H. Adler - The Journey

The town stretches out before you and is magnificent. From the bridge it offers up a pleasant view that has existed and been loved for centuries and is steeped in history. Happy people pass by. They are tired from a long walk and ecstatic with the knowledge that they’ll soon be home safe. Their eyes are free to roam in wonderment and they celebrate the happiness that has come to them. You, too, can look around just as long as you keep moving. The one thing you can’t do is stand still, for that will disturb the travel plans. Misuse of the emergency brake will be punished, as well as the continual transformation inherent to your own being. To the right and left beneath you there stretches the ribbon of river, silver and deep blue. Several boats lie anchored, some move along the surface.

But before you lies the town that rises from the banks and stretches off into the distance where peaceful mountains rise above Leitenberg. There in their lush green live the thick forests that can only be killed but not transplanted. They are unfamiliar woods that stand before you, but you could know them and walk through them and wander among their shade if you saw how close they were. Many paths tempt you, soft, compliant ones, yet they only lead to the free outdoors that you may not use because it’s been designated as free. From the moment a foot steps toward the forest, it must keep to fixed paths, for the fields must be protected, since they are owned by strangers and bear crops that are handled by many hands that transform their labor into food. Meanwhile the woods remain inviting with their shady embrace cooling the sweat of your fear, the trees towering above you that no human step can harm. Now you are no longer bound to certain trails and can explore curious paths known only to the game warden. Now everything has become a forest; the light is muted, the shade provides protection, and the crunching of leaves beneath you stops, everything peaceful and still.

Yet the forests remain far away and unreachable, occupying an impassable area that is cut off, only inquisitive glances allowed to enter as shy guests. It’s for the best, for these woods are undeveloped and it’s easy to lose one’s way, a network of many paths running between the trees, their destination unknown despite the promise they offer you. Only those who sustain their solitary ways by walking through the woods know where the paths lead. They know where they are and where they are headed and don’t want to be subject to the eyes of strangers. That’s why you have to remain chained together. You make up the band that crosses the river, a train that sways left-right, moving onward step-by-step, always a little farther, obedience not being a condition you chose for yourself, freedom of choice having been taken from you instead.

You have been inserted into an overpowering machine. You can’t ignore its reality, even if its construction and purpose are not clear to you, since the chief operators to whom you are mere tools never reveal or review what will happen to you or even to them. Everyone becomes blind as soon as they are pressed to say how things look from their position at the moment. Don’t cause trouble by asking questions! Your bewilderment, your disillusioned empty gazes will only bring you harm, only more trouble can come of it. As for you at the end of the bridge, you who walk through the city’s Gothic gate while in the distance the forests cause you to lower your eyes, these bailiffs in army gear with their weapons hanging loose know nothing about you, the individual links to the chain that wanders on, no, they know hardly anything about any of you. The soldiers are only following orders.

“Go to Ruhenthal and pick up the three hundred prisoners that the guards will hand over to you there! Make sure to count exactly how many there are; you’re responsible for anyone who escapes! If anyone tries to escape, don’t call after them, just shoot! Your weapons should be clean and at the ready! You’ll march through Leitenberg toward the Scharnhorst barracks, where you’ll report, then onward to the firing range at Dobrunke!”

The corporal listens to the order and takes along a private and ten soldiers, who pick you up. Now they drive you onward, young, strong lads who don’t know you and will not know you because they don’t speak to you since that is forbidden. They see you, but they don’t look at you, their shyness immense, their appearance fragile and empty, childlike embarrassed sadness hiding within their faces. They walk confidently and place their leather-clad feet firmly on the ground, one step after another. They are not part of the chain, but their stride is as human as your own, just a bit less tired. They stride powerfully, leading you on in your own powerlessness. Only rarely do they make eye contact or with a few spare words cross the divide that separates you and your guards. If they did decide to disobey the strict regulations, they nonetheless could learn little about you, because there are too many of you, there wouldn’t be enough time, nor would there be any trust between you. On top of that, there’s too much to do as you march, work, and march again, the day soon over.

At midday, when there’s an hour’s rest from work, the guards change shifts. These soldiers also have their orders to take you back to Ruhenthal early in the evening and hand you over to the guards after carefully counting you. Orders alone artificially hold you together and in a few hours divide you again, it all taking a short while. Only a set of gestures and understood signs unites you, there being no way to relate to one another on a deeper level; everything that transpires happens in an inhuman network that consumes all of us. Yet we plod along as well, our participation not in earnest; no one can think he truly knows anyone whom he’s glad to meet but hardly knows. No, no one is for real; that is the fate of those who journey, those forced to take a ticket. So get going, for you still have to reach the prescribed destination, no matter how tired you are. Quietly the will prods you on in order that suffering doesn’t erupt in all of its destructiveness, denying each questionable existence.

“What a pain you are when you rant and complain! Cheer up!”

“How can I cheer up? Nothing will allow it. What has happened to me may seem right to you, but it’s unbearable to me.”

“You can bear it. Try counting the steps. Maybe the soldier over there is doing the same. He looks like he’s just looking on absentmindedly.”

“But why doesn’t he absent himself altogether? He could desert. He has a weapon. He could do it a lot easier than you or I. He doesn’t have to do what he was told. Open rebellion wouldn’t sit well at all with him, for he lives under irrefutable laws, but he could desert! That’s for certain!”

“Yes, sure. But if he bails out, there will be another one to replace him. And if that one leaves, then there will be another after him. And so on for eternity, and because of that it never stops.”

“Isn’t that always the case? There are always more. The guilt just shifts from one to the other, it doesn’t go away. No one is himself. Each is the other one’s ape. If someone has a problem with that, then he’s replaced. That’s the way it more or less is and will always be.”

“Don’t you want to see any meaning in it at all?”

“Do I want to …? You’re a fool! The desire is there but it’s like an untouchable flower, one that is always visible and yet which always remains out of reach.”

“I misspoke. I don’t mean if you want to make sense of it all, no, I mean whether you can see any sense to it.”

“Why do you mislead me with questions about secondary matters when I am forced to live life firsthand? It’s what’s happening to us firsthand that matters! And what’s happening firsthand is not necessarily for the best. Rather, it’s enough that it is. Any meaning it has, and there indeed is one, has been so eradicated that at best you can only collect your thoughts. Yet given the state of necessity in which you live, you don’t want to see what you’re a part of.”