Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

The writer sat making notes, still choking with laughter. In passing, Max heard him say to the chess player that they would later remember this time; but the grandmaster bent absent-mindedly over a pocket chess set, with which he may have been running through a variation for his forthcoming match with Smyslov in Palma de Mallorca.

Ada was sitting at a large round table with Bruno, some other musicians, the composer from the forum, the student leader Bart Bork, and Onno. Max kissed her and sat down next to her on the same chair.

"Congratulations," he said. "You two were the only ones who really knocked the audience out. Are you tired?"

"Dead tired. I don't want to stay very long."

Max raised his hand in the direction of Bruno, who nodded to him with a deadpan look. They had met each other a few times but had not struck up a conversation.

Onno was explaining to the composer why in ten years' time, like a second Richard Wagner, he would be as right-wing as an American general and that, like all Maoists, he would embrace the Holy Mother Church on his deathbed, since that was what he was actually looking for: the Holy Father.

"Comrade Rabbit is only a means to an end for you."

"Comrade Rabbit?"

"That's what Mao means in Chinese. Though there is the consolation that it's also the name of a constellation. I, on the other hand," he said, "will become the president of the People's Republic of the Netherlands after the revolution and in that capacity will make a state visit to Peking."

With his head slightly bent, Bork looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "After the revolution," he said slowly, "you'll be a beachcomber on Ameland."

Onno, startled, looked him in the eye. This was someone who meant what he said. He could feel the remark sinking into him, like a revolver thrown into a canal dropping through the murky water to the muddy bottom. Was that the way things were going? Imagine Bart Bork coming to power! And if it all came to nothing, which was the most probable outcome, knowing Holland, what would people like Bork do? How would they take it? For now they were borne along by massive good-humored benevolence — but if that were suddenly to disappear and they were suddenly alone? What would they do, then, in their despair? Would they turn into terrorists? Onno was shocked. Shouldn't he go into politics and do something about it?

"Onno, come and help."

Max, Ada, and Bruno had gotten up and were talking to one of the two Cubans. The latter switched with relief from his laborious American English into Spanish, or rather the sloppy Latin-American dialect in its Cuban variant. He was very impressed by the duo and wanted the address of the Dutch musicians' union; perhaps there would be an opportunity at some point for an invitation, but the compañera only wanted to give her own address. His instinct for power had obviously told him that he should talk to Ada and not Bruno. Through Onno, Ada explained that she had nothing to do with such an organization — that was not how musical life was organized in the Netherlands — and with some surprise the Cuban noted down her name and address.

"That would be nice," said Max, when he had gone.

"I know that kind of fellow," said Bruno. "You'll never hear another word. He's probably just talking big to impress the lady."

"Do you really think we'll get an invitation to go to Cuba?" asked Ada.

"There are thousands of better duos."

"But they don't perform at left-wing demonstrations."

"I'll wait and see what happens. I don't want to think about it. Do you mind if we go home?"

Chairs were already being put on tables; everyone was getting ready to leave. Bruno said that he was going into town for a bit: there was a gypsy orchestra performing that he wanted to hear.

Ada looked at Max. "I can see from your face that you want to go too. Go ahead. I'm only off to bed."

"Can I come too, can I come too?" whined Onno, with his forefinger raised.

"Yes, darling," said Max. "You can come too."

"Hey!" cried Onno. "Have you gone completely nuts!"

Max gave Ada the front-door key, looked at her sternly, and said:

"Go up the front steps and count to four. On the far right you'll find a half brick, which is loose. Lift it up, slip the key in, and put the brick back in its place."

The gypsy orchestra was playing in a dimly lit bar behind the Rembrandt-plein. It turned out that Bruno knew the musicians. He greeted the primas, who was walking among the audience, followed by the second violinist, and waved to the cymbalist and the bass player in the corner. The second violinist raised his instrument inquiringly, whereupon Bruno took it from him and revealed himself as a stylish fiddler, who had no trouble with the csárdás, or even with shouting "Hop, hop!"

The moment Max heard the sounds, something melted in him. No one needed to tell him about the status of this music and its relationship to Die Grosse Fuge, for example: that was already clear from those shiny shirts with their wide sleeves. But at the same time there was something in it that was not found even in Beethoven, or in Bach, and that he experienced at home on his grand piano when he played the gypsy scale, the harmonic with its raised fourth note: the Central European Jewish gypsy sob, which bowled him over.

They now played a slow number. The primas leaned over him and Onno at their table, as the friends of his friend. He was about fifty; the upper eyelids of his large fleshy face were thick and heavy with melancholy, like shutters, so he could scarcely raise them over his pupils. From his ears his black hair grew down to his lower jaw: a style that in Max's student days had been called "screwing strips," because women could hold on to them while they were on the job. Onno, who heard less the music than the renewed threat of a beachcomber's existence, turned away in embarrassment and lit up a cigarette, but Max, not taking his eyes off the violinist, was suddenly reminded of his father.

Wolfgang too had listened to this music, on the spot, in Austro-Hungarian regions — Vienna, Prague, Budapest — at a time when he had only heard vaguely of Holland, as his son now had of Iceland, as something far away, Ultima Thule, where he would spend a few days if the opportunity presented itself. In 1914, in his tailored Bordeaux-red Habsburg uniform with the ornamental sword, a provocative girlfriend on each arm and a bottle of Tokay on the table, Wolfgang had listened to the father of this violinist in some Cafe Hungaria or other, his thoughts racing around in a gloomy enchanted circle, from which he was never able to free himself, while Austria declared war on Serbia— Serbien muss sterben! — and the mother of his son began school in Brussels..

When the piece was finished, Max ordered a bottle of white wine for the orchestra and asked Bruno what language the leader spoke; he wanted to say something to him. According to Bruno, he knew only a few words of German.

"Onno?"

"As long as you don't think that I know all the sixty-five thousand dialects these people speak."

He tried Hungarian, but that had no effect, and then took a different tack; suddenly the violinist's face broke into a broad smile. He put a hand on Onno's shoulder and turned and spoke the same language to his friends, who cried "Bravo!" and "Hop, hop!"

"What did you speak?" asked Max.

"No idea. A kind of Serbo-Croat, I think. Anyway, he understands it. What did you want to say to him?"

At dictation speed, Max said: "Tell him that I consider gypsies sacred, because they are the only people on earth who have never waged war."

Onno did as he was asked and the smile disappeared from the large face. "Was that all?"

"No. Tell him that because they are the only ones who are not murderers, they are denounced as thieves by everyone but that we have stolen even their death."