H. Adler - Panorama

For the purposes of trigonometric navigation a wooden tower has been erected on top of the peak, which is not very high, though it rises above all the treetops surrounding it, a narrow ladder the only means by which to climb up it, where a warning states: “Climbing the tower is not recommended and is dangerous!” Yet right now it doesn’t look that dangerous, the friends not so bothered about being forbidden to climb it, since almost everything is forbidden these days, and so when it’s possible to do something no one really worries about its being forbidden, thus they climb up, the view no doubt worth it, the friends reaching a platform made of planks, a second ladder leading from here to the top, though Simon doesn’t want to go along, since he still feels dizzy, meaning that Josef should go up alone and report from above what he sees. So Josef heads up alone and happily looks around and calls down to say how beautiful it is, only Sajdl’s work site visible, and the barracks as well, Wirschenowitz lying down in the valley to the left, the main road from there toward Pechno completely recognizable, behind it the wide fields stretching out, where there is a group of five slender poplars standing, the peaks and mounds of the mountains following one after another and looking lovely, fields and meadows decorating their slopes, though the peaks have bigger or smaller clusters of trees, a chain of mountains stretching out toward the horizon, their shimmering blue-green contours awash in a soft mist whose breath extinguishes all that is recognizable. Farther off to the left, beyond the creek that runs behind Wirschenowitz, the railroad can be made out, a sulfur-yellow fleck on top of which runs a red line, pastures stretching out behind it, single farms dotting the landscape here and there, and farther on the forest, nothing but endless dark coniferous forest, forest in every direction. Peperka is clearly the highest peak in the area, but far off in the forest landscape Josef notes another peak that is just as high, and which also has a wooden tower atop it, it most likely being Raventop, Sláma having mentioned this as well, the most beautiful forests in the area supposedly existing there.

Josef finishes taking in the panorama and climbs down after a while, Simon having twice asked that he come down. Josef then becomes very talkative, saying it’s an enchanted landscape, foreigners hardly knowing it at all, most of their comrades having hardly any eye for such a landscape, and therefore they shouldn’t go wandering about, the Conqueror doesn’t want them to, his life being completely joyless, and therefore the lives of the oppressed should be even more joyless, the last vestiges of free movement perhaps about to be forbidden any day now, the laborers turned into prisoners in their huts. Certainly there are lovers of nature among their comrades, but worries and fears weigh upon their senses too heavily to allow them to take pleasure in the forest around them, Karl Peters himself having said that he preferred to read and study on his free days, others lounging about the room and playing cards, some playing football behind the barracks, some lying in the sun and chatting, there also being fervent letter writers, others simply tired or listless and dozing. Siegler had said that it had never occurred to him to go for a walk here, for he’s always so exhausted from working that he has to take a breather on the weekend. Simon suggests that they cut up the mushrooms they found that evening in order to dry them and give them to Siegler so that he can send them to his wife. Josef thinks that’s a great idea and says perhaps Siegler is thinking now of his beloved Italy, he being a deeply rooted man, the separation from his homeland too much for him, and possibly he’ll never get over it, for he sees nothing but relentless destruction ahead and lives only for memories that one can no longer enter, as he said in comparing it to the panorama.

Simon wants to know whether Josef is not just as pessimistic. No, he’s not pessimistic, yet optimism and pessimism are words he prefers to avoid, for they are questionable words, Josef preferring to think about his relationship to life in realistic terms, not clinical, because life is not clinical, though it is natural, but clinical is not the same as natural, Josef thinking of nothing less and nothing more than a positive attitude toward reality, or the seemingly real, but he doesn’t feel comfortable spinning out any grand theory, for what we can know is a present, namely the present. The dangers are not to be underestimated, but as long as it exists a person should not doubt that the present is a continual source of renewal. In this sense memory is of no use, no matter how good and helpful it can be, but the present is something else, it being full of surprise and the unforeseeable, such that one should even dispense with any notion of free will, the desire for a view of the future that reveals all being unacceptable, Josef searching for the right words and finding that, yes, this desire is in fact impure, unclean, it is sinful, although he cannot deny that the horrible present circumstances prod each of us day in, day out, to conjure such a wish, at which Simon asks, “Do you have any hope, Josef?” No, not hope, that’s not what he’d call it, but instead a readiness to accept whatever might happen, it’s probably life itself that we should accept at any moment without fear. Nothing is more destructive than fear, for, senselessly, it leads to the death of meaning and is itself meaningless, fear able to enslave and murder before a death sentence is even lowered upon a man.

Simon says that, at thirty, Josef has already seen so much and lived so much, but he himself is still young, he having wandered through only a narrow portion, in which he has experienced an unforgettable family, the parents and the son, and not one of the three ever feeling alone for a single moment, and yet each was always there for himself without fail every time, each connecting happily with his surroundings, though that was never the main thing, for everything led back to the family, which after the father’s arrest was horribly destroyed. Josef then asks Simon not to forget his music, for more important than the memory itself is to allow music in its essence to come alive within him, even without a violin or making a sound, for thus you live entirely through your spirit, since that you are sure of, and that you have within you. Simon is ready to believe that, but he is always ripped away from it and destroyed. Whenever Sajdl stands behind him there is no music, and all he can do is think how he can empty his shovel into the railcar with the least amount of effort, though Simon will try to do what Sajdl wants him to while he works, and perhaps he can also sink into his music, perhaps it’s possible. By now the friends are tired from talking and stray from the path to find a bed of moss, resting there and eating their snack, it being warm and still, and immensely peaceful, Simon stretching out and going to sleep, Josef watching him and thinking, before the rustling of the leaves also causes him to fall into a reverie about the past and he sleeps.

IT’S A GONG, NOT A BELL, A PIECE OF TRAIN RAIL THAT HANGS FROM A RACK that looks like a gallows, someone having struck it hard three times with a truncheon, followed by many quick blows and one last hard blow! Bong-Bong-Bong-zingzingzingzingzingzingzingzingzing-Bong! It’s awful music that sounds from the darkness, a miserable sound, gloomy, there in the night, the hut dark, the room murky and cold, full of a horrible smell. The gallows music dies away and again there is silence, no, not complete silence, there is heavy breathing, a whistling throaty gurgle, forty bodies stretched out dead to the world, neither asleep nor awake, simply lying there, time having abandoned them, neither living nor dead, though one can also say that many are alive and some are indeed dead, it being hard to make out in the darkness who is dead and who is alive. Nothing else is here, only bodies, and the room is made of wood, above, below, all four walls made out of wood, the wood is planed bare, it looks reddish brown in the light, clearly new wood that not so long ago was still in the forest, there where the trees had been felled, soft, thin boards cut from their trunks. There is also a door that cannot be shut, it has no latch and no handle, a door that is never open and never closed, instead moving with each gust of air, hanging on rusty hinges as it squeaks with the weaker and squeals with the stronger gusts of air. There is also a window, a simple frame with six small panes, for indeed the panes are set in the frame and are not broken, there also being a light, a bulb hanging from a wire, while above the socket that holds it there is even a tin shade.