Authors: Erich Maria Remarque
Many things had not turned out as they had imagined. The prospect of liberation had been something so enormous that most of them had not thought beyond it. Now it was suddenly there, and beyond it stood not a garden of Eden, with miracles, reunions and a magic rolling back of the years to a time that had been without misery—it was there, and beyond it stretched the desolation of loneliness, of terrible memories, of lostness, and in front of it was a desert and a bit of hope. They wandered down the mountain, and the names of a few places, a few people, a few other camps, and a vague perhaps was all they could hope for. They hoped to find maybe one or two—no one dared to hope for everything.
“We’d better get out as soon as we can,” said Sulzbacher. “Things won’t change here, and the longer we stay the more difficult it’ll become. Before we know where we are we’ll be sitting in another camp—for people who don’t know where to go.”
“Do you think you’re strong enough?”
“I’ve put on ten pounds.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I’ll take it easy.”
“Where’ll you make for?”
“Düsseldorf. Look for my wife—”
“How are you going to get to Düsseldorf? Are there any trains?”
Sulzbacher shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. But there are two other men here planning to go in that direction. To Solingen and Duisburg. We can stick together.”
“D’you know them?”
“No. But it’s already a great deal not to be alone.”
“You’re right.”
“That’s what I think, too.”
He shook hands all round. “Got enough food?” asked Lebenthal.
“For two days. We can report to the American authorities on the road. It’ll work out somehow.”
He walked off down the mountain with the two who were making for Solingen and Duisburg. He waved once; then not any more.
“He’s right,” said Lebenthal. “I’m off, too. I’m going to spend tonight in town. I’ve got to talk to someone who wants to become my partner. We’re going to open a business. He has the capital. I the experience.”
“Fine, Leo.”
Lebenthal took a pack of American cigarettes from his pocket and handed it round. “This’ll be the biggest business,” he declared. “American cigarettes. Just like after the last war. Mustn’t miss the bus.”
He contemplated the brightly colored packet. “Better than any money, I tell you.”
Berger smiled. “Leo,” he said. “You’re all right.”
Lebenthal glanced at him suspiciously. “I never pretended to be an idealist.”
“Don’t take it wrong. I didn’t mean it that way. You’ve kept us going often enough.”
Lebenthal smiled. He was flattered. “One does what one can. Always a good thing to have a practical businessman around. If there’s anything I can do for you—how about you, Bucher? Aren’t you leaving, too?”
“No. I’m waiting for Ruth to get a bit stronger.”
“Sure.” Lebenthal produced an American fountain pen from his pocket and jotted something down. “Here’s my address in town. In case—”
“Where did you get that pen?” asked Berger.
“Swapped. The Americans are crazy for souvenirs from the camp.”
“What?”
“They collect souvenirs. Revolvers, daggers, badges, whips, flags—it’s a good business. I prepared for it in time. Laid in a store.”
“Leo,” said Berger. “It’s a good thing you exist.”
Lebenthal nodded without surprise. “Are you staying here for the time being?”
“Yes, I’m staying here.”
“Then I’ll be seeing you now and again. I’ll sleep in town, but come up here to eat.”
“I thought you would.”
“Sure. Have you enough cigarettes?”
“No.”
“Here.” Lebenthal took two unopened packs from his pocket and gave one each to Berger and Bucher.
“What else have you got?” asked Bucher.
“Canned food.” Lebenthal glanced at his watch. “Well, got to be going—”
From under his bed he pulled out a new American raincoat and put it on. No one made any further comment. Even if he’d had an automobile outside, the others wouldn’t have been surprised. “Don’t lose the address,” he said to Bucher. “Be a pity if we lost touch with one another.”
“We won’t lose it.”
“We’re going together,” said Ahasver. “Karel and I.”
They stood before Berger. “Stay here a few more weeks,” said Berger. “You’re not strong enough yet.”
“We want to get out.”
“You know where to?”
“No.”
“Then why do you want to go?”
Ahasver made a vague gesture. “We’ve been here long enough.”
He was wearing an old-fashioned gray Havelock, an overcoat with a kind of coachman’s collar reaching to his elbows. Lebenthal, already active in business, had gotten it for him. It came from the possessions of a grammar school professor who had been killed in the last bombardment. Karel was dressed in a combination of bits of American uniforms.
“Karel has to leave,” said Ahasver.
Bucher joined them. He examined Karel’s attire. “What has happened to you?”
“The Americans have adopted him. The first regiment which passed through here. They’ve sent a jeep to fetch him. I’m going with him some of the way.”
“Have they adopted you, too?”
“No. I’m just driving a part of the way with him.”
“And then?”
“Then?” Ahasver glanced down into the valley. His coat billowed in the wind. “There are so many camps where I knew people—”
Berger looked at him. Lebenthal has dressed him just right, he thought. He looks like a pilgrim. He’ll wander from one camp to another. From one grave to another. But which prisoner had had the luxury of a grave? Then what was he going in search of?
“You know,” said Ahasver, “now and again you meet people unexpectedly on the road.”
“Yes, old man.”
Their eyes followed the two of them. “Queer,” said Bucher, “how we all go off in different directions.”
“You will be off soon, too?”
“Yes. But we shouldn’t lose sight of one another like this.”
“Oh, yes,” said Berger. “We should.”
“We must meet again. After all this here. Some day.”
“No.”
Bucher looked up. “No,” repeated Berger. “We should not forget it. But we also shouldn’t make a cult out of it. Or we’ll remain forever in the shadow of these cursed towers.”
The Small camp was empty. It had been cleaned and the inmates housed in the labor camp and the SS quarters. Streams of water, soap and disinfectant had been used; but the stench of death and filth and misery still hovered over it. Entrances had been cut everywhere into the barbed-wire fences.
“Don’t you think you’ll get tired?” Bucher asked Ruth.
“No.”
“Then let’s go. What day is today?”
“Thursday.”
“Thursday. Thank God the days have names again. Here they had only numbers. Seven to a week. Each one the same.”
They had received their papers from the camp management. “Where shall we go?” asked Ruth.
“Over there.” Bucher pointed at the hill on which the white house stood. “Let’s go there first and have a good look at it. It has brought us luck.”
“And then?”
“Then? We can come back here. There’s food here.”
“Don’t let’s come back. Ever.”
Bucher looked at Ruth, surprised. “Good. Wait here. I’ll get our things.”
They didn’t amount to much. But they had bread for several
days and two cans of condensed milk. “Are we really going?” she asked.
He saw the tension in her face. “Yes, Ruth,” he said.
They took leave of Berger and walked toward the gate which had been cut into the barbed-wire fence surrounding the Small camp. They had been outside the camp several times already, though never far—and each time they had felt the same excitement of suddenly being on the other side. The electric current and the machine guns focused precisely on the bare strip of road round the camp still seemed to be there. At their first step beyond the wire enclosure, a shudder passed through them. But then, the world was there, unlimited.
They walked slowly along, side by side. It was a soft, overcast day. For years they had been forced to creep, run and crawl—now they walked calm and upright and no catastrophe followed. No one fired at them. No one yelled. No one pounced on them.
“It’s inconceivable,” said Bucher. “Each time again.”
“Yes. It’s almost terrifying.”
“Don’t look round. Were you going to look round?”
“Yes. It’s still sitting in the back of my neck. As though someone were cowering inside my head, trying to turn it round.”
“Let’s for once try to forget it. For as long as we can.”
“Yes.”
They walked on and crossed a road. Before them lay a meadow, green and sown over with the yellow of primroses. They had often seen it from the camp. For a moment Bucher thought of Neubauer’s wretched, withered primroses outside Barrack 22. He shook it off. “Come, let’s walk through there.”
“You think it’s allowed?”
“I think we’re allowed a great deal. And let’s try not to be afraid any longer.”
They felt the grass under their feet and against their shoes. This, too, they no longer recognized. They knew only the hard earth of the roll-call ground. “Let’s go to the right,” said Bucher.
They walked to the right. It seemed childish, but it gave them a deep satisfaction. They could do what they wanted. No one gave them orders. No one shouted or fired. They were free. “It’s like a dream,” said Ruth. “One is only afraid to wake up and to find the barrack and its foulness again.”
“I’ve never had dreams like that. Only others in which I screamed.”
“Let’s not speak about it any more. Not today.”
“No.”
“The air here is different.” Ruth breathed deeply. “It’s live air. Not dead.”
Bucher looked at her attentively. Her face was a little flushed and her eyes suddenly shone. “Yes, it’s live air. It smells. It doesn’t stink.”
They stood beside some poplars. “We can sit down here,” he said. “No one will scare us away. We can even dance if we want to.”
They sat down. They watched the beetles and the birds. In the camp there had been only rats and bluish flies. They listened to the murmuring of the stream beneath the poplars. The water was clear and flowed fast. In the camp they’d never had enough water. Here it flowed freely and wasn’t even needed. One would have to grow accustomed to many things anew.
They continued on down the hill. They took their time and rested often. Then came a hollow and when they finally looked back the camp had disappeared.
They sat down and fell silent. The camp was no longer there, nor was the destroyed town. They could see only a meadow and above it the soft sky. They felt the warm breeze on their faces and it seemed to blow through the black cobwebs of the past, pushing
them away with gentle hands. This is perhaps how it should start, Bucher thought. From the very beginning. Not with bitterness and memories and hatred. With the simplest things. With the feeling that one is alive. Not that one lives in spite of everything, as in the camp. Simply that one lives. He felt that it was not an escape. He knew what 509 had wanted from him; that he should be one of those who pulled through, unbroken—to bear witness and to fight. But he was also suddenly aware that the responsibility left to him by the dead would cease to be an unbearable burden only when this clear strong feeling of life would be joined to it. It would carry him and give him the double strength: not to forget but also not to be destroyed by memories—as Berger had said on parting.
“Ruth,” he said after a while. “I think when one starts as low as we do there must be a lot of happiness ahead.”
The garden was in bloom; but when they came close to the white house they saw that a bomb had fallen behind it. It had wiped out the whole back part of it; only the façade had remained undamaged. Even the carved front door was still there. They opened it; but it led to a heap of rubble.
“It never was a house. All this time.”
“It is good that we didn’t know it was destroyed.”
They looked at it. They had believed that as long as it existed, they too would exist. They had believed in an illusion. In a ruin with a façade. There was irony in it, and at the same time a strange comfort. It had helped them, and in the end that was all that mattered.
They found no dead. The house must have been deserted when it was bombed. To the side, under the debris, they discovered a narrow door. It hung askew on its hinges, and behind it was the kitchen.
The small room had only partly collapsed. The stove was intact, and there were even a few pots and pans. The stovepipe could easily be attached and then passed through the open window. “We can light it,” said Bucher. “There’s enough wood out there to make a fire.”
He rummaged about in the wreckage. “There are some mattresses under here. We’ll be able to get them out in a few hours. Let’s start right away.”
“It’s not our house.”
“It’s no one’s house. We can safely stay here a few days. For the beginning.”
By evening they had two mattresses in the kitchen. They had also found some chalk-covered blankets and an undamaged chair. In the table drawer had been a few forks, some spoons and one knife. A fire was burning in the stove. The smoke passed through the pipe and out of the window. Bucher went on searching in the rubble outside.
Ruth had found a piece of mirror and had put it secretly in her pocket. Now she stood near the window and looked into it. She heard Bucher call, and she answered; but she didn’t take her eyes off what she saw. The gray hair; the sunken eyes; the bitter mouth with the large gaps between the teeth. She looked at it mercilessly and for a long time. Then she threw the mirror into the fire.
Bucher came in. He had found a pillow, too. Meanwhile the sky had turned apple-green and the evening was very quiet. They gazed out of the broken window and suddenly they realized that they were alone. They had almost forgotten what it was like. There had always been the camp with its hordes of people, the overcrowded barrack, even the overcrowded latrine. It had been good to have comrades, but it had often been oppressive never to be alone.
It had been like a steam roller that had flattened out the Self into a mass Self.
“It is good to be alone for once, Ruth.”