In his eyes Max saw complete, unbearable despair — which at the same instant seem to leap across to him, like a summons, a demand!
When Onno phoned his youngest sister that same afternoon to give her the bad news, she told him that members of the family had been telephoning and talking things over for days, discussing what was to happen if Ada were to remain in a vegetative state. That immediately irritated him beyond measure: he would decide for himself. But on the other hand the solution must come from that direction; he understood that too. "Family is forever," he was in the habit of saying — and when Dol suggested organizing a family council, he agreed. In the evening she called back with the message that their father wanted to invite the vicar along too, to which Onno replied that in that case he wanted it called off.
Of course everything had been prearranged by the clan. It would only seem to be a consultation; it was clear to him at once how it would turn out. In the immediate family there were only two couples with small children: that of Diederic's oldest son, Hans, and that of Trees's oldest daughter, Paula. He had never been very interested in those secondary branches; he occasionally saw their offspring at parties, but they had always grown and changed so much that he couldn't remember who was who, and he didn't really care.
His nephew Hans, at present first secretary in the Copenhagen embassy, with whom he had never exchanged more than a few words, was on the threshold of a promising career in the diplomatic service; partly by virtue of being a Quist, he was predestined for ambassadorial posts in the most awful countries, possibly eventually achieving the highest state of diplomatic bliss: London. He was married to a banker's daughter from Breda, whose father had the notion of calling her Hadewych. His niece Paula, whom he didn't really know either, had chosen a freight-shipping magnate from Rotterdam, Jan-Kees, who had brought three children from a previous marriage: a clumsy, jovial man approaching forty, who had a loud voice and smoked cigars.
Two days later a heavyweight delegation had assembled at his parents' house in The Hague. With the light behind him, next to the lectern with the Authorized Version of the Bible on it, old Quist sat in his winged armchair and surveyed his children and grandchildren. Women were in the majority. Diederic and his Antonia were not there — they were paying an official visit to Indonesia — but their Copenhagen Hans and his Hadewych were; since Hans had to visit the Foreign Office anyway, he had taken the opportunity. As Onno had expected, Paula and Jan-Kees had also turned up. Like Hadewych, Paula was Ada's age, perhaps a little older, and expecting her second child. Only Sophia did not belong to the immediate family circle. After Coba had served tea and gingersnaps and had left the room, Onno assumed that his father would open the meeting, like the chairman of the cabinet — but it was his mother who said:
"The poor child. I didn't sleep a wink last night. Is there really no hope, Onno?"
He shrugged. "Nothing seems to be a hundred percent certain in medicine, but according to the doctors we must assume that things will stay as they are. You can ask Karel."
"I phoned the Wilhelmina Hospital yesterday," said his brother-in-law the brain surgeon. "I'm afraid that's how it is. And perhaps," he said, with a quick glance at Onno, "this may be the lesser evil. A protracted coma like this would be bound to have dreadful consequences, such as complete loss of memory or complete change of character."
Complete loss of memory. Complete change of character. The words sank into Onno like bullets. No one had said that to him before — not Karel and not the doctors in the hospital; obviously everyone had been hoping recently that she would not wake up.
"It's dreadful for you, too," said Mrs. Quist to Sophia. "First the death of your husband and now this dreadful fate befalling your only child."
Onno looked at his mother-in-law. Since he had once turned up at the ward and had seen her filing Ada's nails, which were no longer bitten, he had softened his harsh judgment of her. It was obvious that she felt ill at ease in this company, but she sat up straight and held her ground.
"I've always known that life is a bit like the weather. It can change completely at any moment."
After these words, which did not testify immediately to Christian sentiments, there was a moment's silence. From the distance, where there was roadwork going on, came the sound of jackhammers. Onno hoped there wouldn't be some soothing quotation from the Heidelberg catechism; fortunately, everyone turned out to have enough of an instinct to avoid this. Anyway, he reflected, it applied mainly to weather conditions in the Netherlands and not those in the Sahara; but he kept that to himself.
"Things are as they are," he said — with the feeling that this tautology contained the ultimate wisdom. "Perhaps we shouldn't talk about our emotions this afternoon but about the question of what we are to do next. If everything goes well, our child will be born in two months, in July. And according to the people who should know, there's no reason to suppose that it won't go well, as far as that's concerned. But after that?"
"Of course," said Trees, his eldest sister, adjusting her silk scarf, "no one expects you to start washing diapers."
Onno heard the unmistakable silent addition". . while you're still in diapers yourself — but he let that pass, not only because this was not the moment to get prickly, but also because he didn't entirely disagree. He would put the safety pins not just through the diaper but also through the baby, be lost in thought and let it fall off the chest of drawers, pick up the telephone and meanwhile let it drown in the bathtub.
"Of course not," said her husband. "That's women's work. These days you hear different opinions, but the fact is that women have children and men don't. They only have it on hearsay. So let's keep it simple. Onno's child is due shortly, he can't look after it himself, so who is going to look after it?"
In saying this, Coen had reduced things to their essentials — probably he had lots more to do this afternoon. With raised eyebrows, the public prosecutor looked around the circle, so the first one to raise a finger would be assigned the child by right, and the matter would be settled; they would go on discussing the weather, be given another cup of tea by Coba, and then they would simply head off home.
"We haven't got any children," said Dol, "and I'd like nothing better than to take on yours, Onno. I'm almost forty, so it would still be possible. We've had a long talk about it, but we finally think that it's better for the baby to have younger foster parents. Isn't that right, Karel?"
The surgeon sat with the tips of his outspread fingers touching; he took them apart for a moment and allowed them to return to the original position. That gesture made him look more than ever like Count Frankenstein.
"Of course it would be best to be brought up in a family with other young children."
Onno nodded and looked at Sophia. "It seems right to me."
"It must go where it has most chance of developing its full potential," said Sophia.
That sounded fairly obvious, but Onno also heard a distant echo of Solomon's judgment "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other." He looked at the two couples, Hans and Hadewych and Paula and Jan-Kees — but first Margo spoke, the wife of his brother Menno, the professor, who had been prevented from coming himself because he had to account for his actions at a student meeting. As always her eyelids were swollen and red-rimmed, as though she had been crying, but actually she was good-humored.
"Ours are already in high school, and to tell you the truth, I can't bear the thought of having to wash diapers again. And from what I know of Onno, he wouldn't want his child to grow up in Groningen anyway. Isn't that so? To you that would be the depths of the provinces, and it would also be too far away for you."