Summer Lies (27 page)

She didn’t know how to answer. That it didn’t make any difference, because she’d had to live with the consequences one way or the other? That she didn’t actually know what making decisions meant? After Helmut had brought her home, it was a given that she was going to marry him, it was a given that the children would be born, and it was a given that he would have affairs. The duties she had lived for were there and had to be fulfilled—where was the decision in that?

Irritated, she said, “Should I have decided not to take care of the children? Not to look after them when they were sick, not to talk about what was on their minds, not to take them to concerts and plays, not to find the right schools, and not to help with their homework? And with you grandchildren—should I have neglected my duties—”

“Your duties? Are we just duties to you? Were your children just duties for you?”

“No, I love you all, of course. I …”

“That sounds as if love to you is just another duty.”

She felt Emilia was interrupting her too often. At the same time she didn’t know what to say next. They left the country road and threaded their way into the heavy traffic on the Autobahn. Emilia drove fast, faster than she had on the way down, and sometimes recklessly, without paying attention.

“Please, can you slow down? It’s making me afraid.”

Emilia swerved alarmingly into the slow lane between two trundling trucks. “Happy?”

She was tired, didn’t want to sleep, but dropped off nonetheless. She dreamed she was a little girl walking through a city holding her mother’s hand. Although she knew the houses and the streets, she felt like a stranger in the city. That, she thought in the dream, is because I’m still little. But it didn’t help; the further they walked, the more oppressed and anxious she became. Then she was terrified by a big black dog with big black eyes, and she woke up with a cry of alarm.

“Something the matter, Grandmother?”

“I was dreaming.” She saw on a road sign that it wasn’t much further to home. While she was asleep Emilia had switched back into the fast lane again.

“I’m going to bring you home and then take off.”

“To your parents?”

“No. I don’t have to be home to wait for news of whether I’ve got a place at the university or not. I have a little money and I’m going to visit my girlfriend in Costa Rica. I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish.”

“But this evening …”

“This evening I’m driving to Frankfurt and I’ll stay with another girlfriend until I get a flight.”

She felt she should say something, either encouraging or by way of a warning. But she couldn’t think that fast. Was Emilia doing things right or wrong? She admired Emilia’s decisiveness, but she couldn’t say that without knowing that it was the right thing to do.

After Emilia had brought her home and packed, she took her to the bus stop. “Thank you. Without you I wouldn’t have got well again. And without you I wouldn’t have made the trip.”

Emilia shrugged. “No problem.”

“I’ve disappointed you, haven’t I?” She searched for words to make it all right again. But she didn’t find any. “You make things better.” The bus came, she took Emilia in her arms, and Emilia did the same. She climbed into the bus in front and took some time to work her way to the back. Before the bus disappeared around the curve in the road, she knelt up on the backseat and waved.

The fine summer weather continued. In the evenings there were often storms, and she would sit out on the covered balcony to watch the clouds darken, the wind bend the trees, and the drops begin to fall, one by one at first, then in torrents. When the temperature dropped, she would cover herself with
a blanket. Sometimes she fell asleep, waking only when it was night. On mornings after the storms, the air was intoxicatingly fresh.

She lengthened her walks and made plans to take a trip, but couldn’t decide where. Emilia sent a postcard from Costa Rica. Emilia’s parents hadn’t forgiven her for letting Emilia go. She should at least have insisted on being given the address of the girlfriend in Frankfurt, so they could have located her before she flew and talked to her. Finally she said she didn’t want to hear another word on the subject, and if they couldn’t stop talking about it, please, would they stop coming to visit.

After a few weeks a little package arrived from Adalbert. She liked the slender book bound in black linen; she liked looking at it and picking it up. She also liked the title:
Hope and Decision
. But she didn’t really want to know what Adalbert thought.

What she really would have liked to know was if he still danced so well. How could it be otherwise? When she’d visited him, she should have stayed a little while, turned on the radio, and danced with him, out of the room and onto the terrace, his arm leading her as safely and as lightly as if she were floating.

Bernhard Schlink is the author of the internationally best-selling novel
The Reader
. He is a former judge and teaches public law and legal philosophy at Humboldt University in Berlin and at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City.

Carol Brown Janeway’s translations include Bernhard Schlink’s
The Reader;
Jan Philipp Reemtsma’s
In the Cellar;
Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s
Lost;
Zvi Kolitz’s
Yosl Rakover Talks to God;
Benjamin Lebert’s
Crazy;
Sándor Márai’s
Embers;
Yasmina Reza’s
Desolation;
Margriet de Moor’s
The Storm;
Daniel Kehlmann’s
Measuring the World, Me and Kaminski
, and
Fame;
and Thomas Bernhard’s
My Prizes
.

Flights of Love •
978-0-307-42593-5

The Gordian Knot •
978-0-307-74267-4

Homecoming •
978-0-307-37715-9

The Reader •
978-0-375-72697-2

Self’s Deception •
978-0-307-49071-1

Self’s Murder •
978-0-307-45668-7

Self’s Punishment •
978-0-307-42766-3

The Weekend •
8-0-307-37952-8

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