Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

When everything remained quiet in the convent, they again sat down on a bench opposite the altar. They now had to wait for the following morning, Sunday, when it would become busy. Their plan was simply to leave a quarter of an hour or half an hour after the opening of the Sancta Sanctorum: none of the fathers would notice that they were leaving without having arrived — since they were leaving, they obviously had also arrived. But that they should be uncertain about the contents of the case for the whole night was an unbearable prospect for Onno.

"I have to see it now, Quinten," he whispered, "otherwise I'll go mad." "Then you'll have to go mad. Just imagine someone coming and seeing us peering at those things with a pocket flashlight. Haven't we agreed that we're here out of piety? If anyone comes, we go down on our knees and then we'll be praying. We have to get rid of that flashlight too, for that matter. Where should we leave it? Why didn't I think of that?"

"Is there really something you haven't thought of?" said Onno with a touch of mockery in his voice; but immediately he looked uncertainly around in the dark. "For that matter I keep having the feeling that there's something missing."

"What?"

"I don't know. ." Suddenly Onno stiffened. "My stick! Quinten! I left my stick lying in the chapel. In the hurry when we had to put that iron rod—"

Quinten had already gotten up. He grabbed the flashlight and ran silently to the barred window at the top of the Holy Stairs. He shone it inside. As if in prayer, his father's stick lay on the papal prayer stool opposite the altar — the tip on the kneeling bench, the handle against the silk cushion with the tassels. He nodded. This was irrevocable. The flashlight had now also served its purpose, and on the way back he hid it behind a confessional against the wall.

"Yes," he said when he arrived back, and sat down next to Onno again. "So that's how it is. That changes our whole plan."

"Quinten…"

"Forget it, it's my fault. I hurried you along. There's no point in talking about it again. So now we have to get out of here before someone discovers it."

Onno felt a drop of sweat running from his armpit along his side. "And how are you proposing to get out? We're caught like rats in a trap."

Quinten thought for a moment. "There's only one way. What time are those services that come next? What are they called again?"

"Matins. Usually at about four o'clock."

"Then we'll simply go into the other chapel and say that we fell asleep, and can we please leave."

"And what if they ask what's in that suitcase?"

"Why should they ask that? There's nothing to steal here, is there? Anyway, what of it? Two dirty stones."

"Let's pray that they really are just two dirty stones," whispered Onno. "But we're not there yet. Tomorrow morning a father suddenly discovers my stick in the Sancta Sanctorum — and what then? What will happen then? The police will see from the oil on the hinges that we've been in the altar too. They'll open it, and they'll find your backpack. Apart from that, it will be empty — but who will remember that it's been empty for eighty years. The fathers, perhaps, but they've got no interest in making that known, given the reputation of their chapel. They'll give our descriptions and tomorrow morning identikit pictures of our faces will appear on Vatican television, together with a close-up of that stick. Father and son. Desecrators. Ten million lire reward. What will Mauro do then? Signor Enrico from Tyrol! And Nordholt? He'll realize immediately why I borrowed that book, and he's got my address at the institute. He's still got a score to settle with me, but to be on the safe side he'll probably first call the embassy for advice. In consultation with The Hague, they'll tell him that he should keep in the background for the time being."

"And I'll be recognized by the locksmith who made those things for me. He gave me a rather funny look when I got him to do it."

Onno turned to look at him. "I can't see your face properly, but it looks a bit as if you're smiling."

"So I am."

"What in heaven's name is there to smile about?"

"I don't know. . perhaps the prospect of the journey."

"Our journey, of course. Ever heard of popular religious fury? How can we show ourselves in the street, here in the lion's den? Before the Sancta Sanctorum opens in the morning, we must be out of the country — it doesn't matter where we go."

Because St. Benedict of Nursia had understood that all that dreaming in paradoxical sleep can easily entangle the monk in the snares of physical temptation, and that therefore it has to be drastically interrupted at least once a night by the thistles and thorns of prayer, the convent began to come to life at about four o'clock. Stumbling. In the chapel of San Silvestro the light went on, and the reflection also pierced the darkness where they were. Relieved that things had finally happened, they sat up. All those hours they had discussed at greater and greater intervals what they were going to do shortly, and where they were going to flee to — but according to Quinten they would see what happened, and Onno himself had also finally said they'd better stop, because it was like playing chess: often you thought for a long time about the right move, and when you'd finally found it and made it, you knew that it was wrong. That was quite simply the fundamental difference between thinking and doing. At that Quinten had fallen silent. His experience was different. When he'd thought and then done something, it had never been wrong but always right; and the fact that the Decalogue was now in the air-travel suitcase was proof of that. And soon it would all come right. They had not said anything more about the tablets and what was to be done with them.

While in the city the music gradually stopped, even in the last nightclubs, the building was again filled with ancient Gregorian unanimity. As he listened, Quinten was suddenly struck by the sense that old works of art were always old things: old bricks, old marble, old paint — but that old music was at the same time always brand-new, because it came from living throats. Apart from that, only old stories could also be new. That was of course because music and stories existed not in space but only in time.

"We've woken up now," he said, not whispering again for the first time. He stretched with a groan. "We look around, surprised to see where we are. In the Sancta Sanctorum! Oh no! How can it have happened? We must have fallen asleep. Come on, let's go."

"I suppose we'll have to." Onno sighed.

"You do the talking. And give me the suitcase, otherwise you'll forget that too."

As they walked through the rear chapel, where it was already lighter and the singing louder, Onno felt like an amateur actor forced to go onstage at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in the role of King Lear. They turned the corner and stopped.

In the choir stalls a dozen old faces above black cassocks turned in their direction, the nocturne on the Resurrection died on their lips. No one showed a sign of alarm; there was only mild surprise. When they saw Quinten, a smile appeared here and there.

Quinten realized that he now had to throw this weapon into the battle. With his free hand he rubbed his eyes and made as if to yawn, but immediately he really yawned: the silence was filled with the long, touching yawn of a resplendent boy.

"Forgive us, Fathers," said Onno in Italian, "for disturbing you in your nocturnal vigil. My son and I fell asleep here yesterday. The whole day we had been wandering around your very beautiful city and we sat down for a moment in a confessional to rest. And only just now—"

With his hands clasped, as other people only do in an armchair, his head cocked to one side, an old man came forward. He introduced himself in a weak voice as Padre Agostino, the rector. He separated his hands for a moment and then put them back together again and said: "The guest is Jesus Christ. Would you like something to eat? A cup of coffee?"