Helga was dead. No more politics; no more girlfriends. Perhaps all that was left was the Phaistos disc. He did not want to be anything anymore. He was devastated. What day was it? He looked around, at the well-behaved Sunday gables. Probably, he had never been in Enkhuizen, nor Helga. But she wasn't not there in the same way that she had been not there before; her death had planted a completely different, permanent NOT in the world and in himself. It was over. His decision was made: he was going to disappear. In other civilized countries it was not a bit better than here, but there at least no one knew him, because he himself didn't want to know anyone from now on — not even Quinten. He'd become a stranger to everyone, in the first place to himself. He wasn't going to stay a day longer in Holland than was necessary.
45. Changes
The last time that Max, Sophia and Quinten saw him was at Helga's funeral, which many politicians and journalists had also attended. The press had treated him with compassion; the impression had been created that he was declining the ministerial post because of the death of his companion. Everyone considered that it was best to leave it at that. Of course he had made a dull, depressed impression, but nothing indicated that he intended to give up everything, not even when he said goodbye. A week later each of them received a handwritten letter, mailed from Amsterdam, which they read at the same time at the breakfast table on the balcony.
Dear Max,
We probably won't see each other again. I'm going away and not coming back. I've been pushed over the edge. Hopefully you'll understand that without my having to explain, because I can't explain. All I know is that I have to make myself invisible, a bit like a dying elephant. The person I was no longer exists, and everything that may yet happen in my life is actually already posthumous. I don't have to tell you that there are people who have endured unspeakably worse things and still don't react like me, but they are different people from me. There are also people who hang themselves over much less. I don't know if what I want is possible, namely that I don't want anything anymore, but I must at least have a try. All I want to do is think a few things through. The fact that I'm cutting loose from those I love best, like you, and of course Quinten and my youngest sister, instead of coming closer to you, is a mystery to me too; but what attitude can a person take in order to solve the riddle that he is? Perhaps the fact is that I've always wanted to escape from everything.
Between Ada's accident and Helga's murder there is my political career, which has now also come to an end. My life isn't conceivable without yours. Up to last week you determined its course to a greater extent than you yourself know. I realize that this may sound mysterious, but let it remain so. However many things we discussed, particularly in those first few months, what was essential always remained unspoken. What was it between us, Max? Gilgamesh and Enkidu? Do you remember? The "mentopagus"? I have forgotten nothing and I will forget nothing; the memory of our friendship will remain with me to my dying day. The fact that you've been prepared to take pity on Quinten — denying your previous joie de vivre in a way that, to tell the truth, still astonishes me — is something that not only fills me with deep gratitude, but also and perhaps with an even greater feeling of guilt. In fact from the very start he was much more your son than mine. Look after him well for the few years that he will still be with you. All the practical and financial matters have been settled with my bank; that will of course simply continue as usual. Sometimes I have the impression that he knows everything already, but should he want to go to university, there will be an allowance for him.
I have given my notice in the Kerkstraat and my things are in Dol's loft for the moment; should any of you want anything from them, then they can collect it. Except for my lawyer, Hans Giltay Veth (the son of your father's defense lawyer after the war, by the way), no one knows how I can be reached, not even my family. If there's something really important, you can turn to him. May it go well with you, Max, in your scientific work too. Unveil the Big Bang! I shall always think of you as someone who knew the answer to a question before it was posed.
Yours, Onno
Dear Mrs. Brons,
Any other opening would sound just as idiotic, so let's leave it like that. Max will let you read my letter, telling him that I'm going to disappear. That may look as though I've made a difficult decision, which I have thought over for a long time, but that's not how it is. As soon as I heard what had happened to Helga, I was certain that nothing else could be done. As I am now, I've become unsuitable for any social tie. In the background, of course, Ada's fate is intimately connected with all this.
It's difficult for me to write these lines. Although we've never had any disagreement, neither have we had any real contact with each other. You didn't choose me and I didn't choose you; but because Ada and I chose each other, we had to deal with each other, while in fact we've remained as alien to each other as creatures from different worlds. Obviously nature only deals in short-range psychology, and we shall have to resign ourselves to that. But that doesn't detract from the fact that your daughter is my wife. . or was — that twilight world of conjugation expresses exactly the depth of the disaster. Our five lives are interwoven for good: yours, mine, Ada's, Max's and Quinten's.
Ada will never know how splendidly you have taken over her task for the last thirteen years, but I know and I wish I had the ability to express my feelings. Sadly, I can't; but I console myself with the thought that someone who can probably doesn't have those feelings. Let me put it like this: in a number of respects I'm more grateful to you than to my own mother. Ada is flesh of your flesh; should decisions need to be made about her, then of course you must have the last word.
Please forgive the formal tone of this letter. Farewell. May things go well with you.
Your son-in-law
My Dearest Quinten!
You will have probably realized for yourself that in life things are constantly changing — usually that happens gradually and almost imperceptibly, but sometimes suddenly and very drastically. When you cycle somewhere not much is happening, but if you fall and break a leg, then suddenly a whole lot is wrong. War is something like that, but not just war. Mama and I lived very quietly together, but when she told me one day that you were going to be born — that is, at that moment of course we didn't know that it was going to be you, or even if it was going to be a boy or a girl — from that moment nothing was really the same again. Of course that was a nice change, but when Mama had that accident, everything was completely different in a terrible way. In the meantime you've also stood at Granddad's and Granny To's graves. They were very old, and when you're very old you simply die; but a few days ago we also buried Auntie Helga. Can you understand that suddenly I can't take it anymore? Perhaps you hadn't expected that of me, and perhaps you think I'm a wimp; I can't help it. It's like a match: you can break twice and the halves are still attached, but the third time it breaks in two. In some countries you have little wax matches — you can bend them backward and forward as much as you like and they never break; but I'm not one of them. Anyway, they're rotten matches that you always burn your fingers on.