Summer Lies by Bernhard Schlink Page B

through town? Had other people seen Kate more clearly as they drove through town and recognized her in the photo? Would they call the
New York Times
and tell them where Kate could be reached? Or would they tell the
Weekly Herald
, which carried little news items alongside the ads, on crimes and accidents, openings and baptisms, jubilees, weddings, births and deaths?
    Three copies of the
New York Times
were still lying next to the counter. He would have liked to buy all three, so that nobody else could buy them and read them. But that would have attracted the attention of the owner. So he bought only one. Along with it he bought a small bottle of whiskey, which the owner put in a brown paper bag for him. On the way to the car he went past stacks of blue sawhorses and police barricades that would be used to block off the main street for the fair. He drove back to the technician’s workshop and again found no one there. He could say he’d tried.
    He didn’t even look at the mail when he took it out of the mailbox. He stuck it in the torn cover of the sun visor. He drove to the scenic viewpoint again, parked, and drank. The whiskey burned in his mouth and throat, he swallowed the wrong way and belched. He looked at the brown paper bag with the bottle in his hand and thought of the tramps sitting on the benches in Central Park with their brown paper bags, drinking. Because they hadn’t been able to hold their worlds together.
    The last time he had sat here, the forest had still been a blaze of color. Today the colors had dulled, consumed by the fall and dampened by the haze. He rolled down the window and inhaled the cool fresh air. He had been so looking forward to winter, the first winter in the new house, to evenings by the fire, doing handcrafts and baking together, making Advent wreaths, the Christmas tree, roasting apples, mulling wine. To Kate, who would have more time for Rita and him.
    And also to their New York friends, whom they finally wanted to invite once winter came. Their real friends, Peter and Liz and Steve and Susan, not the rabble of agents and publishing and media people. Peter and Liz wrote, Steve was a teacher, and Susan made jewelry—they were the only ones he and Kate had talked to seriously about the reasons for their moving to the country. They were also the only ones to whom they had given their new address.
    Yes, they had their new address. What if they came? Because they’d read the
New York Times
and concluded that the good news hadn’t yet reached Kate and because they wanted to be the bearers of it?
    He took another swallow. He mustn’t get drunk. He must keep a clear head and think about what he should do. Call their friends? Tell them that Kate knew about the award but hadn’t wanted to get involved in all the fuss? Their friends knew Kate, knew how much she loved being celebrated, wouldn’t believe him, and would really come.
    Panic rose in him. If their friends were outside their door tomorrow, Kate would be in New York the day after, and it would all begin again. If he didn’t want that, he had to think of something. What lies did he need to keep their friends at bay?
    He got out of the car, drank the last of the bottle, and threw it in a high arc into the forest. This was the way his life had always been: when he had to choose, it was always betweentwo bad alternatives. Between life with his mother or his father when they finally separated. Between attending university, which cost him more money than he had and all his free time, or taking a job he hated, which would, however, give him time to write. Between Germany, where he had always felt a stranger, and America, where he remained just as much so. He wanted once and for all to have things be good, the way they were for other people. He wanted to be able to choose between good alternatives.
    He didn’t call their friends. He drove home, recounted his fruitless visit to the technician, said he wanted to try again tomorrow, if