The Wall (38 page)

Sometimes I relieved myself of my load in little bars, asking the barkeep behind the counter for a beer even when I wasn’t thirsty. I only wanted to see if he would notice me and fulfill my request. “Nice weather today!” I’d say in an attempt to relax. I awaited an answer and hardly got a glance in return. “What I have to carry is so heavy!” Nor did that work, either. Had I said nothing? But the barkeep brought me a full glass. I blew away the foam, tasted the beer, and thanked him for his interest. The man sucked his lips, indifferent and bored as he wiped the brass top of the bar; he didn’t understand at all what I wanted. When with both hands I shifted my goods, he slowly shook his head. Yet the barkeep looked at the money that I tossed to him and let it disappear straight off into the till. He spent no more time with me, nor did I enjoy the drink. Soon I placed the half-full glass on the platter that was spotted and wet, the barkeep still wiping down the bar, though to no end. My goodbye was left unanswered; a customer smiled and gave me a funny wave. I had to steal off through the forlorn labyrinthine streets.

Then I hoped to be attended to in little shops where the dealers and salesmen, when they weren’t too busy, would get lost in curious chatter. The worn-out bell willingly helped me enter without disturbance. A welcoming voice greeted me. I asked for shoelaces, buttons, pocket combs, picture postcards. The selection was narrow, the wares cranked out of factories without care, scrimpy and expensive. I rummaged slowly among the dusty inventory and praised the goods as if I were a shopkeeper. I kept roaming around, such that I was attended to as a customer, while my suitcase lay on the dirt-encrusted floorboards. Occasionally came a good word, I leaned forward, and since there followed a pointed joke, I could laugh. But then everything was over, all harmony quickly dissolving, and I had to pay at some expense. Quickly I was turned away, the rusty tin handle heavy in my hand—the load, the sore arm, it quivered painfully all the way to my shoulder.

I looked around another shop; I couldn’t risk going back into the same one twice. My activities were too conspicuous; it would be hard for anyone to have a good impression of me. Again I stood before a small shop, mopping my brow uncomfortably with my handkerchief. Then I felt very exhausted, as if I had endured a test of my heart and kidneys. Too conspicuously near me was the dispensed load that had been parked, swollen like a sponge under leering glances. I leaned down easily against the scratched
counter and promised urgently that I wished to become a regular customer, but, rather than endearing me, that made me seem stranger. Also, what I wished to buy was too shabby. Hastily, I assured them that I was serious, but my talk was met with obliging reflective grins. Was I deluded? Arrogantly, no one strained at all to pay attention to the flood of my words and took it for blarney when, in as friendly a way as I could, I asked for better service. I looked directly at the salesmen in order to show that my intentions were honest, but they turned away bored or mischievous, hiding with one hand the sharp wedge of muffled laughter and hurrying to end our business in order to get me quickly out of the shop. I then tried to turn to them as quickly as possible, as if I had just thought of something else that I urgently needed to buy, and asked in a neutral pleasant voice for an ashtray. Sighing, they assented and hastily brought what I had asked for. They were horrible things, one with an owl on it that blinked sleepily, and a little bowl with angels and butterflies. I didn’t need an ashtray, yet since dilly-dallying was no longer possible my valid choice was honored, and because I dared to waste more time with talking, a foot kicked my load and I had to gather it up, at which I was met by a frightful shrug of the shoulders as I was led step by step backward and to the clearly opened door, they bowing low in a measured fashion and the door closing behind me decisively. Once again, I looked around and debated returning to the shop in order to innocently ask whether I had forgotten my handkerchief, I was so distraught, please forgive me. But by then I was too disheartened to shamelessly lie. Indignant, they would have clapped their hands together—“Off with you, get out of here, otherwise …” That was a terrible thing to hear; I couldn’t even bear to think it. So I crept off and busied myself with my bags.

Often, people on the street watched what I did, such that I felt uneasy. Some people wanted to know what kinds of stuff I was carrying. Good food was scarce, clothes were in short supply, as well as shoes and other wares. Therefore the black market blossomed and spread through the streets; it was difficult to fend off nasty suspicion. I would have to admit that it was not my property, I having neither attained it in a shady manner nor wanting to hawk it, carrying it along with me only because I was moving. I gave other reasons for my load, necessity rousing right away my resourcefulness. Only I couldn’t tell the truth; a terrible price to pay in having always to remain
silent. I couldn’t risk even once resorting to saying that it had to do with salvaged goods that I had held for Aunt Olga and Uncle Alfred and now wished to give back. No one would have believed a word and would only have scolded me harshly. Then I would have had to report to the police who I was, where I lived, my rights in the face of eternity. With knowing smirks, the armed law would not even have heard out my explanations to the end but, rather, ordered me to follow them to the station, where only after many hours of painful interrogation, searches, and probing inquiries among all the people I had betrayed, my story would be accepted. No, I had to keep still, be humble, and serve the ownerless goods as best I could.

I then staggered to the next tram stop and stumbled up the steps of the tram, which was rarely empty. To the anger of the conductor, I dumped everything in a corner of the wagon’s platform. I was only met with constant grumbling, the doubled fare, as well as the mulish annoyance on the part of the riders when I tried to protect the cargo with my arms and legs. If I hadn’t in fact had too much with me, I would have been happy to navigate my way to the inside of the car, where I could have shoved some of it under the seat and held the rest on my lap. If the tram had filled up, my situation would have been much worse. Since I didn’t want to miss my stop, I had to disturb my neighbors and the standing riders in order to pull my things forward. I asked politely and entreatingly for their patience and indulgence, but what good did it do? The space was narrow, the disgruntled people betrayed loudly their unwillingness to help, and lectured me that when you transported such junk it would be best to arrange for a moving truck or to take a taxi, the tram not being built for such things. I agreed, and humbly reassured them, explaining that, unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money; otherwise, I would have been happy to follow their advice. Meanwhile, I squirmed about the floor of the wagon in order to grab hold of my burden and wrench it through legs and other impediments until I had hold of everything and, with many requests and excuses and thank-yous, forced my way to the next exit. Behind me there was loud cursing, the conductor was cross, the driver stomped with his foot on the bell switch such that it rang, he being ready to drive on.

I shuffled around the corner and on through the familiar streets, where the school stood closed, as well as the museum. I could barely stand as I
knocked, having set down my load. Someone finally came, and the heavy key turned. Herr Geschlieder, the porter, was a friendly soul and didn’t mind at all once he saw how weighed down I was by the accumulation of all these riches as the meager protection of the door shut behind me, although he betrayed pity toward my goods, his well-meaning gaze drying up when I extended to him the flood of gifts. Geschlieder declined, deeply embarrassed, though he indeed helped me with the load when I slowly dragged it up the three steps. I owed it to the dead to present at least a glimmer of joy to Geschlieder: Saved, Herr Geschlieder, saved! What a wonder, despite the dead prayers in the cellar, or before the gazing portraits of our ancestors who have disappeared for eternity, saved. God bless us, there are still good people, such that all of these wonders found their way to me over the endless duration of the earthly time out of joint. The porter nodded, how lovely that must be: Yes, there are still good people in the world.

What was mine was not mine: such poverty knew no end. I lifted up my hands, draped, burdened, buried, gripping it all. Peter couldn’t use that much, and Anna only a little. Protesting, she would take it, and only out of sympathy, as her apartment was already overfull. I had long known how many strange goods were stowed there that no one came to pick up. Anna and Peter recommended that I sell some of it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. If I couldn’t give it to friends because they couldn’t take any, nor to strangers because it was forbidden, how could I sell it to fools! Peter offered to do it for me, but I couldn’t allow it. If I wanted to avoid increasing my misery even more, there was only one way to do so: I couldn’t take on any more. I didn’t look for any more people who might want to give me something, and so I avoided Frau Holoubek, Frau Krumbholc, and Herr Nerad.

No more wandering into the past. Yet that was easy to say. The past had long exceeded all of the future with a decisive resolve. The wall before me, which I sought to get past or to pardon, was not so completely impenetrable as I thought: only my wishes were prevented from passing through, no matter how much I pleaded. The wall was behind me and pressed at me from behind. If I had let up, it would already have overtaken me from behind, the future lost along with me. I stood amid the chill of the past, my hand holding the handle in vain. The lost shop in the Reitergasse was closed; a command had been sent me from the garden, such that behind the wall I
had to seek out the works which I had set on earth to do. Thus was I driven out and imprisoned before the wall of the lost shop. I had gained nothing when I hid myself, for I had been found out and had to rise up.

“You must return to your beginnings, Adam!”

I stood naked before the voice, which brooked no objection.

“Who are you?”

I pointed disdainfully toward the shut-up garments of the shop, at the dismantled counter, the smashed cartons.

“Who told you that you are naked?”

I hid my face in my hands in order to see less of my nakedness.

“Do you see something?”

No, I saw nothing. Only the wall, the wall of my hands. The command was yelled loudly and shattered, pointed splinters of it reaching me.

“Look! There it is. Do not deny it.”

I did not deny it and submitted myself entirely to the command, but what I saw was that there was nothing to see. Taken by the shoulder and shaken, I was supposed to recognize my face, the one that saw. I reached for my head in vain. The headless one could not see. I whispered my dismay.

“No head!”

Laughter hopped about behind the bars of all the cages. The entire shop shook, the weeds shot up, the foliage and all the trees. Also, many animals and worms gathered about. Then a voice came forth that was strong and was intended just for me.

“No head, that’s well said. No head for these times. Back to your times, Adam, you old good-for-nothing.”

My knees rubbed against the sand.

“I want, want, want …!”

My throat flushed, whereupon the old night had mercy, but not the unleashed time that disdainfully whistled away pell-mell. The lost shop collapsed and disappeared in yawning despair. The doors were swallowed up within it and the soft breeze cut across my face.

“The children would love to go for a walk with you.”

“Really? Which children, Johanna?”

“Michael and Eva.”

“Why do you say the names so solemnly?”

“Because you asked which children? Right, then. Don’t give me that look, Arthur. Go with them! I have to clean.”

“The window is open, Johanna. Fresh air. Do you have to really?”

“At some point. The fresh air alone won’t sweep away the dust. At some point, I have to do some serious cleaning. To clean out for real. You’ve made such a mess of things.”

“Not intentionally!”

“I don’t mean anything by it. What’s happened has happened.”

“It’s about time I cleaned it up myself.”

“You always say that. Then you don’t. It’s not your fault, fine. I believe you. But that’s why I have to do it for you.”

“Johanna, please, listen. Is it today?”

“Always, dear. It’s today.”

“And yesterday? Tomorrow?”

“That’s something different.”

“How, then, can it always be today?”

“You know, that’s exactly what you don’t understand. Yesterday, today, tomorrow—a string that presents itself every day.”

“How, then, every day? Today. You said it is today.”

“Today, I say: today. And on every day, indeed in your own time, I say again: today.”

“And the past?”

“Indeed, every day of your time was today. You get that mixed up, not me.”

“Can you explain it to me?”

“I can try, but it won’t do any good. You’ll never get it. Your understanding of time has been destroyed.”

“The clock, the clock—I can read it! Look, the calendar. I can rattle off the seven days of the week, the days and months add up together—seven twelve and seven twelve. And each year is made up of them, this I know. It’s true that the reckoning of time has changed many times over the years, but always the day has consisted of the evening and the morning. When that no longer works, there is leap year, and everything is good again. See, Johanna, my awareness of time is not destroyed, it’s intact.”

“Not at all. You deceive yourself. It all runs together, it seems to me,
every tick and tock. Clock and calendar mean nothing to you. In fact, leap year doesn’t even make up time for those who have no grasp of it.”

“I have a grasp of time and don’t need to change. There’s nothing wrong with me, Johanna! I have it.”

“You take it away, even from me—a time thief. Indeed, you have no time. Thus you have to take it.”

“But I do indeed have time. Can’t you see?”

“No. You have no grasp of it whatsoever. What was and is no longer, that’s because of time. What is and never will be, that is also because of time.”