Free Tremor of Intent by Anthony Burgess

us must do,’ I added sententiously, ‘the thing that is given us to do.’ My cigar had gone out; there was no point in feeling for the matches to relight it. Roper and British science were to be saved. I felt a gush of generosity. ‘This,’ I said, turning to her, ‘can count as another visit.’
5
    Did I do right to tell her to do what, and very soon after, she did? I did not see her again, though, had I had time and inclination to wander Soho or Notting Hill, I might well have spied her, smart with her little dog. I rang up Roper and told him of the discomfiture of Wurzel the West German Devil. He was elated. He thought a marriage could be saved through the elimination of what Brigitte would call the
Hausfreund
. He said nothing to Brigitte nor she to him of Wurzel’s being kicked downstairs and out of doors. Let bygones be. Brigitte had been more tolerant, more loving (this seemed to me the best signal of the decision I had articulated for her); again (and this she might have done, had she not been going to leave) she told no lying story to Roper about attempted rape by his best friend or fiend (see: here is his cigar-butt, hurriedly crushed out). But, after a week, Roper came to my flat.
    This I had expected. I had waited in every evening, expectingit, listening to
Die Meistersinger
. When Roper rang, Hans Sachs was opening Act III with his monologue about the whole world being mad: ‘
Wahn
,
wahn
–’
    â€˜I can guess what she’s done,’ I said. ‘She’s gone back on the job. The job she’d already been doing in Germany.’
    â€˜There was no real proof of that,’ he snivelled, grasping his whisky-glass as though to crush it. ‘Poor little girl.’
    â€˜Poor little girl?’
    â€˜An orphan of the storm.’ Oh my God. ‘A war victim. We did this to her.’
    â€˜Who did? Did what?’
    â€˜Insecurity. Instability. The crash of all that meant anything. Germany, I mean. She doesn’t know where she is or what she wants.’
    â€˜Oh, doesn’t she? She doesn’t want you, that’s certain. Nor did she really want that bloody Wurzel. She just wants to do a job she can do.’
    â€˜Independence,’ said Roper. ‘Unsure of herself. She always talked about working, but she’d not been trained for anything. No education. That damnable war.’
    That damnable. ‘Oh my God, Roper, you’re the end. You’re totally incredible. She’s just a natural prostitute, that’s all. Good luck to her, if that’s what she wants. But now you’ve got to forget all about her and get on with your work. If you’re lonely, call on me any time. We’ll go out and get drunk together in low pubs.’
    â€˜Drunk,’ said Roper thickly. ‘We’re drunken beasts, that’s what we are. Warmongers and ravishers and drunken beasts. But,’ he said, when he’d taken a swig as though toasting that, ‘she may come back. Yes, I’ll be waiting for her. She’ll come back crying, glad to be home again.’
    â€˜Get a divorce,’ I said. ‘Get a private detective on the job. They’ll find her sooner or later. Evidence. No trouble at all.’
    He shook his head. ‘No divorce,’ he said. ‘That would be the finalbetrayal. Women are not what we are. They need protecting from the great destructive forces.’
    I nodded and nodded, very grim. He’d mixed Brigitte up with the Virgin Mary (whom we’d all at school got into the habit of calling, as though she were a spy-ring or automation company, the BVM) and Gretchen in Goethe’s
Faust
. ‘
Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan
,’ I quoted. But he didn’t recognise the quotation.
    What I should have foreknown, sir, was that Roper would be thrown into a great empty pit where nothing was really to be trusted any more, where there was no belief in anything.
Anything?
There