It was only now, back on the terrace, thinking about work and planning the evening and the following day, that he noticed the cats hadn’t come out to greet him. He went into the kitchen, rattled the tins of cat food, filled the bowls, and put them in their usual place. “Snow White, Dopey, Sneezy!”
He went out through the gate. The plums were ripe, the fragrance of lavender in bloom hung in the air, birds twittered and cicadas rasped. There was a gentle breeze. He looked up at the sky. It wasn’t going to rain today: he would have to water the herb garden himself. Then he would go to the Bar de l’Étang for an aperitif and have some salmon fettuccine at Les Vieux Temps.
They were lying in the shadow by the garage door; curled up as if asleep, but their eyes and mouths were wide open. A shimmer of blood had seeped into the sandy ground. The bullet holes were in the back of their heads: small, neat holes. Did such a tiny caliber even exist? Had they been killed with air-gun pellets?
He crouched down and caressed them. They were still warm.
The phone rang. He got up slowly, went inside, and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
It was Bulnakov, his voice serious. “Did you find them?”
“Yes.” Georg would have liked to shout threats at him, but he couldn’t speak.
“I have already made it clear, Monsieur Polger, that this isn’t a game. For the last few days I’ve been very patient. I waited, hoping you’d see reason. But it seems that you haven’t quite grasped the situation. You thought that good old Bulnakov would give up, that he’d turn his back and go on his way. No, Monsieur Polger! Good old Bulnakov will only go on his way when he’s got what he wants!” He hung up.
Georg stood there with the receiver in his hand. He understood what Bulnakov had said. He was aware that for the past few days he had lived in an illusion, but didn’t know what to do with this awareness. You lie in bed feeling cold, and outside it’s even colder: What can you do except pull the thin blanket over you to conserve whatever little heat you have? What use is being aware that the cold is too great and the blanket too thin? Should you tell yourself that you’ll freeze to death anyway, and that you might as well get it over with as soon as possible?
But why freeze to death, Georg asked himself. The only thing they want me to do is keep on doing knowingly what I’ve done up to now unknowingly. I just have to go on with my work and from time to time let Françoise… in fact, I don’t need to take any action. All I have to do is let things happen. So much in this world isn’t the way it ought to be and I look the other way. God knows, the Russians getting the details of the helicopter that the Europeans are building isn’t the worst the world has to offer. Perhaps it’s even a good thing, creating a balance of power, helping peace. But it’s not a matter of what I’m doing: the issue is that I’m being ordered to do it. I haven’t accomplished much in life, but at least it can be said that I never did anything I didn’t want to do. I might have liked things to be different. But in the end, whatever I did was always my decision. I don’t care if that’s pride, defiance, independence, or eccentricity.
He hadn’t yet grasped that the cats were dead. He knew it, but the knowledge was strangely abstract. As he dug a hole and laid the cats in it, he cried. But as he sat by the living room door staring into the twilight, he felt as if at any moment Dopey would come prancing around the corner.
15
FRANÇOISE KNEW WHAT HAD HAPPENED. “I was there when the two of them showed up. Bulnakov told me to go outside, but I realized what they were up to. My poor darling!”
“You never liked those cats.”
“That’s not true. Perhaps not as much as you did, but I still liked them.” She was leaning against the door frame, running her fingers through his hair.
“Gérard bought some fresh salmon, but I can’t say I have much of an appetite. Are you hungry?”
She nestled up to him and put her arm around him. “Why don’t we lie down?”
He couldn’t make love to her. They lay together in bed, and at first Françoise held him, saying over and over, “My darling, my darling.” Then she kissed him and reached to arouse him. But for the first time he found her touch unpleasant. She stopped, rolled onto her stomach, crumpled the pillow under her head, and looked at him. “We still have some champagne in the fridge. How about it?”
“What are we celebrating?”
“Nothing. But it might do us good. And the fact that it’s all behind us now… I’m so happy it’s all behind us.”
“What’s behind us?”
“All this nonsense. You and them battling it out. You can’t imagine how worried I’ve been.”
Georg sat up. “Are they going away? Have they given up? What have you heard?”
“Them, give up? Never. But you… I thought you had… well, you don’t want…” She sat up too, looking at him perplexed. “Don’t tell me you still don’t get it! They’re going to destroy you. They’ll do such a good job of it, that… They’ve already killed a man for these stupid plans. We’re not talking about three cats now, we’re talking about you!”
He looked at her blankly and said despondently, obstinately, “I can’t give them those plans.”
“Are you crazy?” she shouted. “Don’t you care whether you live or die? Life-that’s here and now!” She took his hands and put them on her thighs, hips, breasts, and stomach. She wept. “I thought you loved all this. I thought you loved me.”
“You know I do.” How lame it sounded! She looked at him, disappointed through her tears. As if something beautiful had fallen on the floor and was now lying in pieces.
She didn’t go on about how he ought to give Bulnakov the plans. She went to get the champagne, and after the third glass they began to kiss and make love. The next morning she crept out of bed early. When he woke up at seven, she and her car were gone.
He didn’t think anything of it. He worked on the translation, and late in the afternoon headed to Cucuron to do some shopping. Then he went to the Bar de l’Étang to see Gérard, and went with him to the wine cooperative at Lourmarin, as he could do with a few bottles himself. It was getting dark when he came home.
He got out of the car and walked toward the house. Suddenly he saw that the door was open. It had been broken open. Inside the house, closets and shelves had been emptied, drawers tipped out, pillows slashed open. The kitchen floor was covered in shattered dishes, cans, oatmeal, spaghetti, cookies, coffee beans, tea bags, tomatoes, eggs. They had gone through everything. He walked through the house, at first stepping carefully amid the books, records, vases, ashtrays, clothes, and papers. But what was the point of watching where he stepped? At times he turned something over with his toe or pushed it out of the way. “Well!” he thought. “There’s that telephoto lens I’ve been looking for everywhere. And it’s fine. And there’s the Guinness ashtray I thought someone must have swiped.”
The plans were still stashed in the drainpipe. He rummaged through the chaos for his dictionaries, the ruler, and a pen, cleared the area in front of his desk, pulled up the chair, and began to work. The translations had to be ready by tomorrow. He would get Françoise to help him clean up later. He was surprised at how unruffled he was.
Françoise didn’t appear. At midnight he drove over to Cadenet. The windows of her apartment were dark and her car wasn’t there. Maybe she’s on her way to my place, he thought. But when he got back home her car wasn’t there either.
It was a moonlit night, and as he lay on the fresh sheets covering the slashed mattress he could see the disarray even after he turned out the light. The outlines he was used to seeing from his bed were askew. The small cabinet by the wall on the left lay on its side, and the painting on the right had been taken down. His bed was immersed in a disarray of pants, shorts, jackets, sweaters, and socks. Something lay gleaming among the clothes. He got up to see what it was. A belt buckle.