there. Is that any better? What do you suppose the political commissars are doing over there? There’s mass murder going on over there, didn’t you know? Did you read Het Parool? About the atrocities being committed by Mongol soldiers?”

  “Mongol soldiers!” Anton said. “What do you mean, Fake? Has the time come now to send Mongols to the gas chamber?”

  “No, you bastard!” said Fake with a threatening look. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but I can tell you one thing: at least my father was absolutely right about the Communists. He used to predict everything that’s going on now. It’s no coincidence that it was the same damned Communists who killed him. The same bunch that you see now running over the rooftops with helmets on their lousy heads. Why are you defending them anyway? Remember, they knew very well that there would be reprisals
, yet they shot him down in front of your house. They couldn’t have cared less, otherwise they’d have taken the trouble to hide the body. Besides, it didn’t end the War one second sooner.”

  He stood up and took his glass over to the table where Anton had left the open beer bottle. Anton noticed that the stove still wasn’t burning. He too stood up, tore a strip from a newspaper, lit it, and dropped it onto the black, shiny layer of oil.

  He poured himself another glass of wine. And because Fake remained standing, Anton did too. Outside there was more shouting and the sound of sirens.

  “My family,” Anton said, massaging his neck with his empty hand, “was not executed by the Communists but by your father’s friends.”

  “But those Communists knew what would happen.”

  “Therefore they were to blame?”

  “Right. Who else?”

  “Fake,” said Anton. “I understand that you’d want to defend your father. He was, after all, your father. But if your father had been my father, if everything had been turned around, would you then be defending Fake Ploeg? Let’s not kid each other. Your father was killed by the Communists with premeditation because they had decided that it was essential, but my family was senselessly slaughtered by Fascists, of whom your father was one. Isn’t that right?”