The Darkroom of Damocles (3 page)

The Germans arrived in the backs of dusty lorries. The blue tram service had to stop running. The Germans wore the same steel helmets as in the Great War. They confiscated the Dutch Home Guard's helmets, as well as their uniforms, pistols and old rifles.

Soon the blue tram was running to its normal schedule again. Everything returned to normal, only things were somewhat busier for a while.

Two days later a Dutch army officer on a motorcycle stopped in front of Osewoudt's shop. When he dismounted, Osewoudt saw it was Dorbeck.

Dorbeck dropped the motorcycle halfway across the pavement and went into the shop.

‘Sorry, your film isn't ready yet,' said Osewoudt. ‘I don't do the work myself, it's done by somebody in The Hague, but he hasn't called – because of the war, I expect.'

‘Doesn't matter.'

Dorbeck sat with one thigh propped on the counter.

‘Is there anyone back there?' he asked, glancing at the sliding doors.

‘No, my mother's in bed and my wife is out.'

‘Good. I thought of you because you're the same height as me. I need you to lend me a suit. I want to get rid of this uniform. I can't go and give myself up as a prisoner of war. I know Holland has capitulated, but that doesn't mean to say I have. I'll capitulate in my own good time.'

Osewoudt went to the room at the back where the wardrobe stood. Dorbeck followed him, already undoing the buttons of his tunic.

‘There was some trouble. What happened was this: I'm on my way to Rotterdam. There's a bunch of sodding German paratroopers blocking the road. Shots are fired, vehicle kaput, my whole division incapacitated. The Germans make me hand over my pistol and take me with them. But then the bombs start falling and I escape. I flag down one of our trucks and get to Rotterdam. I walk down a street, don't hear any more bombs, but what do I see? One house after another bursting into flames, just like that. I ask myself how this can be. Great crowds everywhere, people pushing prams loaded with bedding, people with pushcarts and bicycles. Everyone running and shouting. I spot two men in brown overalls. I know right off what their game is, and I stop them. Krauts, of course! They give me a long spiel. Say they're paratroopers, that they were captured two days ago by our marines and taken to an ordinary prison, for want of a better place, where they were stripped of their uniforms and made to wear those brown overalls instead. When the bombing started the prison governor opened the gates, which is how they came to be walking the streets again.

‘Do you know what I told them? I said: what do you take me for? For an idiot who never reads the papers? The pair of you were smuggled into the country on some freighter before the invasion began! You're saboteurs! You can start saying your prayers if you're that way inclined, because you're about to meet your Maker!

‘I happen to see three of our soldiers carrying rifles, and I get them to finish off those two jokers pronto. If I'd had my service pistol I'd have done it myself!'

The wardrobe was still open. Dorbeck reached inside for a
pair of shoes. His boots thudded to the floor. He knotted one of Osewoudt's ties around his neck and went back into the shop.

‘Hey!' Osewoudt called after him. ‘Don't you want an overcoat? It gets cold on a motorbike.'

‘No need, and thanks a lot. Hide the uniform. I'll send your suit back as soon as I can.'

Dorbeck righted his motorcycle and started the engine.

‘Where did you get that motorbike?'

‘Commandeered it!'

He laughed, the engine roared. As he rode off he threw Osewoudt a look over his shoulder.

Osewoudt gathered up the uniform and the boots and took them down to the cellar, where he hid them beneath a pile of old packing material.

Evert Turlings returned from the prison camp with a deep suntan.

‘Fine chaps, those Germans, Osewoudt! Another three months and they'll have beaten England too! It's the strongest army in the world! Hitler's a genius! Who'd have thought he'd let all the POWs go?'

The chemist's son helped himself to a packet of cigarettes without asking, and tore it open.

‘I'm completely converted,' he said. ‘They've taught us a lesson and we'd better take it to heart! We've seen what a rotten democracy is worth. The whole lot packing off to London, leaving the fighting army in the lurch. It was criminal to make us fight the Germans without weapons, without aircraft, without anything. And then running away the moment things go wrong! I've got the message. It's the dawn of a new age, all the little states will have to go. We're heading for a united Europe. A Europe led by Germany, of course. The Germans have shown what they're worth, they're entitled to take the lead. The more we Dutch get together with the Germans, the better it'll be. Hitler's good-hearted. The Germanic brother folk, that's what he calls us. He praised the Dutch rank and file for their bravery, he's released the POWs. There's work to be done, he said, and he's right.'

‘I've no head for politics,' said Osewoudt.

‘You're not the only one here in Holland. Did you read about that officer?'

‘What officer?'

‘In the paper last night. While Rotterdam was being bombed, a Dutch army officer ordered two innocent German POWs to be shot in the street, just like that. The very idea! Hitler's too good-hearted, I'm telling you! That officer's got a lot coming to him when they catch him. Shooting harmless POWs! Only a Dutchman would do that. Turns tail on the battlefield at the first shot, but doesn't think twice about shooting defenceless POWs. He'd better give himself up as soon as possible. Otherwise the whole Dutch nation will be made to pay.'

‘Perhaps we're not a very manly nation,' Osewoudt said, lowering his eyes.

Turlings slipped the cigarettes into his pocket and reached for the handle of the shop door.

‘I'll be back! Bring you a couple of interesting articles from
Volk en Vaderland
, good plain-speaking stuff. It's a month now since the capitulation, and it's time to take a stand.
Stop and think
– that's the watchword these days!'

The door opened, setting off the electric bell. Evert Turlings left and the bell tinkled again.

Just as Osewoudt turned back towards the counter, the bell tinkled for a third time.

There stood Dorbeck. He wore a pale grey summer suit that looked brand new. He did not give the impression of being as short as Osewoudt. He came in, leaving the door open. He deposited a large parcel wrapped in brown paper on the counter.

‘Morning, Osewoudt, I've brought your suit back.'

‘Dorbeck! Do you know they're looking for you? There's a bit about you in the paper.'

‘They can look wherever they like. If I don't want them to find me, they won't.'

‘Do you want the uniform back?'

‘No, never mind about that.'

‘That's easy for you to say, but I don't know what to do
with it either,' muttered Osewoudt, heading for the sliding doors.

But when he returned with the uniform over his arm, Dorbeck had gone. The door was still open.

Osewoudt dumped the uniform on the counter and went out into the street. Just then the blue tram slowly came past, blocking his view. He didn't see Dorbeck in the tram either, but that didn't mean to say he wasn't on.

The sun shone. It was a fine day. There were people walking about, including some unarmed German soldiers. It was almost as if nothing had changed, as if things would stay the same for ever. Maybe Evert Turlings had a point. And maybe even now Dorbeck was on his way to give himself up. Osewoudt took the uniform, put the shop door on the latch, and went out into the back garden. He used the coal shovel to dig a hole in the ground, wrapped the uniform in newspaper and buried it.

Not until evening did he get to open the parcel Dorbeck had left behind. It turned out to contain more than his Sunday suit. There were also two metal canisters, a ten-guilder note, and a typed message:
Osewoudt, develop these films asap. No need for prints. Cut them into strips, put in an envelope and send to: E. Jagtman, Legmeerplein 25, Amsterdam. Post them tomorrow night at the latest
.

Osewoudt examined the canisters and saw they were not ordinary films but so-called Leica films. Not that he was an expert.

That same evening he went to The Hague, to see the man who had given him the cardboard sign about developing and printing for his shop. But when he arrived at the address there was another name on the door, and nobody answered when he rang. Try a different photographer? He didn't know any, and besides they would be closed by now. In Voorschoten there
was only Turlings the chemist who knew anything about photography. Ask him to do it? But what about his son?

And so Osewoudt decided to have a go himself. He'd developed the odd film or two back at school. In the cellar he found a red lamp that had belonged to Uncle Bart, and a couple of bowls in a crate. All he needed now was the chemicals. He didn't dare buy them from the chemist. So the following morning he cycled over to Leiden, having asked his mother to look after the shop as Ria was in bed with flu.

When he returned half an hour later, the shop was closed. Even the blinds over the window and the door had been lowered, which he never did in the old days. Since the invasion, though, he had been obliged to lower them after dark because of the blackout. His mind went back to that Ascension Day when, aged fifteen, he had come to scout around Voorschoten for clues to his father's murder, and had seen the shop looking exactly as it did now. He was overcome by a sense of all being lost – what he had lost he couldn't tell – as he put the key in the lock. His mother opened the door, saying she had heard him coming. In a rage, he fell to raising the blinds, but the cord of the blind over the door snapped, so it stayed down.

His mother declared that she had let the blinds down to keep out two men, two men who had a message from somebody called Dorbeck which they wanted to pass on to Osewoudt in person. She had said he didn't live here any more, that the name on the shop meant nothing. After that she had locked the door and lowered the blinds. ‘Clever of me, wasn't it, my boy?' She was greatly excited. He almost had to force her to go back to bed, and on the stairs she burst into tears, saying she had felt it coming and that it had to be stopped, stopped.

‘You won't help me! Packing me off to bed like this as if I'm ill! You'll come to grief if you don't listen to me!'

She ranted on, but nothing she said gave him any idea of what the two men might have wanted to tell him from Dorbeck. When they did not return in the afternoon, as he had hoped, he decided they had probably only come to ask if the films were ready. Straight after supper he went down to the cellar, dissolved the developer and the fixing salt in tap water and lit the little red oil lamp. Muddled visions of German defensive works, artillery positions, airfields, photostats of secret weapons and other classified material flashed across his mind as he took the first film from its canister. His heart raced, he could scarcely breathe imagining everything that was about to be revealed thanks to a bit of simple chemistry, pictures that would be pored over by the Military Command in London. But when he started unrolling the film he broke out in a sweat. He gauged its length to be two metres. The celluloid was very stiff; it kept slipping from his fingers, coiling around him like a snake.

He struggled on; no images appeared. He tried holding the strips up to the red light. Nothing happened, other than that the films, which were milky white to start with, turned completely black. Finally he hung them up to dry and went to bed. When he looked at them again in the morning all he could see was dark smudges. He cut the strips into sections and put them in an envelope, which he laid in the drawer under the counter. But because he assumed they'd be no good and didn't want to appear totally inept, he did something that could be interpreted as a deed of desperation: he withdrew his working capital (600 guilders) from the bank, went to The Hague, stepped into a camera shop and within five minutes had bought himself a Leica, which he paid for in cash. He took the tram to Scheveningen in the hope of photographing German military installations: anti-aircraft batteries, army encampments and vessels being fitted for the invasion of England. But when he got there he saw very little of potential interest. There were
indeed a few ships in the harbour, but he had no idea whether they had anything to do with the impending German offensive against England. He photographed a few lorries on the off-chance, and also took a picture of the German sentry outside the prison. This was seen by the German. Instead of raising the alarm, he stood yet more stiffly to attention. Osewoudt returned home having taken no more than six photos, none of which he thought would be of any use. He was supposed to have sent off Dorbeck's films the day before. As a last resort he took the envelope containing the botched negatives from the counter drawer, wrote E. Jagtman, Legmeerplein 25, Amsterdam on the front, stuck a stamp on it and dropped it in the letter box. For the next few days he left his mother in charge of the shop, only returning home at night to sleep. He wandered around taking photos at random, for what purpose he did not know. No Germans took any notice of him, which strengthened his feeling that he could not have photographed any location of significance, simply because he was so ignorant about military affairs. But in any case he would be able to show Dorbeck he had tried his level best not to let him down. After three days he felt he had sufficient grounds for a reprieve, should he be called to account. Besides, he had run out of ideas about what to photograph (the first film still wasn't used up). If they came again and said: what's going on? We send you two rolls of film for which people risked their lives and all you do is ruin them – he would be able to prove he had spared neither money nor effort to repair the damage. He went back to running the shop. No one came. One evening a week later there was a storm. In between thunderclaps he heard a ring at the door. He crossed to the front but couldn't see who it was. He decided to take the chance and unlocked the door, turning the light switch at the same time. But the light didn't come on.

It was Dorbeck, in a long raincoat, dripping wet.

‘Dorbeck, the photographs—'

Dorbeck placed the flat of his left hand against Osewoudt's chest and pushed him backwards. Tight-lipped, he barely looked at Osewoudt. He shut the door behind him and strode to the darkest part of the shop, at the back by the sliding doors.

‘Where's your wife?'

‘Upstairs, in bed with flu. The photos—'

‘Is there anyone else around?'

‘No, but listen—'

‘I'm sorry you went to all that trouble for nothing. The films were worthless. They were put into our hands by a German provocateur. There was nothing on them, of course. I sent two people to tell you, but your mother wouldn't let them in. Did you know that?'

‘Yes, but—'

‘I haven't much time. I need your help. I want you to be in the waiting room of Haarlem station next Tuesday at 2.45 p.m. Look out for me. I'll be sitting at a table with someone else. Here …' Dorbeck took Osewoudt's hand and pressed a heavy object into it. ‘Here's a pistol. Bring it with you.'

Outside, the storm intensified, the shop grew even darker than before.

‘All right? I must go now,' said Dorbeck.

The pouring rain made a hissing sound. A flash of lightning lit up the interior, but not Dorbeck's face, which was in Osewoudt's shadow.

‘Hadn't you better wait for the rain to stop?'

‘No time. Catch you later.'

Dorbeck went round the counter towards the door and out into the street. Just then the electric light came on of its own accord. A long slab of light fell across the black asphalt paving.

Osewoudt put his head round the door to look for Dorbeck, but couldn't see him anywhere.

‘What's the idea? Don't you know there's a blackout?'

A policeman with a bicycle stood in the next doorway, water pouring from his cap.

‘So sorry, officer, I was just showing someone out. I tried turning the light on five minutes ago, but the current was down. And now it's suddenly come on again.'

Osewoudt turned the light switch.

‘I don't think I've seen you before. Posted here recently, were you?'

‘Yes, not long ago,' the policeman said. ‘Don't let it happen again, sir.'

The tramlines were still flooded with rainwater, but the sun shone. Osewoudt was halfway up a stepladder behind the door fixing the broken cord of the blind. Evert Turlings came past, and pointed to the cardboard sign with the snapshots on it. He asked: ‘Get much call for that, do you?'

‘Not much. I don't do the work myself, actually. I ought to take that sign down, because the bloke who did the developing for me has given it up.'

‘Good!'

‘Why?'

‘I'm starting in the developing and printing business myself. So if anyone comes asking, just send them on to me. I'll make you a present of some shaving soap! But you wouldn't have any use for it would you, ha ha!'

Osewoudt came down the stepladder, and asked: ‘Is it difficult to learn? I don't know the first thing about it. Doing all that stuff in red light, don't you get exhausted?'

‘Red light, did you say? That was how they did it in your grandfather's day. Modern films are sensitive to all kinds of light, including red.'

‘So what happens if you develop them in red light?'

‘They go black, of course. They're ruined.'

‘Is there no chance of getting them to turn out right after that?'