Graeber saw the block warden behind the curtains of his apartment. He remembered he had promised him cigars. That seemed a long time ago and no longer necessary; but one could never tell. He decided to go and see Alfons. In any case he needed supplies for the evening.
Nothing else had been hit but just that one house. The gardens lay peaceful in the morning light, the birch trees swayed in the wind, the gold of the jonquils glistened, and the early trees were in blossom as though swarms of white and pink butterflies had alighted on them—only Binding's house was a wild heap of wreckage, overhanging a crater in the garden where dirty water stood, reflecting the sky.
Graeber stood for a moment staring at it as though he did not believe it. He did not know why, but he had always assumed nothing could happen to Alfons. Slowly he walked up to it. The bird bath had been broken from its base and splintered. The front door hung in the lilac bushes. Deer's antlers rose from the grass as though the anima's were buried under it. A tapestry hung high in the trees like the glea: ing banner of a barbarian conqueror. Bold and upright a bottle of Napoleon brandy stood in a flower bed as though it were a dark bottle-gourd that had shot up overnight. Graeber picked it up, examined it, and put it in his pocket. Very likely the cellar has held up, he thought, and Alfons has been shoveled out.
He walked around to the back of the house. The kitchen entrance was still standing. He opened the door. Something inside moved. "Frau Kleinert?" he said.
A loud sobbing answered him. The woman got up and came out of the half-demolished room into the open. "The poor gentleman! He was so kind!"
"What happened? Is he hurt?"
"He is dead. Dead, Herr Graeber! And he was such a life-loving gentleman!"
"Dead?"
"Yes. One can't grasp it, can one?"
Graeber nodded. You could never grasp death even when you were used to seeing it so often. "How did it happen?" he asked.
"He was in the cellar. But the cellar did not hold."
"The cellar was too weak for heavy bombs. Why didn't he go tö the deep bunker on the Seidelplatz? That's only a few minutes from here."
"He thought nothing would happen. And then—" Frau Kleinert hesitated. "There was a lady here too."
"What? At noon?"
"She was still here, you see. From the night before. A big blonde. The Herr Commandant loved big blondes. I had just served a chicken when the raid came."
"Was the lady killed too?"
"Yes. They hadn't even got properly dressed yet. Herr Binding in pajamas and the lady in a thin silk dressing gown. That's how they were found. There was nothing I could do about it. That he should be found that way! Instead of in his uniform!"
"It doesn't matter. And I don't know how he could have found a better death if he had to die," Graeber said. "Had he already eaten lunch?"
"Yes. Very heartily. With wine and his favorite dessert. Apfelkuchen with whipped cream."
"There, you see, Frau Kleinert. In that case it was a wonderful death. That's how I'd like to die, myself, when the time comes. Truly you don't need to weep about that."
"But it was too soon."
"It's always too soon. Even when one is ninety, I believe. When is he to be buried?"
"Day after tomorrow at nine o'clock. He's already in his coffin. Do you want to see him?"
"Where is he?"
"In the storage cellar. It's cool there. The coffin is already closed. This side of the house wasn't so badly damaged. Only the front was entirely destroyed."
They walked through the kitchen into the cellar. A heap of broken glass had been swept into one corner. There was a smell of spilled wine and preserves. On the floor in the middle of the room stood a walnut coffin. All around on shelves, upset and in confusion, were glass bottles with preserved fruit and canned goods. "How were you able to get.a coffin so quickly?" Graeber asked.
"The Party took care of that."
"Will he be buried from here?"
"Yes. Day after tomorrow at nine o'clock."
"I'll come."
"That will certainly please our Herr."
Graeber stared at Frau Kleinert. "In the Beyond," she said. "He was always so fond of you."
"Yes. I really don't know why."
"He said you were the only one who never wanted anything from him. And then because you were in the war the whole time."
Graeber stood for a' while in front of the coffin. He felt a confused regret but nothing much besides, and he was ashamed in the presence of this weeping woman not to feel more. "What are you going to do now with all these things?" he asked, glancing at the preserves.
Frau Kleinert recovered herself. "Take as many of them as you can use, Herr Graeber. Otherwise they will only pass into the hands of strangers," she said.
"Keep them yourself. After all you put up most of them personally."
"I've already set aside some for myself. I don't need much. Take what you want, Herr Graeber. The Party members who were here seemed to raise their eyebrows. It's better if there isn't so much. Otherwise it would look too much like hoarding."
"That's true."
"Well, for that reason. And when the others come back it will all pass into the hands of strangers. After all you were a real friend to Herr Binding. He would certainly want you to have it more than the others."
"Doesn't he have any family?"
"His father is still alive. But you know how he felt about him. And anyway there will be plenty left. In the second cellar there are still a lot of unbroken bottles too. Take whatever you can use."
The woman hurried along the shelves, pulling out cans, and brought them back. She placed them on the coffin, was about to go for more, then realized what she had done, picked them up from the coffin and carried them into the kitchen.
"Wait, Frau Kleinert," Graeber said. "If I'm going to take some of this with me then we'll pick it out sensibly." He looked at the cans. "This is asparagus. Duth asparagus. We don't need that. But we can take the sardines in oil and also the bottled pigs' knuckles."
"That's right. I am so confused."
She got together a pile on a chair in the kitchen. "That's too much," Graeber said. "How can I carry all that?"
"Come back two or three times. Why should it fall into the hands of strangers, Herr Graeber? You are a soldier, you have more right to it than these Nazis with their armchair jobs!"
Maybe that's true, Graeber thought. And Elisabeth and Josef and Pohlmann have just as much right, and I would be an ass not to help myself. It doesn't help and it doesn't hurt Alfons now. Only later when he was already some distance from the ruined house it occurred to him that it had really been only by accident that he had not been living in Binding's house and been buried with him.
Josef opened the door. "Quick work," Graeber said.
"I saw you coming." Josef pointed to a small hole in the door panel. "I bored that earlier. It's useful."
Graeber placed his package on the table. "I was at the Katharinenkirche. The sexton said we could spend the night there. Thanks for your advice."
"Was it the young sexton?"
"No, an old one."
"The old one is all right. He let me live in the church for a week disguised as an assistant sexton. Then suddenly there was an inspection. I hid in the organ. The young sexton had reported me. He is an anti-Semite. A religious anti-Semite. They exist. Because we killed Christ two thousand years ago."
Graeber opened the package. Then he got out of his pockets the cans of sardines and herrings. Josef looked at them. His face did not change. "A treasure," he said.
"We'll divide it."
"Have you so much to spare?"
"As you can see. I inherited it. From a commander in the S.A. Do you mind?"
"On the contrary. It will give it a certain spice. Do you know commanders in the S.A. well enough to get presents like this?"
Graeber looked at Josef. "Yes," he said. "Anyway this one. He was a harmless and good-natured man."
Josef made no re
ply. ."Don't you believe one can be that at the same time?" Graeber asked.
"Do you believe it?"
"It may be possible," Graeber said, "if one is without character or anxious or weak and goes along for that reason."
"Does one become a commander of the S.A. that way?"
"Even that may be possible."
Josef smiled. "It's strange," he said. "One's likely to assume that a murderer must always and everywhere be a murderer and nothing else. In point of fact it's quite enough if he is a murderer only now and again and with a small part of his being—it's enough to cause horrible suffering. Don't you agree?"
"Yes," Graeber replied. "A hyena is always a hyena. A human being is more various."
Josef nodded. "There are concentration camp commandants with a sense of humor. S.S. guards who are good-natured and friendly among themselves. And camp followers who cling only to the good, overlooking what's horrible, or explaining it away as a temporary product of the times and a regrettable necessity. People with elastic consciences."
"And people who are afraid."
"And people who are afraid," Josef said politely.
Graeber was silent. "I wish I could do something for you," he said then.
"There's not much that can be done. I am alone. I'll either be caught or survive." Josef spoke as impersonally as though he were talking about a stranger.
"Haven't you any relations?"
"I had some. A brother, two sisters, a father, a wife and a child. They are dead. Two beaten to death, one dead of natural causes, the others gassed."
Graeber stared at him. "In the camp?"
"In the camp," Josef replied politely and coldly. "They have extraordinary facilities there."
"And you escaped?"
"I escaped."
Graeber looked at Josef. "How you must hate us!" he said.
Josef shrugged his shoulders. "Hate! Who can allow himself such a luxury? Hate makes one forget to be cautious."
Graeber glanced toward the window, close behind which rose the rubble heap of the demolished house. The dim light of the small lamp seemed to have grown fainter. It gleamed on the globe that Pohlmann had pushed into the corner.
"You are going back to the front?" Josef asked courteously.
"Yes. Back to fight so that the criminals who are hunting you can remain in power a while longer. Perhaps just long enough to catch you and hang you."
Josef made a slight gesture of agreement and was silent.
"I am going because otherwise they would shoot me," Graeber said.
Josef did not reply.
"And I am going because if I deserted they would lock up my parents and my wife or send them to a camp or kill them."
Josef was silent.
"I am going and I know that my reasons are no reasons and yet they are the reasons of millions. How you must despise us!"
"Don't be so vain," Josef said softly.
Graeber stared at him. He did not understand.
"Nobody's talking about despising anyone," Josef said. "Only you. Why is that so important to you? Do I despise Pohlmann? Do I despise the people who hide me every night at the risk of their lives? Would I be alive if it weren't for them? How naive you are!"
Suddenly he smiled again. It was a ghostly smile that flitted over his face without touching it. "We're getting away from the subject," he said. "One oughtn't to talk too much. And' one oughtn't to reflect. Not yet. It weakens you. So does remembering. It's too early for all that. In time of danger you should think only about how to save yourself." He pointed to the canned goods. "This will help. I'll take it. Thanks."
He took the cans and the preserves and put them behind the books. He did it in a curiously awkward way. Graeber saw that the last joints of his fingers were deformed and without nails. Josef noticed his glance. "A little remembrance of the camp. The Sunday entertainment of a troop leader. He called it lighting the Christmas candles. Sharply pointed matches. I wish he had used my toes instead. Then it wouldn't be so conspicuous. This way I'm easily recognized. On the street I wear gloves."
Graeber got up. "Would it help you if I gave you an old uniform and my pay book? You could alter it where necessary. I can say it was burned."
"No, thanks. I don't need it. For the immediate future I am going to become a Rumanian. Pohlmann thought that up and arranged it. He's very clever at that sort of thing. You wouldn't think it to look at him, would you? I'll become a Rumanian, a member of the Iron Front, a friend of the Party. My appearance is all right for a Rumanian. And my injuries can be more easily explained. Inflicted by the Communists. Are you going to take your bedding and bags along with you?"
Graeber realized that Josef wanted to be rid of him. "Are you going to stay here?" he asked.
"Why?"
Graeber pushed his own supply of canned goods over toward him. "I can get more. I'll go back again and bring another load."
"It's too much as it is. I don't dare carry much baggage. And now I must go. I can't wait any longer."
"Cigarettes. I forgot cigarettes. There are plenty of them there. I can go and get them."
Josef's face changed. All at once it became relaxed and almost soft. "Cigarettes," he said, as though he were talking about a friend. "That's different. They're more important than food. I'll wait for them, of course."
CHAPTER XXII
A CROWD was already waiting in the cloister of the Kath-arinenkirche. Almost all of them were sitting on suitcases and baskets or were surrounded by packages and bundles. "Most of them were women and children. Graeber took his place among them with his roll of bedding and bags. An old woman with a face like a horse was sitting beside him. "If only they don't ship us out as evacuees!" she said. "You hear such stories about that. Living in barracks with not enough to eat and the farmers being cross and mean."
"I don't care if they do!" a thin girl replied. "I only want to get away. Anything is better than being dead. It's their duty to take care of us. We have lost all our possessions. It's their duty to take care of us."
"A few days ago a train with evacuees from the Rhineland came through here. What a sight! They were on their way to Mecklenburg."
"Mecklenburg? That's where the rich farmers live."
"Rich farmers!" The woman with the horse's face laughed angrily. "With them you have to work till the flesh drops from your bones. In return you get short rations. The Fuehrer ought to be told about it!"
Graeber looked at Horseface and at the thin girl. Behind them through the open Romanesque colonnade the first green shimmered in the cathedral garden. Jonquils were in bloom on front of the statues in the cloister. A thrush perched singing on the figure of Christ being scourged.
"They'll have to billet us gratis," the thin girl declared. "With people who are well off. We're victims of war. Victims of war," she repeated.
The sexton approached. He was a thin man, with a pendulous red nose and drooping shoulders. Graeber could not picture him having the courage to hide anyone the Gestapo were looking for.
The sexton let the people in. He gave each a number for his belongings and stuck a slip of paper with the same number on the bundles and bags. "Don't come too late this evening," he said to Graeber. "We haven't enough room in the church."
"Not enough room?" The Katharinenkirche was a large building.
"No. The nave of the church is not used as a shelter. Only the rooms underneath and the side aisles."
"Where do the people sleep who come late?"
"In those cloisters that are still standing. A good many sleep in the cloister gardens too."
"Are the rooms under the nave of the church bombproof?"
The sexton looked at Graeber mildly. "When the church was built no one had thought up anything of that kind. It was during the Dark Ages."
The red-nosed face was entirely expressionless. It did not betray itself by so much as the tiniest twinkle. We have made great advances in dissimulation, Graeber thought. Almost everyone is a little master.
; He walked through the garden and out through the cloisters. The church had been severely damaged; one of its towers had caved in, and daylight poured into it mercilessly, cutting broad, bright bands through its dusky twilight. A number of windows were broken as well. Sparrows sat in them, twittering. The seminary had been entirely demolished. Close beside it was the air raid shelter. Graeber went into it. It was a reinforced ancient wine cellar, which had formerly belonged to the church. The stands for the barrels were still there. The air was damp and cool and aromatic. The wine bouquet of the centuries still seemed able to triumph again and again over the smell of fear from the nights of bombs. In the rear of the bunker Graeber saw a number of heavy iron rings fixed in the square-cut stones of the ceiling He remembered that before being a wine cellar this place had been a torture chamber for witches and heretics. They had been hoisted by their hands, with irons attached to their feet, and they had been pinched with glowing tongs until they confessed. Then they had been put to death, in the name of God and Christian love of one's neighbor. Very little has changed, he thought. The torturers in the concentration camp have excellent models. And the carpenter's son of Nazareth has strange followers.
A Time to Love and a Time to Die Page 31