The Wall by H. G. Adler

Author:H. G. Adler [Adler, H. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-679-64455-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

When I first wrote down this story it was not as clear, least of all to me. I had conceived it as an allegory of a general fate that certainly said something about my own disposition but was not particularly attached to it. Meanwhile, my relationship to this story had evolved. It had conveyed something about me, I had grown fond of it, and I’d learned something from it. There was a lot that was still missing from it, and that I had to accept without totally giving in to such judgment, for it was important not to let my efforts go to waste. To give in but not to give up—that’s what was needed. To slam into the wall as if it were not there, to flatter and play about with it, as if it would let itself be conquered, yet to acknowledge it and not doubt such knowledge of it, accepting that it’s pointless to do so and will probably always be pointless. To exit the most secret depths with great vigor, as if victory were assured, and let myself be battered and defeated, pushed back, back into the hidden recesses! To hope for nothing and then to invoke the wondrous as if what I had never dared hope were already guaranteed. To write letters but not to expect an answer, though not to waste one’s desires by the hour writing to false idols but, rather, only to make a plea out of a continually obsessed conscience, a plea directed at someone beyond all borders.

This I did not grasp when I first arrived in the metropolis. I had left the country of my home and my parents, and it was right to do so, for I didn’t belong there anymore, as everything there had been destroyed, everything that I loved and needed, it all giving nothing back to me but, on the contrary, taking much more away by shutting me out, and because I knew that it faced a coming perdition that I believed I did not have to partake in, or could prevent, since it was no longer my perdition, nor should it rob me of my success, dignity, and existence, myself craving the chance to gain these very items in order to live again. This alone was a mistake. I also didn’t want to search for anything in the areas bordered by the mountain woods but, rather, far away from the shadows cast by extermination, in order to find a way to break free, to live, to accomplish something. This I failed to do. Whether that was good or bad I had no idea back then. Only Johanna could see from the beginning how it was with me, but she hid it from me, for she wanted to spare me. She also did not share her views with others, as she was afraid to hurt me through such insinuations.

Besides, because of my aggressive behavior and my outwardly healthy look (one saw this in many who had survived the same conditions that I had experienced in the war), people believed in my vigor.

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