Bernhard Schlink - The Gordian Knot

On Sunday he went to pick up Helen to take her out to brunch. The money from Germany had arrived. He had paid the rent, and had a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills hidden in his belt, and a wad of twenties in his pocket. He felt rich. Helen should enjoy his good times. When he arrived she was on the phone.

“No, Max, both shoulders. Take hold of both shoulders with both hands and fold them back until they meet. Now take both shoulders in one hand. Are you holding them? No, Max, not the sleeves… Of course I know that the sleeves begin at the shoulders, and if you mean the beginning of the sleeves… Are you holding both shoulders where the sleeves begin with one hand? Good, then with the other, fold the side with the buttons… over the other side… the side with the buttonholes. You can’t?… Because you’re holding both shoulders together with your hand? You’ve got to let go for a second. Then you can fold the side with the buttons over the side with the buttonholes, so that only the lining is visible. What? The jacket fell on the floor? You let go of it? You can only let go of it once you’ve folded one side over the other… You can’t?” She got up, cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, and took her jacket off the back of a chair. “You see, Max, I know what I’m talking about. I worked in a clothing store. I have a jacket in my hands right now…” She folded it as she had described. You learn something every day, Georg thought. “I know you can’t see me. ‘You see’ is just a turn of phrase. Of course I know you can’t see me. All I wanted to say was, I have a jacket in my hands right now and it’s quite simple when the hand that holds both shoulders from inside… no, Max, I’m not coming over to pack your jackets for you. No. You don’t have many jackets, just one? Then why don’t you just wear it? Because it’s too warm in Italy? Listen, Max, I’ve got to go. Call me this evening… Keep practicing. Or don’t take the jacket with you, if it’ll be too hot for you anyway…” Helen had spoken the whole time with the utmost seriousness. Now she threw Georg an impatient, exasperated look. “Listen, I really have to go. Yes, I’m hanging up. Yes, now.”

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.