Quinten opened Onno's door and gave him the key. "I'll be next door," he said. "If you need me, just call."
"You don't have to stay in the hotel because of me. Go on into town, there's enough to see. I'll see you later."
"Try to get some rest."
When he had crossed the threshold, Onno turned and they looked at each other for a moment, as though each of them were expecting the other to say something else, but they did not.
Inside, Onno lay straight down on the bed, put his stick on the floor next to him, closed his eyes, and folded his hands on his chest. Laid out in this way, his thoughts immediately started up again.
He saw her in front of him again on the terrace, turning her head. "A gingersnap. I haven't heard that word for a long time." Those unique eyes. . 31415… How old was she? Late seventies? Almost eighty? Was the unthinkable really thinkable? Had he seen Max's mother? Eva Weiss? Could it be true that she was still alive? He tried to recall her wedding photo, which had been on Max's "shelf of honor" in Groot Rechteren, on the mantelpiece. Of course, that portrait from the 1920s was in black-and-white; all he remembered was that Max had his father's eyes and the nose and mouth of his mother. Number 31415 also had a pronounced nose, but that was nothing special around here, either in Jews or in Arabs; her mouth had perhaps retained a suggestion of sensuality. But if that was true, then he must confront the unimaginable consequence. In that case Quinten was not his son but Max's. In that case Ada had deceived him with Max. In that case Max had betrayed their friendship. He was disgusted with himself. What kind of figments of the imagination were these?
Suppose Max's mother had survived Auschwitz. Then she would have returned to Holland at once to trace her son, and she would have found him in that foster family in no time. But they were Catholics. Was it conceivable that they'd been able to keep Max hidden in those chaotic days because he would otherwise be brought up as a Jew, which would mean that his soul was lost for all eternity? That had happened a few times; once even involving abduction to a monastery. No, he remembered Max had told him that he didn't even have to cross himself before meals. Another possibility was that the Germans had told her that her son had been transported to an extermination camp, like her parents. Back in Holland, she had inquired if any of them had come back. They had not. But if her son had not come back, it was simply because he'd never been deported. Perhaps she would have found that out at the National Institute for War Documentation — the records were kept carefully during the war by the Jewish Council; but because she had lived for years in the conviction that he had been taken to Poland as well, the idea did not occur to her. After that there would have been nothing left for her in Holland, where there were only dreadful memories, and she had emigrated to Palestine.
But wait. Max's foster parents had obviously also inquired from their side whether his mother had returned, and obviously they'd been told not. How was that possible? Everything was always possible. Perhaps they'd inquired about Eva Delius, while Max's mother had had herself registered as Eva Weiss, because she could not bear to say Delius. If that was the case, it should be possible to find out at War Documentation. And everything could have happened completely differently; one couldn't reconstruct reality by thinking. He must simply find out whether that lady just now had been Eva Weiss. That must be possible — Israel was not that big. But if it really was, then she would probably have Hebraized her name and was now called Chawah Lawan. What's more, in 1945 she had not yet turned forty; such an attractive woman with such striking eyes would of course have remarried, and now she was a widow with a different name. So now he had to get up immediately and go to the Registry Office, and to that Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, where all the millions of dead were documented; perhaps they also had the German registration numbers from Auschwitz. But he did not get up. He lay there in his hot little room without air-conditioning. Had she had another child? Probably not. Her only son was now really dead — had she really sat next to her own grandson just now? Had Quinten sat next to his grandmother?
He found himself only holding on to all those speculations to avoid the most important thing of all. With his eyes closed, he frowned for a moment. Had Max been capable of that? Of course, he was capable of anything; for women he would have betrayed even God. But Ada? He thought back to that night in Havana, almost eighteen years ago, when according to their calculation Quinten had been conceived. Her shadow in the doorway of his hotel room late that evening.. Where had she come from? He opened his eyes. Dammit, that was it! She'd been to the beach with Max, without him, because he was deceiving her with Maria, the revolutionary widow — that is, he had let himself be seduced by her, just as Ada had seduced him that same night, in complete contrast to her passive nature! He sat up, and a fragment of the Saint Matthew Passion, in which Ada had played, came into his head: "Was dürfen wir weiter Zeugnis?" Had she been through a kind of repetition exercise with Max, a nostalgic episode that had turned out to be rather active, after which she'd come to cleanse herself with him — but in fact sullied herself with Maria? In that case Max had been the stronger: she couldn't become pregnant; she was on the pill. But his seed was as brazen as he was and had paid no attention. That would explain everything! He must have been afraid for months that the child would look like him, and his offer to bring it up had not been simply an act of friendship but a penance — and to that extent a deed of friendship in its turn. At the same time Max had saddled him with the feeling of guilt for not bringing up his own son, who perhaps wasn't his own son, and whom, moreover, he'd later completely abandoned! With his head turned to one side, Onno looked out the window at the blue sky, in which hung the invisible sound of church bells and cooing doves. What next? If that was all true, then the old lady was none other than Eva Weiss; but perhaps it wasn't true.
Had Max known that Quinten was his son? Quinten didn't look like either of them, but maybe Max had nevertheless discovered something in common between himself and Quinten. So did Sophia perhaps know about it, too? Obviously there had been something going on between those two! Or maybe Sophia had discovered that Max and Quinten had something in common, something unobtrusive, some odd trivial thing, but had not told him. And since she had not told him, Onno, she wouldn't do so now. Anyway, what good would that knowledge do anyone? Quinten least of all. For years he'd been looking for his father, while his father may have been sitting opposite him at the table every evening, and had been acting as his father in practice all along. The only person who would derive any joy from it was Chawah Lawan.
The news that her son had not been gassed at the age of nine but had become a leading astronomer, and had only just died at age fifty-one, would of course plunge her into an impossible mixture of happiness and despair; perhaps she'd even read the fantastic report of his death in the newspaper here, referring to a "Dutch astronomer in Westerbork," without mentioning his name, because he was not that famous. But if she survived that news, she could then look into the eyes of her grandson as if into a mirror.
Only by establishing the identity of that Mrs. 31415 could he get at the truth — and perhaps nowadays it was also possible medically. He hadn't read newspapers for years, but it wouldn't surprise him if all that DNA research had by now led to reliable determination of kinship. But in that case Quinten would also have to give blood or saliva — which would also be bound to have a poisonous effect on him, even if Onno emerged from such a test as the father. And apart from that: did he really want to know? After Ada's accident, Helga's death, and his political and academic disasters, it might be better for him not to have a son anymore. So was it not better to banish the eyes of that lady from Jerusalem from his memory? What was truth? If he did nothing, no one else would ever hit upon such misbegotten ideas and everything would stay as it was: Quinten would keep the father whom he had sought and found, and he himself would have a son like Max had had all that time, both his and not his..