The Wall (7 page)

Those waiting nodded their heads and dozed or chatted quietly. Most of them didn’t know one another, but some ran into others they knew here, including married couples, while others had brought along their bratty children. Some crossed their legs, while others sat there stiff and upright, others bending forward or aslant, others fidgeting, while still others chose not to rest on a chair but instead stood up and, with large, energetic steps, paced back and forth, though only for a little while, for they soon discovered that it did no good, though no one said anything, not even the police. Women had planted their shopping bags next to them on the floor and worked away at their knitting needles, the slowly climbing threads of yarn rising up from the bags below. A student brooded over geometric figures and mathematical formulas, some other men burying themselves in rustling newspapers, while others read books. The few children that were there soon found one another out and began to play, running frequently to the window or straying toward the policeman, who had fun blowing smoke at them, their antics otherwise not bothering him at all, while nearby a young girl fed her doll a piece of chocolate.

Whoever was called got his papers back from the police, disappeared somewhat noisily with a cough, and was never seen again. An exit into the unknown. Anyone who had once waited never had to wait again. You were called, taken in, then spit out; no one knew what happened to you. I had to admit that all my anxieties had been uncalled for, yet I pitied those who
were called up, who now had to fight their little battles, while, looking on, the rest of us felt that we had a much better chance of success if we would be allowed to mount a defense. What nonsense. For what good are such insights when no one believes in them or trusts them? In chopped-up segments, time passes by, while just before noon the last stragglers arrive, more and more of those having been called up by the police, the empty chairs soon looking thin and spiritless.

After remaining patient for more than two hours we were finally called up. The policeman said, “Seven,” which was the room number where we had to appear. A sign said to enter without knocking. A small, somewhat wizened man in civilian dress and wearing glasses, no doubt a school warden in better times, greeted us in a friendly manner. We were offered a seat. After we hastily spread our papers in front of him on the desk, everything grew silent. The civil servant sank with pleasure into the contents of the documents. It seemed that for him everything was in order, the statements recorded in the valid passports were true, a world of doubt kept at bay by the neat entries made by civil servants. Born, entered, and approved—everything was in order; the picture is real once it’s been stamped. As anyone who is trained to do so can read, passports reveal that the state attests to the validity of created beings. Whoever has documents that are in order, good for him—he is indeed alive and may go on living. Yet how pitiable the one who does not empty his pockets and offer up papers meekly with outstretched hands, like a desperate prayer to the civil servants, who, immediately touched by such gestures, take on much weightier matters. The ones asking, or who have been summoned to step forward, can relax and stretch out on their chairs, breathing easier through their noses with the patience of pure being, or play with their fingers, look gratefully at the floor, or boldly look wherever they wish, as long as they remain civil. But the best thing to do is watch with shy restraint the promising quiet proceedings of the official, always ready to respond to any glance with the right bits of information or nods of the head in order to assure someone that everything is on the up-and-up. As the official looks over the work of his predecessors and his colleagues, the one summoned is taken in, his fate almost suspended, for everything he is lies there in the written notes, his physical presence just a means in itself, a messenger delivering a message, an appointed courier of papers that grant
him a complete sense of himself. So it goes for every person, especially if he is a foreigner, in order that he be certified.

The official took from a little basket a long handsomely printed form, spreading it out carefully on his blotter, and stretching it taut when the fold would not flatten out. Then the man took a pen and gracefully and skillfully wrote down the names and several other items that he found while flipping through the pages of the passport and visa. Johanna and I might as well not have been there, for potentially we could only provide wrong answers that would undermine what the documents already accurately attested to. Maybe I was mistaken, but it is difficult to know whether the questions that the official posed were necessary or whether he wished only to relieve our possible boredom. Or was he cleverly just checking to see what effort we had made to learn what was stated in the papers themselves? I was grateful to the man for taking as much care with the first page of his form as with those that followed, for it put me at ease. Only now and then did he stop to look over his entries. He seemed to be pleased with all of them, which boosted my confidence. When the process had gone far enough that it could no longer remain at just this orderly and comfortable level, the official looked up at me.

“Can you tell me, Mr. Landau, why you are really here?”

This was the last thing I expected to be asked, and so I was immediately shaken from my calm and got upset. Behind his glasses the official’s eyes were neither threatening nor shifty; rather, his gaze appeared almost friendly. All I had to do was not disappoint him.

“No, I really have no idea. I was asked to come here. The summons gave no reason.”

My answer was not bad, for the official smiled mildly, and I was happy that I had not followed his provocative question into the plummeting depths. I had been saved.

“I mean, why did you come to this country?”

“Because I love it. I wanted to get out. I wanted to be free.”

The eyes of my examiner lit up. He sensed that I really meant it. He could tell from my voice just what kind of person was before him.

“Yes, a very good reason indeed. But why didn’t you remain in your own country? Here you are a foreigner, who doesn’t speak the language so well, and for whom things are not easy.”

I defended myself and this country and offered a picture that explained why I had left there and come here. The official wrote down what I told him. He let me go on talking, only rarely posing a question in between that helped my story stay on track. It was all pleasant and easy. Finally, my examiner was satisfied; his form had been filled out. He nodded approvingly as he touched each line with the end of his pen while reading through them once more. Then, at the end, he looked at me again.

“Your case seems clear to me. I wish that matters were as simple with all foreigners. Now, just tell me off the record: how do you make a living?”

“I’m a freelance scholar. I do lectures now and then, write articles and reports. Sometimes I also have private support. Never public welfare.”

“I understand. It’s not easy. I really just wanted to know for myself.”

Then the official turned to Johanna, who sat there respectfully.

“I don’t need to hear much from you. You’re a housewife. I can see that. It’s obvious that is enough to do on its own. And as for your intentions? Certainly they are the same as your husband’s.”

With that we were dismissed and handed back our papers, the visas now having a little stamp upon them. That was the only thing that disturbed me a bit, for once such a symbol is entered it can lead to unforeseen consequences. I dared to share my thoughts aloud, but the official just smiled.

“That’s just for our interior records. Now your stay in this country is at last officially legal.”

I looked at the official questioningly, since I didn’t understand. He smiled in response.

“When you first arrived here, you didn’t inform us, and perhaps didn’t yet know, that you wanted to remain as our guest. At that time, we didn’t worry about it. We allow foreigners to visit, as long as there is no reason not to. Only when someone wants to stay do we look at the matter more closely. In the past few years, a good deal more have stayed. That’s why we asked you here.”

The official stood up, shook hands with Johanna and me, and led us to the door. Relieved, we headed off, Johanna seeming pleased, more so than I’d ever seen her. Indeed, she had always said that I had nothing to fear in this country and that I just had to be patient, and now I just had to chase away all my fears. I had to agree and felt ashamed. She looked at me seriously.

“Still so gloomy?”

“Everything is different, Johanna. We simply don’t know. It’s a good sign, but things can change in unforeseen ways. One should never be too sure. All you can do is try to do the best that you can, but then suddenly things can go wrong. It can all be taken away, even if, for now, something good is said on our behalf. All our success should teach us only that an infinite amount of prejudice lies behind any approval. But onward. I’m pleased and have no right to spoil a good day with my negative thoughts.”

As we headed home, Johanna often looked at me gratefully. After our trip to the immigration office, my spirits were lifted. I say lifted, but not really better. After suffering doubts that had eaten away at me, I was now feeling somewhat more secure. Things were falling into place; the world around me was becoming more bearable. I listened to the voice inside me, and it said, “Try!”

Try was indeed what I had often heard, dull fleshly existence sunk in a judicial prison, as within death’s waiting room I was not allowed to do as I wished. Try, even if you don’t want to. “Next, please!” someone called, but was I the next? I looked around me to see if someone wanted to be the next, but no one indicated so, no one having set up an orderly line; instead, all were held together in a reeking lump of fear. Someone with a scraggly beard turned to me: “Don’t they mean you?” No, they didn’t mean me. How could I even step forward, since among the surrounding crowd there was no clear direction in which to go? Even if I were to try to press my way through, it would do no good. Above us rose the long arms of cranes that growled and rumbled as they rose slowly into the air. Sometimes an arm bent down with a sharp rattling as it snatched at the heap of fear and grabbed some bodies up into the air. “Next, please!” That was how many were hauled off, no one knowing where to. So how could I allow myself to be looked for if I couldn’t allow myself to be found and there was nowhere to hide?

“Adam, where are you? Why are you hiding?”

A monstrous voice, grave and powerful, posed this question, a thunderous storm that drowned out the ever-wilder stomping to the right and left of the snapping cranes. I didn’t move from my spot, but instead just tried to shrink and duck down, though someone grabbed me under my arms as if to hold me and force me upward so that I appeared taller. Again someone
called for Adam, though no one replied. I said nothing as well. “Why don’t you answer?” someone demanded. It wasn’t the one with the scraggly beard but someone who looked like my murdered father, except without his voice.

“You are Adam. If you don’t answer, things can go badly. Don’t hold back, and the cranes will let these people go.”

“I’m not Adam. How can I respond as someone I am not? That makes no sense and won’t be tolerated, for it’s not true.”

“It is true, my son, for you are Adam!”

I had to laugh that this false father mistook me for another. I simply couldn’t go along with his crazy notions.

“My name is Arthur, not Adam. You’re wrong. I’m not Adam.”

Then the other voice laughed, and many laughed along with him, for as far as they could see, I was lying.

“Adam and Arthur, they are the same. Go forth and do as you have been bidden to do.”

No one told me what to do but had only called for Adam. Nor did I hear the thunderous voice again. Instead, the ghastly cranes fished out ever more victims from the heaps that somehow got no smaller, given how thickly packed together they were. Around me there was no end to calls for me to answer as Adam, but I could do nothing to stop them, as I had no authority. But I also didn’t want the situation to continue to deteriorate because of an error.

“If I can replace Adam, I will,” I shouted loudly.

“No, you can’t do that!” replied the cool voice of a doctor. “Next, please!”

I was off the hook, let go with a single stroke, the patchy beard and the false father having disappeared. Soon I was forgotten and left, to my surprise, on the edge of the seething cauldron of flesh. I no longer believed that it had an end and that one could escape from it. Certainly I had saved myself because I didn’t answer to Adam, but I didn’t feel well, and the truth that I had spoken seemed hollow and base. The admonition to “Try!” lingered on the wind, because how could I exist if I didn’t dare try to?

Then I was pushed more and more to the side until I could go no farther. Very high and gray stood the wall. What else could I do? My limbs grew weak, my will was drained and leaked away in wormlike, irresolute
urges that powerlessly waited for me to say what to do next. “I can’t do anything for you, really, because I can’t do anything for me. I’m useless. My age remained indeterminate in the hours spent in that inconclusive trial.” Sadly, I spoke out loud, but the wall didn’t move, and I had grown too weak to try to push my way through it. Nor did I have enough left in me to try to move to the left or right or behind me. To take control of one’s fate, I thought, is an audacious wish, and I had unintentionally done so with mine. No one likes me; he who does not exist cannot even die. Slowly memories began to bubble up, and I needed to climb up in order to avoid drowning. Higher and higher I climbed, but the wall remained the same. It was forbidden to rest, for my memories pressed hard at me and threatened to drown me in a flood.

I looked on at the children in the street on West Park Row and all around the neighborhood, my son, Michael, among them, particularly loud as usual, his voice even rising above the noise of his playmates. The day was heavy, and you could smell the sweet, rank odor from the sewers so badly designed that sometimes their disgusting discharge fouled the air of the entire area, creating a terrible nuisance nothing could be done about, since they had been poorly installed four or five decades earlier. There is no way to alter them without rebuilding them from the ground up, and the millions that it would take to do that are not available. Therefore things have to remain the way they are. The sanitation inspector assured me, hopefully and a bit sadly, that it would one day be taken care of, though he also felt that perhaps I was a bit overly sensitive, the rest of the neighborhood’s inhabitants never having complained about it at all. Nonetheless, I could rest easy, for unpleasant as these odors may be, his nose confirms that they are certainly no danger to anyone’s health, because in a sanitary and sound sewer system the sewage is disinfected and regularly monitored for its chemical and biological content. The man advised me to buy some Ozono, an odor-killing solution that had been shown to work most anywhere, only a couple of bottles placed in the apartment being required to guarantee relief. I took his suggestion, and ever since I’ve been freed from these miasmas, though out in the open I still have to put up with the stink when, at certain hours, the heavy air persists.