“Gute Nacht, Paula.”
That evening I met the Neubachs. I could easily recognize my friend Ernst in his mother’s face. These poor people did not dwell on the double catastrophe which had obliterated all their hopes. The idea of Europe after the war no longer had any meaning for them, because those who should have inherited it no longer existed. But they made heroic efforts to celebrate my passage. The kindly woman from upstairs who had so generously wet my throat that afternoon joined us, and Paula came in for a moment about eleven. Our eyes met, and Paula saw fit to make a joke about our earlier falling-out.
“I had to preach him a sermon about decent deportment this afternoon. He was singing and dancing right in the middle of the street.”
I looked carefully at all the faces. Were they going to scold me, or would they laugh? Luckily, all I had to do was laugh with the others.
“That wasn’t nice of you, Paula,” said the good, kind, generous lady from the third floor. “You must ask him to forgive you.”
Paula, blushing and smiling, made her way round the table through a circle of laughter, and put a kiss on my forehead. I received the touch of her lips like a man condemned to the electric chair, and sat blushing, unable to move. Everyone recognized my emotion, and called out:
“Forgiven!”
Paula herself waved a cheerful goodbye to us all, and vanished through the door.
Paula! Paula! I would have liked… I didn’t know what. I sat motionless, turned to stone, deaf to the conversation.
They asked me about my parents, my former life… thank God, not about the war. I answered evasively. Paula’s kiss burned against my forehead like a hot cartridge case. I would gladly have done a daily patrol with her, instead of with the war, and five or six other soldiers… God damn it!
It was late, and I would have liked an excuse to leave the table. But I had to sit patiently with these people for another hour, until everyone was ready for bed. The Neubachs offered me Ernst’s room. I thanked them effusively, and explained that for military reasons I was required to return to the center. In fact, I couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping in my friend’s bed. Also, I felt like walking through the streets. I might run into Paula.
The Neubachs understood about military regulations, and didn’t insist. In the street, I was suddenly seized by a wild sense of gaiety, and began to whistle. I asked for a few directions, and found my way back to the center without too much trouble. But I didn’t run into Paula. I walked past the reception desk, where two civilians were playing cards with two soldiers, one of them the feld who had taken my deposition.
“Hey, you there!” he called.
Instinctively, I spun round and saluted.
“Aren’t you Gefreiter Sajer?”
“Ja, Herr Feldwebel.”
“Good. I have good news for you. One of your relatives will be coming to see you in a couple of days. I managed to get a special authorization for a member of your family.”
“I don’t know how to thank you, Herr Feldwebel. I am really very grateful.”
“I can see that, boy. You certainly took your time coming back.”
I clicked my heels and spun round, while the four of them joked about me.
“Put in a little time at the Fantasio Hotel, eh?”
They must have been talking about a bordello. I spent an agitated night, unable to think of anything but Paula.
Two days went by, filled with pleasures and delights. I never left Paula’s side. We always had lunch with Frau X, and dinner at the Neubachs’. Frau X, who noticed everything, was aware of the growing feeling between Paula and me, and was horrified. She tried several times to make me realize that the war wasn’t over, that it was idiotic to fall in love. After the war, it would be a fine thing for me to unleash my emotions, but for the moment anything like that was premature.
To my adolescent mind, the war had no power over my love for this girl, and holding back any emotion was out of the question. The only limits would be set by my leave, whose duration, unfortunately, I was powerless to affect.
One of my family was coming to see me, so I couldn’t move too far from the center, where I spent my nights. This restriction irritated me, because I lost precious time which I could have spent with Paula. On the day of my visitor’s expected arrival, I must have made five or six trips to the center. Finally, in the middle of the afternoon, the kindhearted sergeant answered my question even before I asked it.
“Someone’s waiting for you in the dormitory, Sajer.”
“Ah!” I said, as if this was the last thing I’d expected.
“Thank you, Herr Feldwebel.”
I ran up the stairs, and pushed open the door of the large room where I’d already spent several nights. My eye traveled past the double row of beds to a man in a blue-gray overcoat: my father.
“Hello, Papa,” I said.
“You’ve turned into a man,” he said, with the air of timidity which was always one of his characteristics.
“How are you? We haven’t heard much from you, you know. Your mother’s been very worried.”
I listened, as I always did when my father spoke to me. I sensed that he felt ill at ease in the heart of Germany, in this dormitory, where everything reflected implacable military discipline.
“Shall we go out, Papa?”
“If you like. Ah! By the way, I brought along a small package for you. Your mother and I had a hard time getting all these things. The Germans kept it downstairs.” He lowered his voice when he said “Germans,” as though he were speaking of a bunch of savages.
Although he had married a German woman, my father did not feel particularly friendly toward Germany. He had never shaken off the hatreds of the 1914–18 war, although he himself had been well treated when he was a prisoner. However, the fact that one of his sons had been stuck into the German army prevented him from listening to Radio London with any sense of relief.
Downstairs, I asked the feldwebel for my package. He handed it to me, while speaking to my father in almost perfect French:
“I’m sorry about this, sir, but all food is strictly forbidden in the dormitories. Here is your package.”
“Thank you, sir,” my father said, clearly abashed.
I checked over the contents of the box while we walked through the streets, talking: a chocolate bar, some biscuits, and — joy! a pair of socks, knitted by my paternal grandmother.
“These are just what I need,” I said.
“I thought you’d be most pleased by the cigarettes, or the chocolate. But of course, there’s no shortage for you.”
My father was convinced that we feasted from morning to night. “With us, it’s different. The Germans take everything.”
“We do all right.” I had learned to make the most of present pleasures, to forget the miseries of another day. But this answer was a mistake.
“Well, that’s fine for you. For us it’s another story. Your mother really has a hard time scraping our meals together. Life is far from easy.” I didn’t know what to say to this. I thought of giving him back the package.
“Well,” my father said. “Let’s hope it’s all over quickly. Things are going badly for the Germans. On London Radio all we hear is the Americans here, the Americans there… Italy… the Allies…”
This was all news to me. A group of men from the Kreigsmarine passed by, singing. I saluted, as required. My father stared at me with dismay. France was in such a state of chaos, and talking about it filled him with such despair that it was very hard to cheer him up.
For the next twenty-four hours, he told me about the suffering in France, explaining things to me as if I were Canadian or English. All of this put me in a very difficult position, and I didn’t know quite what attitude to adopt. I held myself in check, contenting myself with “Yes, Papa. Exactly, Papa.” I would have loved to talk about something else, to have forgotten the war, to have told him that I loved Paula. But I was afraid he wouldn’t understand, that he might even be angry.