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Back The Woman on the Stairs Save as PDF
Chapters (83)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Bernhard Schlink
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. 18
  24. 19
  25. 20
  26. 21
  27. 22
  28. 23
  29. 24
  30. 25
  31. 26
  32. Part Two
  33. 1
  34. 2
  35. 3
  36. 4
  37. 5
  38. 6
  39. 7
  40. 8
  41. 9
  42. 10
  43. 11
  44. 12
  45. 13
  46. 14
  47. 15
  48. 16
  49. 17
  50. 18
  51. 19
  52. 20
  53. 21
  54. 22
  55. 23
  56. 24
  57. 25
  58. Part Three
  59. 1
  60. 2
  61. 3
  62. 4
  63. 5
  64. 6
  65. 7
  66. 8
  67. 9
  68. 10
  69. 11
  70. 12
  71. 13
  72. 14
  73. 15
  74. 16
  75. 17
  76. 18
  77. 19
  78. 20
  79. 21
  80. 22
  81. Author’s Note
  82. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  83. What’s next onyour reading list?

“I lived with a painter. Wherever you are, there is more to daily life than happiness and unhappiness, justice and injustice. There’s beauty. Ugliness too, but I took pleasure in the beauty that was there and is now gone for ever.”

“Why didn’t you stay there?”

“You know why. After 1990, there was no more ‘there’. All there was was ‘here’ and the photo of the woman with sunglasses and dyed hair.”

“Why didn’t they catch you?”

“Like the others? Because I left as soon as the Wall fell. I had my old things at my mother’s, I had my old passport, issued in 1980 and valid until 1990, just long enough to make it here. They never looked for me under my real name, until the Wall fell they just had my photo and the name I had lived under in the East.” She got up. “I need to lie down, I hope you don’t mind. Shall we see each other at five for an aperitif and then eat together? Will you have dinner flown in today, as you offered yesterday? Can you help me up the stairs?”

20

I helped her up the stairs and into bed. After looking in her leather bag, I could reassure her: she had enough cocaine for tonight and tomorrow morning and beyond. She was asleep before I left the room.

I remembered the wanted posters that hung in government buildings and post offices and were shown after the television news. I never took a close look. Under the label “Terrorists” – Irene? With sunglasses, dyed hair, her head bowed? Wanted for involvement in murder, criminal use of explosives, and bank robbery? With a warning that she was armed and dangerous? With the promise of a reward? No, I didn’t remember that.

My wife had a hard time with faces; prosopagnosia is, as I have since learned, a cognitive disposition like dyslexia or dyscalculia. One struggles to identify faces and also to recognize them again. It’s a terrible handicap for a politician; it cost my wife a great deal of energy and discipline not to upset the people she dealt with in local politics. Because she hadn’t realized that it was a cognitive disorder, she had blamed herself and thought she was a bad person who didn’t pay enough attention to her fellow human beings. I never had a problem with faces.

I couldn’t find Schwind and Gundlach in the kitchen, nor on the balcony. Then I heard their voices on the beach, but they were hard to make out. They must have been sitting on the bench on the veranda.