A Time to Love and a Time to Die

  "If that's the way you look at it, perhaps it's right."

  "That's what I mean," Graeber' said, relieved. "Then there's a loan for the heads of families in addition, a thousand marks, I believe. Perhaps, too, you wouldn't have to go to your coat factory any more if you were married."

  "Yes, I would. That has nothing to do with it. And what should I do otherwise all day long? Alone."

  For a moment Graeber felt very helpless. Just what are they doing with us? he thought. We are young and ought to be happy and free to stay together. What do our parents' wars have to do with us? "We will both be alone," he said. "But if we are married we will be less so."

  Elisabeth shook her head.

  "You don't want to?" he asked.

  "We would not be less alone," she said. "We'd be more so."

  All at once Graeber heard again the voice of the singer in the house opposite. She had stopped practicing scales and was now singing octaves. They sounded like shrieks that were answered by an echo. "After all it is not irrevocable, if that's ' what you're thinking," he said. "We could always get a divorce later on if we want to."

  "Then why should we marry?"

  "Why should we make a present of anything to the State?"

  Elisabeth got up. "Yesterday you were different," she said.

  "Different in what way?"

  She smiled briefly. "Let's not talk about it any more. We are together; that's enough."

  "You don't want to?"

  "No."

  He looked at her. Something in her had withdrawn and closed against him. "Damn it," he said. "I meant it so well."

  Elisabeth smiled again. "Sometimes that's just the trouble. One oughtn't to mean too well. Have we still something left to drink?"

  "We still have slivowitz."

  "Is that the one that comes from Poland?"

  "Yes."

  "Haven't we anything that isn't booty?"

  "We must still have a bottle of kuemmel. That's from Germany."

  "Then give me that."

  Graeber went into the kitchen to get the bottle. He was angry at himself. He stood for a moment in front of the pots and pans and Binding's presents in the half darkened room which smelled of former meals, and felt empty and burned out. Then he went back.

  Elisabeth was leaning against the window frame. "How gray it is," she said. "It's going to rain. Too bad!"

  "Why is it too bad?"

  "It's our first Sunday. We could have gone out. It's spring outside the city."

  "Would you like to go out?"

  "No. For me Frau Lieser's absence is enough. But for you it would be a change from sitting around here."

  "It doesn't matter to me either. I've lived long enough with nature and have no more need of her for quite a while. My dream of nature is a warm room free.from bullet holes and with unbroken furniture. That's what we have here. It's the greatest adventure I can imagine and I can't get enough of it. But perhaps you've had more than enough of it. We can go to a movie if you like."

  Elisabeth shook her head.

  "Then let's stay here and not stir out. If we leave, the day will break into pieces and will be over quicker than if we stay. This way it will last longer."

  Graeber went to Elisabeth and took her in his arms. He felt the rough toweling of her bathrobe. Then he saw that her eyes were full of tears. "Was I talking nonsense," he asked, "just now?"

  "No."

  "But I must have done something. Otherwise why are you crying?"

  He held her tight and looked over her shoulder out into the street. The hairy man with the suspenders had disappeared. A couple of children were playing war in the trench that led to the cellar of the demolished house. "We shouldn't be sad," he said.

  The singer across the street gave voice again. She was braying forth a song by Grieg. "I love thee! I love thee!" she screamed in her harsh, unsteady voice. "In spite of time and toil I love thee!"

  "No, we shouldn't be sad," Elisabeth said.

  In the afternoon it began to rain. It grew dark early and the overcast became heavier and heavier. They were lying on the bed without a light; the window was open and rain was falling outside, slanting and pale, a wavering, fluid wall.

  Graeber listened to the monotous downpour. He was reflecting that in Russia the time of mud must have set in, the time when everything sank in endless mire. There would still be mire when he got back there. "Don't I have to leave?" he asked. "Frau Lieser will surely be back soon."

  "Let her come," Elisabeth murmured sleepily. "Is it so late already?"

  "I don't know. But perhaps she'll be back early because of the rain."

  "Perhaps because of the rain she won't come back till later."

  "That could be too."

  "Perhaps she won't even come back till tomorrow," Elisabeth said, laying her face on his shoulder.

  "Perhaps she'll even be run over by a truck. But that would be too much good luck."

  "You're not much of a philanthropist," Elisabeth murmured.

  Graeber stared into the gray sheet of rain outside the window. "If we were married I wouldn't have to go at all," he said.

  Elisabeth did not move. "Why do you want to marry me?" she murmured. "After all you hardly know me."

  "I have known you long enough."

  "How long? A few days."

  "Not a few days. I've known you for over a year. That's long enough."

  "Why a year? We can't count the time from our childhood; that was too long ago."

  "I'm not counting that either. But I was given about three weeks' furlough for two years in the field. I have been here almost two weeks now. That corresponds to about fifteen months at the front. And so I have known you for what amounts to more than a year: the equivalent of almost two weeks* leave."

  Elisabeth opened her eyes. "I have never thought about it that way."

  "I haven't either. I thought of that just now."

  "When?"

  "Earlier while you were asleep. In the rain and the dark you think of a lot of things."

  "Does it have to be rainy and dark for that?"

  "No. But one thinks differently then."

  "Did you think of anything else?"

  "Yes. It occurred to me how marvelous it is that a man could use his hands and arms for something besides shooting a gun and throwing grenades."

  She looked at him. "Why didn't you tell me that at noon today?"

  "At noontime one can't say that."

  "It would have been better than talking about monthly allowances and marriage subsidies."

  Graeber lifted his head. "It was the same thing, Elisabeth," he said. "Only in different words."

  She murmured something. "Words are sometimes very important," she said then. "At least in something like this." "I'm not used to using them so. But I will find some more of them. All I need is a little time."

  "Time," Elisabeth sighed. "We don't have much, do we?"

  "No. Yesterday we still had a lot. And tomorrow we will think that today we had a lot."

  Graeber lay still. Elisabeth's head rested on his arm, her hair flowed darkly over the white pillow and the shadows of the rain moved across her face. "You want to marry me," she murmured. "But do you even know whether you love me at all?"

  "How could we know that? One needs much more time and being together for that."

  "Perhaps. But then why do you want to marry me?"

  "Because I can no longer think of life without you." Elisabeth was silent for a time. "Don't you believe that what's happened to us could have happened to you with somebody else?" she asked then.

  Graeber looked at the wavering gray tapestry woven by the rain outside the window. "Perhaps it could have happened to me with somebody else," he said. "Who can tell about things like that? Only now that it has happened to us I can't imagine the possibility that it could ever have happened to me with anyone else."

  Elisabeth moved her head in his arm. "You're learning. You're not talking now the way you did at noon. But of cours
e it's night. Do you think I'll have to wait all my life for it to be night?"

  "No. And for the time being I'll not say anything more about monthly subsidies."

  "But just the same we won't scorn them, will we?"

  "What?"

  "The subsidies."

  For a moment Graeber held his breath. "Then you want to?" he asked.

  "If we've known each other for a year we really almost have to. And we can always get a divorce. Or can't we?"

  "No."

  She pressed herself against him and fell asleep again. He lay awake for a long time listening to the rain. He suddenly knew many things he might have said to her.

  CHAPTER XVII

  TAKE anything you want, Ernst," Binding said through the door. "Act as though you were at home."

  "All right, Alfons."

  Graeber was stretched out in the bathtub. His army gear lay on a chair in the corner, gray, green, and disreputable as old rags; next to it hung a blue suit that Reuter had found for him.

  Binding's bathroom was a big affair with green tile walls that shimmered with porcelain and nickel plate—a paradise by contrast with the roar and the stink of disinfectants in the shower room at the barracks. The soap was some that had come from France, bath towels and hand towels were piled high, the water pipes had never been knocked out of order by bombs, and there was as much hot water as you wanted. There even were bath salts: a big bottle full of amethyst crystals.

  Graeber lay in the water thoughtless and relaxed, enjoying the benison of warmth. He had learned long since that it was only the simple things that never disappointed one—warmth, water, a roof, bread, quietness, and confidence in one's own body. He had decided to spend the rest of his furlough like this, without thought, relaxed, and as happy as possible. Reuter was right: it would be a long time before he got another furlough. He pushed the chair with his army gear to one side so that he would not have to look at it. Then he took a handful of the bath salts and appreciatively strewed them in the water. It was a handful of luxury—and luxury was peace—just like the white tablecloth in the Germania, the wine and the delicacies of his first evenings with Elisabeth.

  He dried himself and slowly began to dress. The civilian clothes were light and thin after the heavy uniform. When he had finished dressing he still felt as though he were in his underclothes, so unaccustomed was he to being without heavy boots, harness, and weapons. He looked at himself in the mirror and hardly recognized what he saw. An unfinished, half-baked young fellow looked out at him in surprise, someone he would not have taken seriously if he had met him at the front.

  "You look like someone making his first communion," Alfons said. "Not like a soldier. What's up? Are you going to get married?"

  "Yes," Graeber replied, startled. "How did you know?" "It's the way you look. Not the same as before. No longer like a dog looking for a bone he has hidden and forgotten where. Are you really going to get married?"

  "Yes."

  "But, Ernst! What a thing! Have you thought it over carefully?"

  "No."

  Binding looked at Graeber in bewilderment. "I haven't had time for years to think anything over carefully," Graeber said.

  Alfons grinned. Then he lifted his head and sniffed. "What—" He sniffed again. "Is that you, Ernst? Damn it, it must be the bath salts! Did you take some? You smell like a whole bed of violets."

  Graeber sniffed at his hand. "I don't smell anything."

  "You don't but I do. Let it wear off. It's tricky stuff. Someone brought it to me from Paris. At first you hardly notice it, an'd later you're like a whole bush in bloom. We'll drown it out with good cognac."

  Binding brought a bottle and two glasses. "Prost, Ernst! So you're getting married! All my congratulations! I myself of course am and will remain a bachelor. Tell me, do I by any chance know your future wife?"

  "No." Graeber drank up the cognac. He was angry with himself for having admitted the marriage; but Alfons had caught him off guard.

  "One more, Ernst! You don't get married every day."

  "All right."

  Binding put down his glass. He was becoming a little sentimental. "If you should need any help you must know that you can always count on Alfons."

  "What help? Things like that go quickly and simply."

  "With you, yes. You are a soldier, you don't need any other papers."

  "Neither of us does. After all, it's a war marriage."

  "For your wife I believe you will need the usual papers. But you will find out about that. If it takes too long we can always help along a bit. You know we have good friends in the Gestapo."

  "The Gestapo? What's the Gestapo got to do with a war marriage? That's no concern of theirs."

  Alfons laughed contentedly. "Ernst, there is nothing that isn't a concern of the Gestapo! As a soldier you don't know about that. Besides you don't need to worry about it. After all, you're not going to marry a Jewess. Or a Communist. Nevertheless they'll probably make inquiries. Routine matter."

  Graeber did not reply. He was suddenly deeply alarmed. If any inquiries were started, it was bound to come out that Elisabeth's father was in a concentration camp. He had not considered that. Nor had anyone mentioned it to him.

  "Are you sure that's how it is, Alfons?"

  Binding refilled the glasses. "I believe so. But don't worry about it. You're not going to adulterate your Aryan blood with subhumans and enemies of the State, eh?" He grinned "You'll get your ball and chain fast enough, Ernst."

  "Yes."

  "Well then! Prost! After all, you met a couple of fellows from the Gestapo right here a while ago. If things go too slowly they can help us out. Put on some pressure. They're big wheels. Especially Riese, the thin one with the pince-nez."

  Graeber stared straight ahead. Elisabeth had gone to the town hall that morning to ask for her papers. He had insisted on it. Damn it, what have I started? he thought. What if their attention is called to her! Till now they have left her alone. But wasn't it an old rule to hide when the weather got thick? If they thought of it the Gestapo might send Elisabeth to a camp just because her father was in one. He felt himself growing hot. What if they started making inquiries about her? If they asked that esteemed Party member, Frau Lieser, for example?

  He got up. "What's the matter with you, Ernst?" Binding asked. "You haven't finished your drink. Happiness makes you absentminded, eh?"

  He laughed at his joke. Graeber looked at him. Only a few minutes before he had been a somewhat inflated, good-natured acquaintance—but now he was suddenly transformed into the representative of a dangerous, incalculable power.

  "Prost, Ernst!" Binding said. "Drink up. It's good cognac. Napoleon!"

  "Prost, Alfons."

  Graeber put down his glass. "Alfons," he said, "will you do me a favor? Give me two pounds of sugar from your store room. In two bags. One pound in each."

  "Lump sugar?"

  "That doesn't matter. Sugar."

  "All right. But why do you need sugar? You ought to be sweet enough yourself, now."

  "I want to bribe someone with it."

  "Bribe? But, Ernst, we don't have to do that! Threats are much simpler. And more effective. I can attend to that for you."

  "Not in this case. Besides, it isn't really bribery. The sugar is for someone I want to have do me a favor."

  "All right, Ernst. And the wedding celebration will be at my house, eh? Alfons will make a good witness."

  Graeber thought this over rapidly. A quarter of an hour earlier he would have taken refuge behind some excuse. Now he no longer dared to. "I don't think we'll have much of a celebration," he said.

  "Just let Alfons attend to it! You'll sleep here tonight, won't you? Why should you come back here and change your uniform and then go trotting off to the barracks? Better just stay here. I'll give you a key to the house. You can come in whenever you like."

  Graeber hesitated for an instant. "All right, Alfons."

  Binding beamed. "That's sensible. Then we ca
n at last sit down together and gossip in comfort. We haven't had a chance to do that yet. Come, I'll show you your room." He picked up Graeber's. army gear and glanced at the decorations on the blouse. "You must tell me sometime how you got all these. You really must have done something special!"

  Graeber looked up. Binding's face suddenly had the same expression as on the day when the S.S. man Heini had drunkenly boasted about his exploits in the S.D. "There's nothing to tell," he said. "You get those things simply with the passage of time."