The Gordian Knot - Bernhard Schlink [44]
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