Jonathan Franzen - Purity

Pip struggled to find breath to answer. “Sounds good,” she said.

One of the insaner things about the Project was that private electronic communication was impossible. The internal network was designed so that all chats and emails were viewable by anyone on the network, because everything was viewable to the tech boys and it wasn’t fair to give them an advantage. If a girl wanted to hook up with a boy (and it happened quite a bit, though the boys were physically a less prepossessing lot), she arranged it either openly on the network or in person. And so it was that Andreas pressed a handwritten note into Pip’s hand when she was leaving the main building the following night.

Be happy: your spying days may be over. No plausible story is available. You’re coming with me because I’m meeting potential investors and you’re the intern whose judgement I most trust. But think carefully about whether you’re ready for the others to see you differently. I’ll accept whatever you decide. Please burn this.—A.

On the veranda, above the dark river, Pip burned the note with a lighter that Colleen had left behind. She missed Colleen and wondered if she herself was in for three years of being strung along, but she also felt victorious and capable. She’d gone deeper into the dark river than Colleen had, deeper than just her knees, and she was pretty sure she’d already gone farther with Andreas. It was all very strange and would have felt even stranger if her life hadn’t been so strange to begin with. To her the strangest thought of all was that she might be extraordinarily appealing. It went against everything she believed in — or at least against everything she wanted to believe in; because, deep down, in her most honest heart, maybe every person considered herself extraordinarily appealing. Maybe this was just a human thing.

“Do I get to meet your mother?” she asked Andreas a week later, when Pedro was driving them up the steep road out of the valley.

“Do you want to? Annagret was the only woman of mine who ever did. My mother was very kind to her, until she wasn’t.”

Pip was too disturbed by the phrase woman of mine to answer. Did the phrase now apply to her? It sounded like it did.

“She’s very seductive,” Andreas said. “You’d probably like her. Annagret liked her a lot — until she didn’t.”

Pip rolled down her window, put her face to the cool early-morning air, and whispered, “Am I your woman.” She didn’t think Andreas could hear her, but it was possible he had.

“You’re my confidante,” he said. “I’d be interested in what your good sense has to say about her.”

He put his hand on her upper thigh and left it there. Pretty much every thought she’d had in the last week had led back to one thing. She was experiencing stronger symptoms of being in love, a queasiness more persistent, a heart more racing, than she remembered having had with Stephen. But the symptoms were ambiguous. A condemned person walking to the gallows had many of the same ones. When Andreas’s hand crept, thrillingly, to the inside of her thigh, she had neither the courage nor even the inclination to place a corresponding hand on his leg. The rightness of the phrase preyed upon was becoming evident. The feelings of prey in the grip of a wolf’s teeth were hard to distinguish from being in love.

Her Spanish was enough improved that she followed everything Andreas said to Pedro. Pedro was to be at the Cortez at six o’clock the next morning. Andreas would probably be waiting for him, but if he wasn’t, Pedro was to proceed to the airport with a sign that said KATYA WOLF and bring her to the hotel.

Evidently Andreas intended to spend all day and all night and possibly the next morning with Pip alone. How absurd that they first had to sit together in the back seat for three hours while Pedro braked for speed bumps. What a torture, these rompemuelles .

I am in love , she decided. I’m the least beautiful girl at Los Volcanes, but I’m funny and brave and honest and he chose me. He can break my heart later — I don’t care.

At the Cortez, he instructed her to wait in the lobby for fifteen minutes before joining him in his room. She watched damp-haired, morning-faced travelers surrendering room keys. It seemed to be no time of day in no place on earth. A Latin businessman idling by the reception desk was looking intently at her chest. She rolled her eyes; he smiled. He was an insect compared to the man who was waiting for her.

She found him sitting with his tablet at the desk in his room. A tray of sandwiches and cut-up fruit was on the bed. “Have some food,” he said.

“Do I seem hungry?”

“Your stomach seems sensitive. It’s important that you eat.”

She hazarded some papaya, which according to her mother was soothing to the stomach.

“What would you like to do today?” he said.

“I don’t know. Is there a particular church or museum I’m supposed to see?”

“I don’t love being seen in public. But, yes, the old town center is worth seeing.”

“You could wear sunglasses and a funny hat.”

“Is that what you want?”

The papaya made her burp. She felt that she had to stop being prey, to somehow take the initiative. She was still disinclined to touch him, but she walked over behind him and forced herself to put her hands on his shoulders. She ran them down onto his chest. It had to be done.

He took hold of her wrists so she couldn’t get away.

“I thought you never laid a hand on interns,” she said. “I thought it was bad press.”

“Serially bedding them would be bad press,” he said. “Falling in love with one of them is a very different story.”

Her knees quaked. “Did you actually just say that?”

“I did.”

The wooden spoon, the wooden spoon.

“OK, then,” she said, sinking to the floor.

He let go of her wrists, extricated himself from the desk, and kneeled in front of her.

“Pip,” he said. “I know I’m old. Probably as old as your father. But I have a young heart — I don’t have much experience with real love. Probably not much more than you do. This is new and frightening for me, too.”

The wooden spoon. Her brain was churning. It was more a father than a lover to whom she now pressed herself in her fear; more a father whom she clutched for safety. And yet, the night before, she’d trimmed her personal hair for him with a razor. She was massively confused. He held her tightly, stroking her head.

“Do you like me at all?” he said.

She nodded because she knew he wanted her to.

“A lot?” he said. “Or just a little?”

“Quite a lot,” she said for the same reason.

“I like you, too.”

She nodded again. But even though he’d made her do it, she felt bad about lying to him. If he truly was falling in love with her, it was a mean thing to do. To make up for it, she tried to say something both honest and nice. “I really liked the way you made me feel the other time. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m fairly obsessed with it. I want you to do it again.”

His body tensed at this. She worried that she’d said the wrong thing — that he’d seen through her attempt to turn their talk away from love, and was hurt. And so she kissed him. Urgently, forwardly, offering him her tongue, opening herself to him, and he responded in kind. But the sensible side of her was still semi-functioning. A laugh came out of her before she could stifle it.

“What?” he said, smiling.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m just wondering if we’re both trying to do what neither of us actually wants.”

He seemed alarmed. “What do you mean?”

“No, just the kissing part,” she hastened to say. “You didn’t seem so into the smooching last time. You were honest about that. And, honestly, it’s fine with me too if we skip it.”