Three Comrades

  The car thundered through between the bright shops of the main street. Pedestrians sprang aside; startled by the unusual sight, horses shied; a sleigh set off down a slope on its own; the car raced up the turns to the sanatorium and pulled up in front of the porch. I jumped out; as through a veil I saw curious faces, people, the office, the lift; then I ran down the white corridor, threw open the door, and saw Pat; as I had seen her a hundred times in dream and desire, she came toward me and I held her in my arms like life itself and more than life.

  "Thank God," said I, when I had recovered myself. "I imagined you'd be in bed."

  She shook her head on my shoulder. Then she straightened, took my face in her hands and looked at me.

  "To think you are here," she murmured. "That you have corne!"

  She kissed me, cautiously, solemnly, warily, like something one does not want to break. As I felt her lips I started to tremble. It had all gone so quickly, I did not quite realise it yet. I was not properly there yet; I was still full of the journey, the roar of the engine, and the road. I felt like someone coming out of the cold and the night into a warm room: he feels the warmth on his skin, sees it with his eyes, but is not yet warm.

  "We drove pretty fast," said I.

  She did not answer. She just looked at me in silence. Her solemn face had a piercing expression, her eyes were close in front of me, and it was as if she were seeking, trying to find again something very important. I felt disconcerted. I put my hands on her shoulders and dropped my eyes.

  "Are you staying?" she asked.

  I nodded.

  "Tell me at once. Tell me if you are going away again, so that I may know at once."

  I meant to answer that I didn't know yet, and that probably I should have to go again in a few days because I hadn't the money to stay. But I couldn't do it. I just could not while she looked at me like that.

  "Yes," said I, "I'm staying. Until we go back together."

  Her face did not change. But suddenly it grew bright, as if lighted from within.

  "Ach," she murmured, "I couldn't have endured it."

  I tried to read over her shoulder the temperature chart at the head of the bed. She noticed it, swiftly drew the sheet from its container, crumpled it and threw it under the bed. "That doesn't signify any more," said she.

  I noted where the screwed-up paper lay and determined to pocket it afterwards when she wasn't looking.

  "Were you sick?" I asked.

  "A bit. But that's over now."

  "What did the doctor say?"

  She laughed. "Don't ask about the doctor now. Don't ask anything any more. You are here, that's enough."

  She was suddenly altered. I don't know if it came from the fact that I had not seen her for so long, but she seemed to me different from before. Her movements were more graceful, her skin warmer, the way she came to me was different; she was no longer just a beautiful young girl that one must protect; something else had entered in, and whereas before I had often not known whether she loved me, now I was conscious of it, she concealed nothing any more, she was more vivacious and nearer to me than ever, more lively, nearer and more beautiful, more delighting, but in a strange way also more disturbing.

  "Pat," said I. "I must go down quickly. Köster is below. We must see where we're going to put up."

  "Köster? And where is Lenz?"

  "Lenz . . ." said I. "Lenz has stayed at home."

  She noticed nothing. "Can you venture down, afterwards?" I asked. "Or should we come up here?"

  "I can venture anything. I can venture everything now. We'll go down, and then have something to drink. I'll watch, while you drink."

  "Good. Then we'll wait below in the hall for you."

  She went to the wardrobe to take out a dress. I profited by the occasion to put the crumpled temperature chart in my pocket.

  "Right then, Pat; see you in a minute?"

  "Robby." She followed me and put her arms round my neck. "I wanted to tell you so many things."

  "I you too, Pat. But now we have plenty of time. We'll tell each other things all day long: To-morrow. It doesn't go somehow at the start."

  She nodded. "Yes, we'll tell one another everything. Then we'll know all about each other as if we had never been separated."

  "So we haven't been, anyway," said I. ,

  She smiled. "Not I. I haven't so much strength. It was worse for me. I can't comfort myself with thoughts when I am alone. I'm alone, that's all I know. It is easier to be alone without love." She was smiling still. It was a glassy smile; she held on to it, but you could see through it.

  "Pat," said I, "brave old lad."

  "It's a long time since I heard that," said she, and her eyes were full of tears.

  I went down to Köster. The bags were already unloaded. They had given us two rooms next each other in the annex. "Take a look at that," said I showing him the temperature chart. "It goes up and down."

  We walked over the crunching snow up the steps. "Ask the doctor to-morrow," said Köster. "You can't tell anything from the temperature alone."

  "I can tell enough," I replied and screwed it up and stuck it in my pocket again.

  We washed. Then Köster came to my room. He looked as if he had just got up. "You must dress, Bob," said he.

  "Yes." I waked out of my brown study and unpacked my bag.

  We went back to the sanatorium. Karl was still standing outside. Köster had hung a rug over the radiator. "When do we go back, Otto?"

  He stopped. "I think I'll go to-morrow night or next morning early. You stay here, though."

  "How am I to do that, then?" I replied desperately. "My money will hold out only for ten days at the outside. And the sanatorium is paid for Pat only to the fifteenth. I must go back and earn. From the looks of it they won't be wanting any bad pianists here."

  Köster bent over Karl's radiator and lifted the rug. "I'll get money for you," said he, straightening. "You can stay here and don't worry on that score."

  "Otto," said I, "I know how much you have over from the sale. Not three hundred marks."

  "I don't mean that. I'll get some. Don't you trouble about that. In eight days you'll have it here."

  "Got a legacy?" I asked with dismal cheerfulness.

  "Something of the sort. Leave it to me. You can't just go away again now."

  Köster spread the rug again over Karl's radiator. He passed his hand lightly over the bonnet. Then we went into the hall and sat by the fire. "How late is it actually?" I asked.

  Köster looked at his watch. "Half-past six."

  "Extraordinary," said I. "I thought it was much later."

  Pat came down the stairs. She was wearing her fur jacket and walked swiftly across the hall to greet Köster. I saw now for the first time how brown she was. Her skin was the colour of reddish bronze, and she looked almost like a young, very fair Red Indian, But her face had become thinner and her eyes shone too brightly.

  "Are you feverish?" I asked.

  "A bit," she replied quickly and evasively. "Everybody here is feverish at night. It's only because you have come. Aren't you tired?"

  "What from?"

  "Then should we go into the bar? You know, this is the first time up here I've had visitors."

  "Is there a bar here?"

  "Yes, a small one. Or at least a corner that looks like one. That's part of the treatment. Avoid everything that looks like a hospital. You don't get anything if it's not allowed."

  The bar was full. Pat greeted several people. One Italian I liked. We sat at a table which had just been vacated.

  "What will you have, then?" I asked.

  "A cocktail with rum. The sort we always used to drink at 'The Bar.' Do you know the recipe?"

  "That's simple," said I to the girl who was serving. "Half port, half Jamaica rum."

  "Two," called Pat. "And one Special."

  The girl brought us two Porto-Roncos and a bright red drink. "That's for me," said Pat. She pushed the rum toward us. "Salut!"

/>   She put down her glass without having drunk, looked around, then swiftly reached for my glass and emptied it. "Ach," said she, "how good that is."

  "What's this you ordered?" I asked trying the suspiciously bright red affair. It tasted of raspberry and lemon. There was not a drop of alcohol in it. , "Very good," said I.

  Pat looked at me.

  "For the thirst," I added.

  She laughed. "Order one more Porto-Ronco. But for yourself. I don't get any."

  I beckoned the girl. "One Porto-Ronco and one Special," said I. I saw that a good many Specials were being drunk at the tables.

  "I might venture to-day, Robby, yes?" said Pat. "Just to-day? Like in old times. Yes, Köster?"

  "The Special is quite good," I replied and drank the second glass.

  "I hate it. Poor Robby, what stuff you will have to drink here."

  "If we order fast enough, I'll come, into my own soon," said I.

  Pat laughed. "Afterwards, with supper, I'm allowed to drink something. Red wine."

  We ordered a few more Porto Roncos, then went in to the dining room. Pat looked lovely. Her face beamed. We sat ai one of the small, white, covered tables by the window. It was warm, and below lay the village with its lighted streets in the snow.

  "Where's Helga Guttmann then?" I asked.

  "Gone away," said Pat after a pause.

  "Gone away? So soon?"

  "Yes," said Pat and I realised what she meant.

  The girl brought the dark red wine. Köster filled the glasses. The tables were now all occupied. Everywhere sat people chattering. I felt Pat's hand on mine.

  "Darling," said she very softly and tenderly. "I couldn't stick it any longer."

  Chapter XXVI

  I came out of the chief physician's room; Köster was waiting for me in the hall. He stood up when he saw me. We went outside and sat on a bench in front of the sanatorium.

  "It's bad, Otto," said I. "Worse than I feared."

  A group of skiers passed noisily close in front of us. Some oil-besmeared women with powerful, sunburnt faces and big, white sets of teeth. They shouted to one another that they were hungry as wolves. We waited till they were past.

  "That sort lives of course," said I. "Live and are well to the very marrow. Make you sick!"

  "Did you speak to the chief physician himself?" asked Köster.

  "Yes. He explained it all, with plenty of reservations and qualifications. But the upshot is, it has got worse. He even maintained it was better."

  "I don't follow."

  "He says, if she had stayed below, all hope would have been gone long ago. Here it has gone slower. That he calls better."

  Köster drew marks with the heel of his shoe in the hard snow. Then he stood up. "He has hope, then?"

  "A doctor always has hope, it belongs to his job. But I have damned little any more. I asked him if he'd done a pneumo-thorax. He said it was no use now. She had one some years ago. Now both lungs are affected. It's the devil, Otto."

  An old woman with overtrodden galoshes stopped in front of our seat. She had a blue, decayed face and slate-coloured, extinct eyes, that looked as if they were blind. About her neck she had wound an old-fashioned feather boa. Slowly she raised a lorgnette and examined us. Then she shuffled on.

  "Nasty-looking ghost," I spat.

  "What else did he say?" asked Köster.

  "He explained how it probably came about. He had had quite a lot of patients around the same age. A result of the war. Undernourishment in the growing years. But what's that to do with me? She has to get well." I looked at him. "Of course he told me he had experienced miracles often. With this disease particularly it happens that sometimes it suddenly stops, encapsules and heals up, even in desperate cases. Jaffé said that too. But I don't believe in miracles."

  Köster did not answer. We remained sitting side by side in silence. What could we say? We had both seen too much to be able to do anything in the comforting line.

  "She mustn't notice anything, Bob," said Köster at last.

  "Of course," I replied.

  We continued to sit till Pat came. I thought nothing; I didn't even despair; I was just stupefied and grey and dead.

  "There she is," said Köster.

  "Yes," said I, standing up.

  "Hello!" Pat came toward us and waved. She staggered a little and laughed. "I'm a bit drunk. With the sun. Always when I've been lying in the sun, I roll like an old sailor."

  I looked at her, and at a stroke it was all different. I ' didn't believe the doctor any more; I believed the miracle. There she was; she was alive; there she stood laughing— all the rest sank before it.

  "What are you making such long faces about?" she asked.

  "Town faces, that don't fit here," said Köster. "We can't get used to the sun."

  She laughed. "To-day's a good day for me. No temperature. I can go out. Shall we go down to the village and have an apéritif?"

  "Sure."

  "Off we go, then."

  "Shouldn't we take a sleigh, though?" asked Köster.

  "I can stand it," said Pat.

  "I know that," said Köster. "But I've never ridden in one of those things. I'd like to try once."

  We beckoned a driver and drove down the hairpin bends to the village. Outside a café that had a little sunny lawn we stopped and got out. All sorts of people were there, and some I recognised from the sanatorium. The Italian from the bar was among them. He was called Antonio, and came to our table to greet Pat. He told us some practical jokers last night had rolled one patient, while he slept, bed and all out of his room into the room of the stone-age schoolmistress.

  "Why did they do that?" I asked.

  "He's cured and going out in a few days," replied Antonio. "They're always doing that sort of thing."

  "It's the famous gallows humour of those who are left behind, darling," said Pat.

  "One does get childish up here," observed Antonio apologetically.

  Cured, thought I; one is cured and going back. "What do you want to drink, Pat?" I asked.

  "A Martini. A good dry Martini."

  A radio started to play. Viennese waltzes. They floated through the warm sunny air like soft, bright banners. The waiter brought the Martinis. They were very cold, and beading still as the sun shone on them.

  "Lovely to sit like this, isn't it?"

  "Grand," I replied.

  "But sometimes it's unbearable," said she.

  We remained down to lunch. Pat wanted it particularly. Latterly she had had to stay in the sanatorium and this was her first outing; she had told them there she would feel twice as well if only she could lunch in the village. Antonio dined with us. Afterwards we drove up again and Pat went to her room to lie down for two hours. Köster and I fetched Karl from the garage and looked him over. We had to change two broken springs. The garage man had tools and we set to work. Then we filled up with oil and greased the chassis thoroughly. When all was done we ..pushed him out. With hanging ears and spattered with mud he stood in the snow.

  "Should we wash him?" I asked.

  "No, not en route," said Köster. "He doesn't like it."

  Pat joined us. She looked warm and rested. Her dog was jumping around her. "Billy!" I called. He stopped and looked, but he wasn't overfriendly. He did not recognise me, and was quite disconcerted when Pat called my attention to him.

  "So soon," said I. "Thank God, human beings have better memories. Where was he yesterday then?"

  Pat laughed. "He lay under the bed the whole day. He's jealous when I have visitors, and then retires and sulks."

  "You look wonderful," said I.

  She glanced at me happily. Then she walked up to Karl. "I would like to sit in it again and drive a little way."

  "Why not?" said I. "What do you say, Otto?"

  "Of course. You have a thick coat, and here are rugs and wraps enough."

  Pat sat forward behind the windshield beside Köster. Karl bellowed. The exhaust gas steamed blue-white in the
cold air. The engine was not warm yet. Slowly clapping, the chains began to eat their way through the snow. Spitting, cracking and snarling, Karl crept down to the village and along the main street, a crouching wolf amid the trample of horses and tinkle of sleighbells.