The Angel of History

by Bruno Arpaia

  The one thing that started improving was my relationship with María. Beats me why she changed her mind about me. Maybe it was just getting to sleep with Mercedes on the nights I was out. Or I’d finally worn her down by smiling over and over again. Or maybe she’d just got used to my face and now that I was part of the family business it didn’t seem appropriate to torture me. I don’t know. Fact is that she stopped making faces at me and stopped asking me when I was going to leave. One evening, in fact, when I was about to set out for France, Mercedes came over to me all sweet and flirty, kissing my cheek and smiling.

  ‘Why don’t you go say goodbye to María,’ she whispered in my ear.

  I went. María was already asleep, her mouth open, her head rolling back, her arms stretched out over the pillow. Mercedes leaned against the open door, watching me. What was I supposed to do? I knew what she had in mind. So I fussed with the blankets and kissed María softly on the forehead. I’ve got to admit, it didn’t feel right at all. It felt a little obscene, as if I were usurping something, acting out these motions that a father should do. But María responded.

  ‘Papà,’ she mumbled in her sleep. And I blushed.

  ‘Sleep, my treasure,’ I managed to say. But then, just to be clear, I let her know it was me. ‘Sleep, my treasure. It’s Laureano.’

  For better or worse, I passed that exam. And as soon as I left the room Mercedes hugged and kissed me. I wasn’t comfortable. Actually I was seething mad. My stomach was in knots and you couldn’t have blown the sadness and disgust off my face with cannon fire.

  I headed out a little earlier that night. My dogs followed me. The sky was icy and lit by just a sliver of moon. I climbed quickly, trying not to think of anything – to concentrate on where to put my feet, on my breath, and the darkness around me, the sounds of the night and the twists of the trail, up to the ridge. The breeze cleaned the air and shook the leaves in the trees. I was shivering as I started the descent, and I had to proceed by sheer memory, putting one foot in front of the other on the loose stones, I hugged the escarpment all the way to the clearing. It wasn’t far after that. Then I saw him. I found myself standing in front of your philosopher.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Darkness. Weariness. The heart. Jula Cohn’s shadow. Asja, who’d unearthed him in that far corner of the universe where it seems he’s ended up. In the Pyrenees, under a pine, watching the sunset. What was he doing there? Shivering in a threadbare, insubstantial suit, tie strung tightly around his neck as if he were going to the theatre or the movies. He’d been out of place like this his whole life. Now the cold, the grim exhaustion, the stars in the sky, pale next to the comma of a moon. The image that smiled upon him now was Dora, the first of many failures with women. And Stefan – how was he? Poor boy. What a wretched father he’d been. It seemed only yesterday when he held Stefan in his arms, watched him take his first steps. Then his heart. The asthma. The darkness. A shiver went down his spine, a wave of discomfort, irresistible – like so long ago in Nice when he’d gone to say farewell – that’s enough – the end. There was no way he’d ever get to America. Hunger. The cold closing in on the clearing. This countryside lost in silence. But this wasn’t that easy calm he’d always futilely sought out in real life. It was a taut, threatening silence. Heavy and as piercing as a word. The dampness of sunset dug into his bones. He couldn’t think about anything but the cold. His teeth chattered and he flapped his arms until finally defeated he curled up in the grass, motionless and panting. He knew he couldn’t give in – that he had to walk, to move about. But he – he – was too tired even to think! As if he knew how to do anything but think, as if he hadn’t spent his life consuming thoughts as voraciously as he could – as if life itself were on loan, borrowed. Now, that life, that body, its heart, muscles, lungs were demanding payback. He tried to stand and fell heavily back to the ground, his head rolling on the black bag. Oh God. Would the manuscript ever make it? He might die there and wouldn’t be able to carry it safely to the States. But what did that matter? And thus he arrived at the absence of all desire – he no longer even felt the desire to die. A sudden wave of heat, oh, the treacherous beatitude of those final moments.

  Laureano practically stepped on him. Absent-mindedly he’d cut through the clearing, hugging the tree line, in order to cut a little distance off the trail. When he suddenly found this man between his feet, his first reaction was to cuss through clenched teeth. Then he got scared – but recovered instantly because his eyes were used to the dark and he could make out the stranger’s face, frozen into a grimace that could have been a smile, spectacles askew on his nose, soiled clothes, mud covered, dust shoes. He was too old to be a threat, and he was clearly unwell. Laureano reached down to touch the man’s hands; they were icy. He felt for his pulse; it was faint like sparrows passing in the distance. He had to hurry. Setting his backpack on the ground, he took off his coat and spread it over the man, then started rubbing him from his chest down to his feet. When he thought he saw the man’s eyes flicker, he grabbed him under his arms and pulled him upright, then forced him to start walking.

  ‘Are you better?’ Laureano whispered. ‘You should sit now and drink some wine.’

  Trembling, the old man looked up as if he were surprised to still be there. In the white light of the moon, his face was a maze of wrinkles and exhaustion out of which shone terrified eyes. Could he trust this stranger? He had to.

  ‘I would like to extend my thanks,’ Benjamin said, mustering the little bit of Spanish that he’d learned back in Ibiza. ‘My name is Benjamin, Doctor Walter Benjamin,’ he added with a slight nod.

  Laureano stifled a laugh. Where had this little man come from – with his funny accent, his courtly manners, as if they were in an eighteenth-century salon instead of in the middle of the Pyrenees in the middle of a fucking war.

  ‘The pleasure is mine, Doctor,’ he said at once, a little playfully. ‘Laureano Mahojo. I’m a smuggler. And you?’

  He couldn’t keep himself from laughing with his eyes – silently so that the patrol wouldn’t hear. Benjamin thought that this frank, light-hearted laughter must be a sign, the last sign perhaps that life was still calling him and that he wasn’t ready to abandon it. His heart beat too quickly. His arms were tingling but he felt better. He could finally drink in the silence, the candid light over the top of the trees, the lush grass covering the clearing, the voice of the young man offering him a piece of bread.

  ‘I am a Jew,’ he said between bites, ‘escaping . . . If only I could tell you,’ he sighed.

  But even as he spoke these words he realised that he didn’t want to. That his nervousness had hardened him and he was already thinking of everything that lay ahead.

  ‘But I won’t make it,’ he added, lowering his head. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because my heart isn’t strong, I have asthma. For four months now – really for years now – I’ve been running and running and now I’m tired, too tired. That’s why I say it.’

  ‘But there isn’t much farther to go now at all,’ said Laureano, trying to comfort him. ‘More importantly, are you all alone?’

  Old Benjamin waggled his finger, because his mouth was still full, to indicate that he wasn’t alone. ‘They’ll join me tomorrow,’ he added after swallowing. ‘I’m with a lady and her son and another lady who is our guide. Might I have some more wine?’

  ‘Good,’ said Laureano. ‘But you shouldn’t worry, the trail isn’t hard from here. Another two or three hours and you’ll be at Port Bou. Just walk slowly and stick to one pace – don’t vary. Walk for maybe, I don’t know, ten minutes, then rest for a minute and then start again. Understand?’

  Benjamin pursed his lips and stared back wide-eyed. Could he trust this man or not?

  ‘You think so?’ he finally asked.

  ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. The important thing is your state of mind – whether or not you really want to make it or not.’
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  Benjamin sat back silently for a moment, sweating cold in the darkness, trying to find a comfortable position against the tree trunk. Then, with a start, he found himself fending off a sudden, stubborn thought, wedged hard into some crevice of his brain – he had to make amends with the hunchbacked dwarf from the nursery rhymes, the one tugging at the worn threads of his existence, his destiny. What was he getting worked up over? Maybe his life was even being controlled by the hunch-back – like in that story he’d written about the automaton playing checkers. Something shook him and he emerged from that fleeting battle as if from a bad dream, a nightmare.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said almost to himself. Then, lowering his voice and drawing near to Laureano, added, ‘You see, if it were all about me then there’d be no problem. I wouldn’t be worth doing this for. It’s not me, it’s this manuscript.’

  ‘Manuscript?’

  ‘Yes, my book. It’s in this bag, you see. I left a copy in Paris with a friend, but who knows what the Nazis will do with it. But I have this one – with me or without me it has to get to New York. My book must escape the Gestapo. You see why it’s so important?’

  No, Laureano didn’t entirely understand, but he also didn’t have time to decide how to answer—

  ‘Get down to ground and keep quiet!’ he whispered gruffly, shoving the old man into the brush behind the pine tree.

  The voices were coming from below, on the path, not even fifty metres away. There were two of them, they were laughing. Benjamin’s heart pounded in his chest and he buried his face into the grass – but he couldn’t stay like that long and soon lifted his head and managed to catch a glance of the moon flashing on the bayonets. Then the voices started to fade and disappear entirely around the bend in the path.

  ‘French,’ said Laureano, ‘the Garde mobile.’

  They sat motionless, flat to the ground, without talking for almost half an hour. As Laureano listened to the little man’s rattling breath, he thought he could almost touch his sadness. When he thought Benjamin had fallen asleep, he stood and gathered his things quietly. But Walter was still awake even though he was keeping his eyes shut against the darkness. It was frightening now, the way the darkness wrapped around them like a blanket. The daylight always made everything seem more familial, comforting – but not this.

  ‘Don’t leave,’ he implored. ‘Wait until it gets light.’

  Laureano nodded and sat back down, legs splayed, his back against the pine. He stayed until the sky swallowed the stars and turned chalky grey and the first, wet glimmers of light fought their way into existence, articulating the dark mass of trees around the clearing.

  ‘I have to go now,’ he said. ‘You will make it; you’ll see. But you must promise me that you’ll take your life a little more seriously.’

  Benjamin looked at him, or perhaps he looked into the emptiness behind him, his absent eyes seemed to be harbouring other thoughts.

  ‘I lived,’ he said at last as if reciting a poem, ‘but never saw life. I was swept away, like dust.’

  Laureano smiled. That was just what they needed – a poem.

  ‘Lovely words. Did you write them?’ he joked.

  ‘No, Dostoyevsky did,’ answered Walter soberly.

  ‘You read too much, Doctor Benjamin,’ he said with a smile. ‘Farewell and good luck.’

  ‘Yes,’ he mumbled.

  And he watched him disappear into the forest, walking with the elastic gait of someone who could walk half of Europe, someone with a lot of time left before him and more than that the will to enjoy it. Lucky him, he thought. And then realised he was alone again. Fortunately there was a streak of pink and violet already coming in from behind the mountains, illuminating just the peaks that Walter had yet to climb. He breathed deeply and stood to piss against a tree. When he looked up again the sky was almost blue, the wind almost warm and from the valley came the faint sound of a rooster crowing. He felt better now. Alive. He fell asleep with his spirit strong, clinging to his bones.

  PART SIX

  Chapter Forty-four

  He was already awake when he heard José’s voice calling him. Just a few minutes earlier he’d opened his eyes when he felt the sun on his nose; pulling his watch from his pocket he saw that it was ten to seven. The air was cool, the sky clear, not a cloud, not a remnant.

  ‘Hallo, Doctor Benjamin,’ cried José.

  ‘Will you please keep quiet,’ hushed his mother, who was walking behind with Lisa.

  With considerable effort,Walter made his way to his feet and headed to meet his companions with a smile. He could feel his bones creaking.

  ‘It is quite a pleasure to see you again,’ he said to José, tousling his mop of hair.

  A few yards away still, Lisa started waving but as she drew near she cast her eyes to the ground and grew silent. He tried to guess why she was looking at him with such a terrified expression.

  ‘Ah ha!’ he said, taking off his glasses and wiping his face with a handkerchief. ‘It’s the dew. The colour on these frames runs when it gets wet.’

  Thank goodness. The two dark rings around his eye sockets against that yellow complexion reminded Lisa for a moment of her uncle’s colouring right before he died. But they were already gone.

  ‘So, will you be joining us?’ she asked with a smile.

  ‘I believe so,’ answered Benjamin gaily. ‘I think a lovely stroll to Spain would do me some good.’

  Not exactly a stroll. The path became much more difficult after the clearing and the trail itself got lost among the rocks and the escarpment. At a certain point they realised they were heading downward to the right of the very crest they had to climb. They were walking away from the trail and had made a mistake.

  ‘May I have a look at Azéma’s map?’ asked old Benjamin. ‘Here, you see? We have to go back.’

  It was a good twenty minutes back to the fork in the road where they had taken the wrong turn. To call it a trail at this point would have been an exaggeration. Sometimes it was steps barely etched into the rock, at other times it was a thin crack between two boulders through which you could only pass one at a time. But the mayor had been right that this was everything else notwithstanding the safest route – it crossed below the most highly trafficked roads and was hidden from the police and border patrol behind the perilously jutting cliffs. Occasionally the two paths would run close and the group would have to keep very quiet.

  Benjamin walked slowly and kept a steady pace. He stopped periodically to rest and then would take up again at the very same calm pace.

  ‘Are you tired?’ asked José.

  ‘No. I figured out last night how to get through this. I have to stop and rest at regular intervals before I actually get tired. This is my system for getting to Spain. Do you know what I wrote many years ago? – Nothing can conquer my patience. I wrote that.’

  Benjamin could feel Frau Fittko’s sharp eyes on him, and he could guess what she was thinking: what a shame that a man with so much strength of will couldn’t be slightly less inept. This is what Lisa was thinking – but old Benjamin was used to it. And he didn’t have the time to dwell on it because José kept talking to him.

  ‘You’re a writer?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s say I’m a critic; I write essays.’

  ‘José, stop bothering Doctor Benjamin,’ his mother reprimanded him.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Walter.

  The little triumph lit up the boy’s cheeks and he perked up.

  ‘Do they pay you to write?’

  Benjamin could barely keep himself from laughing. ‘Sometimes,’ he muttered, and he began to reflect sadly on the fruitless results that all of his ideas and effort had produced. What use had thoughts and ideas been? It all came to nothing. Not even survival. Not really, no. He just hadn’t been born into the right time-period.

  ‘Can I help carry your bag?’ he heard the boy ask.

  This time he consented because the sun was beating maliciously on his neck and
there was the steep vineyard Azéma had marked on the map in front of them. This would be, he’d warned, the hardest part of the journey. There was no path, just the slippery ground under their feet. They climbed among the vines dripping with almost ripe Banyuls grapes, black and sugary, hanging at an angle that seemed almost horizontal to Benjamin. He gasped for air, a grim sound that came straight up from his lungs. He stopped, moved forward but his legs stayed behind and buckled. He stopped again to let his heart slow down, moved forward on hands and knees and then stopped again wheezing for air.

  ‘This is it. I can’t go on,’ he calmly announced between breaths. ‘This climb is beyond me. A person knows when it’s time to stop, when he’s reached his limit.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Lisa called to him as she came down again with José to assist him. They each took a side, draping his arms over their shoulders and they dragged him, tripping and puffing, to the top. Benjamin opened his mouth, but no words came out. He didn’t even complain. Though he wouldn’t take his eyes off the black bag, which Lisa was now carrying.