Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

" 'Ceremony, as used at Weddings at the Municipal House in Amsterdam since the joyful Revolution of the nineteenth of January 1795. Bridegroom and Bride! Since we assume that you have not made a rash choice, are uniting with honorable intentions, and have obtained the blessing for that union from Him, to whom you owe everything; we also make no objection to complying with your lawful request by setting the seal of the law on your mutually declared love and promises of faithfulness. Before doing so, however, we shall briefly remind you of your duties.

There was some hilarity in the room. The Social Democrat rebels tried to read something in Quist's face, but it remained as impassive as a stone; likewise, the provincial governor, the public prosecutor, and the professor of criminal law, whom they of course knew by sight, gave no sign of life. After the alderman in true patriot fashion had urged them to industry, honesty, good behavior, modesty, obedience, and thrift, and had warned them of the corrupting influence of being too forbearing to their children, he asked:

" 'Dost thou, Bridegroom, take thy Bride, here present, as thy Lawful Wedded Wife?' "

Onno threw back his head and cried with pathos: "I do!"

Not everyone in the room began laughing, but most people did. The alderman, too, found it hard to keep a straight face.

" 'Dost thou, Bride, take thy Bridegroom, here present, as thy Lawful Wedded Husband?' "

"I do," said Ada softly.

There was something in her voice that silenced everyone. Max felt an unexpected catch in his throat. He had difficulty in controlling himself, and would have preferred to leave the room, but that was of course unthinkable. Ada and Onno had to take each other's right hand, and as they stood there, the language of the revolutionary past continued:

" Do you therefore now admit, in the presence of an omniscient God, and in the hearing of your Fellow Citizens gathered here, that you have accepted each other in marriage, and, following the duties presented to you, will live together until death do you part?' "

"I do."

"I do."

" 'May God, who is love itself, make you keep your promise; may He protect you from domestic displeasure, may He crown your union with the greatest of his blessings; and be with you in all the circumstances of your life!' " The alderman looked up, took the glasses off his nose and said, " 'Be mindful of the Poor.' "

"Fantastic," whispered one of Onno's political friends. "Be mindful of the Third World."

Max was overwhelmed with emotion: wasn't he the poor fellow they should be mindful of? But no one was thinking of him, or must think of him, except for Ada perhaps. He saw Onno put a wedding ring on her finger; when the alderman waited for Ada to do the same to him, he said gruffly:

"Men don't wear rings."

They signed their names, and after the formalities had been completed they shook hands with the alderman, after which there was an opportunity to congratulate them. Max waited until the first crush was over. Without a word, he kissed Ada three times on her cheeks. When he shook Onno's hand, he realized that this was the second time: the first had been in his car, that first evening, as they were passing Leiden and introduced themselves. The hand was white and warm and dry.

"Congratulations, Onno."

"Thanks very much, Max. Happy birthday."

"Thanks very much. How do you feel?"

"Determined. I shall become the most narrow-minded of heads of family. All your fault."

In the evening there was a dinner for close friends, but before that everyone was welcome in a pub next to the town hall, where tables had been reserved and champagne was waiting. There, too, the groups did not mix. The musicians clung together, as did the scholars, while the politicians ignored the tables and mounted the bar stools, where they ordered beer; Ada sat with her parents, who had detached themselves from the Quists.

When Onno saw Max, he took him to the corner at the back, where his family had nestled. "Now you must finally come and see what fate has allotted me."

At their table he pointed to Max with his forefinger, like an auctioneer, and said: "This is my friend Max Delius."

"Oh, so you're him," said a lady approaching fifty, who a little while later turned out to be Onno's eldest sister, married to the public prosecutor. She had something large and formidable about her that seemed endemic in that family; there was something rough about her face, something masculine, that frightened him a little.

"Yes, Trees, that's him," said Onno in annoyance. "All it needs is for you to peer at him through your lorgnette." He gave Max no opportunity to shake hands, because now he pointed out his parents, his two brothers and their wives, and his youngest sister and her husband. He called her Dol, and she was the only one for whom he had a kind word. Then he left Max alone with them.

There was a rather charged atmosphere. The Amsterdam style with which everything was being done here — the bride and bridegroom on a bike, the reception in a pub, artists everywhere, freethinkers and Reds, no sign of a clergyman; instead, a revolutionary document from the Napoleonic period — and now they were saddled with the son of a war criminal from the German occupation: their dismay was not entirely incomprehensible. Such things did not happen in The Hague. Of course everyone at this table knew who his father was, but hence also who his mother had been. People here knew everything— except who he was. Onno's brother Menno, the Groningen professor of law, about ten years his senior, offered him a chair with a friendly smile, and when he sat down among them he felt the weight of the family. He himself had no one in the world — family for him was something from a distant past — but suddenly here a power was assembled that helped him understand Onno better. This here was what he was reacting against, but with the strength of that same family of which he was irrevocably a part.

"Well, Mr. Delius," said Diederic, the governor, folding his arms and leaning back. "Did you find the ceremony edifying?" He was in his early fifties; Antonia, his wife, also a fairly formidable matron, appeared to be approaching sixty and could almost be Ada's grandmother.

Max realized with dismay that a new phase of ambiguity and secretive-ness had begun — how could he ever simply be himself again, without being reminded at every turn of something he could not say?

"I thought that text from the Batavian Republic was an original idea of Onno's. Particularly if you take the current political situation into account."

"The only problem is that the marriage of course will be completely invalid in that form," said the public prosecutor. He was thick-set and a little bloated, with thin, lank hair and sharp blue eyes. "That alderman will probably have to resign."

"Don't be so silly, Coen," said Dol. "Stop making a laughingstock of yourself."

She wasn't at all like her gangling sister, Trees. She was on the frail side, with an open, attractive face; obviously Mendel's law had ensured the reappearance of some refined ancestress. Max realized at once why she was Onno's favorite sister.

"Resign," growled Coen. "Resign."

"How about another glass of champagne," suggested Dol's husband, Karel, a brain surgeon at a Rotterdam hospital, as Max knew from Onno. He too looked out of place, with his sharp, gaunt features, which gave him the appearance of a diabolical scholar from the Frankenstein family, obsessed with destroying the world, though that was not what he wanted.

"Resign," repeated Coen once again, prompting Menno's wife, Margo, to burst out laughing.

"It's like the Council of Blood in the revolt against Spain here," she said.

"Are you a left-winger like Onno, Mr. Delius?" asked Trees. "Surely not. I hope you exert a favorable influence on him."