The Darkroom of Damocles

by Willem Frederik Hermans

  ‘How could I have done that? As I told you before, by that time I had already sent off all the photos in the post.’

  ‘You said yourself there wasn’t enough time for them to have got to England.’

  ‘No, but I’m sure Dorbeck received them. He sent a Salvation Army woman to collect the envelope. I saw her with my own eyes!’

  ‘And what if Dorbeck never existed? What if you dreamed him up, like everything else?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. If that’s what you think, there’s no point continuing this conversation.’

  ‘Ridiculous?’

  Selderhorst patted the stack of files.

  ‘There are hundreds of documents here with incriminating information! If I were to discuss them all with you we’d be at it for years. The most horrific incidents are reported in these files, and not a word about Dorbeck! I can pick any one at random! At random!’

  He pulled another file from the stack. He flicked through it briefly.

  ‘Ever heard of Labare?’

  ‘Yes, I stayed in his house.’

  ‘Labare is dead. How did that happen?’

  ‘He was shot by the Germans.’

  ‘Exactly. Arrested by the Germans in his own house, a few hours after you arrived. How come they arrested him and not you?’

  ‘I got away when I was taken outside by one of the Germans. I used to do judo, you see. I floored the German and jumped into the canal in front of the house. Half an hour later they caught me anyway.’

  ‘Well, well. Where had you been that evening before you turned up on Labare’s doorstep?’

  ‘In Zuidwal hospital. I’d been rescued by a group of Resistance people.’

  ‘Rescued by a group of Resistance people …’

  ‘Yes. Four men with a car. One of them was called Cor, another one was called Uncle Kees. I never saw them again.’

  In the meantime Selderhorst had picked up the phone. ‘Yes, you can send him in now,’ he barked into the mouthpiece.

  ‘Rescued by the Resistance,’ he said, putting the phone down. ‘I don’t know whether I ought to feel sorry for you, or whether you’re just plain lying. Who gave the order for you to be rescued? The elusive Dorbeck, I suppose?’

  ‘No, not Dorbeck. I asked him about that later, but it was the first he’d heard of it, he said, he hadn’t been involved.’

  ‘So whose idea was it, do you think?’

  ‘There are two possibilities. First I thought it would have been someone who knew my girlfriend Mirjam Zettenbaum, or who knew Meinarends, then I thought it more likely that a friend of that doctor who treated me in the hospital was behind it.’

  There was a knock on the door and Selderhorst’s eyes left Osewoudt. A soldier ushered a German into the room. The German wore a uniform stripped of its markings. There were also a few buttons missing. He didn’t wear boots, but a pair of old gym shoes.

  ‘Do you know who this is, Osewoudt?’

  Osewoudt looked at the man, the hands, the face. The German glared back at him, then at Selderhorst.

  ‘I’ve seen so many Germans,’ said Osewoudt. ‘I may or may not have seen this one before, I’m not sure.’

  ‘I’ll tell you who he is. His name is Gustaf Malknecht. Does that ring any bells?’

  ‘No, none at all.’

  ‘He was doing the typing on the days you were interrogated by Wülfing and Ebernuss.’

  ‘Oh. I really can’t remember.’

  ‘Malknecht! Tell us how Osewoudt was rescued from Zuidwal hospital.’

  Malknecht stood to attention, his little finger aligned with the seam of his trousers. Osewoudt sat forward on the edge of his seat, his back arched in suspense, his mouth half open.

  ‘I was there when Osewoudt was first brought in to see Wülfing. Wülfing confronted Osewoudt with Roorda. Roorda recognised Osewoudt, but Osewoudt refused to recognise Roorda. Then Wülfing slapped Osewoudt about a bit. Afterwards I heard that Wülfing had made a deal with Ebernuss. It was Ebernuss’ idea. Ebernuss went to see Osewoudt and said: dear me, how dreadfully they’ve mistreated you! … you need to go to hospital! That was that. Osewoudt was taken off to Zuidwal hospital. We carried out the so-called rescue the same day. Eine tolle Geschichte!’

  ‘Were you there, Malknecht?’

  ‘No, not me. All I did was type up the reports of the interrogations, I wasn’t particularly interested in Osewoudt. I didn’t hear about the so-called rescue until later. It was talked about, because of course we didn’t normally go in for that sort of thing with prisoners. It was like this: Wülfing was sure Osewoudt had met Roorda, but Ebernuss was not so sure. Then Ebernuss said: why don’t we let Osewoudt escape so we can see where he goes? There’s no risk, because we’ll get him back quite easily thanks to the 500 guilders reward. We may be able to catch some others while we’re at it. I clearly remember Osewoudt being part of an extremely complicated plot.’

  ‘Then why didn’t they simply discharge him?’

  ‘That would have looked suspicious to Osewoudt’s friends, obviously. They would have cut him off immediately. So they had to think of something else. In the end they decided to stage a rescue operation. It was carried out by two Dutch provocateurs working for Ebernuss – Massing and Kolkgoot – and there were also two Germans, policemen in civvies.’

  Osewoudt leaped up from his chair.

  ‘Where’s Roorda? Where’s Roorda? It was Dorbeck Roorda met, not me! It was true that I didn’t recognise Roorda. It was the honest truth! I had never seen him before. But Roorda recognised me. Because it was Dorbeck Roorda had spoken to, it was Dorbeck!’

  Malknecht looked straight ahead, saying nothing.

  ‘Right then,’ said Selderhorst. ‘Tell him where Roorda is.’

  ‘Roorda was shot when he tried to escape.’

  ‘He’s lying.’

  ‘Don’t you believe that Roorda is dead?’

  ‘Yes, I can believe that he’s dead. But not the rest, not what he said about how I got out of that hospital!’

  ‘There is no doubt about that,’ said Malknecht. ‘But there is more. Wülfing believed Osewoudt had information, presumably because Ebernuss had given him that idea. Ebernuss and Osewoudt became very pally later on. So it’s likely that Osewoudt was in on it. Massing and Kolkgoot drove him from the hospital to Leiden, where he asked them to drop him in a suburb. Obviously they kept him in their sights, and Osewoudt went straight to Labare’s house. That was how we knew where to strike. Next morning we not only had Osewoudt back, we also had his Jewish girlfriend, the Zettenbaum girl, as well as Labare, Suyling, and a teenage boy called Robert Meier, who was a half-Jew.’

  Osewoudt was now shaking on his chair. He could hear the soles of his shoes tapping the floor. He clamped his right hand on his left, but was unable to stop his limbs from trembling.

  ‘Surely you don’t believe,’ he moaned, ‘that I could have shopped my girlfriend just to do Ebernuss a favour?’

  ‘Well, Malknecht?’

  ‘I can’t say. I don’t know what promises Ebernuss might have made to him. They were very close in the end. Maybe Ebernuss said: if you do this for me, then I’ll make sure you get through. And he did, as you see.’ Malknecht pointed to Osewoudt. ‘By the spring of 1945 Ebernuss had had it up to here with the war. He’d lost all hope. He said as much on various occasions. One day he was gone, on 5 April, that was. Deserted. Took Osewoudt with him, too.’

  ‘Is that true, Osewoudt?’

  ‘Partly true. Ebernuss asked me to put him in touch with Dorbeck.’

  ‘So Ebernuss was aware of Dorbeck’s existence?’

  ‘He had found out. He was bound to find out! I’d already been in prison for months! Dorbeck was not in prison. In the course of his enquiries, Ebernuss must have come across descriptions of someone who looked like me. Maybe Roorda started having doubts, too, later on. Maybe Ebernuss realised that the picture they circulated with my name attached was not a picture of me. Because when I was arrested my hair was dyed
black, and the man in the photograph had dark hair, but after I’d been in prison for a bit it obviously became clear that I was actually fair-haired.’

  ‘What happened to Ebernuss?’

  ‘He’s dead. I poisoned him. I poisoned him myself! He took me to Amsterdam in his car, to a house at Lijnbaansgracht, which he knew certain people were using as a meeting place. He did say something about deserting, but I didn’t take him seriously. We were allowed in, because I knew the tenant – Moorlag. Ebernuss sat down, drinks of genever were passed round. I went to the kitchen and found Dorbeck there. He gave me the poison in a Rizla packet, and told me to put it in Ebernuss’ drink. So I did. Afterwards Dorbeck took Ebernuss’ car and drove me to a house in Bernard Kochstraat. That’s when he gave me the nurse’s outfit. He took my own clothes away as he was afraid I’d refuse to wear the disguise, and he feared for my safety. He said he’d come back later to take me through the lines to the liberated zone, but he never turned up. That was the last time I saw him. He just sent a note saying my girlfriend was in labour at the Emma Clinic.’

  ‘Not that old story again,’ said Selderhorst.

  ‘If Marianne were still alive, she could confirm all this.’

  ‘She is still alive.’

  ‘Where is she, then? Why don’t you track her down?’

  ‘She’s gone to Palestine. She’s in a kibbutz.’

  ‘In a what?’

  ‘In a kibbutz! Don’t you know what a kibbutz is? Do you or don’t you? A kibbutz is a farm surrounded by trenches and barbed wire, and around that a horde of Arabs armed to the teeth. How do you expect us to get her out of her kibbutz and answer questions?’

  ‘What about Moorlag? Where’s Moorlag?’

  ‘Moorlag’s body was found back in May, in Spiegelstraat. Shot through the heart. D’you know, Osewoudt, I’m not so sure you’re telling the truth about poisoning Ebernuss!’

  ‘What did you say? Is Moorlag dead? But then that means everyone who ever knew Dorbeck is dead!’

  ‘Precisely! They’re all dead, and you’re the only one who’s still alive.’

  ‘How dare you make insinuations like that! One day you’ll be ashamed you ever detained me. Someone like Dorbeck, who did so much, who went all over throughout the war, here and in England, who met hundreds of people – someone like that can’t just vanish without trace. That’s not what I’m worried about. But to suggest I connived in my own so-called rescue from that hospital is ridiculous. If I had, why would I have tried to escape that night when they surrounded the house and arrested Labare? I fled down the street half naked. They fired at me with machine guns. I jumped into the canal and swam to the other side. I ran to a house and rang the bell, but it was too late – the Germans had followed my wet footprints.’

  ‘Perhaps you were doing it all just for show, and that’s why you weren’t hit. They were obviously firing over your head!’

  ‘For show? Go and ask the people whose bell I rang, they’ll tell you what sort of state I was in! Why don’t you go and ask them?’

  ‘Good idea. What street did they live in? What was the number of the house?’

  ‘I didn’t notice the name of the street. I wasn’t familiar with that part of Leiden. It was a street with a bend, like a crescent. I’d be able to find the house easily enough if I were back in the neighbourhood. It was a house with a porch.’

  The next morning at about eleven he was taken from his cell and shoved into a waiting car.

  He had to sit in the back, next to Spuybroek. Osewoudt was not handcuffed; he had been given a clean shirt and even a tie. Only Spuybroek was in uniform. Selderhorst was at the wheel, in his shabby grey suit. If it hadn’t been for the escort of two helmeted and armed outriders, they might have been going for a jaunt.

  Even the sun was shining when they arrived in Leiden three hours later.

  ‘Why are you grinning?’ asked Spuybroek.

  Spuybroek was a young MP, roughly the same age as Osewoudt.

  Osewoudt said: ‘Because this is my first look at the fatherland since the liberation. See that? The funny little old tram’s still running, with the same old sign on the front saying OEGst-GEEst with the same old variation in type size. No change there.’

  He looked left and right.

  ‘Turn left here!’ he cried. ‘Don’t go over the bridge!’

  The motorcyclists were already halfway across the bridge. Selderhorst braked and hooted twice. Then he turned left past Dingjan’s Steam Laundry, and drove up Zoeterwoudsesingel.

  ‘Labare’s house is exactly on the first bend to the right,’ said Osewoudt.

  The motorcyclists caught up again and overtook them.

  ‘There, on the corner, that’s it!’

  Selderhorst sounded the horn again and then parked by the canal, under a tree. The motorcyclists swerved round on the asphalt and stopped, one in front of the car and one behind. They remained astride their vehicles with the engines running.

  Selderhorst got out, followed by Spuybroek and Osewoudt.

  Osewoudt raised his clenched fists and stretched his arms, taking deep breaths.

  ‘Watch out,’ Selderhorst said. ‘He knows judo.’

  Spuybroek said: ‘Really? So do I.’

  ‘You too?’

  Osewoudt and Spuybroek stood facing each other. Spuybroek was more than a head taller than Osewoudt. They bowed, made feints, then grabbed each other’s hands and pushed, their arms quivering with exertion. Osewoudt’s forehead was covered with sweat, but the tension in his arms snapped. Spuybroek pulled him over his hip, swung him through the air like a lasso and laid him carefully on the road.

  ‘Have you two finished?’ Selderhorst said.

  Osewoudt scrambled to his feet, gasping and coughing. He wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his jacket.

  ‘I’m out of practice,’ he said. ‘Besides, my feet hurt. In the old days I had my shoes made to measure.’

  Selderhorst surveyed Labare’s former home from top to bottom. It had been converted into some sort of office; there were no curtains over the bay windows. An array of drawing boards could be seen on the first floor.

  ‘Ah,’ said Selderhorst, ‘so you were in better form back then, when you dealt with that German, eh?’

  ‘I gave him a hip throw and lobbed him over the railing. Their van was parked right here, and I crept behind it and then dashed across, in that direction …’ Osewoudt demonstrated his moves. He crossed the road from the house towards the canal. He pointed to the grass sloping down to the water and the clump of rhododendrons on the bank.

  ‘I went into the water just past those rhododendrons.’

  ‘But this is the widest part of the canal,’ said Selderhorst, staring at the tall weeping willows on the other side.

  ‘I didn’t swim across, the water wasn’t deep enough.’

  ‘Right. So when you got to the other side you climbed up on to the road again?’

  ‘Yes, and then I went through the park. I’m not sure which way, because it was dark. There were bits falling from the trees, brought down by bullets.’

  ‘Right. I suppose the street where you rang that doorbell must be over there, beyond all those trees?’

  ‘Yes, a fairly narrow street with a bend. I don’t know what it was called. I don’t know this part of town very well.’

  ‘Let’s go and take a look. See if we can find your street.’

  Selderhorst held the passenger door open, the motorcyclists revved their engines and put them in gear.

  ‘Which way do we go?’ Selderhorst asked. ‘This way or that way?’

  ‘The two bridges are equally far, which was lucky for me as it meant that the Germans had to make quite a long detour. If those people hadn’t held me up, I’d have got away.’

  They were now driving on the other side, which was called Plantage for part of the way, and then Plantsoen.

  ‘Here, all these trees – is this the park you ran across?’

  ‘Yes.’
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br />   ‘It’s quite a distance from the canal to the houses. Where’s that street of yours? I don’t see any street. Here, directly opposite Labare’s house, there’s no side street at all!’

  They drove past the stately old houses with large front gardens. No spaces between them, not a single side street.

  ‘No sign of your street,’ said Selderhorst. ‘You ran a pretty long way in your bare feet, I must say. Was it here by any chance?’

  He braked.

  Osewoudt looked out. The street was called Rijnstraat. It was straight, and led to a bridge.

  ‘No, this can’t be it. It was a street with a bend, and I didn’t see a bridge at the end of it either.’

  Selderhorst put in the clutch.

  ‘When people get jittery they run faster than they realise,’ said Osewoudt.

  ‘How about this street, then? It’s called Kraayerstraat.’

  ‘No! Damn it, this one’s straight, too, and it has a bridge at the end of it like the other one! They’re all the same!’

  They turned around and drove all the way back along Plantage.

  ‘What about this one?’

  Selderhorst didn’t bother to stop the car, but slowed and turned into the street. The two motorcyclists buzzed about them like giant bumble bees.

  ‘This one’s called Levendaal. Was it here?’

  It was a straight thoroughfare and so wide that it must once have had a canal running down the middle. On one side stood a row of small houses with stepped gables, hundreds of years old, on the other side were factories.

  ‘Not this one either, eh?’ said Selderhorst. He accelerated, turned right into Rijnstraat, where they had already been, and thus they came to Hoge Woerd.

  ‘This it, then?’

  ‘No, this is Hoge Woerd. This is where Meinarends used to live, a tram runs down it. I’d have known this street by the tramlines, even at night. It was a different street, one with a bend, and the house was a house with a porch.’