I recalled that she had knelt just so when she moved into this room and unpacked, and it seemed to me as if that was an endless long time ago, and yet only yesterday . . .
She looked up.
"Are you taking your silver dress too?" I asked.
She nodded.
"What shall we do with the rest of the things, Robby?
With the furniture?"
"I've already spoken to Frau Zalewski.
As much as I can I'm taking into my room.
The rest we'll give to a removal firm to store.
Then we'll take it out again when you come back."
"When I come back," said she.
"Yes," I replied, "in the spring, when you come back all brown from the sun."
I helped her to pack, and by afternoon, when it was already turning dark outside, we had done.
It was queer— the furniture was still all in the same place, only the cupboards and drawers were empty, and yet the room appeared suddenly bare and depressing.
Pat sat on her bed.
She looked tired.
"Should I make a light?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Leave it so awhile."
I sat beside her.
"Would you like a cigarette?" I asked.
"No, Robby.
Only to sit a bit like this."
I stood up and went to the window.
Outside the street lamps were burning unsteadily in the rain.
The trees were tossing in the wind.
Below, Rosa walked slowly by.
Her high boots gleamed.
She had a parcel under her arm and was on her way to the International.
She had her knitting with her apparently, to do some woollen things for her youngster.
Fritzi and Marian followed her, both in new, white, close-fitting raincoats, and presently Mimi trailed after them, bedraggled and tired.
I turned round.
It had now become so dark that I could not see Pat any more.
I only heard her breathing.
Slowly and dismally behind the trees of the graveyard the electric signs started to climb upward.
The red lettering of the cigarette advertisement lay like some gay ceremonial decoration across the roofs of the houses, the blue and emerald circles of the wine merchants started spraying, and the bright contours of the laundry sign lit up.
Their light shed a soft, confused glow through the window on to the wall and the bedcover. It wandered to and fro, and the room suddenly seemed like a lost little diving-bell on the floor of the ocean, around which the rain waves washed, and down to which penetrated, out of the far distance, a feeble glimmer of the gay world.
It was eight o'clock.
Outside a klaxon sounded.
"That's Gottfried with the taxi," said I. "He's come to get us for supper."
I stood up, went to the window and called down that we were coming.
Then I switched on the little pocket lamp and went into my room.
It was damned strange to me.
I took the rum bottle and drank a quick glass.
Then I sat in the armchair and stared at the carpet.
After a while I stood up again and went to the washstand to brush my hair.
I forgot what I was doing, for I suddenly saw my face in the glass.
Cold and curious, I contemplated it. I contracted my lips and grinned at it.
It grinned back, tense and pale.
"You," said I, soundlessly.