The Gordian Knot - Bernhard Schlink [38]
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