The Way Back by Erich Maria Remarque

The Way Back by Erich Maria Remarque

Author:Erich Maria Remarque [Remarque, Erich Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473565043
Publisher: Random House


2

A wet, silvery evening fog covers the high street. The street lamps have great yellow pools of light round them. People seem to be walking on cotton wool. The shop windows to the right and to the left blaze out mysteriously. Wolf the dog swims out of the mist and then into it again. The trees are shining, black and damp against the street lights.

Valentin Laher is with me. He’s not exactly complaining, but he can’t forget his acrobatics act, the one he performed on stages from Paris to Budapest. ‘That’s all over now, Ernst,’ he says, ‘my bones are creaking and I’ve got a bit of rheumatism too. I trained and trained till I couldn’t stand up any longer. There’s no point in trying to start up again.’

‘What will you do instead, Valentin?’ I ask. ‘Really you ought to get a state pension, like retired officers.’

‘Oh, the state, the state,’ says Valentin dismissively, ‘the state only gives pensions to those who know how to ask properly. What I’m doing now is working up a couple of things with a dance partner, you know, a demonstration number. It looks pretty good from the audience point of view, but there really isn’t much to it, and a proper performer ought to be ashamed of doing that kind of stuff. Still, what can you do? You’ve got to make a living.’

Valentin has to go to a rehearsal, and I decide to go along with him. On the corner of Haken Street a black bowler hat swims past us through the fog, and beneath it is a bright yellow raincoat and a briefcase. ‘Arthur!’ I shout.

Ledderhose comes to a halt. ‘Bloody hell,’ says Valentin, ‘you’re well turned out.’ He fingers Arthur’s tie like a connoisseur, a superb item, artificial silk with a pale lilac pattern.

‘Not too bad, not too bad,’ says Ledderhose, flattered, but still in a hurry.

‘And the best Sunday headgear too,’ says Valentin admiringly, looking at the bowler.

Ledderhose wants to get away. He taps his briefcase. ‘Things to do, things to do …’

‘Haven’t you got that cigar shop any more?’ I ask.

‘Oh yes,’ he replies, ‘but now I only do wholesale. You don’t know of any office accommodation, do you? I can pay top rates.’

‘We’ve got no idea about office accommodation,’ says Valentin, ‘we haven’t got quite that far yet. But what’s your wife up to these days?’

‘What do you mean?’ asks Ledderhose with some reserve.

‘Well, out there in the trenches you were always complaining about her. You said she’d got too skinny, and you liked them with a bit more meat on them.’

Arthur shakes his head. ‘I really don’t remember.’ He disappears.

Valentin laughs. ‘People can really change, can’t they, Ernst? In the trenches he was a miserable little bugger, and now he’s a smooth businessman. All the balls he used to talk when we were at the front! And now he doesn’t want to know any more.’

‘He seems to be doing damned well, though,’ I say pensively.



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