The night in Lisbon

by Erich Maria Remarque

  "She saw by the look on my face that I wasn't up on these things. 'They do that in bad years to make sour wine sweeter,' she explained with a laugh. 'It's a swindle that the master race thought up to help the export trade and take in hard currency.'

  "She handed me the bottles and the corkscrew. I opened a bottle of Moselle. Helen brought in two thin glasses. 'How did you get so brown?' I asked.

  " 'I was in the mountains in March. Skiing.'

  " 'You ski in the nude?'

  " 'No, but you don't need clothes for sun-bathing.'

  " 'Since when have you known how to ski?'

  " 'Someone taught me,* she said with a look of defiance.

  " 'That's nice,' I said. 'It's supposed to be very good for you.'

  "I filled a glass and held it out to her. The wine was tart and more aromatic than Burgundy. I hadn't had any like it since I had left Germany.

  " 'Don't you want to know who taught me?' Helen asked.

  " 'No.'

  "She looked at me in surprise. In former days I would probably have questioned her all night. Now I didn't care in the least. The weightless unreality of the early evening was back again. 'You've changed,' she said.

  " 'You've said the opposite at least twice,' I countered. 'It makes no difference either way.'

  "She held her glass, but did not drink. 'Maybe I'd rather you hadn't changed.'

  "I drank. 'Because that would make it easier to crush me?'

  " 'Did I crush you before?'

  " 'I don't know. I don't think so. It's been a long time. When I remember how I was then, I can't see why you shouldn't have tried.'

  " 'One always tries; don't you know that?'

  " 'No,' I said. 'But you've warned me at least. The wine is good. I guess the fermentation wasn't interrupted.'

  " 'Like yours?'

  " 'Helen,' I said, 'you're very exciting—and funny to boot. That's a most unusual and delightful combination.'

  " 'Don't be so sure,' she said irritably, and sat down on the bed, still holding her glass.

  " 'I'm not sure of anything,' I said, smiling. 'But uncertainty has its points. If it doesn't kill you, it can lead to an unshakable certainty. That's a lot of big words, but they only reflect the experience of a rolling stone.'

  " 'Rolling stone?*

  'Like me. A man who can't stop anywhere, who can never settle down. The existence of a refugee. Or a Buddhist mendicant monk. Or modern man. There are more refugees in the world than you think. A good many of them have never left home.'

  " 'That doesn't sound so bad,' said Helen. 'Better than bourgeois stagnation.'

  "I nodded. 'But it can be described in a different way; then it's not so attractive. Luckily we lack imagination. Otherwise so many people wouldn't volunteer to go to war.'

  " 'Anything is better than stagnation,' said Helen, draining her glass.

  "I watched her as she drank. How young she is, I thought, how young and inexperienced, how defiant and lovable, how dangerous and foolish. She doesn't know a thing. She doesn't even know that bourgeois stagnation is a moral, not a geographical, condition.

  " 'Would you like to go back to it?' she asked.

  " 'I don't think I could. My country has made me a cosmopolitan against my will. I can't change now. It's never possible to go back.'

  " 'Not even to a person?'

  " 'Not even to a person,' I said. 'Even the earth rolls. It's a refugee from the sun. You can never go back. It's no use trying; you come to grief.'

  " 'Thank the Lord for that.' Helen held out her glass to me. 'Haven't you ever wanted to go back?'

  " 'Always,' I said. 'I never follow my theories. That's what makes them so endearing.'

  "Helen laughed. 'You've been talking a lot of nonsense.'

  " 'Of course. It's pure flimflam to hide something else.'

  " 'What?'

  " 'Something that can't be put into words.'

  " 'Something that happens only at night?' . "I did not answer. I sat quietly on the bed. The wind of time had been howling in my ears. Now it had stopped blowing. I felt as if I had moved from a plane to a balloon. I was still floating through the air; but there was no longer any sound of engines.

  " 'What's your name now?' Helen asked.

  "'Josef Schwarz.'

  "She pondered a moment. 'Then am I Mrs. Schwarz?'

  "I had to smile. 'No, Helen. It's just a name. The man I got it from had inherited it himself. I'm the third generation. A long-dead Josef Schwarz is living on in me like the Wandering Jew. A total stranger, but my spiritual ancestor.'

  '"You didn't know him?'

  " 'No.'

  " 'Does it make you feel different to have another name?'

  " 'Yes,' I said. 'Because a piece of paper goes with it. A passport.'

  "'Even if it's false?'

  "I laughed. That was a question from another world. The authenticity of a passport depended on the policeman who checked it. 'You could write a philosophical parable about that,' I said. 'It would begin with the question of what a name is. Accident or identification.'

  " 'A name is a name,' said Helen with obstinacy. 'I defended mine. It was yours, Now you come along and you've picked up another one somewhere.'

  " 'It was a present,' I said. To me it was the most precious present in the world. I'm glad to bear it. To me it means kindness. Humanity. If I ever despair, it will remind me that kindness is not dead. What does your name remind you of? Of a family of Prussian soldiers and hunters with the mentality of foxes, wolves, and peacocks.'

  " 'I didn't mean my family's name,' said Helen, balancing a slipper on her toes. 'I still bear yours. The old one, Mr. Schwarz.'

  "I uncorked the second bottle of wine. 'I've been told that it's the custom in Indonesia to change names now and then. If you're sick of your personality, you change it, take a new name, and start a new life. A good idea!'

  " 'Have you started a new life?'

  " 'Today,' I said.

  "She let the slipper fall to the floor. 'Don't people take something with them into a new existence?'

  " 'An echo,' I said.

  " 'No memory?'

  " That's what an echo is. A memory that has stopped hurting and making you feel ashamed.'

  " 'Like looking at a film?' Helen asked.

  "She looked as if she were going to throw her glass in my face any minute. I took it from her hand and poured in some wine from the second bottle. 'What kind of wine is this?' I asked.

  " 'Schloss Reinhartshausener. A great Rhine wine. Fully matured. Fully fermented. Not tampered with. Doesn't try to palm itself off as something else.'

  "'Not a refugee?'I said.

  " 'Not a chameleon that changes color. Not somebody who side-steps his responsibilities.'

  " 'Good Lord, Helen! Do I hear sounds of bourgeois respectability? Weren't you trying to get away from stagnation?'

  " 'You make me say things I don't mean,' she answered angrily. 'What are we talking about? And what for? The first night! Why don't we kiss or hate each other?'

  " 'That's just what we're doing.'

  " 'Words. Where do you find so many words? Is it right that we should be sitting here talking?'

  " 'I don't know what's right.'

  " 'Where do you get all the words? Have you been talking so much? Have you had so much company?'

  " 'No,' I said. 'So little. That's why words come tumbling out of me now like apples out of a basket. I'm just as surprised as you are.'

  " 'Is that the truth?'

  " 'Yes, Helen,' I said. 'It's the truth. Don't you see what it means?'

  " 'Can't you say it more simply?'

  "I shook my head.

  " 'Why not?'

  " 'Because I'm afraid of direct statements. And afraid of words that add up to a statement. You may not believe me, but it's so. And besides, there's my fear of the anonymous fear that is slinking through the streets somewhere, that I don't want to think or talk about, because of a stupid superstition which tells me that danger is
n't there if I take no notice of it. That's why we talk in this way. When we talk like this, time seems suspended—as in a film that's torn. Everything stands still. Nothing can happen.'

  " 'That's too deep for me.'

  " 'For me, too. Isn't it enough that I'm here with you, that you're still alive, and that I haven't been caught yet?'

  " 'Is that what you've come for?'

  "I didn't answer. She sat there like a diminutive Amazon, naked, holding a glass of wine, demanding, giving no ground, crafty and bold, and I realized that in our former life I had known nothing about her. I couldn't see how she had endured life with me. It was as if I had had a pet, a sweet little lamb— or so I thought—and treated it like a lamb, and as though my pet had turned out to be a young puma, who had no interest whatever in blue ribbons and soft brushes, and was perfectly capable of biting the hand that reaches out to caress her.

  "I was on dangerous ground. As you can imagine, I hadn't given a very good account of myself this first night. My failure had been classical, abject. I had expected as much, and maybe it happened because I expected it. The truth is that I was impotent, but luckily, because I had expected to be, I hadn't made the desperate efforts that are usual in such cases. It's all very well to be superior about it and say that only stable-boys are immune to that kind of thing. Women may even pretend to understand and respond with embarrassing motherly kindness, but any way you look at it, it's a miserable business, and the more seriously you take it, the more ridiculous it becomes.

  "Since I had given none of the usual explanations, Helen was upset, and because she was upset, she attacked me. She couldn't understand why I hadn't made love to her, and she felt offended. I should simply have told her the truth, but I'd have had to be calmer than I was. There are two kinds of truth in such matters—one, in which you expose yourself, and a second, strategic truth, in which you don't risk anything. I had learned in the course of five years that if you stick your neck out, you shouldn't be surprised to be shot at.

  " 'People in my situation get superstitious,' I said to Helen. They imagine that if they say or do something directly, the opposite will happen. That's what makes them so careful. With their words, too.'

  " 'How senseless.'

  "I laughed. 'I gave up trying to make sense out of things long ago. If I hadn't, I'd be as bitter as a wild lemon.'

  " 'I hope you're not too superstitious.'

  " 'I'll tell you how superstitious I am,' I said very calmly. 'I honestly believe that if I were to tell you I loved you beyond all measure, I'd hear the Gestapo pounding on the door a minute later.'

  "For a moment she held as still as an animal that has heard an unaccustomed sound. Then she slowly turned her face toward me. It had changed completely. 'Is that really the reason?' she asked softly.

  " 'That's only one reason,' I replied. 'How can you expect me to keep my thoughts in order when I've just been transported from a complete hell into a dangerous paradise?'

  " 'I've often tried to imagine what it would be like if you came back,' she said after a while. 'The reality is entirely different.'

  "I was careful not to ask in what way. People tend to ask too many questions in love, and once you begin really wanting to know the answers, love is on its way out. 'It's always different,' I said. 'Thank heaven.'

  "She smiled. 'It's never different, Josef. It just seems so. Is there still any wine?'

  "She circumnavigated the bed like a dancer, put her glass down on the floor beside her, and stretched out. She was tanned by a sun I had never seen and carefree in her nakedness—after the manner of a woman who knows she is desirable and has often been told so.

  " 'When do I have to leave?' I asked.

  " 'The maid won't be here tomorrow.'

  "'The day after?'

  "Helen nodded. 'It was simple. This is Saturday. I told her to take the weekend off. She won't be back until Monday noon. She has a lover. A policeman with a wife and two children.'

  "She peered at me from under half-closed eyelids. 'She was delighted.'

  "From outside came singing and the sound of marching. 'What's that?'I asked.

  " 'Soldiers or Hitler Youth. Here in Germany somebody is always marching.'

  "I stood up and looked out between the curtains. It was a detachment of Hitler Youth. 'It's weird,' I said, 'the way you don't take after your family.'

  " 'It must be my French grandmother,' said Helen. 'They keep her a secret, as if she had been Jewish.'

  "She yawned and stretched. All at once she was perfectly relaxed, as though we had been living together for weeks and there was no danger to be feared from outside. So far we had both done our best not to speak of danger. And Helen had asked me nothing about my life in exile. I didn't realize that she had seen through me and already made a decision.

  " 'Don't you want to sleep some more?' she asked.

  "It was one o'clock. I lay down. 'Can't we leave a light on?' I asked. 'I sleep better that way. I'm not used to the German darkness yet.'

  "She gave me a quick look. 'Leave them all on if you want to, dearest.'

  "We lay close together. I could hardly remember that once upon a time we had slept in the same bed night after night. It was like a pale shadow, a colorless memory. Helen was with me, but in a different way, with a strange new intimacy. I recognized only the anonymous things about her, her breath, the smell of her hair, but most of all the scent of her skin, long lost and not yet fully returned, but there just the same, and already wiser than the brain. What comfort there is in the skin of someone you love! How much more intelligent it is than the mouth with its lies! I lay awake that night and held Helen in my arms and saw the light and the room that I knew and did not know, and in the end I stopped asking myself questions. Helen woke up once again. 'Did you have many women in France?' she murmured without opening her eyes.

  " 'No more than necessary,' I replied. 'And none like you.' "She sighed and tried to turn over, but sleep overpowered her first and she sank back. Slowly sleep overcame me, too, no dreams came, and toward morning I awoke and every barrier between us was gone. I reached out for her and she came to me willingly. We fell back into sleep as into a cloud gleaming with light, and there was no more darkness.

  CHAPTER 6

  "In the morning I phoned the hotel in Münster where I had left my suitcase and explained that I had been detained in Osnabrück but would be back that night; they should keep the room for me. That was a precaution; I didn't want to be reported on suspicion of trying to beat my hotel bill and find the police waiting for me. An indifferent voice said yes, of course, they would keep the room. I asked if there were any mail for me. No, there was no mail.

  "I hung up. Helen was standing behind me. 'Mail?' she said. 'Whom are you expecting to hear from?'

  " 'No one. I only said that to avert suspicion. Somehow people who are expecting mail aren't taken for swindlers.'

  " 'Are you a swindler?'

  " 'Against my will. But there can be a certain amount of fun in it.'

  "She laughed. 'You're going back to Münster tonight?'

  " I can't stay here any longer. Your maid will be back tomorrow. It would be too risky to take a hotel room in Osnabrück. In Minister no one is likely to recognize me on the street, and it's only an hour away.'

  " 'How long are you planning to stay in Münster?'

  " 'I won't know that until I'm there. In time you develop a kind of sixth sense—for danger.'

  " 'Do you sense danger here?'

  " 'Yes,' I said. 'Since this morning. I didn't yesterday.'

  "She knit her brows. 'Of course you mustn't go out,' she said.

  " 'Not before dark. And then only on my way to the station.'

  "Helen did not comment. 'Everything will work out all right,' I said. 'Don't give it a thought. I've learned to live from hour to hour, but without quite forgetting the next day.'

  " 'Have you?' Helen asked. 'That's convenient.' She had the same tone of slight annoyance as the evening before.
<
br />   " 'It's not just convenient,' I said. 'It's necessary. But even so, I forget things now and then. I should have brought a razor from Münster. By evening I'll look like a tramp. According to the refugee's handbook, that's the first thing to avoid.'

  " 'There's a razor in the bathroom,' said Helen. The one you left five years ago. You'll find shirts and underwear, too, and your old suits are hanging in the closet.'