The Darkroom of Damocles (9 page)

‘You shouldn't be so pessimistic. A week's not a long time.'

At five past ten on a Saturday morning a figure in a pale beige gabardine coat emerged from Amsterdam Central Station. He wore glasses. He looked about him and noted that the trees were already tinged with yellow. He looked up at the clear sky. The sun shone, a fine day after all. These damn glasses keep getting dirty, he thought, took the glasses off and fumbled under his coat to extract his handkerchief, but thought better of it and put them on again without cleaning them. The glasses had a heavy black frame.

The man wore a dark green hat. In his inside pocket he carried identification in the name of Filip van Druten, occupation: detective; hair colour: black. The hair visible under the green hat was black.

This was how Osewoudt pictured himself as he took the familiar route to his Uncle Bart's house.

Ten minutes later he called from the bottom of the stairs: ‘It's me, Henri!'

He removed his glasses on the way up, but kept his hat on as he entered Uncle Bart's small room.

Uncle Bart crossed to the stove, the coffee pot in one hand, a cup in the other.

‘I thought it was some gent with glasses, but it's you.'

‘A gent with glasses? You must be getting awfully old! You should have your own glasses checked some time.'

Uncle Bart set down his cup of coffee on his desk.

‘I was about to pour you a cup, too, but if you carry on snapping at me like that I may change my mind.'

Uncle Bart was already on his way to the wall cupboard for another cup. The hat felt heavy on Osewoudt's head. He didn't dare take it off, nor did he dare sit down. If I sit down he'll only notice the hat and the fact that I'm wearing it indoors.

He remained standing, but started unbuttoning his coat.

‘I'm in a terrible rush, Uncle, I must be off again straightaway. It's just that I have some really bad news to tell you.'

Uncle Bart turned to face him. He held the cup of coffee in his hand.

‘Why don't you sit down? Keeping something under that hat of yours, are you? Well I never, he's got a new hat!'

He stared at Osewoudt and Osewoudt noted that his uncle was poorly shaven, as usual, and he thought: I didn't realise Uncle Bart was so old. He said: ‘Sorry about keeping my hat on. But I've come to tell you that Ria and Mother have been arrested by the Germans.'

‘What did you say? Why would they do that?'

Osewoudt shrugged. Everything here smelled of lonely old man. The book lying open on the desk was by Hegel; beside the book lay a stub of aniline pencil used for making notes in the margins, which were veined with multicoloured scribbles: red, black and blue, resembling the cross section of a tumour. That's forty years he's been reading the same book, forty years he's been writing in the margins.

‘Go on, boy, answer me. Why were they arrested?'

‘Why? They didn't tell me! I wasn't there! If I'd been there, I wouldn't be here to tell you! Do you understand what I'm saying?'

‘But surely you could have gone to the police station to find out what was going on?'

‘Me go to the station? Me? What do you think! They'd have
locked me up immediately. I can go to the police, but I won't come back! That's the way it is these days, understand?'

‘There's no need to shout! You're behaving as if it's my fault! It wasn't me that ran off with some floosie, remember!'

Osewoudt went up to him and grabbed his arm.

‘Come now, Uncle Bart, I didn't run off with anyone! You don't get it. Is Elly still here?'

‘Elly? You have the cheek to ask me where Elly is? Your wife and mother arrested and all you want to know is where that girl is? Come all the way here to wind me up, have you, acting as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth? Good grief, has everybody run mad? Eh? Henri? What have I done to deserve this?'

‘You don't get it, Uncle. But I really need to know where Elly is. Now, this minute.'

‘All right then! I'll tell you! She went chasing after you the next day. Just as well, too, that she left when she did, because you know me: I'm not prejudiced, never have been, but there are limits!'

‘She didn't come after me at all – I haven't seen her since, I swear. And it's not true that I ran off with her, as you put it.'

‘Are you saying you're not fed up with Ria? That you came here with a girl you didn't even fancy?'

‘Uncle, listen to me, please. If it had been like that do you think I'd have come to you of all people for a place to stay?'

‘Stop arguing with me,' said Uncle Bart. Clutching his side, he staggered to the desk and sank on to his chair. ‘Good grief! My poor sister! What a life, what a way to go! But surely that's not possible! Even the Germans wouldn't be such brutes as to lock up some unfortunate old woman for killing her husband years ago in a fit of insanity? They certified her as being of unsound mind!'

For killing her husband!
Should he disabuse old Uncle Bart? Offer him a more likely explanation? Never! The less he knew the better!

‘Oh, Uncle Bart, you have no idea what the Germans have been getting up to, ever since 1933! People who've served their sentences for past crimes and who've been perfectly law-abiding ever since are being sent to concentration camps and done away with!
Berufsverbrecher
, professional criminals, that's what they call them!'

‘I don't care what they call them, you must still do everything you can to secure your mother's release. It's your duty!'

Osewoudt sat down and slurped his coffee. Turning things over in his mind, it struck him that his uncle's assumption might not be so far-fetched after all. The Germans might indeed have come for his mother and not for him! What evidence could they have against him? Why would they have come to get her on Tuesday morning, at a time when Elly was presumably still safe with Uncle Bart? Even if Elly had already left by then, even if she'd been stopped in the street and the Germans had wrung his address from her, that still wouldn't explain their coming for his mother and Ria on Tuesday morning!

‘Was there anything in the papers about it, Uncle?' he asked.

‘About what?'

‘Have the Germans made any announcement about detaining former criminals and the insane? Was it on the radio? You listen to the radio every day, don't you? Was it in a broadcast from London by any chance?'

‘How should I know? You're the one talking about the Germans sending recidivists and people of unsound mind to concentration camps without trial, not me! All I said was that I can't see why they would arrest an old woman who had an unfortunate accident involving her husband ten years ago, who's been before the courts, who's been treated in an institution and
who's never hurt a fly since! And what about Ria? What did she do?'

‘I don't know, Uncle. Everybody's up to something, but not everybody's found out! Take yourself, you have a radio, you listen to broadcasts from London, that alone could get you two years hard labour. The Germans can arrest anybody they like, only for being in breach of some rule of theirs. Not that they abide by the rules – they just go around arresting people anyway! How could I possibly find out why they've taken Ria?'

‘What's wrong with you? Are you daft? Grow up! Are you going to allow your wife and mother to disappear without lifting a finger? Damn you, didn't it ever occur to you to get hold of a lawyer?'

‘A lawyer? But my dear Uncle Bart, it's not as if we're living under the rule of law. You must be mad. Do you want to be arrested too? The first thing they'd ask any lawyer requesting information is: who sent you?'

‘He could say it was me!' Uncle Bart cried. ‘Let him say I sent him, let the lawyer say: I am here on behalf of Mr Nauta, the brother of old Mrs Osewoudt and the father of young Mrs Osewoudt. I'll instruct the lawyer accordingly. Do you hear, Henri? I'm not afraid! And if the Germans consider someone like your mother a danger to the public, I'm prepared to reach a compromise with them. I'll do whatever it takes, but they're not sending her to some concentration camp! I'll offer to put her in a private clinic at my expense!'

Osewoudt's jaw began to twitch, he was barely capable of remaining seated. His forehead itched unbearably under the brim of the hat. Without realising what he was doing he took off the hat and wiped his forehead.

‘What on earth?'

Breathing noisily, Uncle Bart leaned forwards, open-mouthed, stubble down to his Adam's apple.

‘I said,' Osewoudt went on, ‘that it's no use sending a lawyer because the Germans won't take any notice. Believe me, Hitler isn't the same as Hegel, even if they both begin with an H! If we could fork out 20,000 guilders, or 50,000, it would be different, then they might listen!'

Osewoudt didn't look at Uncle Bart. He twisted the hat round in his fingers as he spoke, or rather shouted: ‘I also said that it's ridiculous to think they could have arrested Mother over
that
. The Germans have plenty of other people to arrest! Besides, public health issues aren't a priority. They must have had some other reason, I'm telling you, otherwise why would they have taken Ria as well?'

He saw stars before his eyes, which were fixed on Uncle Bart's shoes.

Then he felt a tug at his hair and looked up. Uncle Bart was shaking his head from side to side, foaming at the mouth.

‘But you, what have you done to yourself? Have you dyed your hair? How come it's black?'

‘Lay off, will you! What? Black hair? Yes, it's been dyed! And do you know why? Because it's me the Germans are looking for! It's me they're after, just me! Get it? They only took Mother and Ria because I wasn't at home!'

‘Then you're a coward! How can you abandon your own wife and mother for your own safety? To think that you didn't go straight to the police and say: here, take me, just let my mother and my wife go, because they haven't done a thing!'

‘I'm not a coward. But I can't possibly give myself up!'

‘Not a coward! A degenerate, that's what you are!'

‘Degenerate? Not that again! Degenerate – because I don't shave I suppose! Damn, damn, damn! Ha! Ha!'

It was not laughter, just the exclamation ‘Ha! Ha!', as if he were reading a story out loud.

‘I repeat,' Uncle Bart said, ‘degenerate! What have you been
up to? Why are the Krauts after you? Because you've been selling those filthy cigarettes on the black market? Did you think I didn't know? The fool goes and gets his hair dyed because he's scared! If it were anyone else I'd be splitting my sides. But my own flesh and blood! Who shared my home for years! I did everything to make a reasonable man of him! But he's in the black market! Selling cigarettes, the cancer of modern society! He's dyed his hair like some old woman! It's unspeakable. You make me sick.'

Osewoudt stood up. He put one foot forward, holding his hat over his groin. He withdrew the foot and put the other one forward. In a soft voice, more consoling than combative, he said: ‘You've got it all wrong. I can't help being in this situation, it's just the way it is. I had no choice. I'm not in a position to go into detail now, but you really are mistaken. Don't go to a lawyer, Uncle Bart, because you might regret it, if not in the short term then certainly when the war's over.'

Tears welled in his eyes and in his nose; he had to clear his throat before continuing.

‘Mother and Ria are innocent, they haven't done anything. The Germans will release them after a few weeks, I'm sure. But I beg you, stay out of this. Our enemies are making things bad enough for us as it is.'

But Uncle Bart grabbed his chair, lifted it up and set it down again violently, with the back to Osewoudt and the seat facing his desk. Then he sat down on it, bent over the desk and riffled the pages of his book as if looking up a particular passage, or no, as if trying in vain to locate a passage that might apply to the situation. He smacked the desktop with the flat of his hand.

‘Oh for God's sake, boy, get out of my sight!'

Osewoudt stood up and said: ‘I never knew you had such a low opinion of me. The fact that you don't understand proves
that you have always despised me. It's because you've always despised me that you won't believe me!'

Uncle Bart refused to look at him. His hand kept striking the desktop, not particularly hard, but impatiently.

‘I suppose you can't help it, boy, but I happen to know where you come from. I knew your father.'

‘True, you knew him, I didn't. But you're talking complete rubbish. You should listen to what I'm saying instead of thinking about my father. You're as bad as the Germans: you can't think straight. But that's neither here nor there. I'm long past caring whether you believe me or not. But I beg you Uncle Bart: don't get mixed up in this, because it's asking for trouble, not only for you, but for me as well.'

Yet when he was out on the street again, he was plunged into such despair that he felt capable of going up to the first German he saw, saying: here I am! But there wasn't a German uniform in sight, which was hardly surprising in a part of town that was
verboten
to the
Wehrmacht
. He heard tapping on a window and turned to look. Beckoning him was a pale, fat whore. She sat behind the glass on a raised chair, her knees drawn up, her slip rucked up over her thighs.

‘Too early!' called Osewoudt, blowing her a kiss. He laughed. It was not until he was going down Damstraat that he noticed he was still carrying the hat. He put it on and glanced around to see if he was being followed.

It was quarter past midday. What to do until five o'clock? Get something to eat for a start. He went into Restaurant De Gerstekorrel, removing his hat once inside. He picked a table at the back, hung his coat and hat on a peg in the wall, and sat down facing the leaded window. German music came from a radio. There were Germans occupying various tables: field-grey Luftwaffe officers, green SS ones, fat Germans in civilian
clothes. And there were also fat Dutchmen with slim briefcases, doing business.