Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

It was apparent in all kinds of ways that Onno was now in the position of highest authority in the clan: compared with the deceased, of course, a mere nothing — a lowly minister of state — but the deceased was dead. People moved aside, the governor shook his hand, the public prosecutor looked deep into his eyes. He kissed Dol and put an arm around his mother's shoulders as she sat in a wheelchair. She began crying when she saw him. Then, holding Quinten by the hand, he went into the front room, where candles were burning and there was the stifling smell of piles of flowers. The old Quist, after a life devoted to queen and fatherland, lay in state next to the lectern with the huge, open Authorized Version.

Quinten started. He was actually lying in a box —they had put Granddad in a box! His face, which lay on the satin cushion, had changed beyond recognition. He remembered the full, heavy, powerful face, which still had something good-natured about it. Now suddenly the marble statue of a bird of prey was lying there, a fanatical hawk, like he had seen a few times swooping as the flapping doom of a field mouse. There were strange blotches on the skin of his forehead and temples; something was gleaming between his lips, as though they'd been stuck together with glue.

"Is that really Granddad?" he whispered.

"No," said Onno. "Granddad doesn't exist anymore."

On the other side of the coffin, his sister Trees shot him a reproachful look. "Granddad has left this earthly life for eternity," she said to Quinten.

He looked agog at the motionless contents of the coffin, without understanding what he saw. Something impossible was lying there. Everything that he had seen up to now in his life had been possible, because it was there; but now there was something lying there that couldn't possibly be seen and that he still saw. It was Granddad and it wasn't Granddad!

Trees suddenly began reading quietly from the open Bible: " 'And he saith unto him: Verily, verily I say unto you: hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.' "

Quinten looked at her in astonishment, and at the same time saw the thin, winding line of ants climbing and descending up the doors of the sink when sugar had been spilled.

Onno had to control himself not to snap at her that she herself definitely preferred the social ladder to that of Jacob; that insufferable reading aloud was of course only apparently intended for Quinten.

A little later six men in black appeared, with a lid. Quinten saw Granny To, supported by Uncle Diederic, place a last kiss on Granddad's forehead, after which the lid was lifted over the coffin. He saw the shadow fall across Granddad's face and bent his knees a little to catch the very last glimpse; at the moment that it disappeared in the darkness and wood struck wood, he heard a deep sob escape from Onno's breast, like an animal that had been imprisoned and was now finally set free. He looked at him and took his hand — and when Onno felt the small hand in his, it was as if he were his son's son.

Quinten shivered for a moment when he suddenly saw the long line of large, black limousines all waiting outside. Across the street neighbors with their arms folded watched who came out of the mansion; the police had also appeared. Two motorcycle policemen at the head of the cortege, one boot on the road, looked coolly ahead with engines running as if they owned death.

The coffin was slid into the first car, the flowers and wreaths into the following two cars. On the instructions of a balding man with papers in his hands who was leaping back and forth, Quinten was allotted his place in the third following car, on a folding chair opposite Sophia, Diederic's son Hans, now ambassador in Liberia, and Hadewych; Onno had sat next to the chauffeur. They drove to Wassenaar at an otherworldly pace, with saluting policemen at every junction. At a church in the center of the village, where spectators were kept at a distance by crowd barriers, there were many large cars already parked; except for a television news team, photographers, chauffeurs, and large numbers of police, there were in fact few people to be seen. Organ music sounded from the open doors, but shortly afterward stopped.

When Quinten went inside, he was overwhelmed by the fullness and at the same time silence. Everyone in the packed church had stood up. The first two rows were empty; as he went to the pew the man with the papers directed them to, in the middle of the second row he saw the gray-haired queen standing in the middle of the third row. Not only had she turned her gaze on him, it was as though everyone were looking at him; but he had gradually gotten used to the fact that the whole world found him beautiful.

With the queen just behind him and Granny To just in front in her wheelchair, he heard the vicar and the psalms and songs, but he didn't listen. He hadn't thought about it for quite some time, but the queen was of course not his mother, because not only was she not sleeping, she was also far too old; apart from that, she had not given any sign of recognition. On one side of him sat Granny Sophia, on the other side Rudy from Rotterdam, the same age as himself. With one finger Rudy kept an elastic band pressed against his thigh which he kept stretching and letting go of with his other hand — until Paula, his mother, suddenly took it from him.

When it was finally over and he was walking behind the coffin between Onno and Sophia, along a narrow path between the graves, Quinten suddenly asked:

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Why wasn't Mommy in that big advertisement in the paper?"

Onno looked at him and didn't know immediately what to answer. He had thought long and hard about it and talked to Helga and Dol about it. Both of them thought that Ada should be included, even if she was unreachable; but in his view she was not "unreachable," because that implied the possibility of her being reached, and that simply didn't exist. Could you say of a vegetable that it was "unreachable"? His sister had called that "playing with words," but he had retorted that he obviously had a different view of both words and play. Only his mother-in-law had agreed with him; no one had thought of Quinten. Flustered, Onno glanced at Sophia. It was the second time in his life that Quinten had said something about Ada.

"We mustn't disturb Mama at all." He heard it coming from his own mouth, realizing at once that it contradicted his real motive.

"Will she wake up otherwise?"

Onno looked at Sophia, appealing for help.

"No, darling," she said. "She can't do that ever again."

Quinten nodded without saying anything.

The old village cemetery was far too small to fit everybody. When they stood in a semicircle around the grave, the queen now hand in hand with Granny To, the stationary line still wound its way back along the paths into the church. Many people were carrying bouquets — still more flowers: why flowers, of all things? Wouldn't stones be far better? While the prime minister outlined the inestimable services the deceased had rendered to the country, Quinten looked at the coffin with his hand in Onno's. It was flanked by the six men in black; against the wall of the cemetery, four ancient gentlemen stood in line, each with a colored ribbon in his buttonhole. Between the pine branches he saw the darkness of the hole into which Granddad would soon disappear forever.

"Daddy?" he whispered, when the prime minister had finished. He looked up: only then did he see that Onno's cheeks were covered in tears. He did not dare ask anything else, but Onno said in a hoarse voice:

"Yes?"

"I'd really like to see Mama."

Onno closed his eyes and nodded in silence.

At the age of four he had first said something about his mother; now he was almost twice as old. He did not even know anything about the accident; he also appeared to have forgotten that Ada's photograph was on the mantelpiece — no one had ever seen him looking at it. Everyone agreed that he should only go to see his mother accompanied by his father. A week later Onno got Mrs. Siliakus to cancel an appointment with Philips Laboratories; then she called the nursing home and on behalf of the minister of state requested that the drip feed be removed from Ada's nose temporarily the following afternoon. Although he still had very little time, he picked up Quinten from the castle, after which they drove at a hundred miles an hour down the provincial highway to Emmen. He still had a discussion with the management of the gas union in Groingen on his schedule; that evening he had to attend a state banquet in The Hague in honor of an African president whose name he had forgotten — without Helga, because concubines were not welcome at court.