The Wall (51 page)

“You should go to the Office for Returnees and the aid center. Tell them all about it there. They’ll have you fill out a form, as well as approve extra rations for you, take care of your health, support you, advance you some money—”

“No need to go on.”

“Good. The aid center is where to go, because of the international connections, inquiries, and so on. Some are there the whole day for such, but I don’t think you’ll stand for that.”

“No, certainly not.”

“Yet you’ll register and let them know who you’re looking for.”

“Who I’m looking for, okay … Who am I looking for? Let’s see. There’s no point in my continually bothering you with my problems. I can apply for something there.”

“Do you have their addresses?”

“Only the names and perhaps the towns. I no longer know the addresses. They most likely are no longer any good.”

“Many have in fact found them through the aid center.”

“You want to make me hope something will happen, Anna?”

“They will certainly help you, Arthur. If you want, they will even help you leave the country. They arrange collective transports, and you can sign up even for a one-way trip. It won’t take long. Yet it will be difficult, for you need papers, guarantees, visas, sponsors, and so on. Your friends—”

“Have to find me first.”

“And as soon as you are out you can arrange for me to follow.”

“Do you also want to leave, Anna?”

“Who among us do you think wants to stay? But I won’t fill your head with our worries.”

“I see. The so-called revenge against the intruders! But isn’t it only the culprits, the really bad ones? And, in addition, a couple of violators, who will straighten out over the course of a few days or weeks, such as Peter’s bride and the like?”

“Guilty or innocent, that’s a difficult question, but here there is no distinction. It has nothing at all to do with guilt. When an entire people have to believe as one, then everything is different. That means no more incursions will be allowed.”

“Is that so bad?”

“I’m not exaggerating.”

“Is it bad for you as well?”

“Not so much, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I can indeed make my way through. And I even have some special income, as they call it—for
instance, the inheritance from my mother, something from my own past that I can be very proud of, and Arno for everything else. The money comes from him. Oh, it’s so sickening! But he had really good friends who know me and continue to take care of me. Today it’s tough for you, they say, and tomorrow it will be our turn. It’s a chain that has no end. What can I say to them!”

“Before the war we lived well here, all of us in this country. Aren’t you being a bit dour?”

“That’s what you think? You know, I really don’t want to burden you with it all, but perhaps it will help you if I tell you something about us. About us, not me, for I have nothing to complain about; everything is fine for me. It’s very bad, Arthur. I’ll spare you the details! But they just take people away, just like how they took you all away a few years ago.”

“Really, is it that bad?”

“No, forgive me! You make me feel ashamed. It’s of course different, and no comparison should be made, but it’s easy to feel wronged when you suffer and are persecuted. True pity seems harder even than love. A lot more happened to all of you, something more systematic and precisely carried out, bureaucratic and requiring loads of paper. It was written out in longhand with cold calculation. What’s happening to us now is for the most part not as bad; not as many are dying as back then. One can hope for more for the better part of us.”

“Don’t you see? It’s all because of those culprits.”

“It’s not that simple. It’s true for most, if not all. The horror we face has a limit. There was no limit to what was done to you, as long as there was still someone left breathing.”

“It will be all right, Anna. We didn’t suffer so that injustice would prevail.”

“It will be all right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t look that way. People are hauled off. Even friends, papers, and bribes are of doubtful help and do not last. A bad example was set, and everyone got the picture.”

“Are you in danger?”

“I already told you, I’m fine. Right at the moment, I’m almost certain. I don’t expect anything bad to suddenly happen. The people in the building are seemingly decent, the porter is on the straight and narrow, and that’s the
most important. He managed to fend off the mob that came inquiring from house to house right after the war. Then he spoke so well of me to the police, the national security, during the investigation of war criminals, to the governing authority for the identification of state enemies and traitors, and who knows who else? Yes, my dear, that all surprises you! ‘Frau Meisenbach is one of us,’ he said. ‘She behaved better than many of our own people, and her brother was a hero who died on our behalf.’ I don’t make too much of it, but until now it has kept me safe. As have Arno’s political friends. Then, after a few days, I received a declaration of harmlessness from the police, a red card. That’s the best that one can get. It’s signed and is stamped in several places. But whether that will last forever? Even though I don’t have to leave, I don’t want to stay here.”

It was soothing for me to learn of so much unfamiliar sorrow and of Anna’s personal troubles. I was wrenched from the loneliness of my own pain, yet it affected me almost more than I could bear. Expulsion and flight, the urge to steal, hatred of others, bitter people, the sword of injustice; I knew what it meant to feel powerless, and the despair of those who feel worthless. Such ruin had not ceased, and it claimed victim after victim.

From outside, military music thumped along closer, tin horns and drums, pressing at me and hurting my ears, although the noise was muffled, since it came from somewhat far off.

“We have to hear that every day, and sometimes more than once a day. At Peter’s, up near the vineyard, you’ll hardly hear it at all.”

“Military music in any country is unbearable.”

“I don’t like it, either. They celebrate so much right now, and they need it for that.”

I closed the double windows in the face of the lovely June day without even asking Anna, but it seemed the right thing to do. The warlike flood of noise could hardly be heard. Smiling, Anna said that the closed windows had the disadvantage that it would be hard to tell when the band was finally far enough away.

“Should I open them up?”

“We can try it in ten minutes. By then the festivities will certainly be over.”

Then Anna said that she had to go out to do some shopping, and that
she’d be gone around fifteen minutes. If I wanted, I could come along, but she would understand if I preferred to stay in the apartment, which is what I decided after mulling it over for a bit.

With a large bag in tow, she headed out. I wanted to accompany her to the elevator, but I only stood up and closed the door behind her. I had agreed with Anna that I would not open it, even if someone rang the doorbell. Peter would certainly not be coming in the meantime, and, besides, I know his signal: three quick rings.

Left alone, I inspected Hermann’s books more closely than I did yesterday, but, once again, I didn’t pull out any of them. I was too deeply shy, the books themselves causing me to feel this even more than the thought that they belonged to a dead man and were left behind to no end, beautiful books calmly standing one next to the other, arranged according to height, though perhaps also color, rather than content, the works of most older writers in several languages, many philosophical works, history, memoirs, and letters. In some ways, all books were letters to the world—envoys, complaints, bearers of joy, intimations, endless information, and public news. But who is meant to read them? For whom were all of these thoughts really put together? All had proclaimed themselves, had expressed something to the formative memory of those living in the present and to future generations. But who had the many continuous letters actually reached, and did they all really wish to stand there exposed so obviously as a pack of lies, such shameless lies? Each book a corpse, describing something that once was but is no longer; in fact, it never was, my dear girl. If one blocks one’s ears against the silent chorus of so many dried-up voices, then there’s nothing to hear, not even time. It had all been said, love and hate, but all of that had been said already and didn’t mean a thing. No, the books seemed like inept messengers who had failed in their duties and didn’t mean anything to me. With my thumbnail I flicked across a row of them from right to left, raising a soft whistle like a long, drawn-out note. That was strange—the letters were effaced and were worth nothing anymore. I did it again and again, then I had had enough. The spines of books are sensitive; my fingernail could leave marks, and that would not have been right.

I had hardly read any books in years, wisdom having escaped me and no longer found within books, the withered remains persevering on their own,
though they were indeed hard to keep together. Anna was right not to worry too much about the treasures lost among their pages, as it only meant caring for the dead, guarding plunder that only took up space in the small apartment. The fact that I had once written and thought about writing books that could have been printed, bound, and sold now seemed to me implausible, though indeed such ideas had often buoyed me during the war years. In the same spirit, I collected so much experience and carried it along with me, so much pressing deep into my memories, held there as I told myself I would need it, and now it appeared to me it was indeed lost, myself unable to find it any longer, Franziska’s death and my survival having shredded the volume that gave the contents some kind of sense, all my stowed-away knowledge now covered in dust and ground down to a pulp. What had prodded me to say later that I would write it all down, feeling that I had finally experienced for real what I had learned about only in my lifeless studies? A book? I thought of the Inca tribesman who was handed a book and told that it was the truth, and so he took the book, shook it, listened, and responded contemptuously that it hadn’t said a thing, and threw the book to the ground. How vainly I had sought to gain solace with all my plans! In cleverly developed sections I had conceived long works, written by Arthur Landau, news straight from the source, no mucking around in libraries, where one just writes what another has written, no cheap history, no beating about the bush or simply compiling other people’s stories; no, here is the real thing that had been tested and come through, and so your thirst for knowledge will be quenched! Foolish interweavings and entanglements, the powerlessness of words that won’t hold their place! I dreamed of all my plans, and I dared to think that, having survived all the horror, I did not survive for nothing, for I could say that I had been there, my life, love, and sorrows not only having been consumed by it all, but now, with a sharp mind and the keenness of an observant witness, I could go to my desk and set it down. Thus would my story fulfill a purpose, and everything wouldn’t be simply unappeased laments but, rather, such fortunes would be shared with my neighbors and the world, myself even coming to value my fate, it being unfortunate that I had been granted it, but good that I had not failed it.

Then I sat powerless in my first days at Peter’s near the vineyard and could not write a book at all. At night, ceaseless thoughts plagued me, shrill
voices and interjections crossing one another, though all I wanted to set down was one word, and yet it all remained bottled up inside me and I was unable to draw it out. What I also thought made no sense, as it was full of holes and seemed the height of hubris. Everything that I had remarked on earlier seemed to have dissipated, especially when the war was first getting under way, as I buried myself in my research, sunk in the misery of my fellow brothers who had already died, searching for something like a doctor searching for a disease while taking his own pulse, calling out to colleagues puzzled at his condition, “Have you never seen anyone about to die?” And so I figured these writings were lost and didn’t mind that they were; should they ever surface, they would be obsolete and faded, truth’s lye having already eaten through them.

Then one day I held my works in my hands again. Franziska had lovingly packed them away, first in tissue paper, then covered with a thick piece of paper to protect them from water and any kind of decay, then bound together through and through, just the way she had wrapped all her gifts, such that one took great joy in opening them. Now I read through them, disturbed and ashamed, almost in tears, but my hostile feelings against my failed attempts soon dissipated. It felt as if I were looking through a murky transparent wall at a frozen life from ancient times, not my own life but a monument to a history that had disappeared and yet was still credible. In a rush, I put it all together—namely, what could be garnered from the retrieved writings and my memory. I hadn’t worked that long at the museum, but I began with what I’d learned there while trying to improve this or that text and to start to work on new books. When I arrived in the metropolis, the sociology of oppressed people was just in its early stages, most of the chapters, or at least the most important ones, having been drafted, while other studies were finished and new ones begun. What I didn’t think I could accomplish with all this activity and from these new projects! Whoever I spoke with, be it So-and-So, Dr. Haarburger, and whomever I came in touch with, I would always try to explain the basis of my work, setting forth my most important ideas, making the case for my deeply probing learned views and asking people if they would read a bit of it. If someone listened to me with attentive, careful respect, I was indeed happy, for then I would feel certain that whatever help they could give me was assured. Yet how foolish
it was to hope for something, especially when someone would casually say, “Very interesting, Herr Doctor, but of course everything really depends on the finished product. One would have to see that first, then maybe something can be done.” I threw myself into my work and regularly spent nearly half the night at my desk, egged on by skeptical comments from So-and-So, who in the early days brought me books and articles to study, while I had taken too literally to heart the old saying that ninety percent of inspiration is perspiration. Indeed, that was not altogether untrue, but it had nothing to do with the actual workings; namely, the approval, funding, and completion of a successful project. Perspiration has nothing to do with genius; it only accounts for the discipline that one needs to complete something, and no one becomes a genius through perspiration alone.