Bernhard Schlink - The Gordian Knot

She rarely invited him into her apartment, two adjoining rooms on the ground floor, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a terrace outside the larger room. The place felt unlived-in. He took a few snapshots of her, though she didn’t like being photographed: Françoise on the terrace, Françoise hanging out the washing, Françoise standing in front of the refrigerator, or sitting on the couch beneath a large drawing of a church facade that had been executed with architectural precision.

“What’s the church?” he asked.

She hesitated. “That’s the cathedral in Warsaw in which my parents got married.”

He knew she had parents, but knew nothing about them. “When did they leave Poland?”

“I didn’t say they weren’t still living in Warsaw.”

“But you often talk to them on the phone,” he said, unable to make sense of it.

The washing machine stopped and Françoise went to unload it. He followed her.

“Why are you so secretive about your parents?”

“Why do you want to know so much about my family? You’ve got me-isn’t that enough?”

In July Georg had a party. He had long dreamed of inviting everyone he knew and liked: his parents, sister, uncles and aunts, business associates, colleagues and friends-old friends from Germany and new ones he had met in Provence.

The party would begin in the afternoon, they would have fun, dance, and it would all end with a big fireworks display. His relatives couldn’t come and only a few of his German friends showed up, but the party was fun, and the last guests left at dawn. Initially Georg had wanted to surprise Françoise, but then he decided that her friends and relatives should come too. She did write a few invitations and help him with the preparations, but when she drove over to Marseille on the morning before the party to get some fresh oysters, she called to say that she wouldn’t be able to make it because she had to fly to Paris on business. Nor did anyone she had invited show up.

On the afternoon after the party, Georg was sitting on the terrace drinking champagne with some old friends from Heidelberg. They had gone for a long hike while the cleaning ladies from the office had removed the last traces of the party. His friends had to head back to Germany, but they kept on talking and putting off their departure. The familiarity of long friendship was like the warm bed one doesn’t want to leave in the morning.

Françoise came driving down the hill in her green Deux Chevaux. Georg jumped up, opened the garden gate, and opened the car door for her. She got out, saw his friends, greeted them awkwardly, and hurried into the kitchen to put away some things she had brought, staying there quite a while. Then she came out and joined the others, but didn’t fit in. Gerd asked her about her flight to Paris, but she avoided the question. Walter asked when she and Georg were planning to marry, at which she blushed bright red. Jan said that he heard she was from Poland and that he’d just been to Warsaw, and began talking about his trip, but she didn’t say anything. Gerd made a few pleasant remarks about the difficulties that a new girlfriend encountered with her boyfriend’s old friends, but she didn’t seem to be listening. After half an hour the friends from Heidelberg left, and while Georg was still standing next to Françoise at the door waving, she hissed at him, “What did you tell them about me?”

“Why are you in such a bad mood, Brown Eyes? What’s wrong?”

But she was in a bad mood and shouted at him in a little girl’s voice, fretful and cantankerous, her sentences starting with “And let me tell you!” “And if you think!” and “Of one thing you can be certain!” He didn’t know what to say, and stood there flustered.

That evening she said she was sorry, boiled the asparagus she had brought, and pressed herself into his arms. “I had the impression you were talking about me, and that your friends had already come to conclusions about me, and wouldn’t see the real me anymore. I’m sorry. I ruined your afternoon.”

Georg was understanding. The trip to Paris must have been stressful. In bed she said, “Georges, why don’t we go visit your friends in Heidelberg some weekend. I’d like to get to know them better. They seem really nice.” Georg fell asleep happy.

IT WAS THE END OF JULY. Georg woke up in the night in the dark room, rolled sleepily onto his stomach, and tried to lay one of his legs across Françoise. Her side of the bed was empty.

He waited for the sound of the flushing toilet and her footsteps on the stairs. Did minutes pass, or had he fallen asleep and woken up again? He still didn’t hear anything. Where was she? Wasn’t she feeling well?

He got up, put on a bathrobe, and went out into the hall. A thin strip of light was shining along the floor from under the door to his study. He opened the door. “Françoise!”

It took him a few seconds to grasp the situation. Françoise, sitting at his desk, turned and looked at him. Like a gazelle, he thought. A hurt, startled gazelle. He noticed her aquiline nose, and her frightened eyes fending him off; her mouth opened slightly, tensely, as if she were sucking in air. The plans that Georg was translating lay on the desk, held in place on either side by books, and illuminated by his table lamp. Françoise was naked, the blanket with which she had wrapped herself had slipped off. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?” A stupid question. What was she doing with a camera and his plans? She put the camera on the table and covered her breasts with her hands. She was still looking at him distraught, without saying anything. He noticed the dimple over her right eyebrow.

He laughed. As if he could laugh the situation away, as he had during fights with Hanne and Steffi, when he had escaped, incredulous and helpless, into a foolish laugh. The situation was so absurd. This sort of thing never happened. Not to him, Georg. But his laughter didn’t wipe away the situation. He felt tired, his head empty. His mouth hurt from laughing. “Come back to bed.”

“I haven’t finished yet,” she said, looking at the plans and reaching for her camera.

“Who are you?” The situation was still absurd, and Françoise’s naked breasts struck him as obscene. Her voice had again the shrill rasp of a distraught little girl. He tore the camera out of her hand and threw it against the wall, seized the desk, and shoved its top off its trestle. The lamp fell on the floor and went out. He wanted to shake her, hit her. But as the light went out, his anger went out too. It was dark, he took a step forward, tripped, pushed over a filing cabinet, fell, and hit his leg. He heard Françoise crying. He reached out for her and tried to embrace her. She flailed and kicked, sobbed and whimpered, and grew wilder, until she collided with the chair and fell crashing against the bookshelf.

Suddenly it was quiet. He got up and turned on the light. She was lying curled up by the shelf, motionless. “Françoise!” He crouched down at her side, felt for a wound on her head, found nothing, picked her up, and carried her to bed. When he came with a bowl and a towel she looked at him with a faint smile. He sat down by the bed.

Still the voice of a little girl, now begging, imploring: “I am sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you, I didn’t want to do this. It’s got nothing to do with you. I love you, I love you so much. You mustn’t be angry with me, it’s not my fault. They forced me to do it, they…”

“Who are they?”

“You must promise me you won’t do anything foolish. What do we care about those helicopters and…”

“Jesus! I want to know what this is all about!”

“I’m frightened, Georges.” She sat up and huddled against him. “Hold me, hold me tight.”