Authors: H. G. Adler
Then I looked around. Johanna stood there with the key in her hand and pointed to the door and said, “Here we are—I’m going to open it right up.” We stepped in, the air damp. From every corner and crevice it was obvious that no one had slept here in a long time. Then we moved into the house. Beds, tables, bureaus, chairs, and boxes full of all the things needed to take care of our everyday needs were all carried in. I was tired and not of much use, the sweat of my own weakness breaking out on my forehead and neck. Full of worry, Johanna kept an eye on my struggles, taking me by the hand and leading me into the back room, where the sun poured in. She rustled up a chair, the window was opened, the barely stirring air pressing through the dormant old dust. I was ashamed that I was so incapable of being any
help with moving in. Pleadingly I looked at Johanna to ask whether there was anything I could do, but she wouldn’t hear of it, and instead stroked my hair, hurried out, and returned with a little something to eat.
“The men are much better at this than us. They’ll take care of it all.”
Johanna said that all she had to do was tell them where to put things and it would be done. Then I recovered a bit and realized that it was only because of me that nothing was being carried into the back room. Because I didn’t want to linger anymore in the empty room in my chair, I felt stronger and considered how I could make myself useful. As I stood up to look at the workers, I still felt weak in my legs, so there was nothing I could do. I wandered over to the door that led to the little yard and pushed at it, it giving way only after some effort. I slipped out and stood in sleepy delight amid the overgrown grass.
This little garden, Johanna was pleased to see, returned me to my childhood. I know nothing about gardening, but a desire awoke within me to take pleasure in this little patch of garden. I began by putting in some plants, which resulted in a comical mishmash that any proper gardener would have laughed at. The soil is poor, nor before we arrived had it at all been taken care of: shards, bits of brick, rubbish, and rubble were intermingled with the paltry soil. But it was precisely this neglect that roused me. I culled the ugliest bits and in good spirits, which it certainly helped to bring on, I proceeded to fashion a modest measure of peace amid that patch of garden. Johanna was happy to leave me to it, for she knows nothing about gardening, nor did she have enough time to set everything aright out here. Thus I controlled my own little realm along with the children, to whom I granted a corner sandbox that I filled with fine-grained yellow sand, Eva and Michael a welcome presence as long as they didn’t step on the flowers. Such a lovely little world it was, full of primroses, wallflowers, safflowers, vetches, cresses, and other wonders! It all took some effort, which I was surprised to find I could muster. Whenever I bend over the weeds, or pick snails off the lupines, or weed out some ribwort by applying lime, or tie up scarlet runner beans, or prop up noble delphiniums with stakes, or water the soil, I know for sure that it’s all an unsuitable folly which anyone in the know would smile at. But I also know that a hopeless city boy is at play, one who remains clueless, and yet in no false manner has transformed his cramped little
square into a realm magically aburst, and who now celebrates the victory of the guardian over a conquered land. None of this is what I intended. No doubt things don’t run amok inside my little compound as they do beyond my lazy and broken fence, or the way that something wild shoots up in the middle of the city, unfolding its grayish green here and there among abandoned stretches and abandoned lots, where the realm of the meadow does not spread its protective cover across the earth through the densely packed soft grasses that blossom within it. Alas, such a realm is far off, whereas the abandoned lot is nearby. Still, it’s not so bad so long as with my own hands I can try to get this ridiculous patch of earth to please us, the power of chance continuing to surprise me. Which is why I tolerate having the strawberries underneath the thorny rosebushes. No doubt the neighbors probably had a good laugh together over that, but it doesn’t bother me, and the berries ripen beautifully.
I can’t help enjoying the almost forbidden peace and comfort I cherish in this shrunken world in which I remain secluded from sharp-toothed fears and deadly misapprehensions, an island estate inside an archipelago for other landowners whose fate I do not share in the least. But the fact that I can live here means that I still have an almost invisible relation to our neighbors. Speaking to them, however, is not allowed, nor can I approach them; instead, I have to keep my eyes lowered, gazing only at my allotted ground, if only to show in understated fashion that I’m not up to anything suspicious nor do I have anything to hide. Whenever a greeting from the next little garden hops over to me, I have to answer in an unselfconsciously even tone, making sure to squash any urge toward a friendly smile. I don’t have to suppress such gestures for long, for the good neighbors are satisfied and want nothing more from me, such that I can once again continue on inside the borders of my garden, and no one will dispute my right to do so. Thus I am transformed into a proprietor to whom belongs the tangible residue of his property, an owner who has paid for what he owns, this leading to the miracle of such freedom.
But how do I really feel, and what do I think about it all? I prefer to head inside and to my workroom. Johanna had arranged for me to have the biggest one, the front room on the ground floor, with the wide window behind which stands a narrow fringe of untended grass and a bushy hedge
of evergreens that protects me from the street. Here I am left to myself, my misery is almost entirely protected from searching glances, one needing to be almost rude or have to dare to come up the tiled walk to the front door in order to look in at me at my desk. Thus I can carry on as I wish and no one bothers me. Many hours stretch out in which I need listen only to myself. Eva and Michael are in kindergarten and at school, or they cavort around outside; Johanna is busy somewhere else in the house or has gone off somewhere. Everything is well arranged, and yet I feel at sixes and sevens, and staying in my room makes me anxious. Outside, everything is quiet or just scurries by, unaware, having no idea that someone might visit me, someone who might seize the chance to speak to me.
“I know you. You got away from me and my clutches, but now I have found you again here behind your wall. Why have you tried to hide for so long? Do you mean to deceive me with your little family idyll? You stupid swindler! The wife and children don’t belong to you; you don’t even belong to you, for you are mine, mine! You are completely mine, for I am your destroyer. I let you get away in order to feed upon your powerlessness, as you helplessly and fearfully struggled to get away, as if there were some way to escape. Not a bad idea! But there is no cave in which you can hide, into which you can crawl with all your filth. You’ll look suspicious no matter where you are, you old rat. A sweet, numbing scent rises from the sewers in which you must stow yourself. Just you wait, I’ll smoke you out, in much the same way I always destroy your kind.”
It’s much better if no one visits and all the noises just rush by the house. If a policeman comes along, walking slowly and intently, I feel nervous. I have often told myself that he’s making his rounds to protect me as well, and he means me no harm, but that’s hard to believe when, behind the most harmless of miens, there still lurks a threatening presence that wants to do away with me, to abolish me. For when did I come by the right to be tolerated? Have I done so much good that I need no longer feel any menace? I take stock, realize that I am here, think of the legal principles that promise my safe existence, but I can never be certain that everything will turn out right.
Is it now two years or is it longer since Johanna and I were ordered to appear before the immigration police? It was an official, somewhat dutiful-looking
little note done in the manner that is common to the local authorities here. The simple words seemed gentle and suggested nothing ominous. It just said that I should appear; the day was named, but the time was up to us. But what had I done that would cause them to want to see me? I searched inside myself, probing the deepest folds of my unrenounced feelings of guilt, but they were secrets that the police couldn’t know about. I sighed and said to myself, “They want to know who I am.” In spite of the good common sense and the helpful tone that Johanna kindly tried to instill in my own confused senses, there was little time to spare. My unknown past lay like a heavy weight inside me, the world around me opening up like a yawning abyss before any thought of escape, the rights of the tolerated guest about to be challenged.
The smartest thing to do would have been to disappear. Stupidly I let myself be led along, turning back toward that from which I had once fled, just like when I followed the call of my grammar-school teacher Herr Prenzel. As a schoolboy, I admired him and was gulled by the enticing letters with which he irresistibly lured me in. Before I knew it I was on the train, only a suitcase on the rack above. Soon we would be at the border. All the other passengers had already gotten off. Some had warned me to get off as well, while there was still time, before that sinister border gobbled me up. I pointed arrogantly to my passport: “This is all I need, it will protect me, nothing is going to happen!” People shook their heads and smiled skeptically or mockingly. Then they disappeared. But then it was too late to change my mind: with helmets, rifles, and pistols, the border police boarded both ends of the long train in which there was no one left but me.
As I saw the men noisily climbing onto the train, I retreated to my compartment and sat down on the hard seat. I needed to look completely harmless, a harmless traveler with a clear conscience. But already the men stood outside, one of them ripping open the door and pressing inside along with another, while the others stood stiffly outside the compartment. The two inside pressed so close that their legs rubbed against my knees. I could hardly move. “Passports, please!” growled one. He spoke in the plural, as if I weren’t the only passenger there. Just as I was used to from earlier trips, I had had everything in order ahead of time—my passport, wallet, ticket, currency receipt, and whatever else was needed to assure that all was in
order—but now I rummaged nervously inside my coat pockets and could find nothing, the disengaged impatience of the men unnerving me even further. At last I managed to produce my papers, but I was still nervous, my fingers unable to sort out the contents of my pockets, the passport falling from my hands and onto the dusty floor. A policeman bent down to get it, and though I tried to get it back from him while begging his pardon, he waved me off energetically with his hand as he lifted it up in triumph and began to pore over it with the others. He looked it over thoroughly with his colleagues, page after page, they whispering something to one another now and then that I couldn’t understand because of my worry. Then they handed the passport to the men outside in the corridor. They studied the document in detail, marking it with red and blue ink in various places. But then everything suddenly seemed to take a turn for the better, as they pulled out their rubber stamp and pressed their hallowed endorsements onto the passport with satisfaction.
I now expected that at last I would be getting back my precious document, a huge hairy hand closing its cloth cover and stiffly holding it out to me. However, pressed between the policemen as I was, I couldn’t reach out to get the passport. One of the policemen on my side took pity and reached for it himself, I myself almost feeling what it would be like to have it back in my own hands. Then one of the men who had seemed satisfied and had stepped back now said something, and once again it was decided that the passport needed to be inspected more closely. The policeman in my compartment, who I thought was accommodating, turned away so forcefully that his cartridge belt banged painfully against my knuckles, causing me to cry out.
“A wimpy little passenger, what a joke! And we want such a guest here in our country!”
“Forgive me, forgive me!” I called out fervently. “But I’m not traveling by choice; it has to do with written orders from my teacher!”
By saying this I had betrayed myself, doubly so, for I had not only revealed my reason for coming, but I had also spoken in my own tongue rather than speaking innocently in the language of the country from which the passport had been issued.
“What?” interrupted the man outside who had demanded to see the passport, and who clearly was the commandant, as he shoved his way into
the compartment with the others. “What are you babbling about? You must be a spy!”
I yelled, “The passport is real. I paid for it with good money. I’m no crook!”
My earnest protest was met with scornful laughter from the surly men. They buried themselves once more in the document, leafing through it with licked fingers and throwing nasty glances toward me from time to time. Finally the commandant announced, “You’re not a crook, we know that. Only spies have real passports these days. The poor devils who talk about it openly don’t get to travel, or they try to sneak across the border with counterfeit papers.”
I was defenseless and tried to think how I could make a bad situation a little bit better. It was hopeless, and so I decided to just wait and see what would be done with me, though I was smart enough to realize that the best chance I had was to remain calm and convince the men that I was a harmless passenger who deserved to be trusted. This proved correct, as my composed demeanor appeared to leave a good impression. The commandant looked more at ease and said that the passport and what was written inside it clearly allowed me to enter the country, and that as long as there was no contraband in my luggage there was nothing to stop me from traveling. The order from the teacher, the commandant explained with sharp civility, was nothing but an idle pretense in his considered view, but it was not his job to say if it was or was not, for if it were, half the government could be arrested. That said, he bowed in an officious manner and let my passport, my precious passport, disappear into a deep side pocket of his military coat. I was so struck by this terrible turn of events that I gasped.