20 Tuesday, August 25, 1970 Timewise, he did not get much sleep that night. But the spells of sleep that he had, between love acts that ranged from tender to frenetic, had been so deep and peaceful that when he woke up he felt, at last, fully rested. It was almost half past seven, and Brigitte lay beside him, awake, with that smile of satisfaction that she usually had on mornings like this. “Shalom,” she said to him, laughing. He kissed her and said, “Good morning. I know where I am.” “You have some more to tell me,” she said. “For example, what did Tzvi say to you before you punched him?” “Are you ready for this? He said that they – he meant the Mossad – had originally planned that the girl named Ora would seduce me before telling me that she was my daughter.” “That’s fabulous!” She laughed again. “Worthy of James Bond! Did he say why they changed their plan?” “I never gave him the chance.” “Too bad!” “I think I know. They, or at least she, understood that I wouldn’t go for it.” “Why not?” Her question surprised him “Well… because I’m married to you.” “Nonsense.” What did she mean? “What do you mean, nonsense?” “I mean that you’re talking nonsense. It doesn’t matter that you’re married, to me or anyone else, in such a situation.” What in the world was she telling him? All he could thing of saying was, “That’s what Nili said to me, in so many words.” “Nili? Do you mean the real Nili?” “Yes. She actually tried to seduce me, and when I told her that I am married, she said that to most men that wouldn’t matter.” “Were you tempted?” “What do you mean? We have always been true to each other.” “True – yes. We haven’t lied to each other.” “I mean, we haven’t cheated on each other.” She turned her blue eyes on him with an intensity that he had not seen before. He felt something that was almost like fear. “We haven’t deceived each other, or at least I haven’t deceived you. I haven’t told you anything that wasn’t true. But if you mean having sex with other people…” “Yes,” he said slowly, “that’s what I mean.” She spoke even more slowly. “I am an actress, and I have had sex with every leading man I have ever been with.” He wasn’t sure what he was hearing. Am I dreaming? Who is this woman? “You mean, metaphorically, while doing it with me?” he tried. “That too. But also with them, physically.” “In bed?” “Sometimes in a bed,” she laughed. “Sometimes on a sofa in the dressing room, or in an armchair, or standing up.” “With every one?” “Yes, with every one. Had there been an exception, I would not have forgotten.” He was silent, feeling stunned. “Even…” he began. “There’s no need for names. Every one, even the ones who, in their private lives, are homosexual.” Of course, he thought. Why should there have been any exceptions? What guy in his right mind, or even out of it, would pass up a chance to get his prick inside Brigitte Wilner? “But I do need a name,” he said. “Just one.” “Of course. Helmut. Yes, at the very beginning of the work on Goose-Liesel, just after he’d been hired, before you two had even met. He was silent again. “Let me explain,” she went on. “I’ve never loved anyone but you. I’ve never sought sexual satisfaction with anyone but you. And since I’ve been with you steadily, I’ve never had what one could call an affair. Almost always, it was just once; occasionally twice, and very rarely three times. My only purpose is to get to know my fellow actors – if and only if I am romantically involved with them in the script – in their sexual aspect.” “So you’ve been true to me, darling, in your fashion?” he said in English, an ironic edge in his voice. “Exactly,” she said, ignoring the irony though certainly not unaware of it. “That’s why it’s my favorite song.” Was she being ironic in turn? He took a deep breath, then another. This is going to be a conversation after all, he thought. “Do you have orgasms?” he asked, and sensed the tone of his question becoming that of an interviewing journalist. The sensation made him relax a little. “I may or may not,” she answered in kind. “Sometimes I can’t help it, but it doesn’t matter. And I tend to be rather passive in these situations,” she added with a smile as she began to stroke his thigh, “which is not like the Brigitte that you know.” Miki tensed again. Involuntarily, he pushed her hand away as he took yet another breath. He was suddenly struck by a thought. “You know, the mysterious bleeding that you had five years ago…” he began. “I know,” she interjected. “Dr. Severs made the initial mistake of being too… too discreet with me. Finally, after all the months of inconclusive tests, he had a frank talk with me, and then I told him. He then knew exactly what to do, and after five months I was fine.” “And you’ve continued doing it?” he asked incredulously. “Yes, but always with a condom,” she said matter-of-factly, and smiled. “Any other questions?” He thought for a moment. “When did it all begin?” he asked. “The first summer that I was in Norderney. You were in Israel. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again. The actor who played the Traveler in The Jews was supposed to be a Jew, he was young, he even looked a little like you, and I really fantasized that I was with you. The one who played Harras in The Devil’s General was older, almost forty, and I thought it would be interesting to see how it would be with someone like that.” “Was it… interesting?” “Yes. It made it so that, when I was back at school, I wasn’t interested in any of the boys. Besides, I never stopped thinking about you. But then the next year in Norderney the same actor was there as Tellheim, and it was quite natural to do it again. That, by the way, was my last affair,” she said, emphasizing the last word. “And then you came back.” “And then?” “We were together in Bad Harzburg, and of course there was no one but you. But then, in Hanover, I was doing the Romeo and Juliet scene, and the teacher criticized us for not having what in English was called chemistry. After class my Romeo walked me home and along the way he said, ‘Maybe some biology would help the chemistry,’ and I agreed on the spur of the moment. When we did the scene the next day, it was so much better that I didn’t feel the least bit guilty. You saw the scene.” “Yes,” he said, “it was good.” “Then, in the second Minna, you told me that I had no rapport with Tellheim. That was the night before you went to Canada…” “Yes, I know…” “And when I was with you that night, I pretended that I was with him, and I told you so.” “Yes.” “That, by the way,” – she smiled so as to acknowledge the repeated ‘by the way’ – “was the first time that I did that. But the next evening I imagined that you were on the Berlin…” “It was still called the Gripsholm,” he corrected her gently. “… On the Gripsholm, flirting with some girl, so I decided to flirt with my leading man offstage. And it worked – we had fabulous reviews. I have done it ever since. It’s become the most natural thing in the world.” “You’ve never told me.” “It’s part of my work. You could say that it’s part of my rehearsal technique. Just as I start smoking for practice when I’m going to portray someone who smokes. I haven’t discussed technical aspects of my work with you, ever since you told me, a long time ago, that you didn’t want to know how sausage was made.” She smiled broadly, as if to show that she knew that what he had said had been a joke. He reflected her smile with one of his own. “But… but you must have known that I would feel differently about this.” “Of course. That’s why I haven’t told you, because, with all of your philosophy, I wasn’t sure that you would understand. But I also knew that I would never lie to you if you ever brought it up. I knew the time would come; I just didn’t know when. And I feel relieved of a burden.” “Good for you,” he said, trying hard not to sound bitter. “And how do you think I feel?” “I can imagine how you feel – that’s my profession, imagining how people feel – but I’d rather not. You probably don’t know it yourself yet. When you’re ready to tell me how you feel, then you’ll tell me.” “I can tell you something right now. It’s going to be very difficult living with this knowledge, after seventeen years – almost half of my life – of believing that we were faithful to each other, in the vulgar sense of fidelity. Let me speak as a philosopher: the problem is not an ethical one, but an epistemological one.” The baffled look on her beautiful face made him laugh. She laughed too. “You’re very funny, my darling,” she said, and kissed him lightly. She got out of bed, saying, “We have a train to catch, remember? And then I’m going on to Paris. I have to get ready.” She left the bedroom in the direction of her dressing room. He heard Frau Schmidt’s footsteps as she climbed the stairs to assist Brigitte. He had not meant to be funny. He had used the technical language of philosophy to her before, and she knew what the terms meant. He needed to think clearly, and therefore to clear his mind. And the best way would be if he drove to Göttingen, instead of going by train. It would take him longer – well over three hours, even longer with stops – than if he were to take the Frankfurt-bound express and have lunch in the dining car. But he did not want Brigitte’s company – the first time that he could remember ever feeling that – and, if he took a different train from hers, he might be distracted by reading or conversation with fellow passengers. No, he needed to think, and to be alone. “Brigitte!” he called out. “Yes?” the muffled voice came back, as melodious as ever. “I won’t be taking the train with you. I will take my car.” “Are you sure?” “Yes.” “All right, then.” He wondered for a moment whether to offer to drive her to the Altona station, as he had done so many times, but he remembered that NDR was sending a chauffeured car that would take her there, and that he would have ridden with her. The car was due at 10:20, in order to get her to the station in time for the train that left a little after eleven. It looked as if she would not be ready much before the arrival of the car. They might as well leave around the same time. She came out of her dressing room, looking like her film-star self, followed by Frau Schmidt, who then went downstairs. He had, of course, seen his wife in this guise many times before, and always felt a twinge of a feeling of detachment, as though this were not really the woman that he was married to. He had always dismissed that feeling, but this time he let it linger, and it led to another question in his mind, this one ontological: Was Brigitte his wife, who happened to have become a film star, or was she, by this time, a film star who happened to be his wife? If someone had put such a question to him in the past, he would have dismissed it as senseless, since Brigitte was a woman who simply was both of those things. But this time he felt that he didn’t know who she really was. “You’re looking beautiful,” he said. “You look just like Brigitte Wilner.” “I’ve been told that before,” she said with a straight face. “Is she an actress or something?” “I’m not sure,” he said, looking at her intently. “You should find out more about her.” “Is there more to find out?” The banter was beginning to feel like a scene from one of her films. Perhaps he should become a screenwriter. “There’s always more to find out. Don’t you think so, Herr Doktor Wilner?” “Sometimes. Other times I feel that it’s of no use. Ignoramus, ignorabimus.” “Don’t you remember?” she said sweetly. “I didn’t take Latin.” “We do not know, we shall not know.” Frau Schmidt’s voice came up the stairway. “The car is here, Frau Wilner.” She gave him an abrupt, extended, passionate kiss and started down the stairs without a word. Only when she was halfway down did she call “Good-bye!” He returned the good-bye in a stage whisper, packed for two nights and went downstairs and out of the house to get into his car. As he drove through the Blankenese business district, the ‘open’ signs on the doors and in the windows of the shops reminded him of the talk about open marriage during his American book tour the previous year. He now realized that, unbeknownst to him, his had been an open marriage all along, but open only on one side. What if it had been open on both sides? And even the four years before marriage, when he already felt committed to her for life? He thought back to the Gripsholm. He had never told Brigitte about Louise, the French Canadian girl who had so openly flirted with him, and whose seduction he had so resolutely resisted. But a woman, and especially one like Brigitte who studied human nature for a living, would sense that such things happen. Leaping sixteen years to the preceding Friday, he thought of Nili. If, during all these years, he was, in some dim unexplored corner of his soul, spiritually unfaithful to Brigitte, it was with Nili. Now there she was, offering herself to him again. And he turned her down, on the basis of his illusory notion of what his marriage was. For three days he had carried an illusion of being a father. For fourteen years, that of being a husband in a perfect marriage. But how could he say that it had not been perfect? He and Brigitte satisfied each other in every way, sex included. There was no reason not to believe her when she said that she sought no satisfaction with anyone but him. Or was there? Perhaps Brigitte’s artistic motivation might be a mere excuse, a mere cover for her… for her what? Nymphomania? Now, if he had had extramarital sex, what would his excuse have been? There would have been none; it would have been motivated only by lust. Armed with the knowledge of Brigitte’s activities, he would have allowed his normal male lust to come to the surface instead of hiding it behind the image of the ideal marriage that he himself had painted. No matter. From now on, if his marriage is to survive, the extramarital sex will have to be shared evenly. Perhaps that very evening he could pick up some girl or young woman in Göttingen. True, in August not many students would be there, but there were foreign students attending summer courses, there were secretaries, there were laboratory assistants. After all, the sexual revolution had been rampant over the past decade, and he had been merely a passive observer. As he entered the Elbe Tunnel, the radio, which had been playing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, went silent. The combination of silence and darkness abruptly changed his train of thought, making it veer from his marriage to his experiences over the past two weeks. He had reconnected, in various ways, with three important personages of his youth: Hanna, Nili and Tzvi. He had, in all likelihood, killed Tzvi, or at least been a cause (perhaps even proximate) of his death. He had been ensnared in a plot that was unbelievable both in its sophistication and its clumsiness. Sophisticated in concept, clumsy in execution. How Jewish, he thought again. The concept is a product of someone’s ego, but the execution requires teamwork, and a Jew, typically, will not subordinate his ego to the team or the community. And not only a male Jew: Rosa Luxemburg, Golda Meir… He emerged from the tunnel, and the sudden reappearance of daylight and music stopped his thoughts dead in their tracks. He managed to hear the final strains of the music. The recording had been by Leonard Bernstein, playing the piano and conducting. He had once seen Bernstein do this, on tour with the New York Philharmonic, but it was in Ravel’s Concerto in G, and he remembered Bernstein playing the opening arpeggios just a decibel too loud, enough to drown out the piccolo’s playing of the main theme. Another example of Jewish ego, he thought. The eleven o’clock news was on, and he did not pay much attention to it until an item from Paris came on. “The French television system ORTF has announced that a new series, coproduced with ARD, will be aired, starting at the end of September, in both French and German versions, in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The series will be titled The Terror, and the subject will be the French Revolution. The German actress Brigitte Wilner will interpret the Austrian-born queen Marie Antoinette, while the part of Louis…” He abruptly turned the radio off. He did not, at that moment, want to know the name of the next man that his wife would sleep with. Then he remembered that, on that day in Norderney, she had told him that his next impersonation would be of a man named Axel. Of course: Axel von Fersen, Marie Antoinette’s Swedish lover. He wondered how it was that Brigitte got the part, and not Romy Schneider, who was already working in France. He also wondered if it had been prearranged that the French made their announcement ahead of the Germans, or if it was a case of what the English called one-upmanship. Perhaps the French were the primary participants in the project, and therefore had the right to make the announcement first. He had heard from Brigitte about the complex politics of coproduction. He speculated that a German-French coproduction about French history was, this time, made possible by the fact that De Gaulle was no longer president. He further speculated about the actor whose name he had cut off. If the reference was to Louis XVI, then in all likelihood he was French. Michel Piccoli? Jean-Pierre Cassel? For Fersen, it could be anyone handsome enough, and of more or less the right age: Horst Buchholz, Terence Stamp, Max von Sydow… He realized that, like a mythological character who was condemned forever to carry a burden, he would, from that day on, never be able to see an actor who had played opposite Brigitte without imagining him fucking her. Could his marriage survive under such a burden? Can this marriage be saved? He turned the radio back on. The music was back, a concerto grosso by some Baroque composer whom he did not recognize. He saw the sign for the Soltau South exit coming up in ten kilometers, and he decided that he would not take the autobahn all the way to Göttingen. He would avoid the traffic congestion of greater Hanover by taking the old highway, of the kind that was now called a federal highway but that people still called Reich highway, by way of Celle, past Hildesheim. It was a pretty road, wending its way through the greenery of the Lüneburg Heath. Perhaps he would stop for lunch in Celle, in one of the cafés on the Markt. Can my marriage survive? he asked himself again. Or, better yet, can I survive, my integrity intact, in such a marriage? Can I reconcile myself to having been deluded for half of my life, and go on as Brigitte’s husband? What was the alternative? Divorce, of course. Many people he knew were divorced. Margot and Helmut (Helmut, who had acted opposite Brigitte!), for example, were both divorced from their first spouses. And in her circle of show people, Brigitte, who was still with the man who was not only her first husband but had been her high-school boyfriend, was an absolute anomaly. Divorce meant possible remarriage and, for him, possible fatherhood. He finally admitted to himself the mixed feelings he had experienced when he realized that the girl named Ora was not his daughter. There was relief, to be sure, but with a tinge – one that he immediately suppressed – of regret. Remarriage! The mere possibility of the thought startled him. And then a strange afterthought followed: perhaps to a Jewess! Suddenly, as he began to veer off for the exit, the cluster of thoughts swirling in his mind was invaded by one that came, cometlike, from an unexpected direction. Perhaps Tzvi was not dead. Perhaps, knowing his weakened state, he had decided to lie face down in the water while holding his breath, as he had no doubt been trained to do, and to wait until Miki left. If that was the case, how likely was Tzvi to tell his colleagues about Miki’s unexpected appearance? Not very. But would he concoct another plot against Miki, this time with yet another motive for revenge? Quite likely. But it would have to be different: in all likelihood he would have to do it on his own, without the resources of the Mossad. Otherwise he would have to admit to his superiors that his scheme to entrap Miki was a failure. When he got to Göttingen, he decided, he would try to call Nili from his hotel room and ask her if she had heard any news reports in Israel that might shed some light on the matter. It would be nice to talk to Nili again. And, some time in the future, it would be nice to see her again. In fact, it would be only when he saw her in person that he could tell her what he had done. Perhaps they could spend a few days together in Cyprus. A road sign announced 15 kilometers to Bergen. This meant that he would soon be passing very near the Bergen-Belsen memorial site. The reminder of the camp where he was liberated propelled his thoughts in a backward direction, all the way to the war, to his parents and his little sister Miriam, to Axel Hemme… Now that he had proved his mettle as an undercover investigator, perhaps he could start a search for the real Axel Hemme. But the memory of his liberation suddenly made him aware that, as filled with uncertainties as his mind was, he was not experiencing any anxiety as a result. He felt as though he had just undergone another liberation. The sign for the Bergen-Belsen turnoff was coming into view. It will be fitting, he told himself, to make a stop there. He was a survivor, and it was the place of his liberation.