Three Comrades

by Erich Maria Remarque

"Fluke," said I and showed him my thumb.

  "Bad luck," he replied with a grin. "Gustav's my name, by the way."

  "Robert, mine."

  "Good. Then O.K., Robert, eh? Thought you'd just left your mother's apronstring."

  "O.K., Gustav."

  From that time on we were friends.

  The cabs moved slowly forward. The actor, who was called Tommy, got a topping fare to the station; Gustav one to the nearest restaurant for thirty pfenning. He almost exploded with wrath, for he must now, for a profit of ten pfennig, take his place again at the end of the line. I landed something quite special—an old Englishwoman wanting to look over the town. I was under way with her almost an hour. On the return journey I picked up several smaller runs. By noon when we assembled again at the pub and were eating our rolls and butter, I already felt like an old hand. There was something of the camaraderie of the Army about it. Men of every conceivable calling were there. At most about half had done it always, the rest had just fallen into it one way or another.

  Fairly pleased with myself I drove into the yard of our workshop during the afternoon. Lenz and Köster were waiting for me.

  "How much have you made, brothers?" I asked.

  "Seventy litres of petrol," reported Jupp.

  "Is that all?"

  Lenz looked desperately at the sky. "For a drop of rain! And then a little collision on the skiddy asphalt right in front of the door! No one injured, of course. Just a nice, fat little repair job."

  "Take a look at this." I showed thirty-five marks in the palm of my hand.

  "Magnificent," said Köster. "That's twenty marks' profit.

  We'll blow them at once. Must celebrate the maiden voyage."

  "We're going to have a bowl of woodruff-wine," announced Lenz.

  "Bowl?" I asked. "What do you mean, bowl?"

  "Well. Pat's coming."

  "Pat?"

  "Don't open your trap so wide," said the last of the romantics. "We fixed it long ago. We collect her at seven. She knows all about it. If you can't think of these things, then we must help ourselves. After all it was through us you came to know her."

  "Otto," said I, "did you ever see anything to beat this recruit for insolence?"

  Köster laughed. "What's wrong with your hand, Bob? You seem to be holding it a bit queer."

  "Dislocated, I think." I recounted the story of Gustav. Lenz looked at it. "Quite. But, in spite of your rudeness, as a Christian and retired student of medicine I'll massage it for you. Come along, Mister Boxer."

  We went into the workshop and Gottfried got busy with my hand with some oil. "Did you tell Pat we were celebrating our first-day jubilee as taxidrivers?" I asked him.

  Gottfried whistled. "Is that biting you already, lad?"

  "Hold your tongue," I replied. Because he was right probably. "Did you tell her?"

  "Love," announced Gottfried imperturbably, "is a beautiful thing. But it spoils character."

  "Solitude, on the other hand, makes one tactless."

  "Tact is a tacit agreement to ignore mutual failings instead of ridding yourself of them. That is to say a despicable compromise. No self-respecting German veteran would stoop to it, baby."

  "What would you do then, in my place," said I, "if someone signalled you for a taxi-ride and then you saw it was Pat?"

  He smiled. "I wouldn't ask her for her fare, anyway, my boy."

  I gave him a dig that knocked him off his three-legged stool. "You grasshopper. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to collect her to-night in the taxi."

  "Excellent." Gottfried raised a hand in blessing. "Only whatever you do, don't lose your freedom. It is more precious than love and you only find out afterwards. You are not getting the taxi all the same. We want it for Ferdinand Grau and Valentin. It's going to be a solemn, but great evening."

  We were sitting in the garden of a small inn on the outskirts of the city. The wet moon hung like a red torch low over the forest. The flowery candelabra of the chestnut trees shimmered pale, the scent of the lilac was like a drug, and on the table before us the big glass bowl with the wine smelling of woodruff looked in the dim light like a bright opal wherein was gathered up blue and mother-of-pearl, the last glow of evening. Already we had refilled it four times.

  Ferdinand was in the chair. Beside him sat Pat. She was wearing a pale pink orchid which he had brdught for her.

  Ferdinand fished a lace-wing out of his wine and wiped it carefully on the table.

  "Look at that now," said "he: "this fly. Gossamer is a floorcloth to it. And they live one day, and then it's over." He surveyed us all. "Do you know what is the most uncanny thing in the world, brothers?"

  "An empty glass," replied Lenz.

  Ferdinand obliterated him with a gesture. "The most degrading thing in the world for a man, Gottfried, is to be a joker." He turned to us again. "The most uncanny thing in the world, brothers, is time. Time. The monument through which we live and yet do not possess." He pulled a watch from his pocket and held it in front of Lenz's eyes. "This here, you up-in-the-air romantic. This infernal machine, that ticks and ticks, that goes on ticking and that nothing can stop ticking. You can stay an avalanche, a landslide—but not this."

  "I don't want to," declared Lenz. "I want to grow peacefully old. And anyway, I like change."

  "It cannot abide man," said Grau ignoring him. "Neither can man abide it. So he has concocted a dream for himself. The old, pathetic, hopeless human dream, eternity."

  Gottfried laughed. "The worst disease in the world, Ferdinand, is thought. It's incurable."

  "If it were the only one, you'd be immortal," replied Grau. "You parcel of carbohydrates, calcium, phosphorus and a little iron, for a moment of time on the earth, Gottfried Lenz!"

  Gottfried beamed complacently. Ferdinand shook his lion head. "Life is a disease, brothers, and death begins already at birth. Every breath, every heartbeat, is a moment of dying—a little shove toward the end."

  "Every gulp, too," replied Lenz. "Pros't, Ferdinand. Death can be damned pleasant sometimes."

  Grau raised his glass. A smile passed over his big face like a soundless storm. "Pros't, Gottfried, you waterskipper on the running surface of time. What were the powers that move us thinking of when they made you, I wonder."

  "They must settle that among themselves," said Gottfried. "In any case it's not for you to speak disparagingly of such things. If human beings were immortal, you'd be out of work, you old parasite on death."

  Grau's shoulders began to heave. He laughed. Then he turned to Pat. "What do you say, little flower on the dancing waters?"

  Later Pat and I were walking alone in the garden. The moon was higher and the meadows swimming in silver grey. The shadows of the trees lay long and black across them like dark signposts into the unknown. We went down as far as the lake and then turned back again. En route we met Gottfried who had taken a garden chair and planted it in the midst of a thicket of lilac bushes. There he was now sitting, only his yellow head and his cigarette visible. Beside him on the ground he had a glass and what remained of the May bowl of hock flavoured with woodruff.

  "There's a place, if you like!" said Pat. "Among the lilacs."

  "It's tolerable." Gottfried stood up. "Try it."

  Pat sat on the chair. Her face shone among the blossoms.

  "I'm crazy about lilac," said the last of the romantics. "Homesickness for me means lilac. In the spring of twenty-four I set off hell-for-leather from Rio de Janeiro, only because I remembered the lilac must be in flower here. When I arrived, of course, it was too late."He laughed. "It's always so."

  "Rio de Janeiro." Pat drew a spray of blossom down toward her. "Were you there together?"

  Gottfried jibbed. I felt a sudden cold shiver down my spine.

  "Just look at the moon," said I swiftly, at the same time treading imploringly on Lenz's foot.

  In the glow of his cigarette I saw a faint smile and a twinkle. I was saved. "No, we weren't together. I was alone that ti
me. But what do you say to a last swig of this woodruff mixture?"

  "No more." Pat shook her head. "I can't drink a lot of wine."

  We heard Ferdinand calling to us and went across. But I resolved sometime to clear up the matter of Brazil. Gottfried was right—love does spoil character.

  Ferdinand was standing massive in the doorway. "Come inside, children," said he. "People like us have no business with nature at nighttime. She wants to be alone then. A farmer or a fisherman, that's a different matter—but not us town-dwellers with our instincts sabred off." He laid a hand on Gottfried's shoulder. "Night is nature's protest against the leprosy of civilization, Gottfried. No decent man can withstand it for long. He begins to notice that he has been turned out of the silent company of the trees, the animals, the stars, and unconscious life." He smiled his queer smile; one could never be sure if it were sad or not. "Come inside, children. Let's warm our hands over memories. Ach, the wonderful time, when we were horsetails and mudfish—fifty, sixty thousand years ago—God, but how low we have fallen since then."

  He took Pat by the hand. "If we had not just this tiny sense of beauty—then all were lost." With a delicate movement of his enormous flippers he placed her hand on his arm. "Silver shooting-star above the giddy abyss—will you have a drink with an age-old man?"

  Pat nodded. "Yes," said she. "Anything you like."

  The two went in. Walking thus side by side it looked as if Pat were Ferdinand's daughter—the slim, bold and young daughter of a weary giant left over from prehistoric time.

  About eleven we drove back. Valentin and Ferdinand had the taxi, Valentin at the wheel. The rest of us went in Karl. The night was warm and Köster made a detour through several villages that lay asleep by the roadside, with no sign of life but a few lights and a dog barking. Lenz was sitting in front with Otto,"singing; Pat and I crouched low behind.

  Köster drove wonderfully. He took the curves like a bird; it looked child's play it was so sure. He was not a hard driver like so many racers. You might have slept round hairpin bends, he held the car so steady; one was never conscious of the speed.

  We listened to the changing sound of the tyres as the road surface altered. On tarred roads they whistled, over stone thundered hollow. The searchlights coursed ahead like elongated greyhounds and there started up out of the darkness now a trembling avenue of birches, a row of poplars, fleeting telegraph poles, squatting houses and the mute parade of the forest's edge. Immense above us, with its millions of stars, trailed the bright mist of the Milky Way.

  The speed increased. I put our coats over Pat. She smiled at me.

  "Do you love me really?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "Do you me?"

  "No. Lucky, isn't-it?"

  "Very."

  "Then nothing can happen to us, eh?"

  "Nothing," she replied and felt for my hand under the coats.

  The road ran in a big sweep beside the railway line. The rails gleamed. Away in front of us a red light wavered. Karl bayed and shot away. It was an express with sleeping cars and one brightly lit dining car. Gradually we drew up level with it. From the windows people waved. We did not wave back. We drove past. I looked round. The locomotive was spouting smoke and sparks. It pounded along, black through the blue night. We had overtaken it—but we were driving to the city, to taxis, repair-shops, and furnished rooms; while it would keep steadily on past forests, fields and rivers to the adventure of distant and more spacious lands.

  Streets and houses came toward us. Karl became gentler, but his roaring was still that of a wild creature. Köster drove neither to Pat's nor to my place, but stopped near the graveyard in the neighbourhood of both, thinking apparently that we wanted to be alone. We got out. The other two whirled off at once, without looking round. I glanced after them. It felt queer for a moment, that they, my mates, should drive off and I remain behind.

  I dismissed the thought. "Come on," said I to Pat, who was watching me as if she had sensed something.

  "Go with them," said she.

  "No," I replied.

  "You would like to have gone with them, though—"

  "Ach, why—" said I, knowing it to be true. "Come."

  We walked past the graveyard; we were still a bit rocky from the wind and the driving.

  "Bob," said Pat, "I think I'd rather go home."

  "Why?"

  "I don't want you to give up anything on my account."

  "What are you talking about?" said I. "What am I giving up?"

  "Your friends—"

  "I'm not giving them up at all. I'll see them again first thing in the morning."

  "You know what I mean, though," said she. "You used to be with them much more before."

  "Because you weren't there," I replied and opened the door.

  She shook her head. "That's different."

  "Of course it's different, thank God."

  I picked her up and carried her along the corridor to my room.

  "You need comrades," said she close to my face.

  "I need you too," I replied.

  "But not so much."

  "We'll see about that."

  I bumped the door open and let her slip to the ground. She clung to me. "I'm only a very poor comrade, Robby."

  "Let's hope so," said I. "Anyway I don't want a woman as a comrade. I want a lover."

  "I'm not that either," she murmured.

  "What are you then?"

  "Only half, nothing whole. A fragment—"

  "That is best of all," said I. "That stirs the imagination. Such women one loves forever. Perfect women one soon gets over. Worthy ones likewise. Lovely fragments never.''

  It was four in the morning. I had taken Pat home and was on my way back. The sky was already growing bright. There was a smell of morning.

  I was walking along by the cemetery, past the Café International, toward home, when the door of a taximen's pub next the Trades Hall opened and a girl came out. A little toque, a short, shabby, red coat, high, patent-leather boots—I was almost by when I recognised her—"Lisa!"

  "So there you are again!" said she.

  "Where have you come from then?" I asked.

  She made a movement. "I've been waiting there awhile. Thought you'd probably be passing. This is around your time for coming home, isn't it?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  "Coming along?" she asked.

  I hesitated. "I can't really."

  "You don't need any money," she said hastily.

  "It's not that," I answered thoughtlessly. "I have money."

  "Ach so," said she bitterly, stepping back a pace.

  I took her hand. "No, Lisa."

  Slim and pale she stood in the empty, grey street. It was so I had met her years ago, when I had been living brutish and alone, without care and without hope. She had been mistrustful at first, like all these girls; but then, after we had talked together. several times, quite pathetically confiding and devoted. It had been a curious relationship— sometimes I would not see her for weeks on end, and then suddenly she would be standing somewhere waiting. We had neither of us anybody or anything at that time—so what little bit of warmth and companionship we could give one another had probably meant more to us than it would have otherwise. I had not seen her for a long time since I had known Pat, not at all.

  "Where have you been all this while, Lisa?"

  She gave a shrug. "What's it, matter? I just wanted to see you again. Well, I suppose I can push off, of course."

  "How are things going, then?"

  "Don't worry," said she. "Don't put yourself out."

  Her lips were quivering. She looked half-starved.

  "I'll come along with you for a bit," said I.

  Her poor, apathetic, pros'titute's face brightened and became almost childlike. On the way, at one of the cabmen's shelters that are open all night, I bought a feW small things so that she should have something to eat. She was unwilling at first and only agreed when I explained that I was hungry myse
lf. But she saw to it that I was not cheated and given inferior stuff. She was opposed to the half-pound of bacon; she said a quarter would be plenty if we took a couple of small frankfurters as well. But I stood out for the half, and two tins of sausages.

  She lived in an attic room which she had furnished herself. An oil lamp was on the table, and beside the bed in a bottle a candle. On the walls hung pictures cut out of newspapers and fastened with drawing-pins. On the chest of drawers lay a few detective novels; alongside a packet of dirty photographs. Her visitors, especially married ones, liked to look at them sometimes. Lisa swept them into a drawer, and took out a threadbare but clean tablecloth.