The Gordian Knot (6 page)

He got up, put on a bathrobe, and went out into the hall. A thin strip of light was shining along the floor from under the door to his study. He opened the door. “Françoise!”

It took him a few seconds to grasp the situation. Françoise, sitting at his desk, turned and looked at him. Like a gazelle, he thought. A hurt, startled gazelle. He noticed her aquiline nose, and her frightened eyes fending him off; her mouth opened slightly, tensely, as if she were sucking in air. The plans that Georg was translating lay on the desk, held in place on either side by books, and illuminated by his table lamp. Françoise was naked, the blanket with which she had wrapped herself had slipped off. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?” A stupid question. What was she doing with a camera and his plans? She put the camera on the table
and covered her breasts with her hands. She was still looking at him distraught, without saying anything. He noticed the dimple over her right eyebrow.

He laughed. As if he could laugh the situation away, as he had during fights with Hanne and Steffi, when he had escaped, incredulous and helpless, into a foolish laugh. The situation was so absurd. This sort of thing never happened. Not to him, Georg. But his laughter didn’t wipe away the situation. He felt tired, his head empty. His mouth hurt from laughing. “Come back to bed.”

“I haven’t finished yet,” she said, looking at the plans and reaching for her camera.

“Who are you?” The situation was still absurd, and Françoise’s naked breasts struck him as obscene. Her voice had again the shrill rasp of a distraught little girl. He tore the camera out of her hand and threw it against the wall, seized the desk, and shoved its top off its trestle. The lamp fell on the floor and went out. He wanted to shake her, hit her. But as the light went out, his anger went out too. It was dark, he took a step forward, tripped, pushed over a filing cabinet, fell, and hit his leg. He heard Françoise crying. He reached out for her and tried to embrace her. She flailed and kicked, sobbed and whimpered, and grew wilder, until she collided with the chair and fell crashing against the bookshelf.

Suddenly it was quiet. He got up and turned on the light. She was lying curled up by the shelf, motionless. “Françoise!” He crouched down at her side, felt for a wound on her head, found nothing, picked her up, and carried her to bed. When he came with a bowl and a towel she looked at him with a faint smile. He sat down by the bed.

Still the voice of a little girl, now begging, imploring: “I am sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you, I didn’t want to do this. It’s got nothing to do with you. I love you, I love you so much. You mustn’t be angry with me, it’s not my fault. They forced me to do it, they …”

“Who are they?”

“You must promise me you won’t do anything foolish. What do we care about those helicopters and …”

“Jesus! I want to know what this is all about!”

“I’m frightened, Georges.” She sat up and huddled against him. “Hold me, hold me tight.”

Finally she told him. He gradually understood that what she was telling him was really their story, with the two of them, the real Françoise and the real Georg, that it was part of their lives like his house and his car, his office in Marseille, his jobs and projects, his love for Françoise, his getting up in the morning, his going to bed at night.

She assumed they had already targeted him when they sent Bulnakov and her to Pertuis. Who were “they”?

“The Polish secret service, and behind them the KGB—don’t ask me, I don’t know. They arrested my brother and father, right when martial law was declared. I’ve been working for them ever since. They released my father, but they told me they’d come get him again if I didn’t continue.… As for my brother …” She sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “They told me his life depends on me. His death warrant has been signed, and whether he will be pardoned depends on … He had called for open resistance and thrown a Molotov cocktail when the militia cleared the square in front of the university—as far as I know the only Molotov cocktail thrown in all of Poland at that time—and the driver and the passenger were burned in the car. He has … he is … I love my brother very much, Georges. Ever since Mother died, he was the most important person in my life, until …” She sobbed. “Until I met you.”

“And you’re ready to have me thrown in jail in order to get your brother out?”

“But everything’s going so well. You’re happy, and so am I.
What do we care about these helicopters? Soon my people will have what they want, my brother will get his pardon, and they’ll leave us alone, and then … You asked me if I will live with you. I want to so much, I can’t live without you anymore, I want to be with you always, it’s only that … Don’t you see why I couldn’t just say yes back then? Please, please …”

Again the voice and look of a little girl, frightened because she’d done something bad, hopeful because she’d made up for it all, and sulking, because he hadn’t rewarded her for it yet.

“Why would they leave you alone once they have the documents they want?”

“They promised. They said they’d release my father, and they kept their promise.”

“You’d never have worked for them if they hadn’t let him go. They’ll commute your brother’s death sentence to life in prison, at which point you’ll go on working for them so they will reduce his sentence to fifteen years, and they can keep on haggling further reductions. You won’t have a choice.”

She didn’t say anything, but continued to look at him, sulking. “It goes without saying that they have to offer you something so you will keep up the work,” he continued. “Let’s say three years off his sentence for every year that you work for them. That means they have you where they want you for at least another five years. You’re good at what you do, you’re fluent in French, know the country and the people. Believe me, they’ll keep you where they want you. How long were you already in France when they recruited or forced you into this?”

“It sounds like you’re cross-examining me! I don’t like talking with you like this.”

He had moved to the edge of the bed, his back straight, his hands cradling his stomach. He was staring intently. “It’s not only you they have—they’ve got me too. And when they’re done with
the attack helicopter, they’ll set their sights on the stealth reconnaissance plane, or the new control system or bomb, or God knows what! Once I’ve worked for them for a long time, they’ve got me where they want me, even without you. Is this what you wanted? Is this how you want us to live?”

“Our life isn’t all that bad. We’ve got each other, a nice house, enough money. And nobody need know that you’re aware of what’s going on. Why can’t things just go on the way they are? Weren’t you happy all this time?”

He said nothing. He looked out the window into the night and felt heavy with fatigue. What she was saying was true, but then again, it also wasn’t. What did he care about helicopters, fighter jets, reconnaissance planes, bombers, and all the maneuverings surrounding the arms race, armament, and disarmament? Since he didn’t have the time or money to write a novel, he didn’t care what he was translating or for whom: IBM, Mermoz—why not for the Poles and Russians too? It wouldn’t involve any more work; he laughed bitterly. But his freedom was done for. He felt this with painful clarity. He was no longer sitting on the podium maneuvering all the trains, but was a train himself that others could set in motion, bring to a halt, start up again, accelerate, and stop.

“Georg?”

He shrugged his shoulders despondently. Had his early freedom been just an illusion? He remembered her sudden departures on Sundays.

“Why did you always have to deliver the negatives of the plans on Sunday?” he asked her.

“What?”

He didn’t repeat the question. Something didn’t fit. Just didn’t fit. Something kept buzzing in his mind, not a clear thought, but perhaps just the disbelief that all this should have happened to
him, and that the way he was living would go on, but look very different from this point.

She sighed and laid her head in his lap. Her left hand caressed his back, and her right hand slid beneath his bathrobe, reaching gently between his legs. Surprised, and as if from a distance, he felt his arousal.

“Are you … were you Bulnakov’s lover?”

She let go and sat up. “What kind of a question is that? How mean and spiteful! I haven’t been with anyone else since I met you, and as for what happened in the past, it doesn’t concern either of us. Not to mention that if Bulnakov had wanted to sleep with me, I would hardly have had a choice.”

“What about now?”

“I have no choice now either, if you want to know!” she shouted. “I let him do his thing, then he gets up, buttons his pants, and tucks in his shirt. Shall I show you? Go on, lie down, you be me and I’ll be him, go on!” She tried to pull Georg onto the bed, tugged at him, her hands striking out. Then she began to sob, and she curled up like a fetus.

Georg sat there, his hand on her shoulder. Finally he lay down next to her. They made love. Outside, the sun was rising and the first birds were beginning to sing.

SHE GOT UP AT DAYLIGHT
. He stayed in bed, listening to her movements in the next room, the flushing toilet, the clattering dishes in the kitchen, the sound of the shower. She opened the living-room shutters, which banged loudly against the outside wall, and he waited for her car to start. But she must have sat down in the rocking chair with a cup of coffee. It was a while before the hinges of the outer gate creaked and the engine of her Deux Cheveaux started up with a stutter and the gravel rasped under the tires. Wrapped in the scent of their body and their love, exhausted by the nocturnal battle, he listened to the car drive away.

He woke up again hours later. The sun was shining into the room. He didn’t have the strength to get up; he barely wanted to move into a more comfortable position. Then he did get up, without knowing why, or why exactly at that moment. He got up. He showered, dressed, made coffee, drank it, fed the cats. He did this all with a strange lightness. He looked for money in the drawer and found it, put on his jacket, took the keys, locked the door, got into his car, and drove off. His movements were controlled. He monitored the road before him closely, the potholes, the cars turning out from side roads, the cars coming toward him. He drove fast,
carefully, detached. He felt as if he wasn’t driving, as if he could plow into a tractor or a tree without getting hurt, without so much as denting his car. He parked under the plane trees by the pond and went into the pharmacy. Here too he felt as if he were watching himself from a distance. As he walked, his movements were light. It was as if only the shell of his body were walking, as if he were empty inside and the shell was porous, letting in light and air.

In the pharmacy he stood a few minutes in line, waiting his turn. When he entered he had said “bonjour” without putting on a friendly, happy face, and as he stood and waited, his face showed neither expectation nor impatience—nor any interest in Madame Revol’s small talk with the other customers. He felt that his face was like an empty page.

“Could I please have a box of Dovestan?”

“Monsieur would do better to have a beer or a glass of red wine before going to bed. Dovestan is a dangerous drug. I read that in Germany or Italy you can’t even get it without a prescription anymore.”

He hadn’t intended to reply, but Madame Revol was showing no sign of going to the medicine shelf. She looked at him with a worried, motherly expression, waiting for him to say something. He put on a playful smile. “And that’s exactly why I live in France, Madame,” he said, laughing. “But jokes aside, I don’t seem to get any sleep when there’s a full moon. And I’d hate to think what would happen to my liver with all the red wine I’d have to gulp down.”

The instant Madame Revol gave him the pills he knew he wouldn’t take them. Suicide? No, not him. Those Russians, Poles, Bulnakov, Françoise—they had another thing coming! Wasn’t he holding all the cards? Wasn’t it up to him to deliver or not to deliver, to go to the police or not, to string Bulnakov along, and make him pay?

He drank a glass of white wine in the Bar de l’Étang and then another. Back at home he went into his study. The desk was standing upright again, the plans laid out, the camera gone. Françoise had clearly finished taking pictures that morning. Georg put in a call to his office in Marseille. His secretary had been expecting him, but had managed things on her own, rescheduling appointments and appeasing clients. Then he dialed Bulnakov’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Polger speaking. We need to talk. I’d like to drop by at four.”

“Drop by, my young friend, drop by! Though I must say you’re sounding a little secretive. What’s all this about?”

So Françoise hadn’t told him anything. Was she going to tell him, or didn’t she intend to?

“We can talk about that later. Till then, Monsieur.” Georg hung up. He had to go for it, use the element of surprise, confuse his opponent—he would make Bulnakov sweat.

And, in fact, when Georg turned up at four Bulnakov did have large sweaty patches under his arms. The doors were open, Françoise was not at her desk, and Bulnakov was sitting regally in his office, his jacket draped over the back of his chair, the top buttons of his shirt and pants undone.
Then he gets up, buttons his pants, and tucks in his shirt
, shot through Georg’s mind.

“Come in, my young friend. I’m trying to get some fresh air in here, but I can’t get a draft going and lose heat.” He heaved himself up out of the chair, buttoned his pants, and tucked in his shirt. Georg was jealous, hurt, furious. He didn’t shake Bulnakov’s hand.

“The game is over, Monsieur,” Georg said, sitting down on the edge of the table by the sofas. He towered over Bulnakov, who had sat down again at his desk.

“What game are you talking about?”

“Whatever it is, I’m no longer playing along. It’s up to you
whether I go to the police or not. If I’m not to go, then Françoise’s brother must be pardoned and given authorization to leave Poland. You have three days.”

Bulnakov gave Georg a friendly look. Laugh lines crinkled the corners of his eyes, his mouth widened, his plump cheeks shone. He squeezed the tip of his nose, lost in thought. “Is this the same boy who stood before me in this office only a few months ago? No, it isn’t. You have become a man, my young friend. I like you. From what I see, the thing you are calling my ‘game’ has done you quite a bit of good. But now you want out.” He shook his head, puffed up his cheeks, and blew the air out between his lips. “No, my young friend. Our train is on a roll, it’s rolling at great speed, and you can’t get off. If you try to jump, you’ll end up with broken bones. But a train moving fast also gets where it’s going quickly. Just be a little patient.”