Erich Remarque - The Black Obelisk

It was a big pot, but the patriot’s skull seems to be made of iron. I feel him, still on his knees, trying to get at my genitals, and I seize the geranium along with its roots and the earth sticking to them and jam the dirt into his eyes. He lets go, rubs his eyes, and since at the moment I can do nothing with my fists, I pay him back by a kick in the balls. He doubles up and lowers his paws to protect himself. I thrust the sandy tangle of roots into his eyes once more and expect him to bring up his hands so that I can repeat the process. But his head sinks forward as though he were making an oriental salaam, and the next instant everything around me is ringing. I have not been alert and have received a terrific blow from the side. Slowly I edge along the show window. Heroic in size and completely disinterested, a mannequin with painted eyes and a beaver coat stares out at me.

“Break through to the pissoir! ” I hear Georg shout.

He is right. We need a better cover for our rear. But it’s easier said than done; we’re wedged in. The enemy has been reinforced, and it looks as though we will end up with broken heads among Max Klein’s mannequins.

At that instant I see Hermann Lotz kneeling on the ground. “Help me get this sleeve off!” he gasps.

I reach over and pull off the left sleeve of his jacket. His gleaming artificial arm comes free. It is made of nickel and ends in a black-gloved hand of artificial steel. Because of it, Hermann has the nickname Götz von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand. Quickly he frees the arm from his shoulder, seizes the artificial hand with his real one and gets up. “Gangway! Götz is coming!” I shout from below. Georg and Willy make room from him so that he can get through. He swings his artificial arm around him like a threshing flail and with the first blow lays the leader low. The attackers draw back for an instant. Hermann springs among them and whirls in a circle with his artificial arm outspread. Then in a trice he reverses it so that he now holds it by the shoulder piece and can attack with the steel hand. “Get moving! To the pissoir! ” he shouts. “I’ll cover you!”

It is a remarkable thing to see Hermann go to work with his artificial hand. I have often watched him fight that way, but our opponents have not. They stand gaping for a moment as though the devil had fallen in their midst, and that gives us our chance. We break through and race toward the pissoir in New Market. As I rush by I see Hermann land a beautiful blow on the open snout of the second ringleader. “Quick, Götz!” I shout. “Come along! We’ve got through!”

Hermann takes one more swing. His empty coat sleeve flutters, he makes wild motions with the stump of his arm to keep his balance, and two booted enemies in his path gape at him with amazement and horror. One gets a cut in the chin, the other, as he sees the artifical black hand hurtling toward him, screeches with terror, shuts his eyes, and runs.

We reach the attractive, square sandstone building and take refuge on the women’s side. It is easier to defend. On the men’s side they might climb in through the window and take us in the rear; on the women’s side the windows are small and high.

Our enemies have followed us. There must be at least twenty of them by now; they have been reinforced by some Nazis. I can see a few of their shit-colored uniforms. They are trying to break in on the side where Köhler and I are standing. But amid the confusion I see help coming. A moment later Riesenfeld is bringing his rolled-up brief case, full of samples of granite I hope, down on someone’s skull, while Renée de la Tour has taken off one of her high-heeled shoes, seized it by the toe, and is flailing away with the heel.

As I watch all this someone butts me in the stomach with his skull and my breath shoots out of my mouth with a bang. I strike about me feebly and wildly, and have at the same time a feeling of being in a familiar situation. Automatically I raise my knee, expecting the billy goat to attack again. At that instant I see one of the loveliest sights imaginable in such a situation: Lisa, like the Victory of Samothrace, is storming across New Market, beside her Bodo Ledderhose and behind him his singing club. At the same instant I feel the billy goat again and see Riesenfeld’s brief case descend like a yellow flag. Simultaneously Renée shouts in her vibrant voice of command: “Halt, you swine!” A number of our attackers involuntarily jump. Then the singing club goes into action and we are free.

I straighten up. It is suddenly quiet. Our attackers have fled, dragging their wounded with them. Hermann Lotz is coming back. He has pursued the fleeing foe like a centaur and has succeeded in landing one more good crack. We have got off not badly. I have a fair-sized bump on my head and I feel as though my arm were broken. It is not. But I feel very sick. I have drunk too much to enjoy blows in the stomach. Once more I am tormented by that tantalizing, familiar memory which I cannot place. What was it? “I wish I had a schnaps,” I say.

“You’ll get one,” Bodo Ledderhose replies. “Come along now, before the police turn up.”

Just then there is the sound of a resounding slap. We turn around in surprise. Lisa has hit someone. “You damned drunkard!” she says with dignity. “So this is the way you look after your home and wife—”

“You—” the figure gurgles.

Lisa’s hand descends again. And now, suddenly, the knots of memory are released. Watzek! There he stands, oddly grasping his behind.

“My husband!” Lisa says to New Market in general. “That’s the man I’m married to.”

Watzek makes no reply. He is bleeding profusely. The old wound I gave him has opened again. In addition, blood is running out of his hair. “Did you do that with your brief case?” I ask Riesenfeld softly.

He nods, watching Watzek attentively. “What odd places people meet!” he says.

“What’s the matter with his rear end?” I ask. “Why is he holding onto it?”

“A wasp sting,” Renée de la Tour replies, replacing a long hat pin in her ice blue satin cap.

“My respects!” I bow low before her and go over to Watzek. “So,” I say, “now I know who was butting me in the stomach! Is this the thanks I get for my instruction in a finer way of life?”

Watzek stares at me. “You? I didn’t recognize you! My God!”

“He never recognizes anybody,” Lisa explains sarcastically.

Watzek makes a sorry picture. And yet I notice that he has actually followed my advice. He has had his mane cut, with the result that Riesenfeld’s blow was all the more effective; he is also wearing a new white shirt, on which the bloodstains show up clearly. He really is a bad-luck bird.

“Back home with you! You pig’s foot, you brawler!” Lisa says, departing. Watzek follows her at once. They wander across New Market, a strange pair. No one follows them. Georg helps Lotz adjust his artificial arm.

“Come along,” Ledderhose says. “We can still get a drink in my inn. A private party!”

We sit for a while with Bodo and his club. Then we start

homeward. The gray of dawn is crawling across the streets. A newspaper boy comes by Riesenfeld motions to him. The big headlines on the front page read: INFLATION ENDS! ONE MARK FOR A TRILLION!

“Well?” Riesenfeld says to me.

I nod.

“Children, I may actually be broke,” Willy announces. “I’ve kept on playing it short.” He looks ruefully at his gray suit and then at Renée. “Well, easy come, easy go—it was only money anyway.”

“Money is very important,” Renée replies coolly. “Especially when you haven’t got it.”

Georg and I walk along Marienstrasse. “Strange that Watzek got his beating from me and Riesenfeld,” I say, “not from you. It would have been more natural if you and he had fought.”