Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

Max opened the door of the shop and, without letting go of the handle, stopped in his tracks. As he listened he put up his forefinger.

"Janáček," he said after a few seconds. "That's not a record. Someone's playing."

No bell sounded. He put his finger to his lips, and they entered quietly. The sound of the cello hung in the narrow space, which was piled with books. They not only filled the roughly made shelves up to ceiling but were also stacked high on the left and right and in the center. A jungle of books, with narrow paths through it. Onno stopped, but Max pushed forward, up steps, down steps, past piles of books, boxes, magazines — architecture, girls' books, Jewish studies, travel guides — around a corner, up another couple of steps… and saw Ada sitting in the back room: in a loose-fitting, long-sleeved white blouse and a small stand-up collar, her head turned away and the cello between her parted legs. Her left foot was placed elegantly a little in front of her; her full black skirt was pushed back, and he saw a slim knee and then the transition from her stockings to the light flesh of her thighs.

I'm going mad, he thought. I want to be fingered and stroked by that woman just like that.

She had not seen him. He went back on tiptoe and whispered: "Duty calls. I'll see you in a little while in the Gilded Turk."

Onno nodded pityingly. "Adieu, unfortunate one."

Max's heart was pounding. Each time was as new as the first. He positioned himself so that he could not be seen. While he listened and looked at her, something changed in him. His excitement did not disappear, but it was as though a space gradually opened up behind it, like when the curtain rises in the theater. Although she was so totally absorbed, it was as though the music actually consisted of audible silence, a silence with a shape like a geometrical figure, which she drew around herself.

Now and then she stopped for a moment and looked for something in the score with the tip of her bow: then there was a silence within silence. Her face framed in black; the gleaming reddish wood of the waisted sound box between her legs, her left hand at the neck; next to her the open case. A line of Mallarmé occurred to him: "musicienne du silence.. ." Why should a line of Mallarmé occur to him? He wanted to go to bed with her, but that was nothing unusual, that was his daily bread — the unusual thing was that a line of Mallarmé should occur to him. Lines of Mallarmé did not normally occur to him. If he wanted, he could always dig up a couple, of course, such as "Un coup de dés n'abolira pas le hasard" — but that was really more of a title; it reminded him of what Einstein had said about dice, perhaps here in Leiden: "The Good Lord doesn't play dice."

Hidden among the books, he observed her. He could hear someone stumbling about above his head. Did he want something more besides going to bed with her a few times?

On impulse, he suddenly stepped into the room.

She started so violently when he appeared that her body trembled. She looked at him, wide-eyed. The reaction of her body, as though it were something stronger than herself, over which she had no control, bound him even more closely to her.

"I want to buy a book," he said, "but no one came. So I simply eavesdropped on you. Fairy Tale."

That was the title of the piece: he obviously knew it. But she was even more astonished at the natural way in which he spoke to her. Men were always a little frightened of her, as she herself was of her mother, but this one didn't seem worried in the least. "Eavesdropping is very rude, if you ask me."

Max burst out laughing. "And that's a musicienne talking! The hi-fi system as bugging equipment!"

Her mother came into the room with a meat knife in her hand: a handsome, buxom woman, with something severe about her; she had a broad lower jaw and a tight mouth. Dressed in a black nun's habit she would make a perfect abbess.

"Do I hear voices?"

Ada pointed to Max with her bow. "There's a customer."

"Hello."

He was looked at disapprovingly by dark eyes beneath black eyebrows, which were raised slightly at the sides. "Isn't the bell working?"

She apologized and called upstairs along the corridor: "Oswald! Someone in the shop!"

"Nice shop," said Max, going down the steps and looking around. "But you live here, and of course you never browse."

"My father usually knows what I want."

His eye was caught by an art book with color illustrations: the dazzling, jewel-encrusted eggs of Fabergé, which the Czar usually gave as a gift to the Czarina at Easter.

"Do you know Fabergé?" he asked without looking up.

"Is he a composer?"

The way in which she answered immediately convinced him that he was on the right track. "Something like that. A jeweler."

While he was leafing through the book, the bookseller appeared: a nondescript man of about fifty, with wavy gray-blond hair, slightly shorter than his wife; only his mouth was like his daughter's. He also apologized; the bell had not been working just now. Max said that he wanted the Fabergé book and also the one by Alma Mahler in the window. Laughing shyly, the secondhand bookseller looked at his hands; perhaps the gentleman would like to get it for himself. There was paint on his face too. As Max went toward it, he read on the shop window, back to front:

He showed the prices on the flyleaves and said that there was no need to wrap them up. After he had paid, he looked at the back room again. The girl was still sitting in the same position with her cello. She met his glance. He went up to her and handed her the book on Fabergé.

"For you. A present for the coda."

No, really, she started blushing. She put the cello down and got up to receive it.

"How nice.. " she said, laughing. Her two front teeth at the top were slightly wider and longer than the others.

Max turned to her father. "May I carry your daughter off for a cup of coffee?"

While he was trying not to get paint marks on the cash register, the scene had somewhat passed him by. He muttered that she must make up her own mind.

Max put out his hand. "Delius, Max."

Ada put her own hand in it. "Ada Brons."

The Gilded Turk was nearby, on the Breestraat. In the street Max had offered her his arm, ironically, like a cavalier of the old school; she had put her hand in it, and now, to her own astonishment, she was suddenly walking through town with a total stranger, chatting about Janáček. Hopefully, Bruno wouldn't see her.

Max warned her about his friend, who was waiting for them: a brute of a fellow, whom she should take with a pinch of salt.

In the large pub the afternoon rush was on; at the back a group of students in blazers were bragging noisily, beer glasses in hand.

They found Onno at the reading table, with the usual glass of milk and a half-eaten rissole next to his newspaper.

"There you are," said Max, putting the book down beside him. "Mein Leben. For you."

"Right." Onno looked up to thank him and saw that he had company.

"Onno Quist," said Max. "Ada Brons."

At the same moment a waiter dropped a tray of crockery somewhere, followed by applause and cheers from the students. Onno stood up and shook hands with her, after which he shot Max a look very like the one Max had given his rissole. They pulled up chairs, and for a moment it looked as though Onno was going to continue reading his newspaper out of moral indignation, but he finally decided not to. He leaned back, crossed one leg over the other, revealing the bluish-white flesh above his short socks, and in the manner of a complacent country psychiatrist asked: "Have you two known each other long?"