Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

Onno looked at him for a few seconds. "Is that what you understand by a normal conversation?"

"What's so abnormal about it? It's an ordinary question, isn't it? All these things exist, don't they?"

"All right, I'll answer," said Onno with resignation. "The Bible and Koran overlap to a great extent. According to Islam, Allah in heaven has the original copy of the Holy Scripture; the Torah and the Gospels are corrupt editions and forgeries of it; the Koran is a true copy." He nodded, looking at Quinten. "Yes, you need quite a nerve to declare your grandfather and your father to be your son and your grandson. .. Right. And now could we change the subject perhaps? Or don't you have any sense of everyday reality anymore?"

"This is everyday reality to me."

"That's what I was afraid of. But do you never have the feeling that it might get utterly exhausting for other people in the long run?"

"But you don't get tired from thinking and learning things? I only get tired when I'm bored."

"I admit," said Onno, "boredom doesn't get much of a look in around you." He looked around. "Of course you're right, it all exists, but not everything exists in the same way. Have you ever listened to other people's conversations? Here on this terrace you can't understand them, but people usually talk about people — about their family and friends, or people at work, or people in politics and sports, and mostly about themselves."

"And what if I were to get completely sick of that kind of chatter? When they talk about things, it's almost always about the things you can have, like cars, money. I never talk about people, and not about myself, and not about what I've got."

"No, you talk about trapezoids, or sacred stones — and you're not concerned with those stones but with their sacredness, their meaning. You only care about meanings and connections. I admit I may have lumbered you with that — concrete things are not my strong point, either; but even I'm not as abstract as you. Did you really examine that rock just now? Do you know what kind of stone it is? Granite? Limestone?"

"Why should I examine it if it doesn't mean anything? There are so many rocks."

"Can you hear what I'm saying? If a rock means something you don't have to examine it, and not if it means nothing, either. So you really never have to examine anything. Do you belong in this world?"

Quinten did not reply. No one knew who he was — not even himself. What was "this world"? The boys playing soccer in Westerbork, they belonged in this world — but the feeling that they got when they scored a goal was what he got when something interesting occurred to him.

All these people here were sitting chattering about other people or about things that you could have, like those two white-haired ladies at the next table: none of it had anything to do with him. So would it be best if he went into a monastery? Became a father of the Holy Cross? Had a black ribbon tied around his arm at the Wailing Wall? Then he thought of what he himself possessed — the tablets with the Ten Commandments on them, which he had seen were made of sapphire; the testimony, which was at the same time not his possession and which today or tomorrow at the latest he would give away somehow. After that there was nothing more for him here, not even in a monastery. Yesterday, in the Francis Bacon..

His thoughts were interrupted by a girl who came to take their order. He pointed to the neighboring table, where an old lady with her back toward them had an orange drink in front of her. "What's that?"

"Carrot juice."

"Carrot juice? Never had it."

"Order that, then," said Onno. "Don't you want anything to eat? What time is it?"

"A quarter to twelve. I'm not hungry."

After Onno had ordered a cup of coffee for himself, he asked: "Shall we go to a post office in a bit and phone Granny Sophia? We were going to do that in the Holy of Holies."

"And are you going to tell her everything?"

"You must be joking! That would probably cause a short circuit in the telephone exchange. Just to let her hear from us. I don't know what else you've got in mind, but it will probably mean us eventually going back to Holland."

"Yes?" asked Quinten. "And what then?"

Onno sighed. "That's a mystery to me, too. When I saw Auntie Trees just now in the Via Dolorosa, I took it as a signal that the world is after me again. But what am I supposed to do there? For you that's no problem— you're seventeen, you can go in any direction you like; but I've got no point of reference anymore. Really, I'm just a kind of walking Tower of Babel. What's someone like that supposed to do? In our family everyone lives to be ninety; I can't go on roaming the world for another forty years." He put his stick between his parted legs, his hands on the handle, and rested his chin on them, looking at the passersby.

Quinten found that attitude much too old-looking and asked: "Can't you start something completely new?"

"Something completely new.. Tell me something completely new."

"Or something very old," said Quinten. "What did you want to be when you were little?"

Onno put his cheek on his hands and looked at Quinten reflectively. "What did I want to be when I was small.."

"Yes. The very first thing you wanted to be."

"The very first thing I wanted to be…" repeated Onno, with a sing-song tone in his voice, like in a litany. He raised his head. "A doll doctor."

"A doll doctor?" Quinten repeated in his turn. "What's that?"

"Someone who repairs broken dolls." Onno had not thought about that for almost half a century, but now that he said it, he suddenly realized it was of course connected with his mother, who for years had dressed him up like a girl.

"Well," said Quinten, "then you must become a doll doctor!"

At the same instant Onno saw himself sitting in a small shop in the center of Amsterdam, in a narrow cross street, surrounded by shelves filled with hundreds of pink, gleaming dolls, repairing broken eyelids, installing new "Mommy" voices..

"I'll think about it," he said. "What would Lazarus have done after he'd been raised from the dead?"

"Isn't that in the Bible?"

"Not if you ask me. I vaguely remember a legend about him going to Marseilles, where he became the first bishop."

"Perhaps he simply bored everyone stiff with his experiences while he was dead."

"But then we'd have some information about it. As far as I know he never talked about it." He turned his head to Quinten. "Just as I shall never be able to talk about a certain experience." When Quinten did not react, he said, "In any case we will need a roof over our heads in Amsterdam. The first few weeks we can stay in a hotel, but then I'll have to rent or buy something. I'll telephone Hans Giltay Veth right away. Won't he be surprised!"

Quinten knew that he wouldn't be going with him, but he couldn't say so. What was he to say in reply if his father asked why not? He didn't know himself. Not because he didn't want to, but because it wouldn't happen.

"Aunt Dol said that your things are in storage in Rotterdam, at the docks."

"I don't want any of that," said Onno immediately, while at the same moment the dark-brown Chinese camphor box appeared before his eyes, decorated all around with heavy carving, in which Ada's clothes had lain for seventeen years.

"Mama's cello is in my room in Groot Rechteren now," said Quinten.

Onno nodded in silence.

The girl put their order in front of them. Quinten took a mouthful of his carrot juice and to his amazement it tasted of carrots — or, rather, to his astonishment the taste of carrots could also appear without loud cracking and crunching. He wanted to tell his father this, but then saw that astonishment had taken hold of him too.