" 'Your wife is very ill,' the doctor said to me.
" 'That's right,' said Helen laughing. 'I'm being discharged so I can go to a hospital to die. That was the agreement.'
" 'I am speaking seriously.' The doctor's tone was hostile. 'Your wife really should be in a hospital.'
" 'Why wasn't she sent to one long ago?' I asked.
" 'What is all this?' said Helen. 'I'm not sick and I'm not going to any hospital.'
" 'Can you put her into a hospital where she would be safe?' I asked the doctor.
" 'No,' he replied after a pause.
"Helen laughed again. 'Of course not. What an absurd discussion! Adieu, Jean.'
"She started down the road ahead of me. I wanted to ask the doctor what was wrong with her, but I couldn't. He
stared at me, then turned quickly and went back to the camp. I followed Helen.
" 'Have you got your passport?' I asked.
"She nodded. 'Give me your bag,' I said.
" 'There isn't much in it.'
" 'Give it to me anyway.'
" 'I still have the evening dress you bought me in Paris.'
"We trudged on. 'Are you sick?' I asked her.
" 'If I were really sick, I'd be flat on my back, wouldn't I? I'd have a fever. I'm not sick. He's lying. He wanted me to stay. Look at me. Do I look sick?'
"She stood still.
"'Yes,'I said.
" 'Don't be sad,' she said.
"I'm not sad.'
"I knew now that she was sick, and I knew that she would never admit it. 'Would it help you to be in a hospital?' I asked.
" 'No,' she said. 'Not in the least. You've got to believe me. If I were sick and a hospital could help me, I'd try to get into one. Believe me.'
" 'I believe you.'
"What could I have done? Suddenly I was hopelessly discouraged. 'Maybe you'd rather have stayed in the camp,' I said finally.
" 'I'd have killed myself if you hadn't come.'
"We walked on. It began to rain harder. The spray blew round us like a gray veil. 'We'll try to get to Marseille,' I said. 'And then to Lisbon and America.'
"There are good doctors in America, I thought. And hospitals where no one comes to arrest you. And maybe they will let me work. 'We'll forget Europe like a bad dream,' I said.
"Helen did not answer.
CHAPTER 15
"That was the beginning of our odyssey," said Schwarz. "The march through the desert and the Red Sea. I guess you know all about it."
I nodded. "Bordeaux. The Pyrenees. You feel out the border crossings. Retreat to Marseille. The battle to move sluggish hearts as the barbarian hordes come closer. Through it all the lunacy of bureaucracy gone wild. No residence permit, but no exit permit either. They won't let you stay and they won't let you leave. Finally you get your exit permit, but your Spanish transit visa has meanwhile expired. You can't get another unless you have a Portuguese visa, and that's contingent on something else again. Which means that you have to start all over again—your days are spent waiting outside the consulates, those vestibules of heaven and hell! A vicious circle of madness!"
"First we entered a zone of calm," said Schwarz. "That evening Helen had a crying jag. I had found a room in an out-of-the-way hotel. For the first time in months we were like a real married pair with our own room, together and alone—that was what brought on her fit of tears. Afterward we sat silent in the little garden. It was very cool, but we didn't feel like going to bed. We drank a bottle of wine and looked out at the road leading to the camp. A feeling of gratitude surged up in me, so deep and intense that it was almost painful. That night it crowded out everything else, even my fears for Helen's health. After her jag she seemed detached and very calm, like a landscape after the rain, and as lovely as certain faces on old cameos. I'm sure you understand," said Schwarz. "In an existence like ours, sickness has a different meaning. It means that you've got to stop running."
"I know," I said bitterly.
"The following evening we saw the blacked-out lights of a car crawling up the road to the camp. Helen became uneasy. All day we had scarcely stirred from our room. To have a bed and a room of our own was something so wonderful we didn't want to lose a minute of it. Both of us also realized how exhausted we were, and I would have been glad not to stir from that hotel for weeks. But Helen wanted to leave. She couldn't bear the sight of that road leading to the camp. She was afraid that the Gestapo would still be looking for her.
"We packed up our few belongings. It made sense to get started while we still had a residence permit for our district; if we were picked up somewhere else, the worst they could do was send us back; they wouldn't lock us up—or so we hoped.
"My idea was to head for Bordeaux; but on the road we heard that it was too late. A little Citroën four-seater picked us up, and the driver advised us to hide somewhere else. He told us of a small château not far from where he was going. He knew it was empty; perhaps we could camp there for the night.
"We had little choice. Late in the afternoon the driver dropped us off. Ahead of us in the gray light lay the little château, actually more of a country house. The windows were dark; there were no curtains. I mounted the stone steps and tried the door. It was unlocked; the lock seemed to have been forced. My steps resounded in the half-dark vestibule. I shouted, and the only answer was a broken echo. The rooms were bare. Everything removable had been removed. But it was still a fine eighteenth-century interior, with its paneled walls, nobly proportioned windows, beautiful ceilings, and graceful staircases.
"We slowly explored the house. No one answered our cries. I looked for light switches; there were none. There was no electricity; the château remained as it was built. The small dining room was done in gilt and white; the first bedroom we entered was gilt and light green. Not a stick of furniture; the owners must have removed it for safekeeping.
"In the attic room we found a chest containing masks, some cheap gaudy costumes, left over from a party, no doubt, and a few packages of candles. Better still, we found an iron bedstead and a mattress. In the kitchen we found some bread, a few cans of sardines, a bunch of garlic, a half-full jar of honey, and in the cellar a few pounds of potatoes, a few bottles of wine, and a wood pile. In short, fairyland.
"There was a fireplace in almost every room. We picked one of the bedrooms to settle in and curtained the windows with some of the costumes. I went out again and found the garden, a patch of vegetables and some fruit trees. There were still some apples and pears on the trees. I picked them and brought them in.
"When it was so dark that smoke would no longer be visible I made a fire in the fireplace and we began to eat. The atmosphere was spectral, enchanted. The firelight glowed on the beautiful paneling, and our shadows played over the walls like spirits from a happy world.
"The roof warmed up, and Helen took off her clothes to dry them. She took out her Paris evening dress and put it on. I opened a bottle of wine. We had no glasses and drank out of the bottle. Later Helen changed clothes again. In a domino and a half-mask she had taken from the chest, she flitted up and down the dark stairs. She called from above and below, and her voice came echoing from all directions; I couldn't see her, I only heard her footfalls. All at once she was standing behind me in the darkness and I felt her breath on my neck. 'I thought I had lost you,' I said, and held her fast.
" 'You'll never lose me,' she whispered through the slit of her mask. 'And do you know why not? Because you've never tried to hold me, as a peasant holds his field. The most fascinating man is a bore without that quality.'
" 'I know I'm not fascinating,' I said in surprise.
"We stood on the stair landing. The bedroom door was ajar, and through the opening a flickering strip of light from the fireplace fell on the bronze ornaments of the banister and on Helen's mouth and shoulders.
" 'How would you know what you are?' she murmured. Behind the mask her eyes were fixed, fiery and whiteless, like those of a snake. 'But if you only knew how
dismal all these Don Juan types are! Like a dress you can only wear once. You—you're different; you are my heart.'
"Perhaps it was our disguise that encouraged us to talk like that. Though with some reluctance, I, too, had put on a domino to let my overalls dry by the fire. The flickering firelight, the strange clothes, the belle-époque surroundings conspired to put unusual words in our mouths. Familiar words changed their meanings. 'Faithful' and 'unfaithful' lost their middle-class weight and intransigence, became ambivalent and interchangeable. There were so many degrees and shadings.
" 'We are dead,' Helen whispered. 'Both of us. There are no laws for dead people. You are dead with your dead passport, and I died in the hospital today. Look at our clothes.
We are like gaudy bats flitting through a dead century. It was a beautiful century, with its minuets, its grace, and its rococo heaven—but the festivities ended with the guillotine, shining and merciless in the cold morning. I wonder where our guillotine will be.'
" 'Helen,' I said. 'Don't talk like that.'
" 'It won't be anywhere,' she whispered. 'There's no guillotine for dead people. They can't cut our heads off; you can't cut the heads off light and shade. Hold me, here in this enchanted golden darkness, and perhaps some of it will stay with us, to light up the pitiful hour of our last breath.'
"A light shudder ran through me. 'Helen,' I pleaded, 'don't talk like that.'
" 'Remember me always as I am now,' she whispered. 'Who knows what will become of us. . . .'
" 'We'll go to America,' I said, 'and some day the war will be over.'
" 'I'm not complaining,' she said, her face pressed to mine. 'What have we to complain of? What would have become of us otherwise? A dull, mediocre couple, leading a dull, mediocre life in Osnabriick, with dull, mediocre emotions, and a few weeks'vacation in the summer . . .'
"I couldn't help laughing. 'That's one way to look at it.'
"She was very merry and festive that night. Holding a candle, she ran down the stairs in the little golden slippers she had bought in Paris and saved through thick and thin, and brought a fresh bottle of wine from the cellar. I waited on the landing as she rose through the darkness, pursued by a multitude of shadows, her face looking up at me in the candlelight. I was happy, if the word is applicable to a mirror that reflects a beloved face, pure and perfect against innumerable shadows.
"The fire died down. She fell asleep under a pile of costumes. It was a strange night. Later I heard the roar of planes, and the rococo mirrors began to rattle softly.
"We stayed there alone for four days. Then I went to the nearest village for provisions and heard that two ships were leaving Bordeaux. 'Haven't the Germans taken over yet?' I asked.
" 'Yes and no. It depends on who you are.'
"I talked it over with Helen. To my surprise, she wasn't too much interested. 'Ships, Helen!' I said, beside myself with excitement. 'Maybe we can get out of here. To Africa. To Lisbon. Anywhere.'
" 'Why not stay here?' she said. 'There are fruit and vegetables in the garden. I can cook as long as the wood holds out. We can get bread in the village. Is there any money left?'
" 'Some. And I still have a drawing. I can sell it in Bordeaux for the fare.'
" 'Who buys drawings nowadays?'
" 'People with money to invest.'
" She laughed. Then sell it and we'll stay here.'
" 'I wish we could.'
"She had fallen in love with the house. Off to one side there was a little park; behind it lay the orchard and vegetable plot. There were even a pond and a sundial. Helen loved the house, and the house seemed to love her. The setting suited her; it was a change from hotels and barracks. Our costumed life in this dwelling place of a serene past gave me an enchanted hope and sometimes even a belief in a life after death —as if this were our dress rehearsal. I, too, would have been glad to go on living like this for a hundred years.
"Nevertheless, I went on thinking about Bordeaux. It struck me as unlikely that ships would be putting out if the city was already partially occupied—but those were days of twilight war. France had an armistice, but the peace treaty hadn't been signed yet; there was supposed to be an occupied zone and a free zone, but France was powerless to enforce any agreements, and besides, the Germans were represented by both the Army and the Gestapo, which did not always work hand in hand.
" 'I've got to find out,' I said. 'You stay here and I'll try to get through to Bordeaux.'
"Helen shook her head. 'I won't stay here alone. I'll go with you.'
"This was not unreasonable. There were no longer any clearly defined areas of safety and danger. You could escape with your life from an enemy headquarters and be caught by Gestapo agents on some remote island; there were no rules you could bank on.
"We reached Bordeaux in a very haphazard way. I guess you're familiar with that mode of travel. When you think about it afterward, you don't see how it was possible. On foot, in a truck—we even rode part of the way on two broad-backed, good-natured farm horses that a hired man was taking away to sell.
"There were already troops in Bordeaux. The city was not occupied, but there were troops. It came as a shock; we expected to be arrested at any moment. Helen had on an inconspicuous suit; apart from the evening dress, a pair of pants, and two sweaters, it was all she possessed. I had a second suit in my knapsack.
"We left our bags at a café. People with baggage attracted attention, although there were quite a few Frenchmen on the move with suitcases. 'We'll go to a travel bureau and ask about the ships,' I said. We didn't know a soul in the city.
"We actually found one bureau open. There were old posters in the windows: 'Spend the Autumn in Lisbon'—'Algiers, Pearl of Africa'—'Vacation in Florida'—'Sunny Granada.' Most of them were thoroughly faded, but the colors of Lisbon and Granada were still resplendent.
"We hadn't long to wait at the window. A fourteen-year-old expert told us what was what. Ships? Nonexistent. Rumors of that kind had been going around for weeks. Long before the Germans arrived, an English ship had come to pick up Poles and other volunteers for the Polish Legion that was being organized in England. At the moment no ships were leaving.
"I asked what all the other people in the place had come for.
" 'Same thing as you, most of them,' said the expert.
" 'And what about you?'
" I've given up the idea of leaving,' he said. 'There's a living in this for me. I'm an interpreter, adviser, specialist in visas and housing. . . .'
"That was no surprise. Hard times make for precocity, and young people aren't befogged by sentimentality or preconceived ideas. We went to a café, and the expert gave me a survey of the situation. It was possible that the troops would leave; but it was hard to get a residence permit for Bordeaux, and for visas it was very bad. At the moment, Bayonne was said to be good for Spanish visas, but it was overcrowded; Marseille seemed to be the best place, but that was a long way. We all took that road sooner or later. You, too?" Schwarz asked me.
"Yes," I said. "That was our Calvary."
Schwarz nodded. "Of course I tried the American consulate. But Helen had a valid German passport, issued by the Nazis; how could we prove that we were in mortal peril? The terrified Jews without papers of any kind, who lay on the sidewalk outside the doors, seemed to be in much greater danger. Our passports were witnesses against us. Even old Schwarz's passport.
"We decided to go back to our château. Twice we were stopped by gendarmes; both times my foul humor came in handy—I growled at the gendarmes, held the passports under their noses, and said something about the military authorities. Helen laughed; it struck her as very comical. I had thought of this new tack when I went back to the café for our bags. The patron said he had never heard of any bags. 'Call the police if you feel like it,' he had said with a smile. 'But I guess you wouldn't want to do that.'
" 'I don't need the police,' I replied. 'Just give me my things.'
"The patron motioned to the waiter. 'Henri, mons
ieur wishes to leave.'
"Henri rolled up his sleeves and came closer. 'I'd think it over, Henri, if I were you,' I said to him. 'Or are you dying to know what a German concentration camp looks like on the inside?'
" 'Ta gueule,' said Henri, and raised his fists.
" 'Okay, sergeant, fire!' I shouted, looking past Henri.
"Henri fell for it. He looked around, but his fists were still up, so I kicked him with all my might in the groin. He fell to the ground with a roar. The patron picked up a bottle and came out from behind the bar.
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