The Angel of History Read online

  We covered thirty, forty kilometres a day, never stopping. One evening we got to the city our command had designated, and the Germans had already caught up. So the next morning we formed a delegation to negotiate with the battalion commander. We wanted weapons to defend ourselves in case the Germans mounted a surprise attack. There were four of us: Alfonso, Mariano, me and Sepúlveda, the four musketeers, along with a Communist Party captain and the former secretary of the socialist Estremadura. We made a good argument but the commander sent us to hell with a stream of cusses. We couldn’t tell if he was angry or just taken by surprise. We were on our way out the door, heads hanging, when the Marseillaise came crackling over the radio and then the voice of Prime Minister Reynaud came on, speaking in the same tone of voice you’d use to recite Miserere nobis. ‘Because of a grave error that will not go unpunished, the bridges over the Meuse were not destroyed and German artillery penetrated our front using that route.’

  ‘Fucking bastards. French cowards,’ burst out Sepúlveda as soon as we left. ‘They don’t trust us. They don’t trust us.’

  I believe that we were in Montmédy. Rows of dusty trucks, carriages, ambulances, soldiers looking for their companies, scattered houses still burning from the bombing the day before.

  ‘The truth,’ said Mariano slowly, ‘is that it would fry their asses to see us fighting; they run without firing a single useful shot.’

  We found weapons ourselves. It was easy. They were scattered everywhere, just abandoned. Our captain, the count, told us to just make sure and hide them when we got back to the camp at night. Can you beat that? We also found three machine guns and positioned them at the rear of our formation. To cover our back. But a company of Senegalese troops met us and told us to hand over the arms. They threatened to shoot us if we didn’t obey. So we put our guns in position and screamed back at them. We were there for half an hour, fingers on the triggers, staring each other down. Then the captain intervened. We were allowed to hold on to the weapons but we had to hide them in the carriage until the next morning and it went on like that.

  At the end of May we were at Bar-le-Duc. The Germans were still dropping bombs on the city and shooting at the escaping civilians and military. We didn’t stop to think; we started putting out fires and carrying the wounded to the ambulances, burying hundreds of dead and all of that while they were bombing us. The French suffered a lot of losses and we only lost four Spaniards. We already knew the German planes and we already knew how and when to take cover, while the French just started running around like crazy people in the wide open. Of course the Krauts got them. Our company was almost intact when we got to Toul. But what good did that do? It was obvious that we were around the corner from the grand finale. What could we do? There were those who felt that we should keep trying to get weapons to fight with in order to show everyone that the Spanish were ready to fight off the Stukas but were being held back by idiots. Others thought that wouldn’t do any good. And we’d just end up like trapped mice. It was better to follow through with the retreat and then we’d see.

  I was waiting for Mariano to pipe up, finger in his curls – but he kept to himself, sitting up against an old wall, smoking, eyes closed. I shot him looks and tried to figure out what he wanted so that I could help, but he just leaned on that wall. Of course he had something to say once all the discussion was over and we were all sitting there in a death grip of silence. Son of a bitch.

  ‘You can do what you want,’ he said without standing. ‘All I know is that it’s suicide to keep pulling back like this. But if we dressed as civilians and went in small groups we could probably get back to the Spanish border.’

  And so that’s how the four of us, Alfonso, Mariano, me and Sepúlveda ended up walking away from the Germans, heading south, then east, then south again – to Vital, then Neufchâteau, east to Epinal. We stayed off the main roads and cut through a lot of fields. We went through abandoned villages looking for something to eat, but it had all been sacked already – the fields, granaries, wine cellars. We couldn’t even find drinking water because they’d severed the pipes. It was like wandering in the desert, as if death had already set her sights on us and it was futile to try to escape. There is a limit to what a human being can take. We were still only in the outskirts of Rambersvillers in the middle of June, and we were exhausted. We’d been walking for weeks, we’d covered thousands of kilometres and it was all as good as useless because the Germans invaded France like a tidal wave that was just going to drown us all. We set up camp that night in an abandoned farm near a forest on the top of a hill. It was the first time in two months that we could have got a little sleep. But none of us managed to sleep.

  ‘You know something,’ said Alfonso at a certain point. ‘It would almost be better if the Germans caught us. That way it would be over and done with.’

  ‘And what about Ana María?’ I answered.

  He didn’t respond. Our thoughts were swallowed by silence.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  ‘Would you mind buying me another croissant?’

  They were practically the only customers in that café on rue Saint-Augustin. Georges Bataille waved to summon the waiter and then tucked his hand back between his crossed legs.

  ‘It comes down to this,’ he concluded as he stretched. ‘I rather think that you should leave.’

  ‘It’s easy to say,’ muttered Benjamin. ‘But where would I go? I don’t have any papers or money.’

  ‘You don’t understand. Does your life mean that little to you. Just think what will happen when the Germans get here.’

  Walter swallowed his melancholy with every new mouthful of croissant. He looked out at the street and the cars and the people – it all seemed to have been reduced to a single, muddy grey colour, and he shook his head.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said.

  Sometimes truth can be touched. It’s all in an image, a landscape, an atmosphere, a specific smell, in the flavour of a cigarette or croissant. Now Benjamin seemed to perceive his destiny as he stared at the sadness of Paris dripping off the café windows. He tried to escape it, to fend off with his last impotent defences.

  ‘And what of my work?’ he asked. ‘My notes, my books? I can hardly carry it all with me and nothing matters more to me in the world.’

  ‘There’s a way to resolve this,’ consoled Bataille. ‘You can leave some things with me. I know where to hide it so that it will be safe and when the war is over you can have it all back intact. Is that all right?’

  He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no; Benjamin just lowered his eyes, scratched the arm of his chair with a finger. Bataille could see him debating it all in his head – he was like a fish hanging on a hook and it would be useless to force the matter.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘It’s late; I have to go back to the library. Think about it more calmly and then let me know.’

  They walked slowly and without talking back up rue Saint-Augustin. Benjamin had his hands behind his back. The sun low and pale cast a deadening light. It was June already, though it didn’t look like it. There was a little crowd gathered in front of a radio shop on the corner of rue de Richelieu. The mood was sombre. Bataille stood on tiptoe to see over the heads of the rest of the group.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

  ‘Reynaud,’ answered a blond woman in a smartly tailored blue suit. ‘Reynaud is on the radio.’

  She’d barely turned back around before the old speaker hanging off the shop awning started emitting a scratchy version of the Marseillaise. Even the traffic on the street came to a stop when the speech started, as if an angel had passed over and silenced the crowd. The Weygan Line had fallen. The Germans had crossed the Somme, the Bresle and the Aisnes and occupied Reims and Rouen. Then Reynaud announced that Italy had joined the war. Many women in the crowd were crying silently. The men too – with that same dignified anguish. And Reynaud spoke: ‘Que le Français se resserrent fraternellement autour del leur patrie blessée.’

/>   This tremulous voice, a voice that had once sparkled with life, and these tears, were the last gesture of unity in a fallen nation, thought Walter.

  ‘Okay,’ he said to Bataille as the crowd quickly dispersed. An urgent wind crept along the building façades before getting to the Tuileries where it ruffled the leaves of the chestnut trees.

  It was dark by the time he got to Dora’s. ‘Let’s go to Lourdes,’ he said, eyes lowered and head shaking with the difficulty. ‘We’ll leave as soon as I can round up the papers.’

  She was standing in front of a boiling pot in the kitchen. She set the mixing spoon on the edge of the counter and looked at her brother. She couldn’t hide her satisfied smile.

  ‘My bag is ready.’

  That was all that needed to be said, and then Benjamin was back out on the road in the deep dark of after-curfew. He walked home with his head lowered. He was trying to assemble his thoughts but all around him the rustling silence of the night was like the wind in a flag, and to the north there were sirens, and the footfall of soldiers on patrol, shutters slamming closed, car engines heading south. He turned onto rue de Vaugirard and realised that his head had filled up with fears, and he wished he weren’t there any more. If only he could end it, disappear, put a full stop to the exhaustion of this jinxed life. He was breathing hard when he got to rue Dombasle. He opened the front door, climbed the stairs and then rested on a step before putting the key in the lock. The attack only lasted a few seconds but it was sharper and more intense than usual. He searched his pockets for a heart pill and swallowed it dry in the dark. Half an hour later his breathing was back to normal, his head felt lighter but he still didn’t sleep well. Dozing in fits and starts; he woke often feeling that heaviness on his sternum. His teeth were clenched and he was sweating and it went on like that until the first light started to break – a light whose colour could best be described as somewhere between faded black and dirty grey. He woke, ruefully rinsed his face, quickly dressed and gathered his documents. He left the house at eight on the dot walking under a mist so fine it evaporated before ever hitting the ground. There was no one about except for the soldiers with their grim expressions bouncing down the street in the military convoys that lorded over the city. The bookshop on rue de l’Odéon was closed and Adrienne hadn’t arrived yet. Benjamin waited for her in the shelter of a doorway, pacing with one hand on his back and the other swinging his umbrella back and forth. When he saw her round the corner he waved, attempting to smile and look calm. But Adrienne quickened her step and held her hat fast to her head.

  ‘More trouble?’ she asked as she drew closer. Benjamin lowered his eyes and offered her shelter under his umbrella.

  ‘I’ll explain,’ he said as he helped her lift the gate.

  It was dark inside and the smell of old paper seemed to cling to the walls. Adrienne opened the blinds and a veil of dust danced into the air.

  ‘Can you see what a mess it is? No one comes anymore and I don’t know why I keep opening the shop. But sit now and do tell me what’s happening.’

  ‘I’ve decided to leave,’ confessed Benjamin, letting himself fall into a chair. ‘And if it isn’t too much to ask, I need help getting travelling papers.’

  Adrienne’s watery gaze settled kindly on him. It was obvious that Walter had to leave but she was sorry. What was she going to do all alone in this France that had been invaded by Germans? She was so unprepared and fragile.

  ‘Are you sure,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you want to leave? It’s not going to be any easier down south. At least Paris is big; it’s the ideal place to hide – the Nazis will never find you here.’

  ‘Adrienne, you don’t know the Germans as I do.’

  A bitter smile and a hint of irony dressed his words. But on the inside, old Benjamin just felt terribly, terribly serious. He felt an ancient pain and the most vague, imprecise something well up in his ice blue eyes. In the meantime he was turning over a book by Stendhal that had been left on the counter.

  ‘So,’ he muttered, ‘would you mind calling that minister?’

  Before the end of the morning, Hoppenot promised to round up travelling papers for two to Lourdes for the next day.

  ‘Done.’Adrienne set the telephone in the receiver and smiled. Now there was everything else to think of. She opened a drawer and pulled out a roll of francs and put them on the table.

  ‘I’ll make coffee,’ she said, disappearing into her office.

  She came back to find old Benjamin sitting still in the same chair, a cigarette in his mouth, hands clasped over his stomach, staring at the money on the counter. The sound of the cups clinking together on the tray startled him.

  ‘I can’t accept this,’ he said. ‘I really can’t.’

  It was almost dark outside; the rain pounded softly on the windows, but it was still too early to turn on the lights. Adrienne set the tray on a pile of books that were about to be sent out and sat on her chair.

  ‘Please, Walter,’ she said in the dim light. ‘Don’t be so proud. That money is your only chance of getting out of this horrible situation alive. Take it for me. At least I’ll feel reassured.’

  Benjamin looked at her and gripped the hot cup in his hands. He nodded a little between one sip and the next.

  ‘So,’ he concluded, ‘since we happen to be here, could I have a copy of The Red and the Black? I’d like to reread it but my copy’s been missing for years.’

  Twenty-four hours later the Germans crossed the Seine and occupied Pontoise. In his last radio address, Reynaud launched a desperate appeal to Roosevelt. Benjamin spent the morning preparing his bags. He packed two bags with notes, books, excerpts, magazine and newspaper clippings to leave at his sister’s house. To carry, he packed his briefcase with his Themes on history; a copy of Passagen-Werk; support letters from Valéry, Horkheimer and Romains; an X-ray and a certificate from Doctor Abrami; two or three books; the gas mask; and a toothbrush and two shirts. Lastly, he put the manuscript of Passagen-Werk and Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus wrapped in newspaper into a blue bag, which he delivered to Bataille. The library was deserted and the rainy light of day barely made it through the large skylights.

  ‘I’m depending on you,’ he whispered breathlessly. ‘These are the most important things in the world to me.’

  ‘You’ve already told me, Walter, don’t worry. I’ll put them where no one will ever think to look for them, not even the SS. More importantly, take care of yourself and be careful. Good luck.’

  Bataille was hugging him as he spoke, and had his chin on Benjamin’s shoulder, trying to hide his emotions. He was sure he’d never see him again.

  ‘Until the next time,’ said Benjamin. Then it was a matter of running around in the frightened, rain-soaked city, fighting the tide of time as he procured two sets of travel papers and then brought his bags over to Dora’s house. Finally, he breathlessly knocked on his doctor’s door.

  ‘Sorry to bother you. But could you prescribe a sleeping pill for me? I haven’t been able to sleep for some time. Or, something for my asthma – I don’t know, maybe some Morphium tablets.’

  He could tell that Abrami had guessed what was going on in his head the instant he answered. And the doctor was weighing the effects of the advancing German army on the exhausted man sitting before him.

  ‘It’s not a good remedy,’ he said, ‘for the affliction of your countrymen.’

  ‘Please,’ begged old Benjamin.

  Abrami sighed as he wrote out the prescription: one Morphium tablet, in the evening, as needed.

  ‘Think hard,’ he said, ‘before abusing the drug.’

  Out on the street, walking through the drizzle, under the low-hanging, moody sky, Benjamin felt the sadness of the world decomposing in front of his eyes. He barely made it to the pharmacy and then back home and then to Dora’s; then they raced to the station, getting there just as the Germans were occupying the outskirts of Paris.

  His bag was heavy and Walter had to stop several times alo
ng the way to rest his lungs. Surrounding Dora and him on the road were thousands of old Citroëns and Peugeots loaded down with trunks, boxes, gas canisters, dressers, dogs, cats, bottles and mattresses filing in a neat procession south.

  ‘What did you bring all those papers for?’ asked Dora in annoyance. ‘You could have left them with Bataille or Adrienne. Can’t you see we won’t make it? We’re late. Let’s go.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ replied Benjamin. ‘You don’t understand anything.’ He shook his head unhappily.

  A few dim lights, barely visible against the still grey background, illuminated the station. Most of the trains were stopped on the tracks. Walter and Dora just barely managed to squeeze into a wagon that was overflowing with people and household items before the whistle blew. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. It was the last train out of Paris. As darkness fell and the train ran past Orléans and Tours, Benjamin pressed his face against the window streaming with raindrops. He could see the river of people escaping under that torrential rain, which drenched their tents and mattresses. He saw the fire trucks of Maubeuge, and recognised the pharmacist from Soissons. He saw horse-drawn carriages and children pulling their elderly parents in rickshaws. He saw tourist buses with the writing PARIS LA NUIT on the side, and people clinging to the baggage racks. He saw exhausted children and desperate mothers. He watched France escaping in the mud, reduced to a single, incomprehensible wreck. He pulled his papers from his pocket and turned them over in his hands, looking with satisfaction at the black and red stamps and the prefect’s signature. Then Dora’s voice came buzzing in his head like an irritating fly.