H. Adler - The Wall

“Yes. It’s a small apartment. I only have to turn the cushions on the divan and the bed is finished.”

“Here, where your husband—”

“I’m used to guests. Even in recent weeks. Often, someone has to be put up on short notice. Peter has also slept here.”

“I see, Peter … and now I have booted him out.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! Peter has a perfectly nice room and is in no danger.”

“Am I in danger?”

“Of course. You’re not yourself.”

“Whoever is not himself—”

“That’s right.”

“You know, it’s normal. If one arrives in a place that used to be home, or at least was thought and said to be … and then everything is gone. But why should I blab on to you who knows it all already. Your husband gone, Arno … Others stopped searching. But one can’t help but continue searching. Even if it’s pointless.”

“You’re tired. You’ll think differently in a little while.”

Out of drawers in the foyer, who knows out of how many corners, Anna fetched sheets and blankets, as she lowered the back of the divan, flipped three large cushions, and carefully set up the bed.

“I can’t let you do all of this alone! Can I help?”

“No, it’s nothing. It only takes a minute and it’s done. Do you like your pillows piled up? Two of them, three?”

I had to laugh, but that was no way to respond.

“Forgive me, I’m so stupid! It doesn’t matter to me.”

“I only meant what was most comfortable for you.”

“You know, I used to always have them piled up, way up. It was a bad habit. But now … if I can just lie down …”

“You’re very tired, aren’t you? You can lie down right away. Here, just take this! It will suit you well. And here is a dressing gown. If you want, you can change here and I will step outside. Or the other way round — I’ll stay here and you go to the bathroom.”

“Thank you, thank you. But I’m not so tired, it has passed. If you don’t want to turn in yet … I mean, I really owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything; don’t make such a big deal! Here, take these! If you want to talk a little more afterward, I’m ready to.”

Anna held out the things to me; the linens had a faint scent and were neatly ironed. I saw that they were monogrammed with “HM.” A lovely bit of handiwork that had been sewn into the dead man’s body, and now it was for me to wear such a symbol, but without the right to carry “HM” on my chest.

“Was he called Heinz?”

Not thinking, I asked this tactless question, realizing straight off that it was wrong, but a quick answer showed me that no recourse could make up for my callousness.

“No, Hermann. There’s nothing else I can give you. Now go!”

Ashamed, I bowed, but not to Anna, as I wanted to, but rather to the wall or the door, which I ripped open, the strange pajamas and the dressing gown burning in my arms, me not looking behind me. My head hurt with intense shame; I stumbled into the bathroom and clumsily locked myself in. Here I let everything drop and sat myself down on the edge of the tub, then I forced my eyes to look around. The closeness made me uncomfortable; it pressed at me and stifled me, the window placed way too high on the wall and much too small, not suited to any kind of saving leap into the shaft of light. Sweet, sharp, and flat odors mixed together anxious and sad, damp little underthings on a stretched-out line hung together clumped and rippling, sad sites of self-attention, of the care of worn-out limbs and hair, of accumulated jars, little vials and tubes for the supple adornment of face and hands, patient and loaded bins, brooms, rags, tools for shoe work, all kinds of junk. All of it surrounded me, stark and pressing, overwhelming the tiny space, overwhelming me. What did any of it have to do with me? What was I looking for here? Hermann should have shown up to grab hold of the large broom and bash my curious nose with its handle and throw me out. But there was no longer any Hermann; a strange beast had slipped through the cracks and nested here. Anna put up with it, and maybe that’s even what she wanted, she needing a pet, Peter once being that, the young restless one, then the unknown homeless one, whom the restless one had hauled in off the street.

Before me stood the toilet bowl, white and clean under its two lids, a cord with a tassel grip and a water tank, everything in order. A place of shame, rising out of courtyards and isolated corners almost in the middle of the primped satisfaction of sedentary people, the emptying out of the lazy voiding of our lowest nature spewed into the plunging tunnels of the subsurface canals of the city in order that we know nothing more of the disgusting necessities of our bodies. But they are heard through the walls, nonetheless, Father outside, Mother outside, condemned just like you. It can be heard from the neighbor’s apartment as he closes his door and whistles a song, believing himself alone, yet eavesdropped upon unwittingly, and when he finally disappears the water stirs for a long time in the tank. It had been a long time since I had been locked in a bathroom with a toilet. It was like it was in childhood, when sinful forgetting consumed me. I shouldn’t stay outside so long, my mother said firmly, it’s vulgar and vile, but the dream of being alone was nowhere else to be found in the metropolis. Only in the thick folds of the forest or in the loneliness of the toilet was I in charge of myself, because in the apartment, indeed in the entire city, there was not a single corner that was mine alone, all other places being either far too big or too easily entered, for anywhere you could be taken by surprise or watched much more easily than here. Material existence, where the toilet not only crouches in the bathroom but is alone with its surroundings, closed in only by the narrow walls and a door that didn’t need to be opened at someone’s calling if I didn’t want it to. But in this apartment I was nothing but a guest; I couldn’t stay here for any length of time. Anna was waiting and would grow uneasy if I dawdled.

I listened hard to see if anything was going on out in the room, but there was nothing to hear. Also, there was nothing to hear from the other bathrooms in the building or the neighboring apartments. And the elevator, whose creaking drone could be heard through all the walls, had long since gone quiet. Perhaps Anna had gone to sleep in the meantime, had given up waiting for me, thinking that I was ungrateful or rude. Oh, if only she were asleep; that’s what I hoped. I had left nothing behind in the room, carrying all my possessions on me and hiding them in my pockets, and Hermann’s things could just remain on the floor. But I could also pick them up and neatly lay them down if I were to just leave, wanting to get away from Hermann. It was only a few steps to the apartment door; even in the dark, I could rush down the stairs quickly, the only impediment being the locked door. Where might the button for the superintendent be? No, such an escape wasn’t possible, it was forbidden, to even consider it was foolhardy pretension. There could be no dilly-dallying; I had to go back to the room, the night had to be gotten through.

I gathered myself together and slipped my fingers around the edges of the buttons on my clothes. I was free of my clothes before I knew it and took off my socks. My back hurt a bit when I stood up. I stretched, then I looked down at my poor nakedness, a strange body that I had to carry. The marks of deprivation were deep and gray, nothing familiar about these wasted limbs and nothing at all childlike, no boyish flesh. I was not at all lovely, for I had been denied too much and used for nothing good. Amid this sorrow there was certainly no longer the soul of a sanctified house, the behest of my parents having been debased to this wretched figure. I had not looked at my body for years; there had never been time to, nor the opportunity or even the wish to. Torso and limbs, a head on a neck that was much too thin — how strange I looked, the legs trembling slightly the longer I looked. I dreamed of the quiet pleasure that comes with feeling the health of one’s own body, even if it was vain and a bit objectionable. Yet this didn’t suit me at all, for it felt too naïvely cheerful to think that I could embrace such pagan nonsense. There was no more body, there being nothing left but a shrunken skeleton that hardly existed, unaware and afraid, consumed by deprivation, unhealthy and condemned. I shivered as I touched my belly, bloated and pasty, and yet scrawny and puckered, the haunches flabby, the long arms like twigs. What could one possibly do with it all? I unfolded the dressing gown, soft and cool in my hands, the monogram embossed upon it. That was good, for it provided a strength under which I could hide my anxious human figure. I already had the sleeves spread out and wanted to slip my arms into them. Then I stopped short, for sewn into the collar was the silken name of the firm: Haberdashery Albert Landau — HAL — Reitergasse 8.