A Time to Love and a Time to Die

by Erich Maria Remarque

  The train rolled on. Once it stopped in a tunnel for two hours. There was no light in the cars and the tunnel itself was entirely dark. They were accustomed to living underground; nevertheless after a time the tunnel became oppressive.

  They smoked. The glowing tips of their cigarettes darted up and down like fireflies. "Probably a mechanical failure," said the non-com.

  They listened. They could not hear any airplanes. Nor were there any sounds of explosions. "Were any of you ever in Rothenburg?" asked the man from Cologne.

  "It's an ancient city," Graeber said. . "Were you there?"

  "No. Haven't you ever been there?"

  "No. And what can I possibly do there?"

  "You should have gone to Berlin," said the mouse. "You only get leave once. And there's more going on in Berlin."

  "I haven't enough money for Berlin. Where would I stay? In a hotel? I want to get to my family."

  The train jerked into motion. "Finally," said the bass. "I thought we were going to be buried here."

  Light trickled grayly into the gloom. It became more silvery and then the landscape was there again. It seemed more precious than ever. They all crowded to the windows. The afternoon was like wine. Involuntarily they looked for fresh bomb craters. They found none.

  A few stations farther on the bass got out. Then the non-com and two others. An hour later Graeber began to recognize the countryside. Twilight was beginning. Blue veils hung in the trees. It was not any definite object that he recognized—no houses or villages or hills—it was the landscape itself that suddenly spoke. It came from all sides, sweet, overwhelming, and full of sudden memories. It was not precise, it had nothing to do with facts, it was hardly more than the presentiment of return, not return itself, but for that very reason it'was much stronger. The. twilight lanes of dreams were in it and they had no end.

  The names of the stations were now familiar. Places remembered from excursions slipped by. In his memory there was suddenly the smell of strawberries and resin and of the heath in the sun. It could only be a few minutes now till the city came. Graeber had strapped up his things. He stood up and waited for the first streets.

  The train stopped. People hurried about outside. Graeber peered out. He heard the name of the city. "Well, good luck," said the man from Cologne.

  "We're not there yet. The station's in the middle of town."

  "Perhaps they have moved it. Better ask."

  Graeber opened the door. In the half-darkness he saw people getting in. "Is this Werden?" he asked.

  A couple of people glanced up but did not reply. They were in too much of a hurry. He got out. Then he heard the sta-tionmaster shout: "Werden! All out for Werden!"

  He seized the straps of his knapsack and forced his way through to the official. "Doesn't this train go to the station?"

  The man eyed him wearily. "Do you want to go to Werden?"

  "Yes."

  "Over there to the right behind the platform. The bus goes the rest of the way."

  Graeber walked along the platform. He was unfamiliar with it. It was new and made of green lumber. He found the bus. "Do you go to Werden?" he asked the driver.

  "Yes."

  "Doesn't the train go through to the city any more?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Because it only goes this far."

  Graeber looked at the driver. He saw it was pointless to go on questioning him. He would get no real answer. He climbed into the bus. There was a vacant seat in one corner.. Outside everything was dark now. He could only just make out what seemed to be new rails shimmering in the darkness. They led off at right angles to the direction of the city. The train was already being switched. Graeber squeezed himself into his corner. Perhaps they have just done it as a precaution, he thought without conviction.

  The bus drove off. It was an old crate with bad gasoline. The engine coughed. Several Mercedes cars overtook them. In one seat army officers; in twa-others officers of the S.S. The people in the bus watched them race by. They said nothing. Hardly anything was said during the drive. Only a child laughed and played in the aisle. A girl of about two, blonde, with a blue ribbon in her hair.

  Graeber saw the first streets. They were undamaged. He sighed with relief. The bus rattled on for a few minutes and then stopped. "All out;"

  "Where are we?" Graeber asked the man next to him.

  "Bramschestrasse."

  "Don't we go any farther?"

  "No."

  The man got out. Graeber followed him. "I'm on furlough," he said. "For the first time in two years." He had to tell someone.

  The man looked at him. He had a fresh scar on his forehead and two of his front teeth were missing. "Where do you live?"

  "Number Eighteen Hakenstrasse."

  "Is that in the old city?"

  "On the edge. Corner of Luisenstrasse. You can see the Katharinenkirche from there."

  "Yes—" The man stared up into the dark sky. "Well—you know the way."

  "Certainly. That's something you don't forget."

  "Certainly not. Good luck."

  "Thanks."

  Graeber walked along Bramschestrasse. He looked at the houses. They were whole. He looked at the windows. They were all dark. Air raid precaution, he thought; of course. It was childish, but nevertheless he had not expected it; he had thought the city would be lighted. He ought to have remembered from last time. Quickly he walked along the street. He saw a baker's shop in which there was no bread. In the window a couple of paper roses stood in a glass vase. A fancy grocery store came next; the display window was full of packages; but they were empty containers. Then a saddler's window. Graeber remembered the store. A stuffed brown horse used to stand there. He glanced in. The horse was still standing there and in front of him, his head raised to bark, the old stuffed black and white terrier, too, just as before. He stopped a moment before the window which was unchanged in spite of all that had happened in recent years; then he walked on. Suddenly he felt at home. "Good evening," he said to someone he did not know who was standing in a nearby doorway.

  "Evening," the man said after a while, in surprise, behind him.

  The pavement resounded under Graeber's boots. Soon he would get rid of this heavy footgear and put on his light civilian shoes. He would take a bath in clear hot water and put on a clean shirt. He walked faster. The-street seemed to spring upward' beneath his feet as though it were alive or filled with electricity. Then suddenly he smelled the smoke.

  He stopped. It was not chimney smoke; nor the smoke of a wood fire; it was the smell of a conflagration. He looked around. The houses stood there undamaged. The roofs were, not burned. The sky behind them was dark blue and vast.

  He walked on. The street ended in a little square with flower beds. The smell of burning grew stronger. It seemed to hang in the bare treetops. Graeber sniffed; he could not determine where it came from. Now it was everywhere, as though it had fallen from the sky like ashes.

  At the next corner he saw the first ruined house. It gave him a start. He had seen nothing but ruins in recent years and never thought anything about it; but he stared at this pile of rubble as though he were seeing a ruined building for the first time in his life.

  It's just a single house, he thought. Only a single one. The others are all still standing. He hastened past the pile of rubble, sniffing. The smell of burning was not coming from it. This house had been destroyed quite a long time ago. Perhaps it had been an accident—a forgotten bomb that had been released at random on the flight home.

  He looked for the name of the street. Bremerstrasse. It was still a long way to Hakenstrasse. Still at least a half-hour's walk. He went faster. He saw hardly anyone. Under a dark archway some blue electric bulbs were burning. They were shaded and they made the arch look as though it had tuberculosis.

  Then came the first ruined corner. This time there were several houses. Only the foundation walls were still standing. They rose into the air jagged and black. Bent girders h
ung between like dark snakes that had crawled out of the stones. Part of the rubble had been shoveled to one side. These ruins too were old. Graeber went close by them. He clambered over the rubble on the sidewalk and in the darkness saw darker shadows like giant beetles creeping about. "Hello!" he shouted. "Is anyone there?"

  Mortar crumbled and stones clattered. The figures slid away. Graeber heard heavy breathing. He listened, then realized that it was he himself who was breathing so loud.

  Now he was running. The smell of the fire grew more intense. The destruction increased. Then he came to the old city and stopped and stared and stared. Rows of wooden houses from the Middle Ages had stood there before, with their projecting gables, painted roofs, and bright-colored legends. They were not there any more. In their place he saw thé chaotic aftermath of a holocaust, charred beams, foundation walls, heaps of stone, remnants of pavement and over it a billowing whitish mist. The houses had burned like dry chips.

  He ran on. Wild fear had suddenly seized him. He had remembered that not.far from his parents' house there was a small copper works. That might have been a target. He blundered on along the street as fast as he could, over smoldering heaps of damp ruins, he bumped into people, he ran forward, he climbed over piles of rubble and then he stopped. He no longer knew where he was.

  The city that he had known since childhood was so changed that he could no longer find his way. He was used to orienting himself by the house-fronts. They were no longer there. He asked a woman who was stealing by how he could get to Hakenstrasse.

  "What?" she asked, terrified. She was dirty and held her hands in front of her breast.

  "To Hakenstrasse."

  The woman motioned. "There—over there—around the corner—"

  He went that way. Charred trees stood on one side. Their twigs and smaller branches had been burned away; the stumps and a few of the main branches still rose into the air. They looked like immense black hands stretched up out of the earth toward the sky.

  Graeber tried to get his bearings. From here he should have been able to-see the spire of the Katharinenkirche. He did not see it. Perhaps the church too had been destroyed. He did not ask anyone else. Somewhere he saw stretchers standing. People were digging. Firemen were running about. Water splashed through dense smoke. A dull glow hung over the copper works. Then he found Hakenstrasse.

  CHAPTER VII

  A BENT lamp post bore the street sign. It pointed diagonally downward into a bomb crater in which lay the fragments of a wall and an iron bedstead. He walked around the crater and ran on. Further off he saw an undamaged house standing. Eighteen, he whispered. It has to be Number Eighteen. God grant that Eighteen is standing!

  He had made a mistake. It was only the front of a house. In the darkness it had looked whole. But as he came up to it he saw that the entire back had fallen in. High up a piano hung jammed between steel girders. The cover had been torn off and the keys gleamed like a gigantic mouth full of teeth, as though a huge prehistoric animal were glaring down in rage. The door of the house-front stood wide open.

  Graeber ran across to it. "Look out there!" someone shouted. "Be careful. Where are you trying to go?"

  He did not answer. Suddenly he could no longer recall where his parents' house should be. Through all the years he had seen it before his eyes, every window, the front door, the steps—but now on this night everything had become confused. He did not even know on which side of the street he was standing.

  "Look out, man!" the voice cried again. "Do you want that wall on your head?"

  Graeber stared through the door of the house. He saw the beginning of a staircase. He looked for the house number. An air raid warden came up. "What are you doing here?"

  "Is this Number Eighteen? Where is Eighteen?"

  "Eighteen?" The air raid warden straightened his helmet.

  "Where is Eighteen? Where was Eighteen, you mean, surely."

  "Was?"

  "Of course. Haven't you eyes?"

  "This isn't Eighteen?"

  "Wasn't Eighteen! Was! It doesn't exist any more. Was is the word."

  Graeber seized the man by the lapels of his coat. "Listen," he said wildly. "I'm not here to listen to wisecracks. Where is Eighteen?"

  The air raid warden looked at him. "Let go of me at once or I'll blow this whistle for the police. You have no right to be here. This is a clean-up area. They will arrest you." 'They will not arrest me. I have come from the front." "How impressive! Do you suppose this isn't a front right here?"

  Graeber let the man go. "I live in Eighteen," he said. "Eighteen Hakenstrasse. My parents live here—" "No one lives in this street any more." "No one?"

  "No one. I ought to know. I used to live here too." The man suddenly showed his teeth. "Used to! Used to!" he shouted. "We have had six air raids here in ten days, you front-line soldier! And you damned scoundrels have been loafing out there! Whole and hearty, as anyone can see! And my wife? There—" He pointed to the house they were standing in front of. "Who is going to dig her out? No one! Dead! No point in doing it now, say the rescue squads. Too much urgent work elsewhere! Too many blasted records and blasted bureaus and blasted agencies that have to be rescued!" He thrust his haggard face close to Graeber. "Do you want to know something, soldier? Nobody has any idea what's happening till it happens to him. And if he knows it then, it's too late. You front-line soldier!" He spat. "You brave frontline soldier with your medals. Eighteen is over there. There where they're digging."

  Graeber left the man where he was. There where they're digging, he thought. There where they are digging! It is not true! I'm going to wake up right away and I'll be in the bunker, I'll wake up in the cellar of the nameless Russian village and Immermann will be there cursing, and Muecke and Sauer, this is Russia here, this is not Germany, Germany is whole and safe, it—

  He heard shouts and the clattering of shovels, then he saw the men on the bulging ruins. Water was streaming out of a broken main in the street. It glittered in the rays of the shielded lights.

  He ran up to a man who was giving orders. "Is this Eighteen?"

  "What? Get away from here! What are you looking for?" "I'm looking for my parents. In Eighteen. Where are they?" "Man, how should I know that? Am I God?"

  "Were they rescued?"

  "Ask someone else. That's not our affair. We only dig people out."

  "Are there some buried here?"

  "Of course. Do you think we're digging for fun?" The man turned back to the crew. "Stop! Quiet! Willmann, knock!"

  The workers got up. They were men in sweaters, men in dirty white collars, men in old mechanics! overalls, men with military trousers and civilian jackets. They were dirty arid their faces were wet. One of them knelt down in the rubble with a hammer and knocked against a pipe that was sticking up. "Silence!" shouted the overseer.

  There was silence. The man wjth the hammçr pressed his ear against the pipe. The breathing of the men and the trickling noise of mortar were audible. From a distance came the sounds of an ambulance and a fire engine. The man with the hammer knocked again. Then he straightened up. "They're still answering. But they're knocking faster. There can't be much air left."

  He knocked a few times very fast in reply. "Get at it!" shouted the overseer. "Farther over there! To the right! We'll have to drive the pipes through so they can get some air."

  Graeber was still standing beside him. "Is this an air raid shelter?"

  "Of course. What else? Do you think anyone would still be able to knock if he wasn't in a shelter?"

  Graeber swallowed. "Are they people from this house? The air raid warden over there said no one lives here any more."

  "The air raid warden is off his trolley. People are down there knocking, that's enough for us. Where they live is not our business."

  Graeber pulled his knapsack off. "I'm strong. I can help dig them out!" He looked at the men. "I must. My parents—"

  "It's all right with me. Willmann! Here's another for relief. Have you an extra ax?
"

  The man with the crushed legs came first. A beam had shattered them and pinned him down. The man was still alive. He was not unconscious. Graeber stared into his face. He did not know him. They sawed through the beam and pulled up a stretcher. The man did not scream. He just turned up his eyes and they were suddenly white.

  They widened the entrance and found two bodies. Both were crushed flat. The faces were flat; nothing stood out any longer, the noses were gone and the teeth were two rows of flat kernels, somewhat scattered and askew, like almonds baked in a cake. Graeber bent over them. He saw dark hair. His people were blond. They hauled the bodies out and they lay, strange and flat, on the street.

  It grew lighter. The moon was rising. The sky became a soft, very cool, almost colorless blue. "When was the raid?" Graeber asked when he was relieved. "Yesterday night."