Bernhard Schlink - The Gordian Knot

GEORG SET OUT LATE IN THE AFTERNOON and drove all night. He missed the turnoff to Paris at Beaune, and the highway ended at Dijon. He drove along back roads, past Troyes and Reims. The bends in the road kept him awake. He sped through dark towns and villages, where yellow lights bathed the streets in a dim haze. He slowed down at the brightly lit pedestrian crossings. Sometimes he waited at an empty intersection for the light to change. There was nobody in the streets and hardly any cars. In Reims he found an open gas station; the fuel light had been blinking for some time. He drove past the cathedral. The facade reminded him of the picture in Françoise’s room.

After a painfully slow border crossing, where the French customs officer grilled him on where he was coming from and where he was heading, he got back on the highway at Mons. By seven-thirty in the morning he was at his friends’ place in Brussels. The house was bustling. Felix was getting ready to leave for work, and Gisela was heading to the station to catch a train for Luxembourg, where she worked as an interpreter for the European parliament. The older of their two boys was off to kindergarten. Georg was warmly welcomed, but then quickly forgotten in the breakfast rush, with the babysitter arriving and everyone else leaving. Gisela told him that of course he could leave his car there, and gave him a quick hug. “Good luck in America,” she said. She saw something in his face. “Is everything all right?” Then she was gone.

The babysitter drove him to the airport. In the plane, he felt frightened for the first time. He had thought he was only leaving Cucuron, where he had nothing left to lose. Now he felt as if he were giving up his whole life.

It was a budget flight, with narrow seats and no drinks or food. No movie, either. He had intended to save money on the earphones, had looked forward to the distraction of the images on the screen. He gazed out the window at the clouds over the Atlantic, fell asleep, and woke up hours later. His neck, back, and legs were aching. The sun was setting behind red clouds, a picture of lifeless beauty. By the time the plane landed in Newark it was dark.

It took him two hours to get through customs, find the bus to New York, and arrive at the Port Authority bus terminal. He took a cab. There was a lot of traffic, even at eleven at night. The driver swore in Spanish, drove too fast, and kept slamming on the brakes. After a while, the cab drove up an avenue with tall buildings on the left and dark trees on the right. Georg felt a rush of excitement. This had to be Central Park, and the avenue Central Park West. The cab pulled up. He had arrived. There was a green baldachin from the edge of the sidewalk to the entrance.

Georg opened the door, went in, and found himself standing in a vestibule. A guard sat reading at a desk behind a glass door. Georg knocked once, then twice. The man pointed at the wall next to Georg. There was a bronze panel with an alphabetical list of names and corresponding apartment numbers, and an intercom. Georg picked up the receiver, the line crackling as if he were making a transatlantic call. “Hello?” said the guard’s voice, and Georg gave his name and introduced himself as Mr. and Mrs. Epp’s guest. The guard buzzed him in, gave him the key to the apartment, and told him where it was. The elevator had two doors: on the sixth floor Georg kept standing before the elevator door through which he had entered, until he realized that the door behind him had opened. He was exhausted. Back in France, day was breaking over the Luberon.

The apartment was the one next to the elevator. It took him a while to figure out how to unlock all three locks. He had to turn the keys in the opposite direction from what he was used to. The door was heavy, and fell shut behind him with a contented click . He found the guest room at the end of the long hall. Near the front door was a study where he found some telephone directories. Françoise Kramsky? No, as was to be expected, there was no listing under that name. He looked for the church.

In the White Pages he found neither a John, nor a St. John, nor a Church of St. John. There was more than a column of churches, from the Church of All Nations to the Church of the Truth. But the listings seemed to be random. In the Yellow Pages, between Christmas Trees and Cigarettes, he found a listing of churches by denomination. He was certain that a church destined to become the biggest in the world after St. Peter’s wouldn’t belong to a minor denomination, and so concentrated on the Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Catholic churches. The tiny letters blurred before his tired eyes, whirled around, found themselves again in long rows, and marched down the column of listings.

CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. The name was in larger print, and in bold. Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street. There was a map on the wall of the study. He found the cathedral and also located the Epps’ apartment. It wasn’t too far away. Georg felt as if he had made it.

HE WOKE UP ON THE COUCH in the study, still dressed, curled up and aching. He crossed the hall to the living room. The sun cast a broad band of rays through the large windows. He looked out. Below him was a stream of traffic, and across the street lay Central Park. Skyscrapers in the distance towered into the clear blue sky of Manhattan. He opened the window and heard the noise of the traffic, the clattering of the subway under the street, and the children in the playground at the edge of the park.

Outside, he drank in the atmosphere of the city. He walked uptown along Amsterdam Avenue. The buildings, at first tall and well maintained, shrank into four- and five-story houses. Fire escapes hung black and heavy into the streets. The stores had signs in Spanish. The streets became louder and more lively. The pedestrians were increasingly black and Latino; there were more drunks, panhandlers, and teenagers carrying boom boxes. He walked fast, his eyes flitting over buildings, people, cars, traffic lights, hydrants, mailboxes.

Georg didn’t see the cathedral until he reached the intersection. The cross street was flanked by low Gothic buildings, behind which the massive gray cathedral rose up. He crossed the street and took out the photograph of Françoise with the print of the cathedral hanging on the wall behind her. He compared it to the building in front of him. The towers to the right and left of the portal only reached the height of the nave, and the cupola over the crossing was still in bare cement, but otherwise everything matched perfectly. Steps stretching the whole breadth of the cathedral led up from Amsterdam Avenue to the five portals.

The inside was gloomy and steeped in secrets, the dim light coming from lamps and the stained-glass windows. The columns faded upward into the darkness. He walked through the nave with the respect his parents had always shown on entering a church. Only the area around the choir stalls was brighter. He found the gift shop on the left, and strolled among the display cases and tables, his eyes scanning the books and cards, soaps, fruit preserves, sweatshirts, bags, and cups, until he came upon a large print. He recognized it. Françoise had cut off the lower part where it said: THE CATHEDRAL OF SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE. MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. CRAM AND FERGUSON, HOYLE, DORAN AND BERRY, ARCHITECTS, BOSTON. It was the front view of the west facade. He kept reading the text over and over as if it might reveal something.

On his way back to the entrance he sat down. Now what? Did this mean that Françoise was living in New York, or just that she had lived here before? Someone could have given her the print as a present, or she could have bought it at a flea market or in a junk store. She had cut off the reference to New York, but it wasn’t clear whether she was trying to cover something up or whether she just didn’t want the text. If she had been in New York but was no longer here, he might as well look for her in Paris, Sydney, or San Francisco. But even if she was in New York, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.