The Journey

by H. G. Adler

  Caroline thought harder. Then it occurred to her that perhaps she had died, even if she didn’t seem dead; it was simply a dying that didn’t kill, and that was why she wasn’t lying in any grave, but instead stuck in a pantry full of bad air. But how could it be that other people were also here, even her own family? Had they all died? That couldn’t be. Only as a result of an earthquake would so many be dead. But there had been no quake. The buildings were still standing, no one had knocked them down. Frau Lischka had locked the door from the inside as Caroline was distracted by the decoys set by others. If the house was going to blow apart, it would come much later, and then the decoys would be angels who would lead the Lord’s loved ones to certain safety. In this way the expelled could rest assured, though for those who stayed behind in the supposedly guarded buildings, the final end was already ordained. Between the walls they would meet the enemy and be annihilated by a single stroke.

  Were the figures that surrounded Caroline really human beings? They weren’t at all, her imagination had simply run away with her as so often happened with the dead, Caroline told herself, and all she needed to do was gather her wits and stare truth in the face. Then it would be clear that Caroline was in the middle of a wax museum that someone had cleaned out and stored for safety inside the casemate. Caroline had been dragged along by accident. She had probably just entered the cabinet of curiosities when the order had come through for it to be cleaned out, a preventative measure that made a great deal of sense. Caroline had become sick as the hands and feet of the wax figures were packed away; she fainted, her face turning a waxy yellow color, such that in the heat of their duty the officials made a mistake and took along the glassy-eyed Caroline and laid her out here in the wood shavings where the undead regained consciousness once again. She wanted to yell in order to get the attention of the guards outside. I’m not made of wax, I can’t stand the sawdust, I can’t eat it, it’s much too cold for me here among these figures.

  Caroline didn’t have the strength to yell and she could see that things looked bad around her. She could only hope that soon one of the guards would come so that with a sign she could make him aware of the disastrous mistake that had occurred. Yet the prisoner was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to give any clear sense of events if the guard, out of fear, wouldn’t let her speak. She remembered that simple souls often became afraid in front of automatons. Someone might take her for something like that the moment she stretched out her hand to them. Caroline was not the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a cabinet of curiosities. It was only because of someone’s goodwill that she had been included among the chosen figures that had been sculpted by artistic hands. Caroline was an ordinary display model. She stood in the department store and displayed girdles, dresses, and hats to distinguished ladies. No one was interested in her, only what she was wearing. Someone had not been careful while carrying around the mannequin and had broken off some pieces. But no one repaired her and she had been thrown onto the rubbish heap instead.

  Here there was nothing more to display. The sad fairy tale had come to an end, the song was over, Paul had kindly removed the ribbons of the lute for Zerlina, the mannequin was not where her dusty little clothes were, yet Caroline had survived everything nonetheless. She lay back exhausted. Since there was no warm furnace, she was almost frozen as again she noticed her surroundings. A door was ripped open. It was not daylight that pressed through, but a glow that didn’t come from any lamp. In the door there stood a man who looked young and healthy, who probably had a beautiful wife, almost as pretty as Caroline was as a girl, himself holding his head high and wearing a powerful belt. His voice sounded bright and carefree, almost pleased, as he waved his hand like someone waking the dead and called into the mass grave: “Everyone up!” Many of them quickly got up, some of them propped themselves up, others sat up quickly, yet others jumped to their feet and stood there. They were alive, all alive. Caroline laughed and felt happy, feeling for a moment almost as if she were free.

  The sawdust flew about, many sneezed, all of them rubbed their eyes, yet they were alive and could even eat. No automaton did that. Caroline was again herself, she had her family once again and could fuss over them. She was willing to let anyone do to her what they wanted as long as they let her live. Everything would be taken care of. She heard that they had to obey, though it no longer needed to be said, since everyone knew it and it was no surprise. All that mattered was to be able to stand on your own feet. You could then get in line, for there was coffee. The liquid was warm. What did it matter that it wasn’t real coffee, since it still got your arms and legs moving and woke them up. Now the mannequins could walk, their little legs hastily shuffling over the winding passageways. They searched around, all of them mixing with one another, mannequins also streaming out of the neighboring barracks, the numbers tied to their chests flapping away. Sometimes one came up to another, lifted the number to his face in order to better decipher it, and then looked at the face itself. Again and again people were overjoyed to recognize one another!

  Then came the separation. Numbers were called out and then names as well, for not everyone was used to having a number, and some actually thought that they would not wear numbers forever and would forget them soon enough like so much else, hardly having put any effort into remembering them. But now the numbers were separated and sent here and there. Now there were many good-byes, but only a few felt the seriousness of the moment, and even they felt assured, because the numbers believed, as was solemnly promised them, that the town would not be very large but would be roomy enough, and there you could roam around, allowing everyone to soon find one another again. Man next to man and woman next to woman, thus they were placed together in those first early days; little terror was felt despite their overwhelming sense of surprise. Their faces also betrayed no sense of alarm, everything seemed fine, encouragement and seeming trust revealed in their glances and hand movements.

  Zerlina and Ida stood next to Caroline, full of anticipation and laughing at Leopold and Paul, who remained patient in order to make the time pass quickly for the women, whose departure was delayed for one reason or another. Certainly time didn’t pass too quickly, but also not too slowly; it was a continual stream that one simply had to trust. Now everything would again be easier than it had been in recent years or had been in the stressful months leading up to the journey. The leisurely pace of life had been restored, the separations made sense. What was wrong with your being forcibly removed if that was not what you felt at the moment? Certainly one day would follow another, each of them followed by night, rules would be followed, the day’s rhythms and the passing of seasons would make sense once again.

  Caroline waved. No mannequin knew how to wave an arm so delicately; she was no wax figure, that was certain. The milky white of the clouds parted a bit, blue could be detected, sunlight fell on the snow-covered chestnuts in the courtyard and on the arcades in front of the casemate. Things couldn’t be so bad. You could open your eyes, only memory could not be set free. Meanwhile Ida had to be held up, though she was brave and happy that her son was alive. She would have preferred to see him die rather than see him caught. The borders were drawn more prominently than ever, but though they were open everywhere no one could cross them. Zerlina lifted all of Ida’s bags and laughed. Things would work out, one mustn’t despair. Caroline had emerged victorious; no longer was she hallucinating, but rather constructing a future. Where there is a future there is life, and belief is what created the connection between.

  Paul watched the departure of the women and did not feel unhappy. He was busy. Next he turned his attention to Leopold, who was also considering many plans for the future. Then Leopold was also led away, which he expected. He said a quick good-bye to Paul. “Now we will all have to get to work.” Leopold was firm in his conviction, his belief had not faltered. His advanced age didn’t worry him, for a healthy man can also stand quite a lot despite his age. His was an occupation that called upon him to ease t
he sufferings of others. Here they would need Leopold, his lengthy experience would not be for naught. He left the casemate with some other old men and glanced back at Paul once more with a feeling of triumph. He, too, did not stay long in the casemate and left behind the sawdust that had already been mashed together into a brown smelly paste.

  Months went by, a year has passed. Sitting in his room, Paul had often thought that the connection we feel to our surroundings is frequently built on belief. When this belief is violated then the connection is already dissolved and the consequences are incalculable. It doesn’t matter whether or not such belief is true if indeed it exists only as belief, for it preserves much more than its possible truth, namely the truth of belief in itself. To the extent that belief is refuted by real conditions it is indeed not enough in itself, but when it fails, nothing is enough. Yet one must be patient. Each rash measure poses a threat and hinders the order of the world. All conditions, even the bad ones, are equal and cannot be changed in nature by merely willing them away. Destructive incursions are a mistake, for they accomplish and mean nothing, even when they lead to annihilation. There are always witnesses left behind whose memory is enough to survive any annihilation and restore the chronology of events even when hidden for centuries or millennia. Then everything reverts back to belief, which the transitory discards, and the past must reduce itself to an apparition upon which not much appears to rest.

  In the meantime, sacrifice yourself and expect nothing. Everything will come to you. You indeed approach closer and closer, your every step ordered onward until you are there where your work has been arranged for you, though in fact it is just the opposite, the wall stands before you and demands that you set to work on it. It should be demolished, its history is over. But that only seems so, for walls and histories will be perpetuated through you. You can press at them until you are exhausted, their dust trickling onto you and sticking in your pores. The old bricks rest in your hand, crumbs of mortar clinging to them, though you can’t take them away, for they simply remain. Perhaps you’d like to hold on to one and thereby do harm to the edifice in order to stave off history. But the others don’t understand you and warn you to keep up the pace. How little you think about your work, and that’s for the good, because if you did how easy it would be to stop. Hand over your bricks, pass the next one down the line!

  This is the Earth. Once it was on fire, but it has long since cooled and settled into a general state of coldness, the clumps having turned to pieces of ice between your fingers. The sharp north wind blows and leaves you shuddering on your scaffold. The sky is clouded over but contains no snow because it is dry, because your hands have no other work to do but demolish what was once built. The wall once laid down the border between what is yours and mine, but now everything belongs to you, and thus the former border dissolves right in front of your eyes. It could be that the glow of all of the extinguished fires of the world has not chilled. Therefore there must be hot bricks, for otherwise you could not stand here for hours, and your companions would neither be on your scaffold nor the neighboring scaffold. No one would be here, the town would stand empty, and death would cover over anything that dared to live. Yet death does not arrive in order to inhabit us, but instead strolls by. He has chosen the entire land as his empire. His path travels the length of the streets that run past the walls. Not all walls are demolished, not every border disappears; between death and life there is still a separation.

  The town is a timeless island of walls. A hundred thousand bricks are baked, bread that is piled into mountains of inhabitable loaves. The town floats on the ocean of time and knows nothing of itself. This is why the town can feel lonesome even when many things are going on within it. If you just take apart the bricks you’ll find what has been stored away and hidden. You’re interested in such exposure, nothing can hold back your urge to explore. Yet time has slowed, it’s become a sticky paste. The fired bricks are crushed, resulting in a coarse dark flour, the bread of the past that no one can chew. Whoever vainly pursues the past will be gobbled up by it. Yet it’s easy to chop it up into pieces when one uses a bit of trickery. The hands lift one stone after another and let them fall onto the heap below where the ashlar breaks them up with a dull cracking sound. No one says anything, the old bread is already too crumbly.

  A wall is demolished, yet in some empty spots other walls are erected for which no new bricks are available, which is why this wall has to disappear. Thus it means displacement, not salvation, and therefore it’s better if many bricks are broken up. One should not erect new walls with new bricks when it can only be accomplished by destroying others.

  Sometimes the builder comes by and warns: “Be careful! Don’t break any bricks! We don’t have any new ones! Wedge the pick between the bricks in order to loosen them. That also makes the job easier. And don’t toss any bricks!”

  It’s easy for the builder to say this, because he doesn’t have to take part in the work. Whoever looks on and gives commands stands above matters and walks back and forth in order to oversee everything, though this is impossible, and so bricks get broken. They should clear everything away and remove all the rubble so that there’s nothing left for memory to worm its way into. Then maybe a pleasing bit of grass would grow if only the continual steps of the guards didn’t trample it. No proper thoughts arise among standing buildings, but rather only misleading ones, though memory alone suits the timeless city. Whatever stands in its way can be cleared away. Then the grass can thrive. When the bricks crumble, no one’s will is destroyed. You shouldn’t think that the work of dissolution is the same as the work of destruction. Some bricks remain unharmed, especially when handled absentmindedly, which is all the more reason why the builder cannot stand any breakage. But he only gets a few bricks, and there are fewer and fewer as new supplies dwindle and building stones can only be had by destroying old walls. Everything is made of rubble, something stolen from earlier times and not allowed to stand. Rubble is gathered, but that’s not good. Whoever wants to begin something anew also needs to provide what’s needed to make it happen. As soon as a building is condemned, no concessions can be made and it must be quietly demolished, rather than just stripped of all its components, because that would only fulfill half of the order, thus bringing its validity into question.

  The women stand below with half-frozen fingers, cleaning the last of the mortar off of the bricks with iron scrapers. Partial bricks can also be used, said the builder. Anything that’s only half done is also thought to be finished; for completion is no longer the goal as long as such shortages remain. The desire to achieve something has been destroyed by the orders handed out. They shoot out like the blows of a whip and no longer move the hearts of men. The will is broken, mere obedience remains, reluctant obedience. Its achievements are fleeting and result in only rubble. The new walls lean and are fragile, they will soon topple. Yet other walls are built, consisting of nothing more than wishes. They tower above and require no scaffolds in order to be erected, nor do they belong to any building. They pop up so fast and collapse so quickly that there is no joy in their accumulation, these false edifices, these moldy loaves of the soul. The living go hungry because the bricks can’t feed them.

  Sometimes the bricks are lined up and counted. Then rifles are brought out and a voice yells: “Move!” The bricks begin to walk because they have grown legs, followed by swinging arms and finally heads. The bricks walk between the walls that are still standing and the walls that are already demolished. These walls want to be taken along with them, no one prevents it, so more and more bricks join the march. At last all walls are left behind, then a muddy path appears into which the bricks almost sink, though no one grants them any rest, an order transforms them into wheels that must turn. Yet the wheels cannot make their way through the mud. It doesn’t help that the children push them forward with canes, for the wheels are not toys. Someone should have strewn sand on the path so that the wheels can go forward, but now it’s too late. No cinders are
to be found because there’s nothing more to burn, only bricks, and the ovens have not had any fire in them for ages and are now lying in pieces. Only blackened chimneys indicate that these buildings were once heated, themselves now nothing more than memorials to apartments that once were, lodgings ready to serve one’s bidding.

  Then a voice struck by a cane screamed: “Nothing is real anymore!”

  “What isn’t real?”

  This question found no answer, yet another voice rose up, its tone much harsher than all of the other voices: “It’s all over for you.”

  Perhaps it was a thought that was stronger than the ruins that were stuck in the mud, since that’s the way things seemed as soon as the wheels could not move anymore, life having come to a standstill. Then it was up to the spirit alone whether or not one rotted there and died without finding someone who would even remember what had happened. Everyday life is over, and no new arrangement replaces what was lost.