The Gordian Knot (2 page)

In theory, Hanne
was
the right partner for him. She was very different. She wasn’t intellectual and abstract, but spontaneous and direct, a wonderful lover, and also stimulating and independent when it came to planning their projects. She helps me do everything I’ve always wanted to do but didn’t dare, he thought.

Now, alone with two cats in a house that was too large and too expensive, and a book project that had ground to a halt in its early phase in which he was to write the story and she to illustrate it, Georg lost his taste for theorizing. Hanne had left him in February—the coldest February any of the neighbors could recall—and Georg often had no idea where he would find the money to heat the house. There were times he would have liked to talk everything over with her, to figure out why their relationship had floundered, but she never answered his letters, and his phone had been cut off.

He made it through the rest of the winter and the following year. Perhaps he could eke out a living with the translation jobs Monsieur Maurin might send. But there was no relying on when or if these jobs would materialize. He sent out a flurry of letters, soliciting literary translations, technical translations, offering French lawyers his German legal expertise, and German newspapers reports and articles from Provence. All to no avail. That he now had more than enough leisure time didn’t help either.

In his mind there were endless feature articles, short stories, and mystery novels that he would have liked to write. But the strongest element was fear. When might Monsieur Maurin call again? Or when should I call him? Maurin had told me the day after tomorrow, but what if he has a job for me tomorrow and can’t get in touch with me? Will he give the job to someone else? Should I call him tomorrow after all?

Like all despondent people, Georg became irritable. As if the world owed him something, and he had to speak up. Sometimes he was more at odds with the world, sometimes less: less, when he had written letters to potential employers and taken them to the post office, irresistible letters; or when he had completed an assignment, had money in his pocket, and was hanging out at Gérard’s restaurant, Les Vieux Temps; or when he ran into people who were struggling as much as he was, but not giving up hope; or when there was a nice fire in the fireplace and the house smelled of the lavender he had picked in the fields and had hung from the mantle; or when he had visitors from Germany, real visitors, not just people who were using his place as a rest stop on their way to Spain; or when he had an idea for a story, or came home and his mailbox was filled with letters. No, he wasn’t always despondent and irritable. In the fall the neighbors’ cat had a litter, and Georg acquired a small black tomcat with white paws. Dopey. His other two cats were called Snow White and Sneezy. Snow White was a tomcat too, all white.

When Georg arrived home from Marseille and got out of the car, the cats rubbed against his legs. They caught plenty of mice in the fields and brought him the mice, but what they really wanted was food out of a can.

“Hi there, cats. I’m back. No work for me, I’m afraid. Not today and not tomorrow. You’re not interested? You don’t mind? Snow White, you’re a big cat, old enough to understand that without work there’s no food. As for you, Dopey, you’re a silly little kitten who doesn’t know anything yet.” Georg picked him up and went over to the mailbox. “Take a look at that, Dopey. We got a nice fat letter, sent by a nice fat publisher. What we need is for there to be a nice fat bit of news for us in that envelope.”

He unlocked the front door, which was also the kitchen door. In the refrigerator there was a half-empty can of cat food and a half-empty
bottle of white wine. He fed the cats and poured himself a glass, put on some music, opened the door that led from the living room onto the terrace, and took the glass and the envelope over to the rocking chair. All the while he continued talking to the cats and to himself. Over the past year it had become a habit. “The envelope can wait a bit. It won’t run away. Have you cats ever seen an envelope running? Or an envelope that minds waiting? If there’s good news inside, then the wine should be at hand for a celebration—and if it’s bad news, as a consolation.”

Georg had read a French novel he’d liked that hadn’t yet been translated into German. A novel that had the makings of a best seller and cult book. A novel that fit perfectly in that specific publisher’s list. Georg had sent them the book and a sample translation.

“The damn bastards! They snatched my idea and sent me packing. They don’t even feel the need to pay me, or offer me another job, or at least something in the future. For two weeks I sat over that sample—two whole weeks for nothing! The damn bastards!”

He got up and gave the watering can a kick.

DEBTS, GEORG DELIBERATED, ARE
very much like the weather: I might be driving to Marseille, leave here in bright sunshine, and arrive there in the pouring rain; on the way there’s the odd cloud over Pertuis, a thick cloud cover over Aix, and by Cabriès the first raindrops fall. On the other hand, I might be sitting here on my terrace: first the sun is shining in a clear blue sky, then a cloud or two appears, then more, then it starts drizzling, and finally it pours. In both cases it’s a matter of an hour—an hour in the car, or an hour on my terrace, and for me the result is the same whether I drive from good weather into bad, or stay where I am and the weather turns bad. The clouds look no different, and either way I get wet. And then my parents and friends warn me not to get any deeper into debt! Not that they’re wrong. Sometimes I do things that make me go deeper into debt. But all too often the debts grow into a mountain that keeps on rising. But how they grow is of no consequence to me. The result is the same.

Georg had just come home from dining at Gérard’s Les Vieux Temps. He had a tab running there, but usually paid up. When he finished a job and had some money, he’d even leave a bit extra. But how petty people could be, Georg thought angrily. He’d gone to
Les Vieux Temps after receiving the disappointing letter, and Gérard had served him salmon fettuccine along with wine, coffee, and Calvados. When Gérard brought the check he didn’t refuse to put it on the tab, but he made a face and dropped a hint. Georg couldn’t let that pass. He paid up in full on the spot, and then some. Even though it was the money with which he was intending to pay his phone bill.

The following morning he began cleaning up the studio. He had ordered some firewood to be delivered in the afternoon, and he wanted to store it there. The wood was ordered and, luckily, already paid for. He couldn’t recall the foolish impulse that had led him to place the order. There was more than enough wood lying about in the woods of Cucuron.

Georg didn’t like going into the studio. The memory of Hanne was especially present and painful. Her large desk by the window, which they had assembled together and on which they had made love by way of inauguration and to test its sturdiness. The sketches for her last big oil painting hung on the wall, and the smock she had left behind was hanging on a hook. Because the boiler and the boxes of books were in the studio, he couldn’t avoid going there altogether, but he had neglected it.

He wanted to do something about the studio, but didn’t get very far. By the time he finished, the boxes of books were stacked up, there was space for the firewood, and Hanne’s smock was in the trash. But then what did he need the studio for?

A car pulled up outside, but it wasn’t the wood being delivered or the mail. It was Herbert, another German living in Pertuis, whose aim in life was to paint, but who always seemed to be kept from doing so by things coming up. They had a bottle of wine together and talked about this and that. Mostly about the latest things that had come up.

“By the way,” Herbert said as he was leaving, “can you help me
out with a loan of five hundred francs? You see, there’s this gallery in Aix, and …”

“Five hundred? I’m sorry, but I don’t have that kind of money,” Georg replied with a shrug, holding up his empty hands.

“I thought we were friends!” Herbert said angrily.

“Even if you were my own brother, I couldn’t give you anything—I don’t have anything.”

“I bet you have enough to pay for the next bottle of wine and the next month’s rent. At least you could be decent enough to say you don’t want to give me the money!”

The truck delivering the firewood arrived. It was a scratched and dented pickup with an open bed, the doors of the cab missing. A man and a woman got out, both quite old. The man had only one arm.

“Where would Monsieur like us to stack the wood? It’s good wood, dry and aromatic. We collected it over there.” The man waved his one arm toward the slopes of the Luberon.

“You’re such a lying asshole!” Herbert said, got in his car, and drove off.

The old couple wouldn’t let Georg unload the wood himself. He couldn’t keep the old woman from dragging it to the edge of the truck bed, or the man from stacking it up in the studio. Georg kept hurrying with armfuls of wood from her to him.

At lunchtime he drove to Cucuron. The town is spread out over two adjacent hills, one crowned with a church, the other with the ruins of a castle. The old wall still winds around half the town, houses leaning against it. The positive feeling Georg had had many years ago when he first visited Cucuron returned whenever he went rattling through its lanes in his car, and even more whenever he set out on a half-hour walk through the fields and the town came into view—ocher-colored in the shining sun, or gray as it hid under low-hanging clouds—always stolid, cozy, reliable.

The
étang
lies in front of the town gate, a large, walled pond, rectangular and surrounded by old plane trees. On the narrow side facing the town lies the market and the Bar de l’Étang, with tables set up on the sidewalk from spring to fall. In the summer it’s cool, and in the fall the plane trees drop their leaves early enough so one can sit outside in the last warm rays of the sun. This place was cozy too. In the bar they served sandwiches and draft beer, and everyone Georg knew would get together here.

This time Georg found that even with his third beer contentment didn’t set in. He was still angry about Gérard and Herbert. Angry about the whole miserable situation. He drove home and took a nap. Will I end up like Herbert, or am I already there?

At four o’clock the phone woke him up. “I’m calling from Bulnakov Translation Service. Is this Monsieur Polger?”

“Yes.”

“A few weeks ago we opened a translation agency in Cadenet, and business has picked up faster than we expected. We’re looking for translators, and you came to our attention. Are you available?”

Georg was now wide awake. Only his voice was still unsteady. “You would like me to … I mean, if I’m available, to work …? Yes, I believe I am.”

“Great. We’re at rue d’Amazone, right across the square where the statue of the drummer boy is—you’ll see the sign on the building. Why don’t you stop by?”

GEORG WAS READY TO GO THERE RIGHT AWAY
. But he stopped himself. He also stopped himself on Wednesday and Thursday. He decided to go to the Bulnakov Translation Service on Friday morning at ten. Jeans, blue shirt, and leather jacket, a folder under his arm with samples of the work he had done for Monsieur Maurin: he carefully choreographed the scene—he would show that he was interested in working for them, but wouldn’t indicate how much depended on it.

Everything went smoothly. Georg called on Friday morning and made an appointment for ten. He parked on the square near the statue of the drummer boy, walked up the rue d’Amazone, and at five past ten rang the bell beneath the plaque that said
BULNAKOV TRANSLATION SERVICE
.

The door on the third floor was open. There was the smell of paint, and a young woman was sitting at her typewriter in the freshly painted reception area. Brown hair hanging to her shoulders, brown eyes, and, as she looked up, a friendly glance and the hint of a smile.

“Monsieur Polger? Please take a seat. Monsieur Bulnakov will see you right away.”

She said
Polgé
and
Boulnakóv
, but with an accent Georg couldn’t quite place.

He had barely sat down on one of the brand-new chairs when a door flew open and Bulnakov, all effervescence and affability, came bursting into the room, ruddy-cheeked and sporting a tight vest and loud tie.

“How wonderful that fate has brought you to our doorstep, my young friend. May I call you ‘my young friend’? We’ve gotten so many jobs we can barely keep up with them, and I see you’re carrying a big folder of work that you are toiling over—but no, a young man like you wouldn’t be
toiling
—I’m sure you can do these translation jobs with a flick of the wrist. You’re young, just as I was once, correct me if I’m wrong!” He was holding Georg’s hand in both of his, squeezing it, shaking it, not letting go even after he had dragged Georg into his office.

“Monsieur Bulnakov …”

“Let me close the door to my
sanctum
, and speak a few words of introduction—oh, what the hell, let us segue in medias res without further ado. What we do here is technical translation: handbooks for word processing, bookkeeping, systems for client- and customer-tracking, and so on. Small, convenient, friendly programs, but nice thick books. Know what I mean? I take it you have experience with technology and computers, that you can handle both English into French and French into English, and that you can work fast? Working fast is the be-all and end-all in this business, and if your dictaphone and ours aren’t compatible, we’ll provide you with one. Mademoiselle Kramsky will type everything up, you’ll give it a quick once-over, and voilà!
Cito cito:
wasn’t that the motto of your Frederick the Great? You’re German, aren’t you? Although, now that I think of it, the motto might not have been your Frederick the Great’s but our Peter the Great’s. Anyway, who cares, same difference. You haven’t said a word, is anything wrong?”