Читать книгу The Angel Of History - Bruno Arpaia - Страница 8

Chapter One

Before leaving the house, he pressed his forehead up against the window and looked out. Night pushed through Berlin on the backs of clouds and icy winds tossed the stripped, leafless branches of trees lining the boulevard. The Wilmersdorfer Luch clock across the way read six o’clock already. Benjamin set his glasses on his forehead and rubbed his eyes. He had to go. He was in a cold sweat, nailed into the shadow, numbed by pain and sadness, but he had to go. He adjusted his tie, looked lingeringly over the rows of books on the shelves, at the paintings on the walls and his threadbare old sofa. Then he grabbed his bags and went out into the stairwell. A bitter wind worked its way under his coat and cleared his thoughts. For a moment, he saw the coin of his life spinning in the air and hitting the ground with a false note – it fell the wrong side up. He had to go. In the courtyard the dim lights from the windows formed a trap and the ground was sprinkled with the recent rain. He turned the key in the lock, twice, then three and four times, struck by his last doubt, a final awareness of his habits and memories. After that it was done.

Through the window of the tram he watched scattered pedestrians on the boulevard, eyes turned downward, the pavements slick with filthy sewer water, a reckless woman begging on the church steps. The square in front of the station was deserted except for a lone patrol, standing stiff and bored under the opaque illumination of the street lights. Benjamin couldn’t turn back now. With effort he lugged his suitcases to a checkpoint where two soldiers stood watch.

‘Papers,’ ordered the older of the two. He was SA, blond and thin, his uniform seemed to hang off his shoulders.

Benjamin pulled them out of his coat pocket and handed them over the barrier. He wasn’t trembling but he still didn’t dare look him in the face. The blond soldier took his time. He showed the passport to his partner, turned it over, unconvinced, and then stared hard at the traveller – that pointy chin, those mean, chilly eyes boring into him.

‘Go on,’ he concluded.

It was some time before Benjamin caught his breath. He didn’t feel right again until he got to the middle of the enormous atrium. Panting, he set his bags down on the ground. The silence around him was broken only by the puffing trains idling on the tracks and the wind sneaking in through the tunnels, the creaking of a sandwich cart. He moved forward, keeping some distance between himself and the soldiers with their rifles slung around their necks, staying away from the unpopulated waiting rooms. The train was practically empty and no one waved from the platform.

Benjamin was still thinking of nothing when the train pulled out. Several hours later he looked out the window at the Cologne station. It was midnight. Standing right outside on the platform was Carl Linfert, a historian he’d met in the Frankfurter Zeitung offices.

‘Herr Benjamin, where are you headed?’

‘To Paris, and you?’

‘Oh, I’m staying right here,’ Linfert answered with a shake of his head. ‘I just came to see a friend off.’

The conductor at the end of the platform swung his lantern and the train slowly started moving.

‘Have a safe trip and good luck!’ cried Linfert.

Linfert was the last familiar face Benjamin saw on German soil. After that, just lights streaming past in the night through the dirty glass, and the clinging stubborn preoccupations that kept him from sleeping until he got to the border. It wasn’t until later, after the day had started breaking over the countryside and the listless French sunlight began to creep into the compartment, that Benjamin realised how much he had to lose. Perhaps he had already lost it forever.