Then Quinten would talk to him: "Why are you always so rotten to me?" He put out his hand to stroke the goat's head; but that was always refused with an abrupt movement. "I haven't done anything to hurt you, have I? I like you. I think you're much nicer than Arendje, for example — he bangs into people with his head down like that sometimes too. I think you're just about as nice as Max, but not nearly as nice as Daddy. Daddy's the nicest person in the world. When we go for walks he always tells me lots of things. He can speak every language and read hieroglyphics. Do you know why I can't go and live with him? Because he's so busy playing boss. That's why he hardly ever comes. He's the boss of at least a million million people. Auntie Helga doesn't live with him either. I've never been to his house, but he lives in a castle in Amsterdam. When I'm grown-up I'm going to see him there. Then you can come too. Do you know who I think is nicest of all? Mommy. Mommy's really tired, Granny says. Mommy fell asleep. Do you know what made her so tired? I bet you don't. But I do. Shall I tell you? But you mustn't tell anyone, do you hear? Because it's a secret. Do you promise, Gijs? It's because she always had to wave to everybody in the gold coach."
40. The World of Words
Meanwhile, Onno had gotten busier and busier playing boss. Late one evening, during the closing stages of cabinet formation, after he had been to see Helga and had drunk a couple of rum-and-Cokes on his way home, the man charged with the task of forming the cabinet called and asked if he wanted to be minister of state for science policy.
"Since when has that been a matter for the person forming the cabinet?"
"I'm ringing on behalf of your minister."
"Can I think about it for a little?"
"No."
"Not even for five minutes?"
"No. The whole business has to be completely sewn up within twenty-four hours — the whole damn fuss has been going on for more than five months. There are rumblings in the land."
"To what do I owe the honor, Janus?"
"Indirectly to the suggestion of a friend of yours, a certain pub-crawler from your town: the new minister of housing."
"And my own minister? Does she know that I'm extraordinarily ill-disposed toward science?"
"Yes, yes, Onno. I'm sure it will get you into difficulties in the cabinet. Come on, I've got plenty else to do. Yes or no?"
"If it's a matter of the national interesi:, everything else must be put aside. Yes."
"Fine. I'll expect you sober at General Affairs in The Hague tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. We're going to do a good job. Goodnight."
That had suddenly changed everything. He was not unhappy being an alderman, which he had now been for four years; although government had less and less influence every year, in a number of respects his job had more direct power than being a minister of state, who was hidden behind a secretary of state. In local politics he had direct contact with people; in national politics that would no longer be the case. For precisely that power sometimes filled him with disgust, as though he had suffered a defeat; exerting power was necessary to make society function, but at the same time there was something unmistakably plebeian about it.
There was also the advantage that as an alderman he worked in Amsterdam and not in that stuffy lair of civil servants The Hague, from which he had once fled and to which he would now have to go every day — it was a blessing for Amsterdam that the seat of government was not in the capital. But with a feeling of shame, he also realized immediately why he had said yes: to please his father and to put his eldest brother's nose out of joint. They would know immediately that he was going to be a minister one day: the highest state of political happiness.
Still looking at the telephone, he was suddenly amazed that in response to the question "Yes or no?" uttering the short sound no wouldn't have changed a thing in his life, while enunciating the equally short sound yes had changed a lot — while the spectrograms of the two sounds could only have been identified by experienced phoneticians. And if he had said ken, nothing would have changed either, although that also meant "yes," but in Hebrew. It was all obvious, bread-and-butter stuff to him, as easy as ABC, but suddenly it disturbed him, while at the same time he was really disturbed about being disturbed.
After saying yes, he had even less time for visits to Groot Rechteren: from then on Quinten saw him more often on television than in real life. By now he was in the first grade at the elementary school in Westerbork; and on one of Onno's sporadic visits — in a large dark-blue official car with two antennas, after he opened an institute of technology in Leeuwarden — Quinten told Sophia proudly that he knew how to read.
"Show Daddy what you can do," she said, and gave him the book.
" 'Pirn is in the wood,' " read Quinten, without using his forefinger. But before Onno was able to praise him, he looked at the newspaper lying on the ground and read the headline: " 'Cambodian President Lon Nol extends special powers.' " In the astonished silence that ensued, he said, "I didn't learn it at school at all. I've been able to do it for ages."
Max was the first one to say anything. "Who did you learn it from, then?"
"From Mr. Spier."
He could not understand what was so special about it. In Mr. Spier's immaculately tidy study, with the sloping drawing board, which looked out onto the woods behind the castle, his new letter designs were pinned alphabetically on the walclass="underline" twenty-six large sheets of squared paper, each of them with a capital and small letter, which he called "upper case" and "lower case." Mr. Spier — who was always immaculately dressed when working, with a tie, coat, and pocket handkerchief — had not only told him everything about "body of type," "serif," "flag," "tail," but for a couple of days in succession had taken him by the hand and conducted him along the wall step by step, pointing to letter after letter and speaking it, and making Quinten repeat it after him. That way it was as easy as pie! At the letter 0 Mr. Spier had always raised his forefinger meaningfully. He had called his new typeface Judith, after his wife. He also designed postage stamps and banknotes, but he only did that at the printer's in Haarlem, under police guard, because that was of course top secret. Inside it always made him laugh a bit, he said; in the war, when he had had to hide because Hitler wanted to kill him, he himself had forged all kinds of things: German stamps; identity cards.
"Who's Hitler?"
"Isn't it wonderful that there are once again people who don't know. Hitler was the head of the Germans, who wanted to kill all the Jews."
"Why?"
"Because he was afraid of them."
"What are Jews?"
"Yes, well lots of people have been asking themselves that for a long time, QuQu — the Jews themselves as well. Perhaps that's why he was frightened of them. But he didn't succeed."
"So are you a Jew too?"
"You bet."
"But I'm not frightened of you." And when Mr. Spier smiled: "Am I a Jew?"
"Quite the opposite, as far as I know."
"Quite the opposite?"
"I'm just joking. Jews often do that when they talk about Jews."
"What's wrong, Quinten?" asked Sophia. "What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing."
Max could still not understand. "Why did you never tell us you could read?"
Quinten shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.
"His lordship confronts us with new mysteries every day," said Sophia.