H. Adler: The Wall

In Shepherd’s Field it was quiet; the ruckus of the Sociology Conference was a ways off with the tents and booths, while in the middle of the neglected field, with its weed-free grass, there was nothing else to hear. Only a few people appeared here and there, lone strollers who were not at all interested in sociology and took me to be the same as they, which they were right to do. Some young people and kids romped around, chasing after balls or enjoying themselves in other games. A tall boy seriously worked at getting his kite off the ground and was plenty proud when I complimented his agile handling of the reel and the string. From the distance I heard the piercing whistle of a locomotive and the rattling wheels of the train that raced along the rails. The metropolis was left behind, everything suffered having disappeared. There really wasn’t anything there, and that’s how it appeared to me. I couldn’t help feeling at ease.

Only the hour itself was there, and thus it was today and it still is today. Around me everything had run together, such that I didn’t know where I belonged or what I belonged to. “I’m here, I’m here!” This I called out loud. No one paid any attention, and that was good. Surely it would make it hard for anyone to sympathize, and even without this I had experienced enough ill will that I didn’t wish to cultivate any more. This was why I had to deny myself so much. I will no longer avoid my fellow man; nothing is gained by remaining as distant as I have been, in having so little to do with them. Carefully I will lie low and not increase the opportunities to come together with them, but the idea that I am a crank or arrogant is something I want to avoid. No, I am neither of those, nor do I want to be at all. I have no right to be, and I have gone to great lengths to affirm the idea that I am not in any essential way different from my fellow man. And yet I still fear that I will never succeed in simply seeming harmless; I exist too much at the mercy of others and have to hear again and again what I suddenly blurt out, and, to my sorrow, I will not remain silent. This hinders me, disturbs me; there’s no helping it. I have long since come to understand that it leads to nothing when I entrust myself to someone else.

Does the construct of my life work in this time? Alas, time and life. I don’t want to raise old doubts. It is indeed a construct, that’s the right word, and it will have to do. It is an undeveloped existence that attempts to assert itself with such a pointless new beginning, as if it were simply the consequence of a developing condition, an aging link that is connected to an existing chain that cannot be severed, which stretches visibly out ahead of me, and which, I can perceive, goes on even further, a row of continually secure dwellings, as has been extended through many generations, the magic of ancestry, father and son, myself in between, its beginnings hidden so deep and distant within unrevealable ancient times that one cannot know them, nor must know them. Up to now, my attempt to exist was an unsuitable undertaking grafted insultingly onto ruin for the sake of a bit of importance, pieced on to nothingness. That’s how it seems to me. But that is said with too much bitterness and ingratitude. Nonetheless I have not become cold, nor do I lack for feelings, for in fact I am overflowing with them, even if they, too, often just die and nothing comes of them. Thus I am pulled in many directions and continually stretched further and further, such that sometimes I seem to reach as far as infinity; only the middle is missing, the familiar middle, which I can neither create nor grant myself. The threefold home of the ancestors, the countryside, and what was familiar have all been destroyed. That which was once obvious is gone, myself now wandering and living as a guest. That’s a dangerous task.

What does the house on West Park Row mean, or Johanna and the children, and how do I square it with my stop in midflight? Without giving myself over to the measureless depths of sorrow, there is no way for me to manage to achieve solid footing or even affirm it, which is clearly demanded of me, for I am expected to affirm and defend just such. None of that can happen without stability. Without stability there is no way to secure any situation; instead, it becomes just a changing set of circumstances. They disappear and I can’t maintain them, nor can they maintain themselves. Nothing that once was still is, nor will it still be. Everything in me is broken, I myself am broken, but amid the rubble the wall remains, and before it the readiness to answer should the question reach me. Also remaining is the expectation of the question, a groundless hope that still persists. That alone maintains the possibility of stability.

For everything else, after what I’ve experienced, it may be too late. If I say something, see something, know something, then it is nothing that can be affirmed; it doesn’t last, no matter how much it wishes to endure and appears to be affirmed, but it is never firmly held within the mind or invoked through prayer and innocent belief. Before I know it, it dissolves, leaving me uncertain and groping in the dark. This, then, leaves me in an unbearable state, and all I can do is hold myself together. I simply have to be, because I am, and I have to do something for Johanna and the children, because I have to press on with nice gestures and a friendly demeanor and not let up. There’s no other choice but to affirm myself, rather than to be affirmed by people, and certainly not by the higher authorities. No, just I myself, really just that, perhaps not to affirm myself to myself but just to affirm myself, not I myself but just to affirm something. This is indeed a surfeit of a small, humble daring, and as a result of it, all objects come into question, no longer being just this or that, but rather unaffirmed, just questions in themselves. I remain before them, becoming weak and tired as a result, until I risk the monstrous and shove them out of the way.

Because I didn’t flee at the right time, I have to continually flee; no one and nothing can change that. How diminished I am as a result! A man of intellect who is nonetheless exposed, be it the man or the intellect, for either is less than existence. A survivor, condemned to cling to a signpost in the deadly snowstorm of misery, and when the snowstorm had cleared all the others were frozen, the signpost split. On the post, no destinations were legible any longer, the path itself lost, steps taken to the right and to the left, forward or behind, never once revealing the slightest trace of other footprints, while the feet can wander all about the traversable ground, except even the ground itself is not certain, no matter how surprisingly it holds up the weight of the one who walks on it.

But every transformation of the forgotten leads to error. No direction provides a reliable sense of things to come, and the roads of time continue to become lost in confusion; dreams gnaw away at them and mock the certainty of hours. Then there are no more hours, the realms of past and future are shattered, not to be recovered or put back together, nor do they lie agape before each other, for only a demented mind would still cling to the idea of them. The run of things is twisted and destroyed; there is nothing left to retrieve.

I stand here at a loss — at a loss the peace, at a loss the restlessness itself. I pass my time in an empty present, as I turn about and ready myself. Where am I? Where today? Convoluted sorrow, which I break down, nothing of it remaining, the wind having scattered it, nor is there any more sorrow, it being all gone. I don’t wish to exaggerate and portray my anxiety-ridden existence in lurid darkness. Not to make it too all-important, but also to know that one has nothing more than oneself. But what do I have?