The Discovery of Heaven

by Harry Mulisch

  "A sheep! A sheep!"

  It was not clear what was meant—maybe something to do with a symbolic sacrifice—but the shock was great. And maybe Max was the only person who suddenly found his eyes full of tears at the sight of the animal kicking in fright, the fathomless seriousness of it all, and the closeness of the bond linking it to the farmer leading it, who perhaps already knew that it would soon die of shock.

  10

  The Gypsies

  In the crowd afterward, Max was able to make a quick date with the redhead in the third row, after which he went backstage to the greenroom. Other public figures had also managed to gain admittance. At the bar stood a tall, platinum-blond young man in a raincoat with an umbrella—the "rain maker" of the former Provo movement—who arranged for precipitation by magic whenever it could hamper the police. He was listening with a smile to a pale lad with a bandaged forehead: he had made a hole in his skull with a dentist's drill, and because of this new fontanel, as he explained in interviews, was constantly as high as a baby.

  The writer sat making notes, still choking with laughter. In passing, Max heard him say to the chess player that they would later remember this time; but the grandmaster bent absent-mindedly over a pocket chess set, with which he may have been running through a variation for his forthcoming match with Smyslov in Palma de Mallorca.

  Ada was sitting at a large round table with Bruno, some other musicians, the composer from the forum, the student leader Bart Bork, and Onno. Max kissed her and sat down next to her on the same chair.

  "Congratulations," he said. "You two were the only ones who really knocked the audience out. Are you tired?"

  "Dead tired. I don't want to stay very long."

  Max raised his hand in the direction of Bruno, who nodded to him with a deadpan look. They had met each other a few times but had not struck up a conversation.

  Onno was explaining to the composer why in ten years' time, like a second Richard Wagner, he would be as right-wing as an American general and that, like all Maoists, he would embrace the Holy Mother Church on his deathbed, since that was what he was actually looking for: the Holy Father.

  "Comrade Rabbit is only a means to an end for you."

  "Comrade Rabbit?"

  "That's what Mao means in Chinese. Though there is the consolation that it's also the name of a constellation. I, on the other hand," he said, "will become the president of the People's Republic of the Netherlands after the revolution and in that capacity will make a state visit to Peking."

  With his head slightly bent, Bork looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "After the revolution," he said slowly, "you'll be a beachcomber on Ameland."

  Onno, startled, looked him in the eye. This was someone who meant what he said. He could feel the remark sinking into him, like a revolver thrown into a canal dropping through the murky water to the muddy bottom. Was that the way things were going? Imagine Bart Bork coming to power! And if it all came to nothing, which was the most probable outcome, knowing Holland, what would people like Bork do? How would they take it? For now they were borne along by massive good-humored benevolence—but if that were suddenly to disappear and they were suddenly alone? What would they do, then, in their despair? Would they turn into terrorists? Onno was shocked. Shouldn't he go into politics and do something about it?

  "Onno, come and help."

  Max, Ada, and Bruno had gotten up and were talking to one of the two Cubans. The latter switched with relief from his laborious American English into Spanish, or rather the sloppy Latin-American dialect in its Cuban variant. He was very impressed by the duo and wanted the address of the Dutch musicians' union; perhaps there would be an opportunity at some point for an invitation, but the compañera only wanted to give her own address. His instinct for power had obviously told him that he should talk to Ada and not Bruno. Through Onno, Ada explained that she had nothing to do with such an organization—that was not how musical life was organized in the Netherlands—and with some surprise the Cuban noted down her name and address.

  "That would be nice," said Max, when he had gone.

  "I know that kind of fellow," said Bruno. "You'll never hear another word. He's probably just talking big to impress the lady."

  "Do you really think we'll get an invitation to go to Cuba?" asked Ada.

  "There are thousands of better duos."

  "But they don't perform at left-wing demonstrations."

  "I'll wait and see what happens. I don't want to think about it. Do you mind if we go home?"

  Chairs were already being put on tables; everyone was getting ready to leave. Bruno said that he was going into town for a bit: there was a gypsy orchestra performing that he wanted to hear.

  Ada looked at Max. "I can see from your face that you want to go too. Go ahead. I'm only off to bed."

  "Can I come too, can I come too?" whined Onno, with his forefinger raised.

  "Yes, darling," said Max. "You can come too."

  "Hey!" cried Onno. "Have you gone completely nuts!"

  Max gave Ada the front-door key, looked at her sternly, and said:

  "Go up the front steps and count to four. On the far right you'll find a half brick, which is loose. Lift it up, slip the key in, and put the brick back in its place."

  The gypsy orchestra was playing in a dimly lit bar behind the Rembrandt-plein. It turned out that Bruno knew the musicians. He greeted the primas, who was walking among the audience, followed by the second violinist, and waved to the cymbalist and the bass player in the corner. The second violinist raised his instrument inquiringly, whereupon Bruno took it from him and revealed himself as a stylish fiddler, who had no trouble with the csárdás, or even with shouting "Hop, hop!"

  The moment Max heard the sounds, something melted in him. No one needed to tell him about the status of this music and its relationship to Die Grosse Fuge, for example: that was already clear from those shiny shirts with their wide sleeves. But at the same time there was something in it that was not found even in Beethoven, or in Bach, and that he experienced at home on his grand piano when he played the gypsy scale, the harmonic with its raised fourth note: the Central European Jewish gypsy sob, which bowled him over.

  They now played a slow number. The primas leaned over him and Onno at their table, as the friends of his friend. He was about fifty; the upper eyelids of his large fleshy face were thick and heavy with melancholy, like shutters, so he could scarcely raise them over his pupils. From his ears his black hair grew down to his lower jaw: a style that in Max's student days had been called "screwing strips," because women could hold on to them while they were on the job. Onno, who heard less the music than the renewed threat of a beachcomber's existence, turned away in embarrassment and lit up a cigarette, but Max, not taking his eyes off the violinist, was suddenly reminded of his father.

  Wolfgang too had listened to this music, on the spot, in Austro-Hungarian regions—Vienna, Prague, Budapest—at a time when he had only heard vaguely of Holland, as his son now had of Iceland, as something far away, Ultima Thule, where he would spend a few days if the opportunity presented itself. In 1914, in his tailored Bordeaux-red Habsburg uniform with the ornamental sword, a provocative girlfriend on each arm and a bottle of Tokay on the table, Wolfgang had listened to the father of this violinist in some Cafe Hungaria or other, his thoughts racing around in a gloomy enchanted circle, from which he was never able to free himself, while Austria declared war on Serbia—Serbien muss sterben!—and the mother of his son began school in Brussels.. .

  When the piece was finished, Max ordered a bottle of white wine for the orchestra and asked Bruno what language the leader spoke; he wanted to say something to him. According to Bruno, he knew only a few words of German.

  "Onno?"

  "As long as you don't think that I know all the sixty-five thousand dialects these people speak."

  He tried Hungarian, but that had no effect, and then took a different tack; suddenly the violinist's face broke into a broad smile. He p
ut a hand on Onno's shoulder and turned and spoke the same language to his friends, who cried "Bravo!" and "Hop, hop!"

  "What did you speak?" asked Max.

  "No idea. A kind of Serbo-Croat, I think. Anyway, he understands it. What did you want to say to him?"

  At dictation speed, Max said: "Tell him that I consider gypsies sacred, because they are the only people on earth who have never waged war."

  Onno did as he was asked and the smile disappeared from the large face. "Was that all?"

  "No. Tell him that because they are the only ones who are not murderers, they are denounced as thieves by everyone but that we have stolen even their death."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "That they were gassed and exterminated just like Jews, but that is hushed up so that people can go on niggling at them, even in Holland."

  "Are you sure I have to say that?"

  "Yes."

  The effect was shattering. With his instrument under his arm, the violinist looked at Max, while his eyes filled with tears. He turned and cried something with a choking voice to the others, which Onno translated as "Roma! Gather together!" The bass player now also came over, and the cymbalist with his instrument, making it necessary for the guests to get up and move tables aside; the second violinist took his instrument back from Bruno. A little while later the orchestra had grouped in a semi-circle around Max, and began playing and singing for him—in their own language, Onno suspected: some neo-Indian variant of Hindi from the sound of it, with borrowings from Iranian, Armenian, New Greek, South Slavic, and heaven knows what else.

  One can surround someone sitting on a chair and destroy him with threats, blows, or electricity, but here someone was being broken down with gratitude in the form of music. Max cried, for the second time that evening. With a gesture of apology he glanced at Onno, who could see that the musicians were forcing him back mercilessly to his origins, without realizing what they were doing. What was happening was totally alien to Onno—it was a musical scandal—and he would have preferred to put an end to it immediately, but of course that was out of the question. On the other hand his affection for Max grew even greater. What kind of man was it who with a few words could transform a kitschy string band in a back street into an ensemble that was celebrating a missa solemnis for the dead? He looked at Bruno, and on his face saw an expression that said: He deserves Ada.

  When the litany was finished, Max raised his hands in a ritual gesture of thanks. The musicians withdrew. He took a sip of his orange juice and said in a churned-up voice: "It's exactly twenty-one years ago today that my father was executed."

  When Bruno heard that, he stood up and moved away. Onno was about to raise his glass to his lips, but put it down again. That was it—the gypsies had touched the core. This required very careful maneuvering, but he could not resist asking: "Have you lit a candle for him?"

  "I've only just remembered."

  "Can you still remember being told about it?"

  "Scarcely. I was twelve. I don't think it had much effect on me. I was six when I'd last seen him."

  Onno nodded. What next? Max had raised the subject; he must not be left alone with it now.

  "Have you ever looked up the newspapers from those days? Have you studied his trial?"

  "It's never occurred to me. I know almost nothing about him, not even exactly where he was born, or on what day. I've always had the feeling that getting interested in my father was something I couldn't inflict on my mother."

  Pensively, he watched the primus, who was now again walking among the tables, bending over ladies with his violin and looking deep into their de-colettes, while gentlemen who knew the etiquette folded banknotes lengthwise and tucked them into his wide sleeves like voting slips. Bruno had sat down next to the cymbalist. "Has it ever struck you that people often know a lot about things that don't concern them but very little about things that really matter to them? People who have been in camps know nothing about the structure of Himmler's Reichssicherheitshauptamt, but I know every intimate detail—I could draw you a diagram just like that. But I have no idea how they elect the Upper Chamber in the Netherlands."

  "I'll explain it to you sometime."

  "Of course. But with you it's genetic."

  "True enough. Not with you, of course."

  "You know all about languages, but what do they matter to you? I know all about stars, but what do they matter to me?"

  "Just a moment. Surely you're not naive enough to think that our Upper Chamber means more to you than the Reichssicherheitshauptamt?"

  Max was silent. The conversation was confusing him even more. Five years before, he had followed the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem day by day: the man with the asymmetrical face in his glass cage, like a mechanical doll from the Tales of Hoffman; he had read a dozen of the stream of books that had appeared about Nazism at the time. Of course he had thought of his father during that time, and of his trial; but even the fact that there were still newspapers from 1946 around had not occurred to him. In some way or other he assumed that everything had disappeared into the past, and been ground up by time. In fact, he knew more about the Leopold and Loeb trial. But of course everything was still available!

  He looked up. "Shall I tell you something? I want to see it tomorrow. It had to happen sometime. Of course they've got all those old newspapers at the Press Institute. I'd like you to come, too."

  Onno thought for a moment. "Perhaps we could be a little more thorough. I imagine his file is probably at the National Institute for War Documentation. Suppose we go there."

  "Is it open to the public, do you think?"

  "Of course not. But you're the dreadful son of that dreadful father, aren't you? What's more, you're the son of your murdered mother. If they get awkward, I'll involve my dreadful brother, or if necessary my father himself, and then I'd like to see them say no. However, because they know all that, it's actually a foregone conclusion."

  They said goodnight to Bruno, and Max saw Onno to his front door, where they arranged that Onno would pick him up the following morning at ten o'clock. Max would take the morning off. They decided it would be better not to ring the institute in advance for an appointment, because that might be a pretext for postponing the matter indefinitely.

  On the way home Max felt his pulse for a moment—too fast, but not irregular. Tomorrow he was going to sort out his past. He didn't even have any photos of his parents. Everything had been lost when they had been arrested. He could still remember his mother clearly: a young, cheerful woman, in rooms, at the piano, in the street, in the park, with a Star of David sewn onto the left breast of all her clothes, with the word Jew on it in mocking pseudo-Hebrew letters. He remembered her laughing as she said, with a sort of pathetic triumph, "It isn't yellow at all, it's orange!" But he had no image of his father apart from one frozen scene.

  On Heiligabend—which was unknown in the Netherlands, but which they usually celebrated in Central European style—he had been instructed to stay in his room until the Christmas tree had been decorated and the candles lit. Neither his father nor his mother were believers. The only Christian thing about such a heathen Germanic seasonal symbol as a decorated tree with lights, he had realized later, was the crude wooden cross that kept it upright—but that was precisely hidden by red crepe paper, on which the presents were to be laid. Perhaps there was an argument, or some impatience or irritation. In any case, he thought he had been summoned. He went into the room, and there it etched itself into his memory: his father next to the Christmas tree, standing on a chair, with the glittering star for the top in his hand, and in his flashing blue eyes, looking down at Max from an immeasurable height, a look as cold as liquid air .. .

  In his front doorway he groped in his pocket for the key and then remembered that he had given it to Ada. He went up two steps and lifted the half brick. The shiny key lay in the dark niche, like Ada upstairs in his bed.

  11

  The Trial

  Ada had half wo
ken up a few times, once when Max crept into bed beside her. And when the sun was already shining on the curtains, she became entangled in a complicated dream:

  On the backseat of a car an old, emaciated man is lying in her arms, and she can feel his white stubbly beard against her cheek. She tries to push him away, but the problem is that the top button of his crumpled raincoat is a button of a murderer's coat and at the same time a button of her own. She eventually has to go into the dungeon that extends under the Saturnusplein; those who know about it can see it in the shape of the square. In a large, dark space full of staircases, drawbridges, vaults, railings, dangling cables, and chains, she is forced into a cage made of wooden slats, but the tribunal is already waiting for her. The presiding judge in the middle displays an oblong silver medallion, or perhaps it is a box with a jewel in it, and a little later a group of religious Jews dressed for prayer begin singing a lament. This signals the beginning of religious confusion. Suddenly she has a glass of champagne in her hand, and a priest in his habit giving a blessing thinks that it is part of the service; then she has to ascend a long, steep staircase, but for some reason she cannot climb the stairs. When she turns around, she sees an old woman in a Buddha pose gliding or floating diagonally through the space and telling the secrets of the past for the umpteenth time . . .

  She was awakened by Max's hand stroking her belly. He had an erection but was still half asleep. The erection did not count—he would have had that without her. He groaned.

  "I'll make coffee first," she said, and looked at her watch. "Hey, it's already nearly nine-thirty. Don't you have to go to Leiden?"

  "I'm taking a morning off."

  She pulled open the curtains and went naked into the small kitchen. The morning sun shone in over the trees. In the park below, a jogger had put his heel on the back of a bench and was trying to break himself in two. There was a smell of coffee and toasting bread, birdsong in the trees, further away the roar of the traffic. Everything was as it should be. In the bedroom Max had turned on the radio for the news; she heard him telephoning, probably to the observatory. Soon he would take her to Leiden and for a few days she would see him only at lunchtimes. Every time he disappeared around the corner in his car, she had the feeling that he had never been there, or would never be there again—but where was the source of that feeling of absence, in him or in her?