Craig nodded slowly. Understanding had come, and in an hour he had grown again. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think so, too.’
‘You heard Lilly speak of her sex education in school. That is universal here. No girl, no boy, graduates without complete knowledge about intercourse, birth, abortion, contraceptives. That would be impossible in your country, because the churches would not allow it. But here the Lutheran Church is the state church, and the state dominates it. Here the church is weak. Hardly anyone attends it. Education and realistic government supplant it. Is that so bad? Let us be honest. Swedish young people are no different in their sexual needs from American young people. At seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, the urges are the same everywhere. But in America, the love is illicit, all behind the barn and in a lovers’ lane and in motels, and spoiled by shame and guilts and secrecy. Here the love is not illicit. It is natural. If a girl loves a boy, she has intercourse with him because it is the normal thing to do. If the love continues, they marry. If it is not good, they do not marry. I have read the findings of your Dr. Chapman, who took the sex survey of your married women in America. What were his statistics? Four out of ten married women had premarital sex relations. Well, there was a similar survey in Sweden. Here, eight out of ten married women had intercourse before they were married, and the majority by the age of eighteen. You see, Mr. Craig, they are freer here, and no worse for it. In fact, better for it. Marriages here are more solid. A man does not marry a woman so that he can sleep with her. He sleeps with her, and then marries her because he does not want to be without her.’
Craig sipped his coffee absently. Lilly was on his mind. There was a question, and by now, it should not have troubled him, but he was a product of his past. ‘What will happen to Lilly?’ he asked.
Daranyi shrugged. ‘Who knows? She is still young. Swedish women marry relatively late. I believe the average marries at twenty-six or so. Lilly has found men she loves. Maybe one day, she will find one she loves enough to marry.’
‘Why did she-why did she submit to me?’
Daranyi smiled. ‘She did not submit to you, Mr. Craig. You submitted to her.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘I am. Lilly has love on her own terms.’
Craig set down his empty cup. ‘It all seems different now,’ he said. ‘Up to last night, it was just a-a side adventure-a tumble with a lovely girl. But now-’
‘Now what, Mr. Craig?’
‘I can’t say exactly. It seems she deserves more. And her son, despite what you’ve said-he deserves more.’
‘Mr. Craig, I detect in you the incurable disease you hold in common with all your countrymen.’
‘What is that?’
‘Guilt, Mr. Craig, guilt-from cradle to the grave.’
‘But the boy-’
‘Do not worry about the boy. He is Arne Hedqvist, secure and accepted. He does not have horns. Lilly knows-I have told her-that some of the greatest names of history were illegitimate children-Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus, Pope Clement VII, the younger Dumas, your Alexander Hamilton, our Strindberg. They managed. Arne will manage better. And Lilly will manage, too. She has no guilts. Perhaps this is a good day for you. Perhaps after today you will have no guilts, either.’
Daranyi looked past Craig and waved.
‘Here she comes now,’ he said, turning his seat and rising. ‘We must go.’
Craig came to his feet slowly. He wished he could discuss all this with someone, someone close. He tried to think of Miller’s Dam and Harriet, but neither came alive. What came alive was the vision of Emily Stratman. If only he could speak to her, but he could not, because between them was an invisible barrier. Both had reached to surmount it, but they had not touched. Emily was, as yet, unreal. Only the girl with the golden hair, before him, was real, but here again was guilt, the smooth-rubbed Leah guilt.
What, he wondered, does one owe all others?
When does one belong to oneself alone, oneself alone?
Dr. Hans Eckart had left the taxi, and, in his unbending, goose-stepping stride, approached the goateed, diminutive figure who had answered his summons, and now waited on the street-corner.
‘Carl,’ said Eckart.
Carl Adolf Krantz whirled around, and without bothering to take Eckart’s formal gloved hand, he grabbed his arm and pushed him towards a doorway.
‘In there,’ said Krantz with urgency.
Annoyed, Eckart made the concession to the Swede’s foolish melodrama, and permitted himself to be pushed into the open recess of a konditori entrance.
‘What has got into you, Carl?’
But Krantz was peeking at three receding figures, a stout man, a tall man, and a young woman, across the street. ‘Gott sei dank,’ he muttered at last, ‘he did not see us together.’
‘Who?’ asked Eckart with exasperation. ‘Um Himmels willen-what is this idiocy?’
Krantz had recovered, and was immediately humble and apologetic. ‘Forgive me the bad moment, Hans. I did not wish to inconvenience you. But just as you came towards me, I saw across the street, coming out of the restaurant, the Hungarian.’
‘Zum Teufel! What Hungarian?’
‘Remember when I spoke to you of’-he paused discreetly, looked behind him, but the door of the tea shop was closed-‘the secret Stratman vote, how I manoeuvred it?’
‘Yes, yes-’
‘I told you of a Hungarian clown who passes for a spy-he is an investigator, actually, with good press connections-and how I hired him to inform me of Stratman’s rival candidates in physics. Do you recall? He was the one who learned the Spaniard was a Falangist and the two Australians homosexuals.’
‘Vaguely, I remember.’
‘He was across the street just now. There would have been nothing wrong in his seeing us, but he is curious-by nature of his calling-sometimes gossipy, and I thought it wiser-’
‘You did the correct thing,’ said Eckart, mollified.
Krantz poked his head out of the recess and looked up the street. He could see a tall gentleman helping a blonde into an automobile. He could see Daranyi, identifiable by his shape, waiting, and then getting in behind the wheel. Daranyi’s companions, the blonde and the tall gentleman, had been too distant and indistinct to be recognizable. Briefly, Krantz wondered who they were and what Daranyi was up to these days.
When the Citroën drove off, Krantz returned to Eckart. ‘They are gone,’ he said. ‘We are free to go wherever you like. You said on the phone you wished a brief conference?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, where we go depends on what you want to discuss.’ In his heart of hearts, Krantz hoped that Eckart had arranged this meeting to report good news of his appointment to the staff of Humboldt University. More realistically, he realized that it might be too soon for that, and more likely Eckart had immediate problems on his mind. Probably he had seen Stratman, and wished advice. ‘If it is nothing important,’ continued Krantz, ‘we can go to the restaurant across the street. However, if it is privacy you prefer-’
‘It is privacy I prefer,’ said Eckart sternly.
‘I have a Volkswagen at my disposal. It is around the corner. We can sit in it and talk or drive about-’
‘We will sit in it and talk,’ said Eckart.
From Eckart’s tone, Krantz sensed something disagreeable in the air. He fretted about the appointment, as he led the way around the corner to the Volkswagen sedan. Krantz opened the door for his German visitor, and Eckart stiffly stepped inside and sat on the leatherette seat, blue-veined hands folded on his lap. Krantz slammed the door, becoming more nervous, then bounced quickly around the car and settled straight behind the wheel.
‘Do you want me to leave the windows rolled up or do you want some air?’
‘Leave them up.’