The Assault

Later in 1956, Anton becomes more aware of Communism and international politics. The second half of 1956 provides much fodder for newspaper readers: “unrest in Poland, scandals within the royal family, the French and English attack on Egypt, the revolution in Hungary and the intervention of the Soviet Union, the landing of Fidel Castro in Cuba” (82). A few weeks prior to Castro’s arrival in Cuba, the Russian invasion of Budapest still echoed within Holland—mobs run rampant across the city ransacking communist targets, whose addresses are printed in the newspapers. Much unrest gathers around a building around the corner from Anton’s apartment. The building is named the Felix Meritis. It is the headquarters of the Communist Party. Protesters besiege the building, which has been boarded up. Police patrol, trying to keep the crowd under control. Anton’s street provides access to the back of the building, so people have gathered there as well, even going as far as to throw Molotov cocktails. This creates an insufferable racket for Anton, who goes out to see The Seventh Seal one night, solely to avoid the crowd.

After several nights of unrest, Anton walks home, thinking that the crowd must have disbanded. He walks past countless homes that fly flags at half-mast. When he arrives, however, the crowd at the Felix Meritis has grown larger. Just as Anton reaches the doorway, policemen in cars, motorcycles, and on horseback storm the crowd. Panic breaks out, but Anton finds himself growing incongruously calmer.

In the melee of people screaming, bleeding, running, and being trampled, Anton is possessed by a “strange indifference” (84). He contemplates going through his apartment building’s doorway, which is presently crowded by about a dozen people. He realizes that if he opens the door, the people will soon invade his hallway and apartment. He takes note of one of the men in the crowd in particular: “a big fellow whose strong back was crushing Anton against the door with all its might, but of course it only seemed that way, for the man was being crushed himself” (84). The man holds a big gray rock in his hand. Suddenly, everyone runs out of the doorway. The man turns around, looks at Anton, and says: “Hello, Ton” (85). It is Fake Ploeg Jr.

The two young men eye each other for a few seconds as the violent crowd of protesters and police shifts to the Prinsengracht canal. Without knowing exactly why, Anton invites Fake up to his apartment. When they arrive, Anton offers Fake a drink. To Anton’s horror, Fake puts the stone he was holding on the grand piano Anton had been given for his birthday. Although Fake does not slam the stone down, Anton can tell that it has scratched the piano’s lacquer. Anton pours himself a glass of wine and gives Fake a beer.

Fake tells Anton that he recognized Anton right away. Anton says that many people tell Anton that he hasn’t changed in appearance. Although he partially regrets it, Anton tells Fake that he is the perfect likeness to Fake’s father, albeit “thinner and a bit puffier” (86). Anton tells Fake that he is studying medicine. Throughout the conversation, Anton secretly “wish[es] the telephone would ring” (86) so that he could make an excuse to run out to the hospital.

Fake works for a household appliance store. When Anton asks him if he works in Haarlem, Fake looks at Anton as if he is crazy because it was completely out of the question for his family to continue living in Haarlem after the end of the war. Instead, Fake lives and works in Den Helder. When Anton asks him if he “[came] to Amsterdam just to throw stones” (87), Fake quickly replies:“Yes” (87). Although Anton could very well end the visit abruptly, he suddenly feels stubborn, “as if he [doesn’t] want Fake to think that he could get rid of him that easily” (87). When Anton asks Fake if his mother is alive, Fake answers that she is—his tone is that of an admission. Anton internally realizes that he did, indeed, mean the question as an accusation.

Fake also tells Anton that he ended up working in an appliance store because, after the war, his mother was arrested and put in a camp, and Fake was sent to a Catholic boarding school, which was connected to the Episcopal industrial school. After she was released, they were offered a place in Den Helder where no one knew them, and Fake went to trade school there. Anton asks why Fake did not return to high school instead of going to trade school, and Fake grows agitated. He explains that his mother was forced to work as a cleaning woman to support himself and his sisters and that she has just had a leg amputated, while the other has “water running out” (88) of it. Bitterly, Fake says:“We’re in the same class, your parents are shot, but you’re doing medical studies all the same, whereas my father was shot and I repair water heaters”(88).

Anton’s rejoinder is that at least Fake’s mother is still alive. He also asks Fake if there is some fundamental difference between Fake’s father’s and Anton’s parents’ deaths—namely, the fact that Anton’s parents were innocent. Fake immediately asserts that his father was also innocent. Anton tells Fake that if social injustice had indeed caused the conflict between Anton and Fake, that Fake should have been a Communist—not someone who travels to a city to throw stones at Communists. Fake, who remains calm on the surface but has a seething rage beneath his voice, tells Anton that “Communism […] is the worst” (89). He cites the Communist invasion of Budapest “where an entire people’s drive for freedom is being drowned in blood” (89) as a supporting example of his assertion. Anton tells Fake that he is no Communist either, but that he also doesn’t find it necessary to memorize headlines. Fake sarcastically tells Anton that “Doctor Steenwijk is clever enough to say it better in his own words”(89) and asks Anton if knows about “the atrocities being committed by Mongol soldiers” (89). Anton replies: “What do you mean, Fake? Has the time come now to send Mongols to the gas chamber?” (89). Fake, with a threatening look, replies: “No, you bastard!” (89).

Fake asserts that his father was always right about the Communists and that his father had made predictions about the Communists that had come true. He also tells Anton that the Communists who killed the elder Fake knew full well that reprisals would follow and that those Communists were therefore the ones who were truly responsible for the murder of Anton’s family. Anton asks Fake whether he can love his father without trying to “whitewash him” (90). He says: “Why don’t you simply say: my father was definitely a collaborator, but he was my father and I love him” (91). Anton denies that his father was a collaborator in the way that he frames it: “‘But suppose you knew for certain,’ Anton sa[ys] to his back, ‘that [your father] had done terrible things […] wouldn’t you still love him?’” (91). Fake begins pacing the room. He says that the people who threw about the term “collaborator” (90) are the same ones who now share the position against Communism which the Nazis had. He also says that his father knew nothing about the Nazi violence against Jewish people and that he was simply doing as “he was told” (91). He says: “Of course he was a Fascist, but a good one, out of conviction. Things would have to change in Holland; it shouldn’t ever go back to the way it was under Minister Colijn, when my father had to fire on workers” (91).

The stove, in which Anton has put too much oil, begins to spit. Fake, with his professional eye, remarks that it will never work—that his father became a member of the National Socialist Party in September 1944, after Mad Tuesday, when it was already clear that the Nazis would lose. He asserts that at that time, many Fascists fled to Germany, or suddenly switched sides, claiming to have been a part of the Resistance all along. He claims that his father was therefore shot for his conviction and nothing else. Anton wonders what could cause anyone to embroil themselves in such a web of lies and concludes that “love was what caused it all—love, through thick and thin” (92). He asks Fake whether his father should have been included on the memorial on the quay as well.

Then, suddenly, Fake begins sobbing. He asks Anton whether he ever considered that, as Anton’s house went up in flames, Fake’s own family received the news that his father was dead. Anton grabs the stone from the piano and hurls it at an antique mirror that hangs on Anton’s wall. The mirror shatters into many shards, and immediately afterwards, the lid of the stove blows off and releases a cloud of soot. Fake runs down the stairs but returns to tell Anton that he will never forget the time that Anton came into the classroom when they were young and defused their former teacher’s response to Fake’s Nazi Youth uniform. Fake then leaves the building fully.

Anton “read[s] a fragment on a strip of newspaper still sticking to the wooden back of the mirror” (94), written in Italian. It translates to: “On the second of July 1854. Celebrated with sacred ceremony at the Church of Blessed Mary of Perpetual Help” (94). He muses that this is “one more thing he would never have found out if it hadn’t been for Fake” (94).