1

It was about half past seven in the evening. The coal stove had been purring softly, fed by a few bits of wood, and then gone out again. Anton was sitting at the table in the back room with his parents and Peter. A zinc cylinder about the size of a flowerpot was standing on a dish. A thin pipe stuck out on top, split in two like a Y, and from little holes at its tips emerged two pointed, blinding-white flames that were aimed at each other. This gadget cast a dull light through the room. Silhouetted against the deep shadows, the much -darned and -mended laundry was hung up to dry. The light also revealed mounds of unironed shirts, a box to keep the food warm, and two piles of books from his father's study: the row on the dresser to be read, the stack of novels on floor to light the emergency stove on which the cooking was done, whenever there was anything to cook. Newspapers had not appeared in months.

Except for sleeping, all daily life took place here, in what used to be the dining room. The sliding doors were kept closed. Behind them, on the street side, the living room had not been used all winter. Even in daytime its curtains remained closed against the cold, so the house looked uninhabited from the quay side.

It was January, ninteen forty-five. Almost all of Europe had been liberated and was once more rejoicing, eating, drinking, making love, and beginning to forget the War. But Haarlem looked more like one of those spent gray clinkers that they used to take out of the stove, when there had still been coal to burn.

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