Authors: Bernhard Schlink
She hung up and looked at Georg. “That was Max.”
“I heard.”
“He wanted me to tell him how to fold a jacket in order to pack it into a suitcase.”
“How does one do that? Does one take both shoulders in …”
“Stop making fun of me. Shall we go?”
He flagged down a cab on Broadway. Helen was surprised. They took a table in the garden at Julia’s, an elegant restaurant on Seventy-ninth Street, and ordered eggs Benedict and Bloody Marys.
“I thought you said our next date would be a walk in the park, with french fries and a Coke?”
“Things have changed.”
“Is the KGB footing the bill?” she asked, with a touch of irony.
“Don’t worry, this is honest money we’re squandering here. I got money from Germany.”
“Have you given any thought to going to the CIA or the FBI?”
She was getting on his nerves. “To be honest, no. Is the cross-examination over?”
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “if you didn’t want my opinion, you shouldn’t have told me anything. Now it’s too late. I thought about all this, and the more I thought about it, the less I understand you. Unless you’re cynical.”
“What?”
“Cynical. I mean … in my definition, cynicism is contempt for everything that holds our world together: solidarity, order, responsibility. I’m not saying that law and order should reign supreme. But you Germans don’t understand that. When I was an exchange student in Krefeld, I saw how in class you all copy one another. No sign of a bad conscience, as if it were the noblest deed.” She shook her head.
“But if the students are all copying one another, then that’s surely a prime example of solidarity,” Georg said.
“Solidarity in the face of order imposed from above. For you guys, order is still imposed from above, and either you worship it or you try, like naughty children, to bamboozle it.”
He laughed. “Perhaps you’re right, but that’s not being cynical, not in your definition either. Contempt is missing.”
“You think it’s funny, but it isn’t a laughing matter. Contempt comes later, when the children have grown up.” The eggs Benedict arrived. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Helen insisted.
“I’ve got to think about it for a moment,” he replied.
He savored every bite. As he relaxed, he thought the matter over. He wasn’t sure if Helen was right or not, but it was true that he didn’t care about solidarity, order, and responsibility. He didn’t think of himself as immoral. One didn’t trample on the weak, exploit the poor, or cheat the simpleminded. But that had nothing to do with solidarity, order, and responsibility. It was a question of
instinct, and reached only so far as one can perceive the consequences of one’s actions. There were certain things one simply didn’t do, because one wouldn’t be able to face oneself in the mirror. One doesn’t like to face oneself in the mirror when one has pimples either, but one’s complexion is not a question of morals. Could it be that I’m not immoral but amoral? Can I tell Helen that?
“What you’re saying would mean that we have still not left our authoritarian state behind us,” he said. “You have a point there. It’s like what you told me the other day about the fairy tales in the nineteenth century, which I wanted to ask you a few more questions about—”
“You want to drop the matter,” she cut in. “Fine, I’m dropping it. What shall we do after brunch? Can I have another Bloody Mary?”
They left Julia’s and strolled through Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum. A new annex had been built, and one could step out onto the roof. They stood above the trees in the park. Like on a jetty above a green lake of swaying treetops surrounded by a mountain range of buildings.
GEORG WAS ALWAYS SURPRISED
by the speed with which construction jobs were carried out in New York, work that in France or Germany would have taken days or weeks to complete. One Saturday morning he was awakened by the noise of construction machinery breaking up the sidewalk the whole length of 115th Street. By evening the new pavement was ready, light gray cement divided into large squares, and the soil around the trees was framed by dark red bricks. Farther down Broadway he saw a building of forty or fifty stories going up. The first time he had gone past there were only cranes towering into the sky, then steel went up, and now the skeleton of the building had turned into a massive body. But at Townsend Enterprises things were not moving ahead. On Monday morning Georg was awakened by a phone call telling him to be at the office by ten, and as he climbed the stairs, the painters were still at work.
He waited in front of the map of the world, and was greeted coolly by Bulnakov who didn’t show him to his office, but to a room with two metal desks, a metal filing cabinet, and far too many metal chairs. There were open drawers, yellowing papers on the floor, the water in the cooler was brackish and brown, and
there was dust everywhere. Bulnakov leaned against the window while Georg stood in the middle of the room.
“I am happy to be able to make you an offer, Mr. Polger,” Bulnakov said. “We can offer you thirty thousand dollars and a guarantee that the problems you faced in Cucuron will not recur. We will also provide you with a ticket back to Marseille or Brussels, whichever you prefer. That will be the end of the matter, and the end of your stay in the New World. This evening you will take TWA flight 126 or Air France flight 212. Bookings have been made for you on both planes. All I need is your signature, here.” Bulnakov’s hand slipped into his left inside jacket pocket and took out a thick wad of bills, laid them on the desk, and from his right outer pocket took a folded piece of paper that he handed to Georg.
Sometimes it seems as if the world holds its breath for an instant. It is as if all the wheels stand still, all the airplanes, tennis balls, and swallows hang in the air, as if all movement were frozen. It is as if the earth were hesitating, uncertain whether to keep turning forward, turn back, or change the axis around which it rotates. The stillness is absolute. Traffic falls silent, no machine rumbles, no wave slaps the shore, no wind rustles through the leaves. At such a moment everything seems possible: the movements of the world are made up of infinitely small states of motionlessness, and one can imagine these states gathering together in a different order of things.
This happens often at moments when decisions must be made. The beloved is still standing in the door of the railway car and you can still say “stay” before the conductor blows his whistle, the door falls shut, and the train pulls out of the station. Or it is you who is standing in the door of the railway car waiting for her to say “stay.” The world can hold its breath as much in moments of another person’s decision as it can for one’s own. Even if it is not a matter of a momentous decision: when one sits in a café drinking a cup of
cocoa, watching passersby through the window, when one stops for a moment while doing the ironing, or when one has just screwed on the nib of a fountain pen. It is a matter of course that the way of the world could be different.
But it’s not a matter of course either. Georg saw the frozen movement of Bulnakov’s outstretched hand, saw the piece of paper, didn’t hear the traffic or the footsteps in the hall outside. Thirty thousand dollars—sixty thousand marks, a hundred and eighty thousand francs. That was more than he needed to live a year in Cucuron. Hadn’t he always wanted time and leisure to write? Wasn’t he tired of crossing swords with Bulnakov and searching for Françoise? But even as these thoughts flashed through his mind, he knew that there was nothing to think about or decide.
“Thanks but no thanks, Monsieur Bulnakov.”
Bulnakov went to the door, opened it, and called in two men. They wore gray suits and had policemen’s faces. “Take Mr. Polger to the airport,” Bulnakov said to them, “and see to it that he gets on the plane to Brussels or Marseille, as we have arranged. He can have his luggage sent on after him.” He stuck the wad of bills back in his pocket and left the room. As far as he was concerned, Georg no longer existed.
Georg hesitated, but one of the men reached for his arm.
Come along
, his expression said,
or I’ll break all your bones
. Georg decided to walk ahead, and the two men followed him. The beautiful dark-haired woman at the reception buzzed them out.
In the stairwell, one of the men stayed at Georg’s side, the other followed behind. Georg set the pace. Damn! he thought. Damn! On the third-floor landing he saw the open elevator shaft with the wood planks nailed across the missing door, and on the way down to the second floor heard the painters working below. It was worth a try.
Before they reached the second-floor landing, he stopped and bent down as if to tie his shoelace. The man behind him stopped too, while the one beside him continued walking the few steps down to the landing, where he turned back with an expectant look. He had been descending the stairs on Georg’s right, along the wall, and now stood in front of the wood planks across the open elevator shaft. Georg untied his shoelace and then tied it again. He got up and took a step forward. The man on the landing turned away and waited for Georg to come down. Georg lunged forward and rammed his shoulder and arm into the man’s back with all the force he could muster. He heard splintering wood and a surprised cry, followed by a shout of horror. Georg didn’t look back, he just ran, made it down the first flight, past the bend in the stairwell, another flight of stairs, tripped on the paper the painters had put down to protect the floor of the landing, caught himself, and saw the startled faces of the painters, who were too taken aback to try to stop him. Behind him he heard the other man’s loud and heavy steps. The painters were crowded to the right along the wall, and on the left were the cans of paint by the banister. Georg kicked over a large bucket of paint blocking the way, jumped over as it tumbled, and took three steps in one stride. He reached the last bend in the stairwell, the last flight of stairs, when he heard a crash. This time he quickly turned around. The man following him had slipped on the paint and came sliding down the stairs on his back, his head banging against the steps as he went, and finally crashed into the wall. Georg bounded down the last few stairs, ran through the hall, out the door, and into the street.
He kept running, weaving through a throng of pedestrians and dodging cars to get to the other side of the street. He looked back: nobody was following him. He hailed a cab and headed home. Larry wasn’t there.
He stood in his room and looked in the mirror. His face,
though unchanged, looked alien to him. Did I kill that man? He realized that his whole body was drenched in sweat. He took a shower. A towel around his middle, he was pouring himself some coffee in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He tiptoed across the hall and looked through the peephole: two men of the same type as the ones who were to escort him to the airport. They rang again, and exchanged a few hushed words that Georg couldn’t catch. One of them leaned against the wall across the landing, while the other disappeared from Georg’s field of vision. Georg waited. The man by the wall changed his position from time to time. Georg thought about how by now he could have been on his way to the airport with thirty thousand dollars in his pocket. Or had they just wanted to get him out of the building and into a car so they could kill him somewhere along the way? What did these two bastards out there want from him? Should he wait for Larry, and leave the building with him? Where would he go? As it was, he had to wait for Larry and ask him for the name of that
New York Times
reporter he had met at his party. Why hadn’t I asked him before?
Georg got dressed and put everything he wanted to show the reporter into a folder: the copies of the Mermoz plans, the photographs he had taken of Bulnakov and his men in Pertuis, the newspaper article, the helicopter book, the photograph of Françoise. Through the peephole he saw Larry with a Food Market bag in one hand and his key in the other. One of the bastards was talking up a storm, and Larry was shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. He turned to the door, and put the key in the lock. His face was near and large in the peephole, his mouth and nose distorted, his eyes, hair, and chin receding grotesquely.
Georg had reached the kitchen window before the door even opened, pulled the kitchen window guard open, and swung himself out onto the fire escape. With a tug he pulled the guard shut again, and with a few jumps found himself in front of the kitchen
window on the floor below. The fire escape vibrated and rattled, the echo clanging against the walls of the narrow courtyard. He cowered beneath the windowsill and waited for the echo to die away. He listened for a sound from above: nothing. He looked down: trash cans, trash bags, a cat.
He waited twenty minutes. Should I have stayed upstairs to help Larry in case those bastards attacked him? But perhaps things have turned out for the best because I wasn’t there. If one of them had burst into the apartment with Larry, seen me, thrown himself at me, and Larry had tried to stop him—perhaps the guy would have drawn a revolver, or pistol, or whatever they’re called. He imagined the scene. He wondered what to do next. He couldn’t go back to Larry’s apartment anymore. To Helen’s? There would probably be men there too, and furthermore he didn’t want to put her in harm’s way.
He was still holding the folder with the material for the press. I must find that reporter, he told himself. Then he, the CIA, or the FBI will take charge. But what can they do? What will happen if Bulnakov and his people go underground, disappear, cover their tracks, or if the material I’ve gathered isn’t substantial enough? Then at least I can pack my things in peace and fly back home.
Home?
But there would be time enough to think about all that later. Now he had to see how he would get through the rest of the day and the night. He knew that Larry was planning to go to Long Island to see a literary critic, and that he was thinking of spending the night there. Her name was Mary. Larry said she was a beautiful woman, this literary critic, or critical literate, or literally critical. Larry had mentioned her full name, but Georg couldn’t remember it, so wouldn’t be able to reach him there. He looked at his watch. It wasn’t even noon yet.