Willem Hermans - The Darkroom of Damocles

Osewoudt leaned into the car, grabbed Krügener by the arm and dragged him away from the driver’s seat. Then he slammed the passenger door, went round to the other side of the car and got in behind the wheel. He put the key in the ignition and started. The engine made a hollow, scraping noise like an empty coffee mill, but did not fire.

A boy shouted: ‘Look at her! Wants a roll in the hay with a Kraut while she’s got the chance!’

Again Osewoudt tried to start the car.

‘See that? She’s covered in blood!’ the boy jeered.

Laughing hysterically, Krügener tried to lay his arm around Osewoudt’s shoulders. Osewoudt shook it off and pressed the starter again. This time the engine responded. Osewoudt put it in gear. Jolting and grinding, he nosed the car through the crowd. The street widened. The door of the chemist’s opened and a woman came out, but he didn’t recognise her.

He looked at the sleeves and the front of his coat. On the dark fabric the stains were simply darker, not red. His left hand was sticky. He let go of the steering wheel and wiped his bloody fingers on the edge of the seat.

The posts supporting the tram wires flashed past. The sun beamed into the car at right angles to the direction they were going. The houses along the road thinned out, making way for the sprawl of glasshouses.

A furious screeching noise arose, and not far off a huge rocket shot up into the sky, swerved away in the direction of England, and dwindled to a glowing spark.

‘Got no more to drink,’ Krügener whined. ‘And I asked you to get us a glass, too.’

Osewoudt pressed the accelerator to the floor, but the small car would not do more than forty kilometres per hour.

‘The glass must’ve broken,’ said Krügener. ‘You’ve cut yourself, you’ve got blood all over you. Don’t think I didn’t notice, my poor darling.’

He laid a slimy hand on Osewoudt’s cheek.

Osewoudt’s right hand let go of the wheel, clenched in midair to a fist, and landed a blow under Krügener’s chin, on the soft part of his throat.

Not a sound came out of Krügener after that. Osewoudt, tight-lipped, glanced at him from time to time. Krügener’s eyes were shut, but he was not unconscious.

He had to stay alive. When would they be stopped at a checkpoint? There was bound to be one at the tunnel under the river in Rotterdam, in which case Krügener might come in useful.

The car drove through Voorburg, but nothing happened. Nor did anything happen in Delft. By the time he reached the outskirts of Rotterdam it was growing dark. He switched on the headlamps, but they were largely blacked out with leather flaps and shed practically no light.

It was long past eight o’clock, the streets were deserted.

He felt no excitement or fear as he approached the tunnel, but the sentries didn’t even come out of their boxes. Without having to stop he rolled into the tunnel, which was unlit.

Once he left Rotterdam behind, the condition of the road worsened. It was badly rutted by tanks and heavy vehicles, and he was forced to drive even more slowly than before.

When they reached Dordrecht night had fallen. In the distance he saw a church. Osewoudt stopped at the side of the road a few hundred metres short of the church.

Krügener began to stir. He pulled in his legs and sat up. He gave a cry, threw both his arms around Osewoudt and tried to kiss him on the mouth. With his hands he fumbled under the veil at the back of Osewoudt’s neck.

‘Oh my darling,’ he gushed. ‘You are the first. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get any girls. But I’ve never felt so attracted to a woman as I am now, to you!’

He was almost sitting upright, bracing himself with one leg while kneeling on the passenger seat with the other. That way he loomed over Osewoudt in the low space.

‘You are my angel,’ stammered Krügener. ‘My angel of deliverance! You are the first woman I have ever kissed! And I thought women meant nothing to me! How could I have been so mistaken! Give me your lips, my darling!’

Now Osewoudt managed to free his right arm. He put his hand in his coat pocket and found the knife. He butted his forehead like a ram, but couldn’t prevent Krügener’s lips from brushing his eyelids.

‘Ouch!’ gasped Krügener suddenly, recoiling. ‘My back! A stabbing pain in my back!’

His embrace went limp.

‘Oh! My back! My back!’ he groaned. He reared up so high that the back of his head hit the roof of the car. His eyes boggled. His leg slid off the seat, his knees buckled. He tried reaching his arm behind his back to find the source of the pain, but the arm appeared to be paralysed. Osewoudt shoved him down into the space beside the steering wheel, where he remained, crumpled up. The knife stuck out of his back.

As Osewoudt made his way to the church, an artillery duel exploded on the horizon. White flames lit up the low bank of cloud.

The church was closed. Osewoudt walked around the building. With the pounding of field guns in his ears, he rang the bell at the rectory.

The priest himself answered the door.

‘Help me,’ Osewoudt implored. ‘Over there, in that car there’s a German, and he’s dying! Help me, please, he tried to rape me!’

It was a cloudless morning. A flock of chickens ventured on to the road and fled squawking into the bushes as the old car approached.

‘Will it be long now before the orchards begin to blossom?’ Osewoudt asked.

‘Not long now, I think. It’s a good thing this last winter wasn’t too severe.’

Dr Sikkens was in his forties. He wore rimless glasses and his sunken cheeks were hurriedly but closely shaven. He was at the wheel in a short duffel coat, the sort of coat doctors find convenient for getting in and out of their cars quickly. He also wore driving gloves, and spread a reassuring smell of coal tar. ‘I’m run off my feet,’ he said. ‘I was called out twice last night. In all these years I haven’t had a holiday, and the winters were the worst. It was bad enough with the war going on, but such hard winters! On the other hand, take the winter of ’42. If that one hadn’t been so cold, the Germans might have held out even longer.’

‘Exactly,’ Osewoudt said heartily. ‘But if we’d had some more freezing temperatures last winter, the Allies might have been able reach us up north by crossing the rivers over the ice. If they had, we’d have been liberated by now.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ve had an easy time of it either, Sister!’

Osewoudt smiled, pouted, but kept quiet.

‘When it comes down to it, nursing is an even more demanding profession than being a doctor. I can’t think where women like you get the energy. It never ceases to amaze me. I used to know a district nurse over there,’ said the doctor, pointing to a distant church steeple to the left of the road. ‘She worked until she dropped — literally! In the middle of the road. That was last year, a week before the Canadians arrived. Damn …’

He stepped on the brake.

A large sign made of rough planks stood in the verge. The wood had been painted black, with large white letters saying STOP.

Five foreign-looking soldiers stood guard beside it. Their helmets had mesh covering with dried twigs sticking out. They wore baggy fatigues with straps and belts, from which dangled all manner of metal equipment. Each of them held an automatic weapon under his arm.

One of them stepped out into the road. He seemed to recognise the car as the doctor’s, and motioned it on with a raised thumb. Two others noticed Osewoudt in the passenger seat, put their fingers between their lips and whistled. The car set off again.

There were shouts of ‘Hey! Hey! Hey!’ as they passed the checkpoint.

‘Our liberators seem very glad to see you!’ said Dr Sikkens, accelerating. ‘Is anything wrong? Not feeling carsick are you?’