The night in Lisbon

by Erich Maria Remarque

  "That's it!" Schwarz's eyes were full of gratitude. "You said that memory can turn to stone only if we die. That's what I am going to do."

  "I was talking nonsense," I said wearily. I hated such conversations. I had known so many neurotics; exile produces them as rain produces mushrooms.

  "I'm not going to take my life," said Schwarz, and smiled, as though he knew what I was thinking. "Human lives are too much needed right now. I'm only going to die as Josef Schwarz. Tomorrow morning when I leave you, Josef Schwarz will be dead."

  A thought passed through my mind, and with it a wild hope. "What are you going to do?" I asked.

  "Disappear."

  "As Josef Schwarz?"

  "Yes."

  "Just the name?"

  "Everything that was Josef Schwarz is going to disappear. My former self."

  "What will you do with your passport?"

  "I won't be needing it."

  "Have you another?"

  Schwarz shook his head. "I don't need one."

  "Is there an American visa in it?"

  "Yes."

  "Would you sell it to me?" I asked, though I had no money.

  Schwarz shook his head.

  "Why not?"

  "I can't sell it," said Schwarz. "I received it as a present. But I can give it to you. Tomorrow morning. Can you use it?"

  "Good Lord!" I said breathlessly. "Use it! It would save my life. There's no American visa in mine, and I have no idea how I'd get one by tomorrow."

  Schwarz smiled sadly. "How things repeat themselves. You remind me of the time when Schwarz was dying; I sat in his room, and I couldn't think of anything but that passport that would make me a human being again. Fine. I'll give you mine. You'll only have to change the picture. The age must be about right."

  "Thirty-nine," I said.

  "You'll be five years older. Have you got somebody who's good with passports?"

  "Yes," I replied. "I know a man here. It's easy to change the picture."

  Schwarz nodded. "Easier than a personality." He stared into space for a moment. "Wouldn't it be strange if you were to develop an interest in paintings? Like Schwarz—and then myself?"

  A shudder ran through me. "A passport is a piece of paper," I said. "It's not magic."

  "No?" said Schwarz.

  "Well, yes," I answered. "But not that way. How long did you stay in Paris?"

  I was in such a turmoil over Schwarz's promise to give me his passport that I didn't hear what he said. I could think only about what I would have to do to get a visa for Ruth. I could try to pass her off as my sister. But it probably wouldn't work; they were very strict at American consulates. I'd have to try though, unless a second miracle happened. Then I heard Schwarz speaking.

  "One day he turned up in our room in Paris," he said. "It had taken him six weeks, but he found us. This time he didn't send somebody from the German consulate. He came in person and there he stood in the hotel room with the eighteenth-century pastoral prints—Georg Jürgens, Obersturmbannführer, Helen's brother, tall, broad-shouldered, two hundred pounds or over, and ten times as German as in Osnabrück, despite his civilian clothes. He glared at us.

  " 'So it was all lies,' he said. 'I thought there was something fishy.'

  " "That shouldn't surprise you,' I said. 'It stinks wherever you go. I wonder why.'

  "Helen laughed. 'Stop laughing!' Georg shouted.

  " 'Stop shouting!' I said. 'Or I'll have you thrown out.'

  " 'Why don't you try to do it yourself?'

  "I shook my head. 'Are you still playing the hero when there's no danger? You outweigh me by twenty pounds. Nobody would put us in the ring together. What do you want?'

  " 'That's none of your business, you God-damned traitor. Get out. I want to talk to my sister.'

  " 'Stay right here!' said Helen to me. She was bristling with rage. Slowly she rose from her chair and picked up a marble ash tray. 'One more word in that tone and you'll get this in your face,' she said very calmly. 'This isn't Germany.'

  " 'No, unfortunately. But never mind. It soon will be.'

  " 'Never,' cried Helen. 'Maybe you armed robots will conquer it for a while, but it will still be France. Is that what you've come here to talk about?'

  " 'I've come here to take you home. Don't you know what will happen to you if the war catches you here?'

  "'Not much.'

  " 'They'll put you in prison.'

  "Helen was taken aback for a moment. 'Maybe they'll put us in a camp,' I said. 'But it will be an internment camp—not a concentration camp as in Germany. . . .'

  " 'What do you know about it?' Georg sneered.

  " 'Plenty,' I answered. 'I was in one of yours, thanks to you.'

  " 'You worm. You were in a rehabilitation camp,' said Georg contemptuously. 'But it didn't do you any good. The moment you were released, you deserted.'

  " 'I admire your terminology,' I said. 'If anyone escapes from your clutches, it's desertion.'

  " 'What else would you call it? Your orders were not to leave Germany.'

  "I made a disparaging gesture. I had had enough talks of this kind with Georg before he had the power to lock me up.

  " 'Georg always was an idiot,' said Helen. 'A weakling with big muscles. He needs his armored philosophy as a fat woman needs a corset, because without it he wouldn't have any shape at all. Don't argue with him. He makes a lot of noise because he's weak.'

  " 'Cut it out!' said Georg more peaceably than I had expected. 'Pack your things, Helen. The situation is serious. We're taking the train tonight.'

  "'How serious?'

  " "There's going to be war. Otherwise I wouldn't be here.'

  "'You'd be here anyway,' said Helen. 'Just the same as you were in Switzerland two years ago when I didn't want to go back. It's upsetting to a loyal party man to have a sister who doesn't want to live in Germany. You persuaded me to go back. But this time I'm staying right here and there's no point in talking about it.'

  "Georg glared at her. 'Because of this miserable scoundrel? I suppose he talked you into it.'

  "Helen laughed. 'Scoundrel—I haven't heard that word in a long time. It sounds like the Middle Ages! No, this scoundrel, my husband, didn't talk me into anything. He actually did his best to send me back. For better reasons than yours.'

  "I want to speak to you alone,' said Georg.

  " 'It won't do you any good.'

  " 'You're my sister.'

  " 'I'm a married woman.'

  " 'That's not a blood relationship,' said Georg. Then suddenly he took the tone of an offended child. 'You haven't even offered me a chair. Here I come all the way from Osnabrück and you don't even ask me to sit down.'

  "Helen laughed. 'This isn't my room. My husband pays the rent.'

  " 'Be seated, Obersturmbannführer and minion of Hitler,' I said. 'But don't stay too long.'

  "Georg gave me an angry look and sat down with a crash on the decrepit couch. 'I'd like to speak to my sister alone. Can't you get that through your head?'

  " 'Did you let me speak to her alone when you had me arrested?' I asked him.

  " 'That was entirely different.'

  " 'With Georg and his party comrades, what they do is always entirely different,' said Helen. 'When they kill or arrest people for disagreeing with them, when they send you to a concentration camp, they are defending the besmirched honor of the Fatherland—am I right, Georg?'

  " 'Exactly.'

  " 'He's always right,' Helen went on. 'Never any doubts, never any qualms of conscience. He's always on the right side, where the power is. He's like his Führer—the most peace-loving man in the world as long as everybody does what he says. The others are always the troublemakers. Am I right, Georg?'

  " 'What has that to do with us?'

  " 'Nothing,' said Helen. 'And everything. Don't you see how ridiculous your self-righteousness is in this city of tolerance? Even dressed as a civilian, you're always wearing boots to trample people with. But here you haven't any power.
Not yet. Here you can't enroll me in your sweaty, flat-footed National Socialist Women's Association. Here you can't treat me like a prisoner. Here I can breathe, and I mean to stay here and keep on breathing.'

  " 'You have a German passport. There's going to be a war. You'll be sent to prison.'

  " 'Not right away. Anyway, I'd rather be in prison here than in Germany. Because you'd have to lock me up, too. It wouldn't be the same now that I've breathed the sweet air of freedom, now that I know what it's like to be away from you and your barracks and your human stud farms and your horrid shouting. I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut any more.'

  "I stood up. I couldn't stand to see her laying herself bare before this National Socialist vulgarian, who would never understand her. 'It's all his fault!' Georg snarled. 'Damned cosmopolitan. He's corrupted you. You just wait, we'll settle your hash.'

  "He stood up, too. He could easily have beaten me up. He was twice my size, and the course in national rehabilitation they had put me through in the concentration camp had left me with a stiff elbow. 'Don't you lay a finger on him!' said Helen very softly.

  " 'The coward!' said Georg. 'Why do you have to defend him? Can't he look after himself?'"

  Schwarz turned to me. "It's a curious thing about sheer physical brawn. We know it has nothing to do with courage or strength of character. A gun in the hand of a cripple can deflate the biggest bag of brawn and muscle. You know all that and even so you feel humiliated because you can't stand up to one of these stupid bruisers. You know that it's not a contest of courage, that this bully is probably a perfect coward —but it doesn't do a particle of good. You look for excuses, you want to justify yourself, you feel like a worm because you don't want to be beaten to a pulp. You know what I mean?"

  I nodded. "We know how absurd it is. But that makes us feel even worse."

  "If he had attacked me, I'd have defended myself," said Schwarz. "I swear I would have."

  I raised my hand. "Why do you say that, Mr. Schwarz? You don't have to explain these things to me."

  He smiled feebly. "I guess not. I'm still trying to justify myself. That shows how deep it goes. It's like a barb in the flesh. I wonder if we ever get over this male vanity?"

  "What happened?" I asked. "Did you fight?"

  "No. Helen began to laugh. 'Will you look at that fool,' she said to me. 'He thinks that if he beats you up, I'll see how unmanly you are; he thinks I'll repent and go back to the land where the fist reigns supreme.' She turned to Georg. 'You have the gall to call my husband a coward. He's shown more courage than you can even conceive of. He came for me. He came back to Germany to bring me out.'

  " 'What?' Georg's eyes nearly popped out of his head. 'To Germany?'

  "Helen recollected herself. 'Forget it. I'm here and I'm not going back.'

  " 'He came to get you?' Georg asked. 'Who helped him?'

  " 'Nobody,' said Helen. 'You'd like to arrest a few people, wouldn't you?'

  "I had never seen her like that—trembling with revulsion, hatred, and blazing triumph at having escaped from his clutches. I felt the same way; but another thought struck me with blinding force—the thought of revenge. Georg had no power here. He couldn't whistle for his Gestapo. He was alone.

  "I was completely shaken. I had to do something, but I didn't know what. I couldn't fight and I had no desire to. What I wanted was to blot this man out. To wipe him off the face of the earth. Without a trial. You don't try an incarnation of evil, and that was how I felt about Georg. It wasn't just revenge—to destroy him would be to save dozens of unknown victims. I went to the door. I had no idea of what I was going to do. My head was reeling and I was surprised that I didn't fall. I had to be alone. I had to think. Helen watched me closely, but said nothing. Georg eyed me with contempt and sat down again. 'At last,' he growled, when I closed the door behind me.

  "I went down the stairs. Smells rose from the kitchen: fish for lunch. There was an Italian chest on the next landing. I had passed any number of times and never noticed it. Now I examined the carvings as if I were planning to buy it. Then I continued on like a sleepwalker. On the third floor a door was open. The room was painted light green, the windows were open, and the chambermaid was turning the mattress. Strange all the things you notice when you're so excited you think you can't see a thing. I knocked at the door of a man I knew on the second floor. His name was Fischer and he had once shown me his revolver. He kept it because it made life easier to bear. The possibility of putting an end to his God-forsaken refugee's existence any time he pleased gave him the illusion that he was keeping on of his own free will.

  "Fischer was out, but his room wasn't locked. He had nothing to hide. I went in to wait for him. I had no definite plan, but I knew I had to borrow that gun. It would be absurd to kill Georg in the hotel, that was plain to me; it would have endangered Helen and myself and the other refugees who lived there. I sat down in a chair and tried to calm myself. I didn't succeed. I just sat there, staring into space.

  "A canary began to sing. It was in a wire cage hanging between the windows. I hadn't noticed it before and started as though someone had bumped into me. Then Helen came in.

  " 'What are you doing here?' she asked.

  " 'Nothing. Where is Georg?'

  " 'He's gone.'

  "I didn't know how long I had been in Fischer's room. Not very long, it seemed to me. 'Will he be back?' I asked.

  " T don't know. He's stubborn. Why did you go away? To leave us alone?'

  " 'No, Helen,' I said. 'I just couldn't stand the sight of him any longer.'

  "She stood in the doorway and looked at me. 'Do you hate me?'

  " 'Hate you?' I asked in profound astonishment. 'Why?'

  " 'The thought came to me after Georg had gone. If you hadn't married me, all this wouldn't have happened to you.'

  " 'The same thing would have happened. Or worse. Maybe in his own way Georg was easier on me for your sake. They didn't drive me into the electric barbed wire, they didn't hang me on a meat hook. ... I hate you? How could you even think of such a thing?'

  "Suddenly I saw the green summertime through Fischer's windows. The room was in the rear; there was a chestnut tree in the court, and the sun filtered through the leaves. My hysteria seeped away like a hangover in the late afternoon. I was myself again. I knew what day of the week it was; I knew that it was summer outside, that I was in Paris, and that you don't shoot people down like rabbits. 'I could more easily imagine you hating me,' I said. 'Or despising me.'

  " 'Despising you?'

  " 'Yes. Because I can't keep your brother away. Because I . . .'

  "I was silent. The minutes that had just passed were far away. 'What are we doing here?' I asked. 'In this room?'

  "We went up the stairs. 'Everything Georg said is true,' I said. 'You must know that. If war comes, we will be enemy aliens; you even more than I.'

  "Helen opened the windows and the door. 'It stinks of army boots and terror,' she said. 'Let the summer in. Let's leave the windows open and go out. Isn't it time for lunch?'

  " 'Yes, and it's time to leave Paris.'

  " 'Why?'

  " 'Georg will try to make trouble for me with the police.'

  " 'He doesn't know you have a false passport.'

  " 'He'll figure it out. And he'll be back.'

  " 'Maybe so. But I'll get rid of him. Let's go out.'

  * * *

  "We went to a little restaurant behind the Palais de Justice and ate at a table on the sidewalk. There was pâté maison, boeuf a la mode, salad, and Camembert. We drank Vouvray en carafe and ended up with coffee. I remember all that very clearly, even the golden crust of the bread and the chipped coffee cups. I was exhausted and at the same time full of gratitude, not toward anyone in particular; in general. I felt as if I had escaped out of a dark, dirty ditch and didn't even dare to look back because I myself had unconsciously been a part of the muck. But now I had escaped, and I was sitting at a table with a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth, feeling
cleansed and safe. The sun shone yellow through the wine, sparrows were scolding on a heap of horse manure, the owner's cat was watching them with well-fed disinterest, a light breeze was blowing across the silent square, and life was as beautiful as it can only be in our dreams.

  "Later we walked through the honey-colored Paris afternoon and stopped outside the window of a small dressmaking establishment. We had often stood there. 'You ought to have a new dress,' I said.

  " 'Now?' Helen asked. 'With the war about to break out? Isn't that extravagant?'