Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

He could not understand what was so special about it. In Mr. Spier's immaculately tidy study, with the sloping drawing board, which looked out onto the woods behind the castle, his new letter designs were pinned alphabetically on the wall: twenty-six large sheets of squared paper, each of them with a capital and small letter, which he called "upper case" and "lower case." Mr. Spier — who was always immaculately dressed when working, with a tie, coat, and pocket handkerchief — had not only told him everything about "body of type," "serif," "flag," "tail," but for a couple of days in succession had taken him by the hand and conducted him along the wall step by step, pointing to letter after letter and speaking it, and making Quinten repeat it after him. That way it was as easy as pie! At the letter 0 Mr. Spier had always raised his forefinger meaningfully. He had called his new typeface Judith, after his wife. He also designed postage stamps and banknotes, but he only did that at the printer's in Haarlem, under police guard, because that was of course top secret. Inside it always made him laugh a bit, he said; in the war, when he had had to hide because Hitler wanted to kill him, he himself had forged all kinds of things: German stamps; identity cards.

"Who's Hitler?"

"Isn't it wonderful that there are once again people who don't know. Hitler was the head of the Germans, who wanted to kill all the Jews."

"Why?"

"Because he was afraid of them."

"What are Jews?"

"Yes, well lots of people have been asking themselves that for a long time, QuQu — the Jews themselves as well. Perhaps that's why he was frightened of them. But he didn't succeed."

"So are you a Jew too?"

"You bet."

"But I'm not frightened of you." And when Mr. Spier smiled: "Am I a Jew?"

"Quite the opposite, as far as I know."

"Quite the opposite?"

"I'm just joking. Jews often do that when they talk about Jews."

"What's wrong, Quinten?" asked Sophia. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

Max could still not understand. "Why did you never tell us you could read?"

Quinten shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

"His lordship confronts us with new mysteries every day," said Sophia.

"He has a congenital defect of being highly gifted." Onno nodded. "Shall I test him again?" And then he said to Quinten, "Can you see anything funny in the name Lon Nol?"

"There's a mirror in between," said Quinten immediately.

"You can't believe your ears!" cried Max — with double joy: there could no longer be any doubt who had contributed the hereditary factors here!

"Just like. .?" Onno went on.

Quinten thought for a moment, but didn't know.

"Me," said Onno. He was going to say Ada too, but he didn't; anyway it wasn't quite right: the d in the middle was not itself symmetrical.

"Of course!" said Quinten, laughing and covered the two l 's with his two forefingers. "You're in it!"

"I'm in Lon Nol. ." repeated Onno. "If my party leader should hear, it will harm my career."

"That rhymes," said Quinten, "so it's true."

Max burst out laughing. "At last someone who takes poetry seriously."

"A while ago," Onno told them, "I was also asked to read aloud. By the P.P.S."

"What's the P.P.S.?" asked Sophia.

"Who is the P.P.S.? The permanent parliamentary secretary, the top official in the department who outlasts all the politicians — the representative of eternity."

"What did he want you to read?" asked Max.

"Everything, the whole time. Of course I wouldn't have dreamed of reading something from a piece of paper in Parliament, like the honorable members almost all do — I've always spoken my shattering truths impromptu. But he said that created bad blood, and that by doing it I was confronting them with their own bungling and they would take revenge. In his view oratorical talent was undesirable in Dutch politics — and what do you think? Since then I have deigned to put some papers in front of me, sometimes blank sheets, so that the chamber at least has the impression that I am reading from notes. Doesn't it make you want to hang yourself?"

And when Max laughed, he went on:

"Yes, you're laughing, but I'm sinking farther and farther into the morass of decline. In politics everything hinges on words. It's a disgusting world of words."

"Well, to me," said Max, "a world of words seems just the place for you."

"But not in this way. When I used to decipher texts in the dim and distant past, that consisted of actions, which were separate from the text even though I was only substituting one word for another. Can you follow me?"

"Even when everyone else has long ceased to follow you, Onno, I shall still follow you."

"But in politics the words themselves are the deeds, and that's something quite different. When you're sitting there in Westerbork and listening to the rustlings from the depths of the universe, I listen to words from early in the morning to late at night: at the ministry, in Parliament, in the coffee lounge, at party headquarters, during committee meetings, on the telephone, in the car, at cocktail parties, at dinners and receptions, and on working visits, from people who whisper something in my ear, who thrust information at me in notes, even if it's only 'Be careful of that guy' or some such thing. And I myself keep on saying all kinds of things to everyone on such occasions, and at press conferences or interviews in the paper and on television. I try to persuade, influence people. That's politics, power: it's all verbal, a continuous blizzard of words. But it's not just speaking, it's making statements. It's action; it's doing something without doing anything. Of course it's wonderful if you can change and improve things — I won't say a word against that— but the realization that it all happens like that is beginning to gnaw at me."

"Why? What could be nicer than doing things with words? Does a writer do anything else? And what about God?"

"Yes," said Onno. "Let's take God. That can never do any harm. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.' "

"Is that from the Bible?" asked Quinten.

"It certainly is! So according to St. John, the creator coincided with the word of creation, and according to the psalmist that was at the same time creation itself: 'He speaks and it is there.' God, Word, World — they're all identical. Nothing more political than Christian theology is conceivable."

"You can also turn it around, and say that it means politics are a religious matter," said Max.

"Do you know whom you're talking to? 'Government is the servant of God armed with a sword': I imbibed that with my mother's milk. It's just that the Christian dogs have never looked at it from the point of view of the philosophy of language. Anyway, that applies not just to politics. When I once said 'I do' at the town hall on your birthday, that was more of an action than a statement, or when I called that strange creature there Quinten. But I wasn't cut out for God, like you perhaps. There's a bad smell about doing things verbally without doing anything. Something that I don't like about it is a certain — how shall I say.. immoral dimension."

"Immoral dimension…" repeated Max. "That doesn't sound too good." He had to force himself not to look at Sophia — suddenly he had the feeling that Onno was really speaking about his clandestine relationship with her, but of course that was nonsense.

"The emperor Napoleon beautified Paris," said Onno, and was suddenly silent. Max nodded and waited for what came next. "King Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem."

"I expect that's from the Bible too," said Quinten.

"Everything is always from the Bible."