Authors: H. G. Adler
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Arthur hears a voice that threatens him and calls him Adam, saying he can never escape.
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Back at West Park Row, Arthur considers Johanna, and their children, Michael and Eva, and reflects how his own memory is a “wall” between both his past and his future.
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Arthur remembers the duress of war and expulsion.
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Arthur recalls his return to his native city after the war and the search for his parents. He learns from the fruit vendor Herr Kutschera that they perished.
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Arthur dreams that his parents condemn and reject him, while his mother sews his shroud.
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After fleeing a collection point for refugees at the train station in his native city, Arthur stumbles and falls. A young man named Peter comes upon him and takes him to his friend Anna Meisenbach, who takes Arthur in and cares for him. Anna’s brother, Arno, was at school with Arthur but has since been executed for political crimes. Arthur and Anna talk of the postwar suffering in the old city.
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Arthur falls unconscious and has another nightmare about his parents.
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Arthur comes to and Anna offers him a place to stay for the night, though Arthur cannot help thinking of her dead husband returning home to find a stranger there.
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Arthur awakens from the memory of this incident to find himself again at home on West Park Row with his wife and children. In his thoughts he finds himself standing before a wall that he cannot get past.
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At the invitation of his boyhood friend and fellow sociologist So-and-So (Leonard Kauders), Arthur attends a party at the home of the Haarburgers, who try to help him make important contacts in the metropolis. There he meets Professor Kratzenstein, an influential sociologist. He is also introduced to Fräulein Johanna Zinner, who works for a refugee organization in the metropolis. At the same party, he meets Herr Buxinger, a bookseller, Resi Knispel, a press agent from Zurich, Herr and Frau Saubermann, philanthropic factory owners, and Dr. Singule, the head of a foundation, and his wife. At the party, Arthur discusses his work on the sociology of oppressed people.
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Arthur recalls looking at Arno’s books in Anna’s apartment and asking about her husband, Hermann. Anna gives Arthur some of Hermann’s clothes. Arthur tells Anna that his parents and his wife, Franziska, died in the war.
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Falling asleep, Arthur dreams of walking in a mountain forest with Franziska.
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Arthur wakes up on West Park Row only to find that two pallbearers, Brian and Derek, have arrived with orders to take him to a crematorium in order to be cremated. Johanna urges him to do as he is asked. Arthur manages to persuade the pallbearers to allow him to walk to the crematorium. The pallbearers stay for breakfast before accompanying Arthur to the crematorium.
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Arthur falls into a reverie and thinks back to his last walk with Anna in a mountain forest before deciding to leave his native country for good. He thinks back to similar hikes with Franziska.
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Arthur thinks of the many families who have lost ancestors, then about his earlier work in a museum in the old city that collected the left-behind goods and portraits of the many who had died. At the museum, Arthur works with the director, Herr Schnabelberger, and his colleague Frau Dr. Kulka to sort and catalog the paintings and objects. Though he would like to see the works returned to the families, Frau Dr. Kulka argues that they now belong to the state.
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Arthur’s thoughts then revert to the party at the Haarburgers’ and how he complained of not having a single picture of his parents. Others question why he did not remain in his native country. Marriage and moral freedom are also discussed, Arthur finding the crowd of exiles to be pretentious and corrupt. Only Johanna Zinner is sympathetic to his past suffering as she tells him of family members she herself lost. On leaving, she invites Arthur to call her sometime.
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Segue to West Park Row and the present, as Arthur sits in his study, writing letters in order to seek funding and support for his work on the sociology of oppressed people.
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Segue to Arthur’s native city after the war, where Peter urges him to write to friends who escaped before the war in order to seek their help in emigrating. Arthur writes to So-and-So but finds it nearly impossible to express what he has been through.
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Arthur reflects on Peter as a difficult person who nonetheless has tried to help him. Then, from the future, he reflects on Peter’s own emigration as Arthur writes to him from the metropolis. In a letter to Peter, he recalls So-and-So’s return letter to him back in his native city, when he first wrote to him in the past (we learn of So-and-So’s letter to Arthur in the old city, in a letter Arthur writes to Peter from the metropolis). In that letter So-and-So asks Arthur’s help in his efforts to be compensated for his family’s property that was seized by the state.
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Arthur then stops writing letters from home, choosing, instead, to write letters from his office at the museum. He thinks of the haunted nature of the objects he collects, especially of Franziska’s pearls, which were passed on to him by an elderly survivor. Frau Holoubek, once his grandmother’s servant, also passes on family mementos, thus increasing his burden. The same happens again and again with other former acquaintances, Arthur forced to stumble through the streets, weighed down with objects passed on from the dead.
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A voice again addresses him as Adam, commanding that he return to his past.
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Shaken from his reverie on West Park Row, Arthur talks with Johanna about the strangeness of time, how the present is never the present, and how he feels stuck outside of time, unable to reenter it.
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Arthur then takes his children to a fair at Shepherd’s Field. There he sees a show put on by Roy Rogers and his troupe, and then he visits a fortune-teller named Fortunata.
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Segue to Arthur’s memory of leaving his native city for good and his friends accompanying him to the train station. Present are Anna and her new husband, Helmut; the museum’s porter, Herr Geschlieder; and Peter. Arthur is both anxious to leave and anxious about leaving. Once the train is en route, Franziska appears to him in a vision and releases him from having to dwell on her loss ever again.
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Arthur leaves his room in a guesthouse in the metropolis to call Fräulein Zinner from a phone booth. She invites him to come to her office. Arthur rushes back to his room to dress for the occasion. Once he reaches the Search Office of the Bureau for Refugees, where Fräulein Zinner works, he climbs the stairs to her fifth-floor office but collapses on the way. Fräulein Zinner finds him and takes him to her office to recover. As he regains his strength, he tells her about his work and talks about the loss of his parents, and the past that he cannot recover or escape. They then leave to go to dinner at a restaurant. Along the way, Arthur hallucinates that his head separates from his body.
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Arthur awakens the morning after his first night at Anna’s while calling out Franziska’s name. Anna fixes him breakfast, while Arthur is anxious about what to do next. Anna suggests that he move in with Peter. She also suggests that he write to friends abroad and try to emigrate, which she eventually hopes to do as well.
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At Peter’s place, Arthur tries to start work on his sociology of oppressed people, but he struggles until the return of his earlier drafts, which were carefully preserved by Franziska at the start of the war.
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Segue to Arthur at work on his book in the metropolis while struggling to find support for it, especially when others urge him to take a menial job in order to support his family. Deeply frustrated at not being able to find a viable
place in society, despite his constant written appeals for help, Arthur writes a short story called “The Letter Writers.”
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“The Letter Writers”
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Arthur continues to reflect on his inability to gain support for his work. Eventually Professor Kratzenstein does agree to meet him, but all Kratzenstein is willing to do is invite Arthur to the working group of the International Society of Sociologists, rather than invite him to lecture, as he had earlier promised. Kratzenstein recommends that Arthur seek the help of Dr. Singule and Dr. Haarburger.
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At Frau Haarburger’s urging, Arthur visits Dr. Singule, who is of little help. All he can do is recommend that Arthur seek the help of Kratzenstein, which he has already done. Frau Singule sends him home with some chocolate for Johanna.
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Arthur next visits Herr and Frau Saubermann, philanthropists who own a factory that manufactures artificial beads. Johanna, too, is invited to their home to talk about the possibility of getting work in the factory, even though she is pregnant with her first child. However, Frau Saubermann scolds Arthur for being too proud to seek out work himself in order to support his family.
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Arthur then goes back to the Haarburgers to ask for further support. Frau Haarburger is upset to hear how badly the visit with the Singules went, nor does Dr. Haarburger have anything left to give him.
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Penniless and destitute, Arthur thinks of himself as a fallen Adam who, in essence, does not exist.
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Four years after his arrival in the metropolis, Arthur meets with Siegfried Konirsch-Lenz, another philanthropist who offers to help him, but only by offering to hire him to do menial work in his wallpaper manufacturing business, which Arthur refuses. He and Johanna return to West Park Row.
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On West Park Row, Arthur reflects on how he still exists among his neighbors, who are more decent to him than his so-called friends and supporters, and decides that there is nothing to do but press on with his work.
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Segue back to Arthur’s work in the museum in his native city, where he thinks of the people in the portraits as patients who have survived, much to the horror of Frau Dr. Kulka, who sees the portraits simply as objects.
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Herr and Frau Lever from Johannesburg arrive at the museum, having fled the old city before the war. Arthur gives them a tour of the hermitage, a former synagogue that had been converted by the occupying forces to house dioramas with wax figures depicting the customs of the people they had deported and killed. Along the way they meet Professor Hilarius Prenzel, Arthur’s old high-school teacher, and the man who betrayed him to the authorities in his earlier nightmare about returning. In the museum, Arthur explains the creation of the dioramas in detail, as if he were present at the time the work was done. The Levers are amazed by it all, while Arthur feels trapped within.
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Segue to Arthur’s arrival in the metropolis, where at the train station he is met by the scholar Oswald Bergmann, who has changed his name to Birch, and his sister, Inge, a poet and an illustrator. So-and-So is also there to welcome him. Arthur thinks back to Oswald’s reluctance in responding to his letters and pleas from the old city but forgives him and is pleased to see him at the station. Otto Schallinger, a classmate of Arthur’s from middle school, is also there to greet him, along with Dr. Haarburger, who then leaves. The rest all head to Oswald Bergmann’s home, where Arthur falls asleep, exhausted by his journey. When he wakes up, Oswald and So-and-So suggest that they go to a restaurant for dinner.
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Segue to Arthur and Fräulein Zinner arriving at a restaurant for dinner. They talk of their lives and work, and Arthur proposes marriage and Johanna accepts. They leave the restaurant and walk arm in arm through the city, talking of their future, before Johanna heads home on the subway.
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Arthur walks home and writes to Anna about his engagement to Johanna. He then falls asleep, thinking that he is on the threshold of a new beginning, but still feeling everything is in flux.
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Once again, Arthur meets with Konirsch-Lenz, who continues to berate him about the need to get a paying job and to accept the assistance of an organization called Self-Help. Again, Arthur refuses, but this time he feels liberated in doing so.
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Arthur thinks of Otto Schallinger, who often visits him and Johanna, finding in their home a vestige of the Old Country that he does not find elsewhere in the metropolis.
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While strolling along after leaving Konirsch-Lenz, Arthur thinks of his friends and how little help they have been, beginning with Oswald Bergmann, and then So-and-So.
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Arthur thinks of all the charlatans he has met in the metropolis, the worst being Eberhard S., who managed to convince him to write for his journal
Eusemia
for a pittance. He then calls Johanna to say that he has left Konirsch-Lenz and is on the way home, which pleases her. On the way, however, he muses about his failure.