The Discovery of Heaven (37 page)

Onno looked contemptuously around him.

"So you think you can plumb the depths of the universe in this hole." He cupped a hand behind his ear and listened. "I can't hear the echo of that Big Bang of yours at all. All I can hear are stupid cows in the distance, wanting milking."

"So you can actually hear it," said Max.

The hood of his car was open, and small boys were bending over the dashboard to see how fast he could go. Because of the changed circumstances, it was now Onno who had to force himself sideways into the narrow space behind the seats. They drove out of the village along a provincial road, lined by tall elms; the sky, monochrome-gray like tin, hung over the alternating farms and woods. Max pointed out the large erratic stones, from the Ice Age, which were piled into small pyramids at the entrance of every farm. They worked themselves to the surface from the depths, he told them, whereupon the farmers hit them as they plowed.

"Am I right in thinking," asked Onno, "that stones fall upward here?"

"Not once they reach the surface."

"Ah, mother earth!" said Onno with something like paternal pity in his voice.

Max was about to say he had also heard that with war veterans, bullets sometimes appeared from their backs after twenty years—but it was no longer possible to talk to Onno in this playful way. The barrier was now right next to him, under that black curve. He cast a glance in his mirror, in which he could see Onno looking around with his hair waving, obviously enjoying the ride. Behind him, still in the mirror, they were driving backward on the wrong side of the road: yes, that was what their relationship was like now.

They passed farm cottages, also with erratic granite blocks in their small front gardens, drove through a village, and after a few hundred yards signs appeared on a woodland path forbidding all motor traffic. That was because of the radio waves transmitted by the spark plugs, explained Max; the telescope was so sensitive that even such a minimal signal was enough to interfere with reception.

"And what about your spark plugs?" asked Ada.

"They're insulated."

"So it might happen," suggested Onno, "that you think you've discovered a new spiral nebula when it was simply a moped trespassing on the site."

Max made a skeptical gesture with his hand. "Okay," he said. "That might be possible. I hope you haven't got an electric razor with you."

"So that it's not beyond the realms of possibility," Onno persisted, "that what you radio astronomers regard as the universe is simply the traffic situation in the surrounding area."

Max had to laugh despite himself. "God knows."

"You've put your finger on it! The earth is flat and the stars are tiny holes in the firmament, through which the light of the Empyrean, the abode of the blessed, shines. And anyone who maintains anything different, like you, is on the slippery slope."

Suddenly a portion of the mirror became visible above the trees: a gigantic framework twenty-five yards in diameter, a transparent parabola of gray steel, as out of place in the rural environment as an oath in a sermon.

"It's not an eye at all," said Onno. "It's an ear."

At a complex of low-rise service buildings, Max turned off his engine and an unrestrained silence descended upon them. The birds in the wood simply made it deeper; from the other direction, where it was more open, came the scent of heather.

Ada got out, took a deep breath, and looked around. "How marvelous it is here."

"Yes," said Onno, lighting a cigarette and inhaling deeply. "That's the marvel of numbness. Nature is the sleep of the intellect. Only in the city does the spirit awaken."

"I wouldn't mind living here, though. If necessary, with a little less intellect."

"Shame on you! Nature is for children."

"That's what I mean."

With a groan Onno had also clambered out of the car and gave her a kiss.

"You're a darling, but you're making a terrible logical error. For her own safety, our daughter must become a real city child. You can tell that from all those children from the provinces. At the age of fourteen they sneak off to Amsterdam and then walk into every trap at once. They know which toadstools are poisonous and that they mustn't walk through the tall grass barefoot, but they haven't a clue about the vipers in the city. If they've grown up in the city, they know exactly what they have to be careful of. And believe me, in fourteen years' time it will be a lot more dangerous in Amsterdam than it is now, because everything always gets worse. Could you live here?" he asked Max. "Nothing was ever thought of in the country, was it? After all, you think up in Leiden what you test out here."

Max had listened to him in desperation. What he had said about that "daughter" was of course a game, but as a real father he had obviously already thought about the best environment for Ada's child.

"Really live here all the time? I'd prefer to give up astronomy. I'd feel like a banished criminal. I won't say a word against Drenthe, but of course it's the Siberia of the Netherlands." He looked at the sky. "I think I'll put the top up."

With the help of Onno, he pulled it up, and after securing the handles and press studs, he took them to the guest suite, where he had asked the caretaker to reserve a bedroom. In the communal living room, furnished with wicker chairs and plywood sofas, he introduced them to a young colleague from Sydney, who was too fat for his age and was sitting working at the dining table. Max told them in English that he was here to combine the Australian data on the distribution of neutral hydrogen in the Milky Way with that of the Northern hemisphere, thus producing a complete map.

"Something like this," he said, pointing to one of the papers, on which was a diagram that, according to Onno, looked like a Rorschach test but in Ada's opinion was like a view of the brain from below.

"What do you know about brains?" asked Onno. "That's my specialty."

"I once saw a photograph of one."

After they had unpacked their bags in the bedroom, they went to the low hall in the main building, where astronomers, technicians, administrative personnel, and students working their way through college had gathered around a cart carrying tea and biscuits. Some of them knew Onno and Ada from their visit to the Leiden observatory—that was the very first day, Max suddenly realized, when he had plucked Ada from the "In Praise of Folly" bookshop. He saw her sitting at her cello again,
musicienne du silence,
her father with paint on his face—and later: "Be careful, don't hurt me . . ."

He showed them his office, as tidy as the one in Leiden, the metrological department, the instrument-making workshop, and the other workshops, where the lights were on, after which they went outside through the back entrance. A hundred yards farther on stood the colossal telescope, silently focused on a point in the dark sky. Max himself still felt a mysterious effect emanating from the instrument, which he knew so well—not comparable with any other technical structure. The wind had come up somewhat, and while they walked toward it along the path, he said that the wind was, of course, because of the contact with the most distant and earliest things in the universe that was taking place there. On the edge of the heath, which extended to the horizon, the reflector towered above them, as transparent as a fallen leaf in winter, in which only the veins had remained. The monster rested on feet, between which was a service hut; the whole construction was supported by four wheels on a circular track.

"If you ask me, those are kitchen brushes," said Ada, pointing to the brushes, which had been tied provisionally with string at the front and back of each wheel to keep the rail smooth.

"From the household store in Dwingeloo," said Max, nodding. "It ultimately comes down to that kind of thing. That's how it is in science, but no one must know."

"It's just the same in politics," said Onno. "All improvisation and making do. People believe in masterminds and devilish plots, but if they were to hear how policy is actually made, they'd get the shock of their lives. It's just the same as at home. I think it's the same everywhere when you look behind the scenes. It's a miracle the world still goes around."

In the service hut, where a couple of observers were sitting at the panels, he inquired what was being observed, or eavesdropped on, at the moment.

"I think they're calibrating," said Max. "What are we doing, Floris, 3C296?"

A man of his own age, perhaps a little younger, said without taking his eyes off his meters: "Yes, but there's interference from somewhere. It's probably one of those bloody weather balloons from Cuxhavn, with its thirty-eighth harmonic. Why don't we call the air base at Leeuwarden and get them to shoot the damn things down?"

"They cause just as much interference."

That really was the problem, said Max; Onno was right about his moped. Once you had the information on punch cards, you had to first work out what you'd really measured and make sure you'd gotten the astronomy out of it.

"Excuse me, but I think that I'll have to lend a hand. Why don't you two take a walk across the heath, and I'll see you at about dinnertime. I've reserved a table at what you might call a gourmet restaurant in the village. And remember, if a storm starts, you must lie flat on the ground and crawl back. That's the kind of thing you don't know when you are a city person."

But the moment he said this, he was struck as though by lightning by the realization that this would be the solution to his problem: if Ada were to meet her end in that way—and he wanted that thought to be immediately burned out of his head.

It hadn't been necessary to reserve a table; because of the bad weather they were the only ones in the restaurant. In the dark, primitive space, full of vague paintings and prints and iron pots on the walls, they chose a table as far away as possible from the windows, against which gusts of rain blew now and then. Max lit the candle and listened to Onno's argument about the difference between rotten weather in the city and rotten weather in the country. In Onno's view you got wetter from the rain in the country— weather didn't belong in the city at all; on the other hand people in the country became depressed because of it, while in the city it was simply inappropriate.

"You don't give me the impression of being depressed at the moment, though."

"No, not me of course, because I'm above all that. I dwell in the regions of pure reason, on which the weather conditions have no influence. But you—you seem depressed to me. Is there something wrong?"

"Of course not," said Max. He looked uncertainly at Ada, whom he had just now wished dead. "What could be wrong with me?"

"That's what I'm asking. Perhaps you come here too often. What's going to happen to you when that installation in Westerbork is finished?"

"I'll see about that nearer the time."

"How far have they gotten?"

"The twelfth mirror will be finished this year."

"That's sure to be a fantastic sight," said Ada. "One of them is already impressive enough."

"I think so too."

Onno looked at him searchingly. "Do you mean you've never been to see them yet?"

"No. I mean, yes. I've not been to look yet."

"Isn't it near here?" asked Ada.

"Fifteen miles farther on."

"Very close, then."

Onno placed his hand on hers for a moment, and Max could see that this was not only a gesture of tenderness but also an instruction to be quiet. Obviously she didn't realize what Westerbork meant to him: he had never told her; but probably she had been told by Onno meanwhile and had simply forgotten the name. It wasn't exactly pleasant to find himself treated with such circumspection, like a patient.

"But I know the site backward. I have all the plans in my head, and I can take you to the parade ground or the punishment barracks blindfolded."

It looked increasingly as if he were going to become telescope astronomer in Westerbork—that is, the astronomer who worked regularly with the technicians on the spot—and he would see what happened then. Perhaps it was best to put it off until there was no alternative, just as one shouldn't first feel how cold the water was with one's toe but simply dive in. Perhaps it had been obscured for the last few months by the problem he had inflicted on himself.

Not even the neat black suit could change the coarse face of the waiter, whose grandparents had probably been born in a turf hut. But he opened the champagne expertly, without making the cork pop. Max tasted it, waited until he had poured the glasses—with Ada putting her hand over her glass—and then proposed a toast.

"To our simultaneous conception!"

Ada looked at him in astonishment. Had he told Onno about this? "What on earth do you mean?"

He realized immediately what she thought he meant—but before he could answer Onno said:

"I told you about that, Ada, but you weren't listening. You thought: yes, yes, I'm sure that's true. That's what we're celebrating here; the silent, holy night of Van der Lubbe, the most influential Dutch politician who ever lived."

While they studied the menu, he told her again—and he described the occasion on which Max had worked it out for him. "Mrs. Hartman, can Onno come out to play?" Max had already almost forgotten. It was a year ago, but it seemed something from the distant past.

"How is Helga?" he asked. "Have you seen her again?"

"Never. She's sitting dutifully at the Art Historical Institute keeping the catalog up to date."

They ate wild boar, and Onno expanded on his domestic political adventures, while Max and Ada listened politely. A Great Leap Forward was being made, he said, in which what his father and his friends had prevented in 1945 was finally being achieved—that was, going hand in hand with a rabid wave of democratization, which was not devoid of plebian features: no one was allowed to achieve any more than anyone else—and if you simply promoted that and meanwhile you yourself aristocratically achieved what no one else achieved, then you were assured of power to the end of the century.

"Machiavelli did not live in vain," said Max.