‘What would be the best way of getting there?’
‘Easy. You can go to any village and find someone with a boat to take you across.’
‘Don’t the Germans patrol the rivers?’
‘Probably. But I have my own contacts, one hundred per cent reliable.’
‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’
‘Indeed. Well as far as I’m concerned, the war has been a successful operation. I didn’t surrender on 14 May, 1940. I’m on the winning side. So are you.’
‘Am I? It’s ridiculous, but I can’t get used to the idea that I’m free again. Maybe it’s because this car belongs to Ebernuss, or used to. Christ, I’m tired. I’ve been in prison for nine months. Where are we going?’
‘To Bernard Kochstraat. Do you know it?’
‘No. I’m not very familiar with Amsterdam.’
‘A quiet street.’
‘What’s it like in London? I’ve never been abroad.’
‘What it’s like in London? Plenty of nightclubs, plenty of rowdy airmen who think they’re a cut above everybody else just because their predecessors, who fought the Battle of Britain for them, aren’t around any more — they’re all dead.’
‘Couldn’t you get me a job with the Allies?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that.’
‘I’d like to join the military. That’s the only way I could make myself useful now. Maybe, with the war still on, they won’t be so fussy, maybe they won’t mind my being half a centimetre too short.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I mean, I’m no use to the Resistance any more — that was obvious from the moment the Germans showed my picture in the cinemas. And I’m even more useless now. Besides, what’ll happen when they find Ebernuss has gone missing?’
‘The lads will see to it that he vanishes without trace. Don’t you worry.’
‘Right. But I can’t stay in Holland. Nor can you, really. Because, you know, the picture they showed in the cinemas wasn’t of me, even though my name was up there beside it. It was a picture of you. And Ebernuss had found out it wasn’t me in the picture, he even thought I had a double.’
‘So they interrogated you about things I had done?’
‘I was confronted with someone called Roorda, a man I’d never seen in my life. He said he knew me.’
‘Roorda. Ah. Interesting.’
‘So you know Roorda?’
‘I think so.’
‘Tell me your contacts. I must get away from occupied territory. I want to take a friend with me, a Jewish girl who’s in hiding in Leiden. I want to escape with her. Tell me the best way of making it across the rivers. Give me a password, or some means of identification. I want to escape with her, and I want to take as few risks as possible, for her sake.’
‘I understand.’
The car turned into a drab-looking street with a line of trees on a central reservation. The house-fronts were tarred black, and the front doors, all identical, were painted moss green.
Dorbeck put the handbrake on and removed the key from the ignition.
‘Leave the Sten behind, and wind up the window.’
Dorbeck opened a front door with a Yale key, which he passed directly on to Osewoudt.
‘Here, this is yours.’
They went up a wooden staircase. The house smelled as if it had been unlived-in for months.
They came to a narrow corridor with three orange-painted doors off it. The doors were ajar. At a glance he could see that they led to a small kitchen, a bedroom with a made-up bed, and a parlour.
Dorbeck went into the front room, the parlour, and perched on the square table with his face to the window, which was more of a projecting bay set with small panes. Osewoudt just stood there, Leica in hand, looking at Dorbeck. Then he noticed a battered suitcase standing by the table leg. On one side of the room was a mantelpiece with a mirror reaching up to the lowish ceiling.
‘Who lives here?’
‘You do. Listen carefully to what I have to say, I don’t have much time.’
‘Must you be off again?’
‘Yes, as soon as I can.’
‘What a pity! This is a historic moment. It ought to be recorded for posterity.’
Osewoudt aimed the Leica at the mirror and adjusted the focus.
‘It’s much too dark in here,’ said Dorbeck.
‘No, it’ll be fine. Keep still now!’
From the mirror Dorbeck stared back at him. Their heads were close together. Osewoudt’s hair had grown quite fair again, but in spite of that, and in spite of Dorbeck’s pointed beard, the resemblance between them was uncanny. It really did look as if it was the same man twice over, once in disguise. Yet if you had to guess which one was real, you’d sooner take the pale, beardless one for the impostor. For a moment they were quite still, eyeing each other in the mirror. Osewoudt kept his finger on the shutter, rapt with emotion: now I am whole at last, if only in a photograph. The shutter clicked.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
Dorbeck slackened his pose and yawned.
‘Why don’t you take a look in that suitcase? You’ll be surprised.’
Osewoudt put the camera aside, bent down and opened the suitcase.
It contained women’s clothing: two vests, two pairs of white bloomers, two starched white pinafores, a black woollen cardigan, two slate-blue linen dresses, black stockings, walking shoes, a blue coat, a blue nurse’s veil, and half a dozen white, starched caps with ribbons. Osewoudt held up one of the dresses. An enamel brooch with a yellow cross on it came undone and fell to the floor.
‘But this is a nurse’s uniform. What are you going to do with it?’
‘Not me. You! You must put it on, and keep it on until the end of the war.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘What’s the alternative? Hole up in this house and starve to death? Or go out into the street as you are and get caught? Don’t count on my being able to rescue you again, you can’t take that kind of thing for granted.’
‘I realise that, and it’s been twice already.’
‘Twice? What do you mean?’
‘Well, first you got me out of that hospital in The Hague, remember? There was Cor, and Uncle Kees.’
‘I don’t know any Cor or Uncle Kees. I had no hand in any of that.’
‘Didn’t you really? Let me tell you something. No sooner had we got in the car than they made it clear they weren’t getting what they’d expected. They didn’t say in so many words, but it was quite obvious: it wasn’t me they thought they were supposed to rescue from the hospital, it was you, and they felt let down. They were disappointed, wouldn’t even take me to a safe house. They didn’t think I was important enough.’
‘Ha, ha, what a laugh! You, not important enough? Wasn’t it you who liquidated Lagendaal? Didn’t you take part in the Haarlem shooting? Well then.’
‘Of course, but I couldn’t tell them that.’
‘Whatever the case, it’s a mystery to me. I’ve never heard of any Uncle Cor, or of an Uncle Kees for that matter.’
‘Do you have any idea why the Germans had it in for me then? They were looking for me even before they knew Lagendaal was dead. They had my name broadcast over the station tannoy in Amsterdam. They knew about that business in Haarlem.’
‘Poor Osewoudt! Don’t tell me you don’t know! It was your own wife who grassed on you to the Germans! It was Ria! Along with the chemist’s son! She’s back in the tobacco shop, with him! As if nothing ever happened. She tells everyone you’re dead.’
‘What? Damn, damn! After they’d got me out of the hospital and were driving to Leiden, we went past the shop and I could tell the place was lived in. I couldn’t think who it might be. Damn! The chemist’s son saw me boarding the blue tram in Haarlem. He followed me to Zandvoort. He struck up a conversation with me to draw me out. God almighty!’