While he poured himself a cup, he could hear that the conversation was about mourning and the funeral. She had behaved naturally to him; her eyes again had the look of the abbess, as though nothing had happened. If that was the attitude she had chosen, she was making things easy for him.
Or had nothing really happened? Had he dreamed it, perhaps? He sneaked a look at her. Was that the woman who last night had stuck her tongue out so far? Only now did it strike him that she had a good figure, fuller than Ada's, but in good shape everywhere; nowhere were its contours blurred with fat. There was a clear transition from her firm calves into slim ankles.
"That was Dol," she said, putting the receiver down, "Onno's sister. She's taken all the formalities off my hands. Did you sleep well?"
"Very well. And thank you very much for tidying up my things."
Onno had also already called. There had still been no change in Ada's condition; he would be coming to Amsterdam in the ambulance in the course of the morning. She herself would be going there that afternoon.
"Did you say that I'd spent the night here?"
"Yes. You did, didn't you? Would you like a fried egg?"
"Yes please, Mrs. Brons."
When she had disappeared into the kitchen, he thought: the woman's split into two completely separate halves. There was a daytime Sophia and a nighttime Sophia, who had nothing in common — a cool, unfeeling person, and a second one brimming with emotion. He remembered how Ada had sometimes talked about her as a disgusting bitch, but had she really known her mother? It fascinated him — but it was also clear to him that he mustn't make any allusion to what had happened last night.
He thought about everything that he had to do today. Of course he had to call Onno, then he had to go to the observatory: prepare everyone for the news that a week's observation material might have been lost. He had to call Dwingeloo; Floris must contact the police. He had to call his insurance company, and his garage. The car was not a write-off, there was probably nothing wrong with the engine, but he never wanted to see the thing again; they would have to clean it up and sell it. He took out his diary and was going to make a few notes, but the point of his pencil had broken off. While he was sharpening it, the shop doorbell rang.
"Would you go and see who it is?" called Sophia.
He walked to the front of the shop, up little flights of stairs and through the caverns. At the cash register stood a tall, thin man with a short black beard, who stared rather wildly into his eyes.
"Have you got anything on metempsychosis?"
Metempsychosis — that sounded like madness. Max looked around.
"Perhaps in the psychiatry section.. "
"I mean the transmigration of souls," said the man, still staring at him.
It was on the tip of Max's tongue to say that they didn't have anything on migration, but Sophia had already appeared.
"We're closed. We're closed because of a bereavement." To Max she said, "Your egg's ready."
28. The Funeral
On the evening of that day, on his way to Keyzer's, where he had arranged to meet Max at seven o'clock, Onno looked in alarm at the Concertgebouw: he had completely forgotten to phone the orchestra! They were due to give a subscription concert shortly! When he asked the porter at the stage door whether anyone from the administration was there, Marijke came past with her clarinet. When he told her what had happened, the color drained from her face and she clutched the case to her, like a child in need of protection. She would pass on the message and visit Ada the following day.
"You needn't bother," said Onno. "At the moment she's not aware of anything that's happening around her."
"How do you know that? Anyway, I want to do it for myself, too."
He gave her the room number, pressed a kiss on her forehead, and went across the street, to where the restaurant was filled with dining concert-goers.
Max was sitting at a small table against the wall. "What's the news?" he asked immediately.
"Not too good."
Onno had been told by the neurologist that afternoon that Ada's electroencephalogram was fortunately not "flat," as he called it, but did show a "diffuse, seriously slowed pattern."
"I know those kinds of terms from my own subject," nodded Max.
"He said that for the time being they couldn't make any predictions. Only if it continues like this for two or three more weeks may they perhaps be able to call it an irreversible coma."
"And if you've got a flat E.E.G…."
"Then you're a vegetable."
They sat opposite each other in silence.
"But suppose…" Max began hesitantly. "Ada's now in her fifth month. . and if it takes—"
"It doesn't seem to make any difference to the child."
Suddenly Max realized that at the moment he was the only person who could still say what had happened in the Gulf of Mexico. But even if that remained the case, it still wouldn't help him. Even if she had not had an accident, Ada would never have talked about it.
"What then?" he asked cautiously.
"Yes, then there will be a problem. But there's no question of that for the time being. It only happened last night, do you realize? Her mother was there this afternoon — she used to be a nurse; she also said that she'd known cases of unconsciousness that lasted for weeks."
Onno could hear himself saying this — and at the same time he saw Ada's motionless face on the pillow, the horrible catheter in her nose, and himself sitting in their silent house that afternoon for minutes on end looking at her cello, like at a tombstone.
"In any case," said Max thoughtfully, "it seems there's no threat to the child."
"Everyone agreed about that."
The waiter handed them the menus, but Onno waved him away and said he wanted four rissoles and two glasses of milk. Max would have preferred to eat nothing at all, and ordered only a plate of vegetable soup. He had the impression that Onno was more optimistic than he was; he himself did not trust it — and of course that was because of what the same Sophia had said, last night.
"Off you go again," said Max, "with your milk and your rissoles."
Onno sighed deeply. "To be quite honest.. but of course you must never tell anyone. . this is not the worst thing. I'm the stock comic type of the married bachelor."
Max smiled. He was about to say that in that case he, who was Onno's opposite in everything, was probably the tragic type of the unmarried husband — but that was too ambiguous for him to manage to say. For his part,
Onno had of course immediately had the same thought, and he also knew that Max was thinking that, and he appreciated the fact that he didn't want to slip into their usual tone now.
Max spread the napkin over his lap. "How did your mother-in-law react when she saw Ada?"
"Incomprehensible. She looked at her daughter as though she were just any patient. No feeling at all, even though her husband has just died too. I ask you. No, what a mother to have. I never wanted to believe Ada, but now I've seen it with my own eyes."
"She was very nice to me, though," said Max, without looking at him, "I can't say any different. She gave me shelter for the night, pressed my trousers, and fried an egg for me. Perhaps she has difficulty in showing her feelings."
"Yes, yes. I could tell you a few of Ada's stories about her, but I won't. Maybe you know them too, for that matter. Anyway, Brons is being cremated on Monday — you'll be getting an invitation. Will you be coming, or will you be back in Dwingeloo?" His voice faltered. "What's wrong? You suddenly look as if you've pooped in your pants."