Authors: H. G. Adler
A clamoring bell, and I am dragged out from behind the curtain. Then came the blows. There was a war in which many fought and either perished or survived, others not fighting but likewise perishing or surviving, while still others could neither fight nor not fight, though all of them perished and none survived, even when you made it through until a certain day, when you suddenly let in the light, paused at the window, and some voices shouted, “Everyone out! The war is over!” I also count myself among those who heard this simply because they had made it through and yet had not survived. Someone stretched out his right hand and laid the middle finger of the left next to it. Six was what he was trying to indicate, having lost the
words—six years of war. That’s a long time, a lot can happen, and at some point during these long years I died. What befalls millions of creatures at the outbreak of peace, and how can that be realized without the roar of fierce battles? All die, both victors and vanquished. Yet I belong to neither, nor can I recall having been overtaken by the storm of battle. I was not sent into the fighting but instead stashed in the hinterlands, and the hinterlands were endless. Yet since the war was no longer limited to a single theater and it scoffed at all those hidden away, it’s quite possible that I was part of those who fought.
How it really was I hardly know, and I cannot remember having ever felt the throbbing heat of battle or combat, only that a distant rumble reached my hideout. The voices around me knew very well what it meant when they called out, “Planes!,” be they planes attacking or planes defending. But, then again, no one knew who was being attacked or who was being defended. Whether it had anything to do with us as we lay hidden, no one said, for nothing was shared with us. Later there were more thuds, not close by, but the earth shook. Bombardment, we were told, and pulsing cannons. Round us every day, murder raged on. Even today I don’t know if that was part of the war, as the enemy never burst into our sheds. The narrow confines in which we were enclosed and stowed away were never disturbed. Those who murdered us were allies, friends. There was no one to stop them, certainly not the enemy. The murderers didn’t say very much; their shrill screams were short, though they carried themselves, it seemed to me, as if they were just doing their job. Assiduously they went about their business, doing it with diligence, and if my heart were not consumed with the fear that at any moment these heroes might relieve me of my bodily existence, I would have marveled at their dauntless zeal. Out of cowardice I avoided them and stayed out of the front row if I wasn’t able to crouch in a corner somewhere. I just didn’t want to attract attention and only hoped through fate, through some invisible entity and sheer luck, to escape my own murder. Did I in fact succeed? Doubt still eats at me even today. Others around me died because they were killed; I died because no one noticed me. Is there any difference? During those six years, my memory was strained. Because I was hidden away, it was stretched to the limits, drunk down with the agreeable arrogance of my youth. That gave me strength to cling to life,
wanting to remain true to it so that it would have mercy on me and stand by me. I continued to hope. It wasn’t clear what I hoped for; I just remained within myself and waited for morning to come, just for it to be there, and then another morning, always another morning.
And so I went on. The days passed, though I never noticed that with each day I became weaker. The murder of my companions consumed me, yet I had no idea that each died for me, and that with each I died as well. Did I brood over my own fate? Time melted away inside me. Before I knew it, beneath the foamy froth of this roiling madness my very being had become pale and thin, shrunken to a fragile husk that resulted from my being fed nothing but a few meager morsels. I was given just enough food to keep me alive and alert enough to feel hungry and to crave more bites of food. I was denied them, and so I dreamed of them, which nourished me and granted me a steely strength. The deeper I sank, the more I distanced myself from myself, withdrawing from the reduced means of existence that maintained me and yet continued to weaken me as well. But still I defended myself against all the dangers that threatened me from without and from within, helped on by believing that protection and rescue were possible. Thus I prayed throughout, praying myself always away, really away, and into this intense engagement with the unknown I disappeared. The transitory wore me away. On the day they announced that the war was over, there was nothing left but a snakeskin, a dried, brittle skeleton that I could discern through tender self-regard, though I the living animal had slipped away, gone without a trace, no longer to be found. I tried to tell myself that the damage was not real but rather only a deep numbness: Patience, you will live again. In the meantime, I felt it best to live as if I were healthy and sound.
People back then were used to all types, therefore I didn’t stand out. It was hard to distinguish between murderers and the murdered. Wherever I showed up and was soon asked something or was drawn into the everyday buzzing chatter, I was completely unknown. A cold disengagement was almost everywhere buried beneath the hectic pace of a destroyed world that fed upon itself through a kind of empty jubilation in which the walking dead were discussed in a matter-of-fact tone, as if they were standing right there. I joined in the cozy warmth, and it felt good. The day of the new powers seemed to have dawned, the fanfare of freedom boiling over into
explosive noise. I was spared having to prove that my heart was still beating. You just spit out your name without anything to back it up—documents and witnesses were not called for—and before you knew it a civil servant was warmly extending his unwitting hand to you. That was all that was needed for the superficial passing of any given day; you just waved a piece of paper and everything was fine, a smile accompanying it, though no one bothered to actually look. Soon the scrap of paper was no longer any good, but I wasn’t worried at all, for you were either forgotten or forgiven. I traveled through distant lands, not needing any money, and yet I always ate and drank well, a bed with warm blankets always waiting for me. The borders were passable; all I had to do was say, “It’s me!,” and immediately the guard would acknowledge me and let me through. Helping hands pointed the way. Whenever I asked to ride along in someone’s car, he just invited me in with a wave and was happy to have the company.
Thus I arrived late one afternoon in my old city. It had changed very little during the war, the old stonework, massive and dignified, had survived the years well, only the paint and plaster having suffered here and there. The streets were also grayer than earlier, while, unexpectedly, in the public parks a network of graves spread out among the dug-up earth. The grass, which it used to be forbidden to walk on, was worn away, broad tents erected in which people camped beneath the tarps as if it had always been so, the people looking satisfied and at ease. I had left my knapsack at the train station, an unrelenting desire to look around pressing me up and down the streets, which didn’t mind that I was there, though they no longer seemed to recognize me, since my steps in stiff boots struck the patterned cobbles in a half-confident, half-unfamiliar manner. Many people moved back and forth, both residents and newcomers, all of them caught up in their fates, whether large or small, yet each so certain, as if they knew just what was going to happen to them. Children romped around, grabbing one another’s hands, chasing after balls, raising a real ruckus, though no one got into any trouble. Soon I was caught up in it, swept away by it all, as if death had never once had an eye on me.
With bated breath, a tired back, but my legs still strong and my eyes full of curiosity, I turned a corner where people moved about more energetically. Here no children dared to jump into the heaving noise of the
rumbling traffic, as cars rushed by in earnest, a policeman directing traffic in a silent fashion. I looked around me with harmless pressing glances at the many faces. How clueless they all seemed whenever I tried to decipher my own obliterated memories within them. All were strangers. Also, when they noticed my curiosity they didn’t stop, for they hadn’t expected me. Whether they thought anything of it I couldn’t tell, since it wasn’t possible for me to turn around and look back at them, for fresh faces continued to flow toward me which I gazed at with ever more pressing questions. And yet these were strangers as well, nor did I learn anything more from them than I did from their predecessors, who had already been swallowed up in the flow of traffic. Once you were late and were no longer expected, your arrival in the past doesn’t go well. That I had to realize.
But why despair as long as there is another corner to turn? Another one approached that was more familiar than most. Sleepily I walked along hunched over, slowing my steps warily, since I wanted to be ready in case I encountered my father. I was almost afraid to be surprised by him too suddenly. Indeed, I had no knowledge of what had happened to him other than that he had been murdered. That also happened in the war, but way off, as I wasn’t there, murder having occurred in too many places. But that just couldn’t be; perhaps I was only the victim of a frightful rumor, and therefore could still hope that my father had survived and, just like me, was gazing at the people streaming by, looking for those who recognized him and could help. But there was no father in this street where papers were hawked, cigarettes were sold, brash sweets were wrapped up in garish colors, and sausages reeked of garlic, the uncooked ones hanging in the open air on a rack, while the cooked ones looked much more appealing as they waited for customers on a wide griddle covered in grease. The vendors didn’t wait on me at all; in fact, they didn’t even notice that I was there, letting me pass by coldheartedly, I myself eagerly searching for some kind of response in their yellowish sullen eyes. My father was nowhere to be found; no one was there to greet him as they used to when he hurried by without a hat and coat. There was no father, nor any longer the vendors that once knew him and loved to chat with him. So I passed by the booths, dazed, my legs heavy, my feet hurting and schlepping along, the ground resisting more and more, until my feet were held fast in thick muck. Also, dense fumes, thick
and creeping, surrounded my ears, such that I couldn’t hear, while far-off calls gradually managed to penetrate the distance between, myself hardly perceiving that they were meant for me. But after they continued to pound into my head like hammer blows, I finally had to note that without a doubt someone was calling my name: “Herr Landau!”
I stood there frozen to the spot, not moving a single limb, waiting, the name repeated again and again, yet even stronger, it supposedly directed at me, or maybe not, for how could that be possible? It was my good father they meant, he having for decades occupied the Reitergasse, Haberdashery Albert Landau, or HAL for short, adored and known throughout the city as a solid brand, the brand name appliquéd on soft linen shirts and bright silk ties. Once again, the Reitergasse welcomed back old Herr Landau, who had disappeared. From all the booths and opened doors of the shops, from office and apartment windows, one could hear “Herr Landau!” being called. Although I couldn’t move, such joy couldn’t help but make me think that he was nearby. I also tried to press the words with a half-injured tongue through my lips and called out, barely audible, “Herr Landau!” It wasn’t loud enough, but I hoped that my father would be able to distinguish the voice of his son amid the chaotic babble. I actually managed to turn my head in order to look around, searching here and there for the face of my father among the many faces around me. Yet in vain! I was struck blind and cursed the fact that his beloved features no longer existed in my memory. Wire-rimmed glasses, I told myself, glasses and a tall stance, though no doubt somewhat bent over by the years and the worries. But what good was it if I couldn’t remember him any better than that? All I could do was believe that my father would notice me if I kept waving. I lifted my hand, then my entire arm, though I looked tentative and foolish. Yet nothing happened that I could perceive. Only his name continued to be called out in a continuously audible chain, hanging damp and heavy in the air, as I slumped out of sadness that no one paid any attention to me, the one returning home. With a weak voice, I said, “My name is also Landau, and I am his son.” After which I feebly pointed a finger at myself.
That did it. Someone came up to me, shook my hand, said how happy he was to see me again, and slapped me on the shoulder. But I didn’t recognize the man, nor did I want to ask who he was; it didn’t matter to me. He
had to be someone from the Reitergasse. I waited anxiously for the man to disclose something even more important to me, but he just stated again his joy, until I interrupted him and asked him for news of my father and for him to take me to him right away, since he must have just passed through here, though we had, unfortunately, missed each other. I only wanted to talk to him as soon as possible, since it had been so long, because of the war, since we had been able to talk.
“He must be in the shop. I need to hurry in order to get to him before it closes. For then he won’t want to open up, because he’ll have to tally the receipts and feed the cat. Then he runs out the back door and is no longer to be found. Please, take me there, I’m tired, I feel dizzy. Go on ahead of me and let him know that I am on my way. But be careful that he is not done in by the joy!”
“What.… What’s that, Herr Landau, who do you want to see?”
“My father!”
“Your father.… Where might he be?”
“I don’t know for certain. He must be in the shop. You know which one I mean. Quick, before it’s too late!”
“In which shop …?”
“Don’t be that way! There! A couple of buildings farther! First you cross the Römerstrasse, then just two buildings on—”
“I don’t understand.… You’ll have to—”
“What don’t you understand? Don’t you see Herr Kutschera’s fruit stand there, all those boxes and baskets taking up half the sidewalk? Just past that? It always bugged my father how sloppy Kutschera is and how his stuff stood in the way of customers wanting to get to our shop. Don’t you see it? There’s the shop, HAL—Haberdashery Albert Landau!”