"I'm very happy about it."
She could see that he was in a panic; but whatever he said, she knew that she wasn't going to budge an inch, and perhaps he sensed that. He made a few uncoordinated movements with his head and one hand.
"Of course, you're a woman, you're pregnant, you're expecting a child, and of course you identify completely with that child. I understand that. It's probably something like an artist who's pregnant with a symphony, or a novel; they're not going to let anyone or anything get in their way, either. But at the same time that's the difference — because a work of art has only a mother, while your child has a father too. After all it wasn't an immaculate conception!"
"I'm assuming it wasn't — although I was using the pill."
"It was more of a doubly maculate conception. But who's the father? You don't know."
"And I don't want to know. You and Onno are the father. You two are such a unity after all, aren't you?"
"Ada, you're crazy! It will all come out one day who it is, Onno or me. I hope to God that it's Onno — then it will be all right, that is. . all that will happen is that we'll have been living in fear for years, or I will at any rate. But supposing a duplicate of me is born, what will happen then? What will we have done to Onno then? How are we supposed to go on? That will be an inconceivable catastrophe, won't it!"
"These things were sent to try us," said Ada, folding her arms. "I'm quite aware what you're getting at, but you can save yourself the trouble. I'm not having an abortion."
Max moved slightly closer to her. Other people were now sitting at their table too: an untidy man with a gray beard, who had clearly decided to have a wild old age and was trying to impress a young girl with a story from the war, while her boyfriend listened rather uncomfortably. Now and then all three of them had to bend forward under the pressure of the throng behind them. The smell of wet hair and coats mixed with smoke and beer formed a gas that no one would have been able to stand for more than a minute at home; amid the screaming and laughter Max and Ada need have no fear that they were being eavesdropped on.
"But for God's sake, can't you see that there's no other way out! You can tell Onno you've had a miscarriage — and after a few months you'll be pregnant again if you want to be."
Ada took a sip of her white wine, which had been brought by a waiter who had become as thin as a pencil stroke from having been mangled by bodies evening after evening.
"No, I won't be."
"What do you mean?"
She put down her glass and looked at him. "I won't get pregnant again."
"And why not?"
"I have a presentiment."
"Based on what?"
"I don't know."
"Do you mean because of the abortion, perhaps? Listen, obviously we won't have it done by an old lady with an enema — I'll make sure of that. Maybe we can even have it done in the Academic Hospital in Leiden."
"It's got nothing to do with that, but I know for certain that this is my only chance of having a child."
She felt sorry for him. Perhaps he was the father of her child, perhaps not; in any case he had a dreadful time ahead of him. Everything that Max had thought of she of course had thought of herself; but even if the sky were to fall in, she was determined to have her child. Everything would sort itself out somehow in the end, even if the child was Max's — if necessary at the cost of her marriage and Max and Onno's friendship: that was all of secondary importance. Perhaps Max would want to spend the rest of his life with her in that case, perhaps not; perhaps she would have to cope by herself — it didn't matter. She would face that when she came to it: as long as her child was born. The source of this determination was a mystery to her. In the past she had only known it in regard to her musical career, but when a world-famous young cellist of her own age had recently performed with the orchestra, in the Elgar concerto, with a Stradivarius, she hadn't thought for a moment: I'd like to be sitting there.
"But that's completely irrational, Ada. Countless women have had abortions and had children afterward."
She looked at him. "If you're so rational, why don't you simply tell Onno the truth?"
Max emptied his glass helplessly. "I started writing him a letter, but I tore it up."
"Why?"
"I felt I couldn't do it behind your back."
"Well, now I'm in the picture."
"Do you think I should do it? What do you think the consequences will be for you? You didn't tell him, either."
"No," said Ada. "And not just because I felt I couldn't do it behind your back. I'm prepared to take the risk. The truth's a toss-up: heads or tails. If we tell him, everything will be wrecked for certain."
"Unless we get married."
She put her hand on his for a moment and smiled. "Even then. In that case we'll only get into a new quagmire."
"Exactly," nodded Max. "Quagmire—that's the word. Morass. Whatever we do it will be a disaster. And even if we do nothing and it turns out to be Onno's child, even then our relationship with him will be all wrong. Like when you know someone has cancer but they themselves think they're healthy."
"And that will be just as true if I have an abortion," said Ada. "And that's another reason why I am not doing it. My child is the cause of everything, but at the same time it's the only ray of hope. Eventually we'll all be dead, and then all our problems will have disappeared, but he'll still be alive somewhere, and his children and his children's children."
"How do you know it's going to be a boy?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Onno thinks it's going to be a girl. He's even thought of a name."
"A name?" repeated Max in dismay. "Is he already thinking of names? But in that case it's already there!"
Marijke squirmed her way between the bodies and set down two glasses of wine in front of them.
"Are you okay here?"
Ada glanced at Max, who sighed and gestured.
"We're doing the best we can."
The man opposite them, leaning aside for someone trying to take his coat off, complained that these days the trams in Amsterdam were always as full as this in the rush hour; you couldn't use public transportation anymore.
"So what are we going to do now?" asked Max.
Ada shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing."
"Have you met his family yet?"
She nodded.
"And?"
"He's presented me to his parents very officially. We've been to tea. It's wheeled in on a cart by a housekeeper, after which the lady of the house pours the tea herself."
"And how did they react to you?"
"I couldn't really make it out. They were cordiality itself, but I don't know how much of it was sincere. According to Onno I went down well. He himself was as nervous as if he were making his first visit. His mother didn't strike me as exactly a genius, and his father was a bit intimidating. He didn't say much. He was very friendly, but behind it there was something completely different. When I said so afterward to Onno, he said that I'd seen that he's a politician. According to him they're glorified street fighters, with brains that are really muscles — people who know how to settle scores with their enemies."
"And then he said," added Max, "that it was characteristic of him too, that he would also crush his enemies to the last man." He remembered the way Onno had settled accounts with Bart Bork in the park in Havana. His eyes began stinging a little. Onno was completely a part of him, but it was an Onno that would no longer exist for him.
"Very possibly. I can't remember."
Ada looked at her watch. She wanted to go home; Onno was waiting for her. Just like that afternoon in The Hague, she experienced her presence in the crowded pub as in the kind of portrait that you can have taken of yourself at the fair: behind a pasted-up, life-size photo of the queen, with a crown and ermine mantle with the face cut out and you having to stick your own through the hole. Deep inside she felt the presence of something else — not only localized in her womb, but even more in her whole self. At the same time it was still completely part of her, as Max had said: it was her and not her. Her personality contained a part of herself as something else, which was nevertheless completely herself, just as on the platform her part belonged to the indivisible orchestral sound.