H. Adler - The Journey

That’s why it’s better not to look down at the snakes in the enclosed towns, where in the narrow confines of wretched streets they are almost lost in the dirt. The heights, however, grant you awareness of the depths from which you have climbed. Now you can recognize which path you took. That was the journey. You and yours traveled and were led on. Joining the journey happened out of your own free will or by force, and yet it occurred, such that you could wave good-bye, so much having been left behind. In the vases at home, flowers still stand that need fresh water, yet you forgot to turn their care over to someone reliable. The stalks have rotted, the leaves and blossoms dried up.

Consciousness has split itself into two wings that have fallen from the body. Now the wings flutter on their own, sadness in their beating, yourself unable to control them. Now one, then the other, then both, sometimes neither, but you have to put up with them, whether they pester you or not. You want to get rid of them, and you point in dramatic fashion at your chest and say: “I know. I exist. I don’t lack consciousness.” That’s foolish. Don’t you really feel that you know nothing and are possessed, such that you know only half of the consciousness within you? That’s the way it is since you set out on your journey. It would have required courage to retain your consciousness; you could not have set out on the journey if you did. Now you will need even greater courage in order to withstand the journey. It won’t be easy for you. Whoever remains at home can gather together again better than whoever launches out on an adventure. Don’t think that you’ll succeed in finding any place that’s safe, where you can stop to recollect yourself and restore your undivided consciousness. Even if you should finish this journey without being left behind along the way, you’ll still be disturbed. In essence you will feel cut off from the world, you’ll want to set your hands and feet on your own turf once again. But don’t think that far ahead! That’s the future, which you must continue to fear for as long as you live.

So you departed and were never allowed to look around. Or you were curious to spot the back of Cross-Eyes, rubbing his hands as he left the train station. Herr Nussbaum certainly didn’t go looking for that empty building in order to cheer up the lonely walls. Departure weakens vanity but strengthens character, which casts away the mask of fear. The scent of the invisible blossom of decay strikes the nostrils. There is no avoiding it, even if you don’t want to choke on the smell. The necessary journey is always one that is imposed. Since no one is asked whether or not he’d like to come along, understanding is never even sought. The departure only requires that you hurry. Travel fast so it doesn’t last. Yet why is it all so confusing? Why must one lose one’s sense of free choice, itself always having been a part of arriving at the truth?

The journey had already begun the moment you thought about whether or not the decision about making such an impending journey was worth serious consideration. Cultivating freedom is fine as long as you still don’t know how dispensable it will become once your decisions disappear in a stream in which you realize you are dispensable while looking back at the journey you were ordered to take. You are not your own guide; you are swept away even before you have ordered the tickets, the authorities having purchased your seat, which is for the best, for it would be much more aggravating to try to get a seat when others might want to leave you behind. Then you would have shouted and demanded that you become a passenger, though doors would be shut before you everywhere: “What’s that, a seat, and you’re in it? You’re not a passenger. The one whose seat it is must be off somewhere. Away with you!” You would have then fought your way through in order to figure out how to make the proper connections so that you got the proper travel permits despite the imposing obstacles placed in your path. Exhausted, you would have collapsed and sunk into the rubbish that was brought along on the journey because it was already too late. In this manner you would have found no peace, and the potential agony of the subjugated remains always small when compared to the agony of the lone wolf who never knows what will happen from one moment to the next.

And so you looked at the inhabitants of Leitenberg who wandered around the streets of their town naturally uncertain. You and others marched four abreast between the rows of buildings and across the market square. You were not allowed to stop nor to step onto the platform at the station, but were forced to hurry across the tracks as if you yourselves were a train waiting to serve its master’s every wish and desire rather than its own volition. Essentially what awaited you was an open question, for there was nothing you had to worry about. To the extent that you were buried in your own cares and worries, you were aware of no one else but yourselves, the worries themselves superfluous simply because you had not yet learned to give up your dear old sense of normalcy.

Even if it wasn’t quite right, Leitenberg was nevertheless indifferent to your plight. It was a town through which you were led like so many times before, this being perhaps not the last time either. What strange fate awaited you that perhaps you were not aware of? A town, fine, a town — but there are plenty of towns. No curious onlooker claps the restless, runny-nosed traveler on the back to help him breathe better. No sooner did you reach a town and you left it behind, so it was no use tossing pebbles at a window to try to find out the secrets to some stranger’s home cooking. The severe penalty you’d have to pay for such a misdeed would not have been worth whatever unlikely relief you might have gained, and the penalties might have meant your own end, one of pure misery.

Leitenberg is not your town, no matter how many times you may have been led through it, for it offers you no view of itself but the backyards of houses on the outskirts that for years you quietly passed almost every day on the train. In the dark, or even in your sleep, it’s enough for you to think that you’ll soon be there, just a little longer, just another half hour before you reach your stop, the one meant for you alone, and so you stand and move on, almost home. You could also wander through Leitenberg with your eyes almost closed, or you could lower your gaze to the ground and count the paving stones and your steps. Soon you will know, having passed the last houses and reached the open field. Leitenberg is only a dream, or no, an accident, which you can no more avoid than the train can leave its tracks; only by jumping the tracks could it plunge into the strange town and disappear.

Only certain views meet certain faces. Everything else remains hidden and buried in impenetrable murkiness. At first you wander along a river valley where there are poplars and vegetable fields. The land is wet and lush. Its owners are unknown to you, unknown also to you is how they tend the fields and nurture the fruits and vegetables. You’ve no idea if there has been enough rain or sun this year to guarantee a good harvest, because you know no one who will enjoy the yield, and it’s even questionable if there is indeed anyone who takes care of what grows here. Seeing the blossoms on the weeds makes you happy and would continue to do so if you were allowed a brief stop. You’re just happy that it’s not raining, for your shoes are rotted, the puddles of mud make your steps difficult. Quietly your gaze takes in the plants that required such incredible toil, the kind generated by either great hope or bitter need. A hailstorm could destroy it all, bursting the soft melons and battering the cucumbers, the harvest crushed.