"One does what one can," he said, and lowered his eyes for an instant. "Only the house of the former German camp commandant is still standing. Strange, isn't it? The widow of the military commandant from shortly after the war still lives there. Would you like to hear a nice story? A few weeks ago there was a sudden power cut, so we immediately switched over to the emergency generator; a little later we heard her trotting up to the terminal. She had a package in plastic wrap in her hands: she asked if she could leave it in our tridge for a while. It turned out to be her husband's evening meal— beefsteak, roast potatoes, and peas — that she had made for him twenty years before, that he had not been able to eat, because he had suddenly died of a heart attack."
"Right!" cried Onno to Helga, shaking his knife over his head. "That is love! Take a leaf out of her book."
Quinten knelt on his chair and looked at his father open-mouthed as if at a fireworks display.
When Onno saw the expression on his face, he said: "Yes, my son, it leaves you speechless. Even if love can no longer find its way to a man's heart through his stomach, it still transcends death! Why don't you say something, you scamp? When I was your age I was already reading Tacitus."
"Onno. ." said Sophia reproachfully. "He understands more than you think."
After lunch, while Helga stayed behind with Quinten, they went to see Ada — Onno, being the largest, sat next to the driver; Max was wedged between Sophia and her mother on the backseat, with arms folded. On the way Mrs. Haken asked when they were going to tell Quinten what had happened to his mother.
"Maybe never," said Onno at once, without turning his head. Whereupon he turned around after all and said to Sophia, "I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry about. Don't worry, one day he'll suddenly be able to talk, I'm sure of it." And to her mother: "Of course he mustn't be allowed to think for a moment that I'm his mother and Max his father. He must know how things stand immediately. Isn't that so?"
"Of course," said Max. He now saw clearly the gray hairs that had appeared here and there in her hair. He was sitting closer to her than he ever did during the day, and at night it was dark. "Just imagine."
"And when do you plan to let him see Ada for the first time?" asked Mrs. Haken.
"Onno must decide that."
"No, you must decide," said Onno. "You know him best. It all depends on what kind of boy he turns into, because it will be a dreadful shock of course. When he's six? Ten? What do you think, Max?"
"I think we'll know precisely when the moment comes."
"Probably true."
"By the way, do you know," asked Sophia, "who still visit her a couple of times a year? Marijke and Bruno. They got married."
No one said anything else. Everyone sensed the same thought in the others: would she survive for years? Would she have to go on living for years? And if she suddenly died — should Quinten never have seen her, even if she was doing nothing but breathing?
The nursing home — called Joy Court by sardonic civil servants from the health department — was in a new building in a new street on the outskirts of Emmen. It was built in the same modern nonstyle as the room in which Oswald Brons had descended into the flames, with brick interior walls that looked like exterior walls, so that although one was inside, one constantly had the impulse to go inside.
"Even architects leave people out in the cold these days," said Max.
Onno agreed with him: "It's hopeless. Architects are peace criminals. The end is nigh."
Ada lay in a small room on the second floor, with a view of a paved courtyard. They gathered silently around the bed; a chair was pulled up for Mrs. Haken, whose eyes filled with tears. Here they were, thought Max:
Quinten's great-grandmother, his grandmother, his mother, and his father, too, in any case. Ada had changed again, but it was difficult to say what had actually changed. It was like when you had bought a new book and put it in the bookcase unread: when you took it out for the first time after a few years, it wasn't new anymore, although nothing demonstrable had changed. It had not renewed itself; it had not moved with the times. There she lay, her head turned to one side on the pillow, and she did not even know that she had a son with unworldly blue eyes, let alone that the Russians had occupied Prague, that the Americans were now destroying Cambodia too, and that her husband was an alderman for Amsterdam.
Even a cat knew more than she did, thought Onno; maybe she still had the consciousness of a mouse. But with mice you were allowed to spread poison or set a trap… he was shocked by his own thoughts and glanced guiltily at Sophia, who had taken Ada's hand in hers and was looking at her daughter with an imponderable expression in her dark eyes.
Back at Groot Rechteren they drank tea in the front room, but no real conversation started up again. In the kitchen the driver was reading the newspaper. Mrs. Haken went for a nap on her daughter's bed, and Sophia showed Helga photos. While Onno made a few telephone calls at Max's desk, Max, with his arms folded, looked at a point in the bookcase and thought of the plans to install movable thirteenth and fourteenth mirrors in Westerbork, which would improve the resolving power of the instrument by a factor of two; but The Hague felt that the radio observatory had already cost enough.
The windows had been pushed up and from the direction of the coach houses came music that sounded like the Rolling Stones; now and then there was a dull thundering sound to be heard as a car drove over the loose planks of the bridge over the outer canal. Onno turned and said that politics consisted of telephoning; you wondered how Julius Caesar had done things. He sat down in the green armchair, where, lost in thought, he took an astrophysics magazine off the table.
In the distance was the faint rumble of a train, passing the unmanned level crossing. A little later Max saw Quinten lying on his tummy across Onno's feet, half over the still-unpolished shoes with the threadbare laces. That was very unusual; he had never done anything so intimate with him — Quinten was not very close to him. The sight reassured Max. His fear of fatherhood had receded over the years, like the bald patch on the back of his head; but unlike that spot, it had never disappeared entirely— just as someone who had recovered from cancer or a heart attack never felt a hundred percent sure and would never forget that he had once fallen prey to it, although he sometimes didn't think of it for months: for the rest of his life there was a monster lying in wait somewhere in a dark cave. He knew that now — for as long as Ada was alive, he might be able to determine paternity by means of a blood test: if Quinten had certain genetic factors that were lacking in both Ada and himself, then Onno was the father; if they were lacking in Onno, then he was. He could have his own blood analyzed very simply, and with a little thought he would be able to secure blood samples from Ada and Quinten, but how could he get hold of Onno's blood? Anyway, it could not be completely ruled out that there were no factors missing; either in his own blood or in Onno's. Indeed, that wouldn't surprise him. In the future it might be different, but for the time being tests couldn't give a conclusive answer in all cases.