H. Adler - The Wall

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.