H. Adler - The Wall

I manage, nonetheless, to remain somewhat reasonable. In my world I have tried to make sure that the guilt that never quite leaves my person has at least lessened in the past two or three years. I don’t give other people much of a chance to have much to do with me anymore. My problems, whether they can be assuaged or remain unsolvable, I no longer turn to others with, and I have succeeded in extricating myself from their involvement. Thus I have robbed myself of the last opportunity to find a place among my contemporaries, to feel that I have a function as a member of society, even if it is only that of being a recognized witness to what I have lived through. I no longer hope for that, even if I should make it to fifty.

Once I had been denied almost any ties to the community, I was a relic of a person. Then I also had to relegate this relic to the inconspicuous. That had nothing to do with humility or frugality. Strangely no one expected that I would be depressed or suffer at all; on the contrary, they in fact expected me to be self-reliant, demanding that I produce something and lift myself up in the way that a man was meant to do. In no way did I measure up to such clever people, and so I don’t want anything to do with how they think of me.

I have to rely much more on myself than on others. Thus I repeat to myself once more what I have come to realize: Without thinking of myself as any more important, if I am ever to exist, I know indeed that I can never let myself step outside myself; I live within my own border. It would be an implicit offense not to recognize that.

I have been forced into my isolation; I have not wanted it, for I always wanted things to be different. Rejected by all, alienated by people and their coveted status, I have been relegated to a place of my own. No one wants anything to do with me, nor do I want anything from anyone. That’s why I’ve tried to keep separate how I survive and not follow unseemly ways. That I am essentially reliant on myself and have to worry about myself on my own — this causes enormous difficulties, such that from within everything looks so paltry, and I have nothing more than just myself, and that is ever little. Often, I ask myself whether there is anything more. That this may still be the case, despite everything, each moment confirms.

I don’t separate myself from what I am not and yet nonetheless am of, that which I cannot escape or run from, for it is my imprisonment. That is neither important and essential nor unimportant and inessential. It hisses in my ears, causes horrible and sometimes also multiple sensations, pressing into me, lifting me, holding ready a thousand horrors, bowing me down and plunging me into weeks of weariness, days and nights blurring together that can hardly be distinguished from one another, because they have been mixed dully together and dipped in a stagnant brew. Then I am almost sick and drag myself around exhausted, feeling myself reduced to my own echo, such that an earlier life — this being my own earlier life — slips over me and leaves me with my senses reeling and it wanting to supply my sluggish fish-mouth with a strange speaking voice. But all of this is me myself, a tunnel in the same mountain whose shafts toss about in an earthquake.

Suddenly I am able to rally, a single movement of the hand enough to order me out of the dungeon of my breast, myself shaking and breaking into a coughing fit. Then usually better days follow, only a razor-thin fear remains and soon embeds itself as a small, smoldering desire coursing through my head from sleep to sleep, and that knows neither source nor goal.

On such days I have the desire to listen to music, uninterrupted music, almost feeding upon it. I myself have never played music, but I have always loved listening to it. Unfortunately, for many years that was only rarely possible. I never had the time, and thus music was drowned in wishes. Now it appeals to Michael. He always loved to sing, and at the age of three he had warbled many little songs quite well. Then it had inspired the boy to take up the violin. That is the newest, most important event in my house. Johanna and I thought about it a great deal, for the cost of a good teacher, which is the only thing Johanna would have, frightened us.

Carefully and quietly encouraged by me, after much hesitation his mother decided to teach him herself. We borrowed a child’s violin. Johanna found the boy to be gifted and skillful. He picked it up quickly, liked to practice, and even had to be kept from practicing too much. For Michael’s sake, Johanna broke her vow and picked up her violin, which she had once wanted to give to me, in order to demonstrate what he needed to hear and see, and, in addition to that, she played duets with him when he asked to, for he loved to play them. How pleased I am whenever I hear the two play while I am sitting in my study working. It makes things in the house seem nicer, easier, brighter. Eva also loves to listen and quiets down; it does us all good.

Otherwise nothing has changed, nor will much change, or, at least, I mean with me. It’s different with the children. They are at the beginning; perhaps, God willing, things will work out well for them. Then, hopefully, they will get over their father, then they will themselves claim him. May they be protected and live a joyous life! May they love their mother, honor her, and thank her, but forgive their father and bear with his weakness without resentment, his affliction as Adam, the loneliness he suffers before the wall!

Michael and Eva, if you ever read these lines, which I have carefully preserved for you, then may you be blessed with the fear of the Lord, then may a buoyant spirit protect you, and everything that I have written here, may it help you find a right awareness. Your father’s work, especially this book about the wall, all of these efforts, should make the experience and achievements of a tested and fragile and yet, amid his ultimate despair, an honest and hardworking person at least a little comprehensible and credible, if indeed not endearing and beloved.

Certainly you won’t be living on West Park Row anymore, but I ask you, if you have the chance, to visit the site of your childhood. Perhaps the little house where you played will still be standing, and next to it the houses where you ran around with the Stonewood and Byrdwhistle children. Also, the vendors in the shops around the corner on Truro Street will still be selling their wares, there being fresh fruits and vegetables in Simmonds’s shop, and perhaps there will even be a dog there that looks like Santi. Perhaps across the street at a window two women will appear and look down at you, between them a cat strutting along the sill. On the street there might be a ragman like old Ron there now, pulling his cart and knocking on doors, asking for old clothes and rags.

The train will certainly still run nearby, and you’ll hear it, and I expect that at MacKenzie’s they will be repairing and overhauling cars as they do now. Only the heavy smoke from the squat chimney will faintly drift smoky and dark over the streets.

You, however, should live, dear children, and honor life, and should you have children, may my blessing help you to set your sons and daughters on the right path. Perhaps then your life will seem to you an enormous treasure.

THE GERMAN TEXT FOR THE NOVEL IS TAKEN FROM Die unsichtbare Wand , published by Zsolnay Verlag in 1989. Although this title would translate as The Invisible Wall , H. G. Adler clearly intended to call the novel Die Wand , and only the publisher’s concern about confusion with Marlen Haushofer’s novel Die Wand prevented this from happening. Hence, I have chosen to restore the original title in translation.