The Black Obelisk

by Erich Maria Remarque

  "Well, make Gerda happy," Renée says laconically. "For two weeks. Simple, isn't it?"

  I stand there, somewhat embarrassed. The vade mecum for high society assuredly contains no rules for such a situation. Fortunately Willy appears. He is elegantly dressed and has a Borsalino on the side of his head; nevertheless, he looks like a cement block draped with artificial flowers. With a courtly gesture he kisses Renée's hand, then reaches in his pocket and brings out a small jewel box. "For the most fascinating woman in Werdenbrück," he announces with a bow.

  Renée emits a small, soprano scream and looks at Willy incredulously. Then she opens the box. A gold ring set with an amethyst sparkles up at her. She puts it on the middle finger of her left hand, stares at it in rapture and then throws her arms around Willy. Willy stands there very proud and smiling, listening to the trills and the bass; in her excitement Renée can't keep control of them. "Willy!" she chirps, and then thunders, "I am so happy!"

  Gerda comes out of the dressing room in a bathrobe. She has heard the scream and wants to know what's happening. "Get ready, children," Willy says. "We'll be on our way."

  The two girls disappear. "Couldn't you have given Renée the ring later on when you were alone, you show-off?" I ask. "What am I to do now about Gerda?"

  Willy breaks into good-natured laughter. "Damn it all, I never thought about that! What can we do? Come along and have dinner with us."

  "So that all four of us can spend our time staring at Renée's amethyst? Not on your life."

  "Listen to me," Willy says. "Things are not the same with Renée and me as with Gerda and you. I am serious. Believe it or not, I'm crazy about Renée. Seriously crazy. She's a magnificent creature!"

  We sit down in two old cane chairs by the wall. The white spitzes are now practicing walking on their front legs. "Imagine," Willy explains. "It's her voice that drives me crazy. At night it's fabulous. As though you have two different women. First a tender one and a minute later a fishwife. And it goes farther than that. When it's dark and she cuts loose with that drill sergeant's voice of hers, cold shivers run up my back. It's damned odd. I'm not a pansy, but sometimes I feel as if I were defiling a general or that bastard Sergeant Flümer, who used to make life miserable for us when we were recruits. It's only for an instant and then everything's straight again, but—you understand what I mean?"

  "More or less."

  "All right, so she has me hooked. I want her to stay here. I'm going to fix up a little home for her."

  "Do you think she'll give up her profession?"

  "She doesn't need to. Once in a while she can accept an engagement. I'll go with her. My business is movable."

  "Why don't you marry her? You're rich enough."

  "Marriage is something else again," Willy explains. "How can you marry a woman who's capable at any minute of roaring at you like a general? You can't help jumping to attention when that happens unexpectedly; that's something in our blood. No, someday I'll marry a calm plump little thing who is a first-class cook. Renée, my boy, is the typical mistress."

  I look with admiration at this man of the world. He smiles in a superior fashion. The Breviary of Good Manners is superfluous for him. I forego wisecracks. Wit wears thin against someone able to give amethyst rings. The lady wrestlers get up lazily and try a couple of holds. Willy looks at them with interest. "Capital women," he whispers to me like a first lieutenant of the Kaiser's time.

  "What's the matter with you? Attention! Eyes right!" a resonant voice roars behind us.

  Willy jumps. It is Renée, exhibiting her ring and smiling. "See now what I mean?" Willy asks.

  I see it all right. The two leave. Outside, Willy's car is waiting, the red town car with leather upholstery. I'm glad Gerda is taking longer to dress. At least she won't see that car. I wonder what I can offer her tonight. The only thing I have besides the breviary for men of the world is tickets for Eduard Knobloch's restaurant—and they unfortunately aren't valid in the evening. I decide to try them, nevertheless, and to pretend to Eduard that they are the last two.

  Gerda comes in. "Do you know what I'd like, my pet?" she says before I can open my mouth. "Let's go into the country for a while. We'll take a streetcar. I want to go for a walk."

  I stare at her, not trusting my ears. A walk in the country —exactly what Erna, that poison-tongued serpent, reproached me for. Has she mentioned it to Gerda? She would be quite capable of it.

  "I thought we might go to the Walhalla," I say cautiously and mistrustfully. "They have magnificent food there."

  Gerda shakes her head. "Why? It's much too nice for that. I made some potato salad this afternoon. Here!" She holds up a package. "We'll eat it in the country, and we can buy sausages and beer to go with it. All right?"

  I nod silently, more suspicious than ever. Erna's reproach about the seltzer water, sausage, beer, and cheap wine of no vintage still sticks in my mind. "I have to be back at nine in that stinking hole, the Red Mill," Gerda explains.

  Stinking hole?, I stare at Gerda once more. But her eyes are clear and innocent, with no trace of irony. And suddenly I understand! What's paradise for Erna is nothing but a place of employment for Gerda! She hates the dive that Erna loves. Rescued, I think. Thank God! The Red Mill with its fantastic prices sinks out of my mind like Gaston Munch as the ghost in Hamlet disappearing through the trap door at the city theater. Instead, the vision of priceless quiet days with sandwiches and homemade potato salad rises before me! The simple life! Earthly love! Peace of soul! At last! Sauerkraut, if you like, but sauerkraut, too, can be magnificent! With pineapple, for example, cooked in champagne. To be sure, I've never eaten it that way, but Eduard Knobloch says it's a dish fit for reigning kings and poets.

  "All right, Gerda," I say casually. "If that's what you really want, we'll go for a walk in the woods."

  8.

  The village of Wüstringen is gay with flags and bunting. We are all assembled—Georg and Heinrich Kroll, Kurt Bach, and I. The war memorial has been delivered and is now to be dedicated.

  This morning the ministers of both denominations celebrated their rites in church; each for his own dead. In this the Catholic minister had the advantage; his church is bigger, it is brightly painted, his stained-glass windows, incense, brocaded vestments, and acolytes clad in white and red. The Protestant has no more than a chapel with sober walls and plain windows; now, standing beside the Catholic man of God, he is like a poor relation. The Catholic is attired in a lace tunic and is surrounded by his altar boys; the other is wearing a black coat, his single splendor. As a professional advertising man I have to admit that in these things Catholicism has an enormous advantage over Martin Luther. It appeals to the imagination and not to the intellect. Its priests are arrayed like native witch doctors; a Catholic service with its colors, its atmosphere, its incense, its picturesque usages is incomparable as a performance. The Protestant feels this; he is thin and wears spectacles. The Catholic is red-cheeked, plump, and has beautiful white hair.

  Each of them has done what he could for his dead. Unfortunately, among the fallen are two Jews, sons of Levi, the cattle merchant. For them no spiritual comfort has been provided. The two rival men of God join forces in opposing the presence of the rabbi—supported by the president of the veterans' organization, Major Wolkenstein, retired, an anti-Semite who firmly believes the war was lost because of the Jews. If you ask him why, he straightaway brands you as a traitor. He was even against having the names of the two Levis engraved on the memorial tablet. He maintained they had beyond question fallen far behind the front. Finally, however, he was outvoted. The mayor exerted his influence. His own son died of grippe in 1918 in the reserve hospital in Werdenbrück without ever having been in the field. The mayor wanted him, too, to appear as a hero on the memorial tablet and so he declared that death is death and a soldier a soldier —thus the Levis got the two lowest places on the back of the tablet where, no doubt, the dogs will piss.

  Wolkenstein is wearing complete imperi
al uniform. That, to be sure, is forbidden, but who is going to do anything about it? The strange transformation that began shortly after the armistice has gone forward steadily. The war which almost every soldier hated in 1918 has slowly become, for those who survived intact, the great adventure of their lives. They came back to the everyday life that had seemed a paradise to them when they lay in the trenches and cursed the war. Now it has become commonplace again, filled with cares and vexations, and at the same time the war has gradually risen on the horizon—far off, survived, and for that very reason, without their intention and almost without their cooperation, changed, transfigured, falsified. Mass murder has become an adventure from which they have escaped. The despair is forgotten, the misery glorified, and death, which did not strike them, has become what it is most of the time to the living—something abstract and no longer real. It only gains reality when it strikes close by or reaches out and seizes you. The veterans' organization, now drawn up in front of the memorial under the command of Wolkenstein, was paci-fistic in 1918. Now it has become strongly nationalistic. Wolkenstein has adroitly transformed the memories of the war and the feelings of comradeship, which almost all of them had, into pride in the war. Anyone who is not nationalistic desecrates the memory of our fallen heroes—those poor, mistreated, fallen heroes who would all have loved to go on living. How they would sweep Wolkenstein from the platform where he is now speaking if they but could! But they are defenseless and have become the possession of thousands of Wolkensteins who use them for their selfish ends concealed under such words as patriotism and national pride. Patriotism! For Wolkenstein that means wearing a uniform again, becoming a colonel, and once more sending people to death.

  He thunders mightily from the tribunal, warming to his theme: the inner cur, the dagger in the back, the uncon-quered German army, and the oath to our dead heroes, to honor them, to avenge them, and to rebuild the German army.

  Heinrich Kroll listens reverently; he believes every word. Kurt Bach, who as creator of the lion with the lance in his flank has been included in the invitation, stares dreamily at the shrouded memorial. Georg looks as though he would give his life for a cigar; and I, wearing a borrowed morning coat that is too small for me, wish I were at home in bed with Gerda in our vine-draped room while the orchestra in the Altstäder Hof bangs out the "Song of the Siamese Guards."

  Wolkenstein ends with three cheers. The band strikes up "The Good Comrade." The choir sings in two-part harmony. We all join in. It is a neutral song, innocent of politics and revenge—a simple lament for a dead comrade.

  The ministers step forward. The shroud falls from the memorial. Kurt Bach's roaring lion crouches on top of it. Four bronze eagles with lifted wings are poised on the edges. The memorial tablets are of black granite, the other stones of highest workmanship. It is a very costly memorial, and we expect to be paid for it this afternoon. That was the agreement and that is why we are here. We shall be practically bankrupt if we do not get the money. In the last week the dollar rate has almost doubled.

  The ministers consecrate the memorial; each for his own God. During the war when we had to attend divine services and the ministers of the various denominations prayed for the victory of German arms, I often reflected that in just this way the English, French, Russian, American, Italian, and Japanese men of God were praying for the victory of their armies and I used to picture God as a kind of hurried and embarrassed club president, especially when He had to listen to the prayers of the same denomination from enemy countries. For which should He decide? For the one with the most inhabitants? Or the one with the most churches? And what of His justice if He let one country win and the other, where the prayers were no less diligent, lose? Sometimes He seemed to me like a harassed, elderly emperor, ruling over many countries and forced to keep changing his uniform to receive different deputations—now the Catholic, now the Protestant, the Evangelical, the Anglican, the Episcopalian, the Reformed, according to which divine service happened to be going on at that moment. Or like an emperor reviewing the Hussars, the Grenadiers, the Artillery, and the Navy.

  The wreaths are put in place. One of them is ours, with the name of the firm on it. In his high falsetto Wolkenstein strikes up the song "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles." Apparently this was not provided for on the program; the band is silent and only a few voices are lifted. Wolkenstein flushes and turns round in a rage. The trumpeter and then the English horn take up the melody. Both drown out Wolk-enstein, who is now gesticulating violently. The other instruments come to life and about half the crowd gradually joins in; but Wolkenstein has begun too high and it all becomes rather squeaky. Fortunately the women take a hand. They, to be sure, are standing in the background but they save the situation and bring the song to a triumphant close. For some reason I think of Renée de la Tour—she could have done it all by herself.

  The social activities begin in the afternoon. We have to stay because we have not yet received our money. Due to Wolk-enstein's long patriotic speech we have missed the noon dollar exchange rate—no doubt a substantial rise, and a loss for us. The day is hot. My borrowed morning coat is too tight around the chest. There are thick, white clouds in the sky, and on the tables stand thick goblets of Steinhäger schnaps and beside them tall glasses of beer. Faces are red and glittering with sweat. The feast for the dead was rich and abundant. That evening there is to be a great patriotic ball in the Niedersächsischer Hof. Paper garlands hang everywhere and flags—black, white, and red, of course—and wreathes of evergreen. A single black, red, and gold flag hangs from the garret window in the last house in the village. Those are the colors of the German republic. Black, white, and red were those of the old empire. They have been forbidden, but Wolkenstein has declared that the dead fell under those glorious old colors and anyone who exhibits black, red, and gold is a traitor. That means that Beste, the cobbler, who lives there is a traitor. He was shot in the lungs during the war, but he is a traitor. In our beloved fatherland it is easy to be denounced as a traitor. Only the Wolkensteins are not. They are the law. They decide who is a traitor.

  Excitement increases. The older people disappear. A good many of the veterans as well. Work in the fields summons them. The Iron Guard, as Wolkenstein calls the others, remain. The ministers have long since departed. The Iron Guard consists of younger men. Wolkenstein, who despises the republic but accepts the pension it gives him and uses it to agitate against it, makes another speech which begins with the word "Comrades." That is too much for me. No Wolkenstein ever called us comrades when we were in the army. Then we were filth, schweinehunde, idiots and, at best, men. Only once, on the evening before an attack, were we called comrades—by that slave driver Helle, a former commissioner of forests, who was our first lieutenant. He was afraid he would get a bullet in the back next morning.

  We go to the mayor's house. He is sitting at ease over coffee, cakes, and cigars, and he refuses to pay. We were prepared for something of the sort. Fortunately Heinrich Kroll is not with us; he has stayed behind to admire Wolkenstein. Kurt Bach has gone out into the grain fields with a muscular village beauty to enjoy nature. Georg and I stand facing Mayor Döbbeling, who is supported by his hunchbacked clerk, Westhaus. "Come back next week," Döbbeling says comfortably, offering us cigars. "Then we'll have the whole thing straightened out and we'll pay you at once. In all this confusion it wasn't possible today."

  We accept the cigars. "That may well be," Georg replies. "But we need the money today, Herr Döbbeling."

  The clerk laughs. "Everyone needs money."

  Döbbeling winks at him. He pours schnaps. "Let's drink to it!"

  It was not he who invited us to the celebration; it was Wolkenstein, who gives no thought to gross commercial matters. Döbbeling would have liked none of us to be present—or at most, Heinrich Kroll. He would have had no trouble in handling him.

  "It was agreed that we were to get the money at the dedication," Georg says.

  Döbbeling raises his shoulders equably
. "That is practically the same thing—next week. If you were paid everywhere as promptly as that—"

  "We are paid, otherwise we don't deliver."

  "Well this time you have delivered. Prost!"

  We do not refuse the schnaps. Döbbeling winks again at his admiring clerk. "Good schnaps," I say.

  "Have another?" the clerk asks. I

  "Why not?"

  The clerk pours. We drink. "Well then—" Döbbeling says. "Next week."

  "Well then," Georg says, "today! Where is our money?"

  Döbbeling is offended. We have accepted his schnaps and cigars and yet we are still rebellious. That is against the rules. "Next week," he says. "Have another schnaps for the road?"