"He's a nutcase," said Onno. "Anyone can see that. He hasn't done a day's work in his life."
Anyone with any experience could tell that the evening was now about to go off the rails. The worker did not deign to look at any of the members of the forum panel; he pulled the old lady's microphone toward himself and, with a fixed expression, began explaining that the Jesuits had constructed an underground network of tunnels under the streets and squares of Amsterdam, from where they planned one day to launch a merciless attack. He had written countless letters on the subject to the city council, the government, the queen, and the United Nations, but never—
"I thank you for your lucid statement," the chairman interrupted. "And now for a completely different subject: the recent attack by Israel on—"
"Be quiet when I'm speaking," said the worker, without so much as turning his head. While the members of the panel looked at each other in astonishment and the mood in the audience became more and more high-spirited, he went on unperturbed: "It is no accident that the general of the Jesuits is a Dutchman. He has his headquarters in Spain, which since the Revolt of the Netherlands and the Inquisition—"
Now again someone stood up in the auditorium and shouted: "For God's sake stop that nonsense, mate!" He was proof that a large amount of flesh could also contribute to intellectual superiority, because even the worker now fell silent. The excessively fat, bald man, a well-known restaurateur, turned with outstretched arms to the audience, which egged him on with acclamations. "What good is all this rubbish to us? Doesn't everybody know that Amsterdam is the New Jerusalem, blessed with the refined hyper-biogeometric ethics of Dante, Goethe, and Queen Esther with her thirty-six Essenes and thirty-six Saddikim and with the new, all-renewing, Messianic Pythagorean world mathematics, the primeval mathematics of the wisdom of the prehistoric world, as an interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, namely the new Jewish laws of harmony of prime numbers and the prime pairs of Moses, David, and Solomon — the new bio-algebra, bio-geometry, and bio-mechanics of William of Orange, Spinoza, Erasmus, Simon Stevin, Christian Huygens, Descartes, and Rembrandt, and the new plastic mathematics of Teilhard de Chardin, Mondrian, Steiner, Thomas Aquinas, Mersenne, Fermat, Aristotle, Nicolaus Cusanus, Wittgenstein, Weinreb—"
But he was not allowed to complete his list: at the back of the auditorium a door suddenly flew open, through which the earlier attacker again charged in.
"Where's that stinking German bastard?" he screamed, looking around in bewilderment. "Give him to me and I'll kick the shit out of him!"
With this he suddenly crossed a critical borderline: the auditorium capsized and submerged in thunderous laughter. The chairman crossed his arms, leaned back, and looked calmly at the pandemonium.
"It is no accident," — the worker now resumed his revelations completely unperturbed—"that Princess Irene married a Catholic three years ago, a French creep who wants to be king of Spain."
"Augustine!" shouted the restaurateur. "Einstein! Euclid!"
"Give the bastard to me! I'll cut his head off!"
"Princess Beatrix for queen of Israel!"
"Good idea! Republic! Republic!"
And shortly afterward, those organizing the proceedings showed that they had had a brilliant brainwave because, blowing on saxophones, trumpets, clarinets, bassoons, and tubas, the musicians entered from both wings — playing a loud but slow, strangely Oriental melody, while at the same time from the back of the auditorium, along the central aisle, a man with a sheep was seen to be making his way toward the platform.
"A sheep! A sheep!"
It was not clear what was meant — maybe something to do with a symbolic sacrifice — but the shock was great. And maybe Max was the only person who suddenly found his eyes full of tears at the sight of the animal kicking in fright, the fathomless seriousness of it all, and the closeness of the bond linking it to the farmer leading it, who perhaps already knew that it would soon die of shock.
10. The Gypsies
In the crowd afterward, Max was able to make a quick date with the redhead in the third row, after which he went backstage to the greenroom. Other public figures had also managed to gain admittance. At the bar stood a tall, platinum-blond young man in a raincoat with an umbrella — the "rain maker" of the former Provo movement — who arranged for precipitation by magic whenever it could hamper the police. He was listening with a smile to a pale lad with a bandaged forehead: he had made a hole in his skull with a dentist's drill, and because of this new fontanel, as he explained in interviews, was constantly as high as a baby.
The writer sat making notes, still choking with laughter. In passing, Max heard him say to the chess player that they would later remember this time; but the grandmaster bent absent-mindedly over a pocket chess set, with which he may have been running through a variation for his forthcoming match with Smyslov in Palma de Mallorca.
Ada was sitting at a large round table with Bruno, some other musicians, the composer from the forum, the student leader Bart Bork, and Onno. Max kissed her and sat down next to her on the same chair.
"Congratulations," he said. "You two were the only ones who really knocked the audience out. Are you tired?"
"Dead tired. I don't want to stay very long."
Max raised his hand in the direction of Bruno, who nodded to him with a deadpan look. They had met each other a few times but had not struck up a conversation.
Onno was explaining to the composer why in ten years' time, like a second Richard Wagner, he would be as right-wing as an American general and that, like all Maoists, he would embrace the Holy Mother Church on his deathbed, since that was what he was actually looking for: the Holy Father.
"Comrade Rabbit is only a means to an end for you."
"Comrade Rabbit?"
"That's what Mao means in Chinese. Though there is the consolation that it's also the name of a constellation. I, on the other hand," he said, "will become the president of the People's Republic of the Netherlands after the revolution and in that capacity will make a state visit to Peking."
With his head slightly bent, Bork looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "After the revolution," he said slowly, "you'll be a beachcomber on Ameland."
Onno, startled, looked him in the eye. This was someone who meant what he said. He could feel the remark sinking into him, like a revolver thrown into a canal dropping through the murky water to the muddy bottom. Was that the way things were going? Imagine Bart Bork coming to power! And if it all came to nothing, which was the most probable outcome, knowing Holland, what would people like Bork do? How would they take it? For now they were borne along by massive good-humored benevolence — but if that were suddenly to disappear and they were suddenly alone? What would they do, then, in their despair? Would they turn into terrorists? Onno was shocked. Shouldn't he go into politics and do something about it?
"Onno, come and help."
Max, Ada, and Bruno had gotten up and were talking to one of the two Cubans. The latter switched with relief from his laborious American English into Spanish, or rather the sloppy Latin-American dialect in its Cuban variant. He was very impressed by the duo and wanted the address of the Dutch musicians' union; perhaps there would be an opportunity at some point for an invitation, but the compañera only wanted to give her own address. His instinct for power had obviously told him that he should talk to Ada and not Bruno. Through Onno, Ada explained that she had nothing to do with such an organization — that was not how musical life was organized in the Netherlands — and with some surprise the Cuban noted down her name and address.