The Last Days Read Online Free PDF

and looked on as the days passed by. She would lock herself in her room, but nothing would happen. She ignored all happiness. She was well acquainted with fear in all its guises. She was afraid of the unknown, of the future, of not doing the right thing, of coming unstuck as well as succeeding; she was also scared of death, of illness, of other people and of fear itself, to the point that even the slightest thing would frighten her to the core. Life had always been like a test, one she found increasingly difficult to succeed at. The grip this misfortune exercised on her had caused her to stumble through those unhappy years. There was no doubt that Lotte had found herself quite at home in her husband’s bleak outlook on the world.
    “You are the most envied of women, the wife of this century’s greatest writer… and you’re now the owner of the prettiest dress in Manhattan!”
    “Stefan will barely notice the dress. He hardly notices when I’m around.”
    “But you’re the reason he left his wife.”
    That had just been a pretext… At the time, she must have seemed like a fountain of youth. Witnessing his own energies dissipate, he had hoped to draw on her vigour, not unlike when he had heeded a so-called doctor’s advice, who had prescribedhim a course of hormones that were supposed to slow down the effects of old age. Alas, against all hope, Lotte had become just another responsibility, yet another burden. As though their life weren’t dangerous enough, stifling and shrivelled as it was, marrying her had gifted him with the promise of terrifying nights. What did he feel for her? Nothing but pity.
    “Would you prefer to stay in New York with me? He would understand… especially when he’s reunited with his books.”
    “But part of the reason we’re going to Petrópolis is for my sake. The town is situated at an altitude of eight hundred metres, he’s adamant that it’s going to do me a world of good. I can barely breathe here.”
    “Come, we’re going to go all the way to the top of the Empire State Building, where you’re going to get a good fill of oxygen.”
    “I’m going back to the hotel. This walk has tired me out. I didn’t take my medication at noon. Promise me we’ll spend another day together.”
    She had hailed a taxi and dropped Eva off. Alone in the car, Lotte had thought about the tailor’s story. She had pictured herself getting married in the big synagogue in Frankfurt, instead of that soulless room in Bath, England, where she and Stefan had taken their vows. “
Mazal tov,”
she muttered, as if to herself. But there were no practising rabbis left in Germany. Her grandfather had lost his synagogue and was almost certainly dead. There wasn’t a single rabbi left in the whole Reich. German synagogues had all been burnt down during the Kristallnacht. The flames had curled up towards the heavens and the stars.
     
    That evening, in their room at the Wyndham Hotel, Stefan had worn the sombre look befitting the dark times they were in. Yet another of his friends, Erwin Rieger, had committed suicide inTunis, following in the wake of Ernst Toller, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Weiss. The chasm was widening all around him. The past was being chipped away piece by piece. The tickets to Rio had been purchased. They would board on the morning of 15th August.
    Once again, they were on the run. They had fled the Reich, then England, and now the United States. Lotte’s health had of course played its part thanks to her weak bronchioles and ailing throat. There had also been the various bureaucratic annoyances to which Stefan had been subjected, being a foreigner from an enemy country. There was also the language barrier. While perfectly fluent, he’d never felt at ease in English. He had also railed against New York’s permanent state of frenzy. Everything was chaotic and frivolous.
    But there was an altogether different reason for their departure. The real motive was rather shameful—how had her