Onno opened the lid, pulled down the desk lamp, put on his reading glasses, and opened the newspapers.
He saw at first glance that it wasn't as easy as that. The surface consisted on all sides of a gray-caked layer, which seemed to be made of congealed time. Was there something underneath? He scratched at it with a thumbnail, causing something of the grainy substance to loosen. This was work for an archaeological laboratory, but he had understood from Quinten that the stones would never find their way there. They had more or less the dimensions that Rabbi Berechiah, without ever having seen them, had given.
With lips tightly clenched, he leaned back. Was it really conceivable that these things here were the original of all those depictions which were to be seen in every synagogue, above the ark? The tablets of the Law: symbol of the Jewish religion, just as the menorah was that of the Jewish state and the Magen David—the "shield of David" — of Zionism. Was it really conceivable that these things which were now lying on the table had once lain in the ark of the covenant, had been lugged through the desert year after year, had been preserved for centuries in the Holy of Holies of the three temples, and then taken by Titus. . Was it conceivable that Quinten was right after all? Was Moses' handwriting hidden beneath that crust? Those signs, scratched into the stone as a result of some inspiration or other? Suddenly his heart started pounding. The oldest known inscriptions in Canaanite writing dated from approximately 1000 B.C.; Moses' writing would therefore be a thousand years older still. Undoubtedly, it would be very close to Egyptian hieroglyphics — and perhaps the Phaistos disc was connected in some way? That writing came from the same period! Suddenly he thought of the sign that looked a little like a sedan chair — was that perhaps the ark? However small the chance was that Quinten was right, it had to be proved beyond doubt that he was not! But how? What was he intending to do?
Hearing a creaking sound near his neck, he looked around in alarm. Smiling, with a pair of scissors in one hand, Quinten was holding up his ponytail. They had decided on that metamorphosis so that no one at the airport would recognize them when their descriptions appeared — and then be able to say where they had gone to. Quinten pulled the rubber band off, and a few entangled gray hairs got stuck in it; but he gathered his own hair behind him and wound the rubber band around it. At the same moment Onno saw a boy changing into a man, like when in a change of scene in a film the role of a young actor is suddenly taken over by an older one. He couldn't remember ever having seen Quinten's ears.
"Drink your coffee," said Quinten. "But keep your head still."
Like a real barber, he held the comb upside down in his left hand, the thumb of his right hand through one ring of the scissors, not the middle but the ring finger through the other, now and then making rapid snips in the air. After each snip his father resembled more and more the memory that he had of him: within five minutes the tramp had largely given way to the minister who had come and fetched him occasionally at Groot Rechteren in the car. Meanwhile he glanced over his shoulder at the tablets of the Law, like a barber glances at the illustrated magazine that the customer has on his lap.
"You'll have to do your beard yourself," he said, brushing the hairs off his clothes.
When Onno went to the basin to shave himself, Quinten bent over a corner of one of the stones, where a small, gleaming spot had struck him. He licked the tip of his middle finger and rubbed it, whereupon a deep blue glow showed itself. He sat up. The two stones were sapphires. They were gems. Since one gram cost five thousand guilders, they were worth hundreds of millions, perhaps a billion. He thought it better not to tell his father. He thought for a moment and then out of his blue nylon backpack he took the beige envelope with the heading SOMNIUM QUINTI, which he had not opened for weeks, since he had not dreamed of the Citadel anymore and nothing needed to be added to the plans. He put it with the stones and closed the suitcase.
When they drove out of the city in a taxi at about six o'clock via the Porta San Paolo and pyramid of Cestius, it was already growing light. Onno was again wearing the gray suit in which he'd arrived from Holland four years earlier; he enjoyed the feel of the cool air against his cheeks and on his neck. How could a human being let himself become so overgrown! He remembered a conversation that he had had years ago during the conference in Havana with a man who had spent years in a Stalinist work camp. The conversation was about beards, apropos of Fidel Castro and his friends, and he himself had said that he would only let his beard grow if he were one day to land in prison. Whereupon the other looked at him in silence for a while and then said, "When you land in prison, you'll shave yourself four times a day."
The sky was beginning to grow red, as though beyond the horizon the lid of an oven were being slowly opened. It was Sunday; there was little traffic.
"And what if the first plane that's leaving is going to Zimbabwe?" asked Onno.
"Then we'll go to Zimbabwe. We've got plenty of money."
"It's not a matter of money, and anyway I'm paying. But surely we've got time to pick something? I'd rather go to San Francisco than Zimbabwe. Do we absolutely have to be dependent on chance?"
"I don't know," said Quinten impatiently. "I think so."
"And when we're in Zimbabwe — what then?"
Quinten shrugged his shoulders and looked outside. In the distance the cupola of St. Peter's had almost disappeared. Here and there were large postmodern buildings in the countryside, such as he had seen in Mr. Themaat's catalog. He really didn't know. All he knew was that from now on he must not intervene anymore. From now on everything had to be determined by circumstances, just as a skier adapted himself to the terrain, avoiding trees and ravines and not trying to glide upward.
As they got out of the taxi at Leonardo da Vinci airport, the sun rose above the countryside and drenched the planes on the runway with dazzling gold, which a moment later changed to silver. It was already busy.
In the noisy departure hall Onno, pulling his case on wheels behind him, said: "Look. All thieves, making off with their booty."
Quinten carried the suitcase with the stones in it; he had his backpack on his back. They stopped in front of the great board with departure times and looked up at the destinations for the next few hours: Buenos Aires, Frankfurt, Santo Domingo, London, Cairo, Vienna, Nicosia, New York, Singapore, Sydney, Amsterdam. .
"And what if it's Amsterdam?" asked Onno.
"Then it will be Amsterdam."
At the counter where they sold last-minute tickets sat a girl with her name on a badge; ANGIOLINA. Obviously she came from the deep south. Her hair was blacker than black; there was a dark shadow on her upper lip. Onno said they had decided to go abroad for a few weeks on impulse and that they wanted to book.
"Of course," she said, rearranging her silk scarf, which Quinten thought was back to front around her neck. She picked up her ballpoint pen. "What destination?"
"We'll leave it up to you. We want to leave on the next plane that has room in it."
"That's how I'd like to live," she said with a face that showed that nothing surprised her anymore. She glanced at the clock and looked at her monitor. "You can't make Vienna anymore. It will be Cairo or Santo Domingo. Perhaps you can just catch the eight o'clock British charter flight to Nicosia."
"Two singles to Nicosia," said Onno quickly, before it became Santo Domingo.
"Nicosia?" repeated Quinten. "Where's that?"
"On Cyprus. Nice island. Lots to see."
"Your passports, please." While she began to fix the tickets, she asked, "Would you like travel insurance?"