" 'Yes,' I said. 'That's why we've got to buy it.'
"She kissed me. 'All right.'
"I sat quietly in an armchair near the door to the back room. The couturière brought in dress after dress, and soon Helen was so absorbed in trying them on that she almost forgot me. I heard the women's voices passing back and forth and saw the dresses flitting by in the opening of the door and caught an occasional glimpse of Helen's bare brown back. I was overcome by a gentle weariness, a kind of painless death without any idea of dying.
"I was slightly ashamed of myself when I realized why I had wanted to buy Helen a dress. It was a revolt against that day, against Georg, against my helplessness—a childish attempt to justify myself. I awoke from my lethargy when Helen
stood before me in a very wide, bright-colored skirt and a black, short, close-fitting sweater. 'Just the thing!' I said. 'We'll take it.'
" 'It's very expensive,' said Helen.
"The dressmaker assured us that it was a model from one of the big houses—a charming lie, but we didn't mind. We walked out happily with our parcels. It was good to buy something you couldn't afford, I thought. The frivolity of the thing dispelled the shadow of Georg. Helen wore the outfit that evening and put it on again when we got up at night to look out of the window at the moonlit city—insatiable as always, economizing on sleep, fully aware that there wasn't much time.
CHAPTER 11
"What's left of all that now?" said Schwarz. "Already the colors have begun to run. The time sequence is blurred; the landscape has lost its contours; there's nothing left but a flat picture under changing light. Not even a coherent picture— it's more like disconnected images rising from the dark stream of memory; the hotel window, a bare shoulder, whispered words that hover in the air like ghosts, the light above the green roof tops, the smell of the river at night, the moon on the gray stone of Notre-Dame, her face, full of love and devotion, another face in Provence and the Pyrenees, and then, that last rigid face I had never seen before, trying to crowd out all the others, as though all the rest had been a mistake."
He raised his head. Again his face had that tortured look, though he tried to force a smile into it. "What's left is in here," he said, pointing to his head. "And even in my mind it's no safer than a dress in a closet full of moths. That's why I'm telling you about it. You'll keep it safe, with you there's no danger. Your memory won't try to wipe it away to save you, as mine does to save me. With me it's in bad hands; even now, that last rigid face is crowding out the others like a cancer—" his voice rose—"but those others were the real faces; they were our life, not that unknown, terrible, last . . ."
"Did you stay on in Paris?" I asked.
"Georg came back once," said Schwarz. "He tried sentimentality and he tried threats. I was out when he came. I didn't see him until he was leaving the hotel. He stopped me. 'You rotter!' he said under his breath. 'You're ruining my sister. But just wait. We'll catch up with you. In a few weeks we'll have you both. And then, my friend, I'll attend to you personally. You'll get down on your knees to me and beg me to finish you off—if you can still speak.'
" 'I can easily imagine that,' I said.
"'You can't imagine anything. If you could, you'd have stayed away. I'll give you one more chance. If my sister is back in Osnabrück in three days, I'll forget part of the score. In three days. Have I made myself plain?'
" 'You were never very subtle.'
" 'Is that so? Well, just don't forget that my sister has to go back. You know that yourself, you swine. She's sick. Don't pretend you don't know it. You can't pull the wool over my eyes.'
"I stared at him. I didn't know whether he was making this up, whether it was true, or whether he was only repeating what Helen had told him when she had first wanted to go to Switzerland. 'No,' I said. 'I don't know anything of the sort.'
" 'You don't, eh? That's convenient. You liar. She needs a doctor. And in a hurry. Write Martens and ask him. He knows.'
"Two men—dark forms against the white daylight—were passing through the open door of the lobby. 'In three days,' Georg said. 'Or you'll vomit out your God-damned soul ounce by ounce. I'll be back soon! In uniform!'
"The men were in the lobby now. He pushed between them and marched off. The two men passed around me and mounted the stairs. I followed them. Helen was standing at the window of her room. 'Did you meet him?' she asked.
" 'Yes. He says you've got to go home because you're sick.'
"She shook her head. 'What he won't think up!'
" 'Are you sick?' I asked.
" 'Nonsense!' she said. 'I just made that up to get a passport.'
" 'He says Martens knows it, too.'
"Helen laughed. 'Of course he knows. Don't you remember? He wrote me when we were in Ascona. I arranged the whole thing with him.'
" 'Then you're not sick, Helen?'
"'Do I look sick?'
" 'No, but that doesn't prove a thing. You're really not sick?'
" 'No,' she said impatiently. 'Did Georg say anything else?'
" 'The usual threats. What did he want of you?'
" 'The same. I don't think he'll come back.'
" 'What did he come for in the first place?'
"Helen smiled strangely. 'He thinks I belong to him. He thinks I have to do everything he says. He has always been that way. Even when we were children. Brothers are often like that. He thinks he's acting for the good of the family. I hate him.'
"For that?'
" 'I hate him. That's enough. I told him so. But there's going to be war. He's sure.'
"We fell silent. The sound of traffic on the Quai des Grands-Augustins seemed to grow louder. Behind the Palais de Justice the spire of Sainte-Chapelle rose into the clear sky. We heard the cries of the newsboys, rising above the sound of motors as the cries of gulls rise above the roaring of the sea.
" 'I won't be able to protect you,' I said.
" 'I know that.'
"'You'll be interned.'
"'What about you?'
"I shrugged my shoulders. 'They'll probably intern me, too. We may be separated.'
"She nodded.
" 'French prisons are no rest homes.'
" 'And German prisons?'
" 'In Germany you wouldn't be locked up.'
" 'I'm staying here,' said Helen with a gesture of impatience. 'You've done your duty; you've warned me. Now forget about it. I'm staying. It has nothing to do with you. I simply won't go back.'
"I looked at her.
" 'To hell with safety!' she cried. 'I'm sick of being careful. I was fed up long ago.'
"I put my arm around her shoulder. 'That's easy to say, Helen.
"She pushed me away. 'Leave me then!' she screamed. 'Go away and you won't be responsible. Leave me alone! Leave me, I can manage alone.'
"She looked at me as if I were Georg. 'Stop acting like a mother hen! You don't understand a thing! Stop smothering me with your worries and your fear of responsibility! I didn't leave on your account. Try to get that through your head. It wasn't on account of you. I left for my own sake.'
'"I know that.'
"She came back to me. 'You've got to believe me,' she said gently. 'In spite of appearances. I had to leave. It was only an accident that you turned up. You've got to understand. Safety isn't everything.'
" 'That is true,' I said. 'But you want it for others if you love them.'
" 'There is no such thing as safety,' she said. 'Don't contradict me. I know! I know better than you. I've thought the whole thing over. You'll never know how much I've thought about it. Let's not discuss it any more, my darling. The evening is waiting for us. There won't be many more for us in Paris.'
" 'If you won't go back to Germany, what about Switzerland?'
" 'Georg says the Nazis are going to overrun Switzerland the way the Kaiser overran Belgium in the First World War.'
" 'Georg doesn't know everything.'
" 'Let's stay here for the present. Maybe the whole thing is a lie. Ho
w can he know exactly what's going to happen? It looked like war before. And then came Munich. Why shouldn't there be a second Munich?'
"I didn't know whether she believed what she was saying or was only trying to ease my mind. It's so easy to believe what falls in with your hopes; that's what I did that evening. How could France go to war? It wasn't prepared. It had to give in. Why should the French go to war for the Poles? They hadn't raised a finger for Czechoslovakia.
"Ten days later the borders were closed. The war had begun."
"Were you arrested right away, Mr. Schwarz?" I asked.
"We had another week. We were forbidden to leave the city. It was ironic. For five years they had been throwing me out—then all of a sudden they wouldn't let me leave. Where were you?"
"In Paris," I said.
"Were you shut up in the Vélodrome, too?"
"Of course."
"I don't recall your face."
"There were hundreds of refugees in the Vélodrome, Mr. Schwarz."
"Do you remember the last few days before war was declared, when Paris was blacked out?"
"Yes, of course. It was as though the world had gone dark."
"The little blue lights on street corners," said Schwarz. "They reminded me of night lights in hospitals. In that cold blue darkness, the whole city seemed to be sick. The shivers ran through you. I thought we'd better have some ready cash and sold one of Schwarz's drawings. It was a bad time to be selling. The dealer I went to offered me a pittance. I turned it down and took the drawing back. Finally I sold it to a rich refugee, somebody formerly connected with the movies in Germany. He distrusted the currency and was buying up everything he could lay hands on. I left my last drawing with the hotel owner for safekeeping. Then the police came for me. It was in the afternoon. There were two men. They told me to say good-by to Helen. She stood there pale, with flashing eyes. 'It's not possible,' she said.
" 'Yes, it is,' I said. 'It's perfectly possible. They will come for you later. We'd better not throw our passports away. Keep yours, too.'
" 'That's right,' said one of the policemen in good German. 'Better hold on to them.'
" 'Thank you,' I answered. 'Can you leave us alone to say good-by?'
"The policeman looked toward the door. 'If I had wanted to run away, I could have done it several days ago,' I said.
"He nodded. I went with Helen to her room. 'When it really happens,' I said, 'it's not the same as when you're just talking about it.' And I took her in my arms.
"She broke away. 'How will I get in touch with you?'
"We had the usual last-minute discussion. We had two addresses, the hotel and in care of a French friend. The policeman knocked at the door. I opened. 'Take a blanket with you,' he said. 'It will only be a day or two, but take a blanket anyway and something to eat.'
" 'I haven't got a blanket.'
" 'I'll bring you one,' said Helen. She quickly packed up what edibles we had on hand. 'Is it really only for a day or two?' she asked.
" 'At the most,' said the policeman. 'Just to check your identity and that kind of thing. C'est la guerre, Madame.'
"We were often to hear that."
Schwarz took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it. "You know how it was—the wait at the police station, other refugees pouring in, rounded up as if they were dangerous Nazis, the ride in the paddy wagon to the Préfecture, the endless wait at the Préfecture. Were you in the Salle Lepine, too?"
I nodded. The Salle Lepine was a large room at the Prefecture, a kind of movie theater, where they ordinarily showed training films for the police. There was a screen and a few hundred seats. "I spent two days there," I answered. "At night they took us to a big coal cellar with benches to sleep on. In the morning we looked like chimney sweeps."
"We sat on those chairs for days," said Schwarz. "We were filthy. It wasn't long before we looked like the criminals they took us for. Georg had his revenge on me, though he hadn't planned it. It was through the Préfecture that he had learned our address. Someone had consulted the files for him. He had made no secret of his party membership—that was brought up now. They thought I was a spy. I was questioned four times a day about my relations with Georg and the National Socialist party. At first I laughed; it was too absurd. But then I discovered that absurdities can be very dangerous—take the party in Germany—and now, under the impact of bureaucracy and war, even France, the land of reason, seemed to have gone mad. Without knowing it, Georg had left a time bomb behind him; it's no joke to be taken for a spy in wartime.
"Every day new batches of terrified people were brought in. Not one man had been killed at the front—this was la drôle de guerre, as the wits called it—but an atmosphere of war had settled over the country like a plague. The life and welfare of the individual counted for nothing. People had ceased to be human beings—they were classified according to military criteria as soldiers, fit for military service, unfit for military service, and enemies.
"By the third day in the Salle Lépine, I was thoroughly exhausted. Some of our number had been taken away. The rest were engaged in whispered conversation, sleeping, or eating. Life was reduced to the barest essentials. Still, we were not too downcast. Compared to a German concentration camp, this was nothing. At the worst you might be kicked or pushed a little if you were slow in responding to orders. But power is power, and a policeman is a policeman the world over.
"I was very tired from all the questioning. Under the screen on the platform, our armed guards sat in a row with legs outstretched. The dimly lighted room, the bare, soiled screen, and we down below—a dismal picture that seemed to symbolize life itself: you were always either a prisoner or a guard, free only to decide what kind of film you wanted to see on the empty screen—an educational film, a comedy, or a tragedy. Ultimately there was nothing but this empty screen, a hungry heart, and the stupid representatives of power, who behaved as if they were eternal and always right, though the screens had been blank for years. It would always be like this, I thought, nothing would ever change. One day I'd disappear and no one would be the wiser. You know those hours— when hope dies—you've been through it."
I nodded. "The hour of silent suicide. Your resistance is gone; you take the last step without thinking, almost by accident."
"The door opened," Schwarz went on, "and with the yellow light from the corridor Helen came in. She had a basket and a couple of blankets and was carrying a leopard-skin coat over her arm. I recognized her by her walk and by the way she carried her head. She stood still for a moment. Then she passed down the rows, searching. She passed close to me and did not see me. It was almost like the time in the Osnabrück cathedral. 'Helen!' I said.
"She turned around. I stood up. She looked at me. 'What have they done to you?' she asked angrily.
" 'Nothing much. We sleep in a coal cellar. It's bad for the complexion. How did you get here?'
" 'I've been arrested,' she said with a note of pride. 'Just like you. And much sooner than the other women. I was hoping to find you here.'
" 'Why did they arrest you?'
" 'Why did they arrest you?'
"'They think I'm a spy.'
" 'Me too. Because my passport is in order.'
" 'How do you know that?'
" 'I've just been questioned. They told me so. I'm not a bona fide refugee. They haven't arrested the women yet. A little man with pomade on his hair told me. Is he the one who questions you? He smells of snails.'
" 'I don't know. Everything smells of snails in this place. Thank God you've brought blankets.'
" 'I brought all I could.' Helen opened the basket. Two bottles clinked. 'Cognac,' she said. 'No wine. It's the strength that counts. How's the food?'
" 'About what you'd expect. They let us send out for sandwiches.'
"Helen bent down and inspected me. 'You look like a cargo of African slaves. Can't you wash?'
" 'Not so far. But it's not meanness. Just disorder.'
"She took out the cognac. 'The co
rks have been pulled,' she said. 'The hotelkeeper did it; he was very kind. He said I wouldn't find a corkscrew here. Have a drink.'
"I took an enormous gulp and passed the bottle back to her. 'I even have a glass,' she said. 'It's my tribute to civilization. Let's keep it up while we can.'
"She filled the glass and drank. 'You smell of summer and freedom,' I said. 'What's it like on the outside?'
" 'Like peacetime. The cafés are full. The sky is blue.' She looked at the row of policemen on the platform and laughed. 'It makes me think of a shooting gallery. You shoot at those dummies up there, and if one of them tips over, you get a bottle of wine or an ash tray.'
The night in Lisbon Page 14
