The Discovery of Heaven (106 page)

With a start Quinten sees where he is, but feels no fear. No, this is not a dream. All the rest is a dream—Israel, Italy, Holland. The Citadel is the only thing that really exists. Opposite him, about twenty yards away, the double door to the center of the world covered with a diamond-shaped pattern of iron bars stands wide open; the heavy rusty sliding padlock is lying on the ground. Black as the back of a mirror, Edgar sits on the threshold, like a sentry, and looks straight at him in a way that has nothing playful about it. As he slowly approaches, he sees behind him the green safe from the hotel.

Edgar turns around, flies onto the safe with a couple of short flaps of his wings, and begins sharpening his beak against the edge—but even without that Quinten understands what he has to do. He crosses the threshold with a slight shiver. The room is cube-shaped, about thirty feet long, wide, and high; although there are no openings in the walls, the same dusky light is everywhere. He kneels down by the knob of the combination lock and holds it between his fingers. He doesn't have to think about the combination— there is only one that comes into consideration: J,H,W,H. He pulls open the immense door and takes the suitcase from the bottom shelf. When he has opened the locks, the first thing he sees is the beige envelope with
SOMNIUM
QUINTI
on it.

He picks it up almost tenderly. This is the place to bring the plans up-to-date, but at the same time it would be rather like a mathematician counting his own fingers and noting down the result. He opens the newspapers, takes out the gray tablets, and lays them carefully next to each other on the stone floor. Then he replaces the envelope, slides the suitcase back, and closes the safe door, which this time produces no sound. As he has seen Aron do, he gives the knob a final twirl with the side of his hand. Without knowing what else has to happen, he takes the two heavy stones in his hands under his outstretched arms and stands up, which is the sign for Edgar to leap onto his shoulder.

But when he crosses the threshold, another change takes place. He stops in alarm, with Edgar next to his ear, the leathery claws with their hard talons in his flesh. The masses of stone around him are losing their substance: it is as though they are turning to wood ... and then painted linen .. . and then Brussels lace, which he can see right through. . . . Everything is crumbling and evaporating, daylight is beginning to penetrate, and a little later there is just a momentary trembling afterimage of the Citadel left—but that suddenly gives him a sense of its dimensions: a block of at least six hundred miles to the east, as far as Baghdad, six hundred miles to the west, as far as Libya, six hundred miles to the north, as far as the Black Sea, six hundred miles to the south, to Medina, and over twelve hundred miles high, as far as the first radiation belts ... he is suddenly standing outdoors in the sun with Edgar and the two tablets and sees immediately where he is: in the Kidron Valley.

Opposite him, up above, protruding above the temple wall, gleams the golden cupola of the Dome of the Rock; behind it is the Mount of Olives. The distance he has covered in the Citadel must be approximately the same as that from the hotel to here. He feels uncomfortable with only the towel around him, but the world is still as silent and motionless as just now. Is the sun also standing still in the firmament? That's impossible, of course; in that case everything would go up in flames—he doesn't need Max to realize that. Has no time elapsed between just now and now perhaps? If this is not a dream, then what is "now"?

His eye lights on the Golden Gate, which protrudes a little from the wall here. The soldiers on the roof have disappeared; the two tall gateways are open. So should he go through them and lay the Ten Commandments back on the rock? But he told his father that he didn't intend to do that, since no one must lay hands on them. For that matter, at the side of the Temple Mount the gate is bricked up. Yet there's nothing for it but to climb up on that side: he'll see. After a few steps he stops. The rough ground is strewn with stones, which hurt his bare feet, especially because he is now much heavier with the tablets under his arms. He looks around to see if there are a few old rags or palm leaves anywhere—it would be best of course if there were a pair of shoes. Then he suddenly sees something moving out of the corner of his eye. From the right, in the distance, from the north, a white horse is approaching at a gallop along the ravine past the wall, with mane waving and tail flowing. Quinten looks at the apparition in the frozen landscape open-mouthed. Right in front of him, the horse stands on its hind legs and moves its head up and down while saliva sprays around, as though it wants to confirm something. And at the same moment Quinten realizes what the horse is confirming.

"Deep Thought Sunstar!"

Something snaps in him. Sobbing, he makes as if to put his arms around the horse's neck, but he is prevented by the two stones; when he gives the creature a kiss on its nose, it kneels down like a camel. While Edgar holds on to the ponytail at the back of his head, Quinten climbs onto the sweaty back; with short, rapid movements Deep Thought Sunstar gets up and proceeds toward the Golden Gate at a walk. With his naked upper body stretched, the raven on his shoulder, the stones in his hands, Quinten looks around him with a smile at the fairy-tale hills and the approaching temple wall. If only Titus could see him now, and the pope, and the chief rabbi! A little later Deep Thought Sunstar makes its way carefully between the graves and again kneels down at the gate.

After he has dismounted, the horse stands up again and trots back into the valley; then Edgar spreads his wings, strikes himself on the crown with them, and follows the horse. Sadly, Quinten watches them growing smaller: the horse at a gallop, the raven overhead, the one as white as the other is black . .. when they have disappeared, everything is again motionless.

He turns around with a sigh and enters the gatehouse. The other side is now also open. With a solemn feeling he crosses the dim space, with a few columns standing here and there; there seems to be a soft roaring noise, like the sound of the sea in a shell. Outside, the sun receives him again and slowly he climbs the steps, which go up to the level of the terrace. There he stops and looks around. The space is about as large as that of Westerbork camp. Not a soul anywhere. Everything is just for him; the whole world is now only for him and is waiting for him. He walks across the grass to the wide staircase of the temple terrace. The row of arcades, which encloses it at the top, has five arches here; he stops again under the middle one. Straight in front of him is the small Dome of the Chain with its silver cupola, just behind it the golden Dome of the Rock: a child with its father. The restoration of the small sanctum is now complete: straight through the open space around it he can look into the dark interior of the Dome of the Rock.

He takes a deep breath and begins walking toward that black hole, without taking his eyes off it. But as he passes the center of the Dome of the Chain, surrounded by the double row of columns, the moment has finally come—I take things out of his hands. Suddenly he hears a soft rustling and stops. He looks around in amazement, but the sound is close by. It seems to be coming from the stone tablets. He rests them on his hips on either side and looks in astonishment at what is happening. It is as though the gray crust is alive, moving, melting. Something is trying to fight its way out from underneath, to free itself; a little later he sees tiny, glassy, translucent creatures appearing all over the surface, freeing themselves from the crusts of thousands of years, leaping out and swarming around him. Letters! They are letters! Letters of light! At the same moment the sapphire plates have become so heavy that he can no longer hold them—the towel also slides from his hips. They slip from his grasp and silently smash to smithereens on the marble slabs. But he does not care—he must have the letters; they must not escape! The ten words! Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not kill! He grabs at them with both hands, but the swarm rises in the cupola, toward the green five-leafed clover at the highest point, hovers there butterfly-like, dives down, flutters to the Dome of the Rock, and disappears through the black entrance. He chases after them in despair.

Inside, in the dim light, the letters dance and gleam up and down above the holy rock. What in heaven's name is he to do? Suddenly he feels eyes being focused on him. The woman in white, who was sitting praying in the alcove, has turned around and looks at him with shining eyes, like a doe. The cloth has slid from her head; her face is framed in a square of black hair. He stiffens. Is this a dream after all then?

"Mama!" he cries—but no sound leaves his mouth.

As he stands there, the other women still sit in the gallery and look at him with does' eyes. In one leap he is standing on the rock: Adas all around! All the women are his mother! Slowly he spreads his arms, throws back his head, and sees the arabesques on the inside of the dome: a network of countless interwoven figures-of-eight—and at that moment Moses' swarm of letters envelops his naked body with such an endless, dazzling Light that his body disappears in it like the light of a candle in that of the sun . . .

Standing in the hallway, Onno knocked on the door. When there was still no reply after a second knock, he gently opened the door; but after an inch or so it was held by the chain. Through the gap he could see only part of the washbasin, on which lay Quinten's watch and compass.

"Quinten?" he asked. "Are you asleep?" Again there was silence. He bent down and tried to look through the keyhole, but it was impossible. Then he shouted loudly, "Quinten!" and struck the door three times with his stick.

Nothing happened. What was wrong? Quinten must be in the room; the chain could not be put on from the outside. Something was very wrong! While Onno felt the blood rising to his head, he put his stick in the gap like a lever and pulled at it with all his might, so the chain flew out of the doorpost and the door banged against the wall. No one. On the bed lay the clothes Quinten had worn this morning, and his underpants. Onno looked at the open window in dismay. Had something terrible happened? Had Quinten suddenly had the same thoughts as himself about that Mrs. 31415 and in a fit of madness ... but then he would have heard, surely! In a couple of steps he reached the windowsill, which was a little stained with bird droppings, and looked down.

In the courtyard an old woman was busy stuffing a pile of linen into large laundry bags; lying on a stone bench, a slim, ginger-haired woman was reading a book, mechanically rocking a carriage with her other hand. He looked left and right and upward along the outer wall—nowhere was there a fire escape or drainpipe down which he could have climbed. Anyway, why should he climb out naked? He looked in the built-in wardrobe and under the bed, and then stood unsteadily in the middle of the room. He must consider this very carefully. If Quinten was not here, and if he couldn't have left through the door or out through the window, then there was only one conclusion: something impossible had happened.

He had known from the day Quinten was born that he would end up doing something impossible. It was not quite impossible that he had actually taken the tablets of the Law from the Sancta Sanctorum but his own disappearance from this room had brought about something really impossible. When the impossible was surely impossible! Onno thought of the stones, which Quinten had put in the safe yesterday: did that have something to do with it? Did the impossible prove the almost impossible?

Once again he looked around, as if Quinten might suddenly have reappeared, then went downstairs. The reception area and the lounge were deserted; he pressed the button of an old-fashioned bell that stood on the counter. A little later a girl with short black hair appeared through the door behind the counter.

"Shalom."

"My son," said Onno, at the same moment surprised at the word, "put a suitcase in the safe here yesterday. Has he by any chance collected it in the last hour?"

"Sadly, I haven't seen your son today."

"And Mr. Aron?"

"My father left for Bethlehem early this morning to visit my grandmother, who is ill. The safe hasn't been opened since yesterday. You can check for yourself if you like."

He followed her to the office, where she knelt down by the safe and turned the combination lock. She pulled the door open and pointed to the suitcase lying on the bottom shelf.

Onno looked at it for a few seconds, and then said: "Can I have it for a moment?"

She handed it over—but the moment Onno took hold of it, it was as though the suitcase were trying to fly into the air, as though he were going to throw it at the ceiling, it was so light. The stones were gone!

"What are you doing?" said the girl with a smile.

"I'm giddy," said Onno, groping around. She hurriedly gave him a chair, and he sat down with the suitcase on his lap. This was impossible too. The stones could no more have vanished from that safe than Quinten from his room. Although he knew it was pointless, he asked, "Does anyone else know the combination of that lock?"

She looked at him in alarm. "Only my father and myself. Do you think you've lost something?"

Onno shook his head. With trembling fingers, against his own better judgment, he began fiddling with the locks, whereupon she bent forward and opened them. On the envelope he had seen yesterday when the luggage was inspected at the airport in Rome he now read:
SOMNIUM
QUINTI
. Quinten's dream? Was it perhaps a farewell letter that Quinten had written previously? He took the papers out, but they were only architectural sketches and labyrinthine plans, with captions here and there captions like
Footbridge, Center of the World, Spiral Staircase.
The only explanation of the inexplicable ... he suddenly grabbed his head in both hands. He couldn't think about it anymore! Perhaps Quinten was not his son, or was his son; but now he was gone, gone for good, vanished off the face of the earth, no one knew where.

Quinten had deserted him, as he had once deserted Quinten—but he would never find Quinten, as Quinten had found him. He was now really in the situation that he had placed himself artificially four years ago: he had no one else . . .