by H. G. Adler
It’s been several days since his father’s death and many hours since the funeral took place in the mortuary. Lunch and supper were taken in between, and so the mourning period has expired. Yet life goes on, not everyone can be executed. Frau Ilsebill’s executioner keeps looking for many victims, but there are others that he passes by, and so there is always someone who survives. The hope of being one of them is the right of the young, Vera had said. The greatest treasures are protected by the soul, for they are lodged where Cross-Eyes can’t find them. And so the journey goes on, announcing the good news at all of the oncoming stations. The railroad workers standing there with their red signal flags await what we have to announce. They will listen and then hand us bread and flowers. Thus we will be received everywhere and “Pax vobiscum” will be called out, though we will reply, “In saecula saeculorum.” Then the central train station of Stupart will approach with its two mighty halls. The train will stop with a rattle, the minister of railways will lift the baton, the band music will begin a bit loud, though the jubiliant crowd won’t mind. Then everyone will get out, the station platform will be covered with a white carpet strewn with countless roses. A handshake, an embrace, a single brotherhood. A rooster in a golden cage will be carried forth, a page presenting it to Zerlina.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Zerlina the golden maiden is here!
Yet Zerlina does not like official greetings, for they embarrass her. She only wants to fulfill her duty, and this doesn’t suit her at all; the rooster should be handed to someone who after so much privation is owed sincere thanks for not having betrayed the human dignity of those in Ruhenthal. Zerlina doesn’t entirely believe what she says there, but she wants to escape the bustle and do so properly, because on a day of celebration one must praise something, since praise upholds what is just more strongly than injustice and in a healthier manner than blame. Meanwhile, Zerlina manages to find a path to the next station gate. Now she can at last walk away in order to slip unnoticed by Frau Lischka into the apartment. After two years’ absence the apartment has fallen into such neglect that it will be many weeks before everything is put back in order. Also all of the things that the Lustigs hid with acquaintances have to be brought back home, which will certainly take a long time, for everywhere people want to know how you really are, what really happened in Ruhenthal, and if it indeed was so bad. You are not allowed to simply say what happened, but instead you are invited to dinner, a glass of schnapps is offered, the grown-up children are marveled at, this and that is chatted about until you can safely excuse yourself, saying, We have to be off, we’re so tired and have so much to do.
A homey feel has returned to the apartment again for the first time. Strangers had packed into the place like sardines and made a mess of it. Their traces have to be eradicated, the mess in the kitchen and other rooms expunged. Perhaps it would be smarter to look around for an apartment free of such problems, one that was freshly painted and that did not cast shadows consumed with hatred from every wall. If only there wasn’t such a shortage of apartments after the war! But certainly it makes sense to move somewhere else, for the old apartment indeed had many problems, it being too dark and sooty, the foyer too small, the doors not thick enough. Yet these disadvantages were far outweighed by the sense of outrage that had settled in, the horror felt before the unconquerable chasm that had opened between the time when they had departed and when they had returned. Sure, their absence is forgotten, since between then and now there is nothing that one can remember, and in between nothing had happened, only a gaping emptiness, incoherent and senseless, just empty time running on, time that didn’t exist, not time at all. That’s why no one can say anything about it. How then can someone demand an account? Zerlina can only quietly point out that she simply didn’t exist between yesterday and today, it’s as if she were asleep. Yet she knows nothing of what happened, it was too dark, black as tar, and if it were indeed any different then she doesn’t want to recall it.
Yet let us continue where Zerlina has stopped. The foot pedal of the sewing machine can once again be worked, for after a bit of oil it works just fine again—ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk. Aunt Ida had always worked it so, saying, “It sounds like a train. Where would you like to travel, dear children?” Paul and Zerlina called out loudly, “To Ingelsdof, to Freiensitz.” Then the sewing machine went even faster. But if the journey took too long, she told stories. Everything, everything comes right again, the days go back to normal, the pantries and the cupboards full. What does it matter if Zerlina can’t quite remember everything and has to search for this and that? At night everyone will sleep, the covers pulled back, the light turned off, the clean blankets softly wrapping around, then morning, it being a little late, the milkman rings the bell, quick, out of bed, into the bathroom, the basin filled with warm water, the breakfast table set, complete with flowers, the breakfast, the honey bread, the beautiful cups filled, the opened egg in its holder, bright gold, then the washing up and clearing, it being high time, hand me my bag, there’s shopping to do. Yes, shopping, the many new purchases that are now needed include clothes, furniture, the many little things that one needs daily!
Is the little flower shop run by Frau Cimera still open? She was quite old indeed, and if she died the shop will certainly be closed, because Straka the laundry man will snatch it up since he wants to expand his business. And are the streets like they once were? Do the same people walk along them? Is any of it recognizable? The times change, Zerlina knows all too well. Perhaps she won’t know her way around Stupart and won’t find a familiar face. Zerlina had not slept without paying a price. Sleeping Beauty held in the Ruhenthal fortress, that was not right. While under her magic spell it would have been nice for nothing to have changed, even if the spell had lasted a century, yet in Stupart time has passed, unable to be stopped; there no one believes in a return.
You were evicted, my dear Lustigs, so how can you be surprised? It never occurred to us that you would be able to come back. Gone is gone, no one complained about your leaving. But let’s have a look at you! Turn left! Now right! Turn around! My goodness, it can’t be you! You have no way of proving your identity. We won’t let ourselves be fooled for a moment, the Lustigs looked completely different! What have you done with Dr. Lustig? As long as you cannot produce the doctor, there’s no way that we can believe you. You claim that he’s dead because so much time has passed. We understand. Either everyone is dead or no one is dead. Aha, it’s because he was already so old, and the accommodations in Ruhenthal were not enough to prolong the life of an old man? That’s quite a story, but we’re not that dumb. You’re a pack of swindlers, nothing but swindlers who want to take advantage of changed relations. You were taken away from here, we know, but that wasn’t done in order to keep you safe throughout the war like pickles packed in a jar that one simply opens in order to happily pick you up and bring you back healthy. We never believed that for a moment. We said nothing then because we felt bad about your future. What they did to you pained us! No one should be treated like that. But rest assured, we had a pretty good idea of what would happen, even if we didn’t know for sure. The newspapers made it clear enough between the lines that you were only hauled off from here in order to spare us the repulsive sight of your extermination. That’s why you were neatly sucked up, as if by a vacuum cleaner, everyone straight into the dust bag, all of you off, eins zwei!
Curtains were drawn between you and us, everything blacked out for miles on end. Open executions no longer took place because they stirred up bad feelings. Everything was kept hidden. The papers wrote only about penalties and fines, yet the spilled blood blackened, though nothing is left of it for the public to see today. Were you just dumped somewhere? Did walls swallow you up? They provide good protection, a guarantee of society’s good intentions, barbed-wire camps a demonstration of our mercy, for they don’t look so bad from a distance, just obstinate fortresses, ghostly castles out of fairy tales with proud little towers and battlements
and ramparts. Live well, you criminals, but not in our backyard, instead spare us through your absence! Yet you claim that you’ve been done an injustice? Could be, but we don’t want to, nor can we look into that, for the authorities are the ones who ordered it, thus it just happened. To doubt the good of what once happened is not our way. Okay, you say that you were not stuck in some fairy-tale castle. That could also be because they didn’t want to fill the noble cells of the jail in our magisterial city of Stupart in order to protect the guards from recriminations by letting you be hauled off. You should have run away and hidden! But your pursuers wouldn’t have stood for that. Which is why they hauled you off and took you far away. Long was the journey, long. Don’t look so ridiculous, we know it was murder and not something pleasant. But we couldn’t do anything about it, that’s the way of the world. Onward and onward, summer and winter, through frost and heat, back and forth, without light and air, sixty at a time or a hundred crowded into a box, packed in, sealed off, without food and water. You should have died from that, but whoever came through was yanked from the box and tossed away.
To that you have nothing else to say. Fine, for thus you are exposed, you are not what you are! Aren’t you ashamed to carry the noble name of Lustig? You must leave this apartment instantly! Off with you! Try elsewhere, if you want. The possessions of the dear Lustigs? That’s carrying shamelessness a bit too far! No, the lovely, lovely, expensive things, we have stored them all away, but for the real Lustigs, if they should ever return, ah, how we hope it will happen, for we were so fond of them. You can’t imagine what we indeed did for them! We would have loved most of all to have saved them! They were such good people, they never did anyone any harm, we can attest to the fact that they were always so good, so upstanding, so pleasant, each of them possessed a heart of gold, especially the dear doctor, yes, you must have known him! Now, there was a man! We’ll never see the likes of him again! His winter coat? His gold watch? Are you crazy? We still have to take care of their things. We’re very careful with them, everything is looked after and dusted, even Frau Lustig’s jewelry, those earrings that were a wedding gift, two large black pearls, big as eyes, and then the fur, which was properly cleaned, and we spread mothballs between the clothes and underwear. It all takes a good deal of effort, but we do it gladly, because it’s for the dear Lustigs. Indeed, if they don’t return, our hearts will simply break, there’s no way to express how sad that would be! That’s why we have to keep watch over their things; perhaps Albert Schwarz will show up one day, the dear nephew from America, for there is no telling that he won’t someday inherit everything. If he can prove who he is, then we must turn everything over to him, every last item, just as we listed them in the records. Then everything will be gone, though thank goodness not everything, really, for after having taken care of everything for many years we will certainly have to be compensated. Indeed, all of this stuff takes up so much room that we can hardly move in our own apartment. First, the many carpets that we have to lay on top of one another since we have no vacuum cleaner, then the many paintings on the walls, almost as if it were a museum, and all the glassware, the porcelain, the boy removing the thorn in the glass case! For years us poor folks couldn’t tend to our own things and had to sell some of them just to be able to take care of everything for the Lustigs.
Zerlina turns pale, all the joy of having returned now drained from her. People don’t believe Zerlina, the apartment doors open only a crack, because it doesn’t help that she also remembers the past, for all that was in the past and among good friends is simply forgotten. They shake their heads innocently and are sad because none of the dear Lustigs will see their home again nor learn what selfless, loyal friends they had, who spared no sacrifice to save what they could manage to save. For a stranger, however, they can do nothing, no matter how much it hurts, no matter where they have come from, since the friends already have many other responsibilities. They have to think of their own families during the dark days after the war. The country is poor, the need is like it’s never been, there’s hardly any bread to buy, nothing in the stores, clothes hang in rags, such poor, poor people.
Zerlina turns away out of pity. She hasn’t the strength to console the righteous, who think themselves unfairly treated after having suffered so much. Zerlina knows she will encounter much bitterness in this big, strange city in which everything looks the same, but nothing is as it once was. It’s a dead, destroyed city, although the stones are still stuck together. The bombs have not smashed the walls, even though Stupart has long since died, despite there being more people wandering the main streets than before the war, the same businesses showing their wares, the same red streetcars rolling on the tracks. It’s no longer the city in which Zerlina was born, in which she grew up and lived. It may be the same city, still called Stupart, but it’s an endless cemetery of mass graves between which Zerlina cannot find her way. Not a single recognizable tomb is here, neither familiar nor unfamiliar names, because the dear dead that once lay here have been yanked out and their bones strewn throughout the world, there being no way to bring them back together again.
Therefore, away from Stupart, away from despair and the stench of tar that piquantly yet sinisterly almost robs one’s breath. The streets have been recently ripped open, their naked entrails exposed, thick, bulging cables wind their way and are operated on; they are bound and taped together, an earthworm that rests nastily in the dug-up earth, though such misery must be covered up, the assistants shoveling brown clumps on the wounds in order not to sicken the eyes of the citizens, who are pained and almost brought to tears as they turn away from pipes, wires, and drains. Tar is sprayed by the doctors from large pails, anything scandalous is covered over and sealed off, the water mains and the telephone lines, everything banished and placed under the earth in order that the healing can fully begin. Then the feet can once again feel at home on smooth ground. The dead, who give life to people, shall not be seen. As soon as anything is dug up again it’s buried again right away. It’s a ceaseless business that continues on. Thousands of people make their living at it, making sure the dead are protected by water mains and telephone lines. The dead praise the work of the living, which nourishes them, for it sets in motion an endless cycle of discovery and encasement upon whose continuance the condition of the earth’s existence depends.
Every creature takes part in this, but except for humans the rest are happy not to be aware of it, taking it as natural and enjoying the fact that they eat and drink from the dead, as well as living off of them and uniting with them. In fact, when they see that what they handle while living is really dead, they immediately understand and unconsciously their own being goes numb. The city is sad because everything here is human; its past is not something that can easily be restrained. Wherever the eye looks or the hand is extended, they encounter nothing but the residue of human time, the tracks running in crisscross fashion and close by one another, such that no one can escape them. They are everywhere and threaten to break through the brightness of day in ghostlike manner. Everything is but a remnant of those who have disappeared, whether it be the height of the towered cathedral or just a kernel of dust that floats up from the shadows to the sunlight. The work of the living only finds itself isolated in the realm of the dead, everything else that joy can be taken from comes from hands that have long since rotted. They press at the day with all their strength in order to overcome their absence, yet they do not exist, even though they are there because they are remembered, obtrusive, and hideous, as if they were not guests who had long since departed.
Zerlina must flee, just as she fled Ruhenthal. She must bore a deep hole, deeper in the ground than the graves of men. She must be alone and alone she must dig, for she must not be discovered. She must slink away like a thief, for no one will tolerate her escape. Whoever wants to live must live in jail, guarded by the police, yet Zerlina wants only to live. No one will understand that a person no longer wants to live among people. But to be just a person,
that’s what she wants, to be accountable only to herself, one who proudly dares to verify the memory of her possessions. Descending the bottomless shafts of the stairwells, deeper and deeper like a princess under a spell who wants only to disappear from the human realm. Quietly she wanders down through the core of the tower, passing all the niches and arches, not looking around, just feeling her way, no torch lighting her way, but walking along in a determined manner, carefully down the length of the street until she arrives at a still moment, and then away, away, inconspicuously and quietly, away!
What salvation it would be if the police and soldiers don’t notice Zerlina, and she succeeds. She wears no jewelry and only simple clothes. She calls no attention to herself, she is a little seamstress, a typist who has just finished up her workday according to plan. Now is the time when she is allowed on the street, there being no curfew for hardworking girls who need a bit of fresh air in order to recover from work. Zerlina is not Zerlina, the friends of the family have proved it. She is someone else to whom no lover turns, someone unknown whose life has been saved by someone, but all of that is indeed long over, no one dwells on it now. She is a harmless passerby who after a while has shuffled on. Other passersby also walk down the street, all of them hurrying, knowing where they have to get to. Zerlina indeed has a certain destination, even if she doesn’t know it, but that doesn’t matter. She still senses people everywhere, even on the edge of the city, though there are fewer now, the houses spaced out more, smaller and more modest, followed by the rubbish heaps where children run, playing and letting their kites race with the crested larks, soaring upward. Nobody pays attention to Zerlina. Zerlina isn’t even aware of herself. A boy and a girl look dreamily at the sky. They don’t know what they’re doing, and they also have no sense of a beginning and ending.