“Who? Oh, I see, no, he’s not my—in the bathtub.”
“Oh,” said Becker.
All three men leaned forward.
“His ideas,” she said, “that’s where he always has them. In the bathtub.”
“Remarkable,” said Seifert.
“Your first time here?” asked Becker.
She nodded.
The conversation died. The three men stood around her in silence: rigid, knotted up inside, prisoners of themselves, cast up by fate on the shores of a hideous place far distant from their equally hideous homeland. Elisabeth opened her mouth and shut it again, unable to think of a thing to say. She felt as if she was being made to talk to washing machines, or fire hydrants, or robots with whom she had no common language. Then her phone rang. For the first time in days it was a relief. Excusing herself with an apologetic gesture, she ran out.
It was only a journalist who’d dug up her number and wanted to know if the abduction story was true.
No comment, she said, but if he would wait until tomorrow, there might be a story.
He asked in a hostile way if that was all. Was there nothing else she could give him?
“Not right now,” she said, “sorry.”
Back in their hotel room, Leo immediately began to complain. These people! Did they have to be so stupid?
“Their lives aren’t easy,” she said. “None of them has had the career they hoped for. None of them is living where they wanted. Do you think they actually want to be here?”
She looked out of the window. Ralf Tanner’s face was staring at her from the poster on the building opposite, so gigantically enlarged that it was no longer human. She found herself thinking about the scandal she’d just read about somewhere: Tanner had been set upon in a hotel lobby by a woman who screamed at him and slapped his face. Several tourists had filmed it and now it was on YouTube. And if Carl, Henri, and Paul were shot, beheaded, stoned, or burned alive, there was a good chance people would be able to see that too.
“I can’t go on!” said Leo. “Do you know how often I’ve been asked today where I get my ideas from? Fourteen. And nine times whether I work in the morning or the afternoon. And eight times people have told me what trip they were on when they read something of mine. And the food was disgusting. Next month I’m supposed to be in Central Asia. I just can’t. I’m going to cancel.”
“Where are you meant to go?”
“Turkmenistan, I think. Or Uzbekistan. Who can tell the difference? Some writers’ junket.”
“Why ever did you accept?” she asked, incredulous.
He shrugged. “You’re supposed to see the world. Confront things. You’re not supposed to avoid all dangers.”
“Dangers?”
He nodded.
Of course her reaction was too extreme, and once it had passed, she had to ask herself what had come over her, since they had never had a fight before. But just at that moment she could no longer control herself. What did he think he was talking about? He’d never once been in danger in his entire life, he needed help even to tie his own shoes, he was afraid of spiders and airplanes and went to pieces if a train was late! Driving through cities in cars under the protection of bureaucrats wasn’t dangerous, it was a joke, and she couldn’t take his whining for one more minute.
He didn’t say a word, but watched her attentively, almost with curiosity, arms crossed. She didn’t stop until she lost her voice. Her fury had exhausted itself. She looked around for her suitcase. Time to leave. It was over.
“Exactly!” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“This is how it could go. Two people traveling together. She has real responsibilities; he is always sniveling, and a pain in the ass. Lara Gaspard and her new lover. A painter. But …” He fell silent for a moment and seemed to be listening to some inner voice. “But she knows he’s a genius. In spite of everything.” He sat down at the little hotel writing desk and began to scribble.
She waited, but he’d obviously forgotten she was there. She lay down in bed, pulled the covers over her head, and was asleep in a matter of minutes.
When she woke up, he was still there—either he hadn’t moved, or he was back there—at the desk. Pale predawn light was filtering through the window. She vaguely remembered that they’d made love during the night. He had come to bed and turned her onto her back, and in the half dark under the bedclothes they’d come together in exhaustion and a strange state of rage. Or had she dreamed it? Her memory wasn’t too reliable, probably posttraumatic stress disorder, but it wasn’t something she could talk to him about, because he would only use it somehow.
It wasn’t until she reached the airport that she called Geneva. Apparently, said Moritz, the three of them were alive. The Foreign Ministry had nobody reliable on the spot, he didn’t know of anyone who could be trusted with the negotiations. “The secretary of state?”
“If all goes well, I’ll be speaking to him today.”
“Where are you, actually?”
“Don’t ask. Long story.” She let the hand holding the phone drop, Leo was already lining up at the departure gate, although none of the boarding personnel had yet appeared. She signaled to him, he shook his head violently, and waved to her to hurry up and join him. “I’ll call you back later.”
In arrivals, they were met by a Mrs. Riedergott from the cultural institute. She was wearing a woolen jacket and thick spectacles. Her hair was pinned up, and her face seemed to be made of congealed pastry. “Mr. Richter, where do you get all your ideas?”
“Bathtub,” said Leo, eyes closed.
“And tell me, do you write …”
“Always in the afternoons.”
She thanked him for the information. The humidity made damp clouds in the streets, a president’s face grinned down off the wall posters, and whenever the traffic lights turned red, half-naked children jumped into the road and performed tricks.
“I’m very tired,” said Leo. “As soon as my lecture is over this evening I need to leave.”
“Out of the question,” said Mrs. Riedergott. “The ambassador’s expecting you. A big reception, it’s all been planned for weeks.”
At the hotel Leo called the PEN Club and canceled the trip to Central Asia. Please would they turn to someone else, Maria Rubinstein the crime writer for example, she’d been saying to him only recently that she’d like to start doing more. He then sent a text message to Maria: Possible trip, v. interesting, alas can’t, PLS accept, I owe you, PLS thanksthanksthanks L. Then he spent some time complaining to Elisabeth about Mrs. Riedergott: her face, her total impassivity, her stolid arrogance. Was there anything worse than these people?
“Yes,” said Elisabeth. “Yes, there is.”
After that they made love, and this time it wasn’t a dream: for a moment all thoughts of captured colleagues were erased, and when she pressed her hand to his face so hard that he almost couldn’t breathe, he forgot for several seconds to keep up his complaining and his usual running commentary. Then it was over, and they were each themselves again, and a little embarrassed, as if realizing how little they knew each other.
Leo gave his lecture in the ambassador’s residence. Germans from industry, business, and the Foreign Service were there, the room was filled with men in suits and women with pearl necklaces, and the villa looked like the villa from the day before, and once again a city was spread out beneath them, and had it not been even hotter and the air terrible, you would have thought you were in the same place. Leo spoke extemporaneously, his head tilted back, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He performed well, but Elisabeth could feel his anger. Had it been within his power, he would have condemned every one of them to death. Leo was not a well-meaning man. He didn’t wish the best for people. This was so self-evident that she had to wonder once again why nobody seemed to pick up on it; and yet again she was forced to realize that people were bound up in their own preoccupations and worries, and registered so little of what was actually going on in front of them. When Leo finished there was applause, and then the previous day’s reception repeated itself like a nightmare all over again: someone introduced himself as Mr. Riet, another as Dr. Henning, and then here came Mrs. Riedergott again, pale with excitement, because the ambassador was standing at her side, clapping Leo on the shoulder and asking where did he get his ideas from. He’d started Leo’s last book in the plane en route from Berlin to Munich.