The Wall

by H. G. Adler

  Then the fourth, most desolate phase of my life in the metropolis began. Prior to this, my health had grown so bad because of the exhausting work I did for Eusemia; I became so weak that I would fall asleep at my desk, while at night I could hardly sleep at all. I was much in need of rest and recuperation and agreed with Johanna when she said it could not go on like this any longer. Then Betty came for a visit and was shocked at my condition. She wanted to take me straight back with her to South Wales, but since I couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from Johanna, Betty invited both of us. After Johanna made all the necessary arrangements in order to be able to continue with the work she had taken in while we were away, we left for two months. By the time we returned I was feeling much better, yet I was still so weak that I would get exhausted after working for just a brief while. I have never produced so little work as I did in those days. I grew more and more discouraged, and ever more cranky, getting angry without the slightest reason and burdening Johanna, whom I, weak and powerless, would remind, with the tormenting passion of my misery at the most inappropriate moment, of what I had said to her about my faults and failings before we were married. Horribly and to my own detriment, I portrayed my worthlessness in such a repellent manner that I succeeded in shaking her equilibrium. It was certainly bad enough that I could provide her with no means of support, but now I had to rob her of her own self-confidence, myself the one who would have been to blame if she had lost faith in me. Yet she didn’t lose faith, but only became uncertain, and so it was understandable that Konirsch-Lenz would have gained a bit of influence over her if he had come at her with all his guns blazing.

  But now I was done with this benefactor, we having split in anger, but I was free and felt better as a result. I could hope once again. My unease had still not dissipated, but once again I felt satisfied. There was nothing more that held me and reined me in, and that allowed me to breathe easier. Indeed, I had no idea what tomorrow would bring, and yet my worries eased, it seeming to me that things could not get any worse but only better. Someone carrying a heavy bag drew away from the telephone booth across from me and hurried off with long, quick strides. I then stepped in and called home, which was not my custom. No doubt Johanna would be surprised to hear the phone ring. I had hardly said hello to her, speaking to her as cheerfully as my phone manners allowed, but actually quite cheerfully, since all my sadness had suddenly lost its grip on me, when Johanna beat me to the punch before I could explain anything.

  “You had a falling out with Konirsch-Lenz. That’s why you’re calling me, right?”

  Greatly relieved, I said it was so and was amazed that she knew it already.

  “I thought so this morning, right after you left the house. You were acting so strange that all I could expect was either complete success, though I doubted that, or a complete disaster. It was all clear to me already; there’s no need to explain. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart! Everything will be all right.”

  Johanna’s voice sounded confident and happy, such that my last worries left me.

  “Then I want to come straight home if it’s okay with you. I was worried that you would be upset. Now I’m happy.”

  “Come home, come home! There’s also a letter here. A small contract for a book review, and the book is there as well.”

  “That’s great.”

  “You see. Already things are better. We don’t need any Konirsch-Lenz, nor anyone else. He actually called an hour ago. His anger seethed from every word he said. Still, he kept sputtering his apologies, saying you are the first person he’s never been able to help get on the right track. He likes you so much, but it’s hopeless with you, because you’re stubborn, beating your head against the wall, he said, and I laughed. Then he wished me well, but that I should understand, there was nothing he could do, he was throwing in the towel. I shouldn’t be angry with him. He had meant well.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Nothing at all. Or there was something. I said to him that it didn’t matter, I wasn’t angry at him, and only wanted to thank him.”

  “No! You told him that!”

  “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh, it’s all right! There’s no coming to terms with such people. You thank them politely and then move on.”

  Johanna laughed into the telephone, the receiver vibrating and humming at my ear, such that I had to hold it away. I quickly said that everything would be all right, and I’d be right home. Then we said goodbye, our spirits almost too high. When I left the phone booth, however, everything changed, all my cheerfulness draining from me, gloom encompassing me. I had to acknowledge that I was a failure. I was indeed done with my last and most overzealous benefactor, saying to myself with a smile that the wallpaper had fallen from my eyes, though the backlash from this falling out and the effect upon my circumstances were not to be denied. The fiery drive that had served my youth also made it possible for me to get through the bad years, it having continued on into my first years in the metropolis, while even in my efforts for Eusemia it was still evident. This drive had always been my savior, the strength that led me on. But now there was nothing left of this drive, I had nothing more, a hollowed-out existence—indeed, no existence whatsoever.

  If my attitude was negative, I thought, and if I was out of good ideas, then my sense of dissolution was understandable. But that was not at all how I felt! I still felt fired with the will to go on, to do something in the service of my fellow men through an honest effort, something meaningful, something that would legitimate me. I was a mirror for much of what I had experienced in these times, myself an individual eye that had taken it all in, and to have overcome it all was a worthy endeavor! Why should I be a failure? Only because I cannot exist, since I am an expression of something, not something in my own right? Then I would have to get used to it, an obedient Adam, here I stand, not I, and yet, one, it, a name, it not being easy to say what. An existence, that I don’t have, but, nonetheless, existence in itself is a powerful inner resource. I had come through; now I had to move ahead. I had been beaten, but I was not out. Something remained, something pushed on inscrutably, that inner resource. There was nothing more I could undertake, but I could just be. Perhaps I was the realization of a supernatural resolution: not an I, yet I; an I transformed by other graces.

  I was shocked that I had not prayed for a long time. I needed to pray, not for something but to something. Nor even that; I just needed to pray. Could I gather myself together enough to do so? I looked down at myself and saw myself standing there remote and strange, untenable except through grace. Was I anything but borrowed grace, and thus not myself but some kind of grace somewhere, myself one who said to grace, “I am myself all the same, and yet again I am not.” An idle game. I was surprised at what philosophy had previously proposed, pronouncements about the self in particular, about the personal, the triumphant I—that false equation: I think, I am. If I am, then I do not think. I am or I think. I am or am not, whether I think or not. I am, therefore I think, therefore I also think; but I am not, because I think. What pride, what presumption, what incredible defiance, from someone who had stood up against the universe in order to exist, standing there after having been catapulted from Paradise like Adam, onto the abandoned field, precipitously, as if thrown from a tower, from the Tower of Babel, its audacious walls standing against heaven and earth. That I could not do and did not want to do any longer, and yet I did not want to be pitiful, not disobedient, not without humility, repentance, sacrifice, and prayer, not without empathy, not without knowledge of my guilt and a conscience, not to alienate Being and betray it, only because there is no known Being, no certain existence that I want to embrace or possess.

  I admit, such perverse thinkers were the first to deny society, their protests having denied those forms into which human existence had packed itself and secured itself among many races. Now things were different; society no longer wanted any thinkers who
only wanted to serve it without becoming its slave or just preach about destruction in a seductive manner. Don’t exist! So one was told aloud and secretly whispered to: Don’t exist! Yet you didn’t want to hear it, and so you went to the dogs nevertheless! What could one possibly say at that point? Perhaps this: Always be something less than what you are allowed to be in a pinch. Even then, it can soon occur that the next time you find yourself among your fellow men the most basic consideration will not be granted you.

  “You’re still here? How strange! I thought they did with you as they did with your father and hauled you away. The main thing is that it will still happen. Which is fine with me.”

  You couldn’t say anything in response, such as, “Yes, I’m alive, but I feel terrible,” for otherwise you would be severely reprimanded.

  “What do you mean, ‘terrible’? You don’t make any sense! If you are alive, then things are good. You’re not allowed to complain.”

  Basically, I had to agree. That someone could rise above one’s lot in life seemed a foolish idea. Each gets what he gets; that I had to accept. Perhaps I was myself a miserable bit of nothing, and perhaps that was why someone had decided to shove me to the side in order to show me what I was. If that was so, then even my dissatisfaction could be thought of as a splendid piece of luck; all my disasters, all my failures had nonetheless benefited me. Thus I had to maintain a condition of continued waiting, whose intensity could not lag, the hours flowing into yet more hours, the matter not real in itself but, instead, an artificial structure through which the most difficult thing of all, order, could be pursued. Thus I devoted myself to good fortune that never arrived but remained a possibility and which could someday occur for humanity, as well as for me, in unknown ways. The kingdom that we seek has existed from the very beginning, but to bring it about was certainly a tall order, though not one that was in our control.

  “You’re one of the many who wish to exist. You have eaten of the fruit; that cannot be undone. Your mistake is this: that you wish to exist; what’s more, that you want to have done so from the very beginning and forevermore. You concern yourself much too intensely with that. Your will to be is inexhaustible.”

  This I had to entirely agree with, for that was the only way I could find the strength within me to make my own determination. The wall rose up before me, though it couldn’t do so forever, yet I didn’t have the patience to wait to see what would happen with me. That’s why I decided to wake up and walk alongside the empty wall, feeling and testing my way. Where it would lead me I really had no idea. It seemed much longer than ever before. I was surprised at how long it was.

  “If we follow the length of this wall,” I said, “we’ll soon be outside again.”

  “It’s pretty dark.”

  “It is. We know why. A new light will be installed soon.”

  “That has to happen. One can break a leg.”

  “I already told you, close your eyes for a little while so you can get used to the darkness.”

  Then we were in the little foyer again, the tour over. Here the daylight pressed in, and the two of them breathed easier, having been released from the darkness. I opened the door to see them out, then I remembered that they had not yet signed the visitors’ book. I took out my fountain pen and unscrewed its cap.

  “Please, sign our book!”

  My pen was set aside and a much more beautiful one appeared, heavy, marvelous, gleaming gold. The man held it out to the lady. The pen was too much for her to handle and was hardly right for her shaky little handwriting. Then the man took hold of it, his strokes powerful, the sharp, angled lines of confident, knowing success. There, next to the date, stood “Mitzi Lever, Johannesburg; Guido Lever, Johannesburg.” Frau Lever’s signature was already dry, but Herr Lever’s name still looked wet. I took a piece of blotting paper and laid it on top and carefully dabbed at it.

  “There we are, etched in eternal memory, Mitzi. Just think, isn’t that marvelous?”

  “You’re right. It’s astonishing to think that I am now part of history. And look at all the other signatures! What do you think, Herr Doctor? How many people will write down their names here for all time in the next hundred years?”

  “The Herr Doctor cannot know the answer to that. How can you ask such a dumb question?”

  “The good madam was only wondering.”

  I said that quietly, and was rewarded with a flattering glance. Then I saw the guests out to the street and carefully closed up the hermitage. We slowly walked back to our administration building in the former school. Herr Lever looked to be totally inspired, and was very thankful, offering me a huge tip and not pleased when I declined it because of what he took to be regulations. I suggested that he could make a donation to the museum, if he wished to.

  “To the museum! Why not! But you, Herr Doctor, you could surely use something and are certainly owed a great deal. It would be my pleasure. South Africa is a land of gold, and I have always earned plenty.”

  “Yes, so my husband has. He’s very capable. And generous as well.”

  Nonetheless, there was no changing my mind and I only let him give me a pack of American cigarettes.

  “You have to take these, Herr Doctor! Otherwise I’ll be upset. You’ve done up everything so splendidly. There was nothing needed for the cemetery. That’s old and famous. But the museum—it’s really splendid. A site well worth seeing, and without compare. I will talk about it throughout the world, and especially at home. I’ll send people to you. Hopefully, it will soon officially be open, a catalog will be printed—a book with pictures of the most important treasures. How lively it all is. How exciting! Aren’t you excited, Mitzi?”

  “And how!”

  “Tell me, Herr Doctor, a question: are you insured?”

  “You mean the museum?”

  “Yes, the museum.”

  “Of course.”

  “Against anything? Theft, fire, water, structural damages, everything? And for how much, if I may ask?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “Such a museum has to be well insured. You must believe me. The things it has are irreplaceable. If something happened, you have to at least be well insured.”

  “And you think it helps to be so?”

  “Yes, just think about the material losses!”

  At that I said nothing more and let the couple talk between themselves until we reached the door of the school. I waited to say goodbye to the Levers, which after they completed the tour happened at this point. Whether because of shyness, sentimentality, or politeness, the custom had always been that our visitors only rarely left from the retreat but instead always accompanied us back to the school, even when they had no further questions and only walked along quietly beside us. Only here, once you informed them that the visit was over, would they slowly say goodbye, which normally took a little while as they talked about this or that, without aim or purpose, while it lay on us to bring these pointless exchanges to an end. It almost never happened that they wanted to come into the school, because inquiries about our mounting stacks of goods or those that could be answered by our administrative offices were usually already taken care of during the tour. But the Levers had something else in mind, or perhaps not, for they didn’t seem to expect anything more, but just wanted to keep talking with me and wouldn’t let me get back to my work.

  “I have to go now. I have a lot to do.”

  “Look, Herr Doctor, we’re countrymen of yours. Tell us, what did your father do?”

  “He sold men’s clothing.”

  “Men’s clothing? And your name is Landau?”

  “Yes.”

  “Landau’s Haberdashery? Mitzi, do you remember?”

  “Yes, that’s where you bought that tie, and some shirts? You also have a pair of pants from there. Very good ones.”

  “Yes. And on them it says HAL, a good brand. I never knew what that meant. Can you tell me?”

  “The first letters of ‘Haberdashery Albert Landau
.’ ”

  Herr Lever slapped his forehead.

  “What an idiot I am! So simple, and yet I could never figure it out.”

  “Now you know,” said Mitzi. “And tell me, Herr Doctor, wasn’t it next to the fruit seller? What was his name?”

  “Kutschera.”

  “That’s right. Kutschera. Is he still there?”

  “Yes, he still sells fruit.”

  “I must have a look. I’ve been away so long, the war and everything, and yet the good Kutschera is still there with his apples and oranges!”

  “And the clothing store?” Herr Lever wanted to know. “Can I still buy something there? You must indeed have gotten the store back.”

  “No, you can’t buy anything there.”

  “That’s too bad. Is it closed?”

  “Yes. For good.”

  “And your father, if I may ask?”

  I didn’t answer right away.

  “Oh, I see!” said Herr Lever apologetically. “I’m so sorry. But it really was a first-rate store. You must at least have gotten permanent compensation.”

  I smiled.

  “Didn’t you get anything? I can’t believe it. But you will, won’t you?”

  “No, I won’t, Herr Lever, nothing at all. I don’t want to, and I won’t, and it won’t happen.”

  “You don’t want to? It’s within your rights, and those you have to defend. Those rascals shouldn’t get it. You need to pursue it!”

  “I won’t. It won’t come to anything. Senseless, it’s all senseless.”

  “An actual doctor, Mitzi! Just listen to yourself—you don’t have the wiles of a salesman! But you owe it to your father and to yourself.”

  “I don’t believe that. And, what’s more, I won’t get anything. The store was liquidated long ago. People chase after their lost property like fools, but, given the way the winds blow here, hardly anyone has gotten anything back.”