"Do I hear voices?"
Ada pointed to Max with her bow. "There's a customer."
"Hello."
He was looked at disapprovingly by dark eyes beneath black eyebrows, which were raised slightly at the sides. "Isn't the bell working?"
She apologized and called upstairs along the corridor: "Oswald! Someone in the shop!"
"Nice shop," said Max, going down the steps and looking around. "But you live here, and of course you never browse."
"My father usually knows what I want."
His eye was caught by an art book with color illustrations: the dazzling, jewel-encrusted eggs of Fabergé, which the Czar usually gave as a gift to the Czarina at Easter.
"Do you know Fabergé?" he asked without looking up.
"Is he a composer?"
The way in which she answered immediately convinced him that he was on the right track. "Something like that. A jeweler."
While he was leafing through the book, the bookseller appeared: a nondescript man of about fifty, with wavy gray-blond hair, slightly shorter than his wife; only his mouth was like his daughter's. He also apologized; the bell had not been working just now. Max said that he wanted the Fabergé book and also the one by Alma Mahler in the window. Laughing shyly, the secondhand bookseller looked at his hands; perhaps the gentleman would like to get it for himself. There was paint on his face too. As Max went toward it, he read on the shop window, back to front:
He showed the prices on the flyleaves and said that there was no need to wrap them up. After he had paid, he looked at the back room again. The girl was still sitting in the same position with her cello. She met his glance. He went up to her and handed her the book on Fabergé.
"For you. A present for the coda."
No, really, she started blushing. She put the cello down and got up to receive it.
"How nice.. " she said, laughing. Her two front teeth at the top were slightly wider and longer than the others.
Max turned to her father. "May I carry your daughter off for a cup of coffee?"
While he was trying not to get paint marks on the cash register, the scene had somewhat passed him by. He muttered that she must make up her own mind.
Max put out his hand. "Delius, Max."
Ada put her own hand in it. "Ada Brons."
7. The Observatory
The Gilded Turk was nearby, on the Breestraat. In the street Max had offered her his arm, ironically, like a cavalier of the old school; she had put her hand in it, and now, to her own astonishment, she was suddenly walking through town with a total stranger, chatting about Janáček. Hopefully, Bruno wouldn't see her.
Max warned her about his friend, who was waiting for them: a brute of a fellow, whom she should take with a pinch of salt.
In the large pub the afternoon rush was on; at the back a group of students in blazers were bragging noisily, beer glasses in hand.
They found Onno at the reading table, with the usual glass of milk and a half-eaten rissole next to his newspaper.
"There you are," said Max, putting the book down beside him. "Mein Leben. For you."
"Right." Onno looked up to thank him and saw that he had company.
"Onno Quist," said Max. "Ada Brons."
At the same moment a waiter dropped a tray of crockery somewhere, followed by applause and cheers from the students. Onno stood up and shook hands with her, after which he shot Max a look very like the one Max had given his rissole. They pulled up chairs, and for a moment it looked as though Onno was going to continue reading his newspaper out of moral indignation, but he finally decided not to. He leaned back, crossed one leg over the other, revealing the bluish-white flesh above his short socks, and in the manner of a complacent country psychiatrist asked: "Have you two known each other long?"
"We have never not known each other," said Max, and looked at Ada in expectation of a sign of agreement.
When none came, Onno took a liking to her. "I fail to understand how a sensible girl like you can stand an eternity with someone like this. But perhaps he has a secret side that he has always managed to keep hidden from me. What can I get you?"
"A mineral water, thanks."
"Water," repeated Onno, pulling a face in disgust. "Water is for brushing your teeth."
"That's right," said Max. "You should think of that more often."
Ada did not know what to say. She had to get used to the style of these two. Their tone was quite studentlike, and yet different from what she was familiar with from hearty Leiden types, for whom the tone was the only content of the conversation. Perhaps it was more boyish: the crazy exaggeration of little boys during recess at kindergarten. If it went on like this, she would find them a wearisome pair. Of course they were teasing each other because they were crazy about each other. There was a lot of violence in that Onno. Max was different, lighter: if Onno was a rock, then Max was water. The way he had whisked her off had been irresistible, but a little routine— of course he had done it hundreds of times before. He also looked a little too smart. Or did that mean he was a man of the world? Of course she herself was a tight-assed bitch.
They were talking to each other again, about their secret sides, which surpassed each other in fearsomeness; she was simply along for the ride. Of course they found her bourgeois, and they were quite right: she wasn't good enough. Soon her hand would be kissed, she would be given a flashing aphorism to contemplate, and then dismissed… Suddenly her eyes began stinging. She mumbled an excuse and went to the toilet. With the door locked, she sat down on the seat. What was happening to her? She'd known him for ten minutes and she was already crying at the thought that she might not see him again. She knew nothing about him except that he was well-informed musically; she had not even yet been able to ask him if he was a musician himself. Was she in love, or perhaps just oversensitive because she was expecting her period?
Every period meant no baby yet again, but she had only just had her period. What was it, then? He wasn't good-looking. He wasn't ugly, either, but he was certainly very unusual. Perhaps it was the way he looked at her, so directly and openly. He had appeared in her life as unexpectedly as a falling star, a meteor entering the atmosphere — when it burned up you had to make a wish. Her wish was that he would not burn up and disappear! The thought of having to go home shortly, to her cello and her parents, and of everything continuing as before, was suddenly unbearable. But in that case she must get back quickly, before they disappeared!
After she had gotten up, Max leaned over to Onno with one hand on the back of her chair and said, "I'm not going to ask you what you think of her, because you know nothing about these matters."
Making a sound as if he were about to be sick, Onno looked at Max's hand on the warm chair back. "I've got my eye on you, you lecher."
Was that all it was? Or could it be something different from what Onno, or he himself, was thinking?
"Have you ever wondered," Max asked, "why it is that you find a chair on which somebody else has just been sitting warm, but never your own chair, after getting up for a moment?"
"Interesting question. And why is that?"
"There have been articles about it. The reason is that everyone produces his own individual warmth. Warmth is not simply heat, as used to be thought, not simply the Brownian motion of inanimate molecules; everyone gives off warmth, which is a function of their unmistakable personality. And it can be proved. If we get up, I look the other way, and you swap our chairs, or not, just as you like, then I'll tell you which one was your chair."
"Lunatic!" cried Onno. "Get up at once!"
Max got up and turned away. Watched with alarm by three ladies having tea, Onno began sliding their chairs about and making misleading movements with them.