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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 wasn’t sure if I should tell her what had just popped into my head. Well, it hadn’t occurred to me just like that; during my first trip to New York, when I was still a student and couldn’t afford a hotel, and stayed with friends of friends in Brooklyn, I’d wandered into a café to get coffee, and this was the café in which I now imagined Irene waitressing. The restaurant had the standard menu and the standard football above the bar; the staff were friendly in the standard rough-and-ready way, and the atmosphere was completely unerotic. It was a restaurant like any other, except for one thing.

“Then?”

“Then I came to visit you at work, and saw that you had to waitress topless, and I took you away, and we bought a used car, and left the next day.”

“You can’t just…It was my job, right? If it didn’t bother me…Were you jealous?”

“Think what you like. I am telling the story. I have to look away in our bedroom, while you show the entire world?”

“Understood.” Irene smiled – teasing, friendly, pityingly? What right did she have to smile at me with pity? But it was my own fault. I’d sensed that the story was taking a delicate turn, and I should have just dropped it. I didn’t want to be jealous. I wanted to come off well. I would have liked to rescue Irene from a rapist in Central Park, to snatch her back on a crosswalk from a drunk-driver, to foil a pickpocket on 5th Avenue. I would have liked to be a hero. But I couldn’t think of any deed that didn’t sound corny, that didn’t sound like I was trying to build myself up.

“Do you like cars? Ours was old, a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air, green with a white roof, white fins and whitewall tyres. Its hood ornament was a cross between an airplane and a rocket – it flew ahead, and all we had to do was follow.”

8

When I carried Irene to bed that evening, she shifted to one side and pointed to the other. She wanted me to sit down.

“Do you remember why Parsifal never asked?”

“Didn’t his mother teach him never to ask unnecessary questions? And he took it more literally than she had meant?”

“Why don’t you ask anything?”

“On the first evening you evaded my questions, and I thought…”

“That first evening is a while ago.”