H. Adler - The Journey

But why did the policemen wave the coffins through? Why didn’t they call out to them? The authorities wanted to avoid the accusation that their orders are not carried out promptly, for the dead only understand action, and no longer words. The authorities are humble and wise, they don’t interrogate the dead and content themselves with proudly presenting their indifference, so that only the aura of the secret magic of power can be resented by the living. Through fear and anxiety the shame-faced execution is brought about quietly and slowly, but also knowledgeably, for once the state has done its duty it retreats to the guardhouse by the side of the road next to the barrier. Bon voyage, you dead, but you the living are here, that is, until you go to hell!

The mourning party stands still, the heads stretch forward slightly, the eyes longingly gaze past the barrier, the wind causes a few tears, the funeral wagon already has turned the corner, no longer visible, the hammering of horse hooves echoing. Everything is kept hidden. All the details following each execution are taken care of. Each hanging is practical and quick. The cut fruit lie there, already cleaned, still warm, crisp with distorted eyes, the gallows rope wrapped around their throats. Nicely arranged, ready to be sold in a Sunday market. They were only criminals, not people. Villains who have fallen to the level of rubbish. Military honors are denied them. Bored, Captain Küpenreiter removes the blue-and-white flags from his map. The press photographers are allowed in, Balthazar Schwind is granted a new roll of film. Everyone has to wipe his shoes first, since the prison administration does not trust that the freshly tarred road is indeed dirt-free. Each has to be inspected for lice and aphids, since the prevention of contagion must be maintained. Left or right, it doesn’t matter, both arms must be lifted, then both legs. Plague has broken out, but the serum from the Institute for Infectious Diseases has arrived, the authorities tracking as ever the course of the epidemic. After an injection the dead pose little danger. Thanks to the barrier, the inoculations are kept to a minimum.

“And here we have the executed! Use the fleeting nature of such sins to create a horrifying example that will do your readers good. You may look at the executed goods from all sides and photograph them, but under no circumstances are you allowed to touch them. No mementos may be plucked either, neither hair nor whiskers nor nails! You are in the presence of death. Control yourselves. Exchanging bodies is out of the question. The names on the attached foot tags are guaranteed to be correct. Copying any of them will be severely punished.”

The press photographers stand there rigid and are busy with their cameras. Each snaps a few pictures. Floodlights are turned on. The dead enter the dark grave, rolls of film head to the mortuary. There it will be developed, the Institute for Infectious Diseases having provided a good developer, not even the butcher Alexander Poduschka having a better one. The pictures turn out superbly, the spitting image says someone, and are developed on white, shiny paper, then enlarged painstakingly, almost to their natural proportions. Wonderful materials for study. The dead look so alive, almost like the originals. The city archivist has sealed them so that they neither get moldy nor are eaten by insects. It’s such a pleasure to look at them. The high school principal asks for a few of them since he finds them so useful to look at in class. The butcher Poduschka doesn’t get any because the readers of The Leitenberg Daily cut them all out. He has to pack the sausage into the holes in the paper, though it’s not his fault. The corpses are secretly cremated, but the photographs remain there in eternal infamy. Throughout the land one can buy them, carry them home, and put them in the family album. There is now an excellent artificial glue for photographs that is made out of tar. And so the memory remains, set down for all of time, though the meaningless dead are long gone.

The mourning party turns around and breaks up into smaller groups that trail off into the wind. Ruhenthal takes in the living once again, the execution is called off and done for the day. It will be continued, yet nobody thinks about it for the moment. There is no time for grief, for life wants its own due, and for that reason the cadavers are taken away from Ruhenthal. The crematorium situated on clay soil in the middle of the meadow works well and reliably, and there hasn’t been the slightest complaint about it since it was opened. It works fast and is free of dust. The ashes are filtered and crushed and converted from morsels to crumbs, which are then spread upon tar and quietly pressed into it.

As soon as everything is finished and the remaining mourners have withdrawn, Caroline lets herself be helped by her son and daughter, though it deeply hurts her to do so. The husband belongs at the side of the widow at all times, not the children. But what happens when the man has hidden and run off? No good husband does that. Was Leopold a good husband? He was never there when you needed him, for indeed he was a person devoted to service who had no notion of love, or at least responsibilities toward loved ones. Slowly she shuffles along the path and says not a word. Caroline feels weak and is happy that the children are at her side, as they carefully lead her by the hand through the town. Then suddenly the gray silence is too much and the mother must say something.

“Now we are alone. We will all die here. There is no point in having any illusions, those were for your father. Soon our hour will strike as well. My hour, not yours. You must not remain here. Both of you can go back.”

“Mother, don’t talk that way, please! You know that I read The Leitenberg Daily from the day before yesterday, and in it they wrote …”

“They’ve written that for ages. That has nothing to do with us, us most of all, no, nothing at all! They’ve been writing that for two years already!”

“But one day it will be true.”

“Who knows what the real truth is? It’s all humbug!”

“You can’t talk that way, Mother. You have to control yourself, if only for us.”

“What for? There’s no longer any point. You’re both grown-ups. Wasn’t the old man right after all?”

“You’re upsetting Zerlina. One has to believe in something in order to keep on. Good never dies. Evil will meet its end.”

“Evil never dies either. For us it’s just begun.”

“Stop bickering! I need to go make my little boxes and I don’t want my head full of such worries. I can’t stand it anymore! You keep yanking me back and forth! It’s enough already, really enough! Moreover, Mother, we still need to give something to Nurse Dora. I want to give her my colorful scarf with the small narrow edging, or half a loaf of bread. Also a bit of bread for the roommate who said prayers.”

“Give, give, nothing but give! They’ve all gotten something already! We just don’t have enough to keep giving!”

“I’m fed up! Ugh! I am completely fed up!”

“Zerlina, of course I’ll give something, my child. Get a hold of yourself, please, at least in front of the people on the street! What will they think of us? I will give them bread if I have any to give.”

“I don’t care what others think. I’m fed up, that’s what I said! They let the old man starve! We didn’t do enough for him.…”

“Don’t say that! We did what we could. We went hungry ourselves in order to save a bit for him. As a result I’m a wreck. And I don’t even want to tell you how you look. In any case, it would be best if you didn’t look in a mirror.”

“They killed him! That’s what I told Dr. Plato. They executed him! I know it. They could have saved him. He could have saved himself if he stole like the others, but instead he let himself be robbed.”