Heaven Has No Favorites: A Novel by Erich Maria Remarque; Translated by Richard Winston and Clara Winston Page B

Lama? I myself? The Crocodile? God?” She picked up her glass. “And who is responsible? Who?” she asked hopelessly. “Myself? God? And who is responsible for whom? Come, let’s dance.”
    Clerfayt remained in his seat.
    She stared at him. “Are you worried about me, also? Do you think I shouldn’t—”
    “I don’t think anything,” Clerfayt replied. “Only, I cannot dance. One of my legs isn’t up to it any more. But if you want to, we can try.”
    They moved to the dance floor. “Agnes Somerville always did what the Dalai Lama told her to—” Lillian said as the noise of the tramping tourists closed around them. “To the letter—”

Chapter Four
    THE SANATORIUM WAS QUIET . The patients were taking their rest cure. Silently, they lay in their beds and deck chairs, stretched out like sacrificial victims, the weary air fighting a silent battle with the enemy nibbling at them in the warm darkness of the lungs.
    Lillian Dunkerque, in blue slacks, sat curled in the chair on her balcony. The night was far away, forgotten. That was how it always was up here—once the morning was reached, the panic of the night dwindled to a shadow on the horizon and you could hardly understand it any longer. Lillian sat up and stretched in the light of the late afternoon. It was a soft, shimmering curtain that veiled yesterdays and made tomorrows unreal. In front of her, packed around with snow which had blown upon the balcony during the night, was the bottle of vodka Clerfayt had given her.
    The telephone rang. She want to it, lifted it. “Yes, Boris—No, of course not—where would we end if we did that?—Let’s not talk about it—Of course you can come up—Yes, I’m alone, naturally—”
    She returned to the balcony. For a moment, she considered whether she ought to hide the vodka; but then she went for a glass and uncapped the bottle. The vodka was very cold and very good.
    “Good morning, Boris,” she said when she heard the door. “I’m drinking vodka. Would you care for some, too? Then get yourself a glass.”
    She stretched out in the deck chair and waited. Volkov came out on the balcony, a glass in his hand. Lillian breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God, no sermon, she thought. Volkov poured himself a glass. She held out hers. He filled it to the brim. “Why, Dusha?” he asked. “X-ray panic?”
    She shook her head.
    “Fever?”
    “Not that either. Subnormal temperature, rather.”
    “Has the Dalai Lama said anything about your pictures?”
    “No. What would he say? I don’t want to know what he thinks, anyhow.”
    “Good,” Volkov replied. “Let’s drink to that.”
    He drank his vodka down in one swallow and put the bottle at a distance from him. “Let me have another glass,” Lillian said.
    “As much as you like.”
    She observed him. She knew that he hated her to drink; but she knew also that he would not say a word to dissuade her from drinking. Not now. He was too diplomatic for that; he knew her moods. “Another?” he asked. “The glasses are small.”
    “No.” She set her glass down beside her without having drunk. “Boris,” she said, drawing her legs in their blue slacks up on to the chair, “we understand each other too well.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes. You understand me too well and I you, and that’s our misery.”
    “Especially in föhn weather,” Volkov replied, laughing.
    “Not only in föhn weather.”
    “Or when there are strangers around.”
    “You see,” Lillian said, “you already know the reason. You canexplain everything. I can’t explain anything. You know everything about me in advance. How wearisome that is. Is that the föhn, too?”
    “The föhn and springtime.”
    Lillian closed her eyes. She felt the oppressive, disturbing air. “Why aren’t you jealous?” she asked.
    “I am. All the time.”
    She opened her eyes. “Of whom? Of Clerfayt?”
    He shook his head.
    “I thought not. Then of what?”
    Volkov did not answer. Why was she asking? he