Bernhard Schlink - The Gordian Knot

“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.