Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

Suddenly there are buildings everywhere: the universe has been transformed into a single architectural complex, without beginning or end. Nowhere is there a living being to be seen. Completely alone, but without a feeling of loneliness, he wanders around through a limitless series of rooms, colonnades, staircases, galleries, alcoves, pillars, footbridges, doorways, vaults, which extend in all directions — past pompous facades covered with statues and ornaments that reveal themselves as interior walls, through cellars that at the same time are lofts, across roofs that at the same time are like foundations. Because the interior has no exterior, no daylight can penetrate anywhere; but even though there are no lamps lit, it is not dark. And although he does not meet anyone and it is not clear either where he has come from or where he is going, wandering through the dimly lit world edifice fills him with happiness: all that material built, joined together, piled on top of itself, spreads out and envelops and encloses him like a bath filled with warm honey. Everywhere there is a total silence; only now and then is there a momentary swishing sound, which reminds him of the wingbeats of a large bird. Suddenly he is standing in front of a closed double door made of ancient wood, decorated with diamond-shaped patterns made of iron. It is bolted with a heavy, rusty sliding padlock, as large as a loaf. The menacing look of that device overwhelms him with dismay. It is as though the door is looking at him, and at the same moment he hears a hoarse voice saying — The center of the world. The words sound calm, like when someone says "Nice day today" — but at the same time they flood him with such a sulfurous fear of death; he knows there is only one way of saving his life: waking up..

Trembling, bathed in sweat, he opened his eyes, but the terror did not subside. He sat up and did not know where he was. The complete darkness surrounded him as if the universe suddenly contained nothing else but him. He put out his hand and felt a wall after all; he got out of bed. Breathing heavily and groping around, he found a door, but on the other side it was just as dark and silent; at his wit's end he took a couple of steps, brushed a wall with the palm of his hand, bumped into something, felt it without recognizing it, left it, and turned on his heel. Where was he? Again he took a couple of steps. He stubbed his toe on a threshold and stopped with his eyes wide open. Suddenly, without wanting to, he gave a loud scream.

Immediately afterward, he heard Sophia's voice in the distance: "Quinten! What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare? Wait, I'm coming. ."

After she had closed the bedroom door behind her, a strip of light appeared under the threshold. Max folded his hands under his head and stared up into the darkness. This was the end. It was bound to happen one night: and here it was. She would no longer appear in his bed. In itself there was no reason, because why should a grandmother not have an affair with her son-in-law's friend? But Quinten must not know, because then he might mention it to both of them during the day, and that was of course unacceptable.

He listened to the voices in Sophia's bedroom. Quinten was of course in bed with her now, and a great sense of calm came over Max. In fact he had expected it much earlier. He was now almost forty-two; she, fifty-two: it had lasted seven years — a long time. Their affair had had the character of a mystery, a completely new alternative alongside the classical family of father, mother, and child, without displacing the family.

During the day he had been the only man in the world who was the head of a family without quarrels, consisting of his friend's child and mother-in-law, to whom he was bound by no sexual ties; but at night he was her lover. Depending on the position of the sun, everyone was someone else — except the child. He remained simply his friend's child — although he had even doubted that for a long time. "For you everything is always something else," Onno had once said to him. Nothing in his life was what it seemed. Even the fact that he "studied stars" actually meant something different to him since he had been working in Westerbork.

What were they going to do now? The foundation of his relationship with Sophia had been removed, but the task he had undertaken of course remained unchanged: there was no question of his leaving as long as Quinten was in the house — and that could be another ten years. By that time he would be fifty-two.

For Onno, too, a moment came when everything suddenly changed again. In March 1977 the coalition government fell and new elections were held, in which his party was the great winner: that probably meant there was a ministry in prospect for him. But at the eleventh hour, after the longest political birth pangs ever known in Holland, nine months, the Christian Democrats opted for the Conservatives rather than the Socialists as partners, and overnight he was out of a job.

After handing over his powers at the ministry to his successor and receiving his decoration, he was offered the opportunity of being taken home one last time in the official car, but declined. "Decent people travel on the train," he said with insolent dignity — but when he stood in the street that cold winter afternoon it turned out not to be so simple, because since he had been in the government he was in the habit of not carrying money with him. The doorman was prepared to lend him twenty-five guilders, and sitting in the tram on the way to the station, he found himself whistling. He was free! Goodbye to The Hague! Farewell to ponds, avenues, chancelleries, cocktail parties, blue-striped shirts, poker faces!

When he left the station in Amsterdam it was already dark. He walked whistling into the lighted, messy city and for the first time in years he suddenly saw everyday life again without ulterior motives and policy initiatives, like when a window is opened after the party and the fresh night air streams in. With Christmas approaching, the streets were crowded and the shops and pubs were full; men from the Salvation Army were standing singing on the pavement around a jar in which one was expected to put money; a girl was sitting on the curb playing a guitar; a man leaned out the window of his car and swore at a cyclist.

Everything was as it was — crowded, noisy, chaotic, and at the same time with something eternal about it, something that had been exactly the same in the Middle Ages, or in imperial Rome, or in present-day Cairo, or even farther away or longer ago. There had been periods in which it had been different — like during the German occupation — but since for unfathomable reasons good ultimately always triumphed in the world, this was the real face of the eternal city. Onno felt completely happy. Since he spent little, he could if necessary live on his inheritance from his father until he died; and the automatic transfers for Quinten's upbringing were in no danger. For that matter, there was still more to come from his mother's side, and she had been in the hospital for the last few weeks; in addition, he would receive a generous severance payment for a number of months. In fact a man, he thought, should spend his life doing nothing except wandering the streets, or if he could afford that, do something real. Perhaps the real man was the craftsman.

In a telephone booth, the floor of which was covered with the pages of a telephone directory that had been torn to pieces, he called Helga. They arranged to meet in a Greek restaurant.

By the light of a candle, intended to give even the toughest cut of lamb the look of a noble tournedos, he told her that his dismissed colleagues and the party bosses were now gathered together bitterly in the party's room in Parliament but that he had spared himself the wake. He was celebrating his regained freedom: it was only a month since he had turned forty-four — he had a whole life in front of him! And finally he'd have more time for Quinten.