Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

They were approaching forty now, but they no longer celebrated their joint conception on the day of the Reichstag fire, because that was also the day of Ada's accident and her father's death. Helga sometimes accompanied Onno to official receptions or dinners, although she usually did not feel like it, so he had to pester her first. But that endeared her to him; it proved that she did not care about the dubious glamour of his position but about him.

Sophia's mother was also at Groot Rechteren. Onno had greeted Quinten by putting his hand on his crown, raising his eyes heavenward, and saying, "A wise son gladdens his father's heart." Precisely because he in fact no longer thought of Quinten when there was no reason, he did not really know what sort of tone to take with him. During lunch in the kitchen— fried eggs with ham, milk, fruit, everything local — Max sat like a paterfamilias opposite Sophia at the short end of the table; on his right sat old Mrs. Haken and Onno, on his left Helga with Quinten. The driver had also been invited, but he preferred to stay on the forecourt and eat the sandwiches he had brought.

"A Christian Democrat who knows his place," Onno had said. "The real mechanisms of oppression are not outside human beings but in them — and that's just as well. Recently far too many of them have disappeared, and we shall pay for it yet."

"Well, well," said Max. "Strong language for a progressive politician."

"External behavior without inner behavior is not possible. That cannot be replaced by the police — you'd need two policemen per individual for that: one for the day and one for the night. But who would guard the police, then?"

"What would you say to God?" asked Max, laughing. And then he said to Helga, "Is your companion really becoming such a reactionary?"

Before she could answer, Onno said: "It's all far more hopeless than you lot think. But please don't let's talk about it, because then I'd prefer to go."

Suddenly Max heard a tone in his voice that he didn't recognize.

"Are you leaving already?" asked Mrs. Haken. "You've only just come."

"No, Granny. I'm staying for a little while."

Helga inquired about Max's work. He knew that she did this out of politeness; he still had the same stiff relationship with her. Obviously she would never forgive him for the role that he had played in her life — first when without realizing it he had broken up her relationship with Onno, and then when he had restored it, again without realizing it. When he had first heard that they were back together again, thanks to the landing on the moon, he had a momentary feeling that nothing had changed; but he only had to look at Quinten and Sophia to see that this was not the case.

Westerbork, he said, was operating better than expected; all his colleagues throughout the world envied him the research he was able to do. In reply to a question from Onno, he said that after all kinds of violent evictions and conflicts with the police, the last Ambonese family had gone; there were scarcely any reminders left of the Schattenberg estate, and hence of the transit camp at Westerbork. In order to prevent their return — that is, the return of the Moluccans — all the huts had been demolished; the barrier had also gone. Against his will, by the way, but the survivors wanted it, so what else could he do? Even the rails had been removed; only a rotten buffer was still there. He had, however, thought of something for the last Day of Commemoration, on the eve of the fourth of May; a couple of hundred visitors always came then. He had devised a small computer program that caused all twelve mirrors to bend meekly toward the ground, which happened down to the thousandth of a second at eight o'clock; they stayed in that position for the two minutes' silence and then turned heavenward again.

"One does what one can," he said, and lowered his eyes for an instant. "Only the house of the former German camp commandant is still standing. Strange, isn't it? The widow of the military commandant from shortly after the war still lives there. Would you like to hear a nice story? A few weeks ago there was a sudden power cut, so we immediately switched over to the emergency generator; a little later we heard her trotting up to the terminal. She had a package in plastic wrap in her hands: she asked if she could leave it in our tridge for a while. It turned out to be her husband's evening meal— beefsteak, roast potatoes, and peas — that she had made for him twenty years before, that he had not been able to eat, because he had suddenly died of a heart attack."

"Right!" cried Onno to Helga, shaking his knife over his head. "That is love! Take a leaf out of her book."

Quinten knelt on his chair and looked at his father open-mouthed as if at a fireworks display.

When Onno saw the expression on his face, he said: "Yes, my son, it leaves you speechless. Even if love can no longer find its way to a man's heart through his stomach, it still transcends death! Why don't you say something, you scamp? When I was your age I was already reading Tacitus."

"Onno. ." said Sophia reproachfully. "He understands more than you think."

After lunch, while Helga stayed behind with Quinten, they went to see Ada — Onno, being the largest, sat next to the driver; Max was wedged between Sophia and her mother on the backseat, with arms folded. On the way Mrs. Haken asked when they were going to tell Quinten what had happened to his mother.

"Maybe never," said Onno at once, without turning his head. Whereupon he turned around after all and said to Sophia, "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry about. Don't worry, one day he'll suddenly be able to talk, I'm sure of it." And to her mother: "Of course he mustn't be allowed to think for a moment that I'm his mother and Max his father. He must know how things stand immediately. Isn't that so?"

"Of course," said Max. He now saw clearly the gray hairs that had appeared here and there in her hair. He was sitting closer to her than he ever did during the day, and at night it was dark. "Just imagine."

"And when do you plan to let him see Ada for the first time?" asked Mrs. Haken.

"Onno must decide that."

"No, you must decide," said Onno. "You know him best. It all depends on what kind of boy he turns into, because it will be a dreadful shock of course. When he's six? Ten? What do you think, Max?"

"I think we'll know precisely when the moment comes."

"Probably true."

"By the way, do you know," asked Sophia, "who still visit her a couple of times a year? Marijke and Bruno. They got married."

No one said anything else. Everyone sensed the same thought in the others: would she survive for years? Would she have to go on living for years? And if she suddenly died — should Quinten never have seen her, even if she was doing nothing but breathing?

The nursing home — called Joy Court by sardonic civil servants from the health department — was in a new building in a new street on the outskirts of Emmen. It was built in the same modern nonstyle as the room in which Oswald Brons had descended into the flames, with brick interior walls that looked like exterior walls, so that although one was inside, one constantly had the impulse to go inside.

"Even architects leave people out in the cold these days," said Max.

Onno agreed with him: "It's hopeless. Architects are peace criminals. The end is nigh."

Ada lay in a small room on the second floor, with a view of a paved courtyard. They gathered silently around the bed; a chair was pulled up for Mrs. Haken, whose eyes filled with tears. Here they were, thought Max:

Quinten's great-grandmother, his grandmother, his mother, and his father, too, in any case. Ada had changed again, but it was difficult to say what had actually changed. It was like when you had bought a new book and put it in the bookcase unread: when you took it out for the first time after a few years, it wasn't new anymore, although nothing demonstrable had changed. It had not renewed itself; it had not moved with the times. There she lay, her head turned to one side on the pillow, and she did not even know that she had a son with unworldly blue eyes, let alone that the Russians had occupied Prague, that the Americans were now destroying Cambodia too, and that her husband was an alderman for Amsterdam.