The Wall (67 page)

After that, I gave up asking So-and-So or others about Oswald, and Anna avoided bringing up his name. How moved I was when in his last letter to me So-and-So referred to Oswald and Inge again—moreover, that the two of them would certainly meet me at the train station! I didn’t know whether I should be overjoyed or afraid, and it almost unsettled me how I was left to feel my way through the dark, as it was unclear why I was suddenly again worthy of the sympathies of the siblings. To certainly expect … what does it mean to be certain? The train flew past the switching point of a station stop, releasing a terrific noise, but it sounded to me like music, the certain speed of it, heading for our destination, both the rails and the journey directed at an endpoint, no falling away from it, as long as nothing bad happened, for nothing bad must happen. The train was still the safest form of travel—the roar of the machine, its thunderous snorting, the ring and rhythm of the wheels, rolling along the echoing rails, the certainty of the powerlessness of the detained who sits in his compartment, nonchalantly allowing himself to trust in the harrowing strangeness, like a letter traveling, sent from one person to another, sent off, delivered, received, opened, the journey there occurring between, cautiously, but irresistibly leaning through the curves, onward, onward, then always the drowsy, yet never weary gaze out at the passing terrain that remains stationary despite one’s moving through it, the ticket bought, the border falling behind you, a traveling being upon a fixed line.

But where was freedom? Once you commit to the journey, then it’s over, and no one knows if it means escape, or the choice to begin anew, or
expectation. Oh, it was expectation; to be expected, no longer foreign, once one is expected. Yet you remained confused, not believing in yourself or in others, having gathered together your bags and looking out to wonder who will be there, who will recognize you, or greet you once the destination was reached? I could not imagine, as everything swirled around. The conductor approached; a well-meaning healthy face looked at me as I handed him my ticket, it already being worn out from having been checked many times. All that was left was a receipt in the ticket book. A long trip, I explained apologetically and wearily in the foreign language. The man nodded and muttered something. I didn’t really understand what he said, though I also felt that the conductor hadn’t understood me, and then I saw to my horror how he let the ticket disappear into his pocket. How was I to account for my journey at the gate? Too weak to stand up, I fidgeted mightily on the seat, as I had neither enough cash to bail myself out nor the right words at the ready to explain to the attendants at the station the misfortune of my ticket’s having been confiscated. I had to have the little ticket book back!

“I need the ticket! The journey is far from over. There’s no metropolis for far and wide. No slowing of the journey. No protective station.”

The conductor looked at me as if I had lost my mind, as I spit out this flood of half-senseless words, but nonetheless he got what I was trying to say, laughed, and gave me a reassuring sign.

“You don’t need a ticket. The train doesn’t stop again.”

“Doesn’t stop again …?”

“No. Just at the end.”

“At the end … But at the station?”

“You don’t need a ticket.”

Then the conductor waved at me as if I were an unruly child, indeed saying, “Shh-shh,” and then he was gone. However, how could he maintain that the train would not stop again and there was no need for a ticket? I rubbed my eyes, pressed my forehead with four fingertips, at first lightly and then more strongly, shook myself, stood up wearily and then sat down again, closed my eyes for a little while and then opened them as wide as I could, though there was no doubting that the journey continued on. Indeed, the dizziness let up a bit, but that happened because, to my surprise, the stretch we were traveling climbed gradually up a chain of hills that I had
not been expecting to encounter in this area of the countryside. But I didn’t dream, nor was I even sleepy, the presence of the day harsh before me, and, except for the damned ticket book, I had all my possessions together, each of them taken down from above. That was the way I was when we left, and that was how I remained.

Outside, lovely towns appeared and disappeared, artfully laid out gardens, all of it tended to, the winter having hardly settled in, the misty weather even providing a lovelier light, the haze lifting, the view easier to make out, the clouds rising higher and forming soft contours, though they didn’t open to blue sky, ragged streams of the hidden sun trying to press through the thin silver layers here and there, such that it almost fell in tightly packed shimmering bundles, where it nestled deep in the embankment of an extensive delicate marsh that ran along the rolling ridge of a sparsely covered set of hills. Soon the train thundered into a tunnel, but the compartment was lit, a yellow tent, a safe haven amid the rumbling storms, the cushioned benches green as wild moss. The thick smoke at the window was like blowing snow and caused me to feel a loneliness in which I thought I would not sense anything again, that’s how painful it felt. From the sounds it made, I could tell the train was descending again, the journey winding on until finally we were free of the tunnel, though the pressing smoke still prevented an open view; only slowly did the clouds part, a different country flowing by before my eyes, where the rail line, carving through cliffs in a lonely fashion, revealed the surrounding countryside only in little descending snippets, and soon finally rushed along over the flats.

If there was a destination, it couldn’t be too far off, for the kinds of suburbs that like to spread out from large cities were beginning to pop up. Yet the train did not at all slow down, it seeming doubtful and yet at the same time uplifting. There was a snarl of tracks that broke off from our line and stretched out in different directions, others that ran into ours, melding into us, running alongside, and still others that we passed over or that passed under us, numerous outposts of the metropolis, I told myself, while the wide cast of its life, no matter how confusing and unfathomable it seemed to me, nonetheless lent me a certain sense of sureness that a mighty heart beat at its center, causing the one who sat here snug to feel at ease. Trains rattled along on other tracks, shooting back and forth, some coming from the other way,
others moving in the same direction as us, though more slowly, such that we traveled alongside them for a short time until we overtook their strange little engines that puffed away in rapid bursts.

More and more station stops, which we rushed through without slowing down, passed by. Trains rested at the platforms; many people were gathered, swarming around the wide-open doors or patiently waiting in clusters. Soon came the suburbs, with their narrow houses with gardens pressed up against one another, and expansive park lawns in the thick of settled flatlands, though the train rushed on as if none of it was there. It occurred to me how colorless the city was, but that could have been because the light had grown cloudy again, falling heavy and murky out of the closed sky onto the roofs, or because of so much soot and smoke that covered everything in pale strands and dull flakes. Nor did the city present its most attractive neighborhoods to anyone entering it, and its monotony felt oppressive. I didn’t want to let myself be disturbed by such first impressions, knowing, as well, that the journey would soon end, and so I gathered together my things, feeling anxious, my hands trembling, so that my suitcase fell clumsily to the floor, opened, and smashed one of my toes. An apple, the last of the ones that Anna had given me on the way to the station, rolled out and as a result was covered in an ugly layer of dirt. I let it lie there, but then I sadly shoved it to the side, not wanting it anymore. My foot hurt, but it was bearable. I couldn’t let anything distract me now, in order to make sure that I pulled myself together and braced myself for the new experiences to come. The sudden opening of the suitcase caused me some concern, because my luggage was full to bursting, and now, since I was in a hurry, the suitcase didn’t want to close. There was no one to help me, no skillful Peter, who would complain but also would know what to do. I had to press down on the case with my knee; it was harder than at all the borders I’d crossed where I had to show my possessions in order to lift any suspicions about my carrying something banned. But finally I managed to close the suitcase.

It was just in time, because as I took my coat and hat I saw that the train was traveling slowly over a bridge. The river was milky, the pride of the land, but I hardly paid attention. There was a sharp screech, the brakes having been applied. I shoved my things into the narrow passageway, confused, weary, and yet so tense that I felt I would explode. The few travelers
in the car had all gone on ahead of me and were already gathered on the platform when I clumsily made my way through the long passageway and bumped into them. The train stood in the open hall of the station with its doors wide open. I looked out in search of a familiar face, but because of the poor position of the railcar and the pressing rush of people on the platform it was impossible to make out anyone. Suddenly I was worried that no one had bothered to show up to meet me and started to think how I was going to find my way on my own. To leave my luggage in storage was an easy solution passed on to me at the information desk (I felt ashamed of my stupidity, given how easy it was to solve my problems with this simple solution), after which I needed to buy a map, whereby I wouldn’t need anyone else’s help.

But then—well, what then? I would have to pull myself together. Then I would have to look for the quickest and best way to get to So-and-So’s apartment. That I could do. If I were to meet someone there, it could even be Karin, it probably would be better than receiving a mildly annoying welcome at the train station, where I could be picked up like someone who is lost and really doesn’t know what is supposed to happen. The clueless stranger would then be led off as if on a leash and would have to let a churning flood of questions shower over him, during which he feels weak and fragile, his gaze naked and astounded, unprepared for the hail of impressions crashing in upon him, the poor, unhappy man dragged off and not told where he is going, what he should say first and ask first, and thus unable to finish even a sentence because he is continually distracted, his words and thoughts interrupted, then quickly urged to pay attention to something else, then to listen for something, to look at something, then suddenly yanked from his restless state into yet more annoying uncertainty. No doubt a stranger is also quite helpless if he arrives alone, but at least then he can get used to all the confusion at his own pace, taking in and making sense of all the chaos, gradually gathering himself until he can reliably trust his own senses, his friends surprised and convinced by his safe arrival that perhaps he’s not such a fool as they might want to make him out to be.

All the travelers ahead of me had gotten out and had engaged porters or had swiftly hurried off, only a few greeted by loved ones and triumphantly whisked away. It was nice that the platform next to the track was smooth and flat, such that leaving the train with my four bags was not too strenuous. A
porter offered his services, but I had no desire, much less courage, to pay him to help, my means having shrunk, nor did I know the currency very well and I could so easily be taken advantage of. If my friends were nearby, I wouldn’t need anyone, and, besides, the left luggage couldn’t be that far off. The porter shrugged and looked at me suspiciously, as if he wanted to say, “Foolish, chintzy stranger, to the devil with you!” Before I readied myself to move on, I once again looked around carefully. It could in fact be that So-and-So had changed a lot, and I strained to imagine what his face might look like. Yet how easy would it be for him to recognize me if he also didn’t have a good memory of how I looked? To recognize someone in a train station after many years is indeed difficult. You stare at many faces, observing people’s gait, too many of them hoping to find one another and already shaking hands and kissing before the vague delirium of seeing one another sets in and, after losing themselves in rapid chatter, again separating from one another. The air is tense with the tangled threads of expectation; you are separated and wander off, having indeed missed someone, and, with a creeping feeling in your stomach, you stand mistakenly in the weather along with everyone else, abandoned at the dirty exit of the train station.

Yet I was fairly certain that So-and-So was nowhere in the vicinity, nor was I standing within the circle of Oswald’s gaze, and other friends were certainly not on the platform. I lifted my luggage, taking a few steps with two suitcases, and then returning for the others, it thus going very slowly as I shuffled on, while most of the travelers were already far ahead of me, the latecomers having also overtaken me. Soon the platform was almost completely empty of people. Only the little automatic trolley laden with huge pieces of luggage hummed past me as I continued to trudge on and I was shocked to realize that the exit was a lot farther away than I had expected. After pausing several times to rest I had made it as far as the engine, and yet I still had not discovered anyone I knew. There was no real checkpoint, which explained my ticket’s having been taken on the train, but instead a wide outlet, behind which a teeming mass of people moved about. Among them were hardly any who were waiting for a traveler from abroad. When I first reached this throng, I felt that I had arrived. I set down my things and wanted to rest before launching into my strange new venture. As I did this I looked in every direction, not wanting it to be my fault if I missed
So-and-So. Soon I felt better, and more ready to risk the adventure, only my hurt foot feeling painful and burning, it being an annoying obstacle to feel at all restrained while taking one’s first steps in a new land. But I only squatted on my suitcase for a little while, lifting myself up and looking for a trustworthy face to ask the way to the left luggage, a man soon obliging me. I worked my way through the crowd, resigned to the fact that my friends had other things in mind than to pick up a lost one. As I went to place my things in left luggage, an uncertain greeting reached me from close by.