H. Adler - The Wall

That was the guy, sixteen years younger than me, who controlled me and turned me into a willing witness to his strange way of life. It was as if I didn’t exist. What Johanna experienced later and had to endure, since there was nothing else left for her to do if she didn’t want to leave me, this I had given over to Peter consciously. I handed over to him what I was not, in order that I could be, and therefore my gratitude to him remains intact, even if I never wish to see his face again. Most likely, I will be spared that. It points, however, to a great difference between my relationship with him back then and the way I am with Johanna. Johanna makes it possible for me to exist, if only through her. Because she takes on my weight, carries me along, and lends me at least the shadow of an existence. It was different with Peter, who really lived for me. He didn’t at all worry if I could be something but, rather, he was simply me. It was all for me, and this resulted in an abysmal dependency, because everything he did for me was more than just done in my stead; it was I in the midst of his being. I couldn’t answer for it, because there was no answering for it, especially as I had no chance to determine it, except in very limited ways, even though he used me as justification for his behavior.

I don’t know how a relationship such as that between me and Peter could otherwise occur. A friendship, if that means a high measure of affection and trust, never existed between us. Back then, my desperate state on the first evening set everything in motion, which then evolved within a few days to almost the closest of relations that I had ever had with another person. I still see Peter approaching as I lay on the pavement in my misery, until he stood there before me and reached out his hand. He pulled me up, he being strong enough to do so, me at his mercy, entrusting myself to the guidance of a stranger who had charge of me and my things as long as I was in his country. He occupied me, but he didn’t control me. Do I still know how it was? It was indeed so: he held me with a strength inside of which I was weak, where everything quivered away incapacitated, but my frailty, this state I had come to feel at home in, this Peter hadn’t seized at all. That was what separated me from him and prevented his helpful grasp from becoming too unbearable. That’s how Peter could do a great deal for me, and yet not everything. That also explains how my relationship with him could so quickly and easily dissolve, as if it never existed. All it took was for me to leave the country. If Peter had not helped me so much, I would still be stuck there today, provided I was still alive, wasting away among my senseless days in the museum.

Three years after my departure, which involved almost insurmountable difficulties in order to get away from there, Peter also left the city and country as part of an adventurous escape. Certainly it all went much more peacefully than my well-regulated departure. Because of what had happened to me in the war, I had forfeited all my papers, most of which could be replaced only through a lot of running around and even some clever bribery. Peter took care of it all. Passes were filled out and granted, with random stipulations that prevented me from entering any civilized country simply because of my mother tongue. Peter knew how to get around anything, for he wheedled, swindled, and juggled questionable documents until at last I had a passport, without which I never would have been issued a visa to the country I wished to travel to. Also, Peter was the one who taught me what to do in order to get hold of the coveted visa. Without him I would have had to keep hiking, just as on the mountain trip with Anna, hiking over the border, at peril because of my frailty, from one non-country to another, leaving almost everything behind — my writing and the squalid memories on which my heart hung. How easy it would have been to remain stuck there and fall into the hands of the border patrol. Alas, that anxious dream that still haunts me today, caught in the border’s meshes until squeezed of breath … Always the desire to escape and the anxiety before the escape, the pressure to escape and the impossibility of escape! Then the need to shoo away doubt that you existed, that you were alive and could make something of yourself …

Peter had spared me the hardest decision. Can it be that he only delayed it and burdened me with it forever? I will never decide, for it’s long been decided. It could also be that Peter simply made it easier for me by rendering me stateless, handling it all selflessly. Or not? Did he not want me to stay? No, such ideas meant nothing to him. So I really believe he did it out of selflessness, for he got nothing out of it by acting for me. It must have been clear to him that with my departure he relinquished me and all rights to me. He did it. He wanted to use me, not to annihilate me. It was his most touching act, to sacrifice me; it was a genuine surrender. That’s why it would be unjust of me to lay out his shortcomings. When amid Johanna’s protection I maintain his memory, I wish only to be grateful to him, no matter how difficult things are. It would be deplorable to point to his weakness in order to avenge myself for having abased myself before him. Peter, can you hear? Would you like a letter from me so that you can better recall?

Dear Peter, I have long held off writing you a letter and am only now doing so because Johanna also agrees that I have to overcome such hesitancy. But now it’s a moot point, because I will not write to you in the way I should have then, except for a few stupid lines after my arrival here, which you never answered, followed by the printed notice, which I went ahead with against the wishes of Johanna, in order to announce my marriage to all the world. You acknowledged such news somewhat frivolously with witty good wishes. I was angry with you. No, I won’t write to you, although I am in fact doing so, for you are no longer alive for me and have no effect upon me. I’m pleased to learn, as Anna shared with me, that you have married a girl, even if it’s not the former bride whom you left behind at home, and that you are living a prosperous life in New Zealand, while, hopefully, in between you have also become more mature. Publicity people with thousands of lurid ideas, such as yourself, are certainly in demand over there. If that isn’t at all the case, I still know that it’s no doubt easy for you to sell your talents as advantageous to others, such that they are proud to take advice from you. And so things are excellent for you.

You no longer have me, that’s true, but be comforted — oh, you are already comforted — because that’s no loss. With Johanna, who best helps me to see what I can expect, I have found great good fortune, even if she is not blessed with those qualities which will bring our union certain supreme material success. Johanna has two children, to whom she is the best of mothers. She does only what she can, though she would be the first to admit that she cannot do all the things you could do. Some months before our boy was born she had to give up her job, and since then she has mainly busied herself with taking care of the house, while I am always with her. Two do-nothings — that’s not your style. Your wife no doubt makes a tidy sum, true? I would hardly recognize you! With us, it’s different. I can’t speak about such matters with Johanna, for she’s very sensitive; and she has every right to feel hurt. Nor is it exactly true that we’re do-nothings, certainly not Johanna, for she never quits. Children are work, and a husband like me doubles the load. So I remain a do-nothing who sits and looks on as time passes, watching it go by.

I love most to sit at my desk and pretend to seem very busy, the walls protecting me as I look furtively out the window. It’s a broad window, with five panes, that looks quite posh, it almost seeming a treasure. From there nothing in the street escapes me. I see many people, children who frivolously don’t pay attention to the cars racing by, kicking their balls from one sidewalk across to another and then suddenly jumping into the roadway without thinking. I also look across at the windows opposite, where birdcages hang, the yellow companions flitting around inside the bars and belting out their song with powerful throats. I look into the windows and at the street full of faces that have long since become familiar, such that I could tell you at any time just what kind of mood each one is in. This lingering and gazing is my main occupation, nothing very productive, but it suits me well. The people who know me have a keen sense of how deplorably and dissolutely I pass the time, and they judge me and feel sorry for poor Johanna, who is touched by such sympathy. She is mainly of the view that my observations are valuable. She praises my efforts and the days well spent and protests when I’m criticized. May her sincere belief in me always remain! She maintains that it’s not my fault that I’ve been denied the proper attention and support, and she’s angry about it, for hardly anyone notices. My knowledge and capability lie fallow, and I am unjustly denied the kind of engagement I deserve. Clearly, Johanna cannot come to terms with it all.