The Wall (75 page)

“I don’t have the slightest doubt, my dear. But, please, shouldn’t you be getting some rest? You had a hard day.”

“Each moment with you means rest. Allow me that!”

“Okay, just until the next corner.”

“From there you travel by tube?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can go along with no problem. I know this way precisely. It’s just straight ahead.”

So we set off, and talked about the next time we could meet and what we had to get done in the next few days. Through this a lot was cleared up, it being a satisfactory close to the evening. We also managed a quick goodbye, which was necessary, it not being hard to do as Johanna caught the last train. We kissed each other softly on the lips like an old familiar couple. Then I gazed after Johanna as she bought a ticket at the booth, quickly and safely passed through the turnstile and to the escalator without looking back, the descending steps hurrying below until I could no longer see her. I left the station and scurried across to the other side of the street, where a tea stand poured forth smoke, its two oil lamps providing a pale light. A few figures lingered about, rakish souls, among them some blacks and other foreigners, also some poor suffering girls. I was hungry and thirsty and asked for a tea and a roll. The drink was watery and tasteless, the snack stringy and not very appetizing; I swallowed down only half of each. A girl spoke to me, something about a cigarette, nothing more. Since I didn’t know the best way to escape being hit up for something, I served up my favorite response, which was to say that, unfortunately, I was not from here and couldn’t give her any advice. That had always worked before, but this time it failed, a terrible sounding laughter rising from her and something mumbled, which sounded like a threat, although perhaps it was just harmless kidding.

I hurried off and paid no attention to what was called after me. Then I felt something hit my hat, though probably it wasn’t a stone but most likely a rotten apple, nothing all that dangerous, though I hurried off twice as fast. I didn’t want to stop again until I reached my guesthouse, but as I was running along I stumbled into a man who held on to me as I stammered apologies in several different languages. The stranger turned out to be a policeman, which shocked me, though he acted friendly and suggested that I be careful in the dark, once I told him that I was only trying to get back to my guesthouse. I could have reported what had happened to me back at the tea stand, but I thought it a bad excuse for my careless running and was
not convinced that I had really been attacked. Perhaps a senseless fear had simply overtaken me. The policeman let me go with a well-meaning word and wished me good night.

Then I walked slowly for the last stretch and did not meet anyone else. The guesthouse was locked, but I had the house key and managed to quietly reach my room. I quickly got ready for bed, but as soon as I had undressed I changed my mind, put my coat on over my pajamas, turned up the gas fire, sat down at a little writing desk, and started a letter to Anna. She needed to know that I had gotten engaged. She deserved that from me. Once the address was written out on the sealed envelope, I got into bed. The letter to Anna provided the proper end to the day. Through it, everything I had experienced that day had been put into perspective. I had covered everything in detail; every single thing that I reported lit up another chamber of my consciousness from within. Once more, I picked up the letter. I had already sealed it, but I ripped it open and read it through, line by line, such that everything was present to me. The doors opened between all the chambers, a consistent light flooding the tiny rooms, making it seem as if they were never separated by walls. I saw myself striding through them as the victor, pleased and relaxed by the good fortune granted me. A pure new day had opened before me; wherever I turned I saw an image, any number of them, whether it be a sunny wall, a flower, a meditative garden, a glade by a brook, a hill beneath the sky, a frolicking sailboat on dusky water, the contours of a dear face, a bedecked table in a corner. Yet, when I began to examine any of them more closely, each of them turned into Johanna before my eyes. The entire world was gathered together as a flood of images and stored within me, and when I brought them all together, there stood Johanna before me. I thought about this wonder and felt nothing but gratitude and undeserved grace.

Carefully I folded the letter, got a fresh envelope that I addressed, and stuck the letter inside, though this time I didn’t seal it, for if bad dreams woke me, or if the new morning brought a rude awakening, I could read the letter in order to restore my confidence. I considered whether a report that revealed so much about me should be sent to Anna. Yet it was a good letter. I was there in it, I was it, I myself—or no, it was Johanna, perhaps it was a letter for Johanna. But, in case I wanted nonetheless to send it to Anna, I
had made a copy that I could keep with me wherever I went in the next days. Satisfied, I turned out the light.

It didn’t take me long to fall asleep, but it was not a deep sleep. It trickled into me, finding a thousand small openings through which it pressed its dark drops. Hopes and fears seeped through and weighed down all of my murky senses. I never entirely disappeared, nor did my consciousness dissolve; instead, I was separated or burst quietly into pieces. I looked on everything, devoid of consciousness or, in fact, with a consciousness, but one that was distant and strange and didn’t belong to me. I was accosted by an unruly army of clamoring questions that called out to me wordlessly, all of it adding up to an insensible interrogation. But where was I, where could I be? I couldn’t move at all, but just had to suffer the fact that there was a great deal that was not me, and which perhaps belonged to no one, and which overpowered every fiber of any life supposedly run by my own will. I was not stuck in any kind of churning limbo, but for me there was also no continuous existence. I sensed that I controlled nothing, that I was at the beck and call of something else which I had to listen to and obey. That was not easy to do, for it was almost impossible to do, because all the commands simply pressed into me like a viscous fluid, all of them nearly unintelligible, while the more I tried to understand them, the more I was hindered from doing so, such that the force pushed me toward a plodding obedience, because before I could follow the demanding orders a broad swath of time covered in thick fog crept in between. Thus everything occurred behind veils and too late, much too late. The reluctance and abhorrence that resulted, as well as the awful attacks, pelted me, hurting me, but there was nothing I could do, for I had no way of getting at their cause as long as I was unable to defend myself from the onslaught. I was increasingly defenseless, although I refused to heed the demands made on me. They had no right to demand that I should give in to them, for all they wanted was to deny my basic worth and attention, and to drown me in shame. Vainly I tried to bring this miserable game to an end. Any declaration I made was like trying to strike at a cloud. I offered a single apology, but that was met only with anger. Then I tallied aloud my supposed merits, outlined my plans that stretched out a wide net full of promise, but that was dismissed, and when I alluded to the past as I summoned its shadows they were nothing but past shadows and thus remained null and void.

“What a joke,” he said contemptuously. “That a man of your gifts is stuck in the same place as other refugees—that only says how deep the wound was that created your impossible social skills. An asocial sociologist, that’s what you are! You need to be rebuilt from the ground up if you can’t turn your life around yourself.”

I bit my upper lip and stammered, “I don’t know why you are treating me like … like a good-for-nothing. Why you are doing that … just like I was a criminal …”

“Don’t be silly! No one said that you are a criminal. But the way you go about things shatters all sympathies, and you see the result yourself. A good-for-nothing, a man with a wife and children like you—in your case, that’s no exaggeration.”

“I would have been smarter than to let myself get tangled up with you if I had known that you were going to set in motion this unkind and unproductive game. Why did you ask me to come here?”

“You’re not letting me speak. I have—”

“You promised my wife that you would leave me in peace. Again, why have you asked me here?”

“Will you listen to what I have to say?”

“I want clarity. You said to my wife that you could provide concrete help. Only because of that supposition have I come, not to have a flood of accusations wash over me.”

“Concrete help—that’s exactly what it is. I mean well and want to help you. I’m killing myself for you, and the only thanks I get is to be scolded! Who else has given you anything concrete, huh? I’m not like your so-called former friends whom you’ve told me about. What do you make of all the contacts who have done nothing but blow in your ear? And do you know why none of it gets you anywhere?”

“No.”

“I can tell you exactly why. Because you always expect something. Did Fräulein Knispel call you?”

“No.”

“There, you see? Did you write her?”

“No. You decided that I better not, for I might mess things up. You said so yourself. You wanted to arrange things yourself.”

Herr Konirsch-Lenz sat across from me in the little ugly café where there was not a quiet moment to be had and stared at me with an expression as if he had just revealed to me the deepest secret of my puzzling existence and was now waiting for the scales to fall from my eyes and for me to accede to him in all matters and turn over the rudder of my life’s miserable vessel to his control. But I only looked at him dumbfounded, hoping for a moment to gather my wits after such a stunning blow, though I soon gave up, as it seemed pointless.

“So you agree that you’re a good-for-nothing?”

I didn’t say a thing.

“Do you have nothing to say?”

“Not that I know of.”

My mouth barely whispered this.

“I believe, my good man, that you suffer from moral weakness. Your wife could suffer as a result.”

“Please, let me be.”

I wanted to leave the table, but my legs betrayed me; I couldn’t get up from the chair, and sank back down onto it. As if to hinder my flight, the manufacturer of Kolex wallpaper grabbed my arm.

“You treat me as if I’m not even worthy of shining your shoes, and all I want to do is help you. It makes one want to puke!”

“It makes one want to puke! You’ve got that right.”

“Yes! Because of you! You hopeless egomaniac! But it’s no use arguing with you; I won’t waste my time with it! Now, you listen to me! Do you remember my telling you about Self-Help and Herr Scher?”

What Kolex had explained to me about Self-Help and Scher was meaningless. I didn’t want to hear anything about it.

“Yes, I dimly remember. You told me so much that it’s all jumbled up inside my head.”

“Self-Help, my friend, Self-Help. Try to remember!”

“I don’t know anything about it!” I said, lying.

“What’s that, you no longer remember anything about Self-Help? That is indeed the organization a person in your situation must surely turn to. But I’m telling you that there’s no point in expecting any kind of actual support from Self-Help, except in very exceptional circumstances, and you
don’t fall into that category. But the job placements you can secure there are golden, for they are done professionally. No need to rely on friendship, which you’ve had enough of already, and you know how far that will get you. There’s no such thing as friends—that, you’ve learned!”

“Friends and business with friends! It all buzzes away inside my head, and it’s not up to you to look after me.”

“Oh, just shut up and listen! These placements by Self-Help have already helped some get back on their feet who were on the brink of despair—really tragic cases, not just harmless and self-inflicted ones like yourself. Self-Help is terrific. It was founded for selfless reasons and has been running now for over fifteen years. It runs on its own, which is something, for there are more than twenty employees there. What am I saying, twenty? There have to be at least thirty! But Self-Help has filled thousands of fantastic positions, and often free of charge. Herr Scher, someone I know well, even a good friend of mine, perhaps plays the most important role there, for he owes me. I’ve taken people he’s recommended and placed them in my factory. I told your wife all of this—did she not tell you about it? I’m convinced that it works. Social cases. I know how to handle such matters. You shouldn’t be so stubborn! I could help you and heal you; in a year you’d be cured! Then you could help me with other cases, considering your education. My friend, don’t be such an idiot! And you want to be a sociologist. No wonder you’re interested in the oppressed. I am as well, but I look to do something about it! With you it’s nothing but your past and your sympathy for yourself. Strong people have no need to study the sociology of the oppressed; they take care of it themselves, but in a practical manner! The way you go about it is a nasty business. You have to go about it differently. You have to get cracking and do it, in concrete ways. Then you’ll have the right to get involved with the oppressed and to think about their liberation. If you were my colleague, you would soon earn yourself a nice pile of money and then later could write a sociology of the liberated man. No theory, just practice. Then I’d be impressed, and all the Kratzensteins can go take a leap, as well as the snooty Dr. Kauders and the lazy potentates from whom you’ve expected so much. All of them will be knocked flat on their asses by you.”

Konirsch-Lenz talked ever more hurriedly, his speech becoming more vulgar. He talked on and on, with me only partly listening, and even today I
can hardly forgive myself for not having long gotten over it, for every word filled me with resentment. I sensed nothing but bad things for me, but I was afraid and let the wave pour over me. Sometimes I tried to break or stave off the miserable blabber, but Konirsch-Lenz cut me off right away with “Just a minute!” or “I’m talking now!” and “Listen to me!,” such that I had to drink to the dregs the humiliation he intended for me.