The Wall (61 page)

“Dearest, didn’t you find them delightful? So well-meaning and helpful!”

“I don’t want to spoil your mood.”

“You don’t agree?”

Johanna was taken aback, while I had to restrain myself because of Michael, who looked at me with big sleepy eyes, even if he didn’t know what was going on.

“In their own way they probably mean well. But they don’t understand.”

“The factory must be wonderful. Frau Minna told me about it, a nice atmosphere. Konirsch-Lenz is like a father to his workers. The factory is almost an excuse to take care of them, to give him the chance to raise them like his own children. Many lost souls work there who find their way again through his strong and good hands. A unique social experiment. He invited me to come see it. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“I don’t know, I’m not at all curious. Why are you nagging me, Johanna?”

“What’s the matter, dear?”

“Look, the child is asleep.”

“Michael had a lovely day. They spoiled him so.”

“At least one of us did. That’s good.”

“It wasn’t so bad for me, either.”

“You can’t fool me. They worked you over, didn’t they, with all that about the factory?”

“You always know everything.”

“It’s not hard to figure out. And I should print wallpaper? Lovely Kolex wallpaper?”

“No, certainly not, if you don’t want to. I’m not forcing you to do anything, nor should you. I only considered the possibility, dear, and you know it has nothing to do with wallpaper. It’s—”

“The money?”

“Not even the money. Only the change. The possibility. Just listen! Not the actual work there; that’s just an excuse. In reality you would be an assistant—a student, a prop for Herr Konirsch-Lenz. You would, of course, have to understand the business, the whole production process. Not as a worker but, instead, to take on a sociological commission. He even said that you could write, which I know will upset you—something like ‘Kolex, a social experiment in which oppression has practically been done away with,
because the foundation is built upon both love and trust.’ He is not at all a believer in Frank Buchman and his moral rearmament, but he finds within the highest moral claims that are absolute, such as love, a useful fundamental idea that he has crystallized. Everything practical and neither socialistic nor capitalistic. If you wrote that and it pleased him, he would see that it was printed, and you could make a name for yourself. He believes that you are unhappy because you are unfulfilled, and unfulfilled because you’ve had no success.”

“Come on, Johanna, what you’re saying is nothing but nonsense.”

“Yes, forgive me! They confused me so.”

“I would agree. Please, just think what you’re saying! I need to be improved, morally armed, of all things, in the human-wallpaper factory of Herr Siegfried Konirsch-Lenz. He’ll have to find another fool for that.”

“They think that you can do the scholarly work you love so in your spare time. But he would prefer to see something of scholarly rigor on his past and, above all, his current activities. That’s what he most wants to help you with. If I understood him right, that really was his only plan.”

“It was made without me.”

“He was afraid of that and was sad about it. But look, don’t be angry if I say that, after all, you have to forgive him. He really can’t be all that bad a person. Because he senses your resistance, he wants to try to find something else. You already heard that there’s supposedly, and surprisingly, an organization called Self-Help, which I’m not familiar with. He has a friend there. Through him he wants to do something for you, indeed so that you will know that he doesn’t wish to exploit you.”

“That would be nice!”

“Please don’t talk that way! Can I ask you to do that? Just wait and see!”

“But only that! Nothing more! I won’t be insulted.”

“You don’t have to worry about that if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“He can make an offer to me once. And then it’s done!”

I said it as firmly as I could, then we said nothing more about it. We had to get off the bus, and we were both busy with our own thoughts. When we got off at our stop on Truro Street, I took Michael—who was almost fast asleep—from Johanna, and she carried the packet and the flowers. When we got home, I set the boy down and he began to cry. I kissed Johanna lightly
on the forehead, asked her to forget about the afternoon, and said that I wanted to walk through the streets for a while in order to take my mind off things and I wouldn’t be long. She said that was fine, and I hurried off.

In the streets beyond Truro Street where I wandered, a little cozy neighborhood with little houses all the same shape and gardens in front, I slowly regained full consciousness. I could sense everywhere the feel and sound of Sunday, laced with bored, sour, and bittersweet respectability, all of it tantalizingly foreign to me, though tolerable, even as I sauntered through in an easygoing fashion or now and then stopped. The people who hung about the houses, working in the gardens, walking along the sidewalks or standing upon them, whether alone or talking in small groups, were much more charitable than my friends, because they let me be. They didn’t get all worked up about me, and therefore left me to myself out of common decency. Most of them just cared about their tended gardens and were only happy when I admired their work. The shrubs were trimmed, most of them cut square and rarely rounded, but there were also unusual shapes that depicted urns with handles, little baskets, and magnificent chalices, while even more spectacular were animals carved out of evergreen leaves, be it hens, roosters with arched tails, peacocks in full spread, and the high point of this plastic art, a group of five dogs with their heads and ears clearly visible, their four legs running, the tails upright. I was sorry that people couldn’t be portrayed as well; who knew what timidity prevented it. In the front yards, the usual kinds of plants grew, many of them in bloom. Sometimes the plants were not kept in good order but were reined in, subdued, and restrained. The worst was when bad garden sculpture was employed. Figures of spiritless stone and horribly painted plaster squatted errantly or crouched shamelessly between blossoms and the grass—angels with sugary wings, gnomes, squirrels, rabbits, and other creatures—but also spiked castles were erected, covered with shiny glass, with snail and mussel shells, often painted with whitewash, as well as blue and green opalescent urns, with columns and roofs on them that functioned as feeders for birds nervously flitting around. In one garden, there were two worn-out tires carefully painted white, looking like lost life preservers that happened to have landed in the grass and now encircled fast-growing geraniums.

All of these adornments, even if they seemed awful, were better than my
friends, for they offered themselves openly and knew no shameful lies, everything being what it was, and whoever was not blindly addicted could not be injured by such harmless nonsense. He who doesn’t want anything can exist however he would like; that was obvious. Yet woe to he who wanted something! It wasn’t enough that I had given up on existing, nor did any acknowledge my own will; I simply had to give it up. Nor could that be laid to self-deception, for there was no self to be deceived. That was why I had such strong desire, for my will, in being dammed up and then rearing up, had taken off, but people resented that. Only the humble and obedient will is permitted; any resistance was forbidden and resulted in one’s existence being condemned. Thus, I did not exist in two ways—not as a self and not as a will. I moved through life without wanting anything, simply appearing among so much that is finite, such as fences, gardens, and walls, among the lanes, in the faces of others who do exist and perhaps are allowed to want something, myself an expression of something otherwise improbable, of the powers lent to me. Thus, indeed, there was still hope; it must indeed exist, for in the obedient house of the one who had been lent powers something existed which over time offered something—namely, a second existence; with all else annihilated, the self and the will were put to sleep, but a new creation replaced the previous existence. This was a razor-thin existence, extremely fragile and completely inviolable, needing to be marginalized in order to exist. It was entitled to hardly anything, but it was nonetheless there and could not be ignored. It revealed itself and yet had its own protective shell, and for every condemnation it had a response at the ready.

Only thus was I able to grasp that I had outlasted it all, that every past venture would be repeated, as well as the talk of it. This was a much more dependent existence than the earlier one that had disappeared, but I could exist and want something, perhaps even act. It was difficult and required a long journey, but it was possible. It also lay much further off than where I had already gotten to, for, in fact, so far it was not entirely there but rather summoned one, presenting itself as that which had not yet been experienced, rolling forward on the wheels of hope, also requiring the denial of memory. In drawing me toward it, it succeeded in my relinquishing myself, such that memory was allowed only as an aid along the way and not valid in itself; nor was the way itself valid, for the way was through memory.
But, because the goal itself does not exist, everything is the way toward it, though there is no real way, because it itself is already composed of past and future memory, the thin and yet so thick link between origin and destination, both no more than dreams imprisoned within consciousness, and not, in truth, known. At the start, everything is allowed, and, once you arrive at the destination, nothing else is needed, and in between is the murky choice. This choice is not free, though it appears to be free when it detaches itself from time and place. Small and retreating, harried and exposed, there I found myself, a tiny cell around me, the circumscribed choice, fourfold, a wall between origin and destination, a little person in between with the face of Adam, his confused, reawakened gaze staring at the wall, the walls, four walls that I had completely decorated and covered with memory and assorted items, as well as by day and by night, the wondrous blossoming outside the window.

My office was the only place where I could be certain that, for a few hours, I would be left alone. If Herr Schnabelberger, Frau Dr. Kulka, and my other colleagues had left the building, and only Herr Geschlieder guarded our treasures downstairs in what had once served as the janitor’s apartment, it was hard for someone to surprise me here up above, and so on long evenings and over entire weekends I was happy to be there on my own. Indeed, I sat there amid the dangers of memory, an imprudent move, but it was peaceful, though without warning it could suddenly become threatening, nor did it ever provide a moment of certainty. Instead, it scurried forth from the painted faces and approached, perverting a possible order to the world and deriding any unseemly wish for it. But it tolerated me and my works, which were both commanded and voluntary, the careful touch of my tentative hands that sometimes caused misfortune. Paintings fell from frames, frames fell to pieces, flakes of paint fell off, thick mildew and heaps of dust wanted to consume the painfully extinguished with their gentle force, yet the faces had not given up and still looked out with the quiet patience of the ruined, still able to hope for help because we were there. The fresh varnish applied by the attendant employed by Frau Dr. Kulka in our hospital was administered tenderly, like a balm on a cool back, functioning as healing care. They brought to me the neediest patients, who were therefore the most deserving of loving kindness, which was a burdensome task for my
conscience, which I had sought to sort through scrupulously so that those who had suffered could not accuse me of favoritism. Alas, all of the sick had a right to be saved, all pain deserved to be relieved; yet how poor was our hospital, how painful the choice was for me! How could I be just?

Then a consulting group met. Herr Schnabelberger was a good-natured hospital director, his responsibility as administrator being to worry about the costs. Frau Dr. Kulka, on the other hand, acted with beastly aggression, shoving away anyone who might be badly ill because she found them detestable and worthless, pulling out, instead, the somewhat fresh and hardly worn face of a boy, for whom a sudden love within her burned, because he had such a lovely smile, which was why the boy should be saved first, for he was young, and he could be granted a promising future. Frau Dr. Kulka, however, did not only favor the boy, for she was not so unjust; an unassuming little mother, older and with a very tattered silk scarf, could also captivate her. Quickly the beloved creature was pulled out, turned around for consideration and inspection, and showered with many a warm gaze. It was an honor and a courtesy if Frau Dr. Kulka nodded in sympathy to such a helpless creature. Finally we agreed, Schnabelberger and myself most often agreeing, the choice made; the sick one presented to us would be taken care of, while the rest had to be patient, for none would be allowed to perish. I had already written down a lot about the past of each of the invalids as they were presented for the catalog, for all our records on the sick had to be precise and detailed. This was good for the patients, for this allowed them, as far as our capabilities would permit, to last well into the future. Someday someone would thank us—that was what Frau Dr. Kulka thought—all of these treasures made available to the public once again, the entire past revealed. Frau Dr. Kulka fought hard with the authorities for approval of a bigger and more dignified space for a gallery as a permanent resting ground in honor of our patients. Yet I couldn’t call them patients or the sick, for the doctor found that disagreeable. Angrily she said that she found such expressions perverse on my part, and yet I was right. Herr Schnabelberger sought to appease her.

“Dr. Landau has a deep relation with our paintings. Each painting is for him a living person. Therefore he treats them almost like a house doctor. We should be pleased. Let him have his fun when he talks about our patients!”

“That’s a morbid view. I also find it tasteless. He talks as if they are guests here, patients and sick people, and that’s not right. It makes us look ridiculous.”