H. Adler - The Journey

Zerlina looks hard at the former occupant. He doesn’t pay any attention to Zerlina because he doesn’t notice her. He goes about his business as always, which only shows that, for him, the number of ghosts in Ruhenthal is undiminished to this day. Has the old man slept through these times? He must have, because he doesn’t see that only the frame of his house remains, the contents having disappeared. Together with his family members he hauled them off himself. It’s unimaginable that he doesn’t know this and still remains here. Is he dead? No, he’s breathing like anyone living. He doesn’t look up when Zerlina waves at him, he smokes, even though it’s forbidden here, and overall he doesn’t seem disturbed that he no longer belongs in Ruhenthal. Zerlina wants to convince him that it’s a mistake for him to be here. Most likely he just became greedy because he must have known what everyone knew once he had been compensated and another home had been assigned to him. He didn’t leave completely of his own free will, though he still did so freely and with the help of the authorities who made the disruption and relocation easier for him. He had also solemnly signed his name on the contract with his own ink and named another place, which in the future would be his home. And thus that’s where he would be, having sworn to it before witnesses, and there is where his mail is sent, there anyone can find him who is looking for him.

A heavy-duty furniture wagon pulled up in front of his house and loaded up all his belongings. Not even so much as a single broom straw remained, the bathtub was yanked out, the furnace was hauled off, the fixtures were ripped from the walls. Only doors emptied of their keys and the marred wall paintings did not abandon the place since they had more loyalty to the house than to the outcast man. The owner had also taken along his family, an old father, a wife, three children, a sister. They all carried bags, full suitcases, each of them amply fitted out. Thus they walked out the door carefree, after which the children smashed a couple of windowpanes only for the pleasure of celebrating a happy departure. The emigrants didn’t climb onto the furniture wagon, but instead walked slowly to the town hall, where they turned in their house keys. Then they got onto a bus that took them straight to the train station.

Why then is the owner here again when he’s had a new home for the past two years? Zerlina wants to talk to him, but though she can hear her own voice speaking clearly, the owner doesn’t appear to hear her. He simply stands there and doesn’t respond. It could be that he only wants to know what had happened to his house. He wants to sample the misery that has brewed here. He paces incessantly back and forth across the room, yet he speaks with no one. Is he too proud? Perhaps in the last two years he’s had to move again. Zerlina tries to grab hold of his arm. Mister, mister, stand still for a moment! Are you nothing but a delusion? All too often Zerlina is deluded. In the room the old women sit, herded together on the hard edges of their bed frames. Zerlina stands before a woman who, with a needle in her hand, searchingly and worrisomely and yet without understanding looks upward. Zerlina doesn’t move and whispers quietly.

“It will never be fine again, Mother. Everything is changed. Perhaps it will one day be as it once was, but not for us. We’re done for. We’re through.”

Zerlina turns around, looks out the window at the dismal yard, and turns back again. She opens her suitcase, picks up the lute ribbons and other mementos, strokes them with her fingers, packs them once again, and closes the suitcase. She shoves it under the bed while biting her lip. Zerlina straightens up, takes a cloudy mirror from a shelf, blows on it several times, holds it up to her face out of curiosity, but then closes her eyes because she no longer recognizes herself, and lays the mirror facedown on a different shelf behind her bed. Zerlina turns around anxiously and sees again the woman with the needle in her hand. That’s her mother, and next to her sits her aunt, who doesn’t look up at all. What are the two women doing? They are darning stockings and whispering to each other. It’s impossible to understand a single word. Zerlina wants to tell the women something, but she changes her mind because she feels the women wouldn’t understand her, and so she silently leaves the room. Zerlina can smell the air that rises heavy and sweet above the rubbish heap. Zerlina stands by herself in the gloomy foyer and thinks to herself. She feels the cold sweat upon her brow and shivers. She flexes her fingers, which hurt because they are so stiff. And then Zerlina can hold back the tears no longer.

Zerlina sees Frau Lischka before her, who has just dragged herself up the steps. It’s clear that she has something nasty to say and is ready to make fun of Zerlina for standing there on the stoop like an abandoned schoolgirl rather than sitting in her room as she was supposed to, like the rest of the inhabitants. Zerlina feels there is no way out. One can jump over the barrier only at the risk of one’s life. Whoever tries it will be shot. Once life was radiant, Zerlina had spread her feathers, she was the young golden girl whom Frau Holle* praised, but now everything is shut down, the feathers are locked away, even though Zerlina had constantly tried to spread them. Then Frau Holle became angry and turned her into the bad girl on whom the gooey tar stuck. Gooey tar also lies on the streets, her shoes getting stuck within it. Zerlina kicks off her shoes, but even barefoot she can’t move forward. Everything is so dirty, tar raining down continually. Frau Holle knows no mercy. Tar, tar, nothing but tar, the tarred eyes staring into the raven black night and seeing nothing but tar.

It is also bitter cold on the streets. The black scarf wrapped around her head is no protection against the wind and tar and cold, and it makes the face so old and ugly. The mirrors hanging on the walls have gone black, not a single stream of light beams through that the blackened mirrors could reflect. Her fingernails have grown long. They are brittle spider legs, they are wires, broom straws. Zerlina must burrow through dirt with them. The bug squirms around on the floor and is happy to do so. If Zerlina holds her breath, she hears the bug moving around. The people have run off, they cannot fend off the crawling pests. The people are not protected by a good fairy. Only an old witch sits in the corner and combs the lice out of tangled locks with the last teeth of a rusted comb. She throws the lice into the night. How can anyone believe or say that he still makes his home in Ruhenthal?

The owner has fled; nor has Mutsch the cat stuck around. She no longer purrs, she struts and snorts, she stretches her black coat and shakes herself. Then she howls and jumps over the barrier and takes off right behind the owner. After the leap by Mutsch the cat no other escape is possible. High walls built out of black bricks are erected around the circumference of the town and are topped with spikes smeared in tar. Nobody can get out. Full of doubt, desires rise in the darkness, fluttering on the wings of the bat, wanting to climb higher and pass over the wall, but it’s hopeless! A thick dragnet is spread across, woven by the witch from her own saliva. Then the delicate skin of the wings is ripped, the desires can no longer hover, they flutter wearily and miserably in the sky trap that has been lowered onto the city, black and impenetrable and ghostly, the witch giggling in a voice that has a thousand cracks, shooting down the wishes with her pea shooter, the wishes falling upon the roofs and streets, falling and freezing. It’s better, young lady, that you bury yourself. You stand at the edge of a grave that you have dug with your long fingernails, so plop in where it’s damp and cool. Soon you will be asleep, the journey will end, there Holle the witch will bury you.