by H. G. Adler
The mourning party turns around and breaks up into smaller groups that trail off into the wind. Ruhenthal takes in the living once again, the execution is called off and done for the day. It will be continued, yet nobody thinks about it for the moment. There is no time for grief, for life wants its own due, and for that reason the cadavers are taken away from Ruhenthal. The crematorium situated on clay soil in the middle of the meadow works well and reliably, and there hasn’t been the slightest complaint about it since it was opened. It works fast and is free of dust. The ashes are filtered and crushed and converted from morsels to crumbs, which are then spread upon tar and quietly pressed into it.
As soon as everything is finished and the remaining mourners have withdrawn, Caroline lets herself be helped by her son and daughter, though it deeply hurts her to do so. The husband belongs at the side of the widow at all times, not the children. But what happens when the man has hidden and run off? No good husband does that. Was Leopold a good husband? He was never there when you needed him, for indeed he was a person devoted to service who had no notion of love, or at least responsibilities toward loved ones. Slowly she shuffles along the path and says not a word. Caroline feels weak and is happy that the children are at her side, as they carefully lead her by the hand through the town. Then suddenly the gray silence is too much and the mother must say something.
“Now we are alone. We will all die here. There is no point in having any illusions, those were for your father. Soon our hour will strike as well. My hour, not yours. You must not remain here. Both of you can go back.”
“Mother, don’t talk that way, please! You know that I read The Leitenberg Daily from the day before yesterday, and in it they wrote …”
“They’ve written that for ages. That has nothing to do with us, us most of all, no, nothing at all! They’ve been writing that for two years already!”
“But one day it will be true.”
“Who knows what the real truth is? It’s all humbug!”
“You can’t talk that way, Mother. You have to control yourself, if only for us.”
“What for? There’s no longer any point. You’re both grown-ups. Wasn’t the old man right after all?”
“You’re upsetting Zerlina. One has to believe in something in order to keep on. Good never dies. Evil will meet its end.”
“Evil never dies either. For us it’s just begun.”
“Stop bickering! I need to go make my little boxes and I don’t want my head full of such worries. I can’t stand it anymore! You keep yanking me back and forth! It’s enough already, really enough! Moreover, Mother, we still need to give something to Nurse Dora. I want to give her my colorful scarf with the small narrow edging, or half a loaf of bread. Also a bit of bread for the roommate who said prayers.”
“Give, give, nothing but give! They’ve all gotten something already! We just don’t have enough to keep giving!”
“I’m fed up! Ugh! I am completely fed up!”
“Zerlina, of course I’ll give something, my child. Get a hold of yourself, please, at least in front of the people on the street! What will they think of us? I will give them bread if I have any to give.”
“I don’t care what others think. I’m fed up, that’s what I said! They let the old man starve! We didn’t do enough for him.…”
“Don’t say that! We did what we could. We went hungry ourselves in order to save a bit for him. As a result I’m a wreck. And I don’t even want to tell you how you look. In any case, it would be best if you didn’t look in a mirror.”
“They killed him! That’s what I told Dr. Plato. They executed him! I know it. They could have saved him. He could have saved himself if he stole like the others, but instead he let himself be robbed.”
“You’re talking nonsense, Zerlina! What happened has happened. We should not fight on this day of mourning. Paul, what are you going to do today?”
“Nothing. Tomorrow I’ll go back to the firing range.”
“Good, Paul, let’s walk Zerlina to her boxes.”
“No, no! Please just leave me alone! I can’t do it. So please just let me go and be merciful! I have to go my own way alone. I have to be by myself and think other thoughts. As long as you are at my side, that’s not possible.” Zerlina kisses her mother. “You are a poor devil, Mother. There’s nothing you can do for me. But you don’t understand. You will never understand, but that I wish you from my heart. It is better, a thousand times better, if you never grasp it. To forget, and never to know what can’t be forgotten. In times like these, that protects the soul from misfortune. Be well! Paul, be well!”
Zerlina breaks loose and goes her own way. Paul looks after her, observing her hasty feet, left right, left right, her feet hurrying and her nose cold, feet hurrying, unhappy feet. But one must never look into the future, the plague memorial is already too old to even have a future. One can only wait, just as the street sweeper waits for fresh trash. Leitenberg will surely continue, left, right, in the future. Ruhenthal, however, will descend into sleep. A different sleep than now, a sleep beyond sleep, not just a deep sleep. Paul takes his mother under the arm and brings her to the front door of her building. His mother lives there; Paul is quartered elsewhere. Perhaps something was said along the way, though Paul cannot remember precisely what. He had to look down at the ground in order not to stumble, left and right. Before the front door he hears the brittle voice of a stranger. Perhaps it was Katie Budil’s voice.
“Thank you, Paul, thank you. You’ve helped us so much. You are a good son. Please let me be now!”
Paul walks off, a tall, thin youth, his legs heavy and clumsy, feeling lifeless. It looks as if he is counting each step. Caroline looks after him for a good while. Why is he so sad? It can’t be only because of the father. Paul doesn’t belong here. Young men don’t belong in the city of the dead. Old people can stand that for a while, and when they die it’s not that tragic. The young should be elsewhere or should hide. Here among the old they are lost and can do nothing to help them. They don’t want to believe the worst, because they simply cannot, and yet that’s the way it is. Their faith is only the courage to have faith. Through that there is a future despite all else. And so the days roll on, as if blown away by the wind. If Caroline can just go to sleep, that is good, but it would be better if she did not have to wake up the next morning! A life lived by arbitrary grace. So you live without living, only the eyes bring pain. Yet you can’t be so serious. You forget with time. Above all, forgetting is the forward course of life, for there’s no such thing as remembering more, nor do you become more clever, for all that happens only in school. Yet you are easily fooled and then do not see how things really are. You are diminished more and more through life’s changes. At the beginning you are deceived, then later disappointed, meaning that the deceptions fall away like powder after a fancy ball. There are no hopes, when Caroline thinks hard about it, because instead there are only deceptions that you wear like makeup, as life goes on pleasantly and all its many unpleasantries remain hidden from you in order that they not be discovered all at once if you were to stand in front of a mirror. Whoever cannot hide anything will soon be unhappy and will stand there with empty hands. Everything is taken away. People will go after anyone who has something. Then comes flattery, beseeching, and begging, though Caroline would go crazy if she gave away anything. Zerlina is the complete opposite, which is why there is nothing left of her but her naked soul. That doesn’t go far in Ruhenthal. Here you are not given anything, and most certainly so if you give too much away. Caroline is clever. She leaves nothing in the open. The money is well hidden. Many times her place has been searched but nothing is ever found. The thug who was led around by cross-eyed Nussbaum had looked at her hard and demanded the truth.
“Hand it all over! If you tell us straight off where everything is you can go scot-free!”
“I don’t have anything. How then am I supposed to produce it?”
“You have two minutes to think it over.
”
The thug whistles and looks at his watch while Cross-Eyes looks at her as if he were ready to bite her head off. Time’s up and the fool screams, “We’ll search through everything. If I find anything, then you …”
“I don’t have anything. I swear it.”
They then rummage through everything. The contents of her bags fly out in arching bows. Every piece is minutely inspected. Curious onlookers gather around in circles, the family also stands by, worried, though everyone is chased away eventually.
“Powder! Where did you get powder? You’re already white enough and certainly don’t have to powder your nose.”
“Indeed, my nose is always so shiny. I have always powdered it.”
“Shut your mouth or I’ll have you up on charges before you know it.”
The powder is dumped out. Perhaps a piece of gold could be hidden in the powder. Underwear lies crumpled on the floor, food could be wrapped up in between. The cake has been cut into small pieces. The heels of shoes are banged. A needle is used to poke into the cover of a suitcase. Fingers probe the seams of dresses, looking for money that’s been sewed into them. No success, all effort has been wasted. The thug becomes enraged: “I haven’t found anything! You must be hiding something!”
“I don’t have anything. I’d be happy to give you something, if I had anything. But I’m afraid where there is nothing, then …”
“What’s that? Shut your mouth!”
Even the body search turns up nothing. Caroline knows better ways to hide money. Whoever tells the truth loses. And so you have to be clever. Which means talking only when it’s of use, just as in cards. First you bid, then you pass, and then you trump! Everything can be taken out of its hiding place, though one has to be careful. Whoever goes too far will pay for it. You’ll be locked up and beaten. Above all, you have to hide your thoughts and feelings, otherwise you will give yourself away and stand there with nothing left. How hard that was for Zerlina! Without that, no one can be helped, and all that’s left is disappointment. Given the way of the world, Caroline has to meet it head-on. Only fools want to make the world better. In the end such idiots are the laughingstocks; that is the only reward their goodness deserves. One just has to be happy to survive without being stomped on. Leopold is dead, whom Zerlina takes after, though less so Paul, who is somewhat different. The song is over, the band has stopped playing. Caroline had not always sung along, for the tune was often too difficult to carry. Leopold was a good man, but still he only thought of himself. It never occurred to him to think about what a young wife might need. Caroline didn’t need much, certainly not luxuries, and she certainly didn’t need to be pampered, but a bit of care and attention would have been good nonetheless.
Leopold was blind in both eyes, for he saw neither wife nor children. Only the patients. “Caroline, you don’t understand. Women have no sense of professional responsibility,” he had yelled when she dared to disagree. Leopold kept everything hidden inside. They all do that, one after another. His candor was made possible only through a naïve game of hide-and-seek that he played with himself. He had cut himself off and didn’t know himself, but rather only a few basic principles. He had lived by them for decades. If you asked him something, you knew in advance what the answer would be. He was a child whom Caroline had to take care of without getting anything in return. Nor had he ever worried about Paul and Zerlina. Of course he had been happy when, as children, they looked so sweet and wore such pretty clothes, but it was Caroline who had always taken care of it all, Leopold never having worried his head about any of it. “Children are women’s business. A man cannot busy himself with such stuff. The patients are waiting.” What were they all to him? Certainly not people, only patients! But everyone is a patient, even when medicine knows nothing of their ills because they are so deeply embedded that they cannot be found.
Which was why Caroline had to come to grips with it all on her own. Now that Leopold is no longer alive, there is less for her to worry about. He had lost nothing as a result, for he had little idea of what one really had to endure in Ruhenthal. It is better for him now. Paul will quickly find the desire to go on. Men don’t mourn as deeply as do women. For Zerlina, clearly such desire is evil. Her mind is set. She sees too much, but what she should see she does not. She judges Caroline, because she supposedly did not do enough for the old man. That is nonsense. Caroline had never been angry with him for being so neglectful. On the contrary, she had made his life easy, even here in Ruhenthal. Here most of all. If she had not economized so well, producing hidden money again and again as if by magic and trading bits of clothing for food, she could not have made Leopold’s soup tastier and cooked extra dishes for him. Which is why she has been reduced to skin and bones. She has sacrificed herself because she did not want to be at all responsible for the old man’s collapse, nor did she want to constantly have Zerlina’s reproachful glances before her eyes. He certainly did not starve to death, he always had something to eat. The entire ward envied what he had. Every day, no matter the weather, Caroline visited him at least once, if not twice. Like a little hungry dog he waited for what she brought with her: “Show me, Caroline, show me what you brought! Hmm, that’s good, that tastes good! Bring me some more of that, if you have any left!” But where she had gotten it, where she was supposed to get more, Leopold never thought of that. It was all obvious to him, just order it up and stick a napkin in his collar, just like in the days of peace. Not even once did he ask whether Caroline and the children had enough to eat. Though that was only half true, Caroline had to admit. With sincere yet clueless eyes he had often asked: “Do you all have enough? Certainly you do, Caroline!” She didn’t contradict him, but neither had he pressed the matter.
Just before he died, Leopold began to withdraw. “You live on the moon!” Then Leopold grew angry and said no, much like a child who has been asked whether or not he is there who then quite innocently answers from his hiding place, No, I’m not here! Such a person does not suffer much, one in whom everything is buried and never sees the light of day. It is easy to be a good man when you let all of your worries roll off you and, whatever happens, you take it all in without comprehending. No, he really did not suffer. Zerlina must not say that he did. There are poor devils much worse off than him who have nobody here and are wretchedly hungry because no one makes sure that they get what they have coming to them. But that’s the way of the world, one gets something, another gets nothing. When there’s little, one has to make do. Hunger is a mean commander, which is why Caroline is not surprised so many in Ruhenthal had become disreputable. Who indeed can be trusted and does not take from his neighbor whatever he can grab? If you don’t join in, you end up with the short straw. Anyone can remain above it all as long as he has a surplus. In a pinch everyone is as bad as the next. No one should think himself capable of setting an example for others. Anything can be bought for a piece of bread, but you can also sell your soul for it as well.
Whoever takes things as they are can come to terms with it all and at least carve out a bit of happiness for himself. Caroline will live differently now that she no longer has to worry about Leopold. Then it suddenly occurs to her that she can no longer visit him. Indeed it’s all gone, the day asserts its rights. There’s not even a cemetery where one can tend a grave. During these times there is nothing left of the dead, sentimentality having disappeared. Memorials have been deemed out of style. Caroline almost has to laugh when she recalls that there even was such a thing. If she really thinks about it, she really has to concede that the piousness and care required by graves were only an insincere bit of comedy that had to be played out by family and friends. Here no such theater was played anymore. Instead there was just naked life, rather than drama upon a stage. There were no longer disguised feelings. They were all made clear, whereby it also became obvious that everything was a complete sham.
Caroline grew up in the upper middle class. The walls were almost completely covered with paintings. Throughout the entir
e apartment you could not see what was behind them. In the salon there stood a bulky piano with an embroidered silk doily and numerous figurines upon it. A boy strangling a goose, a child pulling a thorn out of his foot. They were all very beautiful, but also impractical, made out of white alabaster, or maybe it was only plaster. All of the children took piano lessons, but none of them actually played. Soon the piano lid was shut, the keys were at rest. The instrument was never touched again and darkened over the years, a monument that was always in the way, each day gathering dust that really needed to be wiped away. Back then everything was hidden, hypocrisy burying the truth, much more so than later, because in general everyone was doing well. If Caroline were now a girl of marrying age, she could turn down Leopold’s proposal. There were younger and handsomer admirers whom you could choose from at your leisure. But only Leopold was there back then, no doubt the marriage having already been arranged. He didn’t ask much and he didn’t say much, and soon the parents were in agreement. Caroline was presented with the facts. And so the marriage was sealed.
Caroline could have resisted, yet she would have been too ashamed, so she did not protest. Her parents explained that Leopold was from a good family, a doctor, an educated man with a promising practice. There was nothing to decide, Caroline was still young and had hopes for the future. What could she have said when, after a year, the disappointment set in? Absolutely nothing. Divorce was not yet the order of the day. It would have been a scandal throughout the entire town. Many years later Zerlina blamed Caroline for not wanting to separate from Leopold. She would have done it, but by then it was really too late, for it seemed heartless to leave a helpless old man. Today everything is changed and nothing matters. Life is a mess. Ruhenthal is closed off and hidden from the world. Old people here know nothing of the world and can go no farther than the barrier at the edge of town, and even then only when there is a burial. The barrier, however, is still raised for the young. If only Paul would decide to escape! The countryside is huge, there are many little villages to hide out in. But Paul is a good-natured, wishy-washy person. He fritters away every chance and never seizes the opportunity. At his age Caroline would have been long gone over the hills. Paul’s indifference is worse than laziness. Events just sweep him along, and he just goes along without a fight. Caroline cannot depend on him. Zerlina, however, is nothing more than a bundle of nerves. She is too stubborn and always has her neck in a noose. Then Zerlina wonders why she can’t catch her breath. Staunchness only makes sense when it is joined with courage and skill. The girl is too excitable, and that’s why she overdoes it. Early on Caroline had hidden too much, but Zerlina hides too little. According to her, whoever immediately spoke the truth had no burden to carry. Yet every little thing need not be brought into the open, for then you die a day at a time and suffer agony. The girl is just hysterical. If I didn’t keep her in line constantly, we wouldn’t even be here. She’ll be the end of us by constantly confusing her dreams with reality. Ruhenthal is no summer vacation.