The Darkroom of Damocles

by Willem Frederik Hermans

  ‘There’s a limit to what we can do. We’re up to our ears as it is.’

  ‘Then why don’t you summon Dorbeck? I’ve told you people umpteen times that he knows exactly how it all went, that it was Elly Berkelbach Sprenkel who contacted me and not the other way round. She had a photo with her which she’d been given in England, it was a picture which Dorbeck had asked me to develop and which I had sent off in the post a few days before, to an address given to me by Dorbeck.’

  ‘Summoning the supposed Dorbeck would not be as simple as it sounds.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘According to what you have told me, Dorbeck was working for one of our organisations. If that was indeed the case it probably still is. So I would have to obtain permission from his immediate superior to hear what he has to say.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you, then?’

  ‘It is impossible. If my theory is right, Dorbeck’s chief would be bound by the Official Secrets Act. Meaning he would be under no obligation to provide information about the people he employs.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Well. It is a little difficult to say. I have the impression, though no more than an impression, that your compatriots also have certain matters they wish to discuss with you.’

  ‘It’s no good discussing with me. Everything I did was according to instructions from Dorbeck. It was Dorbeck who got me out of German detention. Why would he have done that if I was the kind of traitor you take me for? When Dorbeck rescued me, my photo and description had been circulating for months, both in the liberated zone and among the Allied forces.’

  ‘Even that is not as contradictory as you might think. It is conceivable that you were not so much a prisoner of the Germans as their protégé. It is likewise conceivable that Dorbeck got you out of that protective environment to make sure you wouldn’t escape justice!’

  ‘But in that case he could have shot me there and then.’

  ‘Now, now, you’re getting carried away again!’

  ‘He was the one who gave me a disguise. A nurse’s uniform.’

  ‘How charming. Got that, Percy?’

  When Osewoudt was taken back to his cell, the warder handed him a parcel that had already been opened. He couldn’t discover who had sent it. It contained a small loaf of Dutch gingerbread. He took a bite and his teeth hit on something hard. What was it? A bit of wire? No, a fretsaw. He pulled it from the loaf.

  He had often heard and read about various kinds of implements being smuggled into prisons so that inmates can escape by sawing through thick iron bars or making holes in ceilings. He looked around the cell: the walls were made of granite blocks, which were so big that it would be impossible for a single man to dislodge them, even if they hadn’t been cemented. He looked at the window: it was barred inside and out, and moreover far too high up.

  He bent the saw double and used it to pick the wax from his ears.

  The warder who brought him his rations spotted the saw, said nothing, and didn’t bother to confiscate it.

  Osewoudt asked for a pen and paper and was given one folio sheet and a biro.

  Nevergold Prison, Manchester

  29 June, 1945

  Your Majesty!

  For the last time I seek to draw your attention to the fact that I have been kept a prisoner without cause since my arrival here over two and a half months ago. This treatment is wholly uncalled for, indeed mistreatment would be a better word.

  On 5 April of this year I escaped from German captivity with the help of a secret agent by the name of Dorbeck. This British agent provided me with a nurse’s uniform to disguise my identity. On 6 April I travelled in disguise from Amsterdam to Dordrecht, where I appealed to the priest of the Church of St Ignatius for help. This priest gave me shelter for one day. On the night of 7 April I was fetched by members of the Dutch Resistance and taken to Willemsdorp. From there other people, whose names I do not know, took me across the Hollands Diep in a rowing boat, then left me with a doctor by the name of Sikkens in Hogezwaluwe. Upon my arrival there at 4 a.m. the doctor offered me a bite to eat and a few hours later drove me in his car to Breda, where I reported to the army headquarters at the Graaf Adolf barracks. I was taken into custody at once. Believing this to be a normal security measure, I hardly protested against my arrest. That same night I was put on a plane to England. On that flight I learned that my picture and description had been circulating in the liberated zone for several months, and that I was a wanted man. The only possible explanation for this is that the Gestapo had put some trumped-up information into the hands of the Allied intelligence services in order to arouse suspicion against me.

  That, at any rate, was what I thought initially, given that the Germans in the occupied zone had already issued a warrant for my arrest in 1944, at which time the cinema newsreels showed my picture along with my personal details, accusing me of robbery with assault.

  It comes as a great shock to learn that certain people in the Netherlands have been making damaging statements about me which are based on nothing but lies and distortions of the truth.

  I believe it is my given right to be heard by the Dutch authorities regarding these matters. In 1940, after the German invasion, I put myself at the service of the nation entirely voluntarily. Relying on the competence of a Dutch military cadre, I blindly carried out the instructions and orders issued to me by Dorbeck, who was an officer in the Dutch army. Many of my associates and friends, my mother, my uncle and my fiancée, have been murdered by the Germans. This might not have happened had I, like so many Dutchmen, stayed on the sidelines.

  I am well aware that I was only a small cog in a much larger wheel. Finding myself in a situation where I am unable to make this understood to those interrogating me is causing me great anguish. The exact course of events is not known to me, and never was. It is Dorbeck who has the information, but it seems he cannot be found. The British Secret Service refuses to disclose his whereabouts …

  A week later, the warder showed a gentleman with a black briefcase into his cell. The warder left the door open.

  ‘I have come from the Netherlands Embassy in London in connection with the letter you wrote to the queen.’

  The warder returned with an upholstered chair for the visitor to sit on, after which he went away, locking the door behind him.

  ‘Has my letter been sent on?’ asked Osewoudt.

  ‘Sent on? Do you really expect us to forward letters written by people like you to the queen? What did you think? That a Resistance fighter in a German concentration camp could write to Hitler and complain about his situation?’

  ‘I can tell,’ said Osewoudt, ‘that you have never been a prisoner of the Germans. No, not you. But I have. The Germans kept me in prison for nine whole months. They beat me about the face – look, you can see the scar. And may I add that I wouldn’t dream of comparing the queen to Hitler.’

  ‘I did not come here to listen to your quibbles, but because we are subjects of a state where the rule of law prevails. There can, however, be no question of passing on your letter to Her Majesty. What’s all this nonsense about your fiancée having been killed by the Germans? To our knowledge, you were married to Maria Roelofje Nauta on 25 August, 1939. Your wife was found dead in her tobacco shop in Voorschoten on 6 April. You were not divorced from her. How can you have had a fiancée?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Osewoudt, ‘was my wife found dead in Voorschoten on 6 April?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject! I am referring to your so-called fiancée. How dare you mention such a relationship in a letter to the queen?’

  ‘Should I have written “my mistress”, then?’

  ‘You should not have written at all. You are doing yourself no service behaving so impertinently. I have some news for you: you are to be returned to the Netherlands in a day or two, and will then learn all the charges that have been made against you. The list of crimes is appalling!’

  ‘Can you tell me how my wife died?’


  The gentleman cast an eye over his papers.

  ‘No, it doesn’t say.’

  ‘My wife denounced me to the Germans; does it say anything about that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She was living with the son of one of the neighbours, a Nazi. Doesn’t it say anything about that either?’

  ‘No, no mention of that either. Besides, it is no concern of mine. I only came here to explain to you that the sort of letter you wrote does not qualify for consideration. You are entitled to information concerning such a decision, but that is all you are entitled to.’

  He put his papers into his briefcase and rose to his feet.

  Osewoudt, too, rose and took a step towards his visitor. The man’s eyes widened with fear and the briefcase almost slid from under his elbow.

  ‘Keep your hands off me!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t do anything foolish now. Where’s the alarm bell?’

  ‘I have no intention of laying a finger on you! Look, I’m putting my hands in my pockets. But you know as well as I do that without Dorbeck the truth will never come out. Where is Dorbeck? Why has Dorbeck not been traced? Surely there is something you could to do help? You could put pressure on the British to get a statement from Dorbeck! I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve been behind bars for months on end. In the meantime Holland has been liberated, the war has ended and I’m stuck here. I want to cooperate in every possible way with every possible enquiry. But isn’t there some way you can get me out of here?’

  The door opened. Like a shadow, the gentleman slipped past the warder and was gone.

  The torpedo-catcher’s siren blasted three times in succession, shrill and piercing like a bird of prey. The wild pulsations of the propeller-shaft casing, which extended down the middle of the steel compartment, travelled on through all the surrounding steel. Then silence. The tin water bottle hanging on the wall no longer swung to and fro. The electric light went out for a moment, then glowed again, but at no more than half strength. The deep throbbing that had filled Osewoudt’s ears for he knew not how long did not come back. A diesel engine rumbled in a remote part of the vessel.

  Osewoudt wiped his sticky hands on each other, and swallowed. Then he took a gulp of stale water from the tin bottle and replaced it on its hook. Footsteps. More footsteps. Finally footsteps becoming very loud then stopping abruptly. The rattle of keys against the steel hatch.

  Two military policemen in khaki burst in. ‘You’re coming with us, Osewoudt,’ they said, and put a black sack over his head.

  He followed them through the steel innards of the vessel, a pair of handcuffs dangling from each wrist. Peering down his nose, he caught a glimpse of daylight. Underfoot steel plates gave way to steel gratings. Then up some stairs: wooden steps edged with strips of brass. The air he inhaled became cooler and fresher. He glimpsed a wooden floor, then wood with raised bars across it. A sagging sensation at the knees told him that this was a downward ramp. They stepped on to a paved surface, and finally he caught the smell of a car.

  ‘Watch it! Up the ladder!’ said the policeman on his left.

  He went up the ladder. A door was slammed. The handcuffs were removed from his left wrist, then his hands were fastened behind his back with the remaining pair. Finally they pulled the sack off his head and left without a word.

  He was sitting on a wooden bench in the back of some kind of prison van. There was an air vent in the roof and a small barred side window of frosted glass.

  He heard the engine start up, felt the vehicle drive off. He had lost track of time, but noticed that it was getting dark.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked when he was let out of the van.

  ‘In Drente. Camp Eighth Exloërmond.’

  It was long after sunset. The open air smelled of rotten eggs. He could make out a few soldiers standing about, armed with Sten guns. He saw a high barbed-wire fence glaringly lit by sodium lamps. That was all he got to see before they hustled him into a building, down a passage and into a room.

  The desk was piled high with files. A man with black hair slicked down from a central parting, a high forehead and slack, lined cheeks, pointed to a straight-backed wooden chair and said: ‘Sit down, Osewoudt. I am Inspector Selderhorst. Let’s begin by reviewing your case from A to Z. It’s a complete shambles.’

  He waved at the stack of files.

  ‘No one can make sense of it any more. I want to give you every chance to justify yourself.’

  ‘So what do you want to know?’

  ‘There’s that business with the photos to start with. How did you get them?’

  ‘It was that day in May 1940 when the Germans invaded. Dorbeck turned up in my tobacco shop. I had a notice in my window saying that films could be left with me for developing and printing. Dorbeck gave me a film and said he’d be back to pick it up.’

  ‘And did he come back?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t until much later, in 1944, that I got a note from him saying I should send them to a post-office box in The Hague. PO Box 234, it was. So that’s what I did.’

  ‘How do you know the photos arrived?’

  ‘I posted them early and then went to The Hague myself later that afternoon. I kept watch by the post-office boxes.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I was hoping to speak to Dorbeck.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No. A Salvation Army woman came to open the box. I went after her to find out who she was, but when I went out into the street she had vanished. The next day I went back to the same post office, hoping someone would show. No one did. Not the following days either. Later that evening I received a phone call from Elly Berkelbach Sprenkel. I met her at the yellow-tram terminal in Voorburg. She had one of the photos with her to prove her identity. She said it had been given to her in England. I found that hard to believe, as she had arrived from England the previous night and there could hardly have been time for the picture to get there before she left. But I did believe, and rightly as it turned out, that she had come from England. So I assumed she must have got the picture in Holland but didn’t want to tell me who had given it to her. I never did find out who it was. I never had an opportunity to ask Dorbeck, either.’

  ‘Stick to the point, will you? How many photos were there in all?’

  ‘There were three.’

  ‘Three? But there are eight on a roll.’

  ‘Several of them didn’t come out.’

  ‘Do you remember what those photos were of?’

  ‘Yes. A snowman wearing a helmet. Three soldiers in pyjamas and gas masks. One soldier manning an anti-aircraft gun.’

  ‘Did you send off the negatives as well?’

  Selderhorst rummaged among the documents, glancing enquiringly at Osewoudt now and then.

  ‘No,’ said Osewoudt. ‘I kept the negatives.’

  Selderhorst opened a large envelope and shook the contents on to the desk. They were the photos Osewoudt had developed – multiple copies of each.

  ‘Are these them, by any chance?’

  ‘Where did they come from? How is that possible, because I—’

  ‘They were in one of the German dossiers! The Germans used them to infiltrate underground organisations. They gave them to double agents to identity themselves.’

  ‘I can’t help that. The Germans must have found the negatives when they arrested my mother and my wife.’

  ‘Well, well. Did you come across these photos again at any time?’

  ‘Yes. Moorlag gave me one that had been delivered to the shop in an envelope, on the day they came for my mother and my wife. I was away, taking Elly Berkelbach Sprenkel to Amsterdam.’

  ‘Which was that?’

  ‘The one of the three soldiers with gas masks. On the back there was a phone number which I was to ring a few days later. I tore it up straightaway.’

  ‘What about the picture Elly Sprenkel had?’

  ‘I took it from her. I tore that one up too.’

  ‘Were there any others?’<
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  ‘No.’

  Selderhorst slid the photos back into the envelope, put it aside and took up another file. His suit was a dingy grey, his shirt unwashed and his tie twisted like the skin of an eel.

  ‘A few days after the time we are discussing, a girl was arrested by the German police on the train from Lunteren to Amersfoort. Her name was Annelies van Doormaal. She was wearing the uniform of a National Youth Storm leader. This Annelies van Doormaal turned out to have one of the photos you mentioned – the one of the soldier in pyjama trousers manning an anti-aircraft gun. It says so here, in a German dossier! The identity of the girl was not established until later, because she committed suicide by taking poison almost immediately after her arrest. How did the girl get that picture?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know, Osewoudt? But she must have been with you when she was arrested! The pair of you had murdered a National Youth Storm leader that very afternoon, on the heath in Lunteren! The body was found in the woods a month later. It was the same afternoon that Lagendaal and his wife were shot. Yes or no?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did Annelies van Doormaal come to be in your company?’

  ‘I told you: there was a phone number written on the back of the second photo. I rang the number from a telephone box in Amsterdam. I got Dorbeck on the line. Dorbeck told me to go to the waiting room at Amersfoort station at such-and-such a time, where I would find a girl who would identify herself with a picture. I did as he said. That girl was Annelies van Doormaal, so you now tell me.’

  ‘So how did she get hold of that photo? Why didn’t you take it from her?’

  ‘As I remember, she only said she had the photo. She didn’t actually show it to me. I was too nervous later on to think of asking for it.’

  Selderhorst planted his elbows on the table and, bowing his head low, brushed his hair back with both hands. Then he looked up.

  ‘Ah, Osewoudt. But there is another hypothesis. According to that hypothesis, the girl called Annelies van Doormaal was in possession of the picture not so that you would know who she was, but so that the Germans would know. The Germans had to find it on her so they would know they had the right person. Because there were lots of girls wearing the National Youth Storm uniform at the time. We seem to be getting somewhere. It was you who planted the photo on her.’