H. Adler - The Wall

“So it can sit here before you each day for you to look at. It doesn’t bother you, and it’s pleasant for you.”

Fräulein Zinner looked at me as if she didn’t know whether she should feel sorry for me or for herself.

“Usually I don’t bother to explain what I say,” I quickly explained. “Yet I need to make myself more clear. I mean, it must be hard to look at, your loved ones, but it doesn’t bother you because you have to and want to. Indeed, that’s also a rudimentary kind of solace.”

“I never am free of it. There’s nothing else. The past and serving others. Isn’t there a prayer that begins with ‘Consider …’? I don’t know much, but I always say something that begins with ‘Consider.…’ Then I receive a reply, quite simply: ‘Serve!’ And that’s how it goes: Consider that you serve others, and serve others so that you consider what it means. No, I can’t ignore the past. I need to serve.”

“You shouldn’t ignore anything, Fräulein Zinner, if it doesn’t go away naturally. You’re right to follow that. You’re also right if you believe that it won’t go away, for that’s the reason we reflect. I don’t have any pictures of my parents.”

I paused. She looked at me searchingly, moved her lips, but said nothing.

“No picture of my parents, nor of any of my relatives. I was given so many things, most of which I had no idea about; no picture was among them. That’s the way it is. Which is why I earlier said so much about your pictures. There’s so much to be observed and discovered among everyday things. I don’t have such rudimentary kinds of comfort. I don’t know the place or the day of my parents’ death. Somewhere in the east. No need to try to look it up, I was told, there’s no point in trying. Thus I don’t know whether they are alive or not, even though I am certain that they were killed, that they are gone. But it’s all so unknown. That’s what I meant.”

Fräulein Zinner turned over the pictures such that they lay on their backs on the desktop. I couldn’t allow that, so I carefully stood them up again.

“You really shouldn’t do that. Thank the eternal ones that you have these pictures; it’s a blessing. If you actually think I am capable of envying you in the slightest because of them, then please throw me out!”

I went over to the coat rack where Fräulein Zinner had hung up my things, took down my coat, and slipped into it. She was pale as a ghost, didn’t pay any more attention to the pictures, and stared at me intensely as she leaned against the desk, an arm arched behind her for support.

“Herr Landau, you’re right, if you’ll allow me to say so. I deserved that. I’m being egotistical and thinking only of myself. But you’re welcome to go of your own free will, not because I shoved something onto you.”

“And you want to stay here?” I asked sadly with my hat in my hand. “Come along with me!”

“May I really?”

“You should! You invited me.”

She seemed relieved, her demeanor relaxed, but she still didn’t stir from the desk, and looked at me uncertainly.

“Shall we go?” I asked encouragingly.

“Are you really feeling all right now?”

I had to smile, and wanted to say, “You are a dear, sweet child.” But I held back.

“I feel just fine. If you were to look a bit more happy, it would make me feel even stronger.”

Then at last she smiled, stepped closer to me, and held her purse in her hand. Then she remembered something and cleared away the tray with all its things, at which I had to empty a half-full glass of wine. After that, the chair and anything that would remind one of my visit had to be straightened out. The only thing Fräulein Zinner had missed was the card file. I walked over to the drawers and was about to close them, but my effort failed miserably. I laughed while motioning apologetically, and Fräulein Zinner laughed even louder as she rushed to help. One shove and the drawers were effortlessly shut. There then seemed nothing left to prevent our leaving, though at the last moment she discovered that my coat was dirty.

“You must have rubbed up against something somewhere. I can brush that away in a snap.”

“Yes, the wall. There are traces left there. I leaned against it.”

She walked over to a cabinet, returned with a fabric brush, and scrubbed hard at me, but the spots were stubborn and impossible to get out.

“The wall must have been wet. I’m afraid I’m not having much luck at getting them out. The coat will dry out overnight, as long as it doesn’t rain. Then with a dry brush you can easily sweep away all the dust granules. Do you have a brush, Herr Landau? You can take this one.”

I had to laugh again, and assure her that I owned a brush, but that I could be a bad boy who didn’t take good care of his things. Then I was made to promise to make sure not to forget to clean my coat first thing the next morning. Then, finally, we left. We quickly descended the stairs; our steps echoed, but that didn’t bother me, and I was happy to leave the Ivanhoe building and its Search Office. We also didn’t stop to greet the porter, as was normally done when leaving work; I was afraid that Fräulein Zinner would get caught up in conversation with him again.

The darkness in the streets seemed to have grown more dense, and it was colder as well. Soon we had walked in so many different directions that I no longer knew where we were. I felt uncertain and extended my good will and faith to my companion. I would have to do anything she asked me to, for I was too defenseless to resist the slightest attack. Yet why did I think anything bad would happen? I could just run away from her and immediately disappear into the dark, after which I would be able to find my way and ask someone for directions. After all, I had an address, a room in a guesthouse for which I had paid, and so because of that there was no reason to be anxious. No one lets those who pay in this world perish; no one leaves them alone, and they are taken care of much sooner than those who are miserable, who have to beg for what they need, but who have no shelter and therefore remain lost.

What idle anxiety I allowed to overcome me instead of patiently trusting someone who meant well! Fräulein Zinner really did mean well, and she knew where she was going and had a restaurant in mind, so it was up to her to get us there without any digressions. She was headed the right way, and there was no need to worry, not now, for everything was out of my hands. The endlessly confusing city had, under the protection of a savvy guide, lost its power over me; thus I could let myself be led, clandestine and clueless, through any area. I would have liked to talk, but since my companion remained silent I didn’t say a word as I walked through the strange streets. It was better to know that she was near, right next to me, than to just pay attention to what she was saying, which would hardly have put me at ease in the accumulating darkness but instead made me anxious. She was me. Because this was so, I had to take care, nor could I endanger this subtle dependency with any kind of provocation that would suddenly break it. Once, I stumbled so clumsily at an intersection while stepping down from the sidewalk onto the street that my ankle cracked and I felt a stabbing pain rise up my leg that was not awful but irritating. I didn’t say anything to Fräulein Zinner, yet she drew closer and took my arm, very gently yet firmly, just like a nurse helping a convalescent with his first steps.

And so we moved on. I don’t know how long we walked. It could be that it was not long, but it seemed endless to me, the way my feet unswervingly pressed on ahead while my body remained behind or slowly followed, much heavier and more inept than my eager feet, though my head was the heaviest as it glowed in the cold, unable to keep up with the reduced speed of the torso, such that the unfortunate skull almost fell all the way back, an unwitting stranger who was being dragged along unwillingly. Poor head, which was hardly made for such strain and which would have been grateful just to be left alone, it being better to have a carefree rest than to have to suffer such wanderlust. Finally it succeeded, the head remaining alone as the body and limbs plowed on through the storm of haphazard streets without stopping and finally — who knows where? — sank into the far distance. The head, however, leisurely followed its own path. It didn’t need to figure out where it was amid the dense streets, neither here nor in a different city, it needing such a small little spot that it always found one, able to hide itself in the narrowest of corners in order to wait for what doesn’t come, and then, contrary to expectations, it does; or, at least, not exactly what is expected is there but nonetheless something that could be expected and indeed was at least as good as what was expected. The head indeed didn’t have to expect anything, not once, and therefore could do many things, such as forget or be forgotten. Who worries about a head that only marginally and harmlessly lives and has no body? No one bothers with such a thing, for even an attentive street sweeper would, at the most, smile, though it wouldn’t occur to him to toss a lonely strange head into the rubbish.