The Discovery of Heaven (68 page)

Although scores of people came past every day, he was certain that he was the only one who had recognized the place, because he never saw anyone looking at it specially. In fact there was nothing much to see about it. It was the site of the annual Easter bonfire: a small, oblong field, enclosed on three sides by tall trees, on the fourth by a narrow country lane. In the summer a red cow grazed there; she looked up attentively when he sat down in the ditch and put his arms around his knees. Perhaps it was also connected with those two trees, which seemed to have escaped from the dark edge of the wood and were standing separately in the grass, each in a perfectly good place, where they gave the space structure, as did the three large erratic stones—but that did not explain the mystery that hung about the place. It was as though it were warmer and quieter than in other places where it was just as warm and quiet.

He let his eyes wander over the enclosed domain and thought of the previous day. Because his father had again not found time to come to Groot Rechteren for a couple of months, Quinten had been to visit him in The Hague with Max, where to his satisfaction they had gotten lost in the Parliament building. In the party offices, a lady who worked there said that he was in the chamber of the house; and after having listened to a long set of directions, by the end of which they had forgotten the beginning, they set off through the maze of narrow corridors—upstairs, downstairs, to the left, to the right, past lines of portraits of deceased members of Parliament, libraries, committee rooms, girls using copiers, talking loudly, obviously slightly tipsy journalists, politicians conferring in window alcoves: everything repeatedly converted, improvised, with walls knocked through. But only after they had asked the way twice more did they open a door and suddenly find themselves in the public gallery.

In the beautiful oblong room, full of red, brown, and ochre, which was smaller than Quinten had imagined, a minister slumped in his chair behind the government table was listening to the argument of someone at the lectern, or at least pretending to; on the countless benches there were no more than four or five equally bored members of Parliament. Onno was standing talking to the Speaker of the House, but he saw them immediately and gestured them to come to him.

"Thank you for releasing me from the most dreary of lion's dens," he said, and took them to the coffee room. And there, while Quinten ate his open sandwich, he had asked him, "You're twelve now—do you know what you want to be yet?"

When he didn't answer at once, Max said: "An architect, if you ask me."

Quinten was annoyed that Max had said that; it was an intrusion. Apart from that, he didn't want to become an architect at all.

Preceded by four young dogs, a young woman now ran across the country road, dressed in a long white dress, with rings on all her fingers and hung with chains and bracelets; she came from the farmhouse a little farther on, where a commune of Amsterdam artists lived—dropouts, who had had enough of life in town. She raised an arm cheerfully and he returned her greeting absent-mindedly.

He looked dreamily at something that could not be seen but that was still coming toward him from the quieter than quiet field with the cow, the three boulders, and the two alder trees in it. The question of what he wanted to be had never occurred to him. He was what he was, surely—so what was he supposed to be? But of course his father meant some profession or other, like one boy in his class, who was always announcing that he wanted to be a doctor. It was just that he could not imagine ever practicing some profession or other, not even architecture. That interest was only connected with the dream of the Citadel, but Max could not know that. Perhaps everything would always remain the same.

44
The Not

Onno might have been just as unsure what he wanted to be, but the following year, in 1981, after the new elections, he was put forward by his party leader as minister of defense. The center-right coalition of the previous four years gave way to a center-left coalition, in which the Christian Democrat prime minister was obviously not subject to change; only the conservative vice-premier left office with his cohort, to be replaced by the new Liberals and the Social Democrats of the last cabinet but one, who had been dumped four years previously and now wanted to be in government again at any price—bearing in mind the adage that politics did not wear out those in power but those not in power.

Toward the end of the cabinet formation, one Sunday in August, twenty or thirty of the principal players gathered for a boat trip on the IJsselmeer. That had been organized months before by an enlightened, stubborn banker, who not only promoted the arts but did not let even his opinions be determined by his interest, because his wealth did not prevent him from being more or less left-wing; and because, besides being more or less left-wing, he was also a rich banker, and moreover the scion of an old patrician family, no one ever had a reason to refuse an invitation from him.

However, the trip now became an appropriate opportunity for the new political friends to conclude their squabbling over the portfolios undisturbed; the leaders of the Conservatives, who had previously also been invited, had understood that unfortunately it would be better if they were otherwise engaged. Their place was taken by a number of ministers-designate, like Onno. Usually he stayed over Saturday night at Helga's, but now he had gone home so as not to wake her the following morning; she had herself had a ticket for a late showing of the old film
Les enfants du paradis.

Before they went aboard, the groaning politicians, still half asleep, drank coffee in Muiden castle, but by eleven o'clock the first empty whiskey bottles were already landing in the crates. It was an oppressive day; the bank's seagoing motor launch, manned by a graying captain-cum-navigator and two ladies in white aprons who attended to those on board, made its way through the water, which was as gray as the sky. In the afternoon they were to drop anchor in Enkhuizen, where an organ program by the Social Democrat party chairman was planned; then there would be a crossing to Fries-land, to Stavoren, where a hotel had been booked. For those not wishing to spend the night there, official cars would in the meantime have arrived.

In a circle on the rear deck, with a rum-and-Coke in his hand, Onno was explaining to the banker why he was considered by everyone so excellently suited to become minister of defense.

"I owe it to my big mouth. Even in my own party they're frightened that a Social Democrat won't be able to stand up to the generals. But they know that I will line up that bunch in my room on the very first day and say, 'Gentlemen, if any of you should ever feel the necessity to threaten resignation, then he can regard himself as automatically dismissed.' And after I have had them swear allegiance unto death to my person, I will wipe the Soviet Union off the map with a fearsome first strike."

The banker had an infectious asthmatic laugh, which resonated in the sounding box of his overweight body. He was sweating and with a newspaper was constantly brushing away the myriad tiny gnats that were accompanying the boat. For that matter they were not the only accompaniment: about a couple of hundred yards away, somewhat behind them, was a patrol boat of the national police. A company had also formed on the foredeck, but the important business was being conducted in the cabin, which no one entered without being summoned. Through the open door at the bottom of the steep stairs Onno could see them at the drawing room table—the prime minister and the two other party leaders with their intimates. Someone regularly went to the bridge to make a phone call.

Obviously something was wrong, because they'd been together for an hour. Everyone called everyone else by their Christian names, but the staff were addressed as "sir" and "madam." Why was that? Onno wondered. Why was it that this handful of people called the tune in Holland? How was it possible that it was possible? Obviously, there were indeed two different kinds of people in the world. He emptied his glass, looked around the circle, and was going to ask whether there shouldn't actually be a god on board as well, but controlled himself.

The first signs of drunkenness were becoming noticeable. In the forecastle an interim minister had been shouting for sometime "Steady as she goes!" at the helmsman, who each time nodded with a smile. A veteran politician in an over-thick sailor's jersey said threateningly to a serving lady, "Tonight I shall count your hairs." The radar aerial revolved slowly and superfluously. They passed Marken, and when they had left Volendam and Edam behind them, the coast slowly sank below the horizon. Although the boat was in the middle of nothing but water, it was becoming more and more oppressive. Everyone had become convinced that things were not going according to plan in the cabin: something was wrong. While Onno discussed with the minister of internal affairs the delicate matter of the crown prince, who in all probability would become liable for military service under his regime, his party leader came out of the cabin. His tie was loose and his shirt was hanging out of his trousers at the back; with clumsy, uncoordinated gestures he took Onno aside behind the sloop. It became quieter on deck, and immediately Onno knew that something was seriously wrong.

The leader with his bald pate, prime minister of the cabinet in which Onno had been a minister of state, vice-premier of the coming cabinet, two heads shorter than himself, waved a sheet of paper and looked up at him.

"Things have gone to pot, Onno. Were you in Cuba in 'sixty-seven?"

That was it.

"Yes."

"When you were there did you take part in ..." He put on a pair of reading glasses with heavy frames and looked at the paper, but Onno immediately completed his question:

"La primera Conferencia de La Habana? Yes, but actually not."

Lost for words, the leader took off his glasses and stared at him. "And at the conference you were actually on the first committee—that of the armed struggle? I can scarcely get the words out."

"Yes, Koos."

Koos revolved on his own axis in astonishment and looked out across the water; on his neck, his slightly too long white hairs came together in a series of points, like shark's teeth. "What in God's name is the meaning of this? Do you really think that you can take over Defense with something like this in your CV? Why did you keep it from me?"

"I didn't keep anything from you. I simply didn't think about it anymore. It was fourteen years ago. For me it was a silly incident that meant nothing."

"Does your stupidity know no bounds, Onno?"

"Apparently not."

"Do you realize what you're doing to the party? The whole cabinet formation may now be in jeopardy. Tell me, who are you? Did you have guerrilla training there as well, perhaps?"

Onno ignored that remark and asked: "Is that an anonymous letter?"

"Yes."

"Then I know who wrote it."

"Who?"

"Bart Bork."

"Bart Bork? Bart Bork? That ex-Communist student leader? Were you at that conference with him?"

"On the contrary—he couldn't get in. But he had a score to settle with me, and it seems as though he's got what he wants."

"Would you now please tell me at once what actually happened?"

"I would appreciate doing that with the prime minister present."

"That's fine by me."

"Was that addressed to you?" asked Onno as they went toward the cabin, followed by the silent glances of the others.

"No. Dorus suddenly put it on the table just now. Goddamnit, Onno, I won't let him have the pleasure."

Onno knew that the prime minister was the bane of Koos's life. When Dorus had been minister of justice in his own cabinet, he had become thoroughly irritated by the bigoted zealot, who could not ignore a single abortion—to say nothing of euthanasia—but who ordered the security forces to open fire without pity when the Moluccans hijacked trains in Drenthe; in the last cabinet formation Koos had been eliminated remorselessly by him— as leader of the opposition he had not gotten a hold on him—and now he had to serve under him again. Politics was the continuation of war by other means, in which you could win or lose; the problem was that you got used to winning but never to losing. That meant that when you lost, more went through you than when you won; that when you lost, you lived more intensely, which in turn resulted in some people ultimately preferring to lose than to win, because winning bored them. Onno would have liked to say to Koos that this destructive tendency was a much greater enemy of his than Dorus, but he had never dared.

Meanwhile Dorus had also appeared on deck, where he was applauded by everyone when he did a handstand to relax. Onno saw that Koos, who was fifteen or twenty years older than Dorus and who could scarcely stand up properly, was extremely irritated by this. Like Onno, he came from a Calvinist family.

A little later in the warm cabin the atmosphere was icy. Apart from them, only Piet, the new Liberal chief, was at the table.

"We're listening," said Dorus. He was in shirtsleeves, his hair combed with excruciating care. His appearance had something fragile and boyish about it, but his shaded eyes, which were focused on Onno, and his fleshy, slightly pursed lips in his expressionless face with its pointed nose, talked a different, a more remorseless, language.

Onno was surprised at his own calm. Without feeling that it really mattered, he explained what had happened fourteen years before: his meeting with Bork after the political and musical demonstration in Amsterdam, where Bork had announced that Onno would become a beachcomber on Ameland after the revolution—and that it was precisely that ominous remark that had finally made him decide to go into politics. Then the Cuban invitation to his wife, the misunderstanding at the airport, and the explosive conference in which he had found himself. He said nothing about the role of Max, who had persuaded him to go. Finally, he told of his meeting with Bork in the park in Havana, where he was exchanging money on the black market, where he had gotten even with him.