The Assault

by Harry Mulisch

  “Professionally speaking,” said Anton, “I would appreciate an injection.”

  “Are you out of your mind? It’s nothing. Open your mouth.”

  Anton crossed his fingers and kept his eyes on the other’s gray hair brushed to one side. Two or three seconds of pain and noise followed, after which Van Lennep said, “Okay. Close your mouth.”

  The miracle had happened. The pain receded behind the horizon and disappeared as if it had never existed.

  “How is it possible?”

  Van Lennep shrugged and hung the drill back. “A slight pressure. It had come to the surface. Often happens with age. Just rinse, please; then we’ll go.”

  “Finished already?” asked his wife in surprise when they entered the room.

  “Now I suppose he thinks he can forget his promise,” said Van Lennep with a sly smile. “But that’s where he’s wrong.”

  “Do you realize, Gerrit Jan,” said Anton as they stood outside waiting for Peter, “that this is the second time you’ve expected a political commitment from me? The difference is that this time you’re making it too.”

  “When was the first time, then?”

  “It was at that party in Haarlem, when you thought I ought to volunteer to fight in Korea, in the battle of occidental Christianity against the Communist barbarians.”

  Van Lennep stood staring at him in silence while his wife suppressed her laughter. A few streets further down, a voice was shouting through a loudspeaker.

  “Do you know what the trouble with you is, Steenwijk? Your memory’s much too good. As far as that goes, you’re the one who’s the blackmailer. I certainly haven’t become a Communist, if that’s what you’re implying. How could I? You’ll never make a dime out of a quarter. But those atomic weapons, they’ve become the greatest menace to humanity. They should be seen as a sort of assault from outer space; it’s not who controls them, it’s the other way around. Each new wave of armament is always presented as a reaction to the opposition, which in turn reacts to that. And so they keep putting the responsibility on each other, and the things keep piling up. And one day they’ll use them for sure. It’s statistically unavoidable, as inevitable as Adam and Eve’s taking a bite of that apple from the tree of knowledge. We’re going to have to get rid of those apples.”

  Anton nodded. He was dumbfounded by this argument. But then, dentists were crazy, a well-known fact in medical circles. But perhaps there was something to it after all. Peter arrived and locked up his bicycle. Seeing him here, with the drone of the helicopter overhead and the roar of the crowd in the distance, a strange, gentle feeling suddenly came over Anton, connecting him somehow to what was happening in the city.

  They made hardly any progress along the last stretch of road to the rallying point. Between the Concertgebouw and the Rijksmuseum, under a huge black balloon shaped like a falling missile, stood tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, with placards and banners up to ten meters wide. More people were streaming in from the streets on all sides. Through loudspeakers hanging from the trees and lampposts rumbled a speech that was apparently being given on the rostrum in the distance, but Anton was indifferent to what was being said. What moved him was the presence of all the people here, and he and his son being part of them.

  Soon he lost sight of Van Lennep, but it didn’t occur to him to give up and go home. A minute later this became impossible in any case. The two of them stood like two stalks in the midst of the human wheat field, with the scythe of the reaper over their heads. Anton’s anxiety and panic had totally disappeared. Besides Peter, the people around him—against him, rather—were an elderly lady from the provinces wearing a transparent plastic rain hood over her hairdo, a burly fellow in a brown leather jacket with a fur collar who had a wide mustache and sideburns, and a young woman carrying a sleeping baby in a sling on her breast. That’s who was there, and no one else. Among the slogans against nuclear arms, he was struck by a small placard that read

  JOB: WE ARE WITH YOU

  He pointed it out to Peter and explained who Job was.

  The loudspeakers announced that in the last half hour two thousand buses had entered Amsterdam. This meant another hundred thousand people. Cheers, applause. The voice announced that thousands more were streaming in from the station, brought by special trains. All the streets leading to the Museumplein were impassable. Yet, thought Anton, the fact that the human voice could be amplified so much was itself related to the existence of atom bombs. Neither the one nor the other would have been possible forty years ago. Perhaps what was happening in the world was even more terrifying and insoluble than anyone imagined.

  He couldn’t tell how long he stood there. Peter had spotted a classmate and disappeared some time ago. For an instant Anton remembered the bunkers that had once stood here, the Wehrmachtheim and the German administrative headquarters in the villas all around. Now the square held the American Consulate, the Russian Trade Legation, and the Société Generale. Politicians were being hailed, others jeered at, and finally, step by step, the crowd began to move. Apparently not everyone would fit along the official route, for several different demonstrations began to enter the city from various directions. A curious euphoria pervaded Anton, a state not agitated or anxious, but dreamlike, connecting him with something far, far back that had existed before the War. He was no longer alone, but a part of all these people. In spite of the commotion, a great stillness hung over them. Their presence seemed to have changed everything, not only inside him but also in this backdrop: houses whose windows were hung here and there with white sheets, as in a city that surrenders; gray clouds flying overhead; the black missile balloon blown back and forth, sometimes being snapped by the wind, then straightening itself once more:

  THANKS FOR THE FUTURE

  At the corner of the square the crowd met another wide stream of demonstrators who were on their way to the central meeting place. They let each other pass, laughing politely and excusing themselves. He was amazed. People were obviously not as ill-mannered as he had thought, or else they had become less so. Or did these marchers just happen to be the ones who were not? He must thank Van Lennep for having brought him here. He began to stand on tiptoe to look around. Suddenly he saw Sandra and called out. They waved and maneuvered toward each other.

  “I can’t believe my eyes!” Sandra exclaimed. “Good for you, Pa!” She kissed his cheek and took his arm. “What came over you?”

  “I suspect I’m the only one here who was forced to demonstrate, but now I’m being completely won over. Hi, Bastiaan!” He shook hands with her boy friend, a handsome young man wearing blue jeans, sneakers, a Palestinian kaffiyeh around his neck, and a gold ring in his left ear. Though Anton did not particularly like him, he was about to become the father of his grandchild. Sandra had been living in a rented room, but a few weeks ago she had moved into the young man’s place, a barricaded squatter’s house. After Anton had explained why he came, Bastiaan said, “Don’t think you’re the only one who was forced to be here. The place is stiff with police—Look!”

  A group of soldiers who had appeared were greeted with applause. Anton noticed that some people were unable to control their tears at the sight of the uniforms. A daisy chain of boys and girls surrounded them protectively, as if they were a bunch of flowers. Anton couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Are you sure those boys were ordered to be here?” His glance crossed that of an older woman who seemed to recognize him—a patient, no doubt. He nodded vaguely at her.

  “No, idiot, not those! That one, over there.” Bastiaan pointed at a man in a windbreaker who was filming the soldiers. “Police.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We should tear the camera out of his hands!”

  “Yes, that’s a great idea,” said Anton. “That’s all they’re waiting for, something to spoil everything.”

  “By accident, of course,” said Bastiaan with a crooked smile that irritated Anton intensely.

  “Sure, sur
e, by accident. Please behave yourself as the companion of a pregnant woman. I wouldn’t mind becoming a grandfather, if it’s not too much to ask.”

  “Okay,” said Sandra in a singsong voice. “Here we go again … Bye, Pa, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Bye, Darling. Run along. And be sure you get out of that house before the police break in. So long, Bastiaan!”

  It was not really a quarrel, but one more mark of an irritability between them which had become almost inescapable.

  Van Lennep had completely disappeared, and so had Peter. Slowly Anton drifted with the stream. On their small balconies older men and women were using both hands to make the victory sign, remembered from the War. Marching bands were accompanying the parade and more music was being played on the sidewalks, yet no one asked for money. All of society had gone a little bit crazy. Exuberant punk characters, their hair dyed yellow and purple, wearing black leotards and shiny black oversized jackets from the flea market, were dancing in the trolley-car stations, tenderly watched by people who had been terrified of them until now. Only in the air did things go on as usual. Planes with banners streaming behind announced that Jesus alone can bring you peace, promised to develop your photographs within the hour at Kalverstraat number so-and-so. On the roof of a parked van sat two enterprising fifteen-year-olds displaying their own attitude toward the peace march:

  DROP THE FIRST BOMB ON WASHINGTON

  At this sight people cleared their throats politely, somewhat embarrassed. There were also banners with MOSCOW written on them in Russian. In the distance at every side street more columns of humanity were crossing each other, sometimes in two different places. Slowly but surely something incredible was happening. There were several different currents even within the stream where he himself was caught, for different faces kept appearing. Halfway to the Stadhouderskade he was suddenly pushed aside by a file of black, masked figures with rattles, fluorescent skeletons painted on their bodies, who forced their way through the crowd—figures of terror, like medieval victims of the plague. He bumped into someone and excused himself; it was the same woman who had stared at him a while ago. She smiled shyly.

  “Tonny?” she asked with some hesitation. “Do you remember me?”

  Surprised, he looked at her, a small woman about sixty, her hair almost white, and very light, rather bulging eyes behind thick glasses.

  “You’ll have to excuse me. I don’t quite place …”

  “Karin. Karin Korteweg, your neighbor from Haarlem.”

  3

  First, in a flash the tall, blond woman from Home at Last changed into the little old lady at his side. Next came desperation.

  “If you don’t want to talk to me, just say so,” she put in quickly. “I’ll go away.”

  “No, or rather yes …” he stammered. “I just have to … You took me by surprise.”

  “I’ve been watching you for quite a while now, but if you hadn’t bumped into me I wouldn’t have spoken.” She looked up at him apologetically.

  Anton tried to control himself. He shuddered a little. That dreadful evening during the War had suddenly surfaced again, the way a dark, chilly shadow will sometimes glide over the beach on a summer day.

  “No, it’s okay,” he said. “Since we happened to meet here …”

  “I suppose it was meant to be,” she said, and pulled a cigarette out of an open pack in her pocketbook. She inhaled the flame he lit in the palm of his hand and watched him shyly. “And during this peace march, yet …”

  It was meant to be. Somberly he put the lighter back in his pocket, thinking: but the fact that Ploeg should have been lying in front of your house was not meant to be, apparently. Once more the old bitterness welled up, the inexhaustible bitterness. Was he meant to be lying in front of our house, then? He walked at her side, step by step. It sickened him. He could have escaped from her easily, but he realized that the woman by his side was almost more upset than he.

  “I recognized you at once just now,” Karin said. “You’re as tall as your father was, and you’re gray-haired, but still you haven’t really changed at all.”

  “So I’ve been told more than once. I’m not sure it’s a good thing.”

  “I’ve always known that I’d meet you someday. Do you live in Amsterdam?”

  “Yes.”

  “For the last few years I’ve been in Eindhoven.” He kept silent and she continued, “What’s your profession, Tonny?”

  “I’m an anesthesiologist.”

  “Really?” she asked in glad surprise, as if she had always hoped he would be.

  “Really. And you? Still nursing?”

  It seemed to distress her to talk about herself. “Not in years. I lived abroad for a long time and worked with problem children. I did here too for a few years, but now I’m retired. My health isn’t good …” Once more with enthusiasm, she asked, “Was that your daughter, the girl you were talking to?”

  “Yes,” Anton admitted reluctantly. He felt there was no connection between that part of his life and Karin; that in fact, it existed in spite of her.

  “She looks like your mother, don’t you think? How old is she?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “She’s pregnant, isn’t she? You can tell by her eyes even more than by her figure. Do you have any other children?”

  “Another son by my second wife.” He looked about. “He should be here too, somewhere.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Peter,” Anton said and looked at Karin. “He’s twelve.” He noticed her startled expression. To put her at ease he said, “Do you have any children?”

  Karin shook her head, staring at the back of a woman who was pushing an old man in a wheelchair.

  “I never got married.”

  “Is your father still alive?” As he asked, Anton realized that the question could have sarcastic overtones.

  Again she shook her head. “He’s been dead a long time now.”

  They shuffled along in silence side by side through the stream. The crowd had stopped chanting slogans for a while. Music was still playing all around, but in their immediate area no one said a word. He could tell that though Karin wanted to talk about it, she didn’t dare bring it up. Peter … forever seventeen; he would have been fifty-five now. This fact, even more than his own age, made Anton realize how long ago it had all happened. And now here was this young-woman-grown-old walking by his side. Once she had excited him, but her beautiful legs, streamlined like airplane wings, had become angular and weathered with age. Perhaps she had been the last person Peter saw. With the anxious, yet relieved haste of a writer who has reached the last chapter of his book, he said, “Listen, Karin. Let’s not beat around the bush. You want to tell me about it and I want to know. What exactly happened that night? Did Peter run into your house?”

  She nodded. “I thought he had come to shoot us,” she said softly, keeping her eyes on the back of the marcher in front of her. “Because of what we had done …” She looked up at him for an instant. “He had a gun in his hands.”

  “Ploeg’s.”

  “So I was told later. All of a sudden, there he was inside the room. He looked terrible. We just had a little oil lamp, but I could tell that he’d gone wild.” She swallowed hurriedly, then continued. “He said we were monsters, he was going to kill us. He was desperate. He didn’t know what to do. They were after him and he couldn’t leave the house. I told him to put down the gun, that we would hide it somewhere, or else they would take him for the murderer if they came in.”

  “Then what did he say?”

  Karin shrugged. “I don’t think he even heard me. He just stood waving that gun, listening for noises outside. My father told me to shut up.”

  Anton kept up a steady pace, his hands crossed behind his back, pensive, his eyes fixed on the street. He frowned.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know; I never asked him. And he would never talk about that night again. But of course, they had seen Peter run int
o our house; they would have searched it and found the gun. Then we would have been up against the wall as accomplices. That’s how things were then: they never bothered to find out exactly what happened.”

  “So you mean,” said Anton slowly, “that your father found it rather convenient to be held up by someone whom the Germans would suspect of the crime.” And as Karin nodded imperceptibly, “He was, in other words, making Peter seem guilty in their eyes.”

  Karin didn’t answer. Step by step they were carried along in the sluggish river of marchers. A group of boys about sixteen years old came out of a side street. All of them had shaved heads, black leather jackets, black pants, and black boots with metal heels. They forced their way through the crowd and disappeared across the bridge on the other side.

  “And then?” asked Anton.

  “After a while the entire army appeared on the quay. I can’t remember how long that took. I was scared to death. Peter kept that thing pointed at our heads, and suddenly there was a lot of noise and shouting outside. I had no idea what he meant to do, and I don’t think he knew himself. He must have realized that he was lost. I’ve often wondered why he didn’t shoot us; by then he had nothing to lose. Perhaps he finally realized that it wasn’t our fault. I mean …” she said, looking up at him to see if it was all right to say what she meant, “… that we didn’t deserve to get the body any more than you or anyone else. I had seen Peter planning to put it in front of our house, and …”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Anton interrupted her. “He may well have meant to take it to the Beumers’. You remember Mr. and Mrs. Beumer; they were old. Perhaps he was afraid your father would beat him up.”

  Karin sighed and smoothed her hair. She gave Anton a desperate look. He knew she saw that he wanted to hear what had happened next, but that he would never ask. With a sudden toss of the head she turned away, as if help might come from another direction. Finding none, she continued, “Oh, Tonny … There must have been a crack in the blackout of our French windows; they must have seen him there with his gun. Suddenly a bullet crashed through the window. I threw myself down on the floor, but I think he’d been hit already. A second later they kicked in the door and took a few more shots with their rifles, aiming at the ground, as if they were finishing off an animal …”