He excused himself and went to the toilet. When he got back, she was no longer there. In his room he went and stood by the window. He felt a lump rising from his chest to his throat. How will I ever be able to love anyone again? How can I learn once more to interact normally with people? I’m going insane, really insane. He began to cry and felt better, though the lump in his throat didn’t dissolve.
One of the guests came bursting into the room. Larry had put all the coats on Georg’s bed. Georg blew his nose. Other guests came and collected their things. The party was over. Before she left, Helen asked him if he wanted to meet Effi. She sounded natural and friendly. His suspicion was once more aroused. Effi? Who was this Effi? Oh, of course! Effi was her cat. He laughed and they set a date.
26
GEORG LAY ON HIS BED and looked out the window. It was dawn, the sky was still dark, but the upper windows of the tall buildings across the Hudson were already reflecting the red morning sun. Glowing windows—he had seen the burning light of the setting sun in the windows of Manhattan skyscrapers. This city isn’t just a forest, he thought, it is also mountains, alps.
He had dreamed of Cucuron, of the cats, and of Françoise. In the dream they had packed their suitcases and put them in the car, but he couldn’t recall where they were thinking of going. Or were they running away? Something in the dream frightened him. He still felt the fear.
Is that what my life has become? Things happen that I don’t understand and I only react to with fear and awkwardness? I have to act, not react. He had often brooded about this over the past few weeks, though he wasn’t quite sure what the difference was.
But maybe what truly matters is not acting and changing the world but interpreting differently. Georg laughed and put his arms behind his head. That he was being shadowed was the way they interpreted it. Why not interpret the whole thing differently, and see the shadowing as a trail that he could follow, an opportunity that he could use?
He let his thoughts roam. He imagined himself walking through a dark Riverside Park, the redheaded man some fifty yards behind him: Georg comes to a large tree and reacts, no, acts, with lightning speed. He glances back and sees his shadower sauntering along casually. Georg slips behind the thick tree trunk, hears his heart pounding, and then the steps of his shadower coming closer. Suddenly there is silence. Keep on walking! Georg thinks. Keep going! On the street above, a bus rumbles by. He hears the steps again, hears them hesitate, become decisive, then run. It’s all a child’s game. He trips the redhead, and even as he falls Georg kicks him in the stomach. He kicks him as he lies there: that’s for the cats, that’s for the attack, that’s for all the pain he has endured for Françoise. His first punch breaks the man’s nose. The bleeding face utters words in faulty English: They had heard he was coming to New York and were worried he would …
Would what? Georg didn’t know what his imagination should make the redhead say. That was why he wanted to beat it out of him. But if it wasn’t a child’s game? Georg trips up the running man, the redhead leaps forward, rolls, and jumps back up before Georg can even steady himself. A knife flashes in the man’s hand.
Georg tried another scenario. Where could he get a false beard and color for his face and hair? Where could he get a hat and dark glasses? And what could he wear and take with him so that after a few minutes in a men’s room he could turn into someone else? There had to be costume rentals and theatrical wardrobes in the Yellow Pages. But what would his shadower think if he saw him go there? Georg imagined putting black shoe polish in his hair, brown color on his face, and a beard he would make from his pubic and chest hair. He peered under the covers—there wasn’t a lot there.
He heard Larry leaving the apartment. He got up, looked through the closets, and found a black hat and a light-colored nylon coat that was rolled up. If he buttoned it up all the way, nothing but the knot of his tie would show. There were a dozen ties hanging on the inside of the closet door. He put everything back in place.
All morning he strolled down Broadway, keeping an eye out for the shadower. The weather had changed. The sky hung low and gray, and the air was warm and humid. The people hurrying by had left their coats and jackets at home, and only the panhandlers were wrapped in layers of clothing, some holding out paper cups in gloved hands begging for money. The storm broke, and Georg took shelter beneath the awning of a fruit stand. Beside him were heaps of melons, pineapples, apples, and peaches. There was a pleasant aroma. He watched the flow of buses, trucks, bright-colored cars, and yellow cabs.
The rain stopped, and he walked on. He went into several drugstores. He found some tan coloring that was good enough in the first one. However, the drugstores didn’t sell false beards or the kind of hair dye that could be quickly applied or sprayed on. He looked for his shadower in vain. Between Seventy-eighth and Seventy-ninth streets he almost walked past the Paper House store with its greeting cards for every occasion and masks of Mickey Mouse, King Kong, Dracula, and Frankenstein’s monster. Shrink-wrapped beards, side-burns, and mustaches of shiny, black synthetic fiber hung by the entrance. He wanted to get to the greeting-card section in case the shadower peered through the store window. He quickly grabbed one of the beards and found a selection of hairspray in all colors, took a can with a black cap, picked three greeting cards at random, and paid the cashier before anyone stopped outside the store window. He put the beard and the hairspray in his coat pocket and stood by the door, looking at the cards he had bought: “Be My Valentine.” Three times.
At the optician’s, he quickly hid the sunglasses he had bought in his bag, and stood outside again polishing his own glasses before anyone had a chance to walk by.
He no longer left his apartment without a plastic bag. In it were the hat, the coat, a tie, the brown tanning color, the black hairspray, the beard, and a small mirror. But either no one was shadowing him, or he didn’t see anyone. He took the subway to Brooklyn to meet the head of the kindergarten, who, it turned out, couldn’t tell him any more about Françoise than the former head of the Ladies Guild in Queens had. Again he stood outside the Polish and Soviet consulates, but every time he walked away he didn’t notice anyone shadowing him. Mostly he wandered the streets aimlessly, only occasionally glancing back sheepishly to see if he was being followed. Sometimes he got lost. That didn’t worry him—sooner or later he always found a subway station. The weather remained stormy and humid. He now saw the city as a living organism, a hissing dragon, or the kind of gigantic whale that castaways in old adventure books mistook for islands. The whale spouted fountains of water from time to time, and its sweat evaporated in a haze.
One evening Georg went out with Helen. He had given much thought to what he would tell her about himself as they were getting to know each other. He had been a lawyer in Germany and had lived in France as a translator and writer—so far so good. But what was he doing in New York? He told her he was doing research for a book, but then also told her about Françoise, that he had met her in Cucuron, and was looking for her in New York. A lame story, he himself realized. It wasn’t surprising that Helen seemed more comfortable talking to the waiter than to him. Her manner struck him as friendly but cautious. They were having dinner at Pertutti, an Italian restaurant on Broadway not far from Columbia. She often went there for lunch. The place reminded him of his own student years, and his lunches and dinners with friends.
He found it hard to talk, not only because he was worried he would reveal too much, but because he was out of practice. In the past he had enjoyed intellectual exchanges: talking about books, movies, politics, and at the same time talking about oneself, mirroring what one had read or seen in one’s own experience, and then presenting one’s experience in general terms, grasping and analyzing developments and relations of others as prototypes. He could no longer do this. He hadn’t done any of this since he had moved from Karlsruhe to Cucuron, and after he had taken over Maurin’s translation agency in Marseille, he had barely read a book or seen a movie. With Françoise h
e had only spoken about everyday matters. When friends had come from Germany, they had talked about what they were doing and about old times. Georg felt foolish next to Helen, who drew parallels between her students and students in general, spoke about the fairy tales she was working on for her dissertation, trends in the German short story, and Germany’s turmoil in the nineteenth century; about National Socialism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism; and of her experiences as a student in Trier.
“Did you visit Marx’s birthplace in Trier?” he asked.
Helen shook her head. “Have you?”
“No.”
“Why bring up Marx?” she asked, relieved that he had said something after his long interlude of nodding and smiling. She reached for her glass and took a sip.
“I’ve been thinking about something he wrote that has to do with changing and interpreting the world,” Georg said, and tried to explain why it was important not to take others’ behavior as they mean it, but to determine the meaning oneself.
“Isn’t that … isn’t that what the insane do?” Helen said. “Not caring about what people mean, but seeing in other people’s actions what they want to see?”
“What they want to see, or what they are compelled to? If they can choose, then they live with freedom of action instead of having to react. And freedom of action doesn’t automatically bring success and happiness. Moreover, when dealing with those whose behavior is so powerful that one can only react, insanity is perhaps better than submission.”
She didn’t understand him. He didn’t understand himself either.
“Is that what you’re writing about?” she asked.
He looked at her. “Are you joking?” he said. “We’ve been sitting here for two hours, and I can’t even talk properly about students, books, and politics, and you expect me to write about philosophy or whatever?”
“The problem here seems to be linguistic.”
“Fair enough. I’m sorry I asked you out. I’ve ruined your evening. I didn’t realize that I’ve”—he couldn’t find the right expression—“that I’ve lost so much of my social skills.”
The check had been lying on the table for some time. He took some money out of his pocket. She watched him silently, her eyes once again careful. They got up, and he walked with her along Broadway and then up Riverside Drive to where she lived.
“Do you want to come up for a drink?”
They hadn’t said a word all the way to her place. In the elevator she asked him what his sign was, and he asked her what hers was. They were both Capricorns. In her apartment, she asked him about Françoise.
“Do you love her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you avoiding my question?”
“Why are you asking? I mean, why are you asking whether I love her?”
“I’d like to know more about you, so I have to start somewhere.”
“I don’t know a lot about you either.”
“That’s true.”
He looked at her. Her eyes were cautious again. Perhaps her cautiousness has nothing to do with me, he thought, perhaps it’s always there. What striking features she has. She’s attractive in a sharp sort of way. And still, even with her hair drawn back into a stern ponytail, she looks friendly.
She smiled. “Would you like to see me again?”
“Yes, I would.” He was sitting next to her on the couch, and caressed her hand, his fingers running along her veins. “I don’t have much money left. Would a walk through Central Park with a Coke and french fries on a park bench be okay?”
She nodded.
“Then I’ll be on my way.”
“Stay.”
He stayed. He woke up often and looked at her as she slept lying on her back in her buttoned-up nightdress, her arms stretched out beside her. The cat was sleeping at his feet. The warmth of the shared bed and the memory of her embraces were pleasant. It was like a homecoming. But always, when he came home, he doubted whether he still belonged there.
27
TWICE THE FOLLOWING DAY GEORG was under the impression that he had seen the same balding man in a gray shirt, light brown pants, and black shoes following him. But he wasn’t sure. The day after, Georg was waiting for the bus on Sixth Avenue. It was four o’clock and the street was busy, but it was before rush hour. When the light turned red, there was silence for a few seconds before the traffic came pouring in from the side streets.
He was tired, and only looked up from time to time to see if his bus was coming. He wouldn’t have looked across the street if a truck hadn’t rammed a cab. And he wouldn’t have noticed the redhead, who had been standing behind the truck and now slowly walked on.
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 while trying to keep a lookout, but the stream carried him through the corridor leading to the subway. Georg followed the crowds down a ramp and a flight of stairs, through the turnstile, and onto the subway platform. The redhead was standing farther up the platform, and Georg made his way toward him. The downtown Lexington Avenue Express arrived, and he managed to get into the same car. So the fellow wasn’t heading to the Soviet or the Polish consulate.
They got off at Union Square. They went up the stairs, through the park with the sparse grass and benches that were spotty and leprous and had not been painted in a long time, and onto Broadway, which here was narrow and shabby. The redhead was walking fast. After a couple of blocks, he entered a building.
Georg stopped. It was an old building, with dirty brown brickwork and columns between the windows. Above the ground floor with a shuttered storefront he counted nine floors and half of a tenth, a construction of Roman arches and columns. Above the narrow entrance he read MACINTYRE BUILDING, 874. It towered over the others around it. It had seen better days, but still had a shabby dignity.