The Journey (6 page)

One of them is a handsome youth. His long hair often falls across his forehead, making him seem annoyed when, with a flick of his head, he flips back the strands, remedying the situation for no longer than a moment. Now he says: “You have to let your father go, there’s nothing that can be done.” Then he’s quiet again and looks down the stairs. A powerful kick would knock him off balance, such that he would fall and injure himself badly. He shouldn’t go barging into strange houses, especially in the thick of night. The fact that there’s nothing that can be done about it won’t save him. His life dangles from a thin thread since he is only following
orders. He has sacrificed himself to his duties. Most likely he didn’t even apply for this job, but rather was told: “You have to do it. Do you understand?”—“I’ll do it. I understand.” Then someone handed him a piece of paper and a voice shouted, “Sign here!” He signed the sheet, though with these letters nothing is accomplished to which anyone would grant the least value, nor would anyone be pleased by the signature. Only a name appears, but the sensibility behind the signature is long since lost.

It’s hard to understand why you have to sign your name so often. No one should have to sign his name at the end of a letter, for as soon as you do, everything you spent so much effort listing out becomes null and void. Yet everything has a value that can be assessed. Even old bed feathers have their use. They can be cleaned, pulled out, and dried in a warm cylinder that is turned by a little motor. It’s clearly stated that one isn’t allowed to take bed feathers along. Everything has to remain behind; the luggage allowed is limited to a certain size and weight. Carefully place a piece of paper inside with your name, address, and date of birth. It doesn’t matter that you no longer have an address. The worst that can happen is that you don’t get the bundles and they are sent back; Frau Lischka will recognize them if you show her which ones are yours. That’s when it dawns on them that nothing belongs to them anymore, rather it all belongs to the authorities who transform the anonymous possessions into property once again through simple magic. Outside one can also see the luggage lined up with names, addresses, and the birth dates on them. The suitcases and bags are marked with chalk or have notes glued to them. It’s good to have everything ready. Practicality always watches out for itself.

“There, sign here, but make it legible! Why are you letting the pen wobble? You’ll end up with a blotch instead of your name. Didn’t you ever learn to write! Oh, of course, a doctor! You can write prescriptions. But it never bothered you when the patient died from taking the wrong medicine. As long as the bill was legible.…”

Lustig is a name like any other, even when the eyes fail and the voice falters. No healthy person has ever had to consider what it’s like to be nameless, for it would never occur to him. Only in graveyards is it customary to give up one’s name. If you want complete rest, you not only have to stretch out your legs but also relinquish your name. Only then can you plump up the bed feathers and hope for a satisfying sleep. “Sign your
name, so that it’s clear you can’t do that! Three times, please! In ink, not with a pencil!” Countless hands are stretched out and hold something that needs to be signed. “Here, use my pen!” It doesn’t work. There’s no ink for the names. Someone must have a bit of ink. Indeed someone, but somewhere else, not here, for no one knows what he should write. “Sign your name where it says ‘I waive …’ ” Where there is no name the waiver is meaningless. It strains the eyes too much, and besides, in this blackout no one can see where he should place his mark.

The way down the steps seems endless, because from start to finish you never feel sure of yourself on the stretch of stairs that winds back and forth, living from moment to moment without knowing if the effort will be rewarded. Nonetheless that’s where you often went, back when you were a child, whenever you wanted to be by yourself and yet someplace familiar, there where it was easy to pass some time on one of the steps and think about what you were feeling. Once a week the house lady knelt on the steps with a full pail of water next to her, dipping a gray rag into it that she’d fish back out and with both hands wring out with some effort. Then the damp rag slapped onto the stone, the washing having begun, step-by-step.

Frau Lischka didn’t like it when someone went up the stairs while she was doing this, and everyone knew that Friday afternoon was no time to invite guests or for anyone to ramble up and down the stairs. Leopold’s patients were often admonished and scolded, sometimes sent back down and told to wipe their feet better. Order had to be kept, the building couldn’t go to pieces. When Frau Lischka cleaned the stairwell everyone had to stop and wait until the steps were dried with a second rag. “You can use them now, but take two steps at a time!”

Yet the intruders that were now running around, entering each house in search of their detainees, they didn’t care about order as they carried out their duties with feebleminded expressions on their faces. The stairs were no longer a sacred place, and the houses were worth nothing; it almost seemed as if they were no longer even there. Yet you could see them, they each had an address corresponding to a name, and they were marked with a sign alerting each passerby that nothing had disappeared, that everything was in its place. You only had to know your way around Stupart and everything became easy.

It was really easy, especially at night, as long as there was no blackout, since then no one had to risk guessing whether you were in a certain or uncertain place. But now you found yourself in an uncertain place. It was not even a place anymore, and perhaps any connection to an actual address disappeared when they took down the sign

for now nothing of what once had been was allowed to remain. Thus there was nothing more at all, though memory refuses to accept this, striving continually to give order and shape to it all.

Something can be placed on every step, but Frau Lischka will be upset when she sees how her stairwell has been trashed. The hallway has to remain clear no matter what. The steps are for walking, not for sitting. Just keep moving forward, and no tripping! Whoever takes care reaches out in the darkness to feel his way. The inhabitants are lucky if they know the way, because then they only need to count the steps and they already know where they are. And in like manner memory also counts, the living do not lose themselves carelessly in a present that can be so difficult to bear. To them the past is at their service, ever regressing memory planting its sensation less so in jittery hands than in the feet, which is also why we protect the feet with good shoes. Whoever is afraid of getting lost, which many do, stops on the landing or presses himself against the wall the whole way down, thus rendering the stairwell safe.

Paul closes the door to the apartment behind him and thinks about what he has left behind. Now Frau Lischka no longer has any say and has to keep quiet when her stairs are muddied. Behind the door above, everything has been left behind but not forgotten; it’s there, simply there. No one can go back, the stairs will not have their soundness tested again, and who knows whether or not these are the last steps that will be allowed upon them. The rattle of keys when the doors are locked sounds as familiar as ever, it was the same burst of clanging as ever, followed by the feeling of safety; the apartment was still there, we would see it again, healthy and unharmed, ready to receive us. But now the key is pointless, you might as well leave it in the mailbox so you won’t have to take it along on
the journey. How ridiculous it was when one of the messengers advised Paul to make sure and lock up.

“Apartments left empty will gladly be looted!”

“Gladly
looted?”

“Gladly looted. But you still have to turn in your key.”

The stairwell pressed toward the doors, it descended deeper and deeper as the yelling came down the frightened hallway,
Down, go down!
The stairs yelled out that no one was allowed to climb them. Afraid of break-ins, Frau Lischka had an ever-watchful eye. No one got past her ground-floor apartment without her noticing. “Where are you going?… Ah, to the doctor!” Her drunken husband would have let anyone slip through, but his wife never tolerated the door being left unlocked whenever she went out. On Sundays the building remained locked for the entire day, meaning that anyone who did not have a key had to ring the bell. That way nothing could be looted.

The streets were quiet, heartened by the winter cold. The impact of the heavy steps pleased them, for that stamped life into them; otherwise the streets would have been sunk in sadness. They were forbidden streets meant to be avoided in order not to violate their pavement. Thus the streets were crossed out on the maps, no longer existing for anyone. It was too risky, danger lay in wait there, especially at night. But one must not simply accept what is forbidden once you are not worth anything. And so the streets were there again and were much longer and more beautiful than they had ever been before. They rejoiced at being granted life once again and didn’t ask to whom they owed their good fortune. Zerlina said earnestly to an intruder, “These streets are forbidden.” But the stranger just smirked and rubbed his hands. Because those words, so often repeated, no longer meant anything, for now the forbidden was allowed.

All that had been forbidden in the world now meant nothing, for it had never been a law but rather an arrangement that rested on enforced custom. What was once taken in stride now appeared all of a piece to the law, which had the last word and did not allow anything to contradict it. Life was reduced to force, and the natural consequence was fear, which was bound up with constant danger in order to rule life through terror. You experienced what you never had before. You rejoiced over that which
you were allowed, but even this did not last for long, because any such comforts had only to be noticed and the next day they were taken away. Thus the tender juicy meat was taken away since you who are made of flesh need no meat. Then they banned fat, for your belly was full of fat. They denied you vegetables, for they stunk when they rotted. They ripped chocolate out of your hands, fruit and wine as well. You were told that there wasn’t any more.

Highways and byways were forbidden, the days were shortened and the nights lengthened, not to mention that the night was forbidden and the day forbidden as well. Shops were forbidden, doctors, hospitals, vehicles, and resting places, forbidden, all forbidden. Laundries were forbidden, libraries were forbidden. Music was forbidden, dancing forbidden. Shoes forbidden. Baths forbidden. And as long as there still was money it was forbidden. What was and what could be were forbidden. It was announced: “What you can buy is forbidden, and you can’t buy anything!” Since people could no longer buy anything, they wanted to sell what they had, for they hoped to eke out a living from what they made off their belongings. Yet they were told: “What you can sell is forbidden, and you are forbidden to sell anything.” Thus everything became sadder and they mourned their very lives, but they didn’t want to take their lives, because that was forbidden.

Once the entire world was forbidden, and there was nothing normal left to forbid, the height of unhappiness was surpassed and everything became easier, no one having to become anxious with lengthy considerations about what to do next. Everyone did what was forbidden without a bad conscience, even though it was dangerous and they were afraid. Yet since you couldn’t do anything without feeling afraid, you didn’t do everything that was forbidden. Sad and fearful people suffered under these conditions, but others hardly seem bothered, each following his own disposition. If there seems no end to the danger, then it has accomplished its goal already; anything excessive shuts people down more quickly than a discreet act of kindness, through which alone the simple truths of the world can still be perceived. Because one could not perceive this simple truth or at least had no respect for it, everything fell apart. Nothing more could happen and therefore orders were merely carried out.

Their gaze swept over the rows of houses and the street crossings as
soon as their eyes got used to the darkness, and soon they were ready to escape, for they knew the area well and there were plenty of good places to hide. An escape was possible; it would not be too hard, since there was no one near or far who would hear them. But steps followed the women and the brave messengers accompanying them, and thus only their gaze stole forth, sending thoughts and memories ahead that thwarted cowardice sooner than weary bodies that, with the weight of all they carried, slunk along in order to avoid their proscribed fate.

Was such servility really due to cowardice alone? Old Leopold and fragile Ida had been taken away and were waiting for Caroline and the children in the Technology Museum. Ida felt helpless and Leopold confused. Both were incapable of handling that which threatened one surprise after another. What could be done for them? There was no clear answer, but one had to stand by them and not leave, because that was forbidden. Disloyalty was forbidden, also reason was forbidden, as it belittled the will to live.

Paul’s thoughts hardly went this far, for already he had struggled too long to vanquish the inevitable. After his battle suffered its first and, he feared, decisive defeat, he could no longer worry about every threat that occurred. Paul was extremely tired and smiled at Zerlina, who smiled back. Then Caroline smiled as well. When the others saw this, they cheered up and also began to smile, as one of them said:

“You’re right. It’s not so bad there. You can eat pretty well. Almost every day there’s meat and dumplings. But if they find money or jewelry or tobacco, then you’re in trouble and don’t get anything to eat.”

“It’s not so bad?”

“You’ll see, Frau Lustig. So many have already stuck it out. Only a few are beaten. But nobody has been beaten to death.”

“Beaten …?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t mean anything. Only the stupid ones are beaten. Whoever doesn’t deliver or hides something forbidden. When they get caught they’re the scum of the earth … condemned.…”