Black Dogs by Ian McEwan

known as Potsdamerplatz, threading our way through clusters of friends gathered round the steps of the viewing-platform and souvenir kiosk, waiting for something to happen. What struck me then was not simply the injustice of Bernard’s remarks, but a wild impatience at the difficulty of communication, and an image of parallel mirrors in place of lovers on a bed, throwing back in infinite regression likenesses paling into untruth. As I turned on Bernard my wrist knocked something soft and warm from the hand of a man standing near me. It was a hot dog. But I was too agitated to apologise. People at Potsdamerplatz were starved of interest; heads turned our way as I shouted, and a circle began to form around us.
    ‘That’s crap, Bernard! It’s worse, it’s malicious! You’re a liar!’
    ‘Dear boy.’
    ‘You never listened to what she was telling you. She wouldn’t listen either. You accused each other of the same thing. She was no more of a hardliner than you are. Two softies! You loaded each other with your own guilt.’
    Behind me I heard my last words being translated in a low rapid murmur into German. Bernard was trying to usher me out of the circle. But I was elated in my anger and I would not move.
    ‘She told me she’d always loved you. You’ve said thesame. How could you waste so much time, and everyone else’s time, and your children ...?’
    It was this last incomplete accusation that touched Bernard beyond embarrassment. His mouth tightened in a line and he stepped away from me. Suddenly my anger was gone, and in its place was the inevitable remorse; who was this upstart, presuming to describe at shouting pitch a marriage as old as himself, right into the face of the distinguished gentleman? The crowd had lost interest and was drifting back to the queue for scale-model watch-towers and postcards of no-man’s-land and the empty beaches of the death strip.
    We were walking on. I was in too much turmoil to apologise. My only retraction was a lowered voice and a pretence at reasonableness. We walked side by side, quicker than before. Bernard’s own flurry of feeling was evident in the expressionless set of his face.
    I said, ‘She didn’t go from one fantasy utopia to another. It was a search. She didn’t claim to have all the answers. It was a quest, one she would have liked everyone to be on in their own way, but she wasn’t forcing anyone. How could she? She wasn’t mounting an inquisition. She had no interest in dogma or organised religion. It was a spiritual journey. Isaiah Berlin’s description doesn’t apply. There was no final end for which she would have sacrificed others. There were no eggs to break ...’
    The prospect of debate revived Bernard. He pounced, and at once I felt forgiven. ‘You’re wrong, dear boy, quite wrong. Calling what she was on a quest doesn’t alter the fact of her absolutist streak. You were either with her, doing what she was doing, or you were out. She wanted to meditate and study mystical texts, that sort of thing, and that was fine, but it wasn’t for me. I preferred to join the Labour Party. She wouldn’t have that. In the endshe insisted on us living apart. I was one of the eggs. The children were among the others.’
    While Bernard was speaking I was wondering what I was about, attempting to reconcile him to a dead wife.
    So when he finished, I signalled acceptance with my open hands and said, ‘Well what did you miss in her when she died?’
    We had come to one of those places along the Wall where cartography and some long forgotten political obduracy had forced a sudden kink, a change in direction of the sector boundary that reverted after only a few yards. Right by it was a deserted viewing-platform. Without a word, Bernard began to climb the steps, and I followed. At the top he pointed.
    ‘Look.’
    Sure enough, the watchtower across from us was already deserted, and below, in the glare of fluorescent lights, moving peaceably over the raked sand that