E-Book, Englisch, 416 Seiten
Hermans The Darkroom of Damocles
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78227-625-8
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
'A great writer' JONATHAN FRANZEN
E-Book, Englisch, 416 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-78227-625-8
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Willem Frederik Hermans (1921-1995) was one of the most prolific and versatile Dutch authors of the twentieth century. In 1977 he received the Dutch Literature Prize-the most prestigious literary prize in the Netherlands and Belgium. He is considered one of the three most important authors in theNetherlands in the postwar period. Hermans' An Untouched House was published by Pushkin Press in 2016 to rave reviews. The Darkroom of Damocles and Beyond Sleep are also available from Pushkin Press.
Weitere Infos & 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...
