The Black Obelisk

by Erich Maria Remarque

  A bell begins to ring. Isabelle gives a start. "It's time for you to go in," I say. "They're waiting for you."

  "Are you coming with me?"

  "Yes."

  We walk toward the house. As we step out of the allee, we are greeted by a squall of rain driven around us in short gusts like a wet veil. Isabelle presses against me. I look down the hill toward the city. Nothing is to be seen. Mist and rain have isolated us. Nowhere is there a light; we are entirely alone. Isabelle walks beside me as though she belonged to me forever and as though she had no weight, and once more it seems to me as if she really had none and were like the figures in legends and dreams, obedient to different laws from those of everyday existence.

  We there stand in the doorway. "Come with me!" she says.

  I shake my head. "I can't. Not today."

  She is silent, looking at me with straight, clear eyes, without reproach and without disillusionment; but suddenly something seems to have gone out in her. I lower my eyes feeling as though I had struck a child or killed a swallow. "Not today," I say. "Later. Tomorrow."

  She turns away without a word and walks into the hallway. I see the nurse go up the stairs with her and suddenly I feel as though I had irrevocably lost something one finds but once in a lifetime.

  I stand there bewildered. What could I have done? And how did I once more become involved in all this? It wasn't my intention at all! This accursed rain!

  Slowly I walk toward the main building. Wernicke, wearing a white coat and carrying an umbrella, comes out. "Have you taken Fräulein Terhoven back?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Pay a little more attention to her, won't you? Visit her now and then during the day if you have time."

  "Why?"

  "You'll get no answer to that," Wernicke replies. "But she is calmer when she has been with you. It's good for her. Is that enough?"

  "She takes me for someone else."

  "That makes no difference. I don't care about you—only about my patient." Wernicke squints through the shower. "Bodendiek praised you this evening."

  "What?—He certainly had no cause!"

  "He maintains that you are on the road back. To the confessional and communion."

  "What an idea!" I exclaim, genuinely incensed.

  "Don't underestimate the wisdom of the Church! It is the only dictatorship that has not been overthrown in two thousand years."

  I walk down to the city. Mist waves its pennants in the rain. My thoughts are haunted by Isabelle. I have left her in the lurch; that's what she believes now, I know. I ought not to go there any more, I think. It simply confuses me, and I am confused enough already. But how would it be if she were no longer there? Wouldn't it be like losing the most important thing, the thing that can never grow old or stale or commonplace because one never possesses it?

  I arrive at the house of Karl Brill, the shoemaker. The sounds of a phonograph come from the workroom. I have been invited here tonight for a stag evening. It is one of the famous occasions when Frau Beckmann is to exhibit her acrobatic art. I hesitate for a moment—I really am not in the mood—but then I go in. For that very reason.

  I am greeted by a wave of tobacco smoke and the smell of beer. Karl Brill gets up and embraces me, staggering slightly. His head is just as bald as Georg KrolFs, but to make up for it he wears all his hair under his nose in a huge mustache. "You've come at just the right moment," he exclaims. "The bets are down. All we need is some better music than this miserable phonograph? How about the 'Beautiful Blue Danube'?"

  "It's a deal!"

  The piano has already been brought in and is standing beside the resoling machines. In the front of the room the shoes and leather have been pushed to one side and straight and easy chairs have been placed wherever possible. A cask of beer stands ready; several bottles of schnaps are already empty. A second battery stands in readiness on the workbench. There, too, lies a big nail wrapped in cotton beside a large cobbler's hammer.

  I pound out the "Blue Danube." Karl Brill's drinking companions stagger about through the haze. They are already well loaded. Karl puts a glass of beer and a double Stein-hager schnaps on the piano. "Clara is getting ready," he says. "We have over three million in bets. I only hope she's in top form; otherwise I'll- be half bankrupt."

  He squints at me. "Play something very spirited when the time comes. That always warms her up. You know she's crazy about music."

  "I'll play the 'March of the Gladiators.' But how about a small side bet for me?"

  Karl glances up. "Dear Herr Bodmer," he says in an injured voice, "surely you're not going to bet against Clara! How could you play with any conviction then?"

  "Not against her. On her. A side bet."

  "How much?" Karl asks quickly.

  "A measly eight thousand," I reply. "It's my whole fortune."

  Karl thinks it over for a moment. Then he turns around. "Is there anyone here who wants to bet another eighty thousand? Against our piano player?"

  "I do!" A fat man steps forward. Taking some bills out of a small suitcase, he slaps them down on the workbench.

  I put my money beside them. "May the God of thieves defend me," I say. "Otherwise lunch is all I'll have tomorrow."

  "Let's get going!" Karl Brill says.

  The nail is shown around. Then Karl steps to the wall, places the nail at the height of the human buttocks, and drives it a third of the way in. He pounds less vigorously than his gestures would suggest. "It's driven in good and strong," he says, pretending to give the nail a powerful tug.

  "We'll just see about that."

  The fat man who has bet against me steps forward. He moves the nail and grins. "Karl," he said, laughing contemptuously, "I could blow that out of the wall. Just give me the hammer."

  "First blow it out of the wall."

  The fat man does not blow. He gives a strong tug and the nail comes out. "I can drive a nail through a table top with . my hand," Karl Brill says. "But not with my rear end. If you make conditions like that, let's call the whole thing off."

  The fat man makes no reply. He takes the hammer and drives the nail into another place in the wall. "Now, how's that?"

  Karl Brill tests it. Some six or seven centimeters of the nail still protrude from the wall. "Too hard. You can't even pull it out with your hand."

  "Take it or else," the fat man declares.

  Karl tries again. The fat man puts the hammer on the workbench, overlooking the fact that each time Karl tests the nail he loosens it a little. "I can't take an even-money bet on that," Karl says finally. "Only two to one and I'll lose anyway."

  They agree on six to four. A pile of money rises on the workbench. Karl has tugged indignantly twice more at the nail to show how impossible the bet is. Now I play the "March of the Gladiators" and shortly thereafter Frau Beckmann comes rustling into the workroom in a loose salmon-colored

  Chinese kimono enbroidered on the back with peonies and a phoenix.

  She is an imposing figure, with the head of a bulldog. She has abundant, curly black hair and bright, shoe-button eyes —the rest is pure bulldog, especially the chin. Her body is huge and all of iron. Her breasts, hard as stone, project like a bulwark, then comes the comparatively slender waist and after that the famous bottom, the present point of interest. It is powerful and it, too, is hard as stone. A blacksmith is said to have failed in an attempt to pinch it when Frau Beckmann contracted her muscles; he would have broken his fingers. Karl Brill has already won bets on that subject too, just in the circle of his most intimate friends to be sure. Tonight, with the fat man present, only the other experiment will be tried: the extraction of the nail, from the wall with her seat

  Everything is conducted in a very sportsmanlike and gentlemanly fashion; Frau Beckmann greets the company, of course, but is otherwise reserved and almost aloof. She regards the occasion solely from a sporting and business angle. Calmly she places her back against the wall behind a low screen, makes a few expert adjustments, and then stands still, her c
hin raised, serious and ready, as befits a great sporting event.

  I break off the march and strike two deep quavers, which are supposed to sound like the roll of drums that heralds the death leap in Kine's circus. Frau Beckmann stiffens, then relaxes. She stiffens once more. Karl Brill grows nervous. Frau Beckmann stiffens again, her eyes turned to the ceiling, her teeth gritted. There is a tinkle and she steps away from the wall; the nail lies on the floor.

  I play the "Virgin's Prayer," one of her favorites. She acknowledges it with a gracious inclination of her powerful head, says melodiously, "Good night all," pulls her kimono closer around her and disappears.

  Karl Brill distributes the cash. He hands me mine. The fat man inspects the nail and the wall. "Unbelievable," he says.

  I play the "Alpine Sunset" and the "Song of the Weser," two more of Frau Beckmann's favorites. She can hear them on the floor above. Karl grins over at me proudly; after all, he is the proprietor of those impressive pincers. Steinhager, beer, and schnaps flow. I have a couple of drinks and continue to play. I want not to be alone just now. I want to think and at the same time that's the last thing in the world I want to do. My hands are full of an unaccustomed tenderness, something swirls about me and seems to press against me; the workroom disappears and the rain is there again, the mist and Isabelle and the darkness. She is not sick, I think, and yet I know that she is—but if she is sick, then all the rest of us are sicker—

  A noisy altercation rouses me. The fat man has not been able to forget the figure Frau Beckmann cut. Inflamed by numerous drinks, he has made Karl Brill a triple offer—five million for afternoon tea with Frau Beckmann—one million for a short conversation now, during which he no dubt intends to invite her to an honorable dinner without Karl Brill —and two million for a couple of good grasps oh the showpiece of the Beckmann anatomy, here in the workshop among brothers in happy comradeship, therefore completely honorable.

  But now Karl's character asserts itself. If the fat man had no more than a sporting interest, he could perhaps have had his grasps in return for some such nominal sum as a hundred thousand marks—but such a gesture with lascivious intent strikes Karl as a serious insult. "You miserable bastard!" he roars. "I thought everyone here was a cavalier!"

  "I am a cavalier," the fat man says thickly. "That's why I made the offer."

  "You're a pig."

  "That's true too, otherwise I wouldn't be a cavalier. You ought to be proud of the impression the lady makes—have you no heart? What can I do if my nature grows unruly? Why are you insulted? After all, you aren't married to her?"

  I see Karl Brill jump as though someone had shot him. He lives in common-law marriage with Frau Beckmann, who is bis housekeeper. No one knows why he does not marry her—-unless perhaps it is that same stubbornness of character which makes him cut a hole in the ice so that he can go swimming in winter. Nevertheless, it is his weak point.

  "If I had such a jewel," the fat man mutters, "I would carry her in my arms and clothe in her satin and silk. Silk, red silk—" He is almost sobbing and is tracing voluptuous forms in the air. The bottle beside him is empty. He is a tragic case of love at first sight. I turn away and go on playing. The picture of the fat man trying to carry Frau Beckmann in his arms is more than I can stand. "Get out!" Karl Brill shouts. "This is too much. I don't like to throw a guest out, but—"

  A dreadful scream comes from the back of the room. We leap up. A little man is dancing around there. Karl jumps toward him, seizes a pair of shears and turns off one of the machines. The little man faints. "Damn it! Who would expect anyone to play with a soling machine when drunk?" Karl cries indignantly.

  We examine the hand. A few threads hang out of it. The machine has caught him in the soft flesh between the thumb and index finger—fortunately. Karl pours schnaps on the wound, and the little man comes to. "Amputated?" he asks in horror, seeing his hand in Karl's paw.

  "Nonsense, the arm is still attached."

  The man sighs in relief as Karl shakes his arm in front of his eyes. "Blood poisoning, do you think?" he asks.

  "No. Only the machine will get rusty from your blood. We'll wash your flipper with alcohol, put some iodine on it, and tie it up."

  "Iodine? Doesn't that hurt?"

  "It stings for a second. Just as though your hand had drunk a very strong schnaps."

  The little man pulls his hand away. "I'd rather drink the schnaps myself."

  He gets a not-too-clean handkerchief out of his pocket, wraps up his paw, and reaches for the bottle. Karl grins. Then he looks around uneasily. "Where's Fatty?"

  No one knows. "Perhaps he's made himself thin," someone says and earns a round of laughter.

  The door opens and the fat man appears. Bent double he staggers in, behind him Frau Beckmann in her salmon-pink kimono. She has twisted his arm behind him and is propelling him into the workshop. With a mighty shove she lets him go. The fat man falls on his face in the women's shoe section. Frau Beckmann makes a gesture as though dusting her hands and goes out. With a mighty leap Karl Brill is beside the fat man and yanks him to his feet. "My arm!" whimpers the rejected lover. "She has twisted it out of the socket! And my belly! Oh, my belly! What a kick!"

  He doesn't need to explain. Frau Beckmann is a fair antagonist for Karl Brill, winter swimmer and first-class gymnast. She has already broken his arm twice, not to mention what she can do with a vase or a poker. One night less than six months ago she surprised two burglars who had broken into the workshop. Afterward both were in the hospital for weeks; one of them has never recovered from a blow on the skull which also cost him an ear. He still can't talk straight.

  Karl drags the fat man into the light. He is white with rage, but there's nothing more he can do—the fat man is finished. It would be like beating up a typhus patient. The fat man must have received a frightful blow in the organ with which he intended to sin. He is unable to walk. Karl can't even throw him out. We lay him in the back of the shop on a pile of leather trimmings.

  "The nice thing about Karl's is that it's always so jolly here," says a man who is trying to give the piano a drink of beer.

  I walk homeward along Grossestrasse. My head is swimming; I have drunk too much, but that was what I intended to do. The mist sweeps past the isolated lights still burning in the show windows and weaves a golden veil around the street lamps. In the window of a butcher shop an alpine rosebush is blooming beside a slaughtered pig with a lemon gripped in its waxy snout. Sausages are arranged in a cosy circle around them. It is an affecting picture, harmoniously combining beauty with utility. I stand in front of it for a time and then wander on.

  In the dark courtyard I collide with a shadow. It is old Knopf, who is once more standing in front of the black obelisk. I have run against him with my full weight and he staggers and throws both arms around the obelisk as though intending to climb it. "Sorry I ran into you," I say. "But why are you standing here? Can't you attend to your necessities in your own house? Or, if you're an exhibitionist, why not on a street corner?"

  Knopf lets go of the obelisk. "Damn it, now it's down my trousers," he mutters.

  "That won't hurt you. Well, you can finish up here nowas far as I'm concerned."

  "Too late."

  Knopf staggers across to his door. I go upstairs and decide to send Isabelle a bouquet of flowers tomorrow with the money I have won at Karl Brill's. That sort of thing, to be sure, usually brings me nothing but bad luck. However, I don't know of anything else to do. For a time I stand at the window looking out into the night and then I begin very softly and somewhat shamefacedly to repeat words and sentences I would like sometime to say to somebody, but for whom I have no one except possibly Isabelle—who doesn't even know who I am. But who does know that about anyone?

  13.

  The traveling salesman Oskar Fuchs, called Weeping Oskar, is sitting in the office. "What's new, Herr Fuchs?" I ask. "How is the grippe progressing in the villages?"