The Assault

by Harry Mulisch

  Anton, confused, looked at the ground. He didn’t quite understand it; he had never really thought about these things. But perhaps Takes never thought about anything else.

  “So we did it. We knew …”

  “You mean that it does outweigh it?” Anton asked suddenly.

  Takes threw the cigarette at his feet and crushed it with his shoe so thoroughly that only a few shreds remained. These he covered with gravel. He did not answer the question.

  “We knew that probably at least one of those houses would get it. The Fascist gentlemen were rather consistent as far as that goes. But we didn’t know which house. We had chosen that spot because it was the most secluded and the easiest to get away from. And we had to get away, for we had a few more scum like that on our list.”

  Anton said slowly, “If your parents had lived in one of those houses, would you have shot him there?”

  Takes stood up, took two steps in his sloppy pants, and turned to him. “No, dammit,” he said. “Of course not. What do you mean? Not if it might as well have been done somewhere else. But that same night, you know, my youngest brother happened to be among those hostages, and I knew this. And would you like to know what Mother thought of that? She agreed that I was right to do it. She’s still alive; you can ask her. Would you like her address?”

  Anton tried to avoid looking at his left eye. “You keep at me as if it were my fault. I was twelve years old and reading a book when it happened, for goodness’ sake.”

  Takes sat down again and lit another cigarette. “It’s just a stupid coincidence that it happened in front of your house.”

  Anton eyed him sideways. “It didn’t happen in front of our house,” he said.

  Slowly Takes turned to face him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It happened in front of a neighbor’s house. They put him in front of our house.”

  Takes stretched his legs, crossed his feet, and put one hand in his pocket. Nodding, he surveyed the cemetery. “Better a good neighbor than a distant friend,” he said after a while. He was shaking with something, perhaps laughter. “What kind of people were they?”

  “A widower and his daughter. A seaman.” Takes once more nodded his head.

  “Well, I must say … I hadn’t thought of that possibility: one can always help fate along a bit.”

  “And is that morally justifiable?” asked Anton, realizing instantly that it was a childish question.

  “Justifiable …” repeated Takes. “You’ll have to ask the clergyman about that. I believe he’s still wandering around here somewhere. Some people simply take justice into their own hands. Go tell them they’re wrong to do it. Three seconds later it would have happened in front of your door.”

  “I’m only asking,” said Anton, “because my brother then tried to move him up one house further, or to put him back where he was … I’m not sure, because the police arrived next.”

  “Jesus, now I’m beginning to understand!” cried Takes. “That’s why he was outside. But how did he get hold of that gun?”

  Anton looked up at him in surprise. “How do you know about the gun?”

  “Because I looked it up after the War, of course.”

  “It was Ploeg’s gun.”

  “What an instructive afternoon,” Takes said slowly. He puffed on his cigarette and blew the smoke out of the corners of his mouth. “Who was living in the next house further down?”

  “Two old people.” The trembling hand reaching for him. Pickles are just like crocodiles, Mr. Beumer had said. Anton had repeated this once to Sandra, but she didn’t laugh; she just agreed.

  “Yes,” said Takes. “Of course, if he’d put the body back, there would have been a fight.” And then right away, “My, my, my, what a clumsy mess. A bunch of fools, all of you, traipsing up and down with that body.”

  “What else should we have done?”

  “Taken it in, of course!” snarled Takes. “You should have dragged him into the house at once.”

  Anton looked at him, perplexed. Of course! Columbus’s egg! Before he had time to say another word, Takes continued, “Just think: they’d heard shots somewhere in the neighborhood. What could they possibly have done about it if they hadn’t seen anything on the street? It wouldn’t occur to them that a man had been rubbed out, would it? They’d think that one of the militia had taken a shot at someone, maybe. Or were your neighbors collaborators who might have given you away?”

  “No. But what would we have done with the body?”

  “How should I know? Hidden it. Under the floorboards, or buried in the garden. Or better yet, eaten it up right away—cooked it and shared it with the neighbors. After all, it was the winter of starvation. War criminals don’t count, as far as cannibalism is concerned.”

  Now laughter shook Anton. His father the clerk baking a police inspector and eating him for dinner! De gustibus non est disputandum.

  “Or were you under the impression that such things never happened? Forget it; everything has happened. The weirdest things you can think of have happened, and weirder yet.”

  The people strolling back and forth to the grave eyed them in passing, two men on a stone bench under a tree (one younger than the other), still mourning their lost friend while the others were sitting in the bar, exchanging memories: do you remember the time that he … As they walked by, they fell thoughtfully silent.

  “It’s easy for you to say,” said Anton. “You thought of nothing else but this sort of thing—and it seems to me you still do—whereas we were sitting at home, reading, around the dining-room table, and then suddenly we heard those shots.”

  “I still would have thought of it at once.”

  “Maybe, but then you were part of a gang. My father was a clerk who never took action; he just wrote down the actions of others. We wouldn’t have had time, anyway. Although …” he said, looking up suddenly into the leaves overhead, “we had a kind of quarrel …”

  In spite of the brilliance of the day, a scene flashed through his mind. Some obscure activity taking place in total darkness, in a hall; an exclamation, as if Peter were stumbling over some branches, something about a key … It disappeared like the shred of a dream briefly remembered the next morning.

  He was brought back to reality by Takes, who drew four lines in the gravel with his heel, making this design in the bare earth:

  “Listen,” he said. “There were four houses, weren’t there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you lived in the second house from the left.”

  “You’ve got a good memory.”

  “I go back there now and then. Heroes always return to the scene, it’s a well-known fact. Although … quite probably I’m the only one, at least as far as that quay of yours is concerned. Now, as far as I knew he was lying here, in front of your house. At which neighbor’s was he shot—this one, or this one?”

  “This one,” said Anton, and pointed with his shoe to the second house from the right.

  Takes nodded and looked at the stripes.

  “Excuse me, but in that case there’s a mystery. Why did the seaman deposit him at your doorstep and not here, at his other neighbor’s?”

  Anton too looked at the stripes. “No idea. I’ve never wondered about it.”

  “There must be a reason. Did he dislike you?”

  “Not as far as I know. I used to go there sometimes. I should think they would have been more inclined to dislike the people on the other side, who ignored everybody else on the street.”

  “And you never tried to find out?” asked Takes, surprised. “Don’t you care at all?”

  “Care, care … I told you, I don’t feel any need to go over all that again. What happened happened, and that’s all there is to it. It can’t be changed now, even if I understood it. It was wartime, one big disaster, my family was murdered, and I stayed alive. I was adopted by an aunt and uncle, and everything turned out all right for me. You were right to kill the bastard, really; I have no complaints about that
. You just convince his son! With me that’s not necessary, but why in God’s name do you want to make it all logical? That’s impossible, and who cares? It’s history, ancient history. How many times has the same sort of thing happened since? It may be happening right now somewhere, while we’re sitting here talking. Could you swear, your hand in the fire, that at this very moment someone’s house somewhere isn’t being set on fire by a flamethrower? In Vietnam, for instance? What are you talking about? When you took me outside just now, I thought maybe you were concerned about my peace of mind, but that doesn’t seem to be the case—at least, not altogether. You’re more upset than I am. It seems to me that you can’t leave the War alone, but time goes on. Or do you regret what you did?”

  He had spoken fast but calmly, yet with the vague feeling that he must be careful, that he must control himself so as not to hit the other.

  “I’d do it again tomorrow, if necessary,” said Takes without hesitation. “And maybe I will do it again tomorrow. I’ve rubbed out a whole rat’s nest of that scum, and the fact still gives me great satisfaction. But the incident on that quay of yours … there was more to it. Something happened there.” He clasped the edge of the bench and shifted his position. “Let’s just say that I wish we hadn’t gone through with it.”

  “Because my parents were killed as well?”

  “No,” said Takes roughly. “I’m sorry to say that’s not the reason. That couldn’t have been foreseen or expected. It probably happened because they caught your brother with a gun, or because of something else, or for no reason; I don’t know.”

  “It probably happened,” said Anton without looking up, “because my mother flew at the leader of those Germans.”

  Takes was silent and stared straight ahead. At last he turned to Anton and said, “I’m really not torturing you just to satisfy my nostalgia for the War, in case you’re wondering. I know people like that, but I’m not one of them. Those people spend all their holidays in Berlin and would just love to hang a portrait of Hitler over their beds. No, the problem is that something else happened over there in Haarlem.” A light went on in his eyes. Anton saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down a couple of times. “Your parents and your brother and those hostages were not the only ones who lost their lives. The fact is that I wasn’t alone when I shot Ploeg; there were two of us. Someone was with me—someone who … Let’s just say she was my girl friend. But never mind, leave it at that.”

  Anton stared at him, and suddenly all the pent-up emotion washed over him. Putting his face in his hands, he turned away and began to sob. She was dying. For him she died at this very moment, as if twenty-one years were nothing. Yet at the same time she was resurrected together with all she had meant to him, hidden there in the darkness. If he had ever thought about her in these twenty-one years, he would have wondered whether she were still alive. But just now, he realized, he had been looking for her, in the church and later in the café—and in fact it was the reason why he had come to this funeral where he had no need to be.

  He felt Takes’s hand on his shoulder. “What’s this about?” He dropped his hands. His eyes were dry.

  “How did she die?”

  “They shot her in the dunes, three weeks before Liberation. She’s buried there in the memorial cemetery. But why should you care so much?”

  “Because I know her,” Anton said softly. “Because I talked to her. I spent that night with her in the cell.”

  Takes looked at him in disbelief. “How do you know it was her? What’s her name? Surely she didn’t tell you who she was.”

  “No, but I’m quite sure.”

  “Did she tell you that she was involved in the assault?”

  Anton shook his head. “No, not even that. But I’m quite certain.”

  “How can you be, for God’s sake,” Takes said crossly. “What did she look like?”

  “I don’t know. It was pitch-dark.”

  Takes thought for a while. “Would you recognize her if you saw a picture?”

  “I never really saw her, Takes. But … I’d very much like to see her picture.”

  “But what did she say? You must know something!”

  Anton shrugged. “I wish I did. It was so long ago … She had been wounded.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tears came to Takes’s eyes. “It must have been her,” he said. “If she didn’t even mention her name … Ploeg took a final shot at her, just as we were about to turn the corner.”

  When Anton saw Takes’s tears he began to weep himself.

  “What was her name?” he asked.

  “Truus. Truus Coster.” Now the people around the grave were watching them, discreetly but steadily. They must have been surprised to see two grown men so much affected by the death of a friend. Some may have wondered if they were showing off.

  “There they are, the silly fools.” His mother-in-law’s voice. She entered the gate, Saskia and Sandra in her wake—two figures in black and a child in white against the blinding gravel. Sandra called “Papa!” dropped her doll, and ran toward Anton. He picked her up and held her in his arms. From Saskia’s wide-eyed look he could tell that she was worried about him, and he nodded to her reassuringly. But her mother, leaning on her shiny black cane with the silver handle, would not be fobbed off that easily.

  “Good Lord, are they actually crying?” she asked angrily, at which Sandra looked up at Anton. Mrs. De Graaff pretended to gag. “You two make me positively ill. Can’t you stop carrying on about that rotten War? Tell me, Gijs, do you enjoy torturing my son-in-law? Yes, of course, you would.” She gave a strange, mocking laugh and her wobbly cheeks shook. “This is impossible, the way you two stand there like two exposed necrophiliacs, and in the cemetery, of all places. Stop it at once. Come along, all of you.”

  She turned about and walked away, pointing at the doll that lay on the gravel, not doubting for a minute that she would be obeyed. And so she was.

  “Isn’t she amazing?” said Takes, also with a peculiar laugh. It was evident that he’d dealt with her before, and at Anton’s puzzled look he said, “Queen Wilhelmina.”

  As they walked back to the square, the child told them that she had gone with her mother to the house of that dead man and had been given two glasses of orangeade. The café was emptying. At the entrance stood the car with the official insignia, its driver stationed by the back door. Anton was being closely observed, but no one bothered him. Sandra and her mother went into the café to fetch De Graaff. Saskia, the doll in her hands, said that Sandra absolutely must have something to eat. She had already suggested to Mrs. De Graaff that they have lunch together somewhere in the country.

  “Just stand still a minute,” said Takes.

  Anton felt Takes scribbling something on his back. Saskia was once more observing him with a worried look, and he closed his eyes for an instant to signal her that he was all right. Takes tore a sheet out of his diary, folded it, and put it in Anton’s breast pocket. In silence they shook hands. He nodded to Saskia and went into the café.

  By the sidewalk Jaap was starting up his scooter. Just as he managed it, the minister and De Graaff came out. The driver took off his cap and opened the door. But first the minister went to Jaap and shook his hand.

  “See you soon, Jaap.”

  “Yes,” said Jaap. “Until next time, I guess.”

  4

  Sandra, of course, wanted to ride in the car with Grandma and Grandpa, so as their car followed Anton’s along small country roads to a restaurant he had heard of, he could have talked undisturbed with Saskia about what had happened. Yet he sat behind the wheel in silence. Saskia, who had been brought up not to ask questions when people who had been through the War turned up, inquired only whether it had been some sort of reconciliation scene. “Something like that,” he answered, even though it wasn’t really true. He kept his eyes on the road. Feeling as if he had soaked too long in a hot bath, he tried to go over his conversation with Takes.
But he was not quite ready for it yet, as if so far there were nothing to think about. He remembered the piece of paper that Takes had slipped into his pocket. Pulling it out, he unfolded it with the fingers of one hand and saw a scribbled address and telephone number.

  “Are you going to look him up?” asked Saskia.

  He put it back in his pocket and smoothed his hair to the side.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “But you’re not throwing it away.”

  He smiled at her. “True, I’m not.”

  About ten minutes later they reached the restaurant, a converted, steep-roofed farmhouse of a solidly provincial pretentiousness. Inside it was dark and empty. Meals were being served in the shaded orchard by waiters in tailcoats.

  “I want french fries,” Sandra cried as she came running from the other car.

  “French fries!” repeated Mrs. De Graaff and once more she pretended to gag. “I find that vulgar.” And to Saskia, “Can’t you teach the child to call them pommes frites?”

  “Let the poor kid eat french fries,” said De Graaff, “if she doesn’t like pommes frites.”

  “I want french fries.”

  “You’ll get your french fries,” De Graaff said, covering her head with his hand as if it were a helmet. “With scrambled eggs. Or do you prefer oeufs brouillés?”

  “No, scrambled eggs.”

  “Come on, Dad,” said Saskia. “That’ll do.”

  De Graaff seated himself at the head of the table and again clasped its edge with outstretched arms. When the waiter handed him the menu, he pushed it aside with the back of his hand.

  “Fish for the man. French fries and scrambled eggs for the young lady, and some Chablis in an ice cooler frosted on the outside. When I look at you in your hot uniform, I’ll enjoy my wine all the more.” Waiting till his wife suppressed a giggle, he draped the napkin over his lap. “You know the anecdote about Dickens, don’t you? Every Christmas Eve he gave a party for his friends. The fire was lit, the candles burning, and as they sat around their roast goose, they would hear outside the window, in the snow, a lonely wanderer stamping his feet and waving his arms to keep warm. Every now and then the poor man would exclaim, ‘Ho hum hum, what bitter cold!’ He was of course hired for the purpose, to emphasize the contrast.”