The Woman on the Stairs

by Bernhard Schlink

  Really, it would be best if everyone had to work but could choose the moment when they stopped working. For three years afterwards, society would cover the costs of a decent, comfortable life. Then they would have to take their leave from the world. How they did it would be up to them.

  I know, that will never come to happen. But it wouldn’t just solve the problem of our ageing society. It would give everyone control over their life. If someone wants to stop working at twenty-six and make the last years of their youth the last years of their life and enjoy them to the fullest, they would be allowed to stop working at twenty-six; and those who can’t let go of work can keep working as long as they want, only running the risk that one day they’ll be too old to enjoy their three years of leisure.

  In any case, I ask only for three years at the end of my working life, nothing more. I cannot understand the pensioners who travel to China and spend two days in Shanghai, three in Beijing, one at the Great Wall, and five days on the beach at Qingdao. They don’t see any more on holiday than they would on TV. They go home and tell the other pensioners holiday stories they already know. They tell their children things they do not want to know. When they want to enjoy their memories, because they cannot travel any more, they will already have forgotten them. To grow old, to see the world – how stupid. Growing old to see how the world develops or to watch your grandchildren grow up – that’s also stupid. Why start reading a book when you know you will not be able to read it to the end, but will have to close it in the middle and put it to one side?

  Three years of such stupidities are enough. Three years! I thought, but could not think what stupidities I would fill three years with. Nor did any reason come to mind as to why I should worry about mergers and acquisitions again. These two findings made me feel uneasy. Until I fell asleep, warm and drowsy from the sun.

  11

  The helicopter woke me. It did not come over the mountain, but along the coast, turning into the cove and circling around the beach and the jetty. Then it turned out of the cove just as it had come. It flew low and loud, and the rattling, hissing rotor blade churned up the ocean.

  The helicopter was unmarked, and bore no sign of belonging to the police or rescue services, or a TV network. The shining metal, the mirrored glass, the loud, low approach over the churning sea – it felt like an attack. I stood up, frightened and confused. The secret service? What was Irene mixed up in? She was in the country illegally, but for that the secret service doesn’t send a helicopter, but maybe it was not secret service, maybe it was organized crime, either way she must have been involved in something bad. Or were investors sitting in the cabin of the helicopter, planning to develop the bay into a resort? No, the bay was a nature reserve, there were no investors sitting in the helicopter, rather agents or mafiosi, in suits or leather jackets, with laptops or pistols or both. Should I warn Irene? Would I even be able to find her?

  I sensed that I was no longer alone on the veranda. I looked around; the youth was standing a couple of feet away, the one who had squatted on the balcony two nights ago, his dark, deep eyes trained on me: Kari. His facial features looked so strange that I couldn’t guess his age. Older than eighteen at any rate, old enough to warn Irene.

  “Can you find Irene?”

  “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know. But she should know that the helicopter was here.”

  He nodded, turned around and ran away – swift, smooth, effortless. I watched and listened to him go until he disappeared into the trees on the mountain. For a moment, it was quiet. Again I heard the waves rustle back through the pebbles into the sea. I closed my eyes against the sun.

  Then the helicopter came back. First I heard it, then I saw it. It flew towards the old house, where I stood under the roof, hung in the air, sank and set down on the jetty. Again it churned up the sea. Then the motor died, and the helicopter let its rotor blades hang down. The pilot descended and helped the passenger out. An old, gaunt man with a cane, but with full, white hair, an upright posture, and confident movements. Gundlach.

  12

  “Did Schwind send you? Are you representing him again? He wants the painting, doesn’t he?” He came towards me, full of energy, using his cane but talking all the while. Then he was standing right in front of me.

  He annoyed me. I hadn’t liked him when I visited his house and he took my arm. I had always found him condescending when we ran into each other on social occasions, and now I found him rude. “Didn’t you give him the painting? And in return he gave you Irene? Who you couldn’t keep?”

  He snorted scornfully. “That was all juvenile nonsense. The painting is mine. It was gone, now it’s back. Has your client…”

  “Schwind is not my client.”

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “Is that any of your business?”

  He waved the question away. “You were always hypersensitive. Amazing that you succeeded as a lawyer. When will Irene be back?”

  I shrugged.

  “Then I’ll take a look around. She’s found a pretty spot for herself, no one comes, no one disturbs her, and for all that, it doesn’t even belong to her. I’d have to work hard for something like this.”

  He took a few steps, then turned back and scrutinized me. “You, here…” He shook his head. “I always suspected you, but I didn’t want to believe that as an attorney you would have dared.” Then he laughed. “In any case, you had a good eye, better than mine. If I had suspected that the painting would one day be worth more than twenty million…”

  I watched him wander off, going inside the lower house, re-emerging, climbing the steps to the upper house and disappearing inside. He tapped his cane hard on the steps and then on the floorboards; for a while after he had disappeared from sight, I heard the click-clack of his cane. Then it was quiet. The pilot sat on the edge of the jetty, dangling his legs and smoking a cigarette.

  13

  I went to meet Irene, following the tracks that led towards the farms as best I could. Then I sat down on a stone and waited. The air was again filled with the scent of pine and eucalyptus, and the chirr of cicadas. Despite the rain the day before, everything was dry, the grass and brush were brown, and the trees stretched parched branches towards the sky. From far away, I heard the Jeep.

  Irene looked exhausted again. I told her that Gundlach was here; she wasn’t upset, as I had expected, but animated; her eyes shone, colour came into her cheeks, her voice became strong. She wanted to know what he and I had talked about, and I told her. “Yes,” she said laughing, “that’s how he is.”

  “You expected him?”

  She nodded.

  “You gave the painting to the gallery to lure him here?”

  She shrugged her shoulders – evasive, agreeing, rejecting, maybe annoyed at the “lure.”

  “Is Schwind coming too?”

  “I hope so.”

  “When you gave the painting to the gallery, did you think about me too?”

  “Did I want to lure you here too? I wanted to see Peter and Karl again. I wasn’t thinking of you.”

  I knew that I had no right to be, but I was hurt. Despite the rough road, she noticed, and laid her hand on my arm. I put it back. “You need both hands to drive.”

  “I want to know what’s left. And back then, was I really just a trophy and a muse? What were they for me? I think I must have loved how uncompromising they were, the relentless energy with which Peter got richer and richer, and ever more powerful, and how Karl tried to paint the perfect work of art. They were both obsessed, and I was looking for something that would take possession of me. I’d come into an inheritance, my mother let me do what I wanted, on the condition that I let her do what she wanted. I studied art history, worked in the museum and thought…I really thought that with the right man I’d find the right life. A life where something great would possess me, something I wanted to give everything for.”

  Why had she never had children, but rather gathered chil
dren off the street? Instead, I asked what she expected to be left. “That Gundlach still wants to be richer and more powerful? That Schwind still wants to paint the perfect picture?”

  She stopped. “I don’t know.”

  “That they still love you?”

  “That would be silly.” She went silent, then spoke again slowly and hesitantly. “I would be happy enough if I recognized them. And could remember why I loved them. Why I left them. You had a steady life. Mine feels like a vase that fell to the floor and shattered into pieces.”

  14

  Irene and Gundlach greeted each other with a hug. They showered each other with questions until they laughed, realizing that they were too many and too big. The simple ones remained. Was he sleeping here? The pilot too? Were they hungry? Gundlach offered to have dinner flown in, but was also happy with anything that Irene might serve. While Irene and I cooked, he stood next to us, propped up on his cane, and told us about the article in the New York Times and the reports that followed in the German media. The painting, Woman on Staircase, a fixture in Schwind catalogues, but never exhibited, about which Schwind had always been evasive, had a mysterious aura, and its sudden appearance in, of all places, the Art Gallery of New South Wales was a sensation.

  Gundlach called the pilot in to eat, then sent him away. He would have liked to send me away too. While Irene was putting candles and red wine on the table, he asked: “Can we talk in private?” She smiled and said: “I have no secrets from him.” It made me happy, even if it wasn’t true.

  Gundlach talked about his successes and his children, about his worries for the future of the company and the country, about his pride in his life’s work. I didn’t hear obsession, but the self-satisfied balance sheet of a self-satisfied, upstanding citizen. As she had with me, Irene turned his questions into questions of her own, giving nothing away about herself. It did not seem to disturb him. I asked myself if, like me, he was too polite to show his irritation, or if he didn’t insist because he already knew what he wanted to know about her. He smiled each time she deflected a question.

  Then he spoke of his marriage. He was happy, his wife was a good woman, a successful realtor, yet always there for him when he needed her. But she was so young that he often felt old. He looked at Irene. “You were young too, but with you I never felt old. I know, I was younger, the age gap was smaller. But that wasn’t all. Seeing you in the painting just now, I felt young again.” He smiled. “Paintings halt the march of time. I had you painted back then so you would stay young, and I with you.” Gundlach leant forwards and took Irene’s hand. “I did everything wrong back then. You could not live with me. But let me have your painting.”

  Irene looked out at the sea. Her face had lost all freshness and colour, only weariness and exhaustion remained. The break from her illness, which she didn’t want to talk about, was over. She ran her hand over Gundlach’s head, the way you’d pet a dog that came and sat next to you, and stood up. She could barely stay on her feet, but when I wanted to get up and help her, she gave me a look that forbade it. She didn’t want to seem weak in front of Gundlach. “Good night.” She walked slowly to the stairs and up them; at each step she paused to gather her strength for the next step, and for another, and yet another. I found it painful to watch.

  “What’s wrong with her?” whispered Gundlach.

  “Ask her yourself.” Then I couldn’t hold back. “You really laid it on thick. Amazing that you’ve been so successful in business and politics. I thought one needed a certain sensitivity for that.”

  “The way you see people is too simplistic. The soul of a poet and the brains of a merchant – I don’t wish to compare myself with Rathenau, but the two are compatible. There’s nothing contradictory about wanting to live with the painting while enjoying the millions that are rightfully mine.”

  “You’ve read Rathenau?”

  “Rathenau, and Weber and Schumpeter and Marx. If those names mean anything to you. I have more than accounts and stocks in my head. And if I’m right and you helped Irene back then, and I bring that up in court, you’re finished as an attorney. You should pray that I don’t have to take anyone to court to get the painting, not Schwind and not Irene.”

  He had become ever louder. I asked him to calm down; Irene wanted to sleep.

  “There’s no reason she shouldn’t hear what I have to say. Everyone here seems to know everything anyway; I can’t talk to Irene without you sitting next to us. Take a walk tomorrow, a nice long walk. Do you understand me?”

  While I was wondering whether I should nod simply to calm Gundlach down, Kari stepped out from the dark. He did nothing threatening, yet there was a menace in his presence. He looked at Gundlach and raised his finger to his mouth. Gundlach stared back at Kari as if he’d seen a ghost. Then Kari disappeared, and Gundlach took a deep breath. He shook his head. “I…I’m going to bed.”

  15

  Irene did not get up the next morning. I was woken by the click-clack of Gundlach’s cane on the stairs. I got dressed, went to the window and saw him standing by the beach, staring out at the sea. The pilot must have got up and left the house quietly. He was back on the jetty, dangling his legs and smoking.

  Had Irene called? I knocked on her door, and she said “Come in” weakly. She was lying in bed, her head on a pillow propped against the wall, and she looked so bad – her face pale, her cheeks sunken, her hair soaked in sweat – that I would have liked to fly her straight to hospital in the helicopter. I sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  She shook her head.

  “You have no secrets from me.”

  She smiled. “Only a couple.”

  “With the helicopter, it’s…”

  “I’ll be all right in a minute. Can you bring a strong coffee?”

  Whatever I did would be wrong. Carrying her against her will to the helicopter and flying her to hospital would be wrong. Helping her, pumping her up with coffee, so she could run around all day and be exhausted again by evening, would be wrong. Her lying in bed, with me looking after her until she felt better: she wouldn’t want that. Not looking after her as she lay in bed: I simply couldn’t do that.

  “And if Karl comes today? I can rest when Peter and Karl have gone, tomorrow or the day after. Now, I need to get up. Help me? Please?”

  So I made a strong coffee, brought her the pot and a cup in bed, and I fetched a leather bag from the wardrobe, from which she took a small mirror, some white powder, a razor blade and a glass tube. I watched her snort cocaine. She needed support on her way to the bathroom; after that, she managed without my help. When she emerged from the bathroom, her stride was heavy but firm, her eyes animated. She was lively, as she had been after Gundlach’s arrival the day before.

  “It’s already late. I’ll make breakfast. Will you find the others?”

  On the way to the beach I saw the boat round the edge of the cove and by the time I reached Gundlach, he had seen it too. The boat came closer. A figure was standing in front of the small cabin, Schwind, and as he grew clearer to us, so must we have grown clearer to him. Schwind and Gundlach had time to prepare for each other. I wished the both of them would go to hell.

  16

  Schwind got off the same boat I had. He nodded to me and Gundlach, took stock of things, and marched decisively off to the house on the hillside. He was bald, massive, radiating strength.

  When Gundlach and I entered the kitchen, Schwind was holding Irene in his arms. “Where were you? I looked for you, I’ve always looked for you.” Then he saw us, let Irene go, went to the door, grabbed it and barked: “Out!”

  Irene laughed. “Everyone sit down. Breakfast’s almost ready.” She seemed to be enjoying it all: Schwind’s embrace, his outburst, the tension in the room.

  “What are we still doing here? Let’s go, the boat is waiting. We can have breakfast in Rock Harbour, then take the night flight from Sydney to New York. I’ve spoken with the galler
y. One word from you, and they’ll send the painting to New York in time for the retrospective. Remember how we dreamed of that? An exhibition in the MoMA?”

  Irene nodded.

  “We dreamed of the opening, the toasts, the admiration of the guests, the praise of the critics. We dreamed of the walk through Central Park back to the hotel, the champagne, the huge bathtub, the king-sized bed with the view of the city. It’s finally happening.”

  Irene’s smile was friendly, amused, distant. “Sounds nice.”

  Gundlach couldn’t take any more. “Nonsense! You had your first big exhibition in New York years ago. You might have dreamed about that once. But you don’t dream about the retrospective that already showed in Berlin and Tokyo and now comes to New York! Do you even have dreams any more? A colleague described you as a calculating mind that manipulates the public, the market, your own prices. I’m a businessman, I have no problem with that. But don’t tell Irene fairy tales!”

  Schwind saw only Irene. He looked at her with the childlike, confident gaze I recognized. “You’ve never been to an exhibition of mine – not the painting, not you. New York next week – it would be the first exhibition where everything is as it should be.”

  “It would be the first exhibition where everything is as it should be,” Gundlach parroted. “All you want is the painting.”

  “What is he talking about?” Schwind looked at Irene as if they were listening to an idiot blather. “I’ve talked to the curator and explained that you’ve watched over my painting for a long time, and that I understand that he can’t send it to New York without your say-so. What does that have to do with him?” He nodded in Gundlach’s direction.

  Before Gundlach could explain, Irene reminded everyone about breakfast. “The coffee’s hot, the bacon’s getting cold, the eggs need to go in the pan.” She said to me: “Can you fetch the pilot? And can you ask Mark if he’ll come up for a coffee?”