Authors: Erich Maria Remarque
509 looked at him for a while. Then he pointed at the town and the burning church. “What’s the matter? That there, Leo—”
“What?”
“That down there. What was that in the Old Testament?”
“What have you got to do with the Old Testament?”
“Wasn’t there something like this in the time of Moses? A pillar of fire that led the people out of slavery?”
Lebenthal blinked his eyes. “A cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night,” he said without wailing. “Is that what you mean?”
“Yes. And wasn’t God in it?”
“Jehovah.”
“All right, Jehovah. And that down there—you know what that is?” 509 waited a moment. Then he said: “It’s a little something like that. It’s hope, Leo, hope for us! Damn it, can’t any of you see that?”
Lebenthal didn’t answer. He sat shrunk into himself and gazed down at the town. 509 let himself sink back. At last, for the first time, he had pronounced it. One can hardly say it, he thought, it almost kills one, it’s such an enormous word. I’ve avoided it throughout all these years; it would have eaten me up had I thought it—but now today it has returned, one doesn’t yet dare to think it quite out, but it is there, and now it will either shatter me or come true.
“Leo,” he said. “That down there means that this here will also go smash.”
Lebenthal moved. “If they lose the war,” he whispered. “Only then! But who can know that?” Automatically he glanced around in fear.
During the first years the camp had been fairly well informed about the course of the war. Later, however, when victories ceased, Neubauer had forbidden the bringing in of newspapers and the reporting over the camp radio of news concerning the retreat. Since then the wildest rumors had spread through the barracks until finally no one any longer knew what really to believe. The war was going badly, that everyone knew; but the revolution, for which many had been waiting for years, had never come.
“Leo,” said 509. “They’re losing it. It’s the end. If that down there had happened during the first year, it wouldn’t have meant anything. That it’s happening now, after five years, means that the others are winning.”
Lebenthal glanced back again. “Why are you talking about it?”
509 was aware of the superstition of the barracks. What was said aloud lost in certainty and power, and a disappointed hope was always a serious loss in energy. This was also the reason for the caution of the others.
“I’m talking about it because now we’ve got to talk about it,” he said. “The time for it has come. Now it’ll help us to pull through. This time it’s no latrine password. It can’t last much longer. We must—” He stopped.
“What?” asked Lebenthal.
509 was not sure himself. Pull through, he thought. Pull through and even more. “It’s a race,” he said finally. “A race, Leo, with—” With death, he thought; but he didn’t say it aloud. He pointed in the direction of the SS quarters. “With them over there! We can’t afford to lose now. The end’s in sight, Leo.” He seized Lebenthal’s arm. “Now we’ve got to do everything—”
“But what can we do?”
509 felt his head swim as though he had been drinking. He was no longer accustomed to think or speak much. And for a long time he hadn’t thought as much as today. “Here’s something,” he said, and produced the gold tooth from his pocket. “From Lohmann. Probably not registered. Can we sell it?”
Lebenthal weighed the lump in his hand. He didn’t show any surprise. “Dangerous. Can be done only through someone who can leave the camp or has connection with the outside.”
“How, doesn’t matter. What can we get for it? It must be done fast.”
“It can’t be done so fast. A thing like this must be carefully figured
out. That requires brains, otherwise we’re on the gallows or it’s gone without a penny.”
“Can’t you still do it tonight?”
Lebenthal let the hand with the tooth drop. “509,” he said, “yesterday you were still reasonable.”
“Yesterday is long ago.”
A crash came up from the town and immediately afterwards a clear reverberating sound of a bell. The fire had eaten through the beams of the church tower and the bell had collapsed.
Lebenthal had ducked in terror. “What was that?” he asked.
“A sign.” 509 drew in his lips. “A sign, Leo, that yesterday is long ago.”
“It was a bell, wasn’t it? Why was it never melted into cannons?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ve forgotten it. Now how about tonight? We need grub for the breadless days.”
“It can’t be done tonight. Today’s Thursday. Community evening in the SS quarters.”
“I see. Today the whores come?”
Lebenthal looked up. “So you knew that? How?”
“That’s neither here nor there. I know it, Berger knows it, Bucher knows it and Ahasver knows it.”
“Who else?”
“No one.”
“So you all know that! I hadn’t realized you’d been watching me. Must be more careful. Okay, that’s what’s going to happen tonight.”
“Leo,” said 509. “Try to get rid of the tooth tonight. That’s more important. This other I can do for you. Give me the money; I know my way about. It’s simple.”
“You know how it’s done?”
“Yes, from the pit—”
Lebenthal reflected. Then he said: “There’s somebody in the truck column. Tomorrow he’s driving into town. I could try and see if he bites. Okay. I will. And maybe I’ll be back in time to do this business here myself.”
He held the tooth out to 509.
“What’ll I do with it?” asked 509, surprised. “Mustn’t you take it with you?”
Lebenthal shook his head with slight contempt. “Now we see what you know about business! D’you imagine I’d get anything for it once one of those brothers got his paws on it? It’s not done that way. If all goes well I’ll come back and fetch it. Meanwhile you hide it. And now listen—”
509 lay in a hollow in the ground a short distance from the barbed wire. Here the palisades made a turn and the spot could not easily be seen from the machine-gun towers—even less at night and in fog. The Veterans had discovered this long ago, but only Lebenthal, several weeks back, had managed to make capital out of it.
The entire territory for several hundred yards outside the camp was a forbidden zone which could be entered only by special permission from the SS. A broad strip of it had been cleared of all underbrush and the range of the machine guns was adjusted to it.
Lebenthal, who had a sixth sense for everything connected with food, had observed that on Thursday evenings during the last few months, two girls took the wide part of the road leading past the Small camp. They belonged to The Bat, a low dive lying outside the town, and came as guests to the informal parties on the SS cultural evenings. The SS had gallantly permitted them to pass through the forbidden zone; in this way they were spared a detour of almost two hours. During the short time it took them to pass through the zone the electric current alongside the Small camp was
turned off as a precaution. The camp administration knew nothing about it; the SS-men, during the general confusion of the last months, had done this on their own hook. They didn’t risk anything; no one in the Small camp was capable of escaping.
In a fit of kindheartedness one of the whores had once thrown a piece of bread through the wire as Lebenthal happened to be nearby. A few words whispered in the dark and the offer to pay had been sufficient—since that day the girls had sometimes brought something with them, especially when the weather was rainy or foggy. They threw it through the wire while pretending to fix their stockings or shake sand out of their shoes. The camp was completely blacked out and on this side the guards were often asleep, but even should a guard have grown suspicious, he would not have fired at the girls and by the time someone had arrived to investigate, all traces would long ago have vanished.
509 heard the crash as the bell tower in the town collapsed. A sheath of fire shot up and was blown away. Then came the distant signals of the fire brigade.
He wasn’t sure how long he had waited; in the camp, time was a meaningless concept. But suddenly through the uneasy dark he heard voices and then steps. From under Lebenthal’s coat he crept out closer to the wire and listened. They were light steps coming from the left. He looked back; the camp was very dark and he could no longer see even the Mussulmen tottering to the latrine. Instead, he heard one of the guards call after the girls, “Going to be relieved at twelve. Meet you then, eh?”
“Sure, Arthur.”
The steps came closer. It still took some time before 509 could recognize the vague outlines of the girls against the sky. He looked over to the machine-gun towers. It was so turbid and dark that he
couldn’t see the guards—nor they him. Cautiously he began to hiss.
The girls stood still. “Where are you?” whispered one of them.
509 raised one arm and beckoned.
“Oh, there! Got the money?”
“Sure. What have you got?”
“First hand over the dough. Three marks.”
With a long stick Lebenthal had pushed the money in a bag with a string attached under the barbed wire onto the road. One of the girls bent down, took out the money and quickly counted it. Then she said, “Here! Look out!”
Both of them took potatoes from their coat pockets and flung them through the wire. 509 tried to catch them in Lebenthal’s coat.
“Now comes the bread,” said the fatter girl.
509 watched the slices sail through the wire. He gathered them quickly together.
“Well, that’s all!” The girls were about to move on.
509 hissed.
“What?” asked the fatter one.
“Can you bring more?”
“Next week.”
“No. When you come back from the SS quarters. They surely give you what you want there.”
“Are you the same one as usual?” asked the fatter girl, bending forward.
“They all look the same, Fritzi,” said the other.
“I can wait here,” whispered 509. “I’ve still got some money.”
“How much?”
“Three.”
“We must be off, Fritzi,” said the other girl. All this time she
had been feigning steps on the spot so that the guards shouldn’t hear that the two of them were not walking on.
“I can wait all night. Five marks.”
“You’re a new one, what?” asked Fritzi. “Where’s the other? Dead?”
“Sick. He sent me here. Five marks. Maybe even more.”
“Come on, Fritzi. We can’t go on standing here.”
“Okay. We’ll see. You can wait here for all I care.”
The girls went on. 509 heard their skirts rustle. He crawled back, dragged the coat after him and lay down exhausted. He had the sensation of sweating, but he was quite dry.
As he turned round, he saw Lebenthal. “Did it work?” asked Leo.
“Yes. The potatoes here and the bread.”
Lebenthal bent down. “Those beasts,” he said. “What bloodsuckers! Those prices are almost as bad as here in the camp! One mark fifty would have been enough. For three marks there ought to have been sausage as well. That’s what happens when you don’t do things yourself!”
509 wasn’t listening. “Let’s divide it, Leo,” he said.
They crawled behind the barrack and sorted out the potatoes and bread. “I need the potatoes,” said Lebenthal. “For trading tomorrow.”
“No. We now need everything ourselves.”
Lebenthal glanced up. “So? And where am I to get money for the next time?”
“Surely you have some left.”
“The things you don’t know!”
They suddenly crouched opposite one another on all fours like animals and gazed into each other’s sunken faces.
“They’ll come back tonight and bring more,” said 509. “Stuff
from over there which will be easier for you to trade. I told them we still have five marks.”
“Listen—” began Lebenthal. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “If you have the cash it’s your business.”
509 stared at him. At last Lebenthal looked away and let himself sink onto his elbows. “You’re ruining me,” he wailed softly. “What do you really want? Why are you suddenly meddling into everything?”
509 resisted the overwhelming greed to stuff a potato in his mouth and then another, quickly, all of them, before anyone could prevent him. “How d’you imagine the whole thing?” Lebenthal continued to whisper. “Bolt everything down, spend the money like idiots—how are we to get any more?”
The potatoes. 509 smelled them. The bread. Suddenly his hands would no longer obey his thoughts. His stomach was nothing but greed. Eating! Eating! Wolfing! Quick, quick! “We have the tooth,” he said with difficulty, and turned his head away. “What about the tooth? We’ll surely get something for it. What about it?”
“There wasn’t much doing today. That takes time. Isn’t certain, either. One has only what one holds in one’s hand.”
Isn’t he hungry? thought 509. What’s he saying? Isn’t it tearing his stomach to pieces? “Leo,” he said with a thick tongue. “Think of Lohmann. When we’ve got that far, it’ll be too late. Now each day counts. We no longer have to think for months ahead.”
From the direction of the women’s camp came a thin high scream—as from a frightened bird. A Mussulman stood there on one leg, stretching his arms towards the sky. A second one was trying to hold him up. It looked as though these two were dancing a grotesque
pas de deux
against the horizon. An instant later they toppled to the ground like dry timber and the screaming ceased.
509 turned back again. “When we’re like them, nothing will
help us any longer. Then we’re through forever. We’ve got to resist, Leo—”
“Resist—how?”
“Resist,” said 509 more calmly. The attack had passed. He could see again. The smell of the bread no longer blinded him. He brought his head near to Lebenthal’s ear. “For afterwards,” he said almost without sound. “To avenge ourselves—”
Lebenthal shrank back. “I don’t want to have anything to do with that.”
509 smiled feebly. “You won’t have to, either. You just see to the grub.”
Lebenthal fell silent for a while. Then he groped in his pocket, counted some coins close before his eyes and gave them to 509. “Here are three marks. The last. Now are you satisfied?”
509 took the money without answering.
Lebenthal sorted out the bread and potatoes.