H. Adler - The Wall

“I don’t know anything. I suspect no one and have done nothing.”

“Do you deny that you were born here?”

“No.”

“Good. And do you deny that you were once hauled away from here, yet that still didn’t keep you from returning after the war was over?”

“No, but—”

“There, you see, that explains it! That’s all we need. You haven’t done anything, that’s correct, simply because we have stopped you before you could. And that’s all we need. You needn’t think yourself innocent, because there’s no way you can be. No, you were looking to start something.”

“That’s not true.”

“Quiet! You wanted to. Otherwise you wouldn’t have tried to slip into the country.”

“I didn’t slip in. I’m legal, and I came on a regularly scheduled train—”

“And almost were arrested for violent resistance when our border police wanted to inspect your passport.”

“That’s not true.”

“Really? And you didn’t raise any kind of a stink when they wanted to hold your passport for security reasons? And you didn’t give cause for suspicion on the day when you were not ashamed to demand a written receipt of your passport and assumed you’d get one?”

“Part of it isn’t true; part of it is completely distorted. I wanted my passport, but I neither asked for a receipt nor was given one.”

“So you’re denying it even happened? I’m warning you!”

“I deny any kind of bad intention.”

The Assessor and the secretary, who was typing hurriedly, shook with laughter.

“To us there is no one who, after having once emigrated, returns without bad intentions. You have to at least see how it looks to us.”

“I wanted to see my teacher. That’s all.”

“Excellent. That’s all we need. But let me remind you that to just take your high treason and all your bad intentions and just shove them onto your old teacher is obscene.”

“Prenzel lured me into a trap?”

“Is that a question?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t ask the questions here. Besides, you should have thought about all that earlier.”

“I’ve had it completely up to here with this visit, and I don’t want to wait another day before returning to the country of my choice.”

“You’ll have to remain here, at least until we hear the decision handed down by the judge.”

“Am I charged with something?”

“Not yet. First, you have to confess. Since you don’t seem inclined to do that today, I’ll give you a day to think about it. Later the jail time, if that’s what you’re given, will be a good deal longer — a month, maybe even a year.”

“I object! I demand that I be allowed to contact my embassy immediately.”

“If that’s meant as a plea bargain, and there’s no doubt about your culpability, then I can formally remand you for trial immediately. If, however—”

“It’s not a plea! Not at all! It’s a demand for human and legal rights!”

“Spare me your lousy, stupid speeches! You’ve already gone too far and made matters worse with your loud protests. There is, however, an honorable way out.…”

The Assessor of Sympathies paused and looked at me searchingly to see if I understood what he meant, waiting for me to give a sign that I understood. However, I had no idea and sat there unhappy on my stool. Since the Assessor gave no hint of what he meant, I tried hard to think of something smart and to come up with the right answer. Nothing occurred to me except to ask if I could raise my seat. That way, I would at least learn whether my situation had at all improved. The Assessor seemed not to have understood, for he completely ignored my request, saying instead that he was happy to hear that I was ready to collaborate with him, which took me completely by surprise. Stunned, I just muttered, “Collaborate … collaborate.”

“Yes, of course, collaborate. That’s something else altogether. If you go to work for us, I will drop the charges. You’ll be let go in no time, the charges will not be filed with the district attorney. Understand?”

“Understand what, Herr Assessor?” I asked very quietly, confused.

Then he got mad and yelled at me with contempt, “That’s really the best that such a stupid fool like yourself can ask from well-meaning folk who have a knife held to their throat by foreign degenerates!”

I wanted to say something quickly, and I was upset that I had passed up the chance to do so, but the Assessor ignored me and decided not to let me say another thing. He then rang a bell. A policeman appeared, and after some orders quietly and hastily whispered, which I could neither completely hear nor understand, I was led out of the detention room. I tried to reach for my suitcase, but I had barely grabbed hold of it when it was knocked from my hand. Then I was led higgledy-piggledy up stairs and down through a confusing labyrinth, though we never left the area of the train station. Several times I caught the unmistakable smell of the locomotives, and in passing I spotted a train from afar and once heard clearly the melancholy whistle of a machine, which then began to puff as it started to move. Finally, we arrived at a door with “Station Jail — Department of Espionage” written on it. My guard knocked, the door opened, and a jailer took me by the arm. “By special order of the Assessor of Sympathies. He’ll likely be picked up tomorrow.” This I heard the policeman say.

Then the door was closed behind me. With instructions that I couldn’t make out, the jailer handed me over to an attendant, who grabbed my right hand painfully and dragged me off. He stopped in front of a cell, opened a low door through which a ten-year-old could barely walk upright, forced me to kneel down, and gave me such a swift kick that I fell facedown upon the slimy wet floor inside a cagelike room. It was no higher than the door that had already slammed shut behind me.

The cell was empty. I could only sit on the floor, unable to stretch out, because even diagonally the room was shorter than I was. There was nothing there to see except a quietly fluttering ventilator fan that was the only source of air, while from the ceiling a dull lightbulb hung at the end of a wire, barely bigger than the bulb of a flashlight. When I clumsily, but not too harshly, bumped the bulb, the light went out. Now it was dark, for the door was shut so tight that not even the barest of light got through any crack. I despaired that through my clumsiness I had robbed myself of the last comfort available to me in my dungeon, and so I tried with clammy fingers — for I was almost done in, and the thick air was miserably damp — to feel for the lightbulb, which probably wasn’t burned out but had just come loose. Soon I held the glass bulb in my fingers and gave it a twist, but it didn’t work. I grabbed the socket with my other hand, but with no success.

There was nothing to do but surrender to my misfortune, but the dark bothered me more and more, and I thought that if no other comfort was going to be supplied here the light, at least, should work according to prison regulations. All I needed to do was yell in order to get the guard’s attention, and he would come and fix the light. It was to no avail; no one showed up. No one cared about me — no one brought anything to eat or to drink, no blanket to protect me from the cold and damp. Not one thing was provided for my needs. I listened intently for any kind of noise, naïvely imagining that I heard the jangle of a key chain, and, more serious, the cries of someone being mishandled. But nothing broke through the abysmal silence, not even the rumble of the distant train, it was that deadening. All that could be heard was the soft fluttering of the ventilator fan. Although that was not too bothersome, it got on my nerves, for it continued on so monotonously.