That was new for Max, too.
Meanwhile, Proctor's brain had also been working, because he said: "The octave consists of eight, and God is also eight."
It took a couple of seconds to get through to Onno. "God is eight? How did you work that out?"
"You know a bit about languages, don't you?"
A bitter laugh escaped Onno. "To tell you the truth I don't really know anyone who knows as much about languages as I do. That's the reason why I couldn't call my son Sixtus. Not because that's a pitiful interval of three-to-five, but because the name derives not from sextus, the Latin word for 'sixth,' as everyone thinks, but from the Greek word xystos, which means 'polished.' "
"So you also know what the tetragrammaton is?"
"Please continue, sir."
Next Proctor reminded them that God's name Yod He, Wau, He was Jehovah. Because Hebrew, as Mr. Quist of course already knew, had no separate figures, those four letters also had the numerical value 10, 5, 6, and 5. Adding them together gave 26. If, following the rules of Gematria, you added the 2 and the 6 together, you got 8.
"You stagger me!" exclaimed Onno. "You are a gifted cabbalist! But if God is eight, what is five?"
"Of course it can be an infinite number—" Proctor began, but the last word was lost in a rattling cough that suddenly took hold of him.
"Not infinite," Max corrected him. "Very great. Although.. perhaps an infinite number, yes."
"And what is significant in this connection," continued Proctor after taking a deep breath and wiping his mouth, "is the number of letters in the alphabet."
"Of course." Onno nodded with an irony, which only Max noticed. "Twenty-two."
"In Hebrew, yes. But our alphabet has twenty-six." He looked at Onno with an expression that said he had unveiled the final secret.
"Ah-ha!" said Onno with raised eyebrows, and lifted an index finger. "Ah-ha! The same number as the numerical value of God! Dutch as a divine language! By the way, Mr. Proctor, you mustn't say 'Jehovah,' but 'Jah-weh,' with the accent on the e. 'Jehovah' is a bastardized Christian word from the late Middle Ages. It's even more sensible not to speak the name at all, because otherwise you might come to a sticky end. It would be better to say 'Adonai,' with the letters alef, daleth, nun, jod. At least if that has an acceptable numerical value, but it's almost bound to have."
"One plus four plus fifty plus ten," said Proctor immediately, "makes sixty-five."
"Makes eleven, makes two." Onno nodded. "Seems fine to me."
While Arendje counted Quinten's toes when he heard all those numbers and cried "Ten!" Kern appeared on the balcony again, now accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Spier.
With a friendliness that did not reveal whether it was pretended or real, they fulfilled their social duties.
"What a darling," said Mrs. Spier.
Mr. Spier looked intently at Quinten, stroked the soft spot on his fontanel with the tip of his ring finger, and then said, as though one could see by looking at him: "His initials are Q. Q."
"Qualitate qua," nodded Onno.
"That is rare. The Q is the most mysterious of letters, that circle with that line," he said, while he formed a slightly obscene gesture a circle with the manicured thumb and index finger of one hand and the line with the index finger of the other, "the ovum being penetrated by a sperm. And twice at that. Very nice. My compliments."
Like Proctor, he was obviously aware that Onno had a relationship with written characters. Max felt a little shiver go down his spine at his words, but Onno made a clumsy and at the same time elegant bow. Spier too gave a slight bow and took out a silver watch from his waistcoat pocket. Unfortunately they had to leave immediately — the taxi was already waiting for them on the forecourt to take them to the station: they were going on holiday to Wales, to Pontrhydfendigaid, as they did every year.
Kern had meanwhile sat down astride an upright chair and against the back of the seat in front of him had placed a thick piece of cardboard to which a sheet of paper was fastened with a clip. Without taking his eyes off Sophia and the child on her lap, he made large sketching movements, gliding over the paper with just the side of his hand. In his fingers he had a stick of charcoal, but it was not yet given permission to leave a trace. He was obviously waiting for an order from the world of the good, beautiful, and true, telling him that the moment of irrevocability had come.
36. The Monument
A man who was free, Max reflected one afternoon in autumn as he looked at the yellowing trees from his balcony, could not imagine that he could ever be imprisoned, just as a prisoner could never really imagine freedom. The slowness of the masses found its pendant in the slowness of spirit: anything that was not the case at a particular moment had the character of a dream. The result was that history was to be found in books but scarcely anywhere outside them — and what were books? Little things, seldom larger than a brick, but lighter, and almost irretrievable amid the myriads of other things that covered the surface of the earth, and on their way to becoming more and more insignificant in the electronic world, which was rising faster and faster out of abstraction.
Everything was progressing, and everything that had happened could just as well not have happened. Dreams were remembered for a few minutes after waking up — and a little later they had been forgotten. Where was the battle of Verdun now, except in barely traceable and in any case unread books, and in the memory of a handful of old men, who in twenty years time would also be dead and buried, with nightmares and scars and all? Where was the battle of Stalingrad? The bombing of Dresden? Hiroshima? Auschwitz?
In the winter of 1968, six months after they moved into Groot Rechteren, Max went to Westerbork camp for the first time. All twelve mirrors were now ready, as were the computer programs; a start had been made with experimental observations. His arrival was not really necessary, but in Leiden — where he still had to go regularly — even the director had already asked him in surprise whether he hadn't been to take a look at his new workplace yet. It finally happened on the day that he showed Sophia the observatory at Dwingeloo. During the furnishing of Groot Rechteren she had spent the night there a few times, but she hadn't viewed the observatory on those occasions; technical things didn't interest her. One bright, cold morning he persuaded her to wrap Quinten up warmly and come with him. Why he wanted her to, he didn't know himself. While he showed her the buildings and the mirrors, he thought constantly of that day with Ada and Onno, now nine months ago; but he did not refer to it, and she didn't ask about it. Not much had changed since then — except that there were now unused electric typewriters all over the floor with the cables wound around them, while computer screens had appeared on the desks.
Quinten sat earnestly on Sophia's arm during the tour, and to everyone's delight he looked around with his blue eyes like a personage that was not displeased with the course of events. He was now seven months and had never yet cried, but had never yet laughed either — in fact had scarcely uttered a sound. Sophia was sometimes worried that he had suffered damage in the accident, but the doctor said that he was obviously an extraordinary child; there were no indications apart from that, that he was not normal.