Chapter XV
The morning was clear and sparkling over the meadows. Pat and I were sitting on the edge of a clearing having breakfast. I had taken two weeks' leave and was on the way with Pat. We were making for the sea.
On the roadside stood a little, old Citroën. We had taken it in part payment against the baker's Ford and Köster had lent it to me for my leave. It looked like a patient pack-mule, so laden was it with trunks.
"Let's hope he doesn't collapse on the road," said I.
"He won't collapse," replied Pat.
"How do you know?"
"Self-evident. Because it's our holiday, Robby."
"Maybe," said I. "But I know his back axle. It looks pretty sad. Especially with that load."
"He's one of Karl's brothers. He'll hold out."
"A mighty rickety brother."
"Stop the abuse, Robby. At this moment he is the love-" liest car I know."
"Come over here," said I.
"What do you want then?"
"Difficult to say."
We lay for some time side by side in the meadow. The wind blew warm and soft from the wood. It smelt of pines and wild flowers.
"Robby," asked Pat after a while, "what flowers are those over there by the stream?"
"Anemones," I replied without looking up.
"But darling! Those aren't anemones, anemones are much smaller; besides they only flower in spring."
"True," said I. "It's lady's smock."
She shook her head. "Lady's smock I know. This looks quite different."
"Then it's hemlock."
"But Robby! Hemlock is white, not red."
"Then I don't know. So far I've always got through with those three flower names, when I've been asked. They've always believed one of them."
She laughed. "What a pity. If I'd known I would have been satisfied with anemones."
"Hemlock," said I. "I've always had most success with hemlock."
She sat up. "That is very encouraging. Are you often asked, then?"
"Not too often. And under quite other circumstances."
She propped her arms on the ground. "It really is a shame the way man runs about the earth and yet knows nothing at all about it. Not even a few names."
"Don't grieve," said I, "a much greater shame is that man doesn't even know what he runs about the earth for. And a few names more or less won't help there much."
"So you say. But I believe you only say it out of idleness."
I turned over. "Of course. But not enough has been thought about idleness. It is the foundation of all happiness and the end of all philosophy. Come, lie down here again. Man lies down much too little. He stands and sits about all the time. It's not good for animal comfort. Only when a man lies down is he quite at peace with himself."
A car came humming along and drove past.
"Baby Mercedes," said I without sitting up. "Four-cylinder."
"Here comes another," replied Pat.
"Yes, I can hear it. A Renault. Has it a radiator like a pig's nose?"
"Yes."
"Then it is a Renault. But listen now, here comes something real, A Lancia. I bet he's chasing the other two like a wolf after a couple of sheep. Just listen to the engine. Like an organ."
The car swept by.
"I suppose you know more than three names there?" asked Pat.
"Of course. And they are right, what's more."
She laughed. "Isn't that really sad, or not?"
"Not at all sad. Only natural. To me a good car is preferable to twenty fields of flowers."
"Unregenerate son of the twentieth century I I suppose you're not at all sentimental."
"Oh, yes, you just heard: over cars."
She looked at me.
"Me, too," said she.
Out of the fir trees a cuckoo called. Pat started to count.
"Why do you do that?"
"Don't you know? As often as he calls, so many years will you live."
"Ach, so, yes. But there's another one. When a cuckoo calls, shake your money. Then it will multiply."
I took my loose change from my pocket and shook it vigorously in my cupped hands.
"Just like you," said Pat laughing. "I want life and you want money."
"In order to live," I replied. "A true idealist strives for money. Money is mental freedom. And freedom is life."
"Fourteen," counted Pat. "I've heard you talk differently about it before now."
"That was in my dark time. One shouldn't talk scornfully about money. It's money brings many a woman a lover. Love on the other hand makes many a man avaricious. Money therefore furthers the ideal—love versus materialism."
"This is your good day," observed Pat. "Thirty-five."
"The man" I went on, "only becomes avaricious as a result of the woman's desires. If there wereh't women there wouldn't be money, and the men would be a race of heroes. In the trenches there were no women—it didn't count for much there, either, how well off a man was. It came back to what he was as a man. And that's not to say anything for the trenches; that's only to show love up in its true light. It rouses the evil instincts in man—the urge to possession, standing, profits, comfort. It's not for nothing dictators like to see their subordinates married—that way they are less dangerous. And not for nothing do Catholic priests have no wives—they would never be such bold missionaries otherwise."
"This is a really marvellous day for you," said Pat gratefully. "Fifty-two."
I put my money back into my pocket and lit a cigarette.
"Wouldn't you like to stop counting soon?" I asked. "You'll be going well over seventy if you're not careful."
"A hundred, Robby. A hundred is a good figure. I'd like to get that far."
"Hat's off! That's courage. But what will you do with it all?"
She gave me a quick look up and down. "I have other ideas than you on the subject."
"You must have, indeed. But the first seventy years are the worst. After that it ought to be easier."
"One hundred!" announced Pat and we set off again.
The sea came towards us like an immense silver sail. Long before we reached it we could detect its salt breath; the horizon became ever brighter and more distant, and suddenly it lay before us, restless, mighty and unending.
The road led in a curve close by it. Then came a wood and behind it a village. We enquired for the house where we were to stay. It lay some distance outside the village. Köster had given us the address. He had been a year there after the war.
It was a small villa standing by itself. In two elegant turns I brought the Citroën alongside and gave the signal. A broad face appeared from behind a curtain, gaped palely an instant and was gone. "Let's hope that's not Fräulein Müller," said I.
"It doesn't matter what she looks like," replied Pat.
The door opened. Praise be, it was not Fräulein Müller; it was the maid. Fräulein Müller, the owner of the house, appeared a minute later. A spruce old maiden lady with grey hair. She was wearing a high-necked black dress and a gold cross for a brooch. "Pull your stockings on, Pat, as a precaution," I whispered after one look at the brooch, and got out.
"I believe Herr Köster announced us already?" said I.
"Yes, he wired me you were coming." She looked me over thoroughly. "And how is Herr Köster?"
"Ach, quite well—-as that goes these days."
She nodded and resumed her scrutiny. "Have you known him long?"
Now for the cross-examination, thought I, and announced how long I had known Köster. She seemed satisfied. Pat came up. She had put on her stockings. Fräulein Müller's look became milder. Pat appeared to gain more favour than I.
"Have you room for us, then?" I asked.
"If Herr Köster telegraphs you have to have a room," declared Fräulein Müller looking at me rather disapprovingly. "You shall have my best room even," said she to Pat.
Pat smiled. Fräulein Müller smiled also. "I'll show it to you," said she.
The two set off down a narrow path that led through a little garden. I trotted along behind and seemed to be rather superfluous, for Fräulein Müller addressed herself only to Pat.
The room she showed us was on the ground floor. It had an entrance of its own on to the garden. I liked it very much. It was fairly large, bright and friendly. On one side, in a sort of niche, stood two beds.
"Well?" asked Fräulein Müller.
"Perfectly lovely," said Pat.
"Magnificent, in fact," I added ingratiatingly. "And where is the other?"
Fräulein Müller turned on me slowly. "The other? What other? Do you want another then? Aren't you satisfied with this one?"
"It's simply splendid," said I, "but—"
"But?" said Fräulein Müller a trifle sharply. "Unfortunately I have none better than this."
I was about to explain that we needed two single rooms when she added: "But your wife thinks it very nice."
Your wife—I had the sensation of stepping two paces backwards. But I was still where I stood. I stole a look at Pat, who was leaning by the window, with difficulty suppressing a laugh at seeing me there. "My wife, certainly—" said I fixing my eye on the golden cross on Fräulein Müller's neck. There was nothing for it; I dare not explain. She would scream and fall in a faint. "Only we are accustomed to sleep in two rooms," said I. "Each in one, I mean."
Deprecatingly Fräulein Müller shook her head. "Two bedrooms, when you are married—that is a new fashion surely."
"Not at all," said I before she should become suspicious. "Only my wife is a very light sleeper. And unfortunately I snore rather loudly."
"Ach, so, you snore," replied Fräulein Müller, as if she might have guessed it long ago.
I was afraid she might now give me a room on the floor above, but marriage was evidently sacred to her. She opened the door to a little room alongside, in which was nothing much but a bed.
"Excellent," said I, "that would be perfect. But I won't be disturbing anyone else?" I wanted to find out whether we had the floor here to ourselves.
"You will disturb nobody," announced Fräulein Müller, her dignity falling from her. "Apart from yourselves there's not a soul here. The other rooms are all empty." She stood a moment, then pulled herself together. "Will you eat here or in the dining room?"
"Here," said I.
She nodded and went.
"Well, Frau Lohkamp," said I to Pat. "That's fixed us. . .But I would never have guessed the devil was such a churchman. She doesn't seem to like me, does she? Queer that, I usually have luck with old dames."
"That wasn't an old dame, Robby. That was a very nice old maid."
"Nice?" I gave a shrug. "Well, she has her nerve with her—so high and mighty and not a soul in the house!"
"She wasn't high and mighty at all."
"Not to you."
Pat laughed. "I like her. But now shouldn't we fetch the trunks and unpack the bathing things?"
I had been swimming an hour and was now lying on the beach in the sun. Pat was still in the water. Her white cap kept appearing in the blue swell of the waves. Some gulls were circling overhead. On the skyline a steamer moved slowly by with a trailing streamer of smoke.
The sun was blazing. It melted every resistance to sleepy thoughtless abandonment. I closed my eyes and stretched full-length. The hot sand crackled. The breaking of the feeble surf rustled in my ears. It reminded me of something, of another day when I had laid just like this. . . .
It was summer, 1917. Our company was in Flanders at the time and we had got unexpectedly a few days leave to Ostend—Meyer, Holthoff, Bryer, Lütgens, myself and some others. Most of us had never seen the sea before, and these few days—this almost unbelievable interlude between death and death—became one complete surrender to sun and sand and sea. We spent all day on the beach, we stretched our naked bodies in the sun—for merely to be naked, not laden with pack, rifle and uniform, was already almost peace. We raced up and down the sands and dashed again into the water; we were conscious of our limbs, our breath, our movements, with all the vigour and intensity that the things of life had at that time—for those hours we forgot everything, and we wanted to forget. But at night, in the twilight, when the sun was gone and grey shadows from the skyline ran in over the pallid waters, then gradually there mingled with the roar of the surf another tone, which grew louder and finally drowned it—a dull, menacing sound: the bombardment of the Front. Then it would happen suddenly that a livid silence would interrupt the talk, heads would lift and listen, and out of the merry faces of tired, played-out schoolboys would swiftly leap the hard visages of the soldiers, for an instant touched by a surprise, a sadness in which was implicit all that would never be uttered—courage and bitterness and greed of life, the will to duty, the despair, the hope and the enigmatic sorrow of those appointed early to die. Then, a few days later, began the great Offensive, and already by the third of July the company had only thirty-two men, and Meyer, Holthoff and Lütgens were dead. . . .
"Robby!"called Pat.
I opened my eyes. For a moment I had to think where I was. Always when memories of the war came, one was immediately far away. With other memories it was not so.
I sat up. Pat was coming out of the water. She walked almost directly out of the path of the sun over the water, an immense glory poured over her shoulders, and she was so flooded in light that she appeared almost dark against it. With every step up the beach she mounted higher into the strong light until the sun of the late evening stood behind her head like a halo.
I jumped up, so unreal, so much as if out of another world did this picture appear to me now—the wide, blue sky, the white lines of foam, and the lovely slender figure against it—as if I alone were in the world and out of the water came stepping the first woman. For one instant I felt the immense, quiet power of beauty, and knew that it was stronger than all the bloodstained past; that it must be stronger, else the world would collapse, sink down and perish in its own chaos. And more even than that I felt that I was there, simply there, and that Pat was there, that I lived, that I had escaped the horror, that I had eyes and hands and thoughts and hot pulsing blood, and that all that was a miracle beyond comprehension.
"Robby!" called Pat once again and waved.
I picked up her bathing wrap from the ground and went quickly toward her. "You have been much too long in the water," said I.
"I'm quite warm," she replied, out of breath.
I kissed her wet shoulder. "You must be more reasonable at the start."
She shook her head and looked at me radiantly. "I've been reasonable long enough."
"You think so?"
"Of course. Much too long. I mean now to be unreasonable for a change."
She laughed and put her wet cheek to my face. "We're going to be unreasonable, Robby. To think of nothing, absolutely nothing, only of ourselves and the sun and the holidays and the sea."
"Right," said I taking the towel. "But first I'm going to rub you dry. Where have you been, though, to be so brown already?"
She pulled on her wrap. "That comes from my reasonable year, when I had to lie on the balcony in the sun for an hour every day. And go to sleep at eight o'clock at night. Tonight at eight o'clock I'm going for a swim again."
"We shall see about that," said I. "Man is always large in his intentions. In execution not so. Therein lies his charm."
Nothing came of the evening bathe. We had a walk to the village and a drive in the Citroën through the dusk— then Pat became suddenly tired and wanted to go home. I had already noticed that often with her—the swift lapsing from radiant vitality into sudden exhaustion. She had little strength and no reserve at all—and yet she did not give that impression. She always used every ounce of life force that was in her and appeared inexhaustible in her lithe youthfulness; then suddenly would come a moment when her face would grow pale and her eyes deep with shadows "—then she was done. She did not become tired gradually, but in one second.
"Let us drive home, Robby," said she, and her dark voice was deeper even than usual.
"Home? To Fräulein Müller with the gold cross on her bosom? Who knows what the old devil may not have thought up in the meantime?"
"Home, Robby," said Pat and leaned wearily against my shoulder. "It is home for us."
I took one hand from the wheel and put it around her shoulders. And so we drove slowly through the blue, misty twilight, and when at last we did sight the lighted windows of the little house, snuggled down in the hollow of the valley like some dark animal, there actually was something like homecoming about it.
Fräulein Müller was already expecting us. She had changed her clothes and was now wearing instead of the black, woollen dress a black silk one of the same puritanical cut. And instead of the cross an emblem consisting of heart, anchor and cross in one—the ecclesiastical symbol of faith, hope, and love.
She was definitely more friendly than this afternoon and asked if she had done rightly in preparing for supper eggs, cold meat, and smoked fish.
"I suppose so," said I.
"Don't you like it? They are quite fresh smoked flounders." She looked at me rather anxiously.
"Of course," said I coldly.
"Fresh smoked flounders sound wonderful," declared Pat, looking at me reproachfully. "A perfect supper, just what one would wish for the first day at the sea, Fräulein Müller. And if there were some good hot tea with it—"
"Yes, certainly. Real hot tea. Gladly. I'll have it all brought at once." Relieved, Fräulein Müller rustled out hastily in her silk gown.
"Don't you really like fish?" asked Pat.
"Do I not? And flounders! I've been dreaming of them for days."
"Then why did you behave like that? That is a bit steep!"
"I had to pay her back for her reception this afternoon, didn't I?"
"Well I'm blowed!" Pat laughed. "Don't you ever let anyone off? I had forgotten that long ago."
"I hadn't," said I. "I don't forget so lightly."
"Then you ought to," replied Pat.
The maid came with the tray. The flounders had skins like yellow topazes and smelt wonderfully of the sea and smoke. There were fresh prawns as well.
"I begin to forget," said I enthusiastically. "I observe besides that I have an enormous hunger."
"So have I. But first give me, quickly, some hot tea. It is queer, but I am freezing. Yet it is quite warm still outside."
I looked at her. She was pale, although she smiled.
"I don't say one word, mark you, about too long bathing," said I, and asked the maid: "Have you any rum?"
"What?"
"Rum. A drink out of a bottle."
"Rum?"
"Yes."
"Eh?"
She gaped with her doughy, full moon face.
"Eh?" said she, once again.
"Good" I replied. "Never mind. Good-bye. God bless you."
She vanished. "What a mercy, Pat, we have far-sighted friends," said I. "Lenz hastily stowed a pretty heavy parcel into the car this morning as we were leaving. Let's have a look what's in it."
I fetched the parcel from the car. It was a small case with two bottles of rum, one bottle of cognac and one of port. I held them up. "St. James rum, too! You can trust the boys."
I uncorked the bottles and poured Pat a good dose into the tea. As I did so I saw that her hands were trembling. "Are you really as cold as all that?" I asked.
"It's only momentary. It's better already. The rum is good. But I'll go to bed soon."
"Go at once, Pat," said I. "Then we can push up the table and eat that way."
She let herself be persuaded. I brought her an extra blanket from my bed and pushed the table into position. "Perhaps you would like a real grog, Pat? That is better still. I can make one quite quickly."
She shook her head. "I feel well again already."
I glanced at her. She actually did look better. Her eyes had their shine again, her lips were very red and her skin glowed softly.
"Incredible how quick it goes," said I. "That's the rum, sure."
She smiled. "It is the bed, too, Robby. I recover much better in bed. That is my refuge."
"Extraordinary. I would go mad if I had to go to bed as early. Alone, I mean."
She laughed. "For a woman it is different."
"Don't say for a woman. You are not a woman."
"What am I then?"
"I don't know. But not a woman. If you were a proper, normal woman, I would not be able to love you."
She looked at me. "Can you love, anyway?"
"Well," said I, "that's a nice one at suppertime. Have you got any more questions like that?"
"Perhaps. But what about this one?"
I poured myself a glass of rum. "Pros't, Pat! Maybe you are right. Perhaps none of us can. Not as they used to, I mean. But it's none the worse for that. Only different. We don't see it that way any more."
There was a knock. Fräulein Müller came in. She had in her hand a tiny glass jug in which a drop of fluid was swilling here and there. "I have brought you the rum."
"Thanks," said I deeply touched and contemplating the glass finger-stall. "It is very kind of you, but we have helped ourselves already."
"Good gracious!" Horrified, she gazed at the four bottles on the table. "Do you drink all that?"
"Only as medicine," I replied gently avoiding Pat's eye. "On Doctor's orders. I have a too dry liver, Fräulein Müller. But won't you give us the honour?"
I opened the port bottle. "To your very good health! May the house soon be full of guests."
"Thank you very much." She sighed, made a little bow and sipped like a bird. "A good holiday!" Then she smiled at me knowingly. "But it is strong. And good."
My glass almost dropped out of my hand at this transformation. Fräulein Müller's cheeks began to glow, her eyes sparkled and she started telling us all manner of things that did not interest us in the least. Pat had an angel's patience with her. Finally Fräulein turned to me.
"Herr Köster is doing well then?"
I nodded.
"He used to be always so quiet," said she. "Sometimes he would not say a word all day. Does he still do that?"
"Well, he does talk occasionally now."
"He was almost a year here. Quite alone—"
"Yes," said I. "One is apt to talk less then."
She nodded solemnly and looked across at Pat. "I'm sure you are tired."
"A little," said Pat.
"Very," I added.
"Then of course I will be going," she replied, startled.
"Good night, then. Sleep well."
Reluctantly she went.
"I believe she would like to have stayed longer," said I. "Funny, all of a sudden, what?"
"The poor thing," replied Pat. "Sits alone in her room every night, I'm sure, worrying."
"Ach, so, yes—" said I. "But I do think, all in all, I behaved quite nicely to her."
"You did so." She stroked my hand. "Open the door a bit, Robby."
I went and opened the door. Outside it had become clearer and a patch of moonlight fell across the path and into the room. It was as if the garden had only been waiting for the door to be opened—so strong was the night perfume of the flowers that immediately pressed in, the sweet smell of wallflower, mignonette and roses. It filled the whole room.
"Just look," said I, pointing.
In the increasing moonlight one could see the entire length of the garden path. The flowers stood with drooping heads along the edge, the leaves were the colour of oxidized silver, and the blossoms that had shone so bravely in the daylight, now shimmered, ghostly and tender, in soft pastel shades. Night and the moonlight had stolen the strength from their colours—but to compensate their perfume was fuller and sweeter than ever by day.
I looked across at Pat. Tender and fine and frail her head lay with its dark hair on the white pillow. She had not much strength—but she too had the mystery of frailness, the mystery of flowers in the twilight and in the hovering light of the moon.
She sat up a little. "I am really very tired, Robby. Is that bad?"
I sat down on the bed beside her. "Not at all. You will sleep well."
"But you don't want to sleep yet?"
"I'll take a turn first along the beach."
She nodded and lay back again. I continued to sit awhile.
"Leave the door open overnight," said she, drunk with sleep. "Then it will be like sleeping in the garden."
Her breathing became deeper and I got up softly and went out into the garden. I stood by the wooden fence and smoked a cigarette. From here I could see into the room. Pat's bathing gown was hanging over a chair, her dress and some underclothes were flung across it, and on the floor in front of the chair, stood her shoes. One was tipped over. I had an extraordinary sense of home as I saw that, and thought that now at last someone was there and would be there, that I only had to take a few steps to see her and be with her, to-day, to-morrow, and for a long time to come, perhaps—
Perhaps, thought I, perhaps—always that word, one never could escape it. It was certainty we lacked, certainty that everyone and everything lacked.
I went down to the beach, to the sea and the wind, to the hollow booming that echoed like a distant bombardment.