The Gordian Knot - Bernhard Schlink [25]
“What are we celebrating?”
“Nothing. But it might do us good. And the fact that it’s all behind us now.… I’m so happy it’s all behind us.”
“What’s behind us?”
“All this nonsense. You and them battling it out. You can’t imagine how worried I’ve been.”
Georg sat up. “Are they going away? Have they given up? What have you heard?”
“Them, give up? Never. But you … I thought you had … well, you don’t want …” She sat up too, looking at him perplexed. “Don’t tell me you still don’t get it! They’re going to destroy you. They’ll do such a good job of it, that … They’ve already killed a man for these stupid plans. We’re not talking about three cats now, we’re talking about you!”
He looked at her blankly and said despondently, obstinately, “I can’t give them those plans.”
“Are you crazy?” she shouted. “Don’t you care whether you live or die? Life—that’s here and now!” She took his hands and put them on her thighs, hips, breasts, and stomach. She wept. “I thought you loved all this. I thought you loved me.”
“You know I do.” How lame it sounded! She looked at him, disappointed through her tears. As if something beautiful had fallen on the floor and was now lying in pieces.
She didn’t go on about how he ought to give Bulnakov the plans. She went to get the champagne, and after the third glass they began to kiss and make love. The next morning she crept out of bed early. When he woke up at seven, she and her car were gone.
He didn’t think anything of it. He worked on the translation, and late in the afternoon headed to Cucuron to do some shopping. Then he went to the Bar de l’Étang to see Gérard, and went with him to the wine cooperative at Lourmarin, as he could do with a few bottles himself. It was getting dark when he came home.
He got out of the car and walked toward the house. Suddenly he saw that the door was open. It had been broken open. Inside the house, closets and shelves had been emptied, drawers tipped out, pillows slashed open. The kitchen floor was covered in shattered dishes, cans, oatmeal, spaghetti, cookies, coffee beans, tea bags, tomatoes, eggs. They had gone through everything. He walked through the house, at first stepping carefully amid the books, records, vases, ashtrays, clothes, and papers. But what was the point of watching where he stepped? At times he turned something over with his toe or pushed it out of the way. “Well!” he thought. “There’s that telephoto lens I’ve been looking for everywhere. And it’s fine. And there’s the Guinness ashtray I thought someone must have swiped.”
The plans were still stashed in the drainpipe. He rummaged through the chaos for his dictionaries, the ruler, and a pen, cleared the area in front of his desk, pulled up the chair, and began to work. The translations had to be ready by tomorrow. He would get Françoise to help him clean up later. He was surprised at how unruffled he was.
Françoise didn’t appear. At midnight he drove over to Cadenet. The windows of her apartment were dark and her car wasn’t there. Maybe she’s on her way to my place, he thought. But when he got back home her car wasn’t there either.
It was a moonlit night, and as he lay on the fresh sheets covering the slashed mattress he could see the disarray even after he turned out the light. The outlines he was used to seeing from his bed were askew. The small cabinet by the wall on the left lay on its side, and the painting on the right had been taken down. His bed was immersed in a disarray of pants, shorts, jackets, sweaters, and socks. Something lay gleaming among the clothes. He got up to see what it was. A belt buckle.
He couldn’t sleep. Just as he wanted to look away from the chaos but couldn’t, he also wanted to look away from what Bulnakov had done and what he was still likely to do. And yet there was nothing to be seen. Or there was something to be seen but nothing that could be done about it. To face the disarray meant rolling up his sleeves