The Wall

by H. G. Adler

  But that’s not the way it worked out at all, for I couldn’t convince myself that the hope of seeing my father again in front of the shop in the Reitergasse was entirely useless. I also couldn’t help thinking that it was a long way home, and that Mother would have no clue that I’d be arriving. I had not shaved in days, and I had been gone for years. A father would understand that, for he would think of the war, but it wouldn’t be right to show up in front of my mother old and haggard, tired and dirty, in a tattered uniform and clunky shoes. To call home with a voice composed would be the best, or to ask Frau Kutschera to help me out. Unfortunately, the Kutscheras were not very pleasant people, but as an unexpected arrival I could hope for a little courtesy. In any case, it made the most sense to ask at the fruit stand, for hanging about in front of Father’s shop made no sense and was depressing. As always, the Kutscheras had a lot of customers who didn’t at first step into the shop but instead lingered outside on the street. The couple and the two harried salesgirls had their hands full and no time to keep an eye on each individual customer. It all happened fast, but whoever wanted to be served did better to call out loud what he wanted, rather than wait outside and expect to be served. But how should I make my presence known? I stood among the group of shifting customers, all of whom were trying to be served next. Their number hardly shrank, for there were always new people arriving as soon as others withdrew. Nonetheless, I remained hopeful and stood there very patiently, believing that one of the Kutscheras would notice me, though it was a salesgirl who finally looked at me with concern, because it bothered her that I kept peering in at the Kutscheras. No, I said, I didn’t need any help. I quickly shifted my glance, and the young girl turned on her heel to help someone else.

  Something had to happen. After some dithering, I decided that it was better to approach Herr Kutschera rather than his shrewish wife, whom my father always hated to deal with whenever he had to again complain about the garbage that would end up in front of his door. And yet I also didn’t want to ambush Herr Kutschera with a question out of the blue. If I bothered him with questions that he found disturbing, he wouldn’t want anything to do with me. What I needed to do was make him curious and buy just a little something in order to get on his good side.

  “Herr Kutschera, two kilos of your best apples!”

  The vendor looked up quickly when I said his name, but he didn’t recognize me and just pointed gruffly at a sign that said, “Only One Kilo Per Customer.” Ashamed, I called out, “Oh, then one kilo!” Kutschera ripped off a bag from a bundle that hung down, slid his hand in, then blew into the bag, grabbed some apples, quickly threw them onto a scale with its trays clattering, and briskly switched apples in and out until the exact weight was achieved.

  “Herr Kutschera, do you recognize me?”

  He looked up again. His gaze didn’t reveal that someone he knew stood before him. But he didn’t worry any more about it and just busied himself again with the apples and the scale. What was I to him?

  “No.”

  Sullenly he busied himself with the apples. The kilo refused to come to the exact weight. I needed to help Herr Kutschera out.

  “It can be a bit more than a kilo, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Didn’t you read the sign? To hell with your stupid trick!”

  “Oh dear, forgive me! Before the war I came here often.”

  “And so did many others!” he snapped, closing the paper bag and holding it out to me, waiting for the money in exchange. Frau Kutschera, who was busy with other customers, was already bothered by my talk and muttered angrily to herself as she shot me a dirty look, but that was all it took, for her curiosity won out as she scrutinized me more closely, then was suddenly so taken by surprise that a scoop full of hazelnuts fell from her hand, the tiny balls bouncing all over the ground.

  “Jesus Mary, the young Herr Landau is alive!”

  With this exclamation I was only partway there, as the woman stared at me a little while longer. Then she abandoned me for her customers and left me to her husband, who also thought he now recognized me. His bleary eyes looked me over with suspicion.

  “Is it really you?”

  I didn’t care for this question, though I pulled myself together and laughed away the feeling of revulsion rising within me.

  “Of course, Herr Kutschera. I’ve just arrived, and right away I wanted some of your apples.”

  “How flattering. Indeed, your father bought these same apples. The very same.”

  “Now he grows his own in the garden outside the city, right?”

  “In his garden?”

  Herr Kutschera said this so loud that his wife again pricked up her ears. But why didn’t he say anything more? Confused, he just stared at me blankly. It looked to me as if he wanted to say something, or perhaps he was thinking hard what to say. Or was he just stunned and at a complete loss? His silence was painful to witness; all I wanted was for one of us to say something.

  “Tell me, Herr Kutschera, did my father give you the address?”

  “What address?”

  “His, of course. I just got back from the war and want to head out to see Father.”

  “That’s not possible, Herr Landau. The old man … went off … also to the war.…”

  “At his age?”

  “Even at his age. Terrible, don’t you think?”

  “And hasn’t returned? Back to his garden? Not even now?”

  Herr Kutschera picked a bad apple from a basket, turned it playfully in his hand, and looked at me as if I were mad. Quietly he shook his head, his low brow shrinking between his fat cheeks and his forehead. He was thinking something, but it was something sad, because his eyes grew damp, he finally wiping his nose on his shirtsleeve. Then he cleared his throat.

  “I don’t know what happened to your father. No one knows, no one here. I never saw him again. I can’t help you. He was a good man.”

  “A good man!” Frau Kutschera called out as well, she now having twice as much to do as before, since her husband wasn’t taking care of business.

  There was nothing I was going to get from these people, and I didn’t believe a word they said. How could they know anything? Since my father had retired from business, he was loath to cast an eye on the Reitergasse. There was nothing more for him to do here, and he certainly didn’t want to look at the empty shop any longer, while Kutschera’s was the last place he wanted to buy any fruit beyond that which he grew himself.

  “Thank you. What do I owe you?”

  “Nothing. Nothing.” Herr Kutschera turned red and looked more stricken. “For old friends, it’s my honor. Please do me the honor again!”

  I thanked him, though I couldn’t help feeling that it wasn’t right. As I said goodbye, Frau Kutschera also called out to me.

  “Be well, Herr Landau! Be well! Goodbye!”

  She meant well, perhaps, but her screeching voice left my ears burning, thereby causing me to hurry off as if I knew where I was headed, the apples under my arm for which Herr Kutschera had not gotten anything. I didn’t dare look at Father’s shop again and stormed through the Reitergasse. I didn’t want to see anyone or be recognized by anyone. It was clear to me that the people in this neighborhood couldn’t tell me anything about my father. I had to first gather myself together and settle down before I made any more decisions about how to go about searching for my father. Then I reached the Karolinenweg, where there were loads of people walking along together in two cumbersome but swiftly moving streams by which one was relentlessly carried along unless one pressed tight against a store window or fled into one of the wide entryways. The cramped sidewalk threatened to burst with workers pouring from the offices into the streets. The workday was done, most of the businesses closing.

  Thus I let myself be freely carried along until I came to the corner of the quiet Helfergasse. I extracted myself from the compact flow of impatient people moving along the Karolinenweg—it taking a while before I had freed myself—and finally was able to stop
and catch my breath. The flood of people had not done me any good, it being all too much to take in, and I was hungry besides. How lucky, I said to myself, that I have Herr Kutschera’s apples with me, for they’ll taste good. Yet the moment I opened the skillfully folded bag I immediately felt that it would be better to just give them all away, for I had no right to be tasting forbidden fruit. Adam, Adam, don’t take a bite, mind what you do, and do what’s right! Danger is afoot, evil comes to no good. My father was always an honest man, his basic principles unshakable, and by which he conducted his business. There was nothing sleazier than a vendor who sold his goods under false pretenses. I was ashamed of the apples, which I could feel round and firm inside the bag that was painfully pressed between my chest and my upper arm. If only there were a beggar who could mercifully take them, a pale child whom I could give the apples to! But no one passed by to whom I could give the strange goods. If I wasn’t going to leave them sitting on the next wall, I had to hold on to them. I tried to take comfort in the idea that my father, in order to keep good relations with Herr Kutschera and his wife, had many times given them little gifts, such as a bunch of handkerchiefs for Christmas, now and then a tie, sometimes gloves or a colorful scarf. Certainly Kutschera had thought of these gifts when seeing me after such a long time, his conscience bothering him, and he was glad that he could do something for the father via his son.

  Yet what kind of son was I? What good was I? I had not saved my parents from the war, had not sent them the smallest of gifts, not even the smallest memento that the dullest of soldiers brings home to his dearest ones in order to assure them of his love, and that he had faithfully thought of them while in the trenches, he having brought some crude little thing, a picture frame for his mother, a cigarette holder for his father, which he had carved himself with a pocket knife during the melancholy hours of those endless days. Then the parents, who had believed that their own flesh and blood had disappeared, would know that the love of a son never fades despite the years. I had failed to do anything; dull and dejected, I hadn’t brought the slightest gift. But then I had an idea, for there I stood, Kutschera’s apples in hand, which I could lay on the grave of my dear parents.

  “Take and give thanks, my dear dead! Blessed may you be with this food! You will never be forgotten, you who took the trouble to feed and clothe me. It is only a meager sacrifice that I carry over the threshold to you in your holy silent realm, but please accept it with grace! One thing is certain: this gift carries no guilt. I didn’t shoot the enemy in his garden in order to steal from his fruit trees. I was not a good soldier, nor did I become a good murderer. Instead, I was cowardly. I stayed back in the hinterlands, though I was not fed. No sweet apples were handed out; it was a meager time, neither an easy nor a dangerous stage, though I don’t wish to talk about that, for it wasn’t particularly difficult, because here I am. Indeed, it’s really me. It’s my own skin and bones. Why don’t you answer? Don’t be so cold! You have to hear me, I have to find you. Please, open the door! I know you’re in there, hidden deep inside, for I can hear Father in the bathroom drumming on the large mirror, as he always did whenever he shaved. Then the clatter of the dishes and silverware—only Mother could make that sound, nobody else. Why can’t I get to you? This wall, this awful wall; I can neither get through nor over it. Oh, how impossible it all is.”

  With a quavering voice I said all this in a soft rhythm, determined to move forward, and yet not taking a single step. I stood there frozen in the Helfergasse, the seething rush of the Karolinenweg nearby. Pleadingly I held out my bag of apples, yet I couldn’t help noting with a shudder how miserable it all was, a pathetic attempt at an unsuccessful return home. Then I wrenched myself away from the spot, passing continually back and forth as one does when one waits for someone on the street and can’t stand still. Perhaps someone would come along, a relative or one of the old servants, Herr Nerad or Frau Holoubek, a person who is always tied to us, and even today is still a part of us, as such closeness never disappears. All I needed was a little patience, for by the time evening settled in someone would have to come along who could help me. I reproached myself sharply for not writing a single letter the entire war, not even sending a simple card home, myself the disloyal son. Why should he expect anything now in return? Indeed I remembered that we could not send any mail, for our guards would not allow it, as they hated to waste time with such things and simply said no when we asked permission to mail letters and cards. Yet that was no excuse. I had simply done nothing but remain silent, ever silent, as only the dead are allowed to remain! No doubt Mother would remain silently in the background, knitting away, stitch after stitch. Could a mother renounce even such a bad son? No, she was sweet and almost deaf, though Father was highly enraged, not letting her know that I was nearby, which she could not perceive, lost as she was in the melancholy of her lonely knitting. If only Father didn’t stand in the way, I could have gone to Mother!

  “You’re not getting past me, Arthur! Can’t you see that your mother is decorating the shroud of her dead son with stars? A noble piece of work done by ever-faithful hands.”

  “Father, I brought you apples, fragrant shining apples! Mother should peel them with the gilded fruit knife and cut them into pieces! She can sprinkle them with sugar and arrange them in the shiny crystal bowl for us all!”

  “Too late. You should have come earlier. Others came home a good while ago. You made us wait so long.”

  “The war—”

  “I know, the war. That’s what one says when he perceives the long-neglected love of his parents as an inexpiable wrong. We couldn’t wait any longer for you. Even if it’s you, we don’t recognize you. In the cemetery, when they erect a gravestone for children who have died far away, they will collect money for it, and we will have your name engraved so that you are remembered. Get out! What I’m telling you is the only comfort you’re going to get from me.”

  “Do you really not recognize me? Do you really want to deny who I am?”

  “I’m not denying you, and indeed I recognize you. Lift up your arms! Turn around! Once more! Slower! Yes, that’s right, I’m sure of it. You look just like him, and must even have known him, for I’m sure he told you about us. Otherwise you couldn’t have found us. Nonetheless, you are not our son.”

  Then I wanted to walk right up to my father and offer him my apples before kneeling down to embrace his legs with my arms. He threatened me, however, with a fist raised high, and I knew that I couldn’t try to win his sympathy for my muddle-headed existence. Mother, meanwhile, kept knitting and knitting, sitting there beneath her light and working ever faster on the shroud, though I could hardly see the glow of the stars on it. All I could see was that she used red yarn. Then I called to her again. She might have heard me, for she paused, her hands now still and folded together, she looking down at the strands of yarn that now lay like a fountain of blood upon her dress. Then her head quietly swayed forward, her mouth closing softly, her forehead sinking solemnly and peacefully into a deep sleep. I waited for a while to see if she would sense that I was there, but she sank ever deeper into sleep. Father seemed to have forgotten my presence, for he walked over to Mother and observed with great interest her oblivion. He seemed quite used to it, for he didn’t look at all concerned, though a deep, unfathomable melancholy took hold of his slightly bent figure. Thus he stood there, strong and rigid, his open mouth somewhat aghast as Mother slipped ever deeper into her slumber, and with a heavy nod let her head sink irrevocably low, such that her plain gray hair fell in fine strands over her face. It was almost impossible to see beyond the drooping hair, though her neck was visible, and there I discovered a nasty swollen scar that had indeed healed, but only recently. What had happened to the good woman—how much had she endured? The painful discoloring seemed to be fading, but not yet entirely. Father sensed what I observed, and he turned toward me with the full weight of his age, as if he wanted to see just what the pain I perceived in this wound might do to me. I could
barely stand the sight of my mother anymore and was relieved, even if Father didn’t at all approve, to have a reason not to lie down next to her. What Father expected of me wasn’t clear to me at all, so I didn’t say anything. Finally he spoke, and much more quietly than I would have expected.

  “You still don’t believe that we don’t need you? You don’t belong to us. You are wrong, you are dead wrong. That’s not your mother, and I am not your father.”

  Whatever I might have said in reply simply didn’t occur to me, and so I didn’t say a word. I folded my arms across my chest and defended myself against the father who pressed against me, there being nothing in me that wanted to urge him toward a milder judgment. I simply had to accept that I would remain banished. Too much had passed during the years of separation that prevented our coming together again. Thus parents and son had to separate. So it was decided for good. I reconciled myself to it as easily as I had the moment before thought that it would be possible to be with them, though I faced facts and remained firm that I had to prepare myself to say goodbye for good. I also realized that this was the only chance I would have to say something in parting that might lend decency and dignity to the situation. I had to say something and looked deep inside myself for what my father would take away as my final and only legacy. But my intentions came to nothing. My father firmly raised his arm and waved it back and forth, such that I understood for sure that we were done with each other and that I had missed my last chance at any moment of grace. Indeed, all I could do was take a few respectful steps backward, though I continued to struggle to leave my implacable parents. I tried to gain a last glimpse of my mother, but it was impossible, as she was far removed inside a shadowy veil that her knitting had been transformed into and which was impenetrable. With his right hand, Father held me off, and with his left he covered his face as he coldly and mechanically and strangely spoke to me.