The Wall (30 page)

“Madam, I beg you …”

Then I stopped, though they kept talking. But why? My hands began to tremble. The talk went on, cards floating from mouth to mouth, little packets that fell into four stacks. Why did I listen? Mere vanity, all my limbs hurting because of it. Uncomfortable sensations crept across the chair, sawdust everywhere, filling up my mouth, me unable to swallow another mouthful. My stomach was bursting as Frau Haarburger came over to me proffering a little bowl of fresh, sweet chatter. No, thank you. I only gestured my thanks by pointing at my stomach. It was all so disturbing, the way they opened their mouths so that the bounty of sweet chatter continued to flow. I was getting more and more tired, my hands dangling at my sides, as I yawned continually. On tiptoe, coffee was brought in. Shh, so that he doesn’t wake up! When will the card game finally be done? I wiped my face doubtfully with my handkerchief. I often looked askance at Herr Dr. Haarburger to see if he would take pity on my pressing situation, but he was far too wrapped up in his own thoughts and only rarely cast an encouraging glance at my group. As soon as he did that, I smiled at him beseechingly, but he mistook this sign of my desire to be rescued and thought it only a sign of hopefulness or an expression of my feeling fine. He took in my state with a fleeting glance and turned away, satisfied. I fell apart inside and fought against my feeling of powerlessness. Luckily, my speaking partners were finally done with trying to discuss the right or wrong way for me to proceed from afar, and instead asked me to speak in greater detail about my previous experience. Thus a request ignited me. I instantly felt more sure of myself and in my element.

I loved most to share my views about the discontinuity of human consciousness in society and the resulting social ills. I based this on the impossibility of attaining a mutual shared feeling among a large number of people and explained this inability as a main cause of the general lovelessness that did not shrink from barbaric forms of oppression and contempt for others and, at a minimum, forwarded a hard-hearted sense, never mind the sensibility
such ills led to. Quickly I found many connections to my own experience and observations, which I had really pulled together after the war. Full of the urge to share, but without satisfactory explanations, I needed to get my thoughts across. But I was hardly capable of recognizing how much my listeners could stand to hear. Today, I know that this was a last attempt to exist, to unfold a personality that, as I wished to be, was a tower of arrogant pride amid despair.

That’s an illusion. But how long before one reaches one’s own limits! And now even I, who had no more limits, was consumed by the points of reality that continually flared up here and there, and which I quickly and yet clumsily lurched along, never reaching the end of them, since they dissolved in between. Thus, for me, life is like non-life, being and time having become invalid. All that remained was this: to be completely at the mercy of others, a figure, even the vestige of someone different which I played, the expression of one who has endured, not because that is what I needed but because it is what they saw reflected in a lowly mirror, which one could look into with pleasure or pain, perhaps becoming wiser through me and no longer needing me at all. At such moments, when I was in some way conjured, permitted to exist, viewed, and taken in, I could either feel happy or fall into the deepest despair. But if it is one or the other, even if it is despair, then it’s almost fine with me; it’s a comfort, because I am perceived and I perceive. But that’s no way to live.

How does one live? The street hawkers press threateningly along West Park Row. No, they don’t threaten, they only want to sell their wares, and that’s why they’re so loud, the poor fellows hungering after money. That’s an existence, and they can’t call out enough, whether it be to offer mussels or little crabs, yellow ice cream in cubes stuck between waffles or piled up on pointed cones. It’s the same for the hawkers as it is for me. Only they are not as down as I am, as they cry out more heatedly in their work, indeed begging and cajoling, unrelentingly appealing to the children, who are already running, Michael and Eva as well, holding their coins, trembling with throbbing desire as the men effervesce over their excess of wares and ever more wildly hawk them with mounting lust that chases the children into their homes with demands: we want, want to buy, give us the money! There’s no use calling out to the dead, and my life is too uncertain
for me to make much of a fuss. Who would buy me to have in his hands and throat? That’s foolish. I have no wagon overflowing with goods, my hands are empty, my heart lies hidden, a constant pain runs throughout my limbs; I cannot offer myself in the same way as the hawkers. But back then, when I arrived in the metropolis, at the Haarburgers’ I called out just like such a salesman, offering myself, though I had no goods, for my complaints and forthright advertisements were unsellable goods. That was no way to live.

Nonetheless, I spoke. Fräulein Zinner listened to me. My onslaught appeared to frighten her, but she patiently held herself together. Whether she felt my talk was poignant or clumsy didn’t matter to me. I looked at her. She didn’t seem curious, which was almost always the case when new acquaintances in the metropolis listened to me talk, seeming shy and somewhat nervous, which always struck me. It always felt good that someone in such circles devoted such attention. Thus I worried less about the bookseller Buxinger and the benefactress Saubermann, though they egged me to talk on. Soon my words were directed only at the silent one. I hoped she would say something, and I secretly wooed her, though without any success, for she preferred to listen, me holding forth on awkward and clumsy matters not all that cleverly. Finally I could see that, every now and then, with a breaking voice she would pose a pertinent and impersonal question. The more I wanted to capture Fräulein Zinner’s attention, the more embarrassed I was to look at her. Suddenly, I interjected and asked my listeners if they could imagine that a healthy young girl who as yet had remained seemingly untouched by a dark fate could ever marry a man with my gloomy past. I was shocked to find myself having made a pass in such a completely unreasonable and also foolish and almost completely obvious manner. I could only expect an awful reply. Fräulein Zinner didn’t think long, and responded quietly but firmly before the others knew what to say, such that it hit me almost cold when she did.

“It’s as clear as day. One marries such men—I mean, it’s almost your duty!”

Herr Buxinger was simply surprised, but Frau Saubermann didn’t know what to think. She sat there with both hands clutching the back of her chair.

“Duty.… Duty.… That I find indeed a bit much, my child.”

I was not at all happy to see how quickly and matter-of-factly Fräulein
Zinner looked back at me. As I considered how to go on with my talk and was searching for the right words, Herr Buxinger came up to me. He nodded meaningfully.

“How surprising. But how lovely of you, Fräulein Zinner.”

Frau Saubermann let go of the back of the chair, having gathered herself once more.

“Lovely or not lovely, it was said impulsively, my dear child. You simply can’t make such general statements about questions of marriage. It’s a duty when feelings compel you, though I’m splitting hairs! Such a marriage cannot be simply theorized. There is only one theoretical duty, my dear child, and that you will simply have to believe from someone who is very experienced in social matters, and this duty has validity because it can be fulfilled in practical terms. That is the duty to be freed of moral duties.”

“Do you always feel that way, madam?” Fräulein Zinner asked politely but sharply.

“I beg of you, who have known me since childhood, how can you ask me that? I am morally free.”

Frau Saubermann turned the conversation to herself and began to share her views on love, marriage, duty, and freedom, not sparing any practical examples. I cursed myself for having unleashed this unpleasant wave that only showed me that I was nothing but a bungler in the company of others. Soon the most holy things were talked to death; a cold onslaught that I could not interrupt spread outward from Frau Saubermann. If the humanitarian factory owner’s wife meant at all well, it was lost on me, helplessly overwhelmed as I was by the wave of talk! Useless intellect devoid of any reasonableness or worth, not even woven from one’s own views and spreading heady interests across every realm—this always left me cold and made me sad, but now I was especially miserable. Frau Saubermann’s lecture made me feel sick, like someone wasting away and suffering from her dry, bloodless knowledge. The others listened in wonder or, at least, listened patiently. “That doesn’t interest me at all!” Why didn’t I say it? But no, I didn’t utter a peep and, luckily, kept myself in check, but my head was throbbing. I bit my lip and kept my mouth shut in order not to embarrass the relentless woman. I looked off at nothing and tried to imagine that I was socially backward and
therefore not capable of agilely and easily tending the splashing rudder in order to safely navigate through such thinking.

If you sit down with others, you cannot be so squeamish, dear Arthur. If you provoke others, then you cannot complain about what they throw at you from head to toe. Swallow it down, as if it were a sweet biscuit, and take a drink as well. Thus I put on a polite face and nodded now and then as if granting approval, not agreement. So it went, until suddenly I heard: “Things are a lot different now.” That I agreed with wholeheartedly—yes, very much so. One can hardly believe it, but it is indeed so. I had certainly changed and developed. Alas, “developed”—that’s a stupid word, it’s not right. “Experienced,” that’s really more like it. I had experienced change. Little ship, little ship upon the wall, traveling forth and on and on, hold yourself together, don’t fall into the flames. Away, away, I should get away. Far beyond Dr. Haarburger’s lovely house, where the father lives with his beloved among the cooing leaves at night, the beloved handing him a biscuit that she ripped from her body, and he takes it, biting into it with the sharp points of his teeth, the sawdust pouring out of the heart drop by drop, me biting a biscuit as well. Two and then another—the next one, please, that’s swimming in blood; myself, however, in a little ship on the other wall, a little sheep in a little ship. Marriage is fundamental. One must cement it with noble-mindedness, a little lamb that my father bought, though the marriage was the better. That’s worth something, two guilders the cost.…

No, I can’t lose my way. I must recognize that the people who watched the maelstrom from another coast are different from those who sailed forth without house or land. They stood and watched, forgetting themselves in the midst of today, sleeping in bed as the past burned on. Thus they survived, without the least bit of their inner natures living. This, I told myself, and held my right hand in my left in order to better restrain myself. But as Frau Saubermann’s cautionary tales continued on, I became angry and could keep my patience no longer. Having imagined a sign of sympathy from Fräulein Zinner, I took my opportunity when the triumphant factory owner’s wife paused for a breath.

“Madam, that’s all well and good, indeed also informative, but it has nothing to do with my case!”

“It’s about every case!” Frau Saubermann tried to interject.

But I left her no chance to say any more and talked over her so loudly
that my words reached across to the cohort of card players, disturbing some of them, who, with quiet reluctance, looked over at our group. Frau Haarburger wanted harmony in her house and lifted a threatening finger toward me. Yet she didn’t get the chance to devote more time to us, as Professor Kratzenstein politely sidetracked her.

“My dear lady, it’s your turn!”

“Yes, I’ll play!”

“Hannah, let our young friend have his way,” Dr. Haarburger cajoled. “Such fire—it suits him well, and his temperment!”

I quietly continued on.

“It has nothing to do with my case. That would be true if you were speaking about the years Jacob spent working in order to win Rachel.… I was speaking about me, completely personally, not just a theory. I meant it practically.”

“I see, practically. How interesting!”

“Yes. I mean in terms of my marrying.”

“Are you engaged?”

“No.”

“How, then, is it practical? It’s indeed only a theory! Look, you think too much about yourself, and that’s wrong. You are not the center of the universe just because you suffered. That can only lead to trouble! Suffering should be heard, Herr Doctor, don’t get me wrong. But there’s no doubt that a man such as yourself … naturally, understandably … under the circumstances … I regret to say. Then one must also appreciate that one can’t properly mature after having lost so many years, as if having slept through them. You do understand, don’t you?”

“Just like Sleeping Beauty!” I snapped.

I couldn’t go on. I hadn’t noticed that Resi Knispel, the journalist, had sidled up to us. Now she intervened.

“Sleeping Beauty as a story of our times! How original! That would, of course, be a brilliant idea for an article. Don’t you think, Buxi?”

“You think?” the bookseller called out. “I thought we’d had enough of all that.”

“That’s right, Herr Buxinger,” I agreed, and whispered further, “The poetic methods of these vultures … blood and tears of the murdered, so that the journalist-novelists and film directors are fattened up …”

No one heard me. I didn’t want to let myself get in trouble for nothing, and so I was pleased when Herr Buxinger and Fräulein Zinner helped out by taking the conversation in another direction. A lot of conversations crossed over one another in the salon, the more so as the card players slowly finished their game. Frau Haarburger then busied herself as hostess and brought around little bowls of goodies, the party beginning to crank up and get louder. I slipped away from Frau Saubermann and got hold of myself, no longer hearing everything she said, nor what was happening amid the spots of light and shadow all around me. Frequently I looked over at Fräulein Zinner. She didn’t avoid me, but I couldn’t tell if she was keeping an eye on me, either. Yet, as my eyes swept over the room, she caught my gaze with a soft pallor and stood there calmly without saying anything. The conversations got louder, becoming ever more distant from me—slivers of opinions, the chaff of tiny concerns from washed-out mouths that reeked of sweets and schnapps. It seemed to me that my plight was buried in a grave full of frayed murmurings, as they harmlessly talked on about such strange things and assuaged it with fuzzy words and concealed gestures. Any company is crowded when one who is lost stands in its midst. Therefore I became all the more quiet and just shuffled in a disconnected manner through the waves of good cheer. I became superfluous, and that’s an awkward condition, but it saves your strength and you feel more free. It helped, for I felt better. I could easily have excused myself from my hosts with a pleasant word of goodbye and gotten away. But then Fräulein Zinner unexpectedly came up to me.