As far as Im concerned it would have been better to get leave in a weeks time, because thats how long we are staying here, and it is good here
Of course I have to stand drinks all round[184] in the canteen. We are all a bit drunk and I get melancholy; Ill be away for six weeks, and of course it is a great stroke of luck for me, but what will it be like when I come back? Will they all still be here? Haie and Kemmerich have gone already whos going to be next?
We have our drinks and I look at them all one after the other. Albert is sitting next to me and smoking, he is cheerful, we have always been together; Kat is perched opposite him, Kat with his rounded shoulders, broad fingers and calm voice; Muller with his buck teeth and braying laugh; Tjaden with his mousey eyes; Leer, who has grown a beard and looks as if hes forty.
Thick smoke hovers over our heads. Where would the soldier be without tobacco? The canteen is a place of refuge, and beer is more than a drink, it is a sign that here you can stretch your limbs out without danger. And we do our legs are stretched out before us, and we spit, companionably and vigorously. What an impression all this makes on you when you know you are going on leave the next day!
That night we go over to the other side of the canal again. I am almost afraid to tell the slim dark girl that I am going on leave and that, when I come back, we shall certainly be somewhere further on so that we shant see each other again. But she just nods and doesnt seem to react too much. I dont understand properly at first, but then I get it. Leer is right. If Id been sent to the front, then it would have been pauvre garcon again, but going on leave they dont want to know about that, it isnt as interesting. Well, she can go to hell with her whispering and her words. You believe in a miracle, but really it just comes down to loaves of bread.
After Ive been deloused the following morning I march off to the field rail-head. Albert and Kat come with me. When we get to the train stop we hear that it will be a few hours before I can leave. The other two have to go back because they are on duty. We say goodbye.
Look after yourself, Kat; look after yourself, Albert.
They leave, waving a couple of times. Their figures get smaller. I know every step, every move they make, I would be able to recognize them miles away. Then they have gone.
I sit down on my pack and wait.
Suddenly I am full of a raging impatience to get away from here.
I bed down on any number of stations; I queue up at any number of canteens; I squat on any number of wooden train seats but then the scenery outside becomes disturbing, mysterious and familiar. It sails past the window as evening falls, with villages in which thatched roofs have been pulled down like caps over whitewashed, half-timbered buildings, with wheatfields shimmering like mother-of-pearl in the slanting rays of the sun, with orchards and barns and old lime trees.
The names of the stations take on a familiarity which makes my heart beat faster. The train puffs and puffs, I stand by the window and hold on to the wooden frame. These names mark out the boundaries of my youth.
Level meadows, fields, farmyards; a lonely team of horses[185] moves against the sky along a path parallel to the horizon. A level-crossing barrier[186] with farm labourers waiting in front of it, girls waving, children playing on the embankment, tracks that lead off into the countryside, smooth pathways and no guns.
It is evening now, and if the train were not still puffing onwards, I should scream. The plain spreads out broadly, and in the distance the pale blue silhouette of the hills comes into sight. I can make out the lines of Dolbenberg Hill, its easy to recognize the jagged hilltop, which breaks off abruptly behind the crest of the trees. Behind that well get to the town.
But now the red-gold sunlight floods across the world and blurs it all, the train rattles round one bend and then another; and in that light stands the long row of poplars, unreal, distorted and dark, one behind the other and far away, made out of shadow, light and longing.
Slowly the field rolls away past us, and the poplars with it. The train swings round them, narrowing the spaces between them until they become a block, and for a moment I can only see one single tree. Then the others emerge again from behind the first one, and they stay there for a long time, silhouetted and lonely against the sky, until they are hidden from sight by the first houses.
Slowly the field rolls away past us, and the poplars with it. The train swings round them, narrowing the spaces between them until they become a block, and for a moment I can only see one single tree. Then the others emerge again from behind the first one, and they stay there for a long time, silhouetted and lonely against the sky, until they are hidden from sight by the first houses.
A level-crossing. I am standing at the window, unable to tear myself away. The others are already gathering their things together, ready to get off. I say the name of the street to myself as we cross it Bremen Street Bremen Street
There are cyclists, cars, people down there, a grey street and a grey underpass it embraces me as if it were my mother.
Then the train stops and we are in the station, with all its noise, shouts and signboards. I heave my pack on to my shoulders and do up the strap, get hold of my rifle and stumble down the steps of the train.
On the platform I glance around, but I dont recognize any of the people as they hurry about. A Red Cross[187] nurse offers me something to drink. I turn away, because she smiles at me so inanely, so full of her own importance: Look at me, everybody, Im giving a soldier a cup of coffee. She even addresses me as her comrade and that really is the limit.
Outside the station the river is rushing along beside the street, hissing white over the weir by the mill bridge[188]. The old square watch-tower is just there, with the huge, richly coloured lime tree in front of it, and the evening behind it.
We often used to sit here how long ago that was and we would walk across the bridge and breathe in the cool, stagnant smell of the water as it backed up; we leaned out over the calm water of the river on this side of the weir, where green weeds and algae clung to the buttresses; and on hot days we enjoyed the spray on the far side of the weir as we chatted about our teachers.
I cross the bridge, and look to the left and to the right; the water is still full of algae, and it still arches over the weir in bright spurts. In the tower itself, the laundry-women are still standing as they always did, with bare arms over the white washing, and the heat from their irons streams out through the open windows. Dogs trot along the narrow street, people are standing by their front doors, and they look at me as I go past, dirty and weighed down with my pack.
In that cafe we ate ice-creams and smoked our first cigarettes. I recognize every building in this street as I put them behind me the grocers, the chemists, the bakers. And then I am standing in front of the brown door with the worn-down handle, and my hand feels heavy. I open the door; the amazing coolness greets me, and my eyes cant see clearly any more.
The stairs creak under my boots. Above me a door clicks open, someone looks over the banisters. It was the kitchen door that opened, they are in the middle of cooking potato pancakes, and you can smell them all through the house of course, its Saturday evening, and that must be my sister bending over the stair-well. For a moment I feel ashamed and hang my head; then I take off my helmet and look up. Yes, it is my eldest sister.
Paul she shouts, Paul
I nod, my pack bangs against the banisters, my rifle is so heavy.
She throws the door open and shouts, Mother, Mother, its Paul
I cant go on. Mother, Mother, its Paul.
I lean against the wall and grip my helmet and my rifle. I grip them as hard as I can, but I cant move another step, the staircase blurs before my eyes, I thump my rifle-butt against my foot and grit my teeth in anger, but I am powerless against that one word that my sister has just spoken, nothing has any power against it. I try with all my might to force myself to laugh and to speak, but I cant manage a single word, and so I stand there on the stairs, wretched and helpless, horribly paralysed and I cant help it, and tears and more tears are running down my face.
My sister comes back and asks, Whats the matter?
This makes me pull myself together, and I stumble up to our landing. I lean my rifle in a corner, put my pack down against the wall and prop my steel helmet on top of it. The webbing and the bits and pieces[189] have to go, too. Then I say furiously, Well give me a handkerchief then, cant you?
She gets one from the cupboard for me and I wipe my face. On the wall above me hangs the glass case with the butterflies I used to collect.
Now I hear my mothers voice coming from the bedroom.
Isnt she up? I ask my sister.
Shes ill she answers.
I go in to see her, give her my hand and say as calmly as I can, Here I am, Mother.
She is lying still in the semi-darkness. Then she asks me anxiously and I can feel how her eyes are searching over me Have you been wounded?
No, Im on leave.
My mother is very pale. I dont dare put on the light. And there I am lying here crying, she says, instead of being pleased.
Are you ill, Mother? I ask.
I shall get up for a little while today, she says, and turns to my sister, who is constantly ready to pop into the kitchen so that the food doesnt burn. Open the jar of cranberry sauce you like that, dont you? she asks me.
Yes, Mother. I havent had that for a long time.
Its as if we guessed you would be coming, laughs my sister, just when its your favourite food, potato pancakes, and now well even have cranberries with them.
Well, it is Saturday, I answer.
Sit down by me, says my mother.
She looks at me. Her hands are white and sickly looking, and thin, compared to mine. We speak little, and I am grateful that she doesnt enquire about anything. What would I be able to say, anyway? That everything that could happen has happened? I am out of it[190], Im in one piece[191] and Im sitting beside her. And in the kitchen my sister is getting supper ready and singing while she does so.