Will

It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Young policeman Wilfried Wils has no intention of being a hero - but war has a way of catching up with people.When his idealistic best friend draws him into the growing resistance movement, and an SS commander tries to force him into collaborating, Wilfried's loyalties become horribly, fatally torn. As the beatings, destruction and round-ups intensify across the city, he is forced into an act that will have consequences he could never have imagined.A searing portrayal of a man trying to survive amid the treachery, compromises and moral darkness of occupation, Will asks what any of us would risk to fight evil.

"A brilliant, uncomfortable exploration of the moral compromises necessary to live alongside evil" -- The Times, Historical Fiction Book of the Year

"Constantly grapples with what the ordinary man might do when faced with a horror so huge that to resist might threaten his very survival. Olyslaegers bravely explores moral compromise, betrayal and collaboration - and throws our polarised times into sharp relief." -- The Observer

"A vital and endlessly frightening question: under the cosh of an occupier, who among us would actually risk our lives or livelihoods for the sake of principle, or a fellow citizen?" -- The Guardian

"I loved this book. Will is a vivid, complex, and captivating novel about the grubby moral compromises of life under occupation" -- Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl

"A masterful book, a gripping epic, necessary and gorgeously written." -- Stefan Hertmans, author of War and Turpentine

Autorentext
David Colmer has won many prizes for his translations, including the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (precursor to the International Booker Prize), both with novelist Gerbrand Bakker. He also translated Hermans' An Untouched House for Pushkin Press.

Klappentext

It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Wilfried Wils, novice policeman and frustrated writer, has no intention of being a hero. He just wants to keep his head down; to pretend the fear and violence around him aren't happening.
But war has a way of catching up with people. When his idealistic best friend draws him into the growing resistance movement, and an SS commander tries to force him into betraying his fellow policemen, Wilfried's loyalties become horribly, fatally torn. Should he comply, or fight back? As the beatings, destruction and round-ups intensify across the city, he is forced into an act that will shatter his life and, years later, have consequences he could never have imagined.

A searing portrayal of a man trying to survive amid the treachery, compromises and moral darkness of occupation, Will asks what any of us would do to stay alive.

Leseprobe
A Sudden SnoWfAll. It reminds me of the war. Not because
of the cold or some other inconvenience, but because of
the silence that takes hold of the city. It’s coming down thick
and steady now. It’s night. I hear the sounds congealing into
a dull nothing. And then someone like me has to go out, no
matter how old he is. I know, son, everybody thinks: He’s going
to slip and break his hip. Soon he’ll be lying in a hospital bed
at St Vincent’s with his legs up in the air. And that’ll be the
end of him, laid low at last by the kind of bug they cultivate
in hospitals. It’s odd how the elderly get infected by other people’s
fear. The fear that makes them consent to being cooped
up in homes, letting themselves be fed codswallop and cold
porridge, going along with oh-bugger-off bingo nights and
submitting to a Moroccan assistant nurse with an arsewipe
in her hand. They can keep their fear. I’ve never been afraid,
not really, and nobody’s going to teach this clapped-out old
dog new tricks. Outside, the snow crunches under my boots.
No, not fancy shoes, but the old-fashioned boots I’ve stayed
true to for years, taken to the cobbler’s dozens of times and
greased almost weekly, walking boots that now allow me to
take a step back in time. The flakes are still drifting down.
Recently I saw an enlargement of one in a newspaper in the
library reading room. All one-offs, those snowflakes, beautifully
constructed mathematical worlds landing on my cap and coat.
No, I’m not going to write a poem about it. Nobody reads
them any more and I’ve run dry. The snow transforms the
city, imposing not just silence, but maybe thoughtfulness too,
remembering—on me, anyway. When it’s snowing I can see
better. As long as the snow is falling, you know what the city
really means, what it’s lost and what it’s trying to forget. The
city gives up the illusion that the past is past.
In front of me City Park is shining white. I wait and close
my eyes for a moment. The yellow light on the streets turns
blue, as blue as the tinted glass in the old gas lamps. Picture
a city with hardly any light. Faint blue light on the streets out
of fear of the fire that can fall from the skies. Those of us
lucky enough to have the use of a torch on night duty considered
light a privilege that was no business of any Germans,
war or no war. It was already dark enough, after all. I remember
the Germans being furious about their inability to get it
under control. They had to threaten insane fines and ultimately
the death penalty before people started to be a little less casual
with light. I’ve seen field gendarmes burst into spasms of rage
because we were using our torches unscreened. Sabotage!
And so on… and so forth. At the station our chief inspector
would cock an eyebrow: ‘Come on, lads… no mucking about.’
No reprimand—we had to stop mucking about, that was all.
Anyway, City Park bathed in faint blue light, that’s where we
were. But I turn right. Pacing slowly, I enter Quellin Straat.
Your great-grandfather is no longer looking at shop windows.
I see the city as she really is, a naked woman with a white
stole draped over her shoulders, the kind of woman doctors
and surgeons can’t keep their paws off: a new bosom, then a
different face. Magnificent buildings have been razed here,
office blocks put up in their place. Did you know there was
a grand hotel on the Keyser Lei corner, just near the opera
house? Built by a German before the First World War. Ever
learnt anything about Peter Benoît at school? Probably not,
and no need as far as I’m concerned. They used to teach
names and dates; nowadays they act like that was a mistake.
But nobody—not then, not now—gives you the smack on the
side of the head that history really is. A stream of filth, bastardry
that never stops, not really. It just keeps going. Peter
Benoît has become a street name. When I was at school we
almost had to go down on our knees for him. ‘He taught our
nation to sing.’ A real hero, in other words. A statue of this
once-worshipped composer stood directly opposite the opera,
surrounded by what people used to call Camille’s lido, named
after a mayor you’ve definitely never heard of, who I can only
vaguely remember myself. So the revered artist, the man who
once gave his nation singing lessons, looked out over a paddling
pool that was used as a public urinal, mostly by drunks.
The statue’s been relocated; the so-called lido was demolished
and as for that grand hotel where smart German officers
drank aperitifs with their sweethearts during the Second World
War… now it’s the site of a concrete monster that towers over
nothing much. So things we…