‘If this can happen…’ runs through my head like a taunting refrain. ‘If all this can happen, if men in uniform can stomp on children, punch women in the face, almost cripple civilians as they beat them into removals trucks marked with one of our names, a Flemish name… If all this can happen… With us standing here as what?… As relief workers in an inverted world where white is black, during a night that has been lit up as hellish day, like nurses assisting uniformed German-speaking doctors who are combating some kind of human virus with kicks and blows, bellowing and roaring threats at the weeping, the howling and the soiled pants of so many, with blood and puke and shit on the street… If all this can happen, can’t anything? Can’t anything?’
The Germans are keeping a section of Plantin en Moretus Lei shut off. Lode and I have been ordered to report off duty and go the other way, following Provincie Straat, then turning left behind the zoo to get back to the station.
‘What I don’t get,’ I say, ‘is that they are all so…’
‘What?’
‘Do you remember that time in the snow?’
‘Which time?’
‘When we had to march that Jewish family to Van Diepenbeek Straat. We just passed their house. It looks like it’s still empty.’
Lode looks back and stops abruptly. ‘What are you bringing that up for?’
‘Because it’s so—’
‘Give me a cigarette.’
I reach for my pack, shake out two and light them both. We smoke in silence for a while.
‘I never told you this, Will, but—’
‘You knew that fellow, didn’t you?’
Lode shakes his head. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I saw it on your face.’
‘Chaim Lizke is in the diamond trade. A cutter. He’s a strange bird, a real fixer. Our dad got to know some of those blokes a couple of years before the war, when a lot of them fled here. He used to go to Pelikaan Straat sometimes for a coffee on his days off, close to the diamond bourse. Everybody there knew Lizke. So did I. He even came to ours sometimes. Understand? This has to stay between us. You know what it’s like at a butcher’s. Our dad had lots of cash, war was coming… A man like my father always looks ahead. Do you follow me?’
Now I shake my head.
‘We bought diamonds. Lizke had contacts. Our dad gave him a percentage.’
‘And we helped pick him and his family up…’
‘I almost had a heart attack, believe you me.’
*
After we’ve reported off duty at the Vesting Straat station and nodded goodbye to each other, I start walking home. It’s getting light. In Oosten Straat I see two constables from the seventh division, which has been keeping a permanent watch over the synagogue since last year’s riots to protect it from damage. They undoubtedly recognize me, but give no sign of it. Just to be contrary, I wave. No reaction. The building remains unharmed on the mayor’s orders; sleep tight.
The dawning day is a Sunday. Normally I would see Yvette, but I have no desire to bump into Lode, who also has the day off, and I presume he feels the same way. The streets are quiet—too quiet—even for a Sunday. I walk to the Jewish bakery in Provincie Straat. As if a vengeful god is trying to prove a point, it’s open and serving a long queue. Across the road and just half a block away, Bleekhof Straat looks like a shut-down flea market, with items of clothing and broken glass everywhere. Some of the front doors are still wide open. In the queue, people hardly speak as they shuffle forward. Someone says he didn’t sleep a wink with all the racket, but he’s looking at the toes of his shoes. A bony woman thinks someone’s pushed in front of her. She raises a finger. ‘I’m next!’ The baker’s wife looks up in fright. What everyone knows remains unspoken, even as a whispered question between the brave. How much longer will these two be baking our bread? Not long, if I remember rightly. A week or two, I think, at most. Someone is gently tugging on my coat. I turn around. It’s my Aunty Emma, who works as a maid for a Jewish family on Van den Nest Lei.
‘It was quite something…’ she whispers.
‘And?’
She shakes her head. ‘They took them away. The children too. So sad.’
I start to ask how she’s coping, but she squeezes my arm. ‘Not here, lad, not here.’
Gaston doesn’t want to make a fuss about it, but he’s heard that I’ve been seen in the White Raven.
‘Whoever saw me was there too.’
‘That’s another way of looking at it.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘People are saying you’re a quisling. But I—’
‘Don’t want to make a fuss about it.’
‘In any shape or form.’
‘Who’s not a quisling round here!’ I shout down the corridor. A couple of fellow officers look around.
‘If you want to keep me as your partner, take it easy,’ Gaston hisses. Even before I’ve had time to answer Gus Skew appears out of nowhere, reeking of stout as always, and grabs me by the neck. With one hand he lifts me up against the wall. My feet are dangling just above the ground.
‘Gus, let him go…’ I see other policemen holding Gaston back. Gus’s grip tightens. Helplessly I claw at his face. Gus’s knee shoots up between my legs. The intense pain has stars exploding in my head. ‘Don’t piss yourself,’ I think. ‘Don’t piss yourself.’ Just behind Gus, closer to the door, I see the Finger’s ant-eater snout. He’s laughing, teeth bared, something he probably doesn’t do very often. Helpless and furious, I clench my fists. Angelo shows me him begging for mercy with shit in his pants and snot
