Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

A fire engine approached from the direction of Dwingeloo, with its siren sounding and its red revolving lights, followed by a police car with a blue revolving light. A little later a bright searchlight flashed and suddenly men in oilskins were swarming everywhere. Red-and-white tapes were stretched across the road; shortly afterward there was the screech of electric saws, which sliced through the branches like knives through bread.

No one asked Max and Onno anything. Onno looked at what was happening, but at the same time he walked to and fro in a daze, in a loop like a caged tiger. Max helped pull away the branches and wanted to say something to him, but didn't know what; in his mouth he had the bitter taste of vomit. The luggage compartment was dented; the punch cards could probably also be written off. The three revolving lights remained on. The pulsing signals modulated into a cruel pattern, which expressed exactly what he felt. There was still a storm and pouring rain, but it seemed to be abating a little.

As the inside of the car was uncovered, he saw Ada doubled up under the flattened top, which had provided no protection at all — motionless, her face on her knees; the trunk had not landed on her place but right next to her, on his. He looked for no longer than a second — he immediately averted his gaze — but Onno staggered forward and leaned over the hood, at which a policeman grabbed him roughly by the shoulder.

"Please get out of here. Are you enjoying it?"

Obviously, they were being taken for curious locals.

Onno turned around, trembling. "It's my wife."

The policeman let go and took hold of him in a different way, with two hands on his shoulders.

"Come on."

"Is she still alive? Ada! Can you hear me?"

"Come on, sir."

While the fireman carefully pulled away the top and laid blankets over her, an ambulance, with screaming sirens, dazzling headlights, and revolving lights approached at high speed from the opposite direction. Two paramedics jumped out, and one ran to the back to get the stretcher. The other leaped over the branches, crouched down beside Ada, and put a stethoscope in his ears.

"She's pregnant," said Onno.

The paramedic glanced up, took off his stethoscope, and got to his feet.

"She's alive," he said.

Max took a deep breath and put his hands over his eyes. A moment later he looked into Onno's dripping, filthy face and hugged him.

Ada did not regain consciousness even in the ambulance. Max had sat next to the driver, who refused to say what he thought; when he got out at the hospital in Hoogeveen, he saw that Onno's relief too had given way to a new concern. Ada was quickly wheeled inside, and they were taken by a nurse to a washroom, where they could clean up a little. In those light, silent, immaculate surroundings, they were shocked at how they looked in the mirror: clothes torn, drenched through, and covered in mud and green stains from the tree bark, their faces and hands covered in blood and scratches. It looked not as though they had just come from a catastrophic storm but somehow from a different time.

"I hope it's going to be all right," said Onno. "What an absurd mess. The fact that we were in the exact spot where that bloody tree fell. What's the sense of it all?"

Max rinsed his mouth out and didn't answer at once. He realized that Onno was now experiencing for the first time in his own life the absurd mess of existence. The fact that anything could happen at any time was for him as axiomatic as the fact that the weather was good one day and not the next. That's how things were on earth. It was much less the case in the heavens, where much stricter rules applied: the sun always rose, and not sometimes not, or only a day later — which one could not even say in that way — but always exactly at the moment predicted. There was no danger from that direction. But they had nothing to do with life on earth, and perhaps that was why he had made a profession of that inhuman reliability.

"On the other hand," he said, "if she had been sitting in the back, in your place, she wouldn't have survived."

Onno splashed water in his face with two hands — and suddenly he stiffened. He slowly stood up and looked at Max in the mirror wide-eyed.

"Max. ." he said softly, almost whispering. "Ada's father.."

Max's mouth dropped open. "Christ! I didn't give it a moment's thought."

They looked at each other in astonishment.

"That's all we need" said Onno. "What are we going to do now?"

"You have to call."

"Call? Imagine the woman. Her husband has a serious heart attack and has to go into the hospital. The telephone rings and she gets the news that her pregnant daughter has had an accident and is in a coma. She won't survive it."

"What are we to do, then?"

"You've got to go there and tell her carefully. I'm staying here, with Ada, that's for certain."

"And how am I to get there?"

"In a taxi. At my expense."

"It'll cost a couple of hundred guilders. Do we have that much with us?"

"If not, we'll borrow it here."

Max looked at his watch. "It's a quarter past one. We should have been in Leiden about now. It'll be nearly three before I get there. But okay, of course I'll do it."

They went to the waiting room, where they pooled their money and got someone to call for a taxi. The driver of the local firm was already in bed but would be there in about twenty minutes. While they waited, a blond young man in a white coat, who turned out to be the duty doctor, appeared. They couldn't say very much yet. She was still unconscious, but it looked as if she had not broken anything; blood pressure, pulse, and breathing were good. Everything seemed to be okay with the child too.

"Thank God," said Onno.

"We now have to wait for the neurological examination."

"And when will that be done?"

"At once. We've got the neurologist out of bed."

Because the taxi was still not there, Max went to the ward. Ada's head lay on the pillow; her eyes were closed. A drip had been attached to her arm. The curve of her belly under the blanket was like a tidal wave. There was something about the expression on her face that struck him, that seemed familiar to him, that he couldn't place. But a moment later he suddenly realized: it was the expression she had when she played, when she lost herself in the music.

When the taxi driver saw Max, he said he wouldn't dream of taking him like that.

"You can walk, friend. I just got new seat covers."

Perhaps he thought Max had been in a fight. Only when Max had gotten the local paper from the porter and put it on the backseat was the man prepared to drive him. Max was shocked at his rudeness, but on the other hand he was glad, because now he didn't have to sit next to him out of politeness and make conversation, no doubt about soccer, of which he didn't even know, or want to know, the rules.

Again the rain and the high wind. He still couldn't really take in what had happened. When the car turned onto the highway, he closed his eyes to allow it to sink in: the tree suddenly across the road. . the shoulder. . Ada's head on the pillow, her black hair on the white linen. . the dazzling searchlight in the raging night, the sirens and the revolving lights. . the mud, the branches… he is cycling along the Rapenburg and a woman in a summer dress draws alongside on her bike. She asks where the tram stop to Noordwijk is. Very close, he says, first on the left. Is the tram cheap? It's easiest to go on the bike; it isn't far. But perhaps I'll have a long wait at the bike shed? It'll be okay. It's hot, but he has his raincoat on. It's already twenty five past four. In the Botanical Garden he is struck by the first trees coming into leaf: the top half of their crown is covered by a thick pack of snow, dazzling white in the summer sun. Look! He cries, and stops, but it doesn't seem to interest her; she cycles on to the beach, completely self-absorbed. .