H. Adler - The Wall

The extinct ones bowed deeply with lowered eyes and thought, Now the wishes of the masters are fulfilled. The obedient were ready to turn back in order to take care of some minor tasks, but they were once again confronted with the will of their rulers, whose speaker clapped his hands loudly, such that the fainthearted stood transfixed as the horrible voice sounded.

“Listen here! Well done! But not so fast, we’re not yet finished! There’s plenty here from life, but now we need something from death. Life doesn’t last forever. That’s why we also need to know how you buried your dead.”

Then the most courageous one took a breath and dared to direct the conqueror’s gaze toward the cemetery.

“No, not those graves over there with their stones! That can stay just the way it is. We need that here in the hermitage; we have another arch free. Turn it into a crypt! In the middle of it a pedestal long enough to hold a coffin, with a crate on top of it covered by a burial cloth. Take out the window, drape the room in black cloth with only recessed lighting from above. The coffin can remain empty; that way, you save yourself having to make another model. But everything else has to be real, just the way the burial contingent carried out its burial customs.”

The laughter of the high ruler burst forth as he finished this speech, and so death entered the hermitage. Everything was brought together, whatever was used to take care of the dead and to bury them according to ancient custom. On the wall, explanatory pictures were installed that had been enlarged from old engravings. Now separated by the walls of the hermitage were the festive room of the family of mannequins during their holy meal and the crypt with its coffin.

Once again the masters pressed into the room, this time tipsy from having had drinks, eager to see the artificial overhead light that was to be turned on for the first time at their command when they had assembled before the entrance to the darkened chamber. They could see nothing and waited, thick blackness pooling before their eyes, until finally the order was given—“Lights!”—and the room flooded with light. How their eyes lit up with joy over the timeless lost mourners, the overlord proudly rapping the bedecked coffin with the knuckles of his left hand such that it echoed loudly.

“You’ve done well. On top of that, you did it fast. We don’t need anything more from you, and at some point we have to call it quits. But we recognize what you’ve done and as a reward we are sending you to a place where you’ll be treated well. You can now disappear. We will still need a few of you. We will let you know in an hour who will be traveling. The journey is all set for tomorrow.”

The courageous speaker from earlier, who had best understood the most secret wishes of the conquerors and with ingenious obedience had fulfilled all their commands, on the next day had to leave with most of his deserving fellow extinct workers. The shadows of those who had been thanked, little suitcases and knapsacks, as well as two armed guards who had a list of names, and then they were off. Not a single human soul ever heard of the travelers again. The high lords, however, continued to enjoy the splendor on exhibition and often visited the hermitage until their own hour came at the end of the war. Then they disappeared and left behind all the mannequins, with their treasures, in the hermitage. After that, not a thing was heard of the conquerors.

Which was why my guests from Johannesburg trudged around and did not see everything that I saw, and listened to my words without really understanding what I was choosing to tell them in keeping silent about some things, while Herr Lever, overcome with childish surprise, also had questions. Much had changed in the hermitage with the end of the war. Indeed, most of the objects had been left where they had been in the days of the conquerors; only a few things had been relocated, some being sent far away and others added, but the mannequins were quietly taken from the hermitage. They were not intentionally mishandled, and they were spared any punishment for their blasphemous behavior, but they were also spared any kind of tenderness, as they were carried off ingloriously to an unpleasant storeroom full of junk and decaying stuff. Here the family squatted on everyday chairs in a corner. Not even the holiday tray, with its food and empty goblets, was brought along as sustenance for the journey, instead remaining back on the covered table. Soon the mannequins were tired and covered with dust, their garments faded, the grandfather’s beard unkempt, the glasses having fallen from his nose, moths having chewed at the mother’s scarf. Yet the family’s condition — which could be improved if someone had a mind to do so — was incomparably better than that of the decrepit old man who had to stand before the closed ark with his arms uplifted, looking wretched. Miserably he lay upon the floor, the long shawl having been taken off him, such that, with his paltry skeleton composed of wood and cardboard, the back appearing broken, he was stretched out painfully on the dirty floor, as neither the least bit of protection nor even newspaper had been prepared for him in the storeroom. Nonetheless — he was a pigheaded old man — he still kept his arms continually raised, and still the cramped fingers wished to grasp the sacred scroll, but it was gone. Thus the old man’s existence had become senseless; the shabby model wasted away amid the mildew and displayed nothing more of the extinct people.

Patiently I had led Herr and Frau Lever through every nook and cranny of the hermitage. Now we had climbed up to the balcony.

“Mitzi, it’s hard to believe that everything made it through. Such a war, and it hasn’t changed at all. On the contrary, things have been taken care of and added to. The temple is somehow — how can I say it? — immediate, much more intimate. Only the congregation is no longer there; it was scattered across the world.”

“We have many prayer books on hand.”

Mitzi nodded at me and again worked at her chin.

“If they managed to save most of them, dear Guido, then it’s good.”

I didn’t say another word; I had explained everything and leaned against a wall, somewhat dizzy. The couple traipsed about the glass display cases satisfied. Both of them bent over to admire weathered documents from which they tried laboriously to read excerpts to each other.

“A great era has passed,” said Herr Lever. “But, as one can see, it is not lost. Saved, saved! Do you know what that means, Mitzi? Our entire history is set down here, like in an album between wonderful covers. One only has to open it and leaf through. Through it history comes alive!”

I let this talk go on for a while. Then I informed them that we had to move along, time was short. If the couple still wanted to make a visit to the cemetery, we couldn’t linger any longer. Thus I lured them down from the balcony and led them toward the cemetery, though without commenting on anything else, offering up only a couple of bromides and then letting the couple ramble around the densely packed gravestones dating back more than six hundred years. No one had been buried here in more than a hundred and fifty years. Everything had been left standing, or had fallen over and was left where it was. The sadness of fathers and mothers had long ago withdrawn from here, for the children sank within it, followed by the grandchildren, even the great-grandchildren, and those who wished to mourn at the graves of loved ones sought out other cemeteries. Sadness yielded to the preservation of memorials, this land of the dead dedicated to that function. Many people came from all over the world to offer up small tokens, only to be amazed at the tightly packed silver-gray and weathered graves long having gone to seed, one after another covered with mysterious emblems, ornaments, and inscriptions. Visitors had to surrender their cameras at the entrance, but they could buy postcards, both colored and black-and-white, as well as guidebooks printed in several languages, some more expensive if they had pictures and the cheaper ones without, though they were also worthwhile. At certain times, for a modest fee, small groups were led through the entire thing and had everything explained to them. Thus time was quietly painted over, for they looked back at one past, as the history of the cemetery was sealed off, the extended decay of the site making it all the more impossible to access. Stones were propped up and expertly cleaned, and the weeds were pulled on the paths, but only enough to make them passable and to make sure not to disturb their charm.