The Weekend: A Novel

by Bernhard Schlink

  So she sidled off. In the corridor she collided with Marko. “I was looking for you.” He grinned at her. “We’ve got to talk.”

  “Do you know where the others are?”

  “The two couples and Andreas drove to a ruin. They’re not staying long. But you and I don’t need long either.”

  “Does it have to be now?”

  “Yes.” Marko turned around, went into the kitchen and leaned against the sink. “I’ve prepared a declaration that I’d like to give to the press tomorrow on Jörg’s behalf. Jörg will be hesitant.”

  Christiane was already annoyed with herself for following Marko into the kitchen. Now she was going to have to hear about his obsessions! “I’ll advise him not to. Anything else?”

  He grinned at her again. “I don’t know how you’d like things to be between you and Jörg in future. Are you fond of him? He’s fond of you—still.”

  “I’m not going to talk to you about my brother.”

  “No? Not even before I talk to your brother about you? Or will I get coffee poured over me?”

  Christiane shook her head wearily. “Leave me in peace.”

  “Will do. You make sure he lets the declaration go out. I can’t stop him putting two and two together and working out that you’ve betrayed him if Henner rebuts the accusation. If it can only be someone from a long time ago, and if it wasn’t his old friend … But I won’t say anything.” He laughed. “That business with the coffee was really stupid. Maybe Henner would have defended himself against Jörg’s accusation so skillfully that he wouldn’t have believed him. Sometimes truths sound like lies.”

  “Leave me in peace.”

  “The declaration has to go to the press tomorrow, and if you haven’t persuaded him by tomorrow morning, I’ll have to do it. And I’ll persuade him by telling him what you’ve done.” Marko suddenly looked seriously at Christiane. “What possessed you? Fear for Jörg? Better to live in prison than die in freedom? I don’t get it.” He shrugged. “And it doesn’t matter anyway.” He moved away from the sink and left the kitchen.

  Can I throw Marko out of the house? Can I get Henner to take the blame for the betrayal? Can I discredit Henner in such a way that Jörg doesn’t believe him? Can I get Andreas involved? Can I soften the declaration? Can I run away? Can I get Jörg to understand why I had to do what I did?

  Christiane remembered giving the police the tip-off. She had given it anonymously, and that made her feel as if she had not really given it, as if the tip-off had somehow given itself. She remembered the relief she had felt when Jörg was safe in prison. She remembered the fear she had felt while he was free. It wasn’t the fear that you have for someone who won’t give up climbing mountains or hang gliding or driving race cars. It was a knot in Christiane’s belly that tied fear and pain and guilt together. The pain of having lost Jörg already, the fear of losing him completely, the guilt of not saving him while she could have done so with a simple tip-off. With this betrayal, too, she was piling guilt upon herself. But what was that guilt compared with Jörg’s life!

  Then came the prison years, in which she had given Jörg everything. Christiane had thought that would let her pay the price for the guilt of betrayal. Wasn’t that enough? Now she was to be deprived of Jörg’s love as well? If that was how it was to be, then that was how it would be. Christiane realized with astonishment that she could think something that had previously been unthinkable without the world coming to a standstill and life coming to an end.

  Twenty-two

  She went to the spot in the park where her telephone worked. Previously there had been a pond here, and as always when she telephoned, Christiane wondered if the ground was still damp and that was responsible for the reception. She dreamed of repairing the channel from the stream to the hollow of the pond and from the hollow back to the stream and filling the pond again.

  She called Karin. She had stopped taking pleasure in her plans, and encouraged Karin to drive to the castle by the lake, which wasn’t very far away. “Take your time. I’ll have an aperitif ready for six.”

  On the way back, through the trees she saw Margarete and Henner sitting on the bench by the stream. At first it gave her a stitch, then it sat easily with her mood of renunciation and farewell. She would be left with her work and her apartment in town and her house in the country. Her work with patients and colleagues—that was fine. But she would have liked to enjoy the apartment and house with someone, with Margarete, with Jörg, with—the thought had crossed her mind a few times since the night before—Henner.

  She walked around the house and through the gate to the road. Her neighbor, the former chairman of the farming co-op, who was displaying his collection of old agricultural instruments in a big barn and a big field, and leaning on a fence hoping for visitors, spoke to her. Had the young man found her all right? He had been polite, had said hello and thank you and left. Christiane was pleased that her neighbor was speaking to her. Although she had lived here for two years, he didn’t normally greet her, and as a former holder of office he was the model for other residents of the village. But when she asked if the young man had seemed like a reporter, she immediately sensed suspicion and rejection. What could there be to report from the manor house? What was actually going on this weekend? Why were so many cars parked outside the gate? She told him about the old friends whom she hadn’t seen for a long time and who had finally come to visit. He made threatening hints; if something improper was going on and the reporters didn’t find it, they could be pointed in the right direction.

  Christiane walked on, past the dilapidated vicarage, past the church that had been under renovation for years, and would be for years to come, past the old staging post, past the village pond with the war memorial. She didn’t meet anyone. As she went by the bus shelter, three boys were sitting on the plastic seats, drinking beer. They looked at Christiane in silence and scared her with their unexpected presence. Yes, she was an outsider here—it fit her mood.

  She looked out for the young man her neighbor had talked about. Was he walking through the village as well? Was he asking people questions about her? Had he found out that Jörg had been pardoned and that she, his sister, lived here? She looked at the license plates of all the parked cars—a reporter would probably come from Berlin or Hamburg or Munich. Then she found her watchfulness undignified and told herself to stop it. She had also had enough of her mood of renunciation and farewell. Being cheerful was out of the question, but being sad was mixed with defiance. She wanted to be done with them, the reporters and Marko and young brats, and if the people she loved didn’t want her, they could go to hell.

  Her proud defiance survived until she was back on the road to her house. It wasn’t long, but it was bleak: on one side the dilapidated vicarage, the rusting agricultural implements, the damaged wall of Christiane’s property, on the other side, gray disused warehouses and the sheds of the farming co-op. The road wasn’t paved; with every step Christiane swirled up pale dust that hung long enough above the ground to follow her like a trail. As if the cloak of the past were hanging from my shoulders, she thought as she turned around—and the fear was there again, the fear of losing Jörg, of losing Margarete and having nothing left but work. It wasn’t hot, but the sun stung, and Christiane suddenly felt like hurting those who hurt her.

  Dorle and Marko were sitting on the terrace. “Jörg has gone to his room to sleep. Marko is just telling me what a hero Jörg is and that the world should get to read a declaration that will finally show them as much.” She smiled at Christiane, woman to woman, both knowing that men are not heroes, but little boys, or big ones at best. Then she smiled at Marko. “Can you tell me why the hero begged for mercy?”

  Christiane didn’t actually want to hear Marko advocating his press declaration, or have Dorle turn her into an accomplice. But then she sat down anyway.

  “He didn’t beg for mercy. He put in an application, the way you put in applications for leave or driver’s licenses or permission
to do construction. And why not?”

  “Doesn’t mercy mean what happened to me was actually right, but pretty please may I be spared?”

  “That may be how others see it. For the revolutionary it’s simply about the chance to get out and go on fighting. If the chance presents itself, he takes it. He flees, and for his flight he tricks people and lies, he fights before the court and goes from the first to the second and third authority, he puts in applications.”

  “What nonsense.” Christiane was furious. “Jörg didn’t lie before the court so that he could get out. When he was in jail he didn’t make all the applications that would have made it easier for him. He was on hunger strike, more than once.”

  Marko nodded. “Hunger strikes are part of the revolutionary struggle. Suicide is part of the revolutionary struggle. They demonstrate to the world that the state doesn’t control its prisoners, that they are not objects, but subjects. And that their struggle is selfless, if necessary self-destructive, suicidal. I didn’t say the revolutionary gives everything to get out. If the struggle can be fought in jail, he fights it in jail. But the days of hunger strikes and suicides are past. The struggle must be fought outside. That’s why Jörg made the application.”

  “Well, hmm. I think a request for mercy demonstrates to the world that the state can act and should act. That’s OK too. Who gains if Jörg rots in jail?” Dorle yawned and got to her feet. “I think I’m going to have a lie-down. When does the program continue?”

  “There’s an aperitif at six. But I could use some help—can you come to the kitchen at five?”

  Dorle nodded and left. Was she going to Jörg? Christiane didn’t care. Dorle wouldn’t take Jörg away from her. The danger came from Marko.

  He immediately went on: “Do you understand now? Without a declaration everyone sees things as Dorle does. Jörg, whose strength they broke. Jörg, who climbed down. You can’t want that to be all that’s left of him! And how’s he supposed to go on living with that? It would mean his whole life was nothing.”

  “Let that be his business. Why do you want to put him under pressure?” But as soon as she said it, she understood Marko. She saw Jörg’s animated face when Marko had praised and urged him the previous night, and she heard again how eloquently Jörg had spoken about the legacy of the struggle as they walked through the park at night. At the same time she saw Jörg with his sloping shoulders, dragging gait and agitated gestures. Marko had understood that without pressure it would be a matter of chance whether Jörg decided for or against the declaration. “Can I read it?”

  “Of course.” Marko reached into his shirt pocket, unfolded two pages and gave them to her. She read about the revolutionary struggle in Germany, which hasn’t ended, but is just beginning, which is global, like business and politics, which overcomes cultural and religious boundaries, which finds new forms of organization and uses means different from the ones used in the seventies and eighties. The text ended: “The system cannot hide behind its lies in the face of the revolution, it can be wounded, disarmed, overcome. The provocations beneath which the system reveals itself, the explosions that reveal its vulnerability, the attacks that reveal the defenselessness of those who build upon it and live off it, the attacks that spread fear and force people to think and rethink—they do not belong to yesterday. The struggle goes on.”

  She saw what Marko had tried to do: come up with a text that stirred people to action and offered leadership, but could also be read as mere analysis and prognosis. Was he successful? Was it legally airtight and watertight? Christiane gave the pages back to Marko. “Andreas won’t do it. So find another lawyer to look at the text. For as long as he doesn’t give it the green light I’ll make sure that Jörg doesn’t give the declaration, whatever the cost. Yes, I know it’s Saturday. But if you set off now, you’ll be able to find a lawyer by tomorrow.”

  He looked at her suspiciously. “You don’t want to …”

  “… kidnap Jörg or lock him away so you can’t reach him tomorrow?” She laughed. “If it would help. But it doesn’t, so don’t worry.”

  “Will you tell …”

  “I’ll tell Jörg you’ve gone. That you drove into town and you’re talking to a lawyer about a declaration you’d like to propose to him. That you’ll be back tonight or tomorrow. OK?” Christiane said it in a deliberately friendly way. They both knew she had won the round.

  Marko choked back his annoyance, nodded and got to his feet. “See you later, then.”

  Twenty-three

  Henner was saying good-bye to Margarete, too: “See you later.” He had led her by the arm to the bench, they had sat down on the bench and looked at the stream and he had led her back by the arm to the garden house. By the door she took her arm from his and went in; he turned around and walked away.

  But after a few steps he turned back and pulled open the door that she had just closed behind her. “Margarete!” She turned around, and he took her in his arms. She hesitated for a moment, then put her arms around him as well. They didn’t kiss, they said nothing, they stood and held each other. Until he started laughing and laughed louder and louder and she pushed him from her and looked quizzically at him.

  “I’m happy.”

  She smiled. “That’s nice.”

  He pulled her to him again. “You feel good.”

  “So do you.”

  “And you’re the first woman in my life that I’ve kissed first.” He kissed her, and again she hesitated for a moment before closing her eyes and accepting and returning his kiss.

  After the kiss she asked, “The first woman?”

  “Women have always kissed me first. Women I didn’t want to kiss or didn’t know whether I wanted to, or I did want to, but not so quickly.” He laughed. “I’m doubly happy. Because you feel so good and because I’ve kissed you. Triply. Because the kiss was so nice.”

  “Come with me!” They went upstairs. The attic was a big room with chimney, cupboard and bed and a single window in the front wall. It was dark, it was hot, the air was stale. “I’ve got to lie down. Do you want to sit down and join me?”

  She lay down on the bed in skirt and T-shirt, he sat down on the edge. He looked at her face with its brown eyes, broad nose and wide mouth and brown hair that was turning gray at the roots. She took his hand.

  “Until Tuesday I was in New York at a conference on fundamentalism and terrorism. On the second evening I went out for dinner with a woman, a professor from London, and when I had taken her to her hotel and said good-bye, she took my head and kissed me on the mouth. Maybe it didn’t mean anything and it was just a variation on the usual hello and good-bye kiss. But on the way to my hotel I thought about kissing for the first time in my life. Have you ever thought about kissing?”

  “Mhm.”

  He waited, but she didn’t go on. “At home my parents used to kiss me on the mouth, and I could hardly bear it. Of course they meant it nicely. But when my father and mother picked me up from the station after the holidays and kissed me on the mouth by way of greeting, I went very cold inside. Instead of closeness the kisses created distance. And if on top of that my father, who didn’t take personal grooming very seriously, smelled, it made me shudder. My father’s been dead for ages now. My mother lives alone—I visit her every few weeks. Every time she kisses me on the mouth by way of greeting, and she does it so … Why am I telling you this? Am I talking too much? Should I stop? No? She kisses me so urgently, so pressingly, so greedily—it reminds me of a vulgar girl throwing herself at a man who isn’t interested.

  “My parents’ physicality … When I was a little boy, my father took me to the swimming pool once or twice, and took me into his changing room to get undressed. My father’s nakedness, his soft, white flesh, his smell, his dirty underwear—it repelled me so violently that it made me feel guilty. I never saw his naked body again later on, only my mother’s. Sometimes I took her to the doctor, and she got undressed and revealed her sagging, baggy skin and her crooked bones. Again
I was repelled, but I also felt pity. The worst thing is when I’m at her house and she can’t control her bowels and hold in her stools. They go on the bed or her clothes or, if she’s in the bathroom, on the floor and walls—I don’t know with what desperate movements she scatters it like that. Because she’s ashamed, at first she says nothing, but then it smells and there’s no hiding it and I wash off the dried-on shit. I only say kind and comforting things and I don’t stop until everything’s nice and clean again. But there’s nothing inside me but nausea and coldness and gritted teeth. I don’t have the guilty conscience that I had in the changing room with my father. I’m startled. I’m horrified by what I find within me.

  “You know those stories about nurses killing their patients? They’re kind and efficient not because they like the patients, but because they’re gritting their teeth. They’re cold. And because the effort is so great that it could only be borne with love, one day they can’t bear it anymore and coldly kill their patients. And they’re not the worst. Think of …”

  “You’re not killing your mother. You’re just washing off her shit.” Margarete sat up and ran her hand over his back.

  “But the coldness is the same. When I’m walking through the streets or sitting in the café in the square, I watch the people. The way they walk, the way they hold themselves, what they express in their faces. Sometimes I see the effort they make in their posture and expression, the courage with which they meet life, the heroic effort with which they set down one foot after another, and it fills me with deep pity. But it’s just sentimentality. Because I can feel such coldness toward those people that if I had a machine gun and didn’t fear the unpleasantness of court and prison, I could shoot them all.”