He heard the click of the spyhole again. He got up, went to the door and stuffed the note into the round hole.
Nothing much happened for a whole month. Only, someone had been put in the cell next door, with whom he was able to communicate by tapping signals. This man claimed he had been caught red-handed stealing rubber stamps from a German police office. Osewoudt replied that he himself was entirely innocent of the crimes he stood accused of. Would the war go on for much longer?
His neighbour was in the know. From him Osewoudt learned that the Allies had already got as far as Arnhem.
That same day, the cell door suddenly swung open and Osewoudt was summoned. He was not handcuffed.
He went with the guards. He was positive that he would be released.
They opened a door and a wave of violet scent penetrated his nostrils.
A small office with bars on the windows and Ebernuss sitting with his back to the bars.
Ebernuss stood up at once, and hurried forward to clasp Osewoudt’s right hand between his.
‘Osewoudt! It’s been such a long time! I have been very busy, very busy indeed! Not a day has gone by without my hoping to spare fifteen minutes for you! Something kept coming up! Do sit down! Cigarette? Real English ones, Gold Flake! Whole crates of them are dropped from the sky these days. Such a friendly nation, the British. Take the recent developments in Arnhem. You have heard the news, I presume? You thought the war would be over soon, did you not? Wrong! Those British! Did they get a thrashing from our SS! Lads of sixteen, just back from France for a breather. We pulled it off! Jawohl! My dear fellow, I was afraid I might never see you again. But we have not been deprived of each other’s company yet, not by any means!’
Osewoudt dropped his eyes, saying: ‘I haven’t done anything. Nobody has produced any evidence against me. Why won’t you let me go?’
Ebernuss propped his elbows on the desk and pressed his hands flat against his cheeks, the way older women sometimes do to tighten their jowls.
‘Evidence. Oh, what a nice boy you are! Did you think we were keeping you here because we’re gathering evidence? The world you live in ceased existing long ago.
‘We only detain two kinds of people. The first kind are people we prefer to keep off the streets for one reason or another. The second kind are people who can supply us with interesting information. Nobody is released simply for a lack of evidence. Furnishing proof is the business of professors, not politicians. The only thing that interests a politician is achieving his aims. What would we achieve by accepting the lack of evidence against someone? Have some sense, boy! I’m telling you: for a politician it’s more important to get rid of an innocent victim than to punish someone who’s guilty, because the innocent victim, once released, will seek revenge, whereas a sinner who gets let off will be grateful.
‘Do try to understand how the world works, Osewoudt!’
‘Oh, Herr Ebernuss! What I don’t understand is how you can make the National Socialists out to be such monsters!’
‘Try telling your mother that!’
‘I don’t even know if my mother is still alive.’
‘I do. She is no longer alive.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am sure.’
‘And my uncle?’
‘He has been sent to Germany, to a concentration camp, but nobody seems to know which.’
‘And my wife?’
‘That I do not know. I will enquire. Any other questions?’
‘No.’
‘You’re lying. You want to know where Marian Zettenbaum is. It’s no use denying it! You wrote her a note. Here it is. Here, here! You do make me laugh, you know!’
Ebernuss picked up a folder of papers, leafed through the contents and found the sheet of toilet paper on which Osewoudt had written his note. Ebernuss started reading it aloud: ‘“Dearest Marianne. I have been in prison for three months.” Which is four months, now. “How will all this end? Are the Americans coming?” Yes, they’re coming, but far too late for most people.’
‘So you know what’s happened to Marianne! You must tell me! Has she been sent to Germany?’
‘“Goodbye my darling, I kiss you a thousand, thousand times.”’
Ebernuss slipped the note back into the folder.
Osewoudt sat there, sobbing.
Ebernuss went up to him and tapped him under the chin.
‘Let me tell you something. She is not in Germany. I saw to that. I’ll tell you something else. She is pregnant. What do you say, Osewoudt? Pregnant! Congratulations, my friend! If it’s a boy you can call him Waldemar, after me. Agreed?’
Osewoudt said nothing.
‘By the way,’ said Ebernuss, ‘it’s time you started calling me Waldemar, too. We have known each other for so long now, months and months … But that’s not the only reason. You are alone in the world. Your mother is dead, your uncle is dead, so is your girlfriend Elly Sprenkelbach Meijer, so is Labare, and your friend Robbie is either dead or in a concentration camp which he won’t come out of alive. Let me make myself clear: I too am alone. All my friends have fallen in battle. As for my mother, she is buried under the rubble of her house in Frankfurt. Who will do anything to help me when the Americans get here?’
Osewoudt sat up straight, gave Ebernuss a nasty grin and said: ‘Nobody, I expect. The shoe will be on the other foot!’
‘So what if the shoe is on the other foot? Will that bring back your mother and your friends? Well, what do you say?’
Osewoudt crooked the index finger of his right hand and bit the knuckle.
Ebernuss laid his hand on his shoulder.
‘We are comrades in misfortune. I am prepared to help you, as a good comrade. I can arrange for them to let that Jewish girl go. Do you understand? So there will at least be one person waiting for you at the end of the war. What am I saying? One person? Maybe two! Possibly three, if she has twins. But you must help me in return, you must tell me something you know and I don’t. Is the girl worth that to you? And the child? Or do you prefer to keep quiet and have her sent to Germany and end up in a gas chamber? Then who’ll be there to say thank you when the war is over?’
Ebernuss stood up and raised his voice.
‘No one in the whole world is going to say thank you! No one! Even if you’re still alive when the Americans come!’
He took up the folder again.
‘Look, I might as well tell you what I’m getting at. We have come up with an idea, something that sounds insane, but is apparently true. You needn’t say anything, just yes or no. Are you sticking by your story that a meeting between you and Roorda at Vondel Park never took place?’
‘Yes.’
‘Quite. On the day Roorda says he met you at Vondel Park you weren’t anywhere near there. Because you were with Meinarends in Leiden, were you not?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘They turned up the heat on Roorda and he changed his story slightly. Added to it, in fact. He says he met you in Amsterdam not once but twice, the second time in the waiting room of the public baths a few days later.’
‘He’s lying.’
‘Quite. Because that afternoon you were not in Amsterdam. You were on the heath at Lunteren, where you shot Lagendaal and his wife. True or false?’
Osewoudt said nothing. The whole room danced jerkily before his eyes, and his thighs felt drenched in ice water.
‘Well?’
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Stop fibbing like a schoolboy. The bullets from the bodies have been examined. They were discharged by the pistol found in the handbag belonging to your friend Zettenbaum. What more do you want? You’re not going to tell me it was Zettenbaum who went to Lunteren to deal with Lagendaal? You’re not shifting the blame on your girlfriend, are you?’