The Wall (26 page)

“The border is not entirely straight,” joked Anna.

“The border is too old for that. Who knows who came up with it.”

“That anyone could even think of agreeing on it. I can’t imagine how they even decided to construct it.”

“It’s hard to imagine. They think too little about it. The lake, the river, the crest line, the way things are laid out here, or where languages divide people—that’s all obvious. But to divide it up haphazardly across areas that are not at all different on either side, that’s astounding.”

“As a child, I was really afraid of it. I always thought behind the border everything must be different. Almost every summer our parents traveled with us children outside the country. I was always really nervous. The border station, that I understood, but then I was told that was not the border. I looked out the window in order to be sure not to miss it. My father had to point it out to me. Whether or not he knew where it was I don’t know. He’d suddenly call out, ‘There, look!’ Then I was satisfied, no matter if it was there or not. I just imagined that the air was different here than there, a different smell, and that made me happy.”

“It was the same for me. The crossing into a different country, which I believed could hardly be noticed, and yet there was something wonderful about it, just as you say, be it the air or the smell. Maybe the people would look different as well. But here in the mountain forest, even above on the crest, we noticed no difference. The land was the land, and the forest the forest. It could be that you had to seek out the people in the valleys in order to be convinced that the countries were at all different.”

We had reached the hiking lodge, but we wanted to walk up to the peak before we turned back. The day belonged to us alone. The afternoon had already passed, nor were there any other hikers nearby. But earlier visitors had left traces, the ugly remains of bits of food and thoughts scratched into the placid rocks. The peak had already been conquered. Last came the flat top of the cliffs, with a stile marking the summit. We didn’t say a word; only the west wind blew upon us. We could see a long way, but our gaze remained on the nearby forests, heavy and thoughtful, and then immediately around us. Then we looked back in the direction from which we had come, the blackish-green arched ceiling that stretched all the way to Zwercheck, where it fell away. Then we turned toward the south, where the mountain forest split and branched off far into the other country. That is Pfahl, a name meaning “pile” that was well chosen. I pointed out to Anna the peak whose name I knew to the south of the great Arber, the only mountain of the range whose round top towered so high that it would tolerate no trees. All that grew there were knee-high evergreens, while farther up there were only the muted colors of mountain meadows. Separated by a chasm, the ridge ran down to the smaller Arber. Then we were closer to the mountains, yet separated by a valley that widened, each peak a step lower—the Enzian, the Schwarzeck, the Ödriegel, the Mühlriegel—smaller mountains following,
then many other high peaks that looked about the same, stretching out ever farther into the countryside. They could be distinguished by their greenish-brown or blue spots while sinking ever lower and more gently into the milky gray distance. Between us and Pfahl was the Valley of White Rain, which greeted us nearby with its bright fields and meadows. There its peaceful villages showed themselves so dainty and humble, the mountain on which we stood rising up from the valley so broad and powerful that it dominated it entirely. The Osser is a proud, majestic mountain, though it is not by far the highest of the mountains in the range, and yet it rests its case on being the last high northern bedrock of both countries.

“It’s looking down at us.”

I had to explain to Anna what I meant.

“At the roofs of the houses, at the people in the houses, into their very hearts. The otherworldly becomes intimately familiar.”

This I had often felt, and loved it. A lookout, where whoever entrusted himself to the peak of such a mountain shared its power and might, and the allure of both. He becomes part of the mountain itself. He relinquishes his own human fears and cannot be harmed. If his duty becomes too much to bear, then he runs straight off into the protection of the forest, becoming small again and, once small, safe again. Anna didn’t entirely understand. She found that I had changed and looked sideways at me. Indeed, I had changed, the mountain world having given itself over to me for the last time. Sadness had holed up inside my heart. Indeed, no wall was broken through, but I had exchanged my very being with it; no one could say now what was the wall and what was the person. The search for the wall and for the person, the separation of the conscious and the unconscious—this I could not acknowledge. A painless dissolution, the torment sifted out, and that which had no voice was now a part of me. Thus was I saved. Indeed, without any feeling of home, and yet a place to be. Adam within the world once again.

“Do you recognize me?”

“You are strange, Arthur. I never understood you, and I admit that if I thought that you’d feel better in the forest I was wrong.”

“Everyone is wrong, everyone. That’s just the way it is. Don’t let it bother you. However, we won’t forget this day. It’s a gift to us both. I couldn’t wish for anything more.”

“No, nothing more. If you are satisfied, I certainly am as well.”

“Satisfied … No, there is no word for it. Just let it be! Look at the central ridge here in front of us. After this foothill, it falls away completely. But it’s beautiful country. The mountain behind that blocks our view is a mighty sentinel. It dominates the Choden countryside around Taus. And here, the outlying areas to the north with their forests, and the last peak to the right, do you see it? That’s the Ratscher, a modest but much-loved mountain. That one I know well. I have often been there.”

“With Franziska?”

“Yes. You always want to hear the name, even though you know it already. There we were. There, I believe, we promised ourselves to each other during indescribable hours.”

“You believe? One indeed knows, no?”

“I no longer know for sure. Nor do I want to.”

“Wouldn’t you like to go back there sometime?”

“To Ratscher? No. Certainly not. I no longer know it. It’s too much inside me.”

“Oh, everything you say has a double meaning. You can’t make up your mind.”

“How could I? There’s nothing that’s at all certain. Don’t think that I’m just being contrary and don’t believe in the real, the sublime, or even the holy. They are simply indefinable. People were much too certain, and too many still are today. They fall into error, but, when they are consoled by it, it must be all right. You can’t stand in their way. Yet, for me, it’s not so. You have to be able to feel broken and yet not damn the world, to not become callous, not hate your neighbor, not the guilty, for they are your neighbors. You can’t separate them from those who are not guilty. Doubt and lack of faith are two very different things. Beware the one who exchanges one for the other, or mixes them up! Avoid negation, and embrace the end, even praise it! For the end is also a gift and is part of the plan. At the end, you submit yourself and accept your fate.”

“That’s so bleak.”

“Not bleak. Not me. It just involves surrendering yourself to oblivion. That may make you uncomfortable. But I think—and this I am very aware of—that you can’t also negate the negative. Only then, I feel, really only then can you embrace the positive with all your heart, humbly and reverently.
Whoever doesn’t love the negative—I mean, who doesn’t love it as a test, who doesn’t accept his destruction and recognize his Creator because he sees nothing more than his own human misery, and who curses the Creator and all his creation, he only takes the miserable to be true and thinks and acts so.”

“Is that true for all?”

“I wouldn’t risk such a pronouncement. But I certainly would never maintain that it’s only true for me or for such people who have experienced the same or something similar. It’s indeed valid, but it’s not so obvious to all. And you can’t force someone out of his house, out of the house of his soul, out of solitude. Solitude, Franziska said, is the house of the soul. No one can be forced out of it, out of the house in which he indeed knows himself to be safe. But—and it’s worth asking—who still has such a house? Who will have such a house tomorrow? Who has his own solitude? Those beaten down must provide the warning.”

“Is that your mission?”

“It’s not for me to decide.”

“What do you think about, then?”

“Nothing. I just try my best, that’s all. The rest has already been decided. I don’t have to wait for it. It will come of itself. If I can just be, then I am also ready. Otherwise, I don’t exist at all.”

“What to make of you, Arthur? Especially when you say it all so fervently! I can’t compare my experience with your suffering, and yet there’s something—”

“Oh, you’ve been part of so much! Don’t object to what I say or explain to me what I know!”

“Fine, I don’t mean to say you are bitter. There’s no comparison. Yet my life seems to me a dream, and so I walk through life as if through a dream.”

“Are you then saying something different than I am?”

“Not really. Or perhaps only that everything seems much simpler to me. If I wanted more, I would lash out. Do you understand? Lash out, such that I would hurt someone and end up wounding myself. But you can’t do that—or, more humbly, I can’t do that.”

I agreed with Anna, and had nothing to say in reply, and turned from her back to the view. I pointed out toward the Ratscher forest, where the
landscape, often covered with trees, opened out ever more among fewer and lower hills into rolling fields and flats that faded into the thin silver of the haze above the ever-spreading landscape. “In this direction,” I said, “lies the old city.” I said its name in an almost imperceptible voice. Anna didn’t know why I was whispering. There seemed nothing about this name that one had to keep quiet about. But when I informed her that it was so for me she understood, and for a moment took hold of my hand in sympathy. Above the far-off haze, which stretched out on the horizon like the dense edge of a veil, cumulus clouds floated almost still with their subdued glow. I couldn’t stand this scene for long, for I sensed the coming darkness, and the stark waning of the day, so familiar to me, reminded me of having to leave. It was indeed time, the shadows lengthening, the smell of evening pressing its cool feel into the warmth of day. Even the easier path that I had planned required vigorous effort, and I wanted to avoid darkness.

Anna agreed, wanting only to take in the nearby softness once more, as well as the alluring green of the hills drifting off. That was a lovely moment, for our eyes flickered before the enchanting distance. We felt as one the pangs of a pressing pain, yet it came more from what we took in than from our wayward wandering. Once more I pointed down at the Angeltal; quietly, several settlements seemed almost to pass before our eyes. But the peace that the distance offered granted only brief satisfaction. I sensed how the buildings floated there lost, after which my eyes sought the comfort of the mountain train rising up the slope from the right. It displayed to us its sunny side, with its little bridge, as it headed farther up toward the narrow peak rising out of the time-drenched rocky contours of the land like a silent lasting message. However, I tore myself away from this enchanting scene in order not to be lost in the boundless distance.

We didn’t need to exchange a single sign as we began to walk down more carefully than was needed. Our limbs felt heavy, ourselves almost done in. As I turned, because the next step required it, everything trembled before me on all sides; at once free of suffering and saturated with pain, it stood gathered before me. I still thought it real, but I could no longer grasp it as it spun around, the border shattered into tender pieces and separating in every direction; peak and valley, sky, the forest splendor, and the green fields mixing with one another, a dense, soughing song pressing into my
ears. Was it the mountains? Was it me? Was it the impending departure? I didn’t know. Yet it was good that I couldn’t lose myself for too long in this alluring, all-encompassing feeling. Indeed, it was warming, but, amid its glow, a deadly chill also alarmed me, a bliss almost drunk with destruction that offered itself in an undignified manner. Pleased and relieved, I saw the hiking lodge before us, ridiculously austere and disclosing the riches of its empty plank tables and backless benches.

It looks abandoned, Anna thought, but I didn’t believe it was. As I explored the building, she sat down at a table. The doors were ajar, but they resisted opening with a squeaking noise, as I pushed into the gloomy front hall. Before I pressed into the guest room, a young girl appeared. She didn’t seem at all pleased by the visit and asked me sharply what I wanted, as if she wanted to get rid of the disturbance as quickly as possible. There was nothing to eat. However, we didn’t want anything. But at least something to drink was offered. There was no milk available, nothing special that had been brought in from afar. Black coffee—chicory, obviously, for what else could one expect?—could be ordered. No, no thanks. Soon it was pointed out to us, even if we didn’t want any, that beer was the only other thing available. Fine, then. I escaped outside to Anna and sat down. She had spread a little cloth over the table, and we ate what we had brought along ourselves. After a while, suspicious and grumbling, the girl showed up carrying two glasses of beer. Thin beer from the country that had been destroyed. But at least the drink was cool and pleasant. Anna hesitated, but I told her that this beer wouldn’t make her sleepy. The girl just took a couple of steps back, placed her hand on her hip, and stared at us. She was mad at us. And so I called to her and asked to pay. Would she take money from the other side of the border?

“If I have to. At a rate of one to ten.”

I gave her what she asked for. She didn’t even say thanks for the tip.

“You shouldn’t look at us that way. We’ve done nothing to you.”