Authors: Bernhard Schlink
“Don’t worry, Fran, I won’t take her with me. Don’t be scared. She’s doing fine here, there’s a dog and a cat she likes, and everyone’s being really sweet to her. How does Benton intend to get her?”
“He says there’s no way you can have her with you all the time, so you can’t really use her as a hostage. He’ll get at her when you’re out somewhere without her. He’s taking one of his men along.”
“Do you know when he’s arriving?”
“He’s leaving now, on the Pan Am flight from JFK. He’ll be in San Francisco by noon. Will you promise you’ll be gone by the time he gets there, and that there’ll be no trouble when he comes to take Jill away?”
“Don’t be afraid, Brown Eyes. There’s no need to be afraid. Jill won’t be in any danger, and I won’t cause problems. You’ll have her back, and when she’s grown up you can tell her the story of the crazy guy who ran off with her, and she can tell all her friends that when she was a baby she had been abducted by someone who had run off with her to San Francisco. Hey, Brown Eyes, don’t cry.”
She hung up. Georg turned on the coffeemaker and took a look at Jonathan’s new painting. The day before there had only been the tree trunks of a dark forest with the rough outline of a man, crouching or kneeling, his arm gently hugging the shoulder of a
girl. Jonathan must have worked late into the night. The man’s head was finished. His mouth was whispering something into the girl’s ear, his brown eyes exuding warmth and humor, as if they wanted to share with the viewer the anticipation at how happy the little girl would be at his whispered words. Her face was beaming, her shoulders raised shyly. The girl was still an outline, but the man’s head brought her alive.
This one’s a winner, Jonathan! The air in your painting is no longer thin, the people no longer wooden. Perhaps happy paintings don’t sell as well as paintings of horror, because everyone who is happy is the same, or, as Tolstoy puts it: only in suffering is one an individual and interesting, or perhaps one merely feels that way, or, whatever, I can’t remember his exact words. Either way, I’m standing in front of your new painting and know that I’m not sentenced to loneliness and being shut out from communicating with other people.
The coffeemaker had stopped hissing, and Georg went to the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the end of the long table. Seven people could sit on each side, he counted; one could throw a dinner for sixteen. He looked out the window. The sky was blue. On the street the truck engines from next door were rumbling. Why did they all sound so different? Why doesn’t one truck engine rumble like another? At night, when all the trucks are lined up, they look the same.
Don’t try dodging the issues, weigh the situation! Why is Benton coming here? What does he think I’m doing with the negatives in San Francisco? Does he suspect that I got in touch with Gorgefield Aircraft? He’s not coming here to talk. He could do that on the phone, or at least try. I doubt he’s coming to talk to Gorgefield, either. He could do that on the phone too. Perhaps he did talk to him and didn’t like what he heard. Is he coming here because of Jill? That’s a stupid question. Even if Jill or Fran were important to
him, he knows I wouldn’t do anything to the baby. I doubt that even Fran sees me as a tiger, but Benton sized me up as a paper tiger right from the start.
No, that’s not true. Though Benton knows I don’t have it in me to be violent, I did corner him, identify him as a Polish or Russian secret agent, and, when that turned out not to be the case, I changed course and am now about to corner him again. He knows that—even if he doesn’t know exactly what I’m doing and planning. He’s scared. Particularly if
he
is planning to do business with the Russians.
What would I do in his position?
Georg got up slowly, went back into the big room that he thought of as Jonathan’s studio, and looked for the cigarettes. He lit one and sucked in the smoke. He waited for it to rasp down his throat and chest, and it did. He sucked in another mouthful of smoke. He stood unseeing before Jonathan’s paintings.
Benton wants to kill me.
He has nothing to lose and everything to gain. He might not have been pleased with the article in the
Times
, but if you think about it, both the article and the statements of those two officers, and the fact that I’ve abducted Jill, will help him create a scenario in which killing me could appear as a heroic act—or at least as necessary. And whatever damage I’ve done to Benton with Gorgefield Aircraft, any damage control on his part would be easier if I were dead. He doesn’t want me alive and talking.
What am I going to do about this?
Run? Will I manage to get out of the United States? And wouldn’t Benton track me down, even in Cucuron or Karlsruhe?
Georg studied the cigarette, which he was holding between the thumb, index, and middle fingers of his left hand. The smoke slid down the cigarette and rose in quick arabesques. Pall Mall.
In hoc signo vinces
. Two lions bearing a coat of arms. Georg laughed.
What about Fran? Fran, whom I love—don’t ask me why. Fran, whom I want to be with even if it’ll mean loneliness. Fran, whom I’ve begun to love even more through Jill, as if I weren’t enough in love already. What will become of Fran and me if I run away?
Georg went to Jonathan’s desk, took out the pistol, and weighed it in his hand. Cut through the Gordian knot? I don’t even know how to load this thing or shoot it. You pull the trigger. Do I hold my shooting hand with the other one? Do I aim with the sights or rely on instinct? And isn’t there such a thing as a safety catch?
Jonathan’s bedroom door opened.
“Hi, Georg,” Fern said, walking sleepily to the bathroom. Luckily she hadn’t seen the pistol.
The day was beginning. The toilet flushed, and Fern came out of the bathroom. She got some coffee for herself and Jonathan. Jonathan showered. Georg showered. Jill screamed. Fern mixed some powdered milk, warmed it up, and gave it to Jill. Jonathan fried eggs and bacon, and they had breakfast. Georg felt as if he were experiencing these everyday joys for the last time: The bitter coffee, the hot stream of water on his body in the shower, the taste of the eggs and bacon, the coziness with which one talked about little everyday necessities. After breakfast, Georg for the first time put on the baby sling that Fran had packed for him, put Jill in it, and went for a walk.
Benton wants to kill me, he thought again.
Georg walked up the hill and showed Jill the buildings of the city, the highways, the bridges, and the bay. She fell asleep.
How can I tell Fern and Jonathan that this afternoon two men will come by to collect Jill? “By the way, Fern, there’ll be these two guys knocking on your door, they’ll be looking for Jill. They might even kick your door in, or threaten you and Jonathan, or pretend they are policemen: but just give them Jill, and don’t worry about it. And thanks for looking after us, here’s some money, bye.”
Georg made his way back. What he did next he could not explain then or later, nor could he point to the thought or feeling that made him take that course of action. There was no sudden
click
in his mind. As he walked, he had been weighing how best to prepare Jonathan and Fern for Joe’s visit, what he should leave behind for Jill and Joe, where he should drop his rental car, how he would get to the Greyhound bus station. He had even begun to fantasize about his journey to nowhere. But back at the house, he did none of those things. His hands and legs didn’t do it, nor did his head—not that they refused to go along; refusal presupposes some form of resistance, and here there was no resistance. Georg simply went another way, things simply went another way.
As all smokers know, you can have stopped smoking for two years, left all symptoms of withdrawal behind, only rarely think of a cigarette, enjoy your existence and identity as a nonsmoker; but one day the nonsmoker smoker is sitting at his desk or on a park bench or in an airport lounge, and with no obvious reason, without being particularly stressed or particularly relaxed, gets up, walks over to a cigarette machine, buys a pack, and begins smoking again. Just like that. Relationships can begin or end this way too. It is the same principle with which one carefully studies a menu and decides on a filet of sole but orders tournedos.
Georg called Pan Am and asked when the first plane from New York was due to land. At ten o’clock. That gave him just two hours. He called the Gorgefield office and asked for Buchanan.
“Mr. Buchanan? My cousin came to see you the day before yesterday. I take it you know what this is in reference to?” Georg said, trying hard to imitate an East German accent, which, though it didn’t sound authentic, was strange enough to pass.
“Well I’ll be damned.…”
“I have a meeting set up at the San Francisco airport this morning,” Georg said. “The seller is arriving at ten o’clock on the Pan
Am flight from New York. Bring the police with you, as I’m being followed and will need protection.” Georg hung up, and then called the Westin St. Francis Hotel and asked for room 612. The phone rang a long time, and while he waited he divided 612 into 2 times 2 times 3 times 3 times 17.
“Hello?”
“Good morning,” Georg said. “Did I wake you?”
“If I were still asleep at such an hour, it would be fitting for me to be woken up.”
“Did you manage to find out more about the other seller?”
“I still haven’t managed …”
“But I have. And you can have the negatives for two million. I don’t know how much money you brought with you and in what denominations, but I would like you to place two million in small bills in a briefcase and to be at the airport at ten o’clock, at the Central Terminal, Departures. I’ll give you the films and leave.”
THE CENTRAL TERMINAL LIES
above a two-story oval of roads into which the highways feed at the other end. The lower level is for arrivals, the upper for departures. On the lower level, only the front lobby is open to the public at large; beyond automatic sliding doors is a restricted customs area for arrivals. On the upper level, one can go all the way to where the wide terminal corridor begins, where the airplane gates are located. One can look through a glass wall down into the customs area.
Georg had set out immediately after making the phone calls. He found a parking spot near the entrance, and walked up and down the Central Terminal until he knew it well. From upstairs, I can see Joe first. But because he’s coming from New York, he won’t have to go through customs, and will pass through the hall quite quickly. He’ll come through the arrivals door, won’t stop at the cordoned-off area where people are waiting for passengers, but will turn either to the right, where the conveyor belts bring out the luggage, or head for the taxi stand or one of the car-rental desks. If the flight is on time, he’ll be out by five past ten at the earliest, or a quarter past at the latest. So from the upper level I’ll be able to see him
first. The professor will be upstairs too, since I told him I was leaving. Buchanan will be waiting downstairs by the arrivals. I won’t need more than a minute to go up and down between the two levels. From the upper level, where there’s a view of the arrivals hall, there’s no view of the area outside the sliding door, nor can anyone see the upper level from there.
Georg stood by the red ropes outside the arrivals area and looked up. Through a small atrium he could see the bays of a glass dome. The upper level rests on thick columns. A dome, columns—Georg smiled and thought, I see I can’t get away from cathedrals. His smile was one of resignation. The professor would enjoy the “ifs” and “thens” of what I’ve set up here. If Joe wants to kill me, it’s because I could be dangerous for him with Gorgefield Aircraft and perhaps even with the Russians. But if he sees that the cat is out of the bag, he’ll have his hands full trying to deal with both the cat and the bag, and won’t have time to focus on me. Then I’ll come out of all this unscathed. Joe will be angry, but he won’t kill me because he’s angry.
That was Georg’s plan: he would show himself with the professor upstairs so that Joe would see both of them when he came through the arrivals hall. Then Georg and the professor would proceed to the escalator leading to the lower level. And when Joe came out of the arrivals hall and saw Buchanan, Georg would throw from the escalator the fourteen film cans at their feet. He would let the professor continue down the stairs, while he would sprint back up the escalator and disappear. Joe, the professor, Buchanan, and the police could then deal with one another as they pleased.
Buchanan arrived at ten to ten. He arrived with two men who had the powerful build and expressionless faces typical of policemen and gangsters. Georg saw them from the top of the escalator. Buchanan said something to the two men and they disappeared
behind the columns, while he went to stand by the red rope with all the people waiting for arriving passengers. From time to time he looked about discreetly.
The professor arrived at five to ten. He had the same careful tread, the same blue suit and striped shirt, but no tie. He was holding a briefcase in his hand.
“Are you taking the ten-twenty Pan Am flight to London?” he asked.
Georg shrugged his shoulders. “Come with me, I want to show you something,” he said, nodding his head toward the glass wall above the customs area.
“Where are the goods?”
As he walked, Georg put his hands in his jacket pockets and pulled out some of the cans. He was walking fast. The monitor showed that the Pan Am flight had arrived.
Joe had the redhead with him. That’s not surprising, Georg thought; after all, he knows me quite well. The redhead was carrying two bags. Joe was talking and gesticulating—a corpulent mass of affability.
“Do you know him?” Georg asked, nudging the professor and pointing at Joe. He didn’t wait for an answer. He beat his fists against the glass wall. That action in itself might not have caught Joe’s attention and made him look up, but the glass was secured, and a grating alarm went off. All heads in the area below looked up. Georg saw the surprise in Joe’s face.