The Journey

by H. G. Adler

  Suddenly the path begins to climb up out of the mire again, the clumps of mud drop off to the left and right as the wheels get hold of themselves and begin to move again with a feeble rattling. They feel like singing or whistling, but that is not allowed; they are only supposed to gasp for breath and not enjoy themselves. As a result of the stress from the way they are handled, they gradually come to their senses and remember they have eyes. They look around and they are no longer wheels, but rather pairs of crutches with heads stuck on the top. They are heavy heads that wag back and forth, human heads that look like those of horses, though the crutches are neither made of wood nor metal, but rather of stone dust that has turned into cement.

  Everything has turned heavy and cannot move by its own strength alone, but nonetheless they are driven onward, the shouts spilling out continuously, yelling at them to hurry as long as the heads are still upright, craning themselves with their last strength, if only to protect the spirit’s shrine, even if the heart has long since rotted and dried up. Heartless pillars of concrete are chased toward higher ground. All that’s needed is a strong reminder, the crutches jumping at the ready with a powerful lurch, making sure only that the heads don’t fall off. A careless lurch would mean something could happen to your head. No one would dare bend down to save you. Who could afford to lift up a head and set it back on top of its crutches in the middle of such haste?

  Yet the heads also change, because they have to think about flight and ascent, while their usual wishes and desires are eradicated. Thus they become bird heads with bristled feathers, darting glances, and protruding crooked beaks. Around each head grows a bright feather ruffle that appears vibrant against the backdrop of the bleak concrete. The beaks are sharp and open themselves now and then as if they want to bite, but then they close again without snatching a morsel.

  The untouched splendor of the fields and meadows is trampled by the reckless strides that hurry to climb the heights. We are men, these wild monsters think; we are erect ants, we are warriors who have been called to battle. We are surrounded by enemies whom we do not know, and who don’t know us, neither having ever done anything to the other, but that’s war, in which we do nothing to one another. We know nothing about you, you know nothing about us, yet between us seeds of hatred are strewn by which we are both ruined. Orders fall upon us like a hail of stones, and we squawk like crows and peck out one another’s eyes. And yet we have no idea whether it will come to this, as we never meet up with one another, but instead hop on and sharpen our beaks. If you should happen to be armed, we are lost, doubly lost, for no one has entrusted us with weapons or trained us. We’ve only been gathered together out of the rubble, the women having scraped off the mortar from us. We were pieced together from the walls that were demolished, put together like we once were, like we still existed, and now we are put to work once our will has been broken. Now we are nothing more than implements of an endless journey, having long ago said good-bye to our own natures once there were no longer any buildings left.

  In the air a rattling and whistling began to rise; perhaps it was little birds, sparrows buzzing above our heads on the tail of the wind. Instead it was the all-powerful voice of command, and everyone fell down without knowing why. Then a new transformation begins. The head bends forward, but there are no more crutches on which it wobbles, but rather an extension, an appendage that is quite flexible as it twitches and twists. For now they are snakes with endlessly long tails. The poisonous fangs have broken out, and there is poison within them and they have to drink it. They soon feel awful and experience pain that had disappeared when they stood erect. And yet the snakes have become immune to harm. They are consumed by burning pain, and yet it does not affect them.

  What are soon in danger are the changing voices that tirelessly shout their commands; at least this is what the snakes believe who do not know that the commands prevail even when they encounter enemy fire. The commands can be pierced, but they cannot be brought down, for unknown powers maintain their timelessness. As long as these commands do not yield, freedom is denied, even power’s own freedom, for there is no longer any sense of power, it exists without any sense of itself. But where all feeling dwindles, freedom loses all sensibility and turns away from reality. Freedom is unknown, a dream from a golden age, man having erected powerful memorials to both time and freedom. Yet along with time, freedom has been absorbed by them, the memorials themselves unable to resist the all-powerful onslaught of the passing years, and so everything is absorbed within them, such that not even memory seems believable. Now only blind reverence maintains their abiding artifice, for they are not freed of their duty.

  But you all want to continually ask whether or not there is anything left of you that is recognizable, because if there is something, then the flames of your will must still exist, you would not have become snakes, but rather remained birds, and your crutches would turn into feathered wings. Then freedom would exist once again, reality no longer contradicted by unreality. So it would be. So it would be for you. You could still reach for it. You believe you still know it to be there. You are insatiable, your desire fills the cold emptiness until something is there. You have not sworn that you will deny everything. Instead you are always ready to see it; you believe that you can observe it before it is ready to be seen. But this can happen only when you do not notice that even this has been taken from you. And so any question about reality is worthless.

  You always want to reply that at least the question is still there, that reality will be conjured again as a result, the question alone not enough in itself once it is asked. Then the end would be defeated, the last threat of danger overcome, and a beginning launched through whose vast gate everything must pass once more in order to gather before lewd looks and hands. That’s how it should be, you say. But something is missing! What should be simply is not; you cannot begin again that easily. Remember that nothing is, and nothingness disavows even itself. There is always a “no” that hollows out every subject, and absence doesn’t answer back. Indeed, only the humiliated think that it does.

  Everything is a mockery, the snake’s cunning circles back on itself. If there is nothing, then there is really nothing, but even that is a lie. Belief in that leads to despair and a destructive madness that can crush an army of apparitions, while what is essential flees it and repels every approach. The misery of such deep disturbance is already enough in itself to refute such destruction. For then nothing more will come to harm, all that is fleeting is restored, the world in its inseparable twining of the beautiful and the horrible rises anew and carries on. You slippery snakes, however, have your part, and if it’s miserable, then so it is; that changes nothing about the truth of life, the course of history remains undisturbed. It’s up to you all whether or not you know to call it a blessing or a curse.

  Yet you don’t know what to say because you are the reflections of our helplessness, and therefore you are doubly and triply ridiculous in your own helplessness. Yet the snakes do not sense what others think of their weakness. They’ve reached the top of the hill, from where they can look down in order to better observe what is being destroyed. They lift their heads and sway back and forth, for now they are not afraid. Below, towns have been built in which things do not go so well, even though they contain fenced-in buildings separated into apartments, broken up into rooms and chambers, which have been leased by many people who have no idea what is to come. They themselves have the right to move about and to leave their apartments. Without asking permission, each of them leaves home to head out and take care of his business and pleasure. No one lurks, full of jealousy, watching every step, and the living are not treated as suspect. Yet perhaps that’s an illusion, for it could just be that they’re allowed to walk around because the authorities are careless or the guards on duty too lazy or because there are so few guards. It could seem to them that people enjoy a certain amount of freedom and go along their way undisturbed. Why should they care about the law through which the
authorities impose their own commandments? They can escape such traps, they are also snakes, though blessed with more luck than the snakes up above.

  That’s why it’s better not to look down at the snakes in the enclosed towns, where in the narrow confines of wretched streets they are almost lost in the dirt. The heights, however, grant you awareness of the depths from which you have climbed. Now you can recognize which path you took. That was the journey. You and yours traveled and were led on. Joining the journey happened out of your own free will or by force, and yet it occurred, such that you could wave good-bye, so much having been left behind. In the vases at home, flowers still stand that need fresh water, yet you forgot to turn their care over to someone reliable. The stalks have rotted, the leaves and blossoms dried up.

  Consciousness has split itself into two wings that have fallen from the body. Now the wings flutter on their own, sadness in their beating, yourself unable to control them. Now one, then the other, then both, sometimes neither, but you have to put up with them, whether they pester you or not. You want to get rid of them, and you point in dramatic fashion at your chest and say: “I know. I exist. I don’t lack consciousness.” That’s foolish. Don’t you really feel that you know nothing and are possessed, such that you know only half of the consciousness within you? That’s the way it is since you set out on your journey. It would have required courage to retain your consciousness; you could not have set out on the journey if you did. Now you will need even greater courage in order to withstand the journey. It won’t be easy for you. Whoever remains at home can gather together again better than whoever launches out on an adventure. Don’t think that you’ll succeed in finding any place that’s safe, where you can stop to recollect yourself and restore your undivided consciousness. Even if you should finish this journey without being left behind along the way, you’ll still be disturbed. In essence you will feel cut off from the world, you’ll want to set your hands and feet on your own turf once again. But don’t think that far ahead! That’s the future, which you must continue to fear for as long as you live.

  So you departed and were never allowed to look around. Or you were curious to spot the back of Cross-Eyes, rubbing his hands as he left the train station. Herr Nussbaum certainly didn’t go looking for that empty building in order to cheer up the lonely walls. Departure weakens vanity but strengthens character, which casts away the mask of fear. The scent of the invisible blossom of decay strikes the nostrils. There is no avoiding it, even if you don’t want to choke on the smell. The necessary journey is always one that is imposed. Since no one is asked whether or not he’d like to come along, understanding is never even sought. The departure only requires that you hurry. Travel fast so it doesn’t last. Yet why is it all so confusing? Why must one lose one’s sense of free choice, itself always having been a part of arriving at the truth?

  The journey had already begun the moment you thought about whether or not the decision about making such an impending journey was worth serious consideration. Cultivating freedom is fine as long as you still don’t know how dispensable it will become once your decisions disappear in a stream in which you realize you are dispensable while looking back at the journey you were ordered to take. You are not your own guide; you are swept away even before you have ordered the tickets, the authorities having purchased your seat, which is for the best, for it would be much more aggravating to try to get a seat when others might want to leave you behind. Then you would have shouted and demanded that you become a passenger, though doors would be shut before you everywhere: “What’s that, a seat, and you’re in it? You’re not a passenger. The one whose seat it is must be off somewhere. Away with you!” You would have then fought your way through in order to figure out how to make the proper connections so that you got the proper travel permits despite the imposing obstacles placed in your path. Exhausted, you would have collapsed and sunk into the rubbish that was brought along on the journey because it was already too late. In this manner you would have found no peace, and the potential agony of the subjugated remains always small when compared to the agony of the lone wolf who never knows what will happen from one moment to the next.

  And so you looked at the inhabitants of Leitenberg who wandered around the streets of their town naturally uncertain. You and others marched four abreast between the rows of buildings and across the market square. You were not allowed to stop nor to step onto the platform at the station, but were forced to hurry across the tracks as if you yourselves were a train waiting to serve its master’s every wish and desire rather than its own volition. Essentially what awaited you was an open question, for there was nothing you had to worry about. To the extent that you were buried in your own cares and worries, you were aware of no one else but yourselves, the worries themselves superfluous simply because you had not yet learned to give up your dear old sense of normalcy.

  Even if it wasn’t quite right, Leitenberg was nevertheless indifferent to your plight. It was a town through which you were led like so many times before, this being perhaps not the last time either. What strange fate awaited you that perhaps you were not aware of? A town, fine, a town—but there are plenty of towns. No curious onlooker claps the restless, runny-nosed traveler on the back to help him breathe better. No sooner did you reach a town and you left it behind, so it was no use tossing pebbles at a window to try to find out the secrets to some stranger’s home cooking. The severe penalty you’d have to pay for such a misdeed would not have been worth whatever unlikely relief you might have gained, and the penalties might have meant your own end, one of pure misery.

  Leitenberg is not your town, no matter how many times you may have been led through it, for it offers you no view of itself but the backyards of houses on the outskirts that for years you quietly passed almost every day on the train. In the dark, or even in your sleep, it’s enough for you to think that you’ll soon be there, just a little longer, just another half hour before you reach your stop, the one meant for you alone, and so you stand and move on, almost home. You could also wander through Leitenberg with your eyes almost closed, or you could lower your gaze to the ground and count the paving stones and your steps. Soon you will know, having passed the last houses and reached the open field. Leitenberg is only a dream, or no, an accident, which you can no more avoid than the train can leave its tracks; only by jumping the tracks could it plunge into the strange town and disappear.

  Only certain views meet certain faces. Everything else remains hidden and buried in impenetrable murkiness. At first you wander along a river valley where there are poplars and vegetable fields. The land is wet and lush. Its owners are unknown to you, unknown also to you is how they tend the fields and nurture the fruits and vegetables. You’ve no idea if there has been enough rain or sun this year to guarantee a good harvest, because you know no one who will enjoy the yield, and it’s even questionable if there is indeed anyone who takes care of what grows here. Seeing the blossoms on the weeds makes you happy and would continue to do so if you were allowed a brief stop. You’re just happy that it’s not raining, for your shoes are rotted, the puddles of mud make your steps difficult. Quietly your gaze takes in the plants that required such incredible toil, the kind generated by either great hope or bitter need. A hailstorm could destroy it all, bursting the soft melons and battering the cucumbers, the harvest crushed.

  Keep moving! You’re not allowed to stop here and while away the hours. No one prepared this harvest for you, none of it is for you, no matter how much you may want it. “Look, a tomato! It’s almost ripe!” It’s better to chase away all such thoughts before they start to cause you great pain. Keep moving! Out in the countryside already you pass the surprising somberness of individual houses covered with vines and surrounded by overflowing gardens in which productive hands and nature’s powers vie with tender plants and bushes. Who will win the battle between them? Meanwhile you pass barns, workshops, small factories, dumps, and sheds, all of which announce the presence of anxious owners who must
live nearby, their need or greed serviced by these facilities. You’re not allowed in, you’re not allowed either to take care of anything or destroy anything, because no one is allowed in who doesn’t have the right to enter already.

  Only the inn called The Golden Grape heartily invites anyone in, but it is empty and quiet. The door is closed, the windows of the dining room gray with dust. Ridiculous are the musical notes painted on the walls, ridiculous the sign and the inscribed lead plaques with all of their advertising slogans, which are already rusted and no longer mean anything. Still, you read them.

  SHADE GARDEN

  LEITENBERGER BEER

  COFFEE AVAILABLE

  Yet you don’t believe them, since they are a joke. The powers that be had called for a war that no one wanted and that put everyone in debt. That’s why the beer became scarce and finally dried up, coffee also disappearing from the planet. At the very least there was no way to stock The Golden Grape, and so sadly enough the inn is closed and dirty. Perhaps the innkeeper had been taken away and it was closed for good.

  “My dear sir, you’ve tapped kegs and served up beer for free long enough. It’s time to leave it all behind. If you don’t wish to die, then it would be better to come along now in order to die later. In any case, here you’ll have nothing to do for the foreseeable future. The magistrate and the citizenry of the town of Leitenberg will gladly confirm that.”

  The innkeeper was a portly man who bowed respectfully to all authorities and never raised a peep as long as things concerned himself alone. On the other hand, it seemed to him unfair to close the inn as a result of his—as he hoped—temporary departure, since there was still a wife and some daughters, along with a maid, who could keep things running.

  “Look how many there are …,” as he made one sad gesture after another at the members of his house. “Look how many there are who can cook and serve, who can carry booze back and forth. My business won’t fail. There’s plenty of customers.”