Seven Years

Sonia said she was feeling a little better, and tomorrow she would go back to work. She had even cooked something. I’m just going to make a quick call, I said, and went to the basement where we had set up a little office.

I shut the door and rang the number in Perlach. A man’s voice answered. I asked for Ivona. Just one moment, he said, and I heard sounds, a door, a hushed conversation. Then there was silence, and I knew Ivona was on the line. I got your letter, I said. I didn’t want to, said Ivona. Want to what? Ask you for help. Silence again. I’ll see what I can do, I said. I’m not swimming in money. Silence from Ivona. It was no good, I’d have to see her. I asked if we could meet. The man came on the line again, said Ivona was sick, if I wanted to see her, I’d have to go there. His voice sounded dismissive, but I was pleased Ivona appeared to have someone looking after her. I asked who I was talking to. Hartmeier, he said, a friend.

The following afternoon I went to Ivona’s. I told Sonia I had a meeting, and she nodded and said she’d probably stay longer at the office, a lot had accumulated in the course of her absence.

Ivona lived in an apartment building in a characterless sixties development. The buildings stood right on the road, clustered around a green space with a few trees and a neglected playground. The facade was grimy and sprayed with cryptic graffiti next to the entrance, but other than that it was in surprisingly good condition. I rang the bell and after a while a bluff-looking man with gray hair came down the stairs and opened the door for me. Hartmeier, he said, extending his hand. We were expecting you. I looked at my watch, I was only a few minutes late. He took me to the third floor, to a small, cluttered apartment. He knocked on a door and went in. I stayed in the hallway and listened to him say, with false friendliness in his voice, that he had to go. You sure you’ll be all right? Then he came out and held the door open for me. When you leave, make sure she locks the door after you.

I entered the bedroom. The curtains were drawn, and it took me a moment to make out Ivona in the dimness. She was sitting on a chair beside the window. This room too was stuffed with junk. The air was stale and far too hot. I walked up to Ivona and gave her my hand. She had changed in the years of not seeing her. Her face had grown puffy, her hair was thinner. She was wearing an ugly quilted wrap of no particular color, and white socks under plastic sandals. She might be only two years older than me, but she was an old woman.

I had known her body in all its details, the heavy, pendulous breasts, the rolls of fat at her neck, her navel, the stray black hairs on her back, and her many moles. I knew how she smelled and tasted, how her body responded to touch, I knew its repertoire of familiar and less familiar movements, but when I saw Ivona sitting there, I had to acknowledge that I didn’t know the least thing about her, that she was a complete stranger to me.

She told me quite freely, almost pleasurably, about her condition before the impending operation. For some time now she had had very heavy bleeding and cramping during her period. The doctor had found myomas, harmless growths in her womb, and instead of putting her on hormone treatments for years, he had suggested having the womb and ovaries removed. A perfectly routine operation, she said, the removal would be done vaginally, there was no need to open her up. It felt strange to hear the technical medical terms in her mouth. She talked about her body as though it were a malfunctioning machine. She had no fear of the operation, she said, but what made her sad was the knowledge that she would be unable to have children afterward. Thirty-eight is leaving it a bit late for babies anyhow, I thought, but didn’t say anything.

Are you with someone? I asked. Herr Hartmeier is just a friend, she said. She had the flu, that’s why she was home. And he looked in on her from time to time and checked up on how she was. She asked me if I wanted some tea, and I followed her into the kitchen and watched her heat up water and take a tea bag from one of the cupboards. Her way of moving had something coquettish about it, I could think of no other word for it. Presumably, I was the only man who had seen her naked apart from her father and the gynecologist, I thought. And suddenly I had the overwhelming desire to strip her naked. I came up to her from behind, and opened her wrap, and let it fall to the ground. She was wearing a thin short nightie underneath, maybe it was the same one she had years ago. I pulled that over her head, and took off her underthings too. She turned to face me. Her features were completely expressionless.

I was pretty sure Ivona had never slept with a man, and that her panting wasn’t excitement but fear. I knew I was making a mistake that could not be amended, but I was reeling with desire. I pulled her into the bedroom and onto the bed, and she lay down, and I lay on top of her. Again, I had the sense of Ivona’s body having a life of its own, that when it was naked it was quite divorced from her character, and was capable of unexpected responsiveness, a mute language all its own. While Ivona kept her eyes tightly closed, and her face looked as if it were asleep, her body was awake and reacted to every touch, every glance almost, with a shaking, a trembling, tension or relaxation, in a way that both excited and repulsed me.

At five I called Sonia in the office, and explained I was running late, the meeting was taking longer than expected. Then I went back to the bedroom. Ivona lay naked on the bed, her pose had something obscene about it. I lay down on top of her and she shut her eyes again.

It was almost seven before I could tear myself away. She was in the bath, and I was sitting on a kitchen stool, feeling liberated. I could hear noises in the apartment over us, and thought about the people who lived here, the human hordes who filled the subways in the morning and sat in front of the TV at night, who sooner or later fell ill from their labor and the hopelessness of their efforts. A camp of the living and the dead, as Aldo Rossi had once described the city, where only a few symbols manage to survive. Undecipherable references to people who had once lived there. I had always been half-afraid of the faceless masses for which we put up skyscrapers. I remembered the topping-out parties when we celebrated the completion of a project with the workers. How they sat hunkered together and looked at the rest of us, the investors and builders and architects, almost with scorn. Or when I visited one of these projects years later, when I saw how the buildings had been taken over — laundry hanging out to dry on the balconies, bicycles dumped higgledy-piggledy outside the doors, little flowerbeds arranged in defiance of any understanding of landscaping — then too I didn’t feel annoyance so much as fear and a kind of fascination with life swarming and seething and escaping our plans, the memories that sprouted here and merged with the buildings in some indivisible unity. Then I understood the remark that a building wasn’t finished until it had been torn down or lay in ruins.

I remembered listening once to Sonia explaining to a school janitor why the bicycle racks couldn’t be made any bigger. She talked about proportions and form and aesthetics. He looked at her in bafflement, and said, but the kids have got to park their bikes somewhere. Sonia had looked at me beseechingly, but I had just shrugged my shoulders, and said the janitor was right. She shook her head angrily and stalked out without another word.

Ivona emerged from the bathroom. She looked tired. I said I had to go. At the door I asked her how much the operation cost. About four thousand marks, she said. I was surprised it wasn’t any more than that. I’ll lend it to you, I said, you can pay me back whenever you can. I’ll bring you the money. She said she was always at home during the day. At night she went out cleaning. Don’t forget to lock the door now. I had to smile. She said Herr Hartmeier had her best interests at heart.

From then on I started seeing Ivona regularly again. My feelings toward her had changed from what they were seven years ago. I couldn’t claim she interested me as a human being, but I had gotten used to her, and no longer felt as aggressive toward her. I drank her herbal tea even though I couldn’t stand it, and I listened to her boring stories, and sometimes I told her something from my life, some office stuff that she listened to without a trace of interest or sympathy. It was still and exclusively the physical thing that tied me to her, those sluggish hours that we spent together in her overheated room, stuck to one another, crawling into each other, together and always separate. Once, I’d just gone to the bathroom, Ivona fell asleep, and I stared at her withered body and her face, by no means beautified by the relaxation of sleep, and I asked myself what I was doing here, why I couldn’t leave her. But she awoke, and looked into my eyes, and like an addict I had to lay hands on her again, and grab hold of her and penetrate her.

I asked her what she had done in all those years we hadn’t seen each other. She seemed not to understand the question. She had worked. And what else? Do you see girlfriends? Did you go abroad? Do you have a hobby of some kind? Sometimes she went to events organized by the Polish mission, she said, and she had a cousin who lived in Munich too, though she hardly saw her anymore. Once a year she went to Posen to visit her family.

Religion seemed to loom even larger in her life than it had seven years ago. She went to Mass regularly, and she belonged to a Bible group. That was where she had met Hartmeier. She talked about him often. He was a plumber. One of his sons was in charge of the family business now, he devoted himself entirely to the church, ever since his wife had died a couple of years ago. Once I asked Ivona if there’d been anything between them ever. We were lying on the bed side by side, she was gripping my hand, the way a child might hold its mother’s. I leaned over her, and asked, is he your lover then? Own up. She looked at me with an astonished and at the same time disappointed expression, perhaps because I doubted her fidelity. Herr Hartmeier wasn’t like that. Not like me? Bruno often came to see her, said Ivona, he had said he felt very close to her, but she told him she was keeping herself for someone else. It took me a while to understand whom she meant. I should have told her that I didn’t want anything from her, that I would never leave Sonia for her. The very idea seemed preposterous, to give up everything for the sake of a woman with whom I had nothing but a sexual obsession. But I guessed I would never manage to persuade Ivona to give up her idée fixe, so I didn’t say anything. I think she was firmly convinced that God directed our paths, and that He had plans for her and me. Let her think that if it did her some good, I didn’t care. I stood by the window and looked down at the deserted playground. It had been raining for days, and big puddles had formed on the grass. There was a large birdcage on one of the balconies opposite that was covered with a patterned cloth, maybe an old curtain. I opened the window and I could hear the sound of dripping water, the sound of flowing water, and the strained buzz of a light airplane. It was late spring, but it could just as easily have been fall. I turned to Ivona and asked her if it was true that she’d had nothing to do with men for seven years. And what if I hadn’t called her? Ivona didn’t reply.

I always saw Ivona during the daytime. To begin with I made up meetings, but Sonia knew what I was working on, so I had to think of something else. For years I’d suffered from occasional back pain, so now I claimed I was going to do something about it. I joined a fitness club, that way I could spend an hour or two a week with Ivona, without Sonia getting suspicious.

I had brought the money for Ivona’s operation to our second meeting, but I never asked her if she had gone through with it or not. She had started working again, now she was working as a cleaner in people’s homes during the day. Her hours were unpredictable, and often she canceled me at the last minute, because one of her employers needed her to be there. When she told me again that she wouldn’t have any time this week, I said I would pay her. She didn’t reply. I’ll pay you, I said, how much do you want? I had expected her to be insulted, but she just said she got paid ten marks an hour for cleaning. All right, I said, I’ll give you twenty. It was a bad joke, but now every time we parted I left her some money. I’d never gone to a prostitute, the idea of spending money on sex was offensive to me. But giving money to Ivona was something different. It wasn’t payment for services received. Ivona belonged to me, and my looking after her in that way was the justification of my claims of ownership. Sometimes, I don’t know what got into me, I started giving her commands, and naming a price, fifty marks if you do such and such. Maybe it was a way of humiliating myself. If it offended Ivona, she never let on. She did everything, regardless of what I offered, and she took the money with an apathetic expression, and didn’t bother to count it.

We were now meeting two mornings a week at regular times. Usually Ivona wouldn’t have left the house yet, and was waiting for me in her wrap. She offered me herbal tea, until I gave her an espresso machine. I drank an espresso standing up. Ivona was sitting at the kitchen table, looking at me inquiringly. Then I told her what I had planned, and we went to the bedroom, or the sitting room, or the bathroom.

It was an exceptionally rainy summer, and the city felt like a hothouse under its warm humid shroud. When I lay on the bed tangled up with Ivona, a great lassitude would come over me, our sweating bodies would seem to coalesce into one many-jointed organism that moved slowly like a water plant in an invisible current. Sometimes I dropped off into a sort of half-sleep, from which Ivona would rouse me when the agreed time came around. You have to go, she’d whisper in my ear, and I got dressed and walked out into the rain, where I only slowly woke up.

I had reckoned I would get sick of Ivona sooner or later, and get rid of her, but even though the sex with her interested me less and less, and sometimes we didn’t sleep together at all and just talked, I couldn’t shake her off. It wasn’t pleasure that tied me to her, it was a feeling I hadn’t had since childhood, a mixture of freedom and protectedness. It was as though time stood still when I was with her, which was precisely what gave those moments their weight. Sonia was a project. We wanted to build a house, we wanted to have a baby, we employed people, we bought a second car. No sooner had we reached one goal than the next loomed into sight, we were never done. Ivona on the other hand seemed to have no ambitions. She had no plans, her life was simple and regular. She got up in the morning, had breakfast, went to work. If it was a good or a bad day depended on certain little things, the weather, some kind words in the bakery or in one of the houses where she cleaned, a call from a friend with whom she had a drink after work or went to the movies. When I was with her, I participated in her life for an hour, and forgot everything, the pressure of time, my ambition, the problems on the building sites. Even sex became completely different. I didn’t have to make Ivona pregnant, I didn’t even have to make her come. She took me without expectations and without claims.

Her hunger for a better life was fulfilled through romance novels and TV films that always ended happily. I asked myself what she felt when she shut the book or switched off the TV. I hadn’t picked up a novel in years, but I still remembered the feeling of finishing a story when I was a child, late at night or on some rainy afternoon. That alertness, that sense of perceiving everything much more clearly, even the passage of time, which was so much slower than in books. I held my breath and listened, even though I knew there was nothing to hear, and that nothing had happened or would happen. I was safe in bed, and in my thoughts returned to the story that now belonged to me, that would never end, that would grow and turn into a world of its own. It was one of many worlds that I inhabited in those days, before I started building my own and losing all the others.

Basically, my relationship with Ivona had been from the start nothing other than a story, a parallel world that obeyed my will, and where I could go whenever I wanted, and could leave when I’d had enough.

Perhaps our relationship was nothing more than a story for Ivona as well. I had been struck by the way she never talked about herself. She never asked me about my life either. I could just sometimes tell from things she said that she didn’t approve of my social environment, just as she seemed to despise her own surroundings. It was as though nothing counted beyond our secret meetings.

I could understand Ivona’s feelings. I too was moving in a circle I didn’t really belong in, only, unlike her, out of cowardice or opportunism I had managed to come to terms with it. The splendid family holidays with Sonia’s parents, the visits to concerts and plays, the male gatherings where fellows smoked cigars and talked about cars and golf, they were all part of another world. Basically, I yearned for the lower-middle-class world of my childhood, with its clear rules and simple feelings. However limited it was, it still seemed more honest and genuine to me. When I was with my parents, I didn’t have to playact, didn’t have to try and be better than I was. Their affection was for me as a person, and not for my achievements as an architect. And then they were much more sensitive than Sonia’s parents. They noticed immediately when something was wrong. Their ethical ideas might be narrow, but they understood human frailties and were prepared to forgive anything. I was sure they would like Ivona, and would accept her as one of themselves. They had never quite warmed to Sonia, even though they would never have said as much to me. Once or twice I was almost on the point of mentioning Ivona to my mother. I was certain she would understand, even if she disapproved. Presumably the reason I didn’t was that I was afraid of her advice, I knew what she would say.

In the seven years I’d been married to Sonia, I’d had a couple of brief affairs, once with an office assistant and the other time with a neighbor, whose child we sometimes babysat. Sonia had been unfaithful to me once as well. We had owned up to these affairs and gotten over them, albeit perhaps scarred by them, and afterward our union felt either better or at least more stable. But I could never have told Sonia about my relationship with Ivona. It seemed to take place in a world governed by different rules. I couldn’t have explained my behavior to her — I could hardly account for it to myself.

Once I asked Ivona if she wanted to go back to her homeland. She said no, she had to stay here. I didn’t ask her why. But I do admit I felt relieved to hear it.

I’d been seeing Ivona for six months or so when Hartmeier called me one day. He called me in the office, at first I didn’t know who it was. Only when he said we’d met at Ivona’s did the shoe drop. He asked if he could see me. I asked what it was about, but he said he’d prefer to talk about it in private. A little reluctantly, I agreed to meet him in a café near Ivona’s apartment. There were never many people there, he said. It was as though he was planning a conspiracy.

It was November, and it had been raining for days. At twelve o’clock it suddenly stopped. Now it felt cold, and there was a smell of snow in the air. When I went to the café, it was already dark outside, and I could see Hartmeier through the window, sitting over an almost empty glass of beer. He was the only patron, and was chatting with the waiter.

I walked up to his table. He stood and held out his hand formally. I ordered something, and we sat down facing one another, like two chess players. Hartmeier sipped at his beer and looked at me in silence, until I asked him what this was about. Ivona, he said. He looked somehow pleased with himself, which made me suspicious. That’s what I thought, I said. More silence from him. Then he said it was a delicate situation, and he didn’t want to speak out of turn, but he didn’t like the way I was treating Ivona. I wondered how much he knew. I had no intention of confiding in him, so, to play for time, I asked him what he meant by that. She loves you, he said, and sighed deeply. I shrugged my shoulders. With all her heart, he added. She’s waited for you for seven years, the way Jacob waited for Rachel. I only vaguely remembered the story, but I remembered that at the end of seven years, Jacob had gone off with the wrong woman. Leah, Hartmeier said. And then he had to wait another seven years. I didn’t understand what he was driving at. Whether she waits for you for a year or seven or fourteen, makes no difference, he said. It’s like love of the Savior, it doesn’t get any less over time, in fact the opposite. Ivona’s feelings are a matter for her, I said. And you? I said I didn’t think that was any concern of his. I might not know this, said Hartmeier, but Ivona had sacrificed a lot for me. She was acting against her faith, which forbade extramarital sex, and with a man who was married himself. Perhaps it was hard for me to grasp, but in a certain sense Ivona had sacrificed her spiritual welfare for me. She’s a free human being, I said. But the Lord saw that Leah was less beloved, and he opened her womb, said Hartmeier, and then I understood why he had summoned me. He didn’t speak, and it was as though I caught a glimpse of secret triumph in his face. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something. It’s not easy for me to describe what I felt. I was shocked, my pulse was racing, and I felt slightly sick in my stomach. At the same time, though, I felt a great feeling of calm and a kind of relief. I would have to talk to Sonia, she wouldn’t find it easy, maybe she would leave me, but just at that moment, all that seemed unimportant.

Ivona is pregnant, said Hartmeier. I know, I said, I wasn’t going to allow him his little triumph. He looked at me in bewilderment. You cannot ask that she … He didn’t go on. I don’t ask that she do anything, I said. He said it would be a sin. I don’t care if it’s a sin or not, I’m not asking her to abort the fetus.

Hartmeier walked me to Ivona’s. Though he was shorter than me, he set such a rapid pace I could hardly keep up with him. It seemed to have gotten colder, or perhaps I was just feeling it more, because of my excitement and uncertainty. I put up my coat collar and ran after Hartmeier. He stopped outside Ivona’s building and said he wouldn’t accompany me any farther. He rang the doorbell, and I heard a rustle in the intercom. Hartmeier leaned down and said in his best conspiratorial tone, he’s here. Immediately the door buzzed, so loud that it startled me. Hartmeier shouldered the door open, gave me his hand, and nodded to me, as though to give me courage.

Ivona was waiting for me with an almost simple smile. She looks like a bride, I thought. We sat down in the little parlor. Ivona had made tea, and poured a couple of cups. I took a quick gulp and burned my mouth. Hartmeier told me you’re pregnant, I said. She nodded. I wasn’t expecting that, I said. She looked at me expectantly, with an edge of panic. I said I understood that an abortion was out of the question for her, and that of course I would recognize the child, and give her what support I could. But it wouldn’t be easy for her to bring up the child all by herself. Her face took on a scared expression. She must have imagined I would leave Sonia for her. There are several options, I said, of course it would be better for the child to grow up in an intact environment than with her, after all she was still an illegal alien. I would talk to my wife, after all it was my child. Ivona didn’t speak, and let her tea go cold. I said she ought to think about it, there was quite a bit of time yet.

The idea had come to me during the conversation with Hartmeier. Of course it would be a challenge to Sonia to bring up the child of my mistress. On the other hand, she was a sensible woman who had her head screwed on properly, and that solution was the best for all of us. We had already gone over the possibility of adopting a few times.

I didn’t do anything for the moment. Ivona was in her fourth month, and there was still a chance she would lose the baby, and the whole agitation would have been for nothing. I went on seeing her and sleeping with her, and watched her belly swell. She was even more taciturn than before, and talked neither about her condition nor about any plans for the child after its birth. Only sometimes she would groan and rub her back, which seemed to hurt. Once, when I was getting a glass of water in the kitchen, I saw an ultrasound picture lying on the table, it was a white crooked thing against a black background, but I got no sense of that as my child.

I kept putting off my conversation with Sonia. Finally I resolved to talk to her after the holidays. We spent Christmas with her parents, and then drove into the mountains for a few days by ourselves. Ferdy and Alice had recommended a hotel, a great castle of a place in a remote valley not far from Garmisch. They would come up for a couple of days themselves, we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. I had the sense that Sonia was looking forward to it more than I was. We had gone to the office quickly that morning, to sort out a few things, and we left Munich later than we’d planned. On the way Ferdy called me on my cell. I passed it to Sonia, and she talked to him. She laughed once or twice, and then she said, Oh well then, see you tomorrow. They would be coming a day late, she said, Ferdy evidently had even more to do than we did. Fine by me, I said.

We arrived in the early evening, and barely had time to look at our room before we heard the dinner gong. The dining room was full of families with nicely dressed children with good posture, talking quietly to their parents. Sonia had an expression I often saw on her when there were children around, a mixture of rapture and slight sorrow. Her last ovulation had been two weeks ago, I had spotted the red ring around the date on the kitchen calendar, but had gotten home that night later than expected, and Sonia had already been asleep. I wondered whether to wake her, but ended up just letting it go.

From the very beginning I didn’t feel at ease in the hotel. Sonia seemed to like it. This was her social sphere, people who were demonstratively hiding their wealth and treated the staff in such a jolly, friendly way that it almost had the effect of condescension. They all seemed to be playing a game, and observing themselves and one another. They were playing at high society, the cultivated art lovers, hurrying out of the dining room to the events hall to catch the chamber music concert, as if there were no other possible way of getting through an evening. Sonia didn’t want to miss the concert either, as she said. Please no, I said, I have to go outside for some fresh air, otherwise I’ll suffocate. She looked at me in alarm, as if she’d peered briefly into an abyss, but then she gave in right away, and said she had a headache, perhaps it was the altitude, and a walk would do her good.

It was cold outside, there was snow predicted for the night ahead, but the sky was still clear, with many stars and a waning moon. Sonia started to talk about a project we were working on. We’re on holiday, I said, forget about work for once, can’t you? I had thought long and hard about how to break the news to her, now I just said, listen, I’m having a baby. Sonia reacted amazingly calmly. It must have been that she had so many conflicting feelings that none of them came out on top. She had guessed that I had a lover, that seemed to bother her less than the fact it was Ivona, the Polish girl, as she always referred to her. I was amazed that her first thought was the same as mine. And that she used the same words I used with Ivona. After all, it’s your baby too.

I asked her if it wouldn’t be a problem for her. She said her only condition was that she wouldn’t have to meet the Polish girl. What if she wants to see the baby? That’s up to you. She said she wanted to go home. Right now? I asked. I can’t drive you, I’ve had too much to drink. I haven’t, said Sonia. She didn’t want me with her anyway. She needed time to think. You can have your Polish woman come and stay. Her voice sounded cold rather than bitter. Sonia wouldn’t be talked out of her plan, and finally I handed her the car keys and helped her with the bags. I asked her to call when she got home.

Two hours later, she called. I had taken a bottle of wine up to the room, and was lying on the bed, watching TV. I hit the mute button when the phone rang. Sonia said she had arrived safely, then she stopped, but I could tell she wanted to talk. It seemed to be easier for her to talk to me on the phone. She said she’d thought things over during the drive.

We talked probably for two hours about our relationship, about our affairs, about our expectations and desires. Sonia cried, and at times I cried too. I had never felt so close to her. We won’t tell the child anything, will we? she said. We’ll bring it up as ours. Are you looking forward to it? She stopped for a moment, then she said she wasn’t sure. She said she thought she was. You’ll make a wonderful mother, I said. She promised to drive back up in the morning, we had lots to talk about. Sleep well, I said. I love you.

The next day Sonia was back in the hotel. It had snowed overnight, and the last bit of the road hadn’t been cleared yet, and she’d been stuck down in the valley, waiting for the plow to come through. When she finally arrived, we greeted each other as though we hadn’t seen each other for ages. We went for a walk in the snow, and talked everything over again. We relished the reconciliation of the night by saying over and over what we’d done wrong, and how we meant to do better in the future, and what our life would be like, and how much we loved each other. Our words were conjurations, as though everything would go the way we wanted so long as we said it often enough. Aren’t we good together? said Sonia. Yes, I said, everything will turn out fine. And at that moment I really believed it. It seemed possible in that landscape that had transformed itself overnight into a pure shiny surface.

Ferdy and Alice arrived in the afternoon. Sonia and I had lain down after lunch, we had neither of us gotten much sleep the previous night. At about four the phone rang. It was Ferdy, and we arranged to meet downstairs in the restaurant in half an hour.

I knew right away that it was a mistake to see those two up here. He had done the drive in five and a half hours, Ferdy bragged before we had even shaken hands. He had put on weight and lost a lot of his hair, and even though he talked and laughed the whole time, I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something wrong. Alice was even thinner than she’d been seven years ago. There was something careworn about her, and she seemed tired and irritable. She talked a lot too. She was still meeting lots of geniuses and going to astounding concerts and art exhibitions. There was so much more going on in Berlin than Munich, she said, returning to Bavaria always gave her the creeps. I asked her if she was still playing the violin. She wanted to take it up again, she said, once the kids were a little older. They had two girls they’d left with Ferdy’s parents on the way here, both, according to Alice, highly intelligent and exceptionally musical. Ferdy and Alice took turns telling stories about the girls, the funny things they said, the searching questions they asked, the profound utterances they made. After a while Alice asked whether we didn’t want any ourselves. I didn’t know what to say, but Sonia quickly put in that so far we hadn’t been able to. How old are you? Thirty-three. In that case you’ve got a bit of time yet, said Alice. She was pleased, even so, to have had her children so young. Ferdy laid his hand on her shoulder, and leaned right across the table as though to let us into a secret. Those girls, he said, are the best thing that could have happened to us. You can’t imagine it when you don’t have children yourself, said Alice, but it’s an incredible source of richness. Your priorities change, said Ferdy. Some things lose their significance. I wouldn’t want to raise children in Berlin, said Sonia.

Alice had a massage appointment. Ferdy asked if we fancied going to the sauna before dinner. I looked at Sonia. She said she didn’t, but there was no reason for me not to go. She’d meant to get on with some work anyway.

You’re still in pretty good shape, said Ferdy in the changing room, and he smacked his spare tire with his bare hand, I’ve put on some weight. Alice is a fabulous cook.

We had the sauna all to ourselves. Ferdy asked how business was, and I said we couldn’t complain. Berlin is an El Dorado, he said, if you’re half-presentable, then you can earn yourself a golden nose. He and his firm specialized in the construction of office buildings, maybe not the most thrilling things to build, but incredibly well paid. His clients thought strictly short-term, he said, buildings needed to be amortized within three years, nobody nowadays planned any further ahead than that. Good design was okay, but the critical factors were being on time and not going over budget.

He talked about the new type of contract where the price was set before the planning began. That way, if you kept costs down, you could make a hefty profit. The magic formula was guaranteed maximum price, and he got up to splash on some more water.

While we rested after the first round, he said Sonia was looking pretty good too. But she was never his cup of tea, too controlled, too cool. What did I think of Alice? I said nothing. She was still great in the sack, said Ferdy. Then he told me about a young woman journalist who had done an interview with him not long ago, and afterward gone for a meal with him. Then over dessert she said, what’s the point of sitting around here, why don’t you come back to my place and we’ll screw. He laughed deafeningly. That’s what young women are like these days. He had sat up and was rocking back and forth like a maniac. Everything about him, his way of talking and moving, had something driven about it, restless, that I disliked. After the second go-round in the sauna, I said I’d had enough, and we’d see each other at dinner.

I didn’t go upstairs to the room, I went outside. I stood in the darkness in front of the hotel and smoked a cigarillo, and asked myself what the difference was between Ferdy and me. I was driven too, and maybe even more than he was. He had bedded the journalist as if it meant nothing, the two of them had enjoyed a couple of pleasurable hours, and that was it. No hard feelings, as Ferdy said. If anyone had behaved like a son of a bitch, then surely it was me. And yet my relationship with Ivona seemed less contemptible to me than Ferdy’s casual fuck. It was as though Ivona’s love and anguish did something to ennoble me, and give our relationship a seriousness that Ferdy’s infidelity lacked.

Do you ever hear from Rüdiger? Ferdy asked over dinner. I shook my head, and was pretty dumbfounded when Sonia said yes, she sometimes talked to him on the phone. What’s he up to? He’s working in a think tank in Switzerland, said Sonia, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was about. Something futurological, the private realm, or evolving forms of cohabitation. That’s so typical of him, said Ferdy, anything rather than work.

When I was in bed with Sonia later on, I asked her why she’d never told me she was in touch with Rüdiger. I was the last person who could afford to be jealous, she said. I’m not jealous, I just think it’s odd, after all, he’s my friend as well. I got the impression you didn’t like him, said Sonia. Of course I like him. Things hadn’t been easy for Rüdiger. He had fallen in love with a Swiss art student. Maybe you remember her, she was there at the New Year’s Eve party. Was that the crazy woman who was working on bread? No idea, said Sonia, I didn’t talk to her that night. Elsbeth, I said, that’s what her name was.

Rüdiger had met Elsbeth on his tour of South America; he traveled around with her for a while and then brought her back to Munich. She had applied to the Academy of Arts there, but hadn’t gotten in, so she’d gone back to Switzerland. Rüdiger followed her and lived with her in an artists’ commune in a farmhouse somewhere in the sticks. Full of people, said Sonia, who don’t know what they’re about, and who spend half the day high, and call themselves artists, without ever accomplishing anything. I’ve no idea what Rüdiger saw in the lifestyle. He never got his degree. Instead he’d tried his hand at art as well; along with Elsbeth and the others, he’d run up some socially critical installations in public space somewhere, and scrounged off his parents the whole time.

He wrote to me a couple of times, said Sonia, crazy letters, he seemed to be deliriously happy. I wrote back to warn him, but he took no notice of my alarm, and only repeated how fantastic his life was, and how free and un-tethered he felt.

Eventually Elsbeth got into harder drugs. Rüdiger gave her money, so as to stop her having to get hold of it in other ways. She promised to quit, then she disappeared for days on end, and when she returned she was stuffed full of dope. There’s this park in Zurich where a few thousand addicts live, said Sonia. I nodded, I could remember the pictures in the newspaper. Eventually Rüdiger gave up, said Sonia, I think he accepted that he couldn’t help her. He looked for an apartment and found this job in the think tank, but he’s still obsessed with her to this day. She keeps turning up on his doorstep, asking for money. I think — I hope — he doesn’t give her any. I can’t imagine what’s so spellbinding about a woman like that, and a life without responsibility and without aims. I thought I could see the attraction myself, but said nothing.

We spent another two days in the mountains. We went for walks and swam and went to the sauna. I gradually adjusted to the setting and didn’t feel as nervous as I had at the beginning. Ferdy seemed to calm down a bit as well, and started talking about other things than his money and his success. In time, Sonia and Alice got along better, and on one of our walks Sonia even raised the subject of adoption, though admittedly without going into detail. Can’t you have babies then? asked Alice. Sonia said we didn’t know, all the medical tests were fine. With Alice you just take her to bed, and bingo she’s pregnant just like that, said Ferdy. It made me wonder if he was really so keen on having kids. Alice had always wanted children, even when she was with me she had gone on about it the whole time. I thought I’d ask him about that, but in the end I didn’t. What was he going to say, anyway? In a different context he’d said you could plan a building, but not a life. Sonia had contradicted him, but presumably he was right, and hadn’t done too badly with his philosophy.

In the new year, I visited Ivona to talk about the baby. I’d had to promise Sonia to quit Ivona once and for all, and I was grimly determined to do just that. You must understand, I said, I’ve been married to Sonia for seven years, I love her. Ivona said nothing, and I was forced to remember how right at the beginning of our affair she once said she loved me. Her presence was disagreeable to me again, but I forced myself to be friendly. Did you think about it? I asked her. She said Bruno had promised to help her. I’ll help you too, I said, whether you keep the baby or not. It’s a matter of whether you’ll allow our child to be raised free of worry and in a protective environment or not. If you work the hours that you do, you’ll hardly have any time to look after it.

By now I had visited the social welfare department, where I was told parental rights were automatically with the mother, but if we drafted a joint agreement, then the child might grow up with us. Even then, however, the mother kept her rights to the child. Adoption would be a more effective method. That way the mother’s out of the picture, the social worker said.

I felt bad about taking the child from Ivona, but I was firmly convinced that it was the best for all concerned. I explained the process to her. Ivona didn’t say anything. She sat there mutely, staring at her feet. I said she had to decide, and the sooner the better. I wouldn’t see her anymore now. She was to call me when she knew what she wanted.

I didn’t tell Sonia about Ivona’s indecision. I didn’t want to alarm her, and I felt sure that Ivona would be cooperative and everything would go well. Sonia started with her customary efficiency to prepare for the child. She found a day care, and read books on parenting, and got information from the welfare office about the ins and outs of adoption. We prepared the little room under the eaves, the one that Sonia had seen from the very beginning as a nursery. We bought a cradle and Onesies in neutral colors. I had forgotten to ask Ivona whether the baby was going to be a girl or a boy, and I didn’t want to call her. We bought a dictionary of names, and agreed on a couple. If it was a boy, he would be Eric, and if it was a girl, then we would call her Sophie.

When Ivona still hadn’t gotten in touch by the end of February, I called Hartmeier and said I wanted to see him. I asked him to come to the house, hoping he would be impressed by our lifestyle. I told Sonia that Hartmeier was a friend of Ivona’s, and he ought to see what arrangements were being made for the baby.

He came along after dinner. I let him in. Sonia was standing behind me. She usually went around in pants, but tonight she was wearing a plain blue dress that made her look very beautiful and slightly fragile. Hartmeier was visibly impressed. He seemed nervous, and was uncertain in his movements and stammered when he spoke. He sat down, and for a moment no one said anything, as though we were all waiting for something to happen. I asked Hartmeier if he wanted a drink, and he asked for a glass of water. Sonia went into the kitchen to get it, and he seemed relieved, and started talking hurriedly. Ivona had had some premature contractions, and was told to stay in bed. Someone from the parish was visiting her regularly and helping with the chores. I said I’d stopped visiting Ivona, because I didn’t want to influence her decision. Sonia came back with a carafe of water and three glasses. Besides, it was probably better for both of us if we stopped seeing each other, I said. It was too difficult for my wife. Sonia filled our glasses and stood behind me. I turned to her, and took her hand. She had put on a tormented smile. Hartmeier, looking earnest, nodded.

Hartmeier stayed for probably two hours. At the beginning, he was negative, but over time he thawed a little, which was probably mainly Sonia’s doing. I’d told her we had to settle one or two logistical details. When she realized that nothing had been decided yet, she shot me a horrified glance, but other than that showed no emotion.

I shut the door after Hartmeier, and turned to Sonia to hug her, but she took a step back and looked at me furiously. And what would you have done if she’d said no? I said I was certain we’d get the baby. She hasn’t even decided yet, said Sonia. She’ll listen to him, I said. I didn’t want to alarm you. Then Sonia yelled at me, for the first time in all the years we’d known each other, to stop treating her like an idiot. She calmed down right away. If I had any faith in our relationship, she said, more calmly now, then I would have to be honest with her. However difficult. She wasn’t a baby, she could face the truth, but she couldn’t stand it if I was dishonest with her. I gave her my word. Then we opened a bottle of Prosecco and drank to the positive effect of the meeting with Hartmeier. He had promised to see what he could do with Ivona. We had talked a lot about unbroken families, and then talked about money as well. I had even shown him the latest set of accounts from the business, and some photographs of buildings we’d designed. We had spoken about the building trade, and I had suggested I might listen to a bid from his son on our next project.

And what happens to the child if you separate? he asked. I’ve forgiven Alexander, Sonia said, I’m sure nothing like that will happen again. I nodded and felt quite convinced of it myself. Even so I had a sense that Sonia and I were acting. Hartmeier said we were all sinful creatures, which made me wonder what sins he might have committed.

We spent the weekend in a mixture of euphoria and apprehension. On Monday Hartmeier called the office and said Ivona had declared that she was prepared to give the baby up for adoption. And without insisting on visiting rights? I asked. I was able to talk her out of that, he said, to begin with it will be difficult for her, but in the long run it’s better, especially for the child. From the sound of his voice I could tell that he had supported me, and even though that was to my advantage, it still annoyed me. He had allowed himself to be dazzled by our comfortable middle-class life, and betrayed Ivona, the cleaning woman, the illegal immigrant.

That evening we celebrated. We ate out in an expensive restaurant where we normally only ever took clients. I meant what I said. Sonia looked at me inquiringly. About being faithful to you. Sonia nodded impatiently, as though unwilling to hear about it. Ever since we’re getting a baby, I’ve seen babies everywhere, she said. It feels as though the whole of Munich is full of mothers and strollers and babies. That’s normal, I said. And by the way, it’s a girl.

Only now did we mention it to our parents. We told them we were adopting a baby, not that it was my baby. Apart from them, we told no one. Ivona had eight weeks’ grace after the birth to reconsider everything, and we didn’t want to talk to people about it before we were positive we would get to keep the baby.

Sophie was born on April 17. Shortly before, Hartmeier had called me and told me how Ivona envisaged the handover taking place. She wanted me to be there at the birth, and to wash the baby, and give it to her so that she might hold it. Then she would hand it to me, and me alone, and after that she didn’t want to see it again. She had bought a pair of Onesies for the baby to wear, and a little chain with a golden cross on it. I found the whole to-do theatrical if not slightly mawkish, but I had no idea how to do it any better, and I agreed. I asked who would pay for the hospital stay, and whether Ivona wouldn’t have trouble with immigration as an illegal alien. Hartmeier said there was an amnesty of at least three months following the birth, and after that everything would be reconsidered. As for the matter of costs, it wasn’t clear yet, perhaps the welfare department. I said of course I would happily pay for them myself.

On the day of the birth I got a call from the hospital, but it all happened so fast that Sophie was born before I even got there. She had been washed and put away. Ivona lay there in her room. Her greatest worry seemed to be that her plan had been frustrated. The nurse who escorted me into the ward now refused to bring us the baby. It had to get over the birth, she said, and looked at me in rather a hostile way. I said I could always come back later.

That afternoon, I was back in the hospital. The baby was in a little cart with clear plastic sides, next to Ivona’s bed. Ivona looked at it in a way I couldn’t interpret. I was about to pick it up out of the cart, but she said, no, I had to take the baby from her. She lifted the back of her bed and rang the bell. This time another nurse came, this one very friendly, who, in response to Ivona’s request, lifted the baby into her arms. Ivona waited for her to leave, and then she handed Sophie to me without a word.

It felt weird to hold my baby in my arms for the first time. Sophie was incredibly light. Her face was reddened, and looked somehow birdlike. I thought briefly about Ivona’s appearance, and of the fact that Sophie had some of her genes too, but then I felt ashamed. Anyway, I thought, all babies are ugly. For the most part, Sophie struck me as a completely independent being from the outset, a creature that might be biologically descended from Ivona and me but that really had very little to do with us. I thought I ought to say something. I’ll look after her, I said. I promise.

Sophie started bawling. What’s the matter with her? I asked. Ivona said nothing, maybe she wanted to demonstrate that I was responsible for the baby from now on. I went out into the corridor and looked for a nurse. She picked Sophie up and sniffed her bottom. Your first? she asked, and when I nodded, she said in that case she’d help me. After we changed Sophie’s diapers, the nurse put her in one of the little cribs. I went back to Ivona’s room, but she wasn’t there. In the office I was told she was just having a checkup, she had said I could take the child. Those were her words, said the head nurse, looking indignant.

A midwife came along and told me a thousand and one things I needed to know, most of which I forgot immediately, and handed me a cardboard box with samples of baby care products and formula.

On the drive home I thought about Ivona. I wondered what feelings she had for Sophie. I was firmly convinced that we had decided on the best solution, but I was afraid Ivona would think I had stolen her baby. I would have liked to talk about it with her, I sort of wanted her blessing, but that was probably asking for too much.

Throughout the drive, Sophie had stayed absolutely silent. When I parked, I saw that she had fallen asleep. I lifted her out of the car in her baby seat and carried her into the house. Sonia must have heard the car pull in, because she opened the door, and after a quick look at the baby, led the way up the stairs to the nursery. Then she stopped, not knowing what to do. I put the baby seat on the ground and squatted down next to it. Look, I said, here’s our baby. Sonia came closer and asked whether everything was okay. Couldn’t be better, I said. Sonia sat down next to me cross-legged and started to cry. After a while, she asked, what do we do now? I don’t know. Wait for her to wake up. For the first time, Sonia looked at the baby closely. She stroked the back of its hand with one finger. Black hair, she said, I always wanted to have black hair when I was little. Like the American Indians. Like Nscho-tschi, I said. No, said Sonia, I wanted to be Winnetou, not the girl. She turned to me and asked what effect Sophie would have on our life together. I don’t know. Come on, she said, let’s have a cup of coffee first.

We were still sitting over our coffee when Sophie started to yell, and I raced upstairs, as though there wasn’t a second to lose. Bring her down, Sonia called after me, she’s sure to be hungry. When I came back, she was already preparing a bottle of formula. She tested the temperature with the back of her hand and settled down on the sofa. Give her to me, she said, and opened her blouse and bared her breast. Sophie moved her mouth here and there questingly, until she got Sonia’s nipple in it, and started sucking greedily. I looked at Sonia, but she was concentrated entirely on the baby. When it took its head off the breast for a moment, she gave the baby the bottle. Only now did she look at me. She must have caught my puzzled expression. She said she had been to the lactation consultant, and had learned that even adoptive mothers can breast-feed their children. Usually the milk wasn’t enough, but it was worth it just the same. And you can do it just like that? I prepared myself, said Sonia. She had massaged her breasts every day for months, without breathing a word of it to me. The notion had something alienating, even off-putting to me. Of course it was idiotic to feel that way, but for a moment I thought Sonia wanted to take my baby away. The next day as well she set Sophie on her breast, until I asked whether she hadn’t proved her point. Sonia said it was important for the lactation. I didn’t like it when she talked about her body as if it were a machine, but I’d already noticed women tended to do that. I never got used to the sight of Sonia breast-feeding. She seemed to get a kick out of it. When I said something, she would reply, you’re just jealous. She didn’t give up until Sophie was a year old.

For the time being Sophie stayed in our bedroom. We set the crib right next to our bed, afraid we might not hear her otherwise. When she cried at night, Sonia picked her up automatically and took her out. I rolled over and fell right back to sleep.

The following morning, I paid one more visit to Ivona in the hospital. She didn’t say a word, and I didn’t say much either. I didn’t mention Sophie, only asked her how she was feeling, and when she would be able to go home, and if she had everything she needed. When I offered to support her financially, she shook her head, and turned to the wall. Then Hartmeier came in with a little bunch of flowers, and I left.

Antje looked at me silently. After a while she said she had thought it couldn’t get any worse. Is it so bad then? I asked. What do you think? Try and put yourself in her shoes. She falls in love with a man who uses her as he pleases, and ends up paying her for it too. She gets pregnant, and hopes they will now start a family together, instead of which he takes her baby away from her, and she’s left with nothing. I said I had recently heard a sentence in a film that made sense to me: you are what you love, not who loves you. I need to think about that, said Antje, and she filled up her glass. After a while, she said the sentence sounded very Catholic to her. What did I mean by it? That Ivona’s happiness didn’t depend on me. Someone in love is always to be envied, whether his love is fulfilled or not. That’s stupid, said Antje. It would mean that an unfulfilled love is just as happy as a fulfilled one. That’s not how I meant it, I said, all I meant is that it’s worse not to love than not to be loved. It sounds as though you’re trying to get off the hook. Just the opposite, I said. My guilt has nothing to do with Ivona, just as her love has nothing to do with me. That’s all too theoretical for me, said Antje. The fact remains that you’ve taken advantage of her. She furrowed her brow and looked skeptical. Somehow I still have the feeling that you haven’t played any real part in this whole business. It was you who did the damage, but somehow it’s all about Ivona. Ivona and Sonia. And Sophie, I said. I knew about Sophie, said Antje. More or less. Sonia told me about it three years ago during your crisis. She said Sophie was the daughter of your lover, but that’s not really a true description.

Basically, everything was perfect, I said, there was nothing I didn’t like about Sonia, and my life was exactly the way I wanted it. Then I saw Ivona again, and it was as though she had some power over me. I knew what harm I was doing, and that there was next to no chance that Sonia wouldn’t find out. But I had no choice, I couldn’t help myself. Antje said I was making things a bit too easy for myself. She believed in free will. Has it never happened to you, I said, that you did something, even though you knew it was wrong? That’s a part of free will too. Antje shrugged her shoulders. Maybe if you’re a kid or something.

I wondered what sort of image Sonia had of Ivona. She had never seen her, and I never talked about her either. I suppose she assumed Ivona must be superior to her in some respect, voluptuous or passionate or whatever. I had to laugh. Antje asked me what I was thinking about, and I told her. Would you like to meet the man with whom Sonia deceived you? she asked. There was a fling she had once with an old school friend I vaguely knew, I said, but she was tipsy. For her, that was extenuating circumstances, for me it only made it worse. I wanted to know who it was, until she finally told me. After that, I wished I’d never known. For a while I was completely paranoid. Every time she left the office, I thought she was on her way to him. Antje said as long as Sonia didn’t know Ivona, she could pretend she didn’t really exist. Ivona’s just a name to her. Only if Sonia were to meet her would the name acquire a face, never mind how attractive or otherwise.

Antje asked whether Sophie knew who her mother was. She doesn’t even know she’s adopted, I said, and if Sonia has her way, she never will either. You’ll see, said Antje. But one day you’ll have to tell her. I asked her how Sonia was doing. Shouldn’t you ask her yourself? If I ask her, it’s always the same, she’s fine. Antje smiled. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? She asked me if I’d ever really loved Sonia. As if it was easy to say, I said. I had to think of our wedding, and the promises we made to one another, promises I didn’t believe in at the time. I shook my head. I don’t know. Did you love Ivona then? asked Antje. I’ve got to go to bed, I said. If you like, I’ll continue tomorrow. I more or less know the rest, said Antje. I met Ivona again. Antje raised her eyebrows. Well, well. She got up and said she’d better get to sleep, there was always tomorrow. Do you need anything? I asked. Antje shook her head. Good night. I remained seated, I wasn’t tired yet. I asked myself whether Antje didn’t have a point, whether we’d have to tell Sophie that Sonia wasn’t her biological mother. It wouldn’t have been any trouble for me, if I’d had the least hope that Ivona had any feelings for the girl. But she seemed not to. Perhaps she’d denied them to herself.

Years passed after Sophie’s birth, in which I heard nothing from Ivona. To begin with, I still used to call Hartmeier from time to time and ask after her, but once he said she had stopped going to the Bible group, and he had lost contact with her. She’d become a burden on all of us, he said. The whole business with the baby and her stubborn silence. Ivona hadn’t wanted to see what terrible mistakes she had perpetrated, so they had suggested she stop coming. And some seeds, he said, fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them.

I had expected Ivona to get in touch on Sophie’s birthday, and send a gift or at the very least a card. When we heard nothing from her, I tried to call, but the number was no longer valid, and I made no further attempt to find her. Maybe she’s gone back to Poland, I thought, it would be the best thing for all of us.

It had taken us a while to adjust to Sophie. Other parents have nine months in which to get used to the idea of having a baby. Even after Sophie came to us, we still weren’t sure we would be able to keep her. Only when we got Ivona’s final release form in our hands at the end of eight weeks did we dare to see Sophie as ours, and include her in our plans and thoughts.

Even so, our initial feeling of strangeness was slow to yield. Sometimes I forgot about Sophie, and was surprised, coming home at night, to run into her with the nanny, who was looking after her for the first six months. Sonia often got home later than I did, her new role took even more getting used to than mine did. But however difficult the changes, she never talked about them, and she never let Sophie sense them either. On the contrary, she was very tender to her, and almost overprotective. She was forever putting her to her breast. And whatever Sophie managed to pick up, Sonia saw it as a potential threat, poisonous paints, sharp edges, little objects that she might swallow. Just imagine if something were to happen to her, she said. Nothing will happen to her, I said.

Sometimes I would gaze at Sophie for a long time, and seek similarities to Ivona or to me, and not find any. She’s like you, I would say to Sonia, who would laugh and say, she’s not like anyone, she’s unique. And then I would catch her watching Sophie, and I wondered what was going through her head.

At the end of six months, we left Sophie in day care. When I took her in the very first time, I felt terrible, it was as though I was setting her out in the wilderness. But she seemed happy enough to be together with other children. At night she didn’t want to come home, and she started crying when I picked her up and took her in my arms.

Sophie was a quiet, placid child, and little trouble. She had a healthy appetite, and put on weight so quickly that Sonia said she was getting fat, we had to keep an eye on her diet. Even at an early age, Sophie was capable of amusing herself. Sometimes I watched her lying on a blanket on the floor, raptly watching something, or endlessly repeating the same gesture with her hand, reaching for a toy or a stuffed animal nearby. When she was older she looked after her dolls with the devotion of a real mother. She fed them and put them to bed, and told them weird goodnight stories that she’d gotten from God knows where. When I asked her about them, she didn’t say anything. She wasn’t an unfriendly girl, but she was very wrapped up in herself, and seemed to live in a world of her own. Sometimes I had the impression that nothing of the love I felt for her was reciprocated, as though my feelings vanished into a black hole.

Sophie was slower than the other kids in everything, it was a long time before she was walking, and at the age of two she still didn’t speak a word. Birgit, Sonia’s gynecologist and Sophie’s godmother, said none of that mattered. The main thing was that she was healthy. Sonia seemed disappointed, though she would never have admitted it. She wanted Birgit to conduct some tests, but Birgit refused. Just give her time, she has her own rhythm.

Birgit and Sonia usually arranged their medical appointments at the end of the afternoon, and we would go out together afterward. Once, Birgit said Tania had written to her. She had three children with her Swiss fellow, and was living in a sort of commune with several other families on a remote farmhouse not far from Lake Constance. They strove to be self-sufficient, and the children were home-schooled. It was evident she wanted a reconciliation with her, said Birgit.

The organization had jettisoned its former nationalist views, and was now busy opposing war and the threat of Islam. Tania had written that she couldn’t very well fight for peace on earth if there was disharmony in her own backyard, and so she wanted to ask Birgit’s forgiveness.

Birgit laughed. It doesn’t matter if those people campaign for spelling reform or against animal experiments, they never change. Well, asked Sonia, will you forgive her? There’s nothing to forgive, said Birgit. She enclosed a couple of editions of a magazine that her organization puts out. The things they say seem pretty sensible at first glance. But if you read them more closely, you’ll see it’s the same blend of authoritarianism, naturopathy, and conspiracy theories. I bet you didn’t know that the twin towers in New York were blown up by the American government. If only the world were that simple! Sonia reckoned Birgit should write to Tania, what did she have to lose. But Birgit only shook her head. No, she said, I’m not getting into that. It’s wrong to support those mad systems.

I had heard of several cases of women getting pregnant after adopting children, and secretly I hoped we would have a second child. When I mentioned it to Sonia one day, she said she had been fitted with a coil. I was shocked, and said, couldn’t we at least have talked about it first? It’s not you that has to hump the weight around, said Sonia. Anyway, we’ve got a child. I said, wouldn’t it be nice if Sophie had a little brother or sister, but Sonia said we didn’t even have time to look after one properly. She seemed not to understand my consternation. Since Sophie was with us, she struck me as being more distant than before. She was often in a bad mood, critical of me, no longer jokingly as once before, but with a tetchiness I hadn’t seen in her before. Family life seemed to bore her. When we went out for a stroll on a Sunday and later sat down at a café, the three of us, there was often an awkward silence. Then Sophie would get up and start running around the café, until Sonia called her, and said, can’t you sit still for a moment? She finished her coffee silently and got up. Is it all right if we go now?

Outside it was getting dark already. Sophie was holding our hands and alternately pulling us along and letting us drag her. Sonia was still irritated. Stop it! she said, stop that nonsense! Sophie didn’t seem to hear. She carried on, then Sonia pulled her hand away and stalked off ahead of us. At home she disappeared into her office and didn’t emerge till I called her down to dinner. Then she was in a good mood again, and said she had been able to get something done. You shouldn’t be so hard on Sophie, I said. I’m not hard on her, said Sonia, but she knows exactly how to infuriate me.

During supper, Sophie kept squinting across at Sonia. She wrinkled her nose, and her expression had something cunning. After we ate, she played by herself, but she stayed close to Sonia, until Sonia asked her if she wanted to make up.

Sonia’s parents came to visit more often. They spoiled Sophie, and brought her expensive presents, but they never passed up a chance to say what a bright child Sonia had been. Sonia’s father had read up on adoption, and had turned into an impassioned opponent. He was especially influenced by the texts of a former priest who had studied to become a psychotherapist. This man insisted that adoptive parents could never replace birth parents, and shouldn’t even make the attempt. An adopted child had a right to know about its birth parents, it needed to know what they could not give him, only in that way was there any chance for the child to break free of its origins and build a good relationship with its adoptive parents.

Sonia’s father sat on the sofa, feet apart. He looked from one of us to the other, as though on the brink of saying something vastly important. Then he stared at me, and said it would be an improvement if children were fostered, and adoption given up entirely. I stood and said that was stupid. Sophie wouldn’t have to know she was adopted. Not to tell an adopted child the truth can have grave consequences, said Sonia’s father. Children usually sensed sooner or later that there was something amiss. There was the Zurwehme case, if we remembered that. He was leaning forward now, and eyeing Sonia. A murderer and rapist.

Dieter Zurwehme had been arrested following a spectacular flight a few years back, his name had been all over the papers. He was the child of a German woman and a Polish forced laborer, and given up for adoption immediately after his birth, Sonia’s father explained. At the age of eleven, he found a letter from his birth mother. Look after my little sweetheart for me. But his adoptive parents refused to tell him about his parents. From that moment on, things went downhill with him. He resisted all efforts to discipline him, and at the age of twelve committed his first assault, on a fifteen-year-old girl. I think you know the rest of the story, said Sonia’s father.

I had to laugh. Do you think Sophie’s going to grow up to be a serial killer then? What do you think we should do? Put her out? Sonia too thought her father was overdoing it. She got up and stood next to me. Her father remained quite calm, he was now sitting back again. We knew how they loved our little Sophie more than anything in the world, and that they respected our decision. He just thought we should tell her the truth as early as possible, and give her a chance to know her biological parents. Sonia’s parents didn’t know that Sophie was mine, we had told them it was an anonymous adoption, and that we had no idea who the parents were. She’s five, I said.

To give up a child for adoption is an attack on life and nature’s way, Sonia’s father said, quoting his psychotherapist-priest, having a child adopted is a form of abortion. The child is refused space in its life. The birth parents often felt as though they’d murdered their child, and were therefore at risk of suicide. There were cases where the guilt of the parents was transmitted to the children, who then proceeded to be self-destructive.

I could have slapped him. There are perfectly good reasons for giving up a child for adoption, I said, for instance there are people who aren’t as well off as you are. It was the first time I had argued for Ivona. Poverty is no excuse for emotional obtuseness, said Sonia’s father. Sophie came wandering in, and he set her on his knee, as though to protect her from us. If anyone is emotionally obtuse here, then it’s you in your stupidity, I said, you and your tidy lives. I’d like to see you get by on a thousand marks a month. Sonia’s father remained perfectly calm. They hadn’t always been so wealthy as they were now. And unlike me, he knew what it was like to be poor, really dirt poor. After the war, they didn’t know on any one day what they’d get to eat on the next, and so on and so forth. That doesn’t give you the right to condemn other people, I said. He smiled agreeably. That’s a side of you I haven’t encountered before, the socialist. I said I had to make a few calls, and disappeared into my office in the basement.

Deep down he despises me, I thought, the fact that I hadn’t managed to get his daughter pregnant, and pass his genes on to another generation. He was completely different with the children of Sonia’s sister Carla than with Sophie, not more loving or doting, perhaps even a tad stricter. But he took them seriously, stimulated and challenged them, expected things from them. With Sophie he was so indulgent, it felt almost hurtful. It’s because she’s the youngest of his grandchildren, said Sonia. And because she’s a girl. Go on then, I said, protect him too. At least from that day forth, the subject of adoption was taboo in the house.

For all my passionate opposition to Sonia’s father, the argument with him had its effect. I was more and more surprised at Ivona’s failure to get in touch. She had to know that I would never keep her daughter from her, that I would have no objection if she occasionally — under some pretext, if necessary — spent an afternoon with Sophie. The more I thought about it, the more heartless I found her behavior. When I mentioned Ivona, Sonia never said anything, though we could talk about everything else much better than we could before. Perhaps our relationship was becoming more objective, but our shared responsibility gave it a new quality. Sophie was the most challenging project we had ever taken on together. Even though she was anything but difficult as a child. She had a lot of willpower, but she didn’t use it the way other children did, with hysterics and stubbornness. When we told her she had to do what we said, she would just look at us in silence, and the minute we turned away, do whatever she wanted. Basically, we were relieved that she didn’t require much in the way of attention, and was happy so long as she was left alone and not bothered overmuch.

School admission was a bit of a problem for her. The kindergarten teacher said Sophie was still emotionally unprepared. Sonia was indignant. A few days later she brought home some forms for a Waldorf school in Schwabing. I wasn’t wild about the idea. What little I knew about Rudolf Steiner was suspect, and his notion of architecture struck me as frankly idiotic. Someone had once referred to him as an overenthusiastic village schoolmaster, and that seemed about right to me. The school syllabus didn’t convince me either. In geometry they’ll be studying Nordic weaving patterns, I said, do you know what they are? Sonia shook her head. I’m sure it’s perfectly okay. Eurythmics, I read, parts of speech expressed through movement. I looked at Sonia. It’s just the beginning, she said. At least it’s a day school, and they give them organic lunches.

We took Sophie to look at the school, and she seemed to like it. An older girl took us on a tour of the buildings, and showed us everything. She wore a T-shirt that read: I CAN DANCE MY NAME. I looked at Sonia and smirked. She motioned to me to keep quiet.

I had read up a little on Rudolf Steiner by now, and asked the headmaster a few critical questions, to which he gave evasive answers. I had the feeling he himself kept a healthy distance from the more abstruse ideas of the master. In the end we decided to send Sophie there on a trial basis.

Work was going well. We specialized in school buildings and social housing, and had plenty to do. Sonia and I were a good team in every respect. The division of labor between us was even more pronounced now, it was years since I had last designed anything. Sometimes I fished out my old papers, projects I had worked on in college, competition entries from the time we started the business. Most of it looked alarmingly banal to me. But in the drawings I still sensed something of my mood in those years, my determination to go new ways. Nothing was sacred to me then, and nothing seemed impossible. For all the limitations of the work, there was a kind of truthfulness in it, a freshness that our current designs no longer had. I could understand architects like Boullée, who eventually turned into draftsmen pure and simple, without ever craving to see one of their designs realized. It was only in the fictive world of plans and sketches that you were free to do everything the way you wanted. I started drawing in the evenings, usually oversize interiors, empty halls with dramatic light effects, sacral buildings, labyrinths, and subterranean complexes. I didn’t show Sonia my drawings, she would certainly have thought me mad, and I didn’t take them completely seriously either.

I was content. I liked driving out to building sites and talking with planners and craftsmen, and watching our plans taking shape. Sometimes Sonia said she would like bolder employers, but I think broadly speaking she was content too. The constrained means and tightly drawn parameters seemed to stimulate her creativity. I don’t think she’d have been any happier as an employee of some star architect. A couple of our interns had made the leap overseas. Heike, a young and very gifted woman from North Germany, went and joined Norman Foster in London after getting her degree. When she came back to see us, she talked about nothing but work. She lived on her own in a tiny place, had no boyfriend and no life outside the office. But while Heike talked, Sonia’s eyes began to shine, and she asked lots of questions, and wanted to know everything in exact detail. It sounds like a nun’s life to me, I said. Heike laughed. Yes, in a way that was true. You had to have a sense of vocation.

By now we had more than twenty people working for us. We had moved into new premises in a disused factory we had adapted to our needs. At the opening, I gave Sonia the Le Corbusier quote in a frame: EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT. EVERYTHING IS NEW. EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL. She hung it over her desk and said, everything is the way it’s supposed to be.

The crisis hit us later than the other offices. It began gradually. We were still drowning in work, but no new assignments were coming in. At first, it felt like a welcome respite. Sonia said now she would finally get around to thinking and reading and entering competitions again. But the bills and people’s salaries needed to be paid. I tried to the best of my ability to keep Sonia burden-free, but even so she saw how things stood in the office. We were forced to let some people go. I asked Sonia to do the firing, they were her employees, and she was more popular than me. The first desks were cleared, part of the office was sublet, and a depressed feeling settled in. For the first time, I became aware of a sort of whispering campaign. My secretary told me what was going on. People thought Sonia and I were paying ourselves too much, and treating ourselves to a luxurious standard of living. Is that what you think? Of course not, she said, I know how hard you work. We called a general meeting and put the figures on the table. After that the whispering died down, but the atmosphere didn’t improve.

The situation affected our health. Sonia got a skin rash that tormented her for several weeks, and my back started to bother me again, after years of quiet. I took to drawing late into the night. In the morning I had trouble getting up, and after a day in the office I felt tired and exhausted.

In early June the weather got very hot. I spent the whole day on a site, and the evening in a beer garden with a client. I sat on a trestle bench, and my back hurt. The beer garden was full of young and attractive people in light summer clothes who were probably going on to other restaurants and bars, or the movies or the theater. I hadn’t been out anywhere for ages, and I suddenly had the feeling I was missing out on something. I yearned for the simplicities of student life. Instead of sitting with a beautiful woman, I was with the representative of a local education bureau, discussing fire regulations and emergency exits. I was bored, and drank too much too quickly. By the time I finally finished with the client, I was drunk. I left the car in the city and took the subway home. Sonia was still up, in the living room. She put her book down and started to talk about a problem Sophie had had with one of her classmates. I said I was tired, and she complained that everything was always dumped on her. I was too exhausted to argue. Can we talk about it over the weekend, I said, and went to bed.

In the middle of the night I awoke with a terrible toothache. I looked at the alarm clock, it was just past three a.m. I took a couple of aspirins, sat down in front of the TV in the living room, and watched a rerun of a talk show that had people laying into each other in the most primitive way. I don’t remember the subject, just the ugly, contorted faces, and I thought what a thin veneer civilization is, and how easily it cracks when pain or hatred or lust take over in individuals. I switched off the TV in disgust and got a glass of water from the kitchen. The aspirins had absolutely no effect, but the cold water soothed the pain at least temporarily. I sat on the sofa, drinking a sip at a time and waiting for it to get light outside.

My dentist said I needed a root canal, and he would have to put in a post and crown. He extracted the root and created a temporary filling. He would take another look in a month’s time, and see how things were then. He prescribed a stronger analgesic, and the pain went away, but the provisional tooth was a permanent irritant. I kept probing it with my tongue, it felt quite enormous. The thought of having lost a tooth depressed me; however trivial, it felt like a memento mori to me.

On the way in to the office, I called my secretary. There were problems on a building site, the designer of the facade had ordered the wrong beams and was now claiming it was our fault, and the structure was too weak. I was short with her, and told her to call the structural engineer. Couldn’t they do anything without me, what was I paying twenty people for, if in the end everything came to me anyway. Fourteen, she said offendedly, and hung up.

My mood didn’t improve in the following days. I had a continual, ill-defined sense of being under threat that never left me, even when I drank wine after work to calm down. Sonia was working on a competition entry, she had two days in which to complete the plans, and she stayed in her office, which wasn’t unusual for her. But this time I felt abandoned and crushed. Sophie must have felt the lousy atmosphere. She kept asking for her mother, and reacted badly to everything I said. I tried to reason with her, which only made matters worse. I lost my temper, and she started screaming and rolling around on the floor like a little child. I threatened her with all kinds of punishments, but was too feeble to carry any of them out. At times I felt close to striking her. No sooner was she in bed than I felt rotten, and felt ashamed of my failure.

It was about this time that I started thinking about Ivona again. It was a warm day in early summer, Sonia was still in the office, and I had collected Sophie from school, fixed her dinner, and put her to bed. Then I sat down on the little terrace in front of the house, to smoke a cigarillo. The radio forecast rain overnight. The air felt muggy, and the clouds over the mountains had taken on a dark stormy coloration, with occasional flashes of summer lightning. Down on the lakeshore, the storm lights were blinking, even though there was no wind to speak of. Then the first gusts came, a door slammed, and our neighbor came running out of her house to gather up the toys that were scattered over the lawn.

Sophie came out and said she couldn’t sleep, she was scared of the storm. I took her inside and put her back to bed. Are you going outside again? she asked when I said good night. No, I said.

The air in the house was heavy, and it felt very quiet. I watched TV for a little while and then went upstairs to look in on Sophie. She had fallen asleep. She had kicked off the covers and was holding one of her innumerable cuddly toys in her arm. I pulled the blanket back over her and returned to the living room.

I didn’t feel tired enough to go to bed, but I was too exhausted to read or draw. I remembered that Sonia had asked about the catalog of an exhibition we’d been to together years before. I looked for it but couldn’t find it, probably it was in the office. On the bottom shelf, with the art books, were Sonia’s old photo albums. Back at the very beginning of our time she had shown me them all, pictures of her as a child and of various friends and relatives she had lost touch with and never talked about. It was as though part of her history had come to an end when the photographs were mounted. A few more albums had come along since, photos of our wedding and of Sophie’s baby years. Of late she had taken few pictures, and they were in a drawer, still in the envelope from the shop that had developed them. I doubted whether we would ever put them in an album, their occasions were too few and too diverse. I looked at the wedding album, and then the one with pictures of our trip to Marseilles, lots of medium-range shots of architecture. There were almost no people in them. I remembered walking through the city with Sonia and standing in front of a building she wanted to photograph, as a form of provocation. Get out of the way, she said laughing, I can take your picture in Munich any time I want to. But she never did. At the back of the album were the pictures I had taken of her while she was asleep. She hadn’t mounted those, even though they were the only true mementos of that trip together. I wondered whether I was in love with Sonia back then. But she was so lovely in the photographs, it seemed a silly question to ask.

I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock. I pulled out the next album. University, it said on the first page. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen these particular photographs. There were snaps of parties, excursions, and the graduation party. The pictures weren’t taken on a Rolleiflex, they were small formats, some with a flash, which made the faces look flat and the background murky. Most of them were before Sonia and I got together. We had been in different cliques, some of the people were unfamiliar to me, others I knew only by sight. I didn’t even recognize the bars where they were taken. In a few of the pictures I saw Sonia and Rüdiger together, dancing or embracing with overdone gestures and cheesy smiles for the camera. Sonia looked very young, there was something calm and cheerful in her features that I barely recognized and didn’t think she had in her. I felt a little envious of her, and envious of Rüdiger for her love. My own student years didn’t seem so happy to me. I’d had to work to earn money, and in the evenings we had sat around in bars talking about politics and the social responsibility of architecture, instead of having a good time like the others. There was one party though that I remembered. It was our last year at college, just before the exams. The caption was “Spring Awakening”; that was the theme of the party. Underneath were pictures of students in costumes, standing in front of the cameras in various configurations, probably already sensing that they were about to scatter in all different directions. I saw myself standing between Ferdy and Rüdiger with a surprised expression on my face, and another time with Ferdy and someone else whose name I didn’t remember. And there, behind me in the crowd, was Ivona. I knew her right away, even though her face in the picture was very indistinct. I knew her by her posture, her drooping shoulders, and the straggly hair in her eyes. She stood there all alone, it looked as though she had cleared a space for herself in the crowd, or the others had moved away from her. Her pupils were red dots. I had the feeling she was staring at me.

Sophie woke early and came into our bedroom, and wouldn’t leave us in peace until I got up. I told Sonia she could sleep in for a while. But don’t wake me too late, she said, turning over. Sophie seemed to have forgotten all about her tantrum yesterday. When Mathilda came running in, she picked her up and kissed and petted her. I meant to apologize to her, I had overreacted, I shouldn’t have sent her off to bed without any dinner. But as often after we had quarreled, she was so incredibly sweet and affectionate that I said nothing and simply enjoyed the peace. Come on, let’s go buy some rolls for breakfast, I said, dress warm.

It was a foggy morning, and so cold that our misty breath disappeared into the fog as if into a bigger cloud of breath. Sophie took my hand, which she didn’t do often, and we walked down the hill to the only bakery that was open early on Sundays. On the way home Sophie asked me if I liked fog. Yes, I do, I said, what about you? Me too. She asked me if I wanted to live in Marseilles. Why do you ask? She said Mama had asked her if she could imagine living there. And what did you reply? Sophie shrugged her shoulders. I said Marseilles was a beautiful city, but not to live in. Me neither, said Sophie. You’re just copying me. No, she said, we just have the same taste.

When we got home, Sonia had gotten up and was in the kitchen making breakfast. I sat down at the table and watched her cut open the rolls, take ham and cheese out of the fridge, and arrange them on a plate. She boiled some eggs and poured water into the coffee machine. She asked Sophie to set the table and asked me if I wanted some freshly squeezed orange juice. What’s the matter with you? You look as though you’d seen a ghost. I said I was still a bit tired, I’d stayed up late the night before, talking to Antje, and hadn’t been able to get to sleep after. Sonia too looked as though she hadn’t slept well. She turned quickly, and I wondered if she guessed what we’d been talking about. I thought of the question Antje had asked me after the show: whether I’d ever loved Sonia. I asked myself whether Sonia loved me. She had once likened our relationship to a house we were building together, something that wasn’t an expression of either one of us, but that came about through our joint wills. There were many rooms in this house, she said, a dining room and a bedroom, a children’s room, and a pantry for our common memories. And what about a cellar, I said, but at that she had merely laughed.

Will you look in on Antje? Sophie asked. Shouldn’t we let her sleep? I asked. But Sophie was sure Antje wanted to have breakfast with us, now that she wasn’t on her own. I don’t think being alone bothers her, I said. Don’t kid yourself about that, said Sonia. No one likes being alone. I went downstairs and knocked on the door of the guest room. Yes? called Antje, and I went in. She was on the floor, dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and leggings, doing sit-ups. Her body didn’t look like that of an almost sixty-year-old woman. I said breakfast was ready. She reached out her hand and I pulled her upright. I’m coming, she said slightly out of breath, just as soon as I’ve taken a shower. I asked her if she exercised every morning. I have a young lover, she said, with an ironic smile, I’m sure he expects me to stay in shape. How young? Half my age, she said, and she raised her eyebrows. A young savage. And? Do you love him? Antje laughed. You didn’t like that question, did you? I love him when we’re together. But I don’t miss him when he’s not there. It’s straightforward and good, the kind of thing I’ve always wanted. Is that the way he sees it? I asked. Antje smiled. I think so. He’s a different generation. We don’t try and fool each other. Her smile turned slightly wistful. One day I expect he’ll have had enough of me, and he’ll find himself someone else. I enjoy it as long as it lasts. She thought for a moment, and then she said, we laugh a lot, you know. She put her hands to her hips and pushed her top half forward, and in a sort of reflex I reached out my hand and rubbed her cropped hair. Okay, leave now, she said, otherwise I’ll have another jealous wife on my case.

That day the fog seemed not to want to break, and we sat over breakfast for a long time. Sophie was in her room, doing homework. What are your plans? Sonia asked. I asked if they wanted to be left alone, and Sonia nodded. Old memories. I didn’t believe her. She was the last person to be interested in the past. I’ll be in the office, I said, and I went downstairs.

The door to the guest room was ajar, and I stopped in the entryway, to listen to the quiet voices of the two women upstairs. Then I went in. Antje’s travel bag was wide open on the floor, the handle still with the airline tag on it with the flight number and the code for Munich. Next to it were her leggings and T-shirt, and a tattered paperback of a Simenon thriller, La chambre bleue. I reached inside the bag and pushed a few garments to the side. Underneath was a tangle of lacy underwear, a clear plastic duty-free bag, sealed, from the Marseilles airport containing a bottle of Swedish vodka, and a charger for a cell phone. At the very bottom of the bag was a sketchbook. I took it out and leafed through it. It was empty.

In the guest bathroom was Antje’s toiletry bag, overflowing with little bottles and tubes. I read the names of the products, creams and powders, tar shampoo and toothpaste for sensitive teeth and contact lens cleaner, aspirin and antacid tablets.

I went over to the window of the guest room, pulled up the blinds, and looked out into the fog, which was thicker than on previous days. Everything seemed very intensely there to me. I had the feeling that everything was possible for me just then, I could walk out of the house and never come back. It was a feeling at once liberating and frightening.

I put on a coat and went outside. The drive, which I’d swept only yesterday, was once again littered with fallen leaves. I walked down the street, slowly and aimlessly. I remembered the last time I had had this menacing feeling of freedom. It was the morning after the first night with Ivona, when I stood in front of the student hall and the birds were singing so incredibly loudly, and I had the feeling of being terribly grown up and having my life in my own hands. I felt as though I’d spent years going through a tunnel, and had finally come out the other side, and was now standing on a wide plain, able to walk in any direction.

The street stopped in a dead end. There was a big pasture there, with a couple of cows grazing on it, behind some electrified fence. When I stopped in front of the wire, one of the cows raised her head and looked briefly in my direction. She took a step toward me, then seemed to reconsider and went back to grazing. In the distance, I heard the sound of a leaf blower and some church bells striking ten.

I heard steps, and turned around. It was Antje. She came up beside me, looking at the cows. They’re not so easy to draw, you know, she said after a while, especially their rear ends. I asked her where Sonia was. Antje didn’t answer. You wanted to tell me the rest of your story, she said. Come on then, I said, and I turned around, it’s easier to talk while walking. Antje slipped her arm through mine, and we walked down the street in the direction of the city center. I told her about the beginning of the crisis. It was the first time the business wasn’t improving. Maybe that was the thing that discouraged me the most. It had been difficult before, but we always had an end in view, which we managed to reach sooner or later. Three years ago, for the first time I had the sense that things could only get worse. Presumably that’s when I started thinking about Ivona again. By chance I saw her picture in one of Sonia’s photo albums, a photograph of a party, where she was only barely recognizable.

I pulled out my wallet and showed Antje the picture. That was my objective. I had to find Ivona. I don’t know what I thought would happen if I did.

It wasn’t easy to get hold of Ivona’s address. Her name wasn’t in the phone book, and at the Polish Consulate I was told that if Ivona wasn’t registered, they wouldn’t be able to help me. The agency leasing the house where she had lived before had never heard of her, presumably she had been on a sublease then. Finally I called the Polish mission. The woman I spoke to asked me to come by.

The mission was housed in an anonymous-looking office building. I rang the bell, and a pleasant-looking woman of about fifty or so opened the door. I introduced myself, and she told me her name, which I immediately forgot, and led me to her office. Outside there had been bright June sunshine, but inside the office it was gloomy, even though the room was high-ceilinged. The woman sat down at her desk and pointed to a chair that looked as though it had been salvaged from somewhere. I was in luck, she said, it was a quiet morning. I asked after her work, and she told me about the difficulties of Poles in Germany, pathetically low wages, long hours, and all sorts of abuses. I had no idea how many Poles were living in the city. Something in the order of ten thousand, said the woman, no one quite knew. And presumably there’ll be a few more coming now, I said. We’ll have to see, she said. She didn’t think joining the EU would greatly affect the situation. The women who were working off the books wouldn’t register, so as to avoid paying any of their small wages in taxes. Most of them would probably stay, as illegals.

I had come up with a story ahead of time, but this woman here seemed well disposed and so understanding that I thought I would tell her the truth. She listened carefully while I told her what she needed to know. I’m not proud of what I’ve done, I ended. I expected her to say, yes, but it was best for the child, but she only nodded. It was probably best for the child, I said. Who knows, she said. At any rate, I’d like to get in touch with Ivona now, and tell her that Sophie’s doing well, and give her the opportunity to see her. Why now? I was unable to say. I hope it’s not just a matter of relieving your guilt, said the official, and she went over to a big gray metal filing cabinet, and pulled open a drawer. What was the surname again? I handed her Sophie’s birth certificate.

It took a while, and then she pulled a thin file out of the cabinet and opened it. She was here three years ago. Needed money for an operation. But we have no money, we can only offer advice. We gave her the name of a doctor who treats patients without visas free of charge.

There was an address in the file, she said, but she had no idea if it was still current. Ivona hadn’t given a phone number. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then she wrote the address down on a piece of paper and gave it to me.

That same day I drove out to the address, which was a building in Perlach, not far from Ivona’s previous apartment. I found a parking spot from where I could see the entrance. I waited for a while, then called the office and canceled the two appointments I had for the afternoon. The secretary asked me if I was going to be in later. I said I didn’t know.

There was hardly anyone on the street. Even though it was a big building, containing fifty or so units, no one came out for a long time, and no one went in. I started getting hotter and hotter in the car, until after half an hour or so I got out and went up to the door. The nameplates beside the buzzers had only foreign-sounding names on them, but I didn’t find Ivona’s among them.

I waited. After a while an old woman left the building, and I asked her about Ivona. Not stopping to look at me, she shook her head and scuttled off. A while later, a fat young woman pushing a stroller came down the street toward the building. She too seemed never to have heard of Ivona. She thought for a long time with a strained expression, then finally she said there were some Polish people living on the ground floor. She unlocked the door and let me in. I took a peek in the stroller. It was empty. The woman showed me the apartment and remained standing next to me after I’d rung the bell. She wasn’t suspicious so much as nosy. When a frail-looking woman of about fifty opened the door, the woman next to me said the gentleman’s looking for someone. Does Ivona live here? I asked. She’s at work, replied the woman, with a distinct accent. She was in a kimonolike wrap, even though it was two in the afternoon. Can I come in? I asked. I’m a friend of hers. I didn’t feel like discussing the whole affair in the stairwell. The fat woman stomped away up the stairs. Thank you so much, I called out after her.

The woman in the wrap showed me in and locked the door behind me. She won’t be home till the evening, she said, and pushed past me. I was pretty sure she knew who I was. She walked down a narrow, dark hallway, past a half-open door behind which I could hear voices. It took me a moment to realize that the voices were from a television. At the end of the hallway was a kitchen that was clean and tidy. The window was open, and looked out onto the back of the building, where I could hear children and the noise of a lawn mower in the distance. The woman in the wrap slumped onto a chair with a faint groan, then got up right away and asked me if I wanted something to drink. Just a glass of water, I said, please. She filled two glasses at the tap, pulled a stool from under the table for me, and sat down again with another sigh.

She said her name was Eva. She lived here with Ivona and another friend. Ivona was her cousin. She had gotten her the job at the Christian bookstore where I had first met her. We actually met in a beer garden, I contradicted her, fifteen years ago. She was always stubborn, said Eva, and laughed. I asked her what she meant by that. I warned my cousin, she said, men are the same the world over.

Eva was very different from Ivona. I would never have thought they were related. She was petite and blond. She must have been a good-looking woman when she was younger, even now she was quite attractive. She said she had been married to a German man once. The Germans like Polish women, we have more passion and more feeling than German women. We don’t try to behave like men.

My cell phone rang. I switched it off without looking at the screen. I asked how Ivona was doing. Not so good, said Eva. The family had somehow gotten wind of her pregnancy, not from her, she swore, and they had — she hesitated, seemed to search for a word — shunned Ivona. I nodded. Ivona was still sending money home, but other than that she had no contact with them anymore. She hadn’t been home for eight years. If she didn’t have me, said Eva, she wouldn’t even know that her father’s died.

Healthwise, Ivona wasn’t doing particularly well either. She had these growths. She should have had them operated on long ago, but she didn’t want to. I said I had given Ivona money for the operation. Eva shrugged her shoulders. Presumably she sent it home to Poland. That seemed to be her only goal in life, to send home as much money as she could. Half her relatives were dependent on Ivona, and yet no one liked her. She works, said Eva, she works like a crazy woman. By day she looks after a bedridden old woman, and in the evening she cleans offices.

For a while no one spoke. Then Eva said Ivona was probably still hoping that I would one day return to her. She looked at me with an inquiring, somewhat skeptical eye, as though to say: you’re surely not about to do that. I shook my head. I told her not to be stupid, said Eva, but she doesn’t listen to me. You should have told her yourself. I did tell her. Eva spread her hands. There’s nothing to be done. If she doesn’t want to listen. You can’t force a man to love you.

Each time she had talked to her cousin about me, Ivona had said, Alexander is my husband. That was all that could be gotten out of her on the subject. When she tried to introduce Ivona to other men, she said the same thing. I have a husband already.

Come with me, she said, and she took me into the room directly opposite the kitchen. It was even more jam-packed than Ivona’s earlier apartment had been. The curtains were drawn, but in spite of that it felt very warm, and everything was bathed in a reddish glow. Eva pulled open the top drawer of a small desk, got out a thick album, and opened it. On the first page, in ornate letters, was written the name “Alexander.” My name was underlined and decorated with twisting flowers that looked as though a child had drawn them. Underneath it, attached by Scotch tape, was a lock of hair. I couldn’t remember ever having given Ivona any such thing. The following pages were full of photos of me and objects and places that were connected to me and Ivona in some way. I saw the beer garden where we had first met, the sweater Ivona had knitted for me, the back room of the bookstore. Two or three of the pictures I had given her, after she had asked for them, one came from the graduation paper we had put out together at the end of our studies, a few more from architectural journals or newspapers. The articles they had come with had not been clipped, and there was nothing else written in the album either. There was one photograph I could remember well. It was of me and Sonia at the topping-out party for a school we built a few years back. We had brought Sophie along, and she was in the picture with us, though I hadn’t wanted it. Ivona had only included the part of the photo with me in it; Sonia and Sophie had been cut away. Other pages had photographs of couples from magazines, advertisements, couples sitting in front of bodies of water at sunset, crossing green meadows hand in hand, or a man and a woman, in pajamas, brushing one another’s teeth. On one of the back pages were photos of Tutzing, and our house. I haven’t even seen those, said Eva, she must have taken those very recently. Is that your house? I nodded.

We sat in the kitchen, and Eva told me about Ivona’s family. Her mother was a schoolteacher, her father a blast engineer. He had spent a lot of time abroad, working on building sites all over the world. I mean to say the Communist world, of course, said Eva, with a smile.

Ivona was an only child. Her parents were in their mid-thirties when she was born. They were both very devout, but they didn’t make a display of their beliefs, so as not to hurt their careers. Ivona was all they had, they spoiled and cosseted her. I remember how I used to envy her, said Eva. She had incredible numbers of toys, wonderful dolls that her father brought back from Africa and from the Caucasus. Each time we visited them, there was a fight. No one was allowed to touch Ivona’s toys. She threw hysterical fits if you so much as went inside her room. At school, Ivona had trouble. She wasn’t a bad pupil, but she was an outsider. So far as Eva knew, she never had any close friends. She was very quiet and stubborn. For a time, they had tried therapy. She had envied Ivona that as well, all the attention. There was always something going on. Often she was sick, she had these vague, chronic conditions that meant she missed school a lot.

Do you know the story of the man who wakes up one morning as a cockroach? asked Eva. I nodded. That was how she sometimes thought of Ivona, she said, an alien being that had imposed itself on her parents. They did everything for her, but I think somehow she always remained foreign to them. It was as though she had armor plating that no one could get through.

I asked if Ivona had been religious already back then. Not especially, said Eva, she’s far too selfish. She hesitated. No, there was a time she said she wanted to become a nun. But presumably that was just another one of her overreactions. She probably thought she’d become a saint, not an ordinary nun.

When other girls of her age started going out with boys, Ivona retreated even more into herself. She was an early developer, by the time she was twelve she already had proper breasts, and Ivona’s parents were terrified that she would get involved with somebody. She didn’t know what it was they had said to her, said Eva, but whenever a man showed up, Ivona would run away.

Eva looked at me with her clear blue eyes. Presumably she was wondering what I had managed to see in her cousin, why I had gotten involved with her, and she with me.

When she was finished with school, Ivona first did nothing at all. Eva had moved to Warsaw and started a nursing course. She only came back to Posen over the holidays, and then she would see Ivona at family reunions, but they hardly spoke. When Eva had her first proper boyfriend, she practically broke off contact with the family. She was already in Germany when she heard that Ivona was training to be a bookseller. After Ivona had qualified, Eva found her the job in Germany. Ivona’s mother had turned to her for help, once her father had lost his job and shortly after fell sick. He had joined the union, Eva said, they were difficult years in Poland. I know, I said, even though I could only dimly remember what had happened. Eva said she had organized everything for Ivona, the job, a room, she collected her at the station and introduced her to other people, Polish girls, and later men as well, good, proper men, who were looking for a partner. Ivona had accepted it all as her due, and never done anything for her. Perhaps they were just too different, perhaps they had nothing to say to each other.

At the time Ivona came to Germany, Eva had still been married. Once she had invited her cousin back to the house. Ivona was so silent that the evening was painful. After that they pretty much stopped seeing each other. Eva would occasionally call the student dorms to ask after Ivona, and sometimes they would manage to see a film together, or go to some event at the Polish mission.

I can remember the day she told me she had a boyfriend. I couldn’t believe it. I often asked myself how she met you. When was that? I asked. Eva said she no longer knew. I think it was just chance, I said. She must have seen me somewhere, and followed me. Do you believe in that? Love at first sight? Eva shook her head. That was silly, maybe if you were fourteen or something, but not to a grown woman. She read too much, and the wrong books. You were her first boyfriend. I was never her boyfriend, we met once or twice, and then I got married. Then we didn’t see each other for years. Eventually she got back in touch, because she needed money for an operation. Eva looked at me inquiringly. I said I couldn’t explain what had made me get involved with Ivona. It just happened. It was as though she had some power over me, I said, just her presence. Eva smiled, and said I didn’t owe her an apology. Men were like that. She had wondered sometimes whether Ivona really had a boyfriend at all, or whether it wasn’t some figment. Ivona had never talked about me, never even mentioned my name.

Only when she got pregnant did I believe her. She called. I asked her if she was together with the father, if they were going to get married. She answered evasively. I mustn’t tell anyone. I wonder why she even told me.

Eva visited her cousin in the hospital once, but Ivona gave her to understand she didn’t want visitors. Then after the birth she turned up at Eva’s, and pretended nothing had happened. When I asked her about the baby she gave me an absolutely terrifying look. Sophie’s living with us, I said, she’s fine. Eva nodded. That’s what I found out eventually. At first Eva feared the worst. She couldn’t say so of course, but she thought Ivona was capable of anything. As a child she was once given a cat, said Eva, a sweet little kitten. She took it everywhere with her. But in time the kitten grew bigger and more independent, and ran off when Ivona wanted to play with it. Then one day in summer it was gone. There was a great hue and cry, but the cat never turned up. Months later, when it was cold again, and we had to run the heat, one of the tenants found it starved in the coal cellar. Could it have climbed in through a window or something, and not gotten out again? I asked. There was no window, said Eva. Someone must have shut it in there, and I’m pretty sure it was Ivona. Even though she made a great fuss, and had a proper burial for it.

Eva stood and refilled our glasses. Anyway, she said, sitting down again, it’s certainly better for your daughter to grow up with you. Ivona had no time to look after her. I took out my wallet and showed her the picture of Sophie. She looked at it briefly.

Ivona had no money, her religious friends dropped her just like that, as soon as the child was born. She gestured contemptuously. Well, and then suddenly Eva was worth knowing again. It hadn’t been a particularly good time for her either, she had just gotten divorced.

Eva had helped Ivona find another job. Later on they’d moved into this apartment together, to save money, along with Małgorzata, who worked in the hospital with her. Her relationship with her cousin, though, was no closer than before. On the contrary, since they were living as roommates, Ivona remained even more aloof. Except for the people she worked with, she seemed to have no human contacts.

Małgorzata and I often cook together, but Ivona has almost all her meals alone. She comes home and disappears into her room, or she locks herself in the bathroom for hours. It’s been like that for years. Eva tapped her temple with her forefinger, and said, there’s something not quite right upstairs. You probably think I dislike her. But that’s not it at all. I’m sorry for her, but I can’t do anything to help. She’s past helping.

Eva had to go to work. I asked her if I could give her a lift somewhere, and she accepted gratefully. While I waited for her to get ready, I looked at my cell to see who had called. It was Sonia.

Nice car, said Eva, as I opened the door for her. I said it was a leased car. My husband had an Audi 100, she said proudly. She said it was probably best if she didn’t tell Ivona about my having come by, it would just excite her. I asked if there was anything I could do for Ivona. Just leave her alone, said Eva. What if she needs money for the operation? Eva said it wasn’t a matter of money. Ivona didn’t want to have the operation, because she wouldn’t be able to have children. I did the math. She’s forty-six, said Eva, and she’s still not grown up. We stopped talking.

Ivona’s wasted her life on me, I thought. For the past fifteen years she’s been chasing the specter of an impossible love. You mustn’t reproach yourself, said Eva, as though she’d read my mind, it has nothing to do with you. In her own way, Ivona is perfectly happy. She has you. She’s been in love these fifteen years. She laughed. Look at me. I had a husband, but does that mean I’m any better off now?

Here we are, she said. I stopped the car, and she got out and leaned down to say good-bye. Can I call you? I asked. She pulled a little notebook out of her purse, wrote something down, and gave me the piece of paper. That’s my cell. I wanted to give her my card, but she shook her head and said, call me if you want to hear how she’s doing.

I watched her run up the stairs with quick, youthful steps. At the top, a man held the door open for her. She turned toward him and said something, and I caught a glimpse of a beaming smile.

I sat in the car in front of the hospital, watching people go in and out, hospital workers and patients and visitors. People who might just have heard that they didn’t have long to live, and others who had been cured, at least temporarily. I had to think of Sophie. A while back she asked me why people existed. I said I didn’t know, and then she had replied in her pompous way that people were there to look after animals. Yes, perhaps you’re right, I said, why not. That’s the answer, said Sophie with her seven-year-old’s confidence. I asked myself what Ivona would have said. She had lost everything you could lose, but she knew what she was there for. She had a goal in life, no matter how unreasonable. Perhaps Eva was right, perhaps Ivona was happier than the rest of us.

I called Sonia, but only got her voice mail. In the office I was told she had already left for home. They had been trying to find me, the secretary said, I should phone home urgently.

Sonia picked up. I said I’d missed her call. She interrupted me. We’re bankrupt. Come home right away. What about Sophie? I asked. Birgit’s picking her up from school, Sonia said, she’ll bring her home later.

I felt almost a sort of relief as I drove home. For years I’d had this premonition that our business was going to fail. I had felt threatened, even though there were really no grounds for it. Now at last the tension burst, and something would change, for better or worse. But by the time I climbed out of the car, my relief was over, and I asked myself worriedly how we were going to get out of this mess.

Lechner, our tax accountant, was sitting at our dining room table in front of piles of paper. Sonia was standing in front of the French window that led out into the garden. When I walked in, she turned and looked at me. Her expression was worried and tense, as though she were thinking very hard. I wanted to sleep with her, there and then. I walked up to her and kissed her on the lips, put my arm around her shoulder, but she twisted away.

The bank has canceled our overdraft, she said, I had no idea it was that bad. I said I hadn’t wanted her to get worried. If we’d gotten the job in Halle, we’d have been all right. Sonia asked how long we’d known about it. Lechner stood up, with the last year’s accounts in his hand. It had been in the cards for a while. Liquidity was the least of it. Our outgoings were too high, there were too many people on the payroll. Insurance contributions hadn’t been paid for the last three months. You’ll be lucky if you’re not taken to court. What about the firm? asked Sonia. Does that mean we’re finished? If we apply for Chapter Six bankruptcy, Lechner said, then an administrator will come in, and he will decide what happens. Probably all current projects will be halted, and the employees will be let go, and the furniture sold. A liquidation wouldn’t realize much, there were just a few desks and computers. Perhaps the administrator would allow the firm to struggle on. That would mean damned hard work for the next three years or so.

Sonia went over to the table and collapsed onto a chair. Distractedly, she picked up a sheaf of papers, looked at them briefly, and dropped them again. I don’t understand, she said, I don’t understand, how come no one told me anything?

Lechner didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said there was another thing too. He paused. As directors, you are personally liable for losses. Sonia groaned. We should have formed a limited liability company, I said. I know, she said, it’s my fault. It’s not a matter of blame, I said. He would do all in his power to see that we could keep our house, Lechner said. Sooner or later we would have to have an asset sale, but that might not be for another couple of years. We were safe until then. We may as well shoot ourselves right now, said Sonia. Lechner pretended he hadn’t heard. The best thing is you try and find a job as quickly as possible. Try and see it as an opportunity. Opportunity? said Sonia.

After Lechner left, we sat there in silence for a long time. Sonia was on the sofa, drinking her second gin and tonic. I walked back and forth, flicking through the paper on the table, not really knowing what I was doing. Then I sat down on the sofa next to Sonia. She suddenly jumped to her feet. She picked up the telephone, started dialing, and went into the kitchen, shutting the sliding door after her. I heard her say something. It was French, but I didn’t know what it meant.

I went out onto the terrace to smoke. A few minutes later, Sonia emerged. She said she’d talked to Albert. He had work for her, nothing wonderful, but better than nothing. I looked at her in bewilderment. Lechner said we should try and find a job, she said. I won’t find anything here the way things are. Anyway I don’t want to go knocking on the doors of our competitors. How do you think this is going to work? I asked. What am I going to do? You finish your project, she said, and then we’ll see. What about Sophie? Sonia thought for a moment. It’s better that she stay here. It wouldn’t be easy for her to switch to a French school. And who’s going to look after her? Maybe you could do something too for once, Sonia said crossly, I’m not going away for the fun of it. We’re ruined. We’ve lost our company, and the greater part of our retirement, and the house is being auctioned off. I told her not to exaggerate the situation. You and your wretched optimism, she said bitterly, if you’d started worrying a bit sooner, we wouldn’t be insolvent now. You always told me not to bother you with the numbers. Sonia groaned. She had to call her parents and break it to them somehow. That was almost worse than the glee of our competitors. She came up to me, threw her arms around me, and burrowed her head into my chest. Oh, it’s all so awful, what are we going to do? I don’t know, I said. It’s only six months, she said. Albert is building a barracks, and can use some help in the building. I asked her if there’d been anything between them, back then. That was fifteen years ago. Is that your biggest concern? Surely you’ll be able to remember if you slept with him or not, I said. No, I did not sleep with him, said Sonia. I wouldn’t mind if you had, I said. I did not sleep with him, Sonia repeated. Would you like it in writing?

At about nine, Birgit came, bringing Sophie. They had eaten at McDonald’s, a first for Sophie. Sonia always refused to take her there. Birgit smiled provocatively as Sophie gave us her enthusiastic report. Did you have to do that? Sonia said, but she didn’t really care. Now run upstairs and get into your pajamas. Can I get you a drink? I asked Birgit, after Sophie had gone. One like that, she said, pointing at my beer. And how is it? Is it as bad as it sounded? Worse, said Sonia. Do you want me to give you something to calm you down? asked Birgit. Sonia shook her head. She said she would put Sophie to bed, and she disappeared up the stairs.

I told Birgit about the situation of the company. She listened and asked one or two precise questions, it was as though she was making a diagnosis. But when I looked at her questioningly, she simply shrugged her shoulders. You’ll be fine, I said, people will always get sick. But what if they stop wanting new buildings. They’ll start again, said Birgit. Sure they will, I said. The only question is whether we’ll still have our company when they do. Well, if you don’t, you just start another one. It’s only money. Even when we were roommates, I had the feeling you didn’t like me, I said. Birgit raised her eyebrows, thought briefly, and said, no, that’s true. Why not? I asked. I think it was because I thought Sonia was too good for you. I suppose I was jealous. The men who hung around her, first Rüdiger, well, he was all right, and then you, and I don’t know who else. And then you wanted to share our place with us. As long as it was just us girls, it was all much nicer. Maybe I really wasn’t good enough for Sonia, I said. It’s not your fault, said Birgit, you’re not the only people in trouble. But for me, Sonia would have had more of a career, I said. She wanted to go abroad and work in a big architecture company. She knew what she was getting with you, said Birgit.

I stood by the window and looked out. There was a thin rim of color in the sky, but the ground was all dark. If there was someone standing outside, I wouldn’t be able to see them, I thought, even if they were just a few yards away. I pictured Ivona with her camera, creeping around our house. We didn’t have curtains in the windows, it would be terribly easy to snoop on us.

Sonia didn’t come down. When Birgit was leaving, I said I would get her, but Birgit said, leave her be, she’s probably lying down. I brought her to the door, and we said good-bye. It’ll be all right, she said, and gave me a wink. I was shattered, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I sat in the living room into the small hours, thinking about what had gone wrong and what mistakes I’d made and how I could have averted our insolvency. I thought of breaking up the company, and about having to tell the employees, and that our colleagues would hear about it, and our creditors would come with their reproaches and demands. I had opened a bottle of wine, and the more I drank, the more confused my thoughts became. I was disappointed in Sonia. Of course she was right, there wouldn’t be any work in Munich, while I had to stay here, because I had a school building to finish in Lower Bavaria. All the same, I thought her running away was a cowardly thing to do. I would face the consequences, while she would be far away on the Med, building a barracks with her Albert, and God knows what else besides. I couldn’t imagine getting through all that, and looking after Sophie at the same time. My thoughts went around and around, my eyes were almost falling shut with fatigue, but I was so scared of the day ahead I didn’t want to go to bed.

The following months were the worst in my life. The only way I managed to get through them was by doing what I had to do one day at a time. Two weeks after our conversation, Sonia left for Marseilles. The company was put into temporary administration, and every other day the administrator came along, wanting to know this or that. She had called a company meeting right at the start, and made it clear to me that I no longer counted for anything in the firm. She sat at my desk and rummaged through my papers and began sacking people, and cutting costs wherever she could. I had to ask her for every little thing. At least she was trying not to have to shut the company down entirely. Even so, the atmosphere was terrible. There were always two or three employees standing around the coffee machine whispering, only to fall silent when I went by. I could feel their stares when my back was turned, and their hostility, as if it was my fault that the construction industry wasn’t doing well.

The administrator tried to cheer me up. In America, bankruptcy wasn’t dishonorable at all, on the contrary it was proof that you had taken a chance, had had a go at something. This isn’t America, I said. She said I should try and hustle for orders, anything that brought in money, even if it was just licking envelopes. I called Ferdy. I hadn’t heard from him in ages, and it was embarrassing to approach him for work, but I didn’t have any option. He said he was sorry but he couldn’t do anything for me, he would be lucky to get through himself. Come and see us, it would be nice to meet your little girl. I asked how Alice was doing, and we talked on a bit in a desultory way, but the old intimacy couldn’t be restored, my begging mission came between us, and I felt vaguely despised. Chin up, said Ferdy, with a show of cheerfulness, as we said good-bye.

The administrator canceled the contract on my leased car and got me a new, smaller one, a white Opel Astra. Maybe that was the single worst thing of all. Not that I cared that much about cars, but every time I parked the Astra next to her Mercedes, I felt my failure anew.

As soon as she was gone, I sat down at my desk, even though I felt like an impostor. I couldn’t stick it out in the office. Whenever possible, I drove out to the building site in Vilsheim. But there too I noticed how my presence was only disruptive, and a distraction to the workmen. Often I would check into a bar at four in the afternoon and sit through the time until I could collect Sophie from school. We drove home in silence. I made dinner and put her to bed, and then I fiddled around until midnight. I went to sleep for five or six hours, showered, woke Sophie, took her to school, and went to the office, where the administrator was already waiting for me.

The spite of our rivals was bearable. Some were up to their necks in trouble themselves, and avoided direct comment. The whole sector was suffering, everyone was hurting, lots of companies had already let people go. Sonia was right of course, there wouldn’t have been anything for her here. She stayed with Antje in Marseilles, and called every other day or so, but the calls were usually brief. She didn’t want to hear about the company, and we didn’t have much else to talk about. I was pleased each time Sophie took the phone out of my hand to exchange a few words with her mother.

After a month, Sonia came back for a long weekend. It was early August and the weather was beautiful. The world looked lush and peaceful. The green of the trees had already taken on the blackish hue of late summer, and the color of the water in the lake had darkened too. We strolled along the shore, watching the sailboats and looking at the lovely old villas. The kids were playing badminton in the gardens, and from somewhere you could smell the aroma of grilled meat. We read the menus of the lakeside restaurants. Sonia said prices had doubled since the introduction of the euro, we’d be better advised to stay home and eat.

On the way back, Sophie started moaning. Since Sonia’s return she had hardly spoken to her, and wouldn’t hold her hand on our walk. From the very beginning Sophie had a closer relationship with me than with Sonia, and the long separation hadn’t improved matters.

The next morning, Sonia was short-tempered and irritable. We drank wine at lunchtime, and in the afternoon, when she was tired and needed a rest, she scolded Sophie for not being quieter. She blamed me for things, and she was cynical when I tried to talk about the future. Even though she was suntanned, she seemed exhausted, and her features were harder and thinner, and there was something unattractive about her. We squabbled all day, and in bed at night we fell upon each other and made love more passionately than usual, but the sex had something desperate about it, as though we were trying to save ourselves. Stop it, said Sonia, you’re hurting me. I dropped off, and we lay there side by side, sweating and panting. Sonia said I had changed. I didn’t ask what she meant by that. For the first time in all our years together, I felt ashamed in front of her.

In those months I thought about Ivona a lot. When I went out onto the terrace late at night to smoke, I imagined her standing in the dark with her camera, watching me. The notion simultaneously excited and infuriated me. I imagined hauling her in and interrogating her. She was obdurately silent, and tried hiding the camera behind her back. So I stripped her naked, and we slept together on the sofa, or in Sonia’s and my bed. And then, still in the darkness, without her having said a single word to me, I would send her packing.

Once I called Eva’s cell, but I hung up before she could answer. I didn’t want to hear any more about Ivona’s childhood or her family or her life without me. All that bored me, just as Ivona had always bored me with her saints’ lives and schlocky TV movies whose stories she narrated, as if they’d happened to her. When I thought about being with her, it wasn’t the yearning you felt for a friend or lover, it was an almost painful desire, something uncontrollable and brutal. On nights like that I sometimes drove into Munich, and sat in the car in front of Ivona’s building for an hour, in the crazed expectation that she would sense my presence and come out. Of course she never did, and eventually I’d drive home feeling slightly sobered.

When I came back from one of those excursions, Sophie was awake. I heard her loud crying as soon as I set foot in the house. It was a long time before she would settle down, and I was so exhausted from my exaltation that I ended up yelling at her and threatened to leave again if she didn’t cut it out. The whole time I felt as though I was somehow standing outside myself, watching, disgusted by my own heartlessness. But I couldn’t help myself, and that only deepened my fury and my self-disgust.

We had deadline issues on the building site. Perhaps I’d been too optimistic in my planning, perhaps it was the builders’ fault. At our meetings I would urge them on and threaten them with breach-of-contract suits. But by now everyone knew about the moribund state of the business, and when I swore at them, they avoided eye contact and scribbled on pieces of paper. July had been rainy, which contributed to some of the delays. In August the weather improved, and finally things got going on site. But in the middle of the month the plumbers’ foreman fell from a scaffold and was badly hurt. When I got to the site, he had already been taken away. The workers were standing around, talking. No one could explain to me what happened, everyone had just heard a cry and then the sound of the impact. The scaffolding was solid, that was checked up on right away. So what was it? I asked. They said he had been an approachable guy. The ambulance men had carried him away on a gurney. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, I said. They looked daggers at me and went back to work. The next day we learned that the plumber had broken four vertebrae in his spine. The spinal cord wasn’t affected, but he would be gone for at least a couple of months. At least it was no problem finding someone else in the current climate.

I started drinking more heavily. I spent a long time over lunch, drinking beer and sometimes wine, until I felt tired, and work was out of the question. I knew it was stupid, but I thought alcohol helped me relax. After I’d had a few, the situation didn’t seem so hopeless, and my mood brightened a bit. After hours I continued. Once, when I was driving Sophie home, I missed a set of lights and almost hit another car. After that I stopped drinking in the daytime, but more than made up for it at night. Soon I couldn’t go to sleep without alcohol.

Once in that time Rüdiger called. He wanted to talk to Sonia, and when I told him she wasn’t there, he agreed to talk to me. Sonia’s in Marseilles, I said. Rüdiger said he was in Munich, if I’d care to have a beer. I didn’t really feel like seeing anyone, but I’d long intended to quiz him about Sonia, so I said okay.

We arranged to meet in a beer garden, but when we met, it was so cold outside that we went to a bar around the corner instead. The place was almost deserted, the air stank of stale smoke and chemical cleaner, but Rüdiger seemed not to notice and sat down at the nearest table. He was looking good and seemed relaxed. He had heard about our troubles, and he must have been able to tell from my appearance how badly I was doing, but he didn’t let on. He talked about Switzerland, where he felt very settled now, and his institute outside Zurich, high over the lake. A little paradise, he said, and — not that I asked him about it — promptly started talking about his job. He talked about spontaneous networks and people who had a sort of entrepreneurial approach to their lives, and kept asking themselves, okay, what are my strengths, my preferences, my assumptions? What am I making of them all? Where am I going, and how will I get there? That’s where the future is, EGO plc. And what if EGO plc goes bust? I asked. Sure, there are some losers, said Rüdiger. The way things are looking now, we’re headed for a new class society, where two-thirds of society will have to work more and more to carry the social burden of the remaining third, which can’t find a niche in the new world of work. I said, that doesn’t sound too good. I’m not here to judge, beamed Rüdiger.

And apart from that, how are you doing? Are you still with Elsbeth? Rüdiger creased his brow, as if trying to remember. No, he finally said, that’s over now. He hadn’t heard from her in ages. I remember seeing her once at one of your parties, I said, I thought back then that she was a bit loopy. She was working on some project that involved bread. Rüdiger laughed. Her father was a baker, that’s what that was about. For a time she made sculptures out of chewed-up bread that looked like those pastry cutouts we used to make at school. Her tragedy was, she didn’t have anything to express. Having a thousand ideas in your head didn’t help either.

He shook his head, as though he couldn’t quite believe he’d ever been in love with Elsbeth. He hadn’t found the ideal woman yet. Maybe you’re asking too much, I said. The ideal woman doesn’t exist. Either they’re too young, he said, or they’re divorced with kids. For a time I was with a teacher who had two sweet little girls, but I want my own kids, and she said she didn’t want another pregnancy. The joys of bachelor life, eh, I said. Ach no, said Rüdiger, I’m fed up having to look and chase all the time. I’d like to be able to sit at home and watch a soccer match on the television and be content.

I’d ordered my fifth pint by now, while Rüdiger was still on his first. I interrupted him in the middle of a sentence, and said I had to go to the restroom. As I washed my hands, I looked in the mirror and thought I still looked pretty good, not like a loser or an alkie, just a bit tired. I’d had bad luck. One day I’d get back on track, I was still young, everything was possible.

Back at the table, we sat and faced each other in silence awhile. The place had filled up, and Rüdiger nodded at the corner where a lone woman was sitting, reading a book. Do you remember how we picked up that Polish girl, he said. She reminds me a bit of her. Say, did you and she ever have a thing together?

I didn’t answer. I wondered how to begin. Finally I asked Rüdiger if he believed Sonia loved me. He looked at me in surprise. How do you mean? If she loves me. Sure, said Rüdiger. Why did you and she break up then? Rüdiger laughed, then coughed. Beats me, it’s a really long time ago. Which of you wanted to break up then? I think it was me, Rüdiger said slowly. How could you leave such a perfect woman? Now Rüdiger started to look worried. Have you got problems? I don’t mean with the company. Did you love her? I asked him. I like her an awful lot, said Rüdiger, she’s absolutely perfect, a wonderful human being. He smiled encouragingly. You’ll get through it, don’t you worry. The building industry will recover, you’ll see.

I was sure he wouldn’t say anything more about his relationship with Sonia, either out of loyalty or because he really couldn’t remember. I said I had to go. Next time we’ll all meet up, yeah? said Rüdiger.

As we left the bar, Rüdiger tapped me on the shoulder. Look, he whispered. A man was standing by the table of the woman with the book. He was talking insistently to her, and she was smiling shyly. Rüdiger walked past me and held the door open. The next story, he said.

I had brought Sophie to my in-laws just ahead of the meeting with Rüdiger. It was just after ten when I rang their bell. Sonia’s mother suggested I should leave Sophie with them overnight. I said I wanted to take her home. Don’t you think we should let her sleep? I’ll carry her into the car, I said, she can go on sleeping there. Have you been drinking? asked Sonia’s mother. Not much, I said, just a little bit. Sonia’s father emerged from the living room, newspaper in hand. He too suggested I should leave Sophie with them overnight. He could drive her to school tomorrow morning. I didn’t want any more arguing, so I climbed up the stairs and got Sophie. She was half-asleep as I carried her down the stairs. She was clutching my neck and pressing her head into my shoulder, and I had a sense — I don’t know why — of liberating a prisoner. Sonia’s parents were standing at the foot of the stairs, with serious expressions. I hope to God you know what you’re doing, said Sonia’s father.

The house looked terrible. To save money I’d told the cleaning woman to stop coming, but I had neither the time nor the energy to look after the place myself. Often I didn’t have any clean clothes left, or I had to wear my shirts unironed. The freezer was full of frozen meals. Sophie didn’t seem to mind the microwaved junk, in fact she liked it, at school the food was terribly healthy, and she hardly ever had meat. In fact she was very well behaved throughout the whole ordeal, playing quietly with her dolls when I had to work and going to bed without making a fuss. When I woke up in the morning, I would often find her lying beside me, and it would take me a long time to wake her up, hardly being able to crawl out of bed myself. Sometimes I went back to sleep, and then she was late for school and I was late for work.

I could feel my body disintegrating. The stress, the alcohol, the smoking, were all taking it out of me. One morning when I was sitting on the toilet, I noticed my bare feet, and I thought I’d never seen them before, they were the feet of an old man, the veins shimmering blue through the pitifully thin skin. This is how it’s going to be from now on, I thought, my body will disintegrate, piece by piece will fail. I felt weak and incapable, and without the strength to pull myself together. Even though the state of the business, objectively, wasn’t all that bad anymore. While I had let myself be incapacitated by my self-pity, the young architects who were working for us had hustled for work and managed to land a few minor contracts. Just carry on like this and we’ll pull through, said the administrator. She talked about it as though it were her firm, which in a sense I suppose it was. We need to convince the creditors that we’ll make it, she said. We’ll draw up an insolvency plan, you pay down a mutually agreed portion of the debt, and in three years you’ll be in the clear, able to start afresh. I said I wasn’t sure I had the energy for that. She said you’ve got no choice. Where I should have been grateful to her, I hated her for her cheery optimism.

I had sworn to Sophie by all that was sacred never to leave her alone again at home, but one night I did it again. Although it was mid-September already, it had been hot for days, and I felt a weird disquiet, a hard-to-describe excitement. I called Antje, but there was no one home, and Sonia didn’t pick up when I called her cell either. I worked and I drank, and every half an hour I tried Marseilles. Finally, at eleven o’clock, Antje answered. She said Sonia was already asleep. Half an hour ago there was no one home, and now she’s already asleep? Antje said people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I said I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then think about it, and call back in the office tomorrow. Good night. She hung up before I could reply.

I was quite sure that Sonia wasn’t home, that she had a lover, and that Antje was protecting her. I tried her once again on her cell, but once again I was put straight through to the voice mail.

I stepped outside and lit a cigarillo. It was a warm night, and I thought about my student summers, when we stayed up until morning and only went home when the birds started singing, drunk but clear-headed and full of expectation. The house felt like a prison to me, a stifling cell I was locked up in, while life rampaged outside, and all Munich — my competitors, my creditors, and even the workmen on my building site — celebrated. It would take years for the business to clear its debts, years in which we’d have to tighten our belts, maybe live in some cheap hole somewhere.

More or less instinctively, I got into the car and drove off. Sophie had a sound sleep, and I didn’t mean to be gone for long. I had had a fair bit to drink, but I felt in control of the car. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads, and I got through easily. Half an hour later, I was parked in front of Ivona’s building. Maybe she was still at work, and I could pick her up and take her for a spin, or just bang her on the back seat. Then I’d be able to sleep, at long last sleep quietly. I switched on the radio, listened to music, and smoked. After a bit, I opened the window and turned off the radio, to listen to the city and the sounds of the night. Gradually I sobered up. I had already decided to drive home when the phone rang. It was Sonia. Sounding incandescent with fury, she asked me where I was. In the car, I said. Are you crazy? Who’s looking after Sophie? She’s asleep, I said. Now that I was speaking, I felt tipsy again. I said I was just on my way home. Sonia said I was a fool. And where were you hanging around? I asked.

When I got home, the next-door neighbor was in the sitting room. She had a key, and Sonia had called her and asked her to keep an eye on Sophie until I got home. She looked sleepy and didn’t have much to say, just that everything was fine. Of course everything’s fine, I don’t know what’s gotten into Sonia. The neighbor said nothing. Well, good night then, I said, thanks. I know you’re having a hard time of it, she said, but you need to pull yourself together. Imagine if something had happened. I walked over to the door to usher her out. If you want to talk, she said. No, I said, I don’t want to talk. Good night.

The following day Sonia’s mother called me in the office and said they would be happy to look after Sophie for a while. Has Sonia talked to you? She hesitated, then said it would surely make things simpler for me now, when I had so much on my mind. I wondered whether Sonia had told her what happened. She sounded perfectly calm and neutral. She has to go to school, I said. My husband can drive her, said Sonia’s mother, he’s happy to do that for you. I didn’t say anything. You can see her whenever you want, she said. It sounded as though she was depriving me of custody. I still didn’t say anything. I’m sure it’s best for her, she said. I said I had to talk to Sophie about it. Then we’ll come by tonight and collect her, she said.

I asked Sophie how she’d like to spend a couple of days with Granny and Grandpa. Your daddy’s got lots of work to do, Sonia’s mother said, when they came around that evening. She promised her a doll that could make pee-pee. And they would go out on a boat on the lake, and she’d baked a cake, a chocolate cake. You don’t have to talk to her as if she’s a moron, I said. I promised Sophie I’d look in on her every day. I felt like a traitor.

I imagined everything would be easier without Sophie, but it turned out to be the opposite. I started drinking even more, and started looking clearly ravaged. After work I stopped by my in-laws’, played a bit with Sophie, then I drove into the city and back to the office, to work some more. When I couldn’t go on, I went to a bar where I could be sure of not meeting anyone I knew. I got into conversation with all kinds of people, listened to the life stories of men I would have crossed the street to avoid only months before. And more and more often I told my own story, and got bits of advice back. Just leave them, urged someone who had deserted his own family many years ago. Since then he’d only done the bare minimum of work, so they couldn’t take anything from him. Another man told me he’d been married to a Polish woman too. I’m not married. Then marry her, he said. I said I am married, and he gestured dismissively. Women are all the same. Sometimes women accosted me and wanted me to go home with them. When one wouldn’t give up, I said I didn’t pay for sex. Then what’s this about, she asked, pointing to my wedding ring.

That time in my life has turned into one long night, a night full of mad conversations and loud music and laughter. I talked incessantly, not caring whether anyone was listening. My story was just as interchangeable as the man or woman next to me, we all stared in the same way, clutched our glasses, ordered another round of beer or schnapps. I staggered to the toilet, which was brightly lit. Cool night air came in through the open window, and for a moment I thought I could escape, climb out the window and run away from my life, a sort of film scene. But then I went back into the bar and sat down again. The stool next to me was empty, and I could hardly remember the man who had just sat there, listening to me.

At the end of my pub crawls I often drove to Ivona’s house at dead of night and waited, I don’t know what for. I felt my life had shriveled to a single moment of expectancy. I was no longer bothered by what had happened and what would happen, I sat there in a sort of trance, staring at Ivona’s door and waiting.

One time I fell asleep in the car and only woke up when a couple of kids on their way to school banged on the windows and ran away laughing. I felt ashamed of myself when I imagined Sophie finding me in this state, but not even that could induce me to pull myself together. That day I didn’t go to the office. I went home and lay down, and when the secretary called at nine o’clock, I claimed I was sick and went straight back to bed. I woke late in the afternoon with a splitting headache that only got better when I’d drunk a beer. I called my in-laws and said I couldn’t come by today, I didn’t feel well. Sonia’s mother said that didn’t matter, she thought it was better anyway if I didn’t come every day. Sophie had settled in well with them. From then on I only visited her on weekends.

I knew things couldn’t go on this way, that I was destroying my health and my family and my company, but I didn’t have the strength of will to do anything about it. My decline felt like a huge relief, coming as it did at the end of years of strain. I imagined a life without ties and obligations. I would find a job somewhere and a small apartment, and live there on my own. At last I would have time, time in which to think and reflect. I felt calmer, often it was as though I was looking at myself from the outside — as though this was a person with whom I had nothing in common. Then everything around me became peaceful and beautiful. Sometimes I felt I was waking up in the middle of the street, I was standing somewhere and looking at a schoolyard or a building site, or some other place, and I didn’t know how long I had been standing there like that, and I had to stop and think before it came to me what I was doing and where I was going.

When I stayed late in the office, it was just to delay the onset of drinking. I sat at my desk, playing solitaire on the computer until my hand hurt with the repetitive motions. It was almost eleven when I finally left. That evening there had been an important Bundesliga match, and the bars were full of drunk soccer fans. But what I wanted was boredom, I didn’t seek distraction, my time was valuable. I found a small corner pub that didn’t have a TV and was practically deserted. I sat down at a table and ordered a beer, and started staring into space. A heavyset man was sitting at the bar, who seemed to be more or less my age, and who kept looking across at me. After some time, he came up to my table, glass in hand, and asked if he could join me. I nodded, and he sat opposite me and started talking right away. He had a faint accent, perhaps he was French and had learned German out of books. His sentences were long and complex, and he used quite a few obsolete words. It wasn’t altogether easy to follow his account. A woman had died, it wasn’t clear to me what the relationship between them was, but he blamed himself for her death. He seemed to be quite obsessed with the idea of guilt. More than once he asked me if I thought I was guiltless, but before I could say anything he was off again, till I stopped listening and was only nodding. I thought about his question. I had treated Ivona badly, but I couldn’t feel guilty because of that. If anyone had the right to reproach me for something, it was Sonia. But I didn’t exactly feel guilty toward her either. It seemed to me that everything had just happened to me, and I was as little to blame for it as Sonia or Ivona. I wasn’t a monster, I was no better and no worse than anyone else. The whole question of blame seemed absurd to me, but in spite of that I realized that although I’d never given it much thought, it had always played a role in my life. It was as though I’d felt guilty from childhood, but not for anything specific, anything I could have done differently. Perhaps it was the aboriginal guilt of humanity. If only I could get rid of this feeling, I’d be free. This insight in my drunkenness struck me as a great wisdom, and I really had a sense of liberation.

It’s not that one’s a bad person, the Frenchman was saying, but you lose the light. He was still talking about his guilt, but he could have been talking about mine. He had treated me to a schnapps, and as soon as we’d emptied our glasses, the bartender stepped up to our table, I don’t know if he’d been given a sign or what, and refilled them, anyway I drank far too quickly, and even more than usual. When I stood to take a leak, my chair fell over behind me, and the room started to spin before my eyes. The Frenchman stopped in midsentence, and when I came back continued at exactly the same place. He was talking about the most difficult things with a wild merriment like a madman, or someone with nothing left to lose. The more I drank, the easier I found him to follow. His thoughts seemed to have a compelling logic and beauty. It’s too late, he said at last, and sighed deeply. It will always be too late. Just as well. Then he got up and left me at my table, in my darkness. I called the bartender and ordered a beer, but he refused to give me any more. You’d better go home now, he said, I’ll call you a cab. If I hadn’t been so drunk, I’d probably have gotten into an argument with him, but I just pulled out my wallet and asked what I owed. Nothing, said the bartender, the gentleman’s already paid. So I am home free, I thought, and had to laugh. The bartender grabbed my arm to support me, but I shook him off and tottered out the door. I’m free.

I sat in the taxi, and was surprised that it didn’t drive off. Only then did I appreciate that the driver was talking to me, he needed to know where to take me. I was tired and felt sick. I looked in my wallet, and saw I was almost out of money. Without thinking about it, I told him Ivona’s address.

It wasn’t a long drive, or maybe I passed out. Anyway, the driver tapped me on the shoulder, saying we’ve arrived. He waited for me to go to the door and pretend to fumble for a key. I turned around and saw he’d gotten out and had come after me. He asked if he could help. I said someone was just coming, he’d better go. I asked him where he was from. Poland, he said. I thought that was funny, and took a step back and would have fallen over if he hadn’t caught me. He asked me what bell to ring, and I said ground floor, left-hand side.

It was a while before Eva came to the door. She was in her robe, just like the afternoon I’d first gone round there. For a moment she looked at me in bafflement through the glass door, then she appeared to recognize me. She unlocked the door and asked the taxi driver if I’d paid him. He nodded, and said something in Polish. Eva chuckled and replied, and took me under the arm. I can still remember the bang of the lock falling shut, and then the silence and cool in the stairwell. I felt sick and had to vomit. Eva kept hold of my arm, and stroked my back with her other hand. She spoke to me as to a child. She walked me to the apartment, led me to the bathroom, and sat me down on the toilet. Then she brought in a plastic bucket and rag and disappeared. I was still dizzy, but felt clearer in my head, and finally a little better. I heard doors and murmured conversation, then Eva returned to the bathroom and said I could sleep in Ivona’s room. I stood and rinsed my mouth out with cold water. Eva had stepped up to me from behind and held me in a nurse’s secure grip. I can manage, I said.

The room was dark except for a feeble night-light. Ivona stood beside the door with lowered head. Eva handed me over to her, and she took me to the bed and helped me get undressed and lie down. The whole situation was oddly ceremonial, almost ritual.

I lay in bed and shut my eyes, but I had terrible pillow-spin, and I opened them again and stared at the ceiling to try to keep myself still. I heard noises and, turning my head, saw Ivona padding around, tidying her room. She pushed things here and there, looked at the results, and moved something else. It was hopeless, the room was so jam-packed with stuff, it was impossible to neaten. Ivona’s movements became more desultory. She picked something up, stood still for a moment, then put it back in the same place. What are you doing? I asked. My voice sounded hoarse. Ivona said nothing. She waited there, with her back to me. Come to bed, I said. She took off her robe, turned out the night-light, and settled down beside me.

I couldn’t get to sleep for a long time, and I was sure Ivona wasn’t asleep either, even though she lay there very still. I was drifting between dreaming and waking. From above I could see Ivona and me in bed, like on those old medieval tombstones I’d sometimes seen in churches, a man and a woman lying there side by side for hundreds of years, with their hands folded across their chests, eyes open, and smiling serenely. Ivona looked very beautiful. I wanted to put my arm around her, but I couldn’t move.

When I woke, I felt right away that Ivona was awake too. She lay there as though she hadn’t stirred all night. I was ashamed of what I’d done, but for the first time I didn’t feel the impulse to run away. I pressed myself against her heavy body, and buried my face in her breast, like a child in its mother’s bosom. She stroked my hair, and so we rested for a long time in bed, neither of us saying anything.

Eventually Ivona got up. She slid gently away from under me, picked her clothes off a chair, and left the room. I drifted off again, and didn’t wake till she softly touched me on the shoulder. I went into the bathroom, and she to the kitchen. I looked at my watch. It was seven o’clock.

It was quiet in the apartment. I showered and went into the kitchen, where Ivona had already started the coffee. She put out bread, margarine, sausage, and sliced cheese. There was something shy about her movements, it was as though she didn’t finish any of them. I sat down at the table. Ivona sat facing me and got up when the coffee was ready. Milk? she asked. I think it was her first word since I arrived the night before.

I didn’t feel like eating, but Ivona had an astonishing appetite, and prepared herself a few sandwiches as well, which she wrapped in clingwrap and stowed in a plastic bag. I thought we looked like an old couple who know each other so well, no one has to say anything. Ivona said she had to go to work, and I followed her out of the apartment and out of the building. The sky was clear, but it wasn’t cold. The bus stop wasn’t far. Ivona joined the line. You can go, she said, but I stayed standing next to her. After some minutes I saw the bus turn the corner at the end of the street, and it pulled up in front us. Ivona seemed to be waiting for me to say something, and for a moment I was tempted to hold her back. I said I had to get my car, I’d parked it somewhere yesterday. Before Ivona got on the bus, she kissed me on the lips and hurriedly turned away. She found a window seat, and we looked at each other through the glass. All at once I was pretty sure that Eva was right, and that Ivona’s life — poor and arduous and unspectacular as it was — had been happier than mine.

The bus had to stop a moment before it was able to enter the traffic. When it finally drove off, Ivona quickly raised her hand, waved and smiled, and then she was gone.

That afternoon was the meeting with the creditors. Sonia couldn’t be there, she had too much to do in Marseilles, and anyway she said it wouldn’t make any difference to the outcome. The administrator had worked out a plan. She promised to pay the creditors fifteen percent of what they were owed. If I close down the company, you’ll get less than five. There was something infectious about her optimism. Even so, the whole business was pretty humiliating. Whether I was to blame or not, I had cost these people an awful lot of money, and they let me feel their anger. One paper dealer was especially vociferous in his opposition to the plan. It was a relatively small sum in his case, but he got on his high horse and lit into me. I flew into a rage, and was about to reply when the administrator put her hand on my arm and whispered, don’t say anything, he just needs to let off steam. Finally there was the vote, and the plan was unanimously adopted.

I called Marseilles from in front of the court building. Sonia had been waiting. Well, she said, how did it go? We can carry on, I said. There was silence for a moment, then Sonia said she had spoken to Albert, she was coming home in December. Are you pleased? Yes, I said, I couldn’t have stuck it out much longer. I’m terribly tired.

Sonia came back a week before Christmas. I met her at the airport with a bunch of flowers. We sat down in a café in Arrivals. Do you remember meeting me here the first time? asked Sonia. I was astonished by how beautiful you were. Sonia looked down. When she raised her eyes again, I saw that they were shining. Are you crying? I asked. She said she had lit a candle for us in the cathedral in Marseilles. In that hideous cathedral down by the water? Sonia smiled and nodded. She had gone there many times in the last few months, just to sit and think. Are you going to find God in your old age? Come on, said Sonia, we’ll collect Sophie.

She laughed when she saw the car. I suppose the years of plenty are over. It’s not so bad, I said, it even has air-conditioning. Sonia said she had never liked the color of the Mercedes anyway. We didn’t talk much on the drive. I just looked across at Sonia from time to time, and then she would look at me, and smile.

Sonia’s parents were waiting for us. In the hallway was the little suitcase with Sophie’s things, and beside it a new kid’s bike, and two or three bags full of cuddly toys and other stuff that Sonia’s parents had bought Sophie in the last few weeks. Sophie was sitting in the living room watching a cartoon. When we went in, she looked up briefly, and then, without a word of greeting to either of us, said she wanted to watch the end of her film. Come on then, said Sonia’s father, and took us into his office. He adopted a formal expression, and announced he was going to buy back our house from the receivers. He had spoken to the bank and settled on a price. Carla and Sonia’s mother were in agreement. What does that mean? asked Sonia. That the mortgage is redeemed and the house won’t form part of any auction. You can continue to live there. Sooner or later you’ll come into my money anyway. He got up and said he was doing it for Sophie. And had we noticed how musical she was, we should definitely let her learn an instrument.

On the way home, Sophie told us that Grandma had promised her a kitten. If it was all right with us. Sonia said that wasn’t so easily decided, an animal wasn’t a toy, if you had one, you had to be sure to look after it every day. Could Sophie see herself doing that? I know all that, said Sophie with an irritated voice, Felicitas has a cat. And you’ll have to clean its litterbox, said Sonia. She looked over to me. I said I didn’t think it was such a good idea. No one was home during the day, and the kitten would be alone. She can always go outside, said Sophie. Let’s wait a bit, said Sonia. We’ll just go home, and then we’ll see. Sophie was offended, and wouldn’t speak till we had arrived in Tutzing.

I had cleaned the house and carted the bottles off to be recycled. When we got home, it was as though we were in a strange house. Sonia seemed to feel similarly alien. She walked through all the rooms, opening a blind here and a closet there. I was reminded of cleanser commercials, where the woman comes home unexpectedly from a trip and the man has to clean the house in a jiffy with some miracle product. Then they both walk through the rooms together, and the woman looks around in admiration and kisses the man with a knowing smile — because all that cleanliness is just due to her Mr. Clean. Looks good, said Sonia, and kissed me.

It took Sophie a few days to adjust to us. To begin with she retreated to her room and didn’t come when we called her down for mealtimes, and complained about all sorts of things. She kept whining about her cat, and when we put it off, she would burst into tears. We explained the situation to her as well as we could, but she didn’t listen, and ran back to her room where she did nothing but brood and sulk. Slowly things got better, we went on little trips, she started to talk about school, where she was very happy. Thus far, we’d always gone to our parents’ for the holidays, but this time we canceled all arrangements and stayed at home.

When Sophie was in bed, we talked about the future of the company. We were still doing sums continually, wondering where we could save more, looking at competition guidelines. It’s not going to be easy, I said. We’ll get there, said Sonia, we’ve got no choice.

The first year was a struggle. We had to bid for every little order, and work for terms we’d have scoffed at a couple of years back, but we managed to stick to the insolvency plan and make the installments. We entered contests, and by and by a few orders came in, little projects to begin with, a restoration job, a vacation home for friends of Sonia’s parents. We were working with a much smaller team, and with part-timers. I felt reminded a little of the early years after our wedding, when we were young and inexperienced, and were doing everything for the very first time. Sonia and I worked more closely together than in the years before the crisis, and our relationship acquired an intimacy it hadn’t had in a long while. We would often talk about architecture, questions of principle, and what we hoped to achieve in our own work. Everything seemed to be going well, only sometimes I had the feeling I wasn’t good enough for Sonia. She had such lofty ideals and goals that I was bound to disappoint her. She treated me with kid gloves, but at odd moments I caught her looking critically in my direction. When I asked her what she was thinking about, she laughed and shook her head.

We set aside more time for Sophie too. We joined the Parent-Teacher Association of the Waldorf school, Sonia worked for the festival committee and helped organize the twice-yearly festivities, and I drew up a plan for a new central heating system.

I stopped drinking, and for the first time in years I designed buildings again. I was much bolder than before, it was as though I had nothing left to lose. When I looked through a volume of Aldo Rossi’s designs again, I saw a sentence of his that seemed appropriate. Seek to change the world, even if only in little pieces, in order to forget what we may not have.

None of my designs was executed, but that didn’t matter, on the contrary, it kept me from having to make compromises, and allowed me to work freely and follow my own tune. I actually felt like an architect again, and that affected my work on building sites.

Sonia’s style changed, she had finally broken free of her mentors and found her own language. It sounds cynical, perhaps, but it seemed that the crisis had opened our eyes to new ways of doing things, whereas in the years of success we had barely evolved at all, and just imitated ourselves.

Sonia wrote articles for architectural journals, and was invited to conferences and finally was given a teaching job at Dessau. Then we won a contest for a social housing project in Linz. We’re back in business, said Sonia, when she broke the good news to me.

That evening we celebrated. We left Sophie with her grandparents and went to a good restaurant. Do you think we can expense this? asked Sonia. In six months our probationary period is over, I said, then we’ll be clear of debt and we can do whatever we want. I’m amazed we’ve managed this fresh start. You know the feeling of not being able to turn around, but having to go on and on in the same direction? And the awful thing about that is it has something tempting about it.

If you give in, you don’t have to struggle, said Sonia. Maybe, I said. I just couldn’t see any way out. Sonia shook her head. Giving up was always cowardly. Even if you lose in the end, it’s still better not to lose without a fight. That’s what I love you for, I said, your eternal optimism. Sonia seemed not to detect the irony in my voice. That’s not optimism, she said, as though offended by my remark, that’s attitude.

And they lived happily ever after, said Antje. Come on, I said, we’d better get back. Sonia will wonder what’s kept us. On the way home, Antje asked me what plans I had. No plans, I said. And the affair with Ivona is finished, for good? It’s over, I said. Antje looked at me skeptically. Well, let’s hope it’s over for her too, she said.

We’re back, I called out, and shut the door behind me. It was a little after twelve. Antje said she would go and pack. I went into the living room and noticed right away that there was something wrong. Sonia was standing by the window. When she turned toward me, I saw her eyes were reddened. I asked her if she was hungry, did she want me to make her something to eat? No reply. What’s the matter? I asked. Sonia’s expression had something desperate about it. She went to the sofa, and then back to the window again. With her back to me, she started speaking so softly that I could hardly make out what she said. I pretended I didn’t understand, I wanted not to understand.

What do you mean, you’re going to Marseilles? I sat down on the sofa, and Sonia came beside me, with her head in her hands. I’m not happy here, she said.

We sat side by side in silence. Once I tried to put my arm around her, but she was so stiff that I aborted my embrace and pulled my arm back. I thought about ridiculous things, that we’d have to divide up our property, that the house belonged to Sonia’s parents, what our employees would say. I thought about it all, but I felt nothing beyond confusion and a kind of terror that was neither positive nor negative. Was it Antje’s idea? Sonia seemed relieved to be able to speak at last. She said Antje knew nothing about this. It was her decision, made long ago. When she was in Marseilles, she’d realized how many possibilities she still had in her. Is it to do with Albert? Sonia shook her head. She had never felt at ease here, it wasn’t her world. But you wanted the house by the lake, I said, you wanted to live near your parents, I’d much rather have stayed in the city. Sonia laughed, but it sounded more like crying. We could have talked about all that sometime. I had the feeling we were getting along particularly well recently. That’s not what it’s about, said Sonia. You don’t need me anymore.

Antje came upstairs and said she was packed and ready. Was anyone else hungry besides her? Sonia jumped up and ran to her, and led her out of the room by the arm. After about ten minutes, she came back and sat down beside me again.

We talked, though there was no point. Sonia had given up on our relationship long ago, it was just a matter of getting me to understand her reasons and limiting the damage. The discussion went around and around in circles. I contradicted her, maybe out of cowardice, even though I knew she was right. I was reconciled to the situation, I wasn’t discontented. But contentment wasn’t what Sonia was after. Maybe things will go wrong, she said, but at least I’ll have given it a go.

After some time Antje came back upstairs and said she was hungry, and should she fix some spaghetti for us. When she got no reply, she left and came back with Sophie, who was carrying her cat in her arms and looking apprehensively at us. The two of us are going out for lunch, said Antje with a show of jolly determination. Only when the front door closed did Sonia and I continue talking.

What about Sophie? I asked. There’s always a solution, Sonia said. You must think I’m a selfish bitch. No, I said, I don’t at all. She doesn’t want to go to Marseilles. Sonia nodded, I know, maybe it’s better if she stays with you. She hesitated. We’re going to have to tell her I’m not her mother. I looked at her doubtfully. She has a right to know, said Sonia. And what if she wants to meet her mother? I asked. Well, perhaps it doesn’t have to be right away, said Sonia. She said she had felt from the start that what we were doing was wrong. Why didn’t you say anything? I asked. I was afraid to lose you, said Sonia. And now I’m losing you, I said. Sonia shook her head. She said we would stay friends. Not much would change. She hesitated. Then she asked whether I intended to move in with Ivona. I think it was the first time she said the name. No, I said, that’s over. I wanted to add that I’d never loved Ivona, that she was never any competition for Sonia, but I wasn’t sure if it was true, so I didn’t say it. Who knows, said Sonia, smiling, as if she didn’t believe me. I asked her when she wanted to leave. She said there was no hurry. We hadn’t quarreled, and there was no other man in the picture, and she had to organize everything anyway, an apartment, a job. Are we having Christmas together? I asked, and with that I suddenly broke down and wept. I didn’t know you could do that, said Sonia, and put her arm around me, and held me close. There, there, she said.

I was surprised that Sonia didn’t insist on taking Antje to the airport. Maybe she wanted to talk to Sophie while I was away, or she hoped Antje would be able to explain it to me, where she had failed. But Antje stayed off the subject and talked about other things. Only when I brought it up, she unwillingly gave me information. She said she had had no idea that Sonia wanted to leave me. On the contrary, she had the feeling that things with us were going better. That’s what I thought too, I said. Maybe she stopped fighting it, said Antje.

I asked her about Sonia’s time in Marseilles. No, said Antje, Sonia hadn’t gone out much. The evening I couldn’t catch her on the phone, she’d gone to the cinema, by herself. If there’d been an affair, she, Antje, would have known. That would make it easier, wouldn’t it? That would have been a reason at least. I asked Antje what she would do in my shoes. Let her go. You mean, she might come back to me sometime, when she’s ready? Antje said nothing. And what if I agreed to go to Marseilles? It’s too late, said Antje.

I had to think of the Frenchman I’d met when I was down in the dumps. He too had kept saying, it’s too late. It’s too late, he said, just as well. Three years ago Sonia had decided to leave me, three years she had stuck it out with me, she had gotten through the probationary period with me, always knowing she would escape me, that she would start afresh when the worst was over. I racked my memory for clues, I asked myself if there wasn’t something that would have told me. But Sonia had remained discreet. She must have been terribly lonely during that whole time.

I dropped Antje outside the departure hall. Do you mind if I don’t come in with you? I asked. She shook her head and picked up her bag off the back seat. I watched her go, striding into the terminal building. I imagined her taking a taxi in Marseilles, and coming home to an empty apartment, how she would look in the fridge, and then go and eat something in a bistro. Back home, she would switch on the TV and open a bottle of wine, or look through her mail from the last few days, maybe she had messages on her answering machine.

I imagined Sonia in a small apartment in Marseilles. She was working late, and got home tired but somehow still buzzing. Then she went out again, and met a man. I imagined the photographer that Antje had brought home with her. He sat next to Sonia in a club, she put her hand on his thigh and shouted something in his ear. The two of them laughed, it seemed to me they were making fun of me. I’m sure you’ll find someone else soon, Sonia said, you’re not a bad match. But I didn’t want to find anyone. The thought of hanging around in bars and restaurants and going on dates with women, and starting over, was pretty repugnant to me.

I thought about Ivona. I hadn’t seen her since that last night three years before, the only night we’d really spent together. I’d never called Eva, and she’d never gotten in touch with me either.

Presumably they were still both living in the same apartment. I was free to go there and see them, but what would have been the point? Sometimes I would suddenly think about Ivona, something would remind me of her, a smell, a woman on the street, sometimes I wouldn’t even know what the precise trigger was. Then I would get out Sonia’s photo album at home and look at the picture where I could just see her in the background, her out-of-focus, fingernail-sized face, the only picture I had of her. Then I would wish to possess her again, as I had never possessed a human being before or since.

I drove to the parking lot and walked across to the check-in building. Since the opening of the new airport, I’d flown from here a couple of times, but for the first time the ugliness of the building struck me, the way it was erected without the least sense of human proportions. The handful of passengers who were around at this hour seemed to disappear in the cavernous spaces. They darted nervously about, like cockroaches intimidated by the light. It was as though the building was its be-all and end-all, there only to celebrate its own size.

I sat down in a café from where you could look across the hall. At the next table were two young women with little children who hopped around on the leather seats and were fed cookies by their mothers. I listened to their conversation. They were obviously regulars here, and seemed to feel at ease in this sterile place that could have been just about anywhere in the world. Maybe they thought nothing would happen to them here.

I went to the spectators’ gallery. I had once been there with Sophie, but the airplanes hadn’t interested her, and as soon as we got there, she wanted to go home again. The only other people besides me on the terrace were a man with two children, who eyed me suspiciously. Then he turned to his children and said, she’s gone now, and one of the children, a boy of ten or so, asked, where did she go? I don’t see her. There, said the father, pointing into the air, that’s where she is. But there was nothing to be seen where he was pointing except the overcast sky. Come on, he said, and then something else that I didn’t hear.

Way below, a couple of men in blue overalls and yellow luminous vests were loading baggage into a plane. I looked at my watch. Antje’s plane was leaving in half an hour. Slowly it started getting dark, and the colored lights on the runways began to flicker in the cold air. It smelled of jet fuel. Everything, the smell, the noise, the dimming light, gave me an overpowering wanderlust, a desire to leave and never come back, to begin again somewhere, in Berlin or Austria or Switzerland. It was that mixture of trepidation and liberation that I’d only otherwise known with Ivona, and then only for moments at a time. I wasn’t happy exactly, but for the first time in a long while, I felt very light and alert, as though I’d come around after a long period of unconsciousness. I rested my back against the glass and tipped my head back and looked up at the empty sky overhead, that seemed so inexplicably beautiful.