We came out of the village. It was late afternoon and the snowfields glowed red, tinged by the descending sun. Some ricks on the slope lay almost buried in whiteness.. Like tiny commas the last skiers dropped down into the valley. As they did so they passed under the red sun, that appeared once more, mighty beyond the slope, a ball of dusky fire.
"Did you come along here yesterday?" asked Pat.
"Yes."
The car topped the summit of the first ascent. Köster stopped.
The view from here was overpowering. The day before, as we sped along through the glassy, blue evening, we had not even noticed it. We had had eyes for nothing but the road.
Rise beyond rise the manifold valley opened. The ridges of the distant ranges stood out sharp and clear against the pale green sky. They glowed golden. Golden flecks lay dusted over the snowfields at the foot of the peaks. From moment to moment the slopes took on an ever more gorgeous whitish red, and the shadow became ever bluer. The sun stood in the gap between two shimmering peaks and the broad valley with its dips and rises was like some vast, mute, glittering parade before a dying ruler. The violet ribbon of the road wound among the hills, disappeared, reappeared, dark at the bends, past villages, and then ran straight along the saddle of the pass to the horizon.
"I've never been so far from the village before," said Pat. "Is that the road home?"
"Yes."
She was silent and looked along it. Then she got out and held her hand shading her eyes. And so she peered into the north as if she could see already the spires of the city. "How far is it?" she asked.
"About a thousand kilometres. In May we'll go along there. Otto is fetching us."
"In May," she repeated. "My God, in May."
Slowly the sun sank. The valley came to life; shadows that hitherto had been squatting fixed in the folds of the ground started noiselessly to creep out and climb higher like blue gigantic spiders. It turned cool. "We must get back, Pat," said I.
She looked up and her face was suddenly stricken with pain. I saw at once that she knew everything. She knew she would never escape beyond that pitiless chain of mountains on the skyline, she knew it and meant to hide it, just as we had meant to hide it from her, but for one moment she lost her grip and all the misery of the world broke in her eyes. "Let's go down just a little way," said she. "Just a little way down."
"Come," said I, after a glance at Köster. She got in at the back with me, I bedded her in my arm and pulled the rugs over us both. The car began slowly to descend the mountain, into the valley and the shadows.
"Robby, darling," whispered Pat on my shoulder, "now it's as if we were driving home, back into our life—"
"Yes," said I and covered her up to the hair.
It grew rapidly darker the lower we came. Pat lay completely under the covers. She thrust her hand in to my chest, under the shirt; I felt her hand on my skin, then her breath, her lips, and then her tears.
Cautiously, so she should not notice the turn, Köster swung the car in a long sweep on the market place of the next village and drove slowly back.
The sun had vanished when we drove again over the summit, and already, in the east, pale and clear between the rising clouds, stood the moon. We drove back, the chains ground over the snow with a monotonous sound; the evening became still; I sat motionless, and felt Pat's tears on my heart as if a wound were bleeding there.
An hour later I was sitting in the hall. Pat was in her room and Köster had gone to the weather bureau to find out whether it was going to snow. It had turned misty outside, the moon now had a ring, and, soft and grey as velvet, the night stood at the window. After a while Antonio came and joined me.
A few tables away sat a tight, round, bumptious fellow like a cannon ball, in homespun coat, and knickerbockers too short for him; he had a baby face with pouting lips and cold eyes, and on top a round red head without hair, shiny as a billiard ball. Beside him was a thin woman with deep shadows under the eyes and a troubled, imploring expression. The cannon ball was lively, his head in constant movement, his rosy little hands describing plump gestures. "Marvellous up here, quite superb. The panorama, the air, the attention! You're well off, really—"
"Bernhard," said his wife gently.
"Truly, I wouldn't mind some of it, coddled and looked after!" Oily laughter. "Still, I don't begrudge you—"
"Ach, Bernhard," said his wife dispiritedly.
"What now, come now," the cannon ball clattered gaily on, "you couldn't have better anywhere. Why, you're in Paradise here. Think of us down below there. Out again every morning into the muck. You be thankful you're spared that. But I'm glad to see you getting on so well here."
"Bernhard, I'm not getting on well," said his wife.
"But my child," Bernhard bustled on, "don't you complain. It's we ought to do that. Bankruptcy everywhere, always on the go, taxes—still, we're glad to be able to do it, of course."
The woman said nothing.
"A nice lad," said I to Antonio.
"Is he not!" replied Antonio. "Since the day before yesterday he's been here, talking down every attempt of his wife's with his 'Wonderfully well off you are.' He just refuses to see, you know—neither her fear, her sickness, or her loneliness. And all the time he's probably living in Berlin with another cannon ball just like himself, paying his duty call here every six months, rubbing his hands, jovial, studying only his own convenience. And not listening to anything. You often see it up here."
"How long has his wife been here?"
"About two years."
A troop of young people ran giggling into the hall. Antonio laughed. "They've come from the post. They've been sending a telegram to Roth."
"Who's Roth?"
"He's the next to go out. They've wired him not to come home because of an influenza epidemic in the town, and that he'd best stay on here. One of the usual jokes. Because they have to stay themselves, you see."
I looked out the window at the grey satin-hung mountain. It just isn't true all this, thought I; just isn't real, it doesn't go like this. This is only a stage where they act a bit at death. When men die it's in grim earnest—I should have liked to follow these young folk and shake them by the shoulders and say to them "It is so, isn't it? This is just a charade of death, and you mere facetious amateurs acting at dying? You'll get up again after and bow, won't you ? People just don't die this way, from a bit of fever and noisy breathing—it takes bullets and wounds, I know that."
"Are you sick too?" I asked Antonio.
"Of course," said he smiling.
"Perfectly delicious coffee," rattled the cannon ball alongside. "Nothing like that with us, I tell you. An absolute lotus land I"
Köster came back from the weather bureau. "I must go, Bob," said he. "The glass has dropped and there'll be snow to-night probably. Then to-morrow I wouldn't get through. To-night I'll just make it."
"Right. Is there time for supper together?"
"Yes. I'll pack quickly now."
"I'll come over."
We packed Köster's things and brought them down to the garage. Then we went back to get Pat.
"Give us a call if anything happens, Bob," said Otto.
I nodded.
"The money will be here in a few days. Enough for a while. Do whatever's necessary."
"Yes, Otto." I hesitated. "We've got some phials of morphia back home. Can you send them?"
He looked at me. "What do you want them for?"
"I don't know how it will be here—it may not be necessary. I still have hope of a sort, in spite of everything— always, when I see her—but I wouldn't like her to suffer, Otto. That she should lie around and nothing be there of her but just pain. Perhaps they'd give her some here themselves in that case—but it would be a comfort to me to know I can help her."
"Only that, Bob?" asked Köster.
"Only that, Otto. Truly. I wouldn't ask you otherwise."
He nodded.
"We are only two now," said he, slowly.
"Yes."
"All right, Bob."
We went into the hall and I fetched Pat down. Then we ate quickly, for it was growing steadily more overcast. Köster drove Karl from the garage up to the door.
"Good luck, Bob," said he.
"Same to you, Otto."
"Au revoir, Pat." He shook hands and looked at her. "I'll come and fetch you in the spring."
"Good-bye, Köster." She held his hand fast. "I'm so very glad to have seen you again. Give my greetings to Gottfried Lenz too."
"Yes," said Köster.
She still held his hand. Her lips quivered. And suddenly she took a step forward and kissed him. "Good-bye," she murmured in a choking voice.
Köster's face suddenly lit up with a bright red flame. He meant to say something, but then turned away, got into the car, set off with a bound and raced down the hairpin bends without looking round. We watched him. The car thundered along the main street and climbed the zig-zag ascent like a solitary firefly,-the pallid field of the searchlight moving over the grey snow ahead. At the summit the car stopped and Köster waved. He stood out dark against the light. Then he vanished, and for a loag time still we, heard only the hum of the engine growing steadily fainter.
Pat stood leaning forward, listening as long as anything was still to be heard. Then she turned to me.
"The last ship has left, Robby."
"The second last," I replied. "I'm the last. And do you know what I propose doing? I'm going to look for a new anchorage. I don't like the room in the annex any more. I don't see why we shouldn't live together. I'm going to try and get a room in your neighbourhood."
She smiled. "Quite impossible. You'll never do it. How are you going to start?"
"Would you be glad if I did manage it?"
"What a question! It would be grand, darling. Almost as good as at Mother Zalewski's."
"Right. Then just leave me to get busy for half an hour."
"All right. I'll play a game of chess with Antonio. That's one thing I've learnt up here."
I went to the office and explained that I should be staying rather longer and would like a room on the same floor with Pat. An elderly, flat-chested matron refused indignantly because of the house regulations.
"Who made the regulations?" I asked.
"The Management," retorted the matron, smoothing the folds of her dress.
Rather reluctantly she did finally inform me that the doctor in charge had discretion in exceptional cases.
"But he has gone now," she added. "At night he goes home and is not to be disturbed except on business."
"Good," said I, "then I'll trouble him on business. A matter of the house regulations."
The doctor lived in a small house next to the sanatorium. He received me immediately and gave me permission at once.
"Judging from the start, I didn't expect it to be quite so easy," said I.
He laughed. "Aha, you ran into old Rexroth probably? Well, I'll just telephone."
I returned to the office. Rexroth beat a dignified retreat as she caught sight of my defiant face. I arranged everything with the secretary and gave the manservant the job of shifting my stuff across and getting me a few bottles of drink. Then I went to Pat in the hall.
"Have you managed it?" she asked.
"Not yet, but in a few days I will."
"That's a pity." She overturned the chessmen and stood up.
"What should we do?" I asked. "Go to the bar?"
"We often play cards," said Antonio. "The John's coming, you can feel it. Cards are best then."
"Cards? Pat?" said I in surprise. "What cards can you play? Black Peter and Patience, eh?"
"Poker, darling," announced Pat.
I laughed. "She can, really," said Antonio. "Only she's a bit reckless. She bluffs terribly."
"So do I," I replied. "We must try our hand."
We sat in a corner and started playing. Pat did not poker badly at all. But she bluffed to glory. After an hour Antonio pointed out the window. It was snowing. Slowly, as if still hesitating, the fat flakes fell almost vertically clown. "There's not a breath of wind," said Antonio. "That means a lot of snow."
"Where will Köster be now?" asked Pat.
"He's well over the pass," said I. For an instant I saw Karl quite distinctly trailing with Köster through the snow, and suddenly it all seemed unreal—that I should be sitting here, that Köster should be on the road and that Pat should be there. She smiled at me happily, pressing her hand with the cards on to the table.
"Fire away, Robby."
The cannon ball bowled in, came to rest behind our table, and began rocking benevolently back and forth on his toes. His wife was asleep no doubt, and he was in search of entertainment. I laid down the cards and stared at him poisonously till he vanished.
"You're not very friendly," said Pat, pleased.
"No," said I. "Didn't mean to be."
We went into the bar and drank a few Specials. Then Pat had to go to bed. I took leave of her in the hall. She walked slowly up the stairs, and looked round and stopped before she turned into the corridor. I waited a bit, then got my room key at the office. The little secretary smiled.
"Number seventy-eight," said she.
It was the room next to Pat's. "At Fräulein Rexroth's suggestion, no doubt?"
"No, Fräulein Rexroth is in the Mission House," she replied.
"Mission Houses have their uses sometimes," said I and went swiftly up. My things were already unpacked. Half an hour later I knocked on the communicating door between the two rooms.
"Who's there?" called Pat.
"The surveillance police," I replied.
The key grated in the lock and the door flew open. "You, Robby?" stammered Pat, completely taken by surprise.
"Me," said I. "Conqueror of Fräulein Rexroth. Cognac and Porto-Ronco proprietor." I drew the bottles from the pockets of my dressing gown. "And now tell me at once, how many men have been here already?"
"None, except the football club and the philharmonic orchestra," announced Pat laughing. "Ach, darling, now the old times are here again."
She fell asleep on my shoulder. I stayed awake a long time. In one corner of the room a small lamp was burning. The snowflakes knocked lightly on the window and in the soft golden brown twilight time seemed to stand still. Occasionally the pipes of the central heating cracked. Pat turned in her sleep, and slowly, rustling, the bedclothes slipped to the floor.
Ach, thought I, bronze, shimmering skin. Slender miracle of the knee. Soft mystery of the breast. I felt her hair on my shoulder, and the pulse of her blood under my lips. You are to die? thought I. You cannot die. You are happiness.
Cautiously I pulled up the clothes again. Pat murmured something and was silent again and put her hand slowly, in sleep, around my shoulder.
Chapter XXVII
The next few days it snowed uninterruptedly. Pat was feverish and had to stay in bed. Most of the patients had temperatures.
"It's the weather," said Antonio. "The föhn. Too warm. Regular fever weather."
"Go out for a while, darling," said Pat. "Can you ski?"
"No. How should I be able to? I was never in the mountains before."
"Antonio will show you. It will be fun for him. And he likes you."
"I'd much rather stay here."
She sat up in bed. The nightgown slipped from her shoulders. Damned thin they were. Damned thin, too, the back of the neck. "Do, for my sake, Robby. I don't like you sitting here by the sickbed. Yesterday and the day before— that's already more than enough."
"But I like sitting here," I replied. "Haven't the least desire to go out into the snow."
She was breathing loudly and I could hear the irregular rasping.
"I've had more experience of this than you," said she, propping herself on her elbows. "It's better for both of us. You'll see after." She tried hard to smile. "This afternoon and to-night you can sit here all you want. In the morning it makes me restless, darling. One l
ooks so dreadful in the morning when one's feverish. At night it's different. I know it's superficial and silly—but I don't want to look a fright when you see me."
"But Pat!" I stood up. "All right then, I'll go out a bit with Antonio. Then I'll be back here again at midday. Let's hope I don't break every bone with these ski things."
"You'll soon learn it, darling." Her face lost its anxious look. "You'll soon ski wonderfully."
Three Comrades Page 43
