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.
Dear Herr Polger,
Thank you for your letter of… It was with great interest that we read… We are as enthusiastic as you are… indeed fits our list… we have negotiated the rights with Flavigny… As for your proposal to translate this work, we regret to inform you that our long-term relationship with our in-house translator… We are returning your manuscript… Sincerely…
“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.
3
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.