H. Adler - The Wall

“A garden to remember, Anna. Don’t you think?”

“I never would have expected it.”

“No. Yet there are such gardens in the mountains. They are always highly lauded. It’s not at all true, but it’s easy to think that the vast depths of the forest are only there because of this. A magical garden of astonishing loveliness. And one can’t help but speak of it.”

“I feel that as well. Is that what you wanted?”

“Come, we need to rest.”

We sat down, feeling warm from our efforts without being at all tired. It was pleasant, feeling the peacefulness of the grass under our limbs. I opened the knapsack and shoved it toward Anna. She nodded and prepared us a snack.

“Here you can’t help but forget, or at least only remember the good.”

I sat up and looked at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Forgive me, it’s so easy to forget. Were you here with her?”

“No, not here. We were farther south. The town is called Aussergefild. What do you think of the name? From there we pressed on, where it was more severe, more dense, more lonely. The forest thickens, and before you know it you are ensnarled by it. You can smell the high moor; it is acutely mysterious. There you can get lost forever. But there is another town, much closer, which I already pointed out to you from the train. You caught a glimpse of it yourself when we stood at Tomandlkreuz. Remember when yesterday we explored the area around the Panzerberg and came to that forest meadow? There we looked across. There she and I were together, and there we first got to know each other. That is now forbidden ground; I don’t want to go there. It’s also too far. But where we want to go today — namely, to the top, which you want to feel beneath your feet — there we were together. That’s enough. I don’t ever want to walk again on the ground that I covered with her back then.”

“You know, it bothers me that I always end up talking about her, for it feels like a raw wound. Nonetheless, I always hope that it’s of help to you. Since that night when you stayed with me after you came to me, I have always worried about you. You told me many things and upset me, but you’ve also remained silent. I don’t like it, it’s true, but since we’re both a wreck, you above all, it’s occurred to me that I understand you better than you think I do. My only wish was for you to get better. That’s why we’re here. In this garden, that can happen.”

I looked at Anna thankfully, but in fact said little. What she shared with me were only the chatty ramblings of many conversations in which I told her something about myself. She meant well, but she came at me much too strongly. Yet it was my fault that it had come to that, for I had often and too intensely admitted my fears and anxieties to her. There were only a few people who even fleetingly knew of my former world, and Anna was one with whom I always shared it. Of everyone in the city, she alone treated me in a straightforward manner, without mercilessly dragging my heart through the fire of the years of extermination in order to continually revisit the trembling ghostly light of the past, but instead engaging me just as myself. When I was confused, when Peter’s foolishness or encountering other people was insufferable and painful, I sought comfort and ease from her, or at least a distraction. She alone took what I said to be a delusion, and never at all madness, her sympathy being clear. Nor did she, like other women, seek brief comfort, for we demanded nothing of each other. Franziska was a part of me and remained locked within me. Therefore I was doubly happy that Helmut, the pale returnee with the big lit-up eyes of a child, who had so cleverly got hold of some harmless clothing, soon won over Anna to the extent that she entrusted herself to him. He was the right man for my friend; Helmut was a nice young man. We had little to say to each other, but he was captivated by me in a somewhat awkward way, always wanting to hear my thoughts and doing many nice things for me. The most touching was the fact that he was the most enthusiastic supporter of our farewell journey into the mountains, for he talked to me quite heatedly when Anna went silent over my protests, envy and jealousy being entirely foreign to him. And so we could travel together. A lovely understanding existed between Anna and me. The dead from our past granted it to us; the escape we prepared for strengthened it, even though our fates and our reasons were very different. Neither Anna nor I felt compelled to leave this land, yet, nonetheless, both of us had to: I, because of what had happened here, and nothing more being left for me; she because of what had happened now, which meant that she couldn’t stay. Up in the mountains everything remained good, but in the valleys you had to prepare for departure. Up above, we tried to ignore it and pretended to have found a home that was loved and devoutly erected within us, though it was not a home at all.

“Who after us will enjoy this garden?”

My question came out of nowhere and wasn’t very clever, yet she attempted no answer.

“We have said too much already,” she suggested.

“Yes, too much indeed. Yet you can be pleased with me. I have experienced something here, something that, once again, has moved me more deeply than anything else, and yet has not shaken me. Mostly, it has been forgotten. Not really forgotten, for you know me well, but simply absent. It happened in my youth, and had such a powerful effect that it has outlasted the fate I was dealt. Thus there is something that doesn’t tear me up. But in the towns, the valleys, and the far-off lowlands it has no place. Only here in the mountains does it exist, intangible, ourselves taken in by it, encompassed by the very heights themselves. We disappear when we entrust ourselves to the mountain forest. Only there do I experience what no other landscape does for me. Yet it doesn’t last. The secret doesn’t leave the mountains, and we cannot remain here. Or, certainly, I cannot. We are only taken in by it when we enter it. Indeed, that can be repeated every day, always heading for the forest, always sinking into its midst and being surprised the deeper we immerse ourselves in its density, or follow marked paths or logging trails that fork and finally lead to a grove, the tracks of a gamekeeper, or blindly on to an impassable pile of stones, the warmth of open spots of sun, and then once more into the damp surround of cool bushes. There is nothing else one needs to do, no need for an occupation, no worries and no money, or the daily cares that eat away at your being. Just live — it’s that simple: live. Who can do that? Not I. Yet when you leave the mountain forest you no longer have any power over others. Only a yearning exists that reminds us of the forest, saying, ‘Don’t dally, come back, come to me so that finally and forever I can encompass you.’ I no longer think about it, Anna, but I know that, as a young boy, for weeks with a friend — it was So-and-So. Sure, go ahead and laugh, Anna! Anyway, it was So-and-So with whom I hiked all around the forest for weeks. We had a tent with us. So we never once had to go into town at night, and, as we awoke early in the morning, we were surrounded by mystery. Only every second or third day, when our provisions ran low, did we look for a village in which to buy what we needed and could carry with us. Then off again. But, you know, that’s no longer possible. The short reprieve we were allowed rested only within the existence we are forbidden to maintain.”

I closed the knapsack and lifted it up as we left. All around us was birdsong, very soft and rhythmic, accompanying us through the garden flooded with light which ran the length of the narrowing and descending ridge. The birds were nesting there, a flock of finches, happy to break off their mounting clamor before their song attained the cadence of its short beats.