H. Adler - The Journey

Travel bureaus have brought so much unhappiness to humanity because so many count on them. In this manner a travel bureau only serves people who are ready, who already know what they want. How easy it is for the uninformed to be disappointed by the many pictures and prospectuses. This happens often not only as a result of bad intentions but also carelessness and misunderstanding. The attendants share what they have in high-pitched voices, but the people hardly pay attention. Whoever doesn’t know the web of the railroad lines can easily be left hanging within it. If they get caught at a junction, then everything is over. Then the spider gobbles up the travelers after having waited for them while patiently lurking in its hiding place. Too late the eyes try to decipher the names of the stations as the train passes. The night descends, the light fails, the right town is long gone before you even see it, and there’s no one there to help, even if you scream and plead. Strange station attendants salute the steaming locomotive.

“It’s an express transport, madam. Don’t say anything to anyone else! The spider is watching. If it can, it will jump as soon as the train slows down on a bend!”

Then Ida jumped out of the moving train and lay lifeless on the tracks. Only the suitcase was found in the train car and entrusted to the museum as ownerless goods. Caroline had to go to the lost and found.

“You put my sister’s things on display. Please, I’m the next of kin. Give me everything that’s in the glass case! I’ll pay you the assessed finder’s fee.”

“We’re sorry, but the museum is closed. The museum belongs to the state. The state gives nothing away.”

“How am I supposed to get my things? I will get a lawyer.”

“Legal action is pointless. The state comes before justice. The only avenue you can pursue is an unequivocal plea for mercy to the spider. But don’t get your hopes up!”

“Where can I find the spider?”

“That I don’t know. But it’s everywhere. It has as many legs as its web has strands. You only need to tremble and he’ll show up.”

“I’m trembling already.”

“It only comes when it wants to suck up a meal. Then you can ask him. Yet by then it’s already too late, because the spider doesn’t listen once he arrives.”

Caroline flees the lost and found and runs off. She sits in her room on the bed. She can’t go to a spider from which one has to stay hidden. Ida’s space is empty. Everything sucked away. Only the uncovered straw mattress lies there. Whatever she left behind is already tucked away into Caroline’s luggage. Ida nonetheless has been put on display in the Natural History Museum. She has been laid there in spirit. No, she is in the Technology Museum. The spider has brought her there. Now the old machine is taken apart. The professionals decipher the inscription on the boiler. There stands the name of the firm that supplied the machine:

SCHWARZ, IDA—6/1/1882

It’s actually not been a hundred years. One exaggerates so easily. The machine can no longer be operated. It looks to be a broken-down watch. Not even the best doctor can wind the spring. It has been ruined. The clock hand is broken off and bent. The conservator says: “I’ve never seen such a badly handled watch.” Not even after sixty years would such a piece be so badly damaged through regular wear and tear. Naughty children must have played with it. That’s the fault of a bad upbringing, one in which the younger generation never has to take piano lessons. The rhythm is lost, everyone bangs away however he wants to. It’s a cultural outrage when a rheumatic timepiece is not properly handled. Now it’s too late, not even an oil bath can do any good. All of the components need to be designed anew, but that would be much too expensive, and the doctors wouldn’t even know what to do. The war has bankrupted everyone. Diet alone cannot accomplish very much when the intestines are already rotten. All the medicine is sold out. The director of the museum is not a cruel person, but nonetheless he adamantly shakes his head.

“We have to display the work as is. Maybe after the war we can have a specialist from America come. There the ability of watchmakers has apparently made great strides in recent years. One takes the living heart out of the machine, operates, allows artificial breathing to proceed throughout, and sets a new ruby heart back in.”

“Yes, it’s marvelous what the human race can accomplish. It’s a stunning success and keeps going on. Now give me back my sister!”

“You mean the timepiece?”

“My sister!”

“I see, then, the watch. We don’t release broken items. We have to be mindful of the firm’s good name. Damaged goods would immediately draw attention and would spark the interest of the unkind press.”

“I will take my sister as she is. I will not hold you responsible.”

“But the papers will!”

“I swear, I will say nothing to the reporter!”

“You cannot prevent that. The reporter will find a reason to interrogate you.”

“I won’t speak to any of them.”

“Nobody can keep his mouth shut. Pressure will be applied. Nobody is strong enough to keep silent under the pressure of a painful interrogation.”

“We’re not living in the Middle Ages. Torture was done away with in all civilized societies in the eighteenth century.”

“You don’t know reporters or states. Because of your ignorance this discussion is over. Off with you!”

“But I don’t have a tram ticket.”

Yet the director is already gone and does not answer, no matter how loud Caroline calls out. Only machines are there, powerful flywheels, pistons, dowels, rods, blueprints, hearts, kidneys, powder, whale bones, knights’ armor, suitcases, fire pumps, medicines, artificial spiders, inlaid pianos, corkscrews, tossed-away train tickets, pendulum clocks, and a seized-up printing press from the Middle Ages. The rest of Ida is not to be found, no matter how much Caroline looks underneath all the spider webs, thinking that perhaps someone could have stowed Ida away amid the museum’s junk. Then Caroline grows sad, tears run, the nose drips, the face gray and dirty, the abandoned sister grabs a handkerchief with the monogram IS on it to wipe her nose and eyes. Ida had left the handkerchief behind so that it is easier for Caroline to cry. Hopefully Ida has brought along enough handkerchiefs so that she doesn’t need to borrow one while sniffling. She didn’t want to take along more than a dozen. Caroline needed to send this one to her, for the needlework on it is especially beautiful. Caroline will have to ask the guard at hell’s gate herself, for Paul is a clumsy ox when it comes to such things. All it will take is a little bit of money pressed into Hades’ hand and before you know it the handkerchief will be dipped in the waters of Lethe. Caroline was ready to sacrifice everything for her sister.

But in fact it is much too late to help. Ida has disappeared into a coffin and the funeral is over. All of the coffins have been carried off, the funeral songs have ceased. The hearse has left, the barrier is let fall. Ida is gone, Ruhenthal has ejected her, she is hidden and gone forever. But now everything goes back to normal. Leopold is still alive and wants some bread. The clock hands turn, the spider sets twelve legs on the face of the clock, yet the hand keeps turning. The days go on, bobbing merrily along. Ida never existed. Caroline has merely dreamt her up. Everyone was dreaming, they were mistaken and now disappointed, all is lost, the song over. Ida and Leopold, Paul and Zerlina, everyone and all, and so Caroline weeps and cannot hide her feelings away any longer.

Zerlina walks fast at first, then more slowly. It’s not that bad of a town, as long as one doesn’t look too close. The buildings and courtyards are picturesque and bear witness that people once lived here who innocently sat in the their rooms or hurried along the streets, since nothing ever changed. Everyone went about his daily business, used to doing so without worry, for each knew he was from Ruhenthal and was born here. It was all so wholesome and reliable that each inhabitant of the city was capable of fulfilling his position in life. Each evening he stood in the middle of his open doorway, lit a pipe, looked on and observed people passing by whom he greeted and engaged in small talk. Mutsch the cat jumped up, stretched her hind legs, yawned, bent back her tail, and lithely rubbed her shoulder against a pant leg. And so the man stood there in squat fashion, content within himself as he guarded the domain he knew to be his own because it never fell from sight. Then a woman called out, whose ample backside swayed back and forth leisurely before disappearing into the darkness of the house. The owner then retreated into the safety of his cave, sitting down at his accustomed spot at the table in order to shovel food into his mouth and chew it deliberately. Meat and beets were tastefully prepared, the rewards of honest work.