The Gordian Knot

20

GEORG SET OUT LATE IN THE AFTERNOON and drove all night. He missed the turnoff to Paris at Beaune, and the highway ended at Dijon. He drove along back roads, past Troyes and Reims. The bends in the road kept him awake. He sped through dark towns and villages, where yellow lights bathed the streets in a dim haze. He slowed down at the brightly lit pedestrian crossings. Sometimes he waited at an empty intersection for the light to change. There was nobody in the streets and hardly any cars. In Reims he found an open gas station; the fuel light had been blinking for some time. He drove past the cathedral. The facade reminded him of the picture in Françoise’s room.

After a painfully slow border crossing, where the French customs officer grilled him on where he was coming from and where he was heading, he got back on the highway at Mons. By seven-thirty in the morning he was at his friends’ place in Brussels. The house was bustling. Felix was getting ready to leave for work, and Gisela was heading to the station to catch a train for Luxembourg, where she worked as an interpreter for the European parliament. The older of their two boys was off to kindergarten. Georg was warmly welcomed, but then quickly forgotten in the breakfast rush, with the babysitter arriving and everyone else leaving. Gisela told him that of course he could leave his car there, and gave him a quick hug. “Good luck in America,” she said. She saw something in his face. “Is everything all right?” Then she was gone.

The babysitter drove him to the airport. In the plane, he felt frightened for the first time. He had thought he was only leaving Cucuron, where he had nothing left to lose. Now he felt as if he were giving up his whole life.

It was a budget flight, with narrow seats and no drinks or food. No movie, either. He had intended to save money on the earphones, had looked forward to the distraction of the images on the screen. He gazed out the window at the clouds over the Atlantic, fell asleep, and woke up hours later. His neck, back, and legs were aching. The sun was setting behind red clouds, a picture of lifeless beauty. By the time the plane landed in Newark it was dark.

It took him two hours to get through customs, find the bus to New York, and arrive at the Port Authority bus terminal. He took a cab. There was a lot of traffic, even at eleven at night. The driver swore in Spanish, drove too fast, and kept slamming on the brakes. After a while, the cab drove up an avenue with tall buildings on the left and dark trees on the right. Georg felt a rush of excitement. This had to be Central Park, and the avenue Central Park West. The cab pulled up. He had arrived. There was a green baldachin from the edge of the sidewalk to the entrance.

Georg opened the door, went in, and found himself standing in a vestibule. A guard sat reading at a desk behind a glass door. Georg knocked once, then twice. The man pointed at the wall next to Georg. There was a bronze panel with an alphabetical list of names and corresponding apartment numbers, and an intercom. Georg picked up the receiver, the line crackling as if he were making a transatlantic call. “Hello?” said the guard’s voice, and Georg gave his name and introduced himself as Mr. and Mrs. Epp’s guest. The guard buzzed him in, gave him the key to the apartment, and told him where it was. The elevator had two doors: on the sixth floor Georg kept standing before the elevator door through which he had entered, until he realized that the door behind him had opened. He was exhausted. Back in France, day was breaking over the Luberon.

The apartment was the one next to the elevator. It took him a while to figure out how to unlock all three locks. He had to turn the keys in the opposite direction from what he was used to. The door was heavy, and fell shut behind him with a contented click. He found the guest room at the end of the long hall. Near the front door was a study where he found some telephone directories. Françoise Kramsky? No, as was to be expected, there was no listing under that name. He looked for the church.

In the White Pages he found neither a John, nor a St. John, nor a Church of St. John. There was more than a column of churches, from the Church of All Nations to the Church of the Truth. But the listings seemed to be random. In the Yellow Pages, between Christmas Trees and Cigarettes, he found a listing of churches by denomination. He was certain that a church destined to become the biggest in the world after St. Peter’s wouldn’t belong to a minor denomination, and so concentrated on the Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Catholic churches. The tiny letters blurred before his tired eyes, whirled around, found themselves again in long rows, and marched down the column of listings.

CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. The name was in larger print, and in bold. Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street. There was a map on the wall of the study. He found the cathedral and also located the Epps’ apartment. It wasn’t too far away. Georg felt as if he had made it.

21

HE WOKE UP ON THE COUCH in the study, still dressed, curled up and aching. He crossed the hall to the living room. The sun cast a broad band of rays through the large windows. He looked out. Below him was a stream of traffic, and across the street lay Central Park. Skyscrapers in the distance towered into the clear blue sky of Manhattan. He opened the window and heard the noise of the traffic, the clattering of the subway under the street, and the children in the playground at the edge of the park.

Outside, he drank in the atmosphere of the city. He walked uptown along Amsterdam Avenue. The buildings, at first tall and well maintained, shrank into four- and five-story houses. Fire escapes hung black and heavy into the streets. The stores had signs in Spanish. The streets became louder and more lively. The pedestrians were increasingly black and Latino; there were more drunks, panhandlers, and teenagers carrying boom boxes. He walked fast, his eyes flitting over buildings, people, cars, traffic lights, hydrants, mailboxes.

Georg didn’t see the cathedral until he reached the intersection. The cross street was flanked by low Gothic buildings, behind which the massive gray cathedral rose up. He crossed the street and took out the photograph of Françoise with the print of the cathedral hanging on the wall behind her. He compared it to the building in front of him. The towers to the right and left of the portal only reached the height of the nave, and the cupola over the crossing was still in bare cement, but otherwise everything matched perfectly. Steps stretching the whole breadth of the cathedral led up from Amsterdam Avenue to the five portals.

The inside was gloomy and steeped in secrets, the dim light coming from lamps and the stained-glass windows. The columns faded upward into the darkness. He walked through the nave with the respect his parents had always shown on entering a church. Only the area around the choir stalls was brighter. He found the gift shop on the left, and strolled among the display cases and tables, his eyes scanning the books and cards, soaps, fruit preserves, sweatshirts, bags, and cups, until he came upon a large print. He recognized it. Françoise had cut off the lower part where it said: THE CATHEDRAL OF SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE. MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. CRAM AND FERGUSON, HOYLE, DORAN AND BERRY, ARCHITECTS, BOSTON. It was the front view of the west facade. He kept reading the text over and over as if it might reveal something.

On his way back to the entrance he sat down. Now what? Did this mean that Françoise was living in New York, or just that she had lived here before? Someone could have given her the print as a present, or she could have bought it at a flea market or in a junk store. She had cut off the reference to New York, but it wasn’t clear whether she was trying to cover something up or whether she just didn’t want the text. If she had been in New York but was no longer here, he might as well look for her in Paris, Sydney, or San Francisco. But even if she was in New York, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

His eyes had adjusted to the dim light. The distant voices he heard came from a tour group visiting the cathedral. The chairs in the row were battered, some with frayed wickerwork. The columns no longer melted into the darkness above, but were supporting a ribbed vault. No secrets-just bad lighting, gloomy corners, empty space, and distorted acoustics. But no secrets.

He got up and went back to the gift shop. He showed the cashier Françoise’s picture, an enlarged close-up of her reading on the bed. “Do you happen to know her?”

The young woman looked at him cautiously. “What do you want? Who are you?”

He had conjured up a romantic story: Françoise had visited Europe, their meeting in France, their love, a silly lover’s quarrel in which he had walked out in a huff, his not being able to find her. He looked the cashier in the eye and then lowered his gaze: such a foolish quarrel, his foolish pride, his foolish temper, he was ashamed of himself. Then he raised his eyes again with a sincere and determined look. “I’ve come to ask her to marry me.”

Since the cashier had not been working there very long, she took him to her boss, who had been the manager for ten years. The manager didn’t remember ever seeing Françoise either, but all that meant was that Françoise hadn’t worked there during the past ten years. Whether she had been a customer was another question-that, she couldn’t say. She herself wasn’t always on the floor, and she’d had many shop assistants over the years.

22

GEORG WAS NEVER SURE whether people were won over by his tale because they believed it, or because he was so sincere. Besides his romantic tale he also had one in which he was a young lawyer and Françoise an acquaintance of a client in France who didn’t know her full name or address. She was to be a key witness in a trial, the trial was vital for the client, and the client vital for Georg, who was an up-and-coming lawyer. What people liked about both tales was the role played by the picture of the cathedral, their cathedral. They looked at the photo carefully, gave the matter some thought, said they were sorry they couldn’t help him, and sometimes suggested where he might look further.

He spoke to current and former priests connected with the cathedral, with parishioners who had been volunteers, with the head of the Ladies Guild, the head of the theater workshop. Nobody recognized the face in the photograph. At times he felt her face becoming more unfamiliar to him every time he took out the picture and showed it. Was this the face that had smiled at him, that he had seen from so close, and touched and kissed? He felt that his growing unfamiliarity had to do with Françoise’s lowered eyes. But perhaps it would be even worse if her eyes had been visible. Maybe they, too, would wear away as he kept taking out the picture and showing it around. Usually the past lurks unnoticed behind the present, but Georg felt as if the past was being slowly sucked away under his helpless gaze.

In two weeks he had met over twenty people. He now knew the Upper West Side where most of them lived, and the subways and buses that took him to those who lived in other places. He knew the baroque, putto-decorated entrance of the Polish consulate, and the cold, white facade of the Soviet one. He often stood outside, or sat on a stoop across from the grand townhouse of the Poles or on the steps of the synagogue that the Russians eyed with grim faces. He didn’t know whether secret-service agents reported to their consulates, but a consulate offers a connection between its nation and the host nation, and Georg was seeking just such a relationship in the hope of finding out more about Françoise or even Bulnakov. He went inside both consulates and asked for Françoise Kramsky’s address, telling the staff he believed she had once either worked there or was somehow connected to the consulate. Both the Poles and the Russians told him they were not at liberty to provide that kind of information. He told them his tales in vain. He showed the officials her picture, but their faces betrayed no reaction.

He experienced Manhattan as a forest. This city isn’t on an island, he thought, it is an island. It isn’t part of a landscape, it is the landscape, a landscape of stone vegetation alien to its people, who must first hack paths through it and build dwellings that always risked being overwhelmed by the vegetation. Sometimes he came upon burned-out shells of buildings, lots heaped with rubble, facades with windows and doors that were empty or bricked up. It was as if they had been ravaged by war-but since there had been no war, it was as if nature had reclaimed them: not a rampant forest but a raging earthquake. The new buildings towered into the sky like growing crystals.

At night he had weird dreams. Many days he didn’t talk to a soul.

His money was running out. He only had a thousand dollars left, which wouldn’t last long in New York. The Epps gave him to understand, pleasantly but firmly, that it was time he moved on. He had gotten nowhere. Should he give up?

He sat in the Hungarian Pastry Shop, a café across from the cathedral. One could sit there as long as one liked. They served homemade cookies, and there were free coffee refills. The air was heavy with smoke. The paintings in the café were ugly, its mirrors dull; the paint was flaking off the walls and the column in the center of the room, beside which was a chest of drawers with a jug of coffee on top. The shop was a refuge for those who hadn’t yet made it or who no longer had any prospects of making it. Georg came here to relax and do some thinking. He exchanged a few words with people sitting at nearby tables, borrowed a newspaper, was asked for a light, or offered a cigarette.

Two men at the next table were talking about apartments and rents. One of them, Larry, was looking for a roommate. Georg told him he was looking for a place, and Larry said he had a room he could have for four hundred dollars. Larry taught German at Columbia, and liked the idea of having a German roommate. Within minutes everything was settled, and later that day Georg moved in.

He had the corner room of a twelfth-floor apartment, whose two windows looked out on different parts of the city. One faced a church tower, backyards, fire escapes, and rooftops, and had an uptown view of Broadway until the haze of the day swallowed the cars and houses, and the darkness of night swallowed their lights. His sleep was pierced by the howl of sirens, feverish spirals of sound that began and ended with a high-pitched gasp. From the other window he looked out onto a parking lot, low buildings, the trees of Riverside Park, and the Hudson River, lying wide and idle with its metallic sheen in the sun, and in bad weather melting into the opposite bank. From time to time a barge plowed its waters. The sun set between the wooden water towers on the roofs. The window facing west was larger, and the view from it wider. At times Georg felt as if he could spread out his arms and fling himself out over the parking lot, gliding over houses and trees and over the Hudson, and land like a large bird on the water. Why should he, who only had to spread out his arms in order to fly, give up his search?

Georg still hadn’t seen one of the former coordinators of the theater workshop or the former head of the Ladies Guild who was now running the kindergarten. He called and made appointments. Calvin Cope, the former director of the cathedral’s theater workshop, was now a real director, and initially said he was too busy to meet. It was a matter of life and death? he asked. Georg had crossed the Atlantic, come all the way from Europe? Well, in that case he’d meet him for lunch at a place on Fifty-second Street.

23

THE RESTAURANT SOUNDED EXPENSIVE, and Georg borrowed a jacket and tie from Larry, his roommate. The coat check and bar were at street level, and the maître d’ escorted Georg upstairs, where a table by the window had been reserved for Mr. Cope.

Georg ordered a glass of white wine and gazed out at the street. The traffic flowed by in a slow stream; there were many yellow cabs, and the occasional black limousine with tinted windows and a TV antenna on its trunk. It began to rain. A street hawker appeared on the opposite sidewalk, selling umbrellas. A young man with shining red hair, holding his coat collar up, stood huddling by the entrance of a shoe store with a large display window that exhibited only one or two pairs of shoes on tiled stands.

The waiter brought an elderly gentleman and a young woman to the table and pulled out chairs for them.

“Mr. Cope?” Georg said, standing up.

“This is the European romantic I was telling you about, Lucy, the one who followed his sweetheart across the ocean!”

They sat down. Georg couldn’t take his eyes off Lucy. She was a beauty, an American beauty. Her face was sculptured, with high cheekbones, a strong chin, deep-set eyes, and a childlike mouth with full lips. She was slender, but with wide shoulders and big breasts. He had first noticed such women in commercials, and then had seen them on the street too. He had often wondered what gave them that special something that made them stand apart from European women. He looked at her and still couldn’t figure it out.

Cope eyed him with amusement. “She’s very beautiful and young, and destined to be a marvelous actress.”

“I’m springtime and Calvin is autumn,” Lucy said laughing, and by the time Georg thought of the compliment that he would consider himself lucky to be such an autumn, the moment had passed. The compliment would have been quite sincere, not only because of Lucy, but also because Cope obviously took great pleasure in his maturity and lifestyle. He had a full head of gray hair, and peered at the menu over his spectacles with a senatorial air.

“Leave the ordering to me,” Cope said. “I’ve been coming here for years. In the meantime, aren’t you going to say something?”

Georg hadn’t said a word yet. “I’m very grateful you have taken the time to see me, Mr. Cope. I don’t even know her real name: she wanted me to call her Françoise, as it’s a French name and she loves France. But I do know,” he lied smoothly, “that she was involved with the cathedral’s theater workshop and that she had a great teacher. She often spoke of it. This rather bad picture is the only thing I have.” Georg took out the photo and gave it to Cope, who passed it on to Lucy and looked at Georg pensively.

“Isn’t there a German poem about a woman searching for someone?” Cope asked. “All she knows is his name, and she follows him across the sea? Or is it the other way around, he follows her? My mother’s Swiss. She used to recite that poem when I was a boy.”

“Do you speak German?”

“I used to. But that poem-your touching story reminded me of it when we were talking on the phone. Do you know the one I mean?”

“Am Gestade Palästinas, auf und nieder, Tag um Tag…” Georg began.

“That’s it! I remember it now. Do you know the whole poem?”

“No, but I remember a Saracen maiden who follows a man to London, and then, lost in the crowds of the city, calls out ‘Gilbert’ and finds him. The man had been captured in one of the Crusades, and she had freed him. She only knew two English words: ‘Gilbert’ and ‘London.’ The poem says that love will cross the seas even with only two words. We learned it at school.”

“Well, let’s drink to that,” Cope said, raising his glass. “Now, let me see the picture.”

Lucy gave him the photo.

“What’s that poem about?” she asked Georg. “I didn’t quite understand.” She spoke in a soft American English, as if chewing on a potato. Georg told her about the poem and about Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and about his grandparents, who had lived by the lake in Zurich.

“I recognize the face,” Cope said suddenly. “That girl used to be in my workshop, but I just can’t remember her name.” He continued studying the photograph. “I’m not sure who might know. I never kept records. I have a good eye for faces and have never had trouble remembering who was paid up and who still owed me-not to mention that I always gave the students in my class new names.”

“Yes, they’re names that suit them,” Lucy said. “Calvin still does that, and most of the actors like it, and then keep it as a stage name.”

“But I know that you don’t like the name I gave you,” Cope said to her, “and autumn wouldn’t pick a fight with beautiful spring over a name, would he, which is why you are Lucy, nothing but Lucy, forever Lucy.” He laughed, but Georg wasn’t sure if there might be a touch of poison in his joviality.

The Châteaubriand arrived, was carved up, and served.

“Do you perhaps remember any of the other members of the workshop from back then?”

“No, I’m sorry, I can’t recall anyone. It’s been five or six years. You’re lucky I have such a good memory for faces, since this picture here is quite bad-was it you who took it? It’s no use. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to follow the example of the Saracen maiden. You crossed the ocean and came to New York convinced you’d find her, and now you’ll have to walk the streets of New York with the same conviction.”

Georg thought that sounded snide. Was Cope’s joviality indeed poisoned? Was he somehow irritated? Georg glanced out of the window. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the red-haired man was still standing in the doorway across the street. They ate in silence.

“Are you working on a new piece?” Georg asked in order to start a conversation.

“Why do you want to know? What do you know about the theater? What is all this? Goddamn it, nothing but idiots everywhere! First Goldberg, then Sheldon, and now this crazy lovebird from Europe!” Cope’s voice had gotten louder.

The waiter was more amused than put out, and seemed to be used to Cope’s scenes. Lucy put down her knife and fork, took a hairpin out of her bag, gathered her long, thick brown hair with both hands into a bun, and stuck it fast.

“Let’s go, I’ve had enough of this!” Cope shouted. “Waiter! Put the meal on my tab!” He jumped up and hurried down the stairs.

“It was nice meeting you,” Lucy said with a smile. “Can you write your name down? I can send you a ticket for opening night. I wouldn’t take any of this too seriously.”

Georg sat alone at the table in front of all the full plates. The waiter took the bottle out of the ice bucket and poured more wine. Georg ate the entire Châteaubriand and all the side orders and finished the bottle. The waiter brought him an espresso without asking if he wanted one and Georg ordered a brandy. He was celebrating. Françoise really had been in New York.

24

GEORG HAD NEVER BEEN SHADOWED BEFORE. Was it a coincidence that the red-haired man he’d seen from the restaurant window was now also strolling around the skating rink at Rockefeller Center? Georg stopped in front of boutiques, seeking the reflection of the street in the display windows, sometimes quickly glancing back. He knew this from the movies. He went into a bookstore and stood in the aisles, blindly leafing through books. It didn’t work: he could only keep the street in sight by standing next to the cashier. He went outside. It had started to rain again. There was a light gray haze around the tops of the skyscrapers, projectors throwing streams of light into the low-hanging clouds. Raindrops fell on his glasses. He looked up and felt as if he were soaring into a deep and starry sky, like the crane shot at the opening of some movies. The traffic was heavy, with a swarm of yellow cabs and crowds of people walking fast. Somebody bumped into him and he almost fell. He turned around, and though he didn’t see who had run into him, he caught sight of the red-haired man, who was now only a few yards behind him-he too without an umbrella, his wet hair plastered to his head.

Late in the afternoon of the following day Georg saw the young man again. He had been looking through old telephone directories for a bona fide Kramsky, perhaps a friend, a relative, or even a former coworker whose name Françoise might have borrowed. He hadn’t found anything. At five o’clock he had left the New York Public Library on Forty-second Street and walked uptown. Where should he look next? The theater workshops at the cathedral changed every year, but perhaps some of the participants signed up several years in a row. He could ask the members of the current workshop if anyone had been a member of a previous one and might know someone who had been a member of an even earlier one, who, in turn, might know someone who had… On Madison Avenue Georg eyed the expensive trifles that filled the display windows of the boutiques: flowers, paintings, jewelry, toys, antiques, expensive carpets. The women with their elegant clothes and comportment looked at him coldly, as if they were gingerly picking up some bauble, glancing at it, and casting it aside.

A bus stop sign listed a bus that went past Georg’s place. He turned to look if he could see a bus coming, and saw the redhead again. He was on the other side of the street, and turned to look at a store window. The bus arrived, but the redhead made no sign of getting on too. For as long as Georg could see him from the bus, the man was still looking into the shop windows.

People were getting on and off, people were shopping, a fire hydrant was being given a fresh coat of paint, store shutters were being repaired, a car was being unloaded, two people were embracing next to a waiting cab. Georg saw all this but didn’t take it in. It was all about winners and losers. He and those like him stood on one side: amateurs, fools, and losers; on the other side were the professionals who were part of the world of big business, international politics, organized crime, and the secret service: the world of success. Still, like anyone who reads the newspapers, he had seen enough politicians and businessmen trip and fall over their lies and blunders. But what intimidated him about the redhead’s shadowing him was how amateurishly he seemed to go about it.

The bus went up Madison Avenue and turned left. He had a hard time finding his bearings. At the next bus stop he saw on his left the bleak northern end of Central Park, and on his right a row of bricked-up, dilapidated mansions that had once been beautiful. Black children were playing in the rays of an early streetlight. A girl of about ten seemed to be putting on some kind of show: she struck poses like a star, limped like an old woman, scolded a little boy as if she were his mother, and strutted about like a macho guy putting the moves on a beautiful woman. She dropped the act, but the bus moved on and Georg couldn’t see what she did next.

25

WHEN GEORG OPENED THE DOOR to his apartment, he heard music, voices, and laughter. Two children were playing in the hall, and there were some people sitting in the living room, though most of the guests had crowded into the kitchen. Larry had given a lecture on Kafka in America that had been very well received, and was now throwing a party for his friends and his colleagues from the German Department.

Georg poured himself a drink and mingled with the guests. In the kitchen he heard scraps of English and German conversations, academic chitchat. A beautiful, vain woman with black hair and green stockings was leaning against the door. “How are you?” Georg asked, but she turned away and began talking to a young man in a turquoise shirt.

An amicable elderly gentleman in a purple jacket and a violet scarf asked Georg whether they had met before. They hadn’t.

A black man in a white suit asked Georg what he was doing in New York, and Georg told him he was working on a book. The black man introduced himself as a reporter for the New York Times, and said he was still waiting for his big break. One day he’d make a real splash with a big feature.

In the living room a man was telling a story to a captive audience. “Finally our lawyers came to an agreement,” he was saying. “She gets custody, and I get visiting rights every Sunday.” Everyone laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Georg whispered to a woman next to him.

“Every time I come back,” the man continued, “I’m a shadow of my former self.” Again everyone laughed, except for the man telling the story; he was spindly and of an uncertain age, with sparse curls and nervous fingers.

“That’s Max,” the woman next to Georg whispered, as if in answer to his previous question.

“And?”

She took Georg aside. “The dog… Max and his girlfriend broke up and have been fighting over who gets to keep the dog. By the way, my name is Helen. Who are you?” She looked up at him expectantly. She was short and wearing a tight skirt and a thick woolen pullover out of which peeked the collar of her blouse. She struck him as having wary eyes. He wasn’t certain whether they were defensive or unsure. She had longish, dark blond hair, and one eyebrow arched slightly higher than the other. Her mouth was set and her chin energetic.

“I’m Georg, Larry’s new roommate. Are you in the German Department too?”

She was teaching German and was working on a dissertation about German fairy tales, and had lived in Germany for quite a while as a student. She spoke fluent German, and only hesitated sometimes searching for a word, because it had to be just right.

“So you’re interested in the cathedral?” she asked. “Larry calls you the…” She tried to find the right expression, “the cathedral researcher.”

“Cathedral researcher? Not much of a topic. No, I’m here to… Where’s your glass? I’m going to get myself some more wine-would you like some too?”

She was waiting for him when he got back with the bottle and the glasses. She talked about her work on her thesis, and about her cat, Effi. She asked him if the German word Alraune had the same mysterious connotation as mandrake had in English. She told him the tale of a man who pulls a mandrake root from the soil, hears a plaintive, earthshaking cry, and suddenly finds a magician standing in front of him. Georg conjectured about the connection between the words Alraunen, runes, and the German word raunen, “to whisper.” He told her about France and his take on the French, what he liked about New York, and what he found intimidating about it. He could share with Helen his fairy-tale fears. Her conversation was clever and witty, and she listened to him attentively.

Georg was touched. He hadn’t had a normal conversation in ages, especially not with a woman. He had enjoyed talking with Françoise, though they had never talked extensively. But after he had caught her with a camera in his study that night, he had mistrusted her words and had calculated his, and their communication had become artificial. Slowly his trust in the normality of communication with others had been frayed, first with Bulnakov and Françoise, and then with his translators in Marseille and his friends in Cucuron. He remembered the evening he had dropped by Les Vieux Temps to have some salmon fettuccine. Gérard had greeted him warmly-too warmly. Had Gérard been lying in wait for him? Georg had abruptly turned back at the door and left, after which he had avoided Gérard.

Georg longed to have faith-not in some higher power, but in day-to-day things one could rely on. But could he trust Helen? Had he drawn her into a conversation or had she drawn him? He had met her at Larry’s and he had met Larry at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. Were these coincidences, or some strategy? Was Bulnakov behind Larry and Helen, behind the red-haired man? Georg was no longer listening to what Helen was saying, and had a hard time coming across as if he were listening at all. What could he tell her about himself without actually saying anything? He made small talk, nodded as she spoke, laughed, shook his head, asked her this and that, and was happy when he had the opportunity to look down at the floor for a few moments to gather his thoughts. All this took a lot out of him.

He excused himself and went to the toilet. When he got back, she was no longer there. In his room he went and stood by the window. He felt a lump rising from his chest to his throat. How will I ever be able to love anyone again? How can I learn once more to interact normally with people? I’m going insane, really insane. He began to cry and felt better, though the lump in his throat didn’t dissolve.

One of the guests came bursting into the room. Larry had put all the coats on Georg’s bed. Georg blew his nose. Other guests came and collected their things. The party was over. Before she left, Helen asked him if he wanted to meet Effi. She sounded natural and friendly. His suspicion was once more aroused. Effi? Who was this Effi? Oh, of course! Effi was her cat. He laughed and they set a date.

26

GEORG LAY ON HIS BED and looked out the window. It was dawn, the sky was still dark, but the upper windows of the tall buildings across the Hudson were already reflecting the red morning sun. Glowing windows-he had seen the burning light of the setting sun in the windows of Manhattan skyscrapers. This city isn’t just a forest, he thought, it is also mountains, alps.

He had dreamed of Cucuron, of the cats, and of Françoise. In the dream they had packed their suitcases and put them in the car, but he couldn’t recall where they were thinking of going. Or were they running away? Something in the dream frightened him. He still felt the fear.

Is that what my life has become? Things happen that I don’t understand and I only react to with fear and awkwardness? I have to act, not react. He had often brooded about this over the past few weeks, though he wasn’t quite sure what the difference was.

But maybe what truly matters is not acting and changing the world but interpreting differently. Georg laughed and put his arms behind his head. That he was being shadowed was the way they interpreted it. Why not interpret the whole thing differently, and see the shadowing as a trail that he could follow, an opportunity that he could use?

He let his thoughts roam. He imagined himself walking through a dark Riverside Park, the redheaded man some fifty yards behind him: Georg comes to a large tree and reacts, no, acts, with lightning speed. He glances back and sees his shadower sauntering along casually. Georg slips behind the thick tree trunk, hears his heart pounding, and then the steps of his shadower coming closer. Suddenly there is silence. Keep on walking! Georg thinks. Keep going! On the street above, a bus rumbles by. He hears the steps again, hears them hesitate, become decisive, then run. It’s all a child’s game. He trips the redhead, and even as he falls Georg kicks him in the stomach. He kicks him as he lies there: that’s for the cats, that’s for the attack, that’s for all the pain he has endured for Françoise. His first punch breaks the man’s nose. The bleeding face utters words in faulty English: They had heard he was coming to New York and were worried he would…

Would what? Georg didn’t know what his imagination should make the redhead say. That was why he wanted to beat it out of him. But if it wasn’t a child’s game? Georg trips up the running man, the redhead leaps forward, rolls, and jumps back up before Georg can even steady himself. A knife flashes in the man’s hand.

Georg tried another scenario. Where could he get a false beard and color for his face and hair? Where could he get a hat and dark glasses? And what could he wear and take with him so that after a few minutes in a men’s room he could turn into someone else? There had to be costume rentals and theatrical wardrobes in the Yellow Pages. But what would his shadower think if he saw him go there? Georg imagined putting black shoe polish in his hair, brown color on his face, and a beard he would make from his pubic and chest hair. He peered under the covers-there wasn’t a lot there.

He heard Larry leaving the apartment. He got up, looked through the closets, and found a black hat and a light-colored nylon coat that was rolled up. If he buttoned it up all the way, nothing but the knot of his tie would show. There were a dozen ties hanging on the inside of the closet door. He put everything back in place.

All morning he strolled down Broadway, keeping an eye out for the shadower. The weather had changed. The sky hung low and gray, and the air was warm and humid. The people hurrying by had left their coats and jackets at home, and only the panhandlers were wrapped in layers of clothing, some holding out paper cups in gloved hands begging for money. The storm broke, and Georg took shelter beneath the awning of a fruit stand. Beside him were heaps of melons, pineapples, apples, and peaches. There was a pleasant aroma. He watched the flow of buses, trucks, bright-colored cars, and yellow cabs.

The rain stopped, and he walked on. He went into several drugstores. He found some tan coloring that was good enough in the first one. However, the drugstores didn’t sell false beards or the kind of hair dye that could be quickly applied or sprayed on. He looked for his shadower in vain. Between Seventy-eighth and Seventy-ninth streets he almost walked past the Paper House store with its greeting cards for every occasion and masks of Mickey Mouse, King Kong, Dracula, and Frankenstein’s monster. Shrink-wrapped beards, side-burns, and mustaches of shiny, black synthetic fiber hung by the entrance. He wanted to get to the greeting-card section in case the shadower peered through the store window. He quickly grabbed one of the beards and found a selection of hairspray in all colors, took a can with a black cap, picked three greeting cards at random, and paid the cashier before anyone stopped outside the store window. He put the beard and the hairspray in his coat pocket and stood by the door, looking at the cards he had bought: “Be My Valentine.” Three times.

At the optician’s, he quickly hid the sunglasses he had bought in his bag, and stood outside again polishing his own glasses before anyone had a chance to walk by.

He no longer left his apartment without a plastic bag. In it were the hat, the coat, a tie, the brown tanning color, the black hairspray, the beard, and a small mirror. But either no one was shadowing him, or he didn’t see anyone. He took the subway to Brooklyn to meet the head of the kindergarten, who, it turned out, couldn’t tell him any more about Françoise than the former head of the Ladies Guild in Queens had. Again he stood outside the Polish and Soviet consulates, but every time he walked away he didn’t notice anyone shadowing him. Mostly he wandered the streets aimlessly, only occasionally glancing back sheepishly to see if he was being followed. Sometimes he got lost. That didn’t worry him-sooner or later he always found a subway station. The weather remained stormy and humid. He now saw the city as a living organism, a hissing dragon, or the kind of gigantic whale that castaways in old adventure books mistook for islands. The whale spouted fountains of water from time to time, and its sweat evaporated in a haze.

One evening Georg went out with Helen. He had given much thought to what he would tell her about himself as they were getting to know each other. He had been a lawyer in Germany and had lived in France as a translator and writer-so far so good. But what was he doing in New York? He told her he was doing research for a book, but then also told her about Françoise, that he had met her in Cucuron, and was looking for her in New York. A lame story, he himself realized. It wasn’t surprising that Helen seemed more comfortable talking to the waiter than to him. Her manner struck him as friendly but cautious. They were having dinner at Pertutti, an Italian restaurant on Broadway not far from Columbia. She often went there for lunch. The place reminded him of his own student years, and his lunches and dinners with friends.

He found it hard to talk, not only because he was worried he would reveal too much, but because he was out of practice. In the past he had enjoyed intellectual exchanges: talking about books, movies, politics, and at the same time talking about oneself, mirroring what one had read or seen in one’s own experience, and then presenting one’s experience in general terms, grasping and analyzing developments and relations of others as prototypes. He could no longer do this. He hadn’t done any of this since he had moved from Karlsruhe to Cucuron, and after he had taken over Maurin’s translation agency in Marseille, he had barely read a book or seen a movie. With Françoise he had only spoken about everyday matters. When friends had come from Germany, they had talked about what they were doing and about old times. Georg felt foolish next to Helen, who drew parallels between her students and students in general, spoke about the fairy tales she was working on for her dissertation, trends in the German short story, and Germany’s turmoil in the nineteenth century; about National Socialism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism; and of her experiences as a student in Trier.

“Did you visit Marx’s birthplace in Trier?” he asked.

Helen shook her head. “Have you?”

“No.”

“Why bring up Marx?” she asked, relieved that he had said something after his long interlude of nodding and smiling. She reached for her glass and took a sip.

“I’ve been thinking about something he wrote that has to do with changing and interpreting the world,” Georg said, and tried to explain why it was important not to take others’ behavior as they mean it, but to determine the meaning oneself.

“Isn’t that… isn’t that what the insane do?” Helen said. “Not caring about what people mean, but seeing in other people’s actions what they want to see?”

“What they want to see, or what they are compelled to? If they can choose, then they live with freedom of action instead of having to react. And freedom of action doesn’t automatically bring success and happiness. Moreover, when dealing with those whose behavior is so powerful that one can only react, insanity is perhaps better than submission.”

She didn’t understand him. He didn’t understand himself either.

“Is that what you’re writing about?” she asked.

He looked at her. “Are you joking?” he said. “We’ve been sitting here for two hours, and I can’t even talk properly about students, books, and politics, and you expect me to write about philosophy or whatever?”

“The problem here seems to be linguistic.”

“Fair enough. I’m sorry I asked you out. I’ve ruined your evening. I didn’t realize that I’ve”-he couldn’t find the right expression-“that I’ve lost so much of my social skills.”

The check had been lying on the table for some time. He took some money out of his pocket. She watched him silently, her eyes once again careful. They got up, and he walked with her along Broadway and then up Riverside Drive to where she lived.

“Do you want to come up for a drink?”

They hadn’t said a word all the way to her place. In the elevator she asked him what his sign was, and he asked her what hers was. They were both Capricorns. In her apartment, she asked him about Françoise.

“Do you love her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why are you avoiding my question?”

“Why are you asking? I mean, why are you asking whether I love her?”

“I’d like to know more about you, so I have to start somewhere.”

“I don’t know a lot about you either.”

“That’s true.”

He looked at her. Her eyes were cautious again. Perhaps her cautiousness has nothing to do with me, he thought, perhaps it’s always there. What striking features she has. She’s attractive in a sharp sort of way. And still, even with her hair drawn back into a stern ponytail, she looks friendly.

She smiled. “Would you like to see me again?”

“Yes, I would.” He was sitting next to her on the couch, and caressed her hand, his fingers running along her veins. “I don’t have much money left. Would a walk through Central Park with a Coke and french fries on a park bench be okay?”

She nodded.

“Then I’ll be on my way.”

“Stay.”

He stayed. He woke up often and looked at her as she slept lying on her back in her buttoned-up nightdress, her arms stretched out beside her. The cat was sleeping at his feet. The warmth of the shared bed and the memory of her embraces were pleasant. It was like a homecoming. But always, when he came home, he doubted whether he still belonged there.

27

TWICE THE FOLLOWING DAY GEORG was under the impression that he had seen the same balding man in a gray shirt, light brown pants, and black shoes following him. But he wasn’t sure. The day after, Georg was waiting for the bus on Sixth Avenue. It was four o’clock and the street was busy, but it was before rush hour. When the light turned red, there was silence for a few seconds before the traffic came pouring in from the side streets.

He was tired, and only looked up from time to time to see if his bus was coming. He wouldn’t have looked across the street if a truck hadn’t rammed a cab. And he wouldn’t have noticed the redhead, who had been standing behind the truck and now slowly walked on.

Georg looked down the avenue again: there was no sign of a bus. He picked up his plastic bag and started walking. He walked slowly so that the redhead could follow him, but with determination, as was to be expected from someone who has waited long enough for a bus and decided it would be faster to walk. Sixth Avenue, Forty-second Street, Vanderbilt Avenue. The whole way, he didn’t look back. If the redhead wasn’t following him, too bad. Before going into Grand Central, he dropped a coin and bent down to look for it. People bumped into him and squeezed past. Twenty-one, twenty-two-he counted with clenched teeth. This had to be enough time for the redhead to have seen him. He straightened up and went into the station.

Aha, Georg thought, I see that I can’t get away from cathedrals. The high, flat vault, and in front a gigantic photograph of hot-air balloons before liftoff. The broad steps to the left and right leading down from the street to the hall were worthy of a palace, but of a cathedral too. In the middle of the hall was a circular information booth of stone and transparent, dark blue glass with a brass sphere on top that proclaimed the time from four round dials in four directions. It looked almost like a monstrance. Georg walked down the stairs and found his bearings. To his right was the ticket counter, and above it the boards with the arrival and departure times of the trains. It was twenty past four, and at four-forty there was a train bound for Stamford. He bought a ticket for White Plains. Now he could while away the time. He strolled through the main concourse, peering into the passageways leading down to the trains. He read the flickering electronic signs indicating the share prices and currency exchange and the prices for cotton, coffee, and sugar. He went into a smaller hall where there was a newspaper stand, heavy wooden benches, and restroom signs. Five chandeliers hung from the five vaults of the ceiling.

He sat down on a bench and took a newspaper out of his bag. Has he followed me? Is he watching me? While he was strolling through the halls Georg hadn’t seen the redhead; he hadn’t wanted him to realize he was keeping an eye out for him. Can he watch me discreetly in such a place, or did he see me buying a ticket and is waiting for me to come back into the concourse before my train leaves?

He got up and followed the sign to the men’s room-a hallway, a door, a large white room with a long row of urinals and men’s backs, and on the other side a long row of white doors. A janitor in white overalls was cleaning the washbasins, humming a song.

It was time for action: close the door, turn the key, pour everything out of the bag onto the floor. Where can I set up my mirror? Will it stay upright on the toilet tank if I lean it against my wallet? He squatted before the mirror, covered his face and neck with a handkerchief, and sprayed black color onto his hair. He rubbed it in, and sprayed again. He wiped away the excess, applied the skin color, stuck on his beard, and tied his tie. He thought he looked like a villain in an old action movie, and once he had put on the dark glasses, like a silent-film-era shyster. The main thing was that he could barely recognize himself. When he got up and put on his coat and hat, he caught sight of his gray sneakers. He blackened them with the rest of the hairspray.

Nobody noticed him when he came out of the stall. He headed to the concourse, trying to walk differently, swaying, with small steps.

The redhead was standing beneath a poster in which Snoopy was advertising MetLife. Georg bought a copy of the New York Times and began leafing through it. The redhead was looking around. He walked on, and Georg folded his paper and followed him through the concourse. From the top of the flight of stairs, Georg saw him watching people. The redhead kept looking at the departures board. It wasn’t easy: it was rush hour, and a steady stream of people was pouring down the stairs. The redhead gave up. He let the stream carry him, jostled his way out of the concourse while trying to keep a lookout, but the stream carried him through the corridor leading to the subway. Georg followed the crowds down a ramp and a flight of stairs, through the turnstile, and onto the subway platform. The redhead was standing farther up the platform, and Georg made his way toward him. The downtown Lexington Avenue Express arrived, and he managed to get into the same car. So the fellow wasn’t heading to the Soviet or the Polish consulate.

They got off at Union Square. They went up the stairs, through the park with the sparse grass and benches that were spotty and leprous and had not been painted in a long time, and onto Broadway, which here was narrow and shabby. The redhead was walking fast. After a couple of blocks, he entered a building.

Georg stopped. It was an old building, with dirty brown brickwork and columns between the windows. Above the ground floor with a shuttered storefront he counted nine floors and half of a tenth, a construction of Roman arches and columns. Above the narrow entrance he read MACINTYRE BUILDING, 874. It towered over the others around it. It had seen better days, but still had a shabby dignity.

The door was locked. There was no way of looking into the hallway where he might see an elevator and an indicator light that would show what floor the redhead was going to. Next to the second buzzer Georg made out Anderson, and next to the fifth there was a new bronze plaque with fancy lettering that said TOWNSEND ENTERPRISES. The names next to the other bells were faded or nonexistent.

What was he to do now? It was a quarter past five, the traffic was heavy. He crossed the street and stopped in front of the window of a sports store, keeping an eye on the entrance to the building. At a quarter to six the redhead came out, carrying a briefcase. With him was a young man in jeans and a blue shirt, its top buttons undone. Shortly after six, a group of young women left the building-secretaries, Georg surmised-and toward seven a number of gentlemen in dark suits. It was getting dark, and on the fifth and sixth floors the lights came on.

He was tired. He was sweating beneath the nylon of his coat, his beard itched, and his back ached. With exhaustion came disappointment. Each time the door opened, he had hoped to see Françoise, or at least Bulnakov, or-he himself didn’t know who.

Patience is a virtue, as the saying goes. But then again, nobody ever feels the virtue of standing around patiently. We are taught at an early age that you earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, and that we can count on success if we work hard enough at something. What we do not learn is to wait. All of this went through Georg’s mind. If only he could wait, knowing that there would be an outcome. But he had no idea whether he had gotten even an inch closer to Françoise.

28

BY SEVEN THE FOLLOWING MORNING GEORG was back at the MacIntyre Building. He had decided against the hairspray, the tanning color, and the coat and hat, and settled for a mustache and sunglasses instead. He walked along the opposite side of the street. From a window table at McDonald’s he could keep the entrance in sight, as well as from what he had learned to identify as a classic New York diner on the corner. But since he wanted to be able to see the door buzzers, to see which one the redhead would ring, he had to stand in a doorway across the street. He was eyed suspiciously by everyone coming in, and soon the super appeared to ask what he was doing there. Georg told him his girlfriend worked across the street and that she was coming back from a trip, but that he didn’t know exactly at what time. She was going to go straight to work, and he didn’t want to miss her. What company was she working for? Georg said he didn’t know, otherwise he wouldn’t be standing there but would have left her a message. All he knew, Georg said, was that she worked across the street, as he’d picked her up often enough.

“Why don’t you just go ask for her across the street?”

The question was so simple and logical that Georg couldn’t come up with anything. He crossed the street, the super watching him as he went. He rang the bottom buzzer. He didn’t know what he would say if anyone answered, nor did he know why he didn’t just pretend to ring the bell, or simply walk away. The intercom remained silent, and he rang the next bell. The super was still watching him. Suddenly the redhead came walking up the street. He was walking fast, his arms swinging. Georg turned around and walked away. It took all his strength to walk calmly. He wanted to run. His heart was pounding. After twenty yards he looked back and saw neither the redhead nor the super.

That evening Helen took him to a baseball game; the Yankees were playing the Cleveland Indians. The stadium looked enormous, even from outside. But after they had taken the escalators, gone up the ramps, and climbed the stairs to their seats, Georg felt as if they were sitting on the rim of a gigantic crater, one side of which had been blown away. The upper tier sloped steeply. Below it a further tier sloped gently down to the playing field. The pitcher, the catcher, the batter, and all the rest of the players Helen pointed out to him were as small as toy figures. There was a flat row of panels and monitors the size of movie screens at the far end of the playing field, and he could see the buildings of the Bronx, and above them the darkening evening sky.

Helen explained the game, and Georg managed to follow it. The pitcher throws the ball to the catcher, and the batter has to try to hit the flying ball with his bat and drive it as far away as possible, while he runs to a certain point before the ball is thrown there and caught by someone. The game keeps stopping, the players change their roles, and balls are thrown and caught by the players in the team as if for practice or fun. The fans root for their team, boo, clap, and howl, but don’t become rowdy, don’t smash things, or beat people up. Hot dogs, peanuts, and beer are sold. Just like a picnic, Georg thought. He laid an arm around Helen’s shoulder, and in the other hand held a paper cup. He felt great.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked with a smile.

At times the ball soared up through the lights in a steep curve, a white sphere against the dark sky. A seagull flew through the lights above the stadium. The screen showed replays and close-ups of the players. The cameras also panned through the audience.

“Where is that?” Georg shouted at Helen.

“Where is what?”

“On the screen! Where are those people sitting?”

He had seen Françoise, he had seen her face. The screen was now showing a family, a laughing fat man wearing a Yankees cap, and two black girls who saw the camera and waved, all within seconds.

“Those are just people here in the stadium.” She didn’t understand.

“But where in the stadium? Down there, over there? Where are the cameras?”

He jumped up and ran down the stairs. Françoise had to be sitting down below. The camera had shown seats that were almost at the level of the playing field. He tripped, nearly fell, caught himself, kept running. Aisles, handrails, ushers in red caps, blue shirts, and pants-this is where the better seats began. He jumped railings, climbed over the backs of seats of three empty rows, ran left to the next flight of stairs, and continued his descent. He had dodged an usher, but the usher had seen him. There were more stairs; he ran faster down to the next handrail, beneath which the seats were occupied. He wanted to turn left, to the continuation of the stairs, but he saw an usher there. On the right too. So he jumped over the railing where there was a free seat, made his way along the row, over the back of the next free seat, and then again, and down the stairs.

He came to the railing where the upper tier ended. The players and fans were far below. Had Françoise been wearing something red? A blouse? His eyes scanned the rows, saw red everywhere, barely able to tell women and men apart: jackets, sweatshirts, blouses.

“Françoise!” he yelled. People around him had noticed and, amused by his running and shouting, began to chime in, “Françoise! Françoise!”

When the ushers came, Georg followed them without a word. Not a single person in the lower tier had looked up. The ushers were friendly, asked to see his ticket stub, and escorted him back to the upper seats. Helen was waiting for him.

“I’m sorry, but I have to get down there.”

“We’re in the final inning. Unless there’s a miracle, the Indians will lose within the next two minutes.”

He wasn’t listening. “I’m really sorry, but I really do have to get down there,” he said. He walked over to the aisle. She followed him. “Is this about her? Did you see her? Do you love her so much?”

“Do you know how I can get all the way down? Down to the front rows?” He was walking faster, heading down.

“The game’s over, it’s over! Did you hear me?”

He stopped. The fans were clapping rhythmically, shouting “Yanks! Yanks!” And within seconds people were pouring into the aisles, and over the ramps and stairs.

“But I have to…”

“There are forty thousand people here.”

“Forty thousand in a stadium is still better than all the millions in New York,” he said stubbornly, but could no longer stop to reason with her as the stream of crowds carried them down the stairs and out onto the street. On the way to the subway, and down on the platform, he craned his neck and looked around.

“What would you have done if-” Helen began, “I mean, what would you do if you found her?” They were standing in front of Helen’s house, and she was playing with the buttons of his shirt.

He didn’t know what to say. He had imagined all sorts of things: a furious eruption, coolly walking out on her, a stormy or a dignified reconciliation.

“Do you want to get back together with her?”

“I…” he began, but fell silent.

“There’s not much prospect of success when one has to fight so hard for someone. Being back together might at first be heaven on earth. But then, how can she ever repay what you have suffered on her account? Why should she even want to repay it? Did she ask you to suffer?”

Georg looked at her downcast.

“Call me one of these days,” she said, kissed his cheek, and left.

Georg bought a beer and sat down on a bench in Riverside Park. He had no idea what to do, what his next step should be. Tomorrow, he told himself, tomorrow I’ll make up my mind. Or else things will figure themselves out. Perhaps patience is a virtue also when it comes to decisions. Perhaps things fall into place on their own.

29

THE FOLLOWING DAY GEORG took particular care with his disguise: the brown tanning color, the black hairspray, mustache, sunglasses, jacket, and tie. The previous day the redhead had turned up at a quarter past eight. Georg waited by the sports store. He saw the redhead arriving, crossed the street, and reached the door just as he did. The redhead looked pleasant enough: his face was scarred by acne, but he had clear blue eyes, strong cheekbones, and a broad smile. With his gray suit and buffalo-leather briefcase, he would have blended in at any investment bank or law firm. He looked at Georg blankly, though perhaps with a touch of curiosity, and rang the fourth-floor bell. Georg pressed the eighth-floor bell.

“Another hot day,” Georg said.

“Mm.”

The door buzzed. The floor of the hallway and the stairs were covered with gray construction paper. The woodwork and banisters had been sanded down, and a first coat of paint had been applied to the walls. Two wood planks were nailed across the missing elevator door.

“They’re still working on the elevator,” the redhead said. “You’ve got quite a climb.”

“At least I have company halfway.”

The construction paper covering the stairs was slippery. Above the third floor there was a new dark gray carpet, the walls were light gray, and the woodwork had been painted Bordeaux red. There was still a smell of fresh paint. On the fourth floor the redhead wished him a nice day and opened a heavy metallic door that bore no inscription. Georg continued climbing the stairs. On the fifth floor was an opaque brown-tinted glass door that read TOWNSEND ENTERPRISES in gold letters, and on the sixth and seventh floors there were again bare metallic doors. The door on the eighth floor stood ajar and he pushed it open.

The floor was unoccupied. Here, too, there was a fresh coat of paint, construction paper on the floor, ladders, and trestle tables. From a corner window he could see Union Square across tarred rooftops, and farther away the Twin Towers. The redhead probably knew that the eighth floor was empty. He might be suspicious.

Georg went down to the fourth floor and rang the bell at Townsend Enterprises. The door swung open with a soft click and he saw a large room, and on the wall an inlaid gold and bronze map of the world. The door fell shut behind him, and from a hall to the left a woman appeared in a pink blouse, a gray suit, with extravagantly pinned-up black hair and ugly pink glasses.

“Can I help you?”

“I was looking for the law firm of Webster, Katz, and Weingarten on the eighth floor. Do you know where they might have moved?”

“We’ve only been here for two weeks. I don’t know anything about previous tenants. Would you like me to check the phone book?”

“That’s very kind of you, but thanks all the same.” As he turned to leave, he saw her press the city of Lima on the map, at which the door sprang open. He also noticed to her right a spiral staircase in the corridor leading to the floor below.

He called Mr. Epp from a public phone.

“Do you know how I can find out what kind of company Townsend Enterprises is? It’s at 874 Broadway?”

“You could ask for a credit report.”

“Where?”

“I’ll do it for you. Call me back in a few hours.”

Two hours later Georg found out that Townsend Enterprises imported rare woods and precious metals, and that it had gone bankrupt six months ago and been taken over.

“Who took it over?”

“The report doesn’t say,” Mr. Epp replied.

“But where there’s a seller there has to be a buyer.”

“You’re right, but the buyer didn’t appear on the credit report.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the buyer didn’t take out a loan to take over the company. If, for instance, you buy an apartment on Central Park South and pay cash, there won’t be a credit report on you. That’s a bad example, though, because you’d arouse suspicion if you turned up with half a million dollars in cash. Nor is it necessarily a given that the buyer didn’t borrow any money: if he has enough assets to cover the credit, then the creditor doesn’t care whether he uses the money to buy Townsend or to go to Bermuda on vacation.”

“So how can I find the buyer?”

“If he doesn’t want to be found by you or someone like you, there’s nothing you can do.”

“What about the seller?”

“You can try that. Townsend Enterprises belonged to a Mr. Townsend, who lived in Queens. Perhaps he still does. Would you like his address?”

Georg wrote it down. He went to Queens, but didn’t get very far. Mr. Townsend said he wouldn’t tell him anything. No, he wouldn’t let him in. No, he didn’t care how important it was. No, he wouldn’t talk to him, even if he paid him. Mr. Townsend kept the chain on the door.

Georg called home to Germany, the call costing him more money than he had. But in the end his parents and some friends promised to wire him seven thousand marks.

Then he called Helen. “Can we meet this evening? I have a problem I can’t solve. I’d like to discuss it with you.” It was a difficult call for him to make.

“All right,” she replied hesitantly.

30

THEY MET AGAIN AT PERTUTTI and waited for a table.

“What did you do today?” he asked.

“I spent the day writing.”

“What were you writing?”

“My thesis.”

“What part are you working on right now?”

“The Brothers Grimm had various versions of their fairy tales, and… oh, let’s forget about that. You’re not really interested, and I’m not either right now. If you aren’t ready to start on what you wanted to talk to me about, then don’t say anything. That seems to be your specialty.”

They remained silent until they were seated at the table, had ordered, and had a bottle of wine in front of them.

“It’s about that girl from France, the one I told you about.”

“The one you’re looking for? You want me to help you find her?”

He rolled the wineglass back and forth between his palms.

“That’s what it is, isn’t it,” she continued. “You sleep with me, but she’s the one you want to be with. And now you’re asking me to help you get back together with her? Don’t you think that’s a bit twisted?”

“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Helen. I didn’t mean to. The night we spent together was wonderful, and I wasn’t thinking about Françoise. You asked if I still love her. I really don’t know. But I must find her. I need to know what it was between her and me-whether it was all in my imagination. I don’t trust anyone or anything anymore, especially not myself and my feelings. I… it’s as if everything is blocked and grinding to a halt.”

“What is it you imagined?”

“That everything between her and me was perfect. Like with no other woman.”

Helen looked at him sadly.

“I can’t tell you the whole tangled story,” he went on. “I think you’ll see why when I tell you what I can tell you. If you’d rather I didn’t”-he looked up and saw that the waitress had brought their food-“then we can just have our spaghetti.” He sprinkled some cheese on his dish. “You told me last night that I need to figure out what I want. I don’t just want to find her-I want to put my life back on track. I want to be able to connect with people again, to talk about myself, listen to people, ask for advice when I’m stuck, and even for help. I don’t think you took what I said before seriously, but it is true, I have lost my social skills. I think I’ll go crazy if I go on like this.” He laughed. “I know I can’t expect people to welcome me back with open arms, but I also know I can’t go off and feel sorry for myself if they don’t.” He wound the spaghetti around his fork. “You know, I probably should be happy I could even ask you.”

“And what is the question you would be happy to ask if you could ask?”

“Ah, you’ve happened upon one of those linguistic issues.”

“No, it’s a logical one. And I didn’t happen upon it-I crafted it. But do go on.”

He pushed his full plate to the side. “I don’t even know what her name is. In France she called herself Françoise Kramsky, but I’m certain that’s not her name. The French and Polish background reflected in that name might be real, but then again it might just have been part of the role she was playing. She was passing herself off as a Polish woman who has to work for the Polish or Russian secret service because her parents and brother back in Poland are in danger. For all I know this may or may not be the case. Either way, she used to live in New York, and I think she’s still living here. After yesterday, I believe this more than ever.”

“How do you know she used to live here?”

Georg told her about the poster in Françoise’s room in Cadenet, about his looking for her at the cathedral, and about his meeting with Calvin Cope. “And you saw what happened yesterday evening at the game,” he added.

“Are you saying that the only thing you knew when you came to New York was that… I mean, all you had to go on was a poster of a cathedral in New York? I used to have a poster on my wall of Gripsholm Castle!”

“But you didn’t make a secret of the fact that it was Gripsholm Castle. Françoise had cut off the wording at the bottom of the poster and told me it was the church in Warsaw where her parents got married. Be that as it may, I now know that she took part in the theater workshop at the cathedral, and that in any event nobody here seemed to have taken her for Polish or Russian. So she not only speaks French, but also English, and both, it seems, fluently.”

“Does she speak Polish too?” Helen asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know any Polish.”

“She couldn’t have known that. She must have anticipated that you might know Polish. Go on.”

“I’ve told you pretty much all I know. I have reason to believe that her previous employer has an office near Union Square, and that she might still be working for him.”

“Do you have the address?”

“Yes.”

“You went there?”

“I went a couple of times, but didn’t see her going in or coming out.”

“So you’re saying… you’re saying that the Polish or Russian secret service is operating here in Manhattan? And you know the address? Sixteenth Street, seventh floor, ring three times, KGB sort of thing?”

“No, I’m not saying that. But in Cucuron they threatened me, followed me, and beat me up, and here they’ve been shadowing me. There’s no rhyme or reason for all this, except that it must be the same Polish or Russian secret service. And the fellow who’s been following me goes to work every morning and then returns there in the evening after his day of shadowing.”

“Your spaghetti’s getting cold.”

He pulled the plate toward him and began to eat. “It’s already cold.”

She had finished eating. “So you’re asking me how you should go looking for Françoise because I live in New York and might have some ideas about how to find someone in this city. Good, I’ll share my ideas with you. But whether you like it or not, I’ll also give you a piece of my mind about the story you’ve just told me. First, if you believe your girlfriend is in the clutches of an Eastern Bloc secret service and that you can free her on your own, that’s pure nonsense. If she’s in anybody’s clutches, then the CIA would do a far better job at freeing her. If she isn’t going to the CIA herself, then it’s because she can’t or doesn’t want to be freed. Second, you should go to the CIA too. I don’t know what your dealings with the KGB are, but you should have seen your face when you told me about how they beat you up. Do you want to hit back at them? Do you want to blackmail them into returning your girlfriend to you? Do you want compensation for being beaten up? I imagine these secret services are never worth the money put into them, but if they couldn’t handle someone like you, nobody would invest a cent in them. I’ve just tied in my third point with my second one, but that doesn’t matter. To go to the CIA, but also to leave things as they are, wouldn’t be a bad idea. I like that neighborhood, and it gets to me to hear about a KGB office there. My favorite shops are there and a bunch of galleries are not too far away; there’s a nice new restaurant I like, and then the KGB moves in? I don’t like that! Don’t you feel the same way?”

“Look, Helen, these people have finished me off. They used my love, my abilities, destroyed my life in Cucuron, and beat me up. They instigated a car crash that killed a man. They shot my cats.”

“They did what?”

Georg told her. “Perhaps that’s how they threaten the free world. I don’t mean by instigating car crashes and shooting cats, but by manipulating people. In which case my revenge will have something to do with the worldwide battle between good and evil. But that doesn’t affect me, and I don’t care if they’ve set up shop near Union Square or Moscow or Cadenet-I don’t care a bit. I don’t want to let them get away with what they did to me. I want money from them, even if it won’t bring back my cats or Maurin, whom I didn’t particularly like, but he wasn’t a bad guy and never did me any harm. I want money, because they made my life miserable, and because I don’t want to continue living in misery. And also because it will be a defeat for them.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t understand you. But, okay: I promised you some ideas. You have that picture of Françoise, right? So I would go to the foreign bookstores, the French and Polish or Russian ones. I don’t know where they are, but I know they exist. I’d also go to libraries with foreign collections. I would go to the restaurants near that office. Above all: since she was in that workshop at the cathedral, she will have lived near here. If she knows French and Polish so well, she will have studied them-probably at Columbia. I’d ask around in the French and Russian departments.”

“Do you have any colleagues there?”

“You can give me a picture of her, and I’ll ask around.” Helen put the picture in her bag, shaking her head. “And when you have your money and your girl-are you going to expose those secret-service people?”

“Expose them? But that would only get them extradited. There was this one guy, Bulnakov, the boss in Cadenet. I would have loved to have strangled him or beaten him to a pulp. I often imagined doing it, but I couldn’t bring myself to. If I could have, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

“The cats, I keep thinking about your cats. Were they anything like Effi?” She narrowed her eyes, and bit her lips. There was horror and sadness in her face.

“One was white, one was striped, and the third was black with white paws. They were all a year apart, and little Dopey was always putting one over on Sneezy, just like Sneezy had done the year before with Snow White.”

“All those names are from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. What I don’t understand: You said that these men destroyed your life in Cucuron. Why did they do it, and how come they managed to do it?”

“I don’t know. They must have some link to the French secret service.”

“How can the Russian or Polish secret service have a link to the French one? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Don’t ask me. Either way, I didn’t get any more translation work, and I had all kinds of trouble with the municipality, the police, the bank, and my landlord.”

“What did they figure they’d get out of this?”

“I’ve asked myself that too. Perhaps they wanted me to be stamped as untrustworthy. Then there wouldn’t be anybody I could turn to with my story.”

“And you think they also found out about your coming to New York from the French secret service?”

“How else would they have? At any rate, the French customs officer asked me all kinds of questions on my way to Brussels to catch my flight to New York. The French secret service could have found all this out from customs, and the Polish or Russians from them.”

“I don’t like all this.”

Georg still felt that she was convinced he ought to go to the CIA. Was she right? For her the issue didn’t seem to be a possible threat to United States’, or to European national security. It doesn’t matter where the secret service sets up shop-it can do so anywhere. That its work is compromised if people report its activities, if its agents are extradited, and its branches have to move, is of less importance than national security. Georg took Helen’s love for the Union Square area seriously. She had a point. Furthermore, he found the idea attractive that a city is a small mirror of the world, containing within it life and work, business and religion, wealth and poverty, black and white, CIA and KGB. That’s what he liked about New York: it is the whole world, more so than any middle-class German city could be. He tried to explain this to Helen, but couldn’t convince her.

31

GEORG ASKED IN FOREIGN bookstores and libraries whether anyone knew Françoise. He showed her photograph at the cash registers and the counters of diners and stores near the MacIntyre Building. To no avail. He called Helen every evening, and she always came up with some excuse about why she hadn’t called him, though she had promised to. She hadn’t reached any of her colleagues yet.

He no longer cared whether he was being shadowed or not. On the last day of his reconnaissance in the area around the MacIntyre Building, he went into a diner, and, as he stood waiting for a table, saw the redhead having lunch. The diner was packed, and waiters were rushing past with laden trays, while the owner sat more customers by shouting at them where to sit. The redhead was eating a hamburger, drinking a Coke, and reading a newspaper. Just another regular.

Georg made his way through the diner and sat down at the redhead’s table. For an instant the man looked surprised, but then recovered his professional cool. “Don’t let me disturb you,” Georg said. “I think there’s no need for introductions. You might know me better than I know you, but I know you well enough to be able to ask you to pass on a message. There’s a gentleman in your-your organization with whom I would like to speak. He was working in France not too long ago; perhaps he’s still there, I don’t know. He called himself Bulnakov. A short man, stout, sixtyish. Do you know him?”

The redhead didn’t say anything, nor did he nod or shake his head.

“I’d like to speak to him. I doubt you have his schedule handy, so have him call me to set up an appointment. Tell him it’s important. I don’t want to be melodramatic, but tell him too that it wouldn’t be a good idea to have me killed. I’ve written down everything I know, and mailed it out. If my friends don’t hear from me, they’ll mail the information on to Mermoz, the police, and the newspapers.”

“Can I take your order?” the waiter asked.

“Could I have a Coke?”

“Diet?”

“No, regular.”

“Have you ever thought of dyeing your hair?” Georg asked, feeling like all three musketeers in one. The redhead ran his fingers through his hair. No, he didn’t look pleasant after all. His eyes were too small and his nose too wide. Georg didn’t wait for his Coke. He got up.

Outside, he was suddenly gripped by fear. Have I gone crazy? How can I get out of this now? Leave the country? Does he know I didn’t mail anything to my friends? Georg looked around, saw an empty cab, and flagged it. He had to get home. The trip took half an hour, and thoughts swirled through his mind. He broke into a sweat. He stared intensely at the streets, the traffic, and the people: the horse-drawn carriage that turned in to Central Park; Columbus on his tall column; the Metropolitan Opera; the movie theaters; the restaurants that had been too pricey for him and of which he made a mental note for better times; the benches on the median strip of Broadway, where he wanted some day to while away an afternoon; the little park on 106th Street, whose grass, trees, and benches had turned gray from the pollution; the ladders hanging from the fire escapes.

He waited for the elevator, his knees shaking. The other day Helen hadn’t felt too well, and told him “My legs are like noodles,” and he had asked her, “Al dente?” at which she had laughed. The silly scene seemed to him the height of happy normalcy. In his room, he lay down on his bed. He fell asleep and dreamed of Françoise, Bulnakov, and the redhead-he was being shadowed, he ran for all he was worth; then he was sitting on a rock in Central Park, the clouds black and hanging low, but the sun had found a hole and made colors shine. There was utter silence. Georg tugged at a blade of grass, and when it came out of the ground together with a long root, he heard a whimpering that grew louder and louder, until it boomed through the park like a thundering howl. He woke up drenched in sweat. Down in the street a police car had driven by. He heard the siren fade in the distance. He got up and took a shower. His fear was gone. He was ready for action.

32

THE CALL FROM TOWNSEND ENTERPRISES came the following morning at ten.

“Georg! Telephone!” Larry shouted from the kitchen where he was eating breakfast.

“It’s a woman, not Helen, though,” he whispered to Georg. He and Larry had had dinner with Helen the previous evening. Georg had talked a lot, joked, flirted, and Larry and Helen had looked at him in surprise. What had gotten into this quiet roommate and difficult bedfellow? When Georg took Helen home, they walked past a panhandler, and Helen dropped a coin into his cup. She told Georg how in her first few weeks in New York she had been appalled at all the poverty and had put money in all the cups, until a man called out after her, “Hey, you just threw a quarter in my coffee!” Georg shook with laughter. He got the impression that Helen might have liked to take him upstairs but that she found his sudden cheeriness a little frightening. She still hadn’t found anything out about Françoise.

“Mr. Polger? I’m calling from Townsend Enterprises. Mr. Benton would like to know whether you could come by this afternoon. Do you have our address?”

“Please tell Mr. Benton that I’ll be there at four.”

Georg hung up. He could tell that Larry was curious, but didn’t say anything to him. Georg took a cup of coffee to his room, and got a pen and some paper.

Dear Jürgen,

I’m sure you’ll be surprised at getting a letter from me from New York. You’ll be even more surprised that I am asking you to open the enclosed envelope only in the event that you don’t hear from me again within four weeks. I know it sounds a bit cloak-and-dagger, maybe even foolish. It might even remind you of the games we used to play. And yet, it might not sound childish to you at all: as the district judge for Mosbach you must have gotten used to all kinds of things. Be that as it may, I would be grateful if you did this for me, and hope to be in contact with you very soon. Give my best to Anne and the children. Your old friend-

Then Georg wrote down what he knew, guessed, supposed, and feared, and put the thick batch of papers into an envelope, which he crammed into a second larger envelope, and took it to the post office. He didn’t know if he was being watched. But he imagined himself walking to a mailbox, dropping the letter in, walking on, and suddenly hearing a bang, a flame shooting out of the mailbox, with letters fluttering all over Broadway. They wouldn’t be able to blow up a whole post office, though.

At four o’clock he was standing outside the MacIntyre Building. The door was open and painters were working in the lobby. The same dark-haired beauty with the ugly glasses let him in, and showed him into a small, windowless conference room. “Mr. Benton will be with you in a moment.”

The room was gloomy. Dim light came from a slot between the low ceiling and the wall. Six chairs of dark leather stood around a heavy table made of dark wood. Set into the wall was an empty black screen. The air conditioner was humming.

Georg looked around for a dimmer to turn up the light. He couldn’t find one. There was no knob on the door either. The screen lit up with a gentle buzz, and a small image appeared in the middle and grew, coming toward Georg until it filled the screen. There was a lot of black, with flitting yellow and red lights. It took him a few moments to realize that these were video shots taken from a moving car: yellow headlights and red brake lights that jerked with the rattling of the car from which the video was shot. At times the windshield wipers, the hood, the edge of the windshield, or the steering wheel came into the picture. The car was going fast, and yellow headlights came racing by. It was following another car’s red brake lights on the right side of the road and, trailing them, switched to pass the other cars on the left. The passing maneuvers were rough and aggressive, and the approaching headlights shot like a spray of sparks off the screen. The film had no sound. The traffic grew lighter. When there were no more oncoming headlights, and only the red brake lights were ahead, the car swerved next to the other car in front, the camera swinging toward its interior, to the profile of the driver and his hands on the steering wheel. The image kept jumping, showing a trouser leg and the roof of the car, as if the hand holding the camera had been knocked aside. For a few moments Georg couldn’t make out anything. Then both cars were in the picture. They had stopped, one having forced the other into a ditch. In the glare of the headlights, Georg could see two men beating up a third. Pummeling him. The third man collapsed, and the two other men began kicking him. The camera zoomed in, showing the bloody head of the man who was lying motionless on the ground. It showed his face from the side, and the tip of a shoe that pushed his head to the other side. It showed his face from the front. The image on the screen disappeared with a light crackle. A chill ran down his spine. That was him. They had made a video of beating him up on the road back from Marseille.

“My young friend!” The door opened, the room brightened, and an effervescent Bulnakov came bursting in. He was just as fat, but now had on a blue three-piece suit. Gone were the shirt with the unbuttoned collar, the rolled-up sleeves, and the patches of sweat under his arms. There was a hint of eau de cologne. His English had the same hard tone as his French. “I can’t believe Janis made you wait here in this horrible little room. Come with me into my office.”

Georg followed Bulnakov past the map of the world and up the spiral staircase to the next floor, through an empty room with large pictures of trees, and through a double door. Bulnakov was talking incessantly. “This is quite different from my office in Cadenet, isn’t it? I’d have preferred a green carpet here. If you ask me, they overdid it a bit with the color of the wood, and without the green of the leaves, there’s no brown of the trees. The fight I had to put up for those pictures! Ah, but roughing it over there in the south of France had its charm too. Those were good days! Speaking of south, did you know that New York lies on the same latitude as Rome? You’ve already had a taste of the heat and humidity here. You just up and came to New York, to the New World! I’ll admit I was taken aback! I would never have thought you capable of that! But here you are, and I welcome you to the Big Apple and my office!”

He shut the door. It was a corner room with windows on two sides, a bare wall, and a wall with a picture of two beach chairs beneath an umbrella by the sea. In the corner between the windows stood the large desk, and across from it a sofa and chairs. They sat down. He’s all show, Georg thought, and not even especially good at it. The gloomy room they had put him in for the movie, the door without a knob-that had been quite something. But they’d have done better to corner him right then and there: with the walk to Bulnakov’s office and all of Bulnakov’s swagger, Georg’s fear had dissipated.

“One look at you, and I can see you’re a changed man,” Bulnakov said. “This is no longer the timid young…”

“We’ve been through all that before. I’m sure you know what I want. I don’t like Provence anymore, and Provence doesn’t like me. Beginning a new life in a new place takes money. And I want that money from you.”

Bulnakov sighed. “Money… Had you agreed to my proposal back in Cadenet, we could have saved ourselves a whole lot of trouble. Especially you. But let’s forget about that, it’s water under the bridge, over and done with, finito! You see, I have no funds in connection with this matter anymore.” He held his empty hands out to Georg.

“Over and done with?” Georg replied. “Surely this story has the kind of plot that could go on. In fact, it has gone on quite excitingly for me: scene changes, a world metropolis instead of the back of beyond, this elegant office instead of the little poky one, rare woods and precious gems instead of technical translations, Mr. Benton instead of Monsieur Bulnakov. And yet the interests and the players are still the same. The next episode could be a winner if journalists, the police, and the CIA make an entrance.”

“Let’s not go into all that again. We already established back in Cadenet that the last thing you want is police involvement,” Bulnakov said, shaking his head with the kindly but impatient expression usually reserved for a petulant child.

“I came to you because what I want is two million dollars. I’d be happier with those two million than having to deal with the police, the CIA, or reporters, but if I don’t get the money, I’m quite prepared to endure the little bit of trouble the police might put me through.” Georg stressed little bit and trouble.

“Two million dollars? Are you mad?”

“Fine, then let’s make it three. You mustn’t forget that I’m quite irritated. I loved my life in Cucuron, my cats, and my physical well-being. I’d need a large sum of money to turn my back on all the fuss I could make.”

Bulnakov laughed. “How do you picture your next step? You just go waltzing over to the CIA, ask for whoever’s on duty, and tell him your story? Whisper in his ear that Townsend Enterprises is a front for…”

“… the Polish or even the Russian secret service.”

“And they’ll lap it all up, no questions asked? I have to say…” Bulnakov continued laughing, slapping his thighs, his belly hopping.

Georg waited. “In case you’re interested,” he began, and Bulnakov fell silent, “First of all I’d go to the press and show them all my papers and photographs. I’d let them decide when I should go to the CIA or the police. They’ll have their own ideas about timing and so on. Furthermore… as I’ve just seen in your screening room, you have quite a bit of photographic material yourself, but still you might like this little souvenir of the good times, our good times, back in Provence.” Georg took out the photograph of Bulnakov sitting behind the wheel of his Lancia, his arm resting on the rolled-down window, the sun in his face and on the license plate. He reached across the table and handed it to him.

“It’s a nice picture,” Bulnakov said. “And how nicely you put it: ‘the good times in Provence.’ It is amazing how you’ve developed. What a pity that you weren’t then who you are now. I’m sorry to bring this up again, but we could have worked so well together. As for the money…” He shook his head. “Even if we forget your little joke about the three million, I can’t see how… not to mention…” He rested his head on his right hand, and with his middle finger rubbed his left eyebrow. Then he sat up. “Give me a few days. I need to give this some thought and make a few calls. Can we reach you at your friend’s number?”

At the door Georg asked about Françoise. “Is she okay?”

“Most definitely. She’s living a quieter life, doesn’t get out much. She’ll go to a baseball game now and then,” Bulnakov said with a smile. “You might even bump into her at one. I hear you’ve become a Yankees fan.”

33

THE NEXT FEW DAYS were like a vacation for Georg. He spent them in Riverside Park. A blanket of heat was smothering the streets, but in the park there was a breeze from the river. He even put up with the pigeons. They covered the benches with their droppings and nodded their heads idiotically. Sparrows bathed in the dust. Squirrels darted nervously across the paths. The same homeless people sat on the same benches at the same time every day. The same joggers jogged. The same people walked the same dogs, some picking up the dog shit with plastic bags, others letting it lie, looking around guiltily. The same little brats in designer T-shirts terrorized the same black nannies.

Georg was pleased with the way his meeting with Bulnakov had gone. He hadn’t expected him to agree to his demand for money, let alone that he’d have paid it right away. Georg was happy to make Bulnakov squirm for a while before he would grudgingly realize that he had no other choice.

One afternoon there was a sudden thunderstorm, but Georg stayed on his park bench. The wind tore through the trees. Raindrops fell like sparkling pearls in the lightning flashes. Only one of the buildings on the street had a slanting roof, and the water came pouring down the incline, flooding the gutter and spraying over the edge. He was soaked to the skin and very happy.

Sometimes he brought along a book, newspaper, or magazine. It had been a while since he had given any thought to the world at large. Was the world giving any thought to him? He was glad to loosen up a little, now that the world was taking on a friendlier face, and that substantial investments were on the horizon.

There was an article in Newsweek that he found particularly interesting. A consortium of European aircraft builders was developing a new attack helicopter, in partnership with the Gorgefield Aircraft Company. A major political breakthrough was in the works: by the late 1990s all the NATO armies were to adopt this single make of attack helicopter. The aim was to break the superiority of the Russians. The conventional wars of the future would be won or lost with attack helicopters. Uniformity in this weapon system was of vital importance, which was why the NATO defense ministers were meeting in Ottawa with a view to clinching this political breakthrough. The technological breakthrough was already under wraps. The article mentioned stub wings, ABC rotors, and RAM-coating.

How very interesting, Georg thought. I’m not surprised that the Russians would do anything to get their hands on Mermoz’s plans. Back at the apartment, he took out the copies he had made during his last few weeks of working for Mermoz. He had translated words like screws, bolts, connectors, valves, spindles, flanges, nuts, clamps, caps, joints, spars, flex beams, mufflers, regulators, filters, slots, axels, rotors, and so on, without being interested in what they meant. Now he tried to decode their meaning.

In a nearby bookstore he found a book about attack helicopters and read up on stub wings, ABC rotors, and RAM-coating. Stub wings help support the rotor and carry the weapons. As Georg read on, he realized that the suspensions were connected to the stub wings. He also recognized that on his plans the rotors were closely stacked over one another, which in the ABC concept had the advancing blades providing more thrust than the retrograde blades, giving the helicopter the remarkable speed of over three hundred miles per hour. Finally he thought he had decoded the last series of plans. There were slots at the rear letting out compressed air, helping to make the tail rotor redundant. Sensational. He didn’t have the plans for the radar absorbing RAM-coating, but here it seemed to be more of a problem of the material and pricing than one of construction. About the Hokum, the newest Soviet attack helicopter, the book did not have much to say. But if it was true that the Hokum still used a tail rotor and could only reach speeds of two hundred miles per hour, then the Soviets had every reason to be alarmed by the NATO developments.

On Sunday he went to pick up Helen to take her out to brunch. The money from Germany had arrived. He had paid the rent, and had a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills hidden in his belt, and a wad of twenties in his pocket. He felt rich. Helen should enjoy his good times. When he arrived she was on the phone.

“No, Max, both shoulders. Take hold of both shoulders with both hands and fold them back until they meet. Now take both shoulders in one hand. Are you holding them? No, Max, not the sleeves… Of course I know that the sleeves begin at the shoulders, and if you mean the beginning of the sleeves… Are you holding both shoulders where the sleeves begin with one hand? Good, then with the other, fold the side with the buttons… over the other side… the side with the buttonholes. You can’t?… Because you’re holding both shoulders together with your hand? You’ve got to let go for a second. Then you can fold the side with the buttons over the side with the buttonholes, so that only the lining is visible. What? The jacket fell on the floor? You let go of it? You can only let go of it once you’ve folded one side over the other… You can’t?” She got up, cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, and took her jacket off the back of a chair. “You see, Max, I know what I’m talking about. I worked in a clothing store. I have a jacket in my hands right now…” She folded it as she had described. You learn something every day, Georg thought. “I know you can’t see me. ‘You see’ is just a turn of phrase. Of course I know you can’t see me. All I wanted to say was, I have a jacket in my hands right now and it’s quite simple when the hand that holds both shoulders from inside… no, Max, I’m not coming over to pack your jackets for you. No. You don’t have many jackets, just one? Then why don’t you just wear it? Because it’s too warm in Italy? Listen, Max, I’ve got to go. Call me this evening… Keep practicing. Or don’t take the jacket with you, if it’ll be too hot for you anyway…” Helen had spoken the whole time with the utmost seriousness. Now she threw Georg an impatient, exasperated look. “Listen, I really have to go. Yes, I’m hanging up. Yes, now.”

She hung up and looked at Georg. “That was Max.”

“I heard.”

“He wanted me to tell him how to fold a jacket in order to pack it into a suitcase.”

“How does one do that? Does one take both shoulders in…”

“Stop making fun of me. Shall we go?”

He flagged down a cab on Broadway. Helen was surprised. They took a table in the garden at Julia’s, an elegant restaurant on Seventy-ninth Street, and ordered eggs Benedict and Bloody Marys.

“I thought you said our next date would be a walk in the park, with french fries and a Coke?”

“Things have changed.”

“Is the KGB footing the bill?” she asked, with a touch of irony.

“Don’t worry, this is honest money we’re squandering here. I got money from Germany.”

“Have you given any thought to going to the CIA or the FBI?”

She was getting on his nerves. “To be honest, no. Is the cross-examination over?”

“Well,” she said hesitantly, “if you didn’t want my opinion, you shouldn’t have told me anything. Now it’s too late. I thought about all this, and the more I thought about it, the less I understand you. Unless you’re cynical.”

“What?”

“Cynical. I mean… in my definition, cynicism is contempt for everything that holds our world together: solidarity, order, responsibility. I’m not saying that law and order should reign supreme. But you Germans don’t understand that. When I was an exchange student in Krefeld, I saw how in class you all copy one another. No sign of a bad conscience, as if it were the noblest deed.” She shook her head.

“But if the students are all copying one another, then that’s surely a prime example of solidarity,” Georg said.

“Solidarity in the face of order imposed from above. For you guys, order is still imposed from above, and either you worship it or you try, like naughty children, to bamboozle it.”

He laughed. “Perhaps you’re right, but that’s not being cynical, not in your definition either. Contempt is missing.”

“You think it’s funny, but it isn’t a laughing matter. Contempt comes later, when the children have grown up.” The eggs Benedict arrived. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Helen insisted.

“I’ve got to think about it for a moment,” he replied.

He savored every bite. As he relaxed, he thought the matter over. He wasn’t sure if Helen was right or not, but it was true that he didn’t care about solidarity, order, and responsibility. He didn’t think of himself as immoral. One didn’t trample on the weak, exploit the poor, or cheat the simpleminded. But that had nothing to do with solidarity, order, and responsibility. It was a question of instinct, and reached only so far as one can perceive the consequences of one’s actions. There were certain things one simply didn’t do, because one wouldn’t be able to face oneself in the mirror. One doesn’t like to face oneself in the mirror when one has pimples either, but one’s complexion is not a question of morals. Could it be that I’m not immoral but amoral? Can I tell Helen that?

“What you’re saying would mean that we have still not left our authoritarian state behind us,” he said. “You have a point there. It’s like what you told me the other day about the fairy tales in the nineteenth century, which I wanted to ask you a few more questions about-”

“You want to drop the matter,” she cut in. “Fine, I’m dropping it. What shall we do after brunch? Can I have another Bloody Mary?”

They left Julia’s and strolled through Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum. A new annex had been built, and one could step out onto the roof. They stood above the trees in the park. Like on a jetty above a green lake of swaying treetops surrounded by a mountain range of buildings.

34

GEORG WAS ALWAYS SURPRISED by the speed with which construction jobs were carried out in New York, work that in France or Germany would have taken days or weeks to complete. One Saturday morning he was awakened by the noise of construction machinery breaking up the sidewalk the whole length of 115th Street. By evening the new pavement was ready, light gray cement divided into large squares, and the soil around the trees was framed by dark red bricks. Farther down Broadway he saw a building of forty or fifty stories going up. The first time he had gone past there were only cranes towering into the sky, then steel went up, and now the skeleton of the building had turned into a massive body. But at Townsend Enterprises things were not moving ahead. On Monday morning Georg was awakened by a phone call telling him to be at the office by ten, and as he climbed the stairs, the painters were still at work.

He waited in front of the map of the world, and was greeted coolly by Bulnakov who didn’t show him to his office, but to a room with two metal desks, a metal filing cabinet, and far too many metal chairs. There were open drawers, yellowing papers on the floor, the water in the cooler was brackish and brown, and there was dust everywhere. Bulnakov leaned against the window while Georg stood in the middle of the room.

“I am happy to be able to make you an offer, Mr. Polger,” Bulnakov said. “We can offer you thirty thousand dollars and a guarantee that the problems you faced in Cucuron will not recur. We will also provide you with a ticket back to Marseille or Brussels, whichever you prefer. That will be the end of the matter, and the end of your stay in the New World. This evening you will take TWA flight 126 or Air France flight 212. Bookings have been made for you on both planes. All I need is your signature, here.” Bulnakov’s hand slipped into his left inside jacket pocket and took out a thick wad of bills, laid them on the desk, and from his right outer pocket took a folded piece of paper that he handed to Georg.

Sometimes it seems as if the world holds its breath for an instant. It is as if all the wheels stand still, all the airplanes, tennis balls, and swallows hang in the air, as if all movement were frozen. It is as if the earth were hesitating, uncertain whether to keep turning forward, turn back, or change the axis around which it rotates. The stillness is absolute. Traffic falls silent, no machine rumbles, no wave slaps the shore, no wind rustles through the leaves. At such a moment everything seems possible: the movements of the world are made up of infinitely small states of motionlessness, and one can imagine these states gathering together in a different order of things.

This happens often at moments when decisions must be made. The beloved is still standing in the door of the railway car and you can still say “stay” before the conductor blows his whistle, the door falls shut, and the train pulls out of the station. Or it is you who is standing in the door of the railway car waiting for her to say “stay.” The world can hold its breath as much in moments of another person’s decision as it can for one’s own. Even if it is not a matter of a momentous decision: when one sits in a café drinking a cup of cocoa, watching passersby through the window, when one stops for a moment while doing the ironing, or when one has just screwed on the nib of a fountain pen. It is a matter of course that the way of the world could be different.

But it’s not a matter of course either. Georg saw the frozen movement of Bulnakov’s outstretched hand, saw the piece of paper, didn’t hear the traffic or the footsteps in the hall outside. Thirty thousand dollars-sixty thousand marks, a hundred and eighty thousand francs. That was more than he needed to live a year in Cucuron. Hadn’t he always wanted time and leisure to write? Wasn’t he tired of crossing swords with Bulnakov and searching for Françoise? But even as these thoughts flashed through his mind, he knew that there was nothing to think about or decide.

“Thanks but no thanks, Monsieur Bulnakov.”

Bulnakov went to the door, opened it, and called in two men. They wore gray suits and had policemen’s faces. “Take Mr. Polger to the airport,” Bulnakov said to them, “and see to it that he gets on the plane to Brussels or Marseille, as we have arranged. He can have his luggage sent on after him.” He stuck the wad of bills back in his pocket and left the room. As far as he was concerned, Georg no longer existed.

Georg hesitated, but one of the men reached for his arm. Come along, his expression said, or I’ll break all your bones. Georg decided to walk ahead, and the two men followed him. The beautiful dark-haired woman at the reception buzzed them out.

In the stairwell, one of the men stayed at Georg’s side, the other followed behind. Georg set the pace. Damn! he thought. Damn! On the third-floor landing he saw the open elevator shaft with the wood planks nailed across the missing door, and on the way down to the second floor heard the painters working below. It was worth a try.

Before they reached the second-floor landing, he stopped and bent down as if to tie his shoelace. The man behind him stopped too, while the one beside him continued walking the few steps down to the landing, where he turned back with an expectant look. He had been descending the stairs on Georg’s right, along the wall, and now stood in front of the wood planks across the open elevator shaft. Georg untied his shoelace and then tied it again. He got up and took a step forward. The man on the landing turned away and waited for Georg to come down. Georg lunged forward and rammed his shoulder and arm into the man’s back with all the force he could muster. He heard splintering wood and a surprised cry, followed by a shout of horror. Georg didn’t look back, he just ran, made it down the first flight, past the bend in the stairwell, another flight of stairs, tripped on the paper the painters had put down to protect the floor of the landing, caught himself, and saw the startled faces of the painters, who were too taken aback to try to stop him. Behind him he heard the other man’s loud and heavy steps. The painters were crowded to the right along the wall, and on the left were the cans of paint by the banister. Georg kicked over a large bucket of paint blocking the way, jumped over as it tumbled, and took three steps in one stride. He reached the last bend in the stairwell, the last flight of stairs, when he heard a crash. This time he quickly turned around. The man following him had slipped on the paint and came sliding down the stairs on his back, his head banging against the steps as he went, and finally crashed into the wall. Georg bounded down the last few stairs, ran through the hall, out the door, and into the street.

He kept running, weaving through a throng of pedestrians and dodging cars to get to the other side of the street. He looked back: nobody was following him. He hailed a cab and headed home. Larry wasn’t there.

He stood in his room and looked in the mirror. His face, though unchanged, looked alien to him. Did I kill that man? He realized that his whole body was drenched in sweat. He took a shower. A towel around his middle, he was pouring himself some coffee in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He tiptoed across the hall and looked through the peephole: two men of the same type as the ones who were to escort him to the airport. They rang again, and exchanged a few hushed words that Georg couldn’t catch. One of them leaned against the wall across the landing, while the other disappeared from Georg’s field of vision. Georg waited. The man by the wall changed his position from time to time. Georg thought about how by now he could have been on his way to the airport with thirty thousand dollars in his pocket. Or had they just wanted to get him out of the building and into a car so they could kill him somewhere along the way? What did these two bastards out there want from him? Should he wait for Larry, and leave the building with him? Where would he go? As it was, he had to wait for Larry and ask him for the name of that New York Times reporter he had met at his party. Why hadn’t I asked him before?

Georg got dressed and put everything he wanted to show the reporter into a folder: the copies of the Mermoz plans, the photographs he had taken of Bulnakov and his men in Pertuis, the newspaper article, the helicopter book, the photograph of Françoise. Through the peephole he saw Larry with a Food Market bag in one hand and his key in the other. One of the bastards was talking up a storm, and Larry was shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. He turned to the door, and put the key in the lock. His face was near and large in the peephole, his mouth and nose distorted, his eyes, hair, and chin receding grotesquely.

Georg had reached the kitchen window before the door even opened, pulled the kitchen window guard open, and swung himself out onto the fire escape. With a tug he pulled the guard shut again, and with a few jumps found himself in front of the kitchen window on the floor below. The fire escape vibrated and rattled, the echo clanging against the walls of the narrow courtyard. He cowered beneath the windowsill and waited for the echo to die away. He listened for a sound from above: nothing. He looked down: trash cans, trash bags, a cat.

He waited twenty minutes. Should I have stayed upstairs to help Larry in case those bastards attacked him? But perhaps things have turned out for the best because I wasn’t there. If one of them had burst into the apartment with Larry, seen me, thrown himself at me, and Larry had tried to stop him-perhaps the guy would have drawn a revolver, or pistol, or whatever they’re called. He imagined the scene. He wondered what to do next. He couldn’t go back to Larry’s apartment anymore. To Helen’s? There would probably be men there too, and furthermore he didn’t want to put her in harm’s way.

He was still holding the folder with the material for the press. I must find that reporter, he told himself. Then he, the CIA, or the FBI will take charge. But what can they do? What will happen if Bulnakov and his people go underground, disappear, cover their tracks, or if the material I’ve gathered isn’t substantial enough? Then at least I can pack my things in peace and fly back home. Home?

But there would be time enough to think about all that later. Now he had to see how he would get through the rest of the day and the night. He knew that Larry was planning to go to Long Island to see a literary critic, and that he was thinking of spending the night there. Her name was Mary. Larry said she was a beautiful woman, this literary critic, or critical literate, or literally critical. Larry had mentioned her full name, but Georg couldn’t remember it, so wouldn’t be able to reach him there. He looked at his watch. It wasn’t even noon yet.

He carefully climbed down the fire escape, trying not to make any noise or startle housewives at their kitchen windows. On the third floor, the window and the window guard were open. The kitchen was empty, there were no pots on the stove, no dishes in the sink, no open box of cornflakes or newspaper lying on the table. He climbed through the window and walked through the rooms. The blinds were down, their slats throwing light and shade onto the freshly painted walls and polished floors. The apartment was waiting to be lived in again. Georg carefully put the chain on the door. He wanted to hear in time if the super or the new tenants showed up. He lay down on the floor near the front door.

35

WHEN HE WOKE up it was dark outside. His body was aching from the hard floor. He got up, walked around the apartment, and looked outside. He gazed into lit windows. The streetlights were on, and 115th Street was quiet. On Broadway, the headlights of cars flitted past. It was eleven o’clock. He had slept deeply. He was hungry.

He couldn’t think clearly yet. He climbed down the fire escape to the courtyard, reached the cellar, stole past the laundry room and the super’s office, and found the door from which steps led up to the sidewalk by the main entrance. Only after he had pulled the door shut behind him did he realize that he wouldn’t be able to get back in again, and that he should have tried to return to Larry’s apartment. Spending the night on an empty stomach in an empty apartment was still better than spending it… spending it where? He had no idea where to go.

He waited a long time to make sure that nobody suspicious was standing in one of the doorways, under an awning, or behind a parked car. He didn’t see anyone. He decided not to go down Broadway, but went to Riverside Drive and walked in the shadow of the park to where it ended at Seventy-second Street. He crossed West End Avenue and Broadway, and went into an Italian restaurant on Columbus. It was expensive, but the service was fast and the pasta was good. Georg had washed his face in the men’s room, combed his hair, and been pleased with what he saw in the mirror. He enjoyed his meal. He had survived. After a whole bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, he was convinced he had won. He chuckled at the thought of those two bastards from Bulnakov’s office, the splintering wood, the shout from the elevator shaft, and the man who tripped over the bucket of paint and fell down the stairs. I did all that, he thought triumphantly. Too bad I couldn’t stop and watch. The two of them must really have been a sight.

He spent the night on a park bench, his head resting on the folder for the reporter. Other people lay on park benches too. He didn’t stand out in his sneakers, jeans, polo shirt, and his old blue jacket. He woke up from time to time, heard dogs barking, drunks quarreling, a siren howling. He turned over and fell asleep again. In the morning there was a slight chill in the air, and he curled up. At six o’clock he went to a diner and had some eggs and bacon with home fries, toast and jelly, and coffee. His head was heavy from the wine. He was sure he could reach Larry later in the morning. He rehearsed mentally what he would tell the reporter, how he would show him the plans and photos, how he would explain it all. He found a copy of the Times next to him on the counter, abandoned by its owner, and read about Afghanistan and Nicaragua, a promising Democratic presidential candidate, and the trade deficit.

In the Metro section he read: “Two officers were injured yesterday while attempting to arrest and deport an illegal alien. One officer is still at the FDR Hospital, the other was released after treatment of minor injuries. The foreigner, a German by the name of Georg Polger, is now a fugitive. Anyone with information…”

At first Georg’s mind was a blank. Then the same thoughts kept recurring: This doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense at all. The Russians might have some plants in the French secret service, but surely not in the American one. And even if they did have plants here, then surely not to the extent that they could send officers out after him.

Georg went through what he knew one step at a time, as he had arranged the information for the reporter. A European consortium-Britain, Germany, Italy, and France-come together to develop a new attack helicopter. Is that clear enough so far? Yes. They achieve a technological breakthrough. It’s not about a faster helicopter with stronger armor and higher payload: it’s about a war machine that can annihilate all other weapon systems. Consequently, the helicopter is scheduled for adoption not only by the four European countries that created it but by all the NATO countries, including the United States. That’s clear enough too. It is also clear that the Russians are interested in getting in on the act. They contacted him in the guise of the translation agency and saw to it that he became the head of a translation agency that worked almost exclusively for Mermoz, and then got at the plans through him. Still clear? Yes, still clear.

But Georg had difficulty piecing together how the story went on. He remembered Helen’s asking why the Russians or the Poles would want to destroy his life in Cucuron, and how they had managed it. He, and Helen too, had taken it for granted that they would want to sideline him as a source, to make him untrustworthy, and that consequently they had given the French damning evidence implicating him. But why did they bother with that when they could simply retreat behind the iron curtain, which was still ironclad enough to stop anyone from investigating further? Georg was aware, however, that the Russians found knowledge far more valuable when others didn’t know they had it. The question remained how they had compromised Georg with the French, and how they had made him seem untrustworthy, making his life in Cucuron miserable. There were endless possibilities. So far so good? Something was bothering Georg: he was no longer pleased with the way the story went on, but didn’t know what it was that was bothering him, or what other scenarios might be possible.

Now to New York and Townsend Enterprises. To sum up, he had hit upon the idea of New York because of the poster in Françoise’s room, he had looked for her here, and had made certain people nervous. Then he was shadowed, and had shadowed the redhead, and had found Townsend Enterprises. So much was clear, because that is what had actually happened. The rest was unclear: why would the KGB send people from New York, of all places, to Provence? In the case of Bulnakov, that might still make sense. Georg thought of Philip Habib who had been sent by the Americans on difficult missions throughout the world, and of Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski who had been sent out by the Germans. But to send Françoise on an international mission? The KGB had agents in New York. Their front is disguised as an enterprise specializing in rare woods and precious metals. Why woods and metals of all things? Enough’s enough, Georg told himself, who cares whether they deal in woods, metals, flowers, or books? Bulnakov, the chief agent, is sent on a particularly important mission to France because he is a very experienced agent. He takes Françoise, a fellow agent, with him because she is his mistress. Can one KGB agent be the lover of another? Georg sighed. Whether or not the KGB allowed its agents to climb into bed with one another, it would not have officers of the CIA, the FBI, or the New York Police Department working for it.

He ordered another cup of coffee. Regardless of how the officers became involved, they were after him now. Did they still just want to deport him? Or drag him before a court? Or deport him and make sure he ended up before a German court? I could see a lawyer, Georg thought, or, better, I could go find that reporter and then talk to a lawyer.

The newspaper was still lying in front of him. The title photo showed the aircraft carrier Tennessee entering the Gulf of Mexico, with two helicopters hovering above it. Georg’s glance rested on the two helicopters, moved away, and then returned to them.

Two helicopters, he thought, not one. He had read in the Newsweek article that in the development of a new attack helicopter for the NATO armies, a consortium of European aircraft builders was developing a new attack helicopter in competition with Gorgefield, an American company based in California. Both parties were proposing a similar helicopter with stub wings, ABC rotors, and RAM-coating. Both parties, it was rumored, had made the same technological breakthrough.

Georg couldn’t remember whether this concerned the wings, the rotors, or the coating, but he remembered clearly that it was the same breakthrough: the helicopters had the same qualities and performance capabilities.

So this is not about the Soviets and the Europeans, but about Gorgefield and Mermoz! Had Bulnakov come up with a double disguise: as an Eastern Bloc agent and the head of a translation agency? As he went through the story again Georg considered his questions-the important as well as the less important ones. Bulnakov was less important. Important was who he worked for. The CIA? Georg could imagine the worst of any secret service, but he couldn’t imagine the CIA undertaking industrial espionage, espionage at a European industrial enterprise working under contract to an American one. That the CIA might cover and help with such espionage was possible, and would explain the two agents in the MacIntyre Building. It would also explain the attitude of the French. Bulnakov would have asked the CIA to put in a word with the French secret service, which would have passed the information he wanted to disseminate about Georg to the police, the town council, the bank, and Georg’s landlord.

But if Bulnakov wasn’t working for the CIA, who was he working for? And what about Townsend Enterprises? Was it Gorgefield Aircraft’s own secret service, its department specializing in sensitive issues, dirty business? Or was Bulnakov, or Benton, as Georg was beginning to call him, an independent contractor whose company, Townsend Enterprises, could be hired to carry out shady deals ranging from espionage to murder? Had Gorgefield hired Townsend Enterprises for Operation Mermoz? They had probably given the job a more elegant name: the Mermoz Study, the Mermoz Investigation, the European Helicopter Project.

Even without being able to answer these questions, the story now made sense. Françoise was from New York, worked for Townsend Enterprises in New York, had worked in Cadenet, and then returned to New York. Was she still working for Townsend? Was she still Bulnakov’s/Benton’s lover?

Georg had a story that made sense, but no idea what to do next. He didn’t know if he could interest a reporter in it, or if newspapers would print such a story or readers would want to read it. As it was, he didn’t have much evidence, and didn’t see how he could get more. Without evidence a lawyer couldn’t help him either-that is, if a lawyer would even want to help him. The authorities are looking for me, damn it! I’m a wanted man!

Should he give up or go on? Those were the two alternatives he had been considering. Now he didn’t even know what they meant. What should he go on doing, and how? Did giving up mean going to the police, to the German consulate, going underground in the city, or going out West? Georg paid and left. If nothing else, he could at least fill in the gaps of the story. The library at Columbia must have technical journals dealing with helicopters, weapon systems, and the armaments industry that could clarify whether Gorgefield Aircraft had put out the concept of its helicopter after Operation Mermoz. It could also clarify whether Townsend Enterprises was a branch of Gorgefield or an independent company that belonged to Benton. Georg wanted to know, even if he wasn’t sure how this knowledge could help him.

He called Helen from a pay phone. “It’s me, Georg.”

“You’re calling in the middle of the night?… Oh, it’s seven. God, is everything all right?”

“I’m sorry, it’s again about the matter I told you about…”

“I tried calling you yesterday evening. A year ago your girlfriend”-she said the word as coolly as she could-“was living on Prince Street. A colleague of mine in the Russian Department had her in her conversation class.”

“Where?”

“In her conversation class… Oh, 160 Prince Street near Sixth Avenue and Houston.”

Georg took a deep breath. “Thank you, Helen. I hope this didn’t…”

“No, it didn’t put me out. I showed my colleague the picture, and she gave me her address. And her name: Fran Kramer.”

“Fran Kramer… I looked for Kramers in the phone book. You wouldn’t believe how many there are. Kramers, Krameks, Kramerovs, and so on. Three whole pages.”

“Mm.”

“Anyway, thanks. Would you be mad at me if I asked for one more favor?”

“If I was, you wouldn’t ask?”

“Since the CIA is already mad at me, or the FBI, or the police, I don’t know who, I’d be happier if you weren’t too.”

“What are you talking about?”

Georg told her. He had gone over the story so many times in his mind, in true and false versions, that he managed to tell her in a few words. “And as a result,” he concluded, “you’ll find me in today’s New York Times, on page fourteen.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea what they’re intending to do to me, how intensively they’re looking for me, or who’s looking. Can you call Townsend Enterprises and act like you are an executive secretary calling from IBM, Nabisco, or Mercedes-Benz, and tell them you would like to make an appointment for someone to discuss an important security issue? If they fall for it, then it would point to the fact that Townsend is an independent enterprise, rather than a branch of Gorgefield Aircraft.”

“Don’t you have more immediate problems?”

“I do, but this one I believe we can get to the bottom of. I want to know what’s going on at Townsend. Not to mention that it would be a relief to know I’m not up against America’s most important armaments enterprise, but that crazy cowboy Benton.”

“But isn’t it clear already that Gorgefield Aircraft… I mean, could Benton send government officers to do his dirty work?”

“Who knows? Would you do me the favor and call? Call from a quiet pay phone somewhere, and the matter can be dealt with in two or three minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a try later this morning. This evening you can reach me at home. In the afternoon I’ll be at Columbia. Be careful.”

36

AT THE ENTRANCE OF the Seventy-ninth Street subway station Georg was about to rush down the stairs with the throng of people when he realized the absurdity of hurrying. The one thing he had more than enough of was time. He would walk.

He strolled up Amsterdam Avenue toward Columbia. He didn’t think the library would be open before eight. He remembered that he had walked up Amsterdam once before, on his first day in New York, from the Epps’ apartment to the cathedral. That had been two months ago. Back then nobody was out to get him, he knew where he would sleep, and he could return to Germany at any time. Nothing was left of that now. And yet he felt lighthearted. The first few weeks in New York he had been stumbling around in the dark. He had felt as if a wound was being relentlessly rubbed raw. He had arrived in America wounded, and every pointless movement had hurt and exhausted him, driven him further into the wariness and distrust he had brought with him from Cucuron. Bulnakov/Benton was right: he had become another person.

The cathedral loomed gray and heavy in the morning sun. Water was bubbling out of the fountain beside it, tables were being set up on the sidewalk in front of the Hungarian Pastry Shop, and workmen were laying pipes in the middle of the street. It was a pleasantly familiar scene, and because of that familiarity Georg let down his guard. Initially, he had intended to enter the Columbia campus from the back gate on Amsterdam Avenue, though he had no reason to think they would expect him to turn up at Columbia, and hence lie in wait for him. So he decided to head for the main gate, which was closer, and he turned onto 114th Street. Not because of the three minutes he would save. It just seemed to make more sense.

They must have been standing on the corner of Broadway, keeping an eye on the subway entrance; God knows why. Perhaps they’d been waiting on the corner of 115th Street by Larry’s apartment, and had gone for a stroll to stretch their legs. Georg saw the redhead and turned around, but the redhead had seen him and began to run toward him, as did the man who was with him.

Georg ran back down 114th Street to Amsterdam. The other two were fast catching up. He turned to look, and was alarmed at how close they were getting. He wouldn’t be able to keep up this speed. If he could get to the cathedral before the others did he had a chance! If it was already open, if the others didn’t know about the little side entrance, if the side entrance was open. If not-he didn’t have the time to think about that. He sprinted across the street, cars honking their horns and braking. His heart was pounding, his legs weren’t as fast as he wanted them to be. Before the others managed to cross the street, he had reached the steps in front of the cathedral leading up to an array of doors that were always locked and one door that he hoped to God was open. He raced up the steps two at a time, his legs getting weaker. He pushed against the door. It didn’t move. He pushed harder, rattled it, the door moved, and, as he pulled, it swung open heavily. He looked back over his shoulder-the others had crossed the street and reached the bottom of the stairs. Would they try the wrong door? He ran through the nave. He kept looking back, hoping his footsteps wouldn’t give him away. The columns blocked his view of the doors, and he walked slowly. The interior of the cathedral was warm. The air was musty and heavy. It was quiet, the church was empty. From the ceiling hung a large fish made of pipes which from the tail to the head grew in length and then became shorter again, bright colors shining as the pipes trembled in the cathedral’s draft. Far behind him he heard a door slamming shut.

He had reached the side door before the others saw him. It wasn’t locked and he slipped out, closing it silently behind him. Again he ran: through the yard, the garden, across Amsterdam Avenue, along 110th Street to Broadway, and down into the subway station.

He hadn’t seen the redhead or the other man come out of the cathedral, and hadn’t seen them when he’d looked back on Broadway. Down in the subway he kept his eyes on the stairs until the train arrived, and kept looking at the platform from the subway car until the doors slid shut and the train jolted into motion.

He sat down, leaned his head against the window, and closed his eyes. He felt a pain in his chest, and his legs were heavy and tired. Those men meant business. They were out to get him. Where else might they be looking for him? In hotels? Did they have pictures of him? Was his picture now flickering on every monitor in every police station?

The train rolled from station to station. People got on and off. He would have loved to sit like this forever, fall asleep, and wake up in another time and place.