The night in Lisbon

by Erich Maria Remarque

  "I had packed a suitcase with a few things that might come in handy. We decided it would be best for me not to get into the car in front of the house, but down the street on Hitler-Platz. Helen would take the suitcase.

  "I reached the street unseen. A warm wind was blowing. The trees rustled in the darkness. Helen caught up with me on the square. 'Get in,' she whispered. 'Hurry.'

  "The car was a closed cabriolet. Helen's face was illumined by the dashboard light. Her eyes sparkled. 'I'd better drive carefully,' she said. 'An accident means police—that's all we need.'

  "I did not reply. Refugees don't speak of such things. It invites calamity. Helen laughed and drove along the ramparts. She was all keyed up, as though the whole thing were an adventure. She kept talking to herself or to the car. When she had to stop near a traffic policeman, she muttered words of prayer; and when there was a red light, she pleaded with it: 'Get a move on. Turn green. What are you waiting for?' Her levity baffled me. To me it was our last hour. I had no idea of the decision she had made.

  "Once we were out of town, she calmed down. 'When are you planning to leave Münster?' she asked.

  "I didn't know, because I had no place to go. I only knew that I could not stay long. Fool's luck can't hold out forever; there comes a warning. You feel that your time is up. I felt that now. 'Tomorrow,' I said.

  "For a while she said nothing. Then she asked, 'How do you think you'll go about it?'

  "I had thought it over while sitting alone in the dark living room. It would be too risky to take the train and simply show my passport at the border. They might perfectly well ask me for other papers, an exit visa, proof that I had paid the emigration tax—I had no such papers. 'The same way I came,' I said. 'Through Austria. Across the Rhine into Switzerland. At night.' I turned toward Helen. 'Let's not talk about it,' I said. 'Or as little as possible.'

  "She nodded. 'I've brought some money. You'll need it. If you sneak across the border, you can take it with you. Can it be changed in Switzerland?'

  " 'Yes, but won't you need it yourself?'

  " I can't take it with me. I'll be searched at the border. We're only allowed to take out a few marks.'

  "I gaped at her. What was she talking about? It must have been a slip of the tongue. 'How much is there?' I asked.

  "Helen gave me a quick look. 'Not as little as you think. I put it aside a long time ago. It's in the bag.'

  "She motioned toward a small leather bag. 'It's mostly in hundred-mark notes. But there's a package of twenty-mark notes, too, for Germany, so you won't have to change any big ones. Take it. It's your money anyway.'

  " 'Didn't the party confiscate my account?'

  " 'Yes, but not soon enough. I was able to draw this out first. Someone in the bank helped me. I wanted to have it for you. I was going to send it, but I never knew where you were.'

  "'I didn't write you because I thought you were being watched. I didn't want them to send you to a camp, too.'

  " 'That's not the only reason,' said Helen calmly.

  " 'No, maybe not.'

  "We drove through a village with white Westphalian houses and thatched roofs and black wooden beams. Young men in uniform were strutting about. The Horst Wessel song came roaring from a beer hall.

  " 'There's going to be war,' said Helen. 'Is that why you've come back?'

  " 'How do you know there's going to be war?'

  " 'From Georg. Is that why you've come?'

  "Why was she still so eager to know that, I wondered. Now that I was leaving again.

  " 'Yes, Helen,' I said. 'That's one reason.'

  " 'You came to get me?'

  "I stared at her. 'Good Lord, Helen,' I said finally. 'Don't talk like that. You have no idea what it's like out there. It's not a lark. And if war breaks out, it will be awful. The Germans will all be locked up.'

  "We had to stop at a grade crossing. Outside the gatekeeper's hut there was a little garden full of dahlias and roses. The rods of the gate sang in the wind like harp strings. Other cars stopped behind us—a small Opel containing four stout, solemn-looking men; an open green two-seater with an old woman in it; then, silently, a black Mercedes limousine that looked for all the world like a hearse drew up close beside us. The driver was wearing a black SS uniform, and in back sat two SS officers with pale faces. The car was so close to us I could have reached into it. The train was a long time in coming. Helen sat beside me in silence. Resplendent with chrome, the Mercedes pushed slightly forward until the radiator nearly touched the gate. It really did seem like a hearse transporting two corpses, like a symbol of the war we had just been talking about; the black uniforms, the cadaverous faces, the silver death's heads, the black car, and the silence that no longer seemed to smell of roses, but of evergreen and putrefaction.

  "The train roared past like life itself. It was an express with sleeping cars and a brightly lighted dining car; you could even see the white tablecloths. When the gate went up, the Mercedes pushed ahead of the other cars into the darkness, like a black torpedo that seemed to make the night still darker and turn the trees to skeletons.

  " I'm going with you,' Helen said.

  " 'What? What's that you're saying?'

  "'Why not?'

  "She stopped the car. The silence descended on us like a silent blow, and then we heard the sounds of the night. 'Why not?' Helen repeated. 'Were you going to leave me behind again?'

  "In the blue glow of the dashboard light she looked as pale as those officers—as though she, too, had been marked by the death that was prowling through the June night. In that moment I knew what I had really feared deep down: that the war would come between us, that we'd never find each other again when it was over, because even with the greatest optimism you can't hope for so much private good luck after an earthquake that would destroy everything.

  " 'If you didn't come to get me, it was a crime for you to come. Don't you see that?' said Helen, suddenly shaken with fury.

  " 'Yes,' I answered.

  " 'Then what's the good of being evasive?'

  " 'I'm not being evasive. But you don't know what it means.'

  " 'Do you? Why did you come then? Don't lie to me. To say good-by again?'

  " 'No.'

  " 'Then why? To stay here and commit suicide?*

  "I shook my head. I knew there was only one answer that she would understand, and only one that it was permissible to give now, even if the whole thing was a pipe dream. I came to get you,' I said. 'Don't you know that yet?'

  "Her face changed. Her anger vanished. She was very beautiful. 'Yes,' she murmured. 'But you have to tell me. Don't you know that yet?'

  "I screwed up my courage. I'll tell you a hundred times, Helen; I'd like to tell you every second—it's what I want most in the world, even if it is impossible.'

  " 'It's not impossible at all. I have a passport.'

  "I said nothing for a moment. The word burst like a lightning flash upon the confusion of my thoughts. 'You have a passport? Valid for foreign travel?'

  "Helen opened her handbag and took out her passport. She not only had it, she had it with her. I looked at it as one might look at the Holy Grail. A valid passport was just that. It was at once a declaration and a right. 'Since when have you had it?' I asked.

  " 'I got it two years ago,' she said. 'It's good for another three. I've used it three times, once to go to Austria, when it was still independent, and for two trips to Switzerland.'

  "I leafed through it. I had to collect my wits. Then the reality sank in. This piece of paper in my hands was a passport. It was no longer impossible for Helen to leave Germany. 'Perfectly simple, isn't it?' she said, watching me.

  "I nodded stupidly. 'You can just take the train and leave.' I looked at the passport again. 'But you haven't a French visa.'

  " 'They'll give me one in Zurich. You don't need a visa for Switzerland.'

  " 'That's true. But what about your family? Will they let you go?'

  " 'I won't ask them. And I won't tell
them anything. I'll say I have to go to Zurich to see the doctor. That's what I did before.'

  " 'Are you sick?'

  " 'Of course not,' said Helen. 'I said that to get a passport, to get out of here. I was stifling.'

  "I remembered that Georg had asked her if she had been to see the doctor. 'You're sure you're not sick?' I asked her again.

  " 'Don't be silly. But my family thinks I am. I convinced them; that was the only way I could have any peace. And leave the country. Martens helped me. It takes time to convince a hundred-percent German that there may be specialists in Switzerland who know more than the authorities in Berlin.'

  "Helen laughed. 'Don't look so shaken. There won't be any danger. I won't be dodging border patrols in the dead of night. I'll say I have to see my doctor in Zurich and simply take the train, the same as I did before. And if you're there, why shouldn't we meet? Does that sound better?'

  " 'Yes,' I said. 'But we'd better drive on. Things are beginning to look so good that I can't help expecting a whole brigade of SS men to come popping out of the woods. I never imagined that it could be so simple.'

  " 'Darling,' said Helen very gently, 'it looks simple because we're desperate. It's a strange kind of compensation. I wonder if it's always that way.'

  " 'I hope we never have to find out.'

  "We left the dusty back road and returned to the highway. 'It's all right with me,' said Helen, without the slightest sign of desperation. 'I'm quite prepared to go on living like this.'

  "She went to the hotel with me. It was amazing how quickly she adapted herself to my situation. 'I'll go into the lobby with you,' she said. 'A man alone always looks more suspicious.'

  " 'You learn quickly.'

  "She shook her head. 'I learned that long ago. After the National Awakening, when people were denouncing their neighbors right and left. It was as if someone had lifted up a big stone—all the vermin came scurrying out. At last they had found a lot of big words to make their meanness and vulgarity look like something else.'

  "The hotel clerk gave me my key, and I went to my room. Helen waited in the lobby.

  "My suitcase was on the stand beside the door. I looked around the anonymous room and tried to remember how I had got there, but already my memory was blurred. I realized that I was no longer hiding on some shore, despairing of ever crossing the river. I was already on a raft—and not alone.

  "I put down the suitcase I had brought and hurried back to the lobby.

  " 'How much time have you got?' I asked Helen.

  " I'll have to return the car tonight.'

  "I looked at her. I wanted her so much that for a moment I couldn't speak. I stared at the brown-and-green chairs in the lobby and at the brightly lighted reception desk with the key rack and mailboxes behind it, and realized that it would be impossible to take Helen to my room. 'We could eat together,' I said. 'Let's act as if we were going to see each other tomorrow.'

  " 'Not tomorrow,' Helen replied. 'The day after.'

  "The day after tomorrow! Maybe that meant something to her. To me it meant just about the same as 'never' or a very unpromising lottery ticket. I had experienced too many days after tomorrow, and they had all turned out differently from what I had hoped.

  " The day after tomorrow,' I said. 'Or the day after that. It depends on the weather. Let's not think of it now.'

  " 'I can't think of anything else,' said Helen.

  "We went to the Domkeller, a restaurant furnished in German Gothic style, and found a table where our conversation could not be overheard. I ordered a bottle of wine, and we settled the details. Helen would go to Zurich next day. There she would wait for me. I would return to Switzerland as I had come, by way of Austria and the Rhine, and call her up when I got to Zurich.

  " 'And what if you don't get there?' she asked.

  " 'They let you write letters in Swiss jails. Wait a week. Then if you haven't heard from me, go back home.'

  "Helen's eyes rested on me. She knew what I meant. In German prisons you don't write letters. 'Is the border closely guarded?' she asked.

  " 'No,' I said. 'And don't worry about it. I got in—why shouldn't I be able to get out?'

  "We tried to ignore this leave-taking but didn't quite succeed. It stood between us like a great black pillar. The best we could do was to look around it from time to time into each other's stricken faces. 'It's like five years ago,' I said. 'Except that this time we're both going.'

  "Helen shook her head. 'Be careful!' she said. 'For God's sake be careful. I'll wait. More than a week. As long as you want me to. Don't take any chances.'

  " I'll be careful. Let's not talk about it any more. Being careful doesn't work if you talk about it too much.'

  "She laid her hand on mine. 'I'm just beginning to realize that you've come back. Now that it's time for you to leave. So late.'

  " 'It's the same with me,' I said. 'But now we know.'

  " 'So late,' she murmured. 'And now you're leaving again.'

  " 'It's not too late,' I said. 'And we've known it all along. Would I have come otherwise, and would you have waited for me?'

  " 'I wasn't always waiting,' she said.

  "I didn't answer. I hadn't been either, but I knew that I must never admit it. Now least of all. We were both absolutely open and defenseless. If we should ever live together, we could always go back to this moment in a noisy restaurant in Münster for strength and reassurance. It would be a mirror; we could look into it, and it would show us two images: what fate had wanted us to be and what it had made of us.

  " 'You'll have to go now,' I said. 'Be careful. Don't drive too fast.'

  "We stood in the windy street between the rows of old houses. 'You be careful,' she whispered. 'You need it more.'

  "I stayed in my room for a while, then I couldn't stand it any longer. I went to the station, bought a ticket to Munich, and made a note of the trains. There was one that night, and I decided to take it.

  "The city was still. I passed the cathedral and stopped. In the darkness I could recognize only a few of the old buildings on the square. I thought of Helen and of what would happen, but my vision of the future became as enormous and indistinct as the great windows high up in the dark facade of the cathedral. Was I doing right in taking her away, I wondered, or would we come to grief? Was I frivolously committing a crime or merely accepting an unprecedented gift? Or maybe both?

  "Near the hotel I heard subdued voices and steps. Two SS men came out of a house door, pushing a man ahead of them into the street. I saw his face in the light of a street lamp. It was narrow and waxen, and a black trickle of blood ran down over his chin from one corner of his mouth. The crown of his head was bald, but there was a growth of dark hair on the sides. His eyes were wide open and full of horror such as I had not seen in years. Not a sound escaped him. The SS men pushed and pulled him impatiently. They were quiet about it. There was something muffled and eerie about the whole scene. The SS men cast furious, challenging glances at me as they passed, and the prisoner stared at me out of paralyzed eyes, making a gesture that seemed to be a plea for help; his lips moved, but not a sound came out. It was a scene as old as humankind: the minions of power, the victim, the eternal third, the onlooker, who doesn't raise a finger in defense of the victim, who makes no attempt to set him free, because he fears for his own safety, which for that very reason is always in danger.

  "I knew I could do nothing for the arrested man. The armed SS men would have overpowered me without difficulty. I remembered that someone had told me about a similar scene. He had seen an SS man arresting and beating a Jew and had come to the Jew's help; he had knocked the SS man unconscious and told the victim to run. But the arrested Jew had cursed his liberator; now, he said, he was really lost, because this, too, would be counted against him; sobbing, he had gone for water to revive the SS man, so that the SS man could lead him to his death. This story came back to me now, but, even so, I was thoroughly ashamed of my fear and helplessness; I felt that it was sinful and f
rivolous to be thinking of my own welfare while others were being murdered. I went to the hotel, gathered up my things, and took a cab to the station, although it was much too early. It was more dangerous to sit in the waiting room than to hide in my hotel room, but that was what I wanted. Pure childishness, but the risk restored my self-respect a little.

  CHAPTER 8

  "I traveled all night and the following day and reached Austria without any trouble. The newspapers were full of recriminations, protests, and the usual reports of frontier incidents'—provoked, of course, by the weaker party—that always precede wars. I saw trains loaded with troops, but most of the people I spoke to didn't think there would be a war. They expected a new Munich; they were convinced that the rest of Europe was much too weak and decadent to risk a war with Germany. It was very different from France, where everyone knew that war was inevitable. But the threatened party always knows more, and knows it sooner, than the aggressor.