Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

Slowly, the surgeon said: "In general that is the case. But complications can always arise, which may be fatal."

"We're aware of that," said Onno. "My mother-in-law perhaps most of all — she was in medicine herself. There was no need to keep that from her."

"So I've heard." Melchior again inserted a silence. "But you know, a mother…"

Suddenly Onno felt the blood draining from his face. Was he understanding him correctly? Was the man prepared to pull the plug? If he were to say to him now that an unexpected fatal outcome might ultimately be the best for everyone, first and foremost for Ada, to the extent that there was still such a person as Ada, would the required complication occur on Thursday? Some hemorrhage, or a cardiac arrest, with fatal consequences? Thursday was the day when that would be possible; if it didn't happen, then the opportunity would have been missed and her body might remain in its present state for months and perhaps years, before it died a natural physiological death.

It would be a long time before that would change in the Christian-dominated Netherlands, without someone risking a prison sentence and being struck off the medical register; that was another reason for changing society. He got up and went to the window, where he looked out without seeing anything. He was now in conversation with the doctor, but he must not indicate with so much as a word that this was happening; if he were to utter the word euthanasia, Melchior would dismiss that suggestion in alarm and the operation would proceed faultlessly. If Ada were to die on the operating table and suspicions were to arise so that people like his brother-in-law Coen could take him to court, on the basis of laws that his brother Menno taught, then everyone could swear under oath that there had been no question of terminating a life. The judge might have his own opinion, but the upshot would be acquittal, acclaimed by the enlightened section of the nation.

What was he to do? He now suddenly had to decide on her life. He couldn't possibly do it! He felt the responsibility weighing on his back like the sack of anthracite on that of a coalman from his childhood. But was her life "her" life anymore? Was there still a subject called Ada lying fifty yards away from here on a sheepskin? The day before yesterday he had asked the neurologist if her E.E.G. was completely flat — to which Stevens had replied that it was indistinguishable from a flat E.E.G. But he also thought of the conversation he had had a week ago with Max at Ada's bedside, when they had said that everyone, despite all the E.E.G.'s, instinctively whispered at all those bedsides.

He turned around. Melchior was leafing through a pile of large index cards, which had been bound into a temporary notebook with tape; he gave the impression that he had already forgotten the topic of conversation. Onno looked at his watch.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Someone's waiting for me at the gate. Shall we continue this conversation another time?"

"As you like. There isn't that much to continue."

"What's wrong?" asked Max. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

Surrounded by tentative gray-haired Sunday drivers, they were making their way along the highway to Leiden.

Onno groaned and looked sideways at him. "Can I trust you?"

Max laughed uncomfortably. "Is it conceivable that I should say no?"

"Then swear you'll never tell anyone what I'm going to tell you in deepest secrecy."

"I swear."

"Not my mother-in-law, not my child, or anyone else — even later. Raise two fingers of your right hand and repeat it."

Max took his right hand off the steering wheel, raised two fingers, and said: "I swear."

Onno then told him what had just happened. Max, too, was shocked by the sudden emergence of extreme seriousness. Deciding on life and death— like Onno he had never dreamt that it might become an issue in his life. That was something for doctors, military people, politicians, not for astronomers; so it was still more Onno's territory than his.

"When I said that we might continue our conversation another time, he said there wasn't much to continue. Of course he wasn't talking about our conversation, but about Ada's life. He looks like Quasimodo, the bell-ringer of Notre-Dame, but I know from my brother-in-law that he's a top man at his job. What would you do in my position?"

Perhaps Max was in his position. Suddenly his brain was operating quickly and efficiently. "I'd want to find out," he said, "whether the neurologist and the surgeon are really one hundred percent certain that Ada is brain-dead, that there's not one ounce of individuality left in her. Because even if there's just a tiny bit left, it's murder. I'm inflexible on that point. Suppose there's only as much left as a one-year-old child; then you can't do it. You can't murder babies, either. But if there's really nothing left at all, zero percent, just a vegetable, then it means nothing. Then you can."

"You talked differently last week. I got the impression that in your view not even the dead should be killed, so to speak."

"That was fantasy." Max nodded.

"But how can I find out what Quasimodo really thinks? I can't just ask him, because then the whole thing would be called off at once. And I can't approach that neurologist Stevens, because Melchior didn't inform him, of course."

At that moment Max had an idea.

"Do you know what we'll do? Ask casually if Ada is going to be given a local or a general anesthetic. If he says he won't be anesthetizing her since she has no perception left, then that would settle it, but if he says 'local' or 'general,' you'll know the score."

"This marks the exact scientist!" Onno exclaimed. "But if I ask him he'll probably smell a rat anyway, because he doesn't strike me as stupid. Perhaps it'll be better if I involve my brother-in-law on some pretext — he's a brain surgeon as you know; all these butchers know each other. Or maybe not," he said, shaking his forefinger. "He may say that a cesarean section is never carried out under local anesthetic, that he doesn't need to ask the surgeon. But he'll have been immediately alerted, because everyone has obviously considered that possibility, certainly good old Karel, who in terms of character might be persuadable, if he weren't such a holy Joe. No one else must be involved!" He looked sideways again. "I know a better way. You must find out."

Max glanced at him, then looked back at the road. "How do you see that happening?"

"You must get friendly with the surgical nurse a day before and find out from her if they're going to use an anesthetic — if necessary in bed, without regard of persons. So that disgusting promiscuity of yours will finally have some point for a change."

Max smiled. Now that promiscuity might have some point — even though Onno was only half serious, of course — it no longer existed. "Success doesn't strike me as guaranteed."

"Bashful all of a sudden?"

"Listen, she may be a lesbian; you never know with nurses. I could tell you things. .. There has to be a surer way of getting a result. Suppose I read up a little on the technical side of the anesthetics business—"

"Anesthesiological. Anesthetics are the substances."

"… so that I can see whether equipment is switched on and that kind of thing. Then on Thursday I'll simply wander into the operating room by mistake a quarter of an hour beforehand. Things like that are always possible in Amsterdam. Then I'll let you know; as the husband, you'll accompany the stretcher to the door of the operating room, where they won't let you through. Then you can ask to see the surgeon for a moment and privately give an indication of your decision."

Onno looked pensively at the little imitation three-wheeled car ahead of them that would not budge from the outside lane.