H. Adler - The Wall

The conductors’ pipes blew. Once more, I stretched a hand toward Peter in as conciliatory a manner as I could, then to Helmut, who had stepped away from Anna for the moment, as if it were too much for him to stand together with her to wish me well, while finally Anna’s and my hands touched, and only just touched, a shyness holding us back and not allowing a strong grip, though we were so moved that our left hands found each other. With a sudden upsurge of emotion, I bent forward and lightly and fleetingly kissed the back of her right hand, which stretched out cool under my lips. It was fine with her, but I was taken aback and quickly stood up straight, only our hands perpetuating our bond, they still belonging to each other, otherwise we would already have separated. Perhaps it lasted longer than it should have, especially for Helmut, but finally we had to let go of each other, as the conductor approached with a door key, our arms lowering, limp and yet resolute, slapping at the sides of our legs, a strange awkward sound, but freeing us as Anna took a breath, she having been swept up by this unconscious clasping of our hands as much as I was.

I had already hopped up onto the steps, the door crashing behind me. I hurried to my compartment, yanked open the window, and leaned out as my friends drew closer somewhat more slowly. Inwardly disengaged, yet friendly, Helmut and Peter stood before me like off-duty soldiers, calling out all kinds of funny things. I didn’t pay attention and didn’t respond, but just nodded along with them. Peter churned his arms the way children do in imitating the motion of train wheels; I played along and waved at him as if the train were, in fact, leaving. Anna didn’t approve of these antics but, instead, looked at me steady and calm; we knew everything and had nothing more to say to each other. I noticed how the signal post had lifted the sign for departure, which didn’t prevent Peter from notifying me as well. I stretched out my right hand, which everyone shook, and then the train began slowly to move; I hardly felt it, so softly did the train pull away. As if on command, my friends stepped back, unfolding white hankies and walking in the direction in which the train was headed. That wasn’t enough for Peter; he ran fast and caught up with me, boasting that he was much faster than the train. It should have got on my nerves by then, but I didn’t want to spoil his fun and was amazed at his childish ways. “Marvelous, marvelous!” I called, and that was my last word. Anna and Helmut had remained standing far back, and now Peter also drew up, standing there pompously as he began to wave. I waved back as long as there was a last flashing glimmer of the swaying hankies to be seen. Then I stopped looking back at the station.

I was alone in my compartment and thought of settling in for the many hours of the journey. But I remained standing at the window, knowing I had to close it soon, since we would soon be crossing over the long viaduct. Then the lights of the station area went out as the panes of the window were covered with impenetrable smoke. I could have then sat down and comfortably prepared everything for the night, because the trip through the viaduct took more than ten minutes, even on the fastest trains, as witnessed previously on many long and short trips. Yet I couldn’t settle down, I couldn’t bring myself to sit, deciding instead to pocket my handkerchief, take off my coat, hang it up neatly, and remove a cinder from my hat before I tossed it on the seat. I stuck my hands into my pockets and, alternatively, into the cracks between the seats several times as I listened to the joyful clatter of the turning wheels. This music pleased me quite well, its rhythm full of promise, and out of all expectation I began to whistle, searching out the tune for “Oh, You Dear Augustin.”

Soon the compartment started to feel too cramped, so I slid back the door and walked up and down the corridor; most of the compartments were barely occupied. Whoever wasn’t traveling on his own was locked in excited conversation, the lone travelers reading the evening edition of the morning paper or sitting there with bored, indifferent faces, there being no telling why they were there, or they simply were in total self-control. They hardly paid attention to me. I also sought to appear indifferent, for nothing was so obvious in the world as the fact that I was using this train, each being the secret master of his own journey. If I had specific intentions linked to my journey, no one had any idea, but if I were forced to disclose them, then I was the special envoy of my museum. I stopped whistling “Augustin,” the little song being much too inappropriate. Soon I again walked back, swaying somewhat, to my compartment, where the motion of the train caused the sliding door to move back and forth.

Energetically I rallied myself; it was wonderful that now, at least, I was a free man, able to think what I thought was best, much more intense and threatening than I usually was. Who was as independent as I was? I said out loud, “The money for the trip is arranged. I have the right to leave. I’m traveling because it pleases me to do so. I am, at minimum, a passenger, a pa-pa-ass-ass-enger. No one can deny me that. I am traveling from now to there and thereafter then.” That was the message I wanted to convey if someone were to ask me with the politest expression for an obligatory explanation. Anyone traveling the same route was free to inquire, and if it didn’t please them, well, they could just toddle off.

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m me.”

“Are you Herr Adam, the Adam who was expelled?”

“Not that I know of! You’re mistaking me for someone else.”

“But you look so familiar to me.”

“That’s right. You as well. Haven’t we seen each other somewhere else before?”

“I’m so pleased. You’re right. I’m also called the same.”

“Naturally, now I remember. That’s what you’re called.”

“You doubt it?”

“Actually, quite the contrary. I am, there is no doubt of that.”

“Does doubt begin in earnest when one doesn’t exist?”

“Certainly. Just as you say.”

“You’re exceedingly friendly.”

“I’m always friendly. I’m even friendly when I travel.”

“Very nice. It’s certainly worthwhile to do so. I also like to travel that way.”

“You, too?”

“Me, too.”

“You exist.”

Thus I presented myself in turn and made an entirely good impression. No one disagreed, for which I was grateful. Then I stepped to the window, satisfied, and drummed on the pane alternately with my knuckles and my fingernails. I stopped and pressed my nose against the glass, for I expected that we would exit the viaduct at any moment, and I didn’t want to miss that. No bright light announced that we were outside, but instead there was deep night, impenetrable smoke pressing against the window, though the change in sound was a sure sign. I quickly pulled down the window, because I hoped for a moment, before the train turned at the bend, to catch a glimpse of the neighborhood where for sixteen months I had been Peter’s roommate. But I could only make out in which direction it lay, the garden hill with its lit crown rising above where the vineyard must be. Otherwise, there was nothing to see, the darkness weighed too heavily — no moon in the sky, hardly any stars visible, it most likely being cloudy. Then everything was already behind, the train traveling too fast and it feeling good to me; I would not have to stop. There was only one stop ahead that mattered, and it took hold of me and was carrying me away into the surrounding night.

Far below me a street ran alongside which I knew well, knowing, as I did, almost every corner of this city, right down to the last exits to the fields and forests of the empty suburbs that stretched endlessly through valleys and lowlands, growing every year and rising up the hillsides and far off along the chain of hills. There below we passed a tram, and I believed I could pick out its grinding from the surrounding noise. Slowly the moving car pursued its way along its humble path and was fully occupied, many people having to stand, an apricot glow pressing from inside it, and from this leisurely, sleepy light many little violet sparks sprang from the wheel of the power rod above. Then it was gone, the bridge shuddering above the river. I tried to look between its passing pillars while, over the flashing play of the river mirroring lights of the old royal castle with its towering dome, there rose an arresting picture from a childhood erased long ago. Now it stood before me in a dreamlike faded glow, but the image I knew didn’t really appear, only the illusion towering above me, me laughing in response, feeling stronger and healthier than it, even enduring and less fleeting; so vain and presumptuous did I feel on the railway bridge. Yet soon it was past, its rumbling silenced, and with it was drowned the distant view of the wonderful illusion. Now we were crossing a suburb, shattered streets and factories, again a curve, the train slowing down, the brakes gripping hard and squealing; the dusty suburban station, through which not even the fastest trains had been granted free passage, demanded that we stop.