Bernhard Schlink - The Gordian Knot

That was how Georg felt now. In fact, it was too much. Just as the store window hadn’t been big enough for all the trains, his resources were too limited for all the work he was getting. There ought to have been constant collisions and mishaps, but it could all be managed if one concentrated. Like trains, the jobs could be coupled and uncoupled, maneuvered past one another, put on standby, accelerated, or brought to a stop. He was in complete command, and applied his concentration with gusto.

Françoise was usually at home when he came back from work in the evening. She was watching for him, came to the door when she heard his car, and ran to meet him, throwing her arms around him. Sometimes, as they ran the few steps to the house, she pulled off his jacket and tie, which he now almost always wore, and led him straight into the bedroom. Georg pretended to be aloof, and let her seduce him. Sometimes she greeted him with a stream of words, telling him about her workday, Bulnakov, or Claude, a nearby farmer who came by from time to time in his Citroën van to pick up stale bread for his geese, and to drop off cabbages, watermelons, and tomatoes. Sometimes she had already cooked dinner, other times they cooked together. In the morning Georg always got up first, did the dishes from the night before, made tea, and took it to Françoise, who was still in bed. He loved waking her up. He slipped back under the covers, felt her warm body, and tasted the familiarity of her sleepy breath. In the morning her light girlish voice was hidden beneath a smoky hoarseness. It aroused him, but she didn’t want to make love in the morning.

The appearance of the rooms changed. Françoise fixed up the one at the end of the upstairs hall for herself. She sewed a cover for the frayed armchair by the fireplace; in the bedroom, curtains for the alcove, where there was a chaos of jackets, pants, shirts, and underwear. In the kitchen a trash can replaced the plastic bags, and a small cabinet was installed in the bathroom for the toiletries that had been scattered all over the place. Françoise bought the tablecloths in Aix.

“Where did you learn to do all this?” Georg asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, cooking, sewing, and”-he was standing in the dining room, a Pernod in his hand, indicating in a wide arc the whole house-“and all this magic?”

After he had broken up with Hanne, he had often had the urge to move out. Now he once again liked where and how he was living.

“We women have a flair for this sort of thing,” Françoise replied, with a coquettish smile.

“No, I’m serious. Did your mother teach you how to do all this?”

“You’re such a nosy, fretful boy. It’s a knack I have-isn’t that all that matters?”

One evening in June, Georg didn’t come back from Marseille until very late. He stopped on the hill, from which the house was already visible. The garden gate stood open, the windows of the kitchen, the dining room, and living room were lit, as was the light on the terrace. Music wafted gently toward him. Françoise liked turning up the stereo.

Georg sat in the car and gazed at the house. It was a warm night, and the anticipation of coming home surged warmly within him: In a few minutes, he thought, I will be outside the house, the door will open, she will come out, and we will embrace. Then we will have a Campari with grapefruit juice and dinner, and we’ll talk and make out. Françoise was on edge and sensitive these days, and he had to be especially loving and gentle. He looked forward to that too.

As they lay in bed, he asked her if she wanted to marry him. She tensed up in his arms and remained silent.

“Hey, Brown Eyes. What’s wrong?”

She freed herself from his embrace, turned on the light, and sat up. She looked at him in despair. “Why can’t you let things be just the way they are? Why do you always have to crowd me, push me into a corner?”

“But what did I… I love you, I’ve never loved anyone like this, and everything is so great, and never…”

“Then why change anything, why? I’m sorry, darling. You’re wonderful. I don’t want to upset you. I just want you to be happy.”

She nestled up to him, kissing him again and again. At first he wanted to withdraw, push her away, and talk things through. But when he held her away from him at arm’s length and looked into her blank, distant face, he gave up. He let her kiss and bite his nipples, and do all the things she knew aroused him. His orgasm came, she held him tight, and then, in the numbness of approaching sleep, he felt that his proposal had become unreal.

HER REACTION WHEN HE PROPOSED TO HER was not the only warning. Later he saw all the signals for what they had been, and realized that he hadn’t wanted to see them.

Her sudden departures. He would come home Friday evening from Marseille, and Françoise would be waiting for him in a wonderful weekend mood. They’d go to dine at Les Vieux Temps, and would talk all evening with Gérard and Catrine, and then Saturday fritter away the morning. In the afternoon he had to translate. He would finish his quota by Saturday evening or Sunday morning, and they would have breakfast, stroll through the vineyards, or by the tomato and melon fields, or through the woods on the slopes of the Luberon. When they returned they would lie down, and have a cup of tea or glass of champagne in bed. That was how their typical weekend passed. And Françoise’s leaving suddenly at four or five in the afternoon on Sundays had almost become a part of the weekend routine.

“I have to go now.”

“You do?” Georg asked the first time, taken aback. He tried to hold on to her, to pull her back. She wriggled free, and he got up to dress. She sat down on the edge of the bed, already wearing her skirt and blouse.

“You don’t have to get up, darling,” she said. “Stay in bed and get some rest.” She tucked him in and kissed him. “I just need some time to myself. I’m going to head home and take care of a few things, and call Mom and Dad. Tomorrow evening, when you get back from Marseille, I’ll be waiting for you.”

Georg would perhaps have come to terms with this had Françoise kept only Sunday evenings for herself. But she said she needed some time to herself, then that she had to take care of important business for Bulnakov, or that she was expecting an important phone call she simply had to take at home. This didn’t happen often during the week. But there were times when she suddenly got up and left after dinner, or after he’d fallen asleep. He kept trying to stop her from leaving-with questions, or a sharp or ironic word or two-but always came up against her unyielding resistance. She warded him off tenderly, angrily, or desperately, but in the end she always left. The first few times, he did remain in bed. But it was usually dusk when she left, and he found the aching beauty of the twilight hour alone painful, with her scent in his bed. So he too would dress, go with her downstairs, and stand at the garden gate until he could no longer see her car.

One weekend he had picked her up at Bulnakov’s office on Friday afternoon, and so she had to ask him to drive her home on Sunday when she needed to go. He took advantage of the situation, kept stalling and saying “Just a second,” and they made love one more time. She wanted to get it over with quickly, but he kept her at it, and it was so wonderful for her that she could not leave. Finally she begged him to make her come. Not because she was anxious to leave, but because she couldn’t stand it anymore. And when he did, she was ecstatic. As he drove her home she nestled up against him and whispered tenderly, all the while urging him to drive faster. “Oh God, I’m going to be late! What did I want that orgasm for?”