The Discovery of Heaven

by Harry Mulisch

  "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.

  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 dr
ip 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.

  27

  Consolation

  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 . . .

  He woke with a start. Through the car window he caught a glimpse of the terrace of the Capitol in Havana—which immediately afterward shrank to become the entrance to the Academic Hospital in Leiden. His clothes were still clammy and damp. It was raining, but the storm had died down, or perhaps there hadn't been a storm here; he paid the bill and went inside without saying goodbye.

  The night porter, who surveyed him suspiciously from top to toe, had a message for Mr. and Mrs. Quist—and asked who he was. Once he decided to believe Max's story, he said that Mrs. Brons had gone home ten minutes ago. She was going to wait for her daughter there.

  "And Mr. Brons?"

  "He died at about twelve-thirty."

  Max turned away, looked at him again, turned away again, and looked at him again.

  "Would you be kind enough to call the hospital in Hoogeveen for me?"

  He realized that the formality of that sentence helped him control himself.

  The porter did as he had been asked and handed Max the receiver.

  It took a little while before he got Onno on the line.

  "Mother?"

  "No, it's Max. I'm here in Leiden at the hospital." He hesitated for a moment. "There's worse to come, Onno." And when there was a silence: "Ada's father is dead."

  "You can't be serious!"

  "It's as if none of this is real."

  "My God, I'm going mad. It's unbelievable! The poor guy, is he really dead?"

  "It seems it happened at about twelve-thirty, apart from that I don't know anything, either."

  "And what about my mother-in-law? How's she coping? Have you already told her what's happened to Ada?"

  "I haven't talked to her yet. She waited for us, but now she's at home; I'm going straight there. How is Ada?"

  "She's with the neurologist, they're taking X rays."

  "I'll be off, then. Take care. Try and get a bit of sleep tonight."

  "Yes, they've made up a bed for me here in Ada's room. I'll make sure she's transferred to Amsterdam tomorrow."

  "Your mother-in-law will be calling you shortly."

  "Thanks a lot, Max. It's fantastic what you've done for me."

  "Shut up, you know I'm glad to do it."

  Max handed the receiver back to the porter, who hung up.

  "Can I make a note of the number of that hospital?" When he'd done that, he asked, "Would you order a taxi for me? I'll wait outside."

  "You take care, too." said the porter, picking up the receiver again.

  On the terrace Max took a couple of deep breaths. What a night! But now it had hit them, and on other nights other people were the victims, and tonight countless other people were being struck too—there had never been a day or a night or even a moment when something like this was not happening to someone, for as long as humanity had existed. Doom roamed the earth constantly, like a swallow through a swarm of gnats, with sharp twists and turns, its beak wide open.

  When he got out of the taxi at "In Praise of Folly," the rain had finally stopped. There was a light on in the shop. Somewhere farther off in the silent town there was the sound of students coming from their club celebrating noisily; all through those hours they had been bawling away in their ravaged, oak-paneled domain. As soon as he rang the bell, Sophia Brons appeared at the back of the cave of books. Her face was taut, but her eyes showed no sign of redness.

  When she opened the door and saw him, she seemed to be alarmed for a moment. She looked quickly left and right down the street.

  "You look a sight! What's happened? Where are Ada and Onno?"

  "We had an accident on the way here, but don't be alarmed, everyone's alive."

  "An accident?" she repeated. Her cold, dark eyes looked at him in a way that made him feel immediately guilty. "And her child?"

  "All fine. They're in Hoogeveen hospital. I came by taxi. I've just been at the Academic Hospital, and heard the terrible news about your husband. How awful for you."

  She looked at his scratches and ruined clothes again.

  "Everything comes to an end," she said with a taut mouth. "Come in."

  Onno did not know his mother-in-law very well: this was not the kind of woman who needed to be treated with kid gloves and would be devastated by a telephone call. He followed her through the labyrinth of legibility to the back room. Poetry. Technology. Theology. On the low table he saw an opened photo album, and next to it a pair of black reading glasses. Above the brown corduroy sofa hung a large portrait of the writer Multatuli, which he hadn't noticed the last time, in the Romantic, conquering pose of a Bavarian king, a coat with a cape attached over his shoulders like an ermine mantle, focusing on truth with watery eyes.

  "A cup of coffee?"

  "I'd like nothing better."

  While she poured the coffee, he told her what had happened. When he mentioned with concern that Ada was still unconscious, she stopped stirring her cup and said:

  "Still? For more than three hours?" She thought. "Fortunately she's still young. I've known patients who were in a coma for days or weeks, without permanent effects."

  He looked at her in amazement. "Were you in nursing?"

  "Ages ago. In the war."

  "Anyway, I don't know what things are like now. I just called Onno from the hospital, and the neurologist was with her. Shall I call Hoogeveen for you? I've got the number."

  She pointed to the telephone. "Go ahead."

  "Onno knows about your husband," he said as he dialed the number. "He was very shocked, and he said that he would make sure that Ada was transferred to Amsterdam tomorrow." When he got through, Max handed the receiver to Sophia.

  "Mrs. Brons here," she said. "Thank you very much—thank you, Onno. I don't know. I'd gone to a lecture on Thoreau and Gandhi. When I got home, he was on the floor in the kitchen, unconscious.—Yes. Yes, don't worry.—So I heard. He's here now.—Yes.—Yes.—Yes.—Yes.—Of course.—Yes.—Oh.—Yes.—Yes.—Yes.—Let me know what happens.— Fine.—Of course.—I'll see you tomorrow."

  She put the receiver down.

  When she sat down again and said nothing, Max asked: "Well?"

  "The X rays are good. N
o fracture of the base of the skull or anything like that. We'll have to wait. Tomorrow she'll be admitted in Amsterdam, probably at the Wilhelmina Hospital. They'll do an E.E.G. there."

  Max nodded. He didn't know what else to say and asked: "How old was your husband?"

  "Forty-seven."

  "And a fatal heart attack, though he led such a quiet life here among his books."

  "No one knows the kind of life a person really leads."

  Max nodded. "You could be right about that." He was silent for a moment. "There are also people who are constantly under terrific pressure who live to be a hundred. What were his last words?"

  " 'That rain just goes on pelting down.' " With her arms folded, Sophia looked straight ahead for a while, as though she could see him again. "He'd been feeling nervous and anxious all day. He thought it was the weather."

  They continued looking at each other. Max wanted to ask if he had had much pain, but that didn't seem appropriate. He bent over the photo album and saw the family at the base of a statue. At the foot of it was a giant-size winged lion; in a burst of high spirits, Ada had laid her head on a step, under a bronze claw, while her father shrank back with feigned alarm. Her mother was looking up at the statue, which was not visible on the photo.

  "Venice?" he asked, and looked up.

  "Two years ago."

  "All three of you are in it. Who took the photo?"

  "Someone who happened to be passing by."

  He leaned back and looked at the shop through the open dividing door. In fact he wanted to leave, but he had the feeling that it wasn't possible yet.

  "What will you do about the bookshop now? Are you going to continue it?"

  "I don't want to think about that yet. First we have to get the funeral over with."

  Max nodded. "Will you have to cope on your own, or does he have relatives?"

  "I have a mother in the old people's home and a brother in Canada, but my husband has two sisters who could help. Anyway, Onno said that he'll involve his family tomorrow morning."

  "You can rely on him for that. If I can be of any help to you in the next few days, I am always at your disposal," he said formally, getting up. "Well, Mrs. Brons, I won't keep you any longer."