The Darkroom of Damocles (10 page)

The waiter came promptly to take Osewoudt's order.

‘Can I order something with my ration card, or is that too inconvenient?'

‘The only difference is the tip, which people don't always …'

‘You can count on me.'

Osewoudt handed him two meat coupons and two butter coupons, and ordered steak, fried potatoes, peas and pancakes.

‘Oh yes, waiter, and a large beer!'

The beer came first. He immediately gulped down half of it. In the meantime he tried to eavesdrop on his neighbours, but there was so much noise he couldn't catch what was being said.

Mother in prison, and me sitting here! Nice smell of food, though.

What sort of life would you have had if your mother hadn't lost her mind and you hadn't been obliged to look after her? Would you have married Ria? Would you, aged eighteen, have taken to running a tobacconist's like some retired navy officer or an invalid speed cyclist?

But if I hadn't done that I'd have been completely dependent on Uncle Bart. I certainly wouldn't have met Dorbeck! Dorbeck! Where would I be if it weren't for Dorbeck? My hair's black now, just like his. I've become his twin brother!

He checked his watch: 1 p.m. Must make that telephone call at five. Maybe I'll get to talk to him. Maybe I'll meet him again soon. What would he say if he saw me now? I know what I'd say: are you sure you're not looking in the mirror? What a laugh.

He looked up. An old woman stood at the table just beyond him. She had a flat basket on her arm and was talking to two Germans sitting side by side with their backs to him. She wore
black, with a faded green scarf tied round her head. Short and shapeless, she stood out against the coloured panels of the leaded window, looking like a greatly magnified potato. She turned back the cloth covering her basket, and the Germans inspected the contents. The German nearest her even pushed his chair back the better to lean over and poke his nose in.

‘Two guilders!' the woman cried. ‘Good and
fett
!'

The man sat up again. A discussion with his companion ensued. The little old woman stood where she was with the cloth folded back, waiting for the Germans to make up their minds. In the end they shook their heads from side to side, loudly saying ‘
Nein! Leider!
'

The old woman covered her basket again, took a step back and looked at Osewoudt. Only then did he see that she was his mother, escaped from prison and now scratching a living hawking smoked eels from a basket. Don't give me any more of your warnings, Mother, please, Osewoudt muttered to himself. I can't help you, but you can't help me either. Your warnings won't get us anywhere.

The old woman drew level with his table and lifted the cloth again.

‘Nice plump eels, sir.'

‘I can see they're nice plump eels, but I can't be dealing with them just now.'

‘Food is scarce these days, sir. Save them for later.'

‘I'm going on a journey, I can't take them with me.'

‘Well, what if I wrap them in newspaper?'

‘No, thank you.'

He felt in his pocket and offered her a guilder.

‘I didn't come here to beg, sir!'

She made her way past him to the table behind.

Half past one. He had finished his meal and couldn't very well linger in the restaurant. How to kill time until five?

Without really looking about him, he set off towards Dam Square, dragging his feet.

Uncle Bart must now be on his way to his lawyer, he thought, that old friend who's been his business adviser for the past forty years, an old man like Uncle Bart himself. And he'll say: of course, Bart, I'm entirely at your disposal! But you must understand, simply going to the Germans and demanding explanations, an old man like me, walking right into the lion's den … Look here, Bart …

And so he witters on. Doesn't go to the Germans. Better wait and see, he says. Here, take a look at this underground newspaper, I've got the latest issue of
Het Parool
for you. You can keep it, but don't leave it lying around! The Krauts are finished, that's what it says! Uncle Bart returns home, placated. How long before he gets restive again, though? A week? Probably less. He doesn't know what to think, but he's as pig-headed as ever, like in the old days when Aunt Fie finally got him to the registry office and they left Ria's pram with the porter! That was a good deed, to his mind, no: a Deed. With a capital letter! Something to be proud of later on. But why did he really do it? He did it because in those days you couldn't go around taking potshots at anyone you didn't like, not like now. Born at the wrong time, that was his trouble!

Osewoudt walked down Kalverstraat and turned right towards Spui. The electric clock on the corner by the church showed two o'clock. Osewoudt reached the University Library, just past the church, and stopped.

When I left secondary school, he thought, Uncle Bart talked about me going to university. If I had taken him up on it I might have been spending my days reading books in this very building. I wonder what it's like inside? Would it be open to the public?

He halted at double doors of pale oak. No signs saying
anything like
RING
or
KNOCK
. He pushed the right-hand door and it yielded. He entered a marble vestibule with a porter's lodge on the left, in which an old man sat pasting small circles of white paper on to the spines of books. Osewoudt doffed his hat, but the old man glanced at him only briefly before continuing what he was doing. Up a few steps and he found himself surrounded by oak; a strong smell of floor polish wafted towards him. Behind a counter sat a woman in a white apron, knitting. A sign at last:
CLOAKROOM COMPULSORY
. Osewoudt laid his hat on the counter and took off his coat. The woman put down her knitting, handed him a thick brass disc with a number, took his coat and hat and hung them on a rack.

An oak staircase, lit only by a leaded window on a small landing. More stairs. Glass doors left and right. He looked through the door to the left and saw a gathering of intellectuals, some standing still and others strolling about. He looked through the door to the right and saw long tables occupied by people reading books. But what shall I read? he thought, as he went in. The walls were lined with books, even the spaces between the windows were fitted with bookcases. Wooden stepladders stood here and there along the stacks.

An elderly scholar wearing pince-nez left his chair, moved the library steps to another stack, took down a book from a high shelf and returned to his seat. So you were allowed to take a book from any stack you liked! No need to ask anyone for permission either! Osewoudt had reached the first reading table. On his right he had seen a woman sitting at a vast desk, like a schoolmistress presiding over a classroom. The supervisor, apparently, but not a very watchful one, as she was engrossed in a book like everyone else.

Osewoudt paused deliberately for a moment or two, looking intently in her direction, almost hoping she would beckon to him and ask what he wanted. He hadn't yet decided what he
would say. But the woman looked up from her book, saw him, and carried on reading. She had dark, fairly thick woolly hair, which looked as if it hadn't been combed but simply gathered at the nape of her neck. She was not particularly young, but her glasses were decidedly ancient: thick round lenses in a gold wire frame. She wore a green woollen dress, as green as the baize of her desktop. It could even be the same material, he thought, people run up clothes from the strangest fabrics these days, maybe there was some baize left over. She can't be earning much.

He advanced into the room. Some readers glanced up at him distractedly, their minds still on the books before them. He looked away, anxiously hoping to spot a title he would be bold enough to take to a vacant seat at one of the tables.

Some of the stacks had labels indicating the subjects ranged on the shelves. The labels seemed to demand his diploma, but he didn't have a diploma in any specialised subject. Once I'd done my school exams I never opened a book again. Flogged all my textbooks to the boys in the next year. Good riddance, I thought at the time. Am I sorry? He was now at the far end of the reading room and his gaze slid over the readers' backs. Why would I want to be like them? I might not have been bright enough for university anyway, or not bright enough to be brilliant. And then if I'd ended up at a desk like that supervisor I might well have thought: I'd just as soon be a tobacconist.

He now noticed the clock over the door through which he had come in. The clock said five past two. Three hours to wait; but not here. He retraced his steps as quickly as he dared. The supervisor now drew herself up and made to approach him, but he just grinned and went out of the door. At that moment someone emerged from the opposite door across the landing. It was Zéwüster, clasping a booklet.

‘Hey!'

Osewoudt had raised his voice, but his cry was somewhat stifled.

Zéwüster stood with his hand on the banister and one foot already extended to go down the stairs. He gave Osewoudt a quizzical look.

‘Hello Zéwüster!'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘You are Zéwüster aren't you? … I am …'

His voice trailed off, against his will; it was as if Zéwüster's eyes transfixed him, as if he had lost the ability to move or speak. His forehead went ice-cold.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Yes, Zéwüster. Surely you remember?'

His voice faltered again, the last words trapped in his chest.

‘You are mistaken, my name is de Bruin.'

Osewoudt now stood beside the other man, with his hand on the other banister, ready to start down the stairs, and a kind of rage made him overcome his paralysis.

‘If your name isn't Zéwüster why not just say: I am not Zéwüster. Whether you're de Bruin or de Wit or anything else doesn't matter to me!'

A trio of students squeezed between them and went down the stairs. Zéwüster followed, quickening his pace and overtaking them without a backward glance. Osewoudt went down the stairs as well. The three students stopped to retrieve their coats. But Zéwüster did not stop at the cloakroom, he strode towards the marble vestibule, booklet in hand. Hatless and coatless, he went out into the street.

Osewoudt collected his coat and hat and went after him. When he got outside Zéwüster had vanished.

It was my black hair that scared him witless! There he was, accosted by a man he's never seen before. Never? Why didn't
he think I was Dorbeck, not even for a moment? Or is it Dorbeck he is scared of? Could he be a traitor? Has he switched sides? Is he working for the Germans? Has he gone to warn them? To telephone? Maybe he was caught by the Germans and they only let him go so he'd betray his accomplices. Which is obviously what he's gone and done:
I've got him! I've got him! One of the Haarlem gang! Quick, you lot! He's been found!

Osewoudt ran to the other side of the Singel canal and down the steps to the basement urinal by the water. It was unoccupied. He had a good view of the lay of the land through the slits at the top, just above pavement level. He fumbled under his coat to transfer the pistol from his trouser pocket to his raincoat pocket.

Nothing unusual was going on. Trams came past at regular intervals, now and then a car, some bicycles. No cause for any anxiety. He stood there for a quarter of an hour, then thought: I might just as well have left immediately. The police aren't coming or they'd have been here by now, they know it's too late anyway.

At that moment he caught sight of Zéwüster.

Zéwüster was coming from Spui, walking along in his brown suit, looking exactly the same as before. He was alone. Both his hands were visible. The booklet poked ostentatiously from his jacket pocket. At the corner he looked in all directions as if he wanted to cross the street, but Osewoudt wasn't fooled. No, Zéwüster was not about to cross, he was simply on the alert. He made his way towards the University Library and halted by the entrance. Again he looked behind him and across the canal. Then he went in. Wait for him to come out again? Follow him inside?

But Osewoudt stayed put.

The library door swung open to let someone out. A moment later the door opened again, this time it was Zéwüster. Just
popped in to fetch his coat, obviously. He paused on the pavement, again looking around him, then set off in the direction of Heilige Weg.

Osewoudt mounted the steps to street level, and walked slowly towards Koningsplein. Zéwüster knew who I was, he thought, and he was scared. Or he thought I was Dorbeck, and it's Dorbeck he's afraid of. He may not be a traitor after all, he didn't go to the police, he simply bolted and then came back for his coat.

Osewoudt did not go in the same direction as Zéwüster, although there was no particular reason to avoid a second encounter. He walked with his hands in his pockets, the palm of his right hand growing moist around the butt of the pistol.

He sauntered along Leidsestraat, crossed to the far side of Leidseplein and walked onwards, not knowing how else to pass the time.

On Overtoom he went into a shop selling fruit, after making sure there were no other customers within.

A woman with a red, chapped face stood behind the counter in a starched white apron.

‘What can I get you, sir?'

Osewoudt lifted his hat, but did not take it off.

‘I'd like to ask you something. Do you ever have occasion to make deliveries to people in prison?'

‘Certainly, sir. We can make deliveries anywhere.'

‘But if you're not certain which prison the person is being held in, is there a way around that?'

‘I don't know, it certainly complicates matters.'

‘The thing is, my mother's in custody, she was arrested by the Germans, and I think she's being held in The Hague. Would you be able to get a basket of fruit to her there?'