Bernhard Schlink’s "The Lover," a summary

This collection brings together seven short stories about people trying to escape truth, intimacy, or guilt through self-saving illusions. The characters build barriers of polite silence, other people’s secrets, or fantasies between themselves and their loved ones, until a chance shock shatters their familiar routine. The book was published in 2000, after the author had already achieved worldwide acclaim with his novel "The Reader."

Based on the title story, director Richard Eyre made the 2008 psychological drama The Other Man, starring Liam Neeson and Antonio Banderas.

Girl with a lizard

An antique painting hung above the couch in the office of his stern father, a judge. The boy’s mother angrily called the painted child a Jew, causing scenes with her husband behind closed doors. The child spent hours staring at the girl’s velvet cap, the lizard pressed against the rock, and the cold sea beyond.

Later, the father left his job at the city court. The family moved from a spacious mezzanine apartment to cramped social housing on the outskirts of the city. Over the years, the father deteriorated and began drinking heavily. The hallway now smelled of tobacco and schnapps. In a second-hand bookshop, the now-adult son accidentally discovered a postcard by the artist René Dahlmann with a similar motif. It turned out that the original had been exhibited at a Nazi exhibition of so-called degenerate art in 1937 and then disappeared without a trace.

At his father’s funeral, the son takes the painting for himself. A student’s attic in a Baltic town becomes the masterpiece’s new home. Any romantic liaisons the young lawyer may have had are dashed, as the painted girl displaces living women.

From his mother, the young man learns the terrible truth about the Strasbourg military tribunal. The judge sentenced a fellow soldier to death for embezzling the property of Jews fleeing deportation. The son removes the canvas from its gilded frame and cuts away the protective paper with a razor blade. Beneath the paint, the artist’s signature is revealed.

At night, the young man carries the bundle to the windy seashore. A fire has been lit. In the bright flames, the top layer of paint melts, momentarily revealing the original drawing underneath, depicting a huge reptile.

Lover

A retired widower is sorting through the wardrobe of his wife, who died of cancer. For years, Lisa played second violin in the orchestra. Suddenly, a belated letter arrives from a southern city, from a certain Rolf, full of reminiscences of a tempestuous love affair and nights spent in hotels on Lake Como. The husband breaks down the door of an antique Biedermeier-style secretary. In the secret compartment lie four notes from a lover and an album of Milan photographs.

Resentment demands revenge. The official begins corresponding with his rival under the name of his deceased wife, signing off with a single letter. Soon, the jealous man sets out to track down the stranger.

Rolf turns out to be a ridiculous, impoverished braggart in a shabby three-piece suit. He lives in the basement of a luxurious house under the pretext of caring for baby turtles in the boiler room. The men meet daily at a street café over a chessboard. Rolf swindles three thousand marks for a lavish reception at a trattoria to celebrate the arrival of his beloved violinist. At the trattoria’s table, the owner reveals the secret of Lisa’s death. Unfazed, Rolf transforms an ordinary dinner into a memorial celebration, sincerely extolling Lisa’s talent to the casual guests.

Treason

In the summer of 1986, a social welfare judge meets Sven on the shores of Lake Müggelsee. A chess game connects the West German with the family of an East Berlin translator. The tiny apartment of Sven and his strict wife, Paula, is cluttered with books, their daughter Julia’s toys, and laundry drying.

Gradually, the guest becomes drawn into the couple’s underground activities. Friends ask him to relay information about searches at the Ecological Library at the Zion Church to the West through an accredited journalist.

Years after the fall of the Wall, the couple moves to the prosperous Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. In the fall, Sven receives a coveted tenure-track position at the university. A celebratory evening ends in a heated argument behind a closed bedroom door. That night, a tearful Paula quietly enters the living room of a friend who has stayed overnight. A secret encounter ensues.

In the morning, the background to the domestic scandal is revealed. After reviewing the archives, Paula discovered her husband’s denunciations. Sven had served for many years as a secret informant for state security, recounting intimate details of family life to his supervisor and accusing his comrades in the dissident circle. The traitor sincerely believed that informing would protect the family from prison. Nevertheless, the marriage remains intact. The guest leaves the house forever.

Sweet peas

Architect Thomas builds attics and designs bridges across the Spree. He’s accustomed to living in three houses at once, confidently balancing between his legal wife, Juta, Hamburg gallery owner Veronica, and young student Helga. Each relationship bestows upon him a distinct role: that of a respectable family man, a renowned artist, or a generous patron.

An attack of appendicitis overtakes the hero on the highway en route to Munich. At the clinic, a fantasy arises of incurable cancer relieving him of the burden of mutual obligations. Thomas orders a long, buttonless blue wool monk’s robe from a tailor he knows.

Having abandoned his duties, the would-be monk wanders through European monasteries and expensive hotels. A year of wandering ends on a Milan platform. The doors close. The speeding train catches the hem of his heavy cassock, tossing the fugitive onto the embankment. The enterprising Helga brings the crippled man, paraplegic, to a rehabilitation clinic.

A well-coordinated female triumvirate greets him at his Berlin apartment. Juta, Veronica, and Helga have pooled their assets into a company for the commercial exploitation of his remaining architectural and artistic legacy. The front door is locked. On the balcony, the helpless owner gazes at the distant dome of the Reichstag, resigned to the dictates of these enterprising women.

Circumcision

German lawyer Andi falls in love with a Jewish girl, Sarah, in New York. They stroll through Central Park and listen to Bach. A family bar mitzvah celebration introduces the foreigner to his beloved’s extended family, who survived the camps and pogroms.

Resentments, suspicions, and themes of national guilt increasingly surface in their conversations. Andy tries to prove his sincerity and overcome an invisible alienation. He secretly flies to his native Heidelberg to see a surgeon he knows for a circumcision. His body aches. Upon returning, Sarah doesn’t even notice the physical sacrifice he’s made, casually discussing hygiene. At dawn, the young man quietly packs his suitcase, leaves his keys, and heads to the airport forever.

Son

An elderly professor of international law arrives in a Latin American country to observe the first free elections. The capital greets the convoy with broken windows and dust. A government officer and a rebel commander accompany the observers to the provinces.

At night, shots ring out on a mountain pass near a burned-out church. Jeeps explode. A German lawyer recalls the past: his own divorce, a cold farewell to his young son on a stone bench in a Bavarian village, cowardice in the face of powerful opponents.

In the morning, the Canadian companion panics and draws his weapon, triggering a brief firefight. A stray bullet pierces the professor’s lung. Bleeding on the stone slabs, the dying father dreams of seeing his adult son rushing to his aid, but the slope remains deserted.

Woman from the gas station

A successful civil servant in his fifties sets off with his wife on a belated romantic trip along the US Pacific coast. Since his youth, he has been haunted by a recurring dream of a desert gas station bathed in the midday sun and a strong, blonde gas station attendant in overalls.

In Oregon, a thick fog blankets a coastal highway. Two gas pumps and a wooden house suddenly appear on the side of the road. A woman in a blue jumpsuit routinely approaches the car with a hose.

The driver freezes in recognition. The stranger brings him his change, and his legal companion joyfully invites him to look at the sand dunes on the map. The man drives a couple of miles, suddenly swerves onto the grass, and bursts into uncontrollable sobs. After unloading his bags at the nearest roadside motel, the traveler leaves his wife alone and steps out onto the gray ocean shore.