The Wall (37 page)

I was happy, because I could protest that I didn’t want anything that had been pawned—well yes, the pearl necklace, if I had to take it, but not the watch. I protested that my father had never worn one. It was no good to me. The watch, which gave off no sound and with its enclosed clock face had hocked time for a bunch of gold, had to come with me without a chain. Two hands took hold of mine, a voice praised my father, the good man. I listened and then was gone, the steps slipping away under my feet, my steps plunging into the chasm, while I would have fallen if two eyes had not landed on the balustrade of the stairwell. The door stood open, allowing me to leave, horrified streets pulling me into their weaving strands. It was raining; the wind bore hard around the corners. I panted as I fled into the damp evening, and was afraid. Yet I wasn’t being targeted. I was no longer followed; that was long over. But I felt uneasy. I felt that I was being followed. If, indeed, there was someone behind me, I was ready to stop the tormentor and curse him outright. Even amid hopeless escape, I knew who I was, the victim seized, but not the ghostly figure that is chased from behind, called names and peppered with addresses, strange faces before me, gaping faces with slit mouths that in large numbers, and recklessly, rumbled through the famed enduring history of the city, always pursuing a deadly desire that answered
to no one. Then I found that I was knocking on a door again. Old Frau Holoubek, once my grandmother’s servant, had tears in her eyes as she embraced me. Soon I was sitting in a chair.

“That’s a beautiful coffee service. Don’t you remember, dear boy?”

“Excuse me, Frau Holoubek, but I’ve never seen this service.”

“My dear boy, the blessed dear lady, your grandmamma, always used it whenever she had guests.”

“Really?”

“If I could only tell you! I can’t believe you don’t remember! She always put it away herself, underneath in the credenza, where she locked it up. No one was allowed in there.”

“I see, I see, Frau Holoubek. That could indeed be.”

“If I were to tell you … but that one could forget something like that, no, my boy!”

“Yes, I’ve forgotten.”

“How the dear lady would get upset! The service with the gold trim! Ten cups there are. There were always two missing.”

“So it isn’t complete.”

“That doesn’t matter, my boy. The dear lady always said they could be replaced by the factory. Perhaps they can.”

“That would be expensive.”

“Yes, they are indeed expensive cups. But ten is fine, ten cups! When the dear lady died, you know, Fräulein Greger was supposed to get them.”

“I see, Aunt Olga Gröger.”

“Yes, the aunt. And then the trouble started, and she was already terribly afraid. They wanted to send her away, she said, and so she took the service and said, Look, Frau Holoubek, here is the service, which my mother—God rest her—got in her dowry. It would be a shame, she said, if it got lost. Take it from me, Frau Holoubek.…”

“Don’t upset yourself too much!”

“It was a disgrace, my boy! And yet I said, Fräulein Greger, no, something like that, that’s too much for me to handle. But take it, said the fräulein, take it with you, it doesn’t matter. Then I said, Yes, I’ll take good care of it, Fräulein Greger, and then my husband went to her. She packed it up, and some other things as well, and my husband took it, and now it’s here.”

“Frau Holoubek, don’t you want to keep it? I’d really be pleased if you did so!”

“But, my boy, what do you think I am? I’m not like that. How could I? No, that I can’t do. It belongs to you, if no one else from the family is there.”

“You know, I am alone.… I have no use for it. Oh, please, do keep it!”

“No way, my boy. Don’t tell that to Frau Holoubek. You’ll need it again sometime, for sure. One day soon you’ll again have a lovely apartment, then everything will be good again. Guests will come, and you’ll have the lovely service on a table at home, and then you’ll be happy that you have it again.”

“I don’t believe so, Frau Holoubek.”

“You don’t have to take it today. I’ll take care of it if it doesn’t suit you now. But you must have it eventually. I can’t keep it, my boy!”

So I agreed. I couldn’t expect Frau Holoubek to again painstakingly stow away in cupboards and drawers the crystal bowls, vases, egg cups, and other things she had stacked up in front of me on the table. She was pleased as she marked my change of mind and hurried to help me with the packing. She had a lot of paper and wood shavings at the ready. Thus everything was carefully guarded against breaking, piled into large unwieldy cartons, tied up with string through and through, and fitted out with handles so that I could take away the burden. I was already gone, the unsaved ownerless goods led away with my weak strength. How was I to handle it all? With it I had a new assignment, which Frau Holoubek told me about at length, asking if I didn’t remember the old washerwoman, Frau Krumbholc, who had done laundry for my grandmother.

Soon I had found my way in a confused manner to Frau Krumbholc’s, a terrible apartment, though it was clean, the fringes and tassels of the green tablecloth neatly combed, the kitchen door open, dirty white steam discoloring the room, the smell of sauerkraut, slices of apple cut into it. Frau Krumbholc was sad, she said, for she had long been widowed, and pointed to a picture behind glass on the wall. I couldn’t see much. The widow couldn’t hold back her tears as well as Frau Holoubek and asked me ten times, with whimpering amazement, whether it really was me. Several times she shook my hand, squeezed gently, and let it go again. Then she circled about me some more, but suddenly she was off and dragged in a misshapen suitcase that supposedly belonged to me. The lid popped open with a rasp,
the densely packed contents pressed painfully against one another—old bed linens ready to be used, lightly yellowed at the corners, though they were good wares that could no longer be had and would be useful today. The suitcase wouldn’t shut, the washerwoman’s knee pressing hard against the lid, it bursting open, the lock clicking on the right, but the left not wanting to snap shut, so I had to help, my powers waning, rubbed raw by the strange deep sleep that did not refresh me. Meanwhile, I still had a name to look up along the way and needed to make sure not to forget Herr Nerad.

Breathing heavily, I made it to the museum with the suitcase, Herr Geschlieder helping me up the steps with it. Then I was alone and glanced despairingly at the weight that calmly crouched before me. The suitcase yawned open before me, my arms buried in dead bed linens, coldly and roughly grabbing hold of them, then other treasures sprang out of its depths all rolled up and rising toward me—wool jackets and vests, ripe red, milky yellow, sharp green—trembling plunder in my fingers, all of it clean but reeking of mothballs, the smell almost stinging my eyes, though nonetheless a lot of it eaten away by moths, cord meshing springing back, all of it rustling. When I lifted out the thin goods, from the bottom there stared at me in surprise and barely shining an almost completely dulled-out mirror. It was incredibly heavy. Now I knew why I had to struggle so with the suitcase.

Then I was there with the dried-up small Herr Nerad, once the factotum in the shop of an uncle who had died more than twenty years ago. Herr Nerad had always been devoted to Aunt Rosi. Now he unpacked three old purses, carefully wrapped in several layers of paper, that belonged to my aunt. I took Herr Nerad by the hand, looked innocently into his wrinkled countenance, which understood nothing, and said as tenderly as possible what beautiful purses but that I couldn’t use any of them. If he didn’t want to keep them, would it be possible for him to do me the pleasure of giving them away. Then Herr Nerad withdrew his hand convulsively and was nearly insulted: What, the purses were still quite nice; one couldn’t buy any like those today. I had to take them, at least as a memento. There were still little mirrors buried within them, the pale-pink powder in the powder box and the pad that went with it, all of it crumbly with extended sleep, used tickets for the tram from many years past, a scuffed-up little leather book with well-thumbed addresses, recipes, lists of things to buy, such as eggs,
butter, flour, rice, dried prunes, and apples, receipts for bills from the coal handler Burda, also a worn-out change purse that would no longer stay shut, its clasp squished flat, two nickel coins slipping from its folds, yellow with endless neglect and almost no longer worth anything. I staggered heavily in the face of it. Herr Nerad also loaded me up with more names that I didn’t recognize, but that’s the way it was, me sent from one keeper to the next, and new people turning up whom I had to see for sure. Did I know indeed where else Aunt Olga had stashed a bundle? Secretly it was whispered to me as if it were still forbidden, and there was something from Uncle Alfred as well. Reluctantly but irresistibly drawn, I shuttled between well-meaning little people who raised a hand to their foreheads with half-open mouths when they sized up my appearance, their hoary astonishment melting into thin joy. They nodded at me, saying My, my, followed by regret, a memory, a sigh, a handkerchief, and tears. Then they put on splayed cloth gloves, stuffed handbags, clutching a dust cloth under the arm, creeping off to a trunk or to a storeroom, already back with something and pleased to be getting rid of a burden, since I should give it to my heirs, it was valuable. Doomed, I tried to fend it off, but I was ignored, or they didn’t believe me and felt it only right, which is why it all was quickly shoved at me, along with the lesson that mislaid goods never gained value, for what was I thinking, a memento, yes, that they wished to have, but only something small, nothing more.

If such a visit was unfruitful, then I was thought mean, yet worse was what I had to put up with from such figures from the past. Their thanks, which I gathered from every corner, rubbed me the wrong way, the long talks, the wearying reports, the questions from dull philistines, the forced counterquestions, the litany of spoken sorrow amid sighs of futility. In the chilly brightness of living rooms or the biting smoke of kitchens, I whittled away empty hours. The living rooms smelled of being cramped and sweet, and forced me to play the part of the guest by sipping fruity drinks, or fresh bread that trembled before the knife, a homemade recipe of crumbly rich cake. The plate wasn’t taken away, the cup was filled again to the brim, followed by the threadbare request for me to stay longer. There’s so much time. Already evening approached, thirst sparing me the sight. When I finally felt I’d almost gained release, chairs and tables got in the way, I couldn’t get
past them or through them, the watch that I pulled out was berated as being unacceptably bad and had to quickly crawl back inside my pocket. Then I felt ill, my limbs shaking. Others noticed it and showered me with concern, pushing me toward the most comfortable chair, into which I had to sink myself and cower, just to recover a bit, already feeling better, right, as the schnapps glass twinkled, but stiff and clammy, biting my lower lip, my teeth clenched, my tongue almost bloody, me burning deep within the maw of a dark torrent.

Patient and lurking about, they stared at me expectantly. I should have said something to thank them for their help, yet my throat was constricted; I stuttered my embarrassment. Regret was swallowed inside an empty collar, my tongue clinging fast to the gums. I babbled through long breaths—the air, the good air!—and wanted to get out of my chair, to just run away quickly without suffocating. Yet no one understood what I wanted, but only tore open the window, the evening pressing in its chilly grime and slamming against my forehead. Something rumbled from down below, an immense noise rising up from the courtyards and hitting the walls of the room and dripping down them. I felt bad and had no strength, something speaking for me, standing there in hot and searing fragility, asking could I go, could I, only that would help, could I, if it was all right, could I, please, let me, fast, before it’s too late, don’t waste any time, already late, late, late, the watch, now please, no help, no, only open the door, hurry, gone. The door, room, door, kitchen, door, apartment, many doors, please, thank you, you’re welcome, thank you, please, the door shutting. As I fled down the stairwell, the murder of the past nearly buried me from all sides.

Then I couldn’t see anything, though I had finally slipped out. Weakly I stumbled away, the street sweepers’ stirred-up chaff stuck in my eyes, causing them to sting, nothing but black fire, choking voices blazing high, hurting my ears: “That belongs to you now!” Yet it didn’t belong to me, a brittle exploded nest from which everything near turned away, remains, even if they weren’t unspoiled, rubbish, the formless husks of original forms, yet nothing but husks, emptied out and blank in their naked transience and the hard, frozen past, which lasted and promised to last beyond any future. Thus the goods were allotted me and yet were never mine, thorns and splinters in my hands painful with wounds that had been commanded. From
some neighborhoods I groaned with the weight, always like a thief who had been condemned to recognize the uselessness of all possessions and to carry his booty until the end of days, forced harshly to take in the scope of all the plundered homesteads for the museum and make sure that its owners never find it. I saw people in the street who hungered for possessions and eyed my load covetously. How happy I would have been to give the poor things my embarrassing goods: Please take them; I’m grateful that your sensibility aspires to wrongfully acquired goods. So take it away and enjoy your possessions. I, however, could not and retrieved the meager riches; they were entrusted to me, I being their guardian.

How uncomfortable it was to get them through the streets without harm! Sometimes I had the notion of inconspicuously abandoning a package in a corner or in a doorway. The museum didn’t need the treasure, and I could hope that someone would take mercy on the possessions left behind and would bless the unknown donator. But this unburdening was denied me. I couldn’t relinquish anything; that would have broken a trust with honorable guardians, whom I never could have faced again. Only once did I have the damnable courage to let a heavy bundle of pots, pans, cooking spoons, and sieves slip inconspicuously to the ground. Straight off I felt I’d succeeded, no one seeming to have noticed. I breathed a sigh and pushed on without a care. But, after only a few steps, a houselady called after me, upset, saying I should please pack up my stuff, otherwise there would be trouble. I didn’t want to stay there at all, but the voice called out much more sharply from behind me. I stopped, turned around with a slight bow, and played dumb: “There must be some mistake; they are not my things.” I’m sorry, the woman humbly said, while leaning on a broom, but if she wasn’t afraid of starting something, she would take the bundle to the office for lost property: “They’ll then just yell at me! Don’t fool with me. I saw it with my own eyes, how you let that lump of stuff fall, just like a criminal. If it doesn’t belong to you, then take it yourself to the office for lost property. It ain’t staying here, and now off with you!” I didn’t trust myself to run away, I was so weak; so I had to return and pick up the burden. When I bent down, the woman looked me in the eye suspiciously, threatening me with her broom, and shrilly showering me with words of anger and shame, as I miserably schlepped on.