Bernhard Schlink - The Gordian Knot

Now the professor laughed. “You must admit there is something ironic in the idea that someone like me should be called upon to explain the capitalist law of supply and demand and the connection between demand, price, and value. But let us shed light on another aspect of this matter. Let us suppose that you are requesting for your private use any moneys that exceed a sum that, as you inform us, your party sets at twenty million, but which, circumstances being what they are, should realistically be set at fifteen. And if we also take as a premise that you will not be able to count on our closing a deal with a sum beyond twenty-one million, as you yourself have, in a sense, intimated, then I put it to you that you are facing a personal profit in the range of one to six million dollars-a sum, I might add, that doubtless is far more manageable. Do you follow me?”

“It was hard to follow, but I find it’s worth the effort. I see you like balancing ‘ifs’ with ‘thens.’ Is that just in speaking, or in action as well?”

“Do you know the story of Alexander the Great and the Gordian knot?” the professor said.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, in the Gordian fortress one day, Alexander the Great happened upon a great knot that no one had ever managed to unravel. The upshot was that Alexander simply took his sword and cut through the knot. Logic, you see, is a matter of unraveling chains of thought and meaning that in our everyday communication become tangled, and as the links in these chains are the ‘ifs’ and ‘thens,’ then this very game of ‘ifs’ and ‘thens’-as you have it-serves to unravel as opposed to cutting through such tangles. By extension, it also has as its focal point talking and thinking as opposed to acting. If you will allow me to point the moral of that story and regard it through the prism of you, me, our interested parties, and the merchandise in question, then our aforementioned deliberations place you in the role of Alexander the Great who is faced with the knot and the alternative of attempting, like so many prior visitors to the Gordian palace, to unravel it or simply cut through it with the swipe of his sword.”

“Those are your aforementioned deliberations, not mine.”

The professor had lifted the can, holding it between his index and middle fingers, and with his last words had dropped it into Georg’s open palm. The professor shrugged his shoulders. “My deliberations, our deliberations-by now, I would say, these deliberations have taken root in your mind too, and are consequently as much your deliberations as ours .”

“Do you know the other seller?” Georg asked.

“Do I know him?”

“Have you seen him, or spoken to him? Do you know who he is?”

The professor shook his head. “He didn’t leave a calling card, nor did he show us his passport.”

“Any hunches who he might be?”

“Ah, the breaking through the borders of knowledge by hunches-indeed, one could describe our trade in those very terms. We most definitely have hunches, and our hunches, like all hunches, would be worthless if we had nothing to base them on. If the issue at hand is that you are uncertain about the loyalty within your faction, then I would like to assure you that I understand your position. But as I am not responsible for garnering the hunches particular to this case, I can only say that I will make inquiries and inform myself of the current state of hunches.”

“I didn’t say that I have any issues of loyalty with my party.”

“Indeed you didn’t,” the professor replied.

“I might have asked you this question purely in order to clarify my party’s interests.”

“Indeed.”

“So, under no circumstances would you pay twelve million, but would definitely pay six. Am I right?” Georg asked.

The professor took his time answering. “Your party, to whom you must decide how much or how little of this conversation you will report, is urging us to close by Friday. That’s the day after tomorrow. The other seller is not as impatient. I don’t wish to intimate that a quick closure is out of the question-in fact, it might very well be the most apt solution. But as we have already touched on the issue of competition, we should also touch on the time factor. Let me put this in refreshingly direct American terms: the sooner you want to see cash, the less cash you’ll see.”

“Will you be in town until Friday?” Georg asked.

“I most certainly will.”

“Where can I reach you?”

“Call the Westin St. Francis, and ask for room 612.”

“You’ll hear from me,” Georg said.

The professor nodded and left. Georg watched him until he disappeared around the corner of Third Street. Then Georg made his way through the underbrush, reached the cover of the parked cars, and got to Fern and Jonathan’s front door. It was a quarter to twelve.

The other offer that the professor had mentioned kept going through Georg’s mind; was Georg trying to get Joe entangled in an affair in which he had long been involved? If the other offer was real, then all the facts pointed to Joe. Furthermore, the professor’s proposal that Georg close the deal with a few million and bail out was working irresistibly on his mind. Should I quit trying to expose Joe? The money issue had always been at the back of Georg’s mind. His dream had been that at the end of all this Joe would be finished and he would be rich: all’s well that ends well. How he could get his hands on the money was unclear, though how he could finish Joe off was very clear indeed, and Georg had set his priorities accordingly. But now suddenly both goals seemed within reach. Or is it, he said to himself, that I want it all, as Fran pointed out the other day, and hence want too much?

He drove to Golden Gate Park and looked for Jill and Fern. He couldn’t find them. He drove to the shore and went for a run along the beach. He ran with wonderful lightness, until his legs practically gave way and he fell onto the sand. He lay there until he felt a chill. By evening he knew that he wouldn’t risk the money just to settle accounts with Joe.

GEORG WOKE UP AT FIVE in the morning. The house was rumbling and shaking. He went to the window. A long freight train was rolling by. The engine’s eyes threw white light onto the tracks, which Georg had seen from the street but not paid attention to. A pulsating red signal lit up the abandoned cars and trucks along the roadside. The train rattled past beneath his window, black and heavy. A worker stood on the platform of the last car, swinging a lamp. Georg leaned out and saw the lights of the train grow smaller and fainter, and heard the deep, dull warning signal the locomotive emitted at every crossing grow softer.

Jill was asleep. He lay down next to her and watched the brightening dawn. The phone in the kitchen began ringing and wouldn’t stop. As Jill grew restless, he got up and answered.

“Hello?”

“Is that you, Georg?”

“Fran! How the hell did you…”

“Your friend in Germany told me where you were. You had jotted down his number on a pad and I called him. He told me where you are. Listen, Georg, you’ve got to get out of there. Joe wants to… Joe realized that the negatives were missing. He looked in the safe and they weren’t there, so he knew that I had… What could I do but tell him what I did? I had to tell him everything. He says he’s going to get Jill and bring her back. Are you there, Georg? He’s on his way to the airport. He swore he wouldn’t do anything to you, but he was so mad and looked so crazy. Georg, you’ve got to get out of there! Leave Jill where she is, please don’t take her with you. But you have to get out! All night I’ve been wondering if I should call you, or if you’d use my call against me. You must leave Jill and me alone. I can’t handle this anymore. I don’t want anything to happen to you, but I want Jill back. I’m really scared.”