H. Adler - The Wall

“Will you release me?”

Then there rose to the crest of the deeply stirred night the unmistakable voice of Franziska.

“Whether you exist or don’t exist, I release you.”

Then the night opened up and collapsed in upon itself. In thinly folded layers it wound itself around my lit-up, sealed room, but the voice faded away, swallowed up by the other half that was heavier, quietly sinking back into the closed-off past; the second half quietly dissolved into the future, quotidian night nestling down in confusion, clinging and small. Then I felt again inside: I am free. The journey also pressed on, layer after layer, and did not want to end. Indeed, it was time to begin something. Though I had not promised anything for sure, I knew that I would be held to my word, and therefore I lifted myself up and brushed off my pants and jacket. The instant I stood at the door, I had a moment of weakness in which I wondered if I should fulfill my promise; it could also be put off. It might not happen in a day, or even a week.

Though I hesitated, I nonetheless cautiously turned the handle, looked back once more to see if everything was in order in my little room, turning off the light so that only a little light from outside shown murkily into my room before I left it and closed the door behind me. I crossed the short hallway, with its soft carpet, then I turned and climbed down the few creaky steps to the phone booth, where I lifted the receiver, tossed in two coins, and turned the dial, having memorized the number. The number rang, and soon a voice answered, “International Bureau for Refugees, Search Office.” I asked if Fräulein Zinner was there. “One moment,” I was told, then I heard her voice. I said my name. I probably did so too haltingly and not loud and clear enough, for she couldn’t understand me and I should give my name again and say what I wanted.

“Landau. Arthur Landau. Dr. Arthur Landau.”

I said nothing about what I wanted, though because saying nothing wasn’t going to help me at all, I quickly added, “Fräulein Zinner, you must remember me. We met briefly at Dr. Haarburger’s.”

Luckily she remembered, that was clear, but perhaps my call came as an embarrassment, and so I asked her to forgive me if I was bothering her; I could call back in a couple of days. Then the voice changed, as if it recognized mine for the first time, and Fräulein Zinner said warmly that of course she remembered me quite well, it had been an interesting evening, and was there anything she could do for me? Do for me? No, what could there be? Her excessive politeness made me feel uncomfortable.

“I just thought that we had talked about seeing each other again, no? And I even thought, That would be rather nice, don’t you think so? So, to get to the point, Fräulein Zinner, could we sometime soon …”

She didn’t think long before agreeing. But when? I thought to myself, She should decide that, as I don’t know when she is free.

“You know what, Herr Landau, are you perhaps free now? That would likely work best for me.”

“Yes, if you’re not already busy …”

“If I were, I wouldn’t be suggesting it.”

She asked where I was at the moment, and when I shared the name and address of my guesthouse she explained, which I knew already, since I had looked at the city map, that we were in luck, for I was only five minutes away from the Search Office. She wanted to tell me the way there, but I interrupted her, as I knew already which way to go. Then she asked if I could come right away, and I answered that I could be there in ten minutes. That was fine with Fräulein Zinner; she knew of a cheap restaurant that served good food. There you could linger after finishing your meal, which was rare for this country. If it was all right with me, she would like to invite me to dinner there. She had no patience for affectation, and so it was agreed.

I ran up to my room and got myself ready, trying to straighten out my reluctant hair as best I could. In front of the mirror, I realized that I had again neglected to get my hair cut. But there was nothing to be done about it now; perhaps I could improve this mess by wearing a nice tie.

I owned three splendid ties from before the war which bore the label “HAL — Haberdashery Albert Landau.” In a package that my father’s old salesman had given me, I found these ties. “Herr Landau,” the man had said, “I’ve heard nothing from your father. He was afraid that they would come and search my house. But your dear wife gave me this package. She said I should take care of it as best I could, for there were things inside it that her husband had written which were irreplaceable.” Indeed, Franziska had saved my work, for I found everything, including my almost completed doctoral thesis, by which I hoped to become a lecturer, and in the middle of all those papers there suddenly appeared three ties, carefully wrapped, like new, myself having hardly even worn them or able to remember them. They were the only things still left of my old clothes, and they were also from the Reitergasse. When I was given them, several months had passed since my return, and I was no longer so sensitive about things almost long gone, yet I could hardly bear the sight of these ties. I felt them, pressed their heavy silk between my fingers, though they didn’t wrinkle as I gazed at them in earnest and worried that I was handling them too roughly. Then I wrapped the ties awkwardly in tissue paper and that night brought them home from the museum. I offered them to Peter, because they didn’t suit me.

Peter laughed at me, calling me an ass, since at first I had pined after lost things, but when chance placed them in my hand I behaved like an impudent child and wanted to give away the ties. I said that I knew I would never touch them. My words didn’t sway Peter, for he maintained that it would be much worse if he wore them, for then I would have to see them on him, to which I replied that it wouldn’t bother me all that much, for after a while I would get used to it. I fended off Peter’s suggestions and brought the stupid matter to a close. I firmly rejected all advice, but secretly I felt a pang of envy, feeling ever more unsure of my own position and having to keep from growing angry if I were to sway Peter with my lame talk. Despite his ribald, even coarse response to such imponderably fine matters of tact, he suddenly had an idea and most decidedly turned away the goods that had been offered him. “You have a box. Put them in it and then into the closet. Don’t look at them, and stow them away! Someday you’ll be glad.” I actually played agonizingly with the idea of giving the ties to someone else (Geschlieder would have been happy to have them), but instead I talked on in order to annoy Peter, who no longer listened to me but instead just yanked the ties away from me and put them in the box, which he carefully closed and tossed into my drawer. There it remained until shortly before my departure. While cleaning out my desk, I found the ties, which pleased me, and so I carefully packed them.

The wardrobe that I managed to put together after the war was meager and a mixed bag. Decent new things were not to be found, while, in accordance with what was due me as a survivor, I rarely received anything useful in the shops, sometimes nothing at all or badly made versions of discontinued goods that wouldn’t hold a crease. Some things I had to take from Anna in order not to upset her, mostly clothing, though it was painful for me to walk around in Hermann’s clothes, my skin on fire with them, it being almost impossible for me to wear them. I also got some things from those who had disappeared, though in most of them I looked like an ill-fit beggar whose poor Uncle Alfred was too rotund, it being a shame what I had to put up with. Then I had a few things that were better which were given to me here and there, whether handed out through charity organizations or sent from abroad. Uncle Karl Strauss from America — I never wrote to him, but Peter had dictated a letter to me — wanted to ease his conscience by sending a package that contained many things that didn’t fit, nor were even good for trading with others.