H. Adler - The Journey

The times had once more become humane. Peacefully the big hand of the town clock followed its proscribed course. Refuse is still strewn about, but the locusts have taken off and there is no trace of the ghosts. Peacefully the sun shines on the gaudy sign of The Leitenberg Daily , whose publication is no longer in question. There people stand in front of newly displayed pages and nurse their thirst for war and their hunger for news about the latest events in the city. Above, on the first floor, in the safety of Schwind’s brightly lit office, the otherwise impossible is first born, the story having just been finished, which now tenderly rocks in the security of the newspaper’s offices before, a little while later, the people gratefully learn what’s happened. Schwind looks at his secretary, slaps his forehead in amazement, and realizes that though everything in the story had happened, it existed no longer, it was over, and therefore could be printed. If he hasn’t expended every last beat of his heart while pounding on the typewriter, then perhaps he’ll last another quarter hour, even a half. The newspaper is time’s bandage and shows how things can heal. Read it and you’ll be healthy again! The voice you hear is your own, it’s a success. Time is also back on its feet, the high point of happiness having been scaled, because the newspaper is back, appearing punctually and available everywhere. No longer can events just flutter away, they are gathered and remain, turned into paper and taken care of for your benefit. Numerous copies end up in the rubbish, but certainly not all of them. Some survive and will still be around to tell your grandchildren the truth.

Thus the newspaper’s words prevail over you. The ripened pages are carried out in flexible bundles, the word of the day is finally offered up, still smelling of ink. Carriers run through the city with satchels and thick bundles, paperboys call out loudly with chirping voices on every corner: “Here it is! We don’t have to tell you what’s happened, because it’s folded up four times and printed, it’s now dry, it’s been saved!” The pages are handed over to people walking by in exchange for small coins as addicted eyes sink into the latest events of the day, though none exist any longer. And so it endlessly goes, souls drinking in a perpetual yesterday, which they are granted as if it were their own. Each recognizes it for himself for just a few moments, feeling blessed by the powers of the editor to reveal the innermost secret of existence, but the words can hold on to it for only a short while, in fact for just a few moments, because even when it lasts for a quarter of an hour, a half, or even a whole hour, after a single day everything is simply over with, an unappeasable desire pressing at the poor townsfolk as The Leitenberg Daily unleashes once again the fury of transitory life.

Except for a few copies, each day’s edition is done away with when, after an array of fates, the copies meet their end when tossed into the rubbish. The butcher Alexander Poduschka regularly collects old newspapers to wrap his wares in, for he doesn’t want to give his customers the officially allowed allotments of meat, sausage, and fat in their naked, natural state. Poduschka blesses each day’s printed pages, his faithful customers bringing them to him quite happily since they know he can’t get any other paper. And so the victories of our heroes, the disgraceful acts and lies of our enemies, as well as the hardly noticeable article on the special new tax measures are carefully wrapped around thin slices of sausage. Then the headlines become damp and greasy, the clear print blending together in dreamlike fashion. With some effort one can still make out the words, yet nobody likes the melting together of current events, as each yearns instead for the bland food within, crumpling up the useless paper without a thought and sticking it in the furnace in order to light a fire. Such is the fate of the headlines among the people. Soon nobody remembers anything of them. Once more all effort is for nought. What exists is consumed, everything is consumed. No crumb is wasted, because the need for each is immense, and there are many unlucky people who would be overjoyed to have strewn before them the crumbs left behind by naughty children who don’t want to eat them. Mother, the teacher at school, everyone had said that one had to be grateful that all of the needy had been so well taken care of during this war. There were no longer rich and poor, only justice existed for a just people. What was taken from the ghosts was given to the people. Everything was the same for everyone. In huge letters, what Mayor Viereckl had told the schoolchildren on the eight-hundredth anniversary appeared on the front of the offices of The Leitenberg Daily:

YOUR NEIGHBOR’S SUFFERING IS YOUR OWN JOY

The ghost train has arrived at the Scharnhorst barracks. Leitenberg is behind them. Paul only remembers being led through the streets and the marketplace. The prisoners can once again speak openly, for talking is allowed here as long as it isn’t too loud. And so questions and answers shuttle quietly back and forth.

“Did you see at the marketplace that they …?”

“No, I didn’t notice it, but when …”

“They live as if it were peacetime. They don’t have to go without anything but …”

“It’s easy to feel jealous, yet their day will come, and maybe sooner than …”

None of it is true. The prisoners have seen nothing. They have indeed seen a great deal, but what they glimpsed has told them nothing. Everything has become impervious, making strained conjectures useless. The headlines in the vending machines of The Leitenberg Daily offered no clues. Despite sharp eyes trying to read the dense columns, nothing was gleaned from them. The war has not ended, imprisonment has not ended, the slaughter goes on. Only belief ventures to penetrate the impenetrable through wishes that soon turn into wild rumors that appeal much more to the dazed than do plausible hopes.

Paul turns around. The town is obliterated. Now it was lost to the depths, a gray cloud of smoke floating above it. Near the barracks it is quiet, because here there are only a few houses with large yards that no longer appear to have any connection with Leitenberg. The streets are unpaved and meander off into neglected cart paths. The sidewalks are marked by long curbstones, but they are also unpaved. Grass and wild weeds spring up among the sand and do not sense the gravity of the nearby town in which freedom no longer exists. There might also be people living here who keep their curtains closed, leave a broom leaning against a wall, or forget a little wagon in the yard. Should it be that there really are people hidden behind these walls, they nonetheless know nothing of the town’s oppression as long as they can remain holed up in their quiet neighborhood. Here they have retreated and remain protected from the danger of streets trampled by people who for good or for evil are heaped together. Public announcements are also made here, but they mean nothing, their clumsy earnestness greeted by a supple tomfoolery, causing the edicts to hardly ever expect that anyone will pay attention to them.

The red mailbox is ignored, everyone having lost confidence in the mail, such that it remains empty of all news. Probably there is a yellow notice plastered to it on which one can read: MAIL WILL NOT BE COLLECTED FROM THIS MAILBOX UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. The power of the town officals to fill this lost neighborhood with nervous haste and disquiet does not reach this far; the normally brazen municipal envoys become shy here and hesitant when stepping up to make an announcement on behalf of the authorities. Who knows if these streets have ever even been swept?