H. Adler - The Wall

We climbed silently. I didn’t look much at her who had made the hike possible. I only left it to her to lead the way, she having taken charge and seeming satisfied. More and more I wanted to disappear into the forest, to feel it all around me and everywhere, in each tree, memories and hopes at every point, a guest in a home that had survived so much and will survive so much more, that allowed me to enter and took me in and yet didn’t even know me, untouched by all my suffering, yet also wrested away from forever, the close-knit fabric on the edge of the anguished country that was no longer my country, not at all here inside the mountain forest, where the hillside offers no one any refuge and soon the valleys must dream of being emptied of humans.

I was never at home in these mountains but always a stranger, yet more deeply enclosed than in any old city, or anywhere in the country or the world. Never had a landscape been so alive to me in its sounds, stimulated more tastes or more smells. I loved it when the long beams of sunlight poured down, when the branches were warmed and the underbrush crackled. I loved it in the rain, when the water dripped heavily from the raspberry bushes, when layers of fog rose and fell, or the wind blew cool in summer or nearly toppled the trees in autumn, when the powerful blasts of thunderstorms threw sultry fear into the tall rumpled crowns of the trees. I loved the mountain forest in any weather, hardly known paths having carried me into it for many hours, where an always renewed sense of fullness, whose blessing was secured by the view, left me alone with myself, a man in the world of trees, a man not among men, a man with a chosen and friendly companion, a man next to Franziska’s loveliness, she who felt herself the guardian of a secret realm amid the protection of the surrounding area, myself a man in the hidden reaches of the dense covering that granted me more freedom than the open fields, because I remained unto myself, rather than one continually searching, and therefore unobserved, never locked out, never held back by fences, not warned to stay away and forbidden to enter. And if I chose to walk through my territory and relish it, it would stand strong and thick, me treading every loved piece of it with grateful feet. But when a stretch of meadow or a forest, an outcrop or an elevation briefly granted a view, sometimes from only small nooks and not for very far, often narrowly hemmed in by thickets, and only sometimes stretching off into the distance, or down into the valley, across to a wall of trees, upward to the cloud-covered peaks of Angeltal, across the river to the next string of alps, to Prenet, Brückel, and Panzer, or farther to the dells, from which Eisenbach and Regenbach get their water, and the swelling surge of forest behind it that doesn’t end, with Kuppen just beyond, which was often barely visible, and the Hahnenriegel towering above all, then Pamperberg and Fallbaum, each higher than the other, Laksberg with its broad cliffs and Falkenberg thrusting steeply upward, a mountain world that suddenly was there when I wandered along this side of the ridge, it then becoming solemnly quiet, desire and longing falling away, turning in upon themselves. The joyous feel of solid ground.

All of this was granted with time, it only requiring the will to bring it on, the rest of it coming naturally as I wandered along, be it for a long while or a short time, a single step often being enough, a couple of leaps, and once again the forest was the lord. The culmination, which gave the soul pause through such calming experience, manifested itself suddenly and quietly. The view, which the distance provided, remained potently there and sunk within itself, entirely at rest, covered over and entangled, it being able to be invoked again, only a step, a quick jog to a certain spot being all that it took to reveal itself anew to the curious. Whoever lived in the nearby towns or worked in the valleys or pounded away in the forests, whoever went along with his daily chores here certainly could not discover it in the same way as the committed visitor. However, Franziska and I expected to find it here. We were never disappointed, because we brought our hardships to the mountain forests. The days linked together like shooting sprigs, or was that the placid treetops above us? There were no days as usual, for they rose above the usual cares. Yet within this lay danger, for they themselves grew desirous, wanting it not to end. Thus they almost gave us too much, because freedom is a dream but not a human property.

This became clear to me as I pressed deeper into the forest with my companion and indulged myself in happiness once more. Nature and human beings, was what I thought, but in between there was sin, or Adam cut off from the garden of blessedness. Yet I didn’t let these thoughts flare up too much in my mind, for I felt threatened enough already. It had not diminished in these past few days. In the middle distance I had once taken comfort with Franziska, but no longer, for spikes pierced my being and tore through me, the piercing background boring through the forest, perhaps the next moment cutting into my face. So confident was I that the gentle mountain world would continue to convey the magic of its forests, I was transformed deep down — or, better yet, I was drained and left in a heap, and then filled with the dark fruit of decay, which didn’t fall from my branch, nor could I get it out of me. Ripe within me I carried the legacy of a deep reluctance, which as a penitent had served to make me resistant, bowing my neck and, even under blows, refusing to accept my demise, since I had always ventured to uphold my being, which after my long patient journey I no longer possessed.

But now I was in the mountains that I never thought I would see again when I longed for them from so far away. Now I had communed with them, and everything in them was still the same, just as I had once known and sympathized with. Away from them, I had to somehow survive. But I had not in fact done so, for I was someone different, one in search of himself, now here again, and yet what was it I encountered? The other one who traced the same steps as a boy here in the forests, the woman at my side so strangely accommodating, an aid to healing and yet injured herself. Recently she had become engaged with her husband’s cousin. The couple hoped to soon leave the country, and my own departure was set for even earlier. Now we walked along together. It was goodbye, for both of us, bound for elsewhere, wanted to partake of what was unforgettable about the countryside.

The Teufelsee lay before us, placid and without a wave disturbing its surface. I had forgotten it. I opened my hand and looked at it, then lifted it to eye level, then beyond it to the water, on which my hand floated like a ship. Where the lake creek took a cool drink from the still waters of the lake and flowed on, we stood motionless before the blank mirror, moved by the cliffs and the forest and the steep drop, a distant cold splendor still present when you stood on the edge and gazed down at the steely depths. The somber spruces were visible on the lake’s surface and looked even more somber as they sank into its depths, the powerful lake knowing no boundary. Water is stone; everything that touches the lake is stone, be it the algae in the viscous damp, the gray roots that cling tangled and wounded to the cliffs, the blackened trunks that have fallen and, relentlessly tough, still loom above the surface stretching out, the path that winds along above, all of it stony, even the needles of the fern with its brown spores. The lake is the cool eye of the mountains, undisturbed, the lake’s rim a craggy brow.

We didn’t stand there long. The path soon left the lake, the trail growing wider, the forest no longer composed of trees weighted with time, the light forming itself in thick pools. Until we reached Rotgraben, the incline was gentle. There, however, we turned left, where the path became steep and led along a half-wild lane toward the lake rim. The slope was brightly lit with daylight, the air smelling wonderful as we entered a new patch of trees. Whatever hindrances lay in our path didn’t hem in the desire to press on. I felt strong again and was happy that my weakness fell away the more firmly each step was met with resistance. My companion smiled at my urge to charge on and was pleased to see me looking like a boy who did not yet know about heavy limbs. She moved her lips to form a word, but then didn’t say anything, only her gaze revealing her understanding. She was happy to help out when too big of a log blocked the path. The edges of it split into long strips, the naked pulp still fresh — clearly there were loggers in the area. One could hear their axes pounding against the branches, their rough calls also breaking through, though we couldn’t see the men themselves as they worked away, hidden in the woods. We climbed higher and were soon rewarded, a new patch of forest rising with young trees, slim beeches, here and there a single spruce or fir tree. The path grew unexpectedly more gentle in its slope, then it disappeared. We had reached the top, an open, flat stretch of garden, but not too wide, as on either side it sank abruptly away, its edges rounded off and falling deep down, until it completely disappeared into the shimmering foliage that hinted more at the view beyond than being open in itself. A garden meant for us; we were astounded and happily took it all in. The ground was so soft and smooth, covered with fresh green grass and rustling leaves, not a single stone pressing through the gentle earth, the severity of the mountain turned into delicate reflection.