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PARTISAN REVIEW
a melodramatic woman. Her instinct is simply to withdraw from
trouble and attention. In any case she has not been humiliated, she
has been ill-used-the result of bad judgment on her side.)
She gets to her feet shakily, carefully. She dreads someone ap–
proaching, a belated witness to the encounter, someone who will dis–
cover her in this vulnerable exposed state: an American woman, an
American woman who speaks very little German, not a tourist
precisely, well, yes, perhaps she would be considered a tourist, with
some professional connections, her case would be reported not only
to the Mainz police but to the United States Consulate and to the
United States Army since her assailant (she knows, she cannot
not
know) was an American serviceman.... One of the hundreds, or
are there thousands, of American servicemen stationed nearby....
"Oh why did you do it,
why,"
Cecilia says half-sobbing, "I meant
only to be friendly ...."
Her right ear is ringing, blood seems to be dripping down the
front of her English silk blouse, she's dazed, her heart racing, of
course she isn't seriously injured; the assault would not be desig–
nated rape; the man hadn't even torn off her underwear, hadn't
troubled.
Nor had he taken her purse, Cecilia sees, relieved. It is lying
where she dropped it, papers and guidebook spilling out, her wallet
safe inside, her passport safe ... so there is no need to report the
embarrassing incident at all.
At this time- early summer of 1983- Cecilia Heath is travel–
ing in Europe with a senior colleague from the Peekskill Foundation
for Independent Research in the Arts, Sciences, and the Humani–
ties, a specialist in European history named Philip Schoen. Philip is
fifty-three, almost twenty years older than Cecilia; he claims to be in
love with her though he doesn't (in Cecilia's opinion) know her very
well. He is also married-has been married, as he says, "most of his
life- not unhappily." Why does he imagine himself in love with
Cecilia Heath?- she can't quite bring herself to inquire.
In the past fifteen years, since the publication of his enormous
book
The Invention of Chaos: Europe at War in the Twentieth Century,
Philip Schoen has acquired a fairly controversial, but generally high,
reputation in his field. Cecilia has been present when fellow his–
torians and academicians have been introduced to Philip, she has
noted their mode of address, a commingling of gravity and caution,
deferential courtesy, some belligerence. She has noted how Philip
shakes their hands- colleagues', strangers'- as if the ceremony were
