The Last Days (6 page)

Would that one of those adolescents stole that manuscript of his! Lotte’s name hadn’t appeared even once throughout the book’s four hundred pages. There had only been a single entry in his journal:

She stared at him as he clutched the manuscript to his chest. He was still holding Friderike in his arms. A metallic rattle on the other side of the platform. A whistle blow resounded. A swirl of black smoke. The train came to a stop. They climbed into the second carriage. She sat down in front of him and saw him cast his gaze about, no doubt to reassure himself that the adolescents hadn’t followed him. The train left the platform. He placed the precious package on his knees, then he held his hand out to his wife. His grip effaced the memory of Friderike Maria von Winternitz.

She stood up and went to stand by the window. The suburbs of the Imperial City had a desolate splendour to them thanks to those large mansions, which were utterly deserted at this time of year. Farther on, they passed by a few villas overrun by tropical vegetation, then some huts where half-naked children were busy playing. They entered a forest. Lotte shut her eyes and took a deep breath of the air coming in through the window. It was impregnated with the perfume of bananas, mangoes and rosebay. She opened her eyes on a vast plain, in the middle of which was a lake bathed in light. They pressed on, cradled by the hacking cough of the machines. A ruined church rose above the rugged boulders. The train descended into a valley. Struck by vertigo, Lotte sat back down.

He hadn’t even flinched. His face, as well as his body, seemed frozen exactly as it had been when she had left him a few moments earlier. His eyes were fixed on the compartment door, while his hands were still holding the folder on top of his knees. Slowly, his head began to nod and his eyelids started to shut. His parted lips partially revealed a toothless mouth. All that travelling had ravaged his teeth. That was the other reason for their trip to Rio. The man who had once been a Viennese dandy would soon be fitted with a steel jaw. He hadn’t wanted her to accompany him to the dentist’s. He had said he didn’t need her to hold his hand when the drill sank into his jaw. He still had his pride after all, despite being an old man. “You’re not even sixty yet,” she had retorted. “I’ll come! I’ve followed you to the ends of the earth, I might as well go with you to the dentist’s.” He had given in in the end. She had whispered in his ear:

“I would follow you to the depths of hell.”

The movement of the train tipped his head against the window. Lotte was scared that the contact with the glass might wake him
up. She took off her jacket, folded it and slid it against his cheek. She examined his face. No, he hadn’t aged. He still looked impeccably stylish and effortlessly aristocratic. His hair was like that of a forty-year-old. His brown moustache gave his face a flirtatious edge, adding to his natural elegance. She wondered how he must have looked aged twenty. She’d never paid attention to young men. She’d only ever liked mature men. Truth be told, she hadn’t ever loved anyone except him. There he was now, sleeping like a baby. She would never have children. He felt too old to become a father. He also refused to bring a new life into this hostile world. His other wife hadn’t cared much about that as she’d already had two daughters from a previous marriage.

Lotte had resigned herself in the end. Would her health have allowed her to become a mother? “You’ll die in childbirth,” the doctors had warned. She didn’t want to die in childbirth. She didn’t want to die at all. That’s why she had followed him, all the way to the end of the world. So he could protect her. He gave her the feeling he knew where he was going. He had the gift of seeing into the future. He’d known when to leave Austria and when to leave England. He was equipped with a sixth sense, he knew the bleak horizons towards which the world was headed. He knew how to decide where they should run away to.

He opened his eyelids and suddenly straightened himself up. He asked her whether he’d dozed off. He sounded irked. She told him he hadn’t. Stefan leant towards her, looked her right in the eye and told her they would be happy here. But he kept pursing his lips. Those words were devoid of any real joy, lightness or reassurance. He wanted to dispel the effect his words had left behind, whereupon she felt the incandescent warmth of his fingers in the hollow of her hand. He asked her if she doubted him. Did she think he was lying to her?

“I believe you,” she said, “I will always believe you.”

“Good,” he said. He wanted her to forgive his mood swings and bouts of melancholy. He hadn’t been able to repress the feelings of horror that continually assailed him.

“I know,” she murmured.

From time to time, his soul seemed impenetrable to the light. Everything was pervaded by shadows and suffering. He found himself in a dark wood whose trees had turned into bodies.

“You’re not walking alone any more, I’m right here beside you in the middle of that forest and I’m holding your hand.”

She had to forgive him. Some days, everything exuded a heavy weariness as life woke up in the middle of a vanished past. Could she understand that? There was nothing she couldn’t understand. He was deaf to the sound of mellow birdsong, the promise of a coming springtime, or even the heralding of a new day. The spark of life was missing. Time stood still, the stream of hours and minutes had come to a halt on that morning of 6th March 1934 when he’d left Austria. The giant clock of Vienna’s railway station had come to a stop. Time had frozen. He felt as if he’d been cast off to the other side of the world. She understood that, didn’t she? He had been given everything only for it to have been taken away. Needless to say, he didn’t have the right to wallow in that state of mind, or feel sorry for himself. He was privileged. Most of his friends didn’t have imaginary demons snapping at their heels. Their demons were very real, and those demons had sworn to vanquish them as well as all their nearest and dearest. He didn’t have the right to throw in the towel.

“Of course you have the right to,” she said, “you don’t have a warrior’s insensitivity. You feel things more deeply. You’re a writer.”

He knew he had to look strong in front of the legions of the
weak-willed, but his strength abandoned him. He was being seduced by the void.

“You only need to rest, to relax a little. You’re going to recover your health here.”

He forced a faint smile.

“Look over there, look outside,” she exclaimed.

It was the most breathtaking panorama. The horizon opened up. Earth, water and fire filled an immensity of space. The sky stretched into a gigantic arc. Bright-green ranges of hills sloped down to valleys seemingly teeming with life. The jungle wrapped its tentacles around little white houses. Nestled under the shade of palm trees, an agglomeration of huts was wedged in between various paths. All of a sudden, Rio came into view: a horde of skyscrapers perched in the middle of a row of palaces and
avant-garde
architecture. The city was enveloped by the foamy arm of the ocean, dotted by green islets, ocean liners and sailing boats. To the right was
Christ the Redeemer
atop Corcovado, which stood guard over that world of giants. Everything was limitless and illuminated. The more the train forged ahead, the more the contours of the world seemed to widen. Beauty had been bequeathed to each corner of the world, and far from being overwhelmed by such magnificence, man in his haughtiness thrived in it.

He broke the silence. Sounding gloomy, he asked her if she thought the tooth-pulling was going to hurt.

She didn’t reply.

They hailed the first taxi in front of the station and climbed in. Lotte gave the driver the name of the hotel where they were expected.

“The Copacabana?” the taxi driver said. “That’s the prettiest place in the world!”

They cut through alleyways, then took to a highway ruled by a state of constant restlessness. “You’d think we were in New York!” Lotte exclaimed. She rolled the window down. He cried out, telling her to be careful since the air simply had to be saturated with dust and dirt.

“I’m afraid of nothing here!” she exclaimed.

He envied her high spirits and thought that she was right, one had to live day by day and dispel the belief that tomorrow would be worse than yesterday. To recognize the fact that they were safe. Nobody would come looking for them here. The taxi crawled along a street lined with shops and luxury hotels. His eyes fell on a sign bearing the name Alberto Stern. He couldn’t spot any notices calling for murder on the window, nor any saying “
Juden
” or “
Raus
!”. There was no poster denouncing a Jewish conspiracy on the walls, no caricatures of pot-bellied, hook-nosed bankers with pockets bursting full of money.

“Where are you from?” the taxi driver asked.

Lotte replied that they’d arrived the previous month on a ship from the United States.

“Are you Americans?”

“No.”

“You don’t look like you are. We love all strangers here, except for Americans. The Americans think they’re at home everywhere they go… You’re Europeans, that much is clear, you’re clearly people of fine taste. We love elegance, don’t let the dirty streets fool you. Brazilians are a great people… And you, which tribe do you belong to? You have a German accent. We’ve had plenty of Germans here in the past few years. Those Germans are really nice. They fit in quickly. They were paupers when they first arrived, but within the space of ten years they’ve bought up half of Rio. So much the better, it’ll be good for business. I believe
in the economy. Whole boatfuls of Germans come ashore every day. I’m all for it. I go to the docks every day at eight o’clock on the dot and wait. A single family will earn my keep for the day. Although, between you and me, they’re not as generous as they used to be. One might say the good times have come to an end. Boats and people’s pockets don’t seem as full as they used to be. So, are you Germans?… Austrians maybe? That’s also good… One of my customers told me that Austria didn’t exist any more, that it had become just another German province. I’m not into politics. The Germans wanted Hitler, nobody forced them. Brazil might also benefit by being ruled by someone with an iron fist. President Vargas is the right man for the job. Vargas will never let the communists get to Rio. We have a saying here, ‘We’ve got room for Jews, but not for communists.’ Are you communists? Whether you’re Jewish or not doesn’t bother me. Look at our Redeemer up on that hill over there, he belonged to the tribe of Israel. He watches over us. In any case, we’ve got room for all the world’s poor; and from what I’ve been hearing on the news, it sounds like the world’s poor are mostly Jews at the moment. Between you and me—and I say this because you don’t strike me as Jewish—what goes around, comes around! Before all this, the Jews had all the wealth in the world. The tables have turned. When all is said and done, they’ll come out the other side one day. They’ve honed their survival instincts. The only problem is that there’s so many of them here now, and they occupy such positions of influence, that thanks to the grudge they’ve got against Hitler, they might very well drag us into the war. Look at what they’re doing in America—they’re always knocking on Roosevelt’s door and they’ll wind up winning the American people over to their cause, even though Americans are pacifists. Pacifists to a fault I should add. Look where the French wound up thanks to Blum.
Those German bastards marched right through the Arc de Triomphe! Blum clearly couldn’t stand a chance against Hitler. Jews are good at business and making fine speeches, but put a gun in their hands and they’re clueless. Have you seen the newsreels of German troops in Paris? Without taking sides, I must admit they looked rather great, and, after all, the French might benefit from being taken down a peg or two. So long as those Yids don’t drag us into the war—otherwise I won’t see them as friends any more. Hitler’s done nothing to me, quite the opposite in fact, he’s been good for business. The war’s got nothing to do with us. Let the Jews go and fight if they want to, the boats are waiting in the docks, ready to sail for Germany. They can stay provided they only want to swim in the bay. There’s no such thing as racism here in Rio. We’ve already got Indians, so we can cope with the Jews. All they need to understand is that each has to keep to his own, look at the Indians, they stay put in the
favelas
, you’ll never see one of them at the Hotel Copacabana. Well, there we have it. You know, my job would be a lot less cheerful if I didn’t have people like you to talk to.”

The driver stopped the car in front of the hotel entrance, asked for his fare, got out and went to open Lotte’s door, wished them a happy stay and bid them goodbye. They lingered in a sort of daze in front of the hotel’s marquee, standing still as a warm wind blew in from the sea. Their eyes followed the taxi as it drove back into the fray. They exchanged a silent look, feeling stunned and outraged. They stepped into the hotel, walking slowly, their arms linked, looking as uncertain and awkward as if they’d just walked away from a road accident, unscathed but groggy. They crossed the grand lobby, whose walls were decorated with reproductions of Otto Kirchner’s portraits. There were a few men in suits working their way through a bottle while sitting on white leather sofas.
Their voices blended into an indiscernible tangle. Stefan and Lotte gave their names at reception and asked for Abrahão Koogan, the man they were due to meet. An employee pointed them in the direction of the terrace, where Koogan was expecting them.

They had barely set foot outside when they felt as though they’d been blinded by the light, a burning brightness that flooded over everything and seemed to rise out of the ocean and solidify in the atmosphere. Warm voices and hearty laughter resounded under the taut white canvas awnings, which were being gently stirred by the wind. It was like standing on the deck of a sailing boat. Abrahão Koogan, the Brazilian publisher, was sitting alone at a table, dressed in white, with a Super Fino Montecristi on his head. Koogan got up and greeted them effusively. They embraced warmly.