He opened the door and went into the passage.
Laughter broke out at his back, but no one stopped him.
He walked the length of the basement and found the exit.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ shouted the sentry, without going after him. ‘Hey, runt! Come back!’
A thin drizzle was falling on the factory yard.
Gesticulating wildly, waving the film in the air, Osewoudt pressed on.
‘Dorbeck! Come here! Yes, Dorbeck, it’s me, Osewoudt. No, I won’t listen. You must listen to me. Before we go on, I want an explanation!’
He lost a slipper, but limped ahead over the muddy concrete.
A motor barge with a cargo of peat was approaching along the canal.
‘Where’s Dorbeck?’ screamed Osewoudt. ‘He must be found! He must! He must!’
He lost the other slipper, then broke into a run.
The heavily laden barge slowly drew near. The diesel engine chugged deeply, puffing blue circles of smoke straight up into the misty air.
Only now were shots fired, a brief salvo from a Sten gun. When the second salvo rang out Osewoudt toppled forward, grabbing the barbed wire along the canal as he fell.
The building rocked. Windows were being shattered. Hundreds of voices clamoured simultaneously for help. Glass came tinkling down on to the yard.
They had laid Osewoudt out on the floor of the corridor, not far from the open door. Two guards sat on chairs close by, their rifles between their knees.
A pool of blood was spreading around Osewoudt.
‘It’s a foul business, all the same,’ said one of the guards.
A sergeant came hurrying towards them.
‘Sergeant,’ called the same guard, without getting to his feet, ‘Sergeant, is there a doctor coming?’
‘The doctor of the Sixth Exloërmond is on holiday, and the doctor of the Fifth Exloërmond is out. His wife says there’s always a rush after Christmas because of all the boozing.’
‘Damn. Are they sending reinforcements?’
‘Never you mind. Just do your duty!’
The sergeant drew his pistol and ran into the corridor.
The tumult continued unabated. The walls shook.
‘Murderers! Murderers!’ yelled the SS insurgents.
Bunks and chairs were being smashed. The whole building seemed on the point of collapse.
One guard stood up and bent over Osewoudt. Then he sat down again, and said to the other guard: ‘He’s still groaning.’
The other guard rested his rifle against his knee and brought out a packet of cigarettes.
‘It’s a foul business, all the same.’
‘What did you say?’
‘A foul business! Don’t you ever read the newspaper?’
‘Not me.’
‘I believe in that boy. It’s a foul business. He knows too much, that’s why they’re letting him bleed. Dorbeck did exist, he may even still be alive, I’m convinced of that. Not that the papers tell you everything.’
Skirts flapping, Father Beer came running down the corridor.
He fell to his knees in the puddle of blood and slid one arm under Osewoudt’s head, as if he wanted to hug him.
‘Osewoudt! Osewoudt!’ he cried. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
Osewoudt’s eyes opened halfway.
‘Dorbeck knows everything. Find Dorbeck. Dorbeck must be somewhere. Dorbeck knows everything.’
‘But Osewoudt—’
‘Dorbeck must be found. The photo didn’t come out, but what does that prove? Tell Dorbeck … Ask Dorbeck …’
‘You must stay alive, Osewoudt! If Dorbeck is to be found, then you’ll have to hunt him down yourself, because no one else will find him for you!’
Osewoudt said no more and his eyes closed again.
‘Osewoudt, don’t give up! Osewoudt, can you hear me? Don’t give up! You can’t die like this. You must get away. Osewoudt, can you still hear me? You can have my cassock to escape in! What’s keeping the doctor?’
Father Beer looked about him, but saw no one apart from the guards, hunched forward as they smoked their cigarettes. They paid no attention to Father Beer; they had their eyes on the gate. With chains clanking, two armoured vehicles drove into the factory yard, their guns trained on the front of the building.
‘The bleeding must be staunched!’ cried Father Beer.
He parted the front of Osewoudt’s dressing gown and undid the buttons of the pyjama jacket. But the fingers on Father Beer’s hands numbered fewer than there were bullet holes in Osewoudt’s body.
Voorburg, May 1952
Groningen, July 1958
Postscript (1971)
I can look for him when he is not there, but not hang him when he is not there.
One might want to say: ‘But he must be somewhere there if I am looking for him.’
Then he must be somewhere there too if I don’t find him, and even if he doesn’t exist at all.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
About The Darkroom of Damocles
Widely hailed as the most important Dutch writer of the 20th century, Willem Frederick Hermans was reintroduced to the English speaking world this year with the publication of his stunning Beyond Sleep. Bookforum called it “as bright and black as anything contemporary,” and The Scotsman announced that “the world really needs Hermans.” Now, in this new translation of his epic The Darkroom of Damocles, Hermans takes on the very core of the morality of conflict.
During the German occupation of Holland, tobacconist Henri Osewoudt is visited by a man named Dorbeck. Dorbeck gives Osewoudt a series of dangerous assignments helping British agents and eliminating traitors. But the assassinations get out of hand, and when Osewoudt discovers that his wife denounced him to the Germans, he kills her too.
At the end of the war Osewoudt himself is taken for a traitor and captured. He cannot prove that he received his assignments from Dorbeck. Worse, he cannot prove that Dorbeck ever existed. It is the very impossibility of ascertaining the “right” side and the “wrong” side — the moral issue of the Second World War in a nutshell — that makes Hermans’s novel as breathtaking now as when it was written.
WILLEM FREDERICK HERMANS (1921–1995) is considered one of the most important Western European authors to emerge from the postwar period. His novels, short stories, essays, and philosophical and scientific writings represent a major body of work still undiscovered in the United States. Beyond Sleep was published by The Overlook Press in May 2007.