He walked along the avenue of birch trees to the pond. Amid dirt and water weeds crouched the pipe-playing faun. One of his horns was missing but aside from that he had survived the Revolution, Communism, and the war. He, like the books, came from a legendary time, the time before the first war. It was a time before Graeber was alive. He had been born during the war, grown up during the misery of the inflation and the restlessness of the postwar years, and had awakened during a new war. He wandered around the pond past the pavilion and back to the prisoners. He looked at the iron door. It had not always been part of the shed; it had been added later. Maybe the man to whom the house and the park had once belonged had himself awaited death behind it.
The old woman was asleep. The young one was crouching in a corner. Both men were standing staring out into the afternoon. Then they looked at Graeber. The girl looked straight ahead. The oldest of the Russians watched Graeber. Graeber turned away and lay down on the grass.
Clouds wandered across the sky. Birds twittered in the birch trees. A blue butterfly floated over the shell holes from blossom to blossom. After a while a second joined it. They played together, chasing each other. The rumbling from the front increased in volume. The two butterflies paired and flew united through the hot sunny air. Graeber fell asleep.
In the evening a recruit brought food for the prisoners. It was the midday bean soup thinned with water. The recruit waited until the prisoners had eaten, then he took the pans away with him. He had also brought Graeber his ration of cigarettes. There were more than usual. That was a bad sign. Better food and more cigarettes were issued only when heavy going lay ahead.
"We've been given two hours' extra duty tonight," the recruit said. He looked at Graeber earnestly. "Combat exercises, grenade-throwing, bayonet drill."
"The company commander knows what he's doing. He's not just taking it out on you."
The recruit nodded. He looked at the Russians as though they were animals in a zoo. "Those are human being too," Graeber said.
"Yes, Russians."
"All right, Russians. Take your gun. Hold it ready> We're going to let the women out one after the other."
Graeber said through the bars: "Everyone into that corner. The old woman is to step up here. Later the. others will have their chance to come out."
The oldest Russian said something to the others. They obeyed. The recruit held his gun ready. The old woman came forward. Graeber opened the door, let her out and locked it again. She began to cry. She expected to be shot. "Tell her that nothing is going to happen to her. She is just to look after her needs," Graeber said to the old Russian.
He spoke to her. She stopped crying. Graeber and the recruit led her to a corner of the house where two walls were still standing. He waited till she came out again and then let the young woman out. She walked quickly and lithely in front of him. With the men it was simpler. He led them around behind the shed and kept them in sight. The earnest young recruit held his gun ready, his underlip pushed out, all zeal and attention. Graeber led the last man back and locked the door.
"That was exciting," the recruit said.
"Really?" Graeber put his gun aside. "You can go now."
He waited till the recruit had disappeared. Then he got out his cigarettes and gave the old man one for each of them. He lit a match and handed it through the bars. All of them smoked. The cigarettes glowed in the half-darkness and lit up their faces. Graeber looked at the young woman and suddenly he felt an unbearable yearning for Elisabeth. "You—good," said the old Russian, following his glance.
His face was close to the iron bars. "War lost—for Germans— you good man," he said softly.
"Nonsense."
"Why not—let us go—and come with us?" The furrowed face turned for a moment toward the young woman and then back. "Go with us—and Marusa—hide—good place— live. Live—" he repeated urgently.
Graeber shook his head. That's no solution, he thought, not that. But where is another? "Live—not die—only captured—" whispered the Russian. "You too—not dead— good life with us— we innocent—"
It sounded simple. Graeber turned away. It sounded simple in the soft last light of evening. Probably they really were innocent. No arms had been found in their possession and they did not look like guerrillas. The two old ones certainly did not. If I let them out, he thought, then I will have done something, at least something. I will have saved a few innocent human beings. But I can't go with them. Not there. Not into the same sort of thing I want to escape. He wandered about and came to the fountain again. The birches were now black against the sky. He went back. One cigarette was still glowing in the darkness of the shed. The face of the old Russian shimmered palely behind the bars. "Live—" he said. "Good—with us—"
Graeber took the rest of his cigarettes and pushed them into the big hand. Then he got out a few matches and gave them to the man. "Here—smoke these—for the night—
"Live—you young—war over for you then—you good man—we innocent—live—you—we—" It was a soft deep voice. It spoke the word "live" like a black marketeer saying "butter." Like a whore saying "love." Tenderly, demandingly, enticingly and falsely. As though he could sell it.
Graeber felt the voice tug at him. "Shut up!" he shouted at the old man. "No more of this or I'll report it. Then you'll be done for!"
He began his rounds again. The uproar at the front was heavier. The first stars appeared. He felt himself suddenly very much alone and wished he were lying again in a dugout amid the stench and snores of his comrades. It seemed to him as though he had been abandoned by all and had a decision to make.
He tried to sleep and arranged himself on his straw in the pavilion. Perhaps they can break out, he thought, without my noticing it. It did not help. He knew they could not. The people who had rebuilt the shed had taken care of that.
The front grew steadily more restless. Airplanes droned through the night. Machine guns chattered. Then came the dull explosion of bombs. Graeber listened. The uproar increased. Suppose they did break out, he thought again. He stood up and walked to the shed. Everything was quiet there. The prisoners seemed asleep. But then he saw indistinctly the pale face of the oldest Russian and turned away.
After midnight he knew that a heavy battle was raging at the front. Big guns were firing far over the lines. The explosions were now not far from the village. Graeber knew how weak the position was. He could follow the separate phases of the engagement. The tanks would soon attack. The earth was quivering now under the drum-fire. Thunder rolled from horizon to horizon. He felt it in all his bones. He felt that it would soon reach him. And yet it seemed in a strange fashion to circle around him in a whirlwind of thunder and lightning, around the narrow white building where the four Russians crouched, as though amid all the destruction and death they had suddenly become the central point and as though everything depended on what happened to them.
He walked up and down. He approached the shed and went away, he felt the key in his pocket, he writhed on his straw, and it was close to morning when he suddenly fell into a heavy, restless sleep.
It was gray when he started up. At the front all hell had broken loose. The artillery fire already ranged above and beyond the village. He glanced toward the shed. The iron gate was intact. Behind it the Russians were moving. Then he saw Steinbrenner running up.
"We're retreating!" Steinbrenner shouted. "The Russians have broken through. Assemble in the village. Quick! Everything's in confusion. Get your things." He had come up by now. "We'll take care of the fellows in there right away." Graeber felt his heart beating violently. "Where is the order?"*he asked.
"Order! Man, when you see how things are in the village you won't ask for orders. Haven't you heard any of the offensive here?"
"Yes."
"Then you know. Get going! Do you imagine we could haul the whole crowd with us? We'll finish them off through the bars of the door."
Steinbrenner's eyes blazed very blue. The skin was drawn tight over
the bridge of his nose. His hand was at his belt.
"No," Graeber said. "The responsibility here is mine. If you have no orders, clear out."
Steinbrenner laughed. "All right. Then you shoot them." "No," Graeber said.
"One of us has to finish them off. We can't drag them along with us. Move on, you and your delicate nerves. Go ahead, I'll join you in a minute."
"No," Graeber said. "You won't shoot them."
"No?" Steinbrenner glanced up. "No?" he repeated slowly.
"Do you happen to know what you're saying?"
"Yes, I know."
"So, you know? Then you know too—"
Steinbrenner's face changed. He reached for his revolver. Graeber raised his gun and fired. Steinbrenner reeled and pitched forward. He gave a sigh like a child. The revolver fell from his hand.
Graeber stared at the body. A shell screamed over the garden. He roused himself, walked to the shed, took the key out of his pocket and opened the door. "Go," he said.
The Russians looked at him. They did not believe him. He threw down his rifle. "Go, go," he said impatiently, showing his empty hands.
Cautiously the younger man pushed his foot outside. Graeber turned away. He walked back to the place where Steinbrenner lay. "Murderer," he said, and did not know whom he meant. He stared at Steinbrenner. He felt nothing. "Murderer," he said once more, and meant Steinbrenner and himself and countless others.
Then suddenly his thoughts began to come tumbling over one another. A stone seemed to have been rolled away. Something was decided forever. He no longer felt any substance. He had no weight. He knew he ought to do something, but it was as though he had to hold fast in order not to fly away. His head swam. He walked cautiously along the avenue. Something of vast importance had to be done, but he could not keep hold of it, not yet. It was still too far away and too new and so clear that it hurt.
He saw the Russians. They were running bent over in a group with the women in front. One of the men looked back and saw him. All at once the Russian had a rifle in his hand. He lifted it and took aim. Graeber saw the black hole of the muzzle, it grew, he wanted to call out, in a loud voice, there was so much to say quickly and loudly—
He did not feel the shot. He only saw grass suddenly in front of him, a plant, close before his eyes, half trodden down, with a cluster of reddish stalks and delicate, narrow leaves that grew larger, and he had seen this before, but he no longer knew when. The plant wavered and then stood alone against the narrowed horizon of his sinking head, silent, self-evident, with the solace of the tidiness of tiny things and with all its peace; it grew larger and larger until it filled the whole sky, and his eyes closed.
THE END
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Erich Maria Remarque, A Time to Love and a Time to Die
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