Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

They got along best with Theo Kern and his wife, on their own floor. Going to their apartment meant leaving this world and entering another. The arrangement of the rooms was the mirror image of their own, but that was the only similarity. At first sight the confusion reminded Max of that at Onno's, but at a second glance it became clear to him that it was more the opposite, but in a different way to the calculated order in his own place.

It was orderly disorder, or disorderly order — it was a third possibility: an artistic, unplanned arrangement of countless things, which had obviously landed somewhere by chance, casually put down, forgotten, like at Onno's, but which here formed an incomprehensible, harmonious creation, just as a swarm of birds at a certain moment took on a perfect shape that had not been composed by anyone. For that matter there were birds, too. Spread through the rooms were three cages, each containing three creamy white doves; some of the cage doors were open, with the crested creatures cooing and bowing on the top.

Stands with clay models on them, tables with drawings and plants; on the mantelpieces, on the tables, and on the ground there were wire sculptures, prints, pinecones, branches in vases, stones, statuettes, tree trunks, shelves. There was no distinction between bedrooms, living room, and kitchen; one suddenly came upon the Kerns' white four-poster bed, the varnished wooden bed of their daughter, who was in a summer camp at the moment, somewhere a draining board, a fridge, an oven — everything absorbed into the whole — clear, blond, weightless, as translucent as paper.

And in the midst of all this stood the artist: small, thick-set, jovial, always barefoot, his head surrounded from crown to chin by a huge halo of graying hair, like a dandelion after its petals had fallen. Whenever Max saw him he was reminded of a gnome on a toadstool; but his heavily built wife, Selma, who in her full, long dresses that reached to the ground looked as though she were eternally pregnant, who seldom laughed and sometimes looked at her husband as though he were mad, made one suspect that there were something entirely different in the sculptor — because in Max's view the hidden side of a man was visible as his wife, just as the hidden side of a woman was visible as her husband. But it seemed more sensible to him not to mention that view to Sophia.

Mother Earth was his usual name for Selma. She had long, loose dark-blond hair and a withdrawn look; Sophia got on very well with her. Like the Proctors, they seemed to have a slight problem with the constellation of Max and Sophia and the child that was about to appear; but they got used to it. Kern occasionally came and looked at Max's efforts, helped now and then and lent him tools — his electric drill, his stapler. They ate with them a few times: large, tasty dishes with a South American feel, so that they were spared the greasy schnitzels in the country restaurant.

Onno had not yet appeared at the castle. Whenever Max had dropped Sophia off at the Wilhelmina Hospital — where she went to visit her daughter and grandson — they arranged to meet somewhere in town, once even in the canteen of the party headquarters, which was around the corner from Max; spiritually he himself was no longer living in his half-dismantled flat. But their conversations were only about practical things and never lasted longer than half an hour. With a few friends, Onno had been elected to the party executive on behalf of the club of rebels by a party conference; as a reaction, a right-wing schism was approaching, which according to Onno every Social Democratic party in Europe envied them for, because in left-wing circles only left-wing schisms were the tradition, which meant that those parties were becoming more and more right-wing.

Because of all this, he was busier than ever; sometimes, to his own alarm he realized in bed at night that he hadn't thought of Quinten and Ada for the whole day. Meanwhile his second cousin, the real estate agent, had sold Sophia's place for a reasonable price for conversion into a snack bar, the stock of "In Praise of Folly" had been taken off her hands by colleagues, superfluous effects had been collected by an auction house, Brons's wardrobe by the Salvation Army. Once the moving was complete and they had furnished the rooms at Groot Rechteren, Max and Sophia drove to Amsterdam one warm July morning, where Onno was waiting for them at the hospital.

The staff were very reluctant to part with Quinten. He had been laid in bed next to Ada — as he had been for the last few days, since he no longer needed to be in the incubator. They looked in shock at the angelic child, with his wide blue eyes, next to Ada's motionless, almost marble face with its closed eyelids. The tidal wave under the sheets had broken, and Max felt the sight sinking deep into himself, as something that would never disappear from his memory. The moment a nurse pulled the sheet aside and picked up Quinten, everyone here realized that something irrevocable was happening, like a second birth, a second farewell. Ada, too, was shortly to leave the hospital; they were looking for a nursing home near the castle.

"May I have him?" asked the nurse with Quinten in her arms. "I've never known such a marvelous child. Do you know that he hasn't cried once since his birth? How much do you want for him?"

In the car Sophia sat in the backseat, with Quinten next to her in a travel bassinet. Little was said. Like Max, Onno was thinking of their fateful journey in February, of which this journey was in some senses the pendant, but neither of them mentioned it.

When Onno got out on the forecourt of Groot Rechteren, he looked around him, puffed out his chest, and said: "Right! This is a suitable environment for my worthy son! It's true that nature of itself is cretinous, and feudalism is completely out of keeping with the character of a simple man of the people like me, who as a Socialist through and through thinks only of the welfare of the low-paid, but in this special case the party executive will overlook it."

When Sophia took the travel bassinet carefully out of the car and was about to take it inside, he said, "No, Mother, I'll do that. That is my privilege." He put the handles of the bassinet over his arm like a shopping bag, raised one hand, and as he mounted the terrace began reciting solemnly: "In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti!"

In the tower room Sophia laid Quinten on the chest of drawers to change his diaper, and Max showed Onno the apartment. In Sophia's living room-cum-bedroom he recognized the corduroy sofa and the low table, but here, with a view of the moat and the wood, everything had taken on a completely new look. The portrait of Multatuli had obviously been given to the house clearer. When he saw all this, he wondered what had really possessed Max, but the time to raise the subject had now passed.

Mixed with other things of Sophia's, Max's belongings were mostly in the larger room at the front: the green chesterfield armchair; the grand piano; his books. On his desk again was the row of small instruments, transformed into symbols through their combination and precise arrangement. Although he knew all those things, they too had changed character here. Onno asked whether the rent wasn't astronomical, but Max said that it was scarcely half what he had paid in Amsterdam.

Onno stood at the mantelpiece, on which were the books in the "shelf of honor." Kafka had disappeared from the row, and in its place he now saw a copy of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. There was also a photo of Ada and him, taken last year by Bruno in Havana. Next to it a second, framed old photograph. He had seen at once that they were Max's parents. Without saying anything he looked at Max.

Max nodded. "Risen from limbo," he said.