H. Adler - The Journey

Paul walks farther. Here the streets appear to not even exist anymore. But whoever, like Paul, is not afraid can keep going. Perimeter walls stand untouched, displaying their plaster covered with colored paint, little angels on each window’s gable smile their protective smiles, the gutter work running the length of the walls as the rushing sound within them hurries to the ground. Everything is as it always was, only the homes that should exist behind the walls have disappeared. They have been taken away; only here and there a smokeless chimney towers, crowned by the open wind guard. Below in the cellar holes are white arrows pointing to where one must dig in order to retrieve the former inhabitants who together have gone to their salvation. Is there no point in the rescue squads trying to free them? It appears they have come at the right time, because here someone has scrawled in chalk:

WE’RE ALIVE!

The dead buildings are the identification cards of the living, even if they cannot live there any longer. Some had been taken away from the buildings and were alive; others, who were alive, saw the buildings taken away from them. Is that revenge? What is revenge? Paul didn’t hear any voices. It happens, but vengeance doesn’t exist, nor does Paul sense any vengeance within himself. Then he looks around, everything is silent. The city is strange, and doubly strange is its collapse. Paul reads the newspaper that hangs upon a wall word for word. “We are alive! Look for us eight streets left, then around the corner to the right, number fourteen, in the house in the back by such and such.…” Joy answers doubt: they’re alive! Indeed taken away from here, souls carried off in thin hulls, yet stored away there, taken care of. Oh, what joy that you’re alive! But who will go looking for you? Who do you expect? “We’re alive, even though we’re elsewhere!” The ashes have not been tamped down, nor is the fire put out. They were just too weak to carry off all the rubbish, which overpowered them. They gave up and simply crept away from one heap to another in a different street. Why didn’t they leave the city and the area? Did Unkenburg put a spell on them and keep them from leaving? Isn’t there a law that says there is nothing to protect you if you aren’t here? You must want to live to be saved, even if it’s several streets off, left and right.

Yet Paul keeps going, searching and searching, reading the newspapers posted on many walls. He cannot keep straight all the names that are posted. They are names handed down through families, legacies written on the destroyed houses instead of flowers brought to those untended graves, and by which the souls of these buildings from back then can still be remembered, the piled mounds of bricks serving as shelter for them. Paul is pleased that amid such misery these addresses have provided shelter to the names of others, even if they are not among those he is looking for. The name Küpenreiter is not among them. Fine, there are so many names; all one has to do is keep searching tirelessly through the newspaper and the truth will out. Yet not just the buildings are destroyed. The streets here are also badly wounded, the ground ripped apart, cellars yawn wide and gape open with their stench in the full light of day, rods bent, water mains exposed. Paul has to walk with caution, one step to the right, one to the left, then around the corner, then better to step back and then go around. Out of the rubble treasures left behind appear, even fragments seeming precious to whomever wants them. It doesn’t take much effort, just bend down and grab hold, or just use a stick to scrape away the rubble, for there’s much that’s there to take. Yet Paul moves on, he doesn’t have time to kill.

Paul pushes on through a tangled wilderness, which is the old part of the city. Artfully carved stones, long since weather-beaten and newly blackened, confess themselves a part of time that has died, that is no longer, though it nonetheless still lies confused and sunning itself in the clear light of the present day, which still has mercy upon what once was. It is quite warm, here it’s still burning. The attack was defied, the lost fatherland still wanted to be victorious. Now real guilt suffers in secret as a result of inflicted guilt, but above such adversity stretches a sky empty of shards, full of clear air. Only little fires flicker, slowly fueling themselves. A man stands there. He warns others about something and points with his hands in senseless gestures. Not too close, best to go around, the wall that’s leaning forward is pretty shaky, the stones are loose and are about to fall. “Whoever doesn’t have anything to look for here should get out of here!” Paul is now a free man who doesn’t allow himself to be ordered around. — What do you want? — I’m looking for the commandant! — He’s not here in the rubble. — Where is the commandant? — He’s not here. Everything that was alive was taken away. — Where are the others? — They will be buried later after everything has been pulled down, the chimneys still standing have to be toppled. The outer streets are much safer, Paul is told. He takes no advice, but instead walks straight ahead through the field of rubble. As long as he’s going forward. Then a fallen horse. Has someone pulled it from the museum? The legs and rear are recognizable. Why doesn’t anyone bury the old nag? A horse?! First come people who are still alive, then dead animals.

Paul drags himself farther. No matter how much he wants, he still can’t get himself to move fast enough. The burned-out city requires caution. Here is an outlying plaza with old elms. Even the limbs are knocked off, the tree crowns destroyed and barely able to sprout. The most fashionable shops were once located here, the riches of the world displayed row upon row. What is left has been taken off to the museum, if there’s anything. The businesses stand wide open, cleaned out and without any wares. The only vendors left are those who have been buried alive and who no longer have any customers. Only beautiful signs still hang there in the night, though no one comes. No one watches over the wares that are left. On a pane of glass one can still read:

HAPPY WITH YOUR PURCHASE?

PLEASE COME AGAIN

There is city hall. Only the entrance stands in undamaged splendor. The building cannot be saved, it is swept away. The officials who worked here each day have fled. Nothing is administered, the city no longer has any city fathers. Perhaps they are not far off and are hiding where walls are still standing, inside of which they still govern. The higher-ups have time and are only waiting until everything is on the mend once more. Then they can show their heads once again and nothing will happen to them. And so it happens. Honor us once again! Orders ripple through Unkenburg. The orders say what will be closed. Be patient, we will certainly be back, it’s just today that we have to hide out around the corner.

Paul reaches a deserted playground, then a dormant park that is a little messy and weedy, though spring has shyly reappeared within it. Some of the trees are damaged, but others are not and are sprouting. The first branches are budding. The grass is fresh, the flowers are opening up. Nobody sits on the park benches, for there is no one who wants to. Even Paul doesn’t allow himself to take a rest. In the middle of a flower bed there’s a memorial that still stands, the white marble having turned gray, what was once a general. His name is pressed in gold and will last for many years. The city is grateful; three times he saved it, hunting down the enemy until it lay stretched out in the dust and demoralized, the citizens never forgetting it, fame and honor following. The general raises his saber, proudly as ever; he has lost only his head, though it lies not far off in the flower bed and looks satisfied, because victory belongs to him. Only the nose is missing from the face, but that doesn’t matter. A sculptor will make a new one and set the head carefully back on the trunk. The living will fulfill their responsibility in placing the healed general once again on the decorated pedestal.