The Gordian Knot by Bernhard Schlink Read Free Book Online Page A

nice.” Georg fell asleep happy.

11
    IT WAS THE END OF JULY . Georg woke up in the night in the dark room, rolled sleepily onto his stomach, and tried to lay one of his legs across Françoise. Her side of the bed was empty.
    He waited for the sound of the flushing toilet and her footsteps on the stairs. Did minutes pass, or had he fallen asleep and woken up again? He still didn’t hear anything. Where was she? Wasn’t she feeling well?
    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 tableand 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