The Last Days

by Laurent Seksik

  “You see,” Koogan had replied, “this carnival is a little like our Bayreuth Festival.”

  Stefan had forgotten all about Bayreuth.

  The air reverberated with the lyrics being chanted by the whole crowd.

  “Vão acabar com a Praça Onze, Não vai haver mais Escola de Samba, não vai Chora o tambourim, Chora o morro inteiro…”

  Koogan shouted the translation into Stefan’s ear.

  “They’re going to tear down Praça Onze, there will be more samba, the tambourines will cry, the whole world is going to cry…”

  The crowd was on the move again—a shapeless stream that undulated under a hail of confetti and ticker tape. In the midst of that gigantic, joyful fray, Stefan was seized by a sudden panic. He had lost hold of Lotte’s hand. He looked around frantically. The thought that she might have drowned in that human flood terrified him. Pushing his way through the pandemonium, he began screaming out her name, a cry that was lost in the midst of that racket. Everyone around him was lost in jubilation. A man wearing a skeleton costume and a skull mask roared in his face. He felt oppressed by the crowd and began thinking he’d lost her for good. A group of women wearing open bodices surrounded him, their bodies dripping with sweat as they shook in a sort of primitive dance. He saw himself as rather grotesque, lost in a ragged crowd wearing a white linen suit. A man wearing a fake beard jumped towards him and stole his panama hat from his head. He stood motionless, petrified. Then, just as quickly as the crowd had assembled, it dispersed. All of a sudden, he caught sight of her, covered in ticker tape, swaying her hips in front of a man playing maracas. He lingered for a while observing the scene, in the middle of that frenzied outburst, keeping his gaze obstinately fixed on his wife. She appeared to be floating before his eyes as if in a dream. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s about time, there you are!” Koogan exclaimed. “You had us frightened out of our wits… but isn’t Lotte with you?”

  He pointed to his wife with his index finger.

  A grand ball was being held at the Teatro Municipal. Koogan promised that they would amuse themselves there. Champagne would flow like water. Ray Ventura’s Orchestra was scheduled to perform. They headed to the Teatro. The ball was to be held in the great hall, which was situated on the main floor. It was an altogether different atmosphere, devoid of cross-dressing men and buxom women covered in glitter. This was where the white people had fun. Men wore dinner jackets and women were attired in sumptuous gowns. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was still suffused with a certain madness and abandon. Men and women were swaying their hips in the mirror-panelled rooms, stamping their feet to the rhythm of sambas played by the orchestra. People formed into conga lines that snaked through the hall, and then broke off to mingle once more in that contagious frenzy. Confetti rained down and camera bulbs flashed. Stefan had never witnessed such anarchy before. He drained the champagne flutes he was offered, and let the spectacle of beautiful women go to his head, then went for a walk around the room. The night seemed to last for ever. Everything in the room—the fabrics, the tables, the marble—seemed suffused with a drunken perfume. This new smell seemed to augur a fresh start. Perhaps tomorrow wouldn’t herald the end of the world. The singing in the room was imbued with a genuine sense of brotherhood. A new humanity was being built in the streets and palaces. The orchestra began playing a slow waltz. Lotte stationed herself in front of him. He uncrossed his arms and grabbed her by the waist. They began to dance. Everything started spinning around them. They picked up the pace and looked grandiose amidst all the other couples. On they danced, ignoring everyone around them, ignoring the past, ignoring the future. Looking right into her eyes, he told her he loved her. She held his gaze, then brought her lips to his ear and explained that she hadn’t understood what he’d said over all that noise. Could he repeat it?

  “I love you,” he said once more.

  Outside, the night was slowly turning to dawn.

  Tuesday, 17th February, in the morning.

  They walked in single file on the pavement under the scorching sun. They entered the crowds that had assembled once more on the streets to celebrate Mardi Gras, a crowd that was still drunk on the excesses of the previous night’s festivities, and exhilarated by the day’s prospects. They marched ahead, their heads hung low, through the deafening din as drums were pounded, fireworks exploded and whistles were blown. They didn’t talk. He wore black velvet trousers and a slightly creased shirt, while she was wearing a shapeless grey dress. They were carrying a suitcase each. He was leading the way. He was forced to confront people’s wrathful stares as he pushed past them. He didn’t excuse himself. No words left his mouth. His lips were dry. He tried to get his bearings as he walked in the direction of Praça Mauá, where they would take the bus back to Petrópolis. Lotte followed him closely, terrified at the thought that she might lose him. They walked through the street party as it rose from the ashes of the previous day, sustained by the exuberance of the night’s festivities. A man in a clown’s costume strode up to Lotte and started gesticulating. She walked past him unheedingly. A woman behind her showered her with insults and pushed her. Lotte lost her balance. Her suitcase snapped open and spilt its contents on the ground. Lotte shouted to draw her husband’s attention. He heard her cry amidst the uproar. He turned around and headed back towards her. She put her belongings back in the suitcase one by one. The woman who had insulted her grabbed Lotte’s red dress off the ground, held it out at arm’s length, tossed it on the asphalt and carried on dancing. Laughter burst out all around her. Lotte’s eyes welled with tears. Stefan closed the suitcase. Frozen with fear, she stared at her dress as it got trampled by the crowd. Stefan urged her to hurry up. She followed him. They drew near the bus station. Stefan had now got his bearings and knew where he was going. They came across a tram chock-full of people dancing to the sound of a little orchestra. They slipped through a crowd that refused to make way for them. They fled Rio. They followed their shadows as they stretched out on the ground. The fever that was gripping the city no longer affected them. Their hearts were frozen in fear. Their eyes saw abysses opening up all around them. They were immune to the warmth of the flares being lit all around them. They marched on, enveloped in their pain. The windows of buildings gleamed in the sun. Yet their eyes registered nothing but hailstorms and cold, wretched, endless rains. They were going back to their tomb. They were starting back for Petrópolis on that festive day in which they’d placed so many of their hopes. Tomorrow would be Ash Wednesday. As far as they were concerned, it was already Ash Wednesday. They had seen the newspaper headlines that morning. Singapore had fallen. Singapore, the last remaining bastion of civilization, had surrendered to the Japanese. They hadn’t seen it coming. The impregnable British fortress and its hundred thousand soldiers! The headline had read: “THE BRITISH HAVE LOST THE WAR.” The last bastion had fallen. The barbarians had the world at their feet. Nothing could ever stop them now. Henceforth, His Majesty’s soldiers would march through the Malaysian jungle with their heads hung low. Singapore had fallen. The Japanese had secured their oil supplies. The war was over. The Germans were advancing towards Suez. Any day now, the Axis Powers would be able to combine their forces. In a year’s time, the barbarians would arrive in Rio. The party was over. There was no sanctuary left, nowhere left to hide. Their faces were etched with pain and suffering. If Singapore had fallen, there was no army or general on earth that could withstand the waves of enemy soldiers. It was time to stop hoping for a better tomorrow. It was time to admit defeat. The dreaded moment had finally come to pass. They could no longer aspire to peace and happiness. There would be no world of tomorrow and the world of yesterday had disappeared. The years of terror had gone on long enough. The sham of a life they had lived had backfired. It was time to rejoin their people, to follow in their footsteps, the path ahead of them had already been mapped.

  They left Cláudio de Souza and the other Koogans behind. They left their grotesque illusions behind
in Rio. They felt guilty. They had behaved disgracefully. They had laughed, sung and danced. Luckily, Singapore, the martyred city, had reawoken them to the bleak state of affairs. The crowds around them had no idea of the catastrophe about to befall them. Their drunken, bloodshot eyes were blind. Those happy, simple souls were dancing on the ruins of Singapore. They went about in the grips of ecstasy while the danse macabre was readying to bear down on them. There would never be an end to the misery.

  There was nothing to keep them perched on the brink of the abyss. It was time to leave this world. To go back to Petrópolis.

  Sunday, 22nd February, noon.

  They had dismissed the housekeeper. The gardener had taken Sunday off. The house was bathed in light. Birdsong filtered through the half-open windows and the gently swaying curtains. They paced around their house for one last time. Everything was neat and tidy. The letters they had written over the past week had been carefully arranged on the little desk. They had spent Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday dedicated to that single task. One letter was destined for Abrahão Koogan, while others had been written to Victor Wittkowski, Lotte’s brother and Friderike’s brother, while he’d reserved the longest for his dear friend Jules Romains. Sunday morning had been set aside to write a statement intended for their Brazilian hosts, and the last letter he’d composed, just an hour earlier, had been addressed to Friderike. He had drafted those letters with the same dedication with which he’d worked on his books. He had chosen his words carefully to avoid wounding the letters’ recipients and to ensure they knew how dearly they’ve been loved. The same man who’d never been one for pouring his heart out had allowed the letters’ recipients to read the intensity of his emotions, friendship and love between the lines. Though he was under no illusions, he’d tried his best to explain his actions. Who would understand or forgive him? Only Friderike might grasp the meaning of his act. She was the only one who had ever glimpsed into the recesses of his tormented soul.

  They had stayed up late the previous night. Feder and his wife had come to dinner. It had been a delightful evening. They had talked about literature, Goethe, his Wilhelm Meister, which Stefan had just finished reading—and which in the end he’d found so woolly and stiff when compared to Werther. On that point, they had agreed. Before the Feders had taken their leave, Stefan had suggested he and Feder play a game of chess. Needless to say, Stefan had lost. He had detected surprise in Feder’s eyes when he’d returned the books he’d recently borrowed from him.

  “You’ve already read them?”

  His eyes would never settle on a page again, there would be no more reading. Never again would his eyes glimpse into another world. Never again would he experience the strange and brilliant sensation of being sucked into an author’s universe, never again would he voyage through his imagination while time stood still. Never again would he experience the euphoria of writing, or taste the morsels of valour and passionate love, or unveil the magical secrets of wordplay. Life had only been bearable when ensconced in his world of words. Turning pages or writing in them had been the only act in his life that had come effortlessly to him. He had never been able to interact with people in an equally carefree way. Luckily, the final curtain had fallen. He had finished performing in his human comedy, he was done playing the role of Stefan Zweig.

  Plucki, his adorable fox terrier, came to lick his hand. Stefan stroked him, kissed his snout and let him out into the garden to play. The house had to be empty. The dog ran outside, barking. Would Margarida Banfield look after him properly? In his letter, Stefan had asked her to do so as a personal favour. Seeing as how he had leased the bungalow until the beginning of April, he had also slipped enough money to cover the rent for March in the same envelope. He didn’t want to leave any debts. He didn’t want to cause anyone the slightest inconvenience. Still, his act would cast opprobrium on his name until the end of time. One didn’t have to be a genius to imagine what people would say about him. That he had abandoned others to their pain and deserted when the time had come to fight the enemy. When others had expected him to be an example, a hero even, he had run off like a coward. They would accuse him of innumerable sins. They would be indignant. At best, they would respond with incomprehension. He pictured Thomas Mann’s disdain, Bernanos’s rage and Jules Romains’s sadness. But the relief he felt welling up in his heart compensated for the shame he felt and swept away all of his scruples. His suffering had come to an end.

  He decided to get dressed. He opened his wardrobe and lingered in front of it for a long while, then picked out a dark suit. As it was Sunday, he opted for a sports jacket, a brown short-sleeved shirt, a plain tie and a pair of knickerbockers. He went into the bathroom, carefully shaved himself and combed his hair. Looking at himself in the mirror, he told himself he’d done all he could.

  She strolled slowly along Avenida Koeler. She admired the scenes around her, the streets, the landscapes, the faces of passers-by and the sky above her. She walked on, short of breath, exhausted by a sleepless night. Her cheeks were awash with tears, she wanted to drain her body of all its tears, right there and then on the pavement. She had promised him she wouldn’t cry in front of him. She had spent the entire morning wandering around the town. Her lips murmured words only she could hear. She prayed to God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. She prayed using the few words of Hebrew she still remembered from her childhood, when she had listened, wide-eyed, to her grandfather’s booming tenor during the Sabbath evening service. She praised the Lord, her God, the king of all the earth. She peppered her Hebrew prayer with German in order to give her words some shape and sense. She asked God to forgive her. She begged her brother Manfred to forgive her. She wished Eva a long, happy life and hoped Eva’s dreams would remain unblemished by visions of her unhappy aunt. She crossed the bridge that spanned the canal, directed her gaze to the cathedral and begged God for forgiveness once again, the same God that had abandoned the Jews to the hands of the barbarians, the God who had allowed His children to die and left the survivors nothing but a life of sadness and exile. When a passer-by drew near, looking a little puzzled, she dried her tears and looked away to hide her face. From the opposite bank of the Piabanha River, she looked at the Crystal Palace, and pictured herself walking alongside it by her husband’s side when they had first arrived in town. She heard the echoes of his beloved voice tell her about the palace’s history, the story of the aristocrat who had built that glass monument out of love for his wife, and who had sent to Europe for the iron framework. Although it had only been six months ago, she remembered his voice as sounding happy when he had told her that story, but look at what sort of gift he was offering her now. She had promised she wouldn’t cry. She would follow him, just as peacefully and joyfully as she had strolled arm in arm with him through the city’s streets. Clutching his shoulder, she would go with him into the dark unknown from which there would be no return. She made a detour through the market. The greengrocers were arranging their produce on their stalls, touting their fruit and vegetables, are you not buying anything today, Mrs Zweig? Look at those guavas, here you go, they’re all yours. She said next time, she would come back tomorrow, or the following Sunday. But she would never come back, she would never again watch the wonderful spectacle as the sun set over the city, she would never again feel her heart fill with love as he confided in her, or wait to hear a word from him, or experience one of his glances, the delight she felt when he looked at her, or when he whispered words into her ear. She was overwhelmed by all the sights around her. She wanted to take the slightest of the day’s wonders with her and carry them for ever in her heart, she wanted her heart to store all the perfumes, scents, the blue of the sky, the green of the forests on the other side of the river, the sing-song of hummingbirds, the cries of children. She wanted to wrap herself in the scalding warmth of the sun as it beat down on the city on that accursed day. She knew she would be cold, that the next world would be enshrouded in night, that she would feel even shorter of bre
ath over there. She looked around with eyes full of sadness and confusion. She longed to cross paths with Feder or his wife, or Mrs Banfield—anyone who would be moved by the sight of a woman in tears and would take her hand and lead her to their home, offer her a drink, give her a bed to sleep in, for just an hour, or maybe even a whole night. Never again would she have to set foot in that houses of ghosts, down there, on 34 Rua Gonçalves Dias. But the streets were empty on that Sunday afternoon under the brutal sun, only a few shadows loomed over the streets, and so she headed back home. The farther she walked, the more she felt as if the sun were already starting to set, the day were growing darker, a cold wind were on the rise. Silence fell all around her. Even the birdsong wasn’t as loud as it once was, and her clouded eyes could no longer discern the true brightness of colours.

  Meanwhile the house was coming into sight, up there, at the end of a small slope. She climbed the hill, each gulp of air stinging her lungs. She would stop every four or five metres to catch her breath. She would cast her eyes around, but there was nobody coming towards her. One would have thought that the city’s inhabitants had simply vanished, or that they’d gone to hide, nobody would come to her aid, nobody would come to rescue her. She could have cried for help, but no words rose out of her mouth. She brought her hand to her eyelids, which were dry. She had cried all the tears out of her body. There she was, standing in front of the door. She lifted her gaze high to the sky, where the sun was shining. She breathed in a deep lungful of clean air, shut her eyelids, murmured one last prayer to the Lord to thank Him for having brought that man into her life, for having allowed her to experience a boundless love for him. For one last time, she begged for forgiveness and murmured: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”