Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

"Look at my brand-new chestnut-brown suedes," said Max, and pointed to his muddy black footwear.

"Serves you right," said Onno.

The caretaker's wife had made hot chocolate, which she poured out of a huge gray enamel kettle into thick white mugs, which gave everyone the hilarious feeling of being back home with Mom and Dad after a well-spent day.

"I'm going to become an astronomer, too," said Onno with pleasure. "There's real human warmth here."

At that moment a girl called: "Is there a Mr. Quist here?"

"Yes?" said Onno in amazement.

"Telephone for you."

"This can't be true," said Onno, getting up.

Max didn't believe it, either. It was nearly midnight — who would want to reach him here at this hour? Perhaps there was something wrong with his father or his mother.

A little later Onno came back. From his face Max could see that there had indeed been bad news.

"Ada's father has had a heart attack. That was her mother. It seems to be fairly serious, and she asked if we can go straight to Leiden. He's been admitted to the Academic Hospital as an emergency case."

"There are no more trains," said Max, and also got up. "Let's go. I'll drive."

They went through the building to the guest suite. Ada was already asleep, with her face on one side, her forefinger in the closed score. While Onno woke her, Max went to his own room to pack his things. He thought of Ada's father, whom he could scarcely remember, felled by a blow to his chest on a stepladder in front of his bookcases. Obviously anything could happen at any moment; everyone lived from day to day in a sort of blind faith that everything would remain as it was, and then suddenly it all changed. He quickly fetched the punch cards for the Computer Institute and went to the lounge with the two bags, where a little while later Ada and Onno also appeared.

"Christ, Ada," Max said, kissing her on the forehead. "What a mess. Has he had heart trouble before?"

"I think he has, but he didn't want to admit it. Men are always so tough, aren't they? Let's get going."

None of them had an overcoat. Outside, Max ran through the storm to his car, which he drove close to the door of the guest suite. Because the top was up, Onno now had to fold himself behind the two seats to a quarter of his size; Ada offered to change places with him, but he wouldn't hear of it. The rain pelted on the cloth top, and with his headlights on high beam, Max turned onto the sandy road.

The wood moved as though made not of plants but of animals; everywhere there were branches that had blown down in the mud, which he had to avoid. Hunched over his steering wheel, occasionally wiping the mist off the windshield with his forearm, Max peered at the road. The path gave way to an asphalt road, on which the cloudburst produced myriads of dancing mice: thick bubbles with feet, a largely absurd polka, since he could register only a fraction of the bubbles. The lights were off in virtually all the houses in the village; on the pavements there were large puddles that the drains could not cope with and which he caused to shoot into front gardens with a sound of sharpening knives. When they passed the restaurant he suddenly had a quick vision of the interior: the waiter and the cook had gone home, the lights were out, but in a fathomless dark abandonment the tables and the chairs and the pots on the wall were still there.

On the provincial road, where no lights were on at this hour, he had to grip the steering wheel tighter to keep control of the car. The asphalt gleamed from the water, but fortunately the car was weighed down by the weight of Onno on the rear axle, and by Ada, who counted for two. It was raining so hard that the wiper had virtually no effect on the curtain of water hitting the front windshield. Immediately correcting for each gust of wind, Max tried to keep the white line in the middle of the road in view, which his headlights changed into cones full of dazzling pearls.

"I'm sorry," he said, glancing at Ada. "I have to drive slowly."

"Look out!" she cried.

Right across the road lay an uprooted tree, which had fallen across the road from the left. He braked but immediately felt that the tires were losing contact with the asphalt. He declutched and swung the wheel; while Ada grabbed his shoulder, he came to a halt with his front wheels in the right-hand shoulder, a few feet from the towering scene of havoc.

"Good God" he said. "That was a close shave. We'll have to go back."

He shifted into reverse and tried to get off the shoulder, but the front wheels had sunk too far.

"We'll have to push, Onno."

He turned the engine off and opened the door, which was immediately almost wrenched out of his hands. He tipped the back of his seat forward to let Onno out.

"Should I help?" asked Ada.

"For God's sake, stay where you are," said Onno.

"And we have to hurry," said Max, shutting the door, "before another car comes along."

In the howling pandemonium they went to the shoulder and in the light of the headlights grabbed the bumper. Now sinking up to his ankles into the mud in his new shoes, Max counted to three — but at the same moment a second thing happened. Out of the din of the storm and the pouring rain a new noise emerged: a dark wheezing, which turned into deep cracking and rustling. Max looked around, up, and then suddenly saw a dark crown coming toward him from the other side of the road, like a giant hand. He grabbed hold of Onno and pulled him to the ground with his own weight. With a thundering crash, the tree hit the road and the car, which absorbed the impact for them.

Although the tumult did not subside, it was as though a total silence had suddenly fallen. The headlights had gone out; branches hung over him. Max groped for Onno.

"Onno!"

"Yes, yes, I'm okay — but Ada!"

They struggled to their feet and looked aghast as they saw the tree trunk lying across the white top of the car, still visible under the bare branches.

"Christ, no. ." said Onno "This isn't true. . Ada!" he screamed.

As quickly as they could, slipping, hurting themselves, they extricated themselves from the tangle and tried to reach the doors by clambering up, but it was impossible.

"Ada!" Onno screamed again.

There was no answer. Everything was twisted, of course. Half lying, Max squeezed his arm through the branches and tried to pull down the car's top but couldn't get a grip anywhere.

"We need help!"

Gasping for breath, he looked around. A hundred yards farther on, in the fields, there was a farmhouse where some lights were on. Just when he was about to go in that direction, there was the light of a flashlight on the other side of the ditch and a voice called:

"God Almighty! That's the second one within ten minutes! Is there anybody there?"

"Hello! Would you please go and get help!"

"The police have already been phoned!"

"We need an ambulance at once!"

The light of the flashlight swung around and moved in leaps and bounds toward the farmhouse.

In despair, using all his strength, Onno tried to force a way through the branches, but it was hopeless: the car was caught as if in a cage.

"Christ Almighty!" he roared. "Ada! Our child!"

Max stiffened. Her child.. For the second time that day, that monstrous thought rose up in him — he tried to suppress it immediately, but it was already there, and now not because of a joke about lightning, but when she was perhaps already really lying dead there under that mountain of wood. He felt as if a shiny black cloth were being laid around him, following all his contours, like a second skin. At the same moment he had to be sick. He turned and vomited up the wild boar. When he stood up, he saw that Onno was leaning over the branches with his face on one arm, sobbing.