The Discovery of Heaven (69 page)

"And now it's his turn again," he concluded. "But it was an interesting conference, from which I learned a lot. It's just that looking back on it, it might have been more sensible if I had enrolled as a press representative."

Dorus tapped the tips of his outstretched fingers against each other and looked around the circle. "We believe you."

"At least I do," said Piet, with the astonished, innocent look in his blue eyes that won him so many votes.

"Moreover," continued Dorus, "I appreciate your honesty. There are also photocopies of the conference administration enclosed, in the name of a certain Onno Quits, and you could have said that was someone else or that they're forgeries. As long as there's no photograph on which you can be seen in the company of the formidable Dr. Castro Ruiz, you could have risen very high."

"I'm not lying, Dorus, because I have nothing to hide."

"But as things are at present, what's the good of us believing you? Will the chiefs of staff believe you—or want to believe you? It's like that naughty bishop who's found in the brothel and who proclaims, 'In order to be able to fight evil, one must know evil.' What's happened to your authority? Because I assure you that the generals will also be in possession of these documents within twenty-four hours. This epistle," said Dorus, putting his narrow, well-manicured hand on it, "was not addressed to me but to the American ambassador, who had the politeness to send it to me by courier last night. Well, that means that the CIA now knows about it, that our own armed forces will soon know about it, and that they will know about it in Brussels, at NATO headquarters, under the archpatriarchal leadership of our inestimable countryman. Mr. Bork has done his work thoroughly. And you can rest assured that our American friends will not wish to run any risks, however small, that a pro-Fidel lout will ever have authority within the treaty organization over the forces on the north German plain, nor that this individual should be informed of vital military secrets, so that the Cold War might have been fought in vain."

With this the open account of the Eighty Years' war that had been fought in vain was settled. Politics, thought Onno, was a profession in which everything was settled down to the last cent. "It's hopeless, Onno," sighed Koos, without taking his thin cigarillo out of his mouth. "You're finished. For that matter, I don't mind you knowing that even in my time some generals had strange ideas:
I
was already going too far for them. What's more, certain monarchist groups from the former resistance have been hoarding caches
of
weapons since the beginning of the 1970s, just in case the New Left came to power. They know that we know who they are and where they've buried their stuff, and as minister of defense you'd also be informed of that."

"That is," observed Dorus, "we know what we know, but we don't know what we don't know."

"It won't be as bad as that," said Koos. "Most of them are okay people, although there are a few generals among them. It's just to give you an impression of the atmosphere."

With a mixture of numbness and relief, Onno said: "It goes without saying that I am withdrawing."

"And if our feathered friends of the press inquire for what reason?" asked Dorus. "Your name has been circulating in the newspapers for some weeks."

"Because you in your unfathomable wisdom decided on a different distribution of portfolios, which unfortunately left me high and dry. Or think of some illness for me. Say I've had a slight brain hemorrhage."

"Nonsense," said Piet. "Why should you have to lie because you don't want to lie? Apart from that, Bork may still make the matter public. If anyone asks anything, you simply tell it like it is and in a year's time you'll become mayor of Leiden."

"The job of beachcomber of Ameland," said Dorus, with a deadpan expression, "appears to have been already allocated."

"Dorus!" cried Piet reproachfully, but also smiled.

"Just tell us what you want," mumbled Koos.

"And who will get Defense now?" asked Piet.

"Without the shadow of a doubt you have a
sweet prince
on board for that exceptionally responsible post who is dear to all of us."

"Just a minute!" said Koos indignantly, sticking up an index finger, the top joint of which was deformed. "That means that we—"

"Undoubtedly," Dorus interrupted. "With his crystal-clear intelligence, old Koos has immediately hit on the essence of my spontaneous brainwave."

Onno had gotten up and said that he felt superfluous here. They agreed that for the time being he would say nothing to the others; God willing, they might have solved the problem before they arrived in Stavoren. Onno promised that he would not jump ship in Enkhuizen.

When he sat down again in his chair on the afterdeck, everyone in the circle looked at him in silence, but no one asked anything. Only Dolf, the badly shaven Catholic minister of economic affairs, put a hand on his shoulder as he passed. What he would have preferred, Onno reflected, would be to be fired by cannon from the ship onto the shore, because he no longer had any business here. While the conversations were resumed, he realized calmly that once again he did not know what he wanted to be.

From one minute to the next, everything had changed. He did not feel at all like simply remaining in Parliament; and a job as a mayor did not come into consideration, or becoming director of the Foundation for Pure Scientific Research, or anything in "Europe"; it was now a fact that he was definitely leaving politics. It had begun with Bork and it was ending with Bork. That his life should be forever linked with Bork's filled him with disgust. He saw Bork's leering eyes and felt as if a disgusting insect had crawled over him; he rubbed his face with both hands to shoo it away. Then he thought of Max, who ultimately had all the turning points in his life on his conscience, but did not bear him any malice. The only person whom he begrudged his fall was his retired elder brother—fortunately his father did not have to experience it. And as far as Helga was concerned: she'd probably be just happy that it had gone as it had.

The few citizens of Enkhuizen who saw them walking through the quiet old streets from the marina to the church stopped and were sure that they were dreaming: it wasn't just the prime minister walking there but
everyone.
That was of course impossible, because all those faces belonged on television and not in their little town: if it was really true that all those in power were now in Enkhuizen, then great danger probably threatened them.

The mayor and the local police were also in the dark; only the vicar and the sexton welcomed them. Giggling like a class of schoolchildren, the visitors distributed themselves across the wooden pews in the nave. In order to stretch their legs, Koos, Dorus, and Piet had joined them, but they immediately withdrew into a side chapel, where they continued their deliberations under a painting of St. Sebastian. The church still smelled of incense from the morning mass. The minister who had just now kept shouting "Steady as she goes!" suddenly mounted the stairs to the pulpit, undoubtedly to preach a Calvinist fire-and-brimstone sermon, but was prevented from doing so by his minister of state. Meanwhile, the Social Democratic party chairman, who had begun as a Protestant theologian, had vanished—and shortly afterward Bach's equally invisible variations on the choral
"Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich hier"
came thundering out of the motionless pipes.

Onno glanced around: the front of the organ reminded him of the opened jaws of a whale, attacking him from behind. He felt completely out of place, both in this Catholic church and in this company. He thought back with embarrassment to his inflated words of just now, that he would line up the generals and threaten them—he would be jokingly reminded of this one day, when people happened to bump into him.

Feeling a certain stiffening in his body, he looked at the crucifix on the altar and listened to the music. Bork's observation at that time may have been decisive in his decision to go into politics, but there was a deeper motive behind it: his failure with the Phaistos disc. Now the wheel had obviously come full circle, shouldn't he try and go back to the disc?

Four years ago he had still been able to take the escape route of becoming a member of Parliament; now everything was much more final. Perhaps it was because of Bach, but suddenly the prospect attracted him. Of course he would have to get back into it again—he hadn't kept up with the specialist literature in the intervening fourteen years. The only thing he knew for certain was that it had still not been deciphered, not even by Landau, his Israeli rival, because Landau would certainly not have deprived himself of the pleasure of informing him personally. He sighed deeply. Who knows, perhaps all those years had been necessary to allow the solution to mature deep inside him: perhaps he might very shortly have the liberating insight!

The sexton came out of the sacristy and asked something of someone in the front row, who turned around, scanned the church, and pointed at him. Onno looked up inquiringly, whereupon the sexton made a turning movement next to his ear.

Onno got up in astonishment, while two things went through his head at once: how could anyone know that he was here—and how was it possible that the gesture for "telephone" was still determined by the mechanics of a piece of equipment that had not existed for fifty years and could only be seen in Laurel and Hardy films?

The sexton took him to the sacristy. The telephone stood on a table with a dark red cloth on it; in a wall cupboard with its sliding doors open hung long mass garments, like the wardrobe of a Roman emperor.

Onno picked up the receiver. "Quist speaking."

"Are you Mr. Onno Quist?" asked a woman's voice.

"Yes, who am I speaking to?"

"Mr. Quist, this is the central police station in Amsterdam. We managed to find out where you were via the prime minister's office. We're sorry, but you must prepare yourself for some shocking news."

Onno felt himself stiffening and immediately thought of Quinten. "Tell me what's happened."

"We know that you are a friend of Ms. Helga Hartman's."

It was as though those two words,
Helga Hartman,
penetrated his body like bullets.

"Yes, and what about it?"

"Something very serious happened to her last night."

Onno suddenly could not speak anymore; his breath was stuck in his throat like a ball.

"Mr. Quist? Are you still there?"

"Is she dead?" he asked hoarsely.

"Yes, Mr. Quist..."

Was this possible? Helga dead.
Helga dead?
His eyes widened in dismay; he felt as though he were emptying, in the direction of Amsterdam, where her dead body must be.

"Really completely dead?" he asked, immediately hearing how idiotic the question was.

"Yes, Mr. Quist."

"Christ Almighty!" he suddenly screamed. "How in God's name did it happen?"

"Are you sure you want to talk about it on the telephone—"

"For God's sake tell me! Now!"

She must have been attacked in the early hours of the morning, when she was opening the front door of her house. She was dragged inside and in the hall attacked mercilessly with a knife, probably by an addict; after her house had been ransacked, she was left to her fate. There was no trace of the culprit. Because her vocal chords had been cut, she could not call for help; but bleeding heavily, she managed to open the door and crawl to the telephone booth on the other side of the canal, with some change in her hand that had been left in her emptied bag.

Obviously, she wanted to call the emergency number, and if she had been given immediate help, she would probably have survived, but the telephone had been vandalized. Probably only an hour later, toward morning, she was found by a passerby; by that time she had already died from loss of blood. She was in the morgue at Wilhelmina Hospital.

Onno did not rejoin the others, but went out into the street through a side door. A small crowd had meanwhile gathered by the closed church door, but nothing from his surroundings got through to him anymore; without looking where he was going, he wandered into the town along a narrow canal.

Helga was dead. A desert had been created in him. He would have liked to cry, but he felt dried up inside. They had slaughtered her senselessly. She no longer existed. In an Amsterdam cellar her mutilated body was lying under a sheet, and at this moment her murderer was in a state of heroin bliss. Perhaps he would see him one day in town, rummaging in a dustbin—how could he ever go out into the street again?

He had to get away, away from Holland for good. First Ada, now Helga. Everything had been razed to the ground. Had he loved her? He'd never really understood what other people meant when they said that they loved someone, but at any rate Helga was a part of himself that was now dead. Why weren't addicts cleaned off the streets, on the basis of the Mental Health Act? Perhaps he might yet be caught—but what about the vandals who had wrecked the telephone booth, as a result of which she had bled to death? Without them, she would still have been alive. They would never be caught, or even hunted for. If they happened to be caught in the act, they'd be back on the street half an hour later, with a reprimand. Robbery and murder could be combated by the police, but vandalism could only be prevented by despotic authority, or by God in heaven, in whom no one here believed any longer. He did not exist, but as long as people believed in him and his commandments were valid, no public telephones were vandalized for fun.

Helga was dead. So was a lie necessary, since the alternative was despotic authority? Neither in Moscow nor in Mecca were the telephone booths vandalized. Was the choice perhaps between being misled and despotism? He no longer wished to be involved in a world where things were like that. Did he have to choose between theocracy and worldly tyranny? Could society only function properly on a basis of fear? Did human beings have to be given a built-in policeman from above? Were they intrinsically evil, and did they only become good when circumstances were bad? So should their circumstances be made worse out of humane considerations? Was Rousseau the greatest idiot of all time? In Holland people had never been so humane as in the winter of 1944-45, when thousands of people were dying of hunger and the shots of the execution squads were exploding around them. It was hopeless. Helga was dead. His colleagues in the church, his former colleagues, would simply have to see how they got on with their tolerance—because they refused to choose, all that was left for them was anarchy. Fidel had his own optimistic design, with the ideal of the New Man in the role of God, and Che in that of his murdered son—Fidel had his blessing, but for him it was over. He was opting out.