The Gordian Knot - Bernhard Schlink [31]
Georg controlled himself. “Could you tell me why I can’t leave my car there?”
“I will not repeat myself. Move it now.”
Georg again looked at the people sitting at the tables. He knew most of them, had chatted with many of them, played billiards or table-top football, had drunk Pernod with them. After two years in Cucuron, he felt that he belonged here, particularly now in summer when flocks of tourists were milling about the town. But he didn’t belong. There was spite in the faces, not just the indifference of not wanting to get involved. Georg got up and went over to his car. It was like running a gauntlet. He didn’t look for another parking spot, but drove home.
From that day on everyone’s behavior toward him changed: the baker, the butcher, the grocer, and the people he met in the post office, in the bar, and on the street. Or was he imagining things? The quick looking away that obviated the need to greet or be greeted, the slight hesitation of the baker’s wife from whom he bought a loaf of bread, the hint of condescension with which the café owner took his order. He couldn’t have proven any of this in court, but he felt it. What surprised him the least was that the branch manager of his bank asked him to step into his office. For months there had been a lot of activity in his account, and now there were no more deposits, only withdrawals. Needless to say, the bank had to check that everything was as it should be. As for his landlord—he had always been something of a psychopath. That he drove around his house every evening in his old Simca might have something to do with it. But now there were phone calls from the landlord’s wife, who had always been reasonable in the past. They were sorry, but their daughter was coming back from Marseille and wanted to move into Georg’s house. They would have to discuss terminating his four-year lease early.
Georg had nothing to say to any of this. All his strength, courage, and trust were gone. I’m an open wound, he thought.
There was nothing left with which he could ease his thoughts and longing for Françoise.
He was furious: I gave you my love and you took it, but for you it was only physical. You enjoyed our nights together as much as I did, gave yourself to me with as much abandon and pleasure as I gave myself to you. For me the passion I gave and took was a seal on our love, but for you it was only a passion each partner kindles and satisfies, a passion that doesn’t seal anything. If I could have been so wrong, if you could have deceived me like that, if such devotion cannot even act as a seal of love—what’s left for me to believe in? How am I supposed to ever love again? One silent reproach followed another. But even the most absurd accusations couldn’t bring her back. When someone leaves us, we accuse them so that they apologize and come back. In this way we are serious about the accusations, but are ready to agree to any conditions. Georg was aware of that.
He tried to be reasonable. The pain of separation is just a phantom pain, he told himself. How can something that no longer exists hurt me? Yet the slightest circumstance taught him that a phantom pain is not just phantom, but in fact real pain. He was sitting in the restaurant, had eaten well, was having a glass of Calvados and a cigarette, and suddenly imagined her sitting across from him, sighing contentedly, leaning back, and rubbing her tummy. He had always felt uncomfortable when she did this. But now, even this image stung. Or he found a long brown hair in the basin, which unleashed cascades of beautiful memories, though in the past, when he found a hair of hers in the basin, it had always irritated him.
He toyed with cynical quips that he found elegant or that sounded clever. One can’t end a