When she came into the room with breakfast, he was sitting cross-legged on the bed, which reminded her vaguely of something she had dreamed, but she could not remember what. Her eyes glided over his body as quickly as a breath of wind, making her aware that she was as naked as he was: but even naked he seemed better dressed than she would ever be. He had an athletic build, nowhere deformed by sport or any other violent activity into proportions designed to impress women but in fact were only impressive to men; his skin was as soft and velvety as a child's.
They sat cross-legged opposite each other on the bed, with the tray between them, spread marmalade, bit into toast, drank coffee, spooned eggs, and now and again, very naturally, he placed his hand on her vagina for a moment, as though it were part of the process of having breakfast. The erection he gradually got pleased her more than the previous one, although she was amazed yet again at the dimensions that things can assume in this world. While he told her about the gypsies, she gently grasped his cool scrotum, as though weighing it.
" 'Be embraced, you millions,' " she said, quoting Schiller's "Ode to Joy."
His eyes clouded a little, but he had obviously decided not to hurry. "They all surrounded me . . ." he said in a slightly intoxicated voice. "It was as though I was the focus of a concave mirror . . ."
He faltered. Each of them now had their hands in the other's crotch, and Ada could feel that he could feel how wet she was getting. As he continued looking at her his back arched a little, as though he were in pain; she started smiling. He put the tray on the ground and slid on top of her, groaning and with his eyes rolling, his tongue and penis sinking deep inside her.
"Slowly," he gasped, "slowly . . ."
He was talking to himself, because she wanted nothing better. Their bodies moved slowly across the bed, andante maestoso. It seemed to her as though they were floating on the waves, slowly sinking beneath the surface, where the same movement dominated, but increasingly shut off from the outside world, from the air, the light—noiseless, a darker and darker blue, more and more violet. ..
The doorbell rang.
The net was raised. Max's movement stopped; he leaned on his elbows and looked at his watch.
"Let it ring," whispered Ada with her eyes closed.
"It's Onno. We arranged to meet."
He quickly disengaged himself from her. Her arms slid off him, and he went to the intercom in the hall. "Onno?" she heard him call out. "I'll be right down. One minute."
He hurried into the room and opened the wardrobe. When he saw her lying there, her legs still wide apart, he said, "Bring yourself off," and disappeared into the bathroom.
Ada froze. What had he said? She couldn't believe that he had said what she had heard. Had he really said that she should bring herself off? Had he said that? That she should bring herself off? Eyes wide with astonishment, she looked at the ceiling, unable to move. Was it conceivable that he had been so crude?
"Max . .." she started to say, when he appeared in the room dressed— then he pressed a hurried kiss on her forehead and said, "I'll see you at lunchtime, and I'll tell you all about it then. 'Bye now."
A moment later she heard the quick drumming of his feet as he ran down the stairs, then the fainter drumming on the next staircase; on the last staircase she could no longer hear him, and then through the open window came the slamming of the front door.
Silence.
She sat on the edge of the bed in a daze. It had still not sunk in completely, but she knew this was the end. He could never make this up to her: it was though she had suddenly seen the face of Mr. Hyde on that of Dr. Jekyll. Bring yourself off. She didn't know what the two them were going to do, but couldn't it have waited a quarter of an hour? Couldn't he have sent Onno to the pub for a while? The haste wasn't because of any particular urgency, but because it was Onno at the door. He couldn't keep Onno waiting; perhaps he was in a panic that Onno might turn away from him for good. Nonsense, of course, but even that was comprehensible. It wasn't that she could not bear Onno being more important to him than she was in certain respects, but the brutal way that he had trampled on her feelings was intolerable. A slap in the face would have been less awful.
The bathroom was still warm and damp from his shower. Under the stream of water it seemed for a moment that it had been washed away, but when she got back in the room it was there again. Bring yourself off. As though orgasm were what mattered. He hadn't come, either. Suddenly angry, she began to get dressed, and then she saw him again appearing from nowhere on the steps leading from the bookshop. Did she love him? She wasn't sure, so perhaps she did not. Perhaps you knew for sure when you loved someone, but then she'd never loved anyone yet, and perhaps she would have to accept that she never would. All she knew for certain was that she loved music. And yet, perhaps she would have liked a child by him.
Occasionally she had toyed with the idea of stopping the pill and seeing what happened. The thought of a little Max, or Maxima, tottering around the room made her feel as weak as a sugar lump dissolving in a cup of hot tea: she would certainly have loved a child. But it would have jeopardized her musical career, so a child was out of the question. She also knew that he slept with other girls, of course—the signs of it in his apartment, the blond hairs, the lipstick-covered cigarette ends in the wastepaper basket did not escape her—but she didn't mind that much, because she knew that he had forgotten those women before he had even seen them. Now, though, something irrevocable had happened.
She looked around. It was over. She sat at his empty, cleared desk, and opened the drawers, in which he kept his "stationery shop," as he called it: paper of all sizes and styles, scores of notebooks, from minute notebooks to huge ledgers with reinforced corners, notepads of all conceivable kinds, including some with yellow and light-blue paper from the United States, blank, lined, and squared index cards in carefully arranged pyramids, enough for a whole lifetime.
"As far as paper is concerned," he had once said, "I can face the Third World War with confidence."
She took out a simple sheet of typewriter paper and laid it on the desk. From the pen rack she took a yellow pencil with an eraser on the top and, lost in thought, stared at the exhibit-like row of instruments on the edge of his desk: the magnet, the prism, the hourglass, the pocket mirror, the ruler, the magnifying glass, the compass, the tuning fork ...
The staff of the National Institute for War Documentation looked surprised when they suddenly found themselves confronted with a Quist and a Delius. And yet it was no stranger than the fact that their own neighbor on the canal should be the German Goethe Institute. In any case it seemed to them to be a matter for the director himself. Via oak staircases and marble corridors marred by shelves of files, Max and Onno were conducted to his quiet room at the back, with a view of the geometrically constructed seventeenth-century garden.
He was writing on a notepad and looked up. They knew his face; a few years before he had made a series of television programs on the German occupation. Now he had been commissioned to make a record of the period day by day, which would take up twenty thick volumes. They could see from his melancholy face that there was nothing he did not know about the war, which he himself had spent in London; he had embarked on this process of mourning, which was to take three times as long as the war, for the sake of his twin brother, who had not been able to escape to England and had been gassed. In a few brief sentences Max told him his own history, which was different.
"What it comes down to," he concluded, "is that my father was shot because he hounded my mother to her death."
"I know, Mr. Delius, I know."
"But he's still my father. I'd like to look at his file."
The director nodded. "And why do you want to do that now?"
Should he tell him about the gypsies? But of course that wasn't the reason. "Perhaps because the time has come."
"Well," said the director, "I can't see what objection there could be. After all, we live in a time of openness and democrati
zation, if I understand it correctly. And you, Mr. Quist—what is your role in this? May I by the way congratulate you on your honorary doctorate? In fact, we're all in the same line, aren't we?"
For a moment Onno was at a loss for words. "So you never forget anything."
"That's why one is a historian."
"I'm here solely as a friend."
"That's enough for me," said the director, and picked up the telephone. "Adriaan? I have Mr. Delius and Mr. Quist with me. What?—yes, that's right. It's about the Wolfgang Delius case. Can you give them a little of your time and help them out? I'm sending them to you."
Max had not mentioned his father's Christian name; it shocked him to hear it coming so naturally from the director's mouth. It was explained to them where they had to go, and as they took their leave, the director said to Onno: "My regards to your father."
When the door closed, Onno said softly. "Now he'll be calling again, and giving instructions."
"What kind of instructions?"
"On what we mustn't see."
"What can be worse than what we already know?"
"Nothing, but of course other reputations are at stake. Not everyone was shot."
From the glances that met them in the corridors, it was clear that the news of their presence had already spread through the building. The official whom the director had called Adriaan was putting the phone down when they came in: a thick-set, slightly stooping man in his fifties, with a round face and a penetrating gaze, who introduced himself as Oud. Without further ceremony he asked them to sit down, and then went to the basement to fetch the documents.
They were sitting next to each other at a long table with well-ordered piles of papers. Onno surveyed the cupboards full of files, with code numbers, which went up to the plastered ceiling, and remarked that some people would be glad to put a match to them; but Max was silent. He realized that he was approaching the end of something. The papers would shortly be put on the table for the last time, but now that he was here, he did not want to know everything at all—precisely how it had happened, how it was reconstructed during the trial, what the witnesses said, and what other crimes his father might have committed; he no longer needed to read the verdict. What had happened had happened. The only thing he wanted to see was something concrete, something direct, which showed that his father had existed—perhaps just a photograph.
Oud came in with six thick files clasped to his chest, followed by a young man with an even higher pile of dusty archive files and boxes under his chin. After it had been laid out in front of them, Oud sat down behind it like a market trader, made a demonstrative gesture, and said: "How can I help you?"
There it was, like dirty scum in an empty bathtub.
Max read on a cover. He would have preferred to get up now and leave; he only stayed in his chair because Onno was there. The latter in turn had decided to outdo everyone and take matters in hand—but the amount of material paralyzed him; he was also a little frightened of the man sitting behind it, with his threatening, St. Christopher-like initials alpha and omega.
When he saw Max hesitating, Oud said: "I know my way around this file. I was involved in the preliminary investigation at the time. Do you want to see the documents where you yourself are mentioned?"
Max shivered. "So you knew him." He wanted to say "my father," but could not bring himself to.
"Knew ... I don't think anyone ever knew him. But I met him a few times, yes."
"What did he say about me?"
"Himself? He never said anything—not about you or anything else. He didn't open his mouth during the whole of his detention, or during the hearings. There was no question of interrogating him."
"But then how was he ..."
Max did not have to finish his question. Oud nodded, opened a file, undid the clip, and a little while later placed his flat hand on a typed letter: gray lines with narrow spacing, a signature that was half visible under his wrist.
"In this your father asks a certain General von Schumann of the Wehrmacht, who was later killed at Stalingrad, whether he can take steps to rid him once and for all of his young wife. The general was a personal friend of his, because he addresses him as Du. In fact, he expressly calls it a favor to a friend."
Max turned away. He must not even look at that. He hoped Oud would not ask him if he wanted to read the letter, so that he would have to hold it in both hands. Out of the corner of his eye he saw him leafing through.
"Here is the letter from Schumann to Rauter, the Höhere SS-und Polizeiführer in The Hague, also using Du. They were all good pals," said Oud, and went on looking. "He was also a witness at your father's trial— he himself was not executed until three years later. Yes, here we have his instructions for the Sicherheitsdienst in Amsterdam, complete with address and everything, and this is the list of the Amsterdam SD on that day, with a little v in front of your mother's name, indicating that it had been dealt with. With your grandparents, who were not protected by your existence, he took a much more direct route. Shall I look that up as well?"
Max swallowed and shook his head.
"But what's in all those other files?" asked Onno.
"Those concern other people," said Oud impassively, "and, apart from that, mainly robbery and plunder."
There was a silence. Max again saw the piano being taken out of the house, the pile of clothes in his mother's bedroom. In order to help him through the moment, Onno asked whether there was an explanation for Delius's consistent silence.
"Was it from a feeling of guilt? Because he had fatally incriminated himself in that letter? It appears that Ezra Pound has stopped speaking these days for a similar reason."
"According to the public prosecutor," said Oud, "it was only a last resort to escape the burden of proof. But one day something strange was found in his cell." He looked in one of the archive boxes and pulled out a thick yellow official envelope. "This," he said, taking out a cigarette packet and giving it to Max.
It was a Sweet Caporal packet, yellowed and empty. In astonishment Max took it and turned it over. On the back something was written in green ink.
" 'Only I exist,' " he read in German. " 'What does not exist cannot die.' "
"That's the same tune as Wittgenstein," said Onno. "Whereof one cannot speak, one must be silent. Another frustrated Austrian."
Max did not hear. He had never seen his father's handwriting. It was un-Dutch—sharper, more angular. He had held this same packet in his hand, there in his cell in Scheveningen, and he had written this on it, perhaps on his knee, sitting on the edge of his bed.
But it wasn't Wittgenstein, said Oud, it was Delius: he had certainly never heard of Wittgenstein, his contemporary, who was only now becoming fashionable. In a psychiatric report, that note was used as evidence of diminished responsibility: he was under the illusion that only he himself actually existed and that everything else was illusion, projection; from that point of view he could not be guilty of murder, because nobody else was alive, only he himself could die. Even his judges and his interrogators did not exist. Even his executioner, paradoxically, did not exist.
Such a patient should therefore be exempted from prosecution and detained at the government's pleasure. However, the prosecutor argued in turn that it was only the cunning maneuver of an intelligent criminal in order to escape his just punishment. Giltay Veth, on the other hand, the defense counsel Wolfgang had been assigned, who had not been able to get a word out of him, had gone into it further. He argued that Delius's cell contained the infamous book of Max Stirner, a German philosopher from the first half of the previous century, the advocate of an extreme, amoral egoism, whose Ego was a precursor of Nietzsche's Ubermensch. After Hitler's downfall, Delius had obviously gone a step further and arrived at an authentic, metaphysical solipsism. Giltay Veth had subsequently sought the advice of two distinguished foreign philosophers: Russell from Cambridge and Heidegger from Freiburg im Breisgau.
"Heidegger?" said Onno in surprise. "Have you go
t it there?"
Oud had opened another file and put his finger on a postcard.
"Here Russell writes: 'Solipsism, although not my cup of tea, is a perfectly legitimate philosophical position. Not taking it seriously would imply a defamation of philosophy as such. In my opinion, therefore, your client should be executed without hesitation.' As you can imagine, Giltay Veth never submitted this; it has obviously found its way among these papers by accident. He only produced Heidegger's German letter. Here it is. 'The expression solipsism derives from solus ipse: "I alone." The germ of this kind of thinking, which turns its back on being, is to be found not in Classical antiquity, but may be linked to Descartes. The latter's universal skepticism, which called everything into doubt, apart from the self, led to the formula familiar to every schoolboy: cogito ergo sum. Solipsism arises when cogito ergo sum is sharpened to ergo solus ergo sum. However, this is a logical extension of Cartesianism. Dismissing it implies a rejection of the whole of post-Cartesian philosophy. Hence a death sentence passed against your client would basically imply a condemnation of the whole of philosophy.' "
All very well, but according to the public prosecutor, said Oud, Heidegger was himself a philosophical delinquent, a Nazi of the first order, who was indirectly only trying to exonerate himself, because he also felt under threat. In their judgment, the judges finally took the view that someone who could hound his wife and parents-in-law to their deaths was by definition not normal, that no murderer was normal, but that this could not mean that murderers could appeal to their deed as a mitigating circumstance, because that would mean the end of jurisprudence, which would herald the return to barbarity of human civilization—in brief, the kind of society that had just been prevented at the cost of fifty-five million dead.