"Yes."
The man got up, put on his blouse and was suddenly a major. The light disappeared, and it was as though a ray of hope had disappeared with it. The woman's whimpering became audible. "Wanda," said a frantic male voice. "Wanda, what are we to do? Wanda!"
"We can leave now," someone announced.
"The all clear hasn't sounded yet," replied the schoolmaster's voice.
"To hell with the all clear! Where is the light? Light!"
"No, no—no light!" screamed the woman. "No light—"
"We need a doctor—morphine—"
"Wanda," said the frantic voice. "What can we possibly tell Eberhardt? What—"
The light came back. This time it was an oil lamp carried by the major. Two waiters in evening clothes came behind him carrying a stretcher. "No telephone," said the major. "The wires are down. This way with the stretcher."
He placed the lamp on the floor. "Wanda!" the man said again. "Wanda!"
"Get back!" said the major. "Later." He kneeled beside the woman and then straightened up. "So. That's taken care of. She'll soon be asleep. I had one hypodermic left, for emergencies. Careful! Be careful how you lift her. We'll have to wait outside till we find an ambulance. If we find one—"
"Yes, Herr Major," headwaiter Fritz said obediently.
The stretcher swayed out. The black, burned, hairless head rolled back and forth on it. The body was covered by a tablecloth.
"Is she dead?" Elisabeth asked.
"No," Graeber said, "she'll pull through. Her hair will grow again."
"And her face?"
"She could still see. Her eyes weren't injured. It will all heal. I've seen lots of burned people. This wasn't especially bad."
"How did it happen?"
"Her dress caught fire. She got too close to. the matches. Nothing more has happened. This cellar is good. It has withstood a heavy direct hit."
Graeber picked up the chair that he had tilted over Elisabeth. In doing so he stepped on fragments of a broken bottle and saw that the latticed door to the wine cellar had fallen from its hinges. A number of racks hung awry, bottles were broken and strewn everywhere, and wine was flowing over the floor like dark oil.
"Just a minute," he said to Elisabeth, and picked up his coat. I'll be right back." He went into the cellar and returned at once. "All right, now we can go."
Outside stood the stretcher with the woman on it. Two waiters were whistling through their fingers for a car. "What in the world will Eberhardt say?" her escort with the frantic voice asked again. "My God, what damnable bad luck! How can we possibly explain it to him—"
Eberhardt must be the husband, Graeber thought, and tapped one of the whistling waiters on the shoulder. "Where's the waiter from the wine room?"
"Which? Otto or Karl?"
"A little old fellow who looks like a stork."
"Otto." The waiter looked at Graeber. "Otto is dead. The wine room caved in. He was hit by the chandelier. Otto is dead, sir."
Graeber was silent for a moment. "I owe him money," he said then. "For a bottle of wine."
The waiter wiped his forehead. "You can give it to me, sir. What was it?" .
"A bottle of Johannisberger Kahlenberg."
The waiter produced a list from his pocket and snapped on his flashlight. "Four marks, if you please. Together with tip, four-forty."
Graeber gave him the money. The waiter put it in his pocket. Graeber knew he would not hand it in. "Come," he said to Elisabeth.
They picked their way through the ruins. Toward the south the city was in flames. The sky was gray and red, and the wind was driving swathes of smoke before it. "We must go and see whether your apartment still exists. Elisabeth."
She shook her head. "There's always time for that. Let's stay somewhere in the open."
They came to the square with the air raid shelter to which they had gone on the first evening. The entrance gaped in the gloomy dusk like an entrance to the underworld. They sat down on a bench in the park.
"Are you hungry?" Graeber asked. "You didn't get anything to eat."
"That doesn't matter. I couldn't eat now."
He unfolded his overcoat. There was a tinkling sound and he pulled two bottles out of the pockets. "I don't know just what I've got hold of. This one looks like cognac."
Elisabeth stared at him. "Where did you get them?"
"Out of the wine cellar. The door was open. Dozens of bottles were smashed. Let's assume that these would have been broken too."
"You simply took them?"
"Of course. A soldier who neglects an open wine cellar is sick. I was raised to think and act practically. The Ten Commandments don't hold for the military."
"They certainly don't." Elisabeth looked at him. "There's a good deal more that doesn't either." She laughed suddenly. "What does one really know about any of you?"
"You already know rather too much."
"What does one really know about you?" she repeated. "What is here is not really you. You are what you come from. But who knows anything about that?"
Out of the other side of his coat Graeber drew two more bottles. "Here's one I can open without a corkscrew. It's champagne." He twisted the wire off. "I hope you have no moral scruples against drinking it!"
"No. Not any more."
"We'll not celebrate anything with it. So it won't be bad luck. We'll drink it because we're thirsty and haven't anything else. And also because we're still alive."
Elisabeth smiled. "You don't have to explain that to me again. I've learned it already. But explain something else. Why did you pay for the one bottle when you were taking four more away with you?"
"There's a big difference. The other would have been welching on a debt."
It grew still. The red dusk extended more and more. Everything became unreal in the strange light. "Just look at that tree over there," Elisabeth said suddenly. "It's blooming."
Graeber looked at it. The tree had been almost torn out of the ground by a bomb. Some of its roots hung free in the air, the trunk was broken and several of the branches had been torn off; but it was actually full of white blossoms tinged by the reddish glow.
"The house beside it has burned down. Perhaps the heat has forced it," he said. "It's farther out than any of the other trees around here, and yet it's the most damaged."
Elisabeth got up and went over to it. The bench stood in the shadow and she stepped out of it into the wavering glow of the conflagration like a dancer stepping onto a lighted stage. It embraced her like a red wind and blazed behind her like a gigantic medieval comet announcing the end of a world, or the birth of a savior.
"It's blooming," she said. "For it this is spring and nothing else. Nothing else matters to it."
"Yes," Graeber replied. "They teach us lessons. They teach us lessons all the time. At noon today it was a linden tree that was teaching me, and now it's this. They grow and put out leaves and even when they're torn out of the ground the part that still has a bit of root in the earth goes on growing. They teach us lessons unceasingly and they don't complain or feel sorry for themselves."
Elisabeth slowly came back. Her skin shimmered in the strange, shadowless light, and her face seemed enchanted and aroused by a secret that was connected with the bursting buds and thé destruction and the imperturbable deliber-ateness of growth. Then she stepped out of the glow, as though out of a spotlight, and was once more warm and darkly breathing and alive in the shadow beside him. He drew her down to him and the tree was suddenly there, very big, the tree that reached for the red sky and its blossoms seemed very close, and it was the linden tree and then the earth, and it arched and became field and sky and Elisabeth, and he felt himself in her, and she did not resist him.
CHAPTER XV
ROOM Forty-eight was in commotion. The egghead and two other skat players stood arrayed for active service. They had been classified 1A and were going out with a transport to the front.
The egghead was pale. He was staring at Reuter. "You
with your miserable foot! You shirker! You're staying here and I, the father of a family, have to go!"
Reuter made no reply. Feldmann straightened up in bed.
"Shut your trap, egghead!" he said. "You do not have to go because he is staying here. You have to go because you're 1A. If he were 1A and had to go then you'd have to go just the same. So don't talk nonsense!"
"I'll say what I like," screamed the egghead furiously. "I have to go and I'll say what I like! You're staying here! You're sitting around here, eating and sleeping and we have to go! I, the father of a family, and that fat lead-swinger there swills schnapps so that his damned foot won't heal!"
"Wouldn't you do the same thing if you could?" Reuter asked.
"I? Not I! I've never shirked in my life!"
"Well, then everything's in order. Why are you still complaining?"
"What?" asked the egghead, taken aback.
"You're proud of never having shirked. All right, go on being proud and don't complain any more."
"What? What kind of damn twist is that? That's all you know, isn't it—you pig? Twist the words in a man's mouth. They'll catch you yet. They'll catch you even if I have to report you myself."
"Do not commit a sin," said one of the two skat players who were also 1A. "Come, we've got to go down. Move out."
"I'm not committing a sin. Those are the sinners there. It's an outrage that I, the father of a family, have to go to the front in place of this drunken hog. I only want justice—"
"Oh, man, justice! Where can you find that in the army? Come, we've got to get going. He won't report anyone, comrades. That's just the way he talks. Farewell! Take care of yourselves! Hold the position!"
The two skat players dragged the frantic egghead off with them. White and sweating, he jerked around once more in the doorway and was about to shout something when they pushed him out.
"That babbling fool," Feldmann said to Reuter. "Puts on a show like an actor! Do you still remember the row he made because I was sleeping away my leave?"
"He was losing," Rummel said suddenly. Up to now he had been sitting at the table without taking part. "He was way behind the game! Twenty-three marks! That's no small matter! I should have given it back to him."
"You can still do it. The transport hasn't left."
"What?"
"He's still outside. Go down and give it back to him if your conscience is bothering you."
Rummel got up and went out. "He's gone crazy too," Feldmann said. "What's the egghead going to do with those shekels at the front?"
"He can gamble them away again."
Graeber went to the window and looked out. The contingent was gathering below. "Children and old men," Reuter said. "Since Stalingrad they take everyone."
"Yes."
The contingent formed up. "What's happened to Rummel?" Feldmann asked in sudden astonishment. "Why, he's talking now!"
"He began while you were asleep."
Feldmann came to the window in his undershirt. "There stands the egghead," he said. "Now he has a chance to find out for himself whether it's better to sleep and dream of the front or to be at the front and dream of home."
"We'll all be able to find that out before long," Reuter announced. "Next time my staff surgeon is going to put me down as 1A too. He's a man of spirit and has explained to me that true Germans don't need legs for running. They can fight just as well sitting down."
From outside came the sound of commands. The contingent marched off. Graeber saw it as though through the wrong end of a telescope. The' receding soldiers. were like live dolls with toy guns.
"Poor egghead," Reuter said. "He wasn't mad at me. He was mad at his wife. He thinks she's going to be unfaithful to him when he's gone. And he's furious because she gets his marriage allowance. He suspects she's going to use it to carry on with her lover."
"Marriage allowance? Is there such a thing?". Graeber asked.
"But man, where have you been?" Feldmann shook his head. 'Two hundred marks a month is what a woman gets. That's real money. Lots of people have married for that. Why should one make a present of it to the State?"
Reuter turned away from the window. "Your friend Binding was here asking for you," he said to Graeber.
"What did he want? Did heleave a message?"
"He's having a little celebration at his house. He wants you to come."
"Was that all?"
"That was all."
Rummel came in. "Did you catch the egghead?" Feldmann asked.
Rummel nodded. His face was working. "At least he still has a wife," he burst out with sudden emotion. "But to have to go out again having nothing any more—"
He turned away abruptly and threw himself on his bed. They all pretended they had not heard. "If the egghead had only been here to see that!" Feldmann whispered. "He made a big bet that Rummel would break down today."
"Leave him alone," Reuter said angrily. "Who knows. when you're going to break down yourself? No one's safe. Not even a sleepwalker." He turned to Graeber. "How long do you still have?"
"Eleven days."
"Eleven days! That's a pretty long time."
"Yesterday it was still a long time," Graeber said. "Today it's damn short."
"No one is here," Elisabeth said. "Neither Frau Lieser nor her child. The place is ours."
"Thank God! I believe I'd have killed her if she had said so much as a word tonight. Did you have another fight with her yesterday?"
Elisabeth laughed. "She considers me a prostitute."
"Why? After all, we were only here for an hour yesterday evening."
"It was the day before! You were here the whole evening then."
"But we covered the keyhole and played the phonograph the whole time. How does she get such ideas?"
"Yes, how?" Elisabeth said, brushing him with a quick glance.
Graeber looked at her. A sudden warmth rose to his forehead. Where were my eyes that first evening? he thought. "What's become of the she-devil?" he asked.
"She's gone out to the villages with her child. Collecting contributions for some winter or summer benefit. She's not coming back till tomorrow night. We have tonight and the whole day tomorrow all for ourselves."
"The whole day tomorrow? Don't you have to go to your factory?"
Elisabeth laughed. "Not tomorrow. Tomorrow is Sunday. For the time being we still have Sundays off."
"Sunday!" Graeber said. "What luck! I had no idea of it! So I'll finally be able to see you in the daytime. Up to now it has always been evening or night."
"Has it?"
"Yes. We went out for the first time Monday. With a bottle of armagnac."
"That's true," Elisabeth said in surprise. "I haven't seen you in the daytime either." She was silent for a moment looking at him and then she glanced away. "We lead a rather hectic life, don't we?"
"There's nothing else for us to do."
"That's true too. How will it be when we face each other tomorrow in. the harsh light of noon?"
"We'll leave that to divine providence. But what shall we do tonight? Shall we go to the same restaurant as yesterday? It was no damn good. What we need is the Germania. Too bad it's closed."
"We can stay here. There's still enough to drink. I could try to cook something."
"Can you stand it here? Wouldn't you rather go out?"
"Whenever Frau Lieser isn't here it's like a vacation."
"Then let's stay here. Let's have an evening without music. It will be marvelous. And I won't have to go back to the barracks. But what about food? Can you really cook? You don't look as if you could."
"I can try. Besides, there's not much here. Only what you can get for coupons."
"That can't be much."
They went into the kitchen. Graeber looked at Elisabeth's provisions. There was hardly anything there—a little bread, some artificial honey, margarine, two eggs, and a few withered apples. "I still have ration coupons," she said. "We can go out and get something. I know a store that's open i
n the evenings."
Graeber shut the drawer. "Keep your coupons. You'll need them for yourself. Today we'll have to use other methods of procurement. We'll have to organize."
"We can't steal anything here, Ernst," Elisabeth said in alarm. "Frau Lieser knows.every crust that belongs to her."
"I can well imagine. Besides, I'm not going to steal today. I'm going out to requisition like a soldier in enemy country. A certain Alfons Binding invited me to a little party. I'll go there and get what I would have eaten if I'd taken part in the celebration and I'll bring it here. He has a house with enormous supplies. I'll be back in half an hour."
A Time to Love and a Time to Die Page 20