H. Adler: The Wall

This page:Back in the present metropolis, Arthur and his wife, Johanna, are called in for questioning by an immigration officer, who grants Arthur a visa without any significant difficulty or restrictions.

This page:Arthur hears a voice that threatens him and calls him Adam, saying he can never escape.

This page: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.

This page:Arthur remembers the duress of war and expulsion.

This page: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.

This page:Arthur dreams that his parents condemn and reject him, while his mother sews his shroud.

This page: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.

This page:Arthur falls unconscious and has another nightmare about his parents.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page:Falling asleep, Arthur dreams of walking in a mountain forest with Franziska.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page:A voice again addresses him as Adam, commanding that he return to his past.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.

This page: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.