The Last Days (4 page)

“Would you prefer to stay in New York with me? He would understand… especially when he’s reunited with his books.”

“But part of the reason we’re going to Petrópolis is for my sake. The town is situated at an altitude of eight hundred metres, he’s adamant that it’s going to do me a world of good. I can barely breathe here.”

“Come, we’re going to go all the way to the top of the Empire State Building, where you’re going to get a good fill of oxygen.”

“I’m going back to the hotel. This walk has tired me out. I didn’t take my medication at noon. Promise me we’ll spend another day together.”

She had hailed a taxi and dropped Eva off. Alone in the car, Lotte had thought about the tailor’s story. She had pictured herself getting married in the big synagogue in Frankfurt, instead of that soulless room in Bath, England, where she and Stefan had taken their vows. “
Mazal tov,”
she muttered, as if to herself. But there were no practising rabbis left in Germany. Her grandfather had lost his synagogue and was almost certainly dead. There wasn’t a single rabbi left in the whole Reich. German synagogues had all been burnt down during the Kristallnacht. The flames had curled up towards the heavens and the stars.

That evening, in their room at the Wyndham Hotel, Stefan had worn the sombre look befitting the dark times they were in. Yet another of his friends, Erwin Rieger, had committed suicide in
Tunis, following in the wake of Ernst Toller, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Weiss. The chasm was widening all around him. The past was being chipped away piece by piece. The tickets to Rio had been purchased. They would board on the morning of 15th August.

Once again, they were on the run. They had fled the Reich, then England, and now the United States. Lotte’s health had of course played its part thanks to her weak bronchioles and ailing throat. There had also been the various bureaucratic annoyances to which Stefan had been subjected, being a foreigner from an enemy country. There was also the language barrier. While perfectly fluent, he’d never felt at ease in English. He had also railed against New York’s permanent state of frenzy. Everything was chaotic and frivolous.

But there was an altogether different reason for their departure. The real motive was rather shameful—how had her heart hardened to such an extent? Stefan was eager to leave New York because he had found all of Berlin and Vienna in its streets, run into a world of exiles who had lost all their splendour and who limited their talk to tales of woe and complaints. A defeated race wandering amidst the skyscrapers looking for kindred souls to commiserate with. Stefan was leaving New York because he had become a sort of Maecenas there, the person people turned to for support with their visa applications. He was routinely harangued by people wanting money or letters of recommendation. Even though the American authorities had only seen fit to give him a temporary visa, Stefan had been obliged to draft dozens of affidavits, certificates and documents—as well as undertake solemn commitments—just in order to act as a guarantor for a single exile coming out of Germany. He had become a virtual employee of the immigration department. The exiles thought
of him as the Messiah. He had sent wads of cash to Roth, that poor Weiss, as well as Bergmann, Fischer, Masereel and Loerke. He’d fought tooth and nail to obtain an Argentinian visa for Landshoff and two Brazilian passports for Fischer. The phone never stopped ringing. People begged for his help, an affidavit, an affidavit, for Scheller and Friedmann, for those who were still waiting in Marseilles or Portbou. An old woman, whose son was living in Warsaw and whom Stefan had promised to help, had kissed his hand. His intercessions had saved four or five of his friends. Hundreds of people were asking for his support. He had become the First Consul of Stateless Jews.

His energies were beginning to flag at the same time as his premonition that the worst was yet to come was growing
exponentially
. 1941 was going to be the most frightening year in human history, and 1942 would be more frightening still. How could they possibly hope that a stateless writer could obstruct the machinery of death?

The world he had known lay in ruins: the people he had loved were dead; their memory plundered and looted. He had wanted to be a witness, the biographer of humanity’s richest hours; he couldn’t bring himself to serve as the scribe of a barbaric era. His memory took up too much room, and fear occupied too large a suite in his mind. His writing was fed only by nostalgia. He only wrote about the past.

People ensnared in the mousetrap on the other side of the Atlantic had placed their hopes in his hands. As soon as one survivor was granted a visa thanks to Stefan’s efforts, he or she spread the word that Zweig’s powers were limitless, that a single appeal on his part had saved an entire family, that the great Zweig will reply, so long as you write to him, Zweig will help you. Dozens of Jews hung around in front of his hotel. Zweig holds out his
hand, Zweig shelters and supports, he frees and saves. One day, he will heal all the sick and restore sight to the blind. Enough! He wasn’t the Chief Rabbi of all Oppressed Jews, he was simply a writer. He hadn’t chosen to be a Jew, neither did he claim to be one. He didn’t believe in any god, he never prayed, he condemned Zionism, just like he did all forms of nationalism. Hadn’t he already endured enough because of an identity he didn’t even associate with? He had lost everything. He wanted them to leave him be! He was fed up of hearing people talk about their miseries, tired of dispensing alms, tired of stories of murders and tortures, of internment camps, of queues of starving people, of legions of exiles, of men who gave themselves over to death, of hearing of souls on the brink of falling apart. He yearned for the peaceful immensity of valleys and plains, for mountains rising from the living earth, the green froth of the sea, the enormousness of the starry sky. He yearned for Brazil.

He had to tell those beggars, lost in their torments, to go and find themselves another Zweig, all enquiries addressed to Stefan Zweig would now be poste restante. They should instead turn to Thomas Mann or Franz Werfel, or Brecht, who still held out hope in Germany, plead their case to Bernanos and Breton, Fierce Fighters of the Free French, they should go knock on Einstein’s door, who believed in such a thing as a Jewish nation, yes, those were the heroes and the Righteous.

He had been among the first to flee and was the last of the cowards, the last man, the last Zweig.

They walked together down the streets of Petrópolis. Looking into the distance, they could gaze on the slopes of the Serra dos
Órgãos, whose impressive bulk cast a sort of serenity on the city, made it feel like it was protected, just like the Corcovado did in Rio. They headed towards the city centre, going through alleyways lined with hydrangeas in bloom. They came across a river where a young boy was fishing with a makeshift rod and where the air was imbued with the smell of herbs. A hummingbird came to rest on an orchid. A monkey’s cry rang out from the other side of the river. The hummingbird flew away. They resumed their walk. A wooden bridge spanned the river. A few metres ahead stood an astonishing palace with a crystal and iron facade. Stefan told Lotte about the history of that building, which an aristocrat had given to his wife fifty years earlier. The man had imported all the building materials from France in order to erect a monument to his wife’s glory. Hearing those words, Lotte began to dream of how Stefan might one day dedicate one of his books to her—like he had dedicated
The Struggle with the Daemon
to Freud, or
Adepts in Self-Portraiture
to Einstein—a book that would stand as a testament to their love. Rounding a street corner, they came upon a broad boulevard flanked by imposing baroque mansions. They might as well have been in a German city. Had fate brought them here? It was if Germany were stuck to their shoes. Petrópolis had been founded by Dom Pedro I, emperor of Brazil, in the previous century as a summer house for his wife, a scion of… the Hapsburgs. Farmers from the Rhineland had been invited to colonize the land and populate the city. Its neighbourhoods were named after German provinces, while blond children mixed with little mulattoes in the streets. Memories of Germany came crashing down on them. “You must be anvil or hammer,” Goethe had once said.

They walked along that boulevard and stopped in front of the building housing the Imperial Museum. With its imposing facade and radiant luxuriousness, the emperor’s summer palace
resembled the Hotel Metropole in Vienna. The Metropole had since been taken over by the Gestapo. If the Germans ever reached Petrópolis, they would no doubt requisition this building too and turn it into their headquarters. They would love the rococo facade, the sumptuous rooms, its glitzy gilding, its majestic chandeliers. They loved everything that was flammable. He pictured the walls hung with giant portraits of Hitler instead of the emperor. The SS would have the time of their lives in the palace cellars, where they could revel in their games of torture.

Lotte felt tired. She was short of breath. Stefan uttered a few soothing words, they were almost there. Just a little farther, and they would be at the Hotel Solar do Império, where they had decided to lunch. A bellboy opened the door and welcomed them in English. Stefan was an Englishman here. They walked down a hall whose walls were studded with lively canvases depicting tropical landscapes. A waiter ushered them into the dining room. They took a seat next to the terrace, from where they could admire the boulders of the Serra dos Órgãos. Watching a mountain range in the middle of the jungle: the last show he’d ever see in his life. The pianist was playing a slow, melancholy
choro
. The waiters asked them what they would like to drink. Stefan ordered champagne and Lotte opted for
camarão casadinho
—shrimp served in puréed cassava—while Stefan dithered between duck with blackberry sauce and
bobó de camarão
. He asked for the waiter’s recommendation. Each was excellent and they were completely different dishes, but which of these did he really fancy for lunch? Lotte decided for him, taking his hand in hers with an ironic smile on her lips. He said she was right to make fun of him. He couldn’t even order lunch. He was going senile. She looked him in the eye and said, with a serious tone, her cheeks flushing a bright crimson as if she were about to do something terribly bold:

“You’ve never been able to make up your mind.”

The champagne was poured. The music grew livelier. They drank, staring at one another intently in silence. When they’d drained their flutes, he wished her a happy anniversary. Tears streamed down Lotte’s cheeks. She explained that she was overwhelmed.

“Two years of marriage…”

He got ready to propose a toast, to swear to her that they’d live to see their silver anniversary, but the waiter arrived with their first courses. He didn’t want to make false promises.

They pictured themselves as they’d been two years earlier in Bath, where they’d snickered at the way the registrar had garbled Zweig’s name twice. They’d had the annex of the council building all to themselves. They hadn’t had any witnesses or friends. No white dress or bridal train for her. Nor a veil or a tiara. They had each said “yes” in their own way: Lotte had done so passionately, while Stefan had replied as though his answer were just a formality. After the registrar had pronounced them married, they had felt embarrassed. When the time had come to walk down the steps of the council building, he’d felt as though he’d just married his own daughter.

Two days later, they had received a missive from the council. Tearing the envelope open, thinking it was the mayor sending him his best wishes, he instead saw that it bore the letterhead of the Foreign Office, informing him that he had been designated an “enemy alien”. The British declaration of war on the Reich had made him a potential enemy of the Crown. An attached letter informed him of his rights and responsibilities. Mr Stefan Zweig was to be confined to house arrest, and allowed to roam free within a five-mile radius of his home. Breaching those conditions would result in criminal charges. Each time he wanted to
go abroad, he would need to ask permission. He was forbidden to pass political comments on the situation. He would have to register with the council in person once a week. “They forgot to tell me to wear a yellow star,” he had reacted. Hitler’s soldiers had threatened him with death, Goebbels had put him in Category 1 of “undesirable and pernicious” writers. The Foreign Office had labelled him a Class B “enemy alien”. He had missed out on Class A, which would have meant imprisonment! In London, he was an enemy and a stranger. As the Germans had summed up, a
Juden
, so the author of
Mary Stuart
was an enemy of the British Crown? What were they afraid of? That Stefan Zweig would launch an attack on 10 Downing Street? Had Freud, his mentor and friend, received a similar letter from the Foreign Office before his death? Was Freud a Class B, an enemy alien? Freud had happily preferred to leave this world behind, in his own manner, at a time of his own choosing.

Vermin in Germany, they were now lepers in Great Britain.

He had moved to London in 1934, choosing the latter over Paris, whose political climate was too unstable thanks to its cabals and factions. He had gone to London to make a break with Austria. He had put down his suitcases believing it was as if he’d surrendered his weapons. He’d hoped the distance would put him beyond the reach of those demons. Yet the demons had followed him, crossing the Continent and the Channel, where they had started haunting the island. The Devil had taken up residence in his very soul.

He had put himself out of harm’s way while they tortured his friends in Dachau. With each passing month, the Reich built another step for the gallows. When he’d first arrived in London, he’d lived in an apartment on Hallam Street. He had then moved
to the smaller town of Bath, in the vicinity of Bristol. Following five long years of exile, he had obtained a passport thanks to the intervention of Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells—and when he had finally become a British citizen, war had been declared on Germany. As a result, people started seeing spies around every street corner. It became inadvisable to be heard speaking German. Suspicion weighed heavily on the exiles. On that passport, which he’d won after a protracted struggle, they had added “enemy alien” in black ink. Enemy of the Reich and the British Crown. He had become a pariah. An ardent humanist, Zweig had become an enemy of the human race.