A Time to Love and a Time to Die

by Erich Maria Remarque

  "Tomorrow," Graeber said. "Tomorrow without fail."

  He looked up toward Elisabeth's apartment. It was not yet in immediate danger. There were still two stories in between. Through the window of Elisabeth's room he saw Frau Lieser rushing back and forth. She was struggling with a white sphere which probably contained bedclothes. In the half darkness of the room it looked like an inflated ghost.

  "I'll go and pack, too," Graeber said. "That can't do any harm."

  "Right," the warden replied.

  On the stairway a man with a pince-nez knocked against Graeber's shin with a heavy suitcase. "I beg your pardon," he said politely into the air and hurried on.

  The door to the apartment was open. The corridor was full of packages. Frau Lieser ran past Graeber, her mouth shut tight and tears in her eyes. He went into Elisabeth's room and closed the door behind him.

  He sat down in a chair by the window and looked around. The room suddenly had a strange, secluded peacefulness. Graeber sat there for a while without thinking of anything. Then he looked for suitcases. He found two under the bed and tried to decide what he should pack.

  He began with Elisabeth's clothes. He took out of the wardrobe the ones he considered practical. Then he opened the dresser and got out underwear and stockings. He placed a small package of letters between the shoes. Meanwhile he heard cries and noise from outside. He glanced out. It was not the fire department: it was only people carrying their things out. He saw a woman in a mink coat sitting in a red plush armchair in front of the ruined house opposite, clutching a small case. Probably her jewelry, he thought, and began to look in the drawers for Elisabeth's jewelry. He found a few small pieces; a narrow gold bracelet was among them and an old brooch with an amethyst. He took the gold dress too. There was a remote tenderness about touching Elisabeth's things—tenderness, and a little shame at doing something impermissible.

  He placed a photograph of Elisabeth's father on top of the things in the second suitcase and closed it. Then he sat down in the chair again and looked around. The strange peace of the room surrounded him once more. After a while it occurred to him that he ought to take the bedding with him. He rolled the blankets and pillows in a sheet and knotted it as he had seen Frau Lieser do. As he laid the bundle on the floor he saw his knapsack behind the bed. He had forgotten it. As he pulled it out the steel helmet clattered across the floor as though someone were knocking hard from underneath. He looked at it for a long time. Then he kicked it over to the door where the other things were and carried them all downstairs.

  The houses were slowly burning down. The fire department did not come: these few dwellings were too unimportant. The burning factories had precedence in fire fighting. Besides, a quarter of the city was in flames.

  The inhabitants of the houses had rescued as many of their possessions as they could. Now they did not know where to go with them. There was no means of transportation and no place to stay. The street in front of the burning houses had been roped off for a distance. Next to it on either side, household goods were piled high.

  Graeber saw overstuffed armchairs, a leather sofa, kitchen chairs, beds, and a child's crib. One family had rescued a kitchen table and four chairs and were sitting around it. Another had formed a nook and were protecting it against everyone that wanted to pass through as though it were their own property. The block warden was lying asleep on a chaise longue covered in a cloth of Turkish pattern. A big portrait of Hitler rested against the wall of a building. It belonged to Frau Lieser. She had her child on her lap and was sitting on her bedding.

  Graeber had brought a Biedermeier chair out of Elisabeth's room and was sitting on it with the suitcases, the knapsack, and the other things close beside him. He had tried to find a place to store them in one of the undamaged houses. In two of the apartments there had been no answer when he rang, although he had seen faces peering out of the windows. In some others he was not admitted because they were already overfilled. At the last one, a woman had screamed at him: "That would suit you fine, wouldn't it? And then afterwards you would want to go on living here, eh?" After that he gave up. When he returned to his things he noticed that a package in which he had wrapped up the bread and provisions had been stolen during his absence. He saw later that the family at the table were eating covertly. They popped bits of food into their mouths with averted faces; but it might just as easily be food that belonged to them and that they did not wish to share.

  Suddenly he saw Elisabeth. She had broken through the cordon and stood in the free space with the glow of the fire flickering over her.

  "Here, Elisabeth!" he shouted, springing up.

  She turned around. She did not see him at once. She stood darkly in front of the fire and only her hair was aglow. "Here!" he shouted again and waved.

  She ran to him. "There you are! Thank God!"

  He held her tight.. "I couldn't come to the factory to get you. I had to keep an eye on your things."

  "I thought something had happened to you."

  "Why in the world should anything happen to me?"

  "But something could happen to you, too!"

  She was breathing heavily on his breast. "Damn it, I never thougth of that," he said in surprise. "I've only been afraid for you."

  She looked up. "What's happened here?"

  "The roof of the house caught fire."

  "And you? I was worried about you."

  "And I about you. Sit down here."

  She was still breathing heavily. On the curb he saw a pail of water with a cup beside it. He went over, dipped up a cupful and gave it to Elisabeth. "Come, drink this."

  "Hey there! You! That's our water," a woman shouted.

  "And our cup," added a freckled twelve-year-old youngster.

  "Drink it," Oraeber said to Elisabeth and turned around. "How about the air? Does that belong to you, too?"

  "Give them back their water and their cup," Elisabeth said.

  "Or pour the pail over their heads. That's even better."

  Graeber held the cup to her lips. "No. Drink it. Did you run?"

  "Yes. The whole way."

  Graeber went back to the pail. The woman who had shouted at him belonged to the family sitting at the kitchen table. He filled the cup again from the pail, emptied it and then put it down beside the pail. No one said anything; but when Graeber had gone back the youngster ran over, picked up the cup and put it on the table. "Swine," the block warden said to the people at the table. He had waked up, yawned, and lain down again. The roof of the first house caved in.

  "Here are the things I packed for you," Graeber said. "They're practically all your clothes. Your father's picture is here, too. Also your bedding. I can try to get the furniture out. It still isn't too late."

  "Stay here. Let it burn up."

  "Why? There's still time."

  "Let it burn up. Then the whole thing will be over. Everything up there. And that's as it should be."

  "What will be over?"

  "The past. There's nothing we can do with it. It simply weighs us down. Even what was good in it. We must begin again. The past is bankrupt. We can't go back."

  "You could sell the furniture."

  "Here?" Elisabeth looked around. "We can't hold an auction on the street. Just look at that! There's too much furniture and no place to put it. That's the way it will be for a long time."

  It began to rain again. Large, warm drops fell. Frau Lieser put up an umbrella. A woman who had rescued a new flowered hat and had put it on for convenience took it off and put it under her dress. The warden woke up again and sneezed. Hitler in Frau Lieser's oil painting looked, in the rain, as though he were weeping. Graeber unwrapped his coat and got the shelter-half out of his knapsack. He put his coat around Elisabeth and spread the canvas over the bedding.

  "We must find a place to sleep tonight," he said.

  "Perhaps the rain will put out the fire. Where will all the others sleep?"

  "I don't know. This street seems to have been forgo
tten."

  "We could sleep here. With the bed and your overcoat and the canvas."

  "Could you?"

  "I think one can sleep anywhere if one is tired enough."

  "Binding has a house with an empty room. You don't want to go there, do you?"

  Elisabeth shook her head.

  "Then there's still Pohlmann," Graeber said. "He has a place to sleep in his catacombs. I asked him a few days ago. The emergency quarters are sure to be jammed—if they're still standing."

  "We can wait a while. Our floor isn't burning yet"

  Elisabeth sat in the army overcoat in the rain. She was not depressed. "I wish we had something to drink," she said. "And I don't mean water."

  "We have. While I was packing I found a bottle of vodka behind the books. We must have forgotten it."

  Graeber unknotted the bedclothes. He had hidden the bottle in the feather mattress; thus it had escaped the thief. He had also wrapped up a glass. "Here it is. We must drink it cautiously so the others won't notice. Otherwise we'll be reported by Frau Lieser for jeering at a national misfortune."

  "If you don't want other people to notice, you mustn't act cautiously. That's something I've learned." Elisabeth took the glass and drank. "Marvelous," she said. "Just what I needed. Now it's almost like an open-air café. Have you cigarettes, too?"

  "I brought all we had."

  "Good. Then we have everything we need."

  "Oughtn't I to bring down a few more pieces of furniture?"

  "They won't let you up any more. And we couldn't do anything with them anyway. We couldn't even take them with us wherever we're going to sleep tonight."

  "One of us can stand guard while the other is looking for shelter."

  Elisabeth shook her head and finished her drink. At that moment the roof of her house collapsed. The walls seemed to rock. Then the floor of the top story caved in. The tenants on the street groaned. Sparks poured out of the windows. Flames licked upward at the curtains. "Our floor is still there," Graeber said.

  "Not for long," a man behind him replied.

  "Why not?"

  "Why should you be better off than we are? I have lived up there on that floor for twenty-three years, young man. Now it's burning. Why shouldn't yours?"

  Graeber looked at the man. He was thin and bald. "I thought something like this was a matter of chance, not ethics."

  "It's a matter of justice. If you know what that means!"

  "Not exactly. But it's not my fault." Graeber grinned. "You must have had a hard life if you yourself still believe in it. Shall I give you a glass of vodka? It's better than getting indignant."

  "Thanks! Keep your schnapps! You're going to need it when your place caves in."

  Graeber put the bottle back, "Want to bet it won't cave in?"

  "What?"

  "I asked whether you wanted to bet on it."

  Elisabeth laughed. The man with the bald head stared at both of them. "You want to bet, you frivolous fool? And you, Fräulein, you laugh with him? Really that's going too far!"

  "Why shouldn't she laugh?" Graeber asked. "To laugh is better than to cry. Especially when neither does any good."

  "You ought to pray!"

  The upper wall fell in. It broke through the floor of the story above Elisabeth's apartment. Frau Lieser began to sob convulsively under her umbrella. The family around the, kitchen table were brewing ersatz coffee over an alcohol stove. The woman in the red plush armchair spread newspapers over the arms and back to protect the chair from the rain. The child in the crib began to cry.

  "There it goes, our home of two weeks," Graeber said.

  "Justice!" the baldhead declared with satisfaction.

  "You ought to have bet. You would have won."

  "I am not a materialist, young man."

  "Then why did you complain about your apartment?"

  "That was my home. You probably don't understand that."

  "No, I guess I don't understand that. The German Reich turned me into a world traveler too young."

  "You ought to be grateful for that." The baldhead ran his hand over his mouth and pointedly cleared his throat. "Anyhow, I'd have nothing against a glass of vodka now.''

  "You won't get one now. Pray instead."

  Flames burst out of the windows of Frau Lieser's room.

  "There goes the desk," Elisabeth whispered. 'The informer's desk with everything in it."

  "Let's hope so. I poured a bottle of kerosene over it. What shall we do now?"

  "We'll look for lodgings. If we don't find any well sleep somewhere on the street."

  "On the street or in a park." Graeber glanced at the sky. "There's my shelter-half to protect us against the rain. It's not very good protection but perhaps we'll find some sort of roof. What shall we do with the chair and the books?"

  "We'll leave them here. If they're still here tomorrow we'll decide what to do with them then."

  Graeber put on his knapsack and swung the bedding over his shoulder. Elisabeth picked up the suitcases. "Give them to me," he said. "I'm used to carrying loads."

  The upper floors of the two other houses crashed in. Burning embers flew in all directions. Frau Lieser screeched and sprang up; a glowing coal had flown out across the roped-off street and into her face. Flames were now pouring out of Elisabeth's room. Then the ceiling fell. "We can go," Elisabeth said.

  Graeber looked up at the window. "They were good days," he said.

  "The best. Let's go."

  Elisabeth's face was red in the glow of the fire. They made their way between the chairs. Most of the people sat silent and resigned. One of them had a package of books beside him and was reading. Two elderly people were sitting close together on the pavement. They had drawn a cape over them and looked like a sad bat with two heads.

  "Strange how easy it is to part with something that only yesterday you didn't believe you could get along without," Elisabeth said.

  Graeber looked around once more. The youngster with the freckles who had taken back the cup was already seated in the Biedermeier chair. "I stole Frau Lieser's handbag while she was jumping around," Graeber said. "It's full of papers. We'll throw them into a fire somewhere. Perhaps that will save someone from a concentration camp."

  Elisabeth nodded. She did not look around again.

  He knocked for a long time. Then he shook the door. No one opened it. He came back to Elisabeth. "Pohlmann isn't home. Or he won't open for anyone."

  "Perhaps he doesn't live here now."

  "Where else would he be living? There's no space anywhere. We've seen that during the last three hours. It could only be—" Graeber Went to the door again. "No, the Gestapo haven't been here. It would look different if they had. What shall we do? Do you want to go to an air raid shelter?"

  "No. Can't we stay somewhere near here?"

  Graeber looked around. It was night, and against the dusky red of the sky the ruins thrust upward black and angular. "Here's a piece of ceiling," he said. "It's dry under it. I could hang up the canvas on one side and my coat on the other."

  Graeber took his bayonet and tapped at the piece of ceiling. It held. He looked around in the,ruins and found a couple of iron bars which he rammed into the ground. On them he hung the canvas. "That's a curtain. My coat on the other side will make it into a sort of tent. What do you think?"

  "Can I help you?"

  "No. Just keep an eye on our things, that's enough."

  Graeber cleared the ground of debris and stones. Then he carried in the suitcases and unrolled the bedding. He placed his knapsack at the head. "Now we have a place to stay," he said. "I've lived in worse before this. You, of course, haven't."

  "It's time I got used to it."

  Graeber unpacked Elisabeth's raincoat and alcohol stove and a bottle of alcohol. "They stole the bread, but we still have a couple of cans in my knapsack."

  "Have we something to cook in, too? A pot?"

  "My mess kit. And there's rain water all around. We have the rest of the
vodka too. I could make you a sort of grog with hot water. To keep you from catching cold."

  "I'd rather have the vodka straight."

  Graeber lit the alcohol stove. The pale blue light illuminated the tent. He opened a can of beans. They heated them and ate them with what was left of the sausage they had received from their marriage witness Klotz. "Shall we go on waiting for Pohlmann or go to sleep?" Graeber asked.

  "Let's go to sleep. I'm tired."

  "We'll have to sleep in our clothes. Can you do that?"