The Darkroom of Damocles

by Willem Frederik Hermans

  ‘Why are the lights off?’ the German asked.

  Osewoudt couldn’t tell him. The other German in plain clothes went over to the corner where Marianne’s bag had fallen.

  ‘Verdammt, Helmuth, come here with your torch, I need some light!’

  Two torches remained fixed on Osewoudt, the third swung away to the corner where the German was crouching.

  ‘Who else is in this house?’ asked the man sitting opposite Osewoudt.

  ‘There’s no one, just me. Everybody’s gone. I don’t know where.’

  ‘Werner! Take a look here! Some dangerous lady’s forgotten something!’

  Holding Osewoudt’s pistol by the barrel in one hand and the handbag in the other, he came forward to display them to the man sitting opposite Osewoudt. At that moment a German came in with an acetylene lamp which spread a garish glow. He set it on the table. Marianne’s handbag was turned upside down. They pounced on the identity card.

  ‘Marianne Sondaar,’ intoned the man called Werner.

  ‘The pistol isn’t hers, it’s mine!’ Osewoudt cried. ‘I can prove that!’

  ‘How interesting,’ said Werner. ‘We’ll give you plenty of time to furnish proof. Take him away.’

  He slammed down the pistol on the table beside the empty handbag, a powder compact, a lipstick, some zinc coins, a screwed-up handkerchief.

  Osewoudt stood up. A German in uniform grabbed his arm and walked him to the door. The others stayed behind.

  Coming into the corridor, Osewoudt saw there was no one about. The door to the hall was open, as was the front door. Outside, there was a fair amount of light, although the spot-light was not aimed at the doorway. He felt coconut matting under his bare feet, then the cold stone doorstep. He saw the waiting police van.

  Was it because the stones hurt his bare feet? He stepped to one side and at the same instant seized the hand of his German guard. He yanked at the hand, dragged the arm it belonged to over his shoulder and bent down, so the German’s feet were lifted off the ground. Osewoudt slung him away with all the force he could muster, twisting the arm until it was torn from his hands by the weight of the falling man. A cry sounded, like the squeal of a pig being dragged by the tail into a cattle truck. From behind the van another German came running, with hobnailed boots scraping the cobbles. Osewoudt dashed across the pavement, caught momentarily in the spotlight. Shots were fired and he ducked behind the vehicle, where the spot-light couldn’t reach him. Further along, another car engine sputtered to life. Osewoudt crossed the road and ran down the grassy bank of the canal, while a volley of shots rang out behind him. He felt no pain and reached the water safely. It was knee-deep. Bending over, keeping his head down as far as possible, he waded on. His legs tore against dead branches on the bottom, or perhaps they were shards of metal. The spot-light slid past him several times. Spray from the impact of bullets made him blink. Now and then he had to wrench a foot free with his hands, so he seemed to be advancing on all fours. He had no idea how quickly or slowly he was going; he felt he was making no headway at all.

  There were no bridges along this stretch of the canal. The Germans would have to make a considerable detour before they could close in on him on the other side. He heard an engine running, but the sound was not coming from across the water. It was too shallow to swim. Growing impatient, he straightened up to try and take big strides instead. Shots were still being fired, but the bullets weren’t coming his way. A spot-light remained fixed on the top of a tree.

  At last he was able to scramble up the opposite bank. The shooting stopped abruptly and a moment later the spotlight went out. A bird, probably roused by the noise, started to sing. Osewoudt ran on, bent almost double. The park was fairly wide; he ran through grass and across footpaths. Crouching behind a rustic bench, he focussed his eyes on the far side of the canal.

  He had the idea the vehicles were still outside Labare’s house; the lights were still on but he couldn’t make out what was happening. Bending as low as he could he walked on. He came to the limit of the park. Another pavement, then a road. It was a narrow road with a bend in it, so he couldn’t see to the other end. He looked up, scanning the house fronts for some sign of life, but every window was dark and shut. Everyone was asleep, no one cared. Or maybe they weren’t asleep; maybe they had heard the gunfire and even now were shivering, with dishevelled hair and rumbling stomachs, behind their blacked-out windows.

  There was no sound but the slap of his own bare, wet feet on the pavement. Then, faintly, he heard music. It was coming from a ground floor. He put his ear to a window. No, next window. He found the porch that belonged to the ground-floor flat with the window, felt along the doorpost, found the doorbell and rang. He began to shake uncontrollably. His hands were covered in mud and fronds of rotting water plants; he wiped them against each other and on his trousers. The music in the house was American. Osewoudt put his face to the letter box on the front door, and saw the light come on inside.

  The music stopped, the door opened. The hallway was flooded with light. ‘What is it?’ growled the man who answered the door.

  Osewoudt pushed him out of the way, stepped into the hallway and slammed the door.

  People emerged from the front room. Two women in the lead, one holding a glass in her hand. There were also a few men, he couldn’t tell how many because the corridor was too narrow for more than single file.

  ‘Please hide me,’ Osewoudt begged, stepping forward. ‘The Germans are after me.’

  Everybody started talking at once. Osewoudt tried to take another step forward, but no one stood aside to let him pass.

  ‘He’s been in the canal. He stinks!’

  ‘Oh, how awful! How awful!’

  ‘What did you think, that we could hide you? We wouldn’t know where!’

  ‘Look at the mess he’s making!’

  ‘Do listen to reason, sir! The Americans will be here in a couple of days, and the war will be over. You wouldn’t want to get us into trouble for nothing, would you? If we hide you we’ll all get shot pronto.’

  ‘Help me!’ shouted Osewoudt. ‘My life’s in your hands!’

  ‘He’s making everything sopping wet!’

  ‘Can’t you see him shaking? He’s freezing cold.’

  ‘He’s covered in blood! He’s bleeding to death.’

  ‘Care for a drink, sir?’

  ‘You’re all talking at once! For God’s sake! Let me through!’

  From outside came the sputter of a motorcycle. Heavy foot-steps. The doorbell rang continuously, rifle butts hammered on the door.

  ‘Let me through!’ shouted Osewoudt. ‘Let me slip out through the back garden!’ He held out his arms and tried to squeeze through the crowd. Just then the front door burst open. His arms were seized by two Germans, handcuffs were clamped on his wrists, and he was hauled backwards out of the house with his heels dragging along the ground. He was hoisted up and slung into the back of a van. He landed so awkwardly that a numbing pain shot up from his shoulder into his skull. He shut his eyes and drew up his knees.

  They put him in a dark cell and left him there for a week. He had not been allowed to wash. The gash over his eyebrow had not been dressed. When he touched it gingerly with his finger-tips he felt thick, slimy crusts. He had a permanent headache.

  No one came to see him. Tapping signals went unanswered.

  But when the week was over he was released from the cell. They gave him a towel the size of a handkerchief and a lump of hardened clay for soap. He was allowed to wash under a shower from which issued boiling water, albeit only in a trickle, so it seemed the shower was turned off and leaking, rather than turned on.

  ‘Will the Americans be here soon?’ he asked the guard.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘Any chance of getting some cold water for a quick rinse?’

  ‘I have to stay where I am. I can’t go and get it.’

  He improvised by catching the scalding trickle in his cupped hand
and distributing it over his body with the infinitesimal towel. When he was done his hands were blistered.

  Naked, he was taken to a bare cubicle that apparently served as an infirmary. Two nurses treated the wound with a stinging liquid, tore the stitches out and stuck a couple of plasters on his eyebrow. He was given his clothes to wear and was taken back to his cell, where the light was on.

  Hardly five minutes had passed when someone came for him again; he was led down corridors and ushered into an office where Kriminalrat Wülfing was seated behind a desk. A small table with a typewriter was occupied by another uniformed German.

  ‘Well now, Osewoudt! The pleasure was brief. I am not referring to your escapade. I am referring to our previous conversation. Let us be grateful for the opportunity to pick up where we left off. Your looks haven’t improved since we last met, I have to say. Ebernuss will be so disappointed.’

  Osewoudt sat hunched forward on the straight-backed chair, head bowed, handcuffed hands between his knees.

  ‘Go on, say something. Do you know Labare?’

  Wülfing pushed his armchair back with a loud scraping noise and came out from behind his desk.

  ‘No,’ said Osewoudt.

  ‘You seem to be suffering from amnesia. What will become of you if things go on like this? Did you think we’d pack you off to hospital again to cure your amnesia? No, dear boy, that is a condition for which we have our very own remedy.’ The door opened. Osewoudt looked up.

  A uniformed German pushed Labare into the room.

  Labare did not look as if he had been mistreated, though he did have a plaster cast on his left arm. He wore his ordinary suit and a clean shirt, only the tie was missing. He was clean-shaven.

  ‘Melgers,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to keep quiet any more, go ahead and tell them everything you know. They found all the stuff at my place. I didn’t have time to destroy the films.’

  ‘I thought you were going to barricade the door.’

  Labare now began to sob, lifting his good arm to wipe his eyes. His whole body seemed braced to hold back the tears, but his voice was barely audible.

  ‘Melgers, things have gone terribly wrong! I was the last one to go downstairs. I let the safety beam down but it didn’t drop automatically, and when I gave it a pull the whole thing came down on my arm. I was stuck. I didn’t even get a chance to lock the door to the basement. That’s how those bastards got me. They stood there laughing at me, they just laughed and left me lying there for at least half an hour. And that sod Suyling didn’t lift a finger to help. He was hiding in a corner. Did he at any time ask himself: what’s keeping Labare? Oh, no, not him! And I didn’t want to give him away so I didn’t call out. I thought: just let him get away with the films. But he didn’t even manage to do that. You know, Melgers, I feel gutted. Truly gutted.’

  Wülfing went up to him and patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘Buck up, Labare! Ha, ha! The Americans aren’t in quite the hurry to get here you thought, but maybe they’ll get going one of these days, in which case your prospects will be on the up. You had a run of bad luck, that’s all, because I must say your set-up was pretty sophisticated. Good work, Labare! I have observed your activities with admiration. And I should know. Guess what I did before the war? I wrote scripts for gangster films. Seriously! All my own invention – entire colonies of gangsters, in minute detail! Not one of my scenarios ever made it to the screen. If only I’d met you earlier. We would have made a far superior team than is possible now under the present, rather grimmer circumstances.’

  He laughed at the ceiling and his right hand came up cupped like a lily, level with his head.

  ‘Melgers, the whole thing’s blown up,’ said Labare. ‘Everybody’s been caught. Suyling, Robbie, Marianne, the lot! Don’t be fooled, they know everything. If those bastards insist on hearing the whole story from you all over again, just go ahead and confess. They know everything already.’

  Wülfing made a waving motion and the policeman who had brought Labare in opened the door.

  ‘Goodbye, Melgers!’ Labare cried. ‘Take care! Maybe we’ll meet again one day. Long live the Netherlands!’

  He was interrupted by a kick to his backside from the policeman, but in the corridor, when the door was already closed behind him, he shouted ‘Long live the Netherlands’ twice more, and very quickly for someone whose speech was normally so slow.

  Wülfing seated himself at his desk again.

  ‘A good man and a good patriot. You heard what he said, Osewoudt, didn’t you? There is no reason for you to keep your mouth shut any longer. Go on, tell me. How did you escape from that hospital?’

  ‘I climbed out of the window.’

  ‘Climbed out of the window? On the second floor? Pull the other one.’

  ‘I jumped. I used to do judo, I know how to land properly after jumping.’

  ‘Used to do judo, eh? I’ll say you did. Breithaupt is still in the sick bay with a dislocated shoulder. Quite right. True confession. A judo buff. Got that, Gustaf?’

  Wülfing looked at the German behind the typewriter, who was picking his nose. He extracted a gobbet, inspected it, then popped it in his mouth, muttering: ‘Judo buff.’ But he didn’t touch the keys.

  ‘Then what?’ Wülfing went on. ‘Then you were out in the street, I take it? In your hospital smock! Nobody noticed, I suppose, the guard we posted out there having conveniently absconded to have a drink, eh? Was that what you were going to say? You needn’t bother! We know everything! Uncle Kees! Name rings a bell does it? Ever heard of Uncle Cor? Cor was driving the car that took you to Leiden. Did you think we didn’t know? Let’s hear what those two Resistance heroes have to say for themselves, shall we?’

  He picked up the phone, pressed a button and said:

  ‘Bringen Sie Ome Kees und Cor.’

  After a pause he said: ‘Was? Na also …’ and replaced the receiver.

  ‘Uncle Kees and Cor are unavailable at the moment. But we have no time to wait for them, Osewoudt. We aren’t running a variety show here, after all. There’s no need for me to confront you with them all, Osewoudt, but you know I already know everything. Let’s see – that shooting in Haarlem, in 1940. How many shots did you fire?’

  ‘Not one.’

  ‘You’re a fool. We know, down to the second, at what time you fired, and also how many times. Right. Next question. What were you doing at Labare’s?’

  ‘I was developing films. I didn’t know what was on them. I didn’t know what they were for.’

  ‘Ah, so you didn’t know. But we do know.’

  The door opened and the same policeman now pushed Suyling into the room.

  Suyling looked distinctly the worse for wear. His face was unmarked, but his hair was matted and he limped.

  ‘Well now, Suyling! Tell me, who’s the man sitting over there?’

  Suyling stared at Osewoudt, first with astonishment and then with loathing.

  ‘Oh, now I understand! He’s been telling tales! That’s Melgers! But his name isn’t really Melgers. He’s the man whose picture was in the papers. I don’t remember his name, but he’s the one who was in the papers.’

  Wülfing went up to Suyling, stopping about one metre short. He clenched his right fist, then beat it against the palm of his left hand.

  ‘Quiet! Stop moaning! A prisoner who refuses to tell the truth – I can deal with that. But don’t give me cock and bull stories. Do you understand me, Suyling? You, not knowing the name of the man in the papers? It won’t wash. I bet you know more than all the others put together.’

  ‘I know nothing!’

  ‘You know everything! I’m too much of a psychologist to be taken in by you, and you’re not enough of one to come up with a lie that doesn’t have exactly the opposite effect of what you intend.’

  He took one step back and then two steps forward, standing so close to Suyling as to seem minded to spit in his face.

  ‘Who’s Uncle Kees? Who’s Cor? What was the car�
��s registration number?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Uncle Kees!’

  ‘But you’ve heard of him!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I know you’re lying! Did Uncle Kees get Osewoudt out of that hospital or did he not?’

  ‘Say yes, Suyling!’ Osewoudt blurted. ‘You can see they already know.’

  ‘I’m saying no.’

  ‘What good is it to you to deny things they know about?’

  ‘What good is it to them to keep asking things they know about already? I won’t be humiliated.’

  Wülfing turned round, clicked his heels and went back to his desk.

  ‘Well, well. Herr Suyling does not wish to be humiliated. Very good. Unterscharführer! Lock him up in the dark and make sure he doesn’t overeat.’

  Suyling was dragged out of the room before he could say any more. There was a lot of shouting in the corridor. There was also the sound of stumbling, or maybe it wasn’t stumbling as much as kicking and punching.

  Wülfing sat himself down on the desktop so heavily that it creaked.

  ‘Well Osewoudt, what have you got to say for yourself? You can see I’m not stringing you along. All your friends have been rounded up. Would you like us to bring old Robbie in again? Well?’

  ‘I hardly know him.’

  ‘You hardly know him? And you were living in the same house!’

  ‘No. I wasn’t living there. I just happened to be there that evening.’

  ‘You were still there at half past midnight! Nobody’s allowed on the streets after eleven. And you were found in that house at half past midnight.’

  ‘It was too …’

  ‘Of course! You left it too late to go home! That’s what it was! And so you decided to stay the night. Alone, I trust! Right?’

  ‘It’s none of your business!’

  ‘None of my business? How can you say that? You make a rapid exit from the hospital just to spend the night in a place like Labare’s? Now why would you want to do such a thing?’

  He stood up, and walked solemnly around the desk.