Free Flotsam by Erich Maria Remarque Page A

into the hotel.
    “Didn’t someone just go out?” he asked the doorman, who was also the waiter and handyman.
    “Only you!” The doorman stared at him. He expected Kern to burst into laughter at his joke.
    Kern did not laugh. “I mean a girl,” he said. “A young lady.”
    “No ladies live here,” the doorman replied sullenly. He was offended because his wit had been wasted. “Only women.”
    “So no one went out?”
    “What do you mean by all these questions? Are you from the police?” The doorman was now openly hostile.
    Kern looked at him in amazement. He could not understand what had got into the man. He had completely missed the joke. He got a package of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to the doorman. “Thanks,” the latter said frostily. “I smoke a better brand.”
    “I can believe that.”
    Kern put the cigarettes away. He stayed there for a momentreflecting. The girl must still be in the hotel; perhaps she was in the sitting room. He went back.
    The sitting room was long and it opened on a cement terrace which, in turn, led to a walled garden in which grew a couple of lilac bushes.
    Kern glanced through the glass door. He saw the girl sitting at a table. She was leaning on her elbows reading. There was no one else in the room. Irresistibly drawn, Kern opened the door and stepped in.
    The girl glanced up as she heard the door. Kern was embarrassed. “Good afternoon,” he said tentatively. The girl looked at him. Then she nodded and went on reading.
    Kern took a seat in one corner of the room. After a while he stood up and got a couple of newspapers. Suddenly he seemed ridiculous in his own eyes and wished that he were outside again. But it seemed almost impossible to get up again so soon and walk out.
    He unfolded the newspapers and began to read. After a while he saw the girl reach for her handbag and open it. She took out a silver cigarette case and snapped it open. Then she closed it without taking out a cigarette and put it back in the bag.
    Kern quickly laid the paper aside and got up. “I see you’ve forgotten your cigarettes,” he said. “May I help you out?”
    He drew out his package. He would have given a great deal to have a cigarette case. The package was crushed and torn at the corners. He offered it to the girl. “Of course I don’t know whether you like this kind. The doorman just refused them. They weren’t good enough for him.”
    The girl looked at the label. “They’re the same kind I smoke,” she said.
    Kern laughed. “They’re the cheapest you can buy. That’s almost like telling the story of your life.”
    The girl looked at him. “I guess this hotel tells it anyway.”
    “That’s true.”
    Kern struck a match and lit the girl’s cigarette. The pale reddish light illuminated her narrow, tawny face with its well-defined dark eyebrows. Her eyes were clear and large and her mouth full and soft. Kern could not have said whether the girl was pretty or whether he liked her; but he had the strange feeling of a quiet and remote connection with her—his hand had rested on her breast before he knew her. He saw her breast rise and suddenly, although he knew it was silly, he hid his hand in his pocket.
    “Have you been abroad long?” he asked.
    “Two months.”
    “That’s not long.”
    “It’s an eternity.”
    Kern glanced up in surprise. “You’re right,” he said, “two years is not long. But two months is an eternity. There’s this advantage, though: the longer it lasts, the shorter the months become.”
    “Do you think it will last long?” the girl asked.
    “I don’t know. I don’t think about it any more.”
    “I do all the time.”
    “So did I when I had been away for two months.”
    The girl was silent. Her head was bowed in thought and she was smoking slowly with deep inhalations. Kern looked at the heavy, wavy black hair that framed her face. He would have liked to say something striking and brilliant but nothing occurred to him.