H. Adler - The Wall

“You are not lost, my dear. You will soon come to see that.”

Often, Anna had spoken to me comfortingly and tenderly, but never had her voice shown such affection for me. Was I letting go of the only person who, though she hardly understood me, nonetheless knew nearly everything of my plight? There would likely be a warning about the need to leave the platform, one that signified a last, irrecoverable moment. I didn’t have to travel on into the uncertain future yet; I could still risk saying to Anna that I was better for her than the handsome jolly Helmut, who good-naturedly stood smiling next to us and in his heart was probably glad that I was clearing off. I was envious. Helmut was healthy, his eyes hardly having been touched by suffering. But I trembled, my eyes had no strength, everything around me grew blurry, aswim in a drizzling mist. Was Anna still next to me? I didn’t trust myself to glance at her in order to conceal my disappointment that she was already with Helmut and probably leaning on his shoulder. Between Anna and me there was a wall, only razor-thin, even transparent, yet impenetrable and final. I had lost Anna because I was stupid and cowardly. What good was it that I could still hear her voice so close by?

“Everything will be okay. Don’t worry. The two of us are good friends, but we don’t belong together. You must know that.”

I murmured thank you to Anna and felt ashamed.

“Peter, at last you’ll be rid of me.”

“In a little while, unless there’s a delay.”

“But soon, even with a delay. Such a heap of nothing must at last be off.… What a weight will be lifted from you! Or will you be sorry?”

“I know how to take care of myself.”

“I hope so. It will also be nice to have the room to yourself. You will have to clean up after me a good deal, I’m afraid! Nothing, and yet I leave so much behind.”

“But that’s good. That way, I will laugh and cry at the same time that you are gone and have finally left me in peace.”

Anna turned to Helmut and played with his right hand. This pleased him, but when he noticed that I was watching he stepped away. He was a simpleton.

“She’s a beauty, your Anna!” I said rudely and almost too loud.

“I agree!” he said proudly in return.

He wanted to add something, but Anna put a finger to her lips in order to silence him.

A railway man lifted a departure sign high and shoved it into the display board; the express train to beyond the border was arriving as they called out its name. I burrowed in my coat pocket and pulled out my ticket and wanted to grab my two suitcases, but my friends wouldn’t allow this. Peter was faster than me and already held the suitcases, although there was still plenty of time, for the passengers were only slowly beginning to gather for the rush. Nor was I able to grab hold of my little suitcase and my bag, Anna and Helmut having got to them before me.

“Both suitcases — I can’t have that, Peter! You must give me one!”

He just laughed. At that moment, I felt him capable only of scorn and bad will.

“You must, you must!” I begged, but in vain.

“You will have enough to schlep, dear Arthur. For now, you must allow me the pleasure.”

I could have asked Anna or Helmut to hand over the goods they carried, but I didn’t want to upset them; if Peter carried my things, they had to do the same. Now, haltingly, we moved along with the thick stream of people. I looked up at the clock; the minute hand quivered and jumped with a jerk to the next minute. Not a patient clock, for it stutters, I thought. My escort moved on ahead of me. That was fine with me, as I didn’t want them behind me, and it would have been awkward otherwise, though there was no clear reason why I should be bringing up the rear. I should have been in the middle. Peter took the front spot, which I thought good; his carefree frivolity didn’t restrain him, making him the best suited for the situation. Deftly he wound his way toward the gate and was already through without even glancing at the ticket puncher. Anna scurried along and laughed at the railway man, as if owing him endless thanks for the enormity of his good will. Meanwhile, Helmut followed along like an innocent child.

Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable in being the last; it would have been better to have someone behind me, because now I was afraid to lose sight of my friends and to have to hold on to my ticket book longer than I wished to. But I couldn’t get ahead of Helmut without falling painfully; I’d have to tug at his sleeve or even shove him. I couldn’t do that, so I had to patiently remain in the rear. Helmut had already slipped through the gate without a problem. Now I only needed to take another step in order to present myself to the ticket puncher, who was already eyeing me seriously and coolly as the next one in line, but I felt it almost impossible to move. I wanted to peek again at the clock in the hall, my gaze shooting almost straight up, but was no longer able to see the clock face. Still, I hesitated, there being the tiniest bit of time allowed me to have a last moment in this city. The dark sense of the word “destination” suddenly came to me. Beyond the gate was the train station, but no other destination, no longer the city. Though I was leaving it of my own free will and wanted nothing else but to do so — this was the moment that I had sought since the day I returned, and for which I had longed with hardly any anxieties holding me back — I was nevertheless anxious, feeling abject and cast off, because, with the goal having been reached, I was also expelled and without a destination, no longer having rights to a burial in my native city, not even of any kind of remembrance, everything having slipped away: childhood, my parents’ house, happiness, and plenty of unhappiness. Yet no, the unhappiness is there, but now it will be different. It will transform itself into the pursuing tumult, an unhappiness that will plunge forward behind me through the gate, it already weighing upon me and holding me by the neck; I wanted to shake it off, but it wasn’t a piece of baggage that could just be taken from me. That’s why it was a blessed stroke of good fortune when my friends took charge of my things, as I still had my hands free and could let them to sway back and forth, not having to suffer checking the clock, time indeed not being recorded anywhere as it frittered away somewhere far off in the lonely, twisted corners of this city. By then, I needed to stretch my gaze in order to detect those hiding spots.

Really, I should have tried to look back; it was still possible and not forbidden, but nevertheless I didn’t risk being a coward again. I was afraid to think of the protest that would flare up behind me. I held my ticket high, it being the only weapon that could save me, yet I clutched it too tight, such that it wasn’t suited to battle, and there I stood, still paralyzed, my escort already having moved ahead, no longer an escort but, rather, deserters who had left their comrade behind and betrayed him, such that he had to face his demise alone. The lips of the gatekeeper yawned open, fleshy full lips, revealing a powerful set of teeth brown with pipe tobacco, a hefty tongue rising from the maw, wagging back and forth and glistening in his mouth. The beast’s nose gathered into a thick knob, the nostrils flaring, sticky hairs standing within. A voice issued from the throat, the right hand swung the barrier, a black thumb pressed back and forth on the lever, such that the single tooth bit into the empty air. But I heard nothing and was confused. To move ahead was not allowed, and though my hesitation was probably much shorter than my anxiety made it seem, it still lasted too long for me to please the gatekeeper.

People pressed behind me, but I didn’t wish to block traffic; at the gate some passengers had already begun to go around me. “I’m going, I’m going,” I whispered as apology, yet I did so inaudibly as the monitor waited atop his high chair so impartially, confidently looking on at my supposedly lawful actions, myself able to go about my business and he gracious enough to smile at me and my ticket in an approving manner, as if he was happy for the long journey that awaited me. I was now in the middle of the gate, still brandishing my unsuitable weapon. Then it was the ticket puncher who gently pulled it away, though I did not willingly give it to him. After that, I meant nothing to him; by surrendering this pass I had forfeited everything, that which until now had preserved the last semblance of meager credibility. Reverent and with eyes lowered, I followed every gesture and movement of my master as he, with touching patience, tended to the little ticket book — the red cover, which he gravely stroked, opened with a flourish — and bent over to thumb through the many tickets as if wanting to count them. But he didn’t do that, nor did he examine it at all but, rather, seemed satisfied with the handsome bundle and with two fingers grasped the first ticket, which was more stubborn to get hold of than the cover, though my attendant knew how to help and moistened his index finger with his tongue. This did the trick, and the ticket was punched. Now the master was satisfied and folded up the ticket book, everything in order. It was mine to keep. The man looked up and shoved the book into the happy hand, and said, “Thank you!”