The Journey

by H. G. Adler

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Herr Innkeeper, or at least you’ve only partly grasped the truth. You’re right, your business won’t fail, for the statutes don’t forbid your wife from running it. But the times are against you, and that’s what is shutting down your garden and cozy booths.”

  “You mean the war?”

  “That’s right. You have to understand that there’s no more beer and wine, no sausage, no cheese.”

  “But there are still allotments! Smaller, but they still exist! If there isn’t enough of one thing, then there’s enough of another. It just keeps changing. Not everything disappears all at once.”

  “That’s right, it doesn’t disappear, but is redirected and shipped elsewhere. Only a few important restaurants are still open, and even they have to limit what they can serve. Here outside the town, where at most wagoners stop or on a sunny day good country people come to enjoy your shade garden, business has to be sacrificed until the victorious end of the war. The business must close.”

  “My inn doesn’t matter? Nor the wagoners or good country people?”

  “They’re not important. The drivers will disappear no matter what, and as for good country people? Herr Innkeeper, open your eyes!”

  “Don’t mock an honest man! My inn is important, I say, important, for I and my people live off what’s left over after taxes.”

  “None of you need live any longer. It doesn’t matter if you do. Just think of our new anthem!”

  “ ‘Everything will soon be over, everything will soon be finished’?”

  “Why do you say it with such a questioning tone? The anthem is simple and clear. It’s meant for those on the journey, yes, for the journey.”

  “But the wagoners, even if they no longer trot along with a team of horses, but barrel along instead, sir, they travel nonetheless! They need their beer, yet another drop appearing out of the bottle.… I always poured a full glass for free! Twice I’d fill it up! I’d sacrifice my own profits for the beauty of a well-poured pint. I gave away good beer.”

  “Travelers can drink water, it’s also bright and clear. We need sober lads if we’re going to win.”

  “And the Sunday guests?”

  “There aren’t any more! Days off have been done away with!”

  “Good country people. I know a slew of them!”

  “There’s no such thing. They’ve been done away with!”

  “Why should my wife and children suffer?”

  “We all must suffer! That can’t be helped! Everyone has to pay the price!”

  “Yet people say …”

  “Lots of things are said, but everything is different than what you hear. Words mean nothing, they can easily be taken back. What is still of value will be so because it is what is willed.”

  “My people shouldn’t have to starve!”

  “No one wants that, Herr Innkeeper, at least as long as it can be avoided. Though many in history have starved. But it won’t come to that. There are means of support if you need them. Nothing will happen to anyone. In general the prospects are good, there’s no need to worry. Especially if your wife and oldest daughter volunteer to work. Everyone is needed. It’s been ordered. That’s the way it is. If there are no extenuating circumstances, there are no exceptions.”

  “How about my family …?”

  “Not reason enough. There are families everywhere. There are no grounds for exception in your case. The world is big. Your wife is strong. Your daughter is able. We must win.”

  “And so I must leave house and home?”

  “Yes, you must leave everything. No one can stay who is of no use. Here you are of no use. Everything will be taken care of in this manner, because it’s for the best.”

  “And the little children?”

  “The local authorities will take care of them. You have our word. You can leave them behind.”

  Then the innkeeper was gone, taking along only a pair of kisses and a packet of snuff in his pocket. On his way, over the mountains, into battle without beer or coffee. With the last pint poured, the keg is empty. All the other family members are gone as well. Only traces of them remain, but they are not apparent to anyone who can read them, since the memory of them no longer exists. The inn stands empty and listlessly waits for the time when it will return after much has changed, that is, if it hasn’t already been destroyed, its bricks having crumbled into sand scattered to the wind.

  Yet you’re still here, despite having been so transformed that your displacement can be brought off painlessly. None of you want to sit in the shade garden of the inn, since you would be afraid and wouldn’t even know how to sit on a proper chair. If the innkeeper’s wife came herself she wouldn’t serve you, rather she’d be frightened and would implore you to disappear. You wouldn’t be able to stand this request, it would remind you of ancient prohibitions. Whoever articulates this within his thoughts allows death to awaken. You are like yellow chickens lined up once again, and the dust that covers you no longer offends anyone, because you are not who you are but rather are led through Leitenberg like strangers. The bridge that spans the wide river already awaits you. The moment you cross it another wish is fulfilled; you are transformed yet again. No one will recognize you.

  The town stretches out before you and is magnificent. From the bridge it offers up a pleasant view that has existed and been loved for centuries and is steeped in history. Happy people pass by. They are tired from a long walk and ecstatic with the knowledge that they’ll soon be home safe. Their eyes are free to roam in wonderment and they celebrate the happiness that has come to them. You, too, can look around just as long as you keep moving. The one thing you can’t do is stand still, for that will disturb the travel plans. Misuse of the emergency brake will be punished, as well as the continual transformation inherent to your own being. To the right and left beneath you there stretches the ribbon of river, silver and deep blue. Several boats lie anchored, some move along the surface.

  But before you lies the town that rises from the banks and stretches off into the distance where peaceful mountains rise above Leitenberg. There in their lush green live the thick forests that can only be killed but not transplanted. They are unfamiliar woods that stand before you, but you could know them and walk through them and wander among their shade if you saw how close they were. Many paths tempt you, soft, compliant ones, yet they only lead to the free outdoors that you may not use because it’s been designated as free. From the moment a foot steps toward the forest, it must keep to fixed paths, for the fields must be protected, since they are owned by strangers and bear crops that are handled by many hands that transform their labor into food. Meanwhile the woods remain inviting with their shady embrace cooling the sweat of your fear, the trees towering above you that no human step can harm. Now you are no longer bound to certain trails and can explore curious paths known only to the game warden. Now everything has become a forest; the light is muted, the shade provides protection, and the crunching of leaves beneath you stops, everything peaceful and still.

  Yet the forests remain far away and unreachable, occupying an impassable area that is cut off, only inquisitive glances allowed to enter as shy guests. It’s for the best, for these woods are undeveloped and it’s easy to lose one’s way, a network of many paths running between the trees, their destination unknown despite the promise they offer you. Only those who sustain their solitary ways by walking through the woods know where the paths lead. They know where they are and where they are headed and don’t want to be subject to the eyes of strangers. That’s why you have to remain chained together. You make up the band that crosses the river, a train that sways left-right, moving onward step-by-step, always a little farther, obedience not being a condition you chose for yourself, freedom of choice having been taken from you instead.

  You have been inserted into an overpowering machine. You can’t ignore its reality, even if its construction and purpose are not clear to you, since the chief operators to whom you are mere tool
s never reveal or review what will happen to you or even to them. Everyone becomes blind as soon as they are pressed to say how things look from their position at the moment. Don’t cause trouble by asking questions! Your bewilderment, your disillusioned empty gazes will only bring you harm, only more trouble can come of it. As for you at the end of the bridge, you who walk through the city’s Gothic gate while in the distance the forests cause you to lower your eyes, these bailiffs in army gear with their weapons hanging loose know nothing about you, the individual links to the chain that wanders on, no, they know hardly anything about any of you. The soldiers are only following orders.

  “Go to Ruhenthal and pick up the three hundred prisoners that the guards will hand over to you there! Make sure to count exactly how many there are; you’re responsible for anyone who escapes! If anyone tries to escape, don’t call after them, just shoot! Your weapons should be clean and at the ready! You’ll march through Leitenberg toward the Scharnhorst barracks, where you’ll report, then onward to the firing range at Dobrunke!”

  The corporal listens to the order and takes along a private and ten soldiers, who pick you up. Now they drive you onward, young, strong lads who don’t know you and will not know you because they don’t speak to you since that is forbidden. They see you, but they don’t look at you, their shyness immense, their appearance fragile and empty, childlike embarrassed sadness hiding within their faces. They walk confidently and place their leather-clad feet firmly on the ground, one step after another. They are not part of the chain, but their stride is as human as your own, just a bit less tired. They stride powerfully, leading you on in your own powerlessness. Only rarely do they make eye contact or with a few spare words cross the divide that separates you and your guards. If they did decide to disobey the strict regulations, they nonetheless could learn little about you, because there are too many of you, there wouldn’t be enough time, nor would there be any trust between you. On top of that, there’s too much to do as you march, work, and march again, the day soon over.

  At midday, when there’s an hour’s rest from work, the guards change shifts. These soldiers also have their orders to take you back to Ruhenthal early in the evening and hand you over to the guards after carefully counting you. Orders alone artificially hold you together and in a few hours divide you again, it all taking a short while. Only a set of gestures and understood signs unites you, there being no way to relate to one another on a deeper level; everything that transpires happens in an inhuman network that consumes all of us. Yet we plod along as well, our participation not in earnest; no one can think he truly knows anyone whom he’s glad to meet but hardly knows. No, no one is for real; that is the fate of those who journey, those forced to take a ticket. So get going, for you still have to reach the prescribed destination, no matter how tired you are. Quietly the will prods you on in order that suffering doesn’t erupt in all of its destructiveness, denying each questionable existence.

  “What a pain you are when you rant and complain! Cheer up!”

  “How can I cheer up? Nothing will allow it. What has happened to me may seem right to you, but it’s unbearable to me.”

  “You can bear it. Try counting the steps. Maybe the soldier over there is doing the same. He looks like he’s just looking on absentmindedly.”

  “But why doesn’t he absent himself altogether? He could desert. He has a weapon. He could do it a lot easier than you or I. He doesn’t have to do what he was told. Open rebellion wouldn’t sit well at all with him, for he lives under irrefutable laws, but he could desert! That’s for certain!”

  “Yes, sure. But if he bails out, there will be another one to replace him. And if that one leaves, then there will be another after him. And so on for eternity, and because of that it never stops.”

  “Isn’t that always the case? There are always more. The guilt just shifts from one to the other, it doesn’t go away. No one is himself. Each is the other one’s ape. If someone has a problem with that, then he’s replaced. That’s the way it more or less is and will always be.”

  “Don’t you want to see any meaning in it at all?”

  “Do I want to …? You’re a fool! The desire is there but it’s like an untouchable flower, one that is always visible and yet which always remains out of reach.”

  “I misspoke. I don’t mean if you want to make sense of it all, no, I mean whether you can see any sense to it.”

  “Why do you mislead me with questions about secondary matters when I am forced to live life firsthand? It’s what’s happening to us firsthand that matters! And what’s happening firsthand is not necessarily for the best. Rather, it’s enough that it is. Any meaning it has, and there indeed is one, has been so eradicated that at best you can only collect your thoughts. Yet given the state of necessity in which you live, you don’t want to see what you’re a part of.”

  “Isn’t that then the meaning of it?”

  “If that’s the case, then you are reducing meaning to something inessential. That then would place it outside of the operation that controls us, and also therefore outside of our own essence.”

  “Yet our essence is not this operation. These are only the outward conditions that we are forced to suffer.”

  “There’s no such thing as outward suffering felt by each of us as well as by me. We are a community held together by suffering, and that is essential.”

  “But there is suffering that you don’t experience. A stranger’s suffering is not your suffering.”

  “Any suffering is my suffering. You know, if something is treated as inessential it is still my concern; it doesn’t matter whether I wish to recognize it or not. Suffering exists in and of itself, whether I feel it or not. I can always feel it, always it is right next to me, even when for a moment I don’t feel it and don’t have to bear its entire weight myself. But I at least have to see it, hear it, feel it, even smell it, for it continues to spread its thick mist.”

  “But how about meaning? Doesn’t it exist as such, yet in a much more ungraspable, much higher sense? I’d even go so far as to say, as a much higher form of meaning?”

  “You play with the word meaning by placing it in uncertain terms in one instance and certain terms in the other.”

  “You’re picking at my words and ignoring their meaning!”

  “I don’t want to joke around and pluck bare your heart’s innermost desire, since you are also speaking of my desire. Meaning is what we desire.”

  “And desires truly exist!”

  “But as desires. Don’t you see the difference? Suffering exists. It’s there, and it’s not desired. No one desires suffering, or at least not his own suffering, that is, if he isn’t so disturbed as to take joy in his own suffering. But many, if not all, desire meaning. Desires are intentions that can sometimes be attained, but often they are unattainable. Meaning at its most basic level is an unattainable desire.”

  “Since it floats before me, it also materializes somewhere inside me; thus it exists within me.”

  “That’s right. I have nothing to add to that.”

  And so what remained silent was what could further be said about meaning, for it cannot bear up under constant focus if it is to cohere to what we believe and think. Sometimes the moment calls each of us up out of the depths in which we linger or think we linger. Such moments can simply pass, but it can also happen in such a way that what follows them grants no reality to suffering. Then usually that’s it, everything that once seemed to break all bounds becomes the everyday.

  Lucky is he who doesn’t have to wait for this because he already knows the sentence that’s been handed down against him. Though he awaits his execution, it’s certainly not a surprise. The surprise attack meant to disorient him is known well beforehand and is a dependable and trusted companion. The other passengers are only there for a while and frequently disappear before they are even missed. Only a small, albeit sudden surprise can upset the inertia of one’s feelings, which themselves always want to cling to normalcy
, since within that exists a protection against overwhelming suffering. It’s true, whoever needs to protect himself ends up feeling doubly disturbed at any change, for normalcy is invoked as a means to scare away loneliness. Yet because normalcy doesn’t find the truth to be sweet, truth always wins out, thus normalcy can never be certain that it will continue to exist. One may always like to think of it as reliable, but it is clear to all that though it may be nurtured for long periods of time, in the end it always abandons human beings without fail.

  The truth is merciless, and it is always victorious, always to people’s surprise, for nothing is as deeply mocked as the final victory of truth, even when its story involves countless insults, though never a final defeat. The truth is most terrible for those who never risk it, something that upsets them more than mockery or disdain. Truth allows no escape and readies itself for the pursuit that presses through its every pore until it conquers the resistant heart. Thus truth is merciless to him who tries to lock it out of his heart and is forced to accept it nonetheless. But it is never cruel, and only lies try to cast it as so by binding it up with something awful in order to battle the truth and delay and prevent its victory until the very end. This victory occurs when normalcy breaks out again, even if it’s the last part of normalcy, namely life itself, even though it may know its own end, yet can never fully believe it.

  The moment will strike you when nothing else stands between you and the truth. Then all false images fall away. Yet this is going too far; it is not up to life to show the truth in its final form, for its own execution does in life as well.

  Whatever then could possibly survive or remain would be the truth itself.

  That’s probably so, but let’s keep our wits about us so that we can indeed exist and serve the truth perpetually. That way we certainly cannot escape ourselves, but we do not need to run away from ourselves, but rather must get hold of ourselves and say to everyone that we are the ones who rest while we journey and who journey while we rest. As long as we are ourselves, everything that is not us will pass, and in the same way everything is in the midst of a journey, everything passes which is not us, the ones whom all that is strange just passes by.