Therefore Choose by Keith Oatley Page A

cheap bedside tables, its washstand, its pale wardrobe, and its chest of drawers. He remembered the top floor of the building near the Tiergarten station: the beautifully furnished, book-filled flat in which they’d lived for half a summer in charm and comfort.
    Anna didn’t seem to mind, and when George apologized, she said, “Don’t be silly.”
    On the evening of Anna’s arrival, George tried to counteract the effect of Leytonstone by taking her out to somewhere mildly exotic, in Soho. The food was good, the evening was a success, they drank a bottle of wine. They felt close again.
    They made the tube journey back to the house, and found that George’s mother had left the hall light on for them. They climbed the stairs and, on the top landing, they switched it off. In the bedroom, a wan ray from a street light came through the window. Almost shyly, they undressed. Anna took off her cardigan, then her skirt and blouse, then her underwear, and folded them all onto the chair on which George usually put his clothes. He laid his clothes, now, under a bedside table. From opposite sides of the bed, he and Anna slid under the covers, reached for each other, held each other. George felt whole once more. He expelled from his mind a thought that his mother, downstairs, whatever she had said, would disapprove.
    Next day, a Saturday, George and Anna had breakfast with his mother. He suggested that he’d take Anna for a walk on the embankment, and then visit St. Paul’s. The day was cold but bright, without much wind. When they reached the river, the tide was ebbing, and they watched the difficulty that tugs were having pulling their barges upstream.
    â€œWe could live in London,” said George. “There are parts of Bloomsbury that aren’t expensive.”
    â€œI’m not being coy,” she said. “Is that the right word? When I talked to you about living together, it was something I thought. Something I thought in a particular way at that time.”
    â€œAre you saying that moment is past?”
    â€œYou think we should get together on some other basis, but not the one I talked about?”
    â€œWhy not? Things unfold.”
    â€œIn those days, we came to a certain moment,” said Anna. “We decided. We took one direction rather than another.”
    â€œWhen I’m qualified,” George said, “it will be easier for both of us. I could move to Berlin.”
    â€œI think still you do not understand.”
    â€œI don’t think I do.”
    â€œIt’s an observation I have made. When two people come close to each other, they reach a point. In front of them they see a bridge towards the future. They decide whether to cross together. Otherwise they keep each other always at a certain distance.”
    â€œAnd that is what we did?”
    â€œSometimes just one person sees the bridge. That person has to say something, or do something, or refuse to do something. Then the other can cross. They can both cross together.”
    â€œThat was our bridge?”
    â€œI had a friend, she is a friend still. Not long after she started living with someone I also knew, he went to bed with someone else. He said it was not important to him. He said it did not matter.”
    â€œAnd she said?”
    â€œShe said, ‘I’m not going to make a scene. It’s up to you. If you want to live with me, that is the last time. You decide.’”
    â€œAnd he did decide?”
    â€œHe did.”
    â€œWhich way?”
    â€œThat is not the point of the story.”
    â€œThe point is that people reach such moments?”
    â€œExactly,” she said.
    â€œThey decide to be with the other person, whatever happens.”
    â€œIf you like.”
    â€œWhat would you call it?”
    â€œYou don’t recognize this. Is that what you’re saying? It is foreign. You think it is some kind of German romanticism.”
    â€œI can almost