She looked at him in alarm. "Only my father and myself. Do you think you've lost something?"
Onno shook his head. With trembling fingers, against his own better judgment, he began fiddling with the locks, whereupon she bent forward and opened them. On the envelope he had seen yesterday when the luggage was inspected at the airport in Rome he now read: SOMNIUM QUINTI. Quinten's dream? Was it perhaps a farewell letter that Quinten had written previously? He took the papers out, but they were only architectural sketches and labyrinthine plans, with captions here and there captions like Footbridge, Center of the World, Spiral Staircase. The only explanation of the inexplicable… he suddenly grabbed his head in both hands. He couldn't think about it anymore! Perhaps Quinten was not his son, or was his son; but now he was gone, gone for good, vanished off the face of the earth, no one knew where.
Quinten had deserted him, as he had once deserted Quinten — but he would never find Quinten, as Quinten had found him. He was now really in the situation that he had placed himself artificially four years ago: he had no one else. .
"Are you all right?"
"No," he said, and searched frantically in his inside pocket. "Not at all… I have to. ." With trembling hands he began leafing through a notebook. "Can I make a telephone call from here?"
"Of course." The girl took the case off his lap and pointed out the telephone on the small desk next to the typewriter. "Local?"
"International."
"Then I'll put the counter on." She pressed the button of a black box on the wall, closed the safe, and said, "I'll leave you alone."
"Sophia Brons speaking."
"It's Onno."
"Who?"
"Onno. Onno Quist."
"Onno? Did I hear that right? Is that you, Onno?"
"Yes."
"It can't be true. Say it again."
"This is Onno, your son-in-law."
"Onno! How incredible! I knew you'd show up again one day! Where are you calling from? Are you in Holland?"
"I'm calling from Jerusalem."
"Jerusalem! Is that where you've been all these years?"
"No. I realize I've got a lot to explain, and I will, but I'm phoning now because—"
"It's incredible that you should have telephoned now of all times… as though you felt it…"
"Felt what?"
"Onno.."
"What is it?"
"Prepare yourself for a shock, Onno. I've just come from Ada's cremation. I've still got my coat on.. Onno? Are you still there?"
"I'm sorry, my head's spinning, it's all.. has Ada just been cremated?"
"I think they're putting her ashes in the urn now. There's no need for us to mourn — it should all have happened a long long time ago."
"Yes."
"That poor child… but it's all over now. After more than seventeen years — it's such a godawful business."
"Yes."
"Of course you want to talk to Quinten, but he's not here. I was the only one there just now. He's been in Italy for a few weeks; I haven't heard a word from him yet. He's had his birthday in the meantime, but I've no idea where he's gone. He doesn't know anything yet."
"Mother. . that's why I'm phoning you. About Quinten."
"About Quinten? What do you mean?"
"We met. By accident. In Rome."
"You met each other? You can't be serious! When? Why didn't you tell me? He must have been overjoyed, surely? And what are the two of you doing in Jerusalem now?"
"A lot has happened in the meantime, I can't explain it all now, and anyway it can't be explained but.. "
"But? Can't you say anything else? Has something happened to Quinten?"
"Yes."
"What? Onno! For God's sake! He's not dead too, is he?"
"I don't know. He's gone."
"Gone? Have you called in the police?"
"There's no point."
"How do you know? How long has he been gone?"
"An hour."
"An hour? Did you say an hour? You're not a bit overwrought, are you, Onno?"
"That too. I know it sounds idiotic, but…"
"Please stop it. If he's been gone for an hour, he'll be back in an hour. I know all about that boy wandering off — he was always getting lost as a toddler. Take something to calm you down, or try and get some sleep. You must forgive me, I've got other things on my mind now. I'll tell you something that you have to know but no one else must know."
"I can scarcely hear you anymore."
"I have to keep my voice down, because these days it's possible I'm being bugged by those scum here at the castle. Fortunately I'll soon be moving in with someone in Westerbork, Max's ex-girlfriend. Of course, you've heard about everything that's happened."
"Yes."
"Listen carefully, Onno. Weren't you wondering why Ada died so suddenly?"
"You mean. ."
"Yes. That's what I mean. In your farewell letter you wrote that Ada was flesh of my flesh and that I had the last word about her. She was in a terrible state, too awful to look at. Her kidneys had stopped functioning, she had cancer of the womb that had spread — I'll spare you the details. She'd gone completely white. It wasn't the kind of hospital where people had the last word; I had to do it myself."
"How?"
"With an overdose of insulin. I gave it to her last Saturday evening during visiting hours, at about seven-thirty, under the sheet, in her left thigh. No one saw me. They only discovered yesterday morning that she had died. Death must have occurred at about twelve-thirty in the morning, I was told when they called me up. That is, insofar as death hadn't occurred long ago. In the afternoon I was able to see her in the morgue. She reminded me of a fawn, she'd become so small."
"And she was cremated today? It's only Monday today. Isn't that very quick?"
"Of course that struck everyone. I called your lawyer, Giltay Veth, and he said that according to the Disposal of the Dead Act there was a minimum period of thirty-six hours. They kept to that exactly at the hospital. I think they were suspicious, just as Giltay Veth was for that matter. Perhaps they discovered the hole in her thigh at the postmortem and wanted to get rid of the evidence that anything untoward could have happened at their hospital as soon as possible. There was a short notice in today's newspaper saying that Mrs. Q. had died a natural death after seventeen years."
"Wait a moment.. this is. . this is just impossible… I have to write it down. So you gave her that injection on Saturday evening. It was seven-thirty. She died at twelve-thirty. In the morning she was taken to the morgue, where she lay yesterday. This morning she was put in a coffin and taken to the crematorium. And she was cremated there an hour ago."
"Yes. What's so important about those times?"
"What… how can. . I.. "
"Onno? Hello! Onno? Can you hear me? Are you still there?"
"There's something wrong with my head, Sophia, I can feel it… I can't write anymore. . the whole of my left side. . Eighteen months ago I had a. ."
"For heaven's sake, Onno! Where are you?"
"Hotel Raphael…"
"Get them to call for a doctor at once. I'll take the next plane. I'm coming to get you both."
Epilogue
— That's enough! You must know when to stop. Think of Goethe's words: "Restriction shows the master's hand."
— But to be on the safe side he also said: "The fact that you cannot end is what makes you great."
— Yes, those writers are like that. Always having the best of both worlds. You've accomplished your mission, and I've got six hundred and sixty-six questions about your machinations, but I won't ask them. The main thing is that we've got the testimony back just in time. Where's our man now?