Borderless Deceit by Adrian de Hoog Page A

ceiling. What had I seen in Rachel? Quickness and eagerness. A readiness to know. An acceptance of others. A desire to experience. And beyond her sublime features and shining ash-blond hair, a beauty I found difficult to pin down. The more I pondered her, the more an idealisation set in. Sitting in my cell, I began to see her qualities before me as a work of art suspended in mid-air. It was so fine that my breathing turned irregular. I struggled to grasp the artwork, to seize and hold it, to turn the essence of the hour we spent chatting into an object I might press against me. The impossibility of it only gave me a deep ache which has been with me since.
    Of course, I had seen an absence of innocence as well. Which is another way of saying I saw eroticism ready to break out. Already then, that winter day, having barely met her, I saw Rachel’s future in her eyes: the parade of lovers in Vienna, the affair in Geneva with the Berlin banker, and, once she had been named ambassador, the weekends ofluxury on the Egyptian’s yacht. I became addicted to understanding, even pursuing, that absence of innocence. I fell under its spell, its compelling humanity, its determination to live life fully and its insistence not to repress inner forces. I became incapable of breaking out of that addiction. Then when the opportunity came along to know more about Rachel, to search out things I had no right to know, I gave in. I lacked the moral strength not to.
    Rachel went to Moscow with Yablonski, and after she returned I saw her irregularly. It seemed always to be by chance, but she drew me out of my self-absorption each time and led me into her captivating world. I came to live for the unpredictable minutes of uncomplicated banter when we ran into each other in the hallways. Yet, I never found a way to tell Rachel something I thought she should know – that I was married. I never mentioned Carmel to her. Perhaps this was because the marriage had started to disintegrate long before. I believe that single women have an intuition about the availability of the men they meet and I wondered whether Rachel understood my circumstances. In that case, I asked myself – the puzzle deepening for me – would Rachel have concluded from my silence that I thought my wife was my burden? Or, did she see my marriage as a stain, an error, a lapse of judgement, a misdemeanour blotting my record, something I should get over? But perhaps all this was presumptuous. Perhaps the truth was less intricate. If she knew, Rachel might simply have been incurious about my private situation because her interest in me had its limits.
    Once, unexpectedly, I ended up standing beside her at the cafeteria check-out. “Lunch with us!” she said, smiling irresistibly. She meant herself and a freckled, red-haired friend – Anne-Marie – also a recent arrival in the Service. Anne-Marie was outgoing and kind. Huddling under the canopy of the cafeteria’s clatter, we were a happy threesome nibbling away at sandwiches with me running off to get the lemon tea. I felt fine because I wasn’t feeling dour. We agreed to have lunch again and each time we did my liking for Anne-Marie deepened, my infatuation with Rachel grew, and the deterioration of my marriage became less relevant.
    And then it was all over. Carmel moved out so that our divorce proceedings could begin; Anne-Marie became engaged to a lawyer; and Rachel was posted to Vienna.
    All over? Not entirely. I continued seeing Anne-Marie even after she married; she became my friend. We talked easily, usually about Rachel. Rachel sometimes called Anne-Marie from Vienna, or wrote funny postcards. My abject obsession – tracking Rachel’s movements – began about that time, and soon enough, what I heard from Anne-Marie I often already knew. I also knew that the news of Rachel she gave me was incomplete. As intimate friends she and Rachel would have shared the smallest details and I