The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans Page A

Osewoudt had lost it, or even deliberately destroyed it.
    â€˜So what in God’s name have you been doing with that Leica? Oh well, it’s none of my business.’ His voice tailed off. ‘Rank amateur,’ Osewoudt heard him mutter. Labare stood up with a sigh, then spoke out loud again: ‘And is that Summar the only extra attachment you’ve got? No ninety-millimetre lens?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜You obviously have a lot to learn. Follow me.’
    Halfway down the stairs to the basement Labare stopped abruptly.
    â€˜Take a look behind you, Melgers.’
    Osewoudt turned to look.
    â€˜See that rope?’
    Osewoudt saw the rope.
    â€˜If you pull that rope a whole contraption of iron bars comes down behind the door, a kind of grating, but much heftier. So anyone wanting to force the door from the outside has a hard time of it. That’s what it’s for, understand? No, don’t pull the rope now, because once the bars are down it takes more than one man to get them up again. More than two, in fact. The windows in the basement are heavily barricaded too. So that could get very nasty.’
    Labare went on down the stairs. ‘Very nasty,’ he repeated. At the foot of the stairs he stopped again, thereby obliging Osewoudt to remain standing one step up. Labare said: ‘As you can see, it’s very cramped here. We have to make the best of what little space we have. So we knocked up all these cubicles from hardboard. What’s in those cubicles and what goes on there is none of your business. None. What would be the pointof you knowing, anyway? It never does anyone any good to know about things that are none of their business. No good at all, especially not with the tricky kind of work we do here.’
    He began to wriggle his way into one of the narrow passages between the board partitions.
    â€˜Getting around is a bit of a squeeze for me, but it won’t be a problem for a small chap like you. I’ll take you to where you’ll be working, and then I’ll show you where the emergency exit is, too.’
    Osewoudt walked, or rather sidled, behind Labare. The passage became so narrow that it was impossible to advance by putting one foot in front of the other in the normal manner. Moving sideways, scraping between the partitions, they came to a black curtain no wider than the passage.
    â€˜You will have noticed,’ said Labare, ‘that every light bulb has a smaller one beside it that isn’t switched on.’ He pointed to the ceiling. ‘Emergency lighting, in case the current fails. We’ve thought of everything. No messing about here.’
    He pushed the curtain aside, took a step forwards and then stopped to hold it open for Osewoudt. Osewoudt looked past him.
    The cubicle beyond the curtain was painted black all over: ceiling, floor, walls and even shelves, which were stacked with canisters and brown bottles. There was no window, not even a boarded-up window, but there was a small washbasin and a folding bed.
    â€˜In here,’ said Labare, ‘is where you’ll be doing most of your work. I might as well explain right away. This is the darkroom. Nothing like a darkroom for shedding light, eh? Now don’t go thinking that the things that come to light are any business of yours, just concentrate on making it happen. You can do it with your eyes shut, in a manner of speaking.’
    He reached for a black ebonite container rather like a jamjar, but slightly wider and not as tall. He removed the cover and took out a reel.
    â€˜This thing is your developing tank. Unfortunately it’s the only one we have, so you can’t develop more than one film at a time, and developing plus washing takes a full hour. All those boxes contain films that need developing. There must be about eighty, as there’s been nobody to process them for the past fortnight or so and new films come in every day. We have a huge amount of