"That would be nice," said Max, when he had gone.
"I know that kind of fellow," said Bruno. "You'll never hear another word. He's probably just talking big to impress the lady."
"Do you really think we'll get an invitation to go to Cuba?" asked Ada.
"There are thousands of better duos."
"But they don't perform at left-wing demonstrations."
"I'll wait and see what happens. I don't want to think about it. Do you mind if we go home?"
Chairs were already being put on tables; everyone was getting ready to leave. Bruno said that he was going into town for a bit: there was a gypsy orchestra performing that he wanted to hear.
Ada looked at Max. "I can see from your face that you want to go too. Go ahead. I'm only off to bed."
"Can I come too, can I come too?" whined Onno, with his forefinger raised.
"Yes, darling," said Max. "You can come too."
"Hey!" cried Onno. "Have you gone completely nuts!"
Max gave Ada the front-door key, looked at her sternly, and said:
"Go up the front steps and count to four. On the far right you'll find a half brick, which is loose. Lift it up, slip the key in, and put the brick back in its place."
The gypsy orchestra was playing in a dimly lit bar behind the Rembrandt-plein. It turned out that Bruno knew the musicians. He greeted the primas, who was walking among the audience, followed by the second violinist, and waved to the cymbalist and the bass player in the corner. The second violinist raised his instrument inquiringly, whereupon Bruno took it from him and revealed himself as a stylish fiddler, who had no trouble with the csárdás, or even with shouting "Hop, hop!"
The moment Max heard the sounds, something melted in him. No one needed to tell him about the status of this music and its relationship to Die Grosse Fuge, for example: that was already clear from those shiny shirts with their wide sleeves. But at the same time there was something in it that was not found even in Beethoven, or in Bach, and that he experienced at home on his grand piano when he played the gypsy scale, the harmonic with its raised fourth note: the Central European Jewish gypsy sob, which bowled him over.
They now played a slow number. The primas leaned over him and Onno at their table, as the friends of his friend. He was about fifty; the upper eyelids of his large fleshy face were thick and heavy with melancholy, like shutters, so he could scarcely raise them over his pupils. From his ears his black hair grew down to his lower jaw: a style that in Max's student days had been called "screwing strips," because women could hold on to them while they were on the job. Onno, who heard less the music than the renewed threat of a beachcomber's existence, turned away in embarrassment and lit up a cigarette, but Max, not taking his eyes off the violinist, was suddenly reminded of his father.
Wolfgang too had listened to this music, on the spot, in Austro-Hungarian regions — Vienna, Prague, Budapest — at a time when he had only heard vaguely of Holland, as his son now had of Iceland, as something far away, Ultima Thule, where he would spend a few days if the opportunity presented itself. In 1914, in his tailored Bordeaux-red Habsburg uniform with the ornamental sword, a provocative girlfriend on each arm and a bottle of Tokay on the table, Wolfgang had listened to the father of this violinist in some Cafe Hungaria or other, his thoughts racing around in a gloomy enchanted circle, from which he was never able to free himself, while Austria declared war on Serbia—Serbien muss sterben! — and the mother of his son began school in Brussels..
When the piece was finished, Max ordered a bottle of white wine for the orchestra and asked Bruno what language the leader spoke; he wanted to say something to him. According to Bruno, he knew only a few words of German.
"Onno?"
"As long as you don't think that I know all the sixty-five thousand dialects these people speak."
He tried Hungarian, but that had no effect, and then took a different tack; suddenly the violinist's face broke into a broad smile. He put a hand on Onno's shoulder and turned and spoke the same language to his friends, who cried "Bravo!" and "Hop, hop!"
"What did you speak?" asked Max.
"No idea. A kind of Serbo-Croat, I think. Anyway, he understands it. What did you want to say to him?"
At dictation speed, Max said: "Tell him that I consider gypsies sacred, because they are the only people on earth who have never waged war."
Onno did as he was asked and the smile disappeared from the large face. "Was that all?"
"No. Tell him that because they are the only ones who are not murderers, they are denounced as thieves by everyone but that we have stolen even their death."
"What do you mean by that?"
"That they were gassed and exterminated just like Jews, but that is hushed up so that people can go on niggling at them, even in Holland."
"Are you sure I have to say that?"
"Yes."
The effect was shattering. With his instrument under his arm, the violinist looked at Max, while his eyes filled with tears. He turned and cried something with a choking voice to the others, which Onno translated as "Roma! Gather together!" The bass player now also came over, and the cymbalist with his instrument, making it necessary for the guests to get up and move tables aside; the second violinist took his instrument back from Bruno. A little while later the orchestra had grouped in a semi-circle around Max, and began playing and singing for him — in their own language, Onno suspected: some neo-Indian variant of Hindi from the sound of it, with borrowings from Iranian, Armenian, New Greek, South Slavic, and heaven knows what else.
One can surround someone sitting on a chair and destroy him with threats, blows, or electricity, but here someone was being broken down with gratitude in the form of music. Max cried, for the second time that evening. With a gesture of apology he glanced at Onno, who could see that the musicians were forcing him back mercilessly to his origins, without realizing what they were doing. What was happening was totally alien to Onno — it was a musical scandal — and he would have preferred to put an end to it immediately, but of course that was out of the question. On the other hand his affection for Max grew even greater. What kind of man was it who with a few words could transform a kitschy string band in a back street into an ensemble that was celebrating a missa solemnis for the dead? He looked at Bruno, and on his face saw an expression that said: He deserves Ada.
When the litany was finished, Max raised his hands in a ritual gesture of thanks. The musicians withdrew. He took a sip of his orange juice and said in a churned-up voice: "It's exactly twenty-one years ago today that my father was executed."
When Bruno heard that, he stood up and moved away. Onno was about to raise his glass to his lips, but put it down again. That was it — the gypsies had touched the core. This required very careful maneuvering, but he could not resist asking: "Have you lit a candle for him?"
"I've only just remembered."
"Can you still remember being told about it?"
"Scarcely. I was twelve. I don't think it had much effect on me. I was six when I'd last seen him."
Onno nodded. What next? Max had raised the subject; he must not be left alone with it now.
"Have you ever looked up the newspapers from those days? Have you studied his trial?"