Jonathan Franzen - Purity

This was the latest chapter of her unfinished story, and it came out on the fourth evening of Andreas’s counseling. When Annagret had finished her confession, in the chill of the sanctuary, she began to weep. Seeing someone so beautiful weeping, seeing her press her fists to her eyes like an infant, Andreas was gripped by an unfamiliar physical sensation. He was such a laugher, such an ironist, such an artist of unseriousness, that he didn’t even recognize what was happening to him: he, too, was starting to cry. But he did recognize why. He was crying for himself — for what had happened to him as a child. He’d heard many stories of childhood sexual abuse before, but never from such a good girl, never from a girl with perfect hair and skin and bone structure. Annagret’s beauty had broken something open in him. He felt that he was just like her . And so he was also crying because he loved her, and because he couldn’t have her.

“Can you help me?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“Why did I tell you so much if you can’t help me? Why did you keep asking me questions? You acted like you could help me.”

He shook his head and said nothing. She put a hand on his shoulder, very lightly, but even a light touch from her was terrible. He bowed forward, shaking with sobs. “I’m so sad for you.”

“But now you see what I mean. I cause harm.”

“No.”

“Maybe I should just be his girlfriend. Make him divorce my mother and be his girlfriend.”

“No.” He pulled himself together and wiped his face. “No, he’s a sick fucker. I know it because I’m a little bit sick myself. I can extrapolate.”

“You might have done the same thing he did…”

“Never. I swear to you. I’m like you, not him.”

“But … if you’re a little sick and you’re like me, it means that I must be a little bit sick.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You’re right, though. I should go home and be his girlfriend. Since I’m so sick. Thank you for your help, Mr. Counselor.”

He took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. There was nothing but distrust in her eyes now. “I want to be your friend,” he said.

“We all know where being friends goes.”

“You’re wrong. Stay here, and let’s think. Be my friend.”

She pulled away from him and crossed her arms tightly.

“We can go directly to the Stasi,” he said. “He broke his oath to them. The minute they think he might embarrass them, they’ll drop him like a hot potato. As far as they’re concerned, he’s just some bottom-tier collaborator — he’s nobody.”

“No,” she said. “They’ll think I’m lying. I didn’t tell you everything I did — it’s too embarrassing. I did things to interest him.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re fifteen. In the eyes of the law, you have no responsibility. Unless he’s very stupid, he’s got to be scared out of his mind right now. You’ve got all the power.”

“But even if they believe me, everybody’s life is ruined, including mine. I won’t have a home, I won’t be able to go to university. Even my sister will hate me. I think it’s better if I just give him what he wants until I’m old enough to move away.”

“That’s what you want.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t be here if that was what I wanted. But now I see that nobody can help me.”

Andreas didn’t know what to say. What he wanted was for her to come and live in the basement of the rectory with him. He could protect her, homeschool her, practice English with her, train her as a counselor for at-risk youth, and be her friend, the way King Lear imagined life with Cordelia, following the news of the court from a distance, laughing at who was in, who was out. Maybe in time they’d be a couple, the couple in the basement, leading their own private life.

“We can find room for you here,” he said.

She shook her head again. “He’s already upset that I don’t come home until midnight. He thinks I’m out with boys. If I didn’t come home at all, he’d turn my mother in.”

“He said that to you?”

“He’s an evil person. For a long time, I thought the opposite, but not anymore. Now everything he says to me is some kind of threat. He’s not going to stop until he gets everything he wants.”

A different sensation, not tears, a wave of hatred, came over Andreas. “I can kill him,” he said.

“That’s not what I meant by helping me.”

“Somebody’s life has to be ruined,” he said, pursuing the logic of his hatred. “Why not his and mine? I’m already in a kind of prison. The food can’t be any worse in a real prison. I can read books at state expense. You can go to school and help your mother with her problem.”

She made a derisive sound. “That’s a good plan. Trying to kill a bodybuilder.”

“Obviously I wouldn’t warn him in advance.”

She looked at him as if he couldn’t possibly be serious. All his life, until now, she would have been right. Levity was his métier. But it was harder to see the ridiculous side of the casual destruction of lives in the Republic when the life in question was Annagret’s. He was already falling in love with this girl, and there was nothing he could do with the feeling, no way to act on it, no way to make her believe that she should trust him. She must have seen some of this in his face, because her own expression changed.

“You can’t kill him,” she said quietly. “He’s just very sick. Everyone in my family is sick, everyone I touch is sick, including me. I just need help .”

“There is no help for you in this country.”

“That can’t be right.”

“It’s the truth.”

She stared for a while at the pews in front of them or at the cross behind the altar, forlorn and murkily lit. After a time, her breaths became quicker and sharper. “I wouldn’t cry if he died,” she said. “But I should be the one to do it, and I could never do it. Never, never. I’d sooner be his girlfriend.”

On more careful reflection, Andreas didn’t really want to kill Horst, either. He could imagine surviving prison, but the label murderer didn’t accord with his self-image. The label would follow him forever, he wouldn’t be able to like himself as much as he did now, and neither would other people. It was all very well to be a Assibräuteaufreißer, a troller for sex with the antisocial — the label was appropriately ridiculous. But murderer was not.

“So,” Annagret said, standing up. “It’s nice of you to offer. It was nice of you to listen to my story and not be too disgusted.”

“Wait, though,” he said, because another thought had occurred to him: if she were his accomplice, he might not automatically be caught, and even if he were caught her beauty and his love for her would forever adhere to what the two of them had done. He wouldn’t simply be a murderer ; he’d be the person who’d eliminated the molester of this singular girl.

“Can you trust me?” he said.

“I like that I can talk to you. I don’t think you’re going to tell anyone my secrets.”

These weren’t the words he wanted to hear. They made him ashamed of his fantasy of homeschooling her in the basement.

“I don’t want to be your girlfriend,” she added, “if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t want to be anyone’s girlfriend.”

“You’re fifteen, I’m twenty-seven. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“I’m sure you have your own story, I’m sure it’s very interesting.”

“Do you want to hear it?”

“No. I just want to be normal again.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Her expression became desolate. The natural thing would have been to put his arms around her and console her, but nothing about their situation was natural. He felt completely powerless — another new sensation and one he didn’t like one bit. He figured that she was about to walk away and never come back. But instead she drew a stabilizing breath and said, without looking at him, “How would you do it?”