The Assault: Last Episode: 1981, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The narrator muses on the idea of looking toward the future. Because nothing exists in the future, someone who looks toward the future rather than toward what exists in the past looks toward “the void.” Anton “st[ands] with his back to the future and his face toward the past.”

By 1968, Anton and Saskia have divorced. Anton marries an art history student named Liesbeth. Liesbeth’s father, who was a colonial administrator, was placed in a Japanese concentration camp in the Dutch East Indies. Liesbeth was born after her parents returned to Holland. A year after Liesbeth and Anton married, they have a son named Peter. Anton sometimes muses on the fact that Peter was farther removed from World War II than he himself was from World War I.

Anton and his family spend their summers in Tuscany in a house he bought there. Anton initially fell in love with the house because of how it reminded him of eras past, like Roman antiquity and the Renaissance. Anton also owns a weekend home on a farm. Saskia, who  remarried a man with a child from a previous marriage,  and Sandra also use the weekend home and the Tuscany home. Anton, Liesbeth, Saskia, and Saskia’s second husband sometimes vacation together with all three children.

Anton’s migraines diminished as he aged, but he began to develop depression and anxiety in his 40s. One day in Italy, Anton suddenly has a panic attack after seeing a table lighter with dice markings. In that moment, the house he loved so much becomes a collection of images that disturb him, such as the cypresses that remind him of “flames of black fire.” When Liesbeth comes home to find him trembling, she calls the doctor, who gives him a tranquilizer and a prescription for Valium. Anton tears up the prescription, knowing that if he started taking tranquilizers he would never stop. Anton’s panic symptoms ease after that, but his Tuscany home never feels perfect to him again.

As Anton continues to age, he begins to see the merit of speech cliches such as “what’s done cannot be undone.” Eventually, his aunt dies. So does De Graaff, and Anton sees some of the same people at the funeral as he had that day at the funeral in 1966. Cor does not attend, but Anton and Cor’s other acquaintances assume he is still alive.

When Sandra is 16, she tells her father that she wants to see the place where her grandfather, grandmother, and uncle died. Though Saskia and Liesbeth think this is a bad idea, Anton drives Sandra to Haarlem. When they arrive at the spot where his home was, Anton laughs at the modern house that now stands there, with a “For Sale” sign in front of it. He looks around the neighborhood and notices other changes. A man comes out of the house where Anton’s house once stood and asks if they would like to look. Anton and Sandra look around and then walk to the monument. As Sandra looks at her family’s names, Anton understands that she will never be able to quite comprehend what happened. Anton sees the name J. Takes, Cor’s brother who also died that night.

Anton and Sandra sit at a restaurant later, and Anton tells her about Truus Coster. Sandra asks why he speaks so warmly of Truus, who was indirectly the cause of his parents’ death. Anton disagrees with this, saying that “everyone did what he did, and not anything else.” In that moment, he realizes that that is essentially what Truus had told him in the cell. He suddenly begins to remember more of his conversation with Truus. Sandra suggests they go visit her grave. Once at the gravesite, Sandra lays a rose on the gravestone.

Two years later, Anton sees Cor Takes on television. He does not recognize him before he sees his name, which is accompanied with the label “Resistance Fighter.” Cor says, “The whole thing was one big mess. I really don’t want to hear any more about it.” However, Anton often sees a truck driving around that says “Fake Ploeg Sanitation Inc.”