H. Adler - The Wall

I was a self-sufficient head that needed nothing, only a feeling of weakness overtaking me, although I stayed quiet and rested on a soft spot. It was too soft, I soon noticed without alarm, because I sank into it, and because of this descent I couldn’t hang on with either my mouth or my eyelids, as at first they could hardly move and soon not at all, nor could I shove my tongue between my lips, the wall of teeth closing before it, the tongue growing ever more dry and sticking hard to the gums. It was then that I felt all was lost. Such a head could not live for long, too quickly having been cocksure to be able to live without a body. It was all over; it had been too stubborn and too gullible, and as a price it had to die. Yet in a last moment of despair it braced itself against perdition, the memory of the head of the executed anatomist Jessenius causing a ray of hope to flare up, since it is said that his friend the executioner immediately placed the head on the severed body and then the mouth opened, though it didn’t release another word. But in following this particular example the head ripped open its mouth and managed to call out, loud and clear, the ears hearing, “Franziska!”

Then the eyelids managed to open. I could see, I lay there, and I could feel my body again nearby, including the limbs, still severed, yet near, almost attached, everything healed, only far off and deep a pain that stabbed in the foot or the knee, the memory of a fall surfacing — yesterday, I must have fallen, sometime yesterday, on a street in a city. Yet if it was all collected together, healed or unhealed, that bothered me less, if only it was so. I still didn’t dare believe it to be true, for it had all dissipated to such a degree, and I could feel so little and so dully. I still needed to wait it out until everything awoke together. But I could see around me and even turn my head, the room appearing to me at once strange and familiar. Franziska was nowhere to be found. I could have called out for her again, but I grasped that she wasn’t there. Instead of her there moved an unknown woman about the room who appeared not to be surprised that I was lying in bed. Occasionally she looked over at me, just quickly and then away, inconspicuously kind, then carrying on with her tasks unconcerned, as if it was all the most natural situation in the world. I no longer dared do anything; I simply wasn’t capable of anything decisive. By and by, I felt better and more alive; the window was open wide, and brilliant sunshine spilled into the room, bringing with it muffled sounds from outside. It all felt warm and wonderful as it pressed against my bed.

“How did I get here?”

The woman, dressed in a light summer dress, remained where she was, laughed, and looked straight at me, and knowingly.

“Already awake? Or do you need to sleep a bit more? You can have breakfast in bed. It’s all ready.”

Breakfast? That sounded very nice. But in the house of a stranger? How could I eat it and, above all, in bed? I didn’t say anything, hardly moved, and just looked at the woman gratefully and beseechingly.

“Do you want something else? Is there anything I can do for you?”

Why was someone being so kind to me, while I had neglected Franziska so, as well as who knows who else? I brought out a hand from beneath the blanket and rubbed my cheeks and forehead. The woman had turned away; she was full of concern, or she had simply given up bothering with me since I had remained stone silent. I propped myself up a bit in order to be able to better look around the room, and then I knew where I was.

“Good morning, Anna. Is it so late already?”

“Not too late for someone who came home just last night. It’s nine o’clock.”

I jumped up from the couch and hurried to the bathroom. Again, or as always, my leg hurt, but after a while the pain went away, only the kneecap burning. I felt awake, or at least much more awake than on the day before, nor was it hard to get my bearings here. I was so at ease and satisfied, as one can feel only in friendly surroundings. The long evening before, with its conversation running deep into the night, was still very memorable, the bathroom and the entire apartment feeling comfortable to me in particular ways, such that I was myself again. Everything seemed to be set up to serve me, to help me get my bearings, yet without belonging to me. Only Anna’s little household meant something to me, it feeling like when you are in a hotel and everything is laid out for your pleasure. How well everything is set up, I realized, and pushed away the thought of ever having to give up this comfortable setting. But then the notion arose again and made me anxious, thinking that I couldn’t stay here, not this soon, though I would have been happy to let myself be taken care of. What else was I supposed to do? It bothered me as I recalled that I had left my bag at the train station and had to pick it up today. Indeed, to have to walk along the street and stare at the two colors of the patterned granite tiles of the sidewalk seemed a heavy imposition. A walk through the streets could in no way lead to good memories but, rather, only hopeless memories of childhood that still simmered inside my gutted soul.

It wasn’t right of Anna. I should never have come back here; it was no homecoming. It was nothing but a nightmarish mistake, the kind of thing you foolishly do at the end of a war. You travel somewhere and expect something, hoping for a hand that will open up, inviting you and showing you what to do, until at last you’re at peace, though your rights will have been long lost. If I had already reached my goal in coming to this city, then I wanted to stay in this building, in this apartment, this being the only reasonable place to stop. It was astonishing that there was an apartment in which I was allowed to be a guest. The fact that Peter had encountered me on the street and brought me along was a hint that I wouldn’t be sent on. What calmed me here was the situation that no one could have prepared for me ahead of time; namely, Hermann Meisenbach and Anna, the two of them living here the whole time and wanting to be happy together, and then someone brought me along. That was something; it was a sign that people shouldn’t disappear. In the distance a cuckoo called, nowhere to be seen, as carefully his wings beat among the branches, myself at home in my tended nest. Now I could stretch, but it was also good not to stir but rather to wait, always to wait. In between, something could happen, maybe come out of nowhere, late-breaking developments, nothing anyone could see, and then all of a sudden a welcome result. I listened inside my cave; it was completely quiet if I didn’t move, only an image arising that was very old and exalted: Adam at the expulsion. Adam and Anna, I heard someone say, clearly, Adam and Anna, the dreaming Adam without the apple, Anna having crept off on tiptoe. She didn’t want to disturb his summer with a cuckoo’s call, so that he wouldn’t feel any pain in his poor knee. I listened closely and asked, “How shall I begin, so that today I don’t have to give up my refuge and then have to live alone in this city in perpetual misery. How shall I slog across its pavement after the fall with my wounded knee?” In the bathroom I felt good; I would have been happy to be locked in there, and yet how brief even the longest stay had to be. Suddenly, the next moment a future arrived with painful power. To have a plan, that was indeed pointless. I couldn’t dally anymore; it was rude and could bring suspicion down upon me, something that, as far as I knew, should now have been in the past, because I indeed wanted to settle down, wanted to be able to say that it was my apartment, it’s always been mine, I had only been threatened, but now the time is here when everything will be good and right again. I am the master of the house here and will tolerate no one who denies my wishes. Everything here is mine; I recognize it all once again. Then, obviously, I will have to live here alone, yet that would mean giving up Anna, for no one would then take care of me. I would be openly hanged from some floor, and then the regained property would mean nothing at all.