The Gordian Knot

1

GEORG WAS DRIVING HOME. He left the highway by Aix and took a back road. From Marseille to Aix there are no tolls, from Aix to Pertuis there is a charge of five francs: that’s a pack of Gauloises.

Georg lit one. The trip to Marseille hadn’t panned out. The head of the translation agency that sent him jobs now and then had had no work for him this time. “I said I’d give you a call if anything came up. Things are a bit slow right now.” Monsieur Maurin had assumed an anxious expression-what he had said might in fact be true. It was his agency, but he lived off jobs from the aircraft factory in Toulon, the Industries Aéronautiques Mermoz. When the joint European venture for a new fighter-helicopter in which Mermoz was involved stalled, there was nothing for Monsieur Maurin to translate. Or else he had once again tried to get better terms and Mermoz was teaching him a lesson. Or the factory had made good its long-standing threat and hired its own translators.

The road rose steeply beyond Aix, and the engine stuttered. Georg broke out in a sweat. This was all he needed! He had bought the old Peugeot only three weeks ago-his parents had come to visit him from Heidelberg and given him the money. “I think you really need a car for your job,” his father had said, and dropped two thousand marks in the box on the kitchen counter in which Georg kept his money. “You know Mother and I like to help all we can. But now that I’m retired and your sister has a baby…”

Then came the questions Georg had heard a thousand times: Couldn’t he find himself a better job nearer home? Why had he left his job as a lawyer in Karlsruhe? Couldn’t he come back to Germany now that he’d broken up with Hanne? Was he going to abandon his parents in their old age? There was more to life, after all, than finding oneself. “Do you want your mother to die all alone?” Georg was ashamed, because he was happy enough for the two thousand marks, but didn’t care in the least what his father was saying.

The gas tank was almost full, and he had changed the oil and filter not too long ago, so there couldn’t be anything wrong. As he drove on, he listened to the engine the way a mother listens to the breath of a feverish child. The car wasn’t jerking anymore. But wasn’t there some kind of thumping? A grinding, crunching noise? Georg had driven the car for three weeks without experiencing any problems. Now there was that noise again.

At noon Georg parked in Pertuis, did some shopping at the market, and had a beer at a pub. It was the beginning of March; the tourists hadn’t yet arrived. The stall with herbs of Provence, honey, soap, and lavender water-swamped during the summer months by Germans and Americans until late in the afternoon-had already been taken down. In other stalls, the merchandise was being put away. The air was warm and there were heavy clouds. A gust of wind rattled the awnings. It smelled of rain.

Georg leaned against the wall near the entrance of the bar, glass in hand. He was wearing jeans, a frayed brown leather jacket over a blue sweater, and a dark cap. His posture was relaxed; from a distance he could have passed for a young farmer who had finished his business at the market and was now unwinding before lunch. Close up, his face showed hard lines on his forehead and around his mouth, a deep groove in his chin, and a nervous fatigue around the eyes. He took his cap off and ran his hand over his hair. It had gotten thin. He had aged in the last couple of years. Before, he had had a beard and could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty. Now one could see his thirty-eight years, and might perhaps guess him older.

The first raindrops fell. Georg went inside, and bumped into Maurice, Yves, Nadine, Gérard, and Catrine. They too were struggling to get by, taking on odd jobs, living off wife or girlfriend, husband or boyfriend. Gérard and Catrine were managing best: he had a small restaurant in Cucuron, and she was working in a bookstore in Aix. Outside, the rain was drumming, and as they ordered round after round of pastis, Georg began to feel better. He would make it. They would all make it. In any case, it had been two years since he had left Karlsruhe. He had survived. And he had also survived splitting up with Hanne.

As Georg drove up into the mountains bordering the valley of Durance to the north, the sun broke through. The view opened out on to a broad valley with vineyards, orchards, vegetable fields, a pond, and single farms, with the mountains of Luberon diminishing toward the south. There were a few small towns not much bigger than villages, but they all had castles, cathedrals, or the ruins of fortresses: the kind of miniature world one dreams of as a child and builds with toy blocks. Georg loved this view in the fall and winter too, when the land lies brown and smoke drifts over the fields, or rises from chimneys. Now he was enjoying the green of spring and the light of summer. The sun flashed on the pond and the greenhouses. Ansouis appeared, a defiant little town on a lonely rise. A road lined with cypress trees led to a high stone bridge and a castle. Georg drove under the bridge, turned right, and a few miles later, right again onto an overgrown gravel path. His house lay by the fields outside Cucuron.

2

GEORG AND HANNE HAD MOVED in together two years ago. His departure from Karlsruhe had been problematic: a quarrel with his boss at the law firm, recriminations and tears from Hanne’s ex-boyfriend, a fight with his parents, and a nagging fear that he was burning all his bridges. What should have been a liberating escape had almost become an all-out flight. Georg and Hanne couldn’t find work in Paris, where they had first wanted to settle down. They lived in a run-down tenement, and their relationship seemed to be at an end. Cucuron offered them a new beginning. Georg had fallen in love with the little town on a vacation, and he was hoping he would find a job in Aix or Avignon. The first few weeks were bad. But then Georg got a part-time job as a projectionist in Avignon, and they had found the house.

They were pleased that their new home lay on a southern slope, isolated, surrounded by cherry and plum trees and melon and tomato fields; they loved that their garden and balcony had sun from dawn to dusk, and that it was shady and cool beneath the balcony that ran the whole length of the second floor. There was a lot of space, with two rooms downstairs and three upstairs, and an addition to the house that Hanne could use as a studio. She sketched and painted.

They brought over their furniture and Hanne’s easel from Karlsruhe. Georg planted an herb garden, and Hanne set up her studio. When he was no longer needed at the cinema, Hanne got herself a part-time job at a printer’s. In the harvest season they both worked as field hands. In the winter Georg got his first translation jobs from Monsieur Maurin. But try as they might they couldn’t make ends meet, and she went back to Karlsruhe to stay with her parents for two months. They were wealthy, and happy to support their daughter-as long as she wasn’t in Paris or Cucuron, and as long as she wasn’t living with Georg. Two months turned into four. She only came back over Christmas, and then one more time to collect her belongings. Her new boyfriend was sitting at the wheel of the van into which she loaded the cabinet, bed, table, chair, fourteen boxes, and her easel. Hanne left Georg the two cats.

When he was twenty-five Georg had married Steffi, his high school sweetheart from Heidelberg. By thirty he was divorced, and over the next few years had various girlfriends for shorter or longer periods. At thirty-five he had met Hanne, and was convinced that she was the one for him.

He liked deliberating: about high school sweethearts marrying; lawyers in partnership; smokers and nonsmokers; doers and ponderers; natural and artificial intelligence; adjusting to circumstances or turning one’s back on them; about the right kind of life. He particularly liked theorizing about relationships: whether it was better for both parties to fall head over heels in love, or for love to develop gradually; whether relationships evolved the way they began or whether profound changes were possible; whether they demonstrated their quality by lasting or to some extent fulfilling themselves and coming to an end; whether there was such a thing in life as the right woman or the right man, or whether one simply lived different lives with different people; whether it is best for both partners to be alike or not.

In theory, Hanne was the right partner for him. She was very different. She wasn’t intellectual and abstract, but spontaneous and direct, a wonderful lover, and also stimulating and independent when it came to planning their projects. She helps me do everything I’ve always wanted to do but didn’t dare, he thought.

Now, alone with two cats in a house that was too large and too expensive, and a book project that had ground to a halt in its early phase in which he was to write the story and she to illustrate it, Georg lost his taste for theorizing. Hanne had left him in February-the coldest February any of the neighbors could recall-and Georg often had no idea where he would find the money to heat the house. There were times he would have liked to talk everything over with her, to figure out why their relationship had floundered, but she never answered his letters, and his phone had been cut off.

He made it through the rest of the winter and the following year. Perhaps he could eke out a living with the translation jobs Monsieur Maurin might send. But there was no relying on when or if these jobs would materialize. He sent out a flurry of letters, soliciting literary translations, technical translations, offering French lawyers his German legal expertise, and German newspapers reports and articles from Provence. All to no avail. That he now had more than enough leisure time didn’t help either.

In his mind there were endless feature articles, short stories, and mystery novels that he would have liked to write. But the strongest element was fear. When might Monsieur Maurin call again? Or when should I call him? Maurin had told me the day after tomorrow, but what if he has a job for me tomorrow and can’t get in touch with me? Will he give the job to someone else? Should I call him tomorrow after all?

Like all despondent people, Georg became irritable. As if the world owed him something, and he had to speak up. Sometimes he was more at odds with the world, sometimes less: less, when he had written letters to potential employers and taken them to the post office, irresistible letters; or when he had completed an assignment, had money in his pocket, and was hanging out at Gérard’s restaurant, Les Vieux Temps; or when he ran into people who were struggling as much as he was, but not giving up hope; or when there was a nice fire in the fireplace and the house smelled of the lavender he had picked in the fields and had hung from the mantle; or when he had visitors from Germany, real visitors, not just people who were using his place as a rest stop on their way to Spain; or when he had an idea for a story, or came home and his mailbox was filled with letters. No, he wasn’t always despondent and irritable. In the fall the neighbors’ cat had a litter, and Georg acquired a small black tomcat with white paws. Dopey. His other two cats were called Snow White and Sneezy. Snow White was a tomcat too, all white.

When Georg arrived home from Marseille and got out of the car, the cats rubbed against his legs. They caught plenty of mice in the fields and brought him the mice, but what they really wanted was food out of a can.

“Hi there, cats. I’m back. No work for me, I’m afraid. Not today and not tomorrow. You’re not interested? You don’t mind? Snow White, you’re a big cat, old enough to understand that without work there’s no food. As for you, Dopey, you’re a silly little kitten who doesn’t know anything yet.” Georg picked him up and went over to the mailbox. “Take a look at that, Dopey. We got a nice fat letter, sent by a nice fat publisher. What we need is for there to be a nice fat bit of news for us in that envelope.”

He unlocked the front door, which was also the kitchen door. In the refrigerator there was a half-empty can of cat food and a half-empty bottle of white wine. He fed the cats and poured himself a glass, put on some music, opened the door that led from the living room onto the terrace, and took the glass and the envelope over to the rocking chair. All the while he continued talking to the cats and to himself. Over the past year it had become a habit. “The envelope can wait a bit. It won’t run away. Have you cats ever seen an envelope running? Or an envelope that minds waiting? If there’s good news inside, then the wine should be at hand for a celebration-and if it’s bad news, as a consolation.”

Georg had read a French novel he’d liked that hadn’t yet been translated into German. A novel that had the makings of a best seller and cult book. A novel that fit perfectly in that specific publisher’s list. Georg had sent them the book and a sample translation.

Dear Herr Polger,

Thank you for your letter of… It was with great interest that we read… We are as enthusiastic as you are… indeed fits our list… we have negotiated the rights with Flavigny… As for your proposal to translate this work, we regret to inform you that our long-term relationship with our in-house translator… We are returning your manuscript… Sincerely…

“The damn bastards! They snatched my idea and sent me packing. They don’t even feel the need to pay me, or offer me another job, or at least something in the future. For two weeks I sat over that sample-two whole weeks for nothing! The damn bastards!”

He got up and gave the watering can a kick.

3

DEBTS, GEORG DELIBERATED, ARE very much like the weather: I might be driving to Marseille, leave here in bright sunshine, and arrive there in the pouring rain; on the way there’s the odd cloud over Pertuis, a thick cloud cover over Aix, and by Cabriès the first raindrops fall. On the other hand, I might be sitting here on my terrace: first the sun is shining in a clear blue sky, then a cloud or two appears, then more, then it starts drizzling, and finally it pours. In both cases it’s a matter of an hour-an hour in the car, or an hour on my terrace, and for me the result is the same whether I drive from good weather into bad, or stay where I am and the weather turns bad. The clouds look no different, and either way I get wet. And then my parents and friends warn me not to get any deeper into debt! Not that they’re wrong. Sometimes I do things that make me go deeper into debt. But all too often the debts grow into a mountain that keeps on rising. But how they grow is of no consequence to me. The result is the same.

Georg had just come home from dining at Gérard’s Les Vieux Temps. He had a tab running there, but usually paid up. When he finished a job and had some money, he’d even leave a bit extra. But how petty people could be, Georg thought angrily. He’d gone to Les Vieux Temps after receiving the disappointing letter, and Gérard had served him salmon fettuccine along with wine, coffee, and Calvados. When Gérard brought the check he didn’t refuse to put it on the tab, but he made a face and dropped a hint. Georg couldn’t let that pass. He paid up in full on the spot, and then some. Even though it was the money with which he was intending to pay his phone bill.

The following morning he began cleaning up the studio. He had ordered some firewood to be delivered in the afternoon, and he wanted to store it there. The wood was ordered and, luckily, already paid for. He couldn’t recall the foolish impulse that had led him to place the order. There was more than enough wood lying about in the woods of Cucuron.

Georg didn’t like going into the studio. The memory of Hanne was especially present and painful. Her large desk by the window, which they had assembled together and on which they had made love by way of inauguration and to test its sturdiness. The sketches for her last big oil painting hung on the wall, and the smock she had left behind was hanging on a hook. Because the boiler and the boxes of books were in the studio, he couldn’t avoid going there altogether, but he had neglected it.

He wanted to do something about the studio, but didn’t get very far. By the time he finished, the boxes of books were stacked up, there was space for the firewood, and Hanne’s smock was in the trash. But then what did he need the studio for?

A car pulled up outside, but it wasn’t the wood being delivered or the mail. It was Herbert, another German living in Pertuis, whose aim in life was to paint, but who always seemed to be kept from doing so by things coming up. They had a bottle of wine together and talked about this and that. Mostly about the latest things that had come up.

“By the way,” Herbert said as he was leaving, “can you help me out with a loan of five hundred francs? You see, there’s this gallery in Aix, and…”

“Five hundred? I’m sorry, but I don’t have that kind of money,” Georg replied with a shrug, holding up his empty hands.

“I thought we were friends!” Herbert said angrily.

“Even if you were my own brother, I couldn’t give you anything-I don’t have anything.”

“I bet you have enough to pay for the next bottle of wine and the next month’s rent. At least you could be decent enough to say you don’t want to give me the money!”

The truck delivering the firewood arrived. It was a scratched and dented pickup with an open bed, the doors of the cab missing. A man and a woman got out, both quite old. The man had only one arm.

“Where would Monsieur like us to stack the wood? It’s good wood, dry and aromatic. We collected it over there.” The man waved his one arm toward the slopes of the Luberon.

“You’re such a lying asshole!” Herbert said, got in his car, and drove off.

The old couple wouldn’t let Georg unload the wood himself. He couldn’t keep the old woman from dragging it to the edge of the truck bed, or the man from stacking it up in the studio. Georg kept hurrying with armfuls of wood from her to him.

At lunchtime he drove to Cucuron. The town is spread out over two adjacent hills, one crowned with a church, the other with the ruins of a castle. The old wall still winds around half the town, houses leaning against it. The positive feeling Georg had had many years ago when he first visited Cucuron returned whenever he went rattling through its lanes in his car, and even more whenever he set out on a half-hour walk through the fields and the town came into view-ocher-colored in the shining sun, or gray as it hid under low-hanging clouds-always stolid, cozy, reliable.

The étang lies in front of the town gate, a large, walled pond, rectangular and surrounded by old plane trees. On the narrow side facing the town lies the market and the Bar de l’Étang, with tables set up on the sidewalk from spring to fall. In the summer it’s cool, and in the fall the plane trees drop their leaves early enough so one can sit outside in the last warm rays of the sun. This place was cozy too. In the bar they served sandwiches and draft beer, and everyone Georg knew would get together here.

This time Georg found that even with his third beer contentment didn’t set in. He was still angry about Gérard and Herbert. Angry about the whole miserable situation. He drove home and took a nap. Will I end up like Herbert, or am I already there?

At four o’clock the phone woke him up. “I’m calling from Bulnakov Translation Service. Is this Monsieur Polger?”

“Yes.”

“A few weeks ago we opened a translation agency in Cadenet, and business has picked up faster than we expected. We’re looking for translators, and you came to our attention. Are you available?”

Georg was now wide awake. Only his voice was still unsteady. “You would like me to… I mean, if I’m available, to work…? Yes, I believe I am.”

“Great. We’re at rue d’Amazone, right across the square where the statue of the drummer boy is-you’ll see the sign on the building. Why don’t you stop by?”

4

GEORG WAS READY TO GO THERE RIGHT AWAY. But he stopped himself. He also stopped himself on Wednesday and Thursday. He decided to go to the Bulnakov Translation Service on Friday morning at ten. Jeans, blue shirt, and leather jacket, a folder under his arm with samples of the work he had done for Monsieur Maurin: he carefully choreographed the scene-he would show that he was interested in working for them, but wouldn’t indicate how much depended on it.

Everything went smoothly. Georg called on Friday morning and made an appointment for ten. He parked on the square near the statue of the drummer boy, walked up the rue d’Amazone, and at five past ten rang the bell beneath the plaque that said BULNAKOV TRANSLATION SERVICE.

The door on the third floor was open. There was the smell of paint, and a young woman was sitting at her typewriter in the freshly painted reception area. Brown hair hanging to her shoulders, brown eyes, and, as she looked up, a friendly glance and the hint of a smile.

“Monsieur Polger? Please take a seat. Monsieur Bulnakov will see you right away.”

She said Polgé and Boulnakóv, but with an accent Georg couldn’t quite place.

He had barely sat down on one of the brand-new chairs when a door flew open and Bulnakov, all effervescence and affability, came bursting into the room, ruddy-cheeked and sporting a tight vest and loud tie.

“How wonderful that fate has brought you to our doorstep, my young friend. May I call you ‘my young friend’? We’ve gotten so many jobs we can barely keep up with them, and I see you’re carrying a big folder of work that you are toiling over-but no, a young man like you wouldn’t be toiling-I’m sure you can do these translation jobs with a flick of the wrist. You’re young, just as I was once, correct me if I’m wrong!” He was holding Georg’s hand in both of his, squeezing it, shaking it, not letting go even after he had dragged Georg into his office.

“Monsieur Bulnakov…”

“Let me close the door to my sanctum, and speak a few words of introduction-oh, what the hell, let us segue in medias res without further ado. What we do here is technical translation: handbooks for word processing, bookkeeping, systems for client- and customer-tracking, and so on. Small, convenient, friendly programs, but nice thick books. Know what I mean? I take it you have experience with technology and computers, that you can handle both English into French and French into English, and that you can work fast? Working fast is the be-all and end-all in this business, and if your dictaphone and ours aren’t compatible, we’ll provide you with one. Mademoiselle Kramsky will type everything up, you’ll give it a quick once-over, and voilà! Cito cito: wasn’t that the motto of your Frederick the Great? You’re German, aren’t you? Although, now that I think of it, the motto might not have been your Frederick the Great’s but our Peter the Great’s. Anyway, who cares, same difference. You haven’t said a word, is anything wrong?”

Bulnakov released Georg’s hand and closed the door. Here in his office there was also the smell of fresh paint, and a new desk, a new chair, a new seating area, and along the wall two built-in niches piled high with folders. Above them technical drawings were pinned to the wall with thumbtacks. Bulnakov stood in front of his desk looking at Georg with benevolence and concern, and asked again, “Is anything wrong? Is it what we pay that’s making you hesitate? Ah, I know it’s a touchy subject, believe you me, but I can’t afford to pay more than thirty-five centimes a word. Not the kind of money that will make anyone rich-no Croesus, but no Diogenes either. Not that I’m saying you’re a Diogenes, it’s just a manner of speaking.”

Thirty-five centimes a word-Maurin was paying him that, but only now that he’d been working for him half a year. Not to mention that he would no longer have to drive all the way to Marseille, nor would he have to do the typing himself.

“I’m very grateful for your kind words, Monsieur, and that you are interested in my working for you,” Georg said. “I would gladly fit any jobs you care to give me into my schedule, and in fact keep my schedule open, but I charge fifty centimes. You might wish to consider this and give me a call, but as of now it seems that your expectations and mine do not coincide.”

What a stilted answer, but Georg was pleased with it and proud he wasn’t selling himself cheap. And to hell with it if it didn’t work out.

Bulnakov laughed. “I see you’re a man who knows his worth, a man who demands his price! I like that, my young friend, I like it very much. May I propose forty-five centimes? Let’s shake on it! Shall we do business?”

Georg was handed an envelope with the galley pages of a handbook. “The first half is due next Monday, and the rest on Wednesday. Also, there’s an IBM conference in Lyon next Thursday and Friday. If you could go there with Mademoiselle Kramsky as our representative, and keep your ears to the ground and your pen at the ready, jotting down whatever people say, we would pay a thousand francs a day plus expenses. As far as those fees go, they’re nonnegotiable-no ifs, ands, or buts. Agreed? You must excuse me now.”

Georg spoke with Mademoiselle Kramsky about the trip. He hadn’t noticed before that she was pretty-or now his good mood made her seem so. A white blouse with white embroidery, white edging above her breasts, and short sleeves, one rolled up, the other unbuttoned. She wasn’t wearing a bra, had small, firm breasts, and golden hairs shimmered on her tanned arms. Her collar was round, pretty, and the top buttons coquettishly undone, and when she laughed her eyes laughed too. By her right eyebrow, beside her nose, she had a small trembling dimple while she was thinking: Should we go by train or car, and when should we start, Wednesday evening perhaps, after we’re finished with the typing and proofreading of the handbook. Georg made a joke; a thick ray of sunlight fell between the two church towers outside the window, and in its light Mademoiselle Kramsky shook her head laughing, sparks dancing in her hair.

5

GEORG HAD NEVER WORKED AS HARD AS he did on the following days-not for his state examination, and not as a lawyer. This wasn’t just because the handbook was thick and he found translating English computer language into French rather difficult, nor was it in anticipation of the next job they would give him, or the ones after that with all the money they would bring. He was bursting with energy and wanted to show what he was capable of: to himself, to Bulnakov, and to the world. Saturday evening he ate at Gérard’s, and after his coffee went back home without first having his usual glass of Calvados. Sunday morning he took a short walk, but only because he preferred thinking about the HELP-function while walking rather than at his desk; otherwise, he sat in his room or on the terrace and even forgot to smoke. By Monday morning he had translated and dictated two-thirds of the handbook. He drove to Cadenet whistling, singing, and beating the rhythm on the steering wheel. He met neither Monsieur Bulnakov nor Mademoiselle Kramsky, but gave the cassette to a young man who barely opened his mouth to utter “merci,” and went back home to finish the translation. By Tuesday evening it was done. Wednesday morning he breakfasted on the balcony-bacon and eggs, freshly baked bread, orange juice, and coffee, while he let the sun’s rays warm his back. He listened to the cicadas and the birds, smelled the lavender, and looked over the green countryside to Ansouis, whose castle towered out of the mist. He packed his suit for the conference, and was in Cadenet by ten.

Monsieur Bulnakov’s plump red face was beaming. “The translation is very good, my young friend, very good indeed. I’ve already looked through it-you needn’t bother going over it again. How about joining me for a cup of coffee? Mademoiselle Kramsky will be here any minute, and then the two of you can head out.”

“What about the last part of the handbook?”

“Mademoiselle Kramsky’s colleague will type it and I’ll edit it. As long as you get to Lyon as quickly as possible. You mustn’t miss the mayor’s reception.”

Monsieur Bulnakov asked him where he was from, what he had studied, where he had worked, and why he had moved from Karlsruhe to Cucuron. “Ah, to be young! But I can understand-I didn’t want to run my office in Paris anymore either, and moved here.”

“Are you Russian?”

“I was born there, but grew up in Paris. We only spoke Russian at home, though. If the Russian market ever opens up to computers and software-I hope I’ll live to see the day! By the way, here are two envelopes. One’s for your work, the other for your expenses. It’s an advance. Ah, here’s Mademoiselle Kramsky.”

She was wearing a summery dress with pale blue and red stripes and large blue flowers, a light blue belt, and a dark blue scarf. Her luxuriant, neatly combed hair hung to her shoulders, and again there was that friendliness in her eyes. She was amused at Monsieur Bulnakov fussing over them like a father seeing his two children off on a long trip, and hid her smile behind her hand. Georg noticed that her legs were short, and felt in a pleasant way that this brought her somewhat more down to earth. He was in love, but not yet aware of it.

They took the green Deux Chevaux. The car had been standing in the sun and was hot until they drove through the countryside with the top and windows open. There was a strong draft, and Georg stopped near Lourmarin, took a scarf out of his bag, and put it on. The radio was playing a mad potpourri of music: themes from Vivaldi to Wagner in a swinging pop sound, with an oily kitsch of lesser masterpieces in between. They made bets on what the next theme would be, and by the end she owed him three petits blancs, while he owed her five. They reached the hills before Bonnieux. The town on the hilltop shimmered in the midday sun, and they drove through its winding streets and past vineyards on their way down to the Route Nationale. They talked about music, movies, and where they lived, and over a picnic Georg told her about Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, and his life as a lawyer and with Hanne. He was surprised at how open he was. He felt strangely trusting and happy. As they drove on they dropped the formal vous, and she shook with laughter at how sharp and hard her name sounded in German.

“No, Françoise, it depends on how you pronounce it. The ending of your name can sound like an explosion or like a breath of air”-he demonstrated-“and… and… I would never call you Franziska in German.”

“What would you call me?”

“Brown Eyes. You have the brownest eyes I’ve ever seen. You can’t turn that into a name in French, but you can in German, and that’s what I would call you.”

She kept her eyes on the road. “Is that a term of endearment?”

“It’s a term for someone one likes.”

She looked at him earnestly. A lock of hair fell across her face. “I like driving with you through the countryside.”

He turned onto the highway, stopped at a tollbooth, took a ticket, and threaded into the stream of cars.

“Will you tell me a story?” she asked.

He told her the tale of the little goose maid, speaking the rhymes first in German, then in French. He knew them by heart. When the false bride pronounced her verdict-“Naked as the day you were born you will be put in a barrel of sharp nails that two wild horses will drag till you die!”-Françoise caught her breath. She suspected what the old king would say: “False bride, you have just pronounced your own sentence! This will now be your own fate!”

As they drove toward Montélimar, she told him a Polish story in which a farmer outwits the devil. Then they sat listening in silence to Mozart’s flute quartets on the radio. When Georg noticed that Françoise had fallen asleep he turned the music down, delighting in the motion of the car, the wind in his face, Françoise at his side, her breathing and contented sighs when her head tilted to one side and she sat up again, then rested her head on his shoulder.

In Lyon the hotels were all fully booked, and they had to drive six miles into the mountains and even there had to take a double room. Françoise’s neck was sore, and Georg massaged it. They changed, drove into town, had a bite to eat, and then went to the mayor’s reception, where they chatted with various people, their eyes often seeking each other out in the town hall. There was thick fog as they drove back to the hotel and Georg drove very slowly, keeping to the center line. “I like your sitting next to me,” he said.

Then they lay next to each other in bed. Françoise told him about a lovesick friend of hers who had left for America only to fall unhappily in love there with a Lebanese man. As she reached over to the nightstand to turn out the light, Georg put his arm around her waist. She nestled against him in the dark. He caressed her, they kissed, and they could not get enough.

After they had made love, she cried quietly.

“What is it, Brown Eyes?”

She shook her head, and he kissed away the tears from her face.

6

THEY DIDN’T RETURN TO CADENET UNTIL Monday, though the conference was over on Friday. They went to St. Lattier, had dinner at the Lièvre Amoureux, and slept late on Saturday. They looked in their Michelin Guide for the restaurant Les Hospitaliers in Le Poët-Laval-it had a star-and they found a place to stay in the town. They spent their last night near Gordes, in the open. They didn’t want their picnic to end: there was a mild evening breeze; the sky was full of stars, and in the coolness before dawn they slept cuddling beneath the blankets that Françoise kept in her car. It was a two-hour drive to Cadenet. The sun was shining, the air was clear, and the road was free. In the little towns through which they drove, stores were raising their shutters, cafés and bakeries were already open, and people were carrying home loaves of bread. Georg was at the wheel, Françoise’s hand resting on his thigh. For a long time he was silent, and then he asked her, “Will you move in with me?”

He had been eagerly looking forward to his question and her response. He was certain she would say yes, that everything was perfect between the two of them. In fact-life was perfect.

The conference had been a success. He had come across as relaxed and informed. Clever questions had been asked, and he had given witty answers. He had handed out not only Bulnakov’s card but his own too, and a lawyer from Montélimar who specialized in computer leasing and software liability wanted to work with him on future French-German cases. The Xerox representative had been surprised when Georg told him about the TEXECT translation he had just done. “But that’s been available in French for more than a year!” But what did Georg care, it wasn’t his problem. In his jacket pocket he could feel Bulnakov’s envelope with six thousand francs.

And Françoise was sitting beside him. The second night, Thursday, he had thrown all caution to the winds. He was going to enjoy it; he wasn’t going to fall in love, wouldn’t lose himself, but was still slightly afraid that this affair might last only one night, or a few days. He had woken up in the night and sat in the bathroom, his elbows propped on his knees, his head resting in his hands. He was moody and sad. Then Françoise came in, stood next to him, and he leaned his head against her bare hip while she ran her fingers through his hair. She said Georg, not Georges as she usually did. It sounded clumsy, but it made him feel good. He had told her that his parents and sister had called him Georg, his friends in high school and college too, but that when he went to France after his internship at the law firm it had become Georges or Shorsh. He had told her a lot about his childhood, his years at school and university, his marriage to Steffi, and the years with Hanne. She kept asking questions.

She didn’t reveal much about herself-the silent type, he thought. It wasn’t that she didn’t talk. She described in great detail how she had moved from Paris to Cadenet, how she had found an apartment and fixed it up, how she settled in, what she did evenings and on weekends, and how she started making friends. She also answered his questions about Bulnakov’s office in Paris, told him about the heart attack Bulnakov had had a year earlier, and his decision to work less and away from Paris. Bulnakov had wanted her to come with him, and had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. “You don’t leave Paris for Cadenet just like that,” she said. Her talk was mostly fast, lively, and amusing, and made Georg laugh a lot. “You’re making fun of me,” she’d say with a pout, and, hugging him, would give him a kiss.

They had arrived at Poët-Laval early, and after they carried their bags up to the room they couldn’t get into bed fast enough. With one sweep he pulled his sweater, shirt, and T-shirt up over his head, with another his pants, underwear, and socks. They made love, fell asleep, and then, kissing and touching, were aroused again. She knelt on him, moving rhythmically, and stopped whenever his excitement grew too strong. Outside it was dusk, and her face and body shimmered in the twilight. He couldn’t gaze at her enough, but had to close his eyes because he was brimming over with love and pleasure. She was next to him, and yet he still longed for her. “If you give me a child-you will be present when I give birth, won’t you?” She looked at him intently. He nodded. Tears were running down his cheeks, and he couldn’t speak.

They were approaching Bonnieux when he asked if she would move in with him. She stared straight ahead, and didn’t say anything. She took her hand from his thigh and buried her face in her hands. He stopped the car at the top of the hill. Behind them lay the little town, and before them, in the shadow of the early morning, the ravine that cuts through the Luberon. He waited, not daring to ask any questions or to pull her hands from her face and see some terrible truth. Then she spoke, through her hands. He barely recognized her voice. It was colorless, timid, fending off, the voice of a little girl.

“I can’t move in with you, Georg. Don’t ask me why, don’t press me-I can’t. I would love to, it’s so wonderful being with you, but I can’t, not yet. I can come to you, I can come to you often, and you can come to me. But please drop me off at my apartment now. I need to get ready quickly and go to the office. I’ll call you.”

“Why not come to the office with me right now? What about your car?” Georg asked, though he wanted to ask something quite different.

“I can’t,” she said, taking her hands from her face and wiping away her tears. “Drop me off at my place and then park the car somewhere near the office. I don’t mind walking a little. You drive on.”

“But Françoise, I don’t understand. After the days we’ve just spent together.”

She flung her arms around him. “They were wonderful, and I want more days like that. I want you to be happy.” She kissed him. “Please, drive on now.”

He drove on and dropped her off at her place. She had rented a former caretaker’s lodge in a villa on the outskirts of the village. He wanted to take her bags in for her but she stopped him, insisting that he drive on. In his rearview mirror he saw her standing in front of the iron gate, between the stone posts crowned with stone globes and flanked on both sides by an old, thick box-tree hedge. She raised her hand and waved with a coquettish flutter of her fingers.

7

BULNAKOV HAD ASSUMED A SOMBER EXPRESSION. “Come in, my young friend. Sit down.” He slumped heavily into the chair behind his desk and waved at the one across from him. A newspaper lay open in front of him. “You can fill me in about the IBM conference in the next day or so, there’s no rush. But read this.” He picked up a page from the newspaper and handed it to Georg. “I marked it with an X.”

It was a short article: Last night Bernard M., the director of a Marseille translation agency, had had a fatal accident in his silver Mercedes on the Pertuis road. The police were still investigating the circumstances, and any witnesses were asked to contact the authorities.

“You worked for him, didn’t you?” Bulnakov said, while Georg repeatedly read the short article.

“Yes, for almost two years.”

“A great loss to our profession. You might think there’s a dog-eat-dog war between our agencies, but the market isn’t that small, and, I’m glad to say, respect and professional esteem are not impossible between competitors. I didn’t know Maurin that long, but I had a high regard for him as a colleague. That’s the first thing I wanted to say. The second thing, my young friend, is about the consequences his demise might have for you. You’re good at what you do, you’re young, you’re going to make it in this world, but you’ve lost an important source of work. Well, there’s always me, and I’m sure you can stand on your own two feet. But let me give you a bit of fatherly advice.” Bulnakov smiled with a solicitous, friendly frown, and raised his hands in a gesture of blessing. He waited a moment, heightening the suspense, stretched it out even further, got up, walked to the other side of the desk, still without saying a word, his hands raised. Georg also stood up. He was looking at Bulnakov quizzically, inwardly amused. This must be what it was like asking a father for his daughter’s hand. Bulnakov patted Georg on the shoulder. “Don’t you agree?”

“I’m not sure yet what you’re advising me to do.”

“You see,” Bulnakov said with a concerned look, “I’m aware of that, and it worries me. That young people nowadays find it hard to…”

“To do what?”

“Now, that’s the right question!” Bulnakov said, exuding joy and benevolence once again. “To do what? To do what? Zeus asked that question, Lenin asked it, and there’s only one answer: grab life by the horns. Seize the opportunities life presents you with, seize the opportunity offered you by Maurin’s death. One man’s demise is another man’s prize. I know it’s dreadful, but isn’t it wonderful, too: the Wheel of Fortune? Talk to Maurin’s widow, talk with your colleagues, take over his business!”

Of course Maurin’s widow would be pleased if he took over the agency, paid her a percentage, and kept it running. Employees Chris, Isabelle, and Monique, Georg’s colleagues working for Maurin, wouldn’t be up to the task-a few weeks ago he wouldn’t have been able to either-so they would surely continue working with him, for him.

“Thank you, Monsieur Bulnakov. You’ve given me very good advice. I suppose there’s no time to lose. I ought to…”

“Indeed, there’s no time to lose!” Bulnakov said, leading him to the door and patting him on the back.

The reception area was empty. Before Georg closed the door, Bulnakov called out after him to come back in two days for his next job.

Georg went out into the street and stopped in the square. Hadn’t he left the car near the statue of the drummer boy? He looked up and down the square. He found it next to a construction site and got in, but then got out again and went into a bar on the corner. He took a cup of coffee and a glass of wine over to a table and stood beside it, looking out through the hazy window.

He felt weary with everything that lay ahead of him before he even started, before he could picture it. He drank the coffee, the wine, and ordered another glass. Then Nadine came in. She painted and made a living from pottery, making bowls, cups, plates-and producing homemade raisin bread. Thirty-six years old, interrupted studies, divorced, a ten-year-old son. She and Georg had slept together for a while on a whim, and then on a whim stopped sleeping together, though they kept on meeting with a burned-out familiarity.

“Maurin’s dead. An accident. I’ve been weighing whether I ought to take over his business.”

“Great idea!”

“A lot of work. I’m not sure that’s what I want. But then again…” Georg ordered a third glass of wine and sat down next to Nadine. “Would you?”

“Take over Maurin’s business? I thought writing was what you wanted to do. Didn’t you tell me about some love story between a little boy and his teddy bear you were working on?”

“Yes, writing is what I want to do.”

“And didn’t you tell me that there was some American writer you wanted to translate and see published, and those mysteries by Solignac that nobody knows in Germany? But, that’s the way things go: we always end up doing something other than what we want.” She laughed a small, bitter laugh that was not without charm, brushed back a lock of hair from her face, and flicked the ash from her Gauloise. The scent of her perfume wafted over to Georg.

“Still wearing Opium?”

“Uh-huh. Did you know that of all the old crowd I’m the one who’s been here longest? Some have left-I’ve no idea what they’re up to-and others are either doing well or not so well. Some have gotten themselves jobs with the city or with the district administration, have a shop, or have hit the skids like Jacques, who’s on drugs and has been doing some breaking and entering and will be caught one of these days. I like the fact that I’m somewhere in between, and I thought you’d hold out too.”

“But you are painting. Don’t tell me you don’t want to have an exhibition someplace, or have people buy your paintings, or become famous.”

“Sure I do. But I want my freedom, even if it doesn’t amount to much. You’re right, though-sometimes I do dream of exhibitions and all that, but I want to get to a point where I don’t even dream about that kind of stuff anymore.”

Georg drove home slightly tipsy, proud of his life, proud that he hadn’t gone down the slippery slope or risen to the top through compromise. Nadine was right. But when he got home and saw the dirty dishes, and couldn’t call Françoise because the phone had been cut off again since he hadn’t paid the bill, he said to himself that enough was enough: “I’m fed up with this mess and with nothing going well for me, not having any money, wanting to write something but never getting anything written. My only accomplishment in life is that I gave up a shaky law office in Karlsruhe for a shaky existence in Cucuron. I’ll give Maurin’s agency a try!”

With this decision the weariness returned, and now also the fear that he was taking on too much, that he would be out of his depth. He lay down on the bed, fell asleep, and had nightmares about agencies, unfinished jobs, unpaid bills, a ranting Bulnakov, Françoise fending him off with frightened eyes, Maurin lying dead. He woke up at four in the afternoon and was still worried. He showered, put on a white shirt, a black tie, and his old gray suit. By five-thirty he was in Marseille, ringing the doorbell of Maurin’s apartment.

8

“DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE DRIVING from Gordes to Cadenet on Monday? I felt that the whole world lay at my feet. But then the feeling disappeared. I’m kind of fainthearted, and your not wanting to move in with me made me even more uncertain. But you were right: I wasn’t yet the kind of man I wanted to be, the kind you could love.”

Georg and Françoise were having an aperitif. The house was clean, the table set; a duck was roasting in the oven, oak logs burning in the fireplace; clean sheets were on the bed.

“Here’s to us,” he said.

Their glasses met. She was wearing a red dress with a zipper down its whole length, a prim, girlish pin in her hair, and her perfume-“You look wonderfully enticing.”

She laughed and held out her hand across the table for him to kiss. “The dress is old, I didn’t have time to wash my hair, and as for Jil Sander, I’d say her Eau de Toilette is austere rather than seductive. Why don’t you fill me in on everything that happened this week. I was waiting for you to call or come by. I thought you’d at least come to the office to pick up some work. And then Bulnakov tells me you’re inviting me to dinner on Saturday, all the while dropping hints that when I saw you I wouldn’t recognize you. That wasn’t fair,” she added with a pout, “even if the invitation was very sweet. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have recognized you. You’re even wearing the same jeans you had on last weekend.”

Georg got up. “Allow me to introduce myself, Mademoiselle. Georg Polger, director, president, and CEO of Marseille’s famous Maurin Translation Service, the most successful translation agency from Avignon to Cannes, and from Grenoble to Corsica!” He bowed.

“What? What do you mean?”

Georg told her what had happened. He described Madame Maurin, with her excessively blond hair, heavy makeup, her excessively tight skirt, and her exaggerated mourning. The only genuine things about her were her hard eyes and even harder sense of business. It was good that he had come; she’d already been made various offers, but, needless to say, former employees would be given preference. Then she named an absurdly high price. Georg had remained cool and polite. That same evening he had called on Chris, Isabelle, and Monique to make sure they would stay with the firm. He spent the night in Marseille and set up an appointment with Industries Aéronautiques Mermoz in Toulon for Tuesday morning. “That was the hardest nut to crack,” he told Françoise. “A young manager, dark blue suit and vest, gold-rimmed glasses, cold as ice. Luckily he foresaw a lot of translation work over the next few months and had intended to hire Maurin’s agency, but hadn’t heard about the fatal car crash. And luckily the manager was up on the technical details of the helicopter they were working on, and I threw some terminology at him that I picked up from my jobs last year, until he got the point he needed a professional for the translations and I was that professional. I proposed the same terms Maurin had always had with them, and naturally gave him the line about all this being on a trial basis and so on. But from what I gathered, all they want is for the translations to be reliable and on time. And that they will be.”

“What about Madame Maurin?”

“Do you remember Maxim, the lawyer from Montélimar we met at the conference in Lyon? I gave him a call and asked him about the legal details of taking over an agency of this kind. Then, when I went back to Madam Maurin and flung my trump card on the table, that I was already working with Mermoz, she saw reason. She’ll be getting 12 percent of our turnover over a five-year period. She and I sifted through her husband’s correspondence, and notified all our clients about the takeover. The funeral was Thursday-I was standing at the widow’s side, and on Friday Maxim came over to set up the contract, by which time we’d already gotten our first jobs from Mermoz. So this morning I finally got back from Marseille to Cucuron.”

“At the funeral you were at Madame Maurin’s side? When’s the happy day?”

“Don’t be silly!” Georg said. He looked at Françoise. Was she jealous? Was she poking fun at him?

“Oh no, the duck!”

He ran into the kitchen and poured gravy over the hissing brown meat.

Françoise sat at the table, fiddling with her knife and fork. “Will you be moving to Marseille?” she asked. “I… I have… oh, come here, my fainthearted lover.”

She pulled him down onto her knee, wrapped her arms around his stomach, and lay her head on his chest. She looked up at him. “I’ve been thinking about you and me.”

Again he saw the dimple by her eyebrow. “I see you’re still thinking.”

“Stop it. You’re making fun of me. I’m being serious. You asked if I’d move in with you. I felt you were going too fast, that I need time. But when I didn’t see you all week, when I couldn’t touch you, feel you, I thought… You know what I’m trying to say, and you’re just sitting there like a tin soldier!”

He went on sitting there like a tin soldier, saying nothing and gazing at her happily.

“If you’re not moving to Marseille, and have a glass for my toothbrush,” she said, “if you can make some space in your closet and give me a desk and a shelf, then-I don’t want to give up my apartment, but I’d like to spend a lot of time here with you. Is that okay?”

9

GEORG COULDN’T REMEMBER EVER BEING as happy as he was the next few months.

Françoise moved in at the end of March. Spring exploded into a luxuriant summer. The year before the garden hadn’t blossomed with so much color, the days had not been as bright, the nights not as mild. When the heat began in June and the earth grew dry, Georg saw a gentle radiance instead of parched dryness. And he saw Françoise growing more and more beautiful. Her skin became tanned, delicate, and smooth. She gained weight, grew more curvaceous and feminine, which he liked.

There were times when the work and all the commuting between Marseille and Cucuron were too much, but four times a week he managed to be at the office by nine, to assign work to Chris, Monique, and Isabelle, edit their translations, and do some translating himself. He managed to make deadlines, keep old clients and bring in new ones, and install a word-processing system. In April an officer from National Security asked him questions about his citizenship, work, lifestyle, and political views. He asked Georg for references in Germany, and had him sign a consent form that would allow National Security to request information from the German authorities. In May Georg received a confirmation from Mermoz that he had been given security clearance, and that all confidential materials sent to his agency would have to be translated by him personally. Now the work really began. There was hardly a weekend when he didn’t have to spend hours poring over construction plans, manuals, lists of materials, and flowcharts. He managed that too.

As a boy he had never had an electric train. His father had given him a heavy, metallic locomotive that could be wound up, two railway cars, and a few tracks, enough to form a circle. At Christmas Georg had gazed longingly at the store window of Knoblauch’s, the biggest toy store in Heidelberg, where toy trains rolled over an extensive network of tracks-lots of trains at once, with no collisions or derailments, with blinking signals and barriers being raised and lowered. He was able to see a shop assistant maneuvering the trains from a small podium.

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, Brown Eyes. What’s wrong?”

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

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

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

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

10

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

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

“I have to go now.”

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s the church?” he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

“Why are you so secretive about your parents?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who are they?”

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

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

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

Finally she told him. He gradually understood that what she was telling him was really their story, with the two of them, the real Françoise and the real Georg, that it was part of their lives like his house and his car, his office in Marseille, his jobs and projects, his love for Françoise, his getting up in the morning, his going to bed at night.

She assumed they had already targeted him when they sent Bulnakov and her to Pertuis. Who were “they”?

“The Polish secret service, and behind them the KGB-don’t ask me, I don’t know. They arrested my brother and father, right when martial law was declared. I’ve been working for them ever since. They released my father, but they told me they’d come get him again if I didn’t continue… As for my brother…” She sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “They told me his life depends on me. His death warrant has been signed, and whether he will be pardoned depends on… He had called for open resistance and thrown a Molotov cocktail when the militia cleared the square in front of the university-as far as I know the only Molotov cocktail thrown in all of Poland at that time-and the driver and the passenger were burned in the car. He has… he is… I love my brother very much, Georges. Ever since Mother died, he was the most important person in my life, until…” She sobbed. “Until I met you.”

“And you’re ready to have me thrown in jail in order to get your brother out?”

“But everything’s going so well. You’re happy, and so am I. What do we care about these helicopters? Soon my people will have what they want, my brother will get his pardon, and they’ll leave us alone, and then… You asked me if I will live with you. I want to so much, I can’t live without you anymore, I want to be with you always, it’s only that… Don’t you see why I couldn’t just say yes back then? Please, please…”

Again the voice and look of a little girl, frightened because she’d done something bad, hopeful because she’d made up for it all, and sulking, because he hadn’t rewarded her for it yet.

“Why would they leave you alone once they have the documents they want?”

“They promised. They said they’d release my father, and they kept their promise.”

“You’d never have worked for them if they hadn’t let him go. They’ll commute your brother’s death sentence to life in prison, at which point you’ll go on working for them so they will reduce his sentence to fifteen years, and they can keep on haggling further reductions. You won’t have a choice.”

She didn’t say anything, but continued to look at him, sulking. “It goes without saying that they have to offer you something so you will keep up the work,” he continued. “Let’s say three years off his sentence for every year that you work for them. That means they have you where they want you for at least another five years. You’re good at what you do, you’re fluent in French, know the country and the people. Believe me, they’ll keep you where they want you. How long were you already in France when they recruited or forced you into this?”

“It sounds like you’re cross-examining me! I don’t like talking with you like this.”

He had moved to the edge of the bed, his back straight, his hands cradling his stomach. He was staring intently. “It’s not only you they have-they’ve got me too. And when they’re done with the attack helicopter, they’ll set their sights on the stealth reconnaissance plane, or the new control system or bomb, or God knows what! Once I’ve worked for them for a long time, they’ve got me where they want me, even without you. Is this what you wanted? Is this how you want us to live?”

“Our life isn’t all that bad. We’ve got each other, a nice house, enough money. And nobody need know that you’re aware of what’s going on. Why can’t things just go on the way they are? Weren’t you happy all this time?”

He said nothing. He looked out the window into the night and felt heavy with fatigue. What she was saying was true, but then again, it also wasn’t. What did he care about helicopters, fighter jets, reconnaissance planes, bombers, and all the maneuverings surrounding the arms race, armament, and disarmament? Since he didn’t have the time or money to write a novel, he didn’t care what he was translating or for whom: IBM, Mermoz-why not for the Poles and Russians too? It wouldn’t involve any more work; he laughed bitterly. But his freedom was done for. He felt this with painful clarity. He was no longer sitting on the podium maneuvering all the trains, but was a train himself that others could set in motion, bring to a halt, start up again, accelerate, and stop.

“Georg?”

He shrugged his shoulders despondently. Had his early freedom been just an illusion? He remembered her sudden departures on Sundays.

“Why did you always have to deliver the negatives of the plans on Sunday?” he asked her.

“What?”

He didn’t repeat the question. Something didn’t fit. Just didn’t fit. Something kept buzzing in his mind, not a clear thought, but perhaps just the disbelief that all this should have happened to him, and that the way he was living would go on, but look very different from this point.

She sighed and laid her head in his lap. Her left hand caressed his back, and her right hand slid beneath his bathrobe, reaching gently between his legs. Surprised, and as if from a distance, he felt his arousal.

“Are you… were you Bulnakov’s lover?”

She let go and sat up. “What kind of a question is that? How mean and spiteful! I haven’t been with anyone else since I met you, and as for what happened in the past, it doesn’t concern either of us. Not to mention that if Bulnakov had wanted to sleep with me, I would hardly have had a choice.”

“What about now?”

“I have no choice now either, if you want to know!” she shouted. “I let him do his thing, then he gets up, buttons his pants, and tucks in his shirt. Shall I show you? Go on, lie down, you be me and I’ll be him, go on!” She tried to pull Georg onto the bed, tugged at him, her hands striking out. Then she began to sob, and she curled up like a fetus.

Georg sat there, his hand on her shoulder. Finally he lay down next to her. They made love. Outside, the sun was rising and the first birds were beginning to sing.

12

SHE GOT UP AT DAYLIGHT. He stayed in bed, listening to her movements in the next room, the flushing toilet, the clattering dishes in the kitchen, the sound of the shower. She opened the living-room shutters, which banged loudly against the outside wall, and he waited for her car to start. But she must have sat down in the rocking chair with a cup of coffee. It was a while before the hinges of the outer gate creaked and the engine of her Deux Cheveaux started up with a stutter and the gravel rasped under the tires. Wrapped in the scent of their body and their love, exhausted by the nocturnal battle, he listened to the car drive away.

He woke up again hours later. The sun was shining into the room. He didn’t have the strength to get up; he barely wanted to move into a more comfortable position. Then he did get up, without knowing why, or why exactly at that moment. He got up. He showered, dressed, made coffee, drank it, fed the cats. He did this all with a strange lightness. He looked for money in the drawer and found it, put on his jacket, took the keys, locked the door, got into his car, and drove off. His movements were controlled. He monitored the road before him closely, the potholes, the cars turning out from side roads, the cars coming toward him. He drove fast, carefully, detached. He felt as if he wasn’t driving, as if he could plow into a tractor or a tree without getting hurt, without so much as denting his car. He parked under the plane trees by the pond and went into the pharmacy. Here too he felt as if he were watching himself from a distance. As he walked, his movements were light. It was as if only the shell of his body were walking, as if he were empty inside and the shell was porous, letting in light and air.

In the pharmacy he stood a few minutes in line, waiting his turn. When he entered he had said “bonjour” without putting on a friendly, happy face, and as he stood and waited, his face showed neither expectation nor impatience-nor any interest in Madame Revol’s small talk with the other customers. He felt that his face was like an empty page.

“Could I please have a box of Dovestan?”

“Monsieur would do better to have a beer or a glass of red wine before going to bed. Dovestan is a dangerous drug. I read that in Germany or Italy you can’t even get it without a prescription anymore.”

He hadn’t intended to reply, but Madame Revol was showing no sign of going to the medicine shelf. She looked at him with a worried, motherly expression, waiting for him to say something. He put on a playful smile. “And that’s exactly why I live in France, Madame,” he said, laughing. “But jokes aside, I don’t seem to get any sleep when there’s a full moon. And I’d hate to think what would happen to my liver with all the red wine I’d have to gulp down.”

The instant Madame Revol gave him the pills he knew he wouldn’t take them. Suicide? No, not him. Those Russians, Poles, Bulnakov, Françoise-they had another thing coming! Wasn’t he holding all the cards? Wasn’t it up to him to deliver or not to deliver, to go to the police or not, to string Bulnakov along, and make him pay?

He drank a glass of white wine in the Bar de l’Étang and then another. Back at home he went into his study. The desk was standing upright again, the plans laid out, the camera gone. Françoise had clearly finished taking pictures that morning. Georg put in a call to his office in Marseille. His secretary had been expecting him, but had managed things on her own, rescheduling appointments and appeasing clients. Then he dialed Bulnakov’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Polger speaking. We need to talk. I’d like to drop by at four.”

“Drop by, my young friend, drop by! Though I must say you’re sounding a little secretive. What’s all this about?”

So Françoise hadn’t told him anything. Was she going to tell him, or didn’t she intend to?

“We can talk about that later. Till then, Monsieur.” Georg hung up. He had to go for it, use the element of surprise, confuse his opponent-he would make Bulnakov sweat.

And, in fact, when Georg turned up at four Bulnakov did have large sweaty patches under his arms. The doors were open, Françoise was not at her desk, and Bulnakov was sitting regally in his office, his jacket draped over the back of his chair, the top buttons of his shirt and pants undone. Then he gets up, buttons his pants, and tucks in his shirt, shot through Georg’s mind.

“Come in, my young friend. I’m trying to get some fresh air in here, but I can’t get a draft going and lose heat.” He heaved himself up out of the chair, buttoned his pants, and tucked in his shirt. Georg was jealous, hurt, furious. He didn’t shake Bulnakov’s hand.

“The game is over, Monsieur,” Georg said, sitting down on the edge of the table by the sofas. He towered over Bulnakov, who had sat down again at his desk.

“What game are you talking about?”

“Whatever it is, I’m no longer playing along. It’s up to you whether I go to the police or not. If I’m not to go, then Françoise’s brother must be pardoned and given authorization to leave Poland. You have three days.”

Bulnakov gave Georg a friendly look. Laugh lines crinkled the corners of his eyes, his mouth widened, his plump cheeks shone. He squeezed the tip of his nose, lost in thought. “Is this the same boy who stood before me in this office only a few months ago? No, it isn’t. You have become a man, my young friend. I like you. From what I see, the thing you are calling my ‘game’ has done you quite a bit of good. But now you want out.” He shook his head, puffed up his cheeks, and blew the air out between his lips. “No, my young friend. Our train is on a roll, it’s rolling at great speed, and you can’t get off. If you try to jump, you’ll end up with broken bones. But a train moving fast also gets where it’s going quickly. Just be a little patient.”

“Why should I?”

“What is it you want to tell the police?”

The conversation wasn’t going the way Georg had imagined. He felt he was losing the upper hand. “Leave that up to me,” he said. “You might think I don’t have proof. But perhaps I do. And then again I might only have my story and a few scraps of evidence. But once the police know where to look and what to look for, they’ll find the rest too. I’ve seen the efficiency of the Polish secret service-now you’ll see how efficient the French are.”

“How prettily you craft your sentences. We might let the French police find this or that roll of film with your fingerprints on it. And you can be sure we will let them find the fender of your yellow Peugeot-the one that forced Maurin’s Mercedes off the road-not to mention that we’ll point the police in the direction of the garage in Grenoble that repaired the damage to your car.” Bulnakov’s tone was still friendly. “Why make yourself and Françoise unhappy? A few more weeks and it’ll all be over. We’ll part as good friends-or good enemies-either way, we’ll part amicably. Things will work out for her brother too-he’s quite obstinate, that one, not to mention thick-skulled. And if you and Françoise want to marry: why not? You’re the right age.”

Georg sat there stunned. There was a sound of footsteps. He turned and saw Françoise standing in the doorway.

“Is it true, Françoise, that my fingerprints are on the negatives?”

She looked from Georg to Bulnakov and back.

“I had to do it that way. You take so many pictures-I used your film cans.” She bit her lip.

“We were in Lyon when Maurin… when he was murdered. I’m sure the people at the conference and the hotel receptionist will remember me.”

“Tell him, Françoise.”

She hung her head. “The night when Maurin… That night we weren’t in Lyon anymore. We weren’t in the hotel either. We were out in that meadow near Gordes.”

“But you can back me up…” Georg didn’t finish the sentence. He was beginning to understand. Bulnakov was frowning, yet was looking at Georg not with irritation, but with pity. Françoise’s face was cold and unapproachable. “This can’t be, Brown Eyes. I can’t believe you did all this on purpose.” He was saying it more to himself than to her. Then he jumped up, seized her, and shook her. “Tell me it isn’t true! Tell me it isn’t! Tell me!” As if his shaking and shouting would break the armor that encased Françoise, Françoise whom he had held in his arms, who had opened up to him, to whom he had opened up, the real Françoise.

“Why did you have to ruin everything?” she said. “Why couldn’t you just leave things the way they were?” She didn’t try to defend herself, but kept complaining in her thin, shrill child’s voice and remained unapproachable. Only when he let her go, she shouted: “I won’t take this from you, Georg! I won’t! I never promised you anything! I never played games! I was me, and you were you! You were the one who wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t face reality! It was you who got your hopes up! And now you see that there was nothing there! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re playing at: you’ve ruined everything so you can get back at me! You were miserable because you couldn’t have me, and so you want to go to the police so I’ll be miserable too. Don’t think for a moment that I’m going to side with you or back you up. If you go to the police, you’ve lost me!” She was shaking.

“What reality wouldn’t I face?” Georg asked. He was grimacing like a madman, but making a last-ditch effort.

“So go to the police! Go ahead, ruin everything we had together! You’re such a weakling, such a coward! Instead of finishing what you started, instead of seeing it through, you have to destroy everything. Well, go to the police! But don’t you think…” Her voice hissed, her words were crystal clear, her sentences a farce of logical reasoning. He heard the spite in her voice, and lost control of the situation, like a man whose expensive watch falls into deep waters, and who, even as it is falling, before it plunges into the water and disappears, realizes its final loss. Perhaps it could still be caught, by a fast snatch or a leap, but he feels a lameness that turns into the numbness of the pain of loss.

He shrugged his shoulders. Feeling empty, he walked past Françoise and out of the office.

“Wait a moment, my young friend, wait…” Bulnakov called out after him, but Georg didn’t turn around.

13

HE WALKED PAST THE STATUE OF THE DRUMMER BOY and went into the bar on the corner. LE TAMBOUR D’ARCOLE-it was the first time he’d read the statue’s inscription. He tried to remember what heroic role the drummer boy had played in the Battle of Arcole. Thinking of heroism made him wince, and he ordered coffee and wine. This time the window was clean, and the town square lay clearly before him under the blue sky of the afternoon.

What was so bad? His attempt to threaten them with the police in order to save Françoise’s brother had misfired. But damn the whole Kramsky clan. All the translations he’d done had ended up with the Polish or Soviet secret service. But the games the big powers played with soldiers, cannons, tanks, planes, and helicopters would go on. Georg imagined generals standing in a sandbox, one going “b-r-r-r-r” with a toy helicopter in his hand, the other “s-h-h-h-h” with an airplane. Had they really killed Maurin in order to give him, Georg, access to the Mermoz plans? He and Françoise had indeed driven to the conference in Lyon in her Citroën. He’d left his Peugeot in Cadenet, and when they got back from Lyon he hadn’t found it where he thought he’d parked it. He felt a surge of fear. He steadied his nerves: would they really risk everything by letting him go to the police?

And what about Françoise? He felt it was all over between the two of them, but he didn’t love her any less, or feel any less close to her than-than yesterday. A day ago his world had still been intact.

He felt as if he were sitting in a hospital bed after an amputation, looking for the first time at a leg that was no longer there and over which the sheet no longer bulged. The eye sees it, the mind registers it, and yet the patient expects that ultimately he will get up and walk away, with his toe itching.

Georg looked out the window. Françoise was coming out of a side street onto the square. She walked toward her car, stopped, walked a few steps farther, and stopped again. She had seen his parked car. Slowly she turned and looked in the direction of the bar where he was sitting. Dazzled by the sun she craned her neck, trying to catch sight of him. Then she walked toward the bar. He saw her bouncy tread, and her fast steps echoed in his ear, though he couldn’t hear them. She was wearing a black outfit and had a bright sweater draped over her shoulders, its sleeves tied above her chest.

His heart had always skipped a beat when he saw her coming from a distance, lost in thought, stopping by a storefront or a street musician and then strolling on and, upon catching sight of him, coming toward him with a quick step, a fluttering wave of her hand, and an expectant smile. Why did you betray me, he thought, why…

“I’ve got to rush-see you this evening?” she called out, popping her head in at the door. Then she was outside again. She sounded as she always did. He watched her hurry off, and finished his wine. On the way home he did some shopping, for both of them, as always. When she came home, roulades were simmering in the pot, a fire was burning in the fireplace, and music was playing. Amazed, he had seen himself going through the motions of shopping, tidying up, cooking. This isn’t really happening, it’s not real, this isn’t me. But he had managed to do everything with great ease.

Neither of them touched on the subject of the night before or the afternoon in Bulnakov’s office. They trod carefully, hesitantly, and he was taken aback at feeling the excitement of their first meeting. Later, in bed, after they had made love, he turned the light back on, sat up, and looked at her. “What is to become of us?” he asked.

She looked at him calmly. Georg couldn’t tell if the dimple over her right eyebrow indicated that she was thinking, or that she simply didn’t know what to say. Then she picked up the little crocheted bear by the radio alarm on Georg’s side, sat the bear on her chest, and brought its paws together in a begging motion.

“I want you to be happy,” she said. “Really happy.”

Nothing he would say could reach her. All he could do was throw her out, but he didn’t have the strength.

The next morning he drove to Marseille, gave the messenger from Mermoz the translated plans, and was given new ones. He wondered whether he should do the translation at home or at the office. He decided to make photocopies, even though the security regulations forbade it. He locked the originals away and took the copies home.

Around ten in the evening he heard her Citroën. He folded the copies, waited until she entered the house, and then went out onto the balcony by his study, where he hid the papers in a drainpipe. When she came in, she found him at his desk writing a letter. The same thing happened the following evening, and the one after that. Then she asked him at breakfast quite casually, while busying herself with her coffee, croissant, and eggs, “Hasn’t Mermoz been giving you any work these days?”

“I can’t complain.”

She stirred her coffee, though she hadn’t put either milk or sugar in it. “Don’t do anything silly, Georg.” Her voice sounded soft.

He was relieved when he had finished transcribing his translation from the copy onto the original plan and handed it in. Then he sat a long time studying the copies and the new plans, understanding more and more what he was dealing with. It had something to do with suspensions, which had been clear enough during the translation work. But what was supposed to be suspended, and where? Again he locked away the originals and put a copy in his briefcase.

As he drove home he sang at the top of his voice, feeling that he had won, that he had escaped the net in which Bulnakov had trapped him, that life went on. He drove fast, with a dreamy sureness. Near Ansouis he saw Gérard’s car coming toward him. They stopped on the road and talked through their open windows. “I’m going to pick up some fresh salmon in Pertuis,” Gérard told him. “Why don’t you come over this evening?”

14

GEORG DROVE ONTO THE DIRT TRACK, keeping an eye out for the sheep that had been grazing on the steep banks that morning. They had moved on.

He put the car into second and sped up. He had long weaned himself of the habit of going easy on the shock absorbers and exhaust. The sun, the mistral, the sharp smoke of his Gauloise, the pain in his temples from the fourth glass of pastis, the rattling on the washboard gravel path-it all fit perfectly.

He saw the dust whipped up by the other car beyond the bend in the dirt track before he saw or heard it. He wondered how so much dust could rise before it even appeared around the bend. The heavy black Citroën limousine came skidding in the bend and headed straight for Georg. In its wake the dust rose into a wall between the steep banks.

He swerved to the right, but the Citroën didn’t move. He honked his horn, heard nothing, waved, and shouted. The other car didn’t respond; its windows were tinted, so Georg couldn’t see the driver. He slammed on the brakes, swerved even farther toward the side, felt his wheels rattle over the edge. The wipers scraped and stuttered across the dry windshield: he had set them off when he slammed his hand on the horn, and now he tried desperately, as if everything depended on it, to shut them off, to make them stop. He stared at the approaching car, the image of the sky and clouds in the windshield, the scraping wipers that sounded like a rusting bicycle wheel in a ditch.

There was a sharp bang as the Citroën drove past. It had swerved out of the way just in time, its side mirror swiping Georg’s side mirror and tearing it off. He heard the revving of the other car’s engine, the spray of gravel on his car, and through it the explosive sound. Like a gunshot. He sat in his car, his hands shaking, his engine having stalled. For a second the piercing pain in his arm and the blood on his sleeve made him think that he’d been shot. But it was a shard of his mirror that had hit him; it wasn’t serious. His every movement was automatic, the shock setting in when he stopped in front of his house a few minutes later, his whole body shaking. Mustering all his willpower, he got out, picked up the mail from the mailbox, opened the gate, went out onto the terrace, sat down on the rocking chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. He craved a cigarette, but didn’t have the strength to pull one out of the pack and light it.

After some minutes his nerves steadied and he could unlock the door, get a beer out of the refrigerator, and take it back to the rocking chair. It was cold and good. He enjoyed his cigarette, and only an occasional shudder reminded him of the incident. He rocked in his chair and looked through the mail. There was a letter from his parents, a flyer from the Law Society, and in a thick envelope he found an American paperback: an obscure press was inquiring whether he would translate it. He had offered them his services long ago, but had given up hope. It was a trashy novel, but Georg was pleased.

It was only now, back on the terrace, thinking about work and planning the evening and the following day, that he noticed the cats hadn’t come out to greet him. He went into the kitchen, rattled the tins of cat food, filled the bowls, and put them in their usual place. “Snow White, Dopey, Sneezy!”

He went out through the gate. The plums were ripe, the fragrance of lavender in bloom hung in the air, birds twittered and cicadas rasped. There was a gentle breeze. He looked up at the sky. It wasn’t going to rain today: he would have to water the herb garden himself. Then he would go to the Bar de l’Étang for an aperitif and have some salmon fettuccine at Les Vieux Temps.

They were lying in the shadow by the garage door; curled up as if asleep, but their eyes and mouths were wide open. A shimmer of blood had seeped into the sandy ground. The bullet holes were in the back of their heads: small, neat holes. Did such a tiny caliber even exist? Had they been killed with air-gun pellets?

He crouched down and caressed them. They were still warm.

The phone rang. He got up slowly, went inside, and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

It was Bulnakov, his voice serious. “Did you find them?”

“Yes.” Georg would have liked to shout threats at him, but he couldn’t speak.

“I have already made it clear, Monsieur Polger, that this isn’t a game. For the last few days I’ve been very patient. I waited, hoping you’d see reason. But it seems that you haven’t quite grasped the situation. You thought that good old Bulnakov would give up, that he’d turn his back and go on his way. No, Monsieur Polger! Good old Bulnakov will only go on his way when he’s got what he wants!” He hung up.

Georg stood there with the receiver in his hand. He understood what Bulnakov had said. He was aware that for the past few days he had lived in an illusion, but didn’t know what to do with this awareness. You lie in bed feeling cold, and outside it’s even colder: What can you do except pull the thin blanket over you to conserve whatever little heat you have? What use is being aware that the cold is too great and the blanket too thin? Should you tell yourself that you’ll freeze to death anyway, and that you might as well get it over with as soon as possible?

But why freeze to death, Georg asked himself. The only thing they want me to do is keep on doing knowingly what I’ve done up to now unknowingly. I just have to go on with my work and from time to time let Françoise… in fact, I don’t need to take any action. All I have to do is let things happen. So much in this world isn’t the way it ought to be and I look the other way. God knows, the Russians getting the details of the helicopter that the Europeans are building isn’t the worst the world has to offer. Perhaps it’s even a good thing, creating a balance of power, helping peace. But it’s not a matter of what I’m doing: the issue is that I’m being ordered to do it. I haven’t accomplished much in life, but at least it can be said that I never did anything I didn’t want to do. I might have liked things to be different. But in the end, whatever I did was always my decision. I don’t care if that’s pride, defiance, independence, or eccentricity.

He hadn’t yet grasped that the cats were dead. He knew it, but the knowledge was strangely abstract. As he dug a hole and laid the cats in it, he cried. But as he sat by the living room door staring into the twilight, he felt as if at any moment Dopey would come prancing around the corner.

15

FRANÇOISE KNEW WHAT HAD HAPPENED. “I was there when the two of them showed up. Bulnakov told me to go outside, but I realized what they were up to. My poor darling!”

“You never liked those cats.”

“That’s not true. Perhaps not as much as you did, but I still liked them.” She was leaning against the door frame, running her fingers through his hair.

“Gérard bought some fresh salmon, but I can’t say I have much of an appetite. Are you hungry?”

She nestled up to him and put her arm around him. “Why don’t we lie down?”

He couldn’t make love to her. They lay together in bed, and at first Françoise held him, saying over and over, “My darling, my darling.” Then she kissed him and reached to arouse him. But for the first time he found her touch unpleasant. She stopped, rolled onto her stomach, crumpled the pillow under her head, and looked at him. “We still have some champagne in the fridge. How about it?”

“What are we celebrating?”

“Nothing. But it might do us good. And the fact that it’s all behind us now… I’m so happy it’s all behind us.”

“What’s behind us?”

“All this nonsense. You and them battling it out. You can’t imagine how worried I’ve been.”

Georg sat up. “Are they going away? Have they given up? What have you heard?”

“Them, give up? Never. But you… I thought you had… well, you don’t want…” She sat up too, looking at him perplexed. “Don’t tell me you still don’t get it! They’re going to destroy you. They’ll do such a good job of it, that… They’ve already killed a man for these stupid plans. We’re not talking about three cats now, we’re talking about you!”

He looked at her blankly and said despondently, obstinately, “I can’t give them those plans.”

“Are you crazy?” she shouted. “Don’t you care whether you live or die? Life-that’s here and now!” She took his hands and put them on her thighs, hips, breasts, and stomach. She wept. “I thought you loved all this. I thought you loved me.”

“You know I do.” How lame it sounded! She looked at him, disappointed through her tears. As if something beautiful had fallen on the floor and was now lying in pieces.

She didn’t go on about how he ought to give Bulnakov the plans. She went to get the champagne, and after the third glass they began to kiss and make love. The next morning she crept out of bed early. When he woke up at seven, she and her car were gone.

He didn’t think anything of it. He worked on the translation, and late in the afternoon headed to Cucuron to do some shopping. Then he went to the Bar de l’Étang to see Gérard, and went with him to the wine cooperative at Lourmarin, as he could do with a few bottles himself. It was getting dark when he came home.

He got out of the car and walked toward the house. Suddenly he saw that the door was open. It had been broken open. Inside the house, closets and shelves had been emptied, drawers tipped out, pillows slashed open. The kitchen floor was covered in shattered dishes, cans, oatmeal, spaghetti, cookies, coffee beans, tea bags, tomatoes, eggs. They had gone through everything. He walked through the house, at first stepping carefully amid the books, records, vases, ashtrays, clothes, and papers. But what was the point of watching where he stepped? At times he turned something over with his toe or pushed it out of the way. “Well!” he thought. “There’s that telephoto lens I’ve been looking for everywhere. And it’s fine. And there’s the Guinness ashtray I thought someone must have swiped.”

The plans were still stashed in the drainpipe. He rummaged through the chaos for his dictionaries, the ruler, and a pen, cleared the area in front of his desk, pulled up the chair, and began to work. The translations had to be ready by tomorrow. He would get Françoise to help him clean up later. He was surprised at how unruffled he was.

Françoise didn’t appear. At midnight he drove over to Cadenet. The windows of her apartment were dark and her car wasn’t there. Maybe she’s on her way to my place, he thought. But when he got back home her car wasn’t there either.

It was a moonlit night, and as he lay on the fresh sheets covering the slashed mattress he could see the disarray even after he turned out the light. The outlines he was used to seeing from his bed were askew. The small cabinet by the wall on the left lay on its side, and the painting on the right had been taken down. His bed was immersed in a disarray of pants, shorts, jackets, sweaters, and socks. Something lay gleaming among the clothes. He got up to see what it was. A belt buckle.

He couldn’t sleep. Just as he wanted to look away from the chaos but couldn’t, he also wanted to look away from what Bulnakov had done and what he was still likely to do. And yet there was nothing to be seen. Or there was something to be seen but nothing that could be done about it. To face the disarray meant rolling up his sleeves and putting everything back in its place. But what would it take to face Bulnakov? Getting a gun and shooting him and his henchmen? Georg pulled the blanket up to his chin. I can only hide under the blanket and hope they’ll just give up and go away. As for my life-I don’t think it would do them much good to kill me.

He got up again and turned on the light. He went downstairs to where he had found the telephoto lens, looked for his camera, which he also found undamaged, and a new roll of film. They’ve been very systematic, he thought; I just have to look on the floor in front of the appropriate closets and chests of drawers. Georg put the film in the camera and set the alarm clock for six in the morning.

He couldn’t shoot those guys, but at least he could photograph them, in case he got involved with the police or wanted to tell someone about all this and needed something to back it up. He knew though that shooting pictures of them was really a substitute for shooting them with a gun.

The following morning at seven-thirty he was already lying in wait in Cadenet. He couldn’t keep an eye on both the side-street entrance to the office and the parking lot by the statue of the drummer boy, so he opted for the parking lot. If he could catch them in their cars along with their license plates, perhaps the police might be able to do something with it.

He’d been in Cadenet since seven, had parked his car by the church some distance away, and looked on the square for a place to hide. Street corners, doorways, abutments-but every place where he could get a good view, they could also get a good view of him. Finally he went to the building across from the parking lot and rang the bell of the apartment on the second floor. The family was at the breakfast table. He told them he was a journalist and that he wanted to take pictures of the square in the morning light for Paris-Match. They were also eager for him to take some pictures of their building. He promised he would, and they offered him a cup of coffee. He fiddled with the lenses by the window, and began to act as if he were preparing his photo shoot.

That morning, when he had driven past her house, Françoise’s car was still not there. At eight he saw it pull into the parking lot. Two men got out. Georg knew them from Bulnakov’s office. He was gripped by panic. Had they done something to her? First the cats, then the break-in, and now-oh God!-now Françoise? The men were still standing by the car when Bulnakov arrived. He parked his Lancia but didn’t get out, and the two men walked over to him. Georg took one picture after another: Bulnakov resting his arm on the open car window, facing the camera; Bulnakov with the other two standing by his car, then by Françoise’s car; and then Bulnakov standing alone in the parking lot, watching the two men drive off in her Deux Cheveaux. If the pictures were to be of any use, he had to have clear shots of the faces, the license plates, and the faces together with the license plates.

Georg drove to Marseille and checked his answering machine for messages. Nothing from Françoise. That evening there was no sign of her, nor was there a note on the door from her. He had bolted shut the broken-down kitchen door and was using the door to the living room to get into the house. Françoise didn’t have a key for that door. Might she think he had locked her out and was now furious at him? But she’d still have left him a note. He had called Bulnakov’s office a few times, but she hadn’t answered. Her car hadn’t been in front of her house, and she hadn’t opened the door when he rang. The curtains were drawn.

This went on for the next few days. There was no sign of Françoise. He didn’t see or hear from Bulnakov or his men. They left his house alone, didn’t vandalize his garden or his car, and didn’t harm him. Georg spent one more morning in Cadenet, lying in wait. This time he waited at the end of the small side street that led to Bulnakov’s office, and photographed them as they entered: Bulnakov himself, the two others, and a young blonde he hadn’t seen before. Françoise didn’t show up, nor did she go to his place, or to hers, or pick up the phone at Bulnakov’s when he called.

In the end Georg was so frayed from waiting for Françoise and his fear for her that he was on the verge of calling Bulnakov and giving in: You can have it all, I’ll send you whatever you want, I’ll do whatever you want, steal, copy, take pictures! I just want her back.

16

IN THE MORNING GEORG WENT TO HIS OFFICE and opened the safe where he kept the originals of the plans, intending to transcribe what he had translated.

The cigarettes were missing-the pack of Gauloises he specifically remembered placing on the plans in the safe the day before yesterday. He always did this; as a smoker, there was nothing worse than being caught short without a cigarette. There were times when he worked late into the night and couldn’t buy any downstairs once the bar closed.

It wasn’t just about the cigarettes. He had some on him, and even found the pack he’d put on the plans on one of the lower compartments. Someone had gotten into the safe.

His secretary, Chris, Monique, Isabelle? Why would they want to break into the safe? They had all known one another for a long time. They had worked for Maurin long before Georg had, and at better pay. They had come to Provence from elsewhere seeking a quieter life, which they had found with their translation work, and were relieved to be able to work under Georg after Maurin’s death. They didn’t envy his running the firm, and sometimes poked fun at him for being so industrious. Why should they want to make trouble for him?

Unless Bulnakov had bribed or blackmailed them. We all have our price, Georg thought; it’s just a question of the amount. What’s surprising is not the number of people being bribed or what they are prepared to do, but for how little most people are prepared to do it. It’s a matter of putting the money and morals in relation to each other: when the bribe is high enough, the success is so inevitable that bribery is no longer immoral. What is immoral is selling oneself cheaply. Georg was not angry that his coworkers might let themselves be bribed by Bulnakov for a substantial sum; what annoyed him was that he would have to arrange for a new lock and be more careful. He was relieved, feeling that he and Françoise would no longer be in trouble since Bulnakov had gotten what he wanted. But the question remained: Where had she disappeared to and what had happened to her? Might she be in Marseille, and now assigned to Chris?

He looked out the window. A courtyard, clothes hanging to dry from windows, one newly painted building and paint flaking on others, tall brick chimneys on the roofs. Loud voices of playing children. Beyond the roofs he saw taller buildings and a church tower. Might Françoise be somewhere in this big city waiting for Chris, or getting ready to spend the night… You’re crazy, Georg said to himself. These are delusions! You’ve never seen Chris with a woman. You’ve often wondered if he’s gay.

Things had become easier for Bulnakov’s men. When they had searched Georg’s house, they had made copies of his office keys. He always left them in the briefcase in which he carried his translation work to and from Marseille. Needless to say, when he’d gone to Cucuron shopping he hadn’t taken his briefcase with him. Just you wait, he thought. I’m not going to make things so easy for you, Monsieur Bulnakov! He called a locksmith and had him change the locks on the door and the safe. He urged the locksmith to work as fast as he could, and by evening the job was done. In a store earlier that day he had happened to find a postcard of a tongue sticking out. When he left his office to go to dinner he pinned it to the door.

He stayed the night in Marseille. Mermoz was running late with the new plans, and was going to messenger them over to him the next day. It was a big job, the last of a series. Georg was pleased with the prospect of so much work. The weekend was coming up, the first weekend without Françoise. He didn’t believe she would come back. He also didn’t believe she was in trouble, or that something had happened to her. It wouldn’t make sense, after Bulnakov had gotten hold of all the plans so easily. No, Françoise had simply dropped him. He’d burned his bridges with Bulnakov, and consequently with her too.

He slept on the couch in his office. He had drunk a lot that evening and didn’t hear whether or not Bulnakov’s men had tried to get in. The next morning the card with the tongue was gone. Though anyone could have taken it.

It was evening by the time Mermoz’s messenger came by with two thick rolls of plans and a large batch of construction details and instructions. By the time he had made copies of everything it was getting dark. He had driven the road home so often by day, by night, in heavy traffic, in all weather, even in sleet that he barely noticed the surroundings, until he became aware of a car whose lights stayed behind him. He noticed it on the last part of the highway from Aix to Pertuis, and in Pertuis he tried to shake it. He got away at a red light, which he managed to cross right in front of a big tractor-trailer, and then wove his way through backstreets. But when he got to the road outside town that led to Cucuron they were waiting for him and began tailing him again. Now he knew it was him they were after.

As the road sloped upward he revved his old Peugeot for all it was worth, but the other car followed with ease. He passed other vehicles, but the car tailing him was right behind.

The road beyond Ansouis was empty. He was still driving as fast as he could. He wasn’t going to head home but to Cucuron, straight to Les Vieux Temps, where he would honk his horn, bringing everyone out from the restaurant and the bar across the street that was full of billiard- and cardplayers. He wasn’t really afraid. He had to concentrate on the road. It was him they were after-his mind went to Bulnakov’s men and the plans on the backseat. The postcard of the tongue he had pinned to the door might have made them angry. But what could they do to him on this road from Ansouis to Cucuron, which he had driven a thousand times and where everyone knew him? Perhaps it wasn’t them at all, only some idiots playing games.

But it wasn’t some idiots playing games. As he came to the dirt track that led to his house, the other car pulled up and swerved toward him, forcing him onto the dirt track. The car swerved again; Georg jammed on the brakes and came to a halt in the ditch, his forehead banging against the steering wheel.

They tore the door open and pulled him out of the car. He was stunned and bleeding from a cut over his eyebrow. As he raised his hand to feel the cut he was punched in the stomach. Then came another punch, and another. He was incapable of even attempting to defend himself. He didn’t know where the punches were coming from, how many men were hitting him, or how he could protect himself.

At some point he fell to the ground and lost consciousness. A neighbor found him after he had staggered up, looked in the car, and seen what he knew anyway: the Mermoz plans were gone. He had only been unconscious for a few moments. When he had last checked his watch in Ansouis it was a quarter to ten. Now it was ten. The neighbor insisted on calling the police and an ambulance-“Just look at yourself, just look at yourself!” he kept saying, and Georg looked into his side mirror and saw his bloodstained face. He was in such pain that he could barely stand up.

“No bones broken,” the doctor said, after putting some stitches on his eyebrow, “nor any signs of internal injuries. You can go home. Take it easy for a few days.”

17

A CUT EYEBROW WILL HEAL, and though bruises are more painful on the second day, they are less so on the third, and after the fourth day just feel like a fading muscle ache. After the police questioned him and drove him home, Georg took a warm bath, and spent much of the weekend in bed and in his hammock. By Sunday he felt strong enough to collect his car and head over to Les Vieux Temps for dinner. Things could have been worse, he told himself; soon everything would be fine. But as the pain subsided, his feeling of helplessness grew. My body, he concluded, whether strong or infirm, is my house, and, like the house I actually live in, is the expression of my integrity. Without my body my integrity is an illusion. That it is here, that I reside in it, that I alone am master of it, is a vital part of being alive; just as the solidity of the ground beneath our feet is an important part of our being alive. He had never thought of it in this way, but now realized that he had felt this way all along. As a boy, during a vacation in Italy, he had experienced an earthquake and realized with dread that there was no depending on the ground on which we stand and walk so confidently. What was worse now than the pain and the horror of being so helpless when they had dragged him out of the car and beat him up was the realization that his body could be ravaged just like his house.

Once every movement no longer hurt and he could walk, bend over, and stretch, he felt anger and hatred. They’ve taken Françoise away, they’ve beaten me to a pulp, killed my cats, ransacked my house and my office. They used me, and anything I didn’t give them of my own free will they took anyway. If I let them do that, I’m not worth more than a stone or garden hose or cigarette butt. And if it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to beat the hell out of Bulnakov! I’ll blow him up in his car, him and those bastards who did this to me!

He pictured what he would do to them, and how. There was nothing original in his fantasies, just images of avenging heroes from the movies, but when the images ran out and he began to think more clearly, he realized how little he knew. How many people were working for Bulnakov? Where did Bulnakov live, what did he do all day?

On Monday morning Georg drove to Marseille by way of Cadenet. It was a detour, but it took him past Françoise’s place. He kept hoping for a sign, a hope he told himself was futile, and for which every disappointment was a confirmation. He no longer went to her apartment.

But her car was there: parked the way she always parked it on the other side of the narrow street, at an angle, only the left wheels on the asphalt, the right ones against the hedge. He pulled up outside the front gate, hurried up the stairs, ran over the gravel, and pressed down on the latch. She never locked the door when she was home. But today the door was locked, and when Georg stepped back confused, he saw that the curtains were still drawn. He knocked on the door, waited, and knocked again.

A truck honked its horn as it carefully edged past Georg’s car, which was blocking the road. Somebody called to him from a window in the villa, and he looked up.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Mademoiselle Kramsky. I see her car is here.”

“Mademoiselle Kramsky? She moved out. About a week ago. Ah, the car is back, is it? Well, it’s my car, not hers. She rented it from me until today.”

“But you said that it was a week ago that she…”

“One moment, I’ll be right down.”

Georg waited by the door. An elderly gentleman in a dressing gown came out.

“Good morning. You are a friend of Mademoiselle’s, I believe; I’ve seen you before. She rented the apartment and the car from me. She wanted to keep the car a little longer so she could go out driving for a few days.”

“Do you have her new address?”

“No.”

“Then where do you forward her mail?”

“Mail? She never got any.”

“I’m sorry to be so insistent, but this is really important. You can’t just rent a car like that without having an address.”

“That’s enough of that, young man. Mademoiselle Kramsky lived here quite a while, and I know whom I can trust. As you said yourself, the car is parked right outside. Good day!”

Georg walked slowly down the stairs and stopped in front of the gate. He took a deep breath. This time the disappointment was not just a confirmation, it hit him full force. His anger was back. He would go to Bulnakov’s office and confront him.

He parked his car near the statue of the drummer boy and walked up the rue d’Amazone. The brass plaque next to the bell was no longer there-it was the right building, but the plaque was gone. A man in white overalls came walking up the street, told Georg the door was open, and went inside. Georg followed him up to the third floor. The door stood open. Here, too, Bulnakov’s plaque was gone, and the painters were at work.

“What’s going on?” Georg asked the man he had followed up the stairs.

“What does it look like? We’re painting.” He was a young man with a cheerful, cheeky face, who had been whistling all the way up the stairs.

“What about the people who had the office here?”

“Monsieur Bulnakov? He’s the one who hired us.” He laughed. “He paid us too.”

“Do you know the landlord or the owner of the building?”

“Oh, are you thinking of renting the place? Monsieur Placard lives on the ground floor.”

Georg knew what Monsieur Placard would say: Monsieur Bulnakov hadn’t left a forwarding address or any other contact information. Saturday afternoon he and some other men had vacated the premises. “He gave me all the furniture. My son and I brought it down to the cellar. Might you be interested in it?”

“In office furniture?” Georg shook his head and left. Like a nightmare, he thought, but like a nightmare it’s gone away.

18

BUT NOW HIS WHOLE LIFE TURNED into a nightmare.

It was at the office that Georg first noticed that everything had changed. The Mermoz job, for which he had been beaten up, had not only been the last in a series, but the very last. No more jobs came. He called Mermoz and asked what the matter was, but was put off. When he called again, he was told in no uncertain terms that Mermoz was no longer interested in his services. All his major accounts began to dry up, one after the other. Within a month his agency was ruined. Not that there weren’t any translation jobs, but there wasn’t even enough work to cover the rent or pay the secretary.

Then his problems with the police began. They had initially accepted that he didn’t know who had attacked him or why. The two officers who took his statement had been pleasant and sympathetic. But a few weeks later two other officers showed up. They wanted to know the exact particulars of the accident, the route he’d taken, what he had in his car. They asked him for his opinion about the attack: If he were going to rob anyone, would he choose to rob someone driving an old Peugeot? Why he had moved from Karlsruhe to Cucuron? What did he do for a living? What had he done for a living in Germany? No, they couldn’t drop the matter. They kept coming back, sometimes two officers, sometimes one, always asking the same questions.

The policeman in Cucuron also had his eye on him. The little town had only one policeman, everybody knew him and he knew everybody. Nobody held it against him when he took it upon himself to have a car towed that someone had left in the middle of the street in a drunken stupor, or if he stopped someone from burning trash in their backyard, or had a door broken down for the bailiff. Can one blame a dentist if he drills and there is pain? And like a dentist, Cucuron’s policeman didn’t inflict pain without good reason.

At first Georg wasn’t particularly concerned when the policeman didn’t return his greeting. I suppose he didn’t see me or didn’t recognize me, he thought, or maybe his mind was elsewhere, or perhaps he mistook me for one of those tourists passing through Cucuron.

One day he was sitting at a table outside the Bar de l’Étang. Gérard and Nadine were with him, and the bartender had come out to sit with them. The other tables were full too, as the morning market was over. He had parked his car where he always did, and where everyone else did too: among the old plane trees by the pond.

“Is that your car?” the policeman asked, towering before Georg and pointing at his yellow Peugeot.

“It is, but…” Georg wanted to reply that he knew well enough it was his car, and ask him what this was all about.

“You can’t leave your car there.”

Georg was more taken aback than outraged. “Why not? Everyone parks there.”

“I repeat, you’ll have to move your car.” The policeman had raised his voice, and everyone at the surrounding tables was watching and listening. Georg looked at the curious and indifferent faces. The bartender got up and went back behind the bar. Gérard stirred his espresso, avoiding Georg’s eyes. Nadine was fidgeting with her bag.

Georg controlled himself. “Could you tell me why I can’t leave my car there?”

“I will not repeat myself. Move it now.”

Georg again looked at the people sitting at the tables. He knew most of them, had chatted with many of them, played billiards or table-top football, had drunk Pernod with them. After two years in Cucuron, he felt that he belonged here, particularly now in summer when flocks of tourists were milling about the town. But he didn’t belong. There was spite in the faces, not just the indifference of not wanting to get involved. Georg got up and went over to his car. It was like running a gauntlet. He didn’t look for another parking spot, but drove home.

From that day on everyone’s behavior toward him changed: the baker, the butcher, the grocer, and the people he met in the post office, in the bar, and on the street. Or was he imagining things? The quick looking away that obviated the need to greet or be greeted, the slight hesitation of the baker’s wife from whom he bought a loaf of bread, the hint of condescension with which the café owner took his order. He couldn’t have proven any of this in court, but he felt it. What surprised him the least was that the branch manager of his bank asked him to step into his office. For months there had been a lot of activity in his account, and now there were no more deposits, only withdrawals. Needless to say, the bank had to check that everything was as it should be. As for his landlord-he had always been something of a psychopath. That he drove around his house every evening in his old Simca might have something to do with it. But now there were phone calls from the landlord’s wife, who had always been reasonable in the past. They were sorry, but their daughter was coming back from Marseille and wanted to move into Georg’s house. They would have to discuss terminating his four-year lease early.

Georg had nothing to say to any of this. All his strength, courage, and trust were gone. I’m an open wound, he thought.

There was nothing left with which he could ease his thoughts and longing for Françoise.

He was furious: I gave you my love and you took it, but for you it was only physical. You enjoyed our nights together as much as I did, gave yourself to me with as much abandon and pleasure as I gave myself to you. For me the passion I gave and took was a seal on our love, but for you it was only a passion each partner kindles and satisfies, a passion that doesn’t seal anything. If I could have been so wrong, if you could have deceived me like that, if such devotion cannot even act as a seal of love-what’s left for me to believe in? How am I supposed to ever love again? One silent reproach followed another. But even the most absurd accusations couldn’t bring her back. When someone leaves us, we accuse them so that they apologize and come back. In this way we are serious about the accusations, but are ready to agree to any conditions. Georg was aware of that.

He tried to be reasonable. The pain of separation is just a phantom pain, he told himself. How can something that no longer exists hurt me? Yet the slightest circumstance taught him that a phantom pain is not just phantom, but in fact real pain. He was sitting in the restaurant, had eaten well, was having a glass of Calvados and a cigarette, and suddenly imagined her sitting across from him, sighing contentedly, leaning back, and rubbing her tummy. He had always felt uncomfortable when she did this. But now, even this image stung. Or he found a long brown hair in the basin, which unleashed cascades of beautiful memories, though in the past, when he found a hair of hers in the basin, it had always irritated him.

He toyed with cynical quips that he found elegant or that sounded clever. One can’t end a relationship by splitting up. One must continue in the relationship and weave it into the tapestry of one’s life, or forget the relationship. Forgetting is the garbage dump of life. I’m throwing you into the garbage, Françoise!

None of that changed the fact that he missed her. When he woke up, sat down at the breakfast table, busied himself with the herb garden, and felt the empty house behind him; when he walked along the paths the two of them had walked; when-everyone has experienced something similar. He no longer had anything to do. He lived off the rest of the money that had come in so lavishly over the past few months. What he would do when it ran out, he didn’t know. He couldn’t think about that. He often sat all afternoon in the rocking chair, staring blankly at the trees.

19

IN SEPTEMBER AN OLD FRIEND FROM HEIDELBERG came to visit. The first evening they stayed up late, lit a fire in the fireplace after midnight, and opened a bottle of wine.

“Do you want to hear a crazy story?” Georg asked, and told him what had happened.

“I only saw Françoise that one time when you invited us all to your party,” his friend said. “Do you have any pictures of her?”

“I took a lot of pictures, but she either took them with her or they got lost when my place was ransacked. I only have one left.” He got up and went to find it. It was a picture of Françoise on a couch in her apartment, reading, her eyes downcast.

“Ah yes. By the way, what’s that picture on her wall?”

“It’s the cathedral in Warsaw where her parents were married.”

A short while later, Georg’s friend asked to see the photograph again.

“It isn’t a particularly good one,” Georg said. “She didn’t like being photographed, so I often took snapshots of her when she wasn’t looking. Though some of the pictures did turn out quite…”

“That’s not in Warsaw. I know that church. I can’t think of its name. It’s in New York.”

Georg looked at him in surprise. “Why would she have a picture from New York on her wall?”

“No idea. All I know is that it’s in New York, a cathedral they never finished that’s still under construction. St. John! That’s it! It’s enormous! I think it’s the biggest church in the world after St. Peter’s.”

“New York…” Georg shook his head.

Over the next few days Georg kept coming back to the subject. “Are you sure that the cathedral in the picture is in New York?”

“Well, perhaps Warsaw has the same one. In Wiesbaden there’s a cathedral that was built from Schinkel’s plans. Wiesbaden’s municipal architect had purchased the plans in Berlin, and there’s probably a church just like it somewhere in Berlin. But as for America, it’s a bit hard to imagine. The Americans would sooner have copied Chartres than Warsaw, and as for the Poles constructing their churches along American designs-you tell me if that makes sense.”

The evening before his friend left, Georg asked him if he knew anyone in New York who might put him up for a while.

“I’ll give it a try.”

“Please, it’s important.”

“You mean now?”

“I put in a call to a travel agent this morning,” Georg told him. “I’m flying next week from Brussels.”

“For how long?”

“Until I find her.”

“It’s a big city,” his friend said dubiously.

“I know. I also know that Françoise could be anywhere in the world. But why did she lie about the picture?”

“You don’t know where she got it. Maybe she herself didn’t know where it was from.”

Georg looked at him irritated. “You’ve seen for yourself the kind of life I’m leading. What am I supposed to do here? I’d rather take the money I still have and… I don’t know how I’ll look for her, but I’ll think of something.”

After his friend had left, Georg sold what he could sell, and threw away whatever didn’t fit in his car and nobody wanted.

A week later he gave the landlord the keys to his empty house.